University of Virginia Library
X86 .B63 1927

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3PREFACE

In this essay Marx and Engels are treated like one person-
ality. The two friends thought and worked together, and it
would be impossible to dissever the thoughts of one from
those of the other. Even if the task were possible, it is doubt-
ful whether it would yield fruitful results.

Nor is frequent reference made to whatever ideas on the
subject the two writers entertained prior to 1847, for their
conception of history began to mature only after that date.
My aim in the pages which follow is not to examine the
growth of Marx’s mind; my object is rather to present a more
or less comprehensive analysis of a famous and much-dis-
cussed doctrine.

This study has been suggested by Professor A. A. Young,
and the work has been carried on under his general guidance.
For his kindliness, his inspiration, and his valuable sugges-
tions I am deeply grateful. I am also indebted to Professors
F. W. Taussig, A. P. Usher, C. H. MclIlwain, and A. M.
Schlesinger for advice on various points; and to Professor
E. S. Mason and Mr. R. Opie for having read the manuscript
and made corrections. All these scholars are at Harvard
University.

It is a duty and a pleasure to record that my wife rendered
invaluable assistance at each stage of the work, and bore with
patience and fortitude the trials of an impecunious aspirant
for the doctorate.

MANDELL M. BOBER

LAWRENCE COLLEGE
APPLETON, WISCONSIN

eerCONTENTS

PART I

THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

1h RECHNIQUE) 3. ° 8. ee ee 3
fie hae MODE; OF PRODUCIION( 93 a ee II
ES (Pae; DIALECTIC! 8 2 ee te 2-30
IV. THE Bases or HisTORY UP TO THE PRESENT . . 45

PARE
THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

Wie MARKS \ViEW) OF ELUMAN NIATURE) 9) 9) gene O5
Wile (ur, @rASS AND ©LASS STRUGGEE =) 3743) 7 9) 00

PAR it

THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY |

;
Ville hoes DERTVATION OF TIDPAS =) ge 660 oe
VIII. Tue OriciIn AND NATURE OF INSTITUTIONS . . . 139
xe Dae ORIGIN; AND) NATURE OR OGEBNCER 5980) = 1/3

PART LV

THE TREND OF HISTORY

Xen Miarsxcs) CONCEPT) OF CAPETATISMem ere 8 TOY
<M Chae BASIC ERINGCIPLES OF CAPITAUISMI ees) 9 5202
Mh. ine HATAT WEAKNESSES OF GAPITATISM = = = 220

THE TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM .

corsa Topp abd pia aa ea ee TPE ESE LO La alee taeCONTENTS

PART V

   

SOME CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS OF MARX’S THEORY

XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.

 

A SUMMARY OF THE CRUCIAL CLAIMS OF THE THEORY.
AN EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE THEORY .

THe NARROWNESS OF THE THEORY

SomME LocIcAL WEAKNESSES OF THE THEORY

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE THEORY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

OF HISTORY

349PART

THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

ATE EET Sce reper es RENE RCTS ISIS Be tee ESR S ENS? Ht PAA ARAL DS Eapee UO
a aCHAPTER I

TECHNIQUE

TEN years before Buckle’s History of Civilization in England was
published and twelve years before the Origin of Species was given
to the world, a book appeared in which was formulated an inter-
pretation of history, an evolutionary theory of society, at once
bold and pretentious. It claimed to account for the events of past
history and confidently predicted the future; and no phase of
human activity escaped its notice. A year later the same author,
in collaboration with his friend, issued a pamphlet which applied
this theory concretely, depicting the transition from feudalism to
the capitalist régime and pointing to the forces which gradually
but surely are undermining the present order and are working
remorselessly for the advent of socialism. The book was Karl
Marx’s Poverty of Philosophy, a polemic against Proudhon, and
the pamphlet was the Communist Manifesto. The conception of
history is known in the Old World as the materialistic, but in
America as the economic, interpretation of history.

Marx files a flaming protest against the views that the hidden
foundations and the guiding forces of human affairs are to be
found in the inscrutable decrees of Providence, in man’s intelli-
gence, or in great personages inspired by mighty ideas at fitful
moments. He urges that all phases of history and of social life
exhibit regularity and order of sequence just as the phenomena of
nature do, are following a definite path of evolutionary processes,
and are governed by ascertainable laws. Human history is not
subject to arbitrariness and confusion, nor is it a succession of
accidents of blind fate. There are inexorable objective forces that
govern civilization. These forces determine the nature of relation-
ships of man to man and of group to group, shape man’s ideas,
fashion his institutions, and direct the course of events to pre-
dictable goals. These forces are to be investigated in a detached,
scientific manner and are to be derived from history itself.

a
Se)

Sa CRRA eS

emer4 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

The prime movers, Marx urges, and the fundamental causes of
civilization are not to be sought in idealistic realms, but in much
humbler regions. To procure a livelihood, man is compelled to
come to terms with nature. He must work. This is his primordial
task, and to it he devotes his first efforts and his immediate atten-
tion. Herein indeed lies the foundation of all history. Work, pro-
duction, is the basic cause; all the rest is the consequent: society,
institutions, ideas, progress. This is what Engels had in mind
when he naively stated in his biographical sketch of Marx: “ His-
tory for the first time was placed on its real foundation; the
obvious fact, hitherto totally neglected, that first of all men
must eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, and therefore must
work, before they can struggle for supremacy and devote them-
selves to politics, religion, philosophy, etc.,— this obvious fact
at last found historical recognition.”

Marx and Engels by no means make clear the various elements
and characteristics embodied in their idea of the material basis of
social life. They employ numerous ways of designating it: first,
expressions centering around the word production, as “conditions
of production,” ‘‘form of production,” “process of production,”
“mode of production,” ‘organization of production”’; second, the
phrase ‘productive forces” and its variants, as ‘‘material produc-
tive forces,” “‘material forces of production,” “powers of produc-
tion.’ Therefore, if we are to ascertain what Marx considers the
dominant agency in human affairs, we must first analyze the con-
cepts of production and of productive forces.

9 66

Some supporters of Marx, as well as some of his critics, maintain
that by both these concepts he means nothing more than tech-
nique. They claim that his view was that the technical devices
and the instruments employed in the process of production have
an overpowering influence on the phenomena of human history,
and that the Marxian interpretation of history is therefore essen-
tially a technological interpretation.

1 Reprinted in Wilhelm Liebknecht’s Karl Marx, Biographical Memoirs, p. 49.
Particulars about works mentioned in this and all subsequent references will be

found in the bibliography.TECHNIQUE 5

Thus Professor Werner Sombart quotes from Marx’s preface to
the Critique of Political Economy and declares:

If these sentences are to have, in general, any meaning, it can only be this:
given a definite basis of technical development —for what “productive
forces” can be if not technical potentialities is hard to comprehend. This
technique determines the formation of economic life . . . this formation de-
termines all other culture. Or, as I expressed it previously, economic activity
is a function of technique, the remaining cultural phenomena are a function
of economic activity, which means (and Marx must mean this if his words
are not to be mere words): only a single economic potentiality (Wirtschafts-
méglichkeit) is conceivable with a given technique, only a single cultural
potentiality with a given mode of economic activity (Wirtschafisweise).'

Professor Paul Barth, the author of the excellent book Philoso-
phie der Geschichte als Soziologie, is of the same mind. He argues
that Marx contributed nothing in his interpretation of history,
and merely systematized Saint-Simon’s ideas relating to tech-
nology and class struggle. He points out that, whereas Saint-
Simon awards an independent status to ideas, Marx made them
entirely subordinate to the economic movement, and considered
all other social phenomena as resultants of technological progress;
only instead of technology he, Marx, generally employed such
expressions as “‘productive forces” or “mode of production of
material life.’”’ With Marx, Barth continues, all collective thought,
action, and suffering are phenomena directly or indirectly derived
from the development of material productive forces, which latter
are themselves primary phenomena, without independent causes.”
Barth supports his contentions by an array of quotations from
Marx, italicizing such terms as “‘production,” ““modes of produc-
tion and exchange,” ‘“‘material productive forces,” “‘process of
production of life,’’ and the like. He concludes: “There is there-
fore according to Marx this causal series: a determined state of
technique — determined industrial form (Betriebsform) — de-
termined property system . . .— determined political super-
structure — determined social forms of consciousness, which
are characterized as religious, artistic, or philosophical.” *

1 Archiv fiir Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik (1911), vol. xxxili, 316.
2 Philosophie der Geschichte als Soziologie, pp. 629, 633-635.
3 Ibid., pp. 635-638, 643.

bias, FOE BV eS 2a Aas

ween enTHE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

Professor A. H. Hansen follows the same method as Barth. He
cites several passages in which he italicizes “instruments,” “‘ma-
terial production,” and the like, and affirms: “Clearly this is
technology and not economics. . . . From these quotations it
must be clear that . . . he [Marx] finds the foundation upon
which the economic structure is built in technology, in the me-
chanical modes of production. He distinguishes, in short, be-
tween the economic basis of society and the technological basis
of society.” !

Other writers, socialists and non-socialists, agree that Marx
erects the whole realm of civilization on this narrow technological
basis. But many others insist that he has a broader view. Among
these we find Professor Seligman,” Tugan-Baranowsky,’? H. Cu-
now,’ and others.

Which group is right?

It is true that we can find several passages in the writings of
Marx which state more or less definitely that great importance is
to be attached to the réle of instruments in history, and which
hint at a technological theory of social development. A sentence
frequently quoted by those who hold that Marx adheres to this
narrower conception declares: ‘‘The windmill gives you society
with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial
capitalist.°

H. Cunow, the present editor of the noted orthodox socialistic
organ Die Neue Zeit, argues that Marx merely had in mind to
affirm here that a stage of economic development where the hand-
mill flourishes corresponds to feudalism, and that a stage where
the steam-mill is prevalent corresponds to capitalism; and, fur-
ther, Marx did not intend to maintain that technique determines
the form of society, for in the next sentence he teaches that the
mode of production, and not technique, conditions the changes in

1 Quarterly Journal of Economics (1921-22), vol. xxxvi, 73, 74-

2 Economic Interpretation of History, pp. 57, 58, 63-

3 Marxismus, pp. 8-9.

4 “Technik und Kultur,” Neue Zeit, vol. xxix, no. 2, pp. 855-859; “Die Stellung
der Technik in der Marxschen Wirtschaftsauffassung.”’ Ibid., vol. xxxix, No. 2,
PP. 316-322, 348-352.

5 Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, p. 119.TECHNIQUE 7

social relations.! The qualification urged by Cunow has weight.
It is clear, however, that Marx imputes to instruments vast power
in bringing about social transformations.’

There are also several statements in the first volume of Capital
wherein technique receives a good deal of prominence. Marx
says:

Relics of by-gone instruments of labor possess the same importance for
the investigation of extinct economic forms of society, as do fossil bones for
the determination of extinct species of animals. It is not the articles made,
but how they are made, and by what instruments, that enables us to dis-
tinguish different economic epochs. Instruments of labor not only supply a
standard (Gradmesser) of the degree of development to which human labor

has attained, but they are also indicators of the social conditions under which
that labor is carried on.*

It may be contended, however, and with some degree of confi-
dence, that the tenor of this pronouncement is not that instru-
ments constitute the cause, the acting force, bringing about new
economic epochs; they are of moment, rather, as an index of the
scale of development attained by labor, and as a symbol of the
social conditions attendant upon a given economic epoch. Indi-
cators are not causes, and it is the causes at work in history that
we are seeking. Thus Marx talks in a like manner of labor organ-
izations. Labor combinations, he suggests, have reached such a
stage that their degree of development in a country ‘“‘marks
clearly the level which that country occupies in the hierarchy of
the world market.” 4 He does not mean to intimate that labor
combinations are the factor determining a country’s position in
the hierarchy of markets; they are indexes. Engels refers in a

1 Neue Zeit, vol. xxix, no. 2 (1911), p. 856 n. The English translation of Marx’s
Poverty of Philosophy has “‘material productivity.”’ This is more accurate than
Cunow’s translation “‘mode of production ”’ (Produktionsweise), for the original has
““productivité matérielle.”” Marx wrote this book in French.

?

2 In the Communist Manifesto there is this well-known passage: “‘ The bourgeoisie
cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and
thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society”
(p. 16). This statement does not designate instruments as the sole causes of changes
in social relations; it leaves room for other causes. But it is obvious that it awards
them tremendous influence.

3 Capital, vol. i, 200. 4 Poverty of Philosophy, p. 187.

   

GMS Ash gperer a ciel ety)

     
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

—8 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

similar way to universal suffrage.’ An indicator, a characteristic
mark of anything, is not its determining cause, any more than the
quicksilver indicating the temperature is the cause of cold and
heat.

However, two opinions expressed in the same volume, but rele-
gated to footnotes, are very significant. One reads:

However little our written histories up to this time notice the develop-
ment of material production, which is the basis of all social life, and therefore
of all real history, yet prehistoric times have been classified in accordance
with the results, not of so-called historical, but of materialistic investigations.
These periods have been divided, to correspond with the materials from
which their implements and weapons are made, namely, into the stone, the
bronze, and the iron ages?

The other declaration is even more explicit:

Darwin has interested us in the history of Nature’s Technology, that is, in
the formation of the organs of plants and animals, which organs serve as in-
struments of production for sustaining life. Does not the history of the pro-
ductive organs of man, of organs that are the material basis of all social
organization, deserve equal attention? . . . Technology discloses man’s mode
of dealing with Nature, the process of production by which he sustains his
life, and thereby also lays bare the mode of formation of his social relations,
and of the mental conceptions that flow from them.*

This list is well-nigh exhaustive, so far as Marx is concerned.
Nowhere, perhaps, can one find in the writings of Engels a defi-
nite, unqualified statement that instruments constitute the mo-
tive power of history. The nearest approach is found in a letter
written by him in 1894. He advances there the following opinions.
By the economic conditions, which serve as the basis of social
history, is understood the manner in which men of a given society
produce their subsistence and exchange it. They include therefore
the ensemble of the technique of production and of transportation.
This technique determines (bestimmt) the mode of exchange and
of distribution of the products and thereby (damit) the division
of society into classes, thereby the relations of domination and sub-
jection, thereby the state, politics, law, and so forth. Economic
conditions comprise, further, the geographical basis, the survivals
of previous economic stages, conserved through tradition or vs

1 “Universal suffrage is the gauge of the maturity of the working class.” Origin
of the Family, p. 211. 2 Capital, vol. i, 200 n. 3 Ibid., p. 406 n.TECHNIQUE 9

inertiae, and, naturally, also the external milieu enveloping the
given social form. He concludes: ‘‘ We regard the economic con-
ditions as determining (bedingende), in the last instance, historical
development. But race is itself an economic factor.” ! Engels
here regards technique as a potent agent in history, but he hastens
to include other, non-technical, elements among the economic
condition which govern history.”

He also seems to attach much prominence to the potency of
implements when in his Origin of the Family he summarizes briefly
Morgan’s stages of primitive society. The middle stage of sav-
agery is introduced by the use of fish and fire, and the higher
stage by the invention of the bow and arrow; the three stages of
barbarism begin, respectively, with the art of pottery, with agri-
culture and the domestication of animals, and with the melting
of iron.’

However, we must keep in mind that in the preface to this book
Engels announces that primitive society is based primarily on the
organization of the family and not on the development of labor.*
It is evidently for this reason that he devotes only eight pages to
a summary of production under savagery and barbarism, whereas
the discussion of the structure of the primitive family is extended
over about seventy pages. Again, not all of the above earmarks
have reference to technique. The use of fish as food, the art of
pottery, the taming of animals, and the widening range of agri-
cultural pursuits can hardly be taken as designations of instru-
ments. In the third place, the various stages of savagery and
barbarism are not regarded by Marx and Engels as so many dis-
tinct modes of production; on the contrary, all these stages com-
bined represent one productive system, termed the gens. Engels

1 Reprinted in L. Woltmann’s Der Historische Materialismus, pp. 248 ff., and in
A. Labriola’s Socialisme et philosophie, pp. 257 ff.

2 One may add the following: “‘The whole of history up to the present time is to
be regarded as the history of the period extending from the time of the practical
discovery of the transformation of mechanical movement into heat to that of the
transformation of heat into mechanical movement.’ Landmarks of Scientific Social-
ism. Anti-Diihring, p.148. It is doubtful whether this statement is germane to the
question at hand; especially if we turn to the context, which is concerned with a

discussion of freedom and necessity.
3 Engels, Origin of the Family, pp. 27-34. 4 Ibid., pp. 8-9.

    

ST Moet abe Neae aks EE iebenea cena toa ce thet

    
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

err eetIO THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

makes many a statement to this effect in this book.! Marx, like-
wise, as will be seen in due course, finds four modes of production
in history, and the first mode is the gens, and not this or that
period of savagery or barbarism.”

The upholders of the view that Marx adheres to the narrower
conception point to other utterances in support of their claim.
But there Marx and Engels do not mention instruments; they
speak rather of “‘production”’ or of ‘material productive forces”
as the basis of history. Professor Barth cites: ‘‘A given civil right
is only the expression of a definite development of property, that
’% Professor Hansen, claiming that Engels
agrees with Marx in the emphasis on the technological basis of
society, quotes as evidence Engels’s statement that the “ultimate
cause and the great moving power of all important historic

‘

is, of production.’

events” is to be found in the
4

‘changes in the modes of produc-

tion and exchange.’’* These critics assume that ‘“‘production”’

‘

and ‘‘productive forces”’ are synonymous with ‘“‘instruments.”

However, in spite of the reservations which can be made re-
specting many of the foregoing citations, it must be granted that
at times a good deal of reliance is placed by Marx and Engels on
the efficacy of technique, and that those who give the narrower
construction to Marx’s view are not resting their case on wholly
untenable ground. Wilhelm Liebknecht tells us that Marx, ex-
cited and flushed over an electric locomotive that he had seen on
exhibition on Regent Street in London, at once became filled with
expectations of a speedy revolution. “Now the problem is
solved, —”’ he exclaimed, ‘‘the consequences are indefinable. In
the wake of the economic revolution the political must necessarily
follow, for the latter is only the expression of the former.” ° Marx
at times enjoyed making history hastily in his closet with his indi-
vidual assortment of especially prepared formulas.

1 “A growth of the middle stage and a product of further development during the
upper stage of savagery, the gens reached its prime . . . in the lower stage of bar-
barism”’ (p. 191).

2 See below, pp. 45 ff.

3 Barth, Philosophie der Geschichte als Soztologie, p. 636.

4 Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. xxxvi, 75-76.

W. Liebknecht, Karl Marx, Biographical Memoirs, p. 57.CHAPTER If

THE MODE OF PRODUCTION

Bur the whole case cannot be conceded to the claimants of the
technological interpretation. We cannot admit that, by and
large, the theory of Marx and Engels is a technological theory,
and that to the searcher for the Archimedian lever which would
move the universe of social history they would recommend the
instruments of production. The adherents of this narrower con-
ception are not convincing enough. They draw their evidence
from a handful of scattered citations, some important, others
doubtful; they assume that whenever “production” or “pro-
ductive forces’? are mentioned, ‘‘instruments’’ are meant. The
fact is that Marx and Engels seldom took sufficient pains to
elaborate carefully each concept they employed and each theory
they advanced. Hence the innumerable obscurities, inconsisten-
cies, and contradictions that baffle the critical reader. Roscher
once said about Marx: “‘.. . this gifted but not acute (scharfsinnig)
man was little capable of reducing complicated phenomena to
their constituent elements.” ! One may disagree with Roscher’s
verdict upon Marx’s ability, but no one can deny that Marx’s
looseness of expression is perplexing. Often, when the elaboration
of a concept is crucial in the discussion, he coins a new term in-
stead, and speeds on with his argument, leaving the confused
reader with yet another term to puzzle over. He had been writing
and talking class and class struggle since 1847, but it never oc-
curred to him that such terms had to be explained. Only a quar-
ter of a century later he undertook to discuss the nature of a class
in the last pages of the third volume of Capital; but the attempt
was left uncompleted.

We must therefore proceed with caution. Is Professor Sombart
justified in declaring without ado that by productive forces Marx

1 W. Roscher, Geschichte der National-Oeckonomik in Deutschland, p. 1021.

It

ee12 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

cc

means only “‘technical possibilities”? Is Professor Barth right in
concluding that Marx makes technological progress the basis of
all social phenomena, while acknowledging that Marx generally
speaks of productive forces and mode of production rather than
of technology? Is Professor Hansen on solid ground when he
claims that Engels follows Marx in the technological interpreta-
tion, because he, Engels, holds that the mode of production and of
exchange is the ultimate cause of historic events?

In the typical and well-known passages where Marx and Engels
formulate their theory of history, the mode of production or the
material productive forces are advanced as the foundation of all
other phases of social existence. In the preface to the Critique of
Political Economy, where he gives the best-known statement of
the theory, Marx declares:

In the social production which men carry on they enter into definite rela-
tions that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of
production (Produktionsverhdltnisse) correspond to a definite stage of de-
velopment of their material forces of production (Produktionskrafte). The
sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure
of society — the real foundation on which rise legal and political superstruc-
tures and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The
mode of production (Produktionsweise) in material life determines (bedingt)
the general character of the social, political and spiritual processes of life.
Engels announces in Socialism, Utopian and Scientific: *

The materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the
production of the means to support human life and, next to production, the
exchange of things produced, is the basis of all social structure. .. . From this
point of view the final causes of all social changes and political revolutions
are to be sought . . . in changes in the modes of production and exchange.

What did Marx and Engels intend, then, to denote, first, by the
mode of production, and second, by productive forces?

Marx analyzes production in the first volume of Capztal.? ‘The
labor-process or the production of use-values”’ is the means of
gaining the material requirements of life. Man can satisfy his
needs for existence by wrestling with nature, appropriating her

1 Critique of Political Economy, p. 11. Italics are mine.

2 Page 45. Italics are mine.
3 Ch. 7, section 1, pp. 197-206.THE MODE OF PRODUCTION 13

products, changing the form of matter obtained from her, and
transporting the goods from place to place—for roads and canals
are ‘‘necessary for carrying on the labor-process.” * Thus produc-
tion is an undertaking which creates form and place utilities. In
primitive days the reaction between man and nature was simple:
man used his own limbs as instruments for procuring wild fruit
and herbs. Later, the process of production became complicated,
roundabout, since raw materials and implements had to be pre-
pared first. But at all times, ‘““The elementary factors of the
labor-process are (1) the personal activity of man, that is, work
itself; (2) the object (Gegenstand) of that work; and (3), its in-
struments.” 2 This reminds one of the “trinitarian formula,”
labor, land, capital. However, Marx gives his factors somewhat
different meanings.

That Marx counts labor as a vital agency in production every-
one knows. Nothing has value unless “fermented” with labor.
Living labor must seize upon natural resources and ‘“‘rouse them
from their death-sleep, change them from mere possible use-values
into real and effective ones. Bathed in the fire of labor, ap-
propriated as part and parcel of labor’s organism,” they can
become use-values, means of subsistence, or means of further pro-
duction.®

Labor, Marx says, is the activity of man, the expenditure of
brain, muscle, and nerve. The laborer starts, regulates, and con-
trols the material reactions between himself and nature; exerts
his bodily organs, arms and legs, head and hands. He is not, like
the spider, controlled by instincts in his work; he knows what
products he needs, plans his work, and sees the result in his imagi-
nation before the labor-process has started. He calls into action
reason and cunning in his contest with nature.*

Labor directs its energies upon the second factor, the object of
labor (Arbeitsgegenstand). By this Marx understands “‘all those

1 Page 201.

2 Page 198. The English translation has ‘‘subject’’ for Gegenstand. ‘‘Object”’
is more appropriate. The French translation has /’objet: see G. Deville’s edition of
Capital (Paris, 1897), p. 112.

3 Capital, vol. i, 204.
4 Ibid., p. 198.

‘

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a enrengrue or14 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

things which labor merely separates from immediate connection
with their environment,” and which “‘are spontaneously provided
by Nature,” as fish, water, timber in the virgin forests, and ores.
When labor has been applied to such objects, we have as a result
raw materials. The raw material may constitute the principal
substance of a product, as seeds, cotton, yarn; or it may enter into
the formation of the product merely as an accessory, that is, it
may be consumed in the process, like coal and oil; or it may serve
to modify the principal raw material, like chlorine applied to un-
bleached linen, or dye-stuff to wool; or it may merely help to carry
on the work, as lighting and heating the workshop.’

The third factor, the instrument of labor, “‘is a thing or a com-
plex of things which the laborer interposes between himself and
the object of his labor, and which serves as the conductor of his
activity. He makes use of the mechanical, physical, and chemical
properties of some substances in order to make other substances
subservient to his aims.” ? Some instruments aid in directly trans-
ferring the energy of labor to its objects. Such are stones em-
ployed by primitive man in throwing, grinding, pressing, cutting;
the earth as the instrument in agriculture; domestic animals,
bred and tamed by man; and wood, bones, shells, applied as con-
ductors in various labor processes. Another class of instruments
comprises things otherwise necessary in production, such as the
earth furnishing the locus standi, workshops, roads, canals, tubes,
baskets, buildings, furnaces.’

The instruments together with the object of labor constitute
‘“means of produc-

‘

what Marx terms the objective factor, the
tion.”’ “If we examine the whole process from the point of view
of its result, the product, it is plain that both the instruments and
the object of labor are means of production.” *

It is evident that to Marx instruments connote something
larger than what the word technique commonly suggests; animals,
earth, buildings, roads, canals are included. The term “means of
production” is even more inclusive, for it embraces not only in-
1 Capital, vol.i, 199, 202-203. 2 Ibid., p. 199.

5 Ibid., pp. 200-201, 682. 4 Tbid., p. 201.THE MODE OF PRODUCTION IS

struments, but the objects of labor as well, that is, raw material
(coal, oil, cotton) and auxiliaries (fuel, dye-stuffs).

But even the concept of technique does not stand in Marx’s
mind for instruments alone. He makes it clear that technique,
at least as it is employed in modern industry, is closely allied with
discoveries, inventions, and scientific achievements. Technique
and science are intimately bound up with each other. The modern
bourgeoisie, in its emphasis on elaborate technical devices and
apparatus, is the great employer of science. Already at the dawn
of capitalism the nascent middle class realized the indispensability
of science. Engels says: “‘the bourgeoisie, for the development of
its industrial production, required a science which ascertained the
physical properties of natural objects and the modes of action of
the forces of Nature’’; and, he continues, since science at that
time rebelled against the stultifying restrictions of the Church,
the bourgeoisie joined science in its fight against Catholicism.’

The alliance has been more pronounced since the beginning of
the second era of capitalism.2, When in England, Marx tells us,
the market expanded so much that hand labor no longer sufficed
to satisfy the demand, the need for machinery was felt, and then
commenced the intensive application of science which had been
ready to hand since the eighteenth century.? Modern industry,
with its vast employment of machinery and its intricate processes,
is, in its technological aspects, essentially a scientific enterprise.
The machine, he teaches, eliminates the rule of thumb and neces-
sitates the introduction of science at every step.* The elaborate
hierarchy of operations, steps, and details; their succession, inter-
dependence, and coérdination — are problems proposed, analyzed,
and determined by mechanics and chemistry, by “‘the whole range
of the natural sciences.”’® The whole scheme of capitalistic pro-

1 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. xx.

2 Marx divides capitalism into two eras: the first, which he terms manufacture,
lasted from the dissolution of feudalism to the coming of the Industrial Revolution;
the second era began with the Industrial Revolution. More will be said about this
later.

3 Poverty of Philosophy, p. 152.

4 Capital, vol.i, 421.
5 Tbid., pp. 415, 504.

ZS sg a EE

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
  
   

——:16 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

duction is therefore transformed “‘into a technological application
of science.”’! It is an incorporation of the stupendous physical
forces and the natural sciences; it amalgamates codperative labor
of the physical kind with the ‘universal labor of the human
mind,” that is, ‘‘scientific labor, such as discoveries and inven-
tions,”’ accumulated by the efforts of the present generation, and
from the legacies of the past.” —To Marx, technique is inseparably
connected with science.

Marx slights the fourth factor of production, the entrepreneur,
but he understands perfectly well the nature of his functions. The
labor process calls into operation the hand and the head. The
two were used by the same person in the days when the artisan
worked for himself. But when, under capitalism, the roundabout,
complex mode of production is brought into being; when vast
masses of laborers collaborate under one roof, the worker becomes
an automaton, while “the knowledge, the judgment, the will,”
and the intelligence are transferred to, and concentrated in, the
capitalist.2 Whenever a large body of individuals cooperate, a
“directing authority,” a ‘commanding will” is required to organ-
ize the labyrinthal division of labor, to adjust and apportion the
multitude of tasks, and to secure unity and connection by blend-
ing the processes into a coérdinated ‘whole. This “directing,
superintending, and adjusting”’ constitutes part of the work of the
capitalist. He is the general on the field of battle, the director of
the orchestra.? In addition, he supervises or attends himself to
the purchasing of appliances and materials and to the hiring of
labor; he sees that the proper quality is selected, that the work is
performed efficiently, that there is no waste in the factors of pro-
duction; and he studies the market in order to sell profitably.°
Marx is wavering, however, on the question of rewarding the
capitalist for his pains. At times he denies him any title to a re-
turn, and fights off his claim with sophistry, sarcasm, and circular
reasoning. At other moments he is more lenient, but he decrees

1 Capital, vol. i, 684. 2 Ibid., vol. i, 422, and vol. ili, 124.
3 Tbid., vol. i, 557, 396-397.

4 Ibid., vol. i, 363, and vol. ili, 451.

5 Tbid., vol. i, 205-206, 210, 337.THE MODE OF PRODUCTION 17

that ‘‘wages of superintendence”’ go to the hired managers — for
Marx has changed his mind: they, and not the capitalist employer,
perform all the duties of supervising, controlling, and leading."

The mode of production is not synonymous, then, with tech-
nique. The concept is much wider; it subsumes the ensemble of
three agencies, man, nature, technique. A given system of pro-
duction is defined not only by the type of instruments employed,
but also by the peculiarities of the other two factors. Moreover,
as will be seen in the subsequent argument, one régime of produc-
tion will be superseded by another, not solely when the instru-
ments have undergone a change, but also when alterations have
occurred in the form of labor or in the geographical surroundings.
In other words, production is not a function of technique only,
as Professor Sombart would have it,? but of labor and of land as
well.

Thus the general nature of the laborer and the grouping of the
workers in a scheme of division and of coéperation of labor char-
acterize a mode of production and exert a potent influence on it.
The skilled laborer, for example, is the basis of the system of pro-
duction prevalent in the so-called manufacturing period; and
Marx points out that one of the greatest obstacles to the fullest
development of this form of production was the insubordination
of the worker who knew that all depended on his skill. Economic
production is fostered or fettered by the traits of the worker.
“Apart from the degree of development, greater or less, in the
form of social production, the productiveness of labor is fettered
by physical conditions. These are all referable to the constitution
of man himself (race, etc.) and to surrounding nature.’ * Engels
refers to division of labor as ‘‘that instrument of production, the
mightiest up to the time of the introduction of the greater indus-
try.” > Likewise with codperation of labor. The productive

1 Capital, vol. i, 213-215, 364-365, and vol. ili, 455-457-

2 See p. 5, above.

3 Capital, vol.i, 403.

4 Ibid., p. 562.

5 Landmarks of Scientific Socialism. Anti-Diihring, p. 238. Hereafter this work
will be referred to, briefly, as Anti-Diihring.

rere as TA Gk Take PGES oa Se Lee ee ee cS18 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

power of social labor is declared to be greater, because ‘‘ When the
laborer codperates systematically with others, he strips off the
fetters of his individuality, and develops the capabilities of his
species.” * Codperation and division of labor are taken by Marx
as the general causes of the productiveness of labor.?

It is to be admitted that passages like these, dealing as they do
with the productiveness of labor, are hardly conclusive when the
point at issue is the concept of the mode of production. Yet they
should not be wholly disregarded. In the first place, they indicate
in a general way that Marx was aware of the diverse elements that
figure in production, and that technical appliances had not taken
sole possession of his mind. In the second place, the degree of
productivity plays an effective part in his theory; for greater
productiveness means greater surplus-value, and therefore greater
accumulation and concentration of capital, greater preponderance
of the “constant” over the ‘‘variable”’ elements of capital, a
greater reserve army, and therefore a speedier and more certain
development of the forces that effect the extirpation of the present
mode of production and the institution of socialism. In some cases
greater productiveness of labor directly implies a change in the
system of production. For example, to double the productiveness
of the shoemaker per unit of time, and not through the prolonga-
tion of the working day, and thereby to make him yield more
surplus value, implies ‘‘an alteration in his tools or in his mode
of working, or in both. Hence, the conditions of production,
that is, his mode of production, and the labor-process itself,
must be revolutionized. . . . The technical and social conditions
of the process, and consequently the very mode of production
must be revolutionized, before the productiveness of labor can
be increased.’’$

Furthermore, a régime of production not only is earmarked by
the type and the grouping of the laborers, but is also subject to a
radical transformation when a change occurs in their organiza-
tion. Marx makes observations like the following:

Even without an alteration in the system of working, the simultaneous
employment of a large number of laborers effects a revolution in the material

1 Capital, vol. i, 361. 2 Tbid., vol. iii, 754. 8 Ibid., vol.1, 345.THE MODE OF PRODUCTION

 

conditions of the labor-process.! . . . The guilds of the middle ages therefore
tried to prevent by force the transformation of the master of a trade into a
capitalist, by limiting the number of laborers that could be employed by one
master within a very small maximum . . . merely quantitative differences
beyond a certain point pass into qualitative changes.”

‘“‘Tn manufacture, the revolution in the mode of production begins
with the labor-power,” * and “‘manufacture thoroughly revolu-
tionizes”’ the mode of working by introducing detailed division of
labor.4 Discussing the distinctive features of capitalism he de-
clares: “‘... the form of labor, as wage-labor, determines the shape
of the entire process and the specific mode of production itself.” °

It is clear that labor and its organization have a good deal to do
with a mode of production and its vicissitudes. The same is true
of the second agency in the labor-process, the object of labor.
Here we deal with nature, since all the elements that are comprised
in this agency are natural resources.

Nature furnishes the matter on which labor can direct its
efforts, physical and mental. The earth is ‘the original field of
activity of labor,” “‘the realm of natural forces,” “the preéxisting
armory of all objects of labor.’’® It is man’s larder as well as his
“original tool house.”’ It furnishes the means of production —
the object of labor and instruments, to remind ourselves of the
Marxian terminology. For, ‘“‘just as in the beginning, the only
participators in the labor-process were man and the earth . . . so
even now we still employ in the process many means of produc-
tion, provided directly by nature, that do not represent any com-
bination of natural substances with human labor.”” Nature in
general is considered by Marx as an indispensable source of
wealth. His first criticism of the Gotha program submitted to
him for approval was that it emphasized labor as the dominant
element in production, and therefore as the only source of wealth.
“Labor is not the source of all wealth,” he objected: “Nature is
just as much the source . . . as is labor.” § On another occasion he
affirms that, if the labor expended on commodities is subtracted,

99 6¢

1 Capital, vol. i, 355. 2 Ibid., pp. 337-338, 362. 3 Ibid., p. 405.
4 Ibid., p. 396. 5 [bid., vol. iil, 1028.
§ Tbid.,vol. iii, 96r. 7 [bid., vol. i, 199, 204.

8 Translation in International Socialist Review, vol. viii (1907-1908), p. 643.

eT LT NESTA T 7) DEERE Pe EL TOTES

19

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

etm20 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

“‘a material substratum is always left, which is furnished by
Nature without the help of man. ...As William Petty puts it,
labor is its [wealth’s] father and the earth its mother.” !

The peculiarities of Nature’s resources determine the scope and
character of the technical methods employed and at times force a
change in the instruments themselves. ‘It was partly the want
of streams with a good fall on them, and partly their battles with
superabundance of water in other respects, that compelled the
Dutch to resort to wind as a motive power.”’? On the contrary,
in England the wind was ‘‘too inconstant and uncontrollable”’;
therefore water-power was used. And since this, too, was beset
with difficulties, people were stimulated to investigate the ‘‘scien-
tific and technical elements” of production.

Differences in natural resources, or variations in their supply,
have, moreover, a notable effect on the productiveness of labor,
and even entail alterations in the mode of production. “The
productivity of labor,” says Marx, “‘is also conditioned on natural
premises. . . . Consider, for instance, the mere influence of the
seasons, on which the greater part of the raw material depends
for its mass, the exhaustion of forests, coal and iron mines, etc.”’ 4
And he generalizes that productiveness of labor is fettered by
‘“‘external physical conditions,” which ‘‘fall into two great eco-
nomic classes: (1) natural wealth in means of subsistence, that is,
a fruitful soil, waters teeming with fish, etc.; and (2) natural
wealth in instruments of labor, such as waterfalls, navigable
rivers, wood, metal, coal, etc. At the dawn of civilization it is the
first class that turns the scale; at a higher stage of development it
is the second.” > ‘‘ Different communities,”’ he urges, ‘‘find differ-
ent means of production ® and different means of subsistence in
their natural environment. Hence their mode of production and

~

of living and their products are different.”’” It is likely, however,

1 Capital, vol. i, 50. 2 Tbid., p. 409 Nn.
3 [bid., pp. 411-412. 4 Tbid., vol. iii, 305.
® ibid., vol.i, 562. Note that Marx changes his terminology: wood, metal, coal
, are objects of labor and not instruments of labor.
6 And, again, means of production refer both to the objects of labor and to in-
struments.
” Capital, vol.i, 386.THE MODE OF PRODUCTION 21

that he had in mind primitive or backward communities. It is
doubtful whether he would insist that, even in modern times,
differences in natural wealth will result in different productive
systems, for he must have known that developed means of com-
munication and an extensive system of international trade would
minimize the effect of such barriers."

That the third factor, technique, is a prominent characteristic
of a system of production is clear from previous discussion. A
radical reorganization of the technical appliances and procedures
will change the nature of a mode of production. The distinguish-
ing mark of the second phase of capitalism, which followed upon
the Industrial Revolution, is, in Marx’s view, the pervasive em-
ployment of machinery.

It may be remarked here, parenthetically, that Marx views
changes in the character of labor and technique as occurring
historically, that is, in time; while differences in natural resources,
climate, and the like, he envisages as appearing in space. Marx
did not take account of theorems such as Professor Ellsworth
Huntington has since advanced, to the effect that climatic phe-
nomena, too, are subject to secular changes.

It would be misleading, however, to ascribe to Marx and Engels
the view that a mode of production is a clear-cut function of one
or more of the three factors, and that, therefore, as soon as a
factor is altered, the mode of production is automatically recast.
Marx, it should be remembered, was a strong adherent of a form
of the doctrine of relativity. An event, a factor, cannot of its own
power achieve transformations in the economic order: it must
harmonize with other events, it must permit of blending with the
other factors. There is the indispensable prerequisite of an en-
semble of elements creating a milieu in which the new arrival can
thrive and make its influence manifest.

Thus division of labor is the chief characteristic of the mode of
production in the manufacturing period; but division of labor
could not have established itself firmly if it had not been for the
chain of historical occurrences that Marx terms “primitive ac-
cumulation,” and discusses in a chapter with that title in the first

1 Cf. Engels, Anti-Dihring, p. 244.

 

se emer em22 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

volume of his Capital. The part nature plays is likewise contin-
gent upon other circumstances. It is true, indeed, that if nature
is niggardly and does not allow the laborer a degree of productive-
ness which will leave him a surplus above his needs, there can be
no phenomenon of surplus-labor, ‘‘and therefore no capitalists,
no slave-owners, no feudal lords, in one word, no class of large
proprietors. Thus we may say that surplus-value rests on a
natural basis.”?1 But no; nature can furnish the “possibility,
never the reality, of surplus-labor, nor, consequently, of surplus-
value and a surplus product.” Favorable natural conditions
augment the productiveness of labor, but this productiveness is
also dependent on a certain development of man and on his know-
ledge in contending with nature; and surplus-value, in its turn,
predicates the operation of forces that compel one man to sur-
render his surplus-labor to another. ‘‘ Capital with its accompany-
ing relations springs up from an economic soil that is the product
of a long process of development. The productiveness of labor
that serves as its foundation and starting-point is a gift, not of
nature, but of a history embracing thousands of centuries.” ”
Similarly, to assert that technique is the prime mover of the
organization of a productive system is to fly in the face of the
cardinal tenet in Marx’s social philosophy. It is true that he con-
siders the machine as the basis of modern capitalism. But this
does not mean that technique alone can compel a change in a
mode of production. It can achieve such an end only if the other
factors permit it. Marx acknowledges that ‘‘The inventions of
Vaucanson, Arkwright, Watt, and others were, however, practi-
cable only because those inventors found, ready to hand, a con-
siderable number of skilled mechanical workmen, placed at their
disposal by the manufacturing period.” * If technique and a mode
of production were synonymous, the arrival in a given country of
new technical inventions ought to signal a transformation in the
productive régime. Yet Marx points to “‘the invention nowadays
of machines in England that are employed only in North America;
just as in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries machines were
invented in Germany to be used only in Holland, and just as many

1 Capital, vol.i, 561. 2 Tbid., pp. 561-564. 3 Ibid., p. 417.THE MODE OF PRODUCTION

 

23

a French invention of the eighteenth century was exploited in
England alone.” *

A machine cannot introduce capitalism unless capitalism fits
into the general situation. Marx emphasizes this idea when he
says: ‘‘A negro isa negro. In certain conditions he is transformed
into a slave. A spinning jenny is a machine for spinning cotton.
Only under certain circumstances does it become capital. Outside
these circumstances it is no more capital than gold is intrinsically
money, or sugar is the price of sugar.” ? A man may possess
money, means of subsistence, machines, and other requisites of
production. But this will not stamp him as a capitalist unless
there is ‘‘the correlative — the wage-worker, the other man who
is compelled to sell himself of his own free will.” If every direct
producer had his own machinery and other appliances, society,
according to Marx, would not thereby become capitalistic. Only
when the means of production are owned by those who do not
work, and only as they are employed for the exploitation and the
subjection of the propertyless laborers, is there a capitalistic
form of production.* ‘‘The separation of labor from its product,
of subjective labor-power from the objective conditions of labor,
was therefore the real foundation in fact, and the starting-point
of capitalist production.” *

By production Marx comprehends something of still wider
scope, for he is aware that it has interrelations with other eco-
nomic functions, as consumption, distribution, and exchange.
He discusses this aspect in an incomplete sketch, very abstruse
and obscure, published long after his death.° In the early part of
this sketch he accords little significance to these economic func-
tions in their relation to production. He begins by indicating that
in some respects there is an interaction between production and
consumption. Wants furnish the impulse to production; while

1 Capital, vol. i, 429.

2 Wage-Labor and Capital, p. 28. Cf. Capital, vol. ili, 948.

3 Capital, vol. i, 839-840, and vol. iii, 207.

4 Tbid., vol. i, 624-625.

5 Neue Zeit, vol. xxi, no. 1, pp. 710-718, 741-745, 772-781. It is found in Eng-
lish as an appendix to the Critique of Political Economy, pp. 265-312.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    

Ne Wel thahils .c.bacab tea) SF pcg sd BA ree reer
abs. See a: Te PRET ee ee eas s : ipa eR Ls

 

224 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

production, filling the market with multifarious articles, develops
the tastes and the demands of the consumers.! After discussing a
few similar points, he hastens, however, to deprive consumption
of any influence on production, and declares that “‘it is the sim-
plest matter with a Hegelian to treat production and consumption
as identical,” but in reality they appear as one process, “‘in which
production forms the actual starting-point and is, therefore, the
predominating factor. Consumption, as a natural necessity, as a
want, constitutes an internal factor of productive activity, but
the latter is the starting-point of realization and, therefore, its
predominating factor. . . . Consumption thus appears as a factor
of production.” ”

In much the same manner distribution is held to be a creature
of production. In the first place, only the fruits of production
can be distributed. In the second place, a definite organization of
production, a definite manner of grouping the participants in the
productive enterprise, provides a framework for the distribution
of the resulting products.’ In his criticism of the Gotha program
he indicates that it committed an error by emphasizing distribu-
tion, since ‘‘ Under any and all circumstances, the distribution of
the means of consumption is but the result of the distribution of
the conditions of production, itself.”’ 4 It may appear, he contin-
ues in the sketch, that in some cases distribution antedates and
therefore determines production. A conquering people may turn
the vanquished into slaves, and establish for itself a mode of pro-
duction with slave labor as the basis. But, Marx urges, this
merely implies that the conquerors introduce, not a new kind of
distribution, but rather a new régime of production. Moreover,
the mode of production in vogue with the conquerors must have
been of such a nature as to admit of slave labor; else the innova-
tion will not endure. Likewise, a revolution may break up large
estates into small parcels, or a law may introduce and perpetuate
small holdings, and, because of the redistribution of wealth, in-
augurate a new organization of production. But, he insists, this

1 Critique of Political Economy, appendix, p. 280.
2 Thid., pp. 282-283. 3 Ibid., p. 286.
4 International Socialist Review, vol. vill, 650.THE MODE OF PRODUCTION 25

will be of no avail, for concentration of land holdings will soon re-
establish itself, unless, indeed, the parceling of land is compatible
with the existing productive order. In both these cases we do not
see a distribution of wealth leading subsequently to new modes of
production; we deal rather with a new organization of production,
with a new alignment of the agents of the productive processes,
which, once in effect, brings about corresponding changes in dis-
tribution.! Similarly, while Marx holds that, before capitalistic
production could be instituted, there had to be an expropriation
of laborers on the one hand and a concentration of wealth on the
other, he maintains that this is not distribution in the same sense
in which he commonly employs the term; and he proceeds to elab-
orate the point on a few nebulous pages in the third volume of
Capital (pp. 1024 ff.).

Nor does he at first impute much effect to exchange, be it ex-
change in the narrow or broad sense, that is, exchange between
producers within a city, between town and country, or between
distant commercial markets. Exchange is determined by produc-
tion, “and is itself a species of productive activity. . . . Exchange
thus appears in all its aspects to be directly included in or deter-
mined by production.” ”

But he definitely speaks his mind when he summarizes the
discussion in this article. Then he changes his tone, and declares
that exchange, distribution,and consumption are closely affili-
ated to production, He begins haltingly, but The concludes on a
firm note:

 

The result we arrive at is not that production, distribution, exchange, and
consumption are identical, but that they are all members of one entity,
different sides of one unit. Production predominates . . . over the other
elements. . . . Of course production . . . is in its turn influenced by other
elements; for example, with the expansion of the market, — that is, of the
sphere of exchange, — production grows in volume and is subdivided to a
greater extent. Witha change in distribution, production undergoes a change;
as, for example, in the case of concentration of capital....* Finally, the de-
mands of consumption also influence production. A mutual interaction

1 Critique of Political Economy, appendix, pp. 287—28a.
2 Ibid., pp. 290-201.
3 Cf. Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 178.

SESE Chap ea a SSS a a a a
MIG eee ey ai SF SAS RS aa St i a at

    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

—26 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

takes place between the various elements. Such is the case with every or-
ganic body.!

Viewed in the light of all the scattered passages in which Marx
says anything about the problem, this summary is an accurate
statement of his position, except that he ordinarily considers ex-
change of greater moment than the summary suggests. This
point deserves further attention.

Exchange is almost invariably assigned a very prominent réle
in influencing some of the factors of production, in affecting the
advent of new economic systems, and in guiding the course of
history in general. The nature and extent of the market put a
stamp on the division of labor in the different epochs, and furnish
the possibility of its development.? Markets and commerce de-
molish old modes of production and erect new ones.

In the pre-capitalist stages of society, commerce rules industry. The re-
verse is true of modern society. Of course, commerce will have more or less
of a reaction on the societies between which it is carried on . . . it dissolves all
old conditions . . . corrodes production itself more and more, making entire
lines of production dependent on it. However, this dissolving effect depends
to a large degree on the nature of the producing society.’

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the great revolutions
in commerce “‘form one of the principal elements in the transition
from feudal to capitalist production”’; and the expansion of the
markets and the colonial system aided a good deal in establishing
the first phase of capitalism, namely, the manufacturing period.*
‘““Meanwhile the markets kept ever growing, the demand, ever
rising. Even manufacture no longer sufficed. Thereupon, steam
and machinery revolutionized industrial production,” introducing
the second phase of capitalism.® Even under this latter régime,
the bourgeoisie can attain its fullest power only in that country
which has conquered for its industry a world market, since the
national boundaries are not sufficient for industrial development.®
Exchange is held in such esteem that the Communist Manztfesto
couples it with the mode of production as the prime movers of

1 Critique of Political Economy, appendix, pp. 291-292.

2 Poverty of Philosophy, p. 139; Capital, vol. i, 388.

3 Capital, vol. iii, 389. 4 Tbid., p. 391.

5 Communist Manifesto, p. 14. 6 Klassenkimpfe in Frankreich, pp. 31-32.THE MODE OF PRODUCTION

 

historical events. So does Engels when, in his condensed formula-
tions of the economic interpretation of history, he points to the
foundation of social processes.1 To him production and exchange
‘become so mutually involved at a given time and react one upon
the other that they might be designated the abscissas and ordi-

nates of the economic curve.” ”

This concludes the discussion of the concept ‘“‘mode of produc-
tion.” The result of our inquiry is that the mode of production is
an organic whole, representing a combination of three elements;
that it will undergo a transformation when a significant variation
occurs in the character of one or more of these elements; that they
do not constitute disparate items, like so many pebbles in a pile,
but are harmoniously related and mutually dependent one upon
another; and that, furthermore, a régime of production is in close
alliance with distribution, — Ee cmonom and particularly ex ex-
change. If the analysis is in the main sound, it follows that by

‘mode of production”? Marx intended to denote, not merely the
technical methods employed in producing goods, but something
vastly more comprehensive. When he urges that the mode of
production is the basis of human history, he does not propose a
technological theory, but a much broader one.

 

As we have seen, when indicating the factors that direct the
course of civilization and that furnish the key to the understand-
ing of historical processes in all their complexity, Marx names the
productive forces as frequently as the mode of production. The
study of this other concept, therefore, should throw additional
light on the question at issue.

In referring to the mode of production and to the productive
forces, he does not mean that there are two distinct foundations
of history. He is dealing, not with two different entities, but with

one thing viewed in different lights. The mode of production is a

1 Anti-Diihring, p. 48 (the English translation has “method of production and
distribution”; it should be “production and exchange,” since the original gives
“ Produktions- und Verkehrsverhilinisse”); Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, pp.
viii, 41, 45; preface of 1888 to the Communist Manifesto.

2 Anti-Diihring, p. 176.

27

 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    

zx BETO oT

CT se ashes cag Ean ba cE a a a a len once REC.28 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

general term representing a totality of elements that combine to
provide for society the means of existence. Productive forces, on
the other hand, allude directly to these elements. The one notion
has reference to the collective, organic unit; the other, to the parts
that go to make it.

The productive forces are the raw material out of which a sys-
tem of production is fashioned. They give it flesh, blood, and
physiognomy. Each régime of production depends for its exist-
ence on the development of the prerequisite productive forces.
The scientific analysis of capitalism, Marx teaches, demonstrates
that its nature and peculiarities are specifically defined by histori-
cal development, and ‘‘that it, like any other definite mode of
production, is conditioned upon a certain stage of social produc-
tivity and upon the historically developed form of the forces of
production.’”’! If the prevailing productive forces are unripe, the
resulting form of production is likewise immature. Discussing
surplus-labor under serfdom, he remarks that since it “rests upon
the imperfect development of all productive powers of society,”
it yields possibilities for a smaller portion of surplus-labor “than
under developed modes of production.” But as soon as the pro-
ductive forces reach maturity or change their character, a new
organization of production does not fail to arrive, and a new social
order is instituted. A much-quoted passage states: “In acquiring
new productive forces men change their mode of production, and
in changing their mode of production, their manner of gaining a
living, they change all their social relations.” * This is the manner
in which capitalism will go under, to cede its place to the trium-
phant higher order. ‘‘The development of the productive forces
of social labor is the historical task and privilege of capital. It is
precisely in this way that it unconsciously creates the material
requirements of a higher mode of production.” * Critics and in-

1 Capital, vol. iil, 1023. 2 Tbid., pp. 921-922.

3 Poverty of Philosophy, p. 119.

4 Capital, vol. iii, 304. That the productive forces furnish the material conditions
of a new society, Marx reiterates when he mentions some of the disrupting elements
under capitalism: ‘‘Let us observe that competition always becomes more destruc-
tive of bourgeois relations in proportion as it excites to a feverish creation of new
productive forces — that is to say, of the material conditions of a new society.”’THE MODE OF PRODUCTION

terpreters of Marx recognize the foremost position that productive
forces occupy in his scheme. Professor Barth gives to his discus-
sion of the materialistic interpretation of history the title: ‘Die
Geschichte, gelenkt durch die Produktionskrafte (Marx, Engels,
Marxianer).”? 1 Tugan-Baranowsky, when explaining what Marx
holds as the basis of history, limits his analysis to a consideration
of the productive forces.

What are these far-reaching productive forces? In the preface
to the Critique of Political Economy Marx offers an account of the
motives that in 1843 took him away from his professional studies
of jurisprudence, philosophy, and history, and led him to the
study of political economy. Among these motives he mentions
‘“‘the debates between free trade and protection” in Germany.
We recall that in those years the renewal of the German Customs
Union (Zollverein) was under discussion, and that F. List was the
chief agitator for protection. In numerous articles and in his
National System the idea of productive forces was propounded
with great vigor. It is likely that Marx borrowed the term from
List.” A productive force, in List’s view, is any agency, spiritual or
material, that aids a nation in the production of material wealth;
as religion, government, institutions, transportation, etc.? Marx
eliminates “‘ideologies”’ and includes only those elements which,
to his mind, are essentially materialistic. A list of some of these
is given in the Communist Manifesto, where we read:

The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created

more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding
generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery,

Poverty of Philosophy, pp. 163-164. ‘‘Hence the credit system accelerates the ma-
terial development of the forces of production and the establishment of a world
market. To bring these material foundations of the new mode of production to a
certain degree of perfection, is the historical mission of the capitalist system of
production.” Capital, vol. iii, 522.

1 Philosophie der Geschichte als Soziologie, p. 627.

2 Or else, he may have learned of the term later when studying the English
socialists and economists. We meet in Adam Smith and Ricardo quite frequently
the expression “‘productive powers.” The English socialists, John Gray, for ex-
ample, employ it, too. That Marx was aware of this is evident from quotations from
these men in which the expression occurs. See Poverty of Philosophy, p. 204; Capital,
vol. i, 657n., 681.

3 National System, book 2, ch. 2, and passim.

2930 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam navigation, rail-
ways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canali-
zation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground — what earlier
century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in
the lap of social labor? *

Ridiculing Proudhon, Marx observes that “In so far as Pro-
metheus only informs us of the division of labor, the application
of machinery, the exploitation of natural forces and scientific
power, multiplying the productive forces of men . . . this new
Prometheus has only the misfortune of coming too late.” ”

If we classify these elements, we see that we deal once more with
labor, nature, and technique, including science! Productive
forces, like modes of production, include not merely technical
methods, but other economic factors as well. Scattered utter-
ances support this inference. Thus the first factor, labor, and its
organization in the performance of its work, is held to be a pro-
ductive force or a generator of productive forces. Dilating on the
wretched condition of the laborer under capitalism, Marx urges:
‘Fis existence has no other value than that of a simple productive
force, and the capitalist treats him accordingly.” * In Capital he
states: ‘‘We saw that the productive forces resulting from co-
operation and division of labor cost capital nothing. They are
natural forces of labor.’”’* There are similar references to the
object of labor, that is, natural resources, and to instruments,
termed collectively means of production. Marx indicates that
one of the ‘principal facts of capitalist production” is “concen-
tration of means of production in a few hands, whereby they cease
to appear as the property of the immediate laborers and trans-
form themselves into social powers of production.” ® And Engels
remarks: “‘But the bourgeoisie . . . could not transform these
puny means of production into mighty productive forces.” °
Likewise, there are statements about the third factor, technique:
“Machinery is only a productive force.” 7 Just as we saw in the

Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. 49; also p. 67.
Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, p. 145.

1 Communist Manifesto, p. 18. 2 Poverty of Philosophy, p. 107.
3 Free Trade, reprinted as an appendix to Poverty of Philosophy, p. 224.

4 Capital, vol.i, 422. 5 Ibid., p. 312.

6THE MODE OF PRODUCTION 31

analysis of the mode of production that with Marx the idea of
technique implies scientific achievements, so we discern that he
considers science as a productive force. Discussing the transfer of
intelligence away from the laborer when at his work, Marx asserts:
‘Tt is completed in modern industry, which makes science a pro-
ductive force distinct from labor, and presses it into the service of
capital.” *

- Tugan-Baranowsky, who was among the first to emphasize the
function of productive forces in Marx’s theory and to attempt the
analysis of their nature, is of the opinion that Marx, to be con-
sistent, could not have meant by this term any but the material
agencies that participate in all the processes of production, be-
ginning with the procuring of raw materials from the earth and
ending with the finished product in the hands of the consumer.
He insists that science and race should not be included, although
he is well aware that both Marx and Engels counted these, par-
ticularly science, as influential elements of production.? He argues
that science is a spiritual force, and therefore, according to Marx,
is not independent but, like every other form of consciousness,
is secondary to and derivative from the economic elements. If
science is to be regarded as a productive force, the other ideologies,
as philosophy, religion, and law, may with equal logic be included
also. Likewise with race, he argues. According to the material-
istic interpretation of history, race is a resultant of economic
forces, and is experiencing variations in consonance with material
economic conditions; it is therefore not to be included among the
productive forces. To incorporate science and race is to render
the materialistic interpretation neither monistic nor materialistic,
and to obliterate any distinction between Marx’s conception of
history and the idealistic pronouncements of his predecessors
that he so vehemently decried. If Marx and Engels name race as

1 Capital, vol. i, 397.

2 Tugan-Baranowsky is hardly correct in holding that Marx and Engels include
race as a factor of production: they accord to racial peculiarities only some slight
influence in production or in history in general. See Capital, vol. i, 562, vol. iii,
919, 922, and Engels’s letter, reprinted in Labriola’s Socialisme et philosophie,

P. 259.

 

mr32 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

an economic factor, they merely demonstrate that the founders
themselves can be disloyal to their theory.’

In my opinion, Tugan-Baranowsky’s reasoning is correct, but
not his conclusion. A person who propounds a materialistic and
monistic philosophy of history cannot include science and race as
important factors without defying logical consistency; he must
limit himself to one primary and material agent, and consider the
others as secondary and derivative. But is Tugan-Baranowsky’s
conclusion valid that, for the sake of consistency on the part of
Marx, we ought to forget what Marx says and conclude that he
meant by productive forces only material elements of production,
like natural resources, climate, means of communication, techni-
cal appliances? It seems to me that it is not. Marx states un-
equivocally that science is a productive force, and stresses times
without number the intimate alliance of technique and technical
development with science and scientific progress. To him modern
industry is scientific industry. With him science plays an enor-
mous part in the exploitation of labor, in the accumulation of
capital, in the changes of the composition of the constant and
variable parts of capital, and in the concentration of industry —
forces which, according to his theory, have a disruptive influence
on capitalism and lead it to ultimate destruction. Kautsky in-
terprets Marx well when he says:

The development of natural science goes hand in hand with the develop-
ment of technique, in the widest sense of the term. By the technical develop-
ment of a given period we ought not to understand merely instruments and
machines. Modern methods of chemical research and modern mathematics
form integral parts of the existing technique. Just try to build a steamship
or a railroad bridge without mathematics! Without present-day mathe-
matics capitalist society would be impossible. The present state of mathe-
matics belongs to the economic conditions of existing society as well as the

present state of machine technique or of world commerce. They are all most
intimately connected with one another.?

It is better for an interpreter of Marx and Engels to present the
facts as he finds them, and not to tamper with their ideas so as to
render them more consistent and reasonable. Marx pretends to

1 M. Tugan-Baranowsky, Marxismus, pp. 4 ff.
2 Neue Zeit, vol. xy, no. I, p. 234.THE MODE OF PRODUCTION 33

offer a materialistic interpretation of history. Yet he frequently
emphasizes the potency of science in modern technique and pro-
duction in general, and mentions race as an independent economic
factor. True, it may be regarded as illogical to include these two
elements, especially science. Marx may as well incorporate all
other non-economic forces. But for this weakness Marx is re-
sponsible; and the interpreter is to point out the inconsistency,
but he is not to remove it. A slight amount of adjusting is at
times indispensable, for Marx is frequently hopelessly intricate
and contradictory. But reiterated statements of his cannot be
ignored. Once the interpreter assumes the task of remodeling
Marx’s ideas, he will hardly know where to call a halt. For ex-
ample, Tugan-Baranowsky maintains that Marx must have
meant by productive forces only material factors involved in
production. Would Tugan-Baranowsky call division of labor, co-
operation of labor, and organization of labor in general, material
factors? Yet with Marx, it is precisely these factors that mark the
advent of capitalism, and that characterize the system of produc-
tion during the first capitalistic phase — as Tugan-Baranowsky
himself points out when he takes a stand against the view that
Marx regards technique as the primary force in history.’

 

To return to the main theme, it is evident that the examination
of productive forces yields results similar to those obtained from
the analysis of the mode of production. But there is yet another
valuable source which sheds light on what Marx considers the
basis of social life. Marx and Engels did more than propound
theories. They also assumed the réle of historians and outlined
and pronounced judgment on events in the past. Marx’s Klas-
senkampfe in Frankreich, 18th Brumaire, Revolution and Counter-
Revolution, Civil War in France, and Engels’s Origin of the Family,
Private Property and the State, are examples of their historical
work; so are numerous brief passages and whole chapters scat-
tered here and there as illustrations or digressions. When assem-
bled and arranged, these writings present an account of the series
of productive systems that have prevailed from the dawn of his-

1 Tugan-Baranowsky, Marxismus, pp. 8-9.

saa eae EEL ER

—-.THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

 

34

tory to the present day. The treatment of the elements that
brought about transformations of old modes of production into
new ones, initiating historical epochs and changing man’s desti-
nies, demonstrates concretely what the authors have in mind when
they pronounce the mode of production or the productive forces
as the fundamental cause of civilization.

To give an outline of this account would be to digress too far at
this point.1 But we may summarize here, by way of anticipation,
the inferences that can be drawn from it, and that are pertinent
to the main argument. Only in one case is the discovery and per-
fection of new ways of producing articles made to explain, and
even then only partially, the transition from one form of produc-
tion to another. That case is the disintegration of barbarism and
the advent of civilization with the slave régime, as in classical
antiquity. But from that time on till the present day, productive
orders appear to have succeeded one another without the inter-
vention of a new technique as the governing cause. The transi-
tion from the slave order to the feudal was not effected by the
arrival of technical discoveries and the employment of new in-
struments. Marx and Engels nowhere urge that the feudal pro-
ductive organization differed from that under slavery because of
divergent technical procedures employed in the making of com-
modities. Likewise, feudalism went under and capitalistic produc-
tion was established because of the pressure of other forces than
technique. Only after two hundred years of capitalism, when its
“‘second phase” began with the Industrial Revolution in the
eighteenth century, machinery begins to play a dominant part.
But this new technique failed to usher in a new mode of produc-
tion; it merely marked the commencement of a new phase of
capitalism, termed modern industry.

Beginning, then, with ancient slavery, down to the end of the
eighteenth century there is no mention of technique as the chief
characteristic of a mode of production or as the main cause of the
transition from one mode to another. One productive régime
after another receives its initial impetus, not from technique, but
from the other elements that go to constitute a system of produc-

1 See below, pp. 45-62.THE MODE OF PRODUCTION 35

tion. Will it be different with the accession of the socialist order?
What technological novelties will proclaim the dawn of the new
era? None. The Communist Manifesto enumerates the measures
which ‘“‘are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the
mode of production” in order to pave the road to socialism. It
names ten, but there is no mention of a newly adopted or a newly
discovered technique. Instead, emphasis is put on significant
changes in the status of labor, in the credit system, and in the
distribution of wealth... Engels teaches that under socialism
“The old methods of production must be completely revolution-
ized and the old form of division of labor must be done away with,
above all.’”’ In the elaboration upon this idea he fails to talk of
mechanical devices. He specifies that everybody will have to
work, that the work day will be much shorter, that the division
of labor between town and country will be obliterated. In order
to render the work less irksome, he continues, the worker will be
educated to become more versatile, to shift from process to pro-
cess and from machine to machine, instead of staying riveted to
one task; and so forth.’

The idea recurs frequently that socialism will rest on a thor-
oughly new form of production,’ but nowhere does Marx or Engels
say that important mechanical changes will mark its arrival. The
watchword of the socialists is not a new technique. Their battle-
cry is rather the abolition of private property. The same Mani-
festo declares: ‘‘The theory of the Communists may be summed
up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.” * The
goal of socialism is not the relegation of capitalistic technique to
the rubbish heap and the inauguration of new mechanical appli-
ances; the goal is rather the full utilization by a cooperative so-
ciety of all the productive forces already developed within capital-
ism. In the preface to Klassenkémpfe in Frankreich Engels indi-
cates that in chapter two Marx offers a formula which states
briefly the workers’ “‘demand for the economic reorganization.’

 

1 Communist Manifesto, pp. 41-42.

2 Anti-Diihring, pp. 240-245.

3 FE. g., Feuerbach, p. 112; Anti-Diihring, pp. 180, 183; Capital, vol. ili, 713.
4 Communist Manifesto, p. 31.

  

oe36 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

The formula in question reads: “ . . . appropriation of the means
of production, their subjection to the associated working class,
therefore the abrogation of wage-labor, of capital, and of their
reciprocal relations.” 1 In 1894 Engels writes: “. . . Its [social-
ism’s] task is only the transfer of the means of production to the

)

producers as common property.” *

Such is the evidence. On the one hand, certain citations from
Marx and Engels, and to some small extent their discussion of the
transition from barbarism to civilization, seem to indicate that
they make technique the basis of all social phenomena. On the
other hand, an examination of their ideas of production and of
productive forces, as well as a study of their historical account of
the various modes of production, point unmistakably to a larger
view of the underlying causes of history. Of these two views,
which one is to be chosen?

It would be better to keep both in mind. There is no reason
why any evidence should be neglected. What Marx and Engels
clearly state ought not be forgotten. But if a choice has to be
made, the light of the evidence and the spirit of their writings
appear to give the broader interpretation primacy over the tech-
nological. What they had in mind is reflected more faithfully in
passages like the following than in quotations dealing with “in-
struments”’:

This productiveness is determined by various circumstances — amongst
others, by the average amount of skill among the workmen, the state of
science, and the degree of its practical application, the social organization of
production, the extent and capabilities of the means of production, and by
physical conditions.*

This is Marx’s and Engels’s way of viewing the historical pic-
ture. When seeking the silent forces that control history, they do
not look up to the universal Reason or Idea, to spiritual elements,
to ‘“‘great men,” or to institutions. They focus their attention on

1 Klassenkimpfe in Frankreich, pp. 10, 51.

2 ‘Die Bauernfrage in Frankreich und Deutschland,” in Neue Zeit, vol. 13, no. I,
p. 298. The italics are Engels’s. See also his Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, pp.

72, 86, and Anti-Diihring, p. 181.
3 Capital, vol. i, 47; cf. Value, Price, and Profits, p. 64.THE MODE OF PRODUCTION 37

humbler phenomena. To sustain themselves, men must come to
terms with nature, for she does not provide them gratuitously
with all the necessaries of life. They have to wrestle with their
natural environment and to organize the available energies that
will aid in the undertaking. The result is a system of production
characterized by various agencies: labor, with its peculiarities,
including race characteristics, with its régime of division and co-
operation; land, that is, natural resources and climatic conditions;
technique, comprising instruments, mechanical devices, and scien-
tific processes. All these constitute an organic whole, affliated
with, and influenced by, the prevalent type of distribution and
consumption of wealth, and especially by the expansion and con-
traction of the market. It is the manner in which men organize
production in order to procure the material requirements of life
that determines the particular nature of their relations and group-
ings, their institutions and ideas. And to him who seeks to learn
the underlying, moving forces of phenomena in a given society
Marx would say: study the peculiar phases of the various factors
composing its productive order; im hoc signo vinces.'

But, some will protest, Marx and Engels intended to enunciate
a monistic and materialistic view of history,and this one is neither,
since it comprises more than one factor, and since it includes
science. True, such was their intention. But it appears that they
did not succeed.

Some hold that Engels’s version of the theory differs from
Marx’s view, because Marx emphasizes production alone, while
Engels ordinarily employs the expression “production and ex-
change.”’ This can hardly be allowed. We have seen that com-
merce and markets play a prominent part with Marx also. In the
Communist Manifesto the word production is always coupled with
the word exchange, and this document was a product of joint au-
thorship, as Marx himself testified.2 Again, with the exception of
the Origin of the Family, Marx read in manuscript everything

   

1 It would be premature to discuss at this juncture the question whether Marx,
in any way, takes into account other forces of civilization than the mode of produc-
tion. This question receives treatment later, in Chapter XIV, pp. 270-274.

* Preface to the Critique of Political Economy, p. 14.

em

Gal at sart rabeters 40 Devore UMENLOSESRSeLeRr Crt38 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

written by Engels, and had he noticed a divergence from his views,
he would have reacted in no uncertain manner. Marx was not one
to brook opposition in respect of doctrines on the part of any of
his followers.

Engels apparently does add something. According to him, the
foundation of society in prehistoric epochs is not so much produc-
tion as the organization of the family. In the preface to his Origin
of the Family, written soon after Marx’s death, he states that the
decisive force in history is, on the one hand, ‘‘the production of
the means of existence; . . . on the other hand, the generation of
children, the propagation of the species. . . . The less labor is de-
veloped . . . the more society is seen to be under the domination of
sexual ties.””?! This idea we do not find in Marx’s writings. But
we cannot be certain. Perhaps it was contained in the notes Marx
had jotted down on prehistoric society, to some of which Engels
refers.

1 Origin of the Family, pp. 9-10.CHAPTER III

THE DIALECTIC

THE discussion thus far has been concerned with what Marx and
Engels take to be the mainspring of social phenomena principally
in a static state. But the two writers go further and indicate also
the dynamic forces that change one mode of production into an-
other, engendering transmutations of social systems, and assuring
history of an uninterrupted march toward a final goal. One of the
cardinal tenets of their philosophy is their theory of societal evo-
lution and historical progress. —The pervasive power instinct in all
phenomena, and controlling their steady development and their
never-ceasing flow from one state into another, is the dialectic.
The dialectic is the law of evolution discernible in all domains: in
nature, society, and human thought.'( All phenomena proceed in
their progress of growth on the basis of contradictions; on the
premises of thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Nothing enjoys a per-
petual existence; everything passes away, yielding its place to
higher orders. Everything is born in the storm and stress of op-
positions, is impregnated with disharmonies, breeds on contradic-
tions, thrives on antagonisms, and dies of antitheses.

All reality bears witness to the incessant and ubiquitous opera-
tion of the dialectic. In his polemic against Diihring, Engels un-
dertakes the task of drawing convincing illustrations from phe-
nomena of all realms. He had not in vain, he assures us, made ‘‘a
complete mathematical and scientific molting . . . and spent the
best part of eight years on it.”’ These years of study enabled him
to “‘follow Herr Diihring over a wide expanse of country where he
had dealt with everything under the sun, yea and more also,”’ and
to prove that his adversary is one of those “‘absurd pseudo-
scientists’? who propound noisy nonsense.”

1 Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 173.
2 Ibid., pp. 30, 24-25.

eo eee ET UTED SSESSSUSSSIRTET Ta40 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

As soon, he announces, as we commence to regard facts and
occurrences, not as static, but in their life and in their mutually
reciprocal relations, we come upon antitheses or “‘ contradictions”
residing within each one of them. Motion is a contradiction, be-
cause it implies that a body is ‘‘at one and the same moment in
one place and simultaneously in another place by being in one and
the same place and yet not there.”’ Life itself means that the liv-
ing creature is at one and the same time itself and something
different, and ‘‘assoon as the contradiction ceases life also ceases,
death comes on the scene.” Even mathematics cannot escape
contradictions. Differential calculus demonstrates, “‘in spite of
all the protests of common sense, that under certain conditions
straight and crooked are identical.” It is a contradiction that a
root of a quantity should be a power of it; yet Va =a?. Itisa
contradiction that the square of any number should give us a
negative magnitude; however, (W — 1)? = —1. ‘‘Where would
mathematics, higher or lower, be if one were forbidden to operate
with ~/ — 1? Mathematics itself enters the realm of the dialectic,
and significantly enough it was a dialectic philosopher, Descartes,
who introduced this progressiveness into mathematics.” ‘The
reason mathematicians fail to recognize sufficiently the greatness
of the dialectic is that they insist on operating “‘in the antiquated,
limited, metaphysical fashion” with the methods disclosed by
means of the dialectic; and the reason Diihring’s view is different
consists in the fact that he is beclouded with metaphysical no-
tions.!

The negation of the negation, or the synthesis, is equally pro-
lific, Engels assures us. It is a very simple process fulfilling itself
every day, and any child can understand it. A grain of barley
falls on the ground, and under the influence of heat and moisture
it begins to germinate. The grain disappears, it is negated; but
in its stead appears a plant, the negation of the grain. This plant
grows, ripens, and dies away. By virtue of this negation of the
negation, it leaves a progeny of 10, 20, or 30 grains of barley in-
stead of the original single one. This is as it should be, for the
new synthesis is always of a higher order than the old thesis.

1 Engels, Anti-Diihring, pp. 150-153.THE DIALECTIC 4I

Similarly, the insects go out of the egg through a negation of the
egg; they copulate at maturity, die after copulation, but leave
behind them still more eggs. So much for botany and zodlogy.
All geology is likewise a series of negated negations, because the
old layers are destroyed, serving as building material for the new
layers that arrive.

In mathematics, negate a given quantity A, and we obtain —A;
negate this negation, that is, multiply it by itself, and we
obtain — A X— A = A”. Behold the original positive quantity,
but now in a higher synthesis! The negated negation is wrought
with such thoroughness in A’, boasts Engels, that “under all cir-
cumstances” it has two roots, A and —A. Differentiate x and y
functionally related. Then - = 5 that is,« and y have vanished,
have been negated, and only “‘a quantitative relation without any
quantity” is left. Now “calculate further”’ with these ‘‘ formulae
or equations,” treat 2 and dx as real quantities subject “to cer-
tain exceptional laws,” and “at a certain point’’ negate the nega-

tion, or integrate (sic). We have then fax = = x and fy = = See)
be sure, we arrive at no synthesis of a higher order, since the re-
sult is merely the former x and y; but Engels is not dismayed. He
consoles himself saying: “‘but I have thereby solved the problem
over which ordinary geometry and algebra would probably have
gnashed their teeth in vain.’’ As a matter of fact, the mathe-
matics of variable quantities is “substantially nothing but the
application of the dialectic in mathematics.” *

Nor is philosophy immune from the dialectic. Ancient philos-
ophy began with materialism. This was negated, centuries later,
by idealism; and two thousand years later the synthesis emerged
with modern materialism.2 History and economic phenomena
also succumb to this law.°

It may be objected, Engels continues, that we also negate a
grain when we grind it, and an insect when we crush it. But, ‘this

1 Engels, Anti-Diihring, pp. 165-169. For another interesting morsel of calculus
see Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, vol. iv, 434-436.

2 Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 170.

3 Ibid., pp. 169-170; Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, p. 165.

Se CIEE ETS ST eT TOTS

Bree kia te

——42 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

objection, he contends, is worthy only of the idiotic, metaphysical
manner of reasoning. To negate, dialectically speaking, does not
mean to destroy. We must not only negate, but also take care
that the negation is restored, and in a higher and more perfect
form. We are to proceed cautiously. We must ‘‘so direct the first
negation” as to create the opportunity for a second negation;
therefore the procedure will vary with the requirements of each
case. And if Diihring desires to expel the dialectic from the pro-
cess of thought, he will have to invent, Engels threatens, a system
of mathematics where —A multiplied by itself does not give A?,
and where differential and integral calculus are forbidden by law.!

It is this dialectic which governs the transmutation of one pro-
ductive system into another without the intervention of any
spiritual forces.? Both the static and the dynamic aspects of social
phenomena find their basis and their causes in material elements.
A given system of production is established by society in conform-
ity with the prevailing productive forces which form its constitu-
ent parts. In consonance with this system, there arises a given
complex of property and other relations among the agents partici-
pating in the labor-process, and a definite aggregate of particular
arrangements and customs. The productive forces continue to
develop, and the mode of production, as well as the attending
relations and arrangements, grow and undergo modifications
accordingly. But this harmony does not endure. Sooner or later
a point is reached when the régime of production and its corre-
sponding miliew of personal relations and institutional fixtures
become conservative, solidified, and self-perpetuating, imparting
to society a mature and permanent complexion.’ But not so with
the productive forces; they are not subject to ossification. —They
persist in the process of continual expansion and improvement.
Since the solidified régime of production is no longer possessed of

1 Anti-Diihring, pp. 173-175. This, however, does not deter Engels from dis-
obeying his own orders as to the process of negation: he declares, for instance, that
the battleship is becoming expensive, and will therefore have to be abandoned,
demonstrating that the dialectic law is at work and leads to the annihilation of naval
warfare, Ibid., p. 202.

2 Other phases of the dialectic will be discussed below, pp. 116-122.
3 Capital, vol. ili, 921.THE DIALECTIC 43

the elasticity which would permit it to embody them and grow
with them, a chasm, an “irreconcilable contradiction,” is formed
between the two. The nascent productive forces require a new
soil in which to thrive, but they are constantly impeded in their
development by the stultifying environment attendant upon the
old order. The existing régime becomes the enemy of progress.
It cannot persist; it must be negated by the antithetic element,
the unleashed productive forces.

Finally, the solution comes. The old order of production suc-
cumbs under the stress, and is disrupted. A different one is insti-
tuted, which embodies the newly evolved productive forces. On
this fresh basis is erected a new superstructure of corresponding
institutions and ideas. A new synthesis has dawned upon man-
kind. Marx teaches:

At a certain stage of their development, the maferial forces of production
in society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or..
with the property relations within which they had been at work before. From
forms of development of the forces of production these relations turn into
their fetters. Then comes the period of social revolution. With the change
of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less
rapidly transformed.!

Such is the law to which historical evolution is obedient. The
dialectic antithesis introduces alterations in the form of produc-
tion, which in their turn effect corresponding variations in the
other phases of social life. “‘But the historical development of the
antagonisms immanent in a given form of production is the only
way in which that form of production can be dissolved and a new
form established.” 2 Each productive system has for its mission
the unfolding of all the forces of production of which it is capable,
and which gradually clear the way for the new system. Then it

1 Critique of Political Economy, p. 12. “Whenever a certain maturity is reached,
one definite social form is discarded and displaced by a higher one. The time for the
coming of such a crisis is announced by the depth and breadth of the contradictions
and antagonisms, which separate the conditions of distribution, and with them the
definite historical form of the corresponding conditions of production, from the pro-
ductive forces, the productivity, and development of their agencies.”’ Capital, vol.
iii, 1030. Cf. Communist Manifesto, pp. 19-20; Engels, Socialism, Utopian and
Scientific, pp. 47, 80.

2 Capital, vol. i, 534-535-

FEESRAT SU IRTT VeRMUA EIT EIU UO rE TEED Po EEE OnTHE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   
 
 
 
 
  
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   
        

 

44

goes under, ceding its place to a new régime woven out of the raw
material already prepared. ‘‘No social order ever disappears
before all the productive forces, for which there is room in it, have
been developed; and new higher relations of production never
appear before the material conditions of their existence have
matured in the womb of the old society.” }

When the new synthesis has established itself, the cycle begins
over again. The dialectic knows no rest. “There is a continual
movement of growth in the productive forces, of destruction in
the social relations, of formation in ideas; there is nothing im-
mutable but the abstraction of the movement — mors immor-
talis.”’? However, all this applies only to the eras before the
advent of socialism. As soon as this cherished system arrives,
antitheses have nothing to feed on, the antagonisms allay; and
the dialectic ceases in its travails.

But while this evolution goes on, there is no arbitrariness in it.
The path of objective necessity governs it. One order grows out
of the previous order, and is regulated by the nature and possi-
bilities of its predecessor. Thus the prerequisite of capitalist
production ‘“‘is itself the historical result and product of a pre-
ceding process, from which the new mode of production takes its
departure as from its given foundation.” * Commerce has the
power of dissolving the régimes of production amid which it
operates. But “to what this process of dissolution will lead, in
other words, what new mode of production will take the place
of the old, does not depend on commerce but on the character of
the old mode of production itself. In the world of antiquity the
effect of commerce and the development of merchants’ capital
always results in slave economy. . . . However, in the modern
world, it results in the capitalist mode of production.” * The
dialectic knows no caprice. It is an inexorable law of motion,
demolishing old systems and ushering in new ones. It guides his-
tory toward the irresistible goal.

1 Marx, Critique of Political Economy, p. 12.
2 Idem, Poverty of Philosophy, p. 119.
3 Capital, vol. iii, 1023. 4 Ibid., pp. 390-391.CHAPTER IV

THE BASES OF HISTORY UP TO THE PRESENT

Up to the present the dialectic has evolved for mankind four dis-
tinct productive régimes, and accordingly Marx divides all past
history into four epochs. “In broad outlines we can designate the
Asiatic, the ancient, the feudal, and the modern bourgeois modes
of production as so many epochs in the modern formation of so-
ciety.” All these are ‘“‘prehistoric” eras, mere preludes to the
glorious fifth and last epoch, the socialistic.’

The first economic order, the Asiatic, prevails in the infancy
of human development, and the best examples of it available at
the time Marx was writing Das Kapital are the Slavs, especially
the Russians, and the “‘ Asiatic communities,” notably in India.’
This mode of production is characterized by communal property
and ‘“‘directly associated labor.” Agriculture and crafts are the
chief occupations. The land is held in common, tilled in common
by the members of the tribe, and the yield is divided among the
producers, for consumption.’ The other needs are supplied by
each family through handicraft labor. The patriarchal industries
of the peasant household or certain Indian communities furnish
the illustration: spinning, weaving, cattle raising, the preparation
of clothing, are functions performed by the whole family; division
of labor within this unit is based on differences of age and sex, and
on natural conditions varying with the seasons. Side by side with
the masses thus occupied, there is a handful of people charged
with duties of public interest, and maintained at the expense of
the community; as the smith, the carpenter, watchmen, judges,
and the like. Goods are produced mainly for consumption; trad-
ing is carried on to a limited extent, and chiefly between neighbor-
ing tribes, who make different articles according to the natural
resources. This is the origin of exchange.*

1 Critique of Political Economy, p. 13. See above, p. to.

2 Capital, vol. i, 89 and n. 3 Cf. Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 204.

4 Capital, vol. i, 90 ff, 100, 392 ff, 386.

45

Seu Inna TE Sapa EHR DOE ETE

es woeeneeeome46 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

Marx’s general comment on this epoch is as follows:

Those ancient social organisms of production are, as compared with bour-
geois society, extremely simple and transparent. But they are founded either
on the immature development of man individually, who has not yet severed
the umbilical cord that unites him with his fellow men in a primitive tribal
community, or upon direct relations of subjection. They can arise and exist
only when the development of the productive power of labor has not risen
beyond a low stage, and when, therefore, the social relations within the sphere
of material life, between man and man, and between man and Nature, are
correspondingly narrow.!

Marx states that this economic stage dominates “‘at the dawn
of history of all civilized races.” * A more or less detailed discus-
sion of this period among the peoples of classical antiquity is fur-
nished by Engels in his Origin of the Family. He does not refer to
it, however, as the Asiatic stage, but prefers to term it the “gens”
organization of society, following the terminology of Lewis
Morgan in Ancient Society.

The gens is Engels’s favorite, and he cannot lavish enough
praise and admiration on it.’ In its truest form he finds it only
among the Iroquois Indians of North America, at the lower stage
of barbarism; and he discusses at length their social organization,
emphasizing codperative production, common ownership of land,
and the total absence of private property. At the dawn of Athens’
history, we see her at the upper level of barbarism, or two stages
beyond the Iroquois. It is the heroic era described in the epics of
Homer. ‘‘Gentilism”’ is fully alive, although not in its pure ar-
chaic form. However, soon an ominous phenomenon appears that
ultimately deals a death blow to the communal order. It is private
property. Maternal law is gradually superseded by paternal rule,
leading to the inheritance of wealth by the children, to the rise of
the family as the unit, and to the accumulation of riches. “ Rising
private property had thus made its first opening in the gentile
constitution,” and ‘‘the fundament of the gentile law was shat-
tered”’ (pages 120, 129).

Engels fully realizes that it was private property that swept
away this economic stage, and that unloosenedall the evils upon

1 Capital, vol. i, 91. 2 Critique of Political Economy, p. 29.
3 See Origin of the Family, p. 117.THE BASES OF HISTORY UP TO THE PRESENT

   

47

mankind. ‘‘The advent of private property in herds of cattle and
articles of luxury led to an exchange between individuals, to a
transformation of products into commodities. Here is the root of
the entire revolution that followed” (page 135). But to the crucial
question why private property sprang into existence at all, why
the ‘‘splendid men and women”’ developed by the gens did not
guard jealously and valiantly their communal constitution, “so
wonderful . . . in all its natural simplicity’ (page 117), and allowed
the baleful institution of the “‘formerly so despised private prop-
erty”’ (page 130) to fasten itself upon them — to this Engels gives
no answer. Already in the middle stage of barbarism, he indi-
cates, private property in cattle makes its appearance in Asia,
but ‘‘How and when the herds were transferred from the collective
ownership of the tribe or gens to the proprietorship of the heads
of the families, is not known to us” (page 195). He is content
with the naive remark that “‘the herds drifted into the hands of
private individuals” (page 194).

