Marxism, a Virile “Ghost” - Part 2 (1933)

From the September 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

“Philosophers have only interpreted the world differently,” says Marx, “ but the point is to change it.”

It is well-known that in his early life Marx had taken a degree in Philosophy at one of the leading German universities. The Marx critic, whom we are now considering, attempts to find consolation for his declaration that “Marxism is dead" by an allusion to Marx’s early training in Philosophy. Thus he classifies Adam Smith and Karl Marx as having been “philosophers rather than scientists,” “deductive rather than inductive thinkers,” “metaphysicians before they were economists.” Strangely enough he finds a use for the materialist method, in that he traces all this to environmental influences. He says, Smith and Marx came from the two great homes of metaphysical thought, “Scotland and Germany.” We could prove, of course, that these countries have had no more than a ”fair” share of metaphysicians, but we will pass this with the lament that he ought to know better.

Volumes might easily be written to supply an adequate examination and reply to the observations set out above, but here only a brief analysis can be given in the limited space at our disposal.

In our last issue we outlined what constitutes the essence of modem materialist thought, for the present we propose to strike a somewhat retrospective note, thus to bring into bolder relief the materialism of Marx. We readily plead guilty to the assertion that Marx was a philosopher, but this fact must be booked on the credit side of the account, as a few references to what forms of thought have been embodied in philosophy will reveal. We make no apology for this, as our task is to try and arm our fellows against the attacks made upon Socialism by the hired “intelligentsia” of capitalism. And now about this philosopher business, since philosophy is in the picture.

Frederick Engels, with his usual keen insight into the core of any problem undertaken for consideration by him, has reminded us that the foundation of all philosophies is concerned with the relation between thinking and being. Tracing the roots of the question to lie, like religion, in the social status of savagery where ignorance of natural forces was predominant, then pursuing its development through the scholasticism of the Middle Ages when the question took the form—”What is at the beginning, spirit or nature?” until it resolved itself into the question—“Has God made the world or is the world from eternity?” Engels classifies the disputants to the question as forming two totally different schools of thought. Those who have placed the origin of spirit before that of nature are the idealists, whilst those who have taken nature as the source have formed the various schools of materialism. Here we must emphasise the point that the term idealism as expressed in philosophy bears no logical connection with moral or ethical concepts or theories concerning human conduct. Technically speaking, idealism represents the view of all natural phenomena which postulates “mind” as being primary to ‘‘matter.” Opponents of the materialist view seldom hesitate to import a moral signification into the controversy, but, such is, of course, a complete evasion of the position. Materialism can no more be disproved by this method than the falsity of Bishop Berkeley’s idealism was proved by Dr. Samuel Johnson kicking the stone to confute Berkeley’s insistence upon the non-reality of “matter.” Both idealism and materialism have to be considered from the point of view of their respective modes of interpreting natural phenomena, since both theories must necessarily be concerned therewith.

In the historical controversy between idealism and materialism, probably the ablest representative of the former school of thought, from the eighteenth century until to-day, was Bishop Berkeley. Anyhow, as far as this country is concerned. Berkeley set out in the early eighteenth century to combat the materialist tendencies as they were expressed in the leading thought of his age. He took his stand in postulating an idealist philosophy by an attempt to controvert the views of his philosophic predecessors, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, the earlier materialists. Hobbes had maintained that the source of human knowledge is based upon our sense perceptions of the outer world. Whilst Locke, in a more thoroughgoing manner, after vigorously disputing the alleged existence of “innate ideas,” i.e., ideas being in the human mind independent of and antecedent to experience, accepted the sensory origin of knowledge as formulated by Hobbes, but added a secondary factor to the process by which knowledge is ultimately acquired, namely, reflection. The idea that the real source of human knowledge comes from our sensations and reflections was a deadly blow to the conventional thought of the time. If positive knowledge originated in this way, what was to become of the “God”-planted ”tree of knowledge.” However, despite Hobbes* and Locke’s contribution to the science of understanding; they themselves were still hampered in thought by their acceptance of the theistic conception of a supreme power. Moreover, they regarded as beyond question the existence of “mind” and “matter” as ultimate tangible realities in the most limited sense of the terms. And this paved the way for the later idealistic philosophy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Bishop Berkeley challenged the reality of “matter” by attacking Locke’s position. Locke had maintained that material bodies have two qualities—primary and secondary. The primary are those of weight, shape, extension in space, etc. The secondary are those of colour, temperature, taste, and so forth. The former are known by their actual existence in the external world. We think of them as being in themselves extended, resisting and mobile, but not in themselves as coloured, hot or cold, or having taste. These latter belong to our special sensations. We perceive both primary and secondary qualities in objects because there is a “substance” in which they inhere.

But, said Berkeley, I agree that material bodies exist in the outside world, and our knowledge of them is based upon sensation and reflection, but the distinction between primary and secondary qualities is wholly illusory. The primary qualities are equally as mental or sensuous as the secondary —temperature, taste, and so forth, and he attempted to prove this position by the contention that when we try to think of any material body apart from its attributes or properties, we have nothing left but an empty abstraction. Put into plain language, this means that the desk upon which I write can only be known by its colour, hardness, shape, extension in space, etc. Divested of these there is no “material substratum" left, such as Locke had intimated. “All the choir of heaven and the furniture of earth have not any substance outside the mind.” Thus ran the trend of thought in Berkeley's theory. When confronted with the problem as to what became of things when they were not being perceived, his philosophy is amazingly consistent to the end. Since the reality of things lay in their being perceived, when they are not so by us, they subsist in the mind of some “ Eternal Spirit.” The real world is therefore one of “ mind ” and its contents. “Matter” was rejected by Berkeley as “an unintelligible figment devoid of any sensuous or imaginative content. After this remarkable exhibition of skill in philosophical meandering, David Hume, the Scotch sceptic, subjected Berkeley's postulate of “mind” as the sole reality, to an analysis, and provided an equally devastating attack upon its alleged reality when considered apart from perception. Hence for the time being at least philosophy was in the state that nothing could be known for certain; scepticism reigned supreme. Even after the famous philospher-scientist, Immanuel Kant, had tackled the problem from a different standpoint, though making a valuable contribution in clarifying the problem, he got no further than declaring our knowledge of things to be strictly limited to their appearances alone, but what these “things in themselves” really are, we cannot know. To the mystical type of mind this “ un-knowability ” must almost have amounted to something worth worshipping. Anyhow, the thinker who, to a great extent, lifted the cloud of mysticism from speculative philosophy, was the German philosopher, Hegel. And admittedly it was his work within the realms of philosophy and history which had a profound influence upon the minds of the founders of modern Socialist thought, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. But in stating this we must make certain important reservations. Presumably our present Marx critic has this fact in mind when he describes Marx as a philosopher rather than a scientist, and as a “ metaphysician.” But Hegel was far from being a metaphysician in the technical sense. He was an idealist whose system and method differed profoundly from the subjective idealism of Berkeley and the “ phenomenal ” idealism of Kant. He dismissed the Kantian postulate concerning the unknowability of the “ thing in itself,” and declared “the universe is penetrable to thought.” The world of reality is made known to us by our practical correspondence with it. As the entities of the outer world answer to our mode of apprehending them and to our use of them, their existence apart from us is proven. Hegel's idealism consisted of a conception of an “absolute idea” or “mind” through which the universe was created with a view to the attainment of ultimate “ good ” and “ freedom” at the “final” stage of the evolutionary process. Hegel comprehended the principle of evolution in nature and history, and although his idealistic system of thought considerably marred a thorough grasp of the inner workings of natural and historical development, his revival of the “dialectic” method of enquiry and understanding furnished a method by which the evolutionary process in nature and history could be scientifically understood. He “freed history,” says Engels, “ from metaphysics—he had made it dialectic.”

“For the first time the whole world, natural, historical, intellectual, is represented as a process, i.e., as in constant motion, change, transformation, development; and the attempt is made to trace out the internal connection that makes a continuous whole of all this movement and development.” The contradictory feature of Hegelianism lay in his fixing, quite arbitrarily, a finality to the evolutionary process which was opposed to his dialectical method that ruled out “ finality ” in actual evolutionary processes. But this may be largely explained by the limited knowledge of his time. Nevertheless, his revival of the dialectical system of thought, as first enunciated by the thinkers of Ancient Greece (Heraclitus had said, “Nothing is, everything is becoming ”) proved a weapon in the hands of Marx, not merely , in the establishment of his philosophical and historical standpoint, but also to mark his departure from Hegel's idealism.

