50 Years Ago: “A Word on Marxism” (2002)

The 50 Years Ago column from the June 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is not an exaggeration to state that to-day “Marxism” is becoming almost a household word. Unfortunately this does not mean that over the wide world millions of people have become thoroughly acquainted with the fundamentals of Marxian doctrines. Rather does it signify that the word “Marxist” has become the modern equivalent of “heretic” or “turk.” In other words, when a man is to-day called a “Marxist” people are usually expressing strong disapproval, although they may have little or no idea of the real meaning of the word they are using. As members of the working class concerned with the crying social evils of the modern world we cannot afford such loose thinking. We do not brand or abuse our political opponents; but are concerned rather with a thorough examination of their point of view. We do not reject or accept their statements out of hand. Marxism must be treated likewise by all serious-thinking men and women, and to do this we must ascertain exactly what we mean by the term.

Like the word “Socialism,” or “Marxism” has, over the course of the last century, been largely abused and misrepresented. We can, however, in brief form put the essential ideas of Marx as follows:-

1. Materialism.
2. Materialist conception of History. (Including the class struggle.)
3. Theory of Value.

These three components of Marxism are in indivisible unity. The so-called “Marxists” of the “Red” variety who claim allegiance to Marxism yet at the command of their Russian masters flout the class struggle and the most elementary conclusions to be drawn from the theory of value can lay no authentic claim to their title. No one with even an elementary understanding of the Marxian outlook can at one time claim to be a Marxist and in almost the next breath speak of his Christian faith and belief in God, as do many members of the Communist Party, including the one-time prominent Douglas Hyde of “I Believed” fame. Such people have failed to understand the most striking feature of Marx’s ideas, i.e., each central proposition implies and leads logically to the others. Materialism, so to speak, the foundation stone, is a philosophic view of the universe, irreconcilably opposed to religious dogma.

[From an article by J. Lestor, Socialist Standard, June 1952.]

“Modernism” v Materialism, (1928)

From the November 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

OR THE SKY PILOTS AND THE CREW.

In our pamphlet “Socialism and Religion” (p. 23) we make the claim that, “In contrast with science, . . . religion decreases in volume, cohesion and definiteness.” Evidence in support of this view was amply provided at the recent Church Congress at Cheltenham, and it is significant that whereas the Capitalist Press treated the confabulations of the British Association with deferential respect, the outpourings of the Episcopalian “soul” met with somewhat critical, if not impatient, patronage.

The differences between the Anglo-Catholics and the Evangelicals, serious enough in themselves, paled into insignificance beside the virulent attack upon the “Modernists” by the English Church Union; which prompts the reflection that it is only a few hundred years ago since respectable pillars of society such as Dean Inge and the Bishop of Birmingham would have been burned at the stake by their Christian brethren.

WHAT IS MODERNISM ?

Canon B. H. Streeter, one of its champions, states that “Modernists are a group of persons who look round on a civilisation that is likely to perish for lack of a religion, and wish to offer it a religion that is intellectually a possible one.”

“Compulsory education has created a position in regard to religion which is really new. In all ages among the educated few a certain amount of sceptical rationalism has flourished ; but heretofore the mass of the uneducated has always taken for granted the existence of a God or gods, and therefore the necessity for some kind of religious observance. The new thing in the modern situation is the spread of the spirit of criticism and enquiry … to the masses of the people. … In their minds Christianity is associated with a political and economic status quo, which many view with hostility, and few with more than tolerance. It is the religion professed by classes with whom they are in constant economic conflict.”

Thus the Modernist appears to be sufficient of a materialist to recognise the existence of the class struggle and that the fate of religion is bound up therewith. Canon Streeter, however, concludes as follows :—

“What I wish to insist is that under modern conditions, if the Church desires to speak to the world with the voice of authority, it must first compel outsiders to recognise that there is within the Church a body of investigators who are in no way bound to defend established positions, but are free to follow truth” (“The Church of England Newspaper.” p. 18, 5/10/28).