In the general summary at the end of the book Engels records
that at the upper stage of barbarism iron becomes the servant of
man. ‘‘It is the last and most important of all raw products that
play a revolutionary réle in history; the last — if we except the
potato” (page 197). Iron furnishes adequate tools in agriculture
and crafts; but it does this gradually, because ‘‘The first iron was
often softer than bronze,” and therefore it had not displaced stone
axes even as late as the battle at Hastings in 1066 (page 197).
When discussing the developments in Athens, he completely fails
to mention the discovery of iron. The influence he ascribes to the
new technical methods made possible by this metal is, therefore,
somewhat obscure. |

At any rate, during the last period of upper barbarism, prog-
ress is “irresistible, less interrupted and more rapid.”’ Agricul-
ture develops and yields new products, like oil and wine. Handi-
craft industry becomes increasingly diversified, especially in

1 In another work he makes a general statement, no more illuminating, to the
effect that “‘where private property arises, it appears as a result of a change in the
methods of production and exchange in the interests of the increase of production
and the development of commerce.” Anti-Diihring, p. 188.

 

GiRmup etait ee Ee Unie ie48 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

textiles and metals. The town and the artisan are more and more
divided off from the country and the agricultural laborer. Wealth
is eagerly sought after. Production for exchange increases, and
commerce advances. The sea trade ‘‘drifts”’ rapidly out of the
power of the Phoenicians and into the hands of the Athenians.
Tribes surrender their peaceful pursuits, and devote themselves
to plunder on land and to piracy on sea. Production improves to
such a degree that a worker can produce more than he requires to
maintain himself. As a consequence, labor power is rendered de-
sirable; and since the communal system affords no source of sur-
plus laborers except the prisoners of war, the captives are killed
no longer but are retained as slaves. Before, slavery was only a
sporadic phenomenon; now it becomes an institution. The gens
régime is dying, and the second economic stage, the era of classical

_

antiquity, arrives.’

 

   

From this account we see that Engels finds several causes of the
disintegration of primitive communism. | One consists in the
change of the family organization; for group marriage begins to
lose ground, and paternal lineage supplants maternal law. This
is in agreement with Engels’s thesis that in primitive times the
structure of the family, and not the mode of production, is of
supreme importance in promoting a transition from one stage of
development to another. A second cause is the appearance of
private property, which leads to the inheritance of wealth, to ex-
change, and therefore to the transformation of products into
commodities, that is, merchandise; and which breaks up the com-
munity of interests and introduces instead the antagonism be-
tween rich and poor.” A third is the discovery of iron. How much
significance Engels attaches to this factor is hard to say, for he
omits this fact entirely in his main treatment of the extinction of
the gens.{ At best, then, we may surmise that the transition from
tribal communism to the next order is partly due to new technical
developments in the methods of production.

1 Engels, Origin of the Family, pp. 130 ff., 197 ff.; also Anti-Diihring, pp. 186,
208-210. Note that on p. 209 he contends that slavery is “the dominant form of
production among all people who had developed beyond the tribal communal stage.”
2 Origin of the Family, p. 200. Cf. Anti-Diihring, pp. 188-189.THE BASES OF HISTORY UP TO THE PRESENT 49

We are now at the point where upper barbarism is gone, and
civilization is dawning. We come to an era of slaves, ‘whose
forced labor formed the basis on which the whole superstructure
of society was reared” (page 203). They are recruited not only
from prisoners of war, but also from “tribal and gentile associ-
ates’ (page 129). In the period of her bloom there are in Athens
90,000 free citizens and 365,000 slaves (page 143); Corinth and
Aegina possess about half a million slaves, ten times the number
of free citizens (page 203, footnote). Slaves swarm in the shops
and factories.! Labor by a free citizen is despised; nevertheless
there are many free artisans who earn a living, in competition
with slave labor (page 143). Engels esteems this régime as of
transcendent historical value. It was a distinct step ahead. It
gave to the world Greece, the glory of ancient civilization, the
watershed from which flowed the streams of modern thought and
institutions. ‘‘ Without slavery there would have been no Grecian
state, no Grecian art and science, and no Roman Empire . . . no
modern Europe . . . no modern socialism.” ”

The surplus produced by the masses of slaves stimulates trade,
commerce, and navigation still further. A new figure appears in
a new division of labor — the merchant. The division between
town and country is one among producers; but this “class of
parasites, genuine social ichneumons,” * does not engage in pro-
duction, it merely connects producers, and extends markets. The
merchant becomes, however, the central figure in society. He
exploits the direct producers, amasses wealth, gains prestige, and
struggles with the old nobility for supremacy. He wields in his
hands a new powerful weapon, ‘‘before which the whole of society
must bow down,”’ money, that comes into use to facilitate ex-
change (page 136). Engels has a superstitious fear of money, for
it possesses the uncanny power of dissolving social orders with its
“corrugating acid” (page 133). Wherever this virulent agent
appears, social systems crumble down.*

1 “The great number of slaves is explained by the fact that many of them worked

together in large factories under supervision” (p. 143). See also Anti-Dihring,

p. 187.
2 Anti-Diihring, p. 209. 3 Origin of the Family, p. 201.
4 Anti-Dihring, pp. 249-250, 256, 178.

   

—THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

 

50

In the hands of the merchant and the nobility money begins to
work havoc in Greece also. The old communal ties that protected
the farmer against the loss of land have been loosened with the
appearance of private property. He contracts now monetary
debts, mortgages his land, finds himself unable to pay the usurious
rates, and forfeits the land; and to cover the remainder of the
debt, the “‘bloodsuckers”’ sell him or his children into slavery.
‘“Such was the pleasant dawn of civilization among the people of
Attica.”?! “‘You have clamored for free, full, saleable land. Well,
then, there you have it —tu las voulu, Georges Dandin; it was
your own wish, George Dandin” (page 203). This strife between
the rich and the poor results in a series of constitutions by The-
seus, Solon, and Kleisthenes, which mitigate the evils, but only
temporarily. Soon exploitation shifts from one between rich and
poor to one between master and slave, and continues through the
rest of the history of Athens. The Athenian state is ever an in-
strument of the rich, wielded to war against the poor and to hold
the slaves in check (pages 142, 207).

No such troubles, Engels reflects, could have come upon a gens
order, where the unchanging mode of production is primitive, but
where man has control over his product. Private property leads to
exchange, and exchange implies that the producer no longer con-
trols his product. The product turns against the producer and
oppresses him. ‘‘No society can, therefore, retain for any length
of time the control of its own production and of the social effects
of the mode of production, unless it abolishes exchange between
individuals” (pages 135-136).

Greece meets her fate. ‘“‘Not democracy caused the downfall
of Athens... but slavery ostracizing the labor of the free citizen”
(page 143). For the transition to the third epoch, or feudalism,
we have to turn to Rome.

Like Greece, Rome steps into history with the gens institution,
and, as in Greece, tribal communism cedes its place to slavery.
At its zenith we find the empire extended all around the Mediter-
ranean, consisting of a multitude of nations and elements held
united by one external bond, the iron power of the State (page

1 Origin of the Family, p. 134.THE BASES OF HISTORY UP TO THE PRESENT 51

178). Rome as well as the provinces are oppressed and impover-
ished by grinding taxes, by imposts and tithes, by constant bleed-
ing through wars, and by “blackmailing practices”’ of the officials
(page 179). Commerce and industry are never a strong point
with the Romans (page 179); yet about these pursuits is woven a
magnificent code of law which, according to Engels himself, could
suit the capitalist conditions in various countries many centuries
later. Usury reaches the highest scale of development ever at-
tained in antiquity. Instead of helping the war-ruined plebeians
directly with the prerequisites of production like grain, horses,
and cattle, the patricians lend them the copper looted in the wars
that the same plebeians were forced to fight, exact from them ex-
orbitant interest payments, and turn the defaulting victims into
their debtor slaves. ‘‘The mere death of a cow may render the
small producer unable to renew his reproduction on the former
scale. Then he falls into the clutches of the usurer, and once he is
in the usurer’s power, he never extricates himself.” ”
The poverty of the masses contributes to the causes of the de-
cline in traffic and the decay of the towns. The shrinking markets
commence to impose restrictions on production. The immense
estates, the /atifundiae, where slaves pursue large scale agricul-
ture, are no longer remunerative. They are accordingly parceled
out to hereditary tenants for a fixed rent, but mainly to colonists,
who pay a fixed sum annually, and who can be “‘transferred by
sale together with their lots.”’ Colonists are not freeman, they are |
“the prototypes of the medieval serfs.’’* Neither does manu- |
facture, based on slave labor, yield profitable returns. For these |
reasons the institution of slavery is finally abolished. Small scale
production is instituted in all pursuits. However, free artisans
are not prevalent, for labor is despised as slavish. Rome is in a
“closed alley.” ‘There was no other help but a complete revolu-
tion.” 4
The provinces fare no better. To escape the oppression of the
officials, the judges, and the usurers, the independent farmers

1 Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. xxvii; Feuerbach, p. 115.
2 Origin of the Family, pp. 179-180; Capital, vol. ili, 697, 703-704.
‘Origin of the Family, pp. 180-181. 4 Ibid., pp. 181- 182.

   

EO ee TESTERS ae52 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

place themselves under the protection of a man of power. The
patron takes advantage of their plight, and imposes on them the
harsh condition of a transfer to him of their title to the land.
Servitude is the outcome of the oppressive policy of Rome."

The settlement of the barbarian invaders on Roman soil does
not alter conditions. Ever since their contact with the Romans
their communal order had begun to crumble. When they triumph
completely over Rome, overrun its territories, and take the reins
of government, they find that the gens constitution is too primi-
tive and too inadequate an instrument to solve the new complex
problems.2 Roman methods are adopted; and in the ninth cen-
tury we face the same social and economic conditions that we saw
in Rome four hundred years before. Serfdom spreads on an ever-
increasing scale.

However, the barbarians make some salutary contributions.
They are but slightly contaminated with the institution of slavery;
consequently free labor with them is no longer despised. Again,
they bequeath to feudalism several traces of the gens elements of
property ownership; a legacy that serves, at least in France, Ger-
many, and England, as a tower of strength to the oppressed serfs,
later in the Middle Ages.*

It is not exactly clear how the dialectic manages to achieve a
transformation of the slave mode of production into a feudal
mode. What are the productive forces liberated by slavery that
must unavoidably yield a higher order? Wherein consists the
contradiction between these productive forces and the old mode
of production? Feudalism is ushered in by agencies not inevitably
and inherently flowing from a slave régime. It is rather the de-
cadence of the markets that renders slavery unprofitable. It is
rather the insecurity of the independent farmer, caused by wars
and an oppressive government, that compels him to seek protec-
tion. It is rather the force of external historical events that in-
jects into decrepit Rome the fresh vigor of the Germans, who
‘introduce the mild form of servitude which they had been prac-
tising at home.’’4 The crucial question is: does a slave mode of

1 Origin of the Family, p. 182. Cf. Capital, vol. ili, 703.
2 Origin of the Family, pp. 184-185. 3 Jbid., p. 189. 4 Tbid., p. 189.THE BASES OF HISTORY UP TO THE PRESENT 53

production, by its very nature, unaided by external occurrences,
release elements that have for their mission the establishing of
feudalism? To this question we find no answer.

Under feudalism, ‘‘Peasant agriculture on a small scale, and
the carrying on of independent handicrafts . . . together form the
basis of the . . . mode of production.” 1 In the country, the serf
possesses the land by some hereditary right or other understand-
ing, although absolute ownership is vested in the lord’ In addi-
tion to farming, the peasant and his family are engaged in do-
mestic industry in order to provide for the other needs. In both
pursuits the worker owns the means of production, produces
chiefly for his consumption or for a very narrow market, and
enjoys full control over the product.’ But he is a serf. He has to
perform some forced labor for the state, as corvée, and he must
pay a rent to the lord. The rent may be in the form of labor done
on the lord’s estate: this is a clear, unmistakable form of surplus-
value. Later, the rent in kind appears, and the serf surrenders a
definite amount in agricultural and handicraft products.? When
commerce develops to a large extent, and when money comes into
prevalent use, he can pay his rent in the new medium.° In all
these cases the peasant is not hindered from producing a surplus
above his needs, from selling it in the market, and from accumu-
lating wealth.
the raw material and other means of production as well as the
completed product, and he is perfectly tamiliar with the market
for which he produces. Here, too, the direct, producer. dominates
his product. Engels paints idyllic pictures of guild production
and muses over them with historical homesickness: the master
with his small garden, with his cattle pasturing on the common,
and the apprentice working more for education than for his pay
in board and lodging, remind him of the charm of days that were
but are no more.’

1 Capital, vol.i, 367 n. 2 [bid., vol. iii, 921.

3 Ibid., p. 918; vol. i, 818-820. Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. 57.
4 Capital, vol. iii, 919. 5 [bid., pp. 923-924. 6 [bid., p. 925.

7 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, pp. 51-52.

 

pis Seer aie eae CUait rte54 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

Now, as in antiquity, the sinister figure of the usurer is ubiqui-
tous. Whenever personal accident or a bad season involves the
small producer in town or country in difficulties, he has recourse
to this person, who is in wait for him.’ Another familiar figure is
the merchant, who facilitates exchange between town and coun-
try. He wages war against the usurer. Already in the twelfth and
fourteenth centuries the Venice and Genoa merchants form credit
associations to finance their extensive land and maritime trade,
and to emancipate themselves from the clutches of the usurer.?
The dominant forms of capital are the usurer’s and the mer-
chant’s capital; and it cannot turn into industrial capital because
of the feudal restrictions in the country and the guild regulations
in the town.’ ‘‘ While the country exploits the town politically in
the Middle Ages, wherever feudalism has not been broken down
by an exceptional development of the towns, the town, on the
other hand, everywhere and without exception exploits the land
economically by its monopoly prices, its system of taxation, its
guild organizations, its direct mercantile fraud and its usury.” *

Slowly and persistently new elements develop within the bosom
of this society. Serfdom is swept away in England in the four-
teenth century. The semi-independent peasant pays his rent in
kind, and later in money. He is no longer hampered by the re-
strictions attached to labor-rent; he can even buy himself free
from the landlord for a lump sum of money. Many a guildmaster
or independent artisan’ begins to employ wage labor, and gradu-
ally becomes a small capitalist. The same is true, and to a higher
degree, of the mérchaht, who assumes possession of production by
hiring'and exploiting labor, and who develops new markets. But
all this merely constitutes faint beginnings of capitalism, sprout-
ing out sporadically here and there in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries.°

The new productive forces and the nascent bourgeoisie are
handicapped at each step by the trammels of the old mode of
production and social relations — by feudal restrictions, guild

1 Capital, vol. ili, 699, 703. 2 Tbid., pp. 706-707.

3 Tbid., vol. i, 822-823. 4 Tbid., vol. ili, 930.

5 Tbid., vol. i, 787-788, 815, 822; vol. ili, 393, 395, 928.THE BASES OF HISTORY UP TO THE PRESENT = 55

regulations, absence of freedom of contract, multitudinous local
legal provisions, diverse schemes of taxation, and the arrogant
privileges of the hierarchical nobility. There is an insistent call
for hired labor, but labor ‘‘free’’ for hire is tantalizingly scarce
because of the guild impediments and because of the independence
of the peasant proprietor; everywhere the worker possesses the
means of production and toils for himself. Likewise, “the money
capital formed by means of usury and commerce was prevented
from turning into industrial capital, in the country by the feudal
constitution, in the town by the guild organization,” complains
Marx. At best, the bourgeois advances at ‘‘the snail’s pace.” The
play of mightier forces is required to establish firmly the fourth,
the capitalistic, era of production.’

These forces do not fail to arrive. At the end of the fifteenth
century the great geographical discoveries startle the world.
Oversea trade is feverishly developed; tremendous far-away
markets grow up. The demand for commodities is progressively
augmented, but the old form of production and the sluggishly
developing new one are utterly inadequate to meet the new com-
mercial requirements. Fresh incentives as well as fresh means
appear for the extirpation of the old order.

The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh
ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets,
the colonization of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means
of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation,
to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolution-
ary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development, —

chronicles the Communist Manifesto (page 13).

However, while supplying perhaps the prime cause, the geo-
graphical discoveries do not represent the sole element in this
upheaval. Other forces also figure in the far-reaching event. The
process is, in brief, as follows.

Before capitalistic production can establish itself, certain con-
ditions must be fulfilled. ‘‘In themselves, money, commodities

1 Capital, vol. i, 786, 809-810, 822-823, 835; Engels, Anti-Diihring, pp. 142,
192.

; 2 Capital, vol. i, 469, 822; vol. iii, 391; Engels, Anti-Dihring, p. 141, Socialism,
Utopian and Scientific, pp. 58-59.56 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

are no more capital than are the means of production and of sub-
sistence. They want transforming into capital. But this transfor-
mation can take place only under certain circumstances that
center in this, namely, that two very different kinds of commodity
possessors must come face to face and into contact.” These two
kinds are, on the one hand, the owners of money and means of
production, eager to hire wage labor; and on the other hand,
masses of workers, dispossessed, divorced from the means of pro-
duction, owners of labor-power and eager to sell it for a wage.
‘With this polarization of the market for commodities, the funda-
mental conditions of capitalist production are given.”’* In other
words, capitalism cannot arise without the antecedent expropri-
ation of the many and the enrichment of the few.”

The realization of these two conditions is achieved by a process
that Marx terms “original accumulation” (urspriingliche Ak-
kumulation) — original, because it forms the ‘‘pre-historic stage,”
the basis and starting-point of capitalism.’ Original accumulation
begins in the last third of the fifteenth century. It is the expropri-
ation of the independent farmer, an expropriation “written in the
annals of mankind in letters of blood and fire.” The drama is
enacted in England. There are various factors at work. The im-
poverished feudal nobility disband the numerous retainers who
had thronged house and castle. At the same time, the enclosure
movement is inaugurated by the lords who desire to turn arable
land into sheep-walks; and whole populations of independent
peasants are uprooted from the soil and cast adrift in utter ruin.
The Reformation imparts a “new and frightful impulse” to the
process, through the suppression of monasteries and the disper-
sion of serfs attached to them. The whole event is a succession of
““the most shameless violation of the ‘sacred rights of property’
and the grossest acts of violence to persons”’; “‘a whole series of
thefts, outrages, and popular misery”; a display of ‘‘merciless

1 Capital, vol. i, 785, 189.

2 Ibid., pp. 624-625, 848, 684.

3 [bid., pp. 784, 786. The English translation has
This is a misleading expression. “Original accumulation” is better. Marx himself
employed this expression in an address delivered in English. See Value, Price and

Profits, p. 74.

“primitive accumulation.”THE BASES OF HISTORY UP TO THE PRESENT 57

vandalism . . . of passions the most infamous, the most sordid, the
pettiest, the most meanly odious.”’ ’

Armies of homeless, enraged vagabonds are thus let loose, who,
partly by need and partly by inclination, take to robbery and
thieving. Thereupon comes the bloody legislation against them,
inflicting severe punishment for idleness, and disciplining them
to sell their labor at any price. ‘‘Thus were the agricultural
people first forcibly expropriated from the soil, driven from their
homes, turned into vagabonds, and then whipped, branded, tor-
tured by laws grotesquely terrible, into the discipline necessary
for the wage system.’’? A proletarian class is created, alienated
from the means of production, unfettered by feudal restrictions
and guild regulations, ready to be hired and exploited.°

Simultaneously with these events, there is at play another set
of forces in this “original accumulation,” which aim to fulfill the
other condition, namely, the amassing of wealth and the formation
of a bourgeoisie intent on exploiting labor. Among these forces
the geographical discoveries are once more of paramount signifi-
cance. ‘‘One of the most indispensable conditions for the forma-
tion of the manufacturing industry was the accumulation of
capital facilitated by the discovery of America and the introduc-
tion of its precious metals.” America floods Europe with gold and
silver; a tremendous rise in prices ensues, with the consequent
ruination of the landlord and the laboring class through the de-
preciation of rent and wages, and with the concurrent elevation
of the bourgeoisie through a rise in profits. The “Christian
colonial system” is marked by barbarities and desperate out-
rages, by the extirpation of the aborigines or their entombment
in the mines. East India is conquered and looted; Africa is turned
into ‘‘a warren for the commercial hunting of black skins”; and
“The treasures captured outside Europe by undisguised looting,
enslavement, and murder, floated back to the mother country
and were there turned into capital.” ®

1 Capital, vol. i, 786-805, 835; Poverty of Philosophy, p. 149.

2 Capital, vol. i, 808-809.

3 Ibid., p. 817.

‘

Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, p. 148. Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 141.
5 Capital, vol. i, 823-826.

   

—_—58 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

The state takes an active part in all these proceedings, and en-
thusiastically employs devious expedients that would hasten the
course of original accumulation in both of its phases. The state
power is employed in pressing the newly formed proletariat into
the workshop by draconian laws against idleness, in forcing down
his wage, in prolonging his workday, and in maintaining him in
the proper degree of subjection.’ It launches elaborate schemes
of national debts, or public credit, which, ‘‘as with the stroke of
an enchanter’s wand,” endow ‘‘barren money with the power of
breeding” and of turning easily into capital. These public debts
form a class of lazy annuitants; furnish improvised wealth to
financiers and windfalls to tax farmers, merchants and manu-
facturers; and foster joint-stock companies, stock exchange gam-
bling, and the modern “‘bankocracy.”’ National loans have as
their unavoidable complement a régime of increased taxation — a
convenient mode of expropriating the masses. Then add the sys-
tem of protection, which is an ideal “‘artificial means of manufac-
turing manufacturers, of expropriating independent laborers . . .
of forcibly abbreviating the transition from the medieval to the
modern mode of production.” ”

Tantae molis erat [summarizes Marx] to establish the “eternal laws of
Nature” of the capitalist mode of production, to complete the process of
separation between laborers and conditions of labor, to transform, at one
pole, the social means of production and subsistence into capital, at the
opposite pole, the mass of the population into wage laborers, into “free labor-
ing poor,” that artificial product of modern society. If money, according to
Augier, ‘‘comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek,”

capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and
dirt.

The capitalist era is not heralded by any technological inven-
tions. There is merely a change in the grouping of laborers and in
the ownership of the raw material and of the other means of pro-
duction. ‘‘The workshop of the medieval master handicraftsman
is simply enlarged”: the wealthy bourgeois employer gathers
many laborers under his supervision, and they work for him.
There is no deviation from the methods of production as pursued

1 Capital, vol. i, 809. 2 Ibid., pp. 826-830.
3 Ibid., pp. 833-834.THE BASES OF HISTORY UP TO THE PRESENT 59

by the guilds, except in scale. This is, ‘both historically and
logically, the starting-point of capitalist production.” *

Marx distinguishes two phases of productive organization in
the capitalist era. There is a preliminary stage, which he terms
codperation, and defines as a gathering of numerous laborers
working side by side on one and the same process, or on different
but connected processes, under the surveillance of the capitalist.’
Coéperation is a familiar phenomenon in the first economic epoch,
with its gens society, but there we see no capitalist; all the workers
own in common the means of production, and they produce di-
rectly for their own needs. There is also codperation in the work-
shop of classical antiquity, but there the laborers are not “free,”
they are slaves. Likewise, we find coéperation in the house of the
medieval guild master, but it is on a smaller scale; moreover,
the apprentice is not so much a provider of surplus-value to an
exploiter as a pupil preparing himself to become master in due
time.®

As an independent phase, however, cooperation does not pre-
vail over a long period of time. The first phase par excellence of
capitalist production is the one that Marx names “‘manufacture”’
(hand-labor), which lasts over two hundred years, from the middle
of the sixteenth century to the last third of the eighteenth.* It
begins as a two-fold development. As in the case of simple co-
operation, the employer assembles in the workshop a number of
artificers, all of whom do the same work, and each one of whom
goes through alone all the successive processes necessary for the
completion of the product. Or, the capitalist employs simultane-
ously various craftsmen, who are engaged in the successive handi-
craft pursuits which contribute to a final product; thus he engages
wheelwrights, harness-makers, blacksmiths, painters, and so
forth, to codperate in making carriages. In either case, sooner or
later, an elaborate form of division of labor sets in, and what was
previously performed by one handicraftsman is resolved into

1 Capital, vol. i, 353, 362, 367. Cf. Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific,
p. 83.

2 Capital, vol. i, 357, 361. 8! Che Lod p:307-
4 Ibid., pp. 368-369.

a Et A Fraga

  

cern er60 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

many elementary processes one or more of which claims the full
attention of the worker.! As time goes on, experience shows that
the old tools are not well adapted to the minute tasks; therefore
they are improved and turned into more specialized ones, to suit
the detailed operations.” In some cases the laborers are not
assembled under one roof, but work independently in their homes.
However, they are no more the free guildsmen of yore; they toil
under the control, and at the beck, of the capitalist employer.’

Manufacture does not represent a radical departure from the
medieval handicraft system. It depends, in the first place, on the
rural community, for it does not effect a complete separation be-
tween town and country. The raw material — as wool, flax, silk
— used in production is prepared by a newly developing class of
small villagers who follow agriculture as a mere accessory, and
who devote themselves chiefly to domestic industry, selling their
industrial product to the manufacturer, directly or through a
merchant.‘ In the second place, even the detailed laborer is essen-
tially the old craftsman. Each operation, whether complex or
simple, is a handicraft operation depending on personal “‘strength,
skill, quickness, and sureness’’; and on ‘‘muscular development,
keenness of sight, cunning of hand,” in manipulating the ‘‘dwarf-
ish implements.” Handicraft skill is the foundation of manufac-
ture, and ‘“‘the mechanism of manufacture as a whole possesses
no framework, apart from the laborers themselves.”” Machinery
plays an insignificant part and is used only sporadically. ‘The
collective laborer, formed by the combination of a number of de-
tail laborers, is the machinery specially characteristic of the
manufacturing period.” ®

This whole mode of production ‘‘towered up as an economical
work of art, on the broad foundation of the town handicrafts, and
of the rural domestic industries.” * It is incapable of satisfying

1 Capital, vol. i, 369-370. 2 Ibid., p. 374.

3 Ibid., pp. 376-377.

4 Ibid., pp. 818-820; Poverly of Philosophy, p. 152.

® Capital, vol. i, 417-418, 371, 403, 383. “During the manufacturing period,
handicraft labor, altered though it was by division of labor, was yet the basis.”

Ibid., pp. 469, 372.
§ [bid., p. 404.THE BASES OF HISTORY UP TO THE PRESENT 61

the demands of an ever-developing, ever-expanding market.
‘‘When in England the market had become so fully developed
that manual labor no longer sufficed to supply it, the need for
machinery made itself felt. It was then that the application of
mechanical science, which had been fully prepared during the
eighteenth century, was thought of.” *

The capitalist system of production has existed for two hundred
years without having machinery or any other new technical de-
velopment as its distinctive mark.? Technique does not introduce
capitalism, nor does it characterize it during its first long phase,
‘“manufacture.’’ Only with the arrival of the second phase, at the
end of the eighteenth century, machinery begins to serve as the
dominant characteristic. This phase Marx and Engels call ‘‘mod-
ern industry,” and it is introduced by mechanical inventions.’
The overmastering feature of modern industry is the factory.

The rest is familiar. It is the story of the fervid and prolific
Marxian indictments against the present system with its mon-
strosities and inefficiency; of the enslavement of man to the
machine, of the remorseless grinding of surplus-value out of the
exploited wage-slaves; of the industrial reserve army, of the in-
creasing misery of the workers, and of crises and panics. All this
will receive more attention in a later chapter.

With the passing of primitive communism came the Fall of
Man. The adoption of private property is his original sin. The
lost paradise will be regained only when socialism begins to dawn
on the troubled capitalistic world. The various past systems of

1 Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, p. 152.

2 “That codperation which is based on division of labor, assumes its typical form
in the manufacture, and is the prevalent characteristic form of the capitalist process
of production throughout the manufacturing period properly so called. That period,
roughly speaking, extends from the middle of the sixteenth to the last third of the
eighteenth century.”’ Capital, vol. i, 368-369.

3 Ibid., p. 430. “Machinery does away with codperation based on handicrafts,
and with manufacture based on the division of handicraft labor.”’ Ibid., p. 502.
“Machinery properly so called dates from the end of the eighteenth century.”
Poverty of Philosophy, p. 150. In Anti-Dihring, p. 191, Engels records that the
weapon of the bourgeoisie in its struggle with the feudal nobility consisted in the
power gained from the growth ‘“‘at first of hand-manufacture and afterwards ma-
chine-manufacture.”

a een62 THE MATERIAL BASIS OF HISTORY

production have carried mankind through all its vicissitudes, and
finally threw it into the turmoil of capitalism. But the fifth ré-
gime of production will redeem it. Such is the mission of social-
ism. The world has suffered because of its previous productive
orders, and it will be saved by virtue of the coming mode of
production — for the mode of production is the basis of all
history.PAR

THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

EGE pS EET ETOCHAPTER V

MARX’S VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE

THE mode of production forms the foundation upon which the
various phases of human life are carried on, and constitutes the
supreme cause of social processes. But this objective agency can-
not, of itself, enact history; it can do no more than prepare the
stage and provide the text of the play. Actors have to appear and
perform accordingly. This part is fulfilled by human beings. Man
makes his history. Marx and Engels reiterate this; nevertheless,
we find them also steadily emphasizing that the brunt of the battle
for progress is borne, not by individuals, but by classes. Not man
but the class is the ultimate animate factor that makes history in
conformity with the dictates of the material elements. The Com-
munist Manifesto opens with the declaration: ‘‘ The history of all
hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”’ The
allotting of this momentous task to the class instead of the indi-
vidual is a direct result of their theory of human nature, of their
insistence on imputing scant significance to the individual in the
drama of social life, as compared with the power accorded to the
class and to class interests. In their scheme man has little capa-
city to act as an individual; in history he is of subordinate impor-
tance when considered alone. The class is the actor.

Among discussions of human nature we find three views: the
hereditary, the environmental, and the eclectic. The hereditary
theory insists that human nature is fundamentally an inherited
aggregate of instincts, propensities, abilities, and emotions. Man
appears at birth equipped with an apparatus of characteristics in
various combinations, degrees of intensity, and shades of color.
This mechanism can be modified only slightly, if at all, by the cir-
cumstances that envelop the human being during his life. His
endowments, his distinctive make-up, are biological in nature,
and therefore immutable. This basic equipment will determine
his conduct and reactions in the daily routine of his life as well as
on marked occasions. Man is what he is by heredity.

65

CRETE I

 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

——66 THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

The environmentalists argue that a mere catalogue of propen-
sities and capabilities is a vacuum, a bare abstraction signifying
nothing. Human nature is a summation of the phases of actual
behavior, of manners of responding to stimuli, and of ways of
looking at things. A human being is not a bundle of instincts; he
is a synthesis of daily acts, of interests that claim his attention,
and of notions that fill his head. The synthesis, which gives a
photographic presentation of his conduct, depends primarily on
the environment which furnishes the peculiar excitations. It is
true that man has inherent dispositions, but the way he actually
behaves depends on the nature of the stimuli impinging on his
consciousness, on the milieu in which he lives. The tendencies
which color the reaction are inborn and therefore stationary, but
the reactions themselves are capable of variations according to
the stimuli. It is the environment that crushes or develops abil-
ities and propensities, that supplies the manifold situations to
which the individual is ‘o respond, and that breeds the ideas he
imbibes. The hereditary powers are the constant; the environ-
mental pressures constitute the variable, depending on time and
place. It is the environment that determines and shapes human
nature, and different environments will produce different reac-
tions and ideas—different human beings. The ancient Greek, the
slave-master, sitting under his fig tree and talking politics or dis-
cussing the latest production of Phidias, is a different sort of
human being from the modern worker rushing to the factory on
elevated trains, reading the concocted editorials, and frequenting
the motion pictures. The hereditary endowments of these two
types doubtlessly do not diverge much; but the environmental
forces are radically different, and they conspired to produce two
altogether disparate human natures.

The third theory amalgamates these two views. It urges that
heredity furnishes the powers and potentialities, whereas environ-
ment provides the channel into which these flow, the direction they
take, the intensity they gain, and the coloration they assume.

Of these the environmental view is emphasized by Marx and
Engels with particular force. It does not mean, however, that
they are unaware of the hereditary faculties residing in man.MARX’S VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE 67

They realize that man has inborn abilities and inclinations.
But these are potential and need activity and leisure for their
wholesome development. Each person possesses a “‘natural fer-
tility of mind,” which lies fallow, and is stunted or stimulated to
growth, according as the environment is favorable or not. Thus,
Marx indicates, social division of labor, as well as the minuter
division in the manufacturing processes, is based on “their [the
workers’| natural and their acquired capabilities,” on ‘‘natural
endowments”; and it offers individuals the opportunity of finding
a field of employment suitable to their ‘‘various bents and tal-
ents.” 1 At the same time, he and Engels complain that division
of labor, by calling to constant exercise a single muscular or
mental performance, slaughters all ‘‘intellectual and bodily
capacities,” and converts the laborer into a crippled monstrosity,
because a “‘world of productive capabilities and instincts”’ are
sacrificed to the acquisition of dexterity in a minute detail.”

They are also aware that these faculties are not possessed by
all individuals in uniform quantity and quality. People differ in
their natural gifts physically and mentally. Men are not born
equal.? Two persons working side by side will not devote the
same amount of time to the production of a commodity, partly
because of differences in “‘purely negative moral qualities, such
as patience, impassibility, assiduity.”’* Division of labor rests
on the inequalities among workers: one operation needs more
strength, another more skill, another more attention; “‘and the
same individual does not possess all these qualities in an equal
degree.’’® Some persons lack the capacity for adaptation in a
society based on division of labor, and therefore they stay idle
and poor. ‘“‘A man without wealth, but with energy, solidity,
ability and business sense may become a capitalist... . In a similar
way ... the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages formed its hier-
archy out of the best brains of people without regard to estate,
birth, or wealth.””’ Some men are born leaders, and Owen, a
1 Capital, vol. i, 198, 383-384, 401, 436.

2 Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 238; Capital, vol.i, 396.

3 Marx, on the Gotha program, International Socialist Review, vol. vili, 649.
4

6

Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, p. 58. 5 Capital, vol. i, 383.
Ibid., p. 706. 7 Tbid., vol. iii, 705-706.

FreeTeTE DRVOS SE EE Tan Tenn

op meres +68 THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

product of heredity and environment, is one of the few.’ Aristotle
is ‘‘a giant thinker,” “the greatest thinker of antiquity.” ” Xeno-
phon in his writings shows already a “characteristic bourgeois
instinct.” ? Watt was a genius. John Bellers was ‘‘a very
phenomenon in the history of political economy.” ° Mandeville
was ‘‘an honest, clear-headed man.” ® The Venetian monk Ortes
was an “‘original and clever writer.” ’ Engels assures us that he
himself was at best but talented, whereas Marx was a genius.®
Wilhelm Liebknecht tells us in his memoirs that Marx was a be-
liever in phrenology, and he would minutely examine the heads
of any of his admirers before he would take them into his confi-
dence.’ This obviously points to a belief in inborn differences,
for Marx hardly expected that an acquired character would be
heralded by the accession of a new bump.

That Marx believes in inborn race characteristics and differ-
ences was seen in citations in a previous chapter. On this sub-
ject he has decided views, especially as regards the German race.
In his Revolution and Counter Revolution he expresses disapproval
of the attempts of Bohemia and Croatia to join in a Pan-Slavic
movement and to emancipate themselves from German domina-
tion. He pronounces such efforts as useless and explains why.
The action of historical elements leads to an absorption of the
feebler peoples by the ‘‘more energetic stock.” The historical
forces have through long centuries operated on these nationalities,
and have undermined them.!° The ‘‘more energetic stock” refers
here to the Germans, who have the ‘“‘physical and intellectual
power to subdue, absorb, and assimilate its ancient eastern neigh-
bors.” Marx is proud of this historical operation, for ‘‘this ten-
dency of absorption on the part of the Germans had always been,

1 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. 20.

2 Capital, vol.i, 94.n., 445-446. 3 Ibid., p. 402.

4 Ibid., p. 412. 5 Jbid., p. 535 Nn.

§ Tbid., p. 674. 7 Ibid., p. 676n.

8 Feuerbach, p.o3n. In a letter to J. P. Becker, Engels writes: ‘“‘I have been
doing all my life what I was fit to do, namely, to play second fiddle.” Marx was first
fiddle. Der Kampf, vol. vi, 533.

9 Karl Marx, Biographical Memoirs, p. 52.
10 Revolution and Counter Revolution, p. 91.MARX’S VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE 69

and still was, one of the mightiest means by which the civilization
of Western Europe had been spread in the east of that continent.”
Therefore, ‘‘the natural and inevitable fate of these dying nations
was to allow this process of dissolution and absorption by their
stronger neighbors to complete itself,” instead of fighting the
‘‘historical tendency”? and dreaming ‘“‘that history would retro-
grade a thousand years in order to please a few phthisical bodies
of men.’’! Engels, too, has a good opinion of the absorbers, and
declares that ‘‘Of course, the Germans were a highly gifted Aryan
branch.” ?

However, we must not lose sight of the fact that Marx and
Engels do not intend to accord overmastering power to the effect
of heredity on dissimilarities among men and races. Differences
there are, but heredity is not the most significant and the most
prevalent cause. Marx holds views similar to those of Adam
Smith.

Adam Smith [he says] . . . has clearly seen that “in reality the difference of
natural talents between individuals is much less than is supposed. These
dispositions so different, which seem to distinguish the men of different pro-
fessions when they arrive at mature age, are not so much the cause as the
effect of the division of labor.’’ In principle a porter differs less from a phi-

losopher than a mastiff from a greyhound. It is the division of labor which
has placed an abyss between the two.

One outstanding characteristic, of great weight in history, and
apparently held by Marx and Engels as innate, is man’s stubborn
adherence to tradition. Men, by and large, are very conservative.
They are reluctant to make changes, except under pressure; they
are not eager to study and examine things deeply. Their minds
are not searching, doubting, and questioning, but are generally at
rest. What is, especially what has existed for a long time, has in
their estimation peculiar sanction and strength, and is not to be
molested. Where people are even fighting in behalf of significant
changes, the participants conjure up the battle cries and mottoes

1 Revolution and Counter Revolution, pp. 137-138.

2 Origin of the Family, p.188. Cf. Capital, vol. iii, 919, 922, for further hints
concerning race differences.

3 Poverty of Philosophy, p. 140. The quotation from Adam Smith is somewhat
inaccurate. See The Wealth of Nations (Everyman ed,), p. 14.

a baste Ves aera ATE EDO EERIE

comer70 THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

of the past, and clothe present events and characters with the
associations of old deeds in order to lend dignity and glory to the
issue at hand. They try to derive vigor and ardor, not so much
from the contents of the problems that led to the crisis, as from
old names and watchwords, and by calling into service the spirits
of by-gone days.! The old has a strong grip on people, and prog-
ress proceeds slowly. ‘‘Tradition is a great retarding force, is the
vis inertiae of history.” ? ‘The tradition of all past generations
weighs like an Alp upon the brain of the living.’’* Because of
tradition and custom every new form of production retains for a
long time certain vestiges of the old one. Elements of an anti-
quated system will cling to the framework of the new order until
the latter is so fully developed that its pulsating vitality destroys
the adhesive power of the old remnants, and dissolves them.
Similarly with a standard of living, with workers’ wages, and
with the determination of interest; custom and age retain pre-
rogative.*

A still more potent human trait is self-interest and its con-
comitants, greed and search for power and personal aggrandize-
ment. Marx refers to it as “‘ the most violent, mean and malignant
passions of the human breast, the Furies of private interest.” °
In its realization it displays man’s most ignoble passions. To
indicate the lengths to which capital will go when it scents its
profits, he quotes approvingly from P. J. Dunning:

Capital eschews no profit, or very small profit, just as Nature was formerly
said to abhora vacuum. With adequate profit capital is very bold. A certain
ro per cent. will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 per cent. certain will
produce eagerness; 50 percent., positive audacity; 100 per cent. will make it
ready to trample on all human laws; 300 per cent., and there is not a crime
at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its
owner being hanged. If turbulence and strife will bring a profit, it will freely

encourage both. Smuggling and the slave trade have amply proved all that
is here stated.§

_

Marx, 18th Brumaire, pp. 9-10.

Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. xxxvil.

Marx, 18th Brumaire, p.9. Alpin German means also a nightmare.
Capital, vol. i, 190; vol. ili, 427.

Ibid., vol. i, Introduction, p. 15.

Tbid., vol. i, 834 n.

=a o WwW

aMARX’S VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE 71

Self-interest is the cause of much suffering; but, as will be seen
repeatedly in subsequent discussions, it is also a lever of social
progress and change.

Only one period in the history of mankind was immune from
the odious play of this monster. In the gens communities self-
interest was unknown; it did not visit primitive society to mar its
idyllic happiness. But with the fall of this order the earth became
the scene of incessant turmoil. ‘‘ Bare-faced covetousness was the
moving spirit of civilization from its first dawn to the present day;
wealth, and again wealth, and for the third time wealth; wealth,
not of society, but of the puny individual, was its only and final
aim.’ ! When the curtain of history rises upon ancient Greece,
we behold the mad rush for wealth; piracy on sea and plunder on
land, the goal being ‘‘cattle, slaves, and treasure”; the farmer
struggling in the clutches of the usurer; debtors and their children
sold into servitude; the master and the slave.” The scene in Rome
is not brighter. The blackmailing regents, the tax collectors, and
the soldiers sapping and grinding the life out of the populace; the
usurer-patricians living off the plebians; the noble degrading the
independent peasant into a serf in exchange for protection —
these are some of the hideous details. Even in the Middle Ages
the mien of the feudal lord mars the picture; usurer’s and mer-
chant’s capital are the dominant forms, and, with Marx, the latter
always “‘stands for a system of robbery, and its development ...
is always connected with plundering, piracy, snatching of slaves,

   

conquest of colonies.”

The advent of capitalism merely intensifies the play of self-
interest. Original accumulation, which, to recall, prepared the
ground for the thorough inauguration of this régime, is ‘written
in letters of blood and fire,” is marked by series of ‘thefts, out-
rages, popular misery,” is an array of “murder, robbery and
war.” Born in the storm of blood and fire, the capitalist system,
throughout its existence, exhibits no other policy. It maintains

1 Engels, Origin of the Family, p. 215.

2 Ibid., pp. 120, 134, 143.

3 Ibid., pp. 179, 182; Capital, vol. ili, 699, 703.
Ibid., pp. 389-390.

FRENTE RELL AMEND EGec Sa72 THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

no other relations between man and man than those based on
the “‘nexus”’ of self-interest, complains the Communist Manifesto
(page 15). In the hunger for wealth, all that is sacred is trampled
upon, and nothing escapes violent hands. ‘‘Not even are the
bones of saints, and still less are more delicate res sacrosanctae
extra commercium hominum able to withstand this alchemy” of
turning everything into gold.! The entire world becomes a mar-
ket, with price as the universal language; and nationality is but
the “guinea’s stamp.’’? Only, at last, with the coming of social-
ism the ravages of self-interest will vanish. This order will furnish
an environment utterly devoid of stimuli that would call the
black trait into action.

It is true that the two writers are aware that human beings
possess finer traits also. Engels confesses that “the mutual and
reciprocal feelings of men for one another such as sexual love,
friendship, compassion, self-sacrifice, etc.,”’ are facts anyone can
observe. He admits that at times men are impelled by ‘‘ideal
motives, zeal for honor, enthusiasm for truth and justice, personal
hate.” * Yet these finer qualities are regarded as private, do-
mestic virtues manifested in the humbler dealings of everyday
life. They do not figure in the historic processes and in social
evolution. There they are marginal, not focal. On the arena of
history, the all-pervasive and persistent human passion that plays
a dominant part is self-interest.

This emphasis on self-interest is not a counterpart of the ‘‘eco-
nomic man” of the English classical school of political economy.
There is a difference. According to the exponents of the classical
school, man was guided by considerations of self-interest only in
a limited domain out of the whole realm of human activities,
namely, in economic transactions. They did not insist that people
are actuated by such motives in all the manifold spheres of life.
Men like Adam Smith, Ricardo, and J. S. Mill hardly presumed
to maintain that in politics and law, ethics and religion, art and
science, the single human trait that inevitably obtrudes itself, and
1 Capital, vol. i, 148.

* Marx, Critique of Political Economy, pp. 207-208.
3 Feuerbach, pp. 77-78, 105.MARX’S VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE

 

73

preéminently does the shaping and the coloring, is self-interest.
In his Theory of Moral Sentiments Adam Smith subjects to severe
criticism all the views which make one or another aspect of self-
interest the determining factor of social life and historical prog-
ress. He urges that the dominant force in society is, on the con-
trary, sympathy, or “‘fellow-feeling.” *

Similarly, J. S. Mill objects strenuously to the philosophers who
maintain that ‘‘private, or worldly, interest” is the sole ruling
principle of government. He insists that no one single human
trait can be appealed to in order to explain a social phenomenon,
but that ‘‘all the determining agencies” are to be studied care-
fully. ‘‘The phenomena of society do not depend, in essentials,
on some one agency or law of human nature. . . . The whole of the
qualities of human nature influence those phenomena, and there
is not one which influences them in a small degree.’”’? Marx and
Engels are very remote from such views. If the older English
economists assumed the economic man in pecuniary dealings, if
Machiavelli constructed the ‘“‘political man” in the domain of
politics, Marx and his friend went much further. With them,
man is impelled by the urgings of self-interest in every conceivable
phase of social life and culture. With them, man had been and
still is, especially if he is not a proletarian, the ideal incarnation,
the apotheosis, of self-interest.

It is not exactly clear whether self-interest is considered by
Marx and Engels an inborn trait of human nature or merely a
product of environment. Such evidence as can be adduced on
this question points, apparently, to their belief that it is innate.
Engels lauds the achievements of civilization, but he decries the
fact that the instinct of self-interest was the moving force behind
them: ‘But these exploits were accomplished,’ he complains,
‘by playing on the most sordid passions and instincts of man, and

542-611.

2 J. S. Mill, System of Logic, vol. ii, 467, 469, 472; cf. p. 511. Cf. Ricardo,
Principles of Political Economy (Everyman ed.), p. 83. See the exceedingly sug-
gestive article by Professor A. A. Young on “‘The Trend of Economics,” in Quar-
terly Journal of Economics, vol. xxxix, especially pp. 175 ff.

  

aTHE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

 

74

by developing them at the expense of all his other gifts.” ! In the
primitive, communal gens war “reigned from tribe to tribe,” ex-
cept where there were peace treaties; subsequently the cruelty of
warfare was modified ‘‘simply by self-interest.” ? Already in this
excellent society the leaders coveted the usurper’s place, and the
nobles sought wealth and power. In the dissolution of this order
and in the introduction of classes self-interest played a command-
ing part. ‘“‘The new system of classes is inaugurated by the mean-
est impulses: vulgar covetousness, brutal lust, sordid avarice,
selfish robbery of commonwealth. The old gentile society with-
out classes is undermined and brought to a fall by the most con-
temptible means: theft, violence, cunning, treason.”’* Introduce
gold into a communal society, and one after another the social
ties will break up, gradually bringing in a régime of private pro-
duction. The question arises, How did such mean traits ever find
their habitat in the human breast? The gens environment con-
tained nothing that would produce them, since it was fit to raise
only ‘‘splendid men and women.” It was a worthy society. ““How
wonderful,” exclaims Engels, ‘‘this gentile constitution is in all its
natural simplicity! No soldiers, gendarmes, and policemen, no
.. . prefects or judges, no prisons, no lawsuits, and still affairs run
smoothly .... There cannot be any poor and destitute. .. . All are
free and equal — the women included.” ®

It may therefore be taken that they regard self-interest as in-
born. In primitive communism, up to its last days, environment
gave this human trait no ground to play on, and therefore it lay
hidden. But as exchange on the borders between neighboring
tribes increased, and as opportunities presented themselves for
the acquisition of wealth and prestige, it commenced to assert
itself and urge man to exertions in his own behalf, recking but
little about his fellow beings. Under socialism environment will
once more provide no incentive for this instinct to come into ac-
tion. It will therefore slumber in the innermost recesses, cramped
in on all sides by the many nobler motives that will blossom out,
and languishing for want of nourishment.

1 Origin of the Family, p. 215. 2 Ibid., pp. 118-119.

3 I[bid., p. 119; Anti-Diihring, p. 188. 4 Tbid., p. 256.
5 Origin of the Family, p. 117.MARX’S VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE 75

It is sad to reflect that thinkers since Plato and Aristotle have
generally entertained pessimistic views of human nature. No one
has a good word for it. Of course, men like Godwin, Rousseau,
and Condorcet are exceptions. They admit that human nature is
bad as it displays itself under existing circumstances; but they
stoutly maintain that it is capable of sublime perfection if social
conditions would change for the better. Marx and Engels would
perhaps range themselves among these optimists. But one cannot
be certain. We find Engels stating with approval: “‘‘One thinks
he is saying something great,’ Hegel remarks, ‘if one says that
mankind is by nature good; but it is forgotten that one says some-
thing far greater in the words: man is by nature evil.’”’}

Such is human nature when viewed in the light of heredity.
Men have inborn faculties, deep-seated differences, and certain
persistent and dominant traits. However, according to Marx and
his friend, human nature as it reveals itself in reality cannot be
fully comprehended when a mere summation of these items is
exhibited. Real human nature embodies the aggregate of reac-
tions and responses of actual, living people to a particular en-
vironment pulsating with life; the mass of specific ideas, feelings,
prejudices, experiences, and aims, springing from, and nourished
by, a definite age and place. Divorce man from the world he lives
in, and merely list the complex of the potential powers and incli-
nations that dwell within him, and you obtain, not a human be-
ing, but a mere abstraction.” A person’s traits do not constitute
a fixed, immutable apparatus that had been supplied to him at
birth; on the contrary, they are plastic, they are constantly shap-
ing themselves and are steadily undergoing serious modifications,
under the impact of stimuli that come to his consciousness. As a
consequence, human beings are not the same the world over and
throughout the historic ages. ‘‘All history is nothing but a con-

tinual transformation of human nature,” * and anyone who would
presume to criticize or evaluate human behavior ought to “deal
with human nature in general, and then with human nature as

 

1 Engels, Feuerbach, p. 84.
2 [bid., p. 83.
3 Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, p. 160.

+
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76 THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

vironment.

One of the environmental agencies that mold human char-
acter is found in the geographical conditions. Marx and Engels,
however, give this point scant attention. The indirect influence
of the physical surroundings, through the effect on a mode of
production, they would be eager to acknowledge and to emphasize,
but the direct influence receives little discussion. Engels remarks
that the presence of domestic animals in certain regions of Asia
had supplied, in the remote past, a milk and meat diet, and ac-
counts for the superior development of the Aryans and the
Semites; while the Indians of New Mexico had a small brain,
because they were compelled to subsist on a vegetable diet. But
he adds that he is not absolutely certain of the correctness of this
view.” Yet Marx indicates in one passage some awareness of the
influence of natural surroundings on human traits. Where, he
says, nature is luxuriant in her gifts, she treats man like a child,
and imposes on him no necessity of developing himself. But where
she is parsimonious and exhibits caprice in the distribution of
natural resources, in the variation of the quality of the soil, and
in the changes of the seasons, she puts man on his guard, incites
him to action, calls his abilities into constant exercise, and forces
him to economize, to plan, and to enter upon all sorts of enter-

| modified in each historical epoch.” Man is what he is by en-

prizes.®
Enormous efficacy in determining man’s nature is ascribed to
society and its institutions. Man imbibes the atmosphere cre-
ated by his social environment, absorbs its traditions, assimilates
its ways of envisaging things — and his character is fashioned in
the process. Man needs society, he must be within it before there
can be any reference to his nature. Isolated from society and its
multifarious institutions and customs, he is a mere phantom, a
\ paradox. ‘‘Man is in the most literal sense of the word a zon
olitikon, not only a social animal, but an animal which can de-
elop into an individual only in society.” * Nursed and shaped by

1 Capital, vol. i, 668 n. 2 Origin of the Family, p. 32 and n.
8 Capital, vol. i, 563 and n., 564 and n.
£ Marx, Critique of Political Economy, p. 268.MARX’S VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE Th

society, human nature in each period is an epitome, a mirroring of
the distinctive characteristics and aspects of a given social organ-
ization; an ideal precipitate of the innumerable elements that
constitute the essentials of social life. ‘‘But humanity (das
menschliche Wesen) is not an abstraction dwelling in each indi-
vidual. In its reality it is the ensemble of the conditions of soci-
ety,”’ says Marx in his notes on Feuerbach’s philosophy.’

Each society produces therefore its own brand of human nature
by casting man’s potentialities into a definite configuration, and
by imbuing him with ideas and feelings peculiar to its own age.
The primitive communal clan produces fearless, altruistic, liberty-
loving individuals. The Germans, who triumph over decadent
Rome, infuse better blood into decrepit Europe, and proceed to
make history on its ruins, can achieve all this, because they are a
product of gens society, and not because of ‘‘an innate magic
power of the German race,” as the jingo historians would have it.”
The eighteenth-century individual is a child of a society that saw
the complete disappearance of feudalism, and that was busily in-
troducing the capitalistic order, which had been in formation
since the sixteenth century.’ The objection that socialism is im-

possible in practice would therefore be met by Marx and Engels }

with contempt. They would say: you conjure up the ghost of the
human nature that will have been sent to its grave by the tumbl-
ing ruins of the capitalist order; the human nature you have in
mind is only the inevitable fruit of the present vicious social or-
ganization; socialism will transform society, and human nature
with it.’

Two modifications must be kept in mind at this juncture. To
Marx, society is not an independent entity, but a resultant of the
mode of production, which gives it a distinctive character and
which determines its institutions. Therefore, when discussing

1 Reprinted in Engels’s Feuerbach, appendix 6, p. 132; cf. this work of Engels in
German, p. 63.

2 Engels, Origin of the Family, pp. 188-189.

3 Marx, Critique of Political Economy, p. 267; Poverty of Philosophy, p. 125;
Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 182.

4 A very able brief for the view that human nature is plastic will be found in
Professor John Dewey’s Human Nature and Conduct.

re

——tre?

78 THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

Marx’s view as to the influence of society on man, one ought to
remember that the system of production is subsumed as the hid-
den basic force, and that it is the productive régime which re-
leases all the elements characterizing society and working on
human nature. In the second place, with Marx and Engels so-
ciety is too large and too general an entity to identify an indi-
vidual by it. The direct, compelling action on man’s nature is
exerted by the class to which he belongs. Society lays the broad
foundations and imparts color and tone to the general outlook and
habits of man; but the specific traits and details are delineated
by the class of which he is a member. In the strict sense, man is a
product of his class, and is identified by it. His ideas and inter-
ests, aims and attitudes, his modes of conduct, his whole psyche,
are those of his class. In his preface to the first volume of Capital
(page 15) Marx declares that it is not his intention to blame indi-
viduals when he excoriates the capitalist and the landlord; they
are merely the ‘‘personifications of economic categories, embodi-
ments of particular class relations and class interests.” —The mode
of production, the type of society it generates and of social insti-
tutions it creates, the classes it engenders — these are implied
when one talks of the action Marx and Engels ascribe to social
environment on man’s make-up.

Among the environmental factors they also stress very em-
phatically the tremendous power of work in general and of occu-
pation in particular over the formation of man’s character and
intellectual horizon. ‘‘By thus acting on the external world and
changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature.”’? Work
claims the bigger part of man’s life; to it he devotes the major
portion of his energies and abilities; it constitutes almost the
whole of his small world of action and direct experience. There-
fore, in proportion as his work is narrow in scope or of wide range,
stimulating or monotonous, complex or simple, it develops,
stunts, or leaves fallow his slumbering powers. The distinction
between the porter and the philosopher is mainly the outcome of
the occupational division of labor.? It is the division of labor in
the factory which slaughters a world of intellectual capacities in

1 Capital, vol. i, 198. 2 Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, p. 140.MARX’S VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE 79

order to develop a detail to perfection; it is the dull, monotonous
work in the country that denies full development to the agricul-
tural laborer.! The petty bourgeoisie in Germany is timid and
vacillating. ‘‘The mesquin character of its commercial transac-
tions and its credit operations is eminently apt to stamp its char-
acter with a want of energy and enterprise.” ? Only variety of
work can foster and give expression to the many sides of human
ability and character; and under socialism, Engels promises us,
this will receive attention: after half an hour of architecture the
architect will devote his talents to barrow-pushing. “It will bea
pretty sort of socialism that will perpetuate the profession of
barrow-pushing,” he exclaims.*

The efficacy of work looms so large to Engels’s mind that he
sees in it the principal factor that helped the monkey to become a
man. This interesting morsel of anthropology he offers in one of
his articles. Work is the fundamental condition of life. Ages ago,
because of the requirements of work, the man-like ape discarded
walking on all fours, and dedicated his hands to the sole function
of work. With steady exercise, adaptation, and with the inheri-
tance of acquired alterations, the arm gradually changed until it
began to look entirely unlike the legs, and until it attained the
grade of perfection to conjure up ‘“‘Raphael’s paintings, Thor-
waldsen’s statues, Paganini’s music.” ° With a variation in the
structure of the arm as well as of the leg, a corresponding transfor-
mation ensued in the composition of the whole organism — in
concordance with the law of physiological correlation. The de-
velopment of the arm gave primitive man mastery over nature,
and induced him to work in the society of his fellows, since he
realized that codperation was more fruitful of the best results.
But coédperation imposes the necessity of speaking. This hardly
caused any dismay, for ‘‘necessity created its organ”: soon a
mouth and accessories developed that had the power of articula-

1 Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 238.

Marx, Revolution and Counter Revolution, p. 169.

Anti-Diihring, pp. 221-222.
“Der Anteil der Arbeit an der Menschwerdung der Affen,” Neue Zeit, vol. xiv,

no. 2, pp- 545~554-
5 Ibid., p. 547.

-~ wo

kalba:

pos
mere! ooeetecs tests bots peers eye Di

—80 THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

tion.! Under the spur primarily of work and only secondarily of
speech the brain began to develop until it reached the dimensions
and quality enjoyed by man. Presently the sense organs — of
sight, smell, and so forth — began to perfect themselves. Parallel
to all this progress went the development of clear consciousness
and of the faculty of abstraction and judgment. The monkey
turned into man.

Thus with one apocryphal story Engels disposes of the scien-
tific problem as to the origin of man, and triumphantly assures us
that the reason the Darwinians could not make this wonderful
discovery is that they were influenced by idealism and would not
acknowledge the réle work had played here.”

This is not an exalted philosophy of human nature. Man isa
weathercock. The numerous environmental stimuli that come to
his consciousness give rise to his reactions and mode of behavior,
fill him with notions and illusions, and determine his character.
True, he has inborn traits and dispositions; but these are merely
a portion of the material of which the weathercock is made. They
do not make him a creature of independent will, capable of govern-
ing and changing his environment to suit his designs, and free to
choose his course of action. Man remains inert, passive, a feather
to every whiff of the wind, a servant to every stimulus from out-
side. However, to stop here would mean to simplify the case and
to suppress some further evidence available as concerns Marx’s
and Engels’s views of human nature. They do express opinions
about man’s importance in historical events, and these opinions
must be evaluated before we can gain a fuller understanding of
their attitude. Only, as usual, their statements are scattered and
are hardly consistent; they present two series of contradictory
views.

On the one hand we meet declarations that bestow on man in
general and on leaders will and power in all channels of activity.
Men “are all endowed with consciousness; they are agents im-
bued with deliberation or passion, men working towards an ap-
pointed end; nothing appears without an intentional purpose,

1 Neue Zeit, vol. xiv, no. 2, p. 548. 2 Ibid., p. 551.J

ee oe OORT tees prsas
espreueTenn mesa ter ese ys fois, 2 geben eters

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
   

MARX’S VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE SI

without an end desired.” Man’s will ‘‘is determined by passion
or reflection,” by ‘‘ideal motives, zeal for honor, enthusiasm for
truth and justice, personal hate, or even purely individual peculiar
ideas of all kinds.’’? When he goes about his labors, he follows
plans laid out by him beforehand, ‘‘realizes a purpose of his own,”
and at the end of the work-process he obtains a result that had
already existed in his imagination. It is this fact, Marx com-
ments, that distinguishes man’s labor from the instinctive work
of the bee or of the spider.’ In one of his notes on Feuerbach he
states that the materialistic doctrine that men are resultants of
conditions and of education “forgets that circumstances may be
altered by men and that the educator has himself to be educated.
It necessarily happens therefore that society is divided into two
parts, of which one is elevated above society (Robert Owen for
example).’’ 4

Similar views are presented about marked personalities in the
domain of ideas. Wyatt and Watt helped in ushering in the In-
dustrial Revolution.’ The ‘brilliant school of French material-
ists’? made the eighteenth century, “‘in spite of all battles on land
and sea won over Frenchmen by Germans and Englishmen, a pre-
eminently French century, even before that crowning French
Revolution.”’ These thinkers are referred to as the “great men,
who in France prepared men’s minds for the coming revolution.” °
Marx declares William Petty ‘‘the father of political economy ”’; |
Engels says that this science ‘‘arose in the minds of a few geniuses
of the seventeenth century,” and is really a child of the eighteenth
because of the labors of the physiocrats and Adam Smith.’ The
discovery of the labor theory of value marks ‘‘an epoch in the
history of the development of the human race’? — and this doubt-
lessly alludes to Adam Smith or Ricardo.* Feuerbach, with his

ee

1 Engels, Feuerbach, p. 104.

2 Ibid,, p. 105.

3 Capital, vol. i, 198.

4 Reprinted in Engels’s Feuerbach, p. 130.

5 Capital, vol. i, 406, 412; Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. xxix.
6 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, pp. xiii, 1-2.

7 Capital, vol.i, 299; Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 182.

8 Capital, vol. i, 85.

Se EES GLAS EL a a aa AD SDE ee ge Cee
hate cc lieey lede bee: ene reas a RAG LO qari " . =82 THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

philosophy, ‘‘made an epoch.’’! Hegel rendered an ‘‘epoch-mak-
ing service”’ by regarding things as in a process of growth; and his
system played ‘‘an incomparably greater réle than any earlier
system,”’ although he was ‘‘somewhat of a philistine,” and al-
though his cult of the Idea is mere ‘idealistic frippery”’ and a
conglomeration of ‘‘fever phantoms.” ? Darwin’s theory was one
of the “‘three great discoveries which have caused our knowledge
of the interdependence of the processes of nature to progress by
leaps and bounds,” and which resulted in a “‘ powerful advance of
science.” ¢

Great tasks have likewise been performed in the political and
social realms by men of energy and will. “Peter the Great over-
threw Russian barbarism with barbarity.” * Napoleon “brought
about within France”’ the conditions prerequisite for a bourgeois
society, and beyond the French frontier ‘‘he swept away” the
feudal régime. He also “‘fixed and regulated,” within France, the
conditions under which the farmer could cultivate the land that
had fallen to him after the Revolution, thereby introducing small
farming, which was at the beginning of the nineteenth century the
‘condition for the emancipation and enrichment of the French
rural population,” which ‘“‘deprived feudalism of all nutriment,”
and which was “‘a buttress of the bourgeoisie against every stroke
of the old overlords.” > Robert Owen was the guiding spirit of
labor, and ‘‘every real advance in England on behalf of the work-
ers links itself on to the name of Robert Owen. . . . He forced
through in 1819, after five years of fighting, the first law limiting
the hours of labor of women and children in factories . . . . He
introduced as transition measures to the complete communistic
organization of society’’ codperative societies and labor bazars.®

In counterposition to such pronouncements we find in Marx
and Engels an abundance of statements that express an opposite
view. Man and his will, leaders and their efforts, are belittled.

)

1 Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, appendix, p..194.

* Engels, Anti-Diihring, pp. 45, 65; Feuerbach, pp. 46, 96.
3 Feuerbach, pp. 99, 101; Anti-Diihring, p. 104.

4 Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, appendix, p. 201.

5 Marx, 18th Brumaire, pp..10, 148-150.

6 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, pp. 25-26.MARX’S VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE 83

Individuals are declared to be deluded by all species of erroneous
ideas, and to be incapable of grasping the true nature of occur-
rences around them. In the productive pursuits men enter defi-
nite relations “‘independent of their will.”’ Their everyday
choices as consumers are determined, not by their own delibera-
tions, but by their social position and by the entire social organ-
ization; this explains why the worker wants potatoes and the kept
woman desires lace.2. Leaders fare no better. An analysis of the

inventions of the eighteenth century would demonstrate that they ,

were due very little to the work of a single individual.’ “Man|

makes his own history, but he does not make it out of the whole} |

cloth; he does not make it out of conditions chosen by himself, |
but out of such as he finds at hand.” * Revolutions are not due to
the ill will of a few agitators, but to persistent social wants, the
gratification of which is suppressed by outworn institutions; and
the failure of an uprising is not to be ascribed to “the accidental
efforts, talents, faults, errors, or treacheries of some of the lead-
ers,” but to the general conditions of existence of the nations
convulsed.> The dreams of the eighteenth-century French phi-
losophers of justice, inalienable rights, and the rule of reason
found their expression, after the Revolution, merely in the in-
iquities of the bourgeois régime; for these philosophers “could,
no more than their predecessors, go beyond the limits imposed
upon them by their epoch.” ® Neither the statesman nor the
thinker, neither the leader nor the revolutionary can cause so-
ciety to raise itself by its bootstraps.

In general, Marx is unduly critical in his estimates of important
persons, and is eager to belittle their accomplishments. Where
others would see cause for praise, he discerns only weakness and
faults, although at times his criticism is well to the point — as
far asit goes. Burke is “the celebrated sophist and sycophant,”
the ‘‘execrable political cant-monger.” “This sycophant, who in

1 Marx, Critique of Political Economy, p. 11; 18th Brumaire, p. 48.

2 Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, pp. 44-45.

3 Capital, vol. i, 406 n.

4 Marx, 18th Brumaire, p..9.

5

Marx, Revolution and Counter Revolution, pp. 14-16.
6 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, pp. 3-4.

TUS REESE

—_84 THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

the pay of the English oligarchy played the romantic Jaudator
temporis acti against the French Revolution, just as, in the pay of
the North American colonies . . . he had played the Liberal against
the English oligarchy, was an out-and-out vulgar bourgeois.” !
Bentham is “the arch-philistine Jeremy Bentham, that insipid,
pedantic, leather-tongued oracle of the ordinary bourgeois intelli-
gence of the nineteenth century”’; ‘‘a genius in the way of bour-
geois stupidity.” ? Cobden and Bright are no more than ‘‘manu-
facturers’’; just ‘Boring, Bright and Company,” in whom people
have “their worst enemies and the most shameless hypocrites”;
who are crusading for free trade solely because it spells good
profits.* Locke is but “an advocate of the new bourgeoisie in all
forms, the manufacturers against the working classes and paupers,
the commercial class against the old-fashioned usurers, the finan-
cial aristocracy against the state debtors.” 4 Malthus is ‘that
master in plagiarism,” the producer of a ‘“‘pasquinade.” > Ma-
caulay is a “‘Scotch sycophant and fine talker.” ® McLeod, ‘‘ who
has taken upon himself to dress up the confused ideas of Lombard
Street in the most learned finery, is a successful cross between the
superstitious mercantilists and the enlightened Free Trade bag-
men.”’ J. S. Mill is a vulgar economist on page 654, but is ex-
onerated on page 669. ‘‘He is as much at home in absurd con-
tradictions as he feels at sea in the Hegelian contradiction, the
source of all dialectic.” ? Napoleon III is a ‘‘mutton-head,’’ who
“carried on regular blackmail”; ‘‘an old and crafty roué.’’!°
Roscher ‘‘seldom loses an occasion of registering, in black and
white, ingenious apologetic fancies.” !! Count Rumford, the
famous American physicist, is ‘an American humbug, the baron-

1 Capital, vol. i, 354, 833 n. 2 [bid., p. 668 and n.

* Poverty of Philosophy, appendix, p. 209; Capital, vol. i, 19; Klassenkiimpfe in
Frankreich, p. 84.
* Critique of Political Economy, p. 93.
®° Capital, vol.i, 556n.; Poverty of Philosophy, p. 194.
§ Capital, vol. i, 300 n.
Lord. s70:
Sil bid=. ni
9 [bid., p. 654n.
1° 18th Brumaire, pp. 11, 81, 83.
1L Capital, vol.i, 229 n.MARX’S VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE 85

ized Yankee.” 1 J. B. Say is the vulgarizer of Adam Smith; “the
dull J. B. Say”; “this comical ‘prince de la science,” whose
‘‘merits consisted rather of the impartiality with which he
equally misunderstood his contemporaries, Malthus, Sismondi
and Ricardo.’’2 Senior is a vulgar economist who substituted
“for an economic category a sycophantic phrase — voild tout,” of
abstinence, and who presumes that ‘‘the world still jogs on solely
through the self-chastisement of this modern penitent of Vishnu,
the capitalist.” ‘‘Adam Smith applied the Scotch saying that
‘mony mickles mak a muckle’ even to his spiritual wealth, and
therefore concealed with petty care the sources to which he owed
the little out of which he tried to make so much. More than
once he prefers to break off the point of the discussion, whenever
he feels that an attempt on his part clearly to formulate the
question would compel him to settle his accounts with his prede-
cessors.” 4 Thiers stands on a ‘‘mean, petty pedestal’’; is an
‘historical shoeblack’’ of Napoleon I; is “‘a master in small state
roguery, a virtuoso in perjury and treason, a craftsman in all the
petty stratagems, cunning devices, and base perfidies of parlia-
mentary party warfare; ... with class prejudices standing him
in the place of ideas, and vanity in the place of a heart; his private
life as infamous as his public life is odious.” * Arthur Young is

‘Can unutterable statistical prattler,”’ “‘whose reputation is in the
6

 

inverse ratio of his merit.

Examples can enlarge these two contradictory lists, and can
show that praise is meted out in one connection and derision in
another, even to the same person or movement. However, if we
have in mind Marx’s and Engels’s general outlook upon historical
forces, and if we read the statements in their context and spirit,
the sharpness of the contradictions begins to wane, and we discern
some method in this madness.

There is in their mind a fundamental distinction drawn between

1 Capital, vol. i, 659. 2 Critique of Political Economy, p. 123.

3 Capital, vol. i, 654-655.

4 Critique of Political Economy, p. 232.

5 Poverty of Philosophy, p. 200; Civil War in France, pp. 54-56. Thus to Thiers
for having squelched the Paris Commune!
§ Capital, vol.i, 301 n., 254n.

ee men86 THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

the everyday life of individuals and the general course of history;
between the short-time personal incidents and the march of
human destinies as viewed over long ages. They are aware that
in his everyday life, in the pursuit of his usual engagements, the
ordinary person is not the feather to every blow of the wind of
circumstance, and not merely the obedient victim of external
stimuli. He is generally a man of judgment and designs, of ideals,
whims, and passions. Not infrequently he deliberates, chooses,
and follows his plans. To some extent he is a man with a will.
But the progress of universal history is a different matter. On the
surface it may appear as a display of fluctuating, haphazard,
unpredictable acts controlled by vacillating human fancy; but
at bottom it is steered by definite, persistent, universal laws. It
is human history; yet it is governed by inexorable laws just as
nature is.’ In history, not man’s will is the determining cause,
but the external, silent forces operating with iron necessity and
moving toward an irresistible goal. These forces are chiefly the
system of production and the dialectic. Men make history, true;
only they make it, not of their free wills, but in compliance with
the imperial dictates of the material economic conditions. History
'is made under conditions not chosen but found close at hand.
“Man proposes and God (to wit, the outside force of the capital-
istic method of production) disposes.” 2

As to great men and leaders. They cannot resist the tide of
general conditions about them, cannot turn away from their
courses the historical currents, and launch them into new chan-
nels. They are powerless to tear up the network of forces woven
by the enduring action of consistent laws, and insert warps and
wefts of their own making. Prominent personalities are in no
position to create problems utterly out of harmony with the re-
quirements of the times, nor can they offer solutions to existing
problems which would go athwart social currents, or which are
not intimated by social reality. New problems and their solutions
arise only when circumstances ripen them.’ If it is true, Engels

1 Engels, Feuerbach, pp. 104-105. ? Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 258.

* Marx, Critique of Political Economy, p. 12; Engels, Socialism, Utopian and
Scientific, p. 77.MARX’S VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE 87

exclaims, that a great man can lead to new deeds and to decisive
action regardless of the historical necessities, ‘““he might just as

—=s,

well have been born five hundred years earlier and saved mankind |

the mistakes, conflicts and sorrows of five hundred years.” A
true leader can merely understand the nature of the forces that
operate on a given occasion, interpret the signs of the time, and
urge suitable action. He can play the agent behaving in unison
with them and doing their bidding faithfully.

In this sense each social epoch needs leaders. But Marx agrees
with Helvetius that, if it does not find them, it invents them.?
That a great man, and precisely this one, appears at such a mo-
ment and in such a country is obviously pure accident, writes
Engels in one of his last letters. Suppress him, and there will be
a demand for a substitute; and a substitute will come, generally.
That Napoleon was precisely the sort of military dictator the
French Republic, exhausted by wars, needed, was an accident.
In case a Napoleon is lacking, somebody else will take the place.
This is proved by the fact that each time the man was found as
soon as the need arose: recall Caesar, Augustus, Cromwell. Marx
discovered the materialistic conception of history; but Thierry,
Mignet, Guizot, and all the English historians prior to 1850 prove
that there was a drift toward such a theory. And the discovery
of the same conception by the American, Lewis Morgan, demon-
strates that the time was ripe for it, and that it had to be dis-
covered.’ At best the leader can retard or accelerate the develop-
ment of a given single incident. He cannot modify long-run
historical consequences. Marx writes to Kugelmann that acci-
dents play a part in history, only they are compensated by the
effects of other accidents; further, ‘‘acceleration and retardation
are very much dependent on such accidents, and among these
figures the accident of the character of the people who stand at
the head of a movement.”’ *

1 Anti-Diihring, p. 39.

2 Marx, Klassenkimpfe in Frankreich, p. 70.

3 Letter of January 25, 1894, reprinted in A. Labriola’s Socialisme et philosophie,

p. 260.
4 Neue Zeit, vol. xx, no. I, p. 710.

ae

eee pee eee etter

 

a em88 THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

One may inquire, if in his everyday conduct an individual
pursues his own will and choice, why can we not assume that the
summations of these wills acting in the multifarious directions
serve as immediate or remote causes of the world phenomena, and
constitute, in fact, the very essence of history? Is not history an
agglomeration of events; are not these events connected with the
lives of individuals, with their everyday aims and aspirations;
and is not, therefore, history the history and the fruit of individual
will?

No, says Engels. The purposes and wills of individuals do not

all flow in one direction, swelling into a big movement, and cul-
minating in historical events. They course rather in numberless
different paths, interfere and conflict with each other, criss-cross
and modify one another. As a consequence, either “these ends
are utterly incapable of realization”’; or “the results of many
individual wills produce effects for the most part quite other than
what is wished — often, in fact, the very opposite’’; or “‘the ends
of the actions are intended, but the results which follow from the
actions are not intended.” The actual historical event, then, is
not a product of human will at all. “That which is willed but
rarely happens . . . the innumerable conflicts of individual wills
and individual agents in the realm of history reach a conclusion
which is on the whole analogous to that in the realm of nature —
which is without definite purpose.”’ *
- The individual is accordingly a rather insignificant unit for
historical purposes. He has inborn traits, he follows his designs;
but, at bottom, he is molded by the all-powerful environment,
and is enveloped in a cocoon of notions and illusions transmitted
to him. He is not fit to be a maker of history. Only as a member
of his class can he identify himself as an historical agent. When
isolated he is without historical value, when multiplied into a
class he begins to count. The individual is drowned in the class.
This way of looking at things is frequently observed; those who
minimize the individual and his significance in world movements
revere the group and talk in terms of the “pack.”

1 Feuerbach, pp. 104-106.MARX’S VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE 89

To make history, to act on the historical stage is the mission
and function of the class. Engels declares:

If, therefore, we set out to discover the impelling forces which . . . stand
behind historical figures, and constitute the true final impulses of history,
we cannot consider so much the motives of single individuals, however pre-
eminent, as those which set in motion great masses, entire nations, and again,
whole classes of people in each nation, and this, too, not in a momentarily
flaring and quickly dying flame, but to enduring action culminating in a great
historical change.

This does not imply that a class is possessed of “‘free will,’ and
that it can make history in a capricious and wayward manner.’
Marx and Engels are far from such a view. To them, the class is
the true agent that reads the workings of the hidden, objective
elements in society, that understands their instructions, and that
is qualified to act in accordance with them and to struggle for the
progress of civilization. ‘‘The history of all hitherto existing
society is the history-of-class‘struggles.”

1 Engels, Feuerbach, p. 108.

2 Engels, Grundsdtze des Kommunismus, p. 23.CHAPTER VI

THE CLASS AND CLASS STRUGGLE

WHAT is a class? What is the nature of the class struggle? What
are the fundamental causes of such phenomena? Over these ques-
tions interpreters and critics of Marx have labored a good deal
and have waged heated controversies. Marx and Engels discuss
these questions in many a connection, but here again they hardly
go to the heart of the matter, and theyleave much that is puzzling.
As with other problems, they content themselves with general-
ities that would appear plausible and reasonable to the casual
reader. They avoid the vexing difficulties, and hardly take pains
to clarify the concepts they employ and to reveal the many-sided
aspects of the situations they examine.

Marx commenced an analysis of classes in the last chapter of
the third volume of his Capital, but he never finished the chapter.
One does not know whether to regret this circumstance or to re-
joice over it, for frequently, when he expatiated on a subject and
completed it, the harvest was more bountiful in confusion, con-
tradictions, and obscurities.

He warns us in this chapter that the identity of the source of
income is not a criterion that could aid in distinguishing classes.
This identity merely points to the groupings in what he terms
“social division of labor.’’ Classes and social division of labor are
not to be confused. The latter refers to the occupational division
of labor, to the segmentation of society into groups pursuing vari-
ous callings. The different kinds of employments can be classified
into genera (as agriculture, manufacture), species, subspecies; and
the prerequisite for an elaborate scheme of division is a large and
especially a dense population. In communal society the choice of
an occupation is governed mainly by age and sex; while among
tribes that trade with each other the basis of division of labor is
imposed by the natural environment and resources. Plants and
animals are differentiated into genera and species by nature’s

90THE CLASS AND CLASS STRUGGLE

 

gI

methods; in society the trade of the father is inherited by the son,
and in course of time this inheritance becomes regulated by cus-
tom and law. In India there is the ossification into castes; in the
Middle Ages trades are petrified into guilds, and when further
division of labor becomes imperative, old guilds split into new
ones that engage in subdivisions of a trade.

With the advent of capitalism, not law but competition deter-
mines the distribution and the proportionality of groups. There
is no external authority to supervise, and, to all appearance,
chance and caprice hold sway; however, there persists an invisible
but mighty controlling force — the market price, which works
silently but steadily for the establishment or the redressing of the
equilibrium. Here, too, society is likened to nature: competition,
the bellum omnium contra omnes, preserves the species in the
struggle for existence. It determines how many can profitably
stay in the same occupation, and who is to change to another.'
Such chance comparisons of social division of labor, and in an-
other connection of human labor,” to phenomena of nature have
led some, notably Professor L. Woltmann, to maintain that
Marx’s is essentially a biological or anthropological interpretation
of society and social evolution.? This is far-fetched. Marx’s idea
of evolution runs along entirely different lines.

Accordingly, physicians and clerks, farmers and miners, are not
distinct classes; they are merely groups in the social division of
labor. Would republicans and democrats, conservatives and
liberals, pacifists and militarists constitute classes? No. Marx
does not intend to render class and political party synonymous.
Neither would a divergence of economic views divide society into
Marxian classes; free traders and protectionists, supporters of
organized labor and its opponents, are not the classes he has in
mind. Some define a Marxian class as a group of people who find
themselves in the same economic condition. But this criterion is
too general and too vague. Organized skilled labor in command of

1 Capital, vol. i, 373, 385-386; Poverty of Philosophy, p. 147.

2 Capital, vol.i, 198.

3 Woltmann, Der historische Materialismus, pp. 188 ff., 212 ff., 323 ff.
4 Capital, vol. iii, 1032.

 

  

—Q2 THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

bargaining power is in a different economic condition from that
occupied by the unorganized and unskilled masses of workers.
The opulent lawyer with an extensive business clientele and the
minister who depends for his modest living on the allowance of
the parish are hardly in the same economic condition. Yet in
neither case would Marx see two disparate classes.

For the study of the nature of classes we must turn-our atten-
tion to what Marx terms the economic or the social relations of
production (Produktionsverhdltnisse). He employs this concept
to designate two distinct facts. On the one hand, it comprises
such connections and objective relations among the members of
society or among the phenomena of a given era as are the peculiar
resultants, and simultaneously the significant characteristics, of
the prevailing system of production. For example, in present
society division of labor, the workshop, money, capital, surplus-
value are relations of production.

However, this use of the term does not interest us here. It is
the other fact to which this concept refers that is of valuable
assistance, the fact of the subjective, personal relations among the
producing agents. Under any given mode of production the direct
participators in the processes of making goods maintain various
relations to one another, and on diverse terms.? In each produc-
tive enterprise and in the performance of their daily tasks not all
men enjoy the same status. Not all perform the same functions,
play the same réle, and possess the same amount of freedom and
authority. Some work, others supervise; some command, others
obey; some own the property involved in the processes, others do
not. The specific nature of these personal relations is vitally con-
nected with the mode of production or with the productive forces.
When these change, the relations will alter accordingly. ‘‘ Any
change arising in the productive forces of men necessarily effects
a change in their relations of production.” ®

1 Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, pp..87, 145; Capital, vol. i, 839, vol. iii, 952.

2 Marx, Wage-Labor and Capital, pp. 28 ff.; Capital, vol. iii, 952.

3 Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, p. 133. The English translation has “‘conditions
of production,” but the original, written by Marx in French, has rapports de pro-
duction. See also Capital, vol. i, 326, vol. iii, gt9¢. The German word VerhdlinisseTHE CLASS AND CLASS STRUGGLE 93

The relations among the individuals figuring in the work of
prodution are the source of economic classes. And the elements
which impart precision to these relations and which, in other
words, serve as criteria of a class, are two: property ownership
and personal freedom.

First, as to property. Property in general is not in question
here. The humble wage-earner may own a cottage, while the
wealthy manufacturer may dwell in a rented mansion. The own-
ership of the means of production is meant — of buildings, raw
materials, appliances, and machinery. This ownership gives the
economic relations a definite stamp, and for this reason Marx
employs the two interchangeably. ‘‘At a certain stage . . . the
material forces of production in society come in conflict with the
existing relations of production, or — what is but a legal expres-
sion for the same thing — with the property relations within
which they had been at work before.’”’? With him, “to define
bourgeois property is nothing other than to explain all the social
relations of bourgeois production.” * To the question what were
the relations of modern bourgeois property ‘‘one could only reply
by a critical analysis of political economy, embracing the whole
of the relations of property, not in their juridical expression as
relations of will, but in their real form as relations of material
production.” ?

The property relations enable one to identify the classes exist-
ing in a society of any given historical period. Those who own
the property needed in the processes of production constitute one
class; the persons who do not own it form another. The posses-

may mean conditions as well as relations, and the expression Produktionsverhdltnisse
may designate conditions of production or relations of production. It is essential
to distinguish which of these Marx had in mind, but there is no way of making the
meaning certain. The context is not always a safe guide. The English translations
are careless in some places, especially in Poverty of Philosophy, e. g., pp. 133, 175, and
most likely, in the last pages of Capital, vol. iii, e. g., pp. 1022-1024, where “‘condi-
tions of production”’ should, in some sentences, be replaced by “‘relations of pro-
duction.”

1 Critique of Political Economy, p. 12.

2 Poverty of Philosophy, p. 168.

3 Ibid., appendix, p. 195. Cf. Communist Manifesto, p. 19, and Capital, vol. i,
722.THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

 

94

sion of the means of production places the owners in a position of
power in relation to the non-owning workers. They dictate terms
and exact a toll from the propertyless toilers for the privilege of
using these means of production. The result is that one class does
not work, but obtains an income by filching part of the labor of
the direct producers; the other class is toiling, but it does not re-
ceive the full product of its labor. Property is the right to rob
part of other men’s labor; it is an instrument of coercing others
to sweat for the owner. The peasant working on his land receives
a return which can be separated into wages, profits, and rent.
The wages represent what he, as a hired laborer, could earn for
his work. The other two portions represent surplus-labor which,
if he were a hired laborer, he would have to relinquish to his em-
ployer. The reason he retains this surplus is not that he labors,
but that he happens to be the owner of the land and the other
property essential in the performance of his task. He owns, there-
fore he retains the toll.

In the primitive gens all property was owned by the community,
therefore there were no classes. Likewise, socialism will know no
class stratification, and for the same reason. ‘‘ With the difference
in distribution, however, class differences are introduced. Society
becomes divided into upper and lower classes, into plunderers and
plundered, into master and servant classes.’”’” In capitalistic so-
ciety, for example, some individuals own the means of production,
while others are destitute of them. Hence two classes linked by
a wage relationship; and, ‘‘So long as the relation of wage labor
to capital is permitted to exist... there will always be a class
which exploits and a class which is exploited,”’ Marx assures us.°
Property ownership is the rock on which society is rent into
classes.

The relations emanating from the possession and non-possession
of property enable us to discern the classes in a society dominated
by a given productive form. But it does not aid in throwing light
on the distinctive features of the classes as they existed in the
course of history. Neither the slave in Greece, for instance, nor

1 Capital, vol. iii, 1020-1021. 2 Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 178.
3 Poverty of Philosophy, appendix, p. 224.THE CLASS AND CLASS STRUGGLE 95

the modern proletariat owns the means of production. Yet they
are not to be taken as members of one and the same class. When
we talk of the slave and the proletariat, of the Greek master and
the modern bourgeois, we are not dealing with two Marxian
classes but with four. Why?