“ My dialectic method,” says Marx, "is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life-process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of ‘the idea' he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external phenomenal form of ‘the idea.' With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and transformed into forms of thought." Thus have we an outline of the fundamental distinction between Hegel and Marx in philosophy. But the application of the dialectic to human society and its history shows an even more striking contrast between these two thinkers. With Hegel the modes of being and becoming in human history are to be explained by their “rationality.” “The real is rational, and the rational is real," declared Hegel. But they are only real and rational in turn so long as they are necessary. Every past phase in human history had at one time been rational and therefore real, but had become irrational and therefore unreal, consequently, had been swept aside to give place to still higher “rational" forms of human society. The ultimate development of all this “reality" and "rationality" Hegel saw in the “full development" of the Prussian State of his age. Here was to be found the final working out of “the idea"; its self-realisation having been immanent from the “inception” of the world’s life “history. Thus Hegel. But with Marx, however, all the self-imposed “rationality and reality" merely meant the material conditions of human society in their manifold operations being interpreted by an ideal abstraction made apart from their actual content. And an examination of those, material conditions was, to Marx, an essential condition before “rationality" or “reality” could be understood. Our critic says Marx was a “deductive thinker." Was he? A deductive thinker is one who takes something as proven before examination. A man takes the Bible, for instance, as true and then attempts to trace everything to harmonise with Biblical teachings; this man is a deductive thinker. Another man sets out by first enquiring as to whether the Bible is itself actually true; this man is an inductive thinker. Our critic’s assumption is that Marx set out with the conviction that capitalism was wrong before he had made an analysis, hence the entire criticism of capitalist society and the conclusions drawn therefrom are nothing more than Marx’s pre-conceived thought, the wish father to the thought, so to speak. But an analysis of Marx’s writings simply annihilates the suggestion.

Before ever Marx had formulated his materialist conception of history, and therefore before he had made an analysis of the economy of capitalist society, he had proved in actual practice what an inductive thinker he really was.

In 1842-3, as editor of the Rheinische Zeitung, he tells us how he was embarrassed at first when he had to discuss so-called material interests. Further, how on certain specific questions he was unable at the time to “hazard an independent judgment.” Therefore he gladly welcomed the opportunity, for reason we need not now dwell upon, “to retire to the study room” from public life. There are few thinkers to be found ready to make such a candid confession, and fewer still with minds so inductively inclined, as the nature of this confession indicates.

Within the confines of the study room Marx’s first task consisted of a study and analysis of Hegel’s work on the Philosophy of Law. After this he formulated his materialist conception of history. From a totally different standpoint, Marx was therefore able to explain man’s “knowing" by his “being," instead of, as heretofore, his “being" by his “knowing."

“It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence,” says Marx, “ but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness.”

This contains the kernel of Marxian thought. Human consciousness can only be related, in the final analysis, to its practical correspondence with the outer world in all its phases.

Philosophers may interpret the world differently, but “by acting upon nature outside himself and changing it, man simultaneously changes his own nature.” We await the first real attack on that position.

Robertus.

(To be concluded.)

Letter: More about inevitability (1975)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

More about inevitability

Your article on “The Inevitability of Socialism” was interesting, but I feel that you did not deal adequately with a fundamental contradiction at the core of your case.

One of Marx’s central arguments was that philosophical ideas and political principles always occur as a result of historical material forces and social relationships, rather than the other way round.

If as you claim the material conditions for Socialism now exist, then surely, according to Marx, the necessary ideas ought automatically to be present also. If these ideas are not present at the moment (you admit that they are not) then this must mean either (a) Marx was wrong or (b) you are wrong in saying that the conditions for Socialism now exist. No amount of juggling with the arguments will avoid these difficulties.

If, in the current situation, it requires a freely made, conscious and almost unanimous decision of the international working class to achieve Socialism, it must follow that there is a possibility of that decision not being made, which certainly appears to be the position today. To say in these circumstances that “Socialism is inevitable” is surely to rob the word of all meaning.

If I remember correctly, Marx once said something about no social system ever disappearing before its possibilities for expansion and development had reached their limits. Despite the grotesque violence, inequalities and illogicalities, it cannot be denied that capitalism in recent years has generally displayed a certain dynamism in producing increasing quantities of material goods.

Could it be that in certain areas, perhaps in the developing nations of the “third world” capitalism still has some way to go before its potential for expansion is exhausted?

A. R. Ewbank 

Middlesex

Reply:

Our correspondent alleges that we claim, along with Marx, that the material conditions automatically produce Socialist ideas. We claim no such thing, and the article makes this clear.

Socialist ideas do arise from the economic conditions of capitalism, but not automatically. The prevailing ideas held by most people are the ideas of the ruling class. They are capitalist-minded; they accept the wages system and the buying and selling of wealth as in the natural order of things. Also the property institutions, its legal code, ideas of religion, morality and capitalist politics. These dominant ideas arise from the material conditions of capitalism, and propaganda through the press, TV, pulpit and the educational system will try to keep these impressed on workers’ minds. However, you cannot nourish a starving man on propaganda, or provide him with a house, or solve any of the recurring social problems brought about by the contradictory nature of capitalism. The performance never matches the promise.

Socialist ideas arise out of an examination of these social contradictions and the nature of capitalist society. Socialist knowledge, like all knowledge, has to be gained, and to the extent that workers are interested in learning something new it will be gained. We cannot have Socialism without conscious socialists. The workers of this and other countries have never been in a position to make a decision on whether or not to establish Socialism, for the simple reason that the overwhelming majority know little or nothing about it. Philosophically speaking, workers can reject Socialism in the same way that a drowning man can reject a lifebelt thrown to him. Growing discontent and greater social awareness of the nature of the system will compel men to think and act. Socially, men do not act arbitrarily — they act with cause.

The use of the word “inevitable” in the context of the article means that Socialism simply has to come if society is to develop. It is a social necessity which follows inexorably from certain causes. Its establishment will be a consciously organised social decision.

Our correspondent is mistaken in his interpretation of Marx’s phrase stated in the Materialist Conception of History viz:— “No society ever goes out of existence before all the productive forces for which there is room have been developed.” He claims that capitalist productive potentialities have some way to go, particularly in the Third World. Production under capitalism is based on a world market; goods are produced for sale or exchange. The productive forces exist to serve this world market alone. When the market has absorbed all the products it is capable of absorbing production is curtailed or fettered. The productive forces do not exist simply to produce wealth — they must produce profit. No sale — no profit — no production. Technically speaking there is practically no limit to the development of new means of production. Every advance in science and technology, each new mineral discovery, can add to the social wealth. But there is simply no market room for further development of the productive forces, and this is what matters. The working class is the greatest productive force in history but millions are forcibly debarred from producing through unemployment. The present international crisis of capitalism is based on over-production of commodities of all kinds, motor cars, oil tankers, steel, textiles and food. This is what capitalism is, and why we want to replace it with a sane and sensible method of social production based on social need.

Editors.

Ideology and censorship in capitalist society (2003)

From the December 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

The ideas of the ruling class are, in every age, the ruling ideas; i.e., the class which is the dominant material force in society is at the same time its dominant intellectual force (Karl Marx).

Censors were magistrates in ancient Rome, usually two in number, who were elected every five years but held office for eighteen months only, in order to take the census of the official list of citizens and carry out the solemn lustrum (purification and protection from evil influences). The censors exercised a general supervision over the conduct of citizens, their power and prestige deriving from the senators, the ruling force in society. The censor worked to protect the Roman social order. In recent times, we have seen this tradition carry on in the commissar, McCarthy, and still today with the Pope and other Ayatollahs. Now this function has more or less been privatised to the media, editors of TV, radio and the national press, where authorities seem confident it will be administered sagaciously. Here the punishment and jailing, once frequent in a more ruthless age, has now been replaced by disregard, barring and ostracism—keeping the political airwaves sanitised from evil influences—though the Internet is beyond their ability to control easily.