Just how far the Modernists are prepared to follow truth may be gathered from the speeches of the prelates above referred to. Bishop Barnes is convinced, not only that “Darwin conclusively demonstrated man’s similarity with the rest of creation,” but that “all the higher faculties of man had their beginnings in lower forms of life.”

“We cannot, he says, separate mind and body ; they are two aspects of a single unity. How then, it may be asked, can we continue to believe in the existence of human personality after bodily death ? I would answer that our belief …. is bound up with our conception of the nature of God. . . . We cannot believe that he will allow anything of value to be destroyed. . . . How man’s personality will be preserved we cannot say.”

If the right reverend gentleman had stopped here we could forgive many Christians for losing their tempers with him. Few materialists have put matters more bluntly. Even Marx and Engels, summarising Hobbes in “The Holy Family,” could only say, “It is impossible to separate thought from matter that thinks. . . . We cannot know anything about the existence of God.” (Quoted by Engels in his Introduction to “Socialism : Utopian and Scientific.”) But the Bishop is merciless.

He proceeds :—

“A generation ago it was customary to say that Heaven was a state and not a place, the implication being that the life after death was temporal but not spatial. Einstein has, however, demonstrated that space and time form a single complex which we break up, arbitrarily, in our thought. We have no right to postulate that in the world to come part of this complex will be destroyed while the other part remains intact. In fact, with regard to time and space in the Kingdom of Heaven very much the same difficulties arise as with regard to body and personality. In neither case can natural science give effective guidance” (“Church of England Newspaper,” p. 12, 5/10/28).

Comically enough, the Bishop’s partner in crime, Dean Inge, tries to use this same demonstration of Einstein’s as a proof of the “uncertainty” of science. He refers to “old pre-suppositions of scientific thought, which have been almost unchallenged since Newton and Descartes, are being assailed from all sides.” Yet, nearly forty years ago, Engels pointed out in the above quoted preface that Kant and Laplace had superseded Newton’s “eternal system” by an evolutionary conception, which Darwin supplemented in biology, thus exploding Descartes as Bishop Barnes shows.

The Dean also comes to grief over his generalisations upon Evolution, which he assures us “cannot have created our awareness of itself.” Yet, as his colleague, already quoted, points out, the highest faculties of man have evolved, and it is by these faculties that the idea of evolution is framed.

Again, he tells us that “God can in no sense be a product of Evolution,” yet further on admits that “Religion itself no doubt is evolving with those who possess it.” Neither Dean nor Bishop endeavour to offer any objective evidence of the existence of God. They are too consistent to their scientific education for that.

The individual mind, like the individual body, dissolves at death. For it, so far as we know, “absolute” and “relative” alike lose interest, but the world goes on. That which does not change is the process of change.

The Dean concludes “that Evolution is only the method by which the Eternal God carries out most of His purposes in the world. … I do not think that the existence or attributes of God are involved in it at all.”

Such a profound philosopher should have recognised long ago that every particular attribute is finite and implies its opposite, as whiteness is opposed to and excludes blackness, goodness badness, and so forth. All our knowledge is based upon the evidence of our senses; in other words, our minds are inseparable from organic bodies in a material world. An unchecked or disordered imagination can evolve all manner of fantasies which do not correspond with external reality. They may be real enough to those who indulge in them or are their victims. They may lead to actions, but the devotional observances of the Christian are no more proof of the object of his faith than the similar observances of the pagan and the savage before him.

The dipsomaniac who sees variegated livestock on the walls has just as much evidence of the soundness of his convictions as the religious fanatic. The important difference lies in the social character of religion. In its primitive form it expressed man’s desire to control his environment by efforts of his imagination, and its evolution is explicable only by the evolution of the environment.

This evolution has harnessed man’s mind to the task of production. Instead of trying to rule Nature by magic, mankind has learnt to utilise Nature’s own forces. Scope for the imagination has been found in the realm of invention, and as fast as man follows this line of action he forsakes the dead ritual of the past.

By changing his surroundings man has changed himself. The superstitious savage has gone. In his place stands the scientific worker.

The process, however, is far from complete. As yet, science has grasped only the technical side of social life.

