John Kilcullen
Macquarie
University
Copyright (c) 1996, R.J. Kilcullen.
Marx's analysis of capitalism was only part of a wider philosophy of history and society. Marx and his close collaborator Engels, had a lot to say about historical processes generally, about the pre-capitalist stages of European history, and of course they also wrote about the coming stage, socialism. Read the first three paragraphs by Engels in the Readings, p.132. These paragraphs give a good idea of how these various topics were related to one another in Engels' thinking. Notice in the second paragraph the contrast between basis and superstructure: the basis includes the modes of production and exchange and the classes they give rise to, the superstructure includes politics, law, religion, philosophy and other ideas. In paragraph 3 notice the contrast between socialism seen as the necessary outcome of the historical process, and socialism as "an accidental discovery of this or that ingenious brain": this is the contrast between socialism utopian and scientific.
So read now from Engels' book Socialism Utopian and Scientific, pages 622 to the top of 624 (to "Now, in what does this conflict consist.")
At the beginning of this section, notice the world "materialist". Marx and Engels called themselves "materialists" in contrast with the German philosophy of their time, which was called "idealism". However, it does not seem to me that the conception of history that he goes on to describe would be inconsistent with the belief that there are spiritual as well as material beings, or that human beings have immortal spiritual souls: he didn't believe these things and despise people who did, but these matters are not really at issue. All he needs to assume, I think, is that whatever else is true about human beings it is true that they cannot survive without using and consuming material things (e.g. food), at least some of which must be produced by human effort. Grant that much and the argument gets going.
Notice again, 3 lines down, the term "basis".
On p.623, line 7 and following: This passage seems to imply some sort of ethical relativism: a perception of injustice can happen only when the social order is no longer in keeping with the mode of production. Does this mean that we don't see injustice until there is some such change, or does it mean that there is no injustice until then--i.e. that injustice consists in lack of correspondence between the social order and the mode of production? We can't tell from this passage how Engels would answer that question, but keep it in mind for the future (when you read the article by Steven Lukes). At all events, if we don't perceive injustice until there has been a change in the basis, Engels infers that this change will also provide a means of getting rid of the incongruity.
Compare the next paragraph with Marx's Capital, Readings, p.130 (2nd half of p.786), "The immediate producer". The main point of Engels' paragraph is of course in the last sentence, which is the same as the point of the last sentence of the paragraph before it, and of the paragraph before that.
Read now pp.624-2, down to "its products as well".
In this passage, "social means of production", "socialised production", etc., do not mean state-owned, but social in the sense that it is associative--a more or less large number of people have to work together. See earlier extracts from Marx's Capital, pp.389-92 (Readings) p.116-7) and p.552 (Readings, p.123). Recall that commodities are things produced for sale in a market. In the future socialist society as Engels envisages it things will not be produced for sale in a market, but for use--they will simply be distributed to those who need them, not sold, just as in a factory tools etc. are issued to workmen when they need them, not sold to them. He is saying here that the associative production is at present still oriented to the market. What are the "old forms of appropriation", referred to at the end of the passage?
Read on through pp.625-627, to the end of the paragraph 8 lines from the top. Pause.
This is clear enough. Notice how Engels makes the capitalists' appropriation of the product seem irrational, illogical, contradictory. The capitalist might reply that if you look at it another way it is not at all illogical. If I save up my hard-earned money and accumulate a sum of capital and use it to buy material and tools, of course the material and tools belong to me. And if I enter into a contract with each of a hundred people to work with my tools and materials in return for a fixed wage, on the understanding that the things I pay them to produce with my tools and materials will be mine, then they are mine, in accordance with a freely made agreement. The fact that I am an individual and there are 100 people working together, "socially" if you like, in my workshop, makes no difference to the fact that at every stage the capital, tools, materials and products belong to me individually. So why make a contradiction out of it? For what Marx might reply to this see Capital pp.623-5 (Readings, pp.124-5), and bottom half of p.835 (p.130).