Here we come to the second element, closely allied with the
first, which characterizes personal relations of production and
which puts a specific impress on classes — the amount of freedom
and authority enjoyed by the classes already formed by the
property relations. The ownership of the means of production
not only bestows perfect liberty on the owner, but also endows
him with some power of dominance over the freedom of the non-
possessors. The slave is not only no owner of the property needed
in production, he is also deprived of the freedom to dispose of his
person as he pleases. He does not enjoy independence. The
master has complete control over him, and owns him just as any
other means of production. The slave is an object, a mere chattel.
The modern laborer possesses no means of production, either, but
he is a free agent. He has the liberty to conduct himself as he sees
fit, and as a freeman he can enter into contractual relations with
the capitalist.! The employer has no authority over his behavior.
Of course the capitalist can, by shutting the factory, withdraw at
will the property indispensable in production, render the laborer
idle, and deprive him of the means of gaining a livelihood. In
other words, the employer has under his control the means of
maintaining the worker’s life. However, over his personal free-
dom he has no power; after work, the laborer can live as he
pleases. The relations of production in the Middle Ages lead to
classes that occupy a middle position. The serf is not a slave, yet
he is not as free as the modern proletarian; he is attached to the
soil, and cannot leave his lord at will and without ceremony. The
same holds, although in a different manner, of the journeyman.
‘Personal dependence here characterizes the social relations of
production.”’? Likewise with respect to property. The serf pos-
sesses the land and the appliances he uses in his work, but he is

1 Capital, vol.i, 186-187; Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 142.
2 Capital, vol.i, 89.

—96 THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

not their absolute owner, for the lord has his prerogative in this
matter.!

We arrive, then, at this conclusion. A definite mode of pro-
duction is correlated with particular individual relations into
which the participants in the work in any phase of industry enter.
These relations are characterized primarily by the type of owner-
ship of the property requisite in the processes of making the com-
modity, and by the degree of freedom exercised by the living
agents. These relations, and so characterized, furnish the key to
the classes into which a given society is divided. Each system of
production carries with it its peculiar classes. With a change in
the mode of producing goods, the relations of production change,
and with them the type of classes.2 Marx promises that revolu-
tionary socialism will finally lead to “the abolition of class dis-
tinctions, the abolition of social relations of production on which
they rest.’’*> One may define, then, a class as a group of people
who, in a given society, with a given régime of production, are
finding themselves in the same position with reference to two
things: the ownership or non-ownership of the property essential
in the labor-processes, and second, the personal freedom enjoyed
or deprived of. Marx nowhere adequately explains this view, but
that it is his view, his scattered discussions make fairly certain.

It does not follow that a given society will necessarily have two
classes only. In some historical periods the mode of production
may not be perfectly homogeneous, but may fall into two distinct
departments. In each department the relations of production
may be different, and therefore in each one there is a set of two
classes. In the Middle Ages agriculture and industry rested on
foundations quite remote from one another. The country and the
city were two separate provinces of production. Hence two sets
of classes, ‘‘lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman”’ * — one
set in the country and another in the city. Similarly, in modern
society Marx regards the landowners as a distinct third class
Capital, vol. iii, 921.

Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. xix; Anti-Diihring, pp. 48, 183.

1

2

* Klassenkémpfe in Frankreich, p. 94.
4 Communist Manifesto, p. 12.THE CLASS AND CLASS STRUGGLE 97

alongside the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Marx perhaps has
in mind Germany and England of the early nineteenth century,
where agriculture was not as yet on a fully capitalistic basis, and
exhibited many earmarks of feudalism. In England, for example,
the landlords entered into a different productive relation; they
rented the land to capitalist farmers, who in their turn hired
workers and exploited them.’

One may aver that this theory of classes is faced with a diffi-
culty. Marx talks of the struggle between the feudal nobility and
the industrial bourgeoisie, and refers to them as two classes in
society at war with each other. He also holds that the latter class
was oppressed by the other, and therefore it sought emancipation.
Now this case does not harmonize with the criteria of classes as
advanced in the foregoing analysis. The bourgeoisie and the
landed nobles were no participants in the same productive pro-
cesses; they did not enter into any personal relations of pro-
duction. One class here did not have possession of the means of
production that the other class needed in its work; nor did it
wield any authority over the personal freedom of the members of
the other. The nobles and the bourgeoisie, in other words, were
no allies in the productive tasks; and the one class was in no
position to exact any toll, like surplus-labor, for turning over to
the other the means of production. On the contrary, they were
two independent classes, two distinct strata within one society,
each one with its own sphere of production, and each one with its
own subordinate class. The feudal lord had the serf, and the
bourgeois, the proletariat. The two criteria proposed above do
not apply, and yet Marx talks here of two classes, one dominating
the other.

This is not a fatal difficulty. Each society generates within
itself the makings of its successor. When the old order begins to
die out, the new one gains in vigor, and there is the inevitable
struggle for supremacy between the upholders of each régime.
While the two systems overlap, the dominant classes of both
systems find themselves side by side, the former creating difficul-
ties for the latter by fettering its adventures with the instruments

1 Capital, vol. ili, 725.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 

eg eS

  

ae98 THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

of the old order; therefore both compete for power. At the end of
the Middle Ages modern capitalism was born, and the bourgeois
class appeared. The feudal lord, wielding his ancient, although
waning, prerogative, strove to maintain the old system; whereas
the bourgeois, oppressed by the feudal institutions, sought to
create conditions favorable to his prosperous existence. The two
classes did not belong to the same society. The one was a product
of the old, dying régime, and the other was the supporter of the
new order. The noble represented feudal society, and the bour-
geois stood for nascent capitalism. But they met at the juncture
of the two régimes, and they clashed.

A class, in the Marxian sense, does not come into existence full-
fledged. It has to go through a whole process of evolution. Ina
young, unsettled country classes cannot acquire a permanent
character at all, because conditions are in a constant flux. Spec-
tacular opportunities are offered to eager, energetic people; as a
consequence social groups continually change their nature, and
their constituent elements swiftly shift from one status to an-
other.1 But in a country more or less settled two stages are dis-
cerned in the development of a class. At first, the class is a class
solely because it is a physical entity, a group in contradistinction
to another group which enjoys an entirely different position in the
relations of production. It is a class in so far as it finds itself in
face of another one. There is as yet no cohesive force among the
members composing it. There is no class consciousness, no keen
appreciation of the oneness of their interests, and no collective
antagonism to the other class.

This stage is prevalent throughout the youthful period of a
given era of production, when the productive forces peculiar to it
are not yet fully grown; when, consequently, the material condi-
tions of existence do not disclose in sharp outlines the miseries
saddled upon one class by the other, do not accentuate the align-
ment of interests, and do not point in unmistakable terms to the
inevitable course of class action. At such a stage Marx finds, for
example, the German working class before the convulsions of

1 Marx, 18th Brumaire, pp. 21-22.THE CLASS AND CLASS STRUGGLE 99

1848. It was, he says, as far behind the English and French
workers in political and social development as the German bour-
geoisie was behind its confréres in the more advanced countries.
In those days the capitalist mode of production had not progressed
far enough in Germany to liberate forces adequate to foster a
strong proletarian class arrayed against a mighty bourgeoisie.
The two were classes merely because they found themselves as
two disparate entities in the relations of production.!

Similarly, the agricultural groups everywhere are subject to
conditions of work which perpetually tend to keep the producers
at this unripe stage, and which hold little promise of hastening
their evolution into a genuine class. Marx discusses the position
of the French farming population before 1848. Although the in-
terests of the farmers were identical, there was no consciousness
of this fact on their part, no organization, and no unity of con-
duct. Each one tilled his parcel of land, and was self-sufficient,
because his struggle with nature provided for all his wants. He
lived far from his neighbors, compelled to forego the luxury of
social intercourse with his fellow beings. The family and the farm
constituted an isolated unit; a collection of these made a village;
and a group of villages composed a department. The farmers as
a whole represented merely a sum of magnitudes, ‘‘much as a
bag with potatoes constitutes a potato-bag.’”’ They formed a
class only in so far as they were facing another class in the popu-
lation; but per se, they were not welded into a close, self-conscious
unit. Marx generalizes:

In so far as millions of families live under economic conditions that sepa-
rate their mode of life, their interests and their culture from those of the
other classes, and that place them in an attitude hostile toward the latter,
they constitute a class; in so far as there exists only a local connection among
these farmers, a connection which the individuality and exclusiveness of
their interests prevent from generating among them any unity of interest,

national connections, and political organization, they do not constitute a
class.?

At this early stage the economic reality is thoroughly inade-
quate to offer a class competent instruction as to its legitimate

1 Revolution and Counter Revolution, pp. 22-23.
2 Ibid., p. 25; 18th Brumaire, pp. 144-145.

  

—100 THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

historical mission, and specific guidance as to its impending tasks
and immediate policies. With uncertain economic environment
is correlated unsteady human behavior. There are momentary
and desultory collisions with the enemy class, there are haphazard
schemes and half-hearted measures attempted. But there is no
consistent class policy, and no stern class struggle. The leaders of
the oppressed class can only weave utopias and improvise bizarre
theories.! The proletarians are satisfied with things as they are,
and they hardly realize that society is beset with evils and iniqui-
ties. In the early days of capitalist England, Engels complains,
the workers would turn a deaf ear to the cries of Saint-Simon,
Fourier, and Owen that society was built on an unjust system of
distribution. The material elements were too unripe to open their
eyes to prevailing wrongs.” The contest, if it is carried on at all,
is waged by individual members of the class or by small groups,
and not by the class as a unit; against one or more members of the
enemy, but not against the whole enemy class. The down-trodden
laborers do not discern the causes of trouble, and often direct their
opposition to accidental and apparent sources of evil. Frequently,
without perceiving it, they allow themselves to be enlisted into
fighting the battles of their adversaries. They are divided, unor-
ganized, and with no clear comprehension of their interests.
‘Thus this mass is already a class, as opposed to capital, but not
yet for itself.” *

— The second stage emerges when the class becomes a class per se,
and not solely because it is an entity in juxtaposition to another
class. This occurs when the mode of production has passed well
beyond its period of adolescence and has reached the zenith of its
maturity, when ‘‘the method of production has traveled a good
portion of its upward progress, when half of its life was over.” *
Then the productive forces are in full bloom. They begin to re-
veal the antitheses embedded in the existing order, to furnish
intimations and signs of a new and better system, and to prepare
the raw material that will go into the making of the coming so-

1 Communist Manifesto, pp. 54-55: 2 Anti-Diihring, p. 179.
3 Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, p. 189.
4 Engels, Anti-Diihring, pp. 179-180.THE CLASS AND CLASS STRUGGLE IOI

ciety. The existing régime is brazenly replete with shortcomings.
It is breeding ceaselessly new frictions and contradictions, and it
discloses to clear view the ghastly mechanism by which the social
order works to the detriment of one class and to the aggrandize-
ment of the other. The ripened material conditions throw a flood
of light before the abused class, disclosing the source of its suffer-
ings, and indicating the inevitable methods to be employed for its
emancipation.

The oppressed class finds a safe guide and instructor in the
material environment, in the fully evolved productive forces.
Under such tutelage it matures into a class par excellence. It no
longer gropes amidst uncertainties for the true nature of its inter-
ests. Its members begin to realize that they are all thrown into
the identical economic position. The blows they receive from
the oppressing enemies consolidate them into a homogeneous unit.
In the class they begin to see their tower of strength, and in
terms of the class they begin to think. They become class con-
scious, and effect a close-knit organization. Marx emphasizes
that the proletarians will form no class unless organized, and the
Communist Manifesto promises that “‘The immediate aim of the
communists is the . . . formation of the proletariat as a class.’’?
The instruments of organization are strikes, labor combinations;
well-developed railway communications, which bring workers of
various localities together and acquaint them with their common
interests, are of great service.”

The class no longer wavers as to the proper course of action,
since the guide is at hand. The progressively developing produc-
tive forces are destined to prepare the ground for a new order; but
they are hampered in their evolution by the old mode of produc-
tion. This deep-seated antithesis teaches the class what road it
can best follow: it teaches that the struggle for the abolition of the
old system, and for the hastening of the inauguration of the new

1 Page 30. ‘‘There is one element of success that the workers possess: its great
numbers. But numbers will weigh in the balance only when united by organization
and guided by knowledge.’”’ Marx, Inauguraladresse der internationalen Arbetter-
Association, p. 29.

2 Communist Manifesto, pp. 24-25; Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, p. 189; Revolu-
tion and Counter Revolution, p. 20.

 

eee102 THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

one, is the only sure means leading to emancipation. In this
struggle it finds its salvation and its inspiration. It becomes so
thoroughly grounded in the complexities of the social mechanism
and in the intricacies of their workings that it draws from them
solid knowledge as to its interests, admirable guidance for infal-
lible procedure, and the exhilarating assurance that only the com-
ing new order can end all ills.

It consequently enters upon a definite and consistent line of
tactics, works relentlessly toward its goal, never swerving from
its chosen path to any fruitless contrivances. It scorns hence-
forth the old utopias and half measures concocted by learned
men. It knows better. Desultory conflicts give way to studied,
purposeful struggles. A contest carried on even by a handful of
members, and in an isolated section of the country, is clothed
with the dignity of class war in behalf of class interests and in
favor of the newly evolving social system. Of course, these
scattered collisions are intended to be mere training exercises, a
mere prelude to the mighty cataclysm which will descend on the
old régime and shatter it to ruins, over which a new society will
see the dawn of a new career.

Strongly conscious of its interests, fully instructed of its
methods, steadfast in its purpose, resolute in its struggle, ever
pushing to its goal, unified, organized — this is a Marxian class.!

The prevalent impression is that Marx arbitrarily divides each
society into two classes. This is hardly a correct view. He does
not range mankind in a front line, inspect it, and appoint those
on his right as members of one class and those on his left as mem-
bers of the other. Where economic conditions have not solidified
and have not assumed definite form, society consists of many
classes. In 1848 Marx saw in Germany, where capitalistic condi-
tions had not matured yet, no fewer than eight classes — the
landed classes, as feudal lords, rich farmers, small freeholders, and
feudal tenants; the industrial classes, like the bourgeoisie and
petty traders; and the proletarians, as the wage-earners and the

1 Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, pp. 136-137, 188-190; Communist Manifesto, pp.
23-24; 18th Brumaire, p. 145.THE CLASS AND CLASS STRUGGLE

agricultural laborers.! In Austria at the same period he saw the
serfs, the factory operatives, the journeymen, the merchants, the

103

manufacturers, the intellectuals, — and ‘“‘not a single class satis-
fied.’’? In France, likewise, he found the financial aristocracy,
the industrial bourgeoisie, the small traders, the intellectuals, the
parsons’ class, the proletariat, the landlords, the free farmers,
etc.’ Even in England, which furnished the classical example of
capitalism, there were no definite class boundaries, and one class

shaded into another.’

However, this vast multiplicity of classes does not endure in
modern society. As capitalist production advances, the numerous
classes converge into fewer and stronger ones, the transition
shades are obliterated, and the boundary lines become well
marked. Then some of the previous independent classes range
themselves as mere sub-groups or subdivisions of the few out-

standing ones. The ‘‘three great classes’’ of modern society are——~

the landlords, the capitalists, and the proletarians.® The first two
are the upper classes, the last is the lowest one. Midway between
these two extremes is the fourth class, namely, the lower middle
class, comprising the petty traders, the shopkeepers, the inde-

pendent handicraftsmen, and the small farmers.

They work

themselves, and also employ some labor. They form the transi-
tion between the upper and the lower tiers of society, and partake
of the nature of both. The interests of the other two strata are
amalgamated in this middle layer, but are dulled in the fusion.
This class aspires to rise to the ranks of the bourgeois class, but it

fears that circumstances may cast it into the lower.

It therefore

feels uncertain of its ground, is timid in its policies and tactics,
and is vacillating in its allegiance in times of crises. It may align

itself with the proletariat; but when the tide turns in favor of the
wealthier contestants, it abandons the post and joins the stronger

side. It shuns direct responsibility in time of action, is satisfied
with half measures, fears a decisive stand, and when finally the

1 Revolution and Counter Revolution, pp. 17-25.

2 Ibid., pp. 60-61. 3 18th Brumaire, p. 20 and passim.

* Capital, vol. iii, 1031.
5 Ibid., pp. 1031, 725; Critique of Political Economy, pp. 9, 305.

   

erm |104 THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

smoke clears over the stilled battlefield, it is satisfied that the
matter is settled, after a fashion indeed, but settled at last. Marx
wastes no love on this class for its behavior during the uprisings
of 1848.1

But after capitalist society had reached its zenith and com-
menced to drift toward disintegration, even these four classes
dwindle to two. The landlords and the bourgeoisie weld into one.
In the course of time agriculture becomes progressively bourgeois,
for it pursues capitalistic methods of production and exploits
wage labor. The landlord becomes to all intents and purposes a
capitalist. Marx fully realizes this. In 1852 he said that “large
landed property, despite its feudal coquetry and pride of race, has
become completely bourgeois through the development of modern
society’’;? and in 1871 he stated that “the landlord now is but a
sleeping partner of the capitalist.’ Obedient to the laws of capital-
istic development, agricultural establishments meet the same fate
as the industrial; through concentration and centralization both
decrease in number and merge into a few gigantic concerns, ready
to be taken over by the socialist state.

While the landlord merges into the capitalist class, the petty
bourgeoisie is doomed to extinction altogether. With the unfold-
ing of the productive forces, the concentration of capital in indi-
vidual establishments grows on a larger and larger scale, the
methods of production become more complicated, and competi-
tion grows progressively fiercer. The petty capitalist with his
limited means and skill is unable to maintain his position in the
savage competitive battle. He is cast out, and sinks into the
ranks of the workers, supplying “‘the proletariat with fresh ele-
ments of enlightenment and progress.” *

Only two classes remain ultimately. At one pole is the bour-
geois class, ‘‘the masters,” ‘‘the oppressors,” “‘the exploiters.”
It contains the industrial entrepreneurs, the merchants, the finan-
ciers, and the landowners. At the other pole is the class of prole-
tarians, who own nothing but labor power. Here belong the town

1 Revolution and Counter Revolution, pp. 21, 154, 169; 18th Brumaire, p. 57.
2 Ibid., p. 49.
3 Communist Manifesto, pp. 23, 26, 45-46; Marx, Wage-Labor and Capital, p. 53.THE CLASS AND CLASS STRUGGLE 10S

wage-earners and the agricultural laborers. These two classes
will meet in battle in behalf of a classless society. “Our epoch,
the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive
feature: it has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole
is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into
two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and
Proletariat.” ?

Where place the remaining elements of society,— the military,
government officials, ministers, professionals, journalists, artists,
and high-grade clerks, — the “ideological classes,” as Marx calls
them?2 About these he says very little, but from the few scat-
tered hints one may venture to infer his intent in dealing with
them. It is clear at once that such people as the military will be
grouped with the bourgeoisie, because they are merely the hench-
men of the capitalists, and are ready to spring upon the prole-
tariat at the nod of the master. As to the others, a new criterion
may be suggested: not material interests and personal relations
of production, but the intellectual horizon, the attitudes to the
social movement, the theoretical interests and sympathies. Some
of them, as preachers and economists, are the avowed defenders
of the capitalists, their “‘hired prize fighters”; others have a bour-
geois mind, and can see only from the bourgeois angle. All these
will manifestly be placed with the bourgeoisie as its appendage.
Some do not “‘intellectually leap the bounds” that the lower mid-
dle class dares not leap “‘in practical life,” and are “theoretically
driven to the same problems and solutions to which material
interests and social standing practically drive the latter.” * Such
persons will evidently be catalogued with the transition class.
Then ideologists, ““who have raised themselves to the level of
comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole,”
will be classified with the proletariat. The students in Vienna
who fought alongside the workers during the uprisings of 1848 4
will undoubtedly enjoy the honor of being listed with the prole-
tarian class.

1 Communist Manifesto, p. 13- 2 Capital, vol. i, 487.

3 Marx, 18th Brumaire, p. 53; Communist Manifesto, p. 46.
4 Ibid., p. 26; Revolution and Counter Revolution, pp. 66, 166.

—106 THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

What are the primary causes of the existence of classes? Why
do human beings place themselves in contending groups instead
of preferring to work out their destiny in harmony and coéper-
ation?

The chief motive force of the formation of classes is a human
trait, deeply embedded in man’s nature, reliable in its assertive-
ness, and persevering in its working — self-interest. The postu-
late is that groups behave primarily in accordance with the
promptings and guidance that emanate from material considera-
tions. Self-interest is the dominant inspiring motive of classes
throughout history, the animating power that molds them and
drives them to action. As the individual is the apotheosis of self-
interest, so is the class. Speaking of the three classes, the feudal
landowners, the bourgeoisie, and the proletariat, Engels questions
how they came into existence. He replies that ‘‘. . . in the fight
between the landholding class and the bourgeoisie, no less than
in that between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, economic
interests were the most important.’’! He charges that the old
idealistic philosophy of history was inadequate and misleading,
because it ‘‘knew nothing of class wars dependent upon material
interests, and nothing of material interests, specially.” ?

The dictates of self-interest are supreme. They surmount any
other dispositions, feelings, and notions, and cement divergent
elements into one body. They will ultimately forge the powerful
lever that will tear all bonds of nationality, dissipate religious
prejudices, obliterate color and race distinctions, and bind into
one world class the proletarians of all countries. —The member of
the American railway brotherhood will unite in common cause
with the Finnish lumberjack and the Italian worker laboring in
the Sicilian mines; the Yankee mechanic will join the French
longshoreman, and the two will combine with the Polish agri-
cultural laborer of the Prussian noble; the Scotch miner or the
South Carolina cotton weaver will extend hands to the negro
Janitor or the factory hand in Japan. “Workers of the world,

9

unite!

1 Feuerbach, p. 110.
2 Anti-Diihring, p. 48. See also his ‘‘Socialisme de juristes,”’ in Le mouvement
socialiste, vol. xii, 100, 102.THE CLASS AND CLASS STRUGGLE 107

But self-interest cannot operate in a vacuum. Conditions that
furnish suitable ground for its expression, that antagonize it and
prod it into action, must be bred within society. Such conditions
are furnished by the personal relations of production that are
interwoven with a given system of producing goods. When one
group of agents owns the means of production and exercises direct
or remote authority over the freedom of another group which is
in need of these means in order to live, the self-interest of the
first group is furthered, but that of the second is frustrated. The
one will try to extort as much as possible, and the other will re-
sist. It will be to the interest of the one to uphold the régime; it
will be to the interest of the other to demolish it. The result is
two antagonistic classes facing each other.

Both causes must be present to give rise to class struggles. If
human beings were not actuated by motives of self-interest, the
material relations of production, themselves, or the antithesis
between new and old productive systems would not lead human
beings to the type of reactions which culminate in hostile classes.
With the absence of self-interest different modes of behavior
would follow upon such conditions. Likewise, if the material con-
ditions were not of such a nature as to provoke the urgings of
self-interest, the reason for classes would be absent.

The theory of class stratification is an indispensable part of
Marx’s interpretation of history. It throws light on the mor-
phology of society. The aggregate social relations of the pro-
ducers and the resulting classes determine the character of a given
society and constitute its economic framework or structure.'
Without an idea of classes society would present itself, from the
Marxian viewpoint, as a conglomeration of people with diverse
relations among themselves and toward nature, engaged in pro-
ducing the necessities of life, and subjected to a complex of forces
that the system of production originates. It would be difficult to
orientate oneself in it, to discern the forces that govern it and
the precise ends toward which they are tending. But the classes,
resting on the relations of production and representing the align-
ment of interests, exhibit the internal organization of society and

1 Wage-Labor and Capital, p. 29; Capital, vol. ili, 725, 952.

ree eee eceatne att tier ae enti108 THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

the foundation on which it is based. The classes point to the type
of structure that society presents and to the elements that play
within. “‘Population,”’ observes Marx, “‘is an abstraction if we
leave out, for example, the classes of which it consists.”?! And he
informs us that “‘It is always the direct relation of the owners of
the conditions of production to the direct producers, which re-
veals the innermost secret, the hidden foundation of the entire
social construction.” ”

This social structure, rooted as it is in the most vital elements,
as the mode of production, the productive forces, and the corre-
sponding social relations and interests, is therefore the suitable
groundwork on which is erected the superstructure of institutions
and ideas. As will be shown later in some detail, classes and class
interests explain why particular institutions arise in history, and
why given ideas are entertained by the members of a society; in
other words, they explain social life in its static aspects. For this
reason Marx considers the mode of production and the structure
of society of equal efficacy in generating the remaining, derived
phases that characterize an epoch. In the formulation of his in-
terpretation of history given in the preface to the Critique of
Political Economy (page 11), he says:

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 conscious-

ness. The mode of production in material life determines the general char-
acter of the social, political and spiritual processes of life.

In some of the other references to their theory Marx and Engels
mention either the mode of production as the cause of the other
historical phenomena,’ or the relations of production.‘

However, the more accurate and the more comprehensive view
would be that they consider both as the foundation. That is, the
real basis upon which the idealogical superstructure is reared

1 Critique of Political Economy, appendix, p. 292.

2 Capital, vol. ili, 919.

3 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. 45; preface to the Origin of the
Family, pp.9-10.

4 Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, p. 119; Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific,
p. XXXVil.THE CLASS AND CLASS STRUGGLE 109g

consists of two tiers, one superimposed upon the other: the given
system of production and the economic relations, or classes, it
calls into being. The former, or the lower tier, is the supporter
and regulator of the upper; but the two are amalgamated into a
substructure upon which the rest is built. Therefore, in most of
the direct and more formal statements of the theory the two
authors emphasize both the organization of production and the
social relations, or classes, as the fountain head out of which the
rest flows.1 They mean to affirm that living beings make their
history, and that the mode of production, while supplying the
motive power and the vitality, cannot of itself enact historic
events. Human agents are needed, and these the classes supply.

Classes have another momentous mission in history. They
are vitally linked up with the evolutionary process of society.
The march of civilization proceeds dialectically, through the
antitheses with which a given mode of production is laden, and
through the synthesis that results from the amalgamation of the
thesis and its negation. But impersonal elements cannot accom-
plish this dialectic movement. Productive forces cannot of them-
selves combat and annihilate an old organization of production,
and effect a new synthesis of a higher order. Such work can be
done only by human beings. There must be living agents who
perceive the antagonism between the material elements, and who
see that their interests are involyed in the antagonism. There
must be some who will support the old thesis, and others who will
ally themselves with the new antithetic forces, thus paving the
road for a gradual or swift, peaceful or acrimonious, inauguration
of a new synthesis, a new basis on which society can be grounded.
The classes of society perform this function, and consequently the
progress of history is identified with class struggles. “The history
of all past society has consisted in the development of class an-
tagonisms.”’ ”

The process is as follows. The relations existing among the
participants in the production of commodities in a given epoch

1 Capital, vol. i, 94 n.; Anti-Diihring, p. 48; Socialism, Utopian and Scientific,

PP. 41, Xvili-xix; preface to Communist Manifesto, pp. 7-8.
2 Communist Manifesto, p. 40.

SETS ST RPT ERSTE

 

ermnaan eee ne RARE cP IONS Sah ra ee eer en

       
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

IIO THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

are to the advantage of the dominant class. This class is therefore
interested in the continuation of the régime. But the property-
less and exploited class is dissatisfied, and is searching for a means
of solving its difficulties. Such is the case in the struggle between
the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, as Marx views it. The solu-
tion, however, cannot be spun out of the mind or created by pious
wishes. It can begin to shape itself and to come to the conscious-
ness of men only when the developing material conditions arrive,
to offer suggestions and to point the way. This occurs when,
within the old system of production, the expanding productive
forces reach such a stage that they can no longer thrive within the
old régime with its social relations; when they begin to threaten
the extirpation of the old order and to disclose the possible nature
of the new one. It is then that the abused class gains light both
as to its predicaments and as to the tactics to pursue. It perceives
that its interests and fate are bound up with the dialectic move-
ment. It realizes that the antagonistic productive forces are
fighting for its emancipation; that it suffers when they are im-
peded in their growth, and that it will triumph when they over-
power the old order. It becomes therefore the ardent champion
of the dialectic. Its course of action is henceforth clear. It allies
itself with these productive forces, and strives untiringly for the
removal of any obstacles to their speedy development.! Harken-
ing to the dictates of the material elements at play and acting in
unison with them, it seeks to usher in the new régime which they
fashion silently and steadily, and in which the altered relations of
production will abolish all exploitation. Marx proclaims:

An oppressed class is the vital condition of every society based upon the
antagonism of classes. The emancipation of the oppressed class therefore
necessarily implies the creation of a new society. In order for the oppressed
class to be emancipated it is necessary that the productive powers already
acquired and the existing social relations should no longer be able to exist
side by side.?

Or else, when the productive forces expand and introduce the
makings and beginnings of a better society, a different class, not

1 “‘Up to the present the productive forces have been developed thanks to this

régime of the antagonism of classes,”’ asserts Marx in Poverty of Philosophy, p. 66.
2 Ibid., p. 189.

 

: - coh ge iTHE CLASS AND CLASS STRUGGLE III

the one exploited under the old productive relations, may appear.
It represents the nascent régime, and comprehends that only
under the fullest development of the latter can it gain full sway.
But at such a period there is the inevitable maladjustment be-
tween the two systems. The old order, with its narrow restric-
tions and antiquated institutions, stunts the growth of the rising
order and thwarts at each step the interests and activities of the
new class. This class is undismayed, however. It is waiting for
the progressive development of the new productive forces, for the
time when ‘‘the material conditions necessary to its emancipa-
tion”’ will reach maturity. When the time arrives, it begins the
series of struggles terminating in the triumph of the new régime.
Such was the nature of the conflicts between feudalism and capi-
talism."

Whatever the details, social evolution is based on the continual
dialectic process within the modes of production, and its actual
carrying-out is entrusted to the struggle of classes who perceive
the antithesis, who see their interests involved, and who wage the
contests which lead to the transformation of one economic era into
another. Social dynamics and Marxian classes are inextricably
interwoven, and the pages of history are the pages of class strug-
gles. ‘‘Revolutions are the locomotives of history,’”’ asserts
Marx.” And he teaches: ‘‘ From the very moment in which civili-
zation begins production begins to be based on the antagonism of
orders, of states, of classes, and finally on the antagonism between
accumulated labor [that is, capital] and present labor. No an-
tagonism, no progress. That is the law which civilization has
followed down to our day.” ? ‘“‘It is this rapid and passionate
development of class antagonism which, in old and complicated
social organisims, makes a revolution such a powerful agent of
social and political progress.” 4

The idea of classes and class struggles is, then, an integral
part of Marx’s interpretation of history, and it cannot be severed

1 Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, pp. 132-133.
2 Klassenkimpfe in Frankreich, p. 90.

S Poverty of Philosophy, pp. 65-66.

4 Revolution and Counter Revolution, p. 64.

 

 

en112 THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN HISTORY

from the theory without seriously injuring it. The mode of pro-
duction and the productive forces embody the basic, but imper-
sonal and objective, elements of history. The classes furnish the
living agents that carry out the orders of these material forces;
they constitute the structure of society, they contribute to the
formation of the substructure on which the “ideologies” are
based, and they are indispensable in the statics as well as in the
dynamics of history. It is, therefore, amazing that some writers
on Marx’s conception of history entirely omit the discussion of
classes. This is like Hamlet with Hamlet left out.PARE I

THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT
IN HISTORYCHAPTER VII

THE DERIVATION OF IDEAS

THE mode of production and the corresponding relations of pro-
duction among its living agents form, in Marx’s view, the infra-
structure upon which man erects his institutions, and from which
he derives his ideas. State and Jaw, morality and religion, art and
science, all flow from this source and are all determined by it.
Human ideology rests upon the material economic facts as its
foundation. The question is how this foundation is metamor-
phosed into institutions and ideas, how man obtains his know-
ledge and builds his intellectual and spiritual world; how, in brief,
existence leads to consciousness. This problem is intricately con-
nected with some of the fundamental principles of the Marxian
philosophy.

To state the answer briefly, men derive their ideas through ex-
perience in its widest sense, and through the digestion of the ex-
perience by a process going on in the crucible of their individual,
and particularly of their class, interests. Personal idiosyncrasies
and impressions, mental attitudes and powers, and environmental
elements of all descriptions, are the ingredients at work. The
question is, What is reality, and what is meant by experience?
How is this process of digestion carried on, and what is the nature
of the result?

With Hegel, their master, reality is embodied only in the Idea,
existing from eternity, lording over everything, self-developing
and ever growing by a process of its own. In its various stages
the Idea incorporates itself with nature, expresses itself in cosmic
phenomena, and inundates the human mind with images and
ideas. It is the Absolute in its majestic and inscrutable operation.
The thing we perceive is, in essence, the idea we have of it in our
mind. The objects are but reflexes, copies, results of this a priori
thought, the thought before the fact. The ideas we form are the
creatures bearing witness to the powerful action of the Idea in the

II5

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Papivar ae eel ee Se ee ND oe Soria ore ue cince es eee eek aE

  

116 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

universe, they are emanations of this all-impregnating source.
Reality proceeds from the idea.!

Not so with Marx and Engels. To them reality is the sum total
of objects and facts in nature and society. These objects and facts
enjoy an existence independent and outside of our mind. They
are there whether we are present to perceive them or not. In
nature they constitute the realm of things and phenomena that
we reach with our senses, the realm of organic and inorganic
bodies, animate or inanimate. They have substance, and are
capable of measurement in terms of given units. Then there are
the basic social phenomena, designated ordinarily by such expres-
sions as ‘‘economic conditions,”’ ‘economic structure of society,”
“material conditions of existence,” and ‘‘class relations.” They
comprise tangible as well as psychic facts; they include productive
forces, the mode of production, class interests, and classes.” This
reality in nature and society serves as the primal source of the
generation of ideas. Reality is the antecedent, ideas are the con-
sequent. ‘It is not the consciousness of men that determines
their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence deter-
mines their consciousness,”’ says Marx.’ And Engels quotes from
Faust: Im Anfang war die Tat.

The phenomena of this world of reality, and therefore the re-
sulting ideas, do not present a complex of finished things, suddenly
sprung into existence; fixed and immutable; each with a clearly
demarked entity and without relations to others; each possessing
this or the other quality, a positive or a negative feature; each a
cause or an effect. On the contrary, things have been developing
since the beginning of time, and they are still in the process of
growth. ‘Nothing is constant whatever be its nature, time, or
position, but everything is in motion, suffers change, and passes
away.’ > Everything is in a flux, in an agitation of becoming and

1 Engels, Feuerbach, p. 94; Anti-Dihring, p. 45. But see B. Croce, Historica}
Materialism, pp. 6-7.

® Marx, Critique of Political Economy, p. 12; 18th Brumaire, pp. 48-49.

8 Critique of Political Economy, p. 11.

* Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. xv.
° Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 41.THE DERIVATION OF IDEAS II7

developing. But through all the complexities, through all the
apparent accidents, fluctuations, and deviations, there is to be
detected a steady march of progressive evolution from the simple
to the complex, from a lower to a higher scale. There is a law of
progress governing everything in the universe.

Neither do things stand out as isolated entities; they rather
merge into one another, and are in an endless net of interlacings,
so that demarcations and classes, dichotomies and contrasts,
while in evidence, are yet relative and hard to discern. As Engels
has it:

We find also, if we look at the matter more closely, that the two poles of
an antithesis, positive and negative, are just as inseparable as they are an-
tagonistic, and that, in spite of all their fixed antagonisms, they permeate
each other; also that cause and effect are concepts which can only realize
themselves in relation to a particular case. However, when we come to ex-
amine the separate case in its general relation to the world at large, they
come together and dissolve themselves in face of the working out of the uni-

versal problem, for, here, cause and effect exchange places, what was at one
time and place effect becoming cause and vice-versa."

Engels takes pains to demonstrate these affirmations by ex-
amples from natural phenomena. Kant had destroyed the con-
ception of a rigid, stable solar system, and introduced the hy-
pothesis that the earth and the planets have originated gradually
and by the “‘historical process’’ from a rotating mass of nebulae.
This theory was afterwards formulated mathematically by La-
place; and still later the spectroscope disclosed the presence in
space of glowing masses of gas in different stages of condensation.”
For the demonstration of gradual growth in the domain of life,
Engels appeals to Darwin.* And to prove that there are no
sharp, impassable frontiers among phenomena, he calls upon the
spheres of physics, chemistry, and biology. Gases can be lique-
fied; a body can be put in a position where liquid and gaseous
stages are hardly to be differentiated; water changes at o degrees
centigrade from a liquid to a solid, and at 100 degrees, from a
liquid to a gas. Motion can be transformed into kinetic energy,

1 Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 43, or p. 8 in the German edition. Cf. Briefwechsel
zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, vol. iv, 344.
2 Anti-Diihring, p. 44. 3 [bid., p. 99.

enevated)

  

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118 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

into electricity, heat, light, magnetism, chemical energy — and
therewith ‘‘the last notion of an extramundane Creator is de-
stroyed.”’! Various combinations of atoms of carbon, hydrogen,
and oxygen will originate diverse kinds of organic acids with dif-
ferent properties: for example, CH2O2 is formic acid with a boiling
point at roo degrees and melting point at 1 degree; C,H,Oz is
acetic acid with 118 degrees and 17 degrees as the corresponding
points; and so on to melissic acid, which melts at 180 degrees,
but has no boiling point.”

In the biological world, it is, similarly, hard to maintain sharply
defined classes, since intermediate specimens are discovered every
now and then; and old classifications are frequently broken down
— so minute and imperceptible is the transition. “‘We have now
mammals which lay eggs and, if the news be correct, birds also
which go on all fours.”” The individuality of the single cell in an
organism is, “scientifically and dialectically speaking,” lost in a
federation of cells; and the individuality of the animal is now diffi-
cult to establish because of the discovery of the amoeba in the
blood corpuscles of higher animals.? Sometimes it is no easy
matter to decide whether an animal is alive or not, as jurists
know, who attempted to decide just when the killing of a child in
the womb of the mother constitutes murder. It is equally impos-
sible to tell the precise moment when death sets in, because
‘“‘physiology shows that death is not a single and sudden event
but a very slow process.”’ 4

“But what is true of nature . . . is true also of the history of
society in all its branches, and of the totality of all sciences which
occupy themselves with things human and divine.” * Social
phenomena, too, exhibit a ceaseless flux, endless interrelations,
and imperceptible transitions. ‘‘There is a continual movement
of growth in productive forces, of destruction in the social rela-
tions, of formation in ideas; there is nothing immutable but the
abstraction of the movement — mors immortalis,” teaches Marx.®

1 Engels, Anti-Diihring, pp. 33, 156; Feuerbach, p. 99.

2 Anti-Diihring, p. 157. 3 [bid., p. 33-

4 Ibid., p. 43. 5 Feuerbach, p. 102.
6 Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, p. 119. Cf. Capital, vol. i, 16.THE DERIVATION OF IDEAS I19

It is for this reason that in Capital Marx never offers “‘fixed and
universally applicable definitions,” explains his friend. Marx, he
says, regarded things and their mutual interweavings as inces-
santly changing; their mental images, and the ideas concerning
them become, then, likewise unstable; therefore they could not
“‘be sealed up in rigid definitions.”’

This is their view of reality in nature and society and of the
resulting character of thought. They do not explain why reality
has such peculiarities, and why it conducts itself in this manner.
But they mean to reveal the processes, the mechanism by which
the changes and upward developments are consummated in the
universe. Here, once more, they borrow from the heritage be-
queathed by Hegel. The secret of the process is unveiled if we
call to mind the dialectic.

As Marx and Engels see it, the Idea, according to Hegel, has an
independent existence, and every phenomenon is only an abstrac-
tion of it, an emanation of Reason. This Reason, in whatever
sphere, is not stable and unchangeable, but it goes through end-
less cycles of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. The impersonal
Reason in a given state is the thesis, the affirmation, the position.
In time it engenders its own contradiction. Everything in the
universe — a reflex of reason —is not spared this movement;
everything has its antithesis, negation, or opposition. A struggle
ensues between the two antagonistic elements. The outcome is a
fusion of the two; they amalgamate, neutralize each other, ‘“‘the
yes becoming no, the no becoming yes, the yes becoming at once
yes and no, the no becoming at once no and yes.”” Out of this
travail is born a new affirmation of a higher order than the previ-
ous one, an improvement on it, a further growth and develop-
ment. It is the new synthesis, the negation of negation, or the
composition. Then the dialectic movement proceeds further, and
a new cycle is liberated issuing in still higher theses. A collection
of theses constitutes a group of thoughts. This group lives
through the same processes, giving rise to a contradictory group
as its antithesis, and leading to a new group of thoughts, which

' Capital, vol. iii, Engels’s preface, p. 24.
2 Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, p. 117.

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120 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

forms the synthesis. Similarly, the dialectic movement of the
groups leads to the series, and the cyclical growth of the series
finally builds up the whole System, the Hegelian System.’

The dialectic philosophy Marx and Engels borrowed directly
from Hegel. Yet their dialectic is not identical with Hegel’s, and
this fact they themselves are eager to point out. There are two
differences, they urge. In the first place, with Hegel the dialectic
movement is achieved by the universal, absolute Idea, while
reality is merely the derivative. With them, it is the real phe-
nomena that are observed to move and grow dialectically, and
the ideas are no more than resulting reflections of the material
world. This is what Marx means when he says that his ‘dialectic
method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct
opposite. . . . With him it is standing on its head. It must be
turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational
kernel within the mystical shell.”’* With Hegel the dialectic is
fraught with metaphysical subtleties; with them, it is the manner
in which reality behaves in nature and society, and which is ac-
cessible to observation by anyone who would but look around.

In the second place, Hegel’s idea of progressive change was
narrow, in Engels’s estimation. Hegel recognizes no continual
expansion in time, no steady growth from epoch to epoch. The
spirit alone is capable of progressive evolution; reality, which
is the mere expression (Entdéusserung) of the [dea, can unfold
itself only in space. Historically, that is, from period to period,
reality is doomed to the eternal repetition of the same cyclical
process. In other words, Hegel allows progression “‘one beside
another’? (Nebeneinander), but not “one after another” (Nach-
einander). Not so with Marx and Engels. They believed that the
phenomena of the universe are evolving from a lower to a higher
stage, from the simple to the complex, and are subject to a process
of perpetual improvement and perfection.

Other differences, not pointed out by the two authors, readily

1 Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, pp. 114-118.
2 Capital, vol. i, 25; Cf. Engels, Fewerbach, p.95. But see B. Croce, Historical
Materialism, p. 6.
3 Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 31; Feuerbach, p. 67.THE DERIVATION OF IDEAS I2I

come to mind. One important difference is that with Hegel the
Idea is impersonal; it floats above human affairs, and enacts of
itself the dialectic process. But with them the dialectic in history
is an earthly matter, one commingled with human interests; with
them the dialectic, as was seen in the previous chapter, is at de-
cisive periods enlisting the aid of human agencies. It is indis-
solubly connected with class interests and class struggles. Again,
with our two authors the historically far-reaching action of the
dialectic moves within the framework of the economic eras of
production, and its crowning achievement lies in perfecting the
transitions from one era to another. The Marxian succession of

ens, slavery, feudalism, capitalism, socialism, is a succession of.
3 > , )

the stages of the ascending dialectic labors. Hegel, on the other
hand, does not map out for the dialectic a progressive road marked
by such economic milestones."

Marx and Engels have the highest regard for the dialectic. It
is their key to all mysteries, and for years it had been their “best
tool’’ and ‘‘sharpest weapon,” as Engels acknowledges.’ It is to
them vastly more than a tool. It is a manner of conceiving the
whole universe, a Weltanschauung. It is the supreme law ruling
all phenomena, the very essence of Gesetzmdssigkeit, binding the
regularity of all sequences. “‘It is a very far-reaching, and, just
for this reason, a very important law of development of nature,
human history and thought, a law which we see realized in the
animal and vegetable kingdoms, in geology, in mathematics, in
history, and philosophy. . . . The dialectic is, as a matter of fact,
nothing but the science of the universal laws of motion, and evolu-
tion in nature, human society and thought.” * They esteem it as
“the highest form of thought.” *

As soon as each separate science makes clear its relation to

1 Cf. E. Troeltsch, ‘‘ Ueber den Begriff einer historischen Dialektik,” Historische
Zeitschrift (1919), vol. cxx, 412-432.

2 Feuerbach, p. 96.

3 Anti-Dihring, p.173. ‘A correct notion of the universe, of the human race, as
well as of the reflection of this progress in the human mind can be had only by means
of the dialectic method.” Ibid., p. 44. Just what is meant by “law” of phenomena
they never made clear. Is it a metaphysical concept, a normative, empirical, or
“natural” law?

4 Ibid., p. 40.

 

—122 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

“things in general,” philosophy will vanish as a superfluous study,
but logic and the dialectic will endure.! Of these two the dialectic
is superior as a method of discovering new results and of advanc-
ing from the known to the unknown, because it “‘transcends the
narrow limits of formal logic, attains a more comprehensive philo-
sophical position.” What is true of the results obtained by mensa
of the dialectic may appear false if tested by logic, for the latter
dares not scale the heights the former can reach; even as what is
true in higher mathematics may be false from the viewpoint of
lower mathematics.? The two friends are therefore grieved to see
that only very few appreciate the supreme value of the dialectic.
“There is at present much need in the finer world (I mean natu-
rally the ‘intellectual’ portion of it) of mastering the dialectic,”
observes Marx; and Engels deplores the fact that the number of
those capable of thinking dialectically “may still be easily
counted.’’* No wonder the Marxists are mystified and awed by
the majesty of the dialectic, and writers or translators in their
inevitable and frequently tedious introductions exhort the labor-
ers to learn to think dialectically.

The world of this living, dialectically behaving reality is the
starting point of the formation of ideas, concepts, and institu-
tions. No mind can engage in its own creations and imaginings;
it always draws its raw material from reality as a source, no matter
how remote, vague, or indirect. There is nothing in man’s head
but accumulations of reality consciously acquired through devi-
ous channels. No ideas can come into existence except those that
have some basis in reality. In pure mathematics, for example, it
may appear that we are dealing with concepts totally independent
of our experiences. But on closer examination we discover our
error. The notion of number and form has its genesis in the real
world. There were objects to count, to add and subtract; there
was a need to compare them and measure them; there were
shapes, configurations, and surfaces to observe. Rectangles and

1 Anti-Diihring, p. 47. SLO Deloss

* Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, vol. iii, 424; Engels, Anti-Dihring,
Pp. 44.

 

r ms?THE DERIVATION OF IDEAS 123

cylinders, though of imperfect form, had to be perceived before
the cylinder could be regarded as a body formed by the revolu-
tion of a rectangle about one of its sides. First reality, then mathe-
matical observation and law.! The defeat of mercantilism by the
physiocrats and Adam Smith is not a victory of thought, but
merely a thought reflex of changed economic facts. Otherwise
Richard Lionheart and Philip Augustus, instead of indulging in
crusades, might have introduced free trade and spared the world
500 years of hardships.” Nature and society are the source of all
ideas, not a God who enables man’s mind to create in some mys-
terious fashion ideas which are totally divorced from the external
world.

The subject of inquiry now before us is the manner in which
this reality is ultimately converted into institutions and ideas.
Marx and Engels emphasize repeatedly that reality mirrors itself
in man’s brain, and emerges as an idea or image:

To Hegel, the life process of the human brain, that is, the process of think-
ing, which, under the name of “the Idea,” he even transforms into an inde-
pendent 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 translated into forms of thought. °

We conceived of ideas . . . as pictures of real things... . Hereupon ... the

dialectic of Hegel was turned upside down or rather it was placed upon its
feet instead of on its head, where it was standing before.‘

However, they do not intend to intimate that with such state-
ments the great problem of cognition is exhausted. They go much
further.

The reaction of human beings to reality that comes to their
awareness will determine, on the one hand, the nature of the insti-
tutions they will establish, and, on the other hand, the types of

1 Anti-Diihring, pp. 59-60.

2 Engels, letter of July 14, 1893, reprinted in F. Mehring, Geschichte der deutschen
Sozialdemokratie, vol. ili, part 2, p. 557-

3 Capital, vol.i, 25.

4 Engels, Feuerbach, p. 96. ‘‘The two-fold social character of the labor of the
individual appears to him, when reflected in his brain, only under those forms which
are impressed upon that labor in everyday practice by the exchange of products.”
Capital, vol.i, 84-85. ‘‘The realities of the outer world . . . reflect themselves there
as feelings, thoughts. . . .”” Engels, Feuerbach, p. 73.

    

   

ee124 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

ideas they will possess. All human institutions rest on an eco-
nomic basis, and are excrescences, ideological photographs, of
economic facts. To account for the origin, nature, and destinies
of institutions, we have only to turn to economic facts from which
they issued. The given mode of production and the corresponding
relations among the producers create a tissue of data and situ-
ations which people perceive with their senses. The dominant
class (class, and not individuals, since in the drama of history
individuals do not count), the one that owns the means of pro-
duction and enjoys freedom and authority, suffuses these percep-
tions with class interests and considerations. The promptings of
self-interest fill the class with the desire to perpetuate the given
productive order and the given productive relations. The existing
economic facts clearly indicate what measures to take, what safe-
guards to construct, and on what plans to proceed. The outcome
is an authoritative arrangement that will preserve the power of
the class, and will at the same time merely reflect or substantiate
reality. The result is, in other words, the state, law, morality,
customs.

No human will plays a part in this process, and no universal
reason has to intrude its physiognomy. Economic reality, per-
ceived by the mind through a mirroring process within it, mingled
with calculations of class interests, proceeds to translate itself into
conduct culminating in solidified institutions which all subserve
class ambitions. The dominant class is merely translating into
action the dictates of reality so perceived and so assimilated.
The class acts as an automaton. All that its members need is
senses to perceive, self-interest to digest and color the perception,
and the faculty to act on such premises. There is no weaving of
something out of nothing, there is no caprice or accident. Every-
thing emanates from a material basis, everything is predeter-
mined. When the dialectic disintegrates one mode of production
and introduces another one, the process repeats itself. A new
economic reality and new classes with new interests will result in
different reflections and in different institutions.

In a very similar manner we form our ideas and notions of the
realm of phenomena about us and of the issues that confront us.THE DERIVATION OF IDEAS 125

The objects of reality reach us through various avenues. We be-
come aware of them by observation and direct contact, when we
work and move about. There are also agencies that acquaint us
with phenomena too remote in time or space to allow of direct
perception, and that interpret and shed light on facts already
familiar to us. These agencies are education, conversation, read-
ing, and the like.! Then begins the process of the assimilation of
the data thus reaching our consciousness, the work of forming
ideas and judgments, of building the intellectual content of our
inner selves and of society. Here Marx and Engels distinguish
between the assimilation process of the ‘‘ordinary mind,” of the
vast majority of people, and the type of assimilation going on in
the mind of the true scientist. The line is drawn between “‘illu-
sionism,” the result of the former process, and scientific truths,
the result of the latter process.

The ordinary individual, or the “ordinary mind,” has an atti-
tude of mental indifference toward the external world presenting
itself to his senses. He is not mentally alert, and is reluctant to
examine and analyze phenomena surrounding him. With him
observation is not an intense, wakeful procedure but a superficial
performance. He allows the mere appearances of things to pass
undisturbed into his mental receptacle. Similarly, the processes
of education, reading, and the like, become merely acts of trans-
mitting knowledge to a mind receptive and absorbing, not active
and doubting. Man imbibes readily the notions handed to him.
His realm of ideas consists, then, of what he obtains through his
own observation and, in a larger degree, of a mass of tradition
accumulated in the past and unquestioningly accepted by him.

But here, too, the acquired perceptions have to go through the
fire in the caldron of class prejudices and class interests. Man is
the creature of his class, and he is imbued with class feelings
and habits that determine his mental attitudes toward facts pre-
sented to him. These facts he does not meet in a spirit of detach-
ment; he allows them to be distorted by the class attitudes that
enwrap him. To quote from Marx:

1 Marx, Revolution and Counter Revolution, pp. 23-24, 29-32, 41, 60.

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126 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

Upon the several forms of property, upon the social conditions of existence,
a whole superstructure is reared of various and peculiarly shaped feelings,
illusions, habits of thought, and conceptions of life. The whole class pro-
duces and shapes these out of its material foundation and out of the corre-
sponding social conditions. The individual unit to whom they flow through
tradition and education may fancy that they constitute the true reasons for
and premises of his conduct.

In a word, reality impinges on man’s consciousness by means of
the senses; goes through the prism of class tradition and prejudice;
is deflected and colored in the process; and emerges as a complex
of erroneous notions, as ‘‘reflections” of mere appearances. This
is the intellectual world of the ordinary man. Appearances are
never penetrated so that their true nature is reached. In addition,
they are vitiated by class interests. It is therefore a world of
illusions.

Many are the victims of “‘illusionism.”’ The actors in the do-
main of production hardly know the essence of the circumstances
in which they are involved. ‘‘The conceptions formed about the
laws of production in the heads of the agents of production and
circulation will differ widely from these real laws and will be
merely the conscious expression of the apparent movements.”’ ?
The worker, ‘‘by education, tradition, habit,” looks upon the
conditions of capitalistic production as laws of nature; he does
not grasp the fact that they contain within themselves the seeds
of their own destruction, which he could hasten if his eyes were
only open.’ The money relation conceals the existence of surplus-
value and gives rise to misconceptions.

,

This phenomenal form, which makes the actual relation invisible, and,
indeed, shows the direct opposite of that relation, forms the basis of all
juridical notions of both laborer and capitalist, of all the mystifications of
the capitalist mode of production, of all its illusions as to liberty, of all the
apologetic shifts of vulgar economists.‘

The “ordinary mind” is not the only victim. Engels complains
that the bulk of scientists and mathematicians adhere to ‘‘an
antiquated mode of thought,”’ and create confusions which drive
teacher and pupil to despair.® But in the saddest plight of all is

1 Marx, 18th Brumaire, p. 48. 2 Capital, vol. ili, 369. 3 Tbid., vol. i, 809.

* Tbid., pp. 591-592. Cf. 18th Brumaire, pp. 47-49.
® Ant-Diihring, pp. 44, 153.THE DERIVATION OF IDEAS 127

political economy. Marx declares that after 1830 economics as a
science became an impossibility in England and France! “ Po-
litical economy can remain a science only so long as the class
struggle is latent or manifests itself only in isolated and sporadic
phenomena.” Such was the situation in England till 1830, while
modern industry was barely emerging, and the class struggle was
in the background. Then economics flourished, and Ricardo was
its “‘last great representative.” ‘With the year 1830 came the
decisive crisis’’: in France and England the bourgeoisie attained
political power, and thenceforth the class struggle assumed threat-
ening forms. ‘“‘It sounded the knell of scientific bourgeois econ-
omy.” Political economy became no longer a disinterested search
for truth. Instead of remaining investigators, the economists
enlisted as the “‘hired prize fighters,” the ‘“‘sophists and syco-
phants,” of the ruling class. After 1848, interspersed among them
were also adherents of ‘‘shallow syncretism,” harmonizers and
reconcilers of the irreconcilable, of whom J. S. Mill was the ‘“‘best
representative.”’ The question was no longer whether a propo-
sition was true or not, but whether it was “‘useful to capital or
harmful, expedient or inexpedient, politically dangerous or not.”
The same fate befell the science in Germany, after 1848, and for
similar reasons. This is Marx’s judgment in his preface to
Capital.

The science became infested with those whom he calls “ vulgar
economists,’ and against whom he never tires of thundering his
philippics. In doctrinaire fashion and with detestable servility
they treat of the capitalist system as natural and reasonable,
immutable and eternal. They systematize and codify, didactically
and dogmatically, the phenomena of economic life, for the delec-
tation of ‘‘the ordinary brain,” and supply a “religion of everyday
life”’ to the self-complacent bourgeoisie. They do not attempt to
distinguish between the appearance of a thing and its essence;
as a consequence their notions are distorted by the treacher-
Ous, superficial forms the phenomena outwardly display. To
cite only a few examples, they do not see that advances made to

1 Capital, vol. i, Introduction, pp. 17-20.
2 Ibid., vol. i, 93 n., vol. ili, 913, 951, 967.

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ES etPg cee ts See geet Le see hats aren ere ee Pee eee ae

128 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

labor are but part of the surplus-value of which the worker is
robbed; they do not discern that the members of the “‘trini-
tarian formula,’”’ Capital, Land, Labor, have the same relation to
each other as “‘lawyer’s fees, carrots, and music’’;? they do not
understand that the expression ‘Price of Labor”’ is just as irra-
tional as “‘a yellow logarithm’”’; * they do not refrain from having
“Mr. Capital and Mrs. Land carry on their goblin tricks”’ in ‘‘an
enchanted, perverted, topsy-turvy world.” * Among the vulgar
economists he numbers McCulloch, Senior, J. B. Say. ®

The best spokesmen of classical political economy move on a
higher plane. Nevertheless, even they ‘‘remained more or less
the prisoners of the world of illusion which they had dissolved
critically. . . . Consequently all of them fall more or less into in-
consistencies, half-way statements, and unsolved contradictions.’’®
Adam Smith and Ricardo failed to see the many sides of exchange-
value. Simple as the law of the falling rate of profits is, all econo-
mists, beginning with Adam Smith, “‘cudgeled their brains in
tortuous attempts” to fathom its mystery; but in vain. There is
no wonder, however, that they failed to solve the “‘riddle,”’ when
we consider that political economy “up to the present”’ had been
merely “tinkering” with the distinction between constant and
variable capital, that it never saw the true nature of profit and
surplus-value, that it never thoroughly analyzed the ‘“‘organic
composition of capital.” 7 At times, ‘‘ Classical political economy
nearly touches the true relation of things, without, however, con-
sciously formulating it. This it cannot so long as it sticks in its
bourgeois skin.” * Apparently, genuinely scientific economics is
to be found in Marx only. As proof, he would point to his Capztal.
But not infrequently he specifically reminds us of his deeper in-
sight.®

1 Capital, vol. i, 623. 2 Tbid., vol. iii, 947.

§ Ibid., p. 952. Yet Marx himself frequently uses this expression: see, for ex-
ample, [bid., vol. 1, 678, 697.

4 Ibid., vol. iii, 966. 5 Ibid., vol. i, 572 n., 654-655.

& [bid., vol. ili, 967. 7 Ibid., vol. i, 92-93 n., vol. ili, 249-250.

8 Tbid., vol.i, 594.

° To give but a few references: “‘I was the first to point out and to examine criti-

cally this two-fold nature of labor contained in commodities.” Capital, vol. i, 48.
“‘Here, however, a task is set us, the performance of which has never yet even beenTHE DERIVATION OF IDEAS 129

It follows as a matter of course that both Marx and Engels have
little regard for the opinions of the bulk of mankind. Marx ad-
monishes the searcher for the true causes of social transformations
to pay no heed to the ideas and feelings of men, but to center his
attention on the economic conditions of production, which can
be determined with the precision of natural science. “Just as
our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of
himself, so can we not judge of such a period of transformation
by its own consciousness.” ? Complaining of the varieties of
parlor socialism that invaded England toward the end of the
nineteenth century, Engels comments: ‘‘That shows the incur-
able fickleness of that terrible despot of ‘society,’ middle-class
public opinion, and once more justifies the contempt in which we
socialists of a past generation always held that public opinion.” ?
Marx concludes his first preface to Capital with the remark that
scientific criticism he welcomes, but that he recks little for the
prejudices ‘‘of so-called public opinion,” to which he never made
any concessions; and he gives “now as aforetime”’ for his maxim
Dante’s Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le gent.

In contradistinction to the puerile illusions of the ordinary
majority and of the mediocre writers, Marx places the well-
founded knowledge of the rare few, the genuine scientists. The
acquisition of true ideas proceeds in a more earnest and laborious
manner. If appearances were identical with reality, if things
were what they seem, science would be superfluous.* But appear-
ances are deceptive. They merely present to view the superficial
attempted by bourgeois economy, the task of tracing the genesis of this money
form... . By doing this we shall, at the same time, solve the riddle presented by
money.” Jbid.,p.55. Cf. pp. 57n., 228n. ‘“‘I must here remind the reader that
the categories, ‘variable and constant capital’ were first used by me. Political
economy since the time of Adam Smith has confusedly mixed up”’ the distinctions
involved here. Ibid., p. 670n. ‘‘The fundamental law of capitalist competition,
which political economy has not understood up to the present time,” rests on the
difference between ‘‘the value and the cost-price of commodities.” Jbid., vol. iil,
50. ‘The actual state of things is here revealed for the first time....” Ibid, p. 199.
See also pp. 233, 262, 1022-1023.

1 Critique of Political Economy, p. 12.

2 Preface of 1892 to his Conditions of The Working Class in England in 1844.
p. Xviii.
Capital, vol. i, 16. 4 Tbid., vol. iii, 951.

e SLI VEVEN ESE EV ERI OPERA CETL Se Un SSD Pe eee STITT ETE SGPETLE aK
peices aa here eer ort eianee ee ee RRceoeceree Comat

—_—130

 

THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

“‘phenomenal form,” while the intrinsic nature, the inner mech-
anism, is hidden or disguised.1_ A commodity may present itself
to us as something easy to understand; but deep analysis reveals
that it abounds “in metaphysical subtleties and theological
niceties,” that it possesses ‘“‘a mystical character,’ and is en-
dowed with ‘‘magic and necromancy.” ? The same is true of other
economic phenomena: “ Everything appears upside down in com-
petition. ‘The existing conformation of economic conditions, as
seen in reality on the surface of things . . . is not only different
from the internal and disguised essence of these conditions . . .
but actually opposed to them, or their reverse.” *? We cannot rely
on our senses to convey to us the ‘‘hidden substratum”’ of facts.
It is therefore imperative to resolve ‘‘the visible and external
movement into the internal actual movement.” The task is to
defy appearances and to detect the real nature of things. This is
the task of science.*

Here, too, the source of all knowledge is observation of reality.
But the mind is not in the attitude of passive, uncritical absorp-
tion of what the senses chance to transmit to it from the outside
world. Observation is an active process; it is experimentation,
manipulation, and critical testing. This is what Marx calls
“‘praxis”’ in his notes on Feuerbach: ‘‘The chief lack,” he ob-
serves, “‘of the materialistic philosophy . . . is that . . . sensation
is conceived of only under the form of the object which is pre-
sented to the eye, but not as human sense-activity, ‘praxis,’ not
subjectively.”’> Upon this idea he bases his education of the
future. Education will not be then a process of pressing ideas
upon pupils constrained to imbibe them. It will rather go hand
in hand with the actual manipulation of objects by the pupils.
Instruction, productive labor, and gymnastics will constitute the
chief elements of education, and not for the sake of productive

1 “Scientific truth is always paradox if judged by everyday experience, which
catches only the delusive appearance of things.” Marx, Value, Price and Profits,
D170:

2 Capital, vol. i, 81, 82, 87.

3 Ibid., vol. ili, 244-245, 263. Marx’s italics.

4 Ibid., p. 369; vol. i, 594.

° Reprinted in Engels’s Feuerbach, appendix i, p. 129.fechas

  

THE DERIVATION OF IDEAS I3I

efficiency, but for the purpose of preparing ‘‘fully developed
human beings.’ This idea reminds us of the educational phi-
losophy of Comenius and Pestalozzi.

We rely, then, for true knowledge upon the accurate observa-
tion of facts, upon the wise use of our senses. But what guaranty
do we possess that the senses are reliable, that they are capable
of penetrating into the real nature of things, and that they are
adequate to provide us with exhaustive, infallible information?
May we not suspect that the object possesses properties and
aspects entirely inaccessible to our senses? What of Kant’s Ding
an Sich?

These questions do not baffle Marx and Engels. The proof of
the pudding is in the eating, they assert. The object can be put
to the test, and all doubts will be destroyed forthwith. We can
turn the object to a use warranted by our perception of its nature.
If it yields the results expected, if it answers the purpose ade-
quately, we have proof positive that our idea of it is correct. Had
our notion of its nature and properties erred, the results we expect
from it would fail to come forth. If, as Engels would put it, our
senses delude us into considering a shoe-brush as a cow, we shall
discover our error when we resort to this object for milk. As long
as in our experimentation and handling of objects in various ways
we see them behave in concordance with expectations founded on
perception, we are certain that our senses are not misleading us,
and that the thing in reality and our notion of it as based on sense-
perception are congruous. As long as science can reproduce ob-
jects out of their constituent elements, and discover unknown
planets and stars on the basis of calculations, we are assured that
our senses are excellent guides toward grasping reality.

Not in one single instance, so far, have we been led to the conclusion that
our sense-perceptions, scientifically controlled, induce in our minds ideas re-
specting the outer world that are, by their very nature, at variance with
reality, or that there is an inherent incompatibility between the outer world
and our sense-perceptions of it.

What the senses do not transmit to us need not molest us,
for it does not exist. The Ding an Sich has no meaning; and its

1 Capital, vol. i, 529-530.

PrererMeerersiste)s i

   

——SSE RRS.

kate ee eee ee ee eS

132 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

resurrection by the neo-Kantians is, “scientifically, a step back-
Warde 5

Discriminating employment of our senses conveys to us the
awareness of world phenomena. But we have not as yet a
thorough understanding of them. We do not know yet the com-
plexity of concepts, the interrelation of objects, the laws of their
change, and their significance in the scheme of the universe. To
attain this, another powerful instrument is called into service —
thought. Thought is the counterpart of the function of self-
interest in the generation of institutions and of the ‘‘illusions”
of the majority. In these instances the reflections formed by the
perception of reality are suffused with class interests or with ma-
terial considerations of the individual; whereas, in the acquisition
of scientific knowledge, the results of painstaking observation are
subjected to the cold and vigorous action of thought.

Thought consists in decomposing an object or event into its
constituent elements, and in uniting them into a harmonious
whole. It operates through analysis and synthesis. First of all,
we isolate individual objects out of their general natural or social
milieu, and examine them separately. We cannot understand a
composite picture unless we do this.” Suppose we isolate a con-
crete economic phenomenon. As it presents itself to our senses,
it is an aggregate of elements and a product of a course of evolu-
tion through time. It is a complex, a resultant of processes, a
synthesis. Yet for sense-perception, precisely this completed
object is the starting-point. Our senses attack ready-made ob-
jects, and cannot reveal the meaning of the phenomenon or the
manner of its final arrival at its present state.* Accordingly,
thought must come to our aid. The concrete entity is broken up
into its elements and its various aspects, and each part is studied
in detail. It is a study of minutiae apparently unimportant, but
they are as significant as the minutiae in microscopic anatomy.
Only in natural science the minutiae are arrived at by experimen-
tation; in social sciences, by the power of abstraction.* Then the

1 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, pp. xv-xviii; Feuerbach, pp. 60-62.

2 Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 41.
3 Marx, Capital, vol. i, 87; Critique of Political Economy, p. 293.

Capital, vol. i, 12, 24-25.THE DERIVATION OF IDEAS

investigation concerns itself with the analysis of the interconnec-
tions and the mutual dependence of these elements. This pro-
cedure unveils the internal mechanism, the atomic structure of the
entity; and thus the aggregate grows in our mind, and finally
stands out as a clear concrete economic phenomenon, no longer a
puzzle, no longer impregnated with “fetishism.” Thought has
penetrated its inner make-up and has thrown light on Tene
senses disclosed the physiognomy, and thought revealed its
meaning.

Only in this sense can we say that reality is a product of
thought. Reality is not, as Hegel teaches, merely the Idea resid-
ing in our mind; it is palpable and objective, and it exists outside
of our consciousness. Only it is comprehended and evaluated
through the agency of thought. Marx’s observation is as
follows:

The method of advancing from the abstract to the concrete is but a way
of thinking by which the concrete is grasped and is reproduced in our mind
as a concrete. It is by no means, however, the process which itself generates
the concrete... . The whole. . . is the product of a thinking mind which grasps

the world in the only way open to it, a way which differs from the one em-
ployed by the artistic, religious, or practical mind.!

Thought analyzes the elements of the concrete phenomenon and
synthesizes them into unity; and this unity is not the creation of
juggling phrases, but a fact of reality.’ Directly we understand
this isolated phenomenon, we can proceed to study its inherent
relationships to other situations, until we gain the general picture
in its growth and organic composition.

Such is the scientific method. Derive “the scheme of the uni-
verse not from our own brain, but merely, by means of our own
brain, from the material world,” and you need no philosophy;
what you will reap is positive science.’ It is a difficult procedure
requiring mental effort, painstaking analysis of details, and a la-
borious scrutiny of the invisible nature of things. Science is not a
catalogue of ready formulas, it requires arduous study. maehe
art of operating with ideas is not inborn, moreover, and is not

1 Marx, Critique of Political Economy, appendix, pp. 293-294.
2 Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 64. 3 Ibid., p. 57.

Te Tete Fi Penn LR HTYER Ee @134 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

 

vouchsafed every day to the ordinary mind, but requires actual
thought.”’? There can be no absolute, lighthearted reliance on
common sense, for “sound common sense, respectable fellow
though he may be in his own home surrounded by his four walls,
meets with strange adventures when he betakes himself into the
wide world of investigation.” 2 The true scientist is loth to accept
the tutelage of appearances. Above all, he is armed with the
dialectic method and attitude. In his investigations he is always
on the alert for evidence of evolution and interrelations. He is
constantly heedful of the forces that develop within the old as its
negation, and that augur its destruction and its supersession by a
new synthesis.* “A correct notion of the universe, of the human
race, as well as of the reflection of this progress in the human
mind can be had only by means of the dialectic method, together
with steady observation of the change and interchange which goes
on in the universe.”’ 4

The knowledge acquired by individuals at given times is merely
an infinitesimal part of the sum total of human knowledge. Hu-
man thought is not the thought of mankind in a given year or of
a particular school at various periods. It is an accumulation of
the ages, a massing together of the “thoughts of many millions
of men, past, present, and to come.’ ® It is coeval with existence
and coextensive with the living and thinking universe. Each
generation possesses a store of ideas rooted in the circumstances
of the time. As conditions alter, as our inherited wealth of know-
ledge accumulates, we gain deeper insight into reality and perfect
our instruments of research. We continually win, therefore, new
ideas, which correct or destroy, delimit or enlarge, those trans-
mitted to us from generations in the past. A given generation
sees the light in its manner, and has its fundamental ways of ap-
proaching things. It makes blunders; and the coming generations
correct them and make new blunders. Our present knowledge
cannot be regarded as perfect, ‘‘because, to all appearances, we

1 Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 34. 2 Ibid., p. 42. SLbtd pa 34e
Shida. 44. ® Ibid., p. 118.THE DERIVATION OF IDEAS 135

are just standing at the threshold of human history and the gener-
ations which will correct us will be much more numerous than
those whose knowledge . . . we ourselves correct.” ?

Marx and Engels are therefore staunch upholders of the doc-
trine of relativity of human thought and institutions. First of all,
ideas are relative to the realm of facts which constitute the ulti-
mate basis of perception. This realm is not immutable; it is in an
unceasing flux, and subject to fundamental changes. If certain
forms of social consciousness have endured, in their general out-
lines, through many ages, despite the fact that material condi-
tions have altered, it is only because certain elements of economic
reality have persistently retained their original character. For
instance, through all the economic epochs since the dawn of
civilization society has been split into classes of exploiters and
exploited. But as soon as the era comes when class antag-
onisms shall be extinct, these age-old forms of thought will
vanish.”

Further, ideas in a given domain are relative to the intellectual
heritage bequeathed to us from the past, as well as to conquests
in any other sphere of knowledge. All branches of learning are
interwoven, and a radical shift of foundations in one branch forces
a revision of the underlying working hypotheses of the others.
The materialistic philosophy of the eighteenth century was mech-
anistic, because the natural sciences were then rigid and mech-
anistic. ‘‘The exclusive application of the measure of mechanics
to processes which are of chemical and organic nature . . . is the
cause of the peculiar, but, considering the times, unavoidable
narrowmindedness of the French materialism.” A similar reason
is given why this materialism did not regard the universe as a
process of evolution.* When Darwin established the fact of evolu-
tion of plant and animal life, all the other sciences became imbued
with a new vitality, and they altered their method of approach.
Finally, ideas are relative to the physical and mental constitution,

1 Engels, Anti-Dihring, p. 119. Cf. Feuerbach, p. 41.
2 Communist Manifesto, p. 40.
$ Engels, Feuerbach, p. 66.

ere ree Sa

ee emeree ert sn ee ee en ee ee ee

136 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

to the temper and feelings, of the individuals who advance and
clarify our knowledge.!

We cannot boast, then, that our present ideas are eternal
truths, inflexible and infallible. Human thought is sovereign only
in the sense that it has tremendous possibilities, enormous powers,
and a great mission.? A mutable world of reality, new discoveries
and further conquests by the human mind may lead to the aban-
donment of some of our most cherished principles, to the align-
ment of new guiding hypotheses, and to altogether different ways
of contemplating things. To assert that ours is perfect, finite
knowledge, valid for all ages, is to maintain that the world of facts
will cease to change, and to presume that the countless genera-
tions after us will recoil from investigation, thought, and learning.
It is to doom the universe to a paralysis, and the world of thought
to a frozen stand-still. This is absurd. We ought to be humble
about our achievements and say: this we see in the light of present-
day facts and thought; the future may gain new and better light;
the new will find errors in the old, and will make corrections and
erasures. Our knowledge is an endless stream flowing alongside,
and parallel to, human existence. It is relative.*

The representatives of the German historical school of eco-
nomics also endorse the doctrine of relativity; but the relativity
of Marx and Engels differs in some important respects. Our two
authors hold that social life is subject to definite laws which reveal
the operation of cause and effect in the sequence of events. For
example, Marx’s aim in his Capital is to disclose the ‘‘natural
laws of capitalist production” and to “‘lay bare the economic law
of motion of modern society.’ 4 The section in the third volume
of Capital (pages 247 ff.), where he discusses the tendency of
profits to diminish bears the title ‘‘ The law of the falling tendency
of the rate of profit”’; likewise with the chapter on the ‘‘ General
law of capitalist accumulation.” * But the historical school doubts
whether social phenomena can be isolated out of their hopelessly
tangled and chaotic milieu and made to display definite sequences

1 Engels, Anti-Diihring, pp. 45, 58, 131.

2 Ibid., p. 120. 3 Engels, Feuerbach, p. 97.
4 Capital, vol. i, 13, 14. ° Ibid., p. 671.THE DERIVATION OF IDEAS 137

where cause and effect can be traced. Even among those who
would like to obtain laws from historical inductive studies, some
despair of success.

Marx and Engels anchor the relativity of ideas, ultimately and
primarily, to the narrow solid basis of material factors. Thus
social ideas and institutions and all history move in consonance
with economic reality. The historical school is not so clear here.
It regards all ideas in almost all spheres as interlaced among
themselves, as interacting and as determining each other. There
is no single force from which control and change emanate. To
understand one domain in science, it is essential to read the his-
tory and philosophy of everything else; and to understand eco-
nomics, one has to be omniscient. Then to the two friends the
mainspring of relativity, the cause that calls relativity of human
thought into existence, is clear, and it follows logically from their
general philosophy. Their philosophy of cognition yokes ideas to
reality; therefore the causes of changes in reality will simultane-
ously present themselves as the causes of relativity. Such causes
are the dialectic and class struggles. Their relativity is a con-
comitant of their theory of cognition and of their view of the
dynamic forces operating in history. With the historical school
the causes of relativity are not apparent.

Finally, with Marx and Engels the scope of relativity is defined.
Each epoch has its mode of production, its classes, and class in-
terests. Consequently, human ideas and institutions vary with
each epoch, but within a given epoch they maintain a more or less
definite character. The social laws they speak of are the laws
manifesting themselves in a certain economic era and in no other
era. “Every historical period has laws of its own. . . . As soon as
society has outlived a given period of development, and is passing
over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also
to other laws.”? Such is the summary by a Russian critic of Marx’s
views of laws, and Marx reproduces it with approval in his preface
to the first volume of Capital. Discussing the formation of a re-
dundant population in modern society, Marx adds: “‘in fact,
every special historic mode of production has its own special laws

1 Capital, vol.i, 23-24.ee

= ities —————
$2 STEER ast dete preveheenne sid y Keddie BEGIN FV LA BREE IT ANTS PE OR BROS ERR Do ID a

138 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

of population, historically valid within its own limits.” 1 It fol-
lows that, viewed from the broad historical angle, social thought
and institutions are relative to the five economic epochs, and
valid within the confines of each particular one: primitive com-
munism, ancient slavery, medieval feudalism, modern capitalism,
and future socialism. The historical school indeed divides history
into eras, — Roscher, Hildebrand, Schmoller, Biicher, have their
series of “stages” in history, — but this school does not insist
that thought and institutions are relative solely with reference to
these particular stages, and that they fall into sharply defined
categories parallel to these stages.2 With the historical school
relativity is, in the main, a constantly flowing stream, harnessed
to no disparate epochs.

' Capital, vol. i, 693.

 Knies, who was skeptical about economic “‘stages’’ and other historical ‘‘laws,”

holds, likewise, that thought and institutions are relative to time and place in
general.en Pel tate iter fetehasets) Aghga; i ?

   

CHAPTER VIII

THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF INSTITUTIONS

ARMED with such a philosophy of cognition, scornful of illusion-
ism and the cult of appearances, determined to pursue the truly
scientific method and to sound the depths of phenomena, Marx
and Engels address themselves to the analysis of social institu-
tions and human thought — the state and law, morality and re-
ligion, science and philosophy.

The followers of the idealistic philosophy view the state as the
realization of the Idea that regulates the affairs of men, and as
the concrete manifestation of the requirements of the universal
Reason.! To others, the state is, more concretely, a mechanism
learned and perfected by the human race through long ages of
groping and experience; a device to ensure order and peace, safety
and welfare, to all the inhabitants of a given territory. To Aris-
totle the state is the highest form of community, and its aim is the
highest good; to Hobbes it is a sime qua non of order and safety.
The ordinary individual would agree with both, without, however,
entering into the specific philosophy of either.

The state is nothing of the kind, declare Marx and Engels. All
this is mere fantasy and judgment based on treacherous appear-
ances. From our childhood on we are brought up to regard the
state with veneration and to think that it is the only conceivable
agency fit to administer to the common interests of society.* But
this is mere illusionism. In substance, the state is an institution
deeply rooted in the economic subsoil and indebted to economic
elements for its fortunes.* ‘‘I was led by my studies to the con-
clusion,” says Marx, ‘‘that legal relations as well as the forms of
the state could be neither understood by themselves, nor ex-

1 Engels, preface to Marx’s Civil War in France, p. 19.
Idem, Feuerbach, pp. 112-113.

3 Idem, preface to Marx’s Civil War in France, p. 19.
4 Idem, Feuerbach, pp. 113-114, 116.

2

139

em

—140 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

plained by the so-called general progress of the human mind, but
that they are rooted in the material conditions of life.” 1 First
come the economic facts, then the state springs into existence and
is molded accordingly. At a certain stage in the evolution of the
systems of production the state is entirely unknown; at other
stages economic forces inevitably call it into being; in a future
period it will just as inevitably be relegated to the ‘‘Museum of
Antiquities.” * Every form of production creates its own forms
of government.’

The state is a product of society split into classes constantly
warring with one another. It is a confession that society is hope-
lessly torn asunder by irreconcilable antagonisms. The state first
appears to allay these conflicts, to prevent the classes from an-
nihilating each other in fruitless combat, and to preserve the
struggle within reasonable bounds. But it is powerless to abolish
the mighty antagonisms thrown to the surface by the volcanic
action of economic elements.* Only under exceptional circum-
stances, when the contending classes are evenly divided in power,
the state holds the balance and serves as a mediator. Bonapart-
ism did it in France during the first and the second empires,
playing off the proletarians against the bourgeoisie. Bismarck
practised it when he played off the same classes, and cheated both
‘for the benefit of the degenerate Prussian cabbage junkers.”’ °

But typically and in its very essence the state is an instrument
in the hands of the master class, and it is employed to maintain
the abused class in subjection. “‘The state is nothing else than a
machine for the oppression of one class by another class, and that
no less so in the democratic republic than under the monarchy.” ®
“The aggregation of civilized society is the state, which through-
out all typical periods is the state of the ruling class, and in all

1 Marx, Critique of Political Economy, p. 11.
? Engels, Origin of the Family, pp. 211--212.
Marx, Critique of Political Economy, appendix, p. 273.
Engels, Origin of the Family, p. 206.
Ibid. p. 209.

6 Engels, preface to Marx’s Civil War in France, pp. 19-20. The Communist
Manifesto asserts that ‘‘ Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized
power of one class for oppressing another ”’(p. 42).

a = w&THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF INSTITUTIONS I4I

cases mainly a machine for controlling the oppressed and ex-
ploited class.” ! The dominant class needs the state to preserve
the sanctity of its property and to protect its possessions from
violent hands.

This class is the beneficiary of the prevailing mode of produc-
tion. It finds it to its interest to perpetuate the régime. This it
seeks to effect by the erection of an institution, the state. Not
welfare of man, but custody of wealth, is the aim of the state.’
Throughout history the population was divided into groups on
the basis of property ownership, and each group enjoyed political
rights accordingly. ‘This is a direct confirmation of the fact that
the state is organized for the protection of the possessing against
the nonpossessing classes.”’ In the democratic republic wealth is
only officially not accepted as a criterion. In fact, it exercises
tremendous power; covertly, indeed, ‘“‘but all the more safely.”
There, the opulent class either corrupts the officials by bribery
or creates various entangling understandings with the govern-
ment through banking operations, public debt schemes, corporate
control of transportation, and the stock exchange.°

An outstanding, though ordinarily neglected, characteristic of
the state is that its members are not bound by ties of kinship as
was the case with primitive communities. The state is a territorial
unit, and its citizens are grouped, not with reference to blood re-
lationship, but in geographical sections. The state is not organ-
ized on the basis of clan or tribe, but on the basis of province,
department, district.*

Another ‘‘essential mark of the state consists in a public power
of coercion divorced from the masses of the people.” ° The state
does not represent a power radiating from the people and coinci-
dent with them, but is a force superimposed and hovering above
them. This is emphasized repeatedly. “The state presupposes a
public power of coercion separated from the aggregate body of

1 Engels, Origin of the Family, p. 214. Cf. Ibid., p. 208, and Socialism, Utopian
and Scientific, pp. 75-76.

2 Engels, Origin of the Family, p. 130.

3 Ibid., pp. 209-210.

4 Ibid., p. 206.
§ Ibid., p. 142.

   

—142 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

its members.” It is ‘‘the concentrated and organized force of
society.” ? This force may be insignificant in communities where
classes are undeveloped, or in remote, isolated districts, as was
once the case in the United States of America. But it is aug-
mented where, and in measure as, the class antagonism is sharp-
ened. The state is an independent authority. It has at its dis-
posal the army, the navy, and the police; the courts, the prisons,
and the executioners. It asserts its authority through commands
that are to be obeyed without questions. It maintains itself by
taxation, national debts, and protective tariffs. Its executive
mansions are surrounded by a coterie of the dominant class —a
horde of courtiers, functionaries, and potentates; of taxing ex-
perts, tariff schemers, and bankers, who know how to keep the
masses in subordination and how to drain the life blood of the
poor.’

It may appear that all this does not apply to a democratic state,
where the people elect the officials and hold them responsive to
social interests and needs. But that such is not the case, the
United States, Engels urges, clearly demonstrates. In the United
States each party is teeming with unscrupulous politicians un-
ceasingly machinating against the common weal. They make a
business of politics, speculate on seats in the state and federal
legislative houses, agitate and delude the people, and, when
victory is gained, divide the spoils.

It is just in the United States that we can most clearly see the process
through which the State acquires a position of independent power over
against the society. . . . There exists here no dynasty, no aristocracy... .
Nevertheless, we have here two great rings of political speculators that al-
ternately take possession of the power of the State and exploit it with the
most corrupt means and to the most corrupt purposes. And the nation is

powerless against these men, who nominally are its servants, but in reality
are its two overruling and plundering hordes of politicians.‘

The state arises for economic reasons, and its destiny is shaped
by economic fact. But, as Engels reiterates in some of his last

1 Engels, Origin of the Family, pp. 115-116.
2 Marx, Capital, vol.i, 823.
3 Engels, Origin of the Family, pp. 179, 182, 184, 208; Marx, Capital, vol. i, 827,
829; Klassenkampfe in Frankreich, p. 26.
4 Engels, preface to Marx’s Civil War in France, p. 18.THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF INSTITUTIONS 143

letters, it is not altogether a derivative and a passive resultant.
Although an “‘idea,”’ it reacts on economic phenomena and exerts
some influence on them. State action may retard or accelerate
the working of economic forces through a policy of protection or
free trade, through good or bad financial measures, through wars
of aggression or internal strife. However, it can hardly presume
to modify the nature of the irresistible economic currents and to
turn them from their course. Nor are its motives and methods
inspired by any other than economic considerations. When it
goes counter to economic facts, it ultimately succumbs. When-
ever political power collides with the economic development of a
country, ‘‘the battle is always ended with the destruction of the
olitical force.”

The state is also identified, although passively and indirectly,
with the dynamics of society. The ruling class in a given epoch,
with a given mode of production, organizes the correlative state
power, and through it enacts laws and regulations which fetter
the steadily growing productive forces and stifle the nascent class,
or the oppressed old class, whose interests are linked with the new
era of production that promises to arrive sooner or later. The old
productive order, with its old state and regulations, is in “con-
tradiction’’ with the freshly developing elements. The old state
must be broken up before a new synthesis can gain a foothold.
This is one of the reasons why Marx and Engels often speak of the
class struggle as a political struggle."

The state, then, is no realization of the Idea, no manifestation
of Reason, no summum bonum. When we delve beneath appear-
ances, its true nature is revealed. What is the state? Ask the
ruling, propertied class. It will proclaim the arrogant truth:
V Etat cest mot.

This conception of the state is expressed unequivocally and
repeatedly in their various writings. It is evidently the fruit of
their superior method of investigation and of their vaunted way

1 Marx, Die Inauguraladresse der internationalen Arbeiter-Association, p. 29.
Engels, Letters of October 27, 1890, and January 25, 1894, reprinted in a A. Labriola’s
Socialisme et philosophie, pp. 250, 251, 259; Anti-Dihring, pp. 212-213; Le mouve-
ment soctaliste, vol. xii, 119.

   

a enme144 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

of forming scientific truths. Yet the attentive reader cannot help
feeling that not all is well here, and that the two philosophers are

 

 

hardly certain of their ground. From the bold pronouncements

that the state is a force of repression employed by the class in the
saddle, they at times lapse to another view, less militant but more
reasoned — namely, that the state is inherently not an instru-
ment functioning to promote the desires and schemes of the
predatory class, but that it evolved as an institution designed to
take care of the common concerns of society.