The organisation of society itself on rational lines awaits the social revolution, i.e., the disarmament and dispossession of the Capitalist ruling class. It is in the interests of this class that the Church exists. Belief in God and respect for ruling-class “authority” go hand in hand.

The revolutionary workers have no use for a creed which is the mere ghost of past social life. They require a clear outlook, free from superstition of every kind, from the crude and gross to the elaborate and refined. Hence the subtleties of modernist parsons fail to lure us back to the fold. “God’s in His Heaven?” All right ! Let Him stop there ! We want the world for the workers.

Eric Boden

Between the Lines: Late night horrors (1986)

The Between the Lines column from the June 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Late night horrors

I have just finished watching the all-night local election results coverage (BBC1/ITV, 8-9 May) A depressing experience:

Dimbleby: Well, we've just heard that Labour has held Hackney, the Conservatives hold Harrow. Waltham Forest could be close. What do you think about Waltham Forest. Peter?

Snow: Well. David, if the computer is right it looks like Waltham Forest could be picked up by Labour (Picked up? Isn't that an expression used by hookers? SC)

Dimbleby: Interesting. And the Alliance has given the Conservatives a good run in Kingston on Thames. (A run into the Thames would be the preferred route! SC) What does the panel have to say about Waltham Forest. Robin?

Sir Robin Day, looking very much like he is enjoying the facilities of Broadcasting House which is not affected by the licensing laws, grins at a panel of faces one half recognises.

Baker: What one has to realise. Robin, is that midterm blues is not surprising.

Cunningham: This is a great night for Labour. (Being paid a few hundred quid for sitting in a studio mouthing platitudes would be a great night for any con-man. SC)

Steel: And it's a terrific night for the Alliance - to some extent.

Baker: Labour is in the grip of a bunch of commie queers. (Or words to that effect).

Cunningham: Hard luck, Baker: it's our turn to screw the wage slaves now.

Steel: But we'd like to help as much as we can please.

Dimbleby: And we've just heard that the capitalists have picked up the means of wealth production and distribution. Any news on the computer Peter? 

Snow: This could definitely have implications for Waltham Forest, David.

Dimbleby: And over to Islington Town Hall now; it seems that all the councillors are in the subsidised bar thinking about the poor. . . Let's just go over to Rydale — yes, it looks as if there might be a slight swing against the feudal system there . . . And the working class has voted to abolish the wages system in Waltham Forest.

Snow: Stop playing Star Wars on my computer. 

Robin: I'm trying to give viewers the impression that they've been doing something meaningful in the polling stations.

Next time round, use your vote for socialism: vote for yourself for a change. In addition to all the other good reasons for doing s, it will take this contemptible, ridiculous mockery of democracy from our screens.

Ealing culture

If asked to define the main characteristics of post-war English culture it would be hard not to mention the names of Michael Balcon and T. E. B. Clarke. Balcon owned and very much controlled the Ealing film studios, the subject of an Omnibus documentary (BBC2, 5 May). Balcon, an immigrant who came to Birmingham and was obsessed by the culture of small-village Englishness. was a man whose mission was to transmit the smugness and the amusing peculiarities of life in England. When he asked a group of film critics to bear in mind the studio's virtues when they condemned its vices, one critic responded wittily that he could willingly forgive Ealing's vices, but not its virtues. The studio was the home of imperial cinema — war glorified. English characters seen as possessing unique strengths, the contradictions of life neatly written out. Clarke was the main writer at Ealing and his film scripts tell more about what English conservative ideology is all about than many a lofty treatise could do. An ex-policeman, Clarke's conception of cosy English life had no time for the class struggle, but only for decent bobbies (usually including Jack Warner) fighting to defend civilisation as it is experienced in the home counties against any characters who have not accepted the rules of the system.