In the paragraph beginning "The first capitalists" note that Engels does not emphasise so much the violent expropriation of the peasants but rather the great productivity of early capitalism in comparison with individual production: "The means of production, as well as product, of the individual producer become more and more worthless".
READ p.627 to 2 lines down from the top of p.629.
In the first paragraph underline "the producers have lost control over their own social relations", and "No one knows whether his individual product will meet an actual demand". This is what Engels means by anarchy--the oscillations of the market, from shortage to glut and back again indefinitely. The economists Engels would have called "bourgeois" present the market as an impersonal device for planning production, for allocating resources in the most rational way: an invisible hand leads to an allocation of social resources that is best from a social point of view, even though no human mind plans things from a social point of view--and just as well, since such a mind could never digest all the information needed to make such a plan. Remind yourself of Adam Smith's view; turn to Readings p.39, the last 9 lines (From "He generally, indeed, neither intends" etc.), and p.46 on the left, paragraph 51, especially: "The sovereign is completely discharged from a duty" etc. (See also POL167, "Free enterprise and its critics, section 5.)
Against all this Engels is emphasising the fact the markets never actually arrive at equilibrium. All the time there are shortages here and gluts there, misallocation of effort and resources. The last sentence of the first of the paragraphs you've just read, "Anarchy reigns in socialised production...", is meant to sound like an oxymoron. Socialised production should not be anarchical, but under capitalism while the work within the factory is socialised and orderly, outside the individual firm, in the economy as a whole, it is anarchic.
The next paragraph, "But the production of commodities", should be compared with a later passage. Turn to p.142 of Readings and read p.230 of Engels' End of Classical German Philosophy. Then turn to p.65, T.S. Mill's Logic and read section 2, "To what scientific type the science of human nature corresponds". Engels and Mill are trying to make the same point, that despite the vagaries of human choice it is still possible to generalise and predict. But whereas Mill thinks that this could not be possible if human beings had free will in any sense incompatible with causal determinism, Engels rather emphasises the contrast between the determinism of nature and the free choice of human beings.
Returning to Readings, p.134, notice throughout the rest of this passage that by the laws of commodity production Engels means not the optimistic theorems of Adam Smith, but the trends that Marx argued were inevitable under capitalism--toward the polarisation of society into a few wealthy capitalists and a large number of increasingly miserable proletarians. Note the reference to the Darwinian struggle transferred from nature to society--in fact Darwin's idea of struggle came from Malthus' analysis of the social phenomena Marx was interested in, though while Malthus traced it back to biological fact, Marx traces it back to the tendency of capitalism to make population redundant.
READ now from p.628, half way through p.630
The two forms of antagonism are between proletariat and bourgeoisie (top of p.627) and the between organised production within the firm and social anarchy.
On the compulsory law see Articles, Chapters and Lectures, p.239, first paragraph under "The Laws of Motion". Since every innovation soon becomes the normal method, capitalists must continually innovate to stay ahead of their competitors in the market. The reference at the bottom of p.629 to Capital p.406 is to p.440 in the edition we are using, and the reference over the page is to p.709.
READ p.630-631, "The mode of production is in rebellion against the mode of exchange".
See Articles, Chapters and Lectures, p.241-2 point 6. In contemporary politics people talk about "sustainable growth", "overheating", "the soft landing", "recession"--the problem Engels is talking about is still with us under different words. The "mode of exchange" mentioned at the end is exchange of commodities. According to Engels the problem is that the products of associated industry are still treated as commodities owned by the capitalist.
READ p.631-633, 1/2 way through.
So crises lead to increased concentration of ownership, and then to attempts on the part of the great capitalists to control the fluctuations of the market by forming large companies and trusts, and finally to state intervention. These are all steps in the direction of socialism, but as yet the capitalist minority is still in control, until "exploitation is so palpable that it must break down" and the capitalist minority are pushed aside--especially since they have already lost their function. "All the social functions of the capitalist are now performed by salaried employees". Perhaps it's worth paying some attention to Engels' rhetoric. Most of the verbs are in the present tense as if he is actually watching this process. He uses metaphors suggesting power and determination and energy:
This rebellion of the productive forces, as they grow more and more powerful, against their quality as capital, this stronger and stronger command that their social character shall be recognised, forces the capitalist class itself to treat them more and more, etc.