The approach to censorship from media editors is two-fold. First, there might well be blatant political acts to censor alternatives to the present order of society which provides for them, and their masters, a comfortable life. Second, and much more common, there is a censorship of a more subtle kind. Gone are the days when the direct Victorian approach, “you are not allowed to have books to corrupt your mind”, would be acceptable for most. Editors themselves are a product of society, and, with others who would influence society, come to their work and their social gatherings with a worldview, a set of preconceptions that may provide the framework for their analysis of, and actions in, the world. A worldview constructed by influences gathered from a lifetime exposed to bourgeois ideology—this we can call their “ideological baggage”. This consists of anything from their views on genetics, abortion or testing on animals to the wider political scene, on economics, ethics etc. These preconceptions enter at both an explicit and implicit level, but even when they are invoked explicitly, unexamined and unexpected assumptions underlie them. Alternate opinions and philosophies lacking in popularity which seem at odds with general thinking are destined to remain off the mainstream media, for fear readers and viewers will either object or simply not understand the points being made—as might not the editors themselves. Where once conspiracy or direct force would be used to hold a political line, now “ideology” carries out the daily lustrum.

Unlike propaganda, ideologies are systems of thought and belief by which dominant classes explain “to themselves” how their social system operates and what principles it exemplifies. Ideology is the deeply and unselfconsciously held views of the dominant class in any social order. We distinguish these beliefs from views held in a more pietistic or even cynical fashion to manipulate or form the opinions of those who are not members of the ruling classes. Ideological systems therefore exist not as fictions but as “truths”, and not only evidential truths but moral truths.

A given society with a particular mode of production and accompanying social relations requires a certain mode of thought, leading to a certain conduct among individuals operating or living in that society if it is to function. Here in the struggle for our ear, the ruling authorities have an advantage in that they appeal to cultures and traditions, which since our earliest schooling have been put to work on us. Wherever we are in the world, we’ll hear the same old appeals to words and phrases from our leaders, and the rich and their media tools operating there. Appeals to nationalism—“win for your country”; law and order—“punish the criminals”; private property—“you can’t have…”; competition and contest—“the world would die without it”; foreigners—“asylum seekers go home”; work ethic—“no money no life”; leadership—“we’d be lost without the men of ideas”; etc, etc.

A Socialist Outlook

It is not the individuals who hold official power, or indeed those in whose interests they hold that power—their rich paymasters—but the overarching ideology of the bourgeois epoch that must be exposed and censured. Ideology here, like the rules of a game which all players must obey, or where in a drama production the storyline, script actors and costume, etc, must conform to the constraints of the theme, demands that we conform to its strictures, which are often also prescribed in law to ensure that we do.

The wings of the capitalist party, left, right and centre, take up various positions within a narrow spectrum of opinion and debate, giving a superficial appearance of differences, adding to the semblance of a thriving democracy in line with bourgeois ideology. So close are their remedies for society’s ills that they would be almost indistinguishable but for their talent for exposing the shortcomings of individuals. Indeed this has become the stock-in-trade of the body politic within the capitalist parties. “A very nice turns of events to blame individuals and let the system ideology off scot-free”, might say some.

Non-socialist readers will perhaps join socialists and feel “disgust” at the poverty, hunger and sickness and early death among us workers; “anger” at the strangeness, enmity, competition and violence between us; “sadness” with the coldness, childishness, wickedness, treachery and greed from many of us; and “apprehension” at the ignorance, hopelessness and ambivalence displayed by others. Then think nothing of a society split into, countries, races, cultures, religions, sexes, ages, classes, sectarianism and criminals; of human production organised around wage-labour, unions, bosses, money, trade and exchange commodities, and private property; of the need to protect society with law and order, punishmen, and war. Non-socialists think of all these “structures” with “elements”, “philosophies”, “standpoints”, “practices” as normal and necessary for humans in a modern society.

Socialists see that bourgeois ideology illustrates a characteristic where pictures of how things actually happen in society appear back to front. God creates Man instead of the reverse. In ethics, people are said to derive judgements from an absolute moral principle of some sort, whereas it is their judgements, reflecting their class conditions and interests that have constructed over time (and through generations) this principle. The belief that in politics the state grants its citizens certain rights, where in reality the people using their vote have abnegated their social power to the state. The view that the government represents the people, where actually it governs in the interest of our masters. In history, we are lead to believe that “great men” and ideas decide the course of events, where in reality, events, combined with their underlying conditions, establish the limitations and opportunities which determine in broad outline who shall be “great men” and which ideas will triumph.

In economics, people think that they decide where they work and what they buy, but really, the jobs and commodities available determine both. Also that businesses serve the community by their investment in the production and jobs where really it is the community which serves the businesses by giving them the lion’s share of what is produced, including the right to decide on questions of further investment into goods and jobs. Lastly and most crucial in the principles for this society, the most pernicious piece of ideology is where workers believe, with their “hourly rate” in their mind, that this represents payment for all the hour of their labour.

Capitalist ideas dominate the political economic and social scene for the capitalist own and control the means of propagation, education, information and news. Thus, all discussion and debate is undertaken on their terms. It should be clear, then, that bourgeois ideology serves capitalist interests not only when it provides pro-capitalist solutions to pressing social problems but also when it confuses people, or makes them overly pessimistic and resigned, or makes it difficult for them to formulate criticisms or imagine alternative systems.

William Dunn

Is the Materialist Conception of History sufficient? (1905)

From the December 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

[A continuation of the correspondence between members of the S.P.G.B., the first portion of which appeared in the last issue.]

The contribution to the discussion with which you have favoured me corroborates the position taken up by Comrade R. Kent in the article he contributed some months back now to the Socialist Standard with which I found myself in complete agreement. But in a discussion with a friend of mine on the aforesaid article, he saw fit to object, that it is not possible for a man to look at the Social Problem as a man would look at a picture. And while I do not for one moment admit the impossibility of the attitude for which I have repeatedly argued, I am of opinion that to approach sociology in the same frame of mind as biology is and has been approached is, to say the least of it, difficult. The “furies of private interest” (unconscious as well as conscious), do undoubtedly act and act forcibly, and the question arises whether a man can get outside himself to look at such a question in the desired way. Is it possible to ignore the action of our individual promptings ? In many cases the wish is unconsciously father to the thought. Some wise person has said that man does not know how anthropomorphic he is, and it seems to me he does not know how far he is influenced by his own wishes, etc.

But the point that I desire to raise is that while it is undoubtedly true that the ultimate explanation of any force or condition in Society is to be found in the means adopted by men to satisfy their material wants (I never objected to that), is it sufficient, to explain their origin ? When you have explained the origin of man’s ideas as arising through economic and material channels, that does not explain the possible reaction of those intellectual forces on the economic and material conditions. We see that colonies, once the markets for an industrial and colonising country, themselves become industrial and enter the field, ofttimes in competition with the mother country herself ; or the grown chick enters into competition with its own forbear and ultimately squeezes it out of existence. Is it sufficient to say that such a country developed her industry through the action of her functioning as a recipient of the commerce of the parent ? Or is it necessary to take into consideration the reaction set up by that process ? So with our social problem. Granting that the root of the whole lies in the economic development; granting that the change must primarily be economic, it still seems that to attain the desired economic revolution, it is first necessary to revolutionise men’s ideas and men’s conceptions. In other words change the existing intellectual conditions so as to change and improve the economic conditions, in order to make possible still further intellectual advancement.

Consider the Socialist propaganda. It is, in my opinion, one of the most necessary elements towards the revolution. Yet it has little direct economic significance. It is an appeal to the ethical and intellectual faculties of the audience, and until we have made the demand for Socialism, Socialism will not come. The creation of that demand is an intellectual, rather than an economic, process.

It may be that I am mistaken, but your illustration of the clay balls seems to leave somthing out, viz., the reaction of the balls on their environment. Without overlooking the differences that may exist in the hardness or the softness of the balls, which may be taken to correspond to the varying resistance offered by individuals to the pressure of the environment, it must not be lost sight of that this “resistance” is purely “passive,” whereas the more or less conscious resistance of the individual to his environment is more active and has a modifying effect on the environment. To tell me that the intelligence of the individual which consciously resists its environment is the result of helps me but little, for I want to know how that intelligence can be so awakened as to be made to forcibly, actively, consciously, and definitely act on its immediate environment in order to alter it.

The same thing applies, of course, more or less, to biological as against sociological questions. In sociological questions you have to reckon with an intellectual consciousness that does not (so far as I know) obtain to the same extent in other scientific problems.

Yours fraternally,

To awaken that consciousness,

“ENGINEER.”