Materialism and consciousness

Nicholas Humphrey, a Cambridge zoologist, has presented a very worthwhile series of programmes called The Inner Eye (C4, Mondays. 10pm) in which he has attempted to show how humans are uniquely conscious and how this consciousness is a material product. His references have been educative and his arguments presented convincingly. Humphrey upset animal liberationists by denying that any other species possesses consciousness like that of human beings. Someone went into the videobox on Right To Reply (C4, Friday 30 April) to say that Humphrey obviously didn't know her dog which is quite as conscious as she is, and a foolish young philosopher from Balliol College. Oxford had a studio debate with Humphrey in which the former's case for animal intelligence rested on the fact that dogs bark when you kick them. Humphrey stated that he is a materialist and pointed out that reacting to being kicked is one thing, working out how not to be kicked again is quite another. For some reason I kept thinking about that remark as I watched the election results.

Steve Coleman

Materialism for children (2019)

Book Review from the March 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Everything Is Connected’. By Jason Gruhl (Illustrations by Ignasi Font. Shambhala, 2019. Hardback £12.99)

As a materialist I am thrilled to see this publication of a book for children, impressing them with the importance of openness to all life and the truth that all life is connected and all living beings part of a rich kaleidoscope. As Carl Sagan pointed out, we are all star stuff.

The publishers regularly make available works from a Buddhist perspective, and if Buddhists generally dislike what they think of as materialism, it is because the word is associated mostly with the mechanism and reductionism of traditional post-Christian western thought. Materialists, in fact, should oppose such reductionism, and be consistent – embracing the liberating realisation that all of us are the universe, that nothing is separate or outside of it, and that our atoms have made up trillions of living beings before us, and will make up trillions after us. All organisms are relatives, and the atoms that were once part of a T-Rex or a blue whale are now part of you!

For socialists too, the universe as here presented for children can help us show that physical reality can be more beautiful and wondrous than myths, and truth more colourful and resplendent than fiction.

A. W.

"A Word on Marxism" (1952)

From the June 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is not an exaggeration to state that to-day "Marxism” is becoming almost a household word. Unfortunately this does not mean that over the wide world millions of people have become thoroughly acquainted with the fundamentals of Marxian doctrines. Rather does it signify that the word “Marxist” has become the modern equivalent of “heretic” or “turk.” In other words, when a man is to-day called a “Marxist” people are usually expressing strong disapproval, although they may have little or no idea of the real meaning of the word they are using. As members of the working class concerned with the crying social evils of the modem world we cannot afford such loose thinking. We do not brand or abuse our political opponents; but are concerned rather with a thorough examination of their point of view. We do not reject or accept their statements out of hand. Marxism must be treated likewise by all serious-thinking men and women, and to do this we must ascertain exactly what we mean by the term.

Like the word “Socialism,” “Marxism” has, over the course of the last century, been largely abused and misrepresented. We can, however, in brief form put the essential ideas of Marx as follows: —

1. Materialism.
2. Materialist conception of History. (Including the class struggle.)
3. Theory of Value.

These three components of Marxism are an indivisible unity. The so-called “Marxists” of the “Red” variety who claim allegiance to Marxism yet at the command of their Russian masters flout the class struggle and the most elementary conclusions to be drawn from the theory of value can lay no authentic claim to their title. No one with even an elementary understanding of the Marxian outlook can at one time claim to be a Marxist and in almost the next breath speak of his Christian faith and belief in God. as do many members of the Communist Party, including the one-time prominent Douglas Hyde of “I Believed” fame. Such people have failed to understand the most striking feature of Marx’s ideas, i.e., each central proposition implies and leads logically to the others. Materialism, so to speak, the foundation stone, is a philosophic view of the universe, irreconcilably opposed to religious dogma.

For centuries man’s thinking had been dominated by idealism and metaphysics, and it was not until the development of industrial Capitalism that modern materialism began to take its rightful place in the study of the natural world. So long as the material world was viewed as a realm devoid of objective laws, and subject to the overwhelming power of “mind,” little progress could be made towards an understanding of its real nature. With the rise of materialism, however, and greater emphasis on empirical methods astounding achievements were made in all branches of science, particularly in the natural sciences during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Marx’s concern , was to apply this highly successful methodology to society itself, a task hitherto inadequately attempted. We are led then to a materialist conception of society.