There are many emphatic expressions, "more and more", not just "more", "The whole mechanism of the capitalist mode", not just "the mechanism", "for that very reason", not just "for that reason", and words suggesting inevitability, such as "must break down", "The state will ultimately have to undertake", "This necessity", etc; and lots of italics. Engels is a compelling writer, a spell binder. Notice also the various references to science--to the electrodes of a battery, to the expansion force of gas, and so on. None of the political philosophers we have read before had such a forceful style.
READ on, pp.633 (including the footnote) to p.635, 10 lines down. What is the difference between state capitalism and socialism? Engels is a bit vague about this. Socialism "can only come about by society openly and directly taking possession of the productive forces that have outgrown all control except that of society as a whole". How does society, society as a whole, control anything--does he mean by some electoral or representative process? "Social forces, while we don't understand them, act like natural forces, blindly, forcibly, destructively, but once we understand them we can subject them to our own will". To whom does he refer by "we", "our" will--does he mean each of us individually, or the nation as a collectivity? How will individuals control these forces? Or if he means the collectivity, how do the individuals take part in the collective decision? When he refers to "social regulation upon a definite plan", who makes the plan and how do they do it?
READ now pp.635-638 (5 lines down). This is the vision part--after exposing the bankruptcy of capitalism and depicting its destruction as it is happening before his very eyes, Engels describes what we can hope for. Notice near the bottom of p.637 the references to "man" in the singular--"man who for the first time becomes the real conscious Lord of Nature, because he has now become master of his social organisation" (all in the present tense, though it has not yet happened.) Talk about man (singular) being master of his social organisation glosses over the problem that will still arise from the fact of plurality--some men and women will think one thing, others another.
READ now Engels' own summary of his argument, pp.638-9.
Now let's look at Marx's preface to his A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, an earlier book that is a sort of first version of Capital. At Readings p.141, read pp.42-44.
This passage is autobiographical. The first conclusion he arrived at, on p.43, 13 lines down, corresponds to the second paragraph of the Engels' extract on p.132 of the Readings book. Pause the cassette and compare them.
The second conclusion, p.43, 12 lines further down, is a fairly elaborate theory consisting of a number of different propositions: First, there is a link between social production, relations of production, and material powers of production--and these things are independent of human wit or choice. Then comes, again, the distinction between base and superstructure. Then, three lines from the bottom of p.43, a new idea, of possible conflict between the material forces of production and the existing relations of production. By "relations of production" he seems to mean the relationships among the people involved and between them and the things involved--who (if anyone) owns what, who has authority, etc. The claim is that change in the powers of production (the available workforce, the technology, energy sources and so on) may make the social relations of production inappropriate, so that they no longer facilitate but impede production. This leads to a transformation of the social relations and their legal, political, ideological etc. expressions. Note that the forces of production are portrayed here as the independent variable--if they change, then inevitably the whole superstructure will be transformed. Change doesn't run from superstructure to base. Re-read the top half of p.44.
Then at the middle of p.44 he says: "No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed". I don't know how you would test the truth of this generalisation. He continues: "And new higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society". This is probably a tautology--if something new appears, then the conditions necessary to its existence must have been satisfied. Taken together the two parts of this sentence once again imply that change in productive forces explains social change and not vice versa--you don't have a social change that cuts short possible development of the forces of production, or social change that runs ahead of change in the forces of production. This gives history a logic and rationality: "Mankind always takes up only such problems as it can solve... the problem arises only when [and because] the material conditions necessary to its solution are in the process of formation".