Comrade F. C. Watts rejoinder will appear in the next issue.

The Critics Criticised – Professor Popper Looks at History pt.4 (1956)

Book Review from the September 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from the August issue)

Mr. Popper is what may be styled a militant Christian. His social doctrine is the familiar secularised interpretation of the New Testament. We must cast out false idols—lust for power; seek humility, do things for their own sake, be guided by our conscience, etc., and all this in a world where profit is the ruling motive, power politics a normal social mechanism, and where the vast majority are excluded from control and genuine participation in the wealth producing agencies. The social ethics of Mr. Popper are the age long belief of all social reformists: the belief that humanity will triumph over lust for profit, and power, while leaving the basis of the present system intact. Mr. Popper, like so many other social reformers, seems to regret the fact that under capitalism, Capitalists continue to behave like Capitalists and not as ardent humanitarians and social philanthropists.

Again selfishness or unselfishness are not attributes intrinsically good or bad as the abstract morality of Christ, Kant, and perhaps Mr. Popper, maintains. They can only be given real content in the social environment in which they arise and the purpose and ends which give effect to these attributes. Thus a section of the community, fighting to resist encroachments on its standards of living, may impose hardships on others, to call upon them to cease their struggles would be to ask them to sacrifice their own human interests. Mr. Popper talks about morality but fails to see that the watershed of any genuinely human morality must be the concrete needs of men. The Marxists maintain that only the abolition of social privilege based on ownership can best serve the concrete needs of the vast majority and hence constitute the truly human morality.

Mr. Popper, while he soft peddles on the present system, finds it easy to take the organ stops out when dealing with the past. For him power politics loom most large in the story of men. It is the story of the powerful and wicked against the weak and virtuous. How it came about we are never really informed or why it took the social forms it did. As such it does not explain the past, it merely explains it away.

While Marx never ceased to roundly condemn the cruelties and stupidities of the past and present, he never attributed social evils to be basically the outcome of wickedness on one hand or the ineptitude of virtue on the other. Instead of passing empty categorical judgment on those who have gone before, Marx insisted that men’s actions should be studied in the light of the social situation which initiated and gave meaning to them. Marx held that all systems based on a class structures tended to perpetuate a set of beliefs, theories, and social rationalisations in keeping with the needs of the ruling section, and because the privileged minority are by virtue of their social position, connected with the agencies which disseminate social ideologies they are not only able to exert a major emphasis on those ideas favourable to their interests but to set the tone of the extant cultural pattern which produces the social pressures which make for uniformity of outlook among all members of a given society. What is known as the general outlook will prevail until it is challenged effectively by counter beliefs set up in the interests of a new social group. It is from the warp and the woof of the generally accepted ideas that social ideals and doctrines are formed. That is why although the pages of history tell of man’s inhumanity to man and reek with blood of the innocent, there has never been a lack of social doctrines to justify men’s deeds.

Marx calls this incongruence between the ideals which men set up and the real nature of the social relations on whose behalf these ideals function—” false consciousness.” This is not due to some grave moral defect in human nature, or to a lack of logical consistency in their theories and beliefs but to a set of social beliefs which, under the guise of acting on behalf of what is known as "the general interests,” are projections of certain group wills and interests and thus act as polarising and refractory agents on the social vision of men. It is because of this process of social deception that men become victims of their own ideologies. And abstractions like justice, freedom, the rights of man, etc., not only become battle cries but take on the character of real things. While men then have been guilty of all manner of cruelties in the name of ideologies they have to a great extent been innocent of the real sources from which they sprang. No amount of cruelty or slaughter, Marx thought, would correct this deception, nor, we might add, moralising platitudes. Only when men grasp the real content of the relations between themselves and nature can a socialised humanity emerge. The verdict of Marx on history reveals a more profound and more tolerant attitude than the crude denunciations of Mr. Popper.

Marx was also opposed to judging human beings by some absolute scale of ethical values. He believed that men must be appraised by the standards of their time. No doubt members of the Capitalist class would be horrified at the idea of keeping slaves. Yet are we to believe that the slave owners of the 18th and 19th centuries were wicked men? They certainly did not think so. Judged in accordance with their own lights they were not exempt from humane feeling and consideration. They did not, however, oppose slavery or demand its abolition, no more than the employing class demand the abolition of capitalism based on wage slavery. Socialists demand the abolition of capitalism not because Capitalists as such are inhuman or lack consideration, but because the form and content of their humanity and ethical values are circumscribed by the type of social organisation of which they are the social representatives. Our claim is that ethical values do not function independently of the social context in which they are expressed and which Mr. Popper should have sought to prove but he never did. Only when class division has ceased to count in human affairs will the meanness, hatred, cruelty and antagonism which are so much features of contemporary culture disappear and the values and motives of Capitalist society be replaced by more humane values and more humane motives.

Mr. Popper follows the traditions of the Fabians, Bertrand Russell, G. D. H. Cole, and others, in seeing the value of Marxism as a moral appeal. Marx, however, sharply disassociated himself from the utopians. As Marx pointed out “the utopians have a bent to interpret surplus value in moral terms and then appeal to society for correction of its glaring injustices.” For Marx, morality had to rest upon a theory of objective conditions to ensure its success.

Some of Mr. Popper’s inadequate ideas of Marxism can be seen from his assertion that Marx held that the rate of profit must fall (p. 184), when Marx held no such view. Another idea he puts forward, that Marx also held that the fall in the rate of profit was an automatic process for the increasing misery of the workers (p.p. 183-185). What Marx said was that the tendency of the rate of profit to fall was an incentive for Capitalists to attempt to increase productivity. He never said that all increases in productivity go to the Capitalist in the shape of profits. Some go to workers in higher wages but he maintained never proportionately to the productive power of labour. Again we are told that Marx held that wages oscillate round starvation level (p. 173). Marx again did not say it but emphatically denied it. How Marx vide Mr. Popper came to believe that workers’ conditions would continue to worsen from starvation levels, he Mr. Popper does not explain. Finally he repeats the hoary myth that Marx held that capitalism would crash (p. 179).

If we seem -to have spent much time on Mr. Popper it is not in deference to his criticism on Marxism, but because he has in his book summarised most of the criticism of Marx in the last 50 years. The views on Marxism and history held by Mr. Popper can themselves be summarised as mostly Poppercock.

Ted Wilmott

(Concluded)

Is The Materialist Conception Of History Sufficient? (1905)

From the November 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Interesting Letters on an Interesting Subject 

[The following correspondence has passed between two members of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. The subject matter is of such importance—an understanding of what is implied by the term “the materialist conception of history” being indispensable to anything like an adequate appreciation of the Socialist position—and our comrade Watts has presented his case so admirably, that we have readily undertaken to give the letters the wider publicity of these columns.—Editorial. Committee.”]

Dear Comrade,— So far as I understand it, I agree with the Materialist Conception of History, but recently I have been studying the reports of the Sociological Society, which magnify the problem of the unification of the Social sciences until it appears almost insoluble ; and I have had my faith shaken in the sufficiency of the Materialist Conception because these learned people have made the question appear so great that the Materialist Conception appears too simple. I will, therefore, explain the difficulty according to the disciples of the Sociological Society.

They appear to agree that society is an organism of a complicated type, and that these complications are made intelligible only through their relations being truly comprehended. They view the sociological field as at present being separated into many particular fields, each in the hands of specialist investigators, and they claim that the sociologist (through the Sociological Society) is the scientist whose duty it is to co-ordinate the social specialisms and generalise from the investigations of the social They consider that the specialist investigators should work with the idea of the ultimate unity of their investigations, an idea that they claim it is one of the duties of the Sociological Society to foster. They deprecate the interpretation of the highly complex social phenomena in the terms of any one specialism; and this, it seems to me, is the point that particularly touches us.

On every hand we see men working with a view to the application of their particular remedy for various social evils. Do we not come under the same ban ? Do we not offer a sort of Morrison’s Pill for the earthquake? Socialism, at the last and ultimate analysis, is an economic proposition, a fundamental one, I grant, but still purely economic. Now the economic relations of men in society are not the only ones. We say : true, but all other relations grow out of the economic ones, and this, as I understand it, is the basis of the Materialist Conception of History. The point, then, is to demonstrate that the all important, the dominating factor in society, is its economic conditions.