Thus in his polemic against Diihring, Engels declares that the
state toward which primitive communities had evolved watched
over the social interests, such as irrigation in the Orient; and that
only with the appearance of classes did it turn into a tool in the
hands of the few.1 This he reiterates in the same work.” In his
introduction to Marx’s Civil War in France he explains that

Society had created for itself definite organs, originally by simple division
of labor, for the provision of its common interests. But these organs, at the
head of which is the power of the State, had in the course of time. . . trans-
formed themselves from the servants of society into its masters... . Against

this transformation of the State and the State’s organs from the servants of
society into its rulers... .3

In the discussion of the Gotha program Marx talks of the future
commonwealth and asks: ‘‘What transformation will the char-
acter of the state undergo in becoming a communist society?”
A communist body knows no classes and no oppression, yet Marx
sees in it a state performing ‘‘social functions.” * Add to these
admissions the one, noted above,’ to the effect that the state
originated to conciliate class antagonisms, and it becomes clear
that Marx and Engels at times embrace the very views they

1 Anti-Diihring, p. 178.

2 Ibid., pp. 207, 211.

* Pp. 17-18. Cf. his Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. 78.

‘ Reprinted in the International Scoialist Reziew, vol. viii, 656. Lenin is par-
ticularly anxious to emasculate this statement. He tries to explain that Marx did
not mean what he said. It is to Lenin’s advantage to establish that with Marx the
state is absolutely nothing but a force of oppression employed by the privileged
class. Such a view lends support to his contention that only revolution by violence
can remove this sinister institution. See Lenin’s Staat und Revolution, pp. 77-79.
5 Onp.14o.THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF INSTITUTIONS 145

ordinarily so hotly denounce as metaphysical and as the illusion-
ism of the “‘ordinary mind.”’

However, it is true that most frequently they voice the idea
that the state is a summation and a reflection of the desires of the
class controlling the system of production. This, and the fact
that the state is relative to the economic era, Engels urges that
history proves abundantly.’ In primitive communism the state
was unknown. The clan was a homogeneous group with similar
interests and desires, and without class distinctions. Every adult,
male or female, had a voice in the election of the officials that
discharged the communal functions and duties. The council at
which all adults met and voted was ‘‘the sovereign power in the
gens.’ The officials were servants sensitively responsive to the
common interests, and their power depended solely on the will of
the people. There was no force above and apart from the collec-
tive will of society, therefore no state. ‘‘No soldiers, gendarmes
and policemen, no nobility, kings, regents, prefects or Judges, no
prisons, no lawsuits, and still affairs run smoothly.” * Such was
the situation, for example, among the Iroquois Indians in North
America.*

The same was true in the heroic epoch of ancient Greece. The
military chief, the archon, and the treasurer who cared for the
common property were elected and deposed by the will of all.
But soon private property appeared, differences in wealth arose,
the king began to covet the usurper’s place, and an aristocracy
reared its head and captured offices.’ Soon class distinctions
arrived and unleashed turmoil and strife. Relief was needed, and
Theseus gave a constitution. He established at Athens a central
administrative body, the general council; introduced a common
law applying even to those outside the Athenian tribe, thus break-
ing down the ties of kinship; and divided the nation into classes

1 Engels, Feuerbach, pp. 113-114.

2 Idem, Origin of the Family, p. 107.

3 Ibid., p. 117.

‘ Ibid., chap.3. Elsewhere Engels confesses that, when the old communal system
persisted, it built up “‘the most elementary form of the state, oriental despotism,

from India to Russia.” See Anti-Diihring, p. 210.
5 Engels, Origin of the Family, pp. 125, 129, 199-200.

en146 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

of nobles, farmers, and tradesmen, conferring upon the nobles the
exclusive privilege of filling office. This was the first attempt to
form a state.

The new organ proved to be merely a tool in the hands of the
nobility in their struggle with the indebted, impoverished farmer.
Public offices multiplied, and presently the army and navy came
into existence.” Then Solon appeared to offer relief. He developed
the state still further. He divided the population into four classes
according to property in land, with rights and duties graduated in
proportion.’ The final blow was dealt by the constitution of
Kleisthenes, 509 B.c. The population was divided, no longer on
the basis of kinship, but into one hundred territorial districts,
each one autonomous as regards its own local affairs. The dis-
trict was the prototype of the American township. ‘“‘The modern
State in its highest development,” comments Engels, “ended in
the same unit with which the rising State began its career in
Athens.” * Each ten of these districts formed a higher territorial
unit which had to contribute to the national army and navy.
Above all stood the Athenian council, the members of which were
elected by the vote of the citizens.®

The state was complete. It was a “‘democratic republic,”
evolved out of the gens society ° and called into existence because
of the rise of classes within it.’ From then on, the state was used
as a weapon in behalf of the masters and against their slaves.
How well it suited the social conditions was demonstrated by the
ensuing prosperity of Greece.®

Rome went through similar vicissitudes. It commenced its
career with a gens organization and without a state. The king
and the senate were elected from the patricians, and the laws were
passed at public meetings where each person had the privilege of
voting. It was a military democracy, but not a state.® Finally
the struggles between the patricians, who were gens members,
and the plebeians, who were strangers, forced Servius Tullius to
give a constitution which erected a democracy much after the

1 Engels, Origin of the Family, pp. 132-133. 2 hid pat37.
ahd. py 130: A Lhd -p. TAs: 6) fotd:, |p. 142° 6 Ibid., p. 144.
7 [bid., p. 205. 8 Ibid., p. 143. 9 Tbid., pp. 153-154.THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF INSTITUTIONS 147

Greek pattern. The force of the new state was used “‘against the
slaves and the so-called proletarians.””! About the later develop-
ments of the Roman state Engels says nothing.

The German tribes who invaded Rome had begun, likewise,
with a gens régime; ” but the vast territories wrested from the
Romans could hardly be administered by this elementary, primi-
tive organism. For this particular reason the state arose.* Only
in this instance, instead of the classical democracies, monarchies
established themselves. The heads of the state, the monarchs,
were the erstwhile desperate military leaders who would rally
about themselves reckless, booty-loving warriors and lead them in
private expeditions of warfare and plunder. These rulers sur-
rounded themselves with favorites and courtiers chosen from
among their old personal war followers, from freed slaves and
serfs, and from romanized Gauls who proved invaluable in ad-
ministrative affairs because of their knowledge of the Roman
language and Jaw and because of their general education. Deem-
ing themselves the owners of all the conquered territories, the
new monarchs proceeded to distribute vast amounts of public
land among their favorites — in lien, in use for life, or on other
terms. This laid the basis of a new nobility. The state, steered
by the head and his entourage, turned into a lever of oppression
for the poor farmer. By the ninth century, exhausted by exploita-
tion and interminable wars, the farmer was forced to seek the
protection of the powerful nobles who wrenched from him the
title to his property and compelled him to degenerate into a serf.
‘““The new race, masters and servants,” inaugurated the régime
of medieval feudalism.*

The feudal monarchy was the handmaid of the lord in suppress-
ing the serf, of the guild master in dictating to apprentice and
journeyman, and of the country nobility in its strife with the city
guilds. Yet how well this state corresponded to the medieval
system of production, how far it was a true derivative, an ideal
“reflection,” of economic reality, is not exactly clear with the two

1 Engels, Origin of the Family, pp. 156-157.

2 1bid Dal7se 3 Ibid., pp. 184, 205.
4 Tbid., pp. 174-175, 184-188.

pee BES Eat tee

RP aie ete

  

—148 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

historians. We should expect absolute monarchy, the child of
medieval production, to be thoroughly incompatible with the
succeeding, antagonistic order of production, namely, capitalism.
But instead of corroborations, we encounter a series of perplexing
and contradictory statements. Although the logical and legiti-
mate form of government in the Middle Ages, absolute monarchy
was in continual strife with the barons for political ascendency;
and as soon as the bourgeois class appeared on the scene and
began its struggle for supremacy, the state power became eager
to use the new class ‘‘as a counterpoise against the nobility.” *
Marx teaches: “‘. . . and this always has been the fundamental
principle of absolute monarchies, to rely for support upon two
classes, the feudal landlords and the large stockjobbing capital-
ists.” 2 Engels declares that absolute monarchy employs either
class in order to hold one in check by means of the other.

The matter is still worse. On the one hand, we meet the decla-
ration that monarchy and the bourgeoisie go hand in hand: during
the period of manufacture the bourgeoisie is the ‘‘cornerstone of
the great monarchies in general,” states the Communist Mant-
festo4 On the other hand, we are assured that the two are utterly
incompatible: the bourgeoisie struggled with “the feudal lords
and their protector, absolute monarchy’’; the bourgeoisie ‘“over-
threw feudalism and monarchy in order to make of society a
bourgeois society.” °

One thing is certain, the monarchic state, itself the political
expression of feudalism, takes the initiative in fostering a mode
of production which is in direct opposition to its own economic

1 Communist Manifesto, p. 15.

2 Revolution and Counter Revolution, p. 52.
3 Origin of the Family, p. 209; Anti-Diihring, p. 191.

4 Page 15. ‘Royal power, itself a product of bourgeois development. . . .”
Capital, vol. i, 789. ‘‘When in Western Europe the great monarchies developed in
consequence of bourgeois civilization. . . .” Engels, ‘‘Der Anfang des Endes in

Oesterreich,” Der Kampf, vol. vi, 394. ‘‘Firearms from the first were bourgeois
instruments of warfare employed on behalf of the rising monarchy against the feudal
nobility.” Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 195. Italics are mine.

5 Engels, “‘Socialisme de juristes,” in Le mouvement socialiste, vol. xii,99. Marx,
Poverty of Philosophy, p. 189. The same Communist Manifesto (p..57) declares that
the communists in Germany “‘fight with the bourgeoisie whenever it acts in a revo-
lutionary way against the absolute monarchy.” Cf. pp. 23-24.ete TEVEM (ETM.

  

THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF INSTITUTIONS 149

basis, and in developing a new class which is bound to become its
gravedigger. It aids capitalism and the bourgeois class. At the
commencement of the capitalistic era the circumstance that cer-
tain industrial undertakings required more capital than could be
mustered by a private concern “gives rise partly to state sub-
sidies to private persons, as in France in the time of Colbert,”
and partly to state monopolies.’ In England in the seventeenth
century the bourgeoisie employs “the power of the state .. . to
hasten, hothouse fashion, the process of transformation of the
feudal mode of production into the capitalist mode, and to shorten
the transition.” Capital in the embryo, says Marx, absorbs
surplus-labor, “not merely by the force of economic relations,
but by the help of the State.’’* Everywhere we find the feudal
state in alliance with the nascent class that labors to undermine
everything feudal!

But this alliance does not endure. As soon as the capitalist
mode of production is firmly entrenched, the resulting society and
the new material conditions find no adequate expression in the
monarchic state with its ‘“‘medieval rubbish.” The political state
which is the ‘official expression of the old civil society”’ has to
go. Hence 1688 in England, 1789 in France, and similar, although
less picturesque, cataclysms in other countries. The modern state
arises in Holland and Scotland — democracies and republics as
modeled by the puritanic Calvin.‘ Like its predecessors, it is a
tool of the ruling class against the downtrodden proletarians.
‘“The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a
capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personi-
fication of the total national capital’’; * it is “the summarized,
reflected form of the economic desires of the class which controls
production.”’® Its executive “is but a committee for managing

1 Capital, vol. i, 338; cf. Civil War in France, p. 70.

2 Capital, vol.i, 823-824. We recall that in these two countries and at these two
periods absolute monarchy prevailed.

3 [bid., p. 297.

4 Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, pp. 132, 167; Revolution and Counter Revolution,
p. 19; Civil War in France, p. 79. Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 192; Socialism, Utopian
and Scientific, p. xxii; Feuerbach, p. 123.

5 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, pp. 71-72.
8 Idem, Feuerbach, p. 114.

     
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    

etmeISO THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.” ! It is a symbol
“‘of the national power of capital over labor, of a public force
organized for social enslavement, of an engine of class despotism,”
is Marx’s verdict.”

It will go under. The modern state is the last in the historical
series. Under socialism it is extinguished, because economic facts
will no longer call for it. Till the present day, society could not
well dispense with classes. Till the present day, the systems of
production have not been perfectly developed; the productive
forces have been meager; and man has not learned to contend
with nature effectively, so as to wrest from her the necessaries of
life in the minimum of time. He has therefore been constrained
to expend so much of his time on the struggle for a living that he
has had little leisure left for the participation in functions that
concern the common, social interests. Accordingly, there was
need for a division of labor in this particular, so that the bulk of
society followed their individual pursuits in quest of a livelihood,
while a small number of people were left to look after general
social affairs. This division of labor gave origin to classes, and
created for the ruling class the opportunity to utilize its power for
the exploitation of the masses. But at last the point of historical
evolution has been reached, when the productive forces have
grown so tremendously that each man has sufficient leisure to
partake in matters of common concern. The political domination
of a particular class is no longer to be tolerated. Thus teaches
Engels.*

When the socialist society is established, there will be no classes,
no oppression, and “‘As soon as there is no longer any social class
to be held in subjection . . . nothing more remains to be repressed,
and a special repressive force, a State, is no longer necessary.” *
‘There will no longer be political power, properly speaking, since
political power is simply the official form of the antagonisms in
civil society.” > Accordingly, ‘‘The society that is to reorganize

1 Communist Manifesto, p. 15.

2 Marx, Civil War in France, p. 71.

3 Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, pp. 78-79. Anti-Diuhring, pp. 210-211.

4 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. 76.
5 Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, p. 190. Cf. Communist Manifesto, p. 42.

Sa?; bebe eae degen fete teseied ere ek

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    

   

THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF INSTITUTIONS I5I

production on the basis of free and equal association of the pro-
ducers, will transfer the machinery of state where it will then
belong: into the Museum of Antiquities by the side of the spinning
wheel and the bronze axe.” ? 2

Closely allied with the state is law. Legal enactments are the
chief medium through which the state expresses its mastery and
coercion over society. Like the state, law is not the product of
ideas and reason, but is merely a shadow of economic conditions.
‘“‘The jurist imagines he operates with a priori propositions, but
they are only economic mirrorings,” says Engels.” First appear
economic facts, such as production and the corresponding eco-
nomic relations; when they are solidified by experience and cus-
tom, law arrives to acknowledge and sanctify the facts.* Law is
nothing but a paraphrasing of economic reality. “Truly it 1s
necessary to be entirely innocent of all historical knowledge not
to know that in all times sovereigns have had to submit to the
economic conditions and have never made laws for them. Legis-
lation, political as well as civil, could do no more than give ex-
pression to the will of the economic conditions.”’* For example,
under the patriarchal, caste, feudal, and guild régimes there was
division of labor according to appropriate fixed regulations. But
such regulations were not created by a legislator. “Originally
born of the conditions of material production, it was not till much
later that they [these forms of division of labor] were established
as laws.” > Similarly, as soon as labor combinations became a fact
in England, the law of 1824 did not delay in pronouncing them
legal; and the old restrictions against labor combinations were
relaxed.®

The content of law is the complex of economic facts flowing —™
from a given mode of production.’ The spirit of law is protection

ete

1 Engels, Origin of the Family, p. 211. For further discussion of the state after
the fall of capitalism see below, pp. 253-258.

2 Letter of October 27, 1890, reprinted in Labriola’s Socialisme et philosophie,
Pp. 253.

3 Marx, Capital, vol. iii, 921.

4 Idem, Poverty of Philcsophy, p.9o.
5 Ibid., p. 147. 6 I[bid,, p. 186. 7 Engels, Feuerbach, p. 117.152 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

of property. Each productive system supplies and governs the
motives of the dominant classes. The masters have property to
defend, enemies to subdue, interests to protect. They declare
their desires to their servant, the state, and presently appropriate
laws are enacted. ‘‘Your jurisprudence,” cries the Communist
Manifesto to the bourgeoisie, ‘‘is but the will of your class made
into a law for all, a will whose essential character and direction
are determined by the economic conditions of existence of your
class.”’! This will is the will of property. ‘‘ Does not the need for
notaries presuppose a given civil right, which is only an expression
of a certain development of property, that is to say, production?”
queries Marx. Montesquieu labored over the problem of the
‘spirit of laws.”’ To Marx the problem is easy, and he could have
spared him the trouble. Marx points out that ‘“Linguet over-
threw Montesquieu’s illusory Esprit des lois with one word;
‘L’ Esprit des lois, c’est la propriétél’”’ ®

But it by no means follows that laws are considered by our two
writers as inert, pale shadows. Legal enactments react on the
economic world.‘ Just as the state can have an effect on economic
conditions by hastening and nursing the process of transition and
by consolidating and augmenting the ground won, so can laws.
The English Factory Acts are an example. The extension of these
laws crowds the numerous small enterprises out of existence and
hastens their combination into a few large-scale industries; it
destroys undertakings run by antiquated methods and brings
them under the sway of capital. In this manner the law acceler-
ates the concentration of capital and the predominance of the
factory system; extends the direct opposition of the exploited
classes to the power of capital; intensifies and spreads the anarchy
and the catastrophes of capitalist production, and, by the de-
struction of the domestic industry, cuts off the last resort of the
‘redundant population.” “By maturing the material conditions,
and the combination on a social scale of the processes of produc-

1 Page 35. Cf. Engels, “‘Socialisme de juristes,”’ in Le mouvement socialiste, vol.
xii, 119.
2 Poverty of Philosophy, p. 45.
3 Capital, vol. i, 675 n.
4 Engels, in the letter last cited, p. 253.THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF INSTITUTIONS 153

tion, it matures the contradictions and antagonisms of the capital-
ist form of production, and thereby provides, along with the ele-
ments for the formation of a new society, the forces for exploding
the old one.”’?

Yet we must keep in mind that laws can boast such efficacy
only if they run with the tide of economic currents. These very
English Factory Acts, Marx pronounces, are ‘‘just as much the
necessary product of modern industry as cotton yarns, self-actors,
and electric telegraph.”’? ‘“‘They develop gradually out of the
circumstances as natural laws of the modern mode of produc-
tion.” * Laws that are not based on economic conditions, or that
are out of accord with them, are devoid of vitality. They vanish
as the shadow vanishes when the substance is gone. French law
attempts to perpetuate small-scale farming. But in vain, says
Marx. “In spite of these laws land is concentrating again.” The
laws in England perpetuating large landed property are, however,
of significance, because they are in agreement with the prevailing
system of production.’

It follows that each mode of production, carrying in its train a
realignment of property relations, alters the character of previ-
ously existing laws. ‘‘‘Positive’ law may, and must, alter its
decisions in proportion as the requirements of social, that is,
economic development, change.’ > Each historical mode of pro-
duction is bound up with its peculiar codes of law. Laws are not
eternal, they are relative.

The gens knows no law, in the strict sense. The primitive ac-
cepted ways of managing common affairs and of dealing with
infractions are time-honored customs and traditions; they are not
laws handed down by legislators and enforced by police and
prison. With the dissolution of the gens, ‘‘this legal conception
of free property in land arises,” as well as laws of succession of
property and paternal rights. Already Theseus gave a “common

1 Capital, vol.i, 552. Cf. pp. 519-520, 522.

2 [bid., p. 526.

3 [bid., p. 310.

4 Marx, Critique of Political Economy, appendix, p. 289.

5 Capital, vol. iii, 722 n.

Ibid., p. 723; Engels, Origin of the Family, p. 146.

    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

aCeres ae Bee gE a rk ne ee earns ee ee Em eee ee Eee nad hag hs SS os PN EMULE SES Seti k args ary ne aii

 

154 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

Athenian law, standing above the legal traditions of the tribes
and gentes.”’?! Then came Solon and others. Greek law was the
law of the creditor over the debtor, and of the master over the
slave; the state permitted class struggle ‘‘in a so-called ‘legal’
form.” 2 Rome went much further in this direction and per-
formed something startling. With a system of commodity ex-
change less developed even than in Greece, it elaborated a body
of law which is an “‘almost perfect expression of the juridical
relations” corresponding to commodity production, and which
could therefore be easily adapted, some seventeen centuries later,
“to capitalist conditions. ‘‘ Roman law was founded and developed
as the most perfect system of jurisprudence based on private
property with which we are acquainted.”’ Here, too, it was the
aw of freemen; the slaves had no rights.’

In the Middle Ages law was an instrument favoring the feudal
lords and the guilds. It was the dispenser of privileges for one
class and of restrictions for the other. ‘‘Local provisions of a legal
character, differential taxation, exceptional laws of every de-
scription,” deluged society and impeded free movement. The
rights of the subject class to the pursuit of happiness was sacri-
ficed to the interests of the dominant class, regardless and by
means of law.*

As soon as capitalism established itself, it swept away all the
old legal fetters to enterprise in country or town. The new class
was actuated by new interests, and new interests gave birth to
new laws.®° Modern law appeared in varying forms in different
countries. In Western Europe it was an adaptation of the old
Roman law to the new conditions. The best example is France,
where the Revolution effected an entire break with feudalism and
created the Code Civil, that ‘‘classical code for bourgeois society.”
Elsewhere, as in the case of the Prussian land law, ‘“‘pseudo-en-

1 Engels, Origin of the Family, p. 132.

2 Ibid., p. 205.

3 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. xxvii; Feuerbach, p. 115; Anti-
Dihring, pp. 139-140.

4 Engels, Anti-Dihring, p. 142; Feuerbach, p. 87.

5 Capital, vol. iii, 723. Engels, ‘‘Socialisme de juristes,” in Le mouvement social-
iste, vol. xii, 98, 102.THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF INSTITUTIONS 15s

lightened and moralizing jurists” drew up a system of law to suit
the particular conditions. Only in England, where the capitalists
and the feudal nobility effected a compromise, there is a harking
back to the ‘‘barbarous language” of feudal common law, which
corresponds to capitalism, ‘“‘the thing expressed, just as English
spelling corresponds to English pronunciation — vous écrivez
Londres et vous prononcez Constantinople, said a Frenchman.”
Yet we must not forget, Engels admonishes us, that this very old
English law preserved through the ages the best part of the Ger-
manic personal freedom, local self-government, and aversion to
interference, and transmitted these safeguards to America and
the colonies.! But no matter in what form modern law is found,
it is the law of the stronger class. The bourgeoisie required non-
interference in enterprise, unfettered competition and, as a corol-
lary, equality of rights of individuals to freedom of contract and
agreement. In essence, this equality of rights is nothing but the
equal right of all the capitalists to exploit labor. Equality of
rights means to the laborer the right to sell his labor for bare sub-
sistence and to fare no better than the slave or the serf.?

What happens to law with the advent of socialism is not men-
tioned. But it may be reasonable to surmise that a society not
cursed with class antagonisms, unencumbered with property
entanglements, and proceeding on the basis of brotherly codpera-
tion, will know no litigations and will need no legislators and
barristers’ briefs.

 

The domain of ethics, like that of politics and law, is found in
close dependence on economic exigencies. Each mode of produc-
tion, with its material conditions and class relations, creates a
complex of facts which constitute the environment that breeds
ideas and engenders sentiments with respect to questions of
morality and right conduct. What is good and what is bad is not
decided by criteria of eternal justice concocted by some idle
brain, but is judged in the light of this factual material reality
into which man is born, and which he absorbs as his mental food

1 Engels, Feuerbach, p. 115, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. xxvii.
2 Feuerbach, pp. 87-88; Le mouvement socialiste, vol. xii, 98.

—Es bao ae aere pean are eee eae EE MeN TI eae

I 56 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

throughout life. His attitude, his way of regarding conduct, is
consciously or unconsciously molded in him by the form of pro-
duction and by the conditions and classes that result from it.
The dominant class sets the standards, and that system of moral-
ity pervades society which is in keeping with the rule of this class,
and which justifies and reinforces the interests of the exploiters.
Morality is essentially class morality. ‘‘Mankind consciously or
unconsciously shapes its moral views in accordance with the ma-
terial facts upon which in the last instance the class existence is
based — upon the economic conditions under which production
and exchange are carried on.” !

The impact of economic actuality throws us into appropriate
modes of conduct. This actuality alone delimits our ideas of
justice and imparts meaning to them. To talk of justice which
has not been forged on the anvil of economic fact is to talk an in-
comprehensible language. To clamor for equitable compensation
under the wage system ‘“‘is the same as to clamor for freedom on
the basis of the slavery system. What you think just or equitable
is out of the question. The question is, what is necessary and
unavoidable with a given system of production?”’? What harmon-
izes with economic conditions is moral, what does not is not. We
express our indignation at slavery and are convinced that slavery
is wrong. This attitude merely declares the fact that our present
economic system is incompatible with such a régime, and no
longer requires it. Had present conditions called for it, slavery
would not appear to us a scandalous institution. The Greeks did
not deem slavery wrong, nor did the southern cotton planters.’

* Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 128. ‘‘We state, on the contrary,” Engels continues,
“that up to the present time all ethical theory is in the last instance a testimony to
the existence of certain economic conditions prevailing in any community at any
particular time. And in proportion as society developed class antagonisms, morality
became a class morality and either justified the interests and domination of the
ruling class, or, as soon as a subject class became strong enough, justified revolt
against the domination of the ruling class and the interests of the subject class.”
[bid., pp. 128-1209. * Marx, Value, Price and Profits, p. 76.

* Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 209. ‘‘If the moral sentiment of the mass regards an
economic fact — as, formerly, slavery and serfdom — as unjust, that proves that
this fact itself is a survival; that other economic facts are established, thanks to
which the first has become insupportable, intolerable.” Engels, preface to Marx’s
Poverty of Philosophy, pp. 14-15.THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF INSTITUTIONS 157

It all depends on the form of production. ‘‘The justice of the
transactions between the agents of production rests on the fact
that these transactions arise as natural consequences from the
conditions of production. . . . Slavery on the basis of capitalist
production is unjust.’ *

The same basis underlies the cry of injustice when leveled at
existing institutions. While a given régime of production is in the
blooming stage of its development, everyone is content with it,
even its victims. But as soon as it has traversed the major portion
of its path, as soon as contradictions arrive, and signs of a new
order disclose themselves, dissatisfactions arise, the old institu-
tions appear unjust, and appeals are made to morality and justice.
This change of mind, this appeal ‘‘is only proof that in the modes
of production and exchange changes have silently taken place
with which the social order, adapted to earlier economic condi-
tions, is no longer in keeping.’’? It is an indication that the cor-
rosive action of the antithesis has set in, and that the dawn of a
new synthesis is not far off. It is a symptom; and the task of
science is not to join in the cry of eternal, natural justice, but
rather to study the character of the wrongs, to point out that they
are manifestations of the inevitable dialectic, and to indicate
how, within the old, the new social order is striking roots and is
bringing a new promise. The feelings stirred up by poets are mere
sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. Talk of justice is of no value.
It guides to no comprehension of the disease, and it provides no
cure.’

It follows that in matters of ethics the range of final truths is
exceedingly limited. There is no eternal, immutable moral law
built on sovereign principles that transcend all time and all place.
Morality is sensitively relative to variations in material facts.
As the mode of production changes, people look at things from a
different angle, apply a different set of standards, and accordingly
render different judgments as to right and wrong conduct. New
classes have new interests, and new interests require new sanc-

1 Marx, Capital, vol. iii, 399.

2 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, pp. 45-46.

* Engels, Anti-Diihring, pp. 179-180.

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158 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
  
   
  
 

tions, new ways of envisaging good and evil. When a subject
class overpowers its rival, what was good before is good no longer,
and what was regarded as wrong in the past may become right.
‘“‘From people to people, from age to age, there have been such
changes in the ideas of good and evil that these concepts are con-
tradictory in different periods and among different peoples.” 2
Even within a given society and at a given time, every class,
every profession, has its own code of morals determined by its
own material conditions and interests.’

True, — and this has happened hundreds and thousands of
times, — a “friend of humanity” may arise who claims to believe
in finite truths of morality and justice. He explains that all
former inventors of eternal truths have been fools and charlatans,
and urges that he, ‘“‘the newly arisen prophet,’ has at length
evolved the only true and perfect system of morals, composed of
imperishable ingredients, and valid for all ages. Yet, says Engels,
his scheme is not what it vaunts itself to be. The best he can
attempt to do is to construct his system out of material drawn,
not from the external world, but from his consciousness, on the
promptings of which he places supreme reliance. But what is the
content of his consciousness? It is a store of moral ideals and
philosophical concepts, not accumulated out of the void, but
derived from the social conditions of his environment or from the
perusal of learned treatises. Try as he may to divorce his system
from a particular time and place, the historical reality that en-
virons him, driven out through the door, comes in through the
window. His system is after all merely a distorted image of his
age, invalid for any other time.’

However, despite the bold declarations, it is easy to discern
that Engels’s mind on this question is disturbed. He is aware that
people will remark: “Good is still not evil and evil is not good; if
good and evil are confused, all morality is abolished and each may
do what he will.” Engels grapples with this objection. He argues
that the problem of morality is not so easily settled as this remark

x

1 Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 129. 2°1btd: ps 127.
3 Idem, Feuerbach, p. 89.
‘ Engels, Anti-Dihring, pp. 123-124, 131.THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF INSTITUTIONS 159

implies, and that, in fact, we do not know what is evil and what is
good. He adduces proof from the circumstance that in modern
society there are ‘‘three contemporaneous and coexistent’ the-
ories of ethics: ‘‘the Christian-feudal, a survival of the early days
of faith,’ with its subdivision into Catholic and Protestant
branches; the bourgeois; and the proletarian. Thus the three
classes of modern society have three distinctive systems of ethics.
This proves, he says, that it is not easy to find absolute truth re-
garding right and wrong. He admits that these systems have
much in common. But this is only natural, since they all evolved
through history and have a common historical foundation. “ Fur-
ther, for approximately similar economic stages there must neces-
sarily be a coincidence of similar stages of economic development,
and ethical theories must of necessity coincide with a greater or
less degree of closeness.’’ For example, as soon as private prop-
erty appears, the ethical precept ‘‘thou shalt not steal” arrives.
In a society in which ‘“‘the motive for theft did not exist” only
the weak-minded would steal, and the precept would be meaning-
less.! This explanation given, Engels seems to rest satisfied, and
he leaves the question.

Inveterate foes of the state, which is to them the apotheosis of
class oppression, Marx and Engels are friends of morality.” They
would merely disembarrass it of all elements of sentimentalism.
Bent on thoroughly rationalizing the domain of ethics, they will
hear none of the talk of brotherly sympathy, of the “old cant love
one another, fall into each other’s arms,” and none of the uni-
versal intoxication with good feeling and forgiveness. They will
build better. Heretofore morality has been a class morality,
although each succeeding class struggle in history has placed
morality on a higher level. The reign of socialism will finally
inaugurate ‘‘real human morality superior to class morality and
its traditions.”” As compared with previous ethical systems, the
socialistic, that is, the proletarian one, will possess “‘the most ele-

1 Engels, Anti-Diihring, pp. 127-128.

2 Sorel is quite right when he states that Capital abounds in appreciations of
morality. See A. Labriola, Essais sur la conception matérialiste de V histoire, Sorel’s
preface, p. 16.Mes Mee te sees Toes

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   
 
 
 
 

160 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

ments of truth,” and will endure longest.! Socialist ethics will
not be based on sentimental talk of eternal justice, but will be
deeply rooted in, and will draw its vitality from, such propitious
material conditions as cannot help nursing a superior type of con-
duct. There will be no class oppression, codperation will be the
ruling principle of human relations, and each individual will have
unlimited facilities for the free development of his capacities and
inclinations. Socialism will supplant class morality by human
morality.

— Religion occupies a unique position among the institutions and
5 5
ideologies. The institutions thus far discussed are most intimately
affiliated to economic conditions; but religion appears furthest
removed from such a foundation, because the connection between
this ideology and its material basis is obscured by many interven-
ing links.” While the origin of the state, of law, and even of moral-
ity is to be traced to economic phenomena, while these institu-
tions exist primarily to perpetuate class domination, it is apparent
from the writings of Marx and Engels that the genesis of religion
and its continued existence do not find their roots in self-interest,
property, and class rule, but rather in a human psychological
propensity. Man has the disposition to mystify, personify, and
clothe with supernatural attributes everything that presents it-
self as a riddle to him. He is awed by forces that dominate over
him, and that are incomprehensible to his mind. He is not in-
clined to pass them over with unconcern, but is, on the contrary,
impelled by inner promptings to brood over them and to react to
them. The reaction expresses itself as a deification of such forces.
This is the origin of religion and its raison d’étre even at present.®
' Engels, Anti-Diihring, pp. 129, 127; Feuerbach, p. 89. Marx, too, is of the opin-
ion that of all people the proletarians possess the most delicate moral susceptibil-
ities. In his inaugural address to the first ‘‘International”’ he calls upon the workers
to master the mysteries of international politics and to watch over the diplomatic
activities of their respective governments, in order to prevent international crimes
and in order to ‘‘ vindicate the laws of morality and justice which ought to regulate
the relations among individuals as the supreme laws of intercourse among nations.”
Inauguraladresse der internationalen Arbeiter-Association, pp. 29-30.
* Engels, Feuerbach, pp. 116, 117-118.
3 Yet even here economic causation is relinquished very reluctantly. In a letter
Engels admits that it would be pedantic to seek economic causes for all the prehis-or ieios Likte kiko

  

THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF INSTITUTIONS 161

In the history of the human race there have been two groups of
secret phenomena that have harassed the mind of man, and have
prepared the nourishing subsoil of religion. In primitive days
man is constantly in close contact with nature, because in his
struggle for existence he has to contend with her face to face.
But nature is a sphinx to him, and her phenomena hang over him
as inexorable and mystifying powers. He has not learned yet the
essential character of natural occurrences, the laws of their mani-
festations, and the means by which to control them. His whole
environment is teeming with uncanny puzzles. These puzzles he
worships. He prostrates himself before nature. Thus originates
religion, which is “‘nothing but a fantastic reflection in men’s
minds of the external forces which dominate their everyday ex-
istence. .. . In the beginning of history it is the forces of nature
which first produce this reflection.’”’! All religion has “‘its roots
in the limited and ignorant ideas of the condition of savagery,’
“in certain erroneous and barbaric conceptions.” ”

In the course of time another complex of unaccountable forces
makes its appearance. They are social in character, and they
assume greater importance in proportion as society institutes
elaborate systems of division and codperation of labor, lengthy
processes of production, intricate forms of exchange, and the
anarchy of competition among producers. New mysteries de-
scend then on the human race. The commodity begins to tanta-
lize man’s consciousness! Man does not comprehend its true
nature, nor can he trace its destiny when it deserts his hands. He
is unable to envisage it as a thing in which warm human energy
has been embodied. When it has gone through the various stages
of manufacture, it comes out as a product of a hierarchy of labor-
ers, of “social labor’’; but when thrown into circulation and ex-
pressed in terms of money, it emerges as an objective, impersonal
toric absurdities of religion. However, in the same connection he says that all the
fantastic religious notions of nature, man, spirits, and magic, while not possessing
a positive economic foundation, have mainly a negative one. See Engels’s letter in
Sozialistische Monatshefte, vol. xxvi, no. 2, p. 874; or A. Labriola’s Socialisme et
philosophie, p. 254; or L. Woltmann’s Matertalismus, p. 243.

1 Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 256; Marx, Capital, vol. i, 91.

2 Engels, Feuerbach, pp. 57, 118.

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 

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162 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

entity, disclosing no connection with human labor and concealing
all hints as to the relations of the men that had shaped it. The
commodity is mysterious; it is endowed with what Marx calls
‘“fetishism.”’! Moreover, the competitive anarchic régime, under
which commodities are made, hides within its chaos ‘‘external
coercive laws” of nature which vent their rage in constantly
recurring industrial crises. The commodity dominates man as
nature dominated the savage; and is as much of a riddle to him.
To this phenomenon he reacts likewise in his fantastic manner —
with the ‘‘misty creations of religion.” ”

However, the contents of religion and the purposes it is made
to subserve, once it has come into existence, present no different
case from that exhibited by other institutions or realms of
thought. Religion appears on the surface as a product of the
mind, which builds for itself ‘‘a realm in the clouds’’; as an in-
dependent ideology playing a part in man’s life, and affecting his
conduct. It seems as if man were ‘“‘governed by the product of
his own brain.”’* But all this is more apparent than real. The
mind cannot engage in weaving fantasies that have no association
with reality, and that grow solely by their own peculiar process
of accumulation. Religious sentiment cannot be abstracted from
the ‘“‘ensemble of the conditions of society”’ and from the course
of history. ‘The religious world is but the reflex of the real
world.” ® The content of religion is drawn from reality, and the
purpose of religion is the same as the purpose of other institutions:
‘to aid the ruling class in holding the other class in subjection and
‘in delusion. It is clear therefore that while religion displays a
peculiarly stubborn adherence to tradition, its form does change
none the less; and the changes are wrought by economic forces
and by the circumstances that surround the struggling classes.°

— The initial impulse of religion, as is evident in Marx and Engels,
is derived from a psychological source; but in substance and aims,

1 Capital, vol..i, 81 ff.

2 Engels, Anti-Diihring, pp. 257-258.

3 Marx, appendix Iv in Engels’s Feuerbach, p. 131; Capital, vol. i, 681.

4 Marx, appendices Iv, vi, vil in Engels’s Feuerbach, pp. 131-132.

’ Capital, vol.i, 91.

6 Engels, Feuerbach, pp. 119, 124-125.THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF INSTITUTIONS 163

forms and evolution, religion is guided and molded by the modes
of production and by class interest.

Strong believers in morality, they reject religion with a cynical
smile. Their atheism is a direct consequence of their determina-
tion to rationalize everything. Religion is a chimerical concep-
tion, a hunt for mysterious forces, an epitome of idle riddles.
The word religion in general means to them illusion, delusion,
and worship of appearances; it symbolizes aversion to investiga-
tion and fear of truly understanding a thing. Any cult of mere
appearances they stigmatize as religion.1 To place religion on a
reasonable basis is the same as to conceive of modern chemistry
as alchemy. It cannot be done. Religion cannot exist without its
God, or alchemy without its philosopher’s stone.? It means little,
and explains nothing, It has become the fashion, Marx relates,
to explain the progress of history by Providence, God’s will, the
divine end. This ‘explains nothing. It is at most a declamatory
form, one manner among others of paraphrasing the facts.” It is
‘‘a complete negation of all reasoning.” ?

As an institution in society, they dislike religion as the incar-
nation of hypocrisy. Professing lofty principles, it never fails to
ally itself with the oppressor of mankind, is always absorbed in
petty self-interest, and is at all times ready to abandon its cher-
ished tenets at the sight of gold. They therefore seldom forego
an opportunity to dart at it their shafts of irony and cynicism.
Marx is certain that “‘The English Established Church, for ex-
ample, will more readily pardon an attack on 38 of its 39 articles
than on = of its income.’’* The Greek poet hailed the water-
wheel as an invention that will diminish the drudgery of the slaves
and Marx exclaims: ‘‘Oh! those heathens! They understood .. .
nothing of political economy and Christianity.”” They did not
see, he continues, that machinery was the

surest means of lengthening the working day. They perhaps excused the
slavery of one on the ground that it was a means to the full development of
1 Cf. Capital, vol. ili, 967.
? Engels, Feuerbach, pp. 79-80.
* Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, pp. 129-130; Value, Price and Profits, p. 13.
4 Capital, vol. i, 15.

 

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RISTA SEO eee pie ee gee Pe eee en

164 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

another. But to preach slavery of the masses, in order that a few crude and
half-educated parvenus might become “eminent spinners,’ “ extensive
sausage makers,” and “influential shoe-black dealers” — to do this, they
lacked the bump of Christianity.

Religion was in full bloom in the gens society. That was the
time when man found himself in close contact with nature, and
when she was to him an overwhelming enigma. He worshipped
the natural] forces, and devised multifarious elaborate personifi-
cations of them. Later, when social relations became more com-
plex, to the natural secrets incomprehensible social phenomena
were added. We find in the gens order priests, religious rites and
festivals, religious sorcery, mysteries, and societies with peculiar
initiations for new members.? Groups of kindred peoples had
similar religious ideas, and as the tribes separated, the religions
differentiated and developed along distinct lines under the in-
fluence of the particular circumstances amidst which each tribe
existed. Each tribe developed its own mythology and worshipped
its own gods, which were esteemed as its ancestors and as the
defenders of its territory. The deities were endowed with super-
natural powers, but their sway was confined to the tribal territory
alone. Beyond the frontiers other tribes bestowed sovereignty
on other gods. With the extinction of a tribe or a nation, its gods
went out of existence. Gradually, through a ‘“‘natural’’ process
of abstraction or “distillation,” the many gods of a tribe or a
nation were consolidated into “‘one all-embracing God.” This is
the origin of monotheism, and the best example is “the Hebrew
exclusively national God, Jahve.”’ *

To what particular changes religion was subjected in order to
adapt it to the new economic conditions that followed upon the
arrival of classical slavery, neither Marx nor Engels specifies.
Engels tells us only that ‘“‘historically the latest product of the

1 Capital, vol.i, 446. ‘Tucker was a parson and a Tory, but, for the rest, an honor-
able man.” Jbid., p. 834n. The fact that the linen is value ‘“‘is made manifest
by its equality with the coat, just as the sheep’s nature of a Christian is shown in
his resemblance to the Lamb of God.” Jbid., p. 60. See also [bid., p. 115 and n.

2 Engels, Origin of the Family, pp. 106-107, 109-112, 119, 146, 153, 172; Anu-
Diihring, p. 207.

3 Capital, vol.i, 91; Engels, Origin of the Family, pp. 120-122, 125, 128, Feuer-
bach, pp. 57, 119, Anti-Diihring, p. 257.THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF INSTITUTIONS 165

Greek vulgar philosophy’’ was monotheism; that Rome had its
national God; and that imperial Rome, desirous of becoming a
world empire ‘“‘by means of a world-wide religion,” indiscrimin-
ately provided altars in the capital for indigenous gods as well as
for those belonging to the conquered nationalities."

When the régime of ancient slavery broke up and the medieval!

mode of production was inaugurated, a new religion did not fail
to come. It was not, however, originated by the new conditions
and by the beneficiaries of the new order to suit and to promote
their interests. It was rather a religion that had come into life
long before the old order went under. This religion had been born
among the conglomerate, heterogeneous masses that had been
hurled together by the Roman fist, and that were writhing under
the Roman heel. The small debtor farmer in the country, the
lowly freeman and the slave in the city, the nationalities dissolved
by Rome or subjected to it —all these differing elements had
divergent interests and problems. Some yearned for national
independence, others dreamed of freedom, still others saw that
they could escape misery if only delivered from oppressive cred-
itors, heartless officials, and devastating wars. There was but one
thing in common to all of them: misery and destitution, and hopes
for a better day. Truly, they were the laboring and the heavily
laden.”

Under such circumstances only one common outlet was con-
ceivable: the hope of a better world after death and the spiritual
consolation that the worldly troubles and vicissitudes were in-
significant and evanescent, but that the kingdom of heaven was
everlasting. This the Christian religion supplied. It glorified life
after death and the immortality of the soul, it promised retribu-
tion in the future world to authors of earthly iniquities, and com-
pensation for past sufferings; and it pictured the sweetness of
heaven and the horrors of hell. Already the ancient Greeks
reached the “‘tedious idea of personal immortality.” Only they

1 Engels, Ants-Diilring, p. 257, Feuerbach, pp. 119-120.

2 Engels, “‘Zur Geschichte des Urchristentums,” Neue Zeit, vol. xiii, no. 1, pp.

4, 36.
3 Tbid., p. 37-

 

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166 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

were forced to it, not by a desire for solace, but by philosophical
speculations as to how the thought-process was carried on within
man; they decided that the soul was charged with this function,
and that it was a separate entity residing within him. To the
Greeks the idea of immortality was unwelcome as a positive mis-
fortune.t Not so with the Christians. Such a belief was a beloved
device born of the desire to escape the hopelessness of reality.
Anton Menger, in his Right to the Whole Produce of Labor, queries
why socialism failed to come upon the fall of Rome — since,
previously to its fall, the same symptoms existed which in present,
capitalistic, society are pointed to as the heralds of socialism;
namely, concentration of property and increasing misery among
the proletarians. Engels retorts: Menger does not see that social-
ism did come indeed, but under the circumstances it could not
have been of the terrestrial variety, it could only be the socialism
of the future world, that is, Christianity! ?

The new religion was purely a mass movement and a bewilder-
ing mixture of elements. Rome, Greece, and especially Asia
Minor and Egypt, furnished the arena. Oriental religions, popu-
larized Greek philosophy, Jewish theology, and particularly
stoicism, made the contributions. Mystical mathematicians,
alchemists, swindlers, impostors, were among its composers; sym-
bolism, cabala, visions, and the superstitions of the credulous,
ignorant, downtrodden mass, constituted its ingredients. Leaders
there were aplenty; nevertheless, it was essentially a mass prod-
uct, the child of conditions.* Engels sees in it an admirable paral-
lel to the fortunes of socialism. Both have their start among the
lowly, both are mass movements, both struggle for a better world
to come, both are torn by sects, both ultimately emerge tri-
umphant.*

Here we come upon a singular development. This ideology,
instead of being crushed by the upper class, just as any attempt
of an exploited class to construct a system of its own is crushed

1 Engels, Feuerbach, pp. 56-57.

2 Neue Zeit, vol. xiii, no. 1, p. 4.
3 Engels, Neue Zeit, vol. xiii, no. 1, pp. 6-10, 40; Feuerbach, pp. 79, 120.
* Neue Zeit, vol. xiii, no. 1, pp. 4, 12.THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF INSTITUTIONS 167

by its antagonists, is ultimately adopted by the oppressors. In
the reign of Constantine Christianity becomes the state religion
in Rome. To Engels this merely proves that the new institution
suited the times. ‘‘Enough,” he exclaims, ‘“‘the fact that after
250 years it was a state religion shows that it was a religion an-
swering to the circumstances of the times.” ?

Christianity, when examined closely, was quite earthly, and
not full of elevated ethical ideals. It recognized but one equality,
the ‘‘equal taint of original sin.” The fact that occasionally, in
its early days, it endorsed common property and mutual aid was
due more to the pressure of misery and to persecution than to any
ideals of human equality. As soon as it gained recognition by
the state, the Church eagerly joined the ranks of those engrossed
in sordid affairs, and enlisted itself as an agency of oppression.
Throughout history it has been inspired by avidity for wealth and
power. It took “‘part in the slavery of the Roman empire for
centuries. It never prevented the slave trade of Christians later
on, neither of the Germans in the North, nor of the Venetians on
the Mediterranean, nor the negro traffic of later years.’’* In the
ninth and tenth centuries it imitated the trickery of the nobles,
requiring of the harassed small farmer who sought its protection
totransfer to it the title to his land and to forfeit his independence.
It thus helped in the process of reducing the free farmer to a serf,
“‘for the greater glory of God.” * The transmission of property
by testament before death had been introduced early in Athens
and Rome, but in Germany it was originated by the priests “in
order that the honest German might bequeath his property to
the church without any interference.’ *® In the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, when the German nobility oppressed the serfs
with renewed vigor, ‘‘ The spiritual lords helped themselves in a
more simple manner. They forged documents by which the rights
of the peasants were curtailed and their duties increased.’ ®

1 Feuerbach, p. 120.

2 Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 140.

3 Engels, Origin of the Family, p. 181.

* Ibid., pp. 182, 186.

OD Di Tths VO Qitl3e
6 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, appendix, p. 110.

 

a168 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

Throughout the Middle Ages the Church preached heaven, but
strove to possess as much as possible of the earth.

The Church so well adapted itself to medieval economic con-
ditions and pursued material interests with such zeal that it be-
came the stronghold and the symbol of feudalism. It united feudal
western Europe into one political system, bestowed on the feudal
institutions the glory of divine consecration, organized its own
hierarchy after the feudal pattern, and owned one-third of the
soil inhabited by Catholics. In the realms of ideology it held no
laxer sway. Everything bore a religious imprint. Philosophy,
politics, jurisprudence were transfused with theology and subor-
dinated to its authority, illustrating the influence of one ideology
upon another. The voice of science was stilled; it dared not
overstep the boundaries set by faith, and it languished! The
medieval mind was dominated by religion, could express itself
only in terms of faith; and social movements, even social upris-
ings, had a religious garb.” However, Marx reminds us that we
are not witnessing here an independent ideological factor, Ca-
tholicism, exercising an overpowering influence over the lives of
men. ‘‘The Middle Ages could not live on Catholicism, nor the
ancient world on politics. On the contrary, it is the mode in
which they gained a livelihood that explains why here politics,
and there Catholicism, played the chief part.” *

When the bourgeoisie came to power, it needed its own religion.
The new religion appeared in the form of the protestant heresy,
and first of all among the Albigenses in southern France, at the
period of the greatest growth of free cities.* The rising class,
intent on demolishing the old order, had to direct its attack on
Catholicism, the citadel of medievalism. The first phase of the
conflict came with the Lutheran Reformation in Germany. But
the power of the bourgeoisie there was insufficient, and the revolt
proved a miscarriage. “The Lutheran Reformation produced a
new creed indeed, a religion adapted to absolute monarchy”;

1 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. xx; Feuerbach, p. 121; Le mouve-
ment socialiste, vol. xii, 97.
2 Engels, Feuerbach, pp. 121, 80. 3 Capital, vol. i, 94n.
4 Engels, Le mouvement socialiste, vol. xii, 98; Feuerbach, p. 121.THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF INSTITUTIONS 169

but the victory was gathered by the landed gentry, instead of the
bourgeoisie, and this circumstance removed Germany for nearly
three centuries from the ranks of “‘independent, energetic pro-
gressive countries.”! Then came Calvin with his “natural
French acuteness,”’ and won the day.

Calvinism performed a great function during the second act of
the bourgeois struggle, that is, during the Great Rebellion in
England in the seventeenth century; and finally triumphed when
it was incorporated, in large part, in the restored Established
Church of England. True, in France it was subdued in 1685.
‘But what was the good?” Presently the free-thinker Pierre
Bayle became active; in 1694 Voltaire was born; and before long
the army of encyclopedists, equipped with the mordant material-
ism or with the deism imported from England and modified by
Cartesianism, subjected all religion to the devastating fire of
skeptical criticism and rationalism. The French bourgeois be-
came atheistic. ‘‘Christianity entered upon the last lap of the
race,’ and could no longer provide the religious clothing for
revolutionary ardor.

The third act of the drama, the French Revolution, founded
its appeal on political and juristic ideals, and scorned religion.
Not Protestants, but free-thinkers filled the National Assembly.
No one saw the need of religion, and ‘‘everybody knows what a
mess Robespierre made of the attempt” to introduce one.” How
it came to pass that, despite all this thoroughgoing atheism,
capitalist France ultimately reverted to religion, — and not to
Protestantism even, but to feudal Catholicism, — we fail to learn
from Engels. He abruptly closes his history of religion, saying,
‘‘And that is enough on this part of the subject.” °

Protestantism in its various forms is in spirit and application)

preéminently a religion of capitalism. In a society which pro-
duces commodities with their inherent fetishism, “Christianity
with its cultus of abstract man, more especially in its bourgeois

1 Engels, Feuerbach, p. 122, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, pp. xix-xxi.

2 Engels, Feuerbach, pp. 80, 123-124, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, pp. xxii,
XXV1.
3 Feuerbach, p. 125.

aeeeestre Gitatitaics. |

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
 

eeeTHE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

 

170

developments, Protestantism, Deism, etc., is the most fitting
form of religion.”’ + When the ancient world passed out, the an-
cient religions were “‘overcome”’ by Christianity; when feudalism
died, Christian sentiment ‘“‘succumbed”’ to eighteenth-century
rationalism, and the idea of ‘“‘religious liberty and freedom of
conscience merely gave expression to the sway of free competition
within the domain of knowledge,” even as free competition was
reigning within the sphere of production.? Calvinism was the
“natural religious garb” of the interests of the bourgeoisie. Its
doctrine of predestination was no more than the reflection of the
economic fact that in commercial competition success or failure
did not depend on personal exertion and deserts, but on “‘su-
perior economic powers,” incomprehensible and uncontrollable.
This doctrine was born at a time when economic transformations
took place, when new lands and new routes were discovered, and
when even ‘‘the most sacred economic articles of faith — the
value of gold and silver — began to totter and to break down.”’?
Protestantism had a marked effect on the development of
capitalism and in setting up states required by this new era of
production. It aided England during the “‘bourgeois upheaval.”
‘“‘The process of forcible expropriation of the people received in
the sixteenth century a new and frightful impulse from the Refor-
mation.” 4 By changing almost all the traditional holidays into
workdays, it ‘‘plays an important part in the genesis of capital.” °
Calvinism freed Holland from German and Spanish rule. This
creed was organized on democratic and republican principles,
‘“‘and where the kingdom of God was republicanized, could the
kingdoms of this world remain subject to monarchs, bishops, and
lords?”’ Hence the republics in Geneva and Holland, the active
republican parties in England and Scotland —all founded by
Calvinism.* But it must be emphasized that Protestantism, like
| Catholicism, was not a ruling agency creating institutions accord-
1 Marx, Capital, vol. i, or.
2 Communist Manifesto, p. 390.
3 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. xxii, Feuerbach, pp. 122-123.
4 Capital, vol.i, 792.
5 Ibid., p. 303 0.
6 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. xxii, Feuerbach, p. 123.THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF INSTITUTIONS I71I

ing to its own designs. It was the offspring of the bourgeois ré-
_gime of production, and in all these performances it acted merely
as the child doing the bidding of its progenitor.

As regards the attitude to class relations in society, Protestant- |

ism, like its predecessor, is found in the service of the oppressor.
It does not uphold lofty principles fearlessly and steadfastly, but
allows property to take precedence over everything else, even
religion. Atheism is culpa levis as compared with an attack on
private property In England a worker would occasionally be
condemned to imprisonment if he worked in his garden on a Sun-
day; but he is punished for breach of contract if he does not report
to the factory on Sunday, “‘even if it be from a religious whim.”
Sabbath-breaking is a crime, but not “‘if it occurs in the process of
expanding capital.” ? The Church winked at the unspeakable
atrocities in the colonies, and tolerated negro slavery.* The
representatives and leaders of religion look down on the exploited
masses, and ally themselves with the ruling class and the state in
maintaining the disinherited and the lowly in subjection. “ane
‘holy ones’ . . . show their Christianity by the humility with
which they bear the overwork, the privations, and the hunger of
others.” 4 Some of them supply the oppressors with a philosophy.

Marx quotes Reverend J. Townsend, who wrote in 1786 that .

hunger is the best motive to industry; that it is a wise law of na-
ture that the poor are improvident, since want forces them to ful-
fill the servile and “‘ignoble” work of society, thereby relieving
the “more delicate” from drudgery; and that the poor law merely
tended to destroy the “‘harmony and beauty, the symmetry and
order of that system which God and Nature have established in
the world.” ®

In England the bourgeois spent in the nineteenth century great
sums of money on “‘the evangelization of the lower orders,” and,
not content with the ‘‘native religious machinery,” he imported
from abroad organizers “‘ of religion as a trade.” The bourgeois

1 Marx, Capital, vol.i, 15. 2 Ibid., p. 291 Nn.
3 Ibid., pp. 824-825; Engels, Origin of the Family, p. 181.

4 Marx, Capital, vol.i, 291 n.

5 Ibid., p. 710.

JP172 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

knew well that_religion was effective in befuddling the workers and
in rendering them “submissive to the behests of the masters it
had pleased God to place over them.” Soon his confréres on the
Continent became also convinced “that religion must be kept
alive for the people,” and this explains why the French and Ger-
man bourgeoisie silently dropped their free-thought and suddenly
became religious.! Religion represents the spiritual force of re-
pression, just as the state represents the physical force.’ It is the
opiate that intoxicates the poor so as to render it easier to rob
them. “The mortgage the peasant has on heavenly goods gives
guaranty to the mortgage the bourgeois has on the peasant’s
earthly goods.” The Church in France knew this well.’

But religion will not endure. The time will arrive when all
phenomena under man’s observation will become destitute of all
mystery. Then the foundation of religion will be demolished.
Under capitalism the range of mystery is narrowed to a consider-
able extent; yet the basic facts that give rise to religious reactions
still persist. Crises, poverty, and the fetishism of commodities
still rage at large, and they cannot be controlled. Man proposes,
but the ‘‘coercive force” of capitalistic production disposes.
However, capitalism will ultimately fall, and man’s subjection to
the secret forces concealed in the organization of his labor proc-
esses will vanish. He will study carefully, plan systematically,
and regulate wisely the productive forces. He will at last become
master of the mechanism he sets up, and every social phenomenon
will be transparent to him and no longer a tantalizing riddle.
Under socialism the state totters because of the obliteration of
class distinctions; and religion is destroyed ‘‘owing to the simple
fact that there is nothing more to reflect . . . religion dies a natural

ct

;

death.’ 4

1 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, pp. Xxv, XXXi, XXXVI.

2 Marx, Civil War in France, p. 74.

3 Marx, Klassenkiémpfe in Frankreich, p. 64.

4 Engels, Anti-Dihring, pp. 257-258; Marx, Capital, vol. i, 91-92.CHAPTER Ix

THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF SCIENCE

THE state, law, morality, and religion partake more of the nature
of institutions than of ideologies, although the latter appellation
is frequently applied to them by Marx and Engels. The ideolo-
gies proper are the reflections of these institutions and of the
natural and social phenomena, formed in the brains of men. They
are the ideas that people have of their environment, of the prob-
lems confronting them, and of the solutions to be adopted; they
are theories and systems of thought formulated by the investi-
gator; they are also the artistic reflections of reality. The ideolo-
gies proper may be taken as comprising natural and social science,
philosophy, literature, and art.

The main source of science, natural or social, and the impelling
force of its development are to be sought in the economic realm.
The practical necessities and the intricate problems in direct and
close or indirect and remote connection with the productive
processes stir men to scientific thought and investigation. There
are natural forces to subdue, methods of production to perfect,
wayward human skill to replace by obedient mechanical contriv-
ances. There are problems of class relations and class domination
waiting for solution. The incentives that lead to study and search
proceed primarily from self-interest. True, economists are con-
cerned with rent as pure theory, and quite aside from the fact
that, as spokesmen of the industrial capitalist, they are to wage
battle against the landlord;! true, when humilated by war, Ger-
many devoted herself zealously and disinterestedly to the study
of science and philosophy.?, But Marx and Engels do not urge
these cases as normal and typical. By and large, scientific study
is promoted in order to meet practical needs and to derive tangible
results. Marx and his friend do not find that idle curiosity has
been the vivifying and driving motive of science heretofore.

1 Marx, Capital, vol. iii, 908. 2 Engels, Feuerbach, pp. 126-127.

173

 

—174 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

The economic science that arose in the seventeenth century and
received its positive formulation in the eighteenth, was “the ex-
pression of the condition and needs of the time,” says Engels.’
“Like all sciences, mathematics has sprung from the necessities
of men, from the measurement of land and the content of vessels,
from the calculation of time and mechanics.” ? The sporadic use
of machinery in the seventeenth century supplied to great mathe-
maticians a ‘“‘practical basis and stimulant to the creation of the
science of mechanics.”’? In other words, material facts connected
with the system of production create problems, pose questions,
and encourage investigation. Egyptian astronomy owes its exist-
ence to “‘the necessity for predicting the rise and fall of the Nile,”
and explains as well the supremacy of priests as directors of agri-
culture.4 After 1825 all the new mechanical inventions in England
were the outcome of workers’ strikes, for the capitalist was intent
on breaking the power that individual skill conferred upon the
worker, and the new machines functioned as effective arms
against labor that knew not to be meek.® If civilization witnessed
progressive achievements of science and at times great produc-
tions in art, it was ‘“‘due only to the fact that without them the
highest emoluments of modern wealth would have been missing.’’®

A correspondent writes to Engels that technique depends on
science. Engels replies that, if this is so, science depends still more
on the state and the requirements of technique. If society has a
technical need, this will do more for the advancement of science
than ten universities. All hydrostatics (Torricelli, etc.) had been
born of the necessity to regulate the torrents in Italy in the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries. We know, he continues, any-
thing rational about electricity only since the day we discovered
its technical use. Unfortunately the German is in the habit of
writing the history of the sciences as if they had fallen down from
the sky.’

1 Anti-Diihring, p. 182. 2 Tbid., p. 60.

3 Marx, Capital, vol. i, 383. 4 Jbid., p. 564 n.

8 Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, pp. 153, 183.

6 Engels, Origin of the Family, pp. 215-216.

7 Letter of January 25, 1894, reprinted in M. Labriola’s Socialisme et philoso-
phie, pp. 258-250.THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF SCIENCE

 

175

Human needs are the spur to scientific thought. That its con-
tent is firmly rooted in material actuality the philosophy of cog-
nition and the dialectic, as was seen previously, emphatically
testify. No ideas can be conceived in man’s mind that have no
basis in external materiality. The question is what relation sci-
ence, once sprung into life, has to this reality. Here Engels dis-
tinguishes three groups of sciences: natural sciences, like mathe-
matics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, concerned with inanimate
natural phenomena; organic sciences, as biology, interested in
animate nature; and social, or ‘‘historical sciences,”’ dealing with
social conditions surrounding human life, as law, political thought,
philosophy, religion.

The first two groups of sciences are engaged with phenomena
that are not man-made and that do not alter their nature. The
recurrences of such phenomena and the sequences they display
are always the same, and the laws governing them never change,
despite the shifts in the modes of production in society. The blood
circulation of an animal is not different under capitalism from
what it was under the régime of ancient slavery. The behavior of
acids and of parallel lines is the same in primitive communism and
under feudalism. Atoms, heat, electricity, the movement of celes-
tial bodies, obey constant laws that pay no homage to economic
eras. These phenomena know no relativity. Nevertheless the
two groups of sciences yield but a small crop of absolute, certain
truths. The reason is that, while the phenomena themselves are
not relative, the knowledge of them as acquired by man is.

The fundamental cause of this relativity is found in the power-
lessness of the human mind to penetrate the ultimate character
of natural phenomena and of the basic laws controlling them.
Science advances step by step, ideas are subject to constant re-
vision and correction, and conquests are enlarged and made se-
cure only with great pain and haltingly. Boyle discovered that
at the same temperature the volume of a gas varies inversely with
the pressure on it. Then Regnault found that this law is suscep-
tible to significant limitations; and further investigation may
force on it more modifications. It took the long period from Galen
to Malpighi to establish as simple a thing as the circulation of the

  

—Save yaceerme ser et res
ES ee

176 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

blood of mammals. Even in mathematics new hypotheses and
new ways of looking at things are crowding one upon another;
and frequent controversies arise concerning matters that were
regarded as axiomatic, so that we are no longer certain of what
exactly we are doing when we multiply and divide. Each genera-
tion boasts of its conquests, and new generations detract or en-
large. Each scientist is the product of the past heritage, but he
is at the same time limited by it. We have few truths, and those
already gained may be dethroned by future researches which will
unlock new worlds and release new doubts. The field of absolute
certainty even in these types of science is hardly extended far
beyond the confines of such assertions as that two times two are
four, birds have beaks, men must die. So speaks Engels.’

*~ It may be claimed that these sciences are relative also to the
modes of production. But relativity will have a special sense
here. It will mean that one productive era may stimulate the
advancement of science more than another. Greek art and sci-
ence would have been impossible without a régime of slavery; ”
feudalism fettered independent thought; ‘“‘the whole Renaissance
from the middle of the fifteenth century was an actual product of
the city, and therefore of bourgeois domination”’; * and socialism,
we are assured, will offer the greatest opportunities for disinter-
ested investigation in scientific fields of the widest scope.

It is different with the social sciences.* Here the phenomena
are man-made, and they exhibit different characteristics in each
era of production. The very sequences of occurrences, the very
raw material that is to be observed and studied before truths can
be won, change from era to era. Each economic epoch engenders
new phenomena, with different inherent laws governing them,
for it has its own productive organization, classes, society, human
nature, state, law, religion, and morality. It is true that natural
phenomena are in a flux; but it is also true that the dialectic
yields series of syntheses of the same basic character. The dia-
lectic turns barley and grain into more barley and more grain,

1 Anti-Diihring, pp. 120 ff., p. 104. 2 Tbid., p. 209.

3 Engels, Feuerbach, p. 118.
4 Engels, Anti-Dihring, pp. 122-123.THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF SCIENCE

 

177

but not into different entities. In social history, however, the
dialectic casts us into new realms with altered phenomena; from
primitive communism it leads us through classical slavery, medi-
eval feudalism, to modern capitalism, and ultimately to socialism.

Consequently, social sciences are relative not only as are the
natural sciences because of the limitations of the human mind to
master the hidden laws, but also with respect to each economic
order. There is an abstract, absolute law of growth for plants;
but, to use economics as an example, each mode of production has
its own law of population.’ ‘‘As soon as society has outlived a
given period of development, and is passing over from one given
stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws.” This
Marx quotes approvingly from the Russian reviewer of his Cap-
ttal.2 The genius of Aristotle saw that if two commodities ex-
changed for each other, there must have resided in them a com-
mon substance on the basis of which the two could be equated.
But the reason he was unable to see that labor was precisely that
common substance, and therefore could not arrive at a labor
theory of value, was that the ancient mode of production was
inadequate to provide such a law. The phenomena were lacking,
and they appeared only centuries later under another mode of
production. ‘“‘The peculiar conditions of the society in which he
lived alone prevented him from discovering what, ‘in truth,’ was
at the bottom of this equality.” *

The economic categories are transitory, and they change with
each régime of production.* In each era division of labor has a
different character,? property is differently developed and is
linked with entirely different social relations. Rent does not
appear at all prior to the capitalist mode of production, and
Ricardo is in error when he thinks that rent accompanies landed
property in any epoch.’ Rent proceeds not from land but from
society. The same is true of all laws and principles in economics.
“*Political economy cannot be the same for all lands and for all

1 Marx, Capital, vol.i, 693. 2 Ibid., pp. 23-24.
3 Ibid., 68-69. 4 Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, p. 119.
5 Ibid., p. 139. Se lbidepalose

7 Ibid., p. 174. 8 Capital, vol.i, 9s.

 

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178 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

historical epochs,’ and almost all the laws of economics that we
possess at present are laws that apply to the capitalist mode of
production and to no other."

Philosophy is classed as an “‘historical,”’ social science.? Like
law, politics, and religion, it is a form in which the social con-
sciousness expresses itself. Respecting its genesis and connection
with the economic world, it occupies the same position as religion.
It is furthest removed from the economic basis because of the
presence of many intervening links; ‘and it did not originate in
response to economic needs, as the other sciences did. It arose in
prehistoric times, and was filled with an absurd content, because,
economic development being then at a rudimentary stage, men
could not help generating erroneous ideas of man and nature.
The history of natural science is the history of the gradual de-
struction of these prehistoric, barbaric absurdities, or of their
constant replacement by lesser absurdities. Each newly born
economic epoch finds an aggregate of philosophical ideas that
have come down from the preceding one, and employs them as a
starting point. This circumstance explains why countries eco-
nomically backward may be far advanced in philosophical specu-
lation.

But in spite of all, even in philosophy the potency of economic
forces is manifest. Only their influence is frequently indirect, and
for the following reason. The raw material that gives rise to
philosophical reflection is frequently, not economic reality im-
mediately, but the ideologies that had issued from this reality,
namely, politics, law, morality. The economic elements do not
create directly anything in philosophy; they act first on these
ideologies, and through them determine the variations in the
philosophical heritage bequeathed to a given era.°

It follows that philosophical speculation is not only relative in
the same sense that all social sciences are, but is in its develop-

1 Engels, Anti-Diihring, pp. 176, 180. 2 Tbid., p. 122.

3 Marx, Critique of Political Enemy, p. 12.

4 Engels, Fewerbach, p. 117.

5 Engels, letter of October 27, 1890, reprinted in A. Labriola’s Socialisme et phi-
losophie, pp. 254-2506.THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF SCIENCE 179

ment also contingent upon the stage of progress of these sciences.
Further, philosophy is dependent a good deal on natural science,
thus providing an example of how all sciences are intertwined.
The Greek philosophy of the world was naive: it was the ‘‘primi-
tive naturalistic materialism.” But it could not be otherwise,
since all branches of science were in their initial stages.1 Exact
observation of nature began in the Alexandrian period, and ex-
perienced further development at the hands of the Arabs in the
Middle Ages. However, true natural science began to flourish in
the middle of the fifteenth century, and the new points of view it
had won were subsequently carried by Bacon and Locke into
philosophy.” Eighteenth-century materialism and metaphysics
were mechanical and static in their fundamental postulates, be-
cause natural] science had the mechanical and non-evolutionary
viewpoint. Since then the philosophy of materialism underwent
significant mutations collateral ‘‘with each epoch-making dis-
covery in the department of natural science.”’ * Hegel had ideas
of change and progress; yet, although ‘‘next to Saint-Simon, . . .
the most universal intellect of his time,” he could not detect the
laws of the development-process because, among other things, of
the limitations of contemporary knowledge.‘ In the nineteenth
century science devoted the most vigilant attention to the proc-
esses of transmutation and growth of objects, and undertook a
vigorous study of the principles underlying these processes. Physi-
ology, embryology, and geology are examples. Then came the
three great discoveries: the cell as the unit of plant and animal
life, the transformation of energy, and Darwin’s theory of evo-
lution. Consequently, philosophy accepted soon a broader ma-
terialism, which embraced these ‘‘more recent discoveries of
natural science.’ * The proof of the materialistic dialectic was
found in nature, and science deserves much credit for having
accumulated the data for the argument.’

Like institutions, science and philosophy have repercussions
on the economic world. In this respect, a distinction is to be made

‘ Engels, Anti-Diihring, pp. 40-41, 170. 2 Ibid., p. 42.
° Engels, Feuerbach, pp. 65, 67, 98. * Anti-Diihring, p. 45.
5 Feuerbach, pp. 99-101. ° Anti-Diihring, p. 46. 7 Ibid., pp. 32, 44.180 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

between natural and social sciences. Natural science, as was seen
earlier, is prominent in the formation of the mode of production,
and is identified with the productive forces. Accordingly it serves,
indirectly and through the system of production, as a regulator of
human history. It also plays its part in liberating man from the
blind, inexorable domination of nature, and in elevating him from
the domain of necessity to the realm of freedom, by strengthening
him with the knowledge of the laws governing his natural environ-
ment.) In its future progress science will tear the mask off many
a mystery and will at last dispel the conception of any “antagon-
ism between spirit and matter, man and nature, soul and body.” 2

Social science, on the other hand, is not as potent and as active
a factor in history. But neither is it entirely a passive element.
It sheds a glamour over men’s achievements, lends color to his-
torical periods, marks turning points in human events, and helps
in breaking the ground for great movements. The brilliant school
of French materialists ‘‘made the eighteenth century, in spite of
all battles on land and sea won over Frenchmen by Germans and
Englishmen, a preéminently French century, even before that
crowning French Revolution.” * The scientific discovery that
products, as values, are the expression of human labor embodied
in. them marks “‘an epoch in the history of the development of
the human race.” * The French philosophy supplied the principles
and battle cries, the ‘‘theoretical flag,’ of the French Revolu-
tion, and prepared men’s minds for it.’ Just as in France in the
eighteenth, so in Germany in the nineteenth century, revolution-
ary philosophic conceptions introduced a breaking-up of existing
political conditions.” °® “The German working-class movement
is the heir of the German classical philosophy,’ and modern
socialism, in its theoretical aspects, has its roots in the teachings
of the French philosophers of the eighteenth century.’

1 Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 148.

2 Neue Zeit, vol. xiv, no. 2 (1895-1896), pp. 552-553:

3 Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. xii.

4 Marx, Capital, vol.i, 85.

5 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Sctentific, pp. EXVIGeT 2.

6 Engels, Feuerbach, p. 37-
7 [bid., p. 128; Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. I.UOTE A Ga ae

  

THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF SCIENCE 181

But once more, it should not be forgotten that whatever influ-
ence ideology exerts on human history, it ever remains the product
of economic forces. In the last instance, the economic forces
assert their sway, and drag in their train all other phases of social
life, notwithstanding retardations and slight modifications im-
posed by institutions and systems of thought. Whatever con-
cessions are made at times, this is the position from which neither
Marx nor Engels ever swerves. The economic reality is primary
and decisive.! The more, Engels teaches, a given sphere is re-
moved from the economic province, and the more it approaches
abstract ideology, the more zigzags its curve of development will
display. But the longer the period under observation and the
larger the domain under study, the more will the curve tend to
be parallel to the curve of economic development.’

Philosophy is the ideology remotest from the economic basis,
but it is no exception. “In spite of all,” he contends, “they [the
philosophers] themselves are under the dominant influence of
economic evolution.”’ Hobbes, the first modern materialist, was
a partisan of absolutism; Locke was in religion and politics the
son of the compromise of 1688. The English deists and their
successors, the French materialists, were the philosophers of the
bourgeoisie; and the materialism of the latter ““was nothing more
than the idealized kingdom of the bourgeoisie.”” They “could, no
more than their predecessors, go beyond the limits imposed upon
them by their epoch.”’* The post-Renaissance philosophy, the

1 Concerning the whole range of social sciences the Communist Manifesto (p. 39)
expresses itself as follows:

“Toes it require deep intuition to comprehend that man’s ideas, views, and con-
ceptions, in one word, man’s consciousness, changes with every change in the con-
ditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life?

‘““What else does the history of ideas prove than that intellectual production
changes in character in proportion as material production is changed? The ruling
ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.

“When people speak of ideas that revolutionize society, they do but express the
fact that within the old society the elements of a new one have been created, and
that the dissolution of the old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old
conditions of existence.”

2 Engels, letter cited above, p. 261.

3 Ibid., pp. 254-255; Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, pp. 2-4; Anti-Diihring,
pp. 36-37.

   
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 

—THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

 

182

English and French philosophy of the eighteenth century, and
the Hegelian school were ‘only the philosophical expression of
the thoughts corresponding with the development of the small
and middle bourgeois into the great bourgeois.” The small Ger-
man bourgeois runs through the German philosophy from Kant
to Hegel, now positively, now negatively. The philosophers from
Descartes to Hegel, and from Hobbes to Feuerbach, were by “‘no
means” guided solely by the force of pure reason. “‘On the con-
trary, what really impelled them was, in particular, the strong
and ever quicker conquering step of natural science and in-
dustry.” ?

What destinies Marx and Engels would prescribe for the vari-
ous sciences when socialism comes is, one may believe, not diffi-
cult to deduce. Natural science will flourish luxuriantly under
the sway of investigation unmarred and unenthralled by the in-
terests of the bourgeoisie. Men of science will no longer be the
‘“naid wage laborers” doing the bidding of the capitalists, but
will dedicate themselves to the unhampered study of the ways of
nature in order to promote man’s speedy ascent to freedom. The
fate of the social sciences will not be so cheerful. Some of them
will receive their death warrant. All theorizing concerning the
state will most probably vanish, for socialism will know no state
or property; the study of religion will be abandoned, as there will
remain no mysteries to harass the human mind. The socialist
realm will be devoid of such phenomena, and the corresponding
sciences will have nothing to observe and to “reflect.” Such
sciences as economics, psychology, and ethics will undoubtedly
prosper, since economic activities will expand in scope, human
beings will find fullest self-expression, and morality will move on
a superior plane.

Philosophy, however, is doomed to a bitter end. Its task has
been heretofore to “‘devise”’ interrelations among the phenomena
of nature or society, and to indicate how facts fit into the great
scheme of the totality of things. But with the powerful advance
of future science, these interconnections will be sought rather in
the phenomena themselves, and not in the “empty imaginings”

1 Engels, Feuerbach, pp. 118, 62; letter cited above, p. 255.RTM)

  

THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF SCIENCE 183

of the philosopher’s mind. Each science will be in a position to
discover the interdependence of the particular phenomena falling
within the confines of its own study, and also their affinity to
phenomena under scrutiny in all the other sciences. Recourse
will be had directly to external facts and not to internal specula-
tion. Positive science will reign everywhere. Philosophy had
rendered great service in its day. But it is no longer needed. In
its stead the laws of thought will come to power — logic and
especially dialectics. Philosophy will be discarded, and the dia-
lectic will ascend the throne.’

Of art and literature we find no discussion except a few notes
sketched by Marx.” It appears, he says, that periods of the high-
est development of art stand in no direct and close association
with the general development of the community or with its ma-
terial basis and structure. Examples are ordinarily drawn in
support of this view from the Greeks or the Elizabethans, com-
paring their attainments with those of modern days, when the
economic development reached a higher scale. But appearances
deceive, suggests Marx, and the connection is there nevertheless.
Greek art sprang from the soil of its mythology, and it would
have been utterly impossible without a mythology. Now mythol-
ogy thrives when the forces of nature are an enigma to man. He
then shapes them and dominates them in and through imagina-
tion. Nature, and even forms of society, are molded ‘‘in popular
fancy in an unconsciously artistic fashion.” Greek art employed
Greek mythology as its raw material, and such art could not
originate in a society which excludes mythological conceptions of
nature. Such art can appear, then, only under “unripe social
conditions.”

As soon as man gains mastery over his natural environment,
mythology disappears, and consequently art like that of the
Greeks is nonexistent. In an age of automatic machinery, rail-
ways, locomotives, and the electric telegraph such views of nature

1 Engels, Feuerbach, pp. 101, 125, Anti-Diihring, p. 57; Socialism, Utopian and

Scientific, p. 39.
2 Marx, Critique of Political Economy, appendix, pp. 309-312.

   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    
  
 
 
 
    
   

—_—Biciieeremarsterecerese

184 THE IDEOLOGICAL ELEMENT IN HISTORY

and social relations as had been formed by Greek imagination and
Greek art are inconceivable.

Where does Vulcan come in as against Roberts and Company; Jupiter, as
against the lightning rod; and Hermes as against the Credit Mobilier? .. .
What becomes of the Goddess of Fame side by side with Printing House
Square? .. . Is Achilles possible side by side with powder and lead? Oris the
[liad at all compatible with the printing press and the steam press? Do not
singing and reciting and the muses necessarily go out of existence with the
appearance of the printer’s bar, and do not, therefore, disappear the pre-
requisites of epic poetry?

“But,” continues Marx, “‘the difficulty is not in grasping the
idea that Greek art and epos are bound up with certain forms of
social development.” It consists rather in the question why they
still furnish us esthetic enjoyment and even serve as standards
‘beyond attainment.”” Marx has an explanation. A man cannot
become a child, yet he enjoys the artless ways of the child and
strives to reproduce its truth ‘“‘on a higher plane.” Similarly, the
social childhood of mankind holds forth the charm of an age that
will never return. The Greeks were normal children, and they
exhibited “the most beautiful development” of the social child-
hood. Therefore their art has an irresistible charm for us.

Here the manuscript ends. Engels’s discussions and Marx’s
manuscripts more than once break off exactly at the point where

the pivotal difficulties begin.Pet aett cues bi braces. ciekak ee amarae
aa LEER: Ge fois eat fe)

PARA LY,

DHE REND FOR HisStORsySTROLL BK LE ana bed OS ROSARY ARR EE BTN Se et
Vase iate Sa hier ss Gusinen

-
eee yee at Lo vere titans

  

CHAPTER X

MARX’S CONCEPT OF CAPITALISM

THE materialistic interpretation of history is a manner of viewing
human events. It is a philosophy of history, a contribution to
thought. However, Marx did not have in mind merely to present
to scholars a method of illuminating the paths of social progress.
The materialistic conception has a practical mission. Marx and
his friend were propagandists, and their theory is of great service
to them. It is the instrument with which they demolish the old,
utopian socialism, and by means of which they erect a new struc-
ture. Socialism and the socialist movement are taken out of the
realm of aspiration and fond hopes; socialistic society becomes
the definite and inevitable goal toward which the historical pro-
cesses move with irresistible force. Marx founded the so-called
“scientific socialism,”’ and he employed the materialistic interpre-
tation as the cornerstone.

All the theories sponsored by their predecessors for the regen-
eration of society they scorn as utopian. Ever since the appear-
ance of capitalism and the hosts of evils it let loose on society there
has been, they say, no want of well-meaning persons who sedu-
lously sought to build a better order. In the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries people who were filled with aversion to the iniqui-
tous world about them painted beautiful pictures of conditions in
utopian climes. In the following century Morelly and Mably
propounded schemes calling for the obliteration of class dis-
tinctions, demanded political and social equality, and proposed
austere Spartan communism as a substitute for immoral capital-
ism. Then came Sismondi with his cry, ‘‘ Back to medievalism”’;
then “the three great utopians,’’ Saint-Simon, Fourier, and
Owen.!

The theories of all these social reformers Marx and Engels
denounce as fantastic visions. The utopians all lived and thought

! Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, pp. 5-6; Communist Manifesto, p. 46.

187

  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 

—THE TREND OF HISTORY

at a time when capitalism was young, when its productive forces
were not fully developed, when the proletarian class had barely
begun to assume form, and when the class struggle was only
sporadic and devoid of a definite aim and a well-founded
philosophy. They were keenly alive to the evils of the societies
in which they lived; to privilege, oppression, glaring inequalities,
and moral decadence. And they denounced them with great
fervor. But aside from criticism, they were impotent. Reality
could not as yet, through an exhibition of its inner mechanism,
hint as to the nature and course of the malevolent forces at work;
and so could not disclose the fundamental cause of the disease
and point to a practical and abiding cure. The only way left to
them was to seek final solutions in their own minds. They took
to speculations, prepared nostrums with extreme care, and
planned new and better social régimes with much foresight and
earnestness. Each one improvised schemes and proclaimed doc-
trines that suited his temper and his personal environment.

But, Marx and Engels continue, these constructions were in-
consistent with the requirements of reality. The proffered solu-
tions did not emanate from social conditions as a source, for the
promulgators were unable to find adequate material in existing
circumstances. Inadequate diagnosis led to prescriptions at once
bizarre and futile. Crude realities grew a crop of crude theories.
These dreamers proceeded on the false assumption that the sense
of justice and morality was so firmly embedded in human nature
that a mere appeal to these feelings would yield miraculous re-
sults. The tenets of justice had only to be proclaimed, iniquities
unveiled and decried, and society would proceed in all haste to
rebuild the world. They did not claim to be the spokesmen of an
oppressed class; they rather posed as the well-wishers and emanci-
pators of all mankind, and as the shapers of a world that would be
a happier place for everybody. Obsessed by a fanatic faith, they
undertook the task of harmonizing the interests of antagonistic
classes and of conciliating elements that could not be conciliated.
They relied on admonition and exhortation and on petty experi-
ments that would set a good example.

To them social science was a catalogue of ready-made formulasRE 325 REET ee v f
tersstyé gee lever

 
    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
  
 

MARX’S CONCEPT OF CAPITALISM 189

yielding immediately the solution to all problems; it was not an
elucidation of the material facts of the outside world and an ex-
planation of how the dialectic movement itself prepares the forces
that will culminate in the inevitable solution. Reality was inade-
quate as a guide, and what there was of it was not accepted as the
teacher. In poverty they saw only poverty, and in social distress
they did not detect “the revolutionary subversive side which will
overturn the old society.’’ Their remodeling schemes called for
no fundamental change of the material basis of society and for no
extirpation of the very forces that engendered the evils. They
planned to engraft on the material conditions of the existing order
the results of their idealistic weavings. They dreamed of adorning
the lion with the lamb’s skin."

To these fantastic constructions Marx called a halt. His theory
of social development demonstrated that history was the history
of class struggles, and that classes were a product of the modes of
production. ‘‘From that time forward,” says Engels, ‘“‘socialism
was no longer an accidental discovery of this or that ingenious
brain, but the necessary outcome of the struggle’”’ between the
proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The task became no longer one
of inventing a perfect system, but one of examining the “‘historico-
economic succession of events” that produce the class struggle,
and of discovering the material facts destined to serve as a means
of ending the conflict.2 It was essential to indicate that the capi-
talist system, while unavoidable, was heading toward an inevi-
table downfall; and it was sufficient to reveal how the innermost
workings of the present order condemn it to this fate. The ma-
terialistic interpretation of social life accomplished the one task,
and the ‘‘discovery” of surplus value performed the other.
‘““These two great discoveries,” Engels assures us, “‘. . . we owe to
Marx. With these discoveries socialism became a science.” *
They proclaimed Marx the founder of scientific socialism.

The first discovery, the materialistic view of history, is not
elucidated in one particular work; it is presented in numerous

ee emnme -

1 Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, pp. 136-137, 197, Communist Manifesto, pp. 53-
34; Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, pp. 6, 11-27.

2 Ibid., p. 42.
3 Ibid., p. 44.

  

) aeTHE TREND OF HISTORY

statements scattered in his various writings. But the second
“discovery,” which unlocks the secret mechanism of the present
system and throws into relief the ominous forces that operate
remorselessly for its dissolution, claimed his attention for a good
number of years. On it he spent the best of his labors, and he
made it the central theme of his crowning work, the three vol-
umes of Capital.

These two discoveries are not isolated achievements; they are
closely allied with each other. The materialistic philosophy speci-
fies that no economic order is eternal, that it has to cede its place
to a successor, that capitalism is not immune from this fate, and
that socialism will triumph on its ruins. It appeared to Marx
essential to show conclusively that such is the inexorable course
of history. His task was, therefore, to disclose the hidden mechan-
ism of the present régime, to reveal the contradictions it nourishes,
and to point to the germs of the future socialistic order that have
already come into life. He had to explain the thesis and the
swarm of antitheses engendered in it, and to foretell accurately
what the coming synthesis would be. This, his friends hold, he
accomplished in his masterpiece. In a larger sense, therefore, we
may regard Capital as a part of his interpretation of history and
as an intensive elaboration and application of one of its momen-
tous claims. Marx did not aim to present in Capital merely a
learned treatise on political economy.