Next he distinguishes stages: the Asiatic, the ancient, the feudal, the modern bourgeois. Notice that these four stages do not correspond with Adam Smith's, but there is a similar idea of stages. Marx's Capital is concerned with the fourth of these stages. This stage is marked by antagonism, between capitalist and worker, between individual appropriation and social production, antagonism within the relations of production. And, as he argued in Capital, "the productive forces developing in the womb of bourgeois society [he may be thinking of the massing of large numbers of organised and disciplined workers within the factory] create the material conditions for the solution of the antagonism".
This Preface is a famous text, and it is worth a careful reading. The idea that change in the forces of production underlie everything else, so that if you understand the history of the development of these forces you have a clue to the rationality of history and can venture on some predictions for the future, is comparable with Mill's idea that the development of knowledge is the central chain.
Re-read Mill, Readings, p.78, LHS, 2nd paragraph of #7 (p.925), "In the difficult process ...", and read to the end of p.927. Notice the second paragraph, on p.926: although the appetite for knowledge is not our strongest appetite, the progress of knowledge is the main determinant of social progress, since it sets limits to what our other desires can accomplish--"all the other dispositions of our nature being dependent upon it for the means of accomplishing their share of the work". At some points Mill and Marx are perhaps not too far apart: Marx counted knowledge as one of the forces of production; he would perhaps say that Mill is giving it too much prominence over the others. But as Mill goes on a gap opens. On p.927, 4 lines down, he says "As between any given state of speculation" i.e. knowledge, and the rest, "it was almost always the former that first showed itself"--knowledge is the independent variable; though Mill remarks, "the effects, no doubt, reacted potently on the cause"--the lines of influence do not all run in the same direction. He goes on (5 lines down) to talk about religion as a form of knowledge or belief that produces social change, and says that religious change is determined mostly by the previous state of belief and thought, not by other social conditions: "Each of them ... being mainly an emanation not from the practical life of the period, but from the previous state of belief and thought". All of this contrasts with Marx in the passage you were just reading. For example, Readings, p.141, "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness" (near the bottom of p.43). And in the first "conclusion" on that page: "Legal relations [and he might have added religion]... could be neither understood by themselves nor explained by the so-called general progress of the human mind". So Mill, on the one hand, and Marx and Engels on the other, are equally concerned to find a central chain or a basic element in historical change, but they have different views on what it is.
Let's turn now to Engels, "The End of Classical German Philosophy", Readings p.142. Put a mark 6 lines from the bottom of p.232 and read to there.
On page 230 Engels argues that although human action is purposive and nature is not, still, in both cases, there are inner laws. It is the business of social science to discover the laws of human action. (Cf. Mill).
He seems to think that the existence of these laws is proved by the fact that on the surface accident holds sway. At the foot of the page he formulates his premise explicitly: "But where on the surface accident holds sway, there actually it is always governed by inner hidden laws". So he emphasises, perhaps over-emphasises, the accidents of human affairs; we aim at certain ends, but what actually happens is accidental. So having shown that accident holds sway he can infer that there must be laws. Against this, one can object that sometimes where accident holds sway on the surface, it also holds sway all the way down, and that, on the other hand, even if human action always or usually did attain its chosen goal, it might still be the case that there are laws because choice is determined by causes; you will remember that this was J.S. Mill's line of thought--since choices are caused, a science of human nature is in principle possible, though, given the difficulty of knowing enough about the causes operating on a given individual, we may have to be content with statistical generalisations about masses of human beings.
From this point (the bottom of p.230) Mill and Engels go on together: Mill would agree with Engels that we must seek the causes of choice--or in Engels' terms the levers that determine passion, the driving forces behind motives--and would also agree with most of what Engels says in the last paragraph of p.232 (though he would perhaps disagree with Engels' disparagement of the influence of "great men"--see Mill p.936, Readings p.79 lower RH).
But now Engels takes a different turn. Make a mark at p.234, 5 lines into the second paragraph, beside "Therefore, here at least", and read to there.