The materialist conception of history seeks to explain the causes of social progress. Its subject matter, human society, has a history covering a period of thousands of years. Marx took the relevant facts of history and, using the scientific method, sought to make them intelligible, and it is probably in this field of study that he made his greatest contribution to human understanding. To discover, as it were, the motive forces of social development, to lay bare the principal causes of great social changes, was a herculean task. Up to the time Marx commenced his studies, changes in the political structure of society, supposed to be brought about by man’s growing insight into absolute principles, were generally accepted as the dominant factors in social development. Starting with this supposition Marx (who was himself a student of law) found it impossible to give a coherent explanation of events around him. In his own words, “I was led by my studies to the conclusion that legal relations as well as forms of state, could neither be understood by themselves nor explained by the so-called general progress of the human mind, but that they are rooted in the material conditions of life . . . .” (“Critique of Political Economy,” page 11, translation from second German edition, 1904, Chas. H. Kerr & Co.). Following this line of thought Marx was led to a conclusion which he summarised as follows: “In the social production which men carry on they enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material powers of production. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society —the real foundation, on which rise legal and political superstructures and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social, political and spiritual processes of life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness.”

Marx set to work with the germ of his new idea to unravel the real causes of social change. It had long been known that widely differing forms of social organisation had existed. In early times whole communities had owned in common the things they needed in order to satisfy their needs, including the land and their primitive tools. At other times men lived divided into classes, some property owners and a majority in subservience. The important questions for Marx were, how had all this arisen and how could the degradation and poverty of the many be abolished? Must the idea of freedom and emancipation from bondage remain merely an ideal or, by the study and an understanding of the past, would it be possible for the subjugated majority to set themselves upon the sound path towards their emancipation?

By the detailed application of the M.C.H. to the world in which he lived his penetrating examination into the economic processes of his contemporary society Marx both answered these questions and developed the third basic tenet of Marxism—the Labour Theory of Value.

This theory, i.e., that things reproduced for the purpose of exchange, exchange in proportions determined by the amount of socially necessary labour time involved in their production, gives us an insight into the economic workings of the everyday world that makes clear the cause of our major social evils and the path along which we must act in order to remove them. On all sides we find tremendous accumulations of wealth produced for a market. The workers who produce this wealth receive in return through their wage packets only a part of it. Their buying power in terms of money is obviously less than the total money value for the wealth they have produced; otherwise there could be no profits. In order to profitably dispose of the consumer goods produced by their respective workers capitalists are compelled to seek entrance to markets abroad. But, and this is the important point, looked at on a world scale, the capitalist class has ultimately no outlet. What happens in fact is that the endless struggle for markets, cheaper goods, profitable sources of material and other economic advantages results in continual struggle between on the one hand the workers and capitalists, and on the other armed struggle between rival capitalist powers. We can see from the foregoing that the class struggle, the ever present conflict of economic interests between the “haves” and the “have nots” expresses itself in the modern world in the. opposition of the working class to the capitalist class. In short, the class struggle is at all times a property struggle and as Marx and Engels so clearly pointed out has characterised the whole of man’s written history.

In a short article of this kind detailed examination of Marxian theories is out of the question. As it is, the foregoing is a somewhat simplified statement best supplemented by careful reading of recognised Marxian classics. One thing is certain, we can do no better than to study Marxism through the writings of its founders, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.

One last word. Socialism, the world we are striving to obtain, is not a pipe dream. It is the name that we, in common with Marx and Engels, give to the society that will follow capitalism—a world in which property and the problems arising therefrom will no longer exist

An understanding of Marxism is a means towards that end.

Joan Lestor

Editorial: Sickness in society (1966)

Editorial from the March 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism is a sick society, and within its framework, man suffers. Capitalism is alien to man’s interests. It denies him all that is potentially best in humanity. It is a disease from which there is no recovery short of the reorganisation of society.

Socialists generalise about the way in which society is class divided about private properly. This is not a remote economic abstraction; it is the day to day reality which bestows existence on most people as an ungratifying burden of personal struggle. To the individual worker, life is an endless battle for fragmented survival. There is the electricity bill, the food bill, the clothes bill, the rent or the mortgage, the holiday fund, the minor crisis brought about by some unexpected item of expense. To establish a home, to have children, the worker tightens the knots of a personal economic straight-jacket. He consolidates the conditions of his own exploitation and his dependence on wages or salary.