Such a view comes reluctantly to the reader’s mind. Capital is
a comprehensive work, and we are accustomed to regard it as a
complete and independent body of thought, privileged, like the
tub, to stand on its own bottom. Yet, the more one reflects upon
Marx’s works and ideas, the more one wonders whether they do
not constitute one system with the materialistic interpretation of
history as its core and with Capital as an intensive elaboration
and verification of one of the phases of that interpretation. There
are two possible views. Marx was interested in the past, present,
and future of the destinies of mankind. To pierce into the future,
he had to study the present and see what it augurs. Hence
Capital. Or else, he believed @ priori, and from the materialistic
standpoint, that the socialist spectre was at the door of capital-itt GIG Die Ene eisaeM SPAR SURI LEILINEE ECS Le,
feiatées tote tevenitereter teey taney PeEeNes HEPES Fara cg Shae

abate} et

    

MARX’S CONCEPT OF CAPITALISM

   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   
    
   

I9I

ism; but he desired to lend to this belief or teaching the dignity
of objective and scientific truth, and accordingly he amassed an
arsenal of economic learning proving conclusively and specifically
that the stars in their courses are fighting for socialism. In either
view, his conception of history may be taken as the dominant
theory and Capital as subservient to it.

In the preface to the Critique of Political Economy, a work pub-
lished in 1859, Marx explains that philosophical questions in-
volved in the policies of the French socialists had led him to a
critical revision of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law, and that these
studies had brought him to the conviction embodied in the ma-
terialistic view of historical development. After these studies he
turned to economics, and he confesses that the materialistic con-
ception of history ‘continued to serve as the leading thread”’ in
this new pursuit.! Now why should an author of a book on eco-
nomics preface it with an account of his philosophico-evolutionary
credo respecting world history, and why should his theory of his-
tory serve as a guiding principle in his economic researches?

In the preface to Capital he declares that his ultimate aim is
““to lay bare the economic law of motion of modern society”’ and
to study its ‘‘natural laws,” or the “‘tendencies working with iron
necessity towards inevitable results.”’ > The movement of capital-
ism toward something else is uppermost in his mind. Again, in
the first paragraph of the first volume of the same work he an-
nounces: ‘‘Our investigation must therefore begin with the analy-
sis of a commodity,” the economic cell form of modern produc-
tion.* But what purpose is lurking in his mind is shown on the
last page of the chapter before the last. There we read: ‘“‘The
knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators
are expropriated. .. . But capitalist production begets, with the
inexorability of a law of nature, its own negation,” and the out-
come is “codperation and the possession in common of the land

—

1 Critique of Political Economy, pp. 10-11.

2 Capital, vol.i, 13, 14.

3 [bid., p. 41.

4 Tbid., vol. ili, 837. It is really the last page of the last chapter, since the follow-
ing chapter on ‘‘the modern theory of colonization”’ may be regarded as an appen-
dix, or as a reversion to a thesis maintained in an earlier chapter.192 THE TREND OF HISTORY

and of the means of production. . . . What the bourgeoisie there-
fore produces, above all, are its own gravediggers.” He begins
with the analysis of commodities, which, in his opinion, are the
smallest elements within the capitalist order; reveals the secrets
of its workings; outlines its origin; shows how the dialectic labors
for its extinction; and finally reads its death warrant. It is evident
that the ghost of his interpretation of history stalks through the
pages of Capital.

Marx hardly approached the study of the present régime in a
spirit of utter detachment and without preconceived notions.
He knew beforehand the answer he wanted. The materialistic
philosophy was in his mind, and Capital had to conform to this
conception. Had Marx by 1847 done any work on his Capztal?
No. Yet in the Communist Manifesto he and his friend announced
all the important conclusions which twenty years later appeared
in Capital as the fresh results of the learned investigations, cum-
bersome discussions, and intricate reasoning, laboriously pre-
sented on its pages.

We shall therefore have to examine Marx’s views on the nature
of capitalist society and its fate as presented in this work. Our
findings will throw light on his theory of history. The character-
istics of an economic epoch and the principles governing it, the
fatal agencies silently undermining it, the interests animating
the contending classes, the nature of the class struggle, the tran-
sition to a new order — all these take on concrete forms in Capital.
Incidentally, we shall discover the rock on which he demolishes
utopian and erects his scientific socialism. Capital has not in vain
become the Bible of the proletariat.

The first question is: what is capitalism? One should think
that a writer who spends a lifetime in analyzing capitalism, in
disclosing and attacking its weaknesses, and in pronouncing its
doom, would take the pains to provide a clear idea of exactly
what the subject of his attention is. But this he does not do. We
know that with Marx capitalism is a transient era, an historical
incident, although a significant one, that vanishes when its hour
has struck. To the economist, capitalism is not a modern phe-

ees

Pipe sees Mpa eer tee aa an Sr ieMARX’S CONCEPT OF CAPITALISM 193

nomenon, but rather a manner of producing goods that has been
pursued from time immemorial, because capital, or man-made
instruments of production, have played a considerable part since
early ages. This is anathema to Marx.! He attacks the econo-
mists for regarding capitalism and capitalist relations as immu-
table and as governed by natural laws that are not subject to the
influence of time.” “. . . Scientific analysis,’ he claims, demon-
strates that this order is dependent upon, and is defined by, pe-
culiar historical conditions. It has a “specific, historical, passing
character.” * But what is capitalism?

The upholders of the technological interpretation of Marx’s
idea relative to the mode of production will answer readily that
with him capitalism is the historical epoch wherein the process
of making goods is characterized by the pervasive use of ma-
chinery. But we must remind ourselves that, according to him,
capitalism arrived in the sixteenth century, whereas machinery
came into general use only after the Industrial Revolution, toward
the end of the eighteenth. Capitalism went through the stages of
““codperation” and “manufacture” before “modern industry,”
with its machine technique, appeared. It flourished over two
centuries before machinery was known.

Some may urge that the characteristic mark of capitalism is the
production of commodities, as Marx uses the term: he distin-
guishes between a product, which is an article made expressly
for use by the producer himself, and a commodity, which is an
article produced solely as merchandise, not for consumption but
for exchange, for sale on the market. Marx himself sometimes
gives countenance to such a view of capitalism. He says that
“The mode of production in which the product takes the form
of a commodity, or is produced directly for exchange, is the most
general and most embryonic form of bourgeois production. . . .” 4
“The monetary system correctly proclaims production for the
world market and the transformation of the product into com-
modities . . . as the prerequisite and condition of capitalist pro-
duction.” ®

1 Critique of Political Economy, pp. 269-270.

2 Poverty of Philosophy, p. 131. 3 Capital, vol. iii, 1023-1024.
4 Tbid., vol. i, 94. 5 [bid., vol. iii, 911.

 

——THE TREND OF HISTORY

Yet this helps us little in distinguishing this system from others,
in the Marxian scheme. True, capitalism produces commodities,
but it cannot be affirmed that any mode of production which
produces commodities Marx will stamp as capitalistic. All horses
are animals, but not all animals are horses. There have been
other régimes where production was for sale and profit. There
was exchange of commodities on the boundaries of contiguous
communities even in the days of primitive communism.’ Marx
and Engels relate, as was seen in chapter four, that commerce had
flourished, money had circulated, usurers had plied their trade,
merchants had thrived for ages before Christ — in Phoenicia and
Carthage, in Greece and Rome. Bankers and credit associations
were known in the Middle Ages. All these agencies and institu-
tions imply exchange of commodities. Where articles are pro-
duced for the use of the direct producer, there is no exchange.
‘“Merchant’s capital is older than the capitalist mode of produc-
tion... and its function consists exclusively in promoting the
exchange of commodities.” * Engels declares that the advent of
private property in Greece led to trade and to ‘‘a transformation
of products into commodities’; that toward the end of the higher
stage of barbarism “‘production of commodities and the resulting
trade had well advanced”; and that at the dawn of civilization,
when man had emancipated himself from barbarism, we find com-
modity production, interest, usury, the merchant and the middle-
man.’ Of course, the production of commodities permeates society
more at present than in the past, but this fact points to a differ-
ence in degree and not in kind.

Others will argue with confidence that, according to Marx, the
heart of capitalism is surplus value. This view will appear plau-
sible because of the sanction it receives from Engels himself who
pronounces surplus value to be the secret of capitalism, and who
lauds Marx for the discovery of the secret.* Surplus value is
linked in our minds with capitalism also because of the extended

1 Capital, vol. iii, 209; vol. i, 100. 2 Ibid. , vol. iii, 382, 385.

3 Engels, Origin of the Family, pp. 131,135, 200, 214; Anti-Diihring, p. 189. Cf-
Capital, vol. iii, 382-383.
4 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. 44.Te Aor BAS Lees Lk REE] Gos BG hacia taneetaee
LEMS eS USeSe ve bs Vota se cares pedat enahaS Kaha dey cneTis A GE)

    

MARX’S CONCEPT OF CAPITALISM 195

exposition of it supplied by Marx in connection with his on-
slaughts against the present system. Moreover, Marx himself at
times employs expressions that encourage sucha view. He makes
statements like the following: “‘production of surplus value is the

Sere

absolute law of this [capitalistic] mode of production”; ! ‘surplus
value presupposes capitalistic production”’; ? “capitalist produc-
tion is not merely the production of commodities, it is essentially
the production of surplus value’”’;* “the other specific mark of
the capitalist mode of production is the production of surplus
value as the direct aim and determining incentive of produc-
tion

But this is neither convincing nor conclusive. That, with Marx,
the production of surplus value is a mark of capitalism no one will
dispute. The question is rather this: is it clear from all Marxian
writings that the emerging of surplus value is a peculiar feature
that distinguishes it from any other mode of production? does he
mean to assert that capitalism is the only system that produces
surplus value, and is, therefore, any system producing surplus
value to be taken as a capitalistic system? To this the answer
must be no. It is clear at once that surplus product and surplus
labor go together. A man works for a master and obtains for his
labor a part of the product which will suffice for his maintenance;
the remainder is appropriated by the master as surplus product;
and the labor expended on this surplus product is surplus labor.
Now with respect to the relation of surplus labor to surplus value,
two courses may be followed.

As will be seen later, one sense in which Marx uses value is that
it presents congealed labor embodied in a commodity. Surplus
labor, then, is surplus value. “It is every bit as important, for a
correct understanding of surplus value, to conceive it as a mere
congelation of surplus labor-time,” insists Marx. Consequently,
it is sufficient to point out that surplus labor existed before capital-
ism in order to see that surplus value existed under other modes
of production. That such was the case is obvious. He continues:
“The essential difference between the various economic forms of
1 Marx, Capital, vol.i, 678. 2 Ibid., p. 784.

3 Ibid., p. 558. 4 [bid., vol. iii, 1026.

 

CELE PS CS ABT

Oa emTHE TREND OF HISTORY

 

society . . . lies only in the mode in which this surplus labor is in
each case extracted from the actual producer, the laborer.”
‘Capital has not invented surplus labor,” he asserts; for when-
ever some members of society are in the possession of the means
of production, the laborer employing the means, after having
worked enough to provide his own subsistence, is compelled to
work for some additional hours in order to provide for the pro-
prietor, ‘‘whether this proprietor be the Athenian kados xayaeos,
Etruscan theocrat, civis Romanus, Norman baron, American
slave-owner, Wallachian Boyard, modern landlord or capitalist.” ?
Surplus labor prevailed under other régimes, therefore surplus
value prevailed also.

But it may be insisted that Marx uses value in the other sense,
too, namely, as exchange value and not as intrinsic value, when
he talks of surplus value. If so, we have merely to recall that,
according to Marx, commerce has existed since classical antiquity:
commerce implies the exchange of the surplus product, that is,
the transformation of the results of surplus labor into surplus
value. The slave master in Greece, the feudal lord, and the cap-
italist employer allow labor to use the means of production, turn
to the laborer a portion of the resulting product for his subsist-
ence, but appropriate the rest and exchange it. What else could
be the source of commerce and usury under ancient slavery and in
the feudal Middle Ages? Those three régimes all had surplus
value, the first two as well as the third? Marx himself admits
that labor value prevailed since the days of tribal communism,
furnishing an admirable illustration of his pure labor theory of
value. There had been, therefore, surplus labor, exchange, and
surplus value before the coming of capitalism.

Or, to approach it from another angle, we know that, accord-
ing to Marx, the Greek usurer and merchant gained interest and
profit, and the medieval lord extorted services from the serf which
are termed rent. These returns are surplus value. Surplus value

1 Capital, vol.i, 241.

2 Thid., pp. 259-260. Cf. Ibid., pp. 561, 591; vol. iii, p. 953; Value, Price and

Profits, pp. 83-84-
3 Capital, vol. iii, 383-384. 4 Tbid., p. 200.ial Seiad fee Dea eine

    

MARX’S CONCEPT OF CAPITALISM 197

embodies all shares of distribution exclusive of wages turned over
to the direct producers, the laborers; it includes, then, interest,
rent, profits, and such incidental shares as tithes and taxes.!
Marx teaches that ‘‘merchant’s profits” form one of the elements
of surplus value.? He says the same of the usurer. The merchant
and the usurer have been familiar figures since the days of Greece.
When discussing ruthless exploitation by the usurer, he points
out that usury in the past devoured at times the whole surplus
labor, and “‘hence it is very absurd to compare the level of this
interest, which assimilates all surplus value,” with the modern
rate of interest, which assimilates but part of it.’ It is no different
in respect of ‘ground rent” in the Middle Ages. The serf works
a number of days each week on the estate of the feudal lord, but
receives no compensation — the appropriation of surplus labor
is candid and ostensible. Here “‘rent and surplus value are iden-
tical,’ comments Marx; here “‘surplus value obviously has the
form of surplus labor . . . the identity of surplus value with un-
paid labor of others does not need to be demonstrated by any
analysis in this case, because it still exists in its visible, palpable
form,” while under capitalism it is concealed.* Ancient slavery
and medieval serfdom knew of surplus value. Surplus value can-
not, therefore, be the specific, distinguishing earmark of capital-
ism.

Marx does not tell what the peculiar criteria of capitalism are.
Yet, when we survey the various modes of production and seek
those attributes of capitalism which are not to be discerned in the
other orders, we find that there is a distinctive feature. It lies in
the form and nature of labor. Under capitalism labor is ‘‘free
labor,” in other systems it is not. In the days of classical an-
tiquity the slave was not free to move about and to offer his labor
on the market, for he was bodily owned by his master. Under the
feudal régime the serf was attached to the soil; there was one
master to whom he was constrained to render services; he had no
freedom in exercising his capacity to labor. The journeyman was
likewise bound hand and foot by guild restrictions.

Capital, vol. i, 244; also p. 229 n., p. 648 n., p. 585; vol. iii, passim.
2 [bid., vol. i, 618-619. 3 Tbid., vol. ili, 699. * [bid., pp. 917, 919-920.

—ehrieiianpemet

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

198 THE TREND OF HISTORY

Under capitalism the laborer is “free,” and in two senses. In
the first place, he is personally independent, he is not owned by
anybody, and no one has any claim on his person; he is at liberty
to dispose of himself and of his labor in any way he sees fit, and
to contract with anyone he pleases. Codperation is common to
all modes of production, observes Marx, but under capitalism it
is distinguished by free labor: “The capitalist form, on the con-
trary, presupposes from first to last the free wage laborer who
sells his labor power to capital.’’! In the second place, the laborer
is free from the possession of any means and appliances that are
prerequisite in the processes of modern production. He is unen-
cumbered with any property essential in production, except one,
his personal power to work. He is, accordingly, in no position to
function as an independent producer of articles, since production
requires the service of tools, raw materials, buildings, outlays —
and these he does not own. He must resort to those members of
society who do own the indispensable requisites of production,
and offer them his labor power for sale. Under the previous sys-
tems only the products partook of the nature of commodities,
that is, merchandise. Under capitalism a new commodity, a new
merchandise appears on the market — labor power.’ “The whole
system of capitalist production is based on the fact that the work-
man sells his labor power as a commodity,” * and “the form of
labor, as wage-labor, determines the shape of the entire process
and the specific mode of production itself.”’ *

Here is the fundamental condition, the basic fact of capitalism.
Two peculiar commodity possessors confront each other in the
market: “on the one side, the possessor of the means of produc-
tion and subsistence, on the other, the possessor of nothing but
labor power.”’ The “polarization of the market” with these two
commodities is the rock on which capitalism is built, the source
from which emanate the two chief classes that constitute the
framework of modern socialt sructure.® It is the fountain-head
1 Capital, vol. i, 367; Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 142.

2 Capital, vol. i, 187-188.

3 Tbid., p. 470.

4 Ibid., vol. iii, 1028. Cf. Ibid., vol. i, 189 n., pp. 624-625.
5 Ibid., pp. 624, 785.

SI Snerrenereaes TOTAL HOTS Tecea ubieds Meanie daca

   

MARX’S CONCEPT OF CAPITALISM 199

of all contradictions and troubles. That one part of society
should find itself in possession of all the means of production,
while the larger portion is thoroughly destitute of them, is not
the inevitable resultant of the workings of nature. It is a social
product. ‘It is clearly the result of a past historical development,
the product of many economic revolutions.”’ !

Intimately connected with the idea of “free labor,’ never
clearly formulated by Marx but unmistakably dwelling in his
mind, is another distinguishing trait of capitalism. While free
otherwise, labor is directly and explicitly subjected to objective
economic forces inherent in the very nature of this system of pro-
duction. Under this régime the exigencies of the productive
process force the laborer into his niche, place him in a given status,
and brand him with the stamp of peculiar dependence. The slave
was a slave because of ancient laws and institutions. True, these
laws and institutions were, according to Marx, no independent
phenomena,— on the contrary, they evolved because of economic
forces; but once evolved, they were the ones that kept the slave in
his place. A slave set free would not have been pushed back into
slavery by the impact of economic elements. He could become
an independent producer, an artisan, for example. The mode of
production was so elementary, and it was so lenient in its require-
ments, that a freed slave could in time procure the amount of
property indispensable for independent production. The situa-
tion in the Middle Ages was similar. A serf, once freed, would
not have been driven by the economic currents back to the lord’s
manor. He could become an independent craftsman. Such was
the case with the freed Roman slave, with the liberated serf. Once
released from the clutches of the institution or laws, he found in
the hostility of economic elements no insurmountable obstacle to
independence.

Not so under capitalism. Production is more complex. It calls
for elaborate division and coéperation of labor and its massing
and codrdination under one roof; it requires large quantities of
tools, machinery, raw materials; it demands acquaintance with
far-away markets, with complicated methods of financing, with

1 Capital, vol. i, 188.

—200 THE TREND OF HISTORY

supervision, generalship, and the maintenance of discipline. En-
meshed within such a mechanism, a mere cog in the wheel, the
individual laborer is not in a position to exercise his own judgment
when at work, for the intelligence is dissociated from him and is
concentrated in the capitalist. What outlet is there for the “free”’
worker? He cannot hope to amass the vast stores of materials,
appliances, buildings, and experience. They are too numerous
and too costly. He cannot conjure up, out of his own self, a body
of laborers arrayed in a scheme of division and codperation.

Thus even in the early phase of capitalism, namely, “‘manu-
facture” or the handicraft system, the laborer faces such impedi-
ments. ‘‘It is a result of the division of labor in manufactures
that the laborer is brought face to face with the intellectual po-
tencies of the material process of production as the property of
another and as a ruling power.’”’! Unfitted to produce anything
independently, he must become an appendage of the workshop.
It is worse under the later phase of the modern régime. The
worker is free so far as laws and institutions are concerned, but
the all-pervasive organization of factory production presents an
insuperable barrier to independence. He has to join the army,
submit himself to the discipline imposed by the captains, take his
place in the barrack, and obey orders. Objective capitalism, or
rather capital, subjects the laborer. Willingly he has to acknow-
ledge its supremacy and relinquish to it his independence. “In
the ordinary run of things,’”’ Marx comments, “the laborer can
be left to the ‘natural laws of production,’ that is, to his depen-
dence on capital, a dependence springing from, and guaranteed
in perpetuity by, the conditions of production themselves.” * The
capitalist who rules him is merely the personification of capital,
the wielder of the power capital had conferred on him.’ This idea
is expressed in Marx unsatisfactorily: in some connections he
barely hints at it,‘ in other places he is somewhat more explicit.”

1 Capital, vol. i, 396-397. 2 Ibid., p. 809; Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 178.

3 “Except as personified capital, the capitalist has no historical value.” Capital,
vol. i, 648. ‘‘The capitalist is merely capital personified and functions in the process
of production as the agent of capital.” Jbid., vol. ili, 953.

4 Capital, vol. iii, 699; vol. i, 559.

5 Tbhid., vol. i, 396-397, 625, 675 (quoting Eden), 840, 843.tla ac

  

MARX’S CONCEPT OF CAPITALISM 201

Reverting to the alleged earmarks of capitalism, that is, com-
modity production and surplus value, it is to be pointed out that
even where Marx brings them forward as the distinguishing fea-
tures of the present system, he has in mind mainly “free labor”?
and its subjection to impersonal capital. This can be seen in the
last pages ' of Capital where he touches upon the “two peculiar
traits” of the modern order. One of these is that it produces com-
modities, that is, goods for sale and profit and not for use by the
producer himself. But he adds that this trait does not distinguish
capitalism from other systems. What is peculiar to capitalism is
the fact that labor itself becomes a commodity. The second trait,
he says, is that the modern régime produces surplus value. He
points out that this implies the direct authority of capital over
labor by virtue of its economic strength and not by dint of legal
prowess. “This authority is vested in its bearers only as a per-
sonification of the requirements of labor standing above the
laborer. It is not vested in them in their capacity as political
or theoretical rulers, in the way that it used to be under former
modes of production.”

Labor, free legally but implicitly subordinated to the economic
elements involved in production, is the specifically distinguishing
criterion of capitalism. But as a concept, as an economic system,
capitalism is vastly more comprehensive. It stands for an en-
semble of many elements: private property, freedom and obliga-
tions of contract, the production for exchange and not for use,
the capitalist owner of the means of production, the laborer
directly subjugated by the requirements of the work process but
“free” otherwise, the relations of the capitalist and proletarian
classes, the prominence of industrial over mercantile and usurer’s
capital, the annexation of surplus value and the re-creation of
capital from it, the workshop in the early phase of capitalism and
the machine in the later phase, prevalence of division of labor,
marketing and financing operations on an elaborate scale, large-
scale production, amassing of great fortunes in spectacular ways,
and so on.

1 Vol. iii, 1025-1027.

     
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 

——chil pate a Sieiree) bas wsusapaaatly uae amen we ce

   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

CHAPTER XI

THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF CAPITALISM

For a proper understanding of the innermost nature of capitalist
society and of the inevitable tendencies it harbors, we have to
turn to Marx’s analysis of value. In his scheme, the law of value
prevailing in the present order reveals the mainspring of all the
evils and the fatal inconsistencies with which the system is cursed.
This theory brings us in full view of the nursery of all the villains
in the drama.

Capitalist production yields commodities that are exchanged
on the market. There must be a law regulating this exchange.
Thus we can assert that one quarter of corn equals x hundred-
weight of iron, to use Marx’s example. Why? He decides that
there must be a third entity dwelling both in corn and in iron in
equal amounts and controlling the equation. On the quest of this
equivalence he launches out at once. He reasons through the
process of elimination. It cannot be, he asserts outright, “either
a geometrical, a chemical, or any other natural property of com-
modities”’; nor is it their use value. Therefore, “the only one
common property left”’ is the fact that commodities are the prod-
uct of labor. The amount of labor, measured in units of time,
spent on the production of articles tells us how they exchange for
each other.’

By labor he means “‘social labor,” that is, the labor of the many
workers participating in the long chain of making the tools, ma-
chinery, raw materials, as well as the labor directly expended in
shaping the finished product. He implies, furthermore, not any
chance amount of inefficient labor that happens to be spent on a
commodity, but “socially necessary labor,” that is, labor of
normal efficiency, spent under normal conditions, by the bulk of
substantial firms, and in consonance with the stage of produc-
tivity and industrial arts attained by social progress.” Finally,

1 Capital, vol.i, 44-45. 2 Ibid., p. 46.cA HSE EN

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 

  

THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF CAPITALISM 203

he means homogeneous, abstract, unskilled labor. Skilled labor
is merely resolved into multiplied simple labor, the exact reduc-
tion having been established by a “‘social process” and fixed by
custom.’ “We see, then, that that which determines the magni-
tude of the value of any article is the amount of labor socially
necessary or the labor-time socially necessary for its produc-
tone

At times he applies this theory of value quite ingeniously.
Suppose the supply of linen is large, and “‘the market cannot
stomach the whole quantity at the normal price of 2 shillings a
yard,” a price commensurate with the socially necessary labor-
time. ‘‘This proves that too great a portion of the total labor of
the community has been expended in the form of weaving. The
effect is the same as if each individual weaver had expended more
labor-time upon his particular product than is socially neces-
sary.”’* Likewise, if the price of some raw material, say cotton,
rises, the value of the old cotton held in stock and waiting to be
used rises. ‘‘ This last named cotton then represents by indirec-
tion more labor-time than was incorporated in it.” 4

This theory of value is hailed customarily as the great legacy
of the classical school of economists, notably of Ricardo. But this
is not Ricardo’s theory of value. Ricardo has constantly in mind
exchange value, relative value. To him value is the power of one
product to command others in exchange. To Marx value is ex-
change value; but it is also an intrinsic entity incarnated in a
commodity, and the substance of this entity is congealed labor.
Value is to be regarded “‘as a mere congelation of so many hours
of labor, as nothing but materialized labor,” and ‘‘all commod-
ities, as values, are realized human labor.’’® Human labor in
motion creates value, but is itself not value. ‘‘It becomes value
only in its congealed state, when embodied in the form of some
object”’; and when we state that 20 yards of linen equal one
coat, ‘‘the coat ranks qualitatively as the equal of the linen, as
something of the same kind, because it is value. In this position

1 Capital, vol. i, 52. 2 Ibid., pp. 46, 64, 208, 346, and passim.
3 Ibid., p. 120. “ Tozd., voll. ii; 133:
5 [bid., vol. i, 241, 106, 46, 60, 77, 192, 331, and passim.

erm

  

ISR204 THE TREND OF HISTORY

it is a thing in which we see nothing but value.” 1 Commodities
are sold at their values, “‘that is to say, sold in proportion to the
value contained in them.”? In other words, value is the com-
mon substance, the equivalence sought by Aristotle when he has
‘‘< beds equal one house.””? To Marx, then, value and exchange
value are two disparate concepts. He states this plainly: “The
common substance that manifests itself in the exchange value of
commodities, whenever they are exchanged, is their value.”’ *

This idea of value as labor energy inundating the interatomic
spaces of a product Ricardo never dreamed of. As Veblen sug-
gests, with Hegel spirit is reality par excellence, with Marx ma-
terial labor energy bestows meaning and value. Marx is probably
coquetting here with Hegel.® It is for this reason that Marx
denies any value to a commodity in which there is no labor em-
bodied. Land, animals, virgin forests have a price, he says, but
no value. There is no jellified labor in them.°

Again, it must be emphasized that Ricardo recognizes the time
element, or the réle of capital, in the determination of the ex-
change value of a product: of two commodities in which the same
amount of labor is contained, the one which was produced with
more durable capital, or with more fixed capital relative to circu-
lating capital, or the one that had to be stored away for some time
to mature and improve its qualities before it was fit for sale —
possesses more relative value.’ In a letter to McCulloch he says:
“‘T sometimes think that, if I were to write the chapter on value
again which is in my book, I should acknowledge that the relative
value of commodities was regulated by two causes instead of by
one, namely, by the relative quantity of labor necessary to pro-
duce the commodities in question, and by the rate of profit for the
time that the capital remained dormant, and until the commod-

1 Capital, vol. i, 59. 2 Ibid., vol. ili, 206. 3 [bid., vol. i, 68.

4 Ibid., p. 45. He starts from the equation 1 quarter of corn = x cwt. of iron in
order to seek the equivalent substance. He finds it in value. “‘In fact we started
from exchange value, or the exchange relation of commodities, in order to get at the
value that lies hidden behind it.” Ibid., p. 55.

5 T. Veblen, Place of Science in Modern Civilization, p. 420.

6 Capital, vol.i, 47, 115, 227-

7 Ricardo, Principles of Political Economy, chap. 1, sections 4 and 5s.THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF CAPITALISM 205

ities were brought to the market.” ! But Marx recognizes no
element besides labor. Even in the third volume of his Ca ital,
where he modifies his theory, he maintains that fundamentally
labor, and nothing else, is the basis of value.

In intimate association with value and of indispensable im-
portance in Marx’s system is surplus value. The capitalist spends
money on the production of a given article, and then he sells
it. This activity is represented by the formula M— C— M1.
With money (J), he buys the commodities (C) requisite for pro-
duction, and then sells the finished product for money (MM).
Money is merely a universal equivalent, a way of measuring
value, and when we say that a thing costs two dollars, we mean
that as much labor was spent on making this thing as is spent
ordinarily on mining two dollars’ worth of gold. It is evident that
M" is larger than M, else the whole process would involve no more
than gratuitous trouble to the capitalist. M1 = M+ AM. The
capitalist realizes more money than he had laid out; he gains A M.
This is surplus value. Our “friend Moneybags”’ buys the ele-
ments essential for production at their value and sells the finished
article at its value, that is, on the basis of the amount of socially
necessary labor-time lodged in it. Yet in the end he procures
more value than he had put in.? _How did M expand into M!, and
whence did this surplus value originate?

Marx again reasons by the process of elimination. The aug-
mentation of value does not proceed from the money (M) itself,
for “as hard cash, it is value petrified, never varying”; “just as
little” can it originate in C — M1, that is, in the sale of the pro-
duced commodity, since the sale is merely a transformation of the
article into its money form. “The change must, therefore, take
place” in the first act, M@ — C, when the requisite commodity is
purchased. In this particular transaction the increase cannot
originate in the value of this requisite commodity, because
equivalents are exchanged here. “We are, therefore, forced to
the conclusion” that the change comes about in the use value of
the requisite commodity bought. Surplus value originates from

 

* Letters of David Ricardo to J. R. McCulloch, ed. by J. H. Hollander, p. 71.
2 Capital, vol. i, 184-185.

 

emTHE TREND OF HISTORY

the use of a commodity which, bought at its value, has the power
of yielding for the purchaser more value while it is being con-
sumed.

Such a commodity is labor, or labor-power.' Our “friend
Moneybags” buys labor-power at its value, which is, as in the
case of all commodities, the amount of labor spent on the produc-
tion of this labor-power — subsistence of the laborer, his educa-
tion, and the expenses of rearing his children.2 It may take six
hours of work each day on the part of the laborer to produce the
equivalent of this value. But the employer uses him twelve hours
a day. The first six hours are “necessary labor-time,” the addi-
tional six hours are surplus-labor time; the commodities produced
in this extra period are surplus product, and their value, repre-
sented by these extra six hours, is surplus value. The consump-
tion of labor-power is at once production of commodities and of
surplus value. Commodities are thus bought and sold in the
whole series at their value, but the worker is forced to yield more
labor than is needed to produce his wage. The value that labor
creates for the employer is larger than the value that it obtains
from him in payment. The difference the employer pockets con-
stitutes surplus value.’

Surplus value is the evidence and measure of the exploitation
of the laborer by his employer. However, Marx professes to be
anxious to affirm that no injustice is implied here. By exploita-
tion he does not mean anything immoral or unethical. He does
not intend to postulate that the worker is entitled to the full
product of his labor; nor is his purpose to cry out against any
iniquities in the distribution of wealth. He has in mind merely
to indicate how the mode of production stands for class relations
based on exploitation, and to present facts that will shed light on
the alignment of class interests. The employer is not a robber,
and the laborer is not robbed. Both are dumb agents and vic-
tims of the régime. This is the only “just distribution” possible

1 Capital, pp. 185-186.
2 Ibid., p. 189. Cf. Value, Price and Profits, pp. 115-117. This is one of Marx’s

theories of wages. For his other theories see below pp. 227, 231 and n.
* Capital, vol.i, 232.oe rea i ee E TSS eee TET eh sc gees teaca
Sh chi anit he cid been tehe

  

THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF CAPITALISM

 

207

under capitalism.! Marx never claims the right to the whole
produce of labor, argues Engels against Menger. Marx never
posits a right of any kind, his friend insists. Marx recognizes the
‘“‘historical legitimacy,” within limited epochs, of certain modes
of appropriation, of certain social classes — of ancient slave mas-
ters, of feudal lords, of the bourgeoisie; only he claims that ex-
ploitation no longer serves as a lever of social evolution, but rather
as an impediment to progress.”

Nevertheless, it is true that, while officially no appeal is in-
tended to feelings of justice and fairness, many of Marx’s expres-
sions are obviously sentimental and inflammatory, are charged
with moral indignation, and are calculated to arouse the passions.
Marx is not merely a dispassionate chronicler of facts. The emo-
tional appeal weighed too heavily in his mind to be ignored, not-
withstanding protestations to the contrary.

Labor is the source of surplus value. To bring this into relief
as well as to aid his further analysis of capitalism, Marx divides
the capital advanced for purposes of production into two parts.
In one he puts all the fixed and circulating capital which consti-
tutes the means of production, and which either is used up gradu-
ally through wear and tear, as machinery, or is consumed directly
in the production process, as coal. This part he calls constant
capital (c). In the other part he has only the capital advanced to
labor as wages, and this part he terms variable capital (v).* The
proportional composition of the values of the constant and vari-
able constituents of a given capital he names the organic compo-
sition of capital. The organic composition is high when the pro-
portion, in value, of the constant to the variable part is high, and
conversely. The employer advances a certain amount of capital
(C) for production: C = ¢ +. But from the sale of the com-
modities produced he realizes surplus value (s) in addition to this
outlay; in other words, he realizes c + v +s. The source, the
creator of surplus value, is not the constant, but the variable part
of the expense; not the means of production, but labor. The rea-

1 International Socialist Review, vol. viii, 646; Cf. Capital, vol. i, 216, 641.
2 Engels, “‘Socialisme de juristes,” Le mouvement socialiste, vol. xii, 109-110.
% Capital, vol.i, 232-233.

 

omeTHE TREND OF HISTORY

son is as follows. For the constant capital the employer pays the
full value, therefore there is no possibility of an augmentation of
value here. It is the seller of constant capital (machinery, raw
materials, and so forth) who gains surplus value on it, not the
purchaser. But it is different with variable capital. The employer
buys labor at one value, but he extracts from the laborer more
than he pays for.

The rate of surplus value is its proportion to the variable capi-

surplus labor

 

 

 

Ss - ;
tal, or -, or The rate of surplus value is an exact
v necessary labor

formulation of the degree of exploitation of the laborer by the
capitalist. The higher the exploitation, the greater the rate." The
total mass of surplus value (S) derived in a given factory is equal
to the amount of surplus value obtained from one laborer multi-
plied by the number of laborers. However, the employer is not
thinking in terms of the rate of surplus value when he makes his
calculations. It serves him no purpose to divide his outlays into
constant and variable parts. Both parts are an expense to him,

and on both he expects a profit. The rate of profit, therefore, is the

proportion of surplus value to the fofal capital expended, pa :
Marx deduces three laws here. First, the mass of surplus value

(S) equals the total variable capital (V) advanced, multiplied by

3

the rate of surplus value, or S = V X =e This implies the second

law, namely, that the number of laborers may decrease, or, which
is the same thing, the total variable capital may diminish, and
yet the total mass of surplus value may not decrease, provided
there is a rise in the rate of exploitation of labor, that is, in the
rate of surplus value.t The third law is an obvious consequence:
the greater the variable capital, or the number of laborers, or the
wage-bill, the greater will be the mass of surplus value, provided
the rate of exploitation stays the same. In other words, the
masses of surplus value yielded by two equal capitals but of dif-
ferent organic compositions will vary directly with their variable
constituents.® The larger the wage-bill in a factory, the larger its
1 Capital, vol.i, 239, 241, 332. 2 [bid., vol. iii, 55. 3 Ibid., vol. i, 332.
4 Ibid., pp. 332-334. 5 Ibid., p. 334.

‘

357 Ta <n SRT LT
SHU AMSootgns Sebehe bh pase i bankasTHE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF CAPITALISM 209

profits; the larger the proportion of the variable to the constant
part of capital, the larger the rate of profits — other things re-
maining equal. It means, then, that it is to the best interest of
the capitalist to keep as large a number of workers as possible and
as small an outlay on fixed and circulating capital as possible.

This obviously contradicts experience. Capitalists do not pre-
fer a business where the chief outlay is on wages to one where it
is on means of production. Capitalists’ profits do not correspond
to the masses of surplus value they obtain from the laborers in
their factories. The rates of profits of capitalists producing vari-
ous commodities do not vary with the proportion wages bear to
the total outlay. The rates of profits are rather more or less uni-
form, or are distributed around a ‘‘central tendency,” for plants
in a given industry and for different industries. The establish-
ment that employs much labor and less constant capital, or much
v and less ¢, will not have a larger mass of profit than an establish-
ment using the same amount of capital but apportioning it be-
tween more constant capital and a smaller wage bill. The organic
composition of capital is no guide to the rate of profit prevailing
in economic life.

Marx is aware of this, and in the first volume of Capital he de-
clares: “This law clearly contradicts all experience based on ap-
pearance.” * The source of this contradiction is, of course, his
labor theory of value, which is itself in contradiction to business
practice. In fact, commodities do not exchange according to the
amounts of socially necessary labor contained in them. This
contradiction inevitably leads to the other one, as Marx realizes.
After the discussion of the rates of profits in different lines of
production, he concludes as follows:

 

+ Examples. Given a rate of surplus value = 50% = 3:

If C = 100 = ¢ 80 + » 20, then surplus value = V X ” = 20 X 4 = 10, and
S IO ;

tate of profit = DEE laa ale J.

If C = 100 = c 70 + 2 30, then surplus value = V X 2 = 30 X + = 15, and rate

S 15

of profit = Ee = = 15%.

Here the variable part is smaller in the first case than in the second; therefore
both surplus value and the rate of profit are proportionately smaller.

2 Capital, vol. i, 335.

 

mr210 THE TREND OF HISTORY

We have demonstrated that different lines of industry may have different
rates of profit, corresponding to differences in the organic composition of
capitals . . .; the law (as a general tendency) that profits are proportioned as
the magnitudes of the capitals, or that capitals of equal magnitude yield
equal profits in equal times, applies only to capitals of the same organic
composition, with the same rate of surplus value, and the same time of turn-
over. And these statements hold good on the assumption, which has been
the basis of all our analyses so far, namely, that commodities are sold at their
values. On the other hand there is no doubt that . . . a difference in the aver-
age rate of profit of the various lines of industry does not exist in reality,
and could not exist without abolishing the entire system of capitalist pro-
duction. It would seem, then, as if the theory of value were irreconcilable
at this point with the actual process, irreconcilable with the real phenomena
of production.!

To the dissolving of these contradictions he addresses himself in
the ninth chapter of the last volume of Capital; and to accomplish
this purpose, he presents a radically different theory of value.
This change of front led to an outburst of controversy as to the
contradiction between the third and the first volume of this work,
some maintaining stubbornly that there is no contradiction, and
others, notably Bohm-Bawerk, claiming that the third volume Is
an unequivocal and thorough abandonment of the theory of value
as presented in the first.’

Marx’s new position on these problems may be best explained
by means of the following tables, which are a condensation of
those presented by him: *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Average 78+ 22

3 =
I | | IV V VI | Vil Vill
| ence eee etree I mene resent mneeeoan | | z ———-—
| Surplus | Price of
yay. @ | Used Up | | Value of |Commodities sips
; IR- 7 | Us ‘ rl oN nmor S a
Capitals Rate of \ alue Ss Constant | Cost Price | Commod- | or ‘‘Price of Deviations
Surplus} Also | Gon) | geri action” of Price
lnvaties lpRatelot Capital ities | Production cam aiae
: Pr real Ci } \(Produktions-
Coa |e ees | G+tV | G+V+S | _ preis)
—— ae Oe ane eecbeteeeen —————— L-- -  — — ————
80+ 20] 100% | 20 5° 17o=50+20) 90=70-+2¢ 92=70+22 |+ 2= 92— 90
—_ a on o_ t —— aE
707-301) “= 30. «| 51 8x =51-+30|111 =81 +30|103 =81 +22 — §8=103-—III
Bison pies ae. si Soe a es
60+ 4c) “ 40 51 ior 131 113 =91 +22 |—18=113—131
ib —_—_—— eae | — ——— ee
Se tiasla aes go |55 | 70 77=55+22 |+ 7= 77— 70
$l = |
Ose Sh Sal 5 IO 15 | 20 37 =15 +22 |+17= 37— 20
———E ! |
Total 390+110 lo xtOn al +26— 26= 0o
———— ___ L

 

1 Capital, vol. iii, 181.
2 Bohm-Bawerk, Karl Marx and the Close of His System.
3 Capital, vol. iii, 183-186.SHURA EAA ARIMA ACES STENNIS

      
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
  
 
 

THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF CAPITALISM 2II

We assume here five different branches of production, each
employing the same amount of capital but of different organic
compositions, asin column I. The rate of surplus value is assumed
to be the same in each, 100 per cent. In each branch the amount
of surplus value depends entirely on the amount of the variable
constituent, equal to 100 per cent of this variable portion; while
the rate of profit is obtained by dividing the surplus value gained
in each case by the total capital invested, or 100. The rate of
profit will therefore differ in each case (column III). We shall
assume that in each branch only parts, and different parts, of the
constant capital are worn out in a given period of time, say one
year (column IV). The ‘‘cost price,” or the sum of the costs
actually incurred in production, equals the amount of constant
capital actually used up added to the variable capital, C, + V
(column V). The value of the commodities produced annually in
each branch of production equals the amount of constant capital
used up plus the variable part laid out in wages plus the surplus
value which represents time spent by the laborer for which he is
not paid, orC; + V + S,as in column VI. Thus far the labor
theory of value has been followed.

But such values will not prevail in actual economic experience.
In reality, to the cost price is added, not the particular surplus
value realized in the given branch of production (column III),
but a fixed average rate of profit applied to all branches and ob-
tained by averaging up all their respective profits. The five
capitals, in other words, are regarded as constituents of one large
capital of 500, with an organic composition of 390 c + 110, and
with a total surplus value of 110. The average organic com-

—

position of each capital will be one-fifth, or + a = 78¢+

22v, and the average rate of profit will be a = 22%. In each
branch of production the price of the commodities will be equal
to the “cost price” plus this fixed average rate of profit on
the total capital invested in the business, and not merely on
the portion actually consumed. This Marx calls price of produc-
tion (Produktionspreis) (column VII).1 Thus commodities do not

1 Capital, vol. iii, 185-186.THE TREND OF HISTORY

sell at their value. Those with a higher composition than the
average (that is, where the proportion of ¢ to v is higher than
78 ¢ : 221) sell above the value, and those with a lower sell below,
as is seen in column VII. All commodities sell, not according to
the labor lodged in them, but at their “price of production,”
which is Adam Smith’s ‘“‘natural price” and Ricardo’s “‘cost of
production.” ! But all deviations of the “prices of production”
from the values are mutually canceled, as is seen in column VIII.

The example of these five employments of capital epitomizes
the situation prevailing in industry as a whole. All the amounts
of surplus value realized in separate industries are fused into a
total mass, and its ratio to the total social capital advanced in all
the industries determines the average rate of profit. Each capi-
talist produces in his factory a given amount of surplus value and
profit, but he pockets neither this surplus value nor this profit.
What he receives is an amount of profit resulting from applying
this average social rate of profit to his total capital outlay. Each
capitalist is like a shareholder in the total social capital, and his
amount of profit bears the same proportion to the total mass of
social surplus value that his capital bears to this total social capi-
tal.2 ‘‘Capitals of the same magnitude must yield the same profits
in the same time,” whatever their organic composition.’ The
costs are individual, but the rate of profit is this average social
rate. Only if the composition of a given capital happens to be
identical with the average composition of the total social capital,
will the ‘price of production” equal the value of the commodity
and the profits coincide with the surplus value produced by this
particular capital. Such a case would be a miniature, a “‘sample,”’
of the total social situation.*

The amount, then, of surplus value appropriated will be de-
pendent on the variable capital only if we calculate for the total
volume of capital in society; and only the total volume of com-
modities produced in all industries can be said to sell according to
the mass of socially necessary labor incorporated in it. In indi-
vidual cases, commodities in one branch of production will sell at

’

1 Capital, vol. ili, 233. 2 Tbhid., pp. 186-187.
3 Ibid., p. 245. 4 Toid., pp. 186-187, 203-204.

Tay a5e FAVA EEETHE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF CAPITALISM 213

less, and in another at more, than the value according to the labor
theory. But these deviations compensate each other, as we should
expect, since the deviations of the items from their average will
always cancel out, algebraically, as in column VIII!

The forces in economic life which bring about the sale of com-
modities at their price of production instead of their value, and
which agglomerate the individual surplus values and profits into
one uniform average rate of profit cause Marx a good deal of
concern. He devotes to them long pages where the ideas are as
abstruse as they are ingenious, where suppositions are offered as
substitutes for facts, and where reckless appeals to arithmetic,
especially averages, are quite in evidence.” Out of the welter a
few claims can be discerned clearly. Commodities sold at their
values, and the average rate of profits was unknown, only in the
days before capitalism. But under capitalism the situation is
vitiated by the operation of competition. If one sphere of pro-
duction, selling its commodities at their values, realizes much
surplus value and a high rate of profit according to the organic
composition of its capital, another sphere employing a capital of
a different composition and reaping a smaller rate of profit will
immigrate into the first branch.

By means of this incessant emigration and immigration, in one word, by
its [capital’s] distribution among the various spheres in accord with a rise of
the rate of profits here, and its fall there, it [capital] brings about such a pro-
portion of supply to demand that the average profit in the various spheres

of production becomes the same, so that the values are converted into
prices of production.

In an advanced capitalist society, with mobility of labor and
capital, this equilibration is accomplished in a more or less perfect
degree.*

1 It follows that all the concepts elaborated in the first volume, as, e. g., necessary
and surplus labor-time, the value of the constant and variable parts of a given capi-
tal, suffer grotesque distortions on account of the deviations of the “‘price of pro-
duction,” or the selling price, from the value. Thus the variable capital is no longer
estimated by the amount of necessary labor-time spent on the maintenance or wages
of the laborers, because this maintenance sells not at its value, but at the “‘price of
production.” Capital, vol. iii, 190.

2 Ibid., pp. 203-234.

3 Ibid., pp. 207-209. 4 Ibid., p. 230.

  

 

 

ae er

TREEIETRT etree rena

  

—214 THE TREND OF HISTORY

Yet, even under capitalism, Marx emphasizes, the first theory
of value is at bottom the genuine regulator of the second theory,
and to assert categorically that commodities exchange according
to their prices of production is to see the surface of things and to
disregard their ‘‘internal and disguised essence’’; it is to behave
like the blinded capitalist himself, or like his Pindar, the vulgar
economist. “Everything appears upside down in competition”’;
phenomena point to the second theory, but in substance they
obey the first.’ In the first place, the average rate of profit is
merely a resultant of compounding the masses of surplus value,
and the higher the volume of surplus value in individual branches
of production, the higher this average rate of profit; and con-
versely.? In the second place, the “price of production” is only
a derivative, although a complicated, imperfect, and remote one,
of their values. A change in the labor-time spent on the produc-
tion of commodities will ultimately register a change in the “‘price
of production.” * In the third place, in so far as the migration of
capital does not inundate all the nooks and crannies of industry,
and in so far as an average rate of profit or a change in its magni-
tude fails to establish itself with celerity and smoothness, the
price of commodities here and there, now and then, is for short
periods dominated by the labor-time concealed within them.+*

Marx summarizes his contention in statements like the follow-
ing. ‘‘In short, under capitalist production, the general law of
value enforces itself merely as the prevailing tendency, in a very
complicated and approximate manner, as a never ascertainable
average of ceaseless fluctuations.” ° ‘Values... stand behind the
prices of production and determine them in the last instance.” ®
He does not claim that the two theories are identical, but he urges
that the first is still the heart and soul of the second, and that
therefore the labor theory enunciated in the first volume is not
abandoned in the third.

Be it as it may, he continues to insist that all surplus value
comes from unpaid labor. Interest and profits, the incomes of

1 Capital, vol. ili, 244-245, 369. 2 Ibid., pp. 232-233.
3 Ibid., p. 21. 4 [bid., p. 196.
5 Ibid., p. 190. 6 Ibid.,p. 244. Cf. vol.i, 86.% ee oe oe
Sradeabdasehatets a tukes cneteees (sas

    

THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF CAPITALISM 215

merchants and bankers and the wages of their workers, the taxes
supporting government officials and public enterprises like schools
and parks — all come from surplus value filched from the prole-
tariat in the factory and on the farm. Moreover, capital itself
finds its birth and nourishment in surplus value. The worker
himself forges the chains that enslave him. Convert surplus value
into raw materials and machinery, and capital is formed! A
bourgeois may have accumulated capital by his own labor and
saving. But sooner or later his capital is worn out and is replaced
by a new one which finds its origin in surplus value. Capital re-
produces itself by drawing from surplus value. And all existing
capital is by this process of “‘simple reproduction” merely surplus
value extorted from the laborer; it is dead labor, unpaid labor of
others.? Simple reproduction, constantly renewing outworn capi-
tal, perpetuates the two modern classes and their relations — the
capitalist in possession of the means of production and never los-
ing his grip on them, and the propertyless laborer, who must
amalgamate his energy with this capital before he can earn his
livelihood, and who is therefore compelled to relinquish surplus
value to the owner. Property is the right to appropriate unpaid
labor.?

But ordinarily more surplus value is produced than is needed
for sheer replenishment of the worn-out capital. As a rule, the
capitalist reaps such a large amount of surplus value that, after
expenditures on his personal maintenance and after replacement,
he has a surplus left. Science is an aid, for with each invention
and improvement in the arts the productiveness of labor is aug-
mented.* In this manner the progressive ‘‘accumulation of capi-
tal” proceeds.° Capital both reproduces itself and increases in
volume by the aid of surplus value; unpaid labor is its flesh and
blood. Marx is aware of the claim that, besides labor, abstinence,
too, plays an indispensable part in the formation of capital; but
he dismisses this “‘unparalleled sample . . . of the discoveries of
vulgar economy”’ with scorn and ridicule.®

1 Capital, vol. i, 634. * Ibid., pp. 623-624.

3 Ibid., pp. 624, 632-633, 637, 638, 639. 4 Cf. Ibid., p. 663.
5 Ibid., pp. 634 ff. 6 Ibid., pp. 654-656.

 

 

erm216 THE TREND OF HISTORY

The accumulation of capital presents two stages. During a
“special phase” accumulation takes the form of amassing capital
of the same nature and quality. There is no appreciable improve-
ment in it, and therefore, as more constant capital is grown up,
proportionately more labor is required to operate on it and to
convert it into commodities. With the growth of the constant
constituent the variable part rises in proportion. The ratio stays
the same. The organic composition of the capital remains un-
altered.’

But the process of accumulation goes beyond this phase. As
the bourgeois society progresses, the productive forces expand
and develop. Division of labor takes place on a more extended
and more complicated scale, “‘more skillful and profitable use of
the forces of nature” is discovered, the employment of better
machinery is introduced, and superior processes are adopted.
Inventions, the progress of science, physical and chemical dis-
coveries, as well as improved means of communication and greater
credit facilities, play their part. The result is that labor becomes
more productive. The same number of laborers will convert more
raw materials and machinery into commodities than before, or a
smaller amount of labor will be needed to produce a given quan-
tity of articles.2 This situation effects a reorganization in the
organic composition of capital. As more constant capital accumu-
lates, less labor is required to handle it. In other words, with the

accumulation of capital its composition becomes higher, and Fille

creases. This is ‘‘the law of the progressive increase of constant
capital in proportion to the variable.” * Marx recognizes the
function of science here. He cites as one of the reasons why the
composition of capital is lower in agriculture than in industry,
the earlier and more rapid development of mechanical sciences as
compared with the more recent development of chemistry, ge-
ology, and physiology, especially their later application to agri-
culture.4 Of course, while, relatively to the constant part, the
variable constituent decreases, it increases absolutely. To use
1 Capital, vol. i, 672.

2 Ibid., pp. 663, 682; vol. iii, 248; Wage-Labor and Capital, pp. 44-45.
3 Capital, vol. i, 682. 4 Tbid., vol. iii, 882.Prete tee eis we erat ETE LEAT ITY reL St Seca gripe har tot
sbeebs tt bare yy 6) Bete ie A ean Ah eh beh ches wulattagf Seeded dead ffede

   

THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF CAPITALISM 217

Marx’s example, a capital of £6000 may have a composition of
50:50. When it grows to £18000, the composition may change
to 80: 20, or £14400 of constant and £3600 of variable capital.
Here the variable portion is relatively smaller, but it is absolutely
larger than it was before, having grown from £3000 to £3600.!

This is the phase when the “productivity of social labor be-
comes the most powerful lever of accumulation.” ? Greater pro-
ductivity of labor leads to larger masses of surplus value, which
are in their turn transformed into more capital. The greater the
accumulation, the higher the composition of capital, and the
greater the productiveness of labor. The two are reciprocally in-
citing and accelerating forces.®

The impelling power behind the mad rush to augment and
improve the productive forces is derived from the competition
raging among the capitalists. As the capitalists increase in num-
ber and strength, the desire for markets and profits is whetted,
stirring them to the battle for survival. The most effective way
of driving an adversary off the field is to cheapen commodities;
the best way of achieving this end is to increase the productive-
ness of labor; and this expedient implies a higher composition of
capital. The capitalist ventures therefore to adopt a more ex-
tended system of division of labor, better processes, and machin-
ery Improved by new inventions: he introduces all kinds of in-
ternal economies. Asa sequel, less labor is needed to set in motion
a given unit of constant capital. The value of his commodities
becomes less, because less labor is embodied in each commodity.‘
He is in a position to sell at a price lower than the prevailing
“social value,” that is, the market value, of such goods, but
slightly higher than his ‘individual value.’’ To use the revised
terminology of the third volume, the price of production in his
plant is lower than the price prevailing in the market, where the
old methods of production are still in vogue. He at once pockets
surplus profits and undersells his rivals, taking command of the
field of which he crowds them out.®

1 Capital, vol. i, 683. 2 Ibid., p. 681.

3 Ibid., pp. 684-685. * Tbid., vol. ili, 264-265.

° This is the heart of the theory of competition, says Marx, and he boasts that
political economy was never aware of it. Ibid., p. 50.

 

—~e:THE TREND OF HISTORY

This peculiar advantage he can enjoy only temporarily, be-
cause sooner or later competition forces his adversaries to adopt
the new methods; and then the ‘‘social value,” or price of produc-
tion, drops for all. This lower level of prices serves as a new start-
ing point for further competitive rivalry, leading to the further
development of productive forces and to a still higher composi-
tion of capital. ‘‘That is the law which continually drives bour-
geois production out of its old track, and compels capital to
intensify the productive powers of labor . . . the law that allows it
no rest, but forever whispers in its ears the words ‘Quick march!’”’
This solves the riddle why the capitalist, whose sole purpose is to
produce exchange value, continually strives, nevertheless, to de-
press the exchange value of his commodities.’

With the increased productiveness of workers, the amount of
“‘necessary labor” is decreased, because the maintenance of the
laborer can be produced in a shorter time. Consequently, given
the length of the working day, the amount of surplus value
yielded by each laborer becomes larger. The same process which
cheapens commodities increases surplus value per laborer. It
should follow, then, that the capitalist ought to be anxious to
employ as much labor as possible. However, such is not the case.
On the contrary, he strives to introduce better machinery, which
means capital of a higher composition, so that less labor is needed
in proportion to convert the capital into commodities. This situ-
ation constitutes a capitalistic contradiction, Marx declares, and
the capitalist makes up unconsciously by an excessive lengthening
of the work day and by a more intense exploitation of labor.’

The incessant rivalry among the employers finds its inevitable
fruits in large-scale production, in enormous outlays on plant,
capital, and labor. It “‘lifts the processes of labor to a higher scale
and gives them greater dimensions, which imply larger invest-
ments of capital for each individual establishment.” * This in-
crease in the size and equipment of the factory Marx calls “con-
centration of capital,” and he traces it to accumulation. But
competition has further effects. The increasing initial outlays of

1 Marx, Wage-Labor and Capital, pp. 44-47, Capital, vol. i, 348-351; vol. ili, 310.
2 Capital, vol. 1, 444-445. 3 [bid., vol. iil, 257.wars eee es ee bases fo eidbah’
“ Wikaberss te ctu ea Lee: Fads vated Hebe!

    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   

THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF CAPITALISM 219

capital, the repeated distress caused by the continual cheapening
of commodities, and the power of credit facilities enjoyed by the
big capitalist, render the position of the small employer precari-
ous.’ Too weak to withstand the pressure of his opponents, he
drops out of the contest and joins the ranks of the proletariat,
while his place is usurped by the bigger and stronger combatants.
This is a new form of expropriation. One capitalist expropriates,
““decapitalizes” another. ‘One capitalist kills many.’’ Under =~
the stress and strain of the contest capitals finally abandon their
old positions and amalgamate in a few powerful hands. This
phenomenon Marx terms ‘“‘centralization of capital.”

Centralization, unlike concentration, implies a redistribution
of existing capital, but not necessarily new accumulations. How-
ever, it accelerates and intensifies the effects of accumulation,
accentuating thereby the revolution in the organic composition
of capital. Aside from this, centralization per se involves, not
merely a pooling of existing capitals, but also their reorganiza-
tion, so that capitals, when centralized, have a higher composition
than the constituents previously had. Accordingly, the change
in the composition of capital does not only proceed apace with
accumulation, but runs at a still quicker rate, because accumula-
tion is inevitably accompanied by centralization.”

1 Capital, vol. iii, 520. 2 Ibid., vol. i, 685-691, 836; vol. iii, 289.CHAPTER XII

THE FATAL WEAKNESSES OF CAPITALISM

VALUE, surplus value, and the accumulation of capital with the
attending changes in its composition are essential in explaining
the mechanism of capitalism. These principles also aid in disclos-
ing the nature of the disintegrating forces functioning within the
system, and of the ghastly phenomena which doom it to certain
extinction.

Capitalism itself generates the elements that bring about its
ruin. This view is the distinctive mark of scientific socialism,
which Marx founded. Not the pious wishes of inspired people,
or the enlightenment and benevolence of an improved human
nature, will usher in a better world, but the relentless workings of
the present order itself. Not free will and aspirations will effect
the transition, but the inexorable tendencies of the natural laws
of the modern system. Not teleology, but mechanistic, determin-
istic cause and effect condemn capitalism to death and proclaim
the birth of socialism.

The capitalistic régime rests on a foundation of three fatal
contradictions which germinate and ferment and ultimately re-
lease the dialectic forces that disrupt it.
™. First, the aim of society is gain and accumulation. The com-
pelling motives are not production for use, service, and the de-
velopment of human beings; but for profits, self-seeking, and
aggrandizement. The goal is production and not consumption
and enjoyment. Profits to the individual rather than social needs
and benefits are the criteria of capitalist activities and successes.
““Modern society, which, soon after its birth, pulled Plutus by the
hair of his head from the bowels of the earth, greets gold as its
Holy Grail, as the glittering incarnation of the very principle of
its own life.” 1 With such an ideal the expansive development of
the productive forces is incompatible. Hence disastrous col-
lisions.”

1 Capital, vol.i, 149. 2 Tbid., vol. iii, 293, 303-

220bc bisa panel A seas cab clues adhe ANC

     
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 

THE FATAL WEAKNESSES OF CAPITALISM 221

Secondly, while the present system is based on socialized pro-
duction, private control of the productive processes and private
appropriation of their fruits are the ruling canons. Division and
codperation of labor and the alliance of the workers with social
inventions render the part the laborers play in the productive
process a social enterprise. The individual handicraftsman, the
independent producer of an article, has vanished; the laborer has
become a link in a long, complicated chain. Likewise with capital.
In joint-stock companies and combinations it is gathered from
the many small owners associated in the enterprise; and the
continual concentration and centralization of capital represent
immense aggregates of social resources. In general, capital —
is a product of social labor, “‘a collective product,” a “social
power.” ? Yet, whereas production is socialized, the control of
industry is in the hands of private capitalists, who supervise the
processes, decide upon the policies, and, on considerations of
personal interests, determine the channels into which the social
productive energy will flow. Moreover, the products resulting
from the collective productive forces are not appropriated socially,
but become the property of the capitalist who disposes of them
as he pleases. Production is social in character, but the appropri-
ation of the wealth created is private.”

A third contradiction consists in the fact that two diametri-
cally opposite principles operate within the factory and outside,
in society. Inside the factory there is order, codperation, codrdi-
nation of processes, and careful planning. But outside, in society
at large, the production of the means of satisfying the wants of |
the community is not pursued on the basis of sensitive responsive-
ness to the genuine social needs. There is no carefully studied
apportioning of the total social resources, and no planned, orderly
direction of them into appropriate avenues. Among individual
plants and enterprises complete anarchy reigns. Each capitalist
first produces whatever his fancy chooses, and as much as he
pleases; then he begins to search for markets. One capitalist
competes with another for the opportunity to dispose of the

—

1 Communist Manifesto, p. 32.
? Capital, vol. iii, 310, 312, 516; Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. 55.THE TREND OF HISTORY

commodities. There is order within the factory, but among all
the industrial enterprises that are to provide for society there is
bellum omnium contra omnes.

These contradictions embody the cardinal tenets and the very
spirit of capitalism. Production for gain and not for use, social
production but private appropriation, complete anarchy in enter-
prise; greed, grab, and competitive combat; exchange, private
property, and competition: these are its articles of faith.

Yet Marx realizes that this creed accomplished a good deal,
especially during the early days of capitalism, and he joins his
friend in paying tribute to its achievements. Capitalism is a dis-
tinct advance over the preceding eras, and the above principles
supplied it with a powerful urge for noteworthy attainments. The
Communist Manifesto acknowledges that ‘‘The bourgeoisie, dur-
ing its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive
and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding gen-
erations together,” and, after enumerating some of them, ques-
tions: ‘‘what earlier century had even a presentiment that such
productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labor?” “It [the
bourgeoisie] has been the first to show what man’s activity can
bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyp-
tian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals.” * But
all this is true only up to a certain point, and while the contra-
dictions are latent. Soon the stage is reached when they begin
to assert themselves as an insurmountable obstacle to the further
development of the productive forces.

The contradictions give rise to consequences which infest the
capitalist organism with three fatal diseases that finally seal its
doom: the misery and suffering of the laborers; the tendency of
profits to fall, thus undermining the very ground on which the
capitalist thrives; and the crises which throw the whole system
into periodic convulsions and threaten it with destruction.

First, as to the fate of the workers. The present régime is ab-

1 Capital, vol.i, 391; Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. 59.

2 Communist Manifesto, pp. 18, 16. ‘The bourgeois society is the most highly
developed and most highly differentiated historical organization of production,”
says Marx (Critique of Political Economy, appendix, p. 300).THE FATAL WEAKNESSES OF CAPITALISM 223

solutely antagonistic to, and utterly incompatible with, the wel-
fare of the masses, the proletarians; and the further the system
progresses, the more miserable becomes their lot. Surplus value
is the source of gain for the capitalist. Therefore his single life
purpose is to absorb the maximum of surplus labor, ‘“‘to extract
the greatest possible amount of surplus value, and consequently
to exploit labor-power to the greatest possible extent.”! This
explains his fervent insistence on the long working day and the
“civilized horrors of overwork.” It explains why the establish-
ment of the normal working day by law is the result of centuries
of struggle, and why the history of the struggle is filled with the
most astute devices for evasions, the most cunning subterfuges,
and the most stubborn attempts to frustrate all legal moves to
make the burden of the proletariat lighter.

This history Marx chronicles in detail and with appropriate
remarks.’ He prefaces it with the following tirade:

Time for education, for intellectual development, for the fulfilling of
social functions and for social intercourse, for the free play of his bodily and
mental activity, even the rest time of Sunday ...— moonshine! But in its
blind unrestrainable passion, its were-wolf hunger for surplus labor, capital
oversteps not only the moral, but even the merely physical maximum bounds
of the working day. It usurps the time for growth, development, and healthy
maintenance of the body. It steals the time required for the consumption of
fresh air and sunlight. It higgles over a meal-time. . . . It reduces the sound
sleep needed for the restoration, reparation, refreshment of the bodily powers
to just so many hours of torpor as the revival of an organism, absolutely ex-
hausted, renders essential.* . . . To the outcry as to the physical and mental

degradation, the premature death, the torture of overwork, it answers:
Ought these to trouble us, since they increase our profits? 4

In the machine the capitalist finds a powerful ally in his de-
vices of exploiting labor, and added opportunities for pumping
out surplus value.° The machine does not call for great muscular
strength, and consequently permits the employment of women
and children. While before, the head of the family worked and
supported it, now the whole family slaves. The laborer sells his
wife and child to the capitalist. ‘‘He has become a slave dealer.” ®
This “coining of children’s blood into capital’’? exacts a fearful

1 Capital, vol.i, 257, 363. 2 Tbid., pp. 297-330. 3 [bid., p. 291.

* [bid., pp. 296-297. ® Ibid., pp. 430 ff.

§ Ibid., pp. 431, 432; Poverty of Philosophy, p. 153. 7 Capital, vol. i, 208.

 

 

SeTHE TREND OF HISTORY

toll of the tiny victims; it brings on physical deterioration and
great infant mortality, it robs the “immature human being”’ of
all opportunity to develop its mental faculties, and it induces
intellectual desolation by turning the child into a machine for the
fabrication of surplus value.’

A special product of the machine is the prolongation of the
working day ‘“‘beyond all bounds set by human nature.” * For
this there is a number of reasons. The capitalist is interested in
using the machine as much as possible, for a machine during idle
hours undergoes depreciation, but fetches no profits. Then, an
old machine is subject to a potential ‘moral depreciation,” be-
cause it is rendered worthless as soon as a better one is invented.
The capitalist is therefore anxious to reproduce its value in the
quickest possible time. Exploitation of a doubled number of
workers would require twice the amount of machinery; but the
exploitation of the same number of workers for longer hours does
not involve a proportionate increase of machinery and of other
types of constant capital; so that more surplus value is obtained
with almost the same overhead expense.* Further, the sporadic
use of a new machine by an astute capitalist before it is employed
by his competitors nets him an excess of surplus value, because
his ‘‘individual value” is lower than the normal “social value”
prevailing in the market. He is therefore in haste to exploit thor-
oughly “‘his first love” during the transition period, before the
universal adoption of the new invention wipes out his advantage.°

In general, idle capital is a loss to the owner. When the laborer
rests, the capitalist loses. Capital is perpetually in need of labor
to exploit. “Capital is dead labor that, vampire-like, lives only
by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it
sucks.” ® Therefore, ‘‘the excessive prolongation of the working
day turned out to be the peculiar product of Modern Industry.” 7
This robs the laborer of leisure. ‘‘Time is the room of human de-
velopment. A man who has no free time to dispose of, whose

whole lifetime . . . is absorbed by his labor for the capitalist, is
1 Capital, vol. i, 434, 436. 2 Tbid., p. 440. 3 Tbid., p. 441.
4 Tbid., pp. 442-443. 5 Tbid., p. 444.

6 Tbid., p. 257. 7 [bid., p. 560.

ip yee ae

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THE FATAL WEAKNESSES OF CAPITALISM

 

225

less than a beast of burden. He is a mere machine .. . broken in
body and brutalized in mind.”? But not only does the machine
prolong the working day, it also offers exceptional facilities for the
intensification of the toil. The machine can be speeded up, or
more machines can be placed under the care of each laborer.?
The machine is also an implacable enemy of the worker in his
struggle against oppression, and a ruthless competitor for em-
ployment. The machine is the favorite means of suppressing
strikes and of curbing the power of arrogant labor. ‘It would be
possible to write quite a history of the inventions, made since
1830, for the sole purpose of supplying capital with weapons
against the revolt of the working class.” * If the wages of workers
rise, the expedient employed to lower them is the introduction of
more machinery.* The advent of a new machine into an industry
renders superfluous the workers previously engaged, and robs
them of their livelihood. Marx strongly believes that machinery
and inventions displace labor and cause unemployment, and on
this question he argues strenuously against the classical econo-
mists. He will hear none of the talk that the introduction of
machinery may prove but a “‘temporary inconvenience,” except
in the sense that it turns the laborers out only of this ‘“‘temporal”’

world.°
In general, the machine, the factory, “exhausts the nervous :
system to the uttermost”; “‘confiscates every atom of freedom,

both in bodily and intellectual activity”; “deprives the work of
all interest’’; creates a ‘‘barrack discipline” with a “‘factory code
in which capital formulates, like a private legislator, . . . his autoc-
racy over the workpeople,” with “‘fines and deductions,” with
injury to ‘‘every organ of sense”’ caused by the raised tempera-
ture, dust-laden atmosphere, deafening noise, and with “danger
to life and limb among the thickly crowded machinery which,
with the regularity of the seasons, issues its list of the killed and
wounded in the industrial battle.” ® The laborer has no choice

—

1 Marx, Value, Price and Profits, p. 109. 2 Capital, vol. i, 450.
3 [bid., p. 476; Poverty of Philosophy, pp. 153, 183.
4 Value, Price and Profits, p. 122.

5 Capital, vol.i, 471, 478 ff. § [bid., pp. 462-466.226 THE TREND OF HISTORY

but submission, because his special skill “vanishes as an infinitesi-
mal quantity before the science, the gigantic physical forces, and
the mass of labor that are embodied in the factory mechanism.” *
Intent on effecting savings so as to decrease his “price of produc-
tion,” the capitalist is economical about his machinery but shows
“the most outrageous squandering of labor power” and “prodi-
gality in the use of the life and health of the laborer” by scorning
all provisions that would ‘“‘render the process of production hu-
man, agreeable, or even bearable.” * ‘As a producer of the activ-
ity of others, as a pumper out of surplus labor and exploiter of
labor-power, it [capital] surpasses in energy, disregard of bounds,
recklessness and efficiency, all earlier systems of production based
on directly compulsory labor.” °

Marx blames, not the machine or the factory, but the spirit of
capitalism. He realizes that the machine represents the triumph
of man over natural forces, and that it affords the opportunity of
shortening the labor-time, of lightening human toil, and of in-
creasing the wealth of the producers. But when in the hands of
the capitalist, it stands for the direct opposite: longer hours,
greater drudgery, poverty, the “martyrdom of the producer,”
and a means of crushing his ‘‘individual vitality, freedom, and
independence.” 4 Marx also acknowledges that the aggressive
power of legislation curbs more and more the avarice of the capi-
talist and tends to allay the laborer’s sufferings. But he wishes
to emphasize that capitalism per se, with profits and not service
as its inspiring aim, promotes all these evils and displays them in
lurid light whenever the arm of the law is absent or fails to reach.

Such would be the plight of the worker if conditions under
capitalism were to remain static. But they do not remain static.
Society is dynamic, and capital runs the spiral of accumulation,
concentration, and centralization. Therefore he encounters more
harassing conditions still, and his life is beset with new calamities.
With increasing progress of capitalism the laborer becomes the
victim of “increasing misery.”

The theory of increasing misery has caused a considerable

1 Capital, vol. i, 462. 2 Tbid., p. 581; vol. iii, 103-104.
3 Tbid., vol. 3, 338-339- 4 Tbhid., pp. 482, 555-be jeia i bobbi alot need SA50) AVY it 1 pag ND Edis ATE? ys 51 FRR)

   

THE FATAL WEAKNESSES OF CAPITALISM 227

amount of uneasiness to socialist interpreters of Marx, because
facts seem to contradict incontrovertibly the prediction of their
master. With the advance of the present order, the misery of the
proletariat is not increasing. On the contrary, a good case can
easily be made out to the effect that his lot is improving. But to
some socialists Marx cannot be wrong, and therefore they strain
their faculties in the effort to attach peculiar meanings to this
theory. Kautsky, for example, urges that it means relative misery,
and that Marx claims only that, while the condition of the worker
does improve, it does not do so as rapidly as wealth accumulates.
The laborer is better off, but when he is compared with the upper
classes, the disparity in fortunes is persistently on the increase in
the course of time.’ That Kautsky is erring and that Marx means
just what the phrase implies — physical misery — will be shown
presently.

The distinction between the two phases of accumulation must
be kept in mind. During the “special phase,’ when the organic
composition of capital stays unaltered, an increase in capital im-
plies a proportionate increment in its variable constituent, which,
to recall, is the subsistence of labor. Therefore, the demand for
labor increases, and sooner or later a point is reached when “the
demand for laborers may exceed the supply,” and a rise of wages
ensues. Such was the case during the fifteenth and the first half
of the eighteenth century.” Under such conditions the dependence
of the worker on capital is more endurable, for the portion of
surplus value which is now returned to him in the form of a higher
wage goes to improve his mode of living.

Marx assures us, however, that this circumstance in no way
alters the fundamental character of wage-slavery, and by no
means offers any hopes of emancipation. The system is not
threatened. It only means that the chain fettering the laborer
to capital “allows of a relaxation of the tension of it.’’ There is

* Kautsky, in Neue Zeit, vol. xxvi, no. 2, pp. 542-543.

? Capital, vol. i, 672; Value, Price and Profits, pp. 120-121. This may be re-
garded as a supplement to his subsistence theory of wages (see above, p. 206). In
the long run there is a tendency of wages to conform to subsistence; but over short

periods there may be deviations, according to conditions of the supply of labor and
the demand for it.

 

or228 THE TREND OF HISTORY

no cause for exultation. Suppose the rise in wages encroaches on
surplus value to such an extent as to slacken accumulation of
capital. Then the check comes automatically; the demand for
labor slows down, and wages fall back to their previous lower
level. Exploitation of labor is not imperiled, and the foundations
of capitalism remain intact.’

Marx emphasizes these ideas in his Wage-Labor and Capital,
and from a different viewpoint. He tries there to demonstrate
that the interests of capital and of labor are always in sharp oppo-
sition. He is discussing first the ‘‘special phase” of accumulation,
saying: ‘“‘And, to assume even the most favorable case, with the
increase of productive capital there is an increase in the demand
for labor. And thus wages, the price of labor, will rise.” But this
rise, he continues, does not free the laborer from relative misery.
As capitalism progresses, the worker’s house may “shoot up”;
but if the neighboring palace “shoots up” in the same or in
greater proportion, the occupant of the smaller dwelling “will
always find himself more uncomfortable, more discontented.”
Similarly, an increase of capital results in an augmentation of
wages; but it also calls forth a rapid rise “in wealth, luxury, social
wants, and social comforts.”’ Although the comforts of the laborer
have increased, the satisfaction he derives is diminished, because
he witnesses the tremendous comforts enjoyed by the rich but
unattained by him. ‘The material position of the laborer has
improved, but it is at the expense of his social position. The social
gulf which separates him from the capitalist has widened.” * It is
on these statements that Kautsky bases his interpretation of
“increasing misery”’ as meaning relative misery.

But we must remember that all this psychological misery ap-
plies only to “the most favorable case,” to the special phase of
accumulation. Kautsky loses sight of this. He contents himself
with quoting from page 35, but he neglects to take into account
what Marx says on page 43, when he leaves the special phase and
turns to the more typical phase. ‘We can hardly believe,’ Marx
contends, “‘that the fatter capital becomes the more will its slave

1 Capital, vol. i, 672, 677-680.
2 Marx, Wage-Labor and Capital, pp. 35, 42-

sad FER Eta seat LT WTRY) Te ROUNL OAT aTHE FATAL WEAKNESSES OF CAPITALISM 229

be pampered. .. . We must therefore inquire more closely into the
effect which the increase of productive capital has upon wages.” !
This closer inquiry appears in greater detail in the first volume of
Capital, and the conclusions are the same as in his Wage-Labor
and Capital.

With the accumulation of capital the variable part grows
smaller relatively to the constant. This diminution is accelerated
by the centralization of capital ensuing upon its accumulation?
Inasmuch as the variable constituent represents the wages in-
tended for the laborers, it follows that the demand for labor ‘“‘falls
progressively with the increase of the total capital, instead of, as
previously assumed,’ in proportion to it. It falls relatively to the
magnitude of the total capital.” Since the demand is decreasing,
fewer laborers can be employed, and the result is a ‘‘relatively
redundant population.” * Relative to precisely what, Marx does
not indicate. The variable constituent decreases proportionately,
but increases absolutely, although in “‘a constantly diminishing
proportion.” ° If this is so, the query at once arises why there
should be a “‘relative surplus population” at all. Workers do not
eat proportions and percentages, they subsist on wages, that is,
on the variable capital. Once this constituent increases abso-
lutely, there is no reason for the emergence of a relative surplus
population.

Marx does not clear up this question, but a charitable interpre-
tation of the pages he devotes to this whole problem may, perhaps,
at least diminish the obscurity. An absolutely larger amount of
variable capital, or a larger wage bill, does not necessarily signify
that the number of employed laborers will increase. It merely
implies that more labor-power will be called into action. The
capitalist may employ few laborers but may compel each one to
work more hours per day and more intensively, as this policy calls
for fewer machines and insures economy in the overhead expenses.
Further, with the growth of capital there is greater division of
labor, and the processes involved in production become very
elementary. Therefore women and children are employed on a

1 Wage-Labor and Capital, p. 43. 2 See p. 2109, above.
3 Italics are mine. 4 Capital, vol. i, 690-691. 5 Ibid., p. 690.

 

 

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230 THE TREND OF HISTORY

more extensive scale than previously, while the adult male prole-
tarians, the laborers par excellence, are forced into idleness. Thus
the active army, that is, the number of real adult workers in em-
ployment, diminishes; while the reserve is swelled even faster
than the diminution of the variable constituent of capital in rela-
tion to the constant."

The relative surplus population, the industrial reserve army,
always ready, at the command of the capitalist, to be employed
when needed and discharged when not needed is both an effect
and a necessary condition of the accumulation of capital. With
the expansion of industry, credit, and markets; with the inunda-
tion by fresh capitals of new spheres or of some old branches of
production in order to invigorate and enlarge them; with the up-
ward swing of the business cycle — part of this reserve is re-
cruited into employment. When these outbursts subside, a part
is discharged. These adventures of capital would have been im-
possible without a reserve army to draft from at will.’

This intermittent attraction and repulsion of laborers, this re-
serve army of the idle male population, bear witness to the fact
that the bourgeoisie is incapable of taking care of the laboring
class and its normal growth. They proclaim that, as capital ac-
cumulates, as the scale of production is extended, as the produc-
tiveness of labor increases so that less labor can take care of vastly
more constant capital, labor is more and more driven from em-
ployment. The very product of labor, capital turns its creators
into a relative surplus population. Not that the laboring class
reproduces too fast and presses on capital, but capital itself re-
duces the number of workers it can use, and thereby renders them
supernumerary. ‘‘This is the law of population peculiar to the
capitalist mode of production.”” Malthus was wrong.’

All this has a disastrous effect on the laborer’s remuneration.

1 Capital, vol. i, 697-698, Wage-Labor and Capital, pp. 49-50. It has to be ad-
mitted, however, that the reasons for, and the concept of, a “‘relative surplus popu-
lation’? remain very obscure. In the third volume of Capital (p. 309) Marx acknow-
ledges that, although the variable constituent diminishes relatively to the constant,
the number of laborers employed increases absolutely.

2 Capital, vol.i, 693-694.

3 Ibid., pp. 692-696.

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THE FATAL WEAKNESSES OF CAPITALISM

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
 
 
 
   

231

The general movement of wages is governed by the magnitude of
the ‘‘relative surplus population,” the ratio of the reserve to the
active army, the expansion or contraction of the reserve army
through the phases of the business cycle. The forces of supply
and demand operate; but the area on which they play is the
‘“‘relative surplus population.” The reserve army is eager for
employment and is in competition with those in the active army;
and the larger the reserve, the greater the competition. Conse-
quently, those employed are compelled to overwork and to sub-
mit to any terms dictated by the capitalist. This overwork robs
others of employment, and thereby swells the ranks of the reserve.
Still other circumstances conspire to enlarge the reserve: the all-
pervasive machine displaces more and more workers; with the
progress of capitalism division of labor becomes so elaborate and
the processes so simple that one man can accomplish the tasks
five men performed before; centralization of capital crowds out
the petty employer and casts him into the ranks of the proletariat.
All this renders the struggle for employment exceedingly severe.”
“The industrial reserve army, during the periods of stagnation
and average prosperity, weighs down the active labor army; dur-
ing the periods of overproduction and paroxysm, it holds its pre-
tentions in check.”’* This play of competition and of supply and
demand completes the despotism of capital and works havoc with
wages.

Marx’s conclusions on this question, both in Wage-Labor and |
Capital and in Capital, are unambiguous. In the first work we |
read: “To sum up: the faster productive capital increases the more

do the division of labor and the employment of machinery extend .. .

so much the more does competition increase among the laborers, and

so much the more do their average wages dwindle.” * In the second

1 Capital, vol. 1, 699, 701-702. This is a second theory of wages. A third is pre-
sented when Marx says that the general movements of wages are regulated by ‘‘the
ratio between the working class . . . and the total social capital.” Ibid.,p.700. This
is a wage-fund theory. For the first theory see above, pp. 206, 227.

2 Ibid., pp. 698, 701-702, Wage-Labor and Capital, pp. 48-53.

3 Capital, vol.i, 701.

* Wage-Labor and Capital, p. 52. Marx’s italics. On the same pages he says:
“Exactly as the labor becomes more unsatisfactory and unpleasant, in that tery propor-232 THE TREND OF HISTORY

work he talks of the “ruinous effects”’ of capitalistic accumula-
tion on the working class,! and concludes:

Pauperism is the hospital of the active labor-army and the dead weight

of the industrial reserve army . . . along with the surplus population, pauper-
ism forms a condition of capitalist production and of the capitalist develop-
ment of wealth. . . . The relative mass of the industrial reserve army in-
creases therefore with the potential energy of wealth. .. . The more extensive,
finally, the lazurus-layers of the working class, and the industrial reserve
army, the greater its official pauperism. This is the absolute general law of
capitalist accumulation. Like all other laws, it is modified in its working by
many circumstances.?
He then cites from economists who saw the baleful effect that
capitalist accumulation has on the workers. The citations refer to
“‘absolute privation of the first necessaries of life,” to “hunger,”
and to “‘degradation of the masses.” * He then offers numerous
illustrations of this law, all dealing with abject poverty, low wages,
fearful living conditions, and deterioration.‘

It is reasonably clear, then, that by increasing misery Marx
means precisely what he says — physical impoverishment — and
not psychological dissatisfaction,as Kautsky would have it. State-
ments made in other connections bring additional evidence. The
Gotha program asserts that, as wealth accumulates, “‘poverty and
destitution develop upon the side of the workers”’ in proportion.
Marx comments on this: “This is the law in all history up to
the present time.” ° In his speech on Free Trade he avers that
“‘the minimum of wages is constantly sinking.”’® The Communist
Manifesto proclaims (page 29): “‘ The modern laborer, on the con-
trary, instead of rising with the progress of industry, sinks deeper
and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He
becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than

tion competition increases and wages decline” (p. 49. Marx’s italics). ‘‘And thus
the forest of arms outstretched by those who are entreating for work becomes ever
denser and the arms themselves grow ever leaner”’ (p. 53).

1 Capital, vol. i, 702-703.

2 Ibid., p. 707. Marx’s italics.

3 Ibid., pp. 709-711.

4 Tbid., pp. 711-783.

5 Reprinted in the International Socialist Review, vol. viii (1907-1908), p. 645.

6 Reprinted in Poverty of Philosophy, appendix, pp. 223-224. See also his In-
auguraladresse der internationalen Arbeiter-Association, pp. 18-25.siiRiietetyieicfeletes Sind sin Gisnid bela nelle ital andes ehh ideas

isi

    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 

 

THE FATAL WEAKNESSES OF CAPITALISM 233

population and wealth.” Engels, too, talks of ‘‘the under-con-
sumption of the masses,” of their ‘‘sinking to the Chinese coolie
level,” of the “retrogression in the condition of the oppressed
class.” * Indeed as long as Kautsky, or any other socialist, be-
eves in Marx’s “industrial reserve army,” he is forced, in my
opinion, to accept the idea of progressive physical impoverish-
ment, which is but an outcome of the competition for work
between the reserve and the employed.

Capitalism, then, has nothing to hold forth to the laborer but
a miserable lot. Under static conditions he is subject to toil on
inhuman terms. With the development of the productive forces,
with the increasing triumph of man over nature, he is faced with
new calamities. While the “special phase” of the accumulation
of capital means to him physical improvement, but psycho-
logical suffering because of “relative” misery, under the more
permanent and more typical phase he suffers progressive material
degradation.

But no better summary can be given of Marx’s view concerning
the promise of capitalism to the laborer than his own:

Within the capitalist system all methods for raising the social productive-
ness of labor are brought about at the cost of the individual laborer; all
means for the development of production transform themselves into means
of domination over, and exploitation of, the producers; they mutilate the
laborer into a fragment of a man, degrade him to the level of an appendage
of a machine, destroy every remnant of charm in his work and turn it into a
hated toil; they estrange from him the intellectual potentialities of the labor-
process in the same proportion in which science is incorporated in it as an
independent power; they distort the conditions under which he works, sub-
ject him during the labor-process to a despotism the more hateful for its
meanness; they transform his life-time into working-time, and drag his wife
and child beneath the wheels of the Juggernaut of capital. . . . It follows,
therefore, that in proportion as capital accumulates, the lot of the laborer,
be his payment high or low, must grow worse. The law, finally, that always
equilibrates the relative surplus population, or industrial reserve army, to
the extent and energy of accumulation, this law rivets the laborer to capital
more firmly than the wedges of Vulcan did Prometheus to the rock. It
establishes an accumulation of misery, corresponding with accumulation of
capital. Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time
accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental

oo

  

1 Anti-Diihring, pp. 237, 183; Origin of the Family, p. 216.234 THE TREND OF HISTORY

degradation, at the opposite pole, that is, on the side of the class that pro-
duces its own product in the form of capital.

Neither does the bourgeois escape unscathed. There are further
consequences of the contradictions within the bosom of capital-
ism which strike hard at the capitalist himself. The same forces
that prepare increasing misery for the worker usher in a lugubri-
ous phenomenon for the capitalist also. The tendency of the rate
of profits to fall is the second dark offspring of the present order.

As the present régime advances, the productive forces develop;
accumulation, concentration, and centralization of capital pro-
ceed at a rapid pace; the productivity of labor increases. All this
implies a reorganization of capital, so that the variable portion
decreases relatively to the constant and, naturally, relatively to
the total capital. This is true, by and large, of individual capitals
in the various spheres of industry as well as of the entire capital
at work in society. A relative decrease in the variable constituent
signifies a corresponding relative diminution of surplus value,
once a given rate of surplus value has been established in society;
for, we recall, the total mass of surplus value equals the total
variable capital times the rate of surplus value, or the rate of
exploitation.”