There are a considerable number of people sometimes designated cranks, who desire to regenerate society through the application of their particular Morrison’s Pill. According to your alleged philosophic radical, all that is required is political perfection—the carrying of in political revolutionary reforms (I use the Hibernianism advisedly). According to the temperance fanatic, all that is required is the entire removal of the “drink evil,” root and branch. The ethical reformer seeks to emphasise the moral factor in social relations and through that means to establish the millenium. The orthodox man seeks that everybody should believe that certain impossible things once happened, and through that belief, somehow, I know not how, the millenium is coming. And so on. Every reformer of whatever colour or creed, has some Morrison’s Pill to give Society, to cure it of all its evils at one blow. But again I ask, does not the Socialist fall into the same category ? He says that ethical, moral, religious ; artistic, asthetical; political and intellectual relations are fundamentally determined by the economic relations, and he seeks to alter those economic relations so that following from such revolutionary change should come the change (and. of course, improvement) in the ethical, moral, religious: artistic, aesthetical; political, intellectual, and all other relations.

Now the difficulty seems to be, even granting all that we claim for the dominance of economic conditions, how far can man’s intellect get ahead of his economic and other conditions, and frame ideas and ideals to work to and for ? If man’s ideas were rigidly determined by his economic environment, the Socialist would be impossible, and indeed, the social conservative would be impossible, too, because in the same environment we find most divergent minds.

The whole problem that I am trying to formulate would seem to be the old one of “free-will” and “determinism.” And the only explanation of the divergences can be the individual temperament, call it what you will. So that the position seems to resolve itself into the effects of the action of the environment (in which must be included every influence which the human mind comes into contact with from first to last) on the individual personality, the “ego.” The great difficulty would seem to be, therefore, the true recognition of the forces that go to make up that ego through hereditary channels. Is our knowledge of the action of heredity sufficient for the formulation of a philosophy that should comprehend all the influence that go to make men, in all their strange variations of temperament ?

In conclusion, therefore, I would ask, is the Materialist Conception sufficient for the explanation of all the complex phenomena of modern Society ?

Fraternally yours,

“ENGINEER.”

P.S.—of course, you must not suppose that I am such a heretic on the Socialist philosophy as I appear from the above. I have exaggerated my own difficulties in order, not only to make the matter more controversial, but to, so far as possible, get the other side discussed.

________________________

Dear Comrade,—I have read your letter on the the Materialist Conception of History, and as I hold firmly to that conception as a guiding principle (having entirely convinced myself of its truth), I shall be glad to discuss the matter.

Before doing so, however, I will ask you to carefully peruse the following somewhat lengthy but exceedingly important quotation from Marx’s “Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy,” which gives an explanation of the Materialist Conception of History, as it is necessary to define our terms before using them as signs in our discussion.

This extract is from the preface to Marx’s “Critique of Political Economy.” Published (in Germany) 1857.

“The first work which I undertook for the purpose of solving the doubts which perplexed me was a critical re-examination of Hegel’s; ‘Philosophy of Law.’ The introduction to this work appeared in the German French Year Books of 1844. My investigations ended in the conviction that legal relations and forms of government cannot be explained either by themselves or by the so-called development of the human mind, but, on the contrary, have their roots in the conditions of men’s existence, whose totality Hegel, following the French and English writers of the eighteenth century, summed up under the name of civil society ; and that the anatomy of civil society must be sought in political economy, to which study I next gave my attention.

“The general result at which I arrived and which, once obtained, served as a guide for my subsequent studies, can be briefly formulated as follows:

“In making their livelihood together men enter into certain necessary, involuntary relations with each other.

“These industrial relations arise out of their respective conditions and occupations and correspond to whatever stage society has reached in the development of its material productive forces.

“Different stages of industry produce different relations.

“The totality of these industrial relations constitutes the economic structure and basis of society.

“Upon this basis the legal and political superstructure is built.

“There are certain forms of social consciousness or so-called public opinion which correspond to this basis.

“The method prevailing in any society of producing the material livelihood determines the social, political and intellectual life of men in general.

“It is not primarily men’s consciousness which determines their mode of life; on the contrary it is their social life which determines their consciousness.

“When the material productive forces of society have advanced to a certain stage of their development they come into opposition with the old conditions of production, or, to use a legal expression, with the old property relations under which these forces have hitherto been exerted.

“Instead of serving longer as institutions for the development of the productive sources of society, these antiquated property relations now become hindrances. Then begins an epoch of social revolution.

“With the change of the economic basis the whole vast superstructure undergoes, sooner or later, a revolution.

“In considering such revolutions we must always distinguish clearly between the change in the industrial methods of social production on the one hand ; this change takes place unconsciously, strictly according to the laws of natural science, and might properly be called an evolution.

“And, on the other hand, the change in the legal, political, religions, artistical or philosophical, in short, ideological, institutions; with reference to these men fight out this battle as a revolution conscious of their opposing interests. This conflict takes the form of a class struggle.

“As little as we judge an individual by what he thinks he is, just as little can we judge such revolutionary epoch by its own consciousness.

“We must rather explain this consciousness out of the antagonisms of men’s industrial occupations, out of the conflict existing between the productive capacity of social industry and the legal institutions under which this industry is carried on.

“A society, no matter what its form may be, is never broken up until all the productive powers are developed for which it is adapted.

“New and higher social institutions are never established until the material conditions of life to support them, have been prepared in the lap of the old society itself. Therefore, mankind never sets for itself any tasks, except those for which it has received proper training and which it is able to perform.

“If we examine closely, it will always be found that the conflict never arises except where the material conditions of its solution are already at hand, or at least are in the the process of growth.

“We may in wide outlines characterise the Asiatic, the antique, the feudal and the modern capitalistic methods of production as a series of progressive epochs in the evolution of economic society.

“The industrial relations arising out of the capitalistic method of production constitute the last of the antagonistic forms of social production ; antagonistic not in the sense of antagonism between individuals, but of antagonism growing out of the circumstances in which men must live who take part in social production.

“But the productive forces which are developed in the lap of capitalistic society create at the same time the material conditions needed for the abolition of this antagonism. The capitalist form of society, therefore, will bring to a close this cycle of the history of human society, as it has existed under the various forms of exploitation.”

And now to proceed with my own contribution to the discussion.

All history, indeed all intellectual life, can be explained only from the accompanying and preceding material conditions, since any other theory than this postulates an uncaused thing, which is contrary to all experience, and is therefore unscientific and untenable. Intellectual life is but the reflex of material conditions. That intellectual life has a secondary reflex action upon material conditions in no way changes the fact that material conditions form the base, origin, and material of all intellectual life.

Now, in the Materialist Conception of History we are given the dominant factor in the determination of all history ; that is, the method in which wealth is produced and exchanged. Obviously, in order that there may be human history two things are essential; firstly, men, and secondly, food and shelter for them. How much, where and how food and shelter can be obtained, determines, firstly, man’s existence, secondly, where he shall live, and thirdly, how he shall live. Therefore the Materialist Conception of History is without doubt the determining and basic factor in all history ; indeed, broadly interpreted, all material conditions are comprised in it.

Just as we speak of the “Law of Evolution” so we may speak of the Materialist Conception as the “Law of History.” As in one case we can explain existing organic forms by the “Law of Evolution,” so in the other case can we explain existing social forms only by the materialist ”Law of History.” In organic, as in social, evolution, there are many minor matters that, with our present defective knowledge we cannot yet explain. Nevertheless, it would be absurd and unscientific to abandon the law which has been proved right in so many instances the moment we come upon obscure or complicated detail whose connection with the fundamental law is not at once seen.

Both in biology and in sociology, inability to see the working of fundamental principles or laws is usually the result of insufficient knowledge, narrowness of the field of view, and a priori notions. This is especially true of the modern social specialist. Lost in a forest of detail he lacks the breadth of view that is necessary to an understanding of general principles. We do not now magnify the accidentals of zoology to the extent that the old naturalists did, who thereby got fanciful and conflicting classifications; but, probably aided by the fact that we see the detail of animal life from a distance, and so get a truer perspective than in sociology, we have grasped the basic principles of organic evolution in the food supply and the conditions of the struggle to obtain it. No science is so subjective as sociology, for here we meet the “furies of private interests ;” and hampered as are the majority of specialists by preconceived ideas and class prejudice, small wonder is there that even the most honest of them arrive at such inane conclusions. They fail to distinguish between essentials and accidentals, and detail assumes greater importance than principles or laws in consequence. “They cannot see the wood for the trees.” Specialisation is, of course, essential, but. the co-ordination of the social sciences can only he the work of one who takes a thorough but even view of all.