Behind this, there is the year in and year out commitment to the job which he probably hates and which probably does nothing for the real needs of the community. This is an aspect of the insecurity which pervades capitalism. A man is oppressed by his own life but can see no alternative. It is this insecurity that forces a man to clutch on for a lifetime to what is devoid of satisfaction.

The separation of the individual is completed by the divisive attitudes of propertied society. Where the individual is considered not by what he is but by the properly he owns, there is a sense of shame, a special stigma attaching to the man with meagre possessions. With poverty goes guilt. It is the guilt of the individual in failing to measure up to the swinging commercial ideal associated under capitalism with success. These attitudes preclude social unity, where people might communicate in honest terms. Instead there is failure to communicate. There is pretentiousness; a discreet conspiracy to cloak the realities of the struggle.

Life under capitalism is not an opportunity for creative living; the individual in association with his fellow human beings. It is an acceptance of the dreary disciplines of wage employment couched in competition, pride, insecurity, guilt, frustration, hate and all the attitudes that divide the community and isolate its members.

Capitalism is not so much individualist as atomized, individuals moving in separate orbits, either suspicious or indifferent. It is not that under all circumstances he is uncaring. The preoccupation with the private struggle renders impotent his identity with humanity as a whole. Under capitalism, we are all on our own.

Moreover, the existence of social privilege under capitalism eats away at the mutual sympathy that man is capable of. The side by side existence of the well fed and the starving; the leisured and the overtime working; the cultured and the illiterate; is a corrupting assault which leads to cynicism, despair, a poor evaluation by man of himself.

For Socialists, the concept of community means that the existence of one under privileged person is an affront to the dignity of all members of society.

The problems of workers are common problems. The establishment of Socialism is collective action in the interests of the whole community. The disintegration of community under capitalism can only be healed by the social equality, the collective responsibility, the unity of Socialist society.

Through common ownership, a Socialist community would undoubtedly replace competition with co-operation, indifference with love, isolation with integration. It would replace mere economic functions with men.

Marxism (1998)

From the January 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Conceptions and definitions are the basis of all thought processes. We call our method "Marxism" because the fundamental theoretical work was in the main accomplished by Marx. Three interrelated principles--the materialist conception of history, the class struggle and the theory of surplus value--worked together to initiate this method.

The materialist conception of history arises out of the use of the dialectical-materialist method in political economy. It is materialist as it recognises the primacy of matter in the surrounding world. It is dialectical because it recognises the universal interconnection of complex and dynamic objects and events within a single form-and-content totality.

It regards motion and development as the result of both the unity and the struggle of opposites. It explains change, reveals causes and analyses effects by locating the source of the motion of the processes within which contradictions are embodied. It shows how these contradictions determine the level of development of these processes, and it brings out the conditions for their resolution.

This method is not a dogma. It too develops in a dynamic fashion and is subject to change within its own framework and is able to understand and review its own basis.

In contradistinction to idealist theories, this universal scientific understanding of the world develops upon the premise that it is not our consciousness that determines our life but our life that determines our consciousness and that consciousness, in turn, influences our life. In other words, being determines thinking and thinking influences being.

This understanding of history is not derived from any philosophical or contemplative premises, nor from any better insight into eternal truth and justice, but from production. In two senses, production of the life of the species itself and its needs together with production of the means to meet those needs.

Progress is ultimately determined by the changing character of human productive powers giving rise to more improved modes of production and resultant social structures, such as primitive communism, chattel slavery, feudalism and capitalism, the latter three being forms of class society.

The origin of class society dates back several thousand years to when private property and the state originated and social relationships were turned into exploitative and antagonistic class relationships with their array of economic categories such as rent, interest, exchange, barter, simple commodity production, buying and selling, market, money, capital, commodity, value and price, profit vis-à-vis wages.

Marxian economics regards relations of production as manifestations of levels of technological progress. But, within a given mode of production, developing productive powers eventually come into conflict with the existing relations of production which from forms of their development turn into their fetters.