Now the relation of the total amount of surplus value obtained
by society to the total social capital fixes the average social rate
of profits. This relation (¢) becomes constantly smaller. “The
gradual and relative growth of the constant over the variable
capital must necessarily lead to a gradual fall of the average rate of
profit.” > This law, Marx tells us, is of supreme importance in
capitalist production, and economists “cudgeled their brains,”
attempting to penetrate its mystery. But they were unsuccessful,
because they failed to delve into the nature of surplus value and
of the organic composition of capital; in other words, because they
did not see fit to analyze economic phenomena precisely in the
way that Marx did.*

1 Capital, vol. i, 708-709.
25=VX =
3 Capital, vol. iii, 248-249, 252-254; Marx’s italics. 4 Tbid., p. 250.MB GIWSE Betas scat k ha on URS: (G8 Cale asd cle cabin Eee
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THE FATAL WEAKNESSES OF CAPITALISM

 

235

The fall of the rate of profit does not imply a fall in the mass of
surplus value or in the mass of profit extracted by a given society.
The mass of surplus value, and therefore of profit, increases; but
since the total social capital increases still faster, the rate of
profit falls.! On a given capital, say, on every $100, there will be
an absolute decrease of surplus value and profit, but the number
of such $100 units becomes progressively larger, and therefore the
absolute mass of surplus value is on the increase.” The same laws
which work for the greater productiveness of labor, for a relative
fall of the variable capital, and for a hastened accumulation, are
manifested in ‘‘a growing increase of the employed total labor-
power, a growing increase of the absolute mass of surplus value,
and consequently of profits.” * In fact, Marx teaches, an absolute
progressive growth of the mass of profits is inevitable on the basis
of capitalist production.*

The same fate applies to individual industries where concen-
tration or centralization of capital has been achieved. With the
expropriation of the smaller capitalists, the larger survivors find
themselves in the possession of more capital, larger armies of
labor, and bigger markets. Therefore, while the social rate of
profits is low, the mass of profits in such industries will rise, be-
cause it is derived from a tremendous amount of capital, and be-
cause of the large total of surplus value yielded by the immense
volumes of labor-power.°

Here, too, the mad rush for gain and the desire to eliminate the
competing adversary are the animating incentives; and the cheap-
ening of commodities is the effective weapon. No capitalist would
voluntarily introduce a new method of production, and thereby
capital of a higher composition, knowing that such an act would
ultimately lead to a lower rate of profit. But he is lured to this
policy by the prospect of the additional profits which he tempo-
rarily harvests because his individual price of production is lower
than the market price where the old methods still prevail — until
the new method is generally accepted and is followed by a fall in
the rate of profit.* Competition also acts for another reason. The

1 Capital, vol. iii, 254. ? Ibid., p. 259. 3 Tbid., pp. 257-258, 26r.
AOI bias. Ds 255% 5 Ibid., pp. 257, 274-275.. ° Ibid., p. 310.

 

 

are236 THE TREND OF HISTORY

powerful capitalists are attempting to expropriate the smaller
ones in order to recoup themselves for the diminishing rate of
profit by a gain in the mass of profit resulting from the central-
ized capitals after the expulsion of those who could not stand the
race. Just as accumulation and centralization accelerate the fall
of the rate of profits, so a fallin the rate of profits hastens accumu-
lation and centralization.! Again, the small new capitals, born of
additional accumulations, suffer because of the low rate of profit.
They search for employment in frantic competition with the older
capitals. All these circumstances raise one capitalist against an-
other. The anarchy of production becomes more intense, and the
disruptive forces become more menacing.”

One may wonder, Marx says, why in face of the enormous in-
dustrial progress made under the present régime, the fall of the
rate of profits has not been more rapid; why profits have not be-
come nil, in fact. The reason is that there are some counteracting
factors. This explains why the falling rate of profits is termed by
him now a law, then a “tendency, that is, a law whose absolute
enforcement is checked, retarded, weakened by counteracting
influences.’ * Some of these factors are various methods of re-
ducing the value of the constant capital as it increases in volume
(increased productivity of labor, for example) and foreign trade.‘

But chief among the counter-balancing agencies are those con-
nected with exploitation of labor and with “‘increasing misery.”
The intensification of the toil, caused by the speeding up of the
machinery and especially by the prolongation of the working day,
serves to raise the rate of surplus value and consequently the rate
of profits. Then “depression of wages below their value” is “‘one
of the most important causes checking the tendency of the rate
of profits to fall.” ° Further, relative overpopulation allows vari-
ous backward industries, as well as those which receive the stir
toward further improvement, to take advantage of the unem-
ployed and to engage during the transition period large masses of
labor, with the result that the variable capital is kept large in re-

1 Capital, vol. iii, 283. 2 Ibid., pp. 300-301.

$ Ibid., title of Part 3 (p. 247); p. 275.
£ Tbid., pp. 272-282. 5 Tbid., p. 276.

SETS Te nS
ayn gt Sa Poser TRCTH TCHS reneeop at viRaRET TAT cae

teh. oF oy AERP BLS Flare

   

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

THE FATAL WEAKNESSES OF CAPITALISM 237

lation to the constant. In these industries ‘“‘wages are below the
average, so that both the rate and mass of surplus value are ex-
ceptionally high’’; and inasmuch as the average social rate of
profit is dependent on the amounts of surplus value produced in
individual spheres, such a condition helps in stemming the ten-
dency of profits to fall." The accumulation of wealth needs the
increasing misery of the laborers to feed on. Only by trampling
over the proletariat can the capitalist seek refuge from the hostile
forces he has provoked.

The falling rate of profits is a menace to the very existence of
capitalism. The strength of this régime depends on the volume
of gains, for the level of profits determines the rate of the accumu-
lation of new capitals. The spectre of slender gains drives off
the field the continual small rills of savings, flowing from num-
erous sources, seeking employment, growing upon their profits,
ready for centralization, and contributing to the strength of the
capitalist system. Accumulation is dried up. If, Marx says, the
formation of capital becomes the prerogative only of large cen-
tralized capitals, ‘‘the vital fire of production would be extin-
guished. It would fall into a dormant state.” The goal and life
process of capitalism is threatened, and the whole system finds a
fatal drawback. ‘‘Hence the fright of the English economists over
the decline of the rate of profits. That a bare possibility of such
a thing should worry Ricardo shows his profound understanding _
of the conditions of capitalist production.” The falling rate of
profit proves that capitalism creates its own limits, and that the
system is doomed to extinction by the very productive forces it
calls into service.”

so eer

Overpopulation, in Marx’s sense, with its attendant, increasing
misery, and the falling rate of profits do not exhaust the list of
the diseases of capitalism. The régime is in addition afflicted with
recurrent dramatic breakdowns, which do not represent inci-
dental failures of an otherwise well-working system, but which
are inherent in its very nature. These chronic fits, or crises, dis-
close in an impressive way the contradictions on which society is

2 Ibid., pp. 304, 283.

 

1 Capital, vol. ili, 277-278.238 THE TREND OF HISTORY

built, and expose in ghastly relief the maladies that infect the
capitalistic organism. Marx’s chief explanation of crises is found
in the third volume of Capital.! His exposition is fragmentary
and obscure. However, the central ideas stand out with some
degree of clarity.

The theory is well known. The main cause of crises is overpro-
duction, of consumer’s goods as well as of capital.

The end and aim, the sum and substance, of capitalism is ac-
cumulation and self-expansion of capital. The source of capital
is surplus value. The process of obtaining surplus value resolves
itself into two acts. One is performed in the factory where com-
modities are produced, part of which represents surplus value.
The second act is the fruition of this surplus, which can take place
only when the products are sold in the market. Surplus value is
not only to be produced, it must be realized through exchange.
One act is to sow, the other to reap. These two stages are not
functions of one another, for they are not so connected that an
expansion in the one necessarily entails an expansion in the other.
On the contrary, they are entirely out of harmony with each
other. The volume of production depends on the development
of the productive forces and is therefore capable of unlimited
expansion. The sale of goods depends on markets. Markets, how-
ever, offer effective resistance to the growth of production. The
intensity with which a market can be developed varies with the
power of the masses to pay for increased consumption. But of
this power they are deprived, since capitalistic distribution of
wealth implies a deluge of riches at one pole and of poverty at the
other. Nor can new markets be easily found. As Engels asserts
in the preface to the first volume of Capital (page 31), “‘ While the
productive power increases in a geometric, the extention of mar-
kets proceeds at best in an arithmetical ratio.”’

The consequences are as follows. With the progressive de-
velopment of the productive forces, the manufacture of commod-
ities, and therefore of surplus value, goes on at a tremendous pace.
Floods of articles are thrown into the market by competing capi-
talists, eager to sell and reap profits, but guided by no plan or

1 Capital, vol. iii, 285-303.

ment eresTHE FATAL WEAKNESSES OF CAPITALISM 239

caution. It becomes increasingly difficult to dispose of the prod-
ucts in the old markets or to find new ones. Soon a glut occurs,
and a stagnation or a complete cessation of production ensues.
There is overproduction; but not in the sense that too many
necessities of life have been produced in proportion to the popu-
lation. ‘‘The reverse is true. Not enough is produced to satisfy
the wants of the great mass decently and humanely.” There is
overproduction in the sense that too much of a supply has been
produced to enable the capitalist to sell at a price which will pro-
vide ordinary profits.’

Overproduction leads to a crisis with its devastating effects on
society. Industry is at a standstill, the proletariat is unemployed,
and its misery is more acute. The basic inconsistencies of capital-
ism are clearly revealed here. Social production coupled with
private appropriation of the fruits, production for profits and not
for use, discord and anarchy of production in society at large, in
contradistinction to the harmony and codperation within the
factory — all these serve as an impediment to the progress of the
productive forces and to the perpetuation of the system itself.’

Marx and Engels emphasize that the true cause of crises is
overproduction, and are greatly irritated over those who ascribe
it to underconsumption. Marx argues that “it is purely a tau-
tology” to claim that the poverty of the masses and their inabil-
ity to pay for products lead to crises; in fact, he says, wages rise
before the impending breakdowns.’ Likewise, Engels excoriates
Diihring for holding to a theory of underconsumption. Engels
urges that underconsumption is a constant phenomenon, for it has
prevailed ever since society was split into exploiting and exploited
classes. The variable is overproduction, which began to occur but
recently. Only a vulgar economist can explain crises, not by the
new factor of overproduction, but by the old one of undercon-
sumption.’ This, however, does not prevent either of them from
stressing the very view they so hotly denounce. Marx pronounces

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 

Ao mene

1 Capital, vol. ili, 301-303.

2 Tbid., pp. 285-287; Communist Manifesto, pp. 19-20; Engels, Socialism, Utopian
and Scientific, pp. 62-67.
3 Capital, vol. ii, 475-476.
4 Anti-Diihring, p. 237.THE TREND OF HISTORY

that “‘The last cause of all real crises always remains the poverty
and restricted consumption of the masses.’’* And Engels talks
in a similar vein, although in less emphatic terms, when he says:
‘Modern industry . . . forces the consumption of the masses at
home down to a starvation minimum, and in doing thus destroys
its own home market.” ”

Concurrent with the overproduction of commodities goes the
overproduction of capital. With increased compilation and con-
centration of capital comes a gradual fall in the rate of profits.
Small capitals, the offshoots of new accumulations, or small capi-
talists with meager funds, can find no adequate returns. This
signifies that there is overproduction of capital; again, not in the
sense that there are too many means of production, — this is
meaningless, since the desire for capital is insatiable, — but in
the sense that there is too much to promise a good return. A
point is reached where additional capitals can find no remun-
erative outlet. The unemployed capital competes with the em-
ployed, and the rate of profits falls still lower,* just as the indus-
trial reserve competes with the active army, with the consequence
that wages fall below the previous level. United when gains are
to be harvested, the capitalists find their interests severed when
losses are to be shared. Some capital is doomed to lie fallow, and
equilibrium can be established only when a number of factories
close down. In this competitive turmoil the whole productive
process receives a shock, and paralysis sets in.

During a crisis capital is the first sufferer, because it undergoes
violent depreciation, and for the following reasons. At the falling
rate of profit a large capital earns as much as a smaller capital did
at a previous higher rate; therefore, to all intents and purposes,
a large equipment is equivalent to a small capital.’ Again, capital
whose value is based on the surplus value it will fetch in the future
falls in value because of the diminution of receipts. Finally, since
the commodities on the market can be sold only at greatly re-

1 Capital, vol. iii, 568; see also pp. 301-302.

2 Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. 62.

3 Capital, vol. iii, 295, 299-300, 302-303.

4 Tbid., p. 304. 5 [bid., p. 296.

if hia pare}

mba ae ieee Saag TOTS POOP KareTHE FATAL WEAKNESSES OF CAPITALISM 241

duced prices, the capital destined to be created out of part of the
diminished proceeds shrinks with them. This fall of prices, Marx
adds, disorganizes the function of money as a medium of exchange
and ‘‘The chain of payments due at certain times is broken in a
hundred places and the disaster is intensified by the collapse of
the credit system. Thus violent and acute crises are brought
about, sudden and forcible depreciations . . . and finally a real
falling off in reproduction.” !

Credit, then, plays a part in bringing about crises. Marx ex-
presses this idea in various connections. Credit promotes the
inauguration of multitudes of new enterprises, encourages swin-
dles, speculation, and reckless adventures. The owner of credit,
possessing an instrument that actually belongs to others, wields
it without caution or deliberation. Credit strains the productive
forces to the utmost, drives production beyond all reasonable
bounds, accelerates overproduction, and thereby hastens the
violent eruptions. Credit is “‘one of the most potent instruments
of crises and swindle.” ? However, it is not to be taken as a cause
of crises. Marx teaches:

The superficiality of Political Economy shows itself in the fact that it
looks upon the expansion and contraction of credit, which is a mere symptom
of the periodic changes of the industrial cycle, as their cause. As the heavenly
bodies, once thrown into a certain definite motion, always repeat this, so is

it with social production as soon as it is once thrown into this movement of
alternate expansion and contraction.’

The overproduction of capital brings to view another “‘con-
tradiction” on which Marx insists. The capitalist is eager to
preserve the value of the existing capital and, moreover, to ex-
pand it. But the productive forces he sets at work defeat his
purpose, ruthlessly operate for a depreciation, and even halt the
process of accumulation. He is bent on the augmentation of
capital, but the agencies he unleashes lead to its devastation.
The very creatures of the bourgeois are inimical to his narrow

1 Capital, vol. iii, 298. New ways of looking at the connection between the des-
tinies of capital and crises are developed in the second volume of Capital, pp. 211,
545-547, 608.

? Ibid., vol. iii, 522, 573-576, 713.
* Ibid., vol. i, 695; Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, vol. i, 130.

 

~——THE TREND OF HISTORY

ideal — production, accumulation, for profit and not for the
benefit of society. Capital cannot increase its value without de-
preciating or annihilating it, cannot build without destroying
part of itself in the process, cannot go on in its work without
periodically paralyzing the whole system.’

Soon, however, forces begin to work for a revival of industry.
Stagnation in production, since it decreases employment and
renders labor submissive to drastic reductions in wages, creates
a new opportunity for the expansion of surplus value. With the
depreciation of capital, the rate of profits rises, because profits
are calculated on lower capital-value. Again, the low level of
prices and the competition among capitalists impel many to
adopt new methods, to introduce new machinery in order to de-
crease “individual value” as compared with the “social value”’
ruling in the market. Industry receives a stimulus, starts with
hesitation, and soon livens up with increasing momentum. The
cycle is ready to renew its course.’

In crises Marx and Engels see a prominent force that will de-
stroy the present system. Crises are levers of revolutions. The
main cause of the upheavals in 1848 Marx sees in the crisis of
1847, and he claims that the revival of industry following after
1848 accounts for the subsequent political reaction over the
Continent. A genuine revolution, he teaches when discussing the
events of 1848, is possible only during crises, when the modern
productive forces are in rebellion against the bourgeois form of
production; and he predicts that ‘“‘a new revolution is possible
only in the wake of a new crisis. One is just as certain as the
other.” ° Engels is of the same mind. In 1886 he points out that
the ever-recurring crises in England since 1825 increase unem-
ployment and enhance the sufferings of the workers, exasperating
them into a combat; and he threatens that ‘‘we can almost calcu-
late the moment when the unemployed, losing patience, will take
their own fate into their own hands.” * The prophecy is that in

1 Capital, vol. iti, 292-293, 303.

2 Ibid., pp. 299, 303-304.

3 Klassenkémpfe in Frankreich, pp. 9, 101-102.
4 Preface to Capital, vol. i, 31-32.THE FATAL WEAKNESSES OF CAPITALISM 243

time crises will become more widespread and more severe, and
will ultimately culminate in a chronic “universal” breakdown
which will bring the whole capitalist order to a dramatic stand-
still.

' Capital, vol. iii, footnotes on pp. 142, 574; vol. i, 26.

 
 
 

 

 

RUESPSP TY) Oo Eee, PLPN CENT VA TS OES LASHES EAN O TE LATE LE Pe eR TERE Te OnE PERT TRIE TE EyCHAPTER XIIT

THE TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM

Att these sinister phenomena of capitalism bear irrefragable
testimony to the fact that the system is bankrupt, and that the
capitalists are no longer fit to hold the reins. The bourgeois class
receives much, but it has nothing to offer in return. It is the
trustee of the social wealth, it controls the industrial activities
which supply the life blood of the community. It is regarded as
the backbone of present society. For this it enjoys stupendous
privileges. It is allowed to amass great wealth in capital, which is
but labor filched from others; it owns the natural resources, which,
as a gift of nature, are the common possession; it profits gratui-
tously by the increased productiveness resulting from the height-
ened efficiency due to the mere togetherness of masses of labor in
the factory; it appropriates freely the priceless social acquisitions
in the domain of science; ? it enjoys the support and protection of
institutions and laws, the praise and approval of respectable
people.

But it has complete disregard of the duties and tasks such priv-
ileges impose. It wields its power with revolting recklessness and
without any thought of responsibility. It pockets all the benefits
of its enterprises, ravishes the natural resources, cheats the people
with adulterated commodities, indulges in swindles, corrupts
officials with bribery laughs at the laws, and deludes the com-

1 Capital, vol. ii, 312.

2 “Once discovered, the law of the deviation of the magnetic needle in the field
of an electric current, or the law of magnetization of iron, around which an electric
current circulates, cost never a penny.” (Capital, vol. i, 422.) ‘Such a develop-
ment of the productive power is traceable in the last instance to the social nature of
the labor engaged in production; to the division of labor in society; to the develop-
ment of intellectual labor, especially of the natural sciences. The capitalist thus
appropriates the advantages of the entire system of the division of social labor.”
Ibid., vol. iii, 98. See also [bid., pp. 753-754-

3 Ibid., vol. i, 556; vol. ili, 100.THE TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM

 

245

munity through its mouthpieces, the army of educators, clergy-
men, and journalists. It is a sinister figure in society, standing
athwart the path to all that is good.

Moreover, it offers proof positive of its utter incapacity to dis-
charge the functions it assumed. By its fruits we know it. It
forces upon the proletariat a life of misery. ‘‘It is unfit to rule,
because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within
his slavery,” cries the Communist Manifesto.’ It is incapable of
maintaining the level of profits, and thereby an uninterrupted
augmentation of capital, and a progressive development of the
productive forces. Periodically it rocks the whole system with
violent convulsions followed by complete breakdowns. It is ‘‘a
class under whose leadership society runs headlong to ruin like a
locomotive whose closed safety valve the engine driver is too
weak to open.” “It is becoming more and more not alone a social
superfluity but a social impediment. It takes an ever diminish-
ing part in the work of production and becomes more and more,
as the noble did, a mere revenue-consuming class.” * It is en-
trusted with vital tasks, it exacts gigantic rewards, but in the
discharge of its duties it fails tragically. A radical change must
come.

It will come. But neither divine intervention, nor the universal
Reason, nor the free will of great men, nor the skillfully planned
utopias will bring it about. The change to a new order is an
evolution, a natural historical outgrowth of the present system,
an objective cause-and-effect process, just as evolution in nature
is. In the very capitalist system are embedded the seeds of its
own destruction and the elements destined to blaze the trail
toward a new order. Modern society moves within the vicious
circle of its own contradictions; “this circle is gradually narrow-
ing ... the movement becomes more and more a spiral, and must
come to an end, like the movement of the planets, by collision
with the center.” ®

The indefatigable dialectic is grimly at its work. The three
fundamental contradictions of capitalism up to a certain point

1 Page 20. 2 Engels, Anti-Dihring, pp. 183, 192.
3 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. 60.

 

Her

wereEee

  

Mimo
oo

THE TREND OF HISTORY

give impetus to the development of the productive forces. But
finally the stage is reached when these contradictions turn the
mode of production into an implacable enemy to any further de-
velopment of these forces: witness the increasing misery of the
proletariat, the falling rate of profits, and the recurrent crises.
The mode of production thus becomes entirely incompatible with
the very stuff of which its life is made. Accordingly, the produc-
tive forces rebel against the system and threaten it with destruc-
tion. “The task and privilege” of the capitalist is to develop the
productive forces which constitute the elements of a higher order.
Such a task he has already achieved.’ He is capable no longer of
controlling them or of making any further use of them. All this
only proves that the present system is relative to a certain his-
torical period, and that it is transitory. The career of the capital-
ist is terminated.”

But the very productive forces which seal the doom of the
present régime are the material out of which the new one will
shape itself. And already in present society there are intimations
as to how they will be employed in the future order. These
‘‘signs”’ are provided by the joint-stock company with its “‘social
capital”? — social, because it is supplied by many investors and
consequently represents a “social enterprise’’— and the co-
operative factory where “associated laborers” plan their work
and dispense with the spectacular figure of the capitalist. The
codperative movement is a particularly good omen in the eyes of
Marx. In his inaugural address to the ‘‘International”’ of 1864,
he hails this movement as a great “triumph of the political econ-
omy of labor over the political economy of capital.’’ The value,
he continues, of these ‘‘great social experiments” cannot be over-
estimated. They demonstrate that production can proceed on a
large scale and in accordance with modern science without the
existence of a master class; that, to produce commodities, the

1 “Tt is one of the civilizing sides of capitalism that it enforces this surplus labor
in a manner and under conditions which promote the development of productive
forces, of social conditions, and the creation of elements for a new and higher for-
mation better than did the preceding forms of slavery, serfdom, etc.” Cafital, vol.
lili, 953. Cf. vol. i, 649.

2 Ibid., vol. 111, 304, 522.ees Ts

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 

 

THE TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM

 

247

means of production need not be monopolized as a means of
dominating and exploiting the worker; that, like slave-labor and
serf-labor, wage-labor is only a transitory form “destined to dis-
appear before associated labor, which brings to its task a willing
hand, a vigorous spirit, and a joyful heart.” ! Codperation, social
production, social appropriation, and production for use, will be
the guiding tenets of the future system.”

The old order disintegrates, and the new one is molded by objec-
tive “‘necessity.”” Socialism does not descend on us, like a meteor,
from an extraneous world; our own history brings it to us. How-
ever, the process cannot enact of itself. There must be human
beings who will carry it out in consonance with the dictates of
the external agencies. These actors are the proletarians. The
capitalist cedes his place to the workers as the chief performers in
history. The proletarians are the worst sufferers from the present
régime. All its deficiencies bear down on them principally with
overwhelming weight. The trend of their fate is toward the worse,
while during crises their misery is enhanced. They become in-
creasingly convinced that the present order has nothing to offer
them but degradation, and that capitalism is incompatible with
the promotion of their interests.

Apparently, unlike all others, they are no victims of “‘illusion-
ism,” and they are not perverted by vulgar economics. The silent
forces operating within modern society, the specific diseases that
beset it with shortcomings and failures, the contradictions that
will ultimately shatter it, are clear to their view. They are the
only ones to discern the true nature of the relentless transforma-
tion of the present into the future society. They understand that
the coming system alone can dissolve all their troubles. Humili-
ated, starved, brutalized, exasperated, they perceive that history
entrusts them with a noble mission — to further and codperate
with the forces that work for the new synthesis, the new régime.
They accordingly discipline, organize and prepare themselves for
the purpose of carrying out the mandates of the dialectic forces.

—

1 Die Inauguraladresse der internationalen Arbeiter-Association, pp. 27-28.
2 Capital, vol. iii, 516-517, 521.THE TREND OF HISTORY

The means they will employ are the only historical means avail-
able for effecting progress — the class struggle.

Marx and Engels, as we have seen, discuss at length the nature
of the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the supporters
of feudalism for the establishment of the capitalistic system.
Likewise, the conflicts for the socialist order and the steps that
will assure it a permanent foothold receive their attention. The
question that interests the socialist and non-socialist alike is
whether, according to these two writers, the final struggle will be
effected through a sensational bloody battle or through peaceful
means, through a sudden revolution or a quiet, lengthy process.
This question cannot be settled with absolute certainty, for on
this point there is an abundance of obscurities and inconsistencies.
But broad conclusions may be drawn.

First of all, it must be noted that there is no clear guiding prin-
ciple. True, the dialectic process at work in society is, with Marx,
at once the principle of social evolution and the hidden power
behind the class struggle. But the dialectic per se does not fur-
nish the information whether the future social synthesis will be
achieved by a revolutionary cataclysm or by peaceful measures.
The dialectic allows of either method. It may be presumed that
the old thesis is too narrow to withstand the pressure of the anti-
thetic elements crowding in on it, and therefore it is torn apart,
suddenly and violently. Force, Engels says, plays a revolution-
ary role in history; it is the instrument of effecting social move-
ments and of breaking up dead political forms.’ “Force,’’ Marx
claims, “‘is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new
one.” °

On the other hand, it may be conceived that the dialectic may
not operate in such a precipitant, bloodthirsty manner, and that
the advent of a new synthesis is consummated by gradual adjust-
ments. Marx acknowledges this. On the Continent, he says, the
progress of social disintegration “will take a form more brutal or
more humane, according to the degree of development of the

1 Cf. Capital, vol. i, 836-837 and n.; Civil War in France, p. 80; Engels, Anti-

Diihring, pp. 183-184.
2 Anti-Diihring, p. 213- 3 Capital, vol.i, 824.THE TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 249

working class itself. . . . It [society] can neither clear by bold leaps,
nor remove by legal enactments, the obstacles offered by the suc-
cessive phases of its normal development. But it can shorten and
lessen the birth-pangs.”’ ! The midwife, then, may be of a milder
disposition.

The discussion must therefore turn to the scattered opinions
expressed by Marx and Engels on this question. When these
opinions are assembled, and then arranged in chronological order
and examined in their juxtaposition, an interesting fact stands
out. In the period around 1848, Marx and Engels were composing
odes to physical violence, whereas after that period, and to their
death, they realized that the proletariat can gain ascendancy by
other means, gradual and peaceful.

In 1847 Marx concludes his Poverty of Philosophy as follows:

 

Would it, moreover, be a matter for astonishment if a society based upon
the antagonism of classes should lead ultimately to a brutal conflict, to a
hand-to-hand struggle as its final dénouement? . . . It is only in an order of
things in which there will be no longer classes or class antagonism that social
evolutions will cease to be political revolutions. Until then, on the eve of each
general reconstruction of society, the last word of social science will ever be:
“Combat or death; bloody struggle or extinction. It is thus that the ques-
tion is irresistibly put.” ?

The Communist Manifesto, written in the first month of 1848, is
full of revolutionary threats, and among its last sentences we read:
the communists ‘‘openly declare that their ends can be attained
only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.
Let the ruling class tremble at a communistic revolution.” *? Marx
talks in the same vein in his historical sketches written in 1850
and 1851.*

But even at this period, when bloody revolution appeared as
the only expedient, they did not gloat over violence, but regarded

1 Capital, vol. i, 14.

* Poverty of Philosophy, pp. 190-191; Marx’s italics.

3 Communist Manifesto, p. 58. The Manifesto states that in the early phases of
the development of the proletarian class the struggle is but “‘veiled civil war”; but
ultimately the stage will be reached “‘where that war breaks out into open revolu-
tion, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the

sway of the proletariat,” (p. 28). See also p. 52.
* See Klassenkimpfe in Frankreich, p. 85, for example, and r8th Brumaire, p. 141.

 

SEEN SE o7THE TREND OF HISTORY

 

250

it as a distasteful although unavoidable instrument. In 1847
Engels prepared a catechism of socialism. Question 16 queries
whether the abolition of private property in a peaceful way is
possible. The answer states: it is much desired that this were
possible, and the communists would be the last ones to stand
against it; they know that revolutions are not made purposely and
willfully, but are the necessary consequences of circumstances
independent of the will of parties and classes; they see that the
development of the proletariat is violently suppressed in almost
all civilized countries, and that thereby the opponents of the
communists pave the way to a cataclysm; if the oppressed prole-
tarian is finally driven to revolution, the communists will stand
by him."

In the later years the tone changes. Marx and Engels begin to
emphasize that no sudden transformation by forcible means is
feasible; that there is no one prescribed instrument of effecting
social change; that the means vary with the country, circum-
stances, and institutions; that peaceful parliamentary measures
are quite possible and are indeed preferable in lands where demo-
cratic institutions prevail. In 1867 Marx praises the beneficent
effects of protective labor legislation. He assures the workers that
codperative production, extended to a national scale, will finally
liberate them. Further, in order that they may propagate the
codperative movement by ‘‘national means,” and in order that
they may counteract the many impediments which the bourgeoisie
will seek to place before them at each step, he exhorts them to
conquer political power through the political organization of
workers’ parties.” In the same year he also writes, as was quoted
above, that on the Continent the conflict can be brutal or hu-
mane, depending on the development of the proletariat, and that
society can shorten and lessen the birth-pangs.* At a meeting of
the Congress of the International at the Hague in 1872 he says:

1 Engels, Grundsitze des Kommunismus, p. 23.

2 Marx, Inauguraladresse der internationalen Arbeiter-Association, pp. 26, 28-29.

3 Capital, vol. i, 14. In 1871 he writes to Kugelman that on the Continent the
military bureaucratic machinery cannot be taken over, but must be broken — on
the Continent, but not elsewhere, in England or America, for instance. Neue Zeit,
vol. xx, No. I, p. 709.THE TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 251

We know that the institutions, the manners and the customs of the vari-
ous countries must be considered, and we do not deny that there are coun-
tries like England and America, and, if I understood your arrangements
better, I might even add Holland, where the worker may attain his object
[that is, “capture political power”’] by peaceful means. But not in all coun-
tries is this the case.

In 1891 Engels declares that in countries like the United States,
France, and England, where the majority rules, and where the
power is vested with the representatives chosen by the people, the
old society can grow into the new in a peaceful manner.” In 1894
he writes as follows: As soon as the socialists come into possession
of political power, they will expropriate both the industrial manu-
facturers and the landowners; whether the expropriation will pro-
ceed with or without compensation will depend, not on the social-
ists, but on circumstances; ‘‘under no conditions do we regard
indemnity as inadmissible; very frequently Marx expressed to me
the opinion that the cheapest way would be to buy off the whole
gang.’’° In 1895, a few months before his death, he summarizes
in his introduction to Marx’s Klassenkimpfe in Frankreich the
lessons that could be drawn from the socialist movement since
1848. He admits that Marx’s and his ideas around 1848-1850 per-
taining to the proletarian conflict were based largely on the ex-
amples of the French revolutions of 1789 and 1830, but that his-
tory has exposed their views ‘‘as an illusion . . . it has also totally
recast the conditions under which the proletariat has to fight.” *
First of all, it is clear, he says, that the old style of rebellion, the
sudden enthusiastic onslaught on the military forces, is no longer
even to be thought of; insurgents behind barricades are merely so
much fodder for the cannons handled by trained soldiers.® There
is a new method of proletarian warfare to be followed and a better
weapon to wield: the ballot. This the German socialist party had
demonstrated. ‘‘They had shown their comrades of all countries
a new weapon, and one of the keenest, in showing them how to
use the ballot.” © Propaganda, organization, votes for laws favor-

1 Quoted by Kautsky in his Dictatorship of the Proletariat, p. 10. Cf. Capital,
vol. i, 32.

2 Neue Zeit, vol..xx, no..I1, p. 10. 3 I[bid., vol. xiii, no. 1, p. 305.

‘ Reprinted in the International Socialist Review, vol. iii, 1-2.
5 Ibid., pp. 8, 11. 6 [bid.; p- 7:

 

 

eeTHE TREND OF HISTORY

able to the worker, the election of government officials out of his
own midst, the gradual acquisition of political power, are the
tactics to be diligently pursued. It will be only a matter of time,
then, before the swelling ranks of the organized proletariat will
‘“‘become the determining power in the land before which all other
powers must bow down.’’! ‘The irony of history turns every-
thing upside down,” Engels exclaims: ‘‘ We, the ‘revolutionists,’
the ‘revolters,’ prosper far better by lawful measures than by un-
lawful measures and violence . . . we under this lawfulness are
getting firm muscles and rosy cheeks and are the picture of eternal
life??? 2

Of course, even during this later period Marx and Engels are
mindful of the fact that violence, although not to be welcomed,
is yet not to be spurned; it has its historical significance in aiding
social change, Engels suggests in 1878. In 1895, in the above-
mentioned preface, he asserts that in countries where the ballot
is not used effectively, the right of revolution shall not be relin-
quished: ‘‘The right of revolution is after all the only actually
‘historical right.’’’ 4 But it seems reasonable to conclude that in
later years Marx and Engels saw in universal suffrage a weapon
destined to supplant the violence of revolution. In this opinion
concur Dr. Masaryk,® Professor Karl Diehl,® and Bernstein.’
Lenin, in his Staat und Revolution, argues strenuously that accord-
ing to Marx the sole means of attaining political power is physical
force. But he is hardly convincing, in spite of his shrewd pleading.®

Why did Marx and Engels change their views after the period
of 1848-1851? It is hard to tell. Marx never had a Boswell. But
some suggestions may be ventured. In the early period they were
fiery men in their thirties, smarting in exile, fresh with the memo-
ries of abuses dealt out to them by various governments; while

1 International Socialist Review, vol. ili, 12. a Thi, ps 13.

3 Anti-Diihring, p. 213.

4 International Socialist Review, vol. ili, p. 12.

5 Sur le Bolchévisme, pp. 15 ff.

§ Rectorial speech at the University of Freiburg, May 8, 1920, pp. 40 ff.

7 Evolutionary Socialism, pp. x, X1v.

8 Lenin’s controversy is given extensive discussion by Dr. W. Mautner, in
Bolschevismus, pp. 120-220.| TNE TSE Saas SAE RPURAIE PIT TI TE SRRRITD TOE RE DEDEDE STATES Ys Ty EPEDEH TEE TET STIR Cay COTTA TINE ar Rpm tree sted rechten trig rata cos

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 

THE TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 253

later, older age brought a cooler attitude and a calmer way of
looking at things. There were doctrines of evolution before and
throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, but Darwin’s
Origin of Species in 1859 impressed people’s minds with the idea
of gradual development; and Marx and Engels were eager follow-
ers of the achievements of science. Actual experience of the up-
risings of ’48 and later convinced them that a few enthusiasts can-
not prevail against bullets and cannon balls directed by skilled
hands. Again, in the eighteen-forties, and for a while afterward,
the plight of the workers appeared to be serious. There were no
effective factory laws and no public opinion favoring the laborer
to any considerable extent. He was helpless. It was a time when
so judicious a person as John Stuart Mill was pessimistic about
capitalism, doubted whether all the inventions lightened human
toil, and wondered at times whether socialism held better prom-
ise. A brutal conflict seemed to Marx and Engels the inevitable
means of emancipation. But later, when the worker gained dig-
nity, power, and suffrage, they began to see hope in other ex-
pedients.

When political power has been won by the proletariat, his
‘“‘historical mission” is by no means ended. A given society can-
not be turned into a radically different one at a single stroke.
Once in power, the worker has before him the laborious task of
gradually dissolving the capitalistic strongholds, institutions, and |

   

mechanisms, and of supplanting them with organs of the new

order. It requires a long period for the old to die out and for the
new to accumulate vitality for a vigorous, independent existence.

Therefore, between the ascending of the workers to the political

helm and the complete establishment of the socialistic régime

there intervenes a period of social transformations.’

This is the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The
experiences of ’48 and of the Paris Commune convinced Marx and
Engels that the victorious workers cannot take over the capitalist
state machinery and employ it as an instrument whereby to carry
out their purpose, the erection of a socialist system. The old state

1 F.g., p. 208, in his Principles of Political Economy.
2 Engels, Grundsdtze des Kommunismus, questions 17 and 18.THE TREND OF HISTORY

must go, and, for the duration of the transition period, a new
political form must be instituted, the dictatorship of the prole-
tariat.1 This expression was probably first employed by Marx in
1850 in Klassenkimpfe in Frankreich. On page 94 we read: “This
socialism [that is, ‘‘revolutionary socialism”’] . . . is the class dic-
tatorship of the proletariat as a necessary transition to the aboli-
tion of class differences.”’ A similar statement made by Marx in
a letter to Weydemeyer is quoted by E. Drahn in his Karl Marx
und Friedrich Engels iiber die Diktatur des Proletariats.”

The expression ‘‘dictatorship of the proletariat” suggests a
despotic government headed by a handful of ruthless persons who
rob the people of all choice save submission to decrees from above.
But this Marx and Engels never had in mind. By such a form of
government they mean no less than a democratic republic. This
is clear in all their utterances. The Communist Manifesto teaches:
“the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise
the proletariat to the position of the ruling class; to win the battle
of democracy.”’* In his criticism of the Ehrfurt program Engels
says explicitly: “If anything is well established, it is this: our
party and the working class can come to mastery only under the
form of a democratic republic. This is the specific form of the
dictatorship of the proletariat, as the great French Revolution
had already shown.” * Marx describes the Paris Commune as a
truly democratic experiment and as a stepping-stone to social-
ism.’ And in the introduction to this work Engels exclaims:
‘Well, gentle sirs, would you like to know how this dictatorship
looks? Then look at the Paris Commune. That was the dictator-
ship of the proletariat.” °

1 Introduction to Communist Manifesto, p. 9; Marx, Civil War in France, p. 80,
Engels’s introduction, p. 17. ‘‘Between the capitalist and the communist society
lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. To
this there corresponds also a political transition, in which the state can be nothing
else than the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.”’ International Socialist
Review, vol. viii, 656. 2 Pages.

3 Communist Manifesto, p. 41. Likewise, in Engels’s Grundsatze des Kommunis-
mus the answer to question r8, concerning the phases of the revolution, states: “it
will first of all set up a democratic political constitution.”

4 Neue Zeit, vol. xx, no. I, p. II.
5 Civil War in France, pp. 78, 84, 85, 80. 6 Ibid., p. 20.rrerrarererepratai tray gathco< i» 7 inaaeaamnaal

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 

THE TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM

   

255

The precise steps that will be taken by the victorious dictator-
ship in order to prepare the ground for the socialist régime are
outlined in detail in the Communist Manifesto. This document
advocates successive “‘ despotic inroads on the rights of property.”
It recognizes that the measures will vary in different countries,
but ‘‘in the most advanced countries” the following are recom-
mended: abolition of land property and of inheritance; a heavy
progressive income tax; centralization of banking, credit, trans-
portation, and other means of communication, in the hands of the
state; equal liability of all to labor, and so forth. These measures,
it adds, will “necessitate further inroads upon the old social
order,’ until the new system is completely introduced.! However,
these measures are declared later to be antiquated, and referring
to them in their joint preface of 1872, Marx and Engels confess
that “That passage would, in many respects, be very differently
worded today.” ”

The activities of the Paris Commune furnish henceforth the
example to follow. The organization and undertakings of the
Commune are recounted by Marx. It was composed of municipal
councilors elected in the various wards and revocable at will. It
was not a parliamentary body only, but simultaneously a legis-
lative and executive one. It instituted universal suffrage, sup-
pressed the standing army, and substituted the ‘“‘armed people”’;
the judges, police, and officials in all government departments
were elected by the masses, and were the responsible agents of the
Commune and subject to recall at any time; they were all made
public servants and at workers’ wages; the educational institu-
tions were opened gratuitously to everybody; it abolished night
work for the bakers; prohibited employers from reducing wages;
and the workshops and factories closed by the capitalists were,
““under reserve of compensation,” taken away and turned over to
“associations of workmen.” * It was “‘the political form at last
discovered under which to work out the economic emancipation
of labor,” once its political emancipation had been achieved. No

—

1 Communist Manifesto, pp. 41-42.
* Ibid., preface of 1872, p. 9.
3 Cztl War in France, pp. 9-10, 74-75, 85.cetera cagetanees ip Maes epeopee a,

    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

THE TREND OF HISTORY

more details are given. Marx assures us that the workers of the
Commune had no ready-made utopias to promulgate, and they
fully realized that the higher society would arrive after “long
struggles” and after a “‘series of historic processes, transforming
circumstances and men.” ! No other particulars are outlined
anywhere else by Marx or Engels relating to the consummation
of the far-reaching economic changes requisite for a socialist order.
This dictatorship of the proletariat is still a political state, in
the view of these two writers. Marx expressly declares that the
transition period between capitalism and communism is the dic-
tatorship of the proletariat, and that it is a state.” Engels, like-
wise, says that the Commune eliminated the bad features of the
state, but that the state can be completely abolished only in the
future when a new race of men is born.* This is quite in harmony
with their political theory. The dictatorship still coincides with
the existence of classes — the dying bourgeoisie and the trium-
phant proletariat fulfilling its mission of despoiling the capitalists
and of building the socialist regime. Some kind of organized force
is still to be maintained in order to subdue a possible revolt of the
class that is being expropriated.* Herein lies one of the chief dif-
ferences between our two revolutionaries and the anarchist. The
latter desire the abolition of the state immediately after the prole-
tariat has won supremacy. But Marx and Engels maintain that
political authority is indispensable while society is being trans-
formed into a socialist commonwealth. Engels asserts that, if the
Commune had not armed itself, it would not have lasted a day.°
It is apparent, however, that this proletarian state is not as
rigorous as the erstwhile capitalistic state. Engels is justified in
saying about the Commune that it was not a state “in the proper
sense.” ° The dictatorship represents the proletarian class, which
1 Civtl War in France, pp. 78-80.
2 International Socialist Review, vol. viii, 656.

3 Preface to Civil War in France, p. 20. The Communist Manifesto says (p. 41)
that the instruments of production will be centralized “‘in the hands of the State,

i. e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class.”

4 Marx, Neue Zeit, vol. xxxii, no. 1, p. 40; Engels, letter to A. Bebel, reprinted in
the latter’s Aus Meinem Leben, vol. ii, 322.

5 Neue Zeit, vol. xxxii, no. 1, p. 39.

6 In the above-mentioned letter to Bebel, p. 322.MERC, ae . O at Sere ee errno, Sete
: PARE 6 Fit aceecstc esha ean LAREN et Kane tele tabebedy teiuboeun semirek Ale, biebpid ig kab ie vba epbabdene 4b ciy beh cde) auiietel nl igh Saas ben betes okey cre debeded

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
 

 

THE TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM

 

257

is the bulk of society; therefore, to this extent, such a government
is congruous with society and is not a force superimposed over it,
while under capitalism the state is the machine of the minority
working against the majority. Again, this proletarian state is
transitory, and it is fully aware of this fact. It does not insist on
self-perpetuation; on the contrary, all its activities are directed
toward the building of a society where it will become entirely
superfluous. Finally, the ruling class wielding the state-power in
this case is not based on economic strength. It does not draw its
energy and prestige from its position in the relations existing
among the participators in production; in other words, the prole-
tariat is not economically the dominant agent, and the bourgeois
is not the subordinate agent, in the realm of commodity manu-
facture. The state here is therefore not rooted in the mode of
production; it is merely a temporary political expedient essential
in a scheme of establishing a new system."

When the dictatorship of the proletariat has accomplished its
work of transformation, the era of communism dawns on this
world. But as yet it is not genuine, thoroughgoing communism
— for that a new race of men with complete ignorance of the
fleshpots of capitalism is required. ‘The present generation is
like the Jews whom Moses led across the desert. It has not only
a new world to conquer — it must perish in order to make room
for men who will have been reared into a new world.” This new
society has just issued from the lap of capitalism. It still harks |
back in some respects to the old order; and “economically,
morally, and intellectually” it bears some of its features. This |
society Marx terms the first phase of communism, a phase that
is generally called socialism. It knows no private property, no
classes, no exploitation; everybody works, and production is
carried on by ‘‘associated”’ laborers. But distribution still has
the stamp of the capitalistic conception of equality of rights.

From the aggregate of commodities that society produces two
funds are, first of all, subtracted: one for productive purposes, as
replacement of capital and a reserve against accidents, and an-

1 Cf. Lenin, Staat und Revolution pp. 60, 84; Mautner, Bolschevismus p. 153.
2 Marx, Klassenkimpfe in Frankreich, p. 85.

 

 

yore er ees TEREST Tiss z258 THE TREND OF HISTORY

other for the cost of administration, which Marx promises will
decrease as society advances, and for schools, sanitation, and aid
to the invalids. Of the remainder each laborer obtains a share in
proportion to the amount of work he has rendered. He is re-
warded on the basis of his contribution.

This is seemingly in accordance with perfect equality of rights.
And indeed it is an application of right superior to the capitalistic
practices, for there is no appropriation of somebody else’s labor,
no surplus value, no exploitation. There is equality of rights,
since labor is measured for all by the same standard, namely, its
duration and its intensity. Nevertheless, Marx urges, this sort
of equality of rights is encrusted with bourgeois imperfections and
limitations. People are unequal physically and mentally. Some
can work longer and more intensively than others. Accordingly,
they will receive more remuneration, although their wants may
require much less. Then some are married and have families, and
their needs may far exceed the compensation received for their
work. Accordingly ‘“‘this ‘equal right’ is unequal right for un-
equal work.” It is a right to inequality of enjoyments and pos-
sessions. But, Marx concedes, it cannot be different in the early
stages when the new society is tainted with some remnants of
bourgeois ideas.’

In progress of time the second, the higher phase of communism
arrives. This is the apotheosis toward which the historical process
irresistibly moves, and in which it finds its triumphant achieve-
ment. No traces are left of capitalism. The state has dissolved
itself and vanished, since a society which knows no classes, no
exploitation, and no need of surveillance over rights, does not call
for it. ‘‘The government of persons is replaced by the adminis-
tration of things, and by the conduct of the processes of produc-
tion. The state is not ‘abolished.’ Jt dies out.” There are left
only a few administrative functions, the purpose of which is to
guard the public interests.* Instead of a state, there is a common-
wealth, a society; a community dedicated to the tasks of produc-

1 Marx, on the Gotha program, International Socialist Review, vol. viii, 647-649.
2 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, pp. 76-77. Engels’s italics.
3 Engels, Neue Zeit, vol. xxxii, no. I, p. 39.eee BGS

    
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 

THE TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM

   

259

tion, and inspired by the proposition that it is easier to cope with

nature and to develop in all directions when people unite and

organize their efforts. This is the ultimate societas perfecta that

Marx is dreaming of, the historical masterpiece, the final synthe-

sis after which the dialectic goes to rest well satisfied with work

well done.
It is a wonderful society. The bizarre anomalies of social pro-

duction and private appropriation; of codperation inside the

factory and anarchy outside, in society; of production for profits

and not for use, are long-forgotten nightmares. Production be-

comes social in the truest and widest sense. Everybody works,

and no one lives off the toil of his fellow being. Labor becomes

the first requirement of life. People are associated in their daily

work as freemen, ardently interested in discharging their tasks in

the most efficient manner. The productive relations are those of

equals codperating for the mutual good. There is no relation of

mastery and subordination, no class gradations and class strife.

Outside the factory there exists neither anarchy nor competition.

Society pools all its assets in labor, capital, natural wealth, and

scientific knowledge; calculates scrupulously the myriad of diverse

wants and needs of its members; plans with assiduous care for all

the phases of productive enterprise; and apportions wisely the

gigantic resources among the multifarious industrial channels so

as to ensure an uninterrupted and bountiful stream of products. :

The productive forces grow without restraint, ‘‘and all fountains |

of confederate wealth flow more freely.”’
In parallel to this social codperative production, goes on social

enjoyment of the fruits obtained. There are no rapacity and ex-

tortion, no superior claims of owners, no lion’s shares arrogated

to idlers. After the necessary deductions have been made for the

maintenance of public institutions and social enterprises, the

wealth is enjoyed by all the members of society; and not accord-

ing to their contributions, but in harmony with higher principles.

The narrow bourgeois notion of right is banished, and society

inscribes on its flag: ‘‘Each according to his capabilities; to each

according to his needs!” !

1 Marx, on the Gotha program, International Socialist Review, vol. viii, 640;
Engels, Anti-Diihring, pp. 240-241.

 

 

PIU TENETHE TREND OF HISTORY

The soul of capitalism is the amassing of wealth. “That is
Moses and the prophets!” Accumulation for accumulation’s
sake, production for production’s sake, that is the ideal. Men
are secondary; they are means, not ends. But in this “new and
better society” the final aim and the inspiring ideal is the full and
free development of each individual, the expansion of his intel-
lectual and social capabilities, the enrichment of his personality.
‘In bourgeois society, living labor is but a means to increase ac-
cumulated labor [capital]. In communist society, accumulated
labor is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence
of the laborer.” Society is no longer a bevy of toilers for the few
exploiters, in a poisoned atmosphere of class antagonism. So-
ciety becomes “‘an association in which the free development of
each is the condition for the free development of all.” * Man, his
well-being, his spiritual development, are the ultimate goal, the
final criterion that this future commonwealth sets for itself. Pro-
duction and accumulation are not the primary considerations;
at most they are merely the means toward the attainment of a
glorious goal.

But the human being does not gain in dignity and freedom only
because he develops his capabilities and widens his horizon. He
becomes free in a still larger and more profound sense. He be-
comes master of his environment. Under capitalism, where com-
petition and exchange are the ruling principles, man is subject to
the domination of his product. ‘‘Blind, coercive laws’’ operate
athwart his productive undertakings, conjure up results and
phenomena on which he has not calculated, and in puzzling ways
work counter to his expectations, harassing and baffling his mind.
He does not understand fully the agencies he employs and the
true nature of his activities. Not so in the new society. Men no
longer allow things to follow their course, and trust no more to the
anarchic ways of competition. They coéperate, plan, and control
their processes of production. They gain, further, more know-
ledge concerning their natural and social environment, thanks to
the acquisition of leisure after a shorter working day and to the
1 Capital, vol.i, 649, 652, 581; Engels, Anti-Dihring, pp. 240-241.

2 Communist Manifesto, pp. 33, 42-THE TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 261

unfettered growth of science. They therefore no longer work in
the dark, relying on secret laws, but act in full consciousness of
the principles governing each sphere.

This is the essence of freedom. Freedom does not postulate
independence of laws, or willful, capricious conduct. It rather
consists in the possession of a full comprehension of the principles
at work, in the intelligent application of them to desired ends,
and in the clear foresight as to the results that will follow. Nature
and the productive forces will no longer face man as strange
phenomena controlled by inexorable laws, each time asserting
themselves ‘‘blindly, forcibly, destructively.” Man confronts
them with the power of his intelligence and knowledge, harnesses
them to his purposes, and turns his wayward master into a willing
servant. ‘‘The associated producers regulate their interchange
with nature rationally, bring it under their common control, in-
stead of being ruled by it as by some blind power; . . . they accom-
plish their task with the least expenditure of energy and under
conditions most adequate to their human nature and most
worthy of it.””1 This mastery of man over his environment is
the triumph of the new régime. The new society proclaims “the
ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of
freedom.” *

1 Capital, vol. ill, 954.

2 Engels, Anti-Diihring, pp. 147-148; Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, pp. 56,
72, 80-82.5H ete Gs as ese é “Svar ioaiee 5 pateere er arr.
Spbs eter ates tevai iio vs React 3 zi cs icPARE WV

SOME CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS OF
MARXGS DBHEORY- OF ism@OReysLaCHAPTER XIV

A SUMMARY OF THE CRUCIAL CLAIMS OF THE THEORY

THE critic of Marx is assured beforehand of a host of professional
opponents. The socialists resent attempts to lay violent hands on
the sacred dicta of their leader. Marx is theiy man, and the ma-
terialistic interpretation of history is an important article of their
faith. They heap abuse on any intruder upon the hallowed
grounds. They forget that the theory of history is of interest and
importance to the non-socialist student of economics, history,
sociology, and philosophy, and that, as a contribution to social
science, it is subject to examination and criticism by those inter-
ested in these fields of knowledge. A physicist may be a socialist,
but that should not deter non-socialist scientists from analyzing
his studies in physics and from pointing out weaknesses. By their
attitude of intolerance to outsiders the socialists merely empha-
size the religious character of their beliefs and doctrines. They
give the impression that what Marx says cannot be wrong, and
that one who presumes to scan his writings and to dissent is de-
serving of harsh treatment. For example, anyone who reads
Professor Seligman’s Economic Interpretation of History dispas-
sionately must be convinced that he deals fairly with Marx. But
Professor Seligman dared to declare that society is also the play-
ground of other forces than economic, and that there can be more
than one interpretation of history. This displeased Louis Boudin,
who took him to task, quoted the passage in question, and laughed
it to scorn. Boudin had not chosen to apply to the writings of
Marx as high standards of discrimination and such meticulous
care for the soundness of concepts as he applied to Professor
Seligman’s quotation.! Quod licet Jovi non licet bovi.

The socialists derive amusement from the fact that the ‘‘bour-
geois”’ critics disagree as to the standing of Marx in social science.
Some consider his intellect one of high order, while others belittle

1 L. B. Boudin, The Theoretical System of K. Marx, pp. 41-45.

265

 

 

——266 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

his ability and his work. The socialists use this lack of unanimity
to discredit all critics and to show how futile are the attempts to
detract from their giant. They do not suspect that the fault may
be Marx’s. Where the case is dubious, the doctors disagree. There
is little dissension over the importance of the contributions of men
like Newton, Kant, Darwin, Comte, Adam Smith.

The socialists also insist that outsiders consistently misinter-
pret and misrepresent Marx. The critic’s vision is circumscribed,
they say, by his narrow bourgeois horizon, and therefore he cannot
fathom the depth and full meaning of Marx’s statements. What-
ever the critic holds to be Marx’s view, the socialists adroitly
prove the contrary, if it suits their purpose, by citing a passage
from Marx which gives the opposite view. But are the critics to
blame? Marx took insufficient pains to make himself understood.
Lenin and Kautsky were lifelong students of Marx, yet they dis-
agree radically with respect to his views on the state and the class
struggle.! The socialist journals are full of heated controversies
over the meaning of concepts, laws, and views enunciated by
Marx. Even such an admirer of Marx as Professor Sombart con-
fesses that the more he studied him the more he realized the
justice of Roscher’s verdict that Marx had no ability to reduce a
complicated phenomenon to its simpler elements.2 When an
author is obscure, careless in expression, and incessantly contra-
dictory, he is bound to be interpreted in different ways. Pareto
is right when he likens Marx’s statements to bats: you can see in
them something that looks like a mouse and something that ap-
pears like a bird.’

To undertake a complete criticism of Marx’s theory of history
would call for omniscience, since it touches on every phase of
human knowledge. The critic would have to be conversant with
the genesis and nature of such institutions and ideas as law, poli-
tics, state, family, religion, morality, science; he would have to
possess knowledge of anthropology, biology, economics, history,
sociology, psychology, philosophy; he would have to be clear

1 Lenin, Staat und Revolution.
2 Archiv fiir Sozialwissenschaft und Sosial politik, vol. xxvi (1908), 444.
3 Systemes soctalisies, vol. ii, 332.CRUCIAL CLAIMS OF THE THEORY 267

about the nature of the forces that operate in history and deter-
mine the progress of civilization, and about the ends toward which
the destinies of humankind are tending. The criticism which
follows is planned on a modest scale and will deal with only a few
phases of Marx’s theory. After an introductory summary of some
of Marx’s crucial contentions, the theory will be tested empirically
by an appeal to some of the general facts of history; its broad and
some of its fundamental deficiencies will be indicated; certain
specific weaknesses of its most important elements will be dis-
cussed; and, finally, a few words will be said about its significance
for social science.

We must first draw up a definite account of the specific claims
advanced by the protagonists of the materialistic interpretation
of history. One preliminary question is this: Just what are the
peculiar relations of the mode of production to the institutional
and ideological superstructure? What link do Marx and Engels
interpose? In the direct statements of their philosophy the con-
nections between production and the other phases of civilization
are designated in various ways; but they must pin their faith to
some one formula if their theory of historical development is to
be taken seriously.

At times they assert that the régime of production and the class
relations issuing from it constitute the basis, the groundwork
(Basis, Grundlage) upon which all human institutions are erected,
and from which all ideas irradiate.! If by basis or groundwork
they imply no more than the habitat, the container, such declara-
tions can hardly qualify as an interpretation of social life and
social change. What we seek in a philosophy of history is the
ruling forces, the governing causes, and not the habitat. A locus
standi does not account for the phenomena that take place on it.
A glass contains a liquid or a powder; but the glass does not de-
termine the nature of the liquid or of the powder, the chemical
composition of these objects, or their behavior under various

1 Communist Manifesto, Engels’s preface of 1883, reprinted in Sombart’s Grund-
lagen und Kritik des Sozialismus, vol.i, 128; Marx, Critique of Political Economy,
p. 11, Capital, vol.i, 200n.

 

 

mene*
—

 

  

MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

conditions. To state that the economic substructure is the basis
of history is not to disclose the nature of history and the char-
acter of all the departments of social life.

We also meet pronouncements to the effect that “in the last
instance,” and “ultimately,” economic production is found to be
the chief moment in social evolution. Such statements embody
significant claims only if they can be taken to mean that, when
we delve below the surface and earnestly search for the true
causes, when we make a real effort to disentangle all the elements

(at work in society, we discover that, after all, production is the
) governing factor. But if “the last instance” reduces itself to the
\ assertion that all the phases of civilization can be traced back to

production as the remote, primary fact, as the distant origin that
gave them the initial impetus, such utterances are of little value.
The priority of one set of phenomena can hardly imply that they
must be vitally bound up with, and serve as the persistent con-
trollers of, the subsequent set of phenomena.’ We shall agree
quite readily with Engels that man must eat and clothe himself
before he can engage in politics and philosophize about religion.
Primum vivere, deinde philosophari, said the ancients. But this
truth per se by no means establishes the fact that these antecedent
performances mold and control politics and religion, or that ideas

_are visceral and not cerebral. Priority is not causation.

Likewise, genesis hardly supplies an adequate explanation of
the nature and’the vicissitudes of historical events. To give a
homely illustration, a chicken is produced artificially in the elec-
tric incubator. The chicken is bought by a person living on a
crowded set allows it to roam at large. The fowl is run
over by an automobile and is killed. Can we assert that Benjamin
Franklin is the “ultimate” cause of the fate of this chicken?
True, he was one of the pioneers who studied electricity, and who
thereby gave rise, later, to electric incubators. But the death of
the fowl cannot be laid at his door. It was caused by forces un-
connected with him. To assert that in the mode of production
we see the ultimate origin of the institutional and ideological
aspects of society is far from explaining the character of these.

1 Cf. V. Pareto, Traité de sociologie générale, vol. i, §§ 343, 344-Cah eae

 

  

CRUCIAL CLAIMS OF THE THEORY 269

institutions and ideas. If the remote origin is the salient factor,
why start with the mode of production? We might as well go
further back and designate the primal star dust as the origin of
all things and as the explanation of the course of human destinies.
The one attribution of origin will be almost as enlightening as th
other.

There is only one view that commands serious attention, the
view that claims a causal connection between production and the
other phases of history. In the light of all their statements of the
theory, it is safe to conclude that this is the view they generally
have in mind, whether or not they always succeed in giving it
precise expression. Such an interpretation of their idea commends
itself to the reader by virtue of several considerations. Even when
Marx and Engels mention production as the foundation of his-
tory, they generally hasten to add that with a change in the foun-
dation a corresponding alteration will ensue in the whole super-
structure; ! that this foundation alone ‘‘explains”’ all the institu-
tions and ideas of a given epoch; ? that definite (bestimmte) social
forms of consciousness correspond to (entsprechen) the economic
basis; * and that economic relations are the determining (bestim-
mende) basis of the history of society.‘ It is clear that by founda-
tion they do not mean an innocuous, impassive habitat, but some-
thing affiliated with the superstructure, something calling for a
definite correspondence in the phenomena resting on it.°

Again, in nearly all the other direct announcements of their
theory there is either a hint or a definite expression of a causal
connection. Marx states that the principles, ideas, and categories
are shaped “‘conformably”’ with the social relations flowing from

1 Marx, Critique of Political Economy, p. 12.

2 Engels, Communist Manifesto, preface of 1888, p. 7; Anti-Diihring, p. 48;
Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. 41.

3 Marx, Critique of Political Economy, p. 11.

4 Engels, letter reprinted in A. Labriola’s Socialisme et philosophie, p. 257, and
in Woltmann’s Historische Materialismus, p. 248.

5 The exceptions are scarce where Marx and Engels mention production as the
foundation, without the accompaniment of suggestive or explicit modifications:
the only exception that came to my notice is in Engels’s preface of 1883 to the
Communist Manifesto, reprinted in Sombart, op. cit., p. 128.

    
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   
 
 
 
 
    

a rm

  

 

TET ELP CTE REMARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

 

270

production ;' that the mode of production conditions (bedingt) the
social, political and spiritual life process in general (dberhaupt);
that social existence determines (bestimmt) the consciousness of
men.” Engels declares that all “historical transactions are very
easily explained”’ with a sufficient knowledge of the economic
state of society ;* that production is the determining (bestimmende)
moment of history, and social institutions are conditioned (bedingt)
by production; * that production and exchange are the “‘ultimate
cause,” the “‘great moving power,’’® the ‘‘final causes,’’® in the last
instance, the ‘‘determining (bestimmende) moment” of history.”

Another question before us is whether Marx holds that the
mode of production is the sole governing cause in history. This
question is of basic significance, and no criticism of his theory
ought to forego a candid consideration of it. Unfortunately, no
categorical and assured answer can be ventured upon.

Three views may be entertained, two differing widely and one
occupying a somewhat middle ground. One possible contention
is that Marx envisages production as absolutely the only control-
ling factor of history, while all the other phases of civilization he
holds as passive resultants, as pale shadows. This contention
may be rejected without hestitation or argument. It must be
conceded that at times Marx and his friend say things that are
consistent with such an interpretation of their position. But
when the whole case is kept in mind, such a view clearly becomes
untenable. It should suffice to recall the effect attributed at
times by both writers to the action of human institutions and
ideas. Another conceivable argument is that Marx considers
production as only one of several dominant and independent
elements that govern the sequence of historical events; that the
material and spiritual factors codperate; that the work of the

1 Poverty of Philosophy, p. 119.

2 Critique of Political Economy, p. 11. See the original in German.

3 See Liebknecht, Karl Marx, Biographical Memoirs, p..49.

4 Origin of the Family, p.9. See the original in German.

5 Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. xviii.

6 Ibid... 45-

7 Letter, reprinted in Labriola, op. cit., p. 241, and Woltmann, op. cit., pp. 239-
240.CRUCIAL CLAIMS OF THE THEORY 271

economic forces is consistently modified by and interwoven with
the work of other autonomous forces; and that, consequently,
there is no reason for attaching primary importance to economic
as against non-economic agencies. This view must be discarded
as unhesitatingly as the first: it is incompatible with every cher-
ished claim of the materialistic interpretation of history.

Marx’s real attitude is somewhere between these extremes. The
mode of production is the most powerful cause of history; insti-
tutions and ideas are indeed, directly or indirectly, mere deriva-
tives of economic activity, but they are not altogether passive.
At times they retard or accelerate the effects of production. But
they cannot pretend to modify, except in an inconsequential way,
the results flowing from the conditions created by production.
Institutions and ideas are not dormant, they are active; only they
act as auxiliaries, as servants doing the will of the master, the will
they cannot alter appreciably.

To this conclusion we are driven whether we appeal directly
to the writings of Marx and Engels, or to some general considera-
tions. In the different statements of their theory (some fifteen
of them) they point to only one factor as governing the destinies
of man; and that factor is production. There is no intimation
that other independent forces may conceivably claim a part in
the historic drama. Undoubtedly Marx and Engels were writing
in the warmth of controversy; undoubtedly a protagonist of a
favorite idea is prone to neglect the elements that compete with
the one element he regards as supreme; nevertheless, if other
agencies had been weighing heavily in their minds, it is difficult
to see how they could consistently ignore them, and how again
and again they could declare emphatically and unequivocally
that all phases of social life are the results of economic activity,
and of that alone.

Further, their scattered general discussions of the origin, nat-
ture, and efficacy of institutions and ideas show the same attitude.
These agencies are not passive; they have repercussions on the
economic elements. But they do not act autonomously, they
merely carry out the mandates of production. They can retard or
hasten, they can modify to a slight measure theresults of economic

 

 

—_MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

production; but they can achieve no more. Laws will accelerate
factory development; the state may aid in the speedier introduc-
tion of capitalism; religion helps, in an instance or two, in the
promulgation of the republican form of government. But these
are cases where the “ideologies” codperate with and further the
imperial commands of economic forces, but cannot thwart them
or modify them appreciably. Institutions and ideas reign; they
do not govern.

Finally, the case is hardly different in some of the late letters
written by Engels in response to friendly inquiries or in reply to
the onslaughts of critics. He shows a conciliatory attitude and
speaks in tones that fall strangely upon ears accustomed to his
and Marx’s declarations. He admits that the economic situation
is not the only active cause, and that there is in history an inter-
action of forces; he cites instances — of minor importance, how-
ever !— where the economic factor is absent or not supreme.
But he invariably strives to emasculate these admissions. In
each letter he adds that the interaction of the various agencies
proceeds ‘‘on the basis of economic necessity’; that it is an inter-
action of unequal forces; that through all the ‘“‘accidents”’ the
economic movement prevails (durchseizt) as an implacable “‘neces-
sity’’; that among the interacting elements the economic circum-
stances are “‘the finally decisive ones,” that ‘the economic move-
ment is the most powerful, the most original, the most decisive,”
and that among all the relations on which history is based the
‘economic relations . . . are in the last instance the decisive rela-
tions, and they form the guiding thread which alone leads to an
understanding of it [history].” ?

From all this we gather that history marches to the fifes and
drums of economic conditions engendered by a mode of produc-
tion. The march can be retarded or accelerated by other forces;
it can even deviate slightly from the main road; now and then this

1 He mentions that the German dialects are the consequences of the geographic
environment; that war and conquest may destroy economic resources and, “‘under
certain conditions,”’ efface a local or national! economic development. Letter re-
printed in Labriola, op. cit., pp. 243, 251, 253-

2 Letters reprinted in Labriola, op. cit., pp. 241-243, 250-253, 257, 259-260; or
in Woltmann, of. cit., pp. 239 ff.CRUCIAL CLAIMS OF THE THEORY 273

or that marcher may be out of step; and occasionally one of the
marchers may venture away into a side alley. But the march is
to the fifes and drums.

This interpretation of Marx’s doctrine is reinforced by some
general considerations. To write a theory of history is to under-
take a stupendous task. The forces at work are to be delineated,
sequences and uniformities are to be exhibited, and the concate-
nation of the various elements and their mutual interactions are
to be traced. Marx and Engels fully realize this, and indeed they
subject one element of history to such treatment. They demon-
strate how it functions, they indicate what effects it produces,
they establish its cycle of evolution, and they show what forces
introduce changes in it. What element is it? It is the mode of
production and the classes it brings into being. Had they thought
that other elements were of similar power in history, they would
have accorded them, too, similar treatment.

It is not sufficient for Engels to concede in letters to friendly
protestors and to unfriendly critics that of course other forces are
also important. It is not sufficient for socialists to retort that here
Marx mentions race as of significance, that there he intimates
that tradition is to be taken into account, that in one place he
drops a word about the geographical factor and in another about
“outside historical influences.” How significant? How take into
account? Why? In what sequences? In what organic interming-
ling with other agencies? These questions must be answered.
These questions are not answered. To present an itemized list of
the “factors” that ought to be taken into account, — and Marx
fails to do even this, — and to argue that this list contains a
theory of history is a mere gesture. Is it not tantamount to stat-
ing that the source, content, and cause of literature are to be
traced to the dictionary?

Further, the goal and final test of a scientific proposition can
best be demonstrated by its power of prediction. When the
theory leaves the ferra firma of known facts and projects itself
into the tenuous atmosphere of the unknown, it discloses its real
character. To foretell the destinies of civilization is Marx’s am-
bition. This leads him to a pivotal application of his theory, an

em,274 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

application that furnishes incontrovertible evidence as to what
his philosophy really is. Now what method does he press into
service, what factors is he examining, and on what reflections is
he placing reliance in order to emerge with the conclusion that
socialism is the goal of the future? The mode of production, with
its dialectic and class struggle. Neither political forces nor re-
ligion, neither legal power nor morality, neither idealism nor lead-
ership receives attention; and all talk of geographical environ-
ment, race, tradition, and ‘‘other”’ historical influences is com-
pletely ignored.

We cannot presume to penetrate the recesses of Marx’s mind.
We cannot surmise and speculate upon the possible and conceiv-
able elucidations and concessions, modifications and retractions
that he would have made in friendly good-humored discussion, in
calm and reasoned argument, when confronted by well-meaning
critics; or what he might have written if a longer and less turbu-
lent life had furnished him the opportunity to elaborate on his
ideas of history and to present a consistent and complete philos-
ophy. What might have been, we have no means of knowing.
Learned, well read, well traveled, gifted with rare intellectual
powers, he might have made interesting and notable contribu-
tions. But speculations and divinations are out of place. All we
have to do is to examine what his pen has left. And the conclu-
sion is clear. Whether put forth in formal pronouncements or
casual discussions, in the heat of controversy or in less militant
moods; whether scrutinized in the light of logic or tested by gen-
eral considerations, his view discloses one fact: production is the
alpha and omega of history, all else is a vexatious parenthetical
digression. Except for slight modifications, retardations or accel-
erations brought about by other agencies, the mode of production
is the prime cause of history, the sole cause.CHAPTER XV

AN EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE THEORY

WHAT is meant by the statement that one thing is a@ cause of an-
other thing, and by the assertion that one thing is the sole cause
of another thing? Without assuming to enter at all deeply into
this difficult problem, we may consider it sufficient for our pur-
poses to say that A is regarded as a cause of B if, under a given
set of circumstances, we invariably find that phenomenon A is
followed by B, and that a change in A will lead to a change in B.
If the circumstances are modified because other elements are in-
troduced, such uniformities may not be observed, and yet A may
still be regarded as a cause of B; for in such a case the other ele-
ments may have their own influence on B, and therefore will
modify or counteract the action of A on B. Similarly, when we
assert that A is a cause of B, we do not intend to claim that under
any circumstances whatever, when we see B or a change in it, we
must infer that A was present or that a change in A has taken
place. Under other circumstances A may have been absent, but
something else may be in causal connection with B. For example,
a rise in the temperature will lengthen a copper rod. But we can-
not claim that, whenever we observe a lengthening in the rod, the
inference is to be drawn that it was caused by a rise in the temper-
ature. It may have been produced by stretching, or by hammer-
ing at the extremities.

The case is different when one claims that A is the sole cause,
the prime cause of B, the force that ‘‘in the last instance”’ deter-
mines B. Here we expect not only the same relations as when we
regard A as a cause of B, but a still more rigid dependence of B on
A. Whenever we observe B, we are compelled to conclude that A
preceded it; and under whatever conditions we discern a change
in B, we must infer that it could not have occurred without a cor-
responding change in A. For if B, or a change in B, occurs with-

275

 

 

oom em276 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

out A, or a change in A, it means that other forces enjoy the same
prerogative with respect to B that A enjoys; and then A cannot be
regarded as the sole cause of B.

Marx and Engels hold that the form of production determines
the various phases of history, and is the fundamental cause and
the decisive force in social development. This implies no less
than the following. Toa given mode of production will correspond
given institutions and ideas; a change in the mode of production
will be accompanied sooner or later, but unerringly and unfail-
ingly, by a corresponding change in these secondary and derived
aspects of civilization; definite institutions and ideas are linked
with a definite mode of production, and changes in them cannot
occur without a previous reorganization in the mode of produc-
tion. (It also implies that the same mode of production will under
any circumstances lead sooner or later to the same institutions

and ideas (except for slight modifications), and that the same
institutions and ideas always postulate identical modes of pro-
duction (again, except for slight modifications). | It would be
futile to urge that the mode of production is the decisive element
in the determination of institutions and ideas if the same modes
of production coexist in different times and places with different
institutions and ideas; if alterations in the other elements of
civilization occur without any antecedent alterations in the form
of production; and if the same institutions and ideas are found in
conjunction with diverse modes of production. In such a case it
would be manifest that the mode of production does not deter-
mine and is not the basic cause. In such a case other forces as
well, or other forces by themselves, exert a transforming influence
on human institutions and ideas; and Marx’s interpretation does
not interpret history, still less does it enable one to predict the
future course of social events. True, Marx and Engels themselves
ascribe a slight influence to forces other than the mode of produc-
tion. But this merely allows some slight modification of the in-
stitutions and ideas under the same mode of production; or some
retardation or acceleration in their changes, once a variation has
taken place in production. If the mode of production is ulti-
mately responsible for the remaining aspects of historical pro-AN EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE THEORY 277

cesses, if it allows only a small effect to other forces, then a rigid
connection between it and the institutions and ideas must hold,
and only slight modifications, accelerations, or retardations are
allowable; but no radical, thoroughgoing deviations.

If this is what Marx’s conception stands for, its soundness can
be tested by an appeal to history. Marx divides history into four
epochs marked by four modes of production, the gens, the slave,
the feudal, and the capitalistic. He claims that each mode of
production called into existence institutions peculiar to it, and
generated particular ideas within the minds of men. He insists
further that the dialectic, functioning within each productive
régime, alone brought about the evolution of each epoch into the
succeeding one. Without calling into question the validity of
segmenting economic activity throughout history into these
specific categories, let us examine, first, whether there is a definite
correspondence between these systems of production on the one
hand and institutions and ideas on the other; and second, whether
the dialectic behavior of a régime of production is the sole force
that causes change and progress in civilization.

Of all the institutions, the state and law are declared to be the
most closely connected with the mode of production and the most
faithful reflections of it. Let us see what history has to say on
this matter.

The gens society has no state in the Marxian sense, because it
has no private property, no classes, and no class interests to pro-
tect. However, Engels declares that where this form of society
persists, as in the Orient, the state arises under the form of despo-
tism.! Professor Tozzer indicates that primitive tribal societies
have a government, and that, moreover, the government is of
widely divergent types.” Despotism ruled in Polynesia; the same
form of government prevailed in aboriginal Africa, although
democracy was also known; the Iroquois Indians had ademocracy;
while among the Peruvian Incas the monarchic state held sway,
and ‘‘In the last years of the empire, the ruler, called the Inca,

1 Anti-Dihring, p. 210.
2 Social Origins and Social Continuities, pp. 199-211.

 

  

em278 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

was a supreme lord, and his government investigated and con-
trolled every activity of every individual in all the dominion.”’ !
Professor Tozzer’s comments are:

There is thus no definite and constant correlation between scale of culture
and form of government.... ? The different forms of government thus range
all the way from absolute authority vested in one man, through those where
leadership is held by one or two persons with powers limited by a council, to
communities ruled by a council alone with no central authority, and, finally,
to the most informal kind of body made up of the elders or of persons of
wealth and position.

In Ancient Greece and Rome the productive order was based
on slavery. Both belonged to the second economic era, according
to Marx. We ought to expect, therefore, the same kind of state,
the same type of government in both countries. This was not the
case. In both there were successions of different forms of govern-
ment. In Athens hereditary monarchy, the aristocratic and then
the democratic republic, despotism (the Thirty Tyrants), and
democracy have followed one upon another. It was not in vain
that Plato and Aristotle were so admirably familiar with the in-
nermost nature of all forms of government. Rome set out with
an elective royalty, went on with an aristocratic and then demo-
cratic republic, and ended with the absolute monarchy of the
Caesars.* In other words, the same system of production coin-
cides with wide disparities in the organization of the state.

The situation is no different in modern times. The passing of
the Middle Ages finds in England a parliamentary régime with
guaranties of certain liberties; but in France rigid absolutism is
in the saddle; while Germany is a honeycomb of separate small
states.° Both in England and in France the monarchic state ren-
ders invaluable aid in the thorough establishment of capitalism:
witness the unstinted support offered in the process of “original
accumulation” (so called by Marx), and the strenuous and en-
thusiastic promotion of the mercantilist system, proceeding for
centuries in both countries. One is led to think, therefore, that

1 Social Origins and Social Continuities, pp. 207-208.

* Ibid., p. 200. 3 Ibtd., p. 21%.
4 A.D. Xénophol, La théorie de Vhistorie, p. 360.

5 Ibid., pp. 360-361._— a
beget be ete b ee ee edie Lic hee ota te

AN EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE THEORY 279

monarchy is the ‘‘necessary”’ form of state for capitalistic pro-
duction. But it appears that the state is unsuited to this eco-
nomic order, and that it nurses its own gravediggers; after a
century or two of effort it obtains for its pains the kind of treat-
ment that is symbolized by 1688 in one country and by 1789 in
the other."

The Communist Manifesto acknowledges that, in its onslaughts
on capitalism, it takes England as the model in economic devel-
opment, while in politics France is accepted as the type.” This is
strange. A country advanced far enough economically to serve
as the “‘classical example” ought to present the best example also
in politics. Why France, backward economically as compared
with England, should nevertheless be more typical politically of
capitalist society, is difficult to see, if we follow Marx’s theory of
history as a guide.

Marx and Engels declare more than once that the Revolution
of 1688 merely effected in England a compromise between the
landed power and the bourgeois class, whereas in France the
Revolution of 1789 achieved a complete obliteration of the feudal
nobility and a definitive inauguration of the bourgeoisie. We
should expect, therefore, one type of government in France, emi-
nently suitable to the requirements of the capitalist class so firmly
entrenched. However, we find that such is not the case. After
the Revolution we see the relapses into the monarchies of Na-
poleon I, of the Bourbons, of the Orleanists; then the republic,
then the monarchy of Napoleon III, and finally the republic once
more; we witness the July Revolution of 1830, the February
Revolution of 1848, the coup-d état of 1851, the Commune of 1871.
No such repeated upturns occurred in England.

Inconsistencies abound even to-day. England and the United
States of America are capitalistically mature countries, but their
governments show marked differences. France, Italy, and Switz-
erland are also capitalistic countries, although not so far ad-

1 Cf. above, p. 148. * Page 14n.

3 Marx, Eighteenth Brumaire, p. 10. Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific,

pp. xxiv, 8, 13; preface to the third German edition (1907) of Marx’s Eighteenth
Brumaire, pp. 3-4.

 

'
'

—280 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

vanced; yet their governments are not alike. Turkey, Russia, and
China are quite behind in their economic development; neverthe-
less their governments are dissimilar. However, it may be con-
ceded perhaps that in these last few examples the differences in
the state present only those slight modifications for which Marx’s
interpretation allows room.

Law shows the same obstinacy in refusing to confirm Marx’s
theory. Engels declares that Roman law was a perfect system of
law for capitalistic society, and therefore it was suited for adop-
tion, with some modifications, by capitalistic countries. This is a
peculiar phenomenon.( A society based on the slave régime, as
Rome was, institutes laws which are fit for societies at least a
thousand years older and two economic eras removed. | The law
of a society ridden with slave institutions ought to be utterly in-
adequate for a capitalistic régime, just as capitalism cannot bor-
row its economic characteristics from a slave society. To mention
another instance, England and France are capitalistic countries;
both are in the fourth economic era. Yet in the former the com-
mon law prevails, with many earmarks of feudalism, while in
France civil law furnishes the legal basis. The law does not ap-
pear to be very sensitive to the mode of production. It is signifi-
cant that a jurist like Professor Roscoe Pound entirely omits the
economic factor in his Spirit of the Common Law, and severely
criticises Marx’s view that law is merely a reflection of economic
conditions."

Let us now consider religion, which Marx and Engels acknow-
ledge to be an institution remote from the economic basis yet sen-
sitively correlated with it. Precisely what cataclysmic transfor-
mations occurred in the mode of production of ancient Judea to
give birth to Christiantiy, a religion that has had a transcendental
influence on the history of man? And what new mode of produc-
tion arrived in Arabia to issue in one of the few great world re-
ligions and to launch Islam on one of the most astonishing careers
of conquest and expansion the world has ever seen? History fails
to tell. Protestantism, especially Calvinism, is pronounced by
our two philosophers as the religion par excellence of capitalism.

1 Interpretations of Legal History, chapt. s.AN EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE THEORY 281

If so, why did the Reformation begin in sixteenth-century Ger-
many, which was strongly feudal, as Engels well knows,’ and not
in the most capitalistically developed country in Europe? / Venice
had her quarrels with the Pope; yet Calvinism took root in back-
ward Scotland and not in this highly commercial city. France
was Catholic under feudalism; it is not Protestant under capital-
ism. The same is true of Italy, of Spain, and of other countries.
France, Italy, and Spain are Catholic; Finland, Holland, and
Scandinavia are Protestant. Is there any fundamental discrep-
ancy in the mode of production in these two groups of countries?
Is the latter group more capitalistic than the former? The United
States of America is capitalistic; yet there is no one religion corre-
sponding to or “‘reflecting”’ this economic basis. It has a welter
of religions, creeds, and sects. Switzerland is capitalistic, so is
Germany; but neither has a uniform religion. The Jews are as
capitalistic in England as the English, and as capitalistic in France
as the French; yet they are neither Protestant nor Catholic.
Protestant missionaries find converts among backward tribes in
Africa and Asia. Are these converts first transmuted into capital-
ists and then supplied with a religion their capitalistic interests
are clamoring for? ”

When we turn to ideas as distinct from institutions, we dis-
cover that they, too, seem to be fairly independent of the mode of
production. Take philosophy, for example. The theory runs that
philosophy is a tissue of absurdities and mystifications; that it
flourishes only as long as man does not possess a full understand-
ing of the ramifications of every branch of knowledge and of its
interrelations with the whole scheme of the universe; that phi-
losophy is short-lived and is doomed to extinction as soon as a
wider grasp is gained of the nature and interconnections of phe-
nomena about us. It should follow, according to such a view,
that philosophy ought to flourish in economically backward coun-

1 Engels, The Mark, pp. 109-113, reprinted as an appendix in his Socialism,
Utopian and Scientific.

2 In this case, too, it would hardly be pertinent to cite against Marx examples of
divergent religious denominations, such as the Methodist, the Baptist, the Congre-

gational, existing under the same form of production. Such examples doubtlessly
present minor variations for which Marx’s theory makes allowance.

 

 

——282 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

tries, where the environment is as yet incomprehensible to man
and uncontrollable by him, and that it — philosophy — ought to
evaporate in economically advanced countries, where man has
won a fuller understanding of the forces around him and a more
conscious and firmer control over them. But history demonstrates
that this is not the case. Rome was not, according to the testi-
mony of Marx and Engels, as many-sided and as fully developed
in economic enterprise as Greece was; yet Rome could not boast
of greater achievements in philosophy. Backward Turkey, or
China, or Russia never succeeded in deluging the intellectual
market with philosophical output. Germany and France are more
advanced, and the understanding of social and natural phenomena
is more pronounced there; but philosophy always flourished there
and is hardly languishing at present. England and the United
States of America are highly capitalistic countries, but in phil-
osophy they will not cede the place to backward Spain or unde-
veloped Mongolia.

Thus ‘an appeal to history shows that it refuses to wear the
strait-jacket which Marx and Engels would put upon it, and
that it is no respecter of systems of production. )The same form
of production is found with varieties of institutions and ideas, and
the same institutions and ideas thrive under different forms of
production. If the mode of production is at bottom the all-power-
ful cause, if it overrides all obstacles in asserting its sovereignty,
if nothing else counts except as a slight modification, retardation,
or acceleration — then each system of production ought to pre-
sent essentially the same aggregate of institutions and ideas in
any country and at any time. Any society based on slavery ought
to enjoy the same institutions and the same development of art
and science that Greece did. Any feudal society, be it feudal
Japan or Russia, is to furnish the same phases of civilization as
any other such society, e. g., France. And any one capitalistic
society must exhibit the same cultural development as any other,
for example, England. But history laughs at all this. History
fails to approve when Marx teaches Proudhon that “The same
men who establish social relations conformably with their material
productivity, produce also the principles, the ideas, the categories,AN EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE THEORY 283

conformably with their social relations.” 1 And how hollow and
helpless sounds Engels’s dogma: “*. . . the economic structure of
society always furnishes the real basis, starting from which we
can alone work out the ultimate explanation of the whole super-
structure of juridical and political institutions as well as of the
religious, philosophical, and other ideas of a given historical
period.” ”

As history fails to disclose persistent correlation between the
mode of production and the other phases of civilization, so also
it demonstrates that the dynamic forces working for change and
progress in society do not proceed in the manner that Marx pre-
scribes. Marx urges that the dialectic processes generate within
each mode of production elements antagonistic to it and cultivate
the germs of the succeeding order; and that the class struggle,
working in unison with the dialectic, consummates the new syn-
thesis. ,History, however, suggests that this dialectic behaves in
singular fashion. } The dialectic is a fitful, uncertain, capricious
force which knows no regularity or uniformity. Now it works
speedily, then slowly, and at certain periods it stops altogether.
Here it effects progressive change, and there it merely brings
about the periodical recurrence of the same events, leading to no
upward development. At different periods and in different places
it works in different ways, with different rapidity, and with dif-
ferent effects. It does not manifest itself as a natural process,
with steady regularity, without discrimination against particu-
lar historical epochs, and without favor to special geographical
areas.