To realise the full force of the Materialist Concept a broad knowledge of history, economics, and natural science is absolutely essential, and history is the most important. Such broad surveys of history as are given in even elementary primers like Jenk’s History of Politics and Fyffe’s History of Greece, or in such works as Thorold Rogers’ Six Centuries of Work and Wages and Buckle’s Introduction to the History of Civilisation, throw into relief the general principles of history and afford a granitic foundation to the Materialist Conception.

It is too great a task to attempt any historical survey here ; but it is most clear; to take the example that immediately affects us; that the tremendous transformation in this country during the last three centuries of the conditions of things and the social life arising therefrom, is directly traceable to the wonderful change which has taken place in the methods of producing and distributing wealth. A new class has been created and forced to power. The face of the country has been changed from agricultural to manufacturing. Huge towns have arisen where once were cornfields. The change from individual to social production has revolutionised social relationships. Where once men worked singly for home consumption they now work in huge armies for others, disciplined and commanded. Where once was handicraft is now giant machine production. All this has been brought about by the gradual change in the methods of producing and distributing the wealth of the country ; due to the greater economy of co-operative over individual production, and to the greater economy of machine over hand labour. Modern social life is explicable only upon this basis : the line of least resistance in wealth production impelling men into entirely new social relationships.

It will be seen how curious is the idea that the scientific Socialist, by indicating economic conditions as the basis of all social relationships, has only a Morrison’s Pill a la Carlyle to offer of no greater efficiency than is usual with such nostrums. The cure-all pill idea implies idealism. It implies that men can, out of their own souls, evolve a scheme of things and force it on society without that scheme being of necessity the outcome of present conditions and in harmony with the natural trend of things. Socialism of the scientific type is, of course, not this by any means. The various reformers with their nostrums are rather like the quacks who profess to cure virulent fevers by means of prayers, charms and incantations, or at least, like the pseudo scientific quacks who prescribe drugs to counteract only the symptoms and effects of diseases, leaving the causes untouched. The Socialist is rather like the true scientist who goes to causes in material conditions, and sees that effective drainage is laid down, cleanliness maintained, and correct food given.

The question often occurs : how is it that in identical environment some are Socialists and some are conservatives, if economic conditions determine, in the last resort, the views of men ? The matter of this “identical environment” can be illustrated by a simple analogy. Suppose a hundred soft clay balls were put in a bag and sat on, these balls would all be in an identical environment, like men in any class in society subjected to economic pressure, so what would happen ? Some balls would be squared, some slightly flattened, and some utterly squashed, as determined by their position in this so-called identical environment. In society different classes have different environment. In a given class some would be slightly modified conservatives, and some revolutionary: as pressure increases so all would become entirely altered. All, then, would be affected, but slightly unequally, since no two balls, or two persons, could possibly be in exactly the same environment. So in society men picture the future from what they see and feel in the present. Some by hereditary fitness and actual environment would more easily and clearly comprehend the needs of the present and the tendency of things; others in conditions less violently affected would find it more difficult to see clearly, or would from the materials to their hands or inherited weakness, form false pictures which would lure them in wrong directions.

So far from economics being but one specialisation of no greater import than a host of other artificial divisions or specialisms, economics is, then, the fundamental, the essential specialism. It is the trunk upon which all the various branches depend, or rather, to be more accurate, it is the anatomy of social life. The truth of this proposition is amply demonstrated at the bar of social history, even with the knowledge at present, available ; just as the truth of the law of evolution is shown at the bar of the more developed natural sciences. The conclusions of all natural science, indeed, render no other interpretation of history logically tenable except the Materialist Conception of History.

F. C. Watts.

[A further instalment of this correspondence will appear in the next issue.]

Men, Ideas and Society (1973)

From the September 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx became a socialist sometime towards the end of 1843 or the beginning of 1844, Engels a little earlier. Previously the both of them had been “Young Hegelians”, that is followers of Hegel’s philosophy who gave it an atheist and radical-democratic interpretation.

Hegelian philosophy, the dominant school in Germany at the time, was thoroughly Idealist holding that ideas, and even the Idea, made history. During 1845 and 1846 Marx and Engels wrote a criticism of this view which they called The German Ideology. This book, for which they were unable to find a publisher, is important because in it Marx and Engels set out in more detail than in any other of their writings their alternative, materialist conception of history.

A word of caution is in order here. Years later Marx, and particularly Engels, didn’t attach too much importance to these early manuscripts of theirs and didn’t think them worth publishing. Which is not surprising since at least two-thirds of the 700 pages of the German Ideology is taken up with a line by line polemic against Max Stirner, the father of individualist anarchism. But the first part, a criticism of the philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach, contains what Engels described in 1888 as “an exposition of the materialist conception of history which proves only how incomplete our knowledge of economic history still was at that time”. This is a fair criticism as in parts the arguments are scrappy and undeveloped, but it is the exposition of the general theory rather than its attempted application that is of relevance today.

A good edition of the first part of the German Ideology is the one published by Lawrence and Wishart in 1970 with an introduction by C. J. Arthur, from which the quotations in this article are taken.

Need for Empirical Research

Marx and Engels called their approach to history materialist to contrast it with the idealist approach they were criticising which held that ideas were the dominant forces in history. On the contrary, said Marx and Engels, ideas arise from material social conditions so it is with the study of these conditions that all historical research must begin:

“The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity. These premises can thus be verified in a purely empirical way (p.42).

and,

“The fact is, therefore that definite individuals who are productively active in a definite way enter into these definite social and political relations. Empirical observation must in each separate instance bring out empirically, and without any mystification and speculation, the connection of the social and political structure with production” (p.46).

That the materialist conception of history insists on scientifically-conducted empirical observation of what real men actually do has sometimes been forgotten by many who consider themselves Marxist. They have mistakenly treated the materialist conception of history as a short-cut to understanding history without needing to study the results of historical research.

The German Ideology is not itself a work of original research, but is rather a preliminary elaboration of some general theoretical conclusions suggested by the research of others.

Man Makes Himself

There is no such thing, say Marx and Engels, as abstract human nature, what the German philosophers they were criticizing called the “essence of Man”. Their criticism of Feuerbach is neatly summed up as “he says ‘Man’ instead of ‘real historical man’.” They went on later:

“because he still remains in the realm of theory and conceives of men not in their given social connection, not under their existing conditions of life, which have made them what they are, he never arrives at the really existing active men, but stops at the abstraction ‘man’ (p.64).

So, to find out what “human nature” might be we must study what men do, i.e. human behaviour. Such a study soon discloses that there is no such thing as a fixed human nature in the sense of a fixed human behaviour pattern, but rather a great variety of behaviour patterns depending on differing social environments. Human behaviour, in other words, is socially-determined and changes along with the changing social environment.

But Marx and Engels do not stop here, leaving men the passive products of their environment. They point out how men, unlike other animals, play an active part in shaping their environment. Indeed, it is precisely this that distinguishes man from the other animals:

“Men can be distinguished from animals by consciousness, by religion or anything else you like. They themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence, a step which is conditioned by their physical organisation. By producing their means of subsistence men are indirectly producing their actual material life.”

They go on:

“The way in which men produce their means of subsistence depends first of all on the nature of the actual means of subsistence they find in existence and have to reproduce. This mode of production must not be considered simply as being the production of the physical existence of the individuals. Rather it is a definite form of activity of these individuals, a definite form of expressing their life, a definite mode of life on their part. As individuals express their life, so they are. What they are, therefore, coincides with their production, both with what they produce and with how they produce. The nature of individuals thus depends on the material conditions determining their production (p.42).

Very crudely, man is what he does. Men in effect make themselves in that their behaviour is determined by conditions which they themselves continually create and recreate. These conditions have to be taken as given, as part of the environment, by those born into them so that, at any stage in history, “there is found a definite material result”; namely:

“a sum of productive forces, an historically created relation of individuals to nature and to one another, which is handed down to each generation from its predecessor; a mass of productive forces, capital funds and conditions, which, on the one hand, is indeed modified by the new generation, but also on the other prescribes for it its conditions of life and gives it a definite development, a special character. It shows that circumstances make men just as much as men make circumstances. This sum of productive forces, capital funds and social forms of intercourse, which every individual and generation finds in existence as something given, is the real basis of what the philosophers have conceived as ‘substance’ and ‘essence of man’.” (p.59)

Men are continually modifying, within certain limits, their behaviour. Or, to put it another way, their “nature” is continually changing.