This conflict expresses itself in the struggle between two opposing classes, with the owning and exploiting minority class having a vested interest in maintaining the existing relations and a new propertyless exploited class working towards the further development of the productive forces; this requires a revolutionary replacement of the antiquated relations with new ones. Resolution of the conflict is obtained with the seizure of political power by the new class in order to use it to usher in the new mode of production.

Marxists are not ideologues who invent social systems. For us social systems are the necessary outcome of history. Ideas, in all epochs, are basically the products of production. This is not to uphold economic determinism. Ideas do develop also in the realm of "pure" thought and fantasy. But, however they originated, their seed-bed is the economic soil of society wherein only some take root and spread because they correspond to reality.

In a class society the ideas of the ruling class rule over the ideas of the ruled. Thus the social selection of ideas applicable to a given mode of production depends on the class that is in a position to select and on the method it applies.

The historical materialist method is the science of the working class, which consists in the criticism of class economy. As Marx aptly said, "So far as such criticism represents a class, it can only represent the class whose vocation in history is the overthrow of the capitalist mode of production and the final abolition of all classes--the proletariat" (Afterword to the Second German edition of Capital, 1873).

Could it be otherwise? Could anyone ever thinking of grasping the science of the working class without having already rejected the capitalist interest and adopted the working class interest? Certainly not.

Binnay Sarkar (World Socialist Party of India)

Materialism vindicated (1972)

From the April 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

Looked at from two points of view—how mankind acquires knowledge and how life has evolved—there is no room for religion or the existence of a supernatural power in the development of mankind. Religion has simply been the expression of man's ignorance of, and his blind defence against, the operation of natural forces which he did not yet understand.

Thinking is a function of the brain, just as grasping is a function of the hand and walking a function of the feet; each function acquiring competence by training and experience. In order to think the brain must have something to think about; the material the brain thinks about is drawn from the world around through the medium of the senses—seeing; hearing; tasting; feeling and smelling. The thought material thus acquired, compared and generalised upon, determines the outlook of the individual, and the nature of this thought material is itself limited by the individual's contact with the world; his own experience and the passed on experience of others through reading and talking. The most important contact a person has with the world is that concerned with the satisfaction of his fundamental needs—food, clothing, shelter and the reproduction of his kind—and, therefore, these are the contacts that dominate his life, bring him into social relations with his kind, and, in general, shape his outlook.

We can only think of things that actually exist, but, we can put pieces of actual existence into fantastic forms. We can, in imagination, take a female form, attach a fish tail to it and produce and imaginary mermaid. We can also, in imagination, put wings on elephants and picture them flying through the air. But we cannot produce anything in imagination that does not already exist in some form in the world. Thus the religious imagine God as some kind of man. The brain has the faculty of working up the material drawn from the environment, just as the digestive apparatus has the faculty of digesting food that comes to it—and both can suffer from indigestion! The brain is that part of the world which pictures and thinks about the rest of the world. There is no mystery, no unknowable, only that which is not yet known but will be in the course of time. However, as things are always evolving there will always be something not yet known.

The study of evolution has shown that all living things have evolved from relatively simple inorganic molecules to complex organisms as the result of small changes over countless ages. Carbon is a basis of life on earth because it can build exceedingly complicated molecules. Scientists have now shown very reasonably that there has been a transition without a break between non-life and life in the chain that runs; hydrogen—elements—chemical compounds—nuclear acids—proteins—viruses—bacteria—higher organisms. From which it appears that there is no boundary between life and non-life in the evolutionary chain. Thus there is no room for religious explorations in the chemical evolution up to modern man. Man, including the brain, is simply a particular undesigned arrangement of chemicals—mainly hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous and sulphur.

The nucleic acids in the above chain have a unique property. Once made they can go on indefinitely initiating copies of themselves. They alone of all molecules posses this ability, which made them the foundation of all life on earth and the raw material of its evolution. They are the stuff the genes are made of, and genes are the carriers of heriditary characteristics. In this sense also the chemical variations of past generations weigh heavily on the body and brain of the living.

Gilmac