During the long ages before the advent of civilization changes
did occur, yet the Marxian dialectic was at a standstill, and class
struggle was unknown. The dominant cause of social transforma-
tions was not the mode of production, but the organization of the
family and significant alterations within it, as Engels urges in the
Origin of the Family. All peoples begin, according to him and

1 Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, p. 119.
2 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. 41.284 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

Marx, with a gens organization, with primitive communism; !
but their evolution toward higher stages does not go on at the
same rate. Marx and Engels cite the Slavs and the Asiatic peoples
as perennial examples of the gens order: “The old tribal commun-
istic forms . . . may last thousands of years, as is seen in the case
of the Indians? and Slavs to-day.” * Our two authors do not ex-
plain, however, the causes which send some people on the path of
progress, while holding others chained in a rut. China and India
are much older than England. If it is true that the mode of pro-
duction and its dialectic are the all-dominant forces in history,
these two old countries should have traversed long ago the vari-
ous economic stages, and should at present revel in socialism,
holding to the rest of the world the mirror in which it could see
the glories that await it in the future. Yet England is far on the
road of economic growth, while in these two older countries the
dialectic went to sleep. The American Indians, I presume, began
their career in the world as early as the Europeans. Why did they
not develop economically as fast as the Europeans? Why did a
European Columbus discover America, and why did not an In-
dian Columbus discover Europe? It is not clear why the dynamic,
dialectic forces should be so energetic in America after 1620 and
in Western Europe, but so sluggish in America before 1620 and
in Asia.

In a similar manner, the dialectic favors Western Christendom
and labors enthusiastically for it, but discriminates against the
Mohammedan world. Engels relates that in Islam religious up-
risings spring from economic soil and are essentially economic
movements enwrapped in religion. But these uprisings, he says,
fail to effect progress: they do not uproot the old order and estab-
lish a higher one; they merely represent periodical recurrences on
the same level of economic development. It is different, he points
out, with the uprisings in the Christian West. There, too, in

‘“‘sens’’ basis or on the

1 The view that primitive society is organized on the
communistic basis is not held by modern anthropologists. See, for example, Primi-
tive Society by R. H. Lowie.

2 I. e., Hindoos.

3 Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 179. ‘‘In Asia . . . conditions of production . . . are
reproduced with the regularity of natural phenomena.” Capital, vol.i, 158.AN EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE THEORY 285

popular movements religion serves merely as a cloak for assaults
on antiquated economic systems; but the collisions are successful
in extirpating the old régime and in instituting a new one; and
thus ‘‘the world moves onward.” ! Finally, Marx and Engels
assure us that ultimately the dialectic comes to a dead stop, that
class struggles are abolished, and that transitions to new systems
become unknown. Such a situation will prevail under socialism.
The reason for this thorough paralysis of the dynamic agency in
history is hardly evident.

In general, the dialectic is in their hands not an objective and
precise manner of regarding social evolution, but rather a pliable
and obedient plaything, employed at will and manipulated to
yield a desired result. It is an irresponsible makeshift serving to
accommodate any purpose. “The confusion of the Marxian
philosophic notions will not be strange to him who knows what
can be done by means of the Hegelian dialectic, or rather what
cannot be done,” says Diihring, to the great dissatisfaction of
Engels.” Anything can be proved dialectically if one is a deft
hand at perceiving theses and antitheses lying about loose, no
matter how remote in point of time or how irrelevant to the issue
under consideration. It is the philosopher’s stone which lends a
respectable mien to conclusions that cannot be supported by
logic or enforced by factual evidence. {Is it necessary to prove
scientifically and conclusively that socialism is coming? Very
easy. Announce it as the necessary outcome of the inevitable
synthesis toward which the inexorable dialectic is moving irre-
sistibly in its relentless historical march.

Engels has one such proof, and Marx has another. Engels
teaches that all peoples begin their historical course with com-
mon property. This is the thesis. Then arrives the régime of
private property under slavery, feudalism, capitalism. This is
the antithesis. The synthesis will appear in the future in the guise
of socialism, which reéstablishes communal proprietorship, but
on a higher level than the primitive communism.* According to

1 Neue Zeit, vol. xiii, no. r (1894-1895), p. 5 0.
2 Quoted by Engels in his Anti-Diihring, p. 160.
3 Anti-Diihring, pp. 169-170.

 

 

 

—286 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

this way of looking at things, socialism should have followed upon
ancient slavery, which was a régime of private property, and
therefore the legitimate antithesis to the communism of the gens.
The synthesis should have followed directly upon the negation
of the thesis, and should have spared the world feudalism and
capitalism. Marx has another dialectic argument to support the
same contention, for he sees another thesis and antithesis scat-
tered at large. With him the thesis is represented by the latter
Middle Ages, when the means of production were owned by the
direct producer, when the peasant possessed the land he culti-
vated and the artisan owned the tools. The negation of this the-
sis came with capitalism, which divorced the laborer from the
means of production, and which, instead, gradually concentrated
them in the hands of a few idle exploiters. Then will arrive the
negation of this negation, and this must be socialism, which will
effect a restitution of all property to the immediate producers of
wealth by establishing an order based on the codperative associ-
ation of free laborers.!

The same irresponsibility is shown when the country is to be
chosen where the dialectic will first strike its mighty blow in be-
half of the socialistic society. According to Marx, France will
only “‘proclaim”’ the problem of the proletariat by providing the
theater where the class struggle bursts out flames subsequently
into a world war in which all nations are embroiled. But it is
England where the problem is solved, for during this world con-
flagration the English proletariat is driven to supreme power in
its country.? Engels’s choice, however, is Germany. It is there
that the workers will win the victory over capitalism; then the
other countries will follow. Marx reproaches Proudhon with
juggling with “contradictions,” and calls such performances
“scientific charlatanism.’”’ Marx was more critical toward others
than toward himself and Engels.*

How inadequate the dialectic is as a clue to social evolution can
be demonstrated by the failure of Marx’s and Engels’s predictions

1 Capital, vol. i, 835-837. 2 Klassenkimpfe in Frankreich, p. 85.
> Socialism, Utopian and Scienctific, p. xxxviii.
4 Poverty of Philosophy, appendix, p. 202.

ae RPT OaAN EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE THEORY 287

concerning the time of the arrival of socialism. The Communist
Manifesto (page 58) stated that Germany was on the eve of a
bourgeois revolution which would be “‘the prelude to an immedi-
ately following proletarian revolution.” Before the decade was
over Germany saw some upheavals, but the proletarian revolu-
tion failed to follow immediately or in the seventy-five years
since. In 1850 Marx prophesied that with the next industrial
crisis a new revolution would break out in Europe, and he added
that the one was just as certain to come as the other.' Since that
time more than half a dozen crises have occurred, but none of
them has brought on any revolutionary cataclysm. In 1885
Engels expected in the near future a political shake-up in Europe,
basing his prediction on the fact that in the nineteenth century a
revolution occurred within every fifteen or eighteen years, as in
1815, 1830, 1848-52, 1870.” But no such shake-up came. In 1886
he saw that the decennial cycles of industry which had run their
course from 1825 to 1867 had ultimately culminated in England
in a ‘“‘permanent and chronic depression.”” He prognosticates that
“The sighed-for period of prosperity will not come,” and warns
that ‘we can almost calculate the moment when the unemployed,
losing patience, will take their own fate into their own hands.” 3
Four decades have passed since that augury, and England has
seen several periods of prosperity and at least three severe crises,
but there has been no proletarian outbreak.

The dialectic provides for its two promoters no basis for pre-
dictions, because it exhibits no objective uniformities, no regular
sequences on which alone a law of development could be built.
Marx and Engels were full of expectancy, saw “‘signs”’ in every
event of more than ordinary significance, were obsessed with ideas
of swift dialectic upturns, and every historical ripple looked to
them like a titanic billow and as the harbinger of revolution.
Marx saw an impending revolution when he noticed the electric
locomotive on exhibition in London, and he was so enthusiastic
about it that poor Liebknecht caught the contagion and dreamed

1 Klassenkémpfe in Frankreich, p. 102. Cf. p.o.
2 Quoted by Kautsky, Der Weg zur Macht, p. 17.
3 Capital, vol.i, preface, p. 31.

 

—~288 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

the whole night about the fall of capitalism and the arrival of the
millennium. When the chartist movement gained momentum,
Marx hailed it as the promise of a new day, and glorified its ad-
herents as the champions of new systems. When the labor organ-
izations attained a measure of solidity in England, he saw in the
trade-unions the nursery of the class struggle that would bring to
the world the dawn of a new era. The Communist uprising in
Paris during the Franco-Prussian war he treated as a phenomenon
of exquisite historical dignity, regarded it as an event of gigantic
significance, and instructed the proletarians to follow it in many
ways as a model in their final clashes with the bourgeoisie. Engels,
too, always sees the “‘eve of a revolution,” sure victory in the
“near future,” and always hears the successor of capitalism
knocking at the door.! There is truth in Simon Patten’s verdict
that ‘‘ Marx was a bad theorist and a worse prophet.” ”

History fails to establish persistent correlation between the
modes of production and the secondary, derived aspects of social
life. It offers ample evidence that the dialectic process laboring
within the mode of production does not proceed in a uniform and
therefore predictable manner, but shows perplexing irregularities,
and is utterly inadequate to account for the course of historical
evolution. It awakens the suspicion that the dialectic is merely
a makeshift, a mystification, and not a reliable theory of societal
development. The materialistic interpretation is incapable of
interpreting history. The reason for the failure is obvious. It
simplifies matters that are exceedingly complex. It has a narrow
one-sided view of life. Notwithstanding their professed belief
that all things are mutually interrelated, Marx and Engels regard
the phenomena of civilization as a string of events linked in cause
and effect relationships, as a development proceeding in a rec-
tilinear manner. They establish a hierarchy of social phenomena;
assign to the mode of production the place of honor as the initial,
independent factor; and appoint it to serve as the ruling cause of
all the rest. But history is not so simple as this. It presents a

1 Anti-Diihring, pp. 129, 183, 180.
2 Reconstruction of Economic Theory, p. 24.AN EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE THEORY 289

bewildering complexity of elements, all mutually interdependent,
all influencing each other in various subtle ways, and all amalga-
mating into one whole. Social life is one. It is only when the
human mind attempts to understand its manifestations that it
dissevers the elements. To understand the workings of a mechan-
ism or of an organism, analysis must be undertaken. And analysis
discloses the fact that there is not only one force that explains
all civilization but a great variety of forces, and that spiritual
agencies are not to cede their place of importance to economic
agencies.

The adherents of Marx have a singular way of acting at this
point. They retort that he cannot be accused of ignoring the non-
economic forces in history, because he acknowledged that they
play a part. This is not the point at issue. That Marx accorded
some influence to spiritual elements is not denied. ‘The only ques-
tion is whether he recognized that they have an independent ori-
gin and an importance at par with the economic elements; or
whether he regarded them as mere emanations from the economic
subsoil, and granted them the subordinate function of only accel-
erating or retarding or slightly modifying the workings of the
mode of production. The latter is the fact., To Marx the form of
production is the all-dominant agency in history, an agency that
acknowledges no rivals. Now an appeal to history discloses the
fact that this way of looking at things is inadequate. When the
Eskimos are at the same stage of development at which they were
ages ago; when religions like Christianity and Mohammedanism
come into existence without antecedent alteration in the mode of
production in the countries involved; when a régime of slavery
yields in Athens a Plato and Aristotle, a Sophocles and Phidias,
and a marvelous blossoming out of civilization in general, but
exhibits no such manifestations in contemporaneous Sparta or
with any other nation under a similar economic régime; when
India and China are thousands of years older than the European
countries, but are vastly behindhand in economic development —
we are not witnessing slight modifications of effects produced by
the system of production and its dialectic; we are rather dealing
with evidence of the sustained operation of other forces which, in

 

 

ee emer290 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

defiance of the mode of production and its dialectic, consistently
produce results of their own. Marx’s theory is impotent to ac-
count for historical processes, and the reason is that he failed to
ascribe sufficient weight to the many non-economic agencies in
history.CHAPTER XVI

THE NARROWNESS OF THE THEORY

It is not the purpose here to give an account of all the forces at
work in society. The aim is not to offer a philosophy of history
destined to compete with Marx’s theory. An analysis and syn-
thesis of the elements involved in social evolution would require
superhuman powers. Some logicians, of whom Rickert is prob-
ably the best representative, maintain that historical laws are,
in the nature of the case, an impossibility.

The historian, Rickert explains, deals with empirical reality,
with particular events that have occurred in the past and that do
not repeat themselves. The concepts he employs, while general,
have yet a specific content, and serve as a means of grasping an
individual phenomenon. Out of the vast multitude of facts, and
out of the unlimited manifoldness of the details of each fact, he
singles out those facts and those details which are significant for
the total situation under scrutiny; in other words, the selection is
based on a standard of values and judgments. The causal con-
nection between the assembled data, and their change and evolu-
tion, can indeed be established; but the idea of historical laws is
a contradictio in adjecto. The case is different in natural science,
where the concepts are general and devoid of specific reference to
a phenomenon that had occurred in a definite time and place, and
in which, on that account, a causal relation is at once a generali-
zation, a “law.” Reality regarded from the standpoint of the
general js nature; reality regarded from the standpoint of the
particular and the unique is history.

However, a few tentative suggestions and remarks will be un-
dertaken, not in the way of proposing a codrdinated view of his-
tory, but rather with the purpose of illustrating and emphasizing

1 Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung, chap. 1, sect. 1; chap. 2,
sect. ii; chap. 4, sect. ii and iii; and passim. Menger, Dilthey, and Windelband
have similar views.

291

 

 

—292 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

how lightly Marx considered the problem, with what serious
omissions his theory can be charged, and why even a superficial
appeal to history shows that his conception of social life is inade-
quate.

One of the agencies that cannot be omitted in a sketch of the
elements that mold the life of societies is the geographical en-
vironment. Marx recognizes this factor; but he does not stress
sufficiently the various aspects of its economic influence, while of
its non-economic effects he loses sight altogether.

He makes nature an integral part of a mode of production; but
thereby the economic significance of this force is by no means
exhausted. A definite combination of certain geographical phe-
nomena will provide the possibility for a civilization; will give
direction to the occupations, modes of living, and interests of the
people; and will offer facilities, or obstacles, for economic develop-
ment. Fertile plains, rivers, and a warm climate invite settle-
ment; steppes produce roving nomads; the arctic and tropical
lands find checks to all progress; islands, peninsulas, and terri-
tories with a long coast line turn people’s energies to seafaring, to
trading, to daring adventures, bring them in contact with other
peoples, and make them cosmopolitan and versatile. Rivers,
valleys, and mountain passes create natural routes along which
commerce flows. People living on highlands have different occu-
pations, habits, and traits from those inhabiting the lowlands.
Egypt was the gift of the Nile, the Tigris and Euphrates were
cradles of ancient civilizations; Athens and Carthage, the Vene-
tians and the British, were encouraged to turn to trade and colon-
ization. The Tartars, the Eskimos, the Hindoos, the Arabs were
all influenced in many respects by their natural surroundings.

The non-economic effects of geographical conditions are of no
smaller moment in history. Ancient civilization grew up in Egypt
and Mesopotamia, not only because of the fertility and the climate
with which those lands were endowed, but also because the neigh-
boring desert and sea, the steppes and the marshes afforded ex-
cellent protection from the inroads of strangers, and promised
security and peace. Lands hemmed in by mountains breedTHE NARROWNESS OF THE THEORY

 

293

liberty-loving, hardy people; but while protecting the dwellers
from hostile intruders, keep them in isolation and shut off from
communication with other worlds. The many peninsulas and
mountains divided ancient Greece into numerous small states,
and created the opportunity for disunion, fatal quarrels, and
lack of codperation at crucial periods. The forests of old Russia
rendered communication exceedingly difficult, and led to scat-
tered settlements; this circumstance helps explain why many
loosely connected states arose, warring with one another through
centuries for supremacy.

On the other hand, countries on plateaus, or with many rivers,
have facilities of communication and mutual intercourse, render-
ing the people homogeneous and unified. Rivers and valleys
largely determine the direction of migrations and invasions; and
frequently geographical location exposes regions to great dangers.
The Rhine, the Rhone, and the Danube are associated with long
histories of warfare and movements of populations. Russia lay
on the route of the wandering Tartars, and she became subjected
to their yoke for long years in the Middle Ages, while serving as a
bulwark for Western Europe. This at least partly accounts for
the retarded development of the country. Similarly, the central
plain that is now Germany, lying as it does in everybody’s way,
was the logical theater of almost all the dramas enacted in penin-
sular Europe. From the time of the Roman Empire onward it was
continually exposed to influences from all sides. The stirrings
proceeding from the East and Asia Minor, from the northern seas
and from the civilized lands to the west and south, left varied
traces on this much-buffeted land. On the other hand, Great
Britain, for long on the road to nowhere, was spared many an
invasion, and was more than once left in peace, while the Con-
tinent resounded with the echoes of the battle-axes and shook to
its foundations with turmoil and strife. The effect of nature on
human character, on religion, art, and literature, may be men-
tioned; but such points are highly controversial.

The idea is frequently entertained that natural conditions are
significant only in the primitive stage of a people’s history, but
sink into unimportantce in the later historical experiences, when

 

—294 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

man learns how to overcome his environment; that they consti-
tute a stationary and passive factor, and therefore cannot pro-
mote change and development. It is doubtful whether this view
is wholly correct. True, as time goes on and man accumulates
knowledge, he emancipates himself to an increasing degree from
the fetters imposed on him by the geographical environment.
Nevertheless, throughout the history of a people the natural
factor is an ever-present element to reckon with, both in its eco-
nomic and in its non-economic potency. The natural surroundings
aid in laying out some of the main fields of activity of a people,
direct its interests in definite channels, create abiding contigui-
ties with other peoples and therefore permanent contacts and
occasional opportunities for friction. These activities, interests,
and contiguities propagate other interests and activities, send
repercussions on various other phases of life, and call for constant
adjustment, for ever-recurring policies, and for continual changes
in social conduct. Persistent motives and incentives, lasting
fears and ambitions are thus called into existence, and they may
dominate a nation in all its history.

The fact that England is close to France and is on the sea is a
constant factor indeed; yet, like a red thread, it runs through her
history. It drew her into devious entanglements and into interm-
inable wars with France throughout the Middle Ages. With the
discovery of the ocean, consequent upon the search for new routes
to the Indies, a new career was opened to her. Surrounded by
sea, having bred worthy and adventurous seamen, and having
whetted her interest in seafaring, she was ambitious to become a
sea power. Hence the wars, running intermittently for centuries,
with her successive or simultaneous rivals, Spain, Holland,
France. The acquisition of colonies brought new interests and
added new tasks to the far-flung empire. Distant possessions
must be defended, their neighbors must be constantly watched
and played against one another; there are adjustments to make
with colonies, and troubles to settle with the recalcitrant ones
among them; scattered dependencies call for more merchant
marines, for naval armaments, and these in turn require naval
bases, distant ports, control of strategic positions here and there.

FRAGT PTT TE 8 ETTHE NARROWNESS OF THE THEORY

 

295

The result is a whole network of treaties, understandings, jealous-
ies, rivalries, policies, and interests, with threads reaching every-
where. These facts do not fill the whole history of Great Britain,
but they form part of it; nor are they due solely to the geographic
influence, but they are doubtlessly due partly to it.

On the other hand, the geographical position of Russia filled
her with the ambition to cut a “window” to Western Europe;
and, bereft of good connections with the sea, she tried for ages to
get close to it, now through the Baltic, now through the Dar-
danelles, now through the Persian Gulf, now in the Far East.
These attempts had much to do with no few aspects of European
and Asiatic history. Had the geography of ancient Greece been
different; had she possessed extensive, fertile plains, long navi-
gable rivers, and no mountains; had she been removed far inland,
who doubts that her history would have been different in many
important respects? Examples can be multiplied."

Moreover, natural conditions do not remain constant. Re-
sources are exhausted, and scientific discoveries bring heretofore
neglected and non-usable wealth into prominence. Diminishing
returns create enduring problems in old countries, and fears and
appropriate policies concerning the future in the younger coun-
tries. When coal and petroleum become scarce in the advanced
countries, those still abounding in such resources, China or Russia,
for instance, will gain an advantageous position in economic de-
velopment. When coal and petroleum become everywhere ex-
tinct, the race will face new problems. Man will have to learn
how to utilize the sun’s energy, or will be compelled to adapt him-
self to the tropics, where the sun delivers the energy willingly in
the form of vegetation; or else, science will be compelled to devise
other ways of enabling man to thrive. Ellsworth Huntington
advances the thesis that climate does not remain the same, but
is subject to cyclical changes occurring simultaneously over very
large portions of the globe. He maintains that the periodical re-

1 Excellent discussions of the influence of the geographic environment will be
found in the following books: P. Vidal de la Blache, Principles of Human Geography
(tr. by M. T. Bingham, New York, 1926); F. Ratzel, Anthropogeographie, parts
1and 1 (Stuttgart, 1882 and 1891), and Politische Geographie (Miinchen and Berlin,
1923).

 

 

  

NRE One oy296 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

currence of a low rainfall and the consequent diminution of the
crops resulted in the past in enhanced pressure of populations on
subsistence, stirred up political discontent and strife, and started
waves of migration that led to great collisions among nations and
to mixtures of races. He suggests that these “pulsatory ”’ climatic
changes were chiefly responsible for some of the outstanding
events in history. They propelled the migrations which ulti-
mately overwhelmed Rome, incited the Tartar invasions from
Asia in the Middle Ages, and brought on the plagues of the sixth
and seventh centuries and the Black Death of 1346.1

Marx and Engels are aware of the potency of geographic sur-
roundings. Marx explains that the backwardness of the German
manufactures before 1850 was due to the ‘“‘unfavorable geographi-
cal situation of the country, at a distance from the Atlantic,”
which was the highway of the world’s trade, and to the incessant
wars fought on German soil since the sixteenth century.” Engels
ascribes the main cause of the divergence in the development of
the Old and the New Worlds since the days of barbarism, to the
difference of resources in tamable animals and in cultivable spe-
cies of grain.’ In one of his last letters he concedes that it would
be ridiculous to attempt to explain economically the origin of the
permutation of the consonants in “high German,” for the real
cause was the geographic division of the country formed by the
mountains that cut across Germany.* But these are isolated in-
stances. The trend of our argument is not to the effect that the
two writers are completely ignorant of the geographic influences.
One can easily assume that they were familiar with such facts.
The contention is that they fail to elaborate on such facts, to
establish uniformities of causally related sequences, and to amal-
gamate the uniformities with their theory of history. The con-
tention is that they pay surprisingly little attention to those eco-
nomic effects which are produced by natural surroundings quite
apart from the instrumentality of the mode of production; and

1 “Changes of Climate and History,’ American Historical Review, vol. xviii,
213-232.

2 Revolution and Counter Revolution, p. 18.

3 Origin of the Family, pp. 30, 193-
‘ Reprinted in A. Labriola’s Socialisme et philosophie, p. 243.THE NARROWNESS OF THE THEORY 297

that, with the exception of some casual remarks, the non-eco-
nomic results flowing from geographical conditions they neglect
completely.

But the natural environment alone is not a builder of civiliza-
tion and not a promoter of progress. It supplies merely the raw
material and furnishes incentives and motives. What is shaped
with this raw material, and what the response is to the incentives,
depends on the character of the creatures that find themselves in
contact with nature. The beasts of the forest had started out
amid the same natural conditions as man. Yet the beasts made no
history, while man built a civilization. ‘‘The measure of this
difference,’ says Professor Shailer Mathews, “‘is the measure of
non-economic, personal forces.’’! The traits that differentiate
man from the beast are powerful factors in history; and it may be
stated, in general, that the two primary elements of social de-
velopment are the geographical conditions and certain dominant
and distinctive traits of human nature.

These two agencies, the raw material and changes in it on the
one hand, and the molder, the reacting agent, on the other, are
the two initial, original forces which, working one upon another,
make history and create civilizations. If we are to descend below
them, we may as well begin with the primordial cell. Subtract
the specific traits of human nature, and the mode of production
remains inert and helpless; and the dialectic goes to sleep. Beasts
and birds pursue modes of production just as man does. Beavers
build dwellings; foxes hunt, fish, and contrive ingenious homes;
birds make interesting nests. They all have methods of providing
the essentials of their existence. But no progress is to be discerned
in these methods; and their modes of production erect no institu-
tions, formulate no ideologies, and write no history. This is so,
because beasts and birds lack those traits which man possesses
and which insist on doing something with a productive system
and on waking up the dialectic and putting it to work. The modes
of life and the activities of other animals are nature-imposed
biological processes, results of evolution through measureless
ages, and fixed for geologic epochs. Man, too, has a certain sphere

1 Spiritual Interpretation of History, p. 39.298 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

of unalterable actions prescribed for him by nature; but in addi-
tion, she bestowed on him endowments which emancipate him
from the doom of remaining in the same enchanted circle, and
which open to him realms of new adventures and possibilities
forever closed, apparently, to other creatures.

The first and most important trait that separates the human
species from the other species of animals is the superior intelli-
gence of man. The mutation, or whatever else it was, that granted
the human being a better mind to work with is a phenomenon of
foremost significance in the history and analysis of civilization.
It singled man out from among the other animals, tore him away
from the life of inertia and vegetation, and sent him on the up-
ward path of progress.! What intelligence is, in essence, what it
consists of, and what it does and does not do, psychologists, meta-
physicians, and philosophers may well argue, disagree, and con-
fess ignorance about. But the incontestable fact stands out that
man is endowed with an intelligence superior to that of other
creatures.

Marx and Engels frequently talk as if all the mind does, with
the vast majority of people, is to absorb reality, which reflects
itself in the head and transforms itself into ideas. Such a notion
is as vague as it is inadequate. How reality “reflects” itself,
what goes on in the head, how a fragment of experience trans-
migrates into an idea, is not made clear. If it is all so simple, why
is it not true of other animals? Engels insists that all our ideas
are copies of reality. Before people, he says, could obtain an idea
of a cylinder they must have seen rectangles revolve about an
axis. True, the ultimate source of ideas is the world of actuality.
But this does not mean that each idea is a shadow, a photograph
of facts. Ideas accumulate very largely by a process that only
an intelligence not possessed by the beast can undertake. Many
ideas grow out from those previously accumulated. One aggre-
gate of ideas will give rise to another without the intervention of
external facts. If the cylinder is a result of direct experience, the
determinant, the differential equations, the functions of real and

1 C. A. Ellwood, ‘‘Theories of Cultural Evolution,’’ American Journal of Soci-
ology, vol. xxill, 779-800.THE NARROWNESS OF THE THEORY 299

complex variables are not mere “reflections” of reality. Henry
Poincaré is right when he says: “The genesis of mathematical
discovery is a problem which must inspire the psychologist with
the keenest interest. For this is the process in which the human
mind seems to borrow least from the exterior world.”’ ?

Man’s mind is not an absorbing sponge, and his intelligence
transcends that of the beast. He possesses keen observation;
ability to investigate, to compare and contrast; and powers of
discerning the essential features, the soul of facts. He is capable
of forming abstractions and concepts, of analyzing and synthe-
sizing, of reasoning by deduction, and of attaining generalizations
on the basis of repeated observations. This capacity to think and
to arrive at general formulas and laws provides two potent econo-
mizing agencies that aid him incalculably in his struggle with
nature. Thought economizes effort: it banishes the necessity of
having recourse on each occasion to trial and error methods, with
the consequent waste of labor and resources. The accumulation
of principles and laws economizes thought: once derived, they
render invaluable service wherever they can be applied, releasing
man from the compulsion of going through afresh, in each in-
stance, the laborious and complicated processes of thought which
would guide his action. Economy is as important in the spiritual
realms as it is in the sphere of the production of commodities. In
a sense, economy is the aim in all the provinces of human activity

‘

and interests.

This superior intelligence is a supreme weapon in man’s hands.
Most animals depend on nature to endow them directly with
the means of protection and with the instruments indispensable
in the struggle for existence — mimicry, swift legs, secretions,
odors, change of fur. Man is not so dependent. Because of in-
telligence, his adaptation to the environment is not passive but
aggressive. He reacts to nature with his mind, shapes it to suit
his needs, and while obeying its laws, turns it more and more into
a servant obedient to his designs. Because of intelligence, man’s
evolution, since remote primitive days, has taken a turn which is
at sharp variance with animal evolution. Instead of the adapta-

1 Science and Method, p. 46. Cf. p. 36.

 

cre300 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

tion of the organism to the natural environment, human evolu-
tion began to connote the development and progress of institu-
tions and ideas. Human evolution is no longer biological; it is
social, institutional, intellectual. Subtract intelligence, and na-
ture will hold man, too, in thraldom, as it holds the animals; and
the mode of production will help man make history just as little
as the mode of production prevalent among the beasts helps them.
A discussion of intelligence by no means exhausts the dominant
features of man’s nature. Many other distinctive traits and dis-
positions are of paramount consequence in the social processes
that form the content of history and civilization. Emulation,
rivalry, inventiveness, sympathy, and the whole range of emo-
tions and feelings demand careful consideration. But they cannot
be taken up here. It must also be added that the distinctive
psychological traits of man will not account fully for the disparity
between his achievements and those of other creatures. The dif-
ference in his physical structure is also to be kept in mind. His
supple, prehensile hand and his erect posture rendered great
assistance in his development and in his accomplishments.

The geographical environment and man, with his intelligence
and other traits, are the primary and basic factors of history. The
mode of production cannot rank with them, because it is a de-
rived phenomenon. Indeed, some method of gaining a livelihood
had to be pursued by man as soon as he appeared on the globe;
but this method is a purely biological, mechanical process im-
posed by nature, and strictly analogous to the ways in which
other animals manage to subsist. His most primitive ways of
procuring food are not remote from the rudimentary reflexes,
tropisms, and instinctive movements of the animal; while the
mode of production upheld by Marx and Engels as the cause of
history and civilization is a far more advanced phenomenon. It
is a resultant of the deliberate action of man’s intelligence on his
environment; it is a derived and not an original, autonomous
datum.

Among the factors that emanate from the fundamental ele-
ments, man and nature, and that are preéminent in governing theTHE NARROWNESS OF THE THEORY 301

course of history, two deserve attention even in a cursory sketch
—religion and science. That religion is an independent force,
because its genesis cannot be ascribed to production, Marx and
Engels well recognize. With them, as will be recollected, the
fountainhead of religion is identified with the propensity of the
human being to search for an explanation and for an understand-
ing of the phenomena about him, and to mystify and clothe with
supernatural attributes those appearing to him as enigmas and
as inexorable. They treat religion with contempt, and consider
it as a conglomeration of barbarous and fantastic notions, amassed
by primitive man, transmitted in modified forms to the later
generations, and employed throughout the ages by the exploiting
classes to bemuddle the minds of the lowly. Under socialism,
they announce gleefully, religion will become extinct, because all
natural and social phenomena will be transparent, and there will
remain no more mysteries to tantalize mankind. Such views
merely demonstrate how narrow and superficial their promul-
gators could at times be, and how casually they disposed of some
of the most profound questions of social science. It may also be
observed that, according to this very theory, religion ought to
possess a long lease of a prosperous existence. As civilization
advances, the provinces of the unknown hardly display a ten-
dency to shrink. The more we search, the more problems we
solve, the more “laws” we discover — the more we appreciate
how boundless is the domain of fundamental secrets yet to be
unveiled. The microscope and the spectroscope, calculus and
evolution, the principle of the transformation of energy and the
concept of law in science, have released more hosts of unexplained
things and have wakened vastly more vexing questions than ever
perturbed the savage mind. “The progress of science,” observed
Alfred Marshall, “‘while increasing the stock of knowledge, in-
creases also the area of conscious ignorance.”’ ?

While they acknowledge the remoteness of religion from eco-
nomic soil and the independence of its origin, they treat it, in its
fortunes through history, as a mere shadow of economic phe-
nomena and as an element playing a meager part in civilization.

1 Industry and Trade, p. 657.

 

——302 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

In this they are wrong. Whatever the truth about the ultimate
origin of religion, — animism, magic, or this or the other psycho-
logical tendency of man, — religion remains a powerful factor in
the private lives of most people.

Even Professor Haeckel, who sees nothing in the universe and
man except matter, with its physics and chemistry, who vigorously
attacks all faith and mysticism, who gravely discountenances
all belief in the dualism of matter and spirit, and passionately
decries and derides the religious delusions and fancies of a per-
sonal God, an immortal soul, a life to come, and other super-
natural forces ‘“‘unknown and inadmissible to science,” even
Haeckel realizes the inescapable fact that religion is a perennially
vital agency in the life of man. And he proceeds to elaborate his

““monistic religion,’ with the “three goddesses,”’ — the true, the
good, and the beautiful, — which he would like to recommend as

a substitute for present religious beliefs.’

As in the private life of an individual, so in the collective life of
society. Religion does not function as the pale image of produc-
tion, but as an agency active on its own account. In ages past it
served as the center from which the animating, inspiring force of
social life radiated; it was the driving spring of art, literature,
architecture, and of many social interests and functions. It is
perhaps the all-absorbing element in the life of primitive and even
of more advanced peoples. The history and the destinies of China
and India, of the ancient Hebrews and Greeks, can be understood
much better if we seek to learn the part that religion played with
these peoples. That Christianity had a transforming influence in
history, not many would care to dispute. In the Middle Ages
religion colored every phase of human endeavor and exerted no
inconsiderable effect on economic life. It spread education, pre-
served learning, and nursed intellectual interests. Art, science,
industry, politics, and civic activities were all held together by
their common subordination to a spiritual ideal. It was religion
and religious fanaticism that galvanized the Saracens and in-
spired them to invasions and conquests which resulted in a long
train of historic events. Undoubtedly love of adventure and eco-

1 The Riddle of the Universe, chap. 18, also p. 301.THE NARROWNESS OF THE THEORY

 

303

nomic incentives played their parts in the Crusades; but perhaps
just as undoubtedly the religious motive was a dominant cause.

Then consider the Protestant Reformation, which for two hun-
dred years and more stirred Europe to its profoundest depths,
arraying nation against nation and state against state; exciting
war and cruelty, secession and disaffection; and leaving no inter-
est, spiritual or material, social or individual, unmolested. There
is much in Professor Shailer Mathews’ assertion that, had it not
been for the religious convictions of the seventeenth-century
religious leaders, history “‘would have taken a very different turn.
We might never have had the Dutch Republic, the Puritan Com-
monwealth, the colony of Massachusetts Bay, the Social Contract,
the French Revolution, or the Hohenzollerns in Prussia.” !

While the control religion holds over economic activity is not
as ostensible, persistent, and unified in modern times as it was in
the Middle Ages, it is nevertheless true that religion has not been
inert. To cite a few instances, Protestantism contributed a good
deal toward the upbuilding of modern capitalism, as investiga-
tions of men like the regretted Max Weber, Professor Sombart,
R. H. Tawney, and others demonstrate; the expulsion of the
Huguenots was not without economic consequences for France
and other parts of the world; the Spanish Inquisition hardly failed
to result in unfavorable repercussions on the economic develop-
ment of Spain; and before the past century, the backwardness of
Germany in economic growth was due in no small degree to the
acrimonious religious wars that had been fought on her soil.

These historical allusions do not prove, as Marx would have it,
that religion is merely the servant carrying out the mandates of
the economic master; they rather tend to demonstrate that re-
ligion is a powerful stream achieving tremendous results, alone or
in conjunction with economic and other streams; that it is a force,
now enhancing or attenuating, now submerging or deranging,
economic as well as other forces.

While religion endures as a factor to be reckoned with, one may
assert without hesitation that, in modern days, science has come
to the forefront as a molder of civilization. Marx and Engels are

1 Mathews, Spiritual Interpretation of History, p. 61.

 

—MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

 

304
aware of this. Science, they acknowledge, is indispensable in the
progress of production and in man’s endeavors to subdue nature.
They expect science to contribute a good deal in perfecting the
future socialistic régime and in bringing upon mankind all the
blessings which that glorious order promises. But their attitude
toward science is the direct opposite of their attitude toward
religion. They acknowledge an independent origin for religion,
but deny it any basic effects upon the course of history. In the
case of science, they are aware of its paramount significance, but
deny it an independent existence. Science, to them, is but a reflex
of the systems of production. It is at once the child and the hand-
maid of production, and no more.

In this they are at least partly wrong. It is hardly fruitful to
argue about the exact origins of science. Concerning such ques-
tions reliable knowledge is very scant. When man’s consciousness
commenced to waken him to the discernment of the properties of
objects about him, when his mind began to build abstract con-
ceptions and principles which constitute the true germs of science,
what motives and propensities stirred him — all this is hidden in
the mist of the past. One can support more than one thesis by
appealing to appropriate examples and by ignoring uncomfortable
evidence. The instances showing that science is due to economic
needs can be countered by citations pointing to non-economic
needs. Some claim that the overflow of the Nile was responsible
for geometry in Egypt; but so was the desire to draw figures that
would adorn the Egyptian temples. And then such behavior on
the part of the Nile is a geographic and not an economic phenom-
enon. One wonders why geometry was developed by the specu-
lative philosophers of Greece, who disliked labor, and not by the
Egyptians. Others will assert that the sea voyages stimulated
among the ancient peoples— the Phoenicians, for example —
the study of astronomy. But so did the clear, starry skies of
Egypt and Arabia; the ancient seers and practitioners of magic;
the religious festivals that called for the determination of the
precise time on which they fell due. Some will argue that the
processes of production led to the study of mathematics and
physics. But such studies were likewise urged on by the erectionTHE NARROWNESS OF THE THEORY 305

of temples and imposing altars for the gods, by the building of
pyramids and elaborate tombs for the dead.' Others will stress
that the demand for dyes and paints stimulated chemistry. But
this particular science was stimulated still more by the desire to
cure the sick and to embalm the deceased. For long ages, and far
into the eighteenth century, physicians and pharmacists were the
only chemists, and their private abodes the only laboratories.
Regarding such sciences, finally, as biology, geology, physiology,
the claim to an economic origin is tenuous indeed. Probably the
origins of science are attributable to a concatenation of causes,
as economic needs, geographical conditions, religious incentives,
inventiveness, curiosity, accident. Dr. O. T. Mason, of the
Smithsonian Institution, has made an exhaustive study of the
origins of tools, appliances, and devices, employed by primitive
peoples in their work of procuring a livelihood. One should ex-
pect that at least in this sphere inventions were stimulated solely
by economic exigencies. Yet in the conclusions drawn from his
study, Dr. Mason states that “invention is stimulated” not only
by human wants for food, clothing, shelter, rest, locomotion, but
also by the wants for “6. delight of the senses; 7. knowledge, the
explanation of things; 8. social enjoyment . . .; 9. spiritual satis-
faction.” ”

We are on somewhat firmer ground when the growth of science
in modern times is considered. Marx and Engels claim that the
sole propelling force which promotes scientific development pro-
ceeds from the necessity of answering questions posed by produc-
tion, and that the requirements and needs of economic improve-
ment furnish the only incentive to scientists to investigate and
to increase knowledge in their fields. This is not a comprehensive
view. Of course, economic conditions have a good deal to do with
the matter. When they create problems that demand solution,
no doubt scientists will devote to them their best efforts. Science
does not generally occupy itself with fictitious questions; it is en-
gaged in solving definite, concrete problems, some of them “‘gen-
eral,” others “special” or ‘‘applied.”’ During a war, when many

* Cf. J. Dewey, Creative Intelligence, pp. 123, 131-133.
® The Origins of Invention, p. 410.

 

—306 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

problems press for an answer on which the outcome of the contest
depends, the endeavors of scientists receive a tremendous spur,
and the war leaves some branches of science in a more developed
state. But scientific problems do not issue exclusively from the
province of production. Many branches of scientific research are
exclusively or largely interested in the physical well-being of man
— in the prolongation of life, in the eradication of disease, in the
improvement of health, and in the raising of the quality of the
population. Many sciences seek to discover the means of bettering
the relations of man to man, and aim to enlarge his comprehen-
sion of mind and matter, of institutions and the universe. There
are “‘light-bearing”’ studies and “‘fruit-bearing”’ studies, to use
Professor Pigou’s expressions.

Further, whatever its origins, once a science has gained a start,
it develops also, and very largely, of its own accord. It creates its
own problems, interests, and stimuli. Each stage of its develop-
ment gives rise to more questions, awakens further curiosities,
opens up fresh avenues of research, and suggests new lines of
attack. There are types of differential equations and peculiar
functions waiting for study, there is the ultimate structure of the
atom that excites curiosity, there are the behavior and nature of
light waves that one would like to analyze, there is the cause of
tides, the origin of life, the color of mice, and the evolution of man,
that invite investigation. It is sufficient to open the current
scientific periodicals to convince one’s self of the vast world of
questions, manifestly unrelated to the economic domains as far
as one can see at the moment, in which the realm of science is im-
mersed and with which it busies itself. It is very largely a world
of its own with an activity of its own. Of course, many of the
questions may sooner or later render great service to economic
needs, but such possibilities are not uppermost in the mind of the
investigator.

Nor is the contention admissible that the sole motives animat-
ing the scientist in his labors are the immediate utilitarian pros-
pects or economic compensation. What the scientist is interested
in ordinarily is the observing of uniformities, the search for re-
semblances hidden beneath seeming incongruities, the derivingTHE NARROWNESS OF THE THEORY 307

of generalizations which would economize thought and effort.
The winning of knowledge, the accumulation of a storehouse of
principles, laws, and formulas which will be suited sooner or later
to many requirements and which will answer many questions —
this is his goal. What captivates him is the harmony and order,
the beauty and unity, displayed by the manifestations he studies,
and not the economic emolument. Henri Poincaré, an eminent
mathematician and scientist says:

The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He
studies it because he takes pleasure in it, and he takes pleasure in it because
it is beautiful. . .. 1 am not speaking, of course, of that beauty which strikes
the senses. What I mean is that more intimate beauty which comes from
the harmonious order of its parts, and which a pure intelligence can grasp.
. .- Intellectual beauty, on the contrary, is self-sufficing, and it is for it, more
perhaps than for the future good of humanity, that the scientist condemns
himself to long and painful labors.!

Similar confessions are made by many a scientist who chooses
to reveal to the public his motives and the workings of his mind.
Professor John Dewey objects to the view that an instrumental
theory of knowledge signifies “that the value of knowing is in-
strumental to the knower. This,’ he continues, “‘is a matter
which is as it may be in particular cases; but certainly in many
cases the pursuit of science is sport, carried on like other sports,
for its own satisfaction.” ? He who watched the physicist or the
chemist putter around in his laboratory will be convinced that
what impels him is the scientific problems and interests. Anthro-
pologists and paleologists, philologists and modern astronomers
do not receive the impetus in their work from problems of pro-
duction, but from human problems and human interests. It is
not clear why we should insist that the physicists, chemists, or
mathematicians always do. Are these latter of a different breed?
Were Aristotle and Galen, Galileo and Kepler, Newton and Dar-
win, agitated by the economic incentives, and did they busy
themselves with questions addressed to them from the factory?
Utilitarian motives and economic interests are causes of scientific
growth; but other motives and other interests also come in, and
to a large extent.

1 Science and Method, p. 22. Cf. pp. 27, 59.
2 Experience and Nature, p. 151.

 

eae308 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

Let there be no misunderstanding. The argument above is not
insisting that “‘idle curiosity” is the inspiring motive of the scien-
tist and the prime mover of his achievements — if by idle curi-
osity is meant a purposeless, listless floundering around in the
laboratory, a seizing upon anything that will help beguile an idle
hour, a disinterested, child-like inclination to fabricate amuse-
ments. Such a type of curiosity will be productive of very little
science. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive how such a postulate
can fail to preclude fruitful results in any department of know-
ledge. The presence of definite purposes and guiding hypotheses,
of persistent interests and attitudes, is imperative. Theory is the
general, experiments are the soldiers. In addition, there must be
curiosity — although not idle curiosity — and enjoyment in intel-
lectual effort; else much work will be left undone. For scientific
labors are not easy and delightful, but very frequently hard,
monotonous, dirty. No; what the argument intends to empha-
size is this, that the purposes, problems, and interests of the scien-
tist are not solely economic, but that they also come from other
spheres, and that Marx has little justification in holding that,
while it is a powerful force that shapes the destinies of social de-
velopment, science is merely the concomitant of the mode of
production.

Nature and man, religion and science, are some of the elements
that account for the static social phenomena, for the ruling insti-
tutions and ideas. One can readily see that they also throw much
light on the dynamic aspects of history, on the processes that in-
troduce change and progress. However, the question of social
dynamics deserves more attention. When discussing the nature
of historical progress Marx and Engels deal with it as it 1f were an
automatic process: a dialectic force operates within each given
mode of production, and creates conditions which, when per-
ceived by the mature, oppressed class, incite it to struggles that
culminate in a social transformation. The dialectic descends on
production and of itself creates “contradictions” and forges for
mankind the instruments of progress. It appears as if there were
within the régime of production a kind of economico-molecularTHE NARROWNESS OF THE THEORY 309

bombardment on its periphery, a sort of fermenting, leavening
action going on of its own accord.

This metaphysics is a piece of the whole cloth. Any device is
acceptable which relegates the human agent to a secondary po-
sition, and which emphasizes that external, material forces dispose
of history according to a peculiar plan inherent in them. The
query arises why the dialectic does not choose to perform its an-
tics within the modes of production that obtain in the economy of
beasts and birds. Bears and beavers have interesting ways of
gaining a livelihood, ants and bees have elaborate systems of di-
vision of labor; all creatures live off nature just as man does. Why
does not the dialectic condescend to work for progress among
them also? The answer is that progress is not a resultant of a
carefully concocted dialectic hocus-pocus. There is something in
human beings which makes for change and progress; in other
creatures this something is lacking.

No discussion of progress is adequate which does not seek some
of its causes in man’s nature. The question of change and pro-
gress in the modes of production is part of the larger question of
change and progress in every phase of civilization. By and large,
there is discernible in the human being the persistent desire to
improve and to expand what is. There is a restless groping for
the better, an inner urge to take a step ahead. There is a desire
not only to live, but to have life in greater abundance. In some
individuals such stirrings are utterly lacking; in many they are
quite active. This urge does not lead to spectacular leaps, but it
results in continual, slow, imperceptible, and even insignificant
changes and departures. It is noticeable in each sphere of life, in
trivial things as well as in important affairs. It is true of the indi-
vidual, be he the executive in the office or the housewife in her
daily work; and it is true of groups, societies, and nations. It
appears that the substance of man’s existence consists of changes
and step-by-step improvements; that human life means change,
not only in the biological sense but also in higher senses. “When
men or nations originate, they live and grow; when they cease to
do that, they decay and die,” says Dr. O. T. Mason.’ There is no

 

1 The Origins of Invention, p. 410.

 

  

oe eeMARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

 

310

 

concerted action here, no deliberate, organized planning. The
process is rather haphazard, irregular, a medley of numerous in-
dividual trials and experimentations. The variations, slight as
they may be, are selected, imitated, reproduced, and accumulated
by accretions here and there, until appreciable departures result
from a given starting point. Each change is a drop, but many
drops make an ocean. Such is human nature.

It may be self-interest, economic and non-economic, that
asserts itself here; but this is not all. Emulation, rivalry, sympa-
thy, the desire for approval, and other traits, doubtlessly play a
part. ‘The passion to be something in the minds and hearts of
men is the very life of life, the fire which fuses individual energies
into social power,” says Professor C. H. Cooley.! The stir for
betterment is of course counteracted by the human propensity to
conserve and to yield to habit and tradition; but the stir is there,
and it functions nevertheless. Just as there is something in us
which leads us to conserve and to consolidate what we have, so
there is something which impels us to break up in order to build
better. Else things would stand still and wait for an environmen-
tal catastrophe to compel a change. It is something analogous to
the biological process of anabolism and katabolism. With some
individuals the one is stronger than the other. So it is with so-
cieties. In those communities where the individuals are not
shackled, where they move within a circle of freedom of action,
they contrive changes, and advance step by step. In Oriental
countries the conservative force is stronger, perhaps because of
religion and climate. This urge of improving, changing, and ex-
panding is not creating something out of nothing. It starts with
what is; but it prompts man to react to what is in such a manner
that a change results or a step ahead.

Among the multitudes who are prone to change and to improve
things there are some individuals who are capable of conceiving
of serious and important advances. These are innovators. Their
power of observing, imagining, and reasoning, their ability to
associate facts and ideas and to discern hidden and subtle rela-
tions among them, is so great that they can envisage phenomena

1 “Process of Social Change,”’ in Political Science Quarterly, vol. xii, (1897), 70.THE NARROWNESS OF THE THEORY 311

in new lights, can see from new viewpoints, and can suggest fertile
ways in which parts of reality may be molded so as to promote
a significant change or an appreciable improvement. They have
new ways of reacting to the environment. It is not a question of
fantastic inspiration, it is rather one, wholly or partly, of a bio-
logical variation: their minds are constructed in such a way; their
biological and psychological endowments are different. They
observe and discern more keenly, analyze and synthesize more
profoundly, and obtain suggestions more abundantly. They learn
more from their total environment than others, and they can do
more in the way of utilizing it.

The innovation is at bottom nothing “new”’; it is but a re-
grouping of the various fragments of experience, or a shifting of
emphasis; but this regrouping and this change of emphasis are of
great moment. Innovation is construction, not creation; it is
consistent with the older things, but it is also supplementary to
them. It will not be assimilated with the other social facts unless
it harmonizes with the existing conditions, unless it meets a pur-
pose and fulfills a need. But despite these qualifications, it is none
the less an innovation and it represents an advance. For, even if
a need is present, — and in society needs are perennially present,
— itis not apparent to all. Very frequently the innovator has to
discern the need, devise a way of meeting it, and open people’s
eyes to both the need and the solution. Fundamentally, it is pre-
cisely what is done with the materials at hand that determines the
originality and the contribution of the innovator. To illustrate,
the architect builds a temple out of brick, timber, and metal
which he finds at hand. There is nothing new in these materials,
but there is more to the edifice than a conglomeration of these
materials. Shakespeare found ready about him ink, paper, words,
even his themes and characters; but what he did with all this, the
manner in which his mind reacted to all this and utilized it, con-
stitutes Shakespeare.

Some admit that all this is true of fields like art and literature,
but they insist that in the domain of science there can be no such
thing as innovation. There are no inventions so-called and no
inventors. They assert that when an insistent need arises for a

 

——:312 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

certain scientific improvement, and when the previous stages of
scientific development have fully prepared the ground for it, —
in other words, when the environment paves the path to it, so
that it cannot help being discovered, — then it is discovered.
Anybody can step in and make the discovery; there is no inven-
tiveness about it. To lend strength to their view, they furnish a
list of inventions which occurred simultaneously in two or three
different places, and which were achieved independently by as
many individuals. Such views are well taken if they intend to
combat the idea that an inventor conjures up something miracu-
lous out of totally inadequate material; that divine or any other
inscrutable inspiration comes upon him, and during such lucid
moments great conceptions throng his mind. But, it seems to me,
they are not well taken if their design is to urge that inventions
are not at all dependent upon peculiar qualities of mind, which
are not given to each person to possess; that anybody interested
in the particular field could not help stumbling on the invention;
and that all inventions are part and parcel of the ordinary day’s
work of the ordinary scientist. That at times such is the case
must be conceded; but it is not always so.

An inventor regroups experiences and ideas and views them in
a different manner. Such a performance derives its source and
power from particular mental capacities. Lists of inventions and
discoveries by several persons working independently of each
other do not disprove this; on the contrary, they may lend it
support. They may suggest that in the wide scientific world every
now and then two or three persons are found who are so similar in
their mental character that, when confronted with the same situ-
ations and problems, they react in much the same manner. When,
at the same stage of knowledge, only one or two Newtons become
agitated over the question why the proverbial apple fell down and
not up, and discover the law of gravity; when one or two Galileos
gain the idea of the pendulum when observing and musing over
the oscillations of the chandeliers in the chapel, it is fair to infer
that, while reality and experience must be present, the peculiar
type of mind and inclination must also be present, before the re-
action to reality results in important scientific innovations. TheTHE NARROWNESS OF THE THEORY

 

313

environment may be replete with hints and suggestions, — it al-
ways is, — but not everybody will be alive to them, and very few
will translate them into discoveries and inventions. Such achieve-
ments are not mere matters of automatic and mechanical re-
sponses to stimuli. Any stenographer can turn shorthand into
words, and any expert reader of hieroglyphics can transform the
emblems into a story. But not every person acquainted with the
distracting masses and fragments of scientific experiments, with
the wilderness of laws, theories, hypotheses, conjectures, and con-
troversies, can select a specific set of relevant and pregnant facts
and theories, detect their underlying similarities and their hidden
interrelations, and abstract from them such ideas and principles
as will yield inventions and further laws. The intercession of a
particular quality of mind is indispensable. The keenness of per-
ception, the wealth of the apperceptive background; the gift of
imagination and association; the power of reasoning, with its pro-
cedures of analysis and synthesis, comparison and contrast, ab-
straction and generalization: the intervention of all these qualities
is imperative. And all these qualities are not shared equally by
all men or by all scientists.

Some may retort that scientific truth is one, that scientific dis-
covery is an inevitable concomitant of the progressive search for
truth, and that therefore the mind of the investigator cannot
alter things, cannot put an imprint on them and endow them
with the glamour of invention. True, scientific truth is one, ob-
jective, and impersonal. But it does not follow that it reveals
itself of its own accord. It has to be won. ‘‘ Nature does not wear
her most useful lessons on her sleeve,” said Walter Bagehot.
Speculation, hypotheses, reasoning, and experimentation are
needed before the road to truth is discovered; and here the inno-
vator is an important figure. The nature and behavior of light
waves have always been constant. But the determination of this
nature and behavior can be obtained only after prolonged study,
and the investigator with great mental powers can contribute a
good deal. In the eighteenth century the ruling hypothesis was
the one propounded by Newton, who claimed that light consisted
of exceedingly minute particles. This was superseded in the nine-

 

mene314 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

teenth century by Huygens’s hypothesis that light is a vibratory,
wave-like movement in the imponderable ether. At present both
the corpuscular and the vibratory ideas are accepted in part; and
scientists are still investigating the problem for more thorough
knowledge. The planetary motion had not changed its courses
over long ages. Yet the character of this motion has never been
an open secret. For thirteen centuries the Ptolemaic geocentric
“system,” with its hierarchy of epicycles, held sway; while soon
after the sixteenth century, the modern heliocentric theory, pro-
posed by Copernicus and promulgated by Galileo, had come into
vogue.

What is true of the domain of art and science holds good of any
other sphere. For example, statesmen, reformers, or thinkers on
social questions may gain a deeper insight into the potentialities
of latent social forces; and they may perceive that there is need
for a change, and that the ground is ready for it. They may pos-
sess keener understanding, a kindlier attitude, or a more wakeful
conscience. They conceive of the means that would synthesize
the welter of possibilities, and that would give direction to social
currents, amplifying and enhancing their power. Through writing
and lectures, discussion and controversy, they spread new view-
points, wake the desire for improvement, focus attention and
concentrate energies on issues, and help in finding solutions.
They arouse the masses, awaken them to a sense of “rights” and
duties, ‘manifest destinies” and ideals; and they supply watch-
words, slogans, and myths.

There is here no willful tearing up of the weavings of history,
and no abrupt injection into it of totally foreign and incompatible
ingredients. Nor are the efforts for the change well organized,
moving with army-like relentlessness and precision, steadily and
unfailingly driving at the objective; nor are the tactics the noblest,
the motives the purest. The process is more prosaic. Many
minds, various ideas, schemes, and proposals, codperate, interact,
and clash; self-interest, jealousy, bitterness, and treachery creep
in; the activity is haphazard, halting, swerving, retreating; and
ultimately the result may be a chilling compromise. Yet, despite
all this, the innovators have achieved something: new ground hasTHE NARROWNESS OF THE THEORY

 

315

been won, the ground won has been consolidated and utilized, and
a new point of departure has been attained for further change.
True, the innovation will not gain a foothold if it does not har-
monize with the network of surrounding facts; true, the masses
are not without their contribution. Nevertheless there is a resi-
duum which the innovators can claim as their product. Professor
J. M. Baldwin observes: “‘We never hear of society suddenly
making up its mind, in a collective way, to do this or that; it is
always individuals who work upon society through other indi-
viduals.” ?

It is in this manner that change or progress very generally
proceeds — be it in legislation, in turning away from traditional
religious viewpoints, in amendments to a constitution, or in at-
tempts to abolish war. It would be extremely difficult to find a
single idea in the writings of Marx that was original with him.
Yet his selection of ideas and his way of grouping and emphasiz-
ing them resulted in a system that had an overmastering influence
on the socialist movement in all countries; an influence that any
follower of his would be eager to acknowledge, although in the
same breath he would argue against the imputation of any signifi-
cance to individualities.”

History is not a summation of mechanical and automatic re-
actions of dumb agents to a dictatorial environment; it is an ag-
gregate of reactions of multitudes of intelligences, and among
them are the higher reactions of the greater intelligences and more
pronounced personalities. The very fact that we meet in history
personages whom we style as having been “‘ahead of their times,”
indicates that some minds see more in reality about them and
view things in a more fertile manner than the multitudes. Roger
Bacon in the thirteenth century had points of view and attitudes

1 Social and Ethical Interpretations, p. 461.

2 Engels writes to Liebknecht: ‘Although I have seen him [Marx] to-night
stretched out on his bed, the face rigid in death, I cannot grasp the thought that
this genius should have ceased to fertilize with his powerful thoughts the proletarian
movement of both worlds. Whatever we all are, we are through him; and whatever
the movement of to-day is, it is through his theoretical and practical work; without
him we should still be stuck in the mire of confusion.’”’ Quoted in Liebknecht, Karl
Marx, Biographical Memoirs, p. 46.

 

  

—316 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

toward science that were almost entirely foreign to the medieval
mind, and that gained recognition only centuries later. He was
far ahead of his time.’ If we believe in mind, in hereditary mental
capacity, in differences of hereditary abilities among individuals,
no stretch of imagination is required and no heroic assumptions,
to see that there are innovators and innovations. ‘‘The fact,”
says Bryce, “that the progress of mankind in arts and sciences
and letters and every form of thought has been due to the efforts
of a comparatively small number of highly gifted minds rising
out of the common mass speaks for itself. Natural Inequality has
been and must continue to be one of the most potent and effec-
tive factors in human society.”’ ”

We may say, then, that one source of progress in social life
consists in the innumerable, haphazard, small changes, and
especially in the more serious innovations of the better endowed
minds and characters — all promulgated under the spur of vari-
ous needs and interests, economic and non-economic; under the
stimulus of emulation, rivalry, sympathy, and ideals. These
slight changes, as well as the more manifest deviations, are se-
lected, imitated, propagated, solidified, and transmitted by edu-
cation, tradition, custom, and law. Neither the mode of produc-
tion nor the dialectic can of itself generate change and progress.

Some maintain that the presence of superior ability cannot
account for innovations, because, while possessed by the minor-
ity, it is always certain to be present; and therefore it ought to be
regarded as a stationary factor. They hold that changes in cul-
ture constitute the variable factor, and are consequently to be
taken as the cause of invention. This is an interesting view, only
it stops too soon. What is culture, and what effects changes in it?
If culture is a synthesis of institutions, ideas, customs, and atti-
tudes — then innovators have the opportunity to consummate
changes and progress in it; then this view resolves itself into the
assertion that one complex of innovations will prepare the soil for
further changes. Others believe that they present a final unassail-
able argument when they mention that history is governed by

1H. O. Taylor, The Mediaeval Mind, vol. ii, 484 ff.
2 Modern Democracies, vol. i, 62.THE NARROWNESS OF THE THEORY 317

objective laws, that the inherent historical tendencies will bow to
no personalities, and that the course of history is irresistible and
not subject to deviations. The query arises: precisely what is
meant by law, tendency, course? What sort of entities are they
that we must think of them as making history for us? How much
more are they than convenient terms the mind employs in the
attempt to unravel and understand social phenomena? Precisely
what creates the “‘laws,” guides the “‘tendency,” and regulates
the “course?”

This view is not identical with the great man theory of history,
if by great men are meant personalities standing immeasurably
above the ordinary innovators, and if by the theory is meant that
history is a succession of illustrious performances achieved by
powerful personalities, irrespective of the social milieu and in a
manner out of accord with cause and effect; that ‘‘an institution
is the lengthened shadow of one man”’; and that history is a re-
cital of how leaders led and masses followed. Such a theory is the
outcome, in many cases, of an aversion for a thorough, realistic
consideration of the manifold elements that combine to produce
a result; of a propensity to dramatize and to romanticize historic
events. Instead of undertaking a painful scrutiny of a total situ-
ation, it is more convenient to fasten one’s attention on a person-
ality, to clothe it with heroic attributes, to cluster around it the
relevant details of the picture, and to regard it as the cardinal
cause from which all things irradiated. The result is at once at-
tractive, plausible, and easy of comprehension. Where otherwise
there would reign a mass of general, impersonal factors, refractory
and baffling, we find harmony and order, something easy to visual-
ize and account for.

This method economizes effort, for both the investigator and
the reader. But it makes history too elementary and naive. It
relies on post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Every phase of the event has
a ready cause embodied in the glittering individuality created for
the purpose. As Professor John Dewey shrewdly observes:

We are all natural Jack Horners. If the plum comes when we put in and
pull out our thumb we attribute the satisfactory result to personal virtue.

The plum is obtained, and it is not easy to distinguish obtaining from attain-
ing, acquisition from achieving. Jack Horner, Esq., put forth some effort;318 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

and results and efforts are always more or less incommensurate. For the
result is always dependent to some extent upon the favor or disfavor of cir-
cumstance. Why then should not the satisfactory plum shed its halo retro-
spectively upon what precedes and be taken as a sign of virtue? In this way
heroes and leaders are constructed.

When a sagacious and elaborate inquiry is made into an out-
standing historical achievement, the results obtained are more
prosaic and more complicated. Instead of the central heroic
personality we see revealed the codperation of numerous social
currents, the ferment of diverse ideas, and the slow awakening of
the masses. History is not made by bold spectacular leaps, but
by the painful accumulation of modest increments in which long
successions of modest innovators collaborated. Distance lends
enchantment. An examination at close range dethroned many a
hero who enjoyed the rent of a lighthearted and gratuitous impu-
tation of celebrated deeds.

This sketch is brief and incomplete, for the forces at work in
shaping the destinies of society can be encompassed neither by a
formula nor by a brief mention of a few elements. The ruling
forces of civilization present a very difficult and perplexing sub-
ject; and a discussion of this or that factor offers no more than a
few glimpses. Professor Cooley remarks very justly regarding
Tarde’s book on the laws of imitation:

I think that other phases of social activity, such, for instance, as communi-

cation, competition, differentiation, adaptation, idealization, have as good
claims as imitation to be regarded as the social process, and that a book
similar in character to M. Tarde’s might, perhaps, be written upon any one
of them.*
Further, in this sketch the various elements have been treated as
disparate and parallel phenomena influencing the life of society.
But in reality they are all interdependent agencies. Geographical
environment, dominant traits of human nature, spiritual and
mental forces, institutions and attitudes, all are in intimate alli-
ance and in mutual interaction in their work of molding history
and compelling changes and advances.

1 J. Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct, p. 253. Italics are not mine.
2 Human Nature and the Social Order, p. 272 n.

ZS REEF PLE TOE PETHE NARROWNESS OF THE THEORY 319

Yet even this cursory survey is sufficient to demonstrate how
lightly Marx viewed the problem, and why an empirical test of
his theory by an appeal to general facts in history establishes the
fact that his interpretation fails to interpret. The mode of pro-
duction cannot be accepted as the sole and sovereign factor and
as the only key to an understanding of social manifestations.
Other forces, some wholly and others partly independent of pro-
duction, influence human history. These forces receive inade-
quate recognition and treatment at his hands. Some forces re-
ceive incomplete consideration, others are not emphasized suffi-
ciently, while still others are passed over in complete silence.

It may be objected at this point that a charge of omissions
against Marx is irrelevant, because his was not a philosophy of
history but rather a method of studying it. As a method of ap-
proach, as a viewpoint, it is not expected to take into account
everything that influences the course of civilization. This ob-
jection is not well founded. Marx intends to offer a philosophy
of history, not a method. His interpretation claims to explain
the origin, nature, and destiny of the state, law, politics, religion,
morality, and science. It divides history into epochs, and indi-
cates why each epoch dissolves in order to cede its place to the
next one. It explores the course of the past, subjects to a critical
analysis the present, and predicts the future. It explains how man
lives and thinks, what his fundamental interests and motives are,
why he is dissatisfied, and how he struggles. It inspires and con-
soles the proletarians and promises them the happy land. It ex-
plains the mechanism of the present order, discloses its processes,
and diagnoses its pathology; it suggests and insists on the cure.
It begins, continues, and ends history. Is all this to be called
merely a method of history? The socialists attempt to salvage
Marx’s theory by bestowing on it the innocuous name of a method.
But if it is true that Marx offered only a method of approaching
the study of history, it is not altogether clear why they put so
much stress on the materialistic interpretation. Why should such
a theory interest them at all? Are socialists inevitably and in-
herently also students of historical methodology? They ought to
ignore it as they ignore Engels’s articles on military tactics andMARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

 

320

Marx’s writings on the Turkish question and his manuscript notes
on calculus.

Marx’s interpretation of history suffers in the same manner as
any other one-sided exposition, and for the same reason. The
content of social life presents a vast mass of phenomena inter-
tangled in all possible ways; and the more intensive one’s study
of history, the more numerous the details grow and the more
puzzling they become. The interpreter of history finds it impos-
sible to search into all the particulars in the inchoate mass and
reduce them to a semblance of order. He must attempt a selec-
tion of the facts; and here the mischief begins to creep in. The
selection is made according to the traditional standards or the
idiosyncrasies of the historian who may adhere to a particular
school or promulgate special theories of his own.

The facts selected, like any other historical facts, differ from
facts and objects under ordinary observation in every-day life.
The latter a person can perceive with his physical senses, without
the interposition of the so-called higher faculties of intelligence.
We see children at play, we hear the bird sing, we feel the cold
rock. But social phenomena are generally not such rudimentary,
objective, and discrete data. They are the reflections of human
relations, emotions, thoughts, and errors; they are intertwined
with other circumstances in a complicated maze; they are fluid
and evasive. They cannot be perceived and grasped at a glance;
they have to be isolated, interpreted, and evaluated. Judgment,
discrimination, and analysis are called into action. Social data
come to us not through perception, but by apperception. There
is ample opportunity for grinding one’s axe.

The difficulties, moreover, do not terminate at this juncture.
To win an understanding of historic events, it is necessary to
establish sequences, uniformities, cause and effect. Now every
event has an endless number of causes, for it is a function of the
total situation. Secondly, the causal connection is not implicit in
the phenomena themselves, and does not constitute a distinct
essence wrought into the texture of facts, binding and governing
them, so that it can be unmistakably detected. Cause and effect
is a mental construct, something we read into facts; an inventionpee ce x

  

THE NARROWNESS OF THE THEORY

 

321

of the mind seeking to understand and control. Cause-and-effect
relationships are not disclosed automatically. There is room for
the personal equation.

The sequel of the process of selecting and comprehending the
data and of unraveling their causal connections is that it permits
the interpreter of history who possesses a favorite theory to pro-
fess too much. Guiding principles are valuable; they are the
ready tools, the accumulated capital of the scientist. They enable
him to orientate himself in a conglomeration of items, to plan
experiments, and to organize complex material. But they become
his despot if he allows them to take complete possession of his
mentality. Consciously or unconsciously he will fit the plastic
material into a preordained pattern, and fashion it into a con-
figuration congenial to his preconceptions. He will see in the long
history of a great nation nothing but the supreme confirmation
of his principle. Men construct ideologies, and then are enslaved
by them. Inalienable rights, natural law, laissez-faire, social con-
tract, — such ideas have played a prominent part in the social
process at one time or another. Similar ideas reign in every im-
portant province of human experience.’ Many a scientist, par-
ticularly a social scientist, is not immune, in his own work, from
the worship of an ideology. He looks at the world through a
prism of meticulous formulas and special theories. With him,
social facts have to pass the censorship of sophisticated measure-
ment, fixed technical rules, and professional traditions, before
they are admitted into the fellowship of relevant data. The result
is emasculation, disproportionate emphasis, and fatal distortion;
the result is that history is written and interpreted to accomodate
a private theory or a time-worn dogma. Men like Carlyle, Kidd,
Loria, and Marx are hardly exempt from such a charge.

1 This view, in its application to war, receives brilliant treatment at the hands of

Professor A. A. Young. See his presidential address on “‘Economics and War,” in
American Economic Review, vol. xiv (1926), 1-13.

 

  

EET ee =CHAPTER XVII

SOME LOGICAL WEAKNESSES OF THE THEORY

THE discussion so far has been largely concerned with the grave
omissions of which Marx’s conception of history may be judged
guilty. The interesting question arising at present is whether,
aside from any omissions, the chief elements of his theory are in
themselves sound and illuminating; whether his view is tenable
as far_as-it-goes. Marx’s interpretation of history presents a
simple formula. The mode of production is the source from which
flow all the other phases of social life, and the dialectic operating
within the productive system generates the class struggle which
promotes progress. The form of production and the class struggle
are the two crucial constituents. What valuable elucidations do
they offer?

First, as to the mode of production. Marx sets it forth as a
monistic agency in the course of human affairs. However, a con-
sideration of the forces at work in history will lead us to believe
that if one insists on singling out those which in the “last in--
stance” constitute the prime movers, one should rather turn his
attention to the interaction between natural environment and
human nature than to the organization of production. Given the
geographical surroundings and man, with the mental and other
endowments which distinguish him from other animals, and the
rest will follow. These two agencies are the starting point. Marx
and Engels reiterate that all things are in a flux, and that all his-
torical phenomena are intertwined. Yet, in spite of these protes-
tations, they dissever the system of production from all other
manifestations; parade it as the original, independent fact; and
treat it as if it were dropped ready made on earth and ordained
to serve as the foundation and propeller of all the historical pros-
cesses. This is too simple a view. The organization of production
is a complex social phenomenon calling for the utilization of many
material and spiritual resources, and requiring for its expressionSOME LOGICAL WEAKNESSES OF THE THEORY 323

and operation the antecedent accumulation of a social heritage.
It is not a cause. It is rather a resultant; or, still better, some-
thing in organic interdependence with many other aspects of
civilization. To single it out as the initial, independent phenom-
enon is to proceed in an arbitrary manner.

Nor does the mode of production represent a distinct and uni-
tary fact. It is a collection, a relationship of entities. Several
factors combine in a given way, and the result is a system of
production. According to Marx, the natural resources, the la-
borers and their organization, the tools, appliances, and achieve-
ments in the various fields of natural science, all unite to build
and to characterize a mode of production. It follows, then, that
when he advances the mode of production as the basic cause
of all civilization, he really implies that the conjuncture of natural
wealth, laborers, technique, and science, is the basic cause of
civilization. In other words, he employs a phrase which conceals
the substance. He amalgamates several relevant elements, gives
them one collective name, and thinks he has derived a monistic
interpretation of history. He treats the group of these elements
as a chemical compound, as a fortuitous concourse of atoms. He
forgets the ingredients that go to make the substance, but fastens
his eyes on the resultant compound, and chooses to designate it
as the original datum.

Marx also forgets that a system of production is inextricably
bound up with aspects of social existence other than the elements
he recognizes. Just as science has at present a prominent influ-
ence on production and is an integral part of it, so religion was in
the past, and is in more than one instance, even in modern times.
Primitive and ancient religions, Catholicism in the Middle Ages
and Protestantism in the early days of modern capitalism, as well
as many creeds at present, are intimately allied with the produc-
tive enterprises of peoples. Moreover, governmental and political
institutions and expedients, customs and conventions, legal sys-
tems and legal ways of regarding the relations of man to man and
of man to things, must be taken into consideration. Obliterate
all idea of custom, law, regulations, and hardly a trace will remain
of the concepts serf, guildmaster, bourgeois, private property,

(bi hha deeb iedési!?

  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   

<n eerrea es -y324 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

interest, competition.1 The mode of production, like any other
vital organ of society, ramifies into various phases of social exist-
ence, drawing strength from some, limited by others, but in
constant mutual interaction with all of them. One cannot say
categorically that production is the antecedent and the cause, all
the rest is the consequent and the effect; that production is a dis-
crete phenomenon, abstracted from all else.

The failure to take cognizance of these various aspects of the
problem renders the mode of production a vague and barren con-
cept. Compare, for example, the slave régime of classical an-
tiquity and the feudal system. They are two distinct societies
with two different forms of production, according to Marx. Yet
an observer of both forms of production would find no disparities
if he were guided only by Marx’s instructions. In both societies
the observer would see the same technique employed, the same
use of natural resources, and apparently the same type of labor.
People produced commodities in the Middle Ages in much the
same way asin ancient days. The Marxian formula of land, labor,
and capital would not inform the observer that he is facing two
divergent systems of production. The discrepancy between
them consists, according to Marx, in the status of labor: in one
case the laborer is a slave, in the other a serf, a master crafts-
man, or a journeyman. But the question of status is a question
of law, custom, and institutions — exactly the particulars Marx
rules out of the concept, regarding them as consequences of the
régime of production and as mere details of the ideological super-
structure.

The same difficulty is encountered when we compare the
present system and the future socialistic régime. Marx and
Engels hail this coming order as a radically different form of
production. Yet neither technique nor natural resources will
experience an alteration. Only the division of labor will be so
constituted as to render the work agreeable to the laborer. As-
suredly, it would be absurd to find in so unimportant an innova-
tion the fundamental characteristic of socialism. Marx appre-
ciates this; accordingly he expands on other characteristics,

1 Cf. R. Stammler, Wirtschaft und Recht, pp. 223, 253, 281, 299.SOME LOGICAL WEAKNESSES OF THE THEORY

 

325

vastly more significant. ‘‘The expropriators are expropriated”
.. . “the abolition of private property’’ — this is at once the
outstanding achievement of the new order and the epitome of its
distinguishing features.! Private property, exploitation, and
competition are thoroughly extirpated; and, instead, a codper-
ative society of “‘free” laborers, emancipated from the dominance
of the capitalist, enters on its career. These transformations are
the basic marks of the new régime; but what are these transfor-
mations, in essence, if not institutional and legal?

There can be no clear characterization of a mode of production
if we dissociate it from the prevailing ideas and institutions.
And if we are to agree with those who insist that by a mode of
production Marx implies technique alone, the case would be still
more hopeless; for from the days of Hammurabi down to the
eighteenth century, a period of time in which Marx sees a se-
quence of four distinct modes of production, the technical pro-
cesses of producing commodities had hardly undergone any essen-
tial change.

We are further given to understand that the dialectic implicit
in the mode of production expands the productive forces until
they assume the configuration of a different productive system,
no longer compatible with the old order and insistently calling
for new institutions. That is, the dialectically behaving form of
production, without the aid of other agencies, prepares the
ground for the class struggle, and thereby effects the transition
from one economic era to another, from one society to another.
Now the very account furnished by Marx and Engels of the suc-
cessive productive systems fails to support this idea of the single-
handed potency of the mode of production. | In each case external
or accidental forces are invoked to effect the transition, forces
unallied with the inherent necessities of the dialectic or the pro-
ductive régime.

There is no revelation of any incurable contradictions logically
embedded in the gens order, or of any inherent necessity for an-
tagonistic classes within it. Why a peaceful communistic society,
breeding splendid men and women, should be thrown into internal

1 Cf. above, chap. 2, p. 35.326 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

turmoil and strife, and why it should be doomed to dissolution,
one can hardly conceive. Just how the dialectic process inexor-
ably labors for a transformation of a communal form of produc-
tion, as it existed in the Greek and in the Roman gens, into a slave
form of production, is not made evident. The dialectic does not
always perform such antics, since some peoples entirely evade
the stage of slavery, and cross directly from the gens to the feudal
order, whereas with other peoples the gens organization persists
indefinitely. Witness the transition of the German tribes who
invaded Rome to the feudal stage, without the intermediate
stage of slavery, in Engels’s Origin of the Family. Engels himself
admits that the gens societies will continue in the same status for
thousands of years, ‘‘until intercourse with the outside world
develops causes of disruption within them as a conclusion of
which their dissolution comes about.” ! In other words, the mode
of production and the dialectic process within it will not by them-
selves generate the agencies that compel a change; an extraneous
factor must come in. Marx, too, makes a similar confession.’

It is not demonstrated, likewise, that, logically and by processes
of its own, a slave society grows irresistibly into a feudal one.
Engels invokes external events to aid in this transformation.
The wars had to impoverish Rome, disturb the markets, and
render the lJatifundiae superfluous. Wars, barbarian invasions,
official oppression, are introduced to explain why the free small
farmer was forced to seek security by leaning on the richer neigh-
bors, and to reduce himself to a serf in compensation for the pro-
tection obtained. Are wars, barbarian invasions, oppressive
tax-gatherers and judges, the direct, inevitable, and peculiar
concomitants of a slave system? Finally, even capitalism does
not appear on the state as a natural outgrowth of feudalism, and
without the powerful intervention of institutional and other fac-
tors. The geographical discoveries, state action, the Reformation,
all the phases of the so-called original accumulation performed a
tremendous function here, as Marx himself acknowledges; * and

1 Anti-Diihring, p. 179.
2 Capital, vol. ili, 390, 392-303.
3 Ibid., vol. i, chaps. 27 and 31; vol. ill, 391, 911.SOME LOGICAL WEAKNESSES OF THE THEORY 327

these phases were not the inexorable and specific issues of the
feudal form of production.

It may be observed by way of digression, that the whole ques-
tion of the linear succession of gens, slavery, feudalism, and capi-
talism is open to grave doubts. Investigations of various an-
thropologists demonstrate that communism is not typical of
primitive peoples, and that no one general rule can be enunci-
ated pertaining to primitive social organization. Many a student
maintains, likewise, that in antiquity some societies, as in Egypt
and China, went through the stages of slavery, feudalism, and
systems not unlike our so-called capitalism. The researches of
scholars like Professor Eduard Meyer suggest that ancient Greece
was by no means the slave-ridden society she is commonly taken
to have been. According to Marx, capitalism first appeared in
the sixteenth century. He refuses to see that capitalism stands
for something much broader than merely a specific manner of
making goods; that it is an institution characterized by a set of
economic features, such as the employment of capital in produc-
tion, buying and selling, geographical division of labor, commerce,
markets, the use of money and credit; and that such an institu-
tion flourished in the Near East some two thousand years before
the modern era, spread thence to the north of the Mediterranean,
and from there to Western Europe.’ ! Marx himself admits on one
occasion that history does not conform to his classification; and
he suggests that it is conceivably possible that Russia might
avoid the vicissitudes of the capitalist régime and effect a direct
transition to a socialist society.”

In brief, to bring forward the mode of production as the ma-
terial, unitary, and original cause and basis of all civilization is
to build on shaky ground. A productive system is not material, in
the first place. Laborers, with their intellects, skill, and organi-
zation, are not material agents; nor are the technical processes,
since they are the embodiment of thought, knowledge, and scien-

 

1 This thesis is treated very well by Professor M. M. Knight in his Economic
History of Europe to the End of the Middle Ages. See Professor A. A. Young’s intro-
duction, p. iv; the author’s preface, p. viii, and passim.

2 Lettre sur le développement économique de la Russie,” in Le mouvement socia-
liste, vol. vii, 968-972.

 

ae eR ee oy328 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

tific endeavors, even if we concede to Marx that the motive of
scientific progress is wholly economic. The only material agent
that remains is natural resources. Nor is the mode of produc-
tion the primordial motive force, as it itself is conceivable with-
out the peculiarities of the natural environment, and without
human nature and intelligence, which must serve as starting-
points. To dissociate a few items from all the other aspects of
social existence, to put them together under a new name, to point
to this collection as the initial monistic fact in history and as the
dominant cause of the course of human destinies, is a wholly
arbitrary procedure. One might as well single out of the human
organism, the eyes, cheeks, and ears; call them a face; then accord
the face the honor of having been the first part of the body to
evolve into existence, and the most vital part; and then bestow
on it the sovereign place of figuring as the fundamental cause, in
the ‘“‘last instance,” of man’s nature and of his career and for-
tunes throughout his life.

The second element of the formula is the class struggle. Con-
siderations of self-interest compel the workers to ally themselves
with the dialectic and to battle for the introduction of the new
régime. This idea is based on a chain of definite theses: society
is ultimately stratified into two unified, well-organized classes;
the oppressed class is moved wholly by economic self-interest;
this class perceives clearly the nature and causes of its troubles;
and it knows definitely what measures will remove them. Let us
examine these theses.

The question of the class struggle is part of the larger phe-
nomenon of emulation and rivalry, of contacts and collisions, of
groups in society. There is no good reason why all the emphasis
should be put on two particular classes, the wage-earner and the
employer, to use modern society as an example. Society consists
of a multitude of classes and groups. There are religious sects,
occupational groups, political parties, racial and linguistic blocs.
That there are or will be just two compact economic classes is an
extraordinary piece of dogmatism. In the first place, the middle
class refuses to disappear. In all countries it represents a vitalSOME LOGICAL WEAKNESSES OF THE THEORY 329

part of the population, and in some countries it forms the back-
bone. The proletariat and the employers do not make up the
whole. The small and big farmers, the small business man, the
shopkeeper, and the independent skilled artisan persist. This is
true whether we consider highly industrial or less developed
countries. Marx’s predictions went wrong, as many of his follow-
ers have been compelled to admit. The middle class stays and
thrives.

In the second place, the two well-unified, well-organized, op-
posed classes, ready to do battle with each other, are two myths.
There are varieties of interests, prejudices, and hierarchies within
each class that preclude the single-minded group-consciousness
and the perfect unity of action of which Marx is so fond of dream-
ing. Among the workers of the United States, for example, we
find the more or less definite divisions into the skilled and the
unskilled; the organized and the unorganized; the white-collar
labor and the labor in overalls; those who have money in the
bank, stocks in the ‘‘company”’ and some property, and those
who live from hand to mouth; the colored and the white; the
natives and the foreign born; the socialists, the communists, the
I. W. W.; the radicals, the liberals, the reactionaries, and the
great mass of the indifferent. Such diversities persist. The mere
fact that laborers work for employers is insufficient to render
them alike in all important respects, to break down racial, re-
ligious, social, and political barriers, and to make millions of in-
dividuals into one compact, homogeneous unit. Nor are the em-
ployers a single-minded group. There are those who are injured
by a policy of protection and those who thrive on it; there are
the agricultural interests arrayed against the industrial interests,
the Agraarstaat and the Industriestaat; there are the small busi-
ness men who fear and dislike “‘big business,’ and the concerns
operating on a competitive basis that are enemies of monopoly;
there are the grievances against the bankers, the railway com-
panies, the middlemen; there is the perennial strife between con-
cerns trying to capture the same market, and the bitter battles
with establishments that discover and produce substitutes.
Individuals refuse to be pressed into this or that class. Martin330 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

is right when he points out that the engineer receiving $150 a
month is as far from the Italian section-hand as the president of
the railroad is from the engineer; that the capitalist farmer feels
more at one with his hired laborer than with the capitalist mine
owner; that the white carpenter or bricklayer has more class
prejudice against the negro teamster than the Jewish banker has
against the Jewish tailor; that the shop girl deems herself as
superior to the servant girl as her mistress feels herself superior
to the shop girl; that the retail tobacconists showed as much
hostility to the tobacco trust as factory hands have ever shown
toward an employer; that independent refiners fought the Stan-
dard Oil Company as bitterly as the Homestead strikers fought
the Carnegie Steel Company; and that miners deported negroes
and Chinese from the gold camps as readily as mine owners de-
ported strikers."

But aside from such facts, the very dialectic monsters that
Marx conjures up turn against their master and devour his two
favorite creations. With the progressive development of capital-
ism a unified, harmonious proletarian class becomes a logical
impossibility. It is inconsistent with Marx’s theory of the in-
dustrial reserve army and increasing misery. With the ever-
accumulating ‘‘relative surplus population,’ more and more
workers find themselves destitute and without employment; and
the competitive struggle for work becomes a battle for life and
death. Each worker, in the desperate attempt to save himself
from starvation, offers his labor-power for sale on increasingly
degraded terms. The proletarians fight with one another for
the opportunity to a wretched job. How can one expect under
such circumstances a well-organized, coherent, deliberative body
marching against its enemy? One of the gravest defects of the
present system Marx finds in competition. He calls it anarchy
of production, bellum omnium contra omnes; and he proposes to
substitute for it a régime of codperation. If this is what compe-
tition typifies, where is the opportunity for harmony among
laborers?

Similarly, the same dialectic destroys the unity of the capitalist

1 Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. xxiii, 513-515.SOME LOGICAL WEAKNESSES OF THE THEORY 331

class. As capital accumulates, the bourgeoisie, too, are arrayed
against each other. The incessant competition and underselling;
the irrepressible tendency toward concentration and centraliza-
tion, with the correlative elimination from the battle of the small
and weak capitalists; the bitter fight over placing one’s own cap-
ital successfully while forcing the other fellow to keep his unem-
ployed; the mad attempt to stem the falling rate of profit — all
this raises one capitalist against another.’ One capitalist kills
many, teaches Marx. Under such conditions a consolidated,
harmonious bourgeois class is inconceivable.

Instead, then, of two compact classes preparing for the on-
slaught, we see two exasperated hordes, in each of which the
members are flying at one another’s throats with great consterna-
tion. Instead of bisecting society into two solid and antagonistic
populations, the dialectic demoralizes the members of each side,
and promotes the recrudescence of Hobbes’s natural state, with
the war of all against all.

History, too, fails to support Marx here. He and his friend
pride themselves on the fact that they base their contention as to
the mission of the proletariat not on abstractions, but on facts
from history. History, they maintain, teaches that the prole-
tariat is to build a new society. Historical facts do not sustain
their claim. When an old society cedes its place to a new one, it
is not because of a struggle between the two classes figuring as
agents in the mode of production; that is, between the exploiters
and the exploited. Nor does the lower class of the older society
ascend to the position of the dominant class in the new régime.
In ancient days the chief classes were the masters and the slaves,
according to Marx. When this order gave way to feudalism, it
was not because of a class struggle between the masters and the
slaves ending in the triumph of the latter. Nor was it the slave
who became the feudal lord in the new society. Similarly with
the transition from feudalism to capitalism. In feudal society
the main classes were the lords and the serfs, the guildsmen and
the journeymen. But capitalism did not come about as a result
of the struggle between the classes, whether in the country or in

 

1 Cf., Communist Manifesto, p. 25.

 

ET TENE

eeeMARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

the city; nor is it true that in the new system which succeeded,
the capitalist class was recruited from the serfs or the journey-
men. Marx acknowledges that the so-called “original accumula-
tion,” which made capitalism possible, transformed “serfs into
wage-laborers,’’ and expropriated the small independent pro-
ducer in industry or agriculture; and Engels states explicitly that
“the members of the guilds in the Middle Ages developed into
the modern bourgeois, the journeymen of the guilds and the day
laborers, on their part, developed into the proletariat.” !