What is remarkable about this view is the time it was formulated: 1846. For it anticipated by nearly a century the theories of modern anthropology which see man as a “culture-bearing animal”, culture being the technical name for the artificial part of the social environment — instruments of production, behaviour-patterns, ideas, what Marx and Engels described as a “sum of productive forces, capital funds and social forms of intercourse” — handed down from generation to generation by non-biological means. According to modern anthropology all human behaviour is learned and culturally-determined, but culture is itself a human creation so that it is quite legitimate to say that man makes himself. Which was precisely Marx and Engels’ point and the basis of their materialist conception of history. Where Marx and Engels would differ from most modern anthropologists is in attributing the key role in determining the patterns of human behaviour to one particular part of culture, namely, the mode of production.

Social Nature of Mind

German idealist philosophy made ideas the driving forces of history. Marx and Engels did not deny that the real men who made history were conscious beings who had ideas about what they were doing; their point was that these ideas did not come from nowhere and were not arbitrary. Ideas, they said, arose from material social conditions so that men’s ideas reflect their material conditions of life, their activity in society. Consciousness in the abstract did not exist: “Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life process” and “life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life”.

The theory advanced here is not a theory of the physiology of perception and thinking (which Marx and Engels knew they were not qualified to formulate) so that talk of ideas “reflecting” social processes must not be misunderstood as a theory that the brain is a kind of camera photographing the world. It is a theory of the social origin of ideas. Though Marx and Engels did go further than saying merely that the particular ideas men held at any particular time depended on the particular society they were living in.

They also argued that “consciousness” (in the sense of the ability to think abstractly, to consider and plan future behaviour, to be aware of your own existence as a separate organism) as an empirical phenomenon was a social product:

“Language is as old as consciousness, language is practical consciousness that exists also for other men, and for that reason alone it really exists for me personally as well; language, like consciousness, only arises from the need, the necessity of intercourse with other men . . . Consciousness is, therefore, from the very beginning a social product, and remains so as long as men exist at all” (p.51).

Language is obviously a social product, the outcome of men living together in societies and communicating with each other for co-operative activity. Language is not the only method of communication, but it is a highly-developed and specialized one and one which alone makes abstract thought possible. Language can be defined as an organized system of meaningful symbols (words) standing for abstractions and mental constructs from the ever-changing world of reality. Other animals can only react to their immediately-sensed environment; they cannot abstract parts of it so as to consider, delay or plan their response. The only animal that can do this is man and it is through language that they do it (of course this presupposes also a development of the brain and nervous system that makes language and abstract thought possible). Since abstract thought — “consciousness” in the sense used here by Marx and Engels — is impossible without language, since in fact language and abstract thought are two aspects of the same thing, and since language is a social product, it follows that thinking, consciousness, mind are also social products.

Once again this view is surprisingly modern, anticipating by over half a century its systematic elaboration by George Herbert Mead in his lectures at the University of Chicago (published in 1934, after his death, under the title Mind, Self and Society). It is a refutation not only of idealist theories which see mind as some mysterious intangible substance human beings are endowed with at or before birth, but also of crude materialist theories which seek to reduce thought to a purely biological, physical or chemical phenomenon. Thought of course does involve brain activity but there is more to it than that. Marx’s theory of mind was materialist in that it explained “mind” in terms of material social conditions rather than in terms of some mysterious physical substance called “matter”.

Human beings are born with brains, but not minds. Men only acquire minds in and through society, the content of their minds reflecting their social life and experience. A man outside society, could he exist, would have a brain, but no mind. Which is why physical theories of the mind are inadequate.

More Too

That human nature is variable and socially-conditioned and that mind is a social product are only two of the theories put forward in the German Ideology. Marx and Engels also sketch the emergence of capitalism out of feudalism (along the lines elaborated in the Communist Manifesto they wrote two years later) and set out the general relationship between the forces of production, the social system and ideology in more detail than in Marx’s well-known 1857 Preface to the Critique of Political Economy. And there’s some useful comment on the nature of Socialism (then called communism) and on the need to capture political power to change society.

All in all, Part One of the German Ideology is a very good introduction to the materialist conception of history and a key work of Socialist theory.

Adam Buick

Revolution and intellectuals (1971)

From issue number 1 (1971) of The Western Socialist

Some few weeks ago this writer received a visit from a graduate university student — a personable but somewhat over-verbalized young man who is working toward his doctorate degree. Following self-introductions and the customary exchange of social amenities, our student lost no time in displaying what he obviously considered a firm theoretical grasp of Marxism and glibly spoke of such organizations as the Communist Party, the Students for a Democratic Society, the Socialist Labor Party, the Young Socialist Alliance, the Socialist Workers Party, the Progressive Labor Party, the American Youth for Democracy, the Labor Youth League, the Socialist Club, etc. It would seem that the existence of the World Socialist Party had come to his attention for the first time but several weeks prior to his visit via a handed-down, well-thumbed copy of The Western Socialist.

Intellectuals: Vanguards of Revolution?

Warming up to his subject between sips of sherry, he articulately and emphatically expressed the opinion — or more accurately speaking, the conviction that a gifted portion of the intellectuals of any given age, and not the workers or the majority of the people, are the prime movers — the engine, so to speak — of social revolutions. The latter, according to this budding intellectual with a verbal itch he could not seem to satisfactorily scratch, “will need to be led into the promised land by an intellectual vanguard for reason of their apathy and immature mentality.”

The counter arguments presented by this writer, arguments which are undoubtedly familiar to consistent readers of this journal, were augmented with the views of an intellectual — one who has been given, rightly or wrongly, the distinction of being, or having been, the only Marxist teacher in a large American university, the late Paul A. Baran, professor of economics at Stanford University — dealing with revolution and Intellectuals. These views of Baran are found in a pamphlet reprinted from Monthly Review entitled "Reflections on the Cuban Revolution.”

Baran writes that the strong stress placed by students upon the active role of intellectuals relating to revolutions has

"deep theoretical roots, and relates to two propositions which are central to both political theory and a general interpretation of the historical process. One is an Implied rejection of the principal tenet of historical materialism according to which it Is social classes that are the prime agents on the historical scene, with both the composition of these classes and their broad political and ideological outlook determined chiefly by their position in the economic structure. The other, closely connected with the first, is the assertion that the intellectuals constitute a separate social stratum, an ‘elite' above classes which plays an independent and indeed a decisive role In history . . ."

As for the first proposition above — the implication that it is not social classes that are the prime agents on the historical scene — serious students of Marx know, along with Baran, this to be false. For they have learned that history has developed through a series of social revolutions and that this development is brought about by means of class struggle.

Social Revolutions & Class Struggle

Put in over-simplified form, it is found that as the forces of production developed and new relations of production came into being which corresponded to the development of the forces of production, classes came into being. It is known, for example, that there were no classes in primitive society. But with the development of new forces of production (which resulted in, among other things, man being able to produce more than his own needs) and new relations of production, primitive society was broken up and replaced by class society — Slavery (e.g., in Rome) — consisting of slaves, slaveowners and other social classes such as the military, the religious, and the free — but impoverished — proletariat. In time Slavery deteriorated, fell apart or was overthrown by outside Invaders and replaced by Feudal society ruled principally by a landed aristocracy and the church and in which the producing, exploited, class took the form of serfs, bound to the land rather than to individual owners. Subsequently, Capitalism replaced Feudalism. [1]

Now with capitalism there arise new conflicts and class antagonisms. The accumulators of the means of production, the capitalists, through sheer ownership (stocks, bonds, etc.) forcibly deprive — by virtue of their control of the state — the sole producers of social wealth, the workers, of what they have created. Society is spilt between a minute minority of owners and a vast majority of non-owners, bringing with it class conflict and antagonism. Idealistic humanitarians to the contrary, class conflict can only be resolved by the complete abolition of classes.