If, from the Marxian viewpoint, history teaches anything in
this connection, it is this: first, the supersession of one economic
era by another is not the outcome of a contest between the two
economic classes in a given social order; and second, the upper
class continues to occupy a position of dominance in the successive
societies, and the lower class a position of subjection. Neither
the slave nor the serf nor the journeymen fought for, and ushered
in, the respective new régimes. The slave generally became the
serf, and the serfs and the journeymen turned proletarian. His-
tory does not teach, then, that the world belongs to rabbits; it
teaches that rabbits belong to foxes. Wherefrom does it follow
that it is the “historical mission” of the laborers to struggle for
a new order and to turn masters, if we are to base the prediction
om-reasoning from historical data?

This theory of bi-class society is based on the postulate that
economic self-interest is the all-powerful, all-absorbing motive,
never failing to assert itself, and ruthlessly overriding and de-
stroying all other motives and interests that ever dare to compete
with it.) Only on the basis of such a premise can one claim that
an individual is first of all a member of this or that economic
class, that he is defined and characterized by it, that all his being
is centered in it, that he sees through it and acts with it, and
that he is nothing without it. What some German philosophers
attribute to the State in molding the individual, Marx confers
upon the class. Such a premise is an exaggeration. Taken in all
their activities and reactions, men have a multiplicity of interests;
and with some one interest, with others another, plays a pre-

1 Capital, vol. i, 834-835; Engels, Anti-Diihring, pp. 37-38.SOME LOGICAL WEAKNESSES OF THE THEORY 333

ponderant réle. No generalization can be made. It depends on_
the particular nature of the persons. Common observations, as
well as history, furnish ample evidence. The early Christians
chose to go to the lions for their faith, the Huguenots and the
Puritans preferred exile and privation to the abandonment of
their convictions, and the Jews could have improved their lot
immeasurably throughout the ages had they relinquished their
religion. A Catholic association 1s more coherent, and 1s endowed
with greater vitality, than a union of harness-makers or window-
cleaners.

The socialist may scorn the sentiments of patriotism, but such
sentiments persist none the less. The worker has no nationality,
cries the Communist Manifesto: “‘modern industrial labor, mod-
ern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in
America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of na-
tional character.’’ 1 Nevertheless, he exhibits racial and national
pride and prejudice just as strenuously as other people. The
Polish worker hated the Russian, the French proletarian had his
heartburnings over Alsace-Lorraine, the Irish laborer regarded
himself as the born enemy of the Englishman, and the German
wage-earner just now wastes no love on Poland or France. It is
this variety of interests and prejudices that provides for the
American employer a weapon against labor organization. When-
ever possible, he places in one group workers who have come
from different European countries. Instead of uniting in com-
mon cause against the “capitalist oppressor,” they revive old ani-
mosities, and spend their lunch hours wrangling over political
and racial differences.’

The very life of Marx belies his claim that men are primarily
concerned in all phases of their existence with calculations of
self-interest. The son of a successful lawyer, the son-in-law and
brother-in-law of high government officials in Germany, he could
have carved out for himself a comfortable career. Yet he chose
the life of the revolutionary, spent his days in exile and in dire
poverty, and broke his health writing books in behalf of the pro-

1 Communist Manifesto, p. 27.
2 Cf. J. Bryce, Modern Democracies, vol. i, 136-138.334. MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

letariat. The classical economist assumed self-interest only in
one province of man’s life, namely, the buying and selling of
services and commodities. But Marx urges that in all spheres of
life man is guided by material interests. He refuses to grant that
an individual has many-sided interests, from religion and politics
down to the lodge and the swimming club.

r

 

| ~ The class struggle is impossible unless the proletariat has a

clear conception of its economic interests, and unless it is en-
dowed with adequate knowledge of the means of furthering them.
Even if we should grant that there are only two classes in society,
and that each person is dominated wholly by motives of self-
interest, no concerted and enduring class warfare will be the
concomitant if the oppressed class is not fully intelligent as to
the nature and requirements of its interests. Marx maintains
that the proletariat is very favorably situated in this regard. This
is consistent with his main view in such cases: the master class at
any epoch in history has no difficulty in discerning the peculiar
character of its interests.and in devising the most effective safe-
guards in the form of an appropriate organization of the state,
laws, morality, and religion. In fact, as was seen in a previous
chapter, such, he thinks, is the origin of institutions.

This thesis raises some fundamental difficulties, and involves
Marx in serious contradictions. The comprehension of one’s true
interests is not an isolated elementary task requiring but the
rudimentary use of one’s senses. It calls into exercise intellectual
and spiritual faculties, like alert observation, keen discrimina-
tion, and wide-awake thinking; it is correlated with the diverse
spheres of one’s experiences and activities; and it is allied with
one’s whole outlook upon life, with one’s accumulated wisdom.
It is a difficult and far-reaching task. When the economist as-
sumes that, by and large, the buyer pursues the dictates of self-
interest, Marx is skeptical, remarking: “‘In bourgeois societies
the economic fictio juris prevails that everyone, as a buyer, pos-
sesses an encyclopedic knowledge of commodities.” + Marx is
hypercritical toward others but inordinately lenient toward him-
self. If it requires encyclopedic knowledge to buy a pair of shoes,

1 Capital, vol.i, 42n.SOME LOGICAL WEAKNESSES OF THE THEORY = 335

and if the imputation of such knowledge to the buyer is a fictio
juris, what is required on the part of the proletarian to reconstruct
the world, and what name shall we give to the imputation of such
miraculous prowess to him?

With Marx it is all very simple: the class beholds its material
interests and decides to take measures that will fortify them;
hence the class struggle, the toppling of old orders, and the cre-
ation of new ones with appropriate institutions. But this is a
problem that demands abilities of the highest order. The prole-
tariat will have to possess the true philosophy of social evolution;
gain a synthetic view of the unseen foundations and premises on
which our system rests; see with a clear eye all the pathological
manifestations of the present régime; be in intimate communion
with the possibilities and solutions that reality harbors within its
bosom; and then steadfastly proceed to dissolve the present order
and to build wisely and securely a new and better one! In all this,
external facts cannot serve as the sole and infallible guides.
Reality and the dialectic may behave in their own way; but the
reaction of individuals is not automatic and does not exhibit
mechanical simplicity. Reality is to be diligently observed,
rightly understood, and accurately interpreted; and subsequent
conduct will call for sedulous study, deliberation, and foresight.
It is one thing to buy commodities, it is a vastly different thing
to reconstruct the universe.

It is absurd to ascribe such powers to wage-earners viewed as
a class-conscious group. Marx writes glibly on the revolutionary
events of 1848, discusses with a deft pen the interests of the vari-
ous classes and factions involved, and indicates with the finger
of the expert what tactics they should have pursued. It was all
so clear to Marx; yet, as he points out in the discussions, the
proletariat was utterly blind to its interests, and was tossed about
from pillar to post, not knowing what to do. Of course, Marx
would retort that at that time the working class was immature,
that the mode of production was not as yet a good teacher, and
that with the progress of capitalism all will ultimately become
clear. If so, how did Marx happen to know what reality was not
ready to teach? Furthermore, with the progress of time condi-

 

emi336 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

tions will become more complex and the issues more intricate.
Capitalism shows no such trend toward idyllic simplicity that he
who runs may expect to learn all its secret workings. Marx ana-
lyzes in the three volumes of his Capital the mechanism of the
present order, displays the devastating work of the dialectic, and
indicates where the interests of the workers lie. How many
workers are interested in reading these volumes, and of those who
read, how many understand them?

The truth is that neither the worker nor the capitalist is the
person Marx paints. The worker is not a Prometheus. He has a
multiplicity of interests, and is swayed by passions, ignorance,
and prejudices. The vexing problems connected with the modern
order and with the furtherance of its destinies he realizes very
little; nor do they disturb his mind much. The average worker
is concerned with his personal daily cares, not with social evolu-
tion and economic apocalypses; and direct, near-by interests are
closer to his heart and loom larger in his horizon than remote and
general interests. The immediate prospect of a higher or lower
wage is of greater import to him than the extirpation of capital-
ism and the salvation of mankind. A few enthusiasts would be
willing to suffer privations and to strive for a dream. The ordi-
nary person is more prosaic. There is abstinence involved here,
—although Marx hates the word, — and in abstinence, as Pro-
fessor Carver points out, there are non-competing groups. The
great mass is interested in small, present gains. It is interested,
if at all, in middle-class unionism, and not in the dialectic antics
or in the metempsychoses of surplus value. If the worker has
ambition at all, it lies rather in the direction of saving, of invest-
ing, and of becoming a small capitalist himself. His leanings are
toward capitalism, not toward socialism. In a capitalistically
advanced country like the United States the “proletarians” vote
for the Republican or the Democratic candidates. Their votes
do not go in an avalanche for the socialist or for the avowedly
‘“pro-labor” aspirant. Nor is the capitalist always a blind,
greedy, unyielding person. Under the influence of public opinion,
laws, social reform, a better knowledge of industrial psychology,
and a more enlightened view of where his interests really lie, he isSOME LOGICAL WEAKNESSES OF THE THEORY 337

changing his attitude. The capitalist class is more pliant, more
willing to compromise and to live and let live than Marx ever
dreamed. The laborer is not eternally on the warpath, and the
capitalist is not the inveterate provider of a casus bell..

The insistence that the proletarian class perceives its interests
without difficulty is in direct contradiction to some of Marx’s
views. He urges that most people do not comprehend the nature
of reality about them, and that they judge by superficial appear-
ances. Only a few superior intellects penetrate beneath the sur-
face, investigate the essence of phenomena, and derive scientific
truths. Even a man like J. S. Mill is at times denied the honor of
a place among these chosen few. How, then, can Marx ascribe
such extraordinary qualities to the masses of the workers? A
man who cares nothing for “‘so-called public opinion,’ who ad-
monishes the investigator to seek the causes of social transforma-
tions in material facts and not in the false notions filling the heads
of the acting agents, who condemns the bulk of society as victims
of illusions, cannot consistently bestow on the vast population of
the proletarians the rare scientific powers of observation, dis-
crimination, and objectivity that characterize true thought.

Marx refuses to grant anyone a thorough comprehension of
phenomena if the corrupting influence of self-interest is injected
into his mind. He denies political economy the claim to a science
since 1830, because the economists, he argues, contaminated
themselves with class interests. The same condemnation ought
to fall on the proletariat, for it too is, above all, actuated, in the
Marxian scheme, by calculations of self-interest. It too is far
from possessing a dispassionate attitude and an unbiased vision
so indispensable for an adequate understanding of social mani-
testations. Of course, Marx would retort that the interests of the
proletariat are identical with the interests of society as a whole.
But this would hardly remove the difficulty. In the first place,
self-interest under any circumstances is not scientific objectivity.
In the second place, it is not legitimate to identify the proletarians
with society as a whole and to make their interests synonymous
with its interests.

Marx’s view that the proletariat is competent to remodel so-

 

 

es338 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

ciety involves him in another contradiction. In the formation of
human nature and in the acquisition of ideas Marx puts most
stress on the effects of the environment, and he almost wholly
disregards innate capacities. In what environment he places the
workers as the capitalistic régime progresses we well know. It
is not clear why a brutalized, bedraggled, ignorant working class
should be fit to understand the dialectic mechanics of the present
complicated system, to dissolve it, and to build a new and glorious
order. A race of wage slaves cannot bea race of world rejuven-
ators, in the eyes of an environmentalist.

Thus the two pillars on which Marx builds his theory are in-
secure. The mode of production cannot be accepted as the origi-
nal phenomenon, or as the sole and independent cause of all the
occurrences in history. The idea of the class struggle is based on
the weak assumptions that there are, ultimately, only two classes
in society, that economic self-interest is the principal motive in
all the phases of a person’s life, and that the workers possess in-
fallible knowledge of their interests and a complete understanding
of the best means of promoting them. Marx thought that he had
founded a theory which revealed for the first time how the course
of civilization is steered by impersonal laws precisely as nature is,
and that he had finally brought history into the estate of a natural
science. But he deceived himself. The inclusion of science in the
mode of production ushers in a more or less wayward, non-
mechanical agency, since scientific inventions and the workings
of the human mind refuse to behave with the regularity and pre-
dictability of natural phenomena. A still more disturbing element
is introduced by his theory of the class struggle. In the percep-
tion of their interests and in their behavior on the basis of these
interests the workers do not act in an automatic, reflexive man-
ner. They cannot. The perception and evaluation of interests
involve an understanding of the overwhelming complexities of
the modern order, and postulate the powers of reorganizing the
social structure. Tropismic reactions cannot achieve such things.
Interpretation, thinking, and planning, ignorance, passion, and
prejudice come into activity, invited or uninvited — and theseSOME LOGICAL WEAKNESSES OF THE THEORY 339

insert a non-materialistic and non-predictable factor. As soon
as Marx introduces the human reaction, his theory loses the
claim to objectivity. His interpretation of history cannot get
along with the human element and remain objective. Nor can it
do without it and not remain meaningless.

1 Cf. Veblen, Place of Science in Modern Civilization, pp. 417, 437.CHAPTER XVIII

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE THEORY

Upon analysis, the materialistic interpretation proves to fall
short of the place claimed for it by its authors and upholders.
What shall we think of it, then? What place has it earned for
itself?

Some will reply that this question can be answered readily by
a pragmatic test. The fact that Marx’s theory has exerted a
marked influence on social movements indicates that the theory
must possess important elements of truth. And indeed it has had
an enormous influence on the socialist creed. There have been
radicals since time immemorial. Each order, each society has
had its critics, who have contended that they could do better.
There would have been new radical schemes of one kind or an-
other without Marx. Yet the socialist movement owes him an
everlasting debt. He endowed it with a definite form, infused
new vitality into it, and launched it on a more vigorous, more
pretentious career. He equipped the socialists with theories,
watchwords, and methods of attack upon the existing order. He
endowed the movement with the dignity of reason and science,
and made it appear no longer as a medley of hopes, fantasies, and
exhortations; he fortified it with the assurance of ultimate tri-
umph by proving that socialism is the sublime end toward which
creation moves, the chosen masterpiece of history. And not so-
cialism alone but also other radical currents derive strength from
his teachings. Fabianism, syndicalism, bolshevism, communism,
all draw ammunition from the copious arsenal he provided.

However, the popularity of a doctrine is no guaranty of its
truth. An idea circulates among people, agitates them, and at
times galvanizes them into action not because, upon their careful
deliberation, it proves to disclose a powerful truth, but because
it appeals to their emotions. The proclamation that the very
productive forces are fighting on the side of the abused and theTHE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE THEORY

 

341

lowly possesses a mystical power. The picture of the proletariat
codperating with the dialectic in sweeping the Augean stables of
iniquity and in erecting a new and glorious social order, has an
apocalyptic majesty that burns the imagination and releases emo-
tional energy. We govern men by words, remarked Disraeli.

It is different when an idea takes possession of the minds of
scientists, furnishing them with a principle which leads them to
fruitful labors. Then the inference is that the idea must have
vitality. But such has hardly been the case with Marx’s doctrine
of history. Here and there a well-known economist, historian, or
sociologist reflects Marx’s influence at one point or another. It
is seen in some chapters of J. A. Hobson’s books, in some of
Thorstein Veblen’s writings, and in Werner Sombart’s works —
to mention only a few economists. But it is safe to say that at
any given time the number of distinguished social scientists who
are wholehearted adherents of Marx’s theory is exceedingly
limited. The socialists are fond of comparing Marx’s work in
social science to Darwin’s achievement in natural science. But
the reception the scientific world has given to Marx does not
begin to compare with the reception given to Darwin.

We must turn, then, directly to the philosophy of history for
an appraisal of it. Marx plunged into a task without having
asked himself first whether it was capable of accomplishment.
There are grounds for reasonable doubt whether a single or de-
finitive philosophy of history can be constructed. At any rate,
the attempt is beset with enormous difficulties. Marx tried to
build a theory of history out of four elements — the mode of
production, self-interest, the perception of self-interest, and the
dialectic. The last three he synthesized into the class struggle;
and he thus obtained the formula of the mode of production and
the class struggle. He failed where failure was inevitable and,
in the nature of the case, hardly discreditable. Imponderables
and solids cannot be reduced to one dimension. History refuses
to be imprisoned in formulas.

But Marx is unpardonably weak when he addresses himself to
the concrete analysis of the present system in order to discover
its fatal defects, its tendency toward dissolution, and its intima-342 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

tions respecting the nature of the coming society; when, in other
words, he ventures to write a detailed chapter of his conception
of history. Then he becomes an economist pure and simple. And
he blunders repeatedly.

His old theory of value is contrary to experience, his revised
theory contains nothing new. His idea of surplus value is based
on the prejudice that labor constitutes the only cost. His system
of distribution — that is, his doctrine of wages, interest, profits,
and rent — presents no deeper or broader elaboration than the
one left by economists who preceded him. His theory of crises is
little more than the doubtful theory of overproduction. His law
of population is vague and unconvincing. His insistence on the
harmful effects of the greater accumulation of capital because of
the correlative displacement of the man by the machine, on the
increasing impoverishment of the workers with the progress of
capitalism, on the ever-accelerating process of centralization of
industry; his refusal to see any connection between abstinence
and interest, to discern any contribution of the business man in
production and anything but exploitation in his gains — these
and others of his views are based on inadequately thought-out
ideas or on a stubborn unwillingness to analyze facts with the
sincerity of the dispassionate scientist who has no preconceived
standards and norms of his own.!

‘““The books on socialism deal largely with controversies which
do not proceed to the heart of the matter. This seems to me to
hold of K. Marx, Das Kapital . . . the most famous and influential
of socialist books.” Such is Professor Taussig’s verdict;? and
any fair-minded reader of Marx’s masterpiece must agree with
this opinion. At times it may appear that where others are con-
tent to angle placidly with hook and line, Marx dredges earnestly
and deeply; but, on closer examination, the dredge proves worn,
and its wooden teeth yield, after all his labors, a little slime with
which to bespatter the capitalist order. Professor Seligman says
that “‘. . . perhaps with the exception of Ricardo, there has been

* For Marshall’s opinion of Marx’s theory of value and distribution see Principles
of Economics, 8th edition, pp. 587-588. Cf. appendix, p. 769.
2 Principles of Economics, vol. ii, 3d edition, p. 502.THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE THEORY 343

no more original, no more powerful, and no more acute intellect
in the entire history of economic science.’’! It would be idle to
quarrel over Marx’s intellect. It is clear, however, that his in-
tellect hardly added anything to the store of economic principles
and generalizations. In economic theory he was, on the whole, a
follower and not a leader. We must not forget that among his
contemporaries were such economists as Cournot, Gossen, Jevons,
Knies, Mangoldt, Menger, Mill, Walras. When grouped with
them, Marx fails to occupy a foremost position, so far as specific
contributions to economic theory are concerned.

J. M. Keynes says of Marx’s system:

The principles of /aissez-faire . . . have been reinforced by the poor quality
of the opponent proposals — Protectionism on one hand, and Marxian So-
cialism on the other. . . . Both are examples of poor thinking, of inability to
analyze a process and follow it out to its conclusion. . . . Of the two, Protec-
tionism is at least plausible. .. . But Marxian Socialism must always remain
a portent to the historians of Opinion — how a doctrine so illogical and so

dull can have exercised so powerful and enduring an influence over the minds
of men, and through them, the events of history.?

As was suggested above, the doctrine had such an influence, not
because it worked on the minds of men, but because it appealed
to their hearts.

Nor could it be different if we have in mind his intellectual
and temperamental constitution. Marx was a mixture of things.
That he had a logical head cannot be denied. This may seem
paradoxical in face of his repeated contradictions and errors of
logic. It is true, however, that when he was so inclined he could
sustain a rigorously logical argument with marvelous tenacity.
His theory of land rent is an example.’ But he was also a Hegel-
ian, and he was never quite successful in divorcing himself from
his master. This is often the case. An individual who has once
immersed himself in the Hegelian philosophy and become thor-
oughly permeated with it, emerges a different person forever, and
can hardly tear off the Hegelian glasses. This was true of Marx.
He coquetted with Hegel again and again — in his discussions of

1 The Economic Interpretation of History, p. 56.
2 Laissez-Faire, pp. 47-48.
3 Capital, vol. iii, part 6.344 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

 

value, of money, of the metamorphoses of capital, of classes and
class struggles. Times without number he invokes the aid of the
dialectic where facts and reasoning would be more pertinent. He
has a peculiar love for antitheses. He appears to think that his
argument has gained strength and authority when he mentions
“contradictions.” Thus and thus it will pass because of the in-
herent ‘‘contradictions” of the phenomenon .. . and Marx rests
satisfied that his conclusion is built on a solid basis.

Then Marx, notwithstanding socialistic protestations to the
contrary, was not generally the assiduous, slow, and self-critical
thinker. He was something of an artist, of an impressionist. He
was full of flashes, suggestions, and fresh points of view. He saw
things in his own way, and he had his own feelings about the facts
around him. Brilliant, impatient, he seized the pen as soon as an
idea came upon him, and wrote. Hence the wealth of ideas, but
also the harvest of inconsistencies and obscurities. True, in his
writings we often notice repetitions, examples, illustrations, and
a curious propensity for different approaches to the same point.
But in most cases, evidently, this is merely a pedagogical device
for driving the idea home, and not testimony to his having coolly
weighed and carefully thought out the problem.

Finally, he was by nature a crusader, a propagandist. He felt
deeply and allowed the emotions to take the upper hand when a
judicious and calm consideration of the facts might have led to
more modest but sounder verdicts. He was certain that the
modern order is wrong; that-it rests on an inadequate foundation,
is guided by faulty principles, and possesses unworthy standards
of value. He was at heart a revolutionary, thoroughly dissatisfied
with things as they are. But he was not the soft-hearted senti-
mental seer. I suspect — and this is offered merely as a sug-
gestion — that it was not love of the proletarians, heartache over
their sufferings, a feeling of sympathy for them as his brothers,
that started him on his radical career. Haughty, tempestuous,
and fiery intellectual aristocrat that he was, with swarms of ad-
miring disciples at his feet, he really cared little for the masses of
plain, untutored workers. “The masses were to him a brainless

crowd whose thoughts and feelings were furnished by the rulingTHE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE THEORY 345

class,” writes Liebknecht.! What he liked in the proletarians, I
suspect, was rather his own intellectual discovery of them. His
theory of history, his whole system, caused his eyes to turn to the
workers. They were the persons who would play the leading role
in the great drama of the dialectic. They were the white pawns

in his game.

Certain claims are sometimes made for Marx’s theory of history
which can hardly be granted. It is held that it rendered great serv-
ice in widening the scope and in elaborating the methodology of
social science, particularly economic. But it must be remembered
that in his own country, before and during his day, this problem
received wider and more thorough treatment. Suffice it to men-
tion the names of Eichhorn, Savigny, List, Roscher, and Knies.
Some see a contribution in Marx’s emphasis on the relativity of
economic generalizations and in his advice to lay more stress on
the study of institutions as a guide to the understanding of social
phenomena. If this is to be considered a contribution, the credit
must go rather to the economists of the German historical school,
who since the forties of the last century had cultivated this ground
more intensively than Marx. Then there are some who pay him
tribute for the ‘“‘discovery” that the various aspects of social life
are coordinated phenomena and not stray, disjointed fields foreign
to each other. Such a view is significant, but it is not original
with Marx. It is as old as the Greeks, and Montesquieu, Burke,
Herder, Saint-Simon, and others had given it new emphasis.

The service of Marx’s theory lies in other directions. We may
remain aware of the shortcomings of a theory while appreciating
its enduring values. Marx’s doctrine was a powerful antidote
to older and even more one-sided views of history. In his time,
some regarded history as the special creation of “great men”;
others treated it from the angle of dynastic ambitions and politi-
cal maneuverings; still others clothed it in one variety or another
of mystical idealism. Marx’s view dealt a fatal blow to such con-
ceptions. He called the historians from their lofty imaginings
down to the earth of humble economic facts.

1 Karl Marx, Biographical Memoirs, p. 82.

 

ae346 MARX’S THEORY OF HISTORY

Herein is the chief significance of his conception of history.
His doctrine is neither an interpretation, nor a philosophy, nor a
method of history. It is a canon. It admonishes the student of
the history of social manifestations not to neglect the careful
study of the economic factors — the forms of economic organiza-
tion, the class structure, the play of group interests. Such a study
will shed light on many historical phenomena; but it will be in-
adequate to interpret history. Marx’s theory is a key that fits
many locks but opens few doors.BIBLIOGRAPHYBIBLIOGRAPHY

This bibliography does not pretend to be exhaustive. It contains only those
works which have been consulted, assiduously or casually, in whole or in part.

I. WORKS OF KARL MARX AND FREDERICK ENGELS

Kart MArx

“On Feuerbach.”’ Reprinted as an appendix to Engels’s Feuerbach, pp. 129 ff.
Chicago, 1908.

Aus dem literarischen Nachlass von Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels. Edited by
Franz Mehring. Stuttgart, 1902; 3 vols.

The Poverty of Philosophy. Translated by H. Quelch. Chicago, rgro.

The Communist Manifesto. Chicago, 1915.

Wage-Labor and Capital. Translated by J. L. Joynes. Chicago, Charles H.
Kerr.

Die Klassenkimpfe in Frankreich, 1848 bis 1850. Berlin, tort.

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Translated by Daniel de Leon.
Chicago, 1914.

Revolution and Counter-Revolution, or Germany in 1848. Edited by Eleanor
Marx Aveling. Chicago, 1907.

The Critique of Political Economy. Translated by N. I. Stone. Chicago,
1907.

Value, Price and Profits. Edited by E. M. Aveling. Chicago, 1908.

Capital, A Critique of Political Economy.

Vol. I. The Process of Capitalist Production. Translated by S. Moore
and Edward Aveling. Chicago, London, Igo9.

Vol. II. The Process of Circulation of Capital. Translated by E. Unter-
mann. Chicago, London, 1907.

Vol. III. The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole. Translated
by E. Untermann. Chicago, 1909.

Civil War in France. Appears under the title of “The Paris Commune.”
New York, roto.

Free Trade. Reprinted in Poverty of Philosophy as Appendix III, pp. 208-
227.

“‘Einleitung zu einer Kritik der politischen Oekonomie,” in Die Neue Zeit
(1902-1903), vol. xxi, no. 1, pp. 710-718, 741-745, 772-781. Appears in
English as an Appendix to Critique of Political Economy, pp. 266-312.

Zur Kritik des sozialdemokratischen Programms von Gotha. Edited by K.
Kriebich. Reichenburg, 1920. Appears in English in the International
Socialist Review (1907-1908), vol. viii, 641-660; translation by H. E.
Lothrop.

Der Briefwechsel zwischen Friedrich Engels und Karl Marx, 1844 bis 1883.
Edited by A. Bebel and E. Bernstein. Stuttgart, 1913; 4 vols.

Letters to Kiigelmann, in Die Neue Zeit (1901-1902), vol. xx, no. 1, pp. 708-

710.350 BIBLIOGRAPHY

“Der politische Indifferentismus,” in Die Neue Zeit, (1913-1914), vol. xxxii,
no. I, pp. 40-44. :

Die Inauguraladresse der internationalen Arbeiter-Association. Edited by
K. Kautsky. Berlin, 1922. It appears in French in Le mouvement social-
iste (1902), vol. vii, no. 84, pp. 535-554; no. 85, pp. 582-580.

“Lettre sur le développement économique de la Russie,” in Le mouvement
socialiste (1902), vol. vii, no. 93, pp. 968-972.

FREDERICK ENGELS

Aus dem literarischen Nachlass von Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels. Edited by
Franz Mehring. Stuttgart, 1902; 3 vols.

The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. Translated by F. K.
Wischnewetzky. London, 1802.

The Communist Manifesto. Chicago, 1915.

Landmarks of Scientific Socialism (Anti-Diihring). Translated and edited
by Austin Lewis. Chicago, 1907. In German: Herrn Eugen Dihring’s
Umwalzung der Wissenschaft; toth edition. Stuttgart, 1910.

Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. Translated by Edward Aveling. New
York, 1892.

Feuerbach, the Roots of Socialist Philosophy. Translated by Austin Lewis.
Chicago, 1908. In German: Ludwig Feuerbach und der Ausgang der
klassischen deutschen Philosophie. Stuttgart, 1910.

The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State. Translated by E.
Untermann. Chicago, 1902.

Grundsdtze des Kommunismus. Edited by E. Bernstein. Berlin, ror4.

The Mark. Reprinted in Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, Appendix, pp.
80-117.

“Marx, Heinrich Karl,”’ a biography, in Handwérterbuch der Staatswissen-
schaften (3d edition, Jena, 1910); vol. vi, 600-602.

Der Briefwechsel zwischen Friedrich Engels und Karl Marx, 1844 bis 1883.
Edited by A. Bebel and E. Berstein. Stuttgart, 1913; 4 vols.

“Zur Geschichte des Urchristentums,” in Die Neue Zeit (1894-1895), vol.
Xlli, NO. I, pp. 4-13, 36-43.

“Die Bauernfrage in Frankreich und Deutschland,” Jbid., pp. 292-306.

“Der Anteil der Arbeit an der Menschenwerdung der Affen,”’ in Die Neue
Zeit (1895-1896), vol. xiv, no. 2, pp. 545-554.

“Zur Kritik des sozialdemokratischen Programmentwurfes 1891,” in Die
Neue Zeit (1901-1902), vol. xx, NO. I, pp. 5-13.

“Uber das Autorititsprinzip,” in Die Neue Zeit (1913-1914), vol. xxxii,
NO. I, pp. 37-39.

“Die Bewegungen von 1847,” in Der Kampf (1912-1913), vol. vi, 207-213.

“Der Anfang des Endes in Oesterreich,” in Jbid., pp. 393-397.

“‘Socialisme de juristes,” in Le mouvement socialiste (1904), vol. xii, no. 132,
pp. 96-120. Translated into French by L. Remy.

Important letters, reprinted in L. Woltmann’s Historische Materialismus,

Diisseldorf, 1900, pp. 239-251; in Antonio Labriola’s Socialisme et phi-

losophie, Paris, 1899, pp. 239-262; in Franz Mehring’s Geschichte derBIBLIOGRAPHY

 

351

deutschen Sozialdemokratie, vol. iii, part 2 (Stuttgart, 1898), pp. 556-558;
in Die Sozialistische Monatshefte (1920), vol. xxv, no. 2, pp. 871-876.

Prefaces to the following of Marx’s books: Poverty of Philosophy; Wage-
Labor and Capital; Civil War in France; Capital; Die Klassenkimpfe in
Frankreich, 1848 bis 1850. (This last preface appears in English in the
International Socialist Review (1902-1903), vol. iii, 1-14, translation by
M. Hitch; also in a separate booklet entitled The Revolutionary Act,
translated by H. Kuhn, New York, 1922.

II. WORKS OF INTERPRETERS AND CRITICS
OF KARL MARX

ALTSCHUL, S. “Die logische Struktur des historischen Materialismus,”’
in Archiv fiir Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik (1913), vol. xxxili,
46-87.

BartH, P. Die Philosophie der Geschichte als Soziologie. Leipzig, rors.

BERNSTEIN, E. Evolutionary Socialism: a criticism and affirmation. Trans-
lated by E. C. Harvey. London, rgoo.

Boum-BAwerk, E. Karl Marx and the Close of His System. Translated by
A. M. Macdonald. London, 1898.

Boupin, L. B. The Theoretical System of Karl Marx in the Light of Recent
Criticism. Chicago, 1907.

Croce, B. Historical Materialism and the Economics of Karl Marx. New
York, 1914.

Cunow, H. “Technik und Kultur,” in Die Neue Zeit (1911), vol. xxix,
no. 2, pp. 855-859, 894-902.

—— “Die Stellung der Technik in der Marxschen Wirtschaftsauffassung,”
Ibid., (1921) vol. xxxix, no. 2, pp. 316-322, 348-352.

Dien, K. Rectorial Speech at the University of Freiburg, May 8, 1920.
Published by Ernest Gunter. Freiburg in Baden.

DRAHN, E., compiler. Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels tiber die Diktatur des
Proletariats. Berlin, 1920.

ExLtwoop, C. A. “Marx’s Economic Determinism in the Light of Modern
Psychology,” in American Journal of Sociology (1911), vol. xvii, 35-46.

Hansen, A. H. “The Technological Interpretation of History,” in the
Quarterly Journal of Economics (1921-1922), vol. xxxvi, 72-83.

JosepH, H.W. B. The Labor Theory of Value in Karl Marx. London, 1923.

Kautsky, K. Der Weg zur Macht. Berlin, 1010.

—— The Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Translated by J. H. Stenning.
London, roro.

— “Was will und kann die materialistische Geschichtsauffassung
leisten?”’ in Die Neue Zeit (1896-1897), vol. xv, no. I, pp. 213-218, 228—
238, 260-271.

“Verelendung und Zusammenbruch,” in Die Neue Zeit (1908), vol.
XXV1, NO. 2, pp. 540-551, 607-612.

LaBRIoLA, ANTONIO. Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History.
Translated by Charles H. Kerr. Chicago, 1904.

Lapriota, Arturo. Karl Marx, V’économiste, le socialiste. ‘Traduit par E.

Berth. Paris, rgro.352 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lenin, N. Staat und Revolution. Berlin-Wilmersdorf, 1918.

LIEBKNECHT, W. Karl Marx, Biographical Memoirs. Translated by E.
Untermann. Chicago, 1908.

Masaryk, T. G. Die philosophischen und soziologischen Grundlagen des
Marxismus. Wien, 1899.

MEHRING, FRANZ. Aus dem literarischen Nachlass von Karl Marx, Friedrich
Engels. Stuttgart, 1902; 3 vols.

PaRETO, V. Systemes socialistes, vol. ii. Paris, 1902.

SCHMOLLER, G. “Friedrich Engels und Karl Marx; ihr Briefwechsel von
1844 bis 1833,” in Schmoller’s Jahrbiicher (1915), vol. xxxix, no. 1-2,

PP. 423-432.
SELIGMAN, E. R. A. The Economic Interpretation of History. New York,
1902.

SMALL, A. W. “Socialism in the Light of Social Science,” in American
Journal of Sociology (1912-1913), vol. xviii, 804-819.

SomBart, W. “Karl Marx und die soziale Wissenschaft,” in Archiv fir
Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik (1908), vol. xxvi, 429-450.

—— Technik und Kultur, Ibid. (1911), vol. xxxili, 305-347.

—— Socialism and the Socialist Movement. Translated by M. Epstein.
London and New York, 1909.

Grundlagen und Kritik des Sozialismus, vols. i and ii. Berlin, 1919.

SorEL, G. Preface to A. Labriola’s Essais sur la conception matérialiste de
Vhistoire. Paris, 1801.

STRUVE, P. von. ‘‘Die Marxsche Theorie der sozialen Entwicklung,” in
Archiv fiir soziale Gesetzgebung und Statistik (1899), vol. xiv, 658-704.
TuGAN-BARANOWSKY, M. I. Theoretische Grundlagen des Marxismus.

Leipzig, 1905.
WoLTMANN, L. Der historische Materialismus. Diisseldorf, 1900.
VEBLEN, T. The Place of Science in Modern Civilization. New York, 19109.

 

Ill. GENERAL WORKS

BALDwIin, J. M. Social and Ethical Interpretations in Mental Development.
New York, 1902.

BEBEL, A. Aus meinem Leben, vol. ii. Berlin, 1922.

Bryce, J. Modern Democracies. New York, 1921.

Cootry, C. H. ‘Process of Social Change,” in Political Science Quarterly
(1897), vol. xii, 63-81.

Human Nature and the Social Order. New York, 1902.

DEWEY, J. Creative Intelligence. New York, 1917.

— Human Nature and Conduct. New York, 1922.

— Experience and Nature. Chicago, 1925.

Ettwoop, C. A. “Theories of Cultural Evolution,” in American Journal of
Sociology (1917-1918), vol. xxili, 779-800.

HAECKEL, E. The Riddle of the Universe. New York, 1900.

HoLianver, J. H., editor. Letters of David Ricardo to J. R. McCulloch.
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aPoi aiaraty

rgAbility, inborn, 67, in Catholic Church,
67.

Abstinence, relation to interest, ridi-
culed, 85, 215.

Accumulation, original, 56-58; of capital,

two phases, 216-217; relation to or- |

ganic composition of capital, 216; re-
lation to increasing misery, 227-220,
to redundant population, 229-230;
accelerates fall of profits, 236; men-
aced by falling rate of profits, 237.

Agriculture, in the gens, 45, 47; in Rome,
51; under feudalism, 53; under capital-
ism: at first, 99, ultimately, 104; under
socialism, 35.

America, discovery of and rise of capital-
ism, 55, 57; politics in, 142; peaceful
transition to socialism in, 251.

Anarchists, opposed by Marx, 256.

Anarchy, in capitalistic production, 221.

Antagonism, is source of evolution, 43, |

III; pervades history, 109, 111; no
progress without, 111.

Antiquity. See Classical antiquity.

Antithesis, nature of, 40; pervades all
phenomena, 39; is not destruction, 42;
relation to class-struggle, 109; Marx’s
fondness for, 344. See also Dialectic.

Appearances, are deceptive, 129-130;
religion as cult of, 163.

Aristotle, 68, 139, 177, 204.

Art, 183-184.

Artisan, in Mdidle Ages, 53.

Aryans, 76.

Astronomy, as response to economic
needs, 174.

Athens, gens in, 46; commerce in, 48;
slavery in, 49; cause of downfall of, 50;
beginnings of state in, 145-146. See
also Greece; Classical antiquity.

Austria, number of classes in 1848, 103.

Authorship, of Communist Manifesto, 3,
37:

Bacon, F., 179.
Bagehot, W., 313.
Baldwin, J. M., 315.

 

INDEX

Barth, P., 5, 10, 12, 29.

Basis of history, technique, 4, 6-10, 34—
36; mode of production, 12, 36; pro-
ductive forces, 4, 10, 27-29; Marx’s
views on, interpreted by various writ-
ers, 5-6; criticism of Marx’s views on,
300, 322-328. See also History.

Bayle, P., 160.

| Bebel, A., 256 n.

Bellers, J., 68.

Bentham, J., 84.

Bernstein, E., 252.

| Bias, suggestions as to nature of Marx’s,

ln 320-320

Biology, dialectic in, 118.
Bismarck, 140.

Bohm-Bawerk, 210.

Boudin, L., 265.

Bourgeoisie, relation to monarchy, 148;

| struggle with feudalism, 168-169;

| achievements of, 222; incapacity to

| take care of labourers, 230, 245. See
| also Capitalists.

Boyle, 175.

Bright, J., 84.

Bryce, J., 316.

Biicher, K., 138.

Buckley Hele.

Burke, E., 83, 345.

| Business cycle, is inevitable, 241. See
also Crises.

Business man. See Entrepreneur; Cap-
italist.

 

 

 

 

| Calculus, dialectic in, 41.

| Calvin, J., 149, 160.

| Calvinism, as religion of capitalism, 170.
| Capital, Marx’s aim in, 136, 191; theme
of, 190; relation to Marx’s theory of
history, 190-192; as an elaboration of
| Communist Manifesto, 192.

Capital, result of long evolution, 22;
relativity of, 23, 55-56; forms of, in
Middle Ages, 54; prerequisite of
capitalism, 55-56, 57; dominated by
self-interest, 70; crimes of, 58, 70, 71;
constant, 207; variable, 207; organic

 

   
  
  
  
  
  
   
   
   
   
   
   
  
   
  
  
   
   
  
   
    
  
   
   
    
    
   
   
  
   

a erm358

composition of, 207, surplus-value as
source of, 215; simple reproduction of,
215; accumulation of, 215-217; con-
centration of, 218; centralization of,
219; is social under capitalism, 221;
overproduction of, cause of crises, |
240-241; children’s blood coined into,
223; a vampire, 224; Marx’ssentiments |
on, 58, 223, 224.

Capitalism, concept of, 201; fundamental

 

  

INDEX

Capitalists, as personifications of eco-

nomic categories, 78; landlords as, 104;
as exploiters of the laborer, 223-233;
function of, 221; profits of, 234-237;
competition among, 217-219, 235-
236, 331; position of, in modern so-
ciety, 244; are becoming superfluous,
245-246.

Carver, T. N., 336.
Catholicism, in Middle Ages, 168.

prerequisites of, 55-56, 198; rise of, | Cause, relation to genesis, 268; meaning

54-55; rise of aided, by the Reforma- |

of, 275.

tion, 56, by geographical discoveries, | Centralization of capital, 219; relation to

55, 57, by the state, 58; fostered by
the state, 149; distinguishing ear |

 

Change.

competition, 236.
See Evolution.

marks: not machinery, 192, no new|Chartist movement, glorified by Marx,

technique, 34, 61, 193, nor commod- |
ities, 193, nor surplus-value, 194-197,
but nature of laborer, 197-200; based

288.

| Chemistry, dialectic in, 118.
| Child labor, under capitalism, 223, 229.

on hired labor, 23, 56, 198; prelimin-| Christianity, origins of, 165-166; a re-

ary phase of, 59; the two phases of, 15,
26, 34, 59, 61; ideal of, 260; dominated |
by self-interest, 70, 71-72; Protestant- |
ism as religion of, 169-170; allied with |
science, 15; influence on philosophy,
181-182; mode of production under,
59-61, 199-200; agriculture under, go, |

|

104; equilibrium of occupations under, |
91; number of classes under, 103-105; |
state under, 149-150; law under, 154-
155; status of labor under, 197-200;
plight of laborers under, 223-233, 300;
increasing misery under, 227-233;
industrial reserve army under, 229-
231; falling rate of profits, 234-237;
crises under, 237-242; fosters produc-
tive forces, 28, 246; is an advance over
previous eras, 222; is a transient phe-
nomenon, 192-193, 220, 245; dialectic
in, 191-192; the three fatal contradic-
tions of, 220-221; other contradictions,
218, 241; the three fatal diseases of,
222; destruction of, 191-192; mea-
sures towards dissolution of 255-256;
transition to socialism: see Chapter
XIII; criticism of Marx’s views, on
state under, 278-279, on law under,
280, on religion under, 280-281, on
philosophy under, 282, on dialectic in,
285-288, on classes and class-struggle
under, 328-338, on overpopulation
under, 229, 230n. See also Manufac-
turing period; Modern industry.

 

ligion of the lowly, 165; compared to
socialism, 166; dominated by sordid
interests, 167. See also Catholicism;
Protestantism.

| Church. See Religion.
| Civilization, beginning of, 49; impor-

tance of slavery to, 49; spread by
Germans, 69; dominated by self-
interest, 71, 73; antagonism as law of,
DET

Classes, concept of, 96-98; origin due to

self-interest, 74, to unequal distribu-
tion, 94; evolution of: in young coun-
try, 98, first stage, g8-100, second
stage, 100-102; characterized by pro-
ductive relations, 92-93, #. e., by prop-
erty ownership, 93-94, by freedom
enjoyed, 95; relation to mode of pro-
duction, 96, 98; relation to society,
107-108, 110; absent in gens and under
socialism, 94; in Middle Ages, 96; or-
ganization of, is essential, ror, 251-
252; number of, in undeveloped coun-
tries, 102-103, under capitalism, 103-
105; the ‘‘ideological’’ classes, 105; as
active agent in history, 65; réle of, in
history: in statics, 108, in dynamics,
109-111; réle of, in formation of insti-
tutions, 124, of ideas, 125, 181 n.; uses
the state as an instrument, 140, law,
152, religion, 162; sets standards of
morality, 156-158; criticism of Marx’s
views on, 328-338.INDEX 359

Class struggle, inadequate explanation
of, 11; self-interest as cause of, 106;
part of political organization in, 251-
252; relation to productive forces, 110-
111; relation to dialectic, 1o1—102,
1og-111; between feudalism and bour-
geoisie: first act, 168, second act, 169,
third act, 169; between proletariat and
bourgeoisie, 248-256; criticism of
Marx’s views on, 328-338.

Classical antiquity, criticism of Marx’s
views, on state in, 278; law in, 280;
philosophy in, 282. See also Greece;
Rome.

Cobden, R., 84.

Cognition, proceeds from reality, 123-
125; with ordinary people, 125-126;
with the scientist, 129-134.

Colbert, 149.

Colonies, relation to rise of capitalism,
56, to accumulation of capital, 57;
barbarities in, 57.

Comenius, 131.

Commerce, dissolves systems of produc-
tion, 44; in Athens, 48, 49; in Rome,
51; in Middle Ages, 54; réle of in rise
of capitalism, 56; known throughout
history, 194. See also Market; Ex-
change.

Commodities, concept of, 193; appear-
ance of, in gens, 47, 48; endowed with
mysteries, 130, 161-162; dominate
men, 161-162; not distinguishing
mark of capitalism, 193-194; over-
production of is cause of crises, 238-
230.

Commune, in Paris. See Paris Com-
mune.

Communism, tribal: see Gens; socialism
is rst phase of, 257; 2nd phase of, 258—
261; aS apotheosis of history, 258;
state under, 258; labor under, 259;
production under, 259.

Communist Manifesto, authorship of, 3,
37; Capital, as elaboration of 192; full
of revolutionary threat, 249.

Competition, nature of, 217, 235-236; is
anarchy, 221; deceives observer, 130,
162, 213-214; relation to doctrine of
predestination, 170; in choice of occu-
pation, 91; among workers, 231, 330;

among capitalists, 217-219, 235-236,

331.

 

 

 

Concentration of capital, 218.

Consciousness, relation to existence, 116;
relativity of, 181 n.

Condorcet, 75.

Constant capital, 207.

Consumption, relation to production,
23-24.

Contemporaries of Marx, among econo-
mists, 343.

“Contradictions,” pervade all phenom-
ena, 39; nature of, 40; as source of
evolution, 43; under capitalism, 220,
218, 241; Marx’s fondness of, 344.

Cooley, C. H., 310, 318.

Coéperation, as preliminary phase of
capitalism, 59.

Coéperative movement, as forerunner of
socialism, 247; advocated by Marx,
250.

Cournot, A., 343.

Credit, not cause of crises, 241; develops
productive forces, 29 n.

Crises, overproduction as cause of, 238-
241; credit is not cause of, 241; de-
preciation of capital in, 240-241; foster
revolution, 242, 287.

Criticism of Marx’s views, on the mode
of production, 300, 322-328; on the
connection between the mode of pro-
duction and the state, 277-280, and
law, 280, and religion, 280-281, and
philosophy, 281-282; on the réle of
geographical environment, 292-296,
of intelligence, 297-300, 309-317, of
religion, 301-303; on science, 304-308,
311-313; on inventions, 311-313; on
progress, 309-317; on human nature,
297-300, 309-310, 332-334, 336; on
self interest, 332-337; on class and

o~<class struggle, 328-338; on the dia-
lectic, 283-287, 308-309, 325-326; on
historical stages, 327; on the concept of
captialism, 327; on overpopulation
under capitalism, 229, 230 n.; in eco-
nomic theory, 288, 342-343. See also
Scope of the criticism of Marx’s theo-
ries; Summary of the claims of
Marx’s theory of history; Estimates
of Marx.

Croce, B., 116 n.

Cunow, H., 6.

Custom, rules in India, 91, in Middle

Ages, 91. See also Tradition.

 

~~:Democracy, as machine of oppression,

Descartes, R., 40.
Dewey, J., 77 0., 307, 317-318.

Dialectic, as evolutionary force, 39, 42,

 

360

Dante, 129.
Darwin; C:3'8,82, 117, 135; 170, 253-
Definitions, why never given by Marx,

IQ. |

140-142; under capitalism, 149; aided |
by Calvinism, 170.

Dictatorship of the proletariat, as step |
towards socialism, 253-254; as a de-
mocracy, 254; aS a political state, 256.

43, 86, 109-111, 118, 245; is continual
in operation, 44; is absent in Moham-
medan society, 284; is “‘proof”’ of in- |
evitability of socialism, 285-286; stops
under socialism, 44; operation of not
clear, in transition to feudalism, 52;
relation to productive forces, 42-43,
rog-111, to class-struggle, ro1—1o02,
109-111, to revolution, 43; no guide to
nature of class-struggle, 248-249; in
mode of production, 42-43, 109-111,
I2I, 245; in nature, 40-41, 116-118;
in mathematics, 40, 41; in history, 118;
in philosophy, 41; in the sciences, 176-
177; indispensable in science, 134; a
supreme law, 121; superior to logic,
122; role of state in, 143; changes
morality, 157; destroys capitalism,
IQI-192, 245; Hegel and Marx con-
trasted, 119-121; criticism of Marx’s
views on, 283-288, 308-309, 325-326,
328-338.

| Economic facts.

| Economic

  

INDEX

Drahn, E., 254.
| Dihring, E., 39, 40, 42, 239, 285.
| Dunning, P. J., 70.

See Mode of produc-

tion.

interpretation of history,
Marx’s and Engels’s brief formula-
tions of, 4, 7, 8, 12, 28, 38, 43, 108, 269—
270; summary of claims of, 267-276;
reason for appeal of to socialists, 340-
341; relation of Capital to, 190-192;
claims made for, 345; service of, 345—
346. See also History.

‘“Economic”’ man, 72.

Economic structure of society, as an ag-
gregate of relations of production, 108;
as basis of institutions and ideas,
283.

Economists, on self-interest, 72-73, 3343
attitude of, to classes, 105, 127; vic-
tims of ‘‘illusionism,”’ 127-129; unable
to explain the fall of profits under
capitalism, 234; contemporaries of
Marx, 343.

Education, in the future, 130.

Ehrfurt program, 254.

Eichhorn, 345.

Enclosure movement, 56.

Engels, F., attitude to public opinion,
129; is friend of morality, 159-160;
dislikes religion, 160 n.; attitude to
violence, 249-252; obsessed with idea
of revolution, 287-288; acknowledges
achievements of capitalism, 222; has

Diehl, K., 252.
Dilthey, 291 n.

Ding an sich, 131.

Discoveries, cost nothing, 244 n.
Diseases of capitalism, 222.

Distribution, relation to production, 24;

high opinion of Marx, 68, 315 n.; is in
essential agreement with Marx, 37-38;
apparent, but not real modifications in
letters, 8-9, 174, 272; is an admirer of
gens society, 46-47, 74, 145, of medie-
val days, 53; sentiments or comments,

 

relation to the dialectic, 43 n.; relation
to class, 94; under capitalism, 238; un-
der communism, 259. See also In-
creasing misery.

Division of labor, importance of, 17, 33;
based on inborn abilities, 67; a cause
of differences among men, 69; social,
90; effect on body and mind, 67, 78; re-
lation to the state, 144, 150; relation
to productive forces, 30; in the gens,
45, 90; basis of ‘‘manufacture,” 59,

 

61 n.; under socialism, 79.

 

on the dissolution of the gens, 74, on
civilization, 73, on merchants, 49; fear
of money, 49; a poor prophet, 242,
287; is inconsistent, 42n., 144, 148,
239-240.

England, rise of capitalism in, 56-57;
state aids bourgeoisie in, 149; eco-
nomics in, not a science since 1830,
127-128; law in, 155; origins of Protes-
tantism in, 169; use of religion in, 171—

172; cause of inventions in, after 1825,

174; as model, 279; revolution of 1688INDEX

in, 279; socialism comes first in, 286;
peaceful transition to socialism in, 251.
English economists, on self-interest, 72;
imbued with class interests, 127-128.
Entrepreneur, as factor of production,
16.
Environment, influence of, on human

nature, 75-77, 126, on philosophers |

181-182. See also Geographical en-
vironment.
Eras. See Stages.

Estimates of Marx or of his work, by
Diihring, 285; by Engels, 68, 315 n.;
by Keynes, 343; by Marshall, 342 n.;
by Parets, 266; by Patten, 288; by
Roscher, 11, 266; by Seligman, 342-
343; by Sombart, 266; by Taussig, 342.
See also Criticism of Marx’s views.

Ethics, is shadow of economic facts, 155-
158; under socialism, 182. See also
Morality.

Evolution, proceeds through the dia-
lectic, 39, 42, 43; ubiquitous, 117; is
not arbitrary, 44; effect of work on,
79-80; of class, 98-102; furthered by
classes, 109-111; of philosophy of ma-
terialism, 179; towards socialism, 245-
261; criticism of Marx’s view of, 283-
287, 309-319, 325-326, 328-338.

Exchange: influence of, in history, 12, 26;
relation to mode of production, 25; in
the gens, 45; in ancient Greece, 50; in
Middle Ages, 54; an old phenomenon,
194. See also Market.

Experience, basis of mathematics, 122.

Exploitation, in ancient Greece, 50; in
ancient Rome, 51; in Middle Ages, 53,
54; of labor, under capitalism, 223-
233; state used for, 140; religion aids
in, I7I-172; measured by surplus-
value, 206, by the rate of surplus-
value, 208; used to counteract ten-
dency of profits to fall, 236.

Expropriation, antecedent to rise of
capitalism, 56; among capitalists, 218-
210.

Factors of production, 13-17; relativity
of, 21-23.

Factory, in ancient Greece, 49; exploits
of labor, 225.

Factory Acts, effect of, 152; comments

on history of, 223.

 

361

Family organization, influence of, i®
primitive society, 9, 38; cause of diso-
lution of gens, 48.

| Fantasy, religion as, 162-163.

Fetishism, of commodities, 162.

Feudalism, transition to, 51, 52; dissolu-
tion of, 54-55; struggle with bour-
geoisie, 168-169.

Feuerbach, 81.

Force, part of in history, 248, 252.

Formula, for exchange, 205; for surplus-
value, 205; for the rate of surplus-
value, 208; for the rate of profit, 208;
for value, 211.

Formulations by Marx and Engels of
their theory of history, 4, 7, 8, 12, 28,
38, 43, 108, 269-270.

Fourier, 100, 187.

France, farmers in, before 1848, 99;
number of classes, in 1848, 103; state
aids bourgeoisie in, 149; economics
not a science in, since 1830, 127; re-
ligion in, at end of 17th and 18th cen-
turies, 169; influence of philosophy, in
18th century, 180; as model in politics,
279; peaceful transition to socialism
in, 251; theatre of final class struggle,
286.

Freedom, as criterion of a class, 95; rela-
tion to science, 180; of laborer, under
capitalism, 198-200; under commun-
ism, 260; essence of, 261; as goal of all
history, 261.

French Revolution, part of philosophers
in, 81, 83, 180; broke feudalism, 154,
279; religion in, 169.

Galen, 175.

Genesis, relation to cause, 268.

Gens, prevails under savagery and bar-
barism, 9, 10 n., 46; communism in,
45, 94, 284, 285; occupations in 45; in
Athens, 46; causes of dissolution of,
46, 47 n., 48, 74; self-interest in, 71, 74;
human nature in, 74, 77; division of
labor in, 90; absence of classes in, 94;
the state in, 144, 145; law in, 153; re-
ligion in, 163; furnishes example of
labor theory of value, 196; criticism of
Marx’s views, on state in, 277-278, on
dialectic in, 283-284.

Geographical environment, significance

of, 296; criticism of Marx’s views on362

historical réle of, 292-296. See also
Nature; Land.

Geographical discoveries, as aid in rise
of capitalism, 55, 57.

German economists, on relativity, 136-
138.

Germans, superiority of, 68, 77; spread
civilization, 60.

Germany, economics in, not a science
since 1848, 127; Lutheran Reforma-
tion in, 168; influence of philosophy, in
19th century, 180; workers in, before
1848, 98-99; socialism comes first in,
286.

Godwin, 75.

Good and bad. See Morality.

Gossen, 343.

Gotha, program 109, 24, 144, 232.

Government. See State.

Gray, J., 29 n.

Great men, insignificance of, 65, 83-85,
86-87; observations on, 317-318. See
also Individuals.

Greece, self-interest in, 71; state in, r45-
146; law in, 153; art in, 183-184. See
Athens.

Guizot, 87.

Haeckel, E., 302.

Hansen, A. H., 6, 10, 12.

Hegel, 75, 82, 115, 119, 120, 123, 133,
179, 204, 343-344.

Helvetius, 87.

Herder, 345.

Hildebrand, B., 138.

History, guided by laws, 3, 86, 136; re-
lation, to mode of production, 12, 36,
108, to productive forces, 4, 10; rela-
tion to mode of production: summary,
267-276; mode of production as basis

of, 267, as remote origin of, 268, as|

cause of, 269-270, as sole cause of,
270-274; influenced by expansion of
markets, 26, by exchange, 12, 26; réle
of dialectic in, 39, 42-43, 86, 118; is
dominated by self-interest, 71; is di-
vided into 5 epochs, 45; communism
as apotheosis of, 258; is record of class
struggles, 65, 109; réle of classes in,
88-89, 107-112, 247; leaders in, 86-87;
will in, 88; tradition in, 8, 69, 70; acci-
dents in, 87; science in, 180; force in,
248; Marx’s theory of, is a philosophy

 

 

 

   

INDEX

and not a method, 319; Marx’s theory
not supported by, 277-289, 331-332;
criticism of Marx’s views, on basis of,
300, 322-328, on dynamics of, 309-
319, on stages of, 327, on class and
class struggle in, 328-338, on self-
interest in, 332-337, on possibility of
laws of, 291; suggestions as to the
nature of Marx’s bias on, 320-321;
service of Marx’s theory of, 345-346.

Historical epochs. See Stages.

Historical laws, hardly possible, 29r.

Hobbes, T., 1309.

Hobson, J. A., 341.

Homer, 46.

Human nature, three views of, 65-66;
inborn abilities, 67-68; differences in
ability, 67; adherence to tradition, 60,
70; self-interest, 70-74; In every day
life, 86; finer traits, 72; will and pur-
pose, 80; relation of, to religion, 160—
161; according to utopian socialists,
188; influence of environment on, 75-
77; effect of work on, 78-88; shaped by
class, 77; changes through history, 75;
effect of gens on, 74, 77; transformed
under socialism, 77; perfect under
communism, 260-261; criticism of
Marx’s views on, 297-300, 309-310,
332-334, 336.

Huntington, E., 21, 295.

| Hypocrisy, of religion, 163.

Ideal, of capitalism and of commun-
ism, 260.

Ideas, reality as basis of, 108, 122-123,
125, 130, 298; according to Hegel &
Marx, 115-116, 119, 123; as “‘reflec-
tion” of reality, 123, 298; derivation
of, 123-125, 129-134; relativity of,
134-136, 181, 181 n. See also Science.

Ideology, basis of, 114; nature of, 173;
relativity of, 181, 181n., 276; is not
passive agent, but yields to economic
facts, 143, 152-153, 168, 170, 179-181,
272, 289; criticism of Marx’s views on,
277-287.

Illusionism, or derivation of ideas by the
“‘ordinary”’ mind, 125-126; victims of,
126-129; economics guilty of, 127-
120.

Inconsistencies, Marx’s, 32-33, 128n.,

144, 148, 209, 239-240, 266, 330, 334,INDEX 363

338; Engels’s, 42n., 144, 148, 239-
240.

Increasing misery, Kautsky’s interpre-
tation of, 227, 228; is psychological
during “‘special’’ phase of accumula-
tion, 227-229; is physical, typically,
228-233, 240; connection with ten-
dency of profits to fall, 236-237.

Individuals, réle of, in history, 65, 86-87;
of great ability, 68; relation to class,
78; as personifications of economic
categories, 78; sometimes praised, 81-
82; usually belittled, 83-85. See also
Great men.

Industrial reserve army, inevitable with
accumulation of capital, 230; nature
of, 229.

Industrial Revolution, as beginning of
second capitalistic era, 15 n., 34; rela-
tion to machinery, 34.

Institutions, basis of, 108; relation of
mode of production to: summary, 267—
276; mode of production, as basis of, |
267, as remote origin of, 268, as cause
of, 269-270, as sole cause of, 270-274;
formation of 124; relativity of, 135,
276; are not passive, but yield to eco-
nomic facts, 143, 152-153, 168, 170,
272, 289; criticism of Marx’s views on,
277-283.

Instruments. See Technique.

Intelligence, criticism of Marx’s views
on réle of, 297-300, 309-317.

Interest, Senior on, 85; as part of sur-
plus-value, 197, 215; relation to ab-
stinence, ridiculed, 215.

Inventions, use of, against proletarians, |
225; displace laborers, 225; criticism
of Marx’s views on, 311-313.

 

Jevons, 343.

Joint-stock companies, as forerunners of
socialism, 246.

Juggernaut, of capital, 233.

Justice, molded by economic facts, 156-
157; Marx’s appeals to, 206-207. See
also Morality.

Kants) Bes 1175030:

Kautsky, K., 32, 227, 232, 233, 266.
Keynes, J. M., 343.

Kleisthenes, 50, 146.

 

Knies, K., 138 n., 343, 345.

ee ey ey EE rT ET

Knight, M. M., 327 n.
Knowledge. See Ideas; Thought.
Kugelmann, 87, 250 n.

Labor, as factor of production, 13; object
of, 13-14; influence on mode of pro-
duction, 17-19; as a productive force,
30; codperation of, 17; effect on differ-
ences among men, 69; as source of sur-
plus-value, 205-206; in the gens, 45;
under ancient slavery, 49; in Middle
Ages, 95; under feudalism, 53; under
capitalism, 59-60, 198; réle of, in
“‘manufacturing” period, 17, 33, 59-
60; status of, under capitalism, 197-
200; is ‘‘social’”’ under capitalism, 221;
plight of, under capitalism, 223-233;
displacement of, by the machine, 225;
under communism, 259.

Labor combinations, relation to world
market, 7; necessity of, ror; relation
to class-struggle, 251-252, 288.

Labor-process, nature of, 12-16.

Labor theory of value, nature of, 202;
ingenious applications of, 203; Marx
and Ricardo contrasted, 203-204; con-
tradicted by experience, 208-210;
modified in Capital, vol. III, 210-214;
applied before capitalism, 196, 213;
relation to modified theory, 214.

Land, as factor of production, 13-14;
held in common in the gens, 45; in an-
cient Greece, 50; under feudalism, 53.
See also Nature.

Laplace, 117.

Latifundiae, dissolution of, 5r.

Law, development of in Rome, 51; as
shadow of economic facts, 151-152;
determined by mode of p., 153; as
will of master class, 152; not passive,
but yields to economic facts, 152-153;
aids in formation of proletariat, 57;
in gens, 153; in Middle Ages, 154; under
capitalism, 154-155; under socialism,
155; criticism of Marx’s views, 280;
of population, under capitalism, 230;
of capitalist accumulation, 232; of the
falling rate of profits, 234-237.

Laws, as guides of history, 3, 86, 136;
relation to distribution, 24; vengeance
of, 162, 261; aim of Capital, 136, 191;
of history, hardly possible, 291.

Leaders, réle in history, 65, 86-87; some-

—_times praised, 81-82; usually belittled,
83-85. See also Great men.

Learning process. See Cognition.

Lenin, N., 144 n., 252, 266.

Letters, statements by Engles in, 8-0,
160 n., 174, 272.

Liebknecht, W.: 4 n., 10, 68, 287, 315 n.,
345.

Linguet, 152.

List, F., 29, 345.

Locke, J., 84, 170.

Mably, 187.

Macaulay, 84.

Machiavelli, 73.

Machinery, use of under capitalism, 15,
26, 34; as capital, 23; as a productive |
force, 30; as earmark of 2d phase of
capitalism, 61; as an instrument of ex-
ploitation, under capitalism, 223-225.

Malpighi, 175.

Malthus, 84, 230.

Man, a social animal, 77; as product of a
class, 78; evolution of, 79-80; freedom
of, under communism, 261. See also
Human nature; Individuals.

Mandeville, 68.

Mangoldt, 343.

“Manufacturing” period, réle of labor
in, 17, 33, 59-60; aided by expansion
of markets, 26; as first phase of capital-
ism, 26, 59, 61 n.; compared with pro-
duction in Middle Ages, 60.

Market, expansion of leads to first phase
of capitalism, 26, 55; to second phase
of capitalism, 26, 15, 61; réle in his-
tory, 26; as cause of dissolution of
slavery, 51, of feudalism, 55; expansion
of, is limited, 238. See also Exchange.

Marshall, A., 301, 342 n.

Martin, J., 329-330.

Marx, attitude, to public opinion, 129, to
personalities, 68, 81-82, 83-85; friend
of morality, 159, 160 n.; has aversion
for religion, 163, 171; has high opinion
of Germans, 68; attitude to codperative
movement, 246, 250; attitude to vio-
lence, 249-252; obsessed with idea of
revolution, 111, 287-288; acknowledges
achievements of capitalism, 222; be-
liever in phrenology, 68; is at times
boastful, 128 n., 129 n.; sincere in his

INDEX

 

radicalism, 333-334; a poor prophet,

 

  

242, 287; as an economic theorist, 342;
suggestion as to nature of bias of, 320-
321; obscurities, 11, 23, 25, 90, 93 n.,
96, 147, 192, 199, 200, 213n., 229,
230n., 266; inconsistencies, 32-33,
128n., 144, 148, 209, 239-240, 266,
330, 334, 338; sentiments or comments,
on gens, 46, on original accumulation,
56-57, 58, on capital, 57, 70, 71, 223,
224, on overwork, 223, on factory, 225,
on condition of laborers under capital-
ism, 232, 233, on Greek art, 184; intel-
lectual temperament, 343-344. See
also Estimates of Marx.

Marx’s theory of history, brief formula-
tions of, 4, 7, 8, 12, 28, 38, 43, 108, 269—
270; summary of claims of, 267-276;
reasons for appeal of to socialists, 340-
341; relation to Capital, 190-192;
claims made for, 345; service of, 345-
346. See also History.

Masaryk, Dr., 252.

Mason, O. T., 305, 300.

Masses, Liebknecht on Marx’s attitude
to, 344.

Materialism, evolution of philosophy of,
L709.

Materialistic interpretation of history,
Marx’s and Engels’s brief formulations
of, 4, 7, 8, 12, 28, 38, 43, 108, 269-270;
summary of claims of, 267-276; reason
for appeal to socialists, 340-341; as
leading thread of Marx’s studies, 191;
relation of Capital to, 190-192; claims
made for, 345; service of, 345-346.
See also History.

Mathematics, based on experience, 122;
a response to needs, 174; relativity of,
176; Poincaré on, 299; dialectic in, 40,
41; Kautsky on, 32.

Mathews, S., 297, 303.

Mautner, W., 252 n.

McCulloch, 128.

McLeod, H. D., 84.

Means of production, concept of, 14;
influenced by natural environment, 20;
connection between ownership of and
class, 95.

Menger, A., 166, 207.

Menger, K., 291 n., 343.

Merchant, in ancient Greece, 49; in

Middle Ages, 54; is older than capital-

ism, 194.INDEX 365

Method of science, 129-134.

Meyer, E., 327.

Middle Ages, mode of production in,
53-54; self-interest in, 71; status of
labor in, 95; classes in, 96; state in,
147-148; law in, 154; religion in, 168;
surplus-value in, 53.

Mignet, 87.

Mill, J. S., 72-73, 84, 127, 253, 343.

Mind, réle of, in science, 133; limitations
of, 175, 208.

Mode of production, technological in-
terpretation of, 4-10; broader inter-
pretation of, 11-38; factors of, 13-17;
influence of labor on, 17-10; influence
of nature on, 19-21; influence of tech-
nique on, 21; relation to consumption,
distribution and exchange, 23-26; re-
lation to productive forces, 27-28;
concept of, 17, 27, 37; Marx and En-
gels compared on, 37-38; relation to
history, 12, 36, 108; relation to history:
summary, 267-276; as basis of history,
267; as remote origin of history, 268;
as cause of history, 269-270; as the
sole cause of history, 270-274, 280;
connection with relations of produc-
tion, 92; relation to classes, 96, 98,
100; shapes society, 77-78; is basis,
of institutions, 124, of the state, 143,

Morality, as product of class, 156;
changed by dialectic, 157; relativity
of, 157-158; systems of, 159; under
socialism, 159-160; Marx is friend of,
159-160.

Morelly, 187.

Morgan, L., 9, 46, 87.

Mystery, basis of religion, 160-161.

Mythology, relation to Greek art, 183-
184.

Napoleon I, 82, 87.
Napoleon III, 84.
Nationality, unknown to the proletarian,

 

| Natural environment. See Geographical
environment.

Natural science, 175-176; destroys phi-
losophy, 178; under socialism, 182.
Nature, man’s relation to, 4; relation of
technology to, 8; as factor of pro-
duction, 13-14; relation to mode of
production, 19-29; influence of, on
technique, 20; influence of, on human
nature, 76; dialectic in, 40-41, 116-118;
relation to religion, 161; relation of
man to, under communism, 261; criti-
cism of Marx’s views on historical réle
of, 292-296. Sce also Land; Geograph-

ical environment.

 

of law, 151, 153, of ethics, 155-158; | Nebular hypothesis, 117.
relativity of sciences to, 176-177, 181-| Negation. See Antithesis.
182; evolution in, proceeds dialecti- | Newton, I., 313.

cally, 42-43, 109-111, 121; number of,
in history, 10, 45; in gens, 45-46; under
ancient slavery, 49; in Middle Ages,
53; under capitalism, 56-61; changes
in, under socialism, 35, 247, 324-325;
criticism of Marx’s views on relativity
of institutions to, 277-283; criticism
of Marx’s views on, 300, 322-328.
Modern industry, dates from the In-
dustrial Revolution, 15 n.; is closely |
allied with science, 15; as second phase |
of capitalism, 26, 61; marked by use of |
machinery, 61. See also Capitalism. |
Monarchy, rise of, 147; in Middle Ages, |
148; under capitalism, 149.

 

Occupations, in gens, 90; under capital-
ism, QI.

Obscurities, Marx’s, 11, 23, 25, 90, 93 n.,
96, 147, 192, 199, 200, 213n., 229,

| 230 n., 266.

| Organic composition of capital, 207; re-
lation of, to accumulation, 216; rela-
tion of, to centralization, 219, to in-
creasing misery, 227-229, to redundant
population, 229-230.

Original accumulation, 56-58; marked by
crimes, 71; Marx’s sentiments on, 58,
71

Ortes, 68.

Money, in ancient Greece, 49-50; influ- | Overpopulation. See Industrial reserve

ence on rise of capitalism, 57; Engels’s
fear of, 49.
Monotheism, origin of, 164.
Montesquieu, 152, 345.

army; Relative surplus population.

Overproduction, of commodities, 238-
239; of capital, 240-241; as cause of
crises, 238, 239.Overwork, under capitalism, 223, 231,
236; Marx’s sentiments on, 223.
Owen, R., 68, 81, 82, 100, 187.

Pan-slavic movement, 68.

Pareto, V., 266.

Paris Commune, a democratic experi-
ment, 254-255; an example to follow,
255, 288.

Patriotism, unknown to the proletarian,
333:

Patten, S., 288.

Pauperism, a condition of capitalism,
232.

Perception, reliability of, 131; short-
comings of, 132. See also Cognition.

Pestalozzi, 131.

Petty, W., 20, 81.

Petty bourgeoisie, as a class, 103; doomed

INDEX

 

to extinction, 104; dominates German
philosophy from Kant to Hegel, 182.

Philosophers, influence of, 81-82, 83, 180;
influenced by environment, 181-182.

Philosophy, origin of, 178; relation to
economic facts, 178, 181-182; is influ-
enced by science, 135; relativity of,
178-179, 181-182; historical signifi-
cance of, 180; dialectic in, 41; under
socialism, 182-183; destiny of, 122;
criticism of Marx’s views on, 281-282.

Phrenology, 68.

Physics, a response to needs, 174; rela-
tivity of, 174-175. See also Science.

Pigou, A. C., 306.

Poincaré, H., 299, 307.

Political economy, not a science since
1830, 127-128; a response to needs,
174; relativity of, 177; under social-
ism, 182.

Political organization, relation to class
struggle, 251-252.

Population, relation to classes, 108; laws
of, are relative, 137, 177; law of, under
capitalism, 230; under capitalism, 229-
231.

Potato, has revolutionary réle in history,

47.
Pound, R., 280.
Poverty. See Increasing misery.
Predestination, doctrine of, is reflection
of economic fact, 170.
Predictions, as to coming of socialism,
287.

  

Prehistoric times, technique in, 8, 9; réle
of the organization of the family in, 9,
38.

Price of production, 210-211, 214.

Primitive accumulation. See Original
accumulation.

Primitive communism, in the gens, 45,
94, 284, 285. See also Gens.

Private property, appearance of, 46-47;
dissolves the gens, 46-47; abolition of,
as condition of socialism, 35-36.

Process of learning. See Cognition.

Product, dominates producer, in ancient
Greece, 50, under capitalism, 261; not
in Middle Ages, 53, or under commun-
ism, 260. See also Commodities.

Production, basis of history, 4, 10; three
factors of, 13; nature of, 12-16; rela-
tion to consumption, distribution and
exchange, 23-26; incentives to im-
provements in, 235-236; nature of,
under capitalism, 220-221; under com-
munism, 259. See also Mode of pro-
duction.

Productive forces, as basis of history, 4,
10; nature of, 29-33; relation to mode
of production, 27-28, 42; relation to
classes, 98, 100-101; relation to the
dialectic, 42-43, 109-111, 246; growth
of, impeded in Middle Ages, 54; aug-
mented through competition, 217;
fostered by capitalism, 28, 246.

Productive relations. See Relations of
production.

Profits, relation to surplus-value, 208,
214; relation to wages, 208-209; ac-
cording to revised theory of value, 212;
sole goal, under capitalism, 220; ten-
dency to fall, under capitalism, 234-
237; as incentive in competition, 235;
factors counteracting falling rate of,
236-237; falling rate of is menace to
capitalism, 237.

Progress, achieved through the dialectic,
39, 43, I11; is ubiquitous, 117; is ab-
sent in Mohammedan world, 284; goal
of, 261. See also Evolution; Dialectic.

Proletariat, formation of, 56-57; re-
cruited from serfs and journeymen,
332; morality of, 159-160; has no
sentiments of nationality, 333; attitude
of religion to, 171-172; plight of, under

 

capitalism, 95, 223-233, 330; machineINDEX

is enemy of, 226; historical mission
of, 247, 253-256; political organization
urged, 251-252; dictatorship of the,
253-257. See also Labor.

Property, relation to class, 93-94; as
instrument of robbery, 94, 215; rela-
tion to law, 152.

Property relations, 42, 93.

Prophecy, as to coming of socialism, 242,
287; on Russia’s transition to social-
ism, 327.

Protestantism, origins of, 168-169; as
religion of capitalism, 169-170; aids in
development of capitalism, 170; in
service of oppressing class, 171.

Proudhon: 3, 30, 286.

Public opinion, disregarded, 129.

Race, an economic factor, 9; an influence
on productiveness of labor, 17; as an
influence in history, 31 n.; differences
of, 68, 69 n.

Rate of surplus-value, 208.

Ratzel, F., 295 n.

Reality, relation to ideas, 116, 122-123,
125, 130, 298; dialectic behavior of,
116-118; as basis of religion, 162.

Redundant population. See Relative sur-
plus population.

Reformation, as aid in rise of capitalism,
56; in Germany, 169.

Regnault, 175.

Relations of production, as economic
structure of society, 12, 107, 108; con-
nection of, with the dialectic, 43;
objective, 92; subjective, 92: char-
acterized by property ownership, 93-
94, by freedom, 95; as cause of classes,
107.

Relative surplus population, nature of,
229.

Relativity, of the factors of production,
21-23; of human nature, 75; of the
state, 140, 145; of law, 151, 153; of
morality, 157-158; of religion, 162;
of ideas, 134-136; of natural science,
175; of social science, 176; of economics,
177; of philosophy, 178-179; com-
parison of the views of Marx and of the
German historical school of economics,
136-138.

Religion, origin of, 160; basis of, 161—
162; relative to mode of production,

 

367

162; hypocrisy of, 163, 171; in gens,
164; in classical antiquity, 163-164; in
Middle Ages, 168; under capitalism,
168-172; under socialism, 172; influ-
ence on state, 170; not a passive agent,
but yields to economic facts, 168, 170;
used to bemuddle the proletariat, 171-
172; criticism of Marx’s views, 280-281,
301-303. See also Christianity; Ca-
tholicism; Protestantism.

Renaissance, a bourgeois product, 176.

Rent; in Rome, 51; in Middle Ages, 53,
197; relativity of, 177; as part of
surplus-value, 197.

Revolution, not caused by individual-
ities, 83; is the locomotive of history,
111; is an ‘“‘historical right,”’ 252; is
fostered by crises, 242, 287; is due to
circumstances, 250; Marx’s predic-
tions of, 287; Marx and Engels ob-
sessed with idea of, 287-288.

Ricardo, D., 29 n., 72, 81, 127, 128, 177,
203-204, 212, 237.

Rickert, W., 291.

Right and wrong. See Morality.

Rights, under capitalism, 155; not ap-
pealed to by Marx, 207; of revolution,
252; under socialism, 257-258; under
communism, 259.

Rome, gens in, 50; self-interest in, 71;
state in, 146; origins of Christianity
in, 165-166; law in, 154.

Roscher, W., 11, 84, 138, 266, 345.

Rousseau, J. J., 75.

Rumford, Count, 84.

Russia, Marx’s prophecy on, 327.

Saint-Simon: 5, 100, 179, 187, 345.

Savigny, 345.

Say, J. B., 85, 128.

Schmoller, G., 138.

Scope of the criticism of Marx’s theories,
267.

Science, allied with technique, 15; stim-
ulated by environmental problems, 20;
is a social product, 16; is a productive
force, 31, 32; methods of, 129-134; is
difficult, 133-134; motives and causes
of, 173-175; dialectic indispensable in,
134; undeveloped in the Middle Ages,
15, 168; indispensable to the bourgeois,
15; aids in accumulation of capital,
215-216; advanced by Darwin, 82,179; under socialism, 182; classifica-
tion of, 175; relativity of, 175-177;
part of, in history, 180; relation to
morality, 157; effect on philosophy,

 

 

INDEX

   

Social labor, 202.
Social laws, relativity of, 137.
Social science, nature of, 175, 176, 181 n;

under socialism, 182.

135, 179; not a passive agent, but | Social structure, as sum of productive

yields to economic facts, 179-181;
criticism of Marx’s views on, 304-308,
311-314. See also Natural science; |
Social science. |

relations, 12, 107; as groundwork of
institutions and ideas, 108. See Eco-
nomic structure‘

Social value, 217.

Scientific socialism, Marx as founder of, | Socialism, compared to Christianity, 166;

187, 189; nature of, 180.

Self-interest, is dominant human trait, |
70; is probably inborn, 73-74; perme- |
ates all history, 71; in gens, 71, 743)
under capitalism, 71-72; absent under |
socialism, 72-74; views of Marx and of |
English economists compared, 72-73; |
relation to classes, 98, 101; is cause of

classes, 106; relation to the dialectic, |
109; is furthered by the state, r4r;|
réle of, in the formation of institutions, |

124, of ideas, 125; expresses itself in
law, 152, in morality, 157-158, in re-
ligion, 163, 167;
views On, 332-337:

Seligman, E. R. A.: 6, 265, 342.

Senior, N., 85, 128.

Sentiments or comments, Marx’s, on
gens, 46; on original accumulation, 56-
57, 58; on capital, 57, 70, 71, 223, 224;
on overwork, 223; on factory, 225; on
plight of laborer, under capitalism,
232, 233; on Greek art, 184.

Serfdom, forerunner of, 51; origin of, 52;
dissolution of, 54; fostered by Chris-
tianity, 167.

Service, of Marx’s theory of history, 345-
346.

Servius Tullius, 146.

Simple reproduction of capital, 215.

Sismondi, 85, 187.

Slave, 95.

Slavery, origin of, 48; in Athens, 40;
causes of dissolution of, 51; morality
of, 156-157; tolerated by Christianity,
167; historical significance of, 40.

Slavs, as examples of gens, 45; inferiority
of, 68.

Smith, Adam, 29n., 69, 72-73,
123, 026, 202.

Social division of labor, go.

Social evolution, proceeds through the

dialectic, 42-43; réle of state in, 143.

81, 85,

criticism of Marx’s
|

 

 

 

  

is rooted in philosophy, 180; utopian,
187-189; influence of Marx on, 187,
189, 314, 315; not marked by new tech-
nique, 35; changes in mode of produc-
tion under, 35; division of labor under,
79; earmarks of, 35, 247, 324-3253; no
dialectic under, 44, 285; no self-interest
under, 72, 74; human nature trans-
formed under, 77; no classes under, 94,
96; distribution under, 257; state un-
der, 150; law under, 155; morality un-
der, 159-160; religion under, 172;
science under, 182; philosophy under,
182; is inevitable, 245; inevitability
of, “‘proved”’ dialectically, 285-286;
forerunners of, 246; evolution toward,
244-261; country introduced in first,
286; introduced by the proletariat,
247, 253-256; measures in transition
to, 255-256.

Socialists, attitude of, to Marx’s critics,
265-266.

Society, effect of, on human nature, 76;
resultant of mode of production, 77-
78; concept of, 107; relation to class,
107-108, 110; under communism, 259.

Solon, 50, 146, 154.

Sombart, W., 5, 11, 266, 303, 341.

Sorel, G., 159 n.

Stages, in evolution of classes: 1st stage,
98-100, 2d, 100-102; in history, ac-
cording to Marx, 45; criticism of
Marx’s view of, 327.

Stammler, R., 324.

State, rooted in economic soil, 139; char-

acteristics of, 141; used by oppressing

class, 140-141; as an organized force,

141-142; aids in original accumulation,

58; réle of, in social dynamics, 143; as

defender of social interests, 144; not a

passive agent, but yields to economic

facts, 143; In gems, 144, 145; begin-
nings of, in Greece, 144, 145-146; inpeove wemrenean Wines

INDEX

Middle Ages, 147-148; influence of
Calvinism on, 170; under capitalism,
148-150; fosters capitalism, 149; under
dictatorship of the proletariat, 256-
257; under socialism, 144, 150; under
communism, 258; criticism of Marx’s
views, 277-280.

Statements, by Marx and Engels, of their
theory of history, 4, 7, 8, 12, 28, 38, 43,
108, 269-270.

Struggle. See Class struggle; Revolu-
tion.

Suffrage, 8n., 255.

Suggestions as to nature of Marx’s bias,
320-321.

Summary of claims of Marx’s theory of
history, 267-276.

Superstructure of institutions and ideas,
108.

Surplus-labor, nature of, 195, 206; known
before capitalism, 196.

Surplus population. See Relative sur-
plus population.

Surplus-value, not a distinguishing mark
of capitalism, 194-197; existed before
capitalism, 53, 195-197; nature of,
196-197, 205; labor as source of, 205-
206; rate of, 208; components of, 215;
as source of capital, 215; process of
obtaining, 238.

Synthesis, nature of, 40, 43, 119; achieved

by class struggle, 1og-110; shaped |

within capitalism, 246; socialism as,
285-286. See also Dialectic.

Taussig, F. W., 342.

Tawney, R. H., 303.

Technique, as basis of history, 4, 6-10,
34-36; as factor of production, 13-15;
is allied with science, 15; is influenced
by nature, 20; relativity of, 22; as
cause of the dissolution of the gens,
48; not a mark of capitalism, 34, 61,
193; under capitalism, 21; no changes

in, under socialism, 35. See also Basis |

of history.

Test of the claims of Marx’s theory, 277-
289, 331-332.

Theseus, 50, 145, 153.

Thierry, 87.

Thiers, 85.

Thought, rédle of, in science, 132-133;

 

 

 

369

relativity of, 134-136; religion as nega-
tion of, 163.

Townsend, J., 171.

Tozzer, A. M., 277-278.

Trade-unions, nursery of class struggle,
288.

Tradition, in history, 8, 69, 70; adherence
of religion to, 162.

Transition, to ancient slavery, 46-48, 74;
to feudalism, 51-52; to capitalism, 55-
58; to socialism: see Chapter XIII.

Tribal communism. See Gens.

Tucker, 164 n.

Tugan-Baranowsky, M., 6, 29, 31-33.

Underconsumption, as cause of crises,
230.

Unemployment, caused by improve-
ments in the arts, 225. See also In-
dustrial reserve army.

Usury, in ancient Greece, 50; in Rome,
51; in Middle Ages, 54.

Utopian socialism, nature of, 187-188;
shortcomings of, 188-189.

Value, labor theory of, 180, 202-204; not
possessed by natural resources, 204;
Ricardo and Marx contrasted, 204;
contradicts experience, 208-210; the-
ory modified in Capital, vol. iii, 210-
214. See also Labor theory of value.

Variable capital, 207.

Veblen, T., 204, 341.

Vidal de la Blache, P., 295 n.

Violence, advocated at first, 249; dis-
approved of later, 250-252; possible
reasons for change of attitude to, 252-
253.

Voltaire, 169.

Vulgar economists, 84, 85, 126, 127-128,
230.

Wage-laborer. See Proletariat; Labor.
Wages, subsistence theory of, 206, 227;

surplus-population theory of, 231;
wage-fund theory of, 231n. See also
Labor; Proletariat.

Walras, 343.

Watt, 68, 81.

Weaknesses of Marx’s theories. See

Criticism of Marx’s theories.INDEX

Wealth, is aim of civilization, 71; is soul} of man, 79-80. See also Production;
of capitalism, 260. Labor.

Weber, M., 303. Wyatt, 81.

Weydemeyer, 254.
oe Sangean an hs ‘

bi ee behavior, 80; in history, Xénonholy AD) arsine

Windelband, W., 291 n. Xenophon, 68.

Woltmann, L., gr.

Work, as basis of history, 4; as factor| Young, A., 8s.
of production, 13; effect on evolution! Young, A. A., 73 n., 321 N., 3270.PLEASE RETURN TO
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