Serious students of Marxism know that the dynamic of historical change is the conflict between the forces of production and the relations of production, with “the class struggle as the immediate driving force of history" (Letter from Marx and Engels to August Bebel, etc. Emphasis added.) With maligned Marx, such students hold that 

"the emancipation of the working class must be achieved by the working class itself. We cannot therefore cooperate with people who say that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and must first be freed from above by philanthropic bourgeois and petty bourgeois" — or, it could be added, freed by a gifted segment or vanguard of society's intellectuals. (Ibid)

As stated above, society in our times is divided into two classes: capitalists and workers, rulers and ruled, exploiters and exploited. One class challenges the other. But unlike the slaveowners and feudal lords of the past, the capitalist class has no rival exploiting class challenging its rule. For it is the workers, the bottom rung of the ladder as it were, a non-exploiting class, who challenge the reign of the capitalists. And the successful consummation of the workers’ challenge, carried out consciously and politically, will spell the end of class society and of the exploitation of man by man. This consummation will once and for all spell finish to the last antagonistic form of the social process of production and consequently end “the prehistory of man" and usher in “truly human history.”

Are intellectuals a separate class?

As for Baran’s second proposition — the implication that the intellectuals constitute a separate class (though Baran calls it “a separate social stratum" — apparently taking his cue from Lenin, who in turn took it from Kautsky’s theory that the intellectuals were not a class but a privileged social stratum) — serious students of Marxism know this also to be false. For they know that those who specialize in intellectual functions no more constitute a class than do those individuals who perform various administrative and executive functions. In brief, intellectuals do not constitute a class with separate class interests (though they may have group interests in common), but function, consciously or not. as an integral portion of one or other of the classes which constitute society — function in the interests of the rulers or the ruled.

Baran continues:

"There are many reasons for this hypo-statization of the intellectuals. Leaving aside the obvious, but therefore by no means irrelevant one, that the glorification of the intellectuals is most flattering to the intellectuals themselves, four considerations must be primarily borne in mind:

"In the first place, the assignment of a crucially important role to the intellectuals is a sociological derivative of an idealistic philosophic position. If intellectuals are the salt of the earth, responsible for the nature and direction of social development, then clearly it is ideas that run history. There is the further implication that these ideas are not mere reflections of processes in the material world (tensions between forces and relations of production, struggles among social classes, and so forth) but rather unfold in an emanate from the pensive heads of the ’freely floating intellectual elite' (Mannheim)."

(It might be noted in passing that Karl Mannheim, referred to above, was a German sociologist with a decided proclivity to place intellectuals in a niche quite above the common herd. Needless to say he was popular with intellectuals throughout the world).

The Materialist Conception of History

Returning to the kernel under discussion, historical materialism teaches that social ideas arise out of the conditions of the material life of society. Marx has afforded us the most lucid, compact formulation of the main elements of the concept of historical materialism in his Preface to a Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy. But for the purpose at hand, the following brief definition of the foundation of the Marxian scientific system as given by Louis B. Boudin in his book The Theoretical System of Karl Marx, will better serve. Boudin writes (p. 23):

"The Materialist conception of history maintains that the evolution of human society as a whole, and that of all human institutions, is not, as the idealists insisted, the result of the changes in men's ideas relative to the society they were living in and its institutions, which changes are brought about by the inherent law of development of ideas; but that, quite to the contrary, the development of society, including men's ideas of human society and institutions, are the result of the development of the material conditions under which men live; that these conditions are the only ones which have an independent existence and development; that the changes of the material conditions cause the institutions of human society to be changed to suit them; and that the ideas on all subjects relating to man in society, including those of right and wrong between man and man and even between man and his God, are changed by man in accordance with and because of, those changed material conditions of his existence."

As outlined by Boudin, the antithesis of historical materialism is philosophic idealism. The latter holds "that the ultimate causes of all historical changes are to be looked for in the changing ideas of human beings (Engels)." Idealists believe that there is little that cannot be changed or altered by the determined will of individuals. Idealists, no matter their label or differences, all have this in common: they appeal explicitly to moral standards which they consider common to all mankind. Marxists are not in sympathy with them. For it is their conviction that individuals actuated by this or that ideal cannot alter laws governing human history. Marxists denounce the existing system by appealing not to ideas but to history. The existing system has nothing to do with unjustness or human folly, but is the inevitable outcome of a certain stage in human history. This stage will pass. But knowing the laws governing human history and applying this knowledge will hasten the passing and lessen the friction and painfulness of the social transition.

Now it invariably happens that when socialists express the principle that social ideas arise out of the conditions of the material life of society — that is to say, the forces of production and the relations of production; the methods, in short, by which human beings in a given society produce their means of subsistence and exchange the products among themselves — non-socialists are all too prone to interpret this to be a denial of the significance and the social role of ideas. Any such interpretation is unwarranted. For by all means socialists are acutely aware and, given the opportunity, make quite clear that ideas arising from the conditions of material life of society play a most active role in material development once they come into being. The argument of the socialist primarily concerns not the significance of ideas, but rather their origin.

Intellectual leaders

Without direct comment. Baran's second, third and fourth considerations follow:

"The leadership of nearly all major social movements in history (with the exception of the most primitive peasant rebellions) has consisted of or included intellectuals by upbringing or individuals turned intellectuals in the course of their political careers. What is then simpler than to conclude that since there were always intellectuals prominently associated with revolutionary movements, the intellectuals were their cause and their engine?"

"The growing awareness among intellectuals of the irrationality, inhumanity, and degeneration of capitalism has been accompanied in many Western countries by an increasing disillusionment with the labor movement and a sharpened disappointment with its lack of political dynamism and its widespread capitulation before the capitalist order. Under such circumstances the faith in the awakening of the intellectuals remains the only bright spot on the horizon for those who seek a way out of the impasses of the status quo . . ."

". . . Treating the intellectuals as the yeast of history, counting upon them to move things off dead center serves many intellectuals as a convenient rationalization for staying in the academic or literary ivory towers, from refraining from participating actively in such political and social struggles as are actually fought in their societies."

Baran, having pointed out above the factors which, in his view, help explain why aspiring intellectuals and “intellectuals assign to intellectuals such a vastly inflated role in the historical process," and warning that the "Influence of the intellectuals on the speed, direction and outcome of social movements is not to be denied," sees the problem to be this:

"Under what historical circumstances do intellectuals become drawn in such movements. under what conditions are they capable of affecting the course of events in a particular way. and what forces determine the specific part which they play?"

Aside from a few profound-sounding discourses scattered here and there by intellectuals, the problem posed by Baran in the main goes unanswered. And with the exception of a brief sentence in the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels offer no theory as to why intellectuals join the socialist movement. But Marx and Engels have indicated that revolutionary intellectuals are often authoritatively motivated. Such intellectuals would be chiefs, not indians. These self-chosen ones would supplant the present ruling class, but in a more benevolent manner. They believe that the conception of a socialist society is beyond the comprehension of workingmen, and that only they can bring social consciousness to the workers. In reality they have brought not social consciousness to the workers but have brought to the fore instead their own elite authoritarianism.

No, socialism will not be brought about by an intellectual elite and a proclamation of a dictatorship in the name of the workers. Genuine socialism will only be brought about by the working class, consciously and politically organized.

One has only to look about the world today to note that the old vitality of the capitalist order is in sharp decline, is losing favor in wide sections of the people. Intellectuals are definitely not our saviors, but revolutionary intellectuals, with revolutionary thought and propaganda and free of elitism, could class-rightly be our helpmates — could aid in laying to rest nowadays cancerous Capitalism. Intellectuals can be in the forefront with the working class, or perforce follow with their impotent grieving about their impotence upon the latter's heels into World Socialism.

Whether or not the arguments put forth by this writer had any appreciable effect on the mode of thought of his student caller is anyone's guess. The latter left, saying he would call again soon. But this has not come to pass as of this writing.

REN

Endnote:

[1] There were, of course, vast areas of the globe, notably northern Europe and Asia, in which Chattel Slavery was exceptional. The social system may be called Warrior Chiefdoms, with ruling and subject classes and with many vestiges of primitive communal institutions. The system is also called Early Feudalism.

Chattel Slave society was confined to the area around the Mediterranean: Asia Minor, Egypt, Greece and Rome. Chattel Slavery dominated the known world and was eventually overthrown by the Barbarians of the North, the early feudalism. The feudal society of the post Roman era evolved from the existing early feudal social relations but was greatly affected by the impact of chattel slave society.