On p.233, paragraph, "But how did these classes come into existence?", underline "If... at first glance... this could not be done". Engels clearly thinks that even in the case of feudalism economic causes are the explanation--and certainly in the case of the bourgeoisie and the working class. Then follows the by now familiar story. Note on p.234, 10 lines down, the prediction that the bourgeois stage will be left behind.
"In modern history at least it is, therefore, proved": Engels thinks that it is true of earlier history too. Re-read the beginning of the paragraph at the foot of p.232.
Make a mark now on p.235, at the beginning of the last paragraph, "If the state and public law", and read to there.
His thesis is that the political order, the state, is subordinate to economic relations. Hegel says the opposite, and Engels concedes that "appearances" correspond to this. But these appearances are only the formal aspect (underline on the last line of p.234 "formal", and on the second line of p.235 underline "content".) At the end of this paragraph he says that the truth is that the will of the state is determined by the development of the productive forces; and the next paragraph says that this is true even of the pre-modern period, and indeed even truer. So far Engels has been arguing that the state and public law are not basic, but superstructural. Now he argues this of other features of the social order. Read the next paragraph, about what we would call the civil law.
The next section is about "ideology". Let me explain something of the history of that word. These days in English it means practically the same as a political philosophy, with no unfavourable connotation. Marx and Engels always used it unfavourably, to mean a false, deceptive view of the world, which hides and distorts reality. The word was first used by French pioneers of psychology to mean the study of sensations and thoughts; for some reason Napoleon took a dislike to these people and always referred to the ideologists disparagingly, and the stigma remained. Make a mark at p.237, last paragraph, "We will now in addition", and read to there.
Notice the claim that modern philosophy was "in essence only the philosophical expression of the thoughts" of the newly developing dominant class.
READ now to the bottom of p.240, on religion.
On p.237, 4 or 5 lines up from the bottom, underline "an ideology, that is, occupation with thoughts as with independent entities", and go back to underline "independent" on p.236 (about 2/3 way down) and on p.237, 8 lines down.
On p.238, lower half, notice that Engels does not think that a religion must have been made specifically to serve some practical purpose. But however it begins, it is selected for encouragement and support only if it serves the purposes of those in power.
A new world religion is not to be made in this fashion by imperial decree. The new world religion Christianity had already quietly come into being. The fact that... it became the state religion suffices to show that it was the religion in correspondence with the conditions of the time.
(It is as if religions arise like mutations but are then subjected to social selection.) He goes on to say that Catholicism corresponds to the conditions of a feudal society, Protestantism to the conditions of bourgeois society--the one being more hierarchical, the other more republican and democratic. Notice the last paragraph on p.240: religion like other ideologies, such as law, always contains much traditional material, but the traditional material is transformed in accordance with economic relations.
We come now to extracts from Marx and Engels The German Ideology, Readings p.146 (If this week's readings are getting too long, skip to p.150, Engels' letters on Historical Materialism).
Before reading The German Ideology extracts, read the first 9 paragraphs of the lecture on Historial Materialism (Articles, Chapters and Lectures,p.249-251, bottom of LH side).
In Readings p.146 read The German Ideology, pp. 246-8 (using the pagination of the original book). Notice the passage beginning 10 lines from the bottom of p.247, on the idea that the superstructure has no independence. "They have no history, no development".
READ the rest now, to the end of p.259. This is interesting material that gives a fuller explanation of some of the points we have already seen. On p.254, 2/3 way down, we have one of Marx's few attempts to say what a Communist society would be like.
Now turn to p.150 of the Readings book, and read Engels, "Letters on Historical Materialism", pp. 397-412 (using the pagination of the original book). Notice that Engels here acknowledges that the superstructure may have an effect upon the base--see, for example, 5 lines up from the bottom of p.404, 15 lines up from the bottom of p.405. Look again at J.S. Mill, Readings p.74, beginning 7 lines down from Mill's p.899 down to p.900, and on p.76 of the Readings, Mill's page 913, first 6 lines of 2nd paragraph. Now read from Articles, Chapters and Lectures, pp.253-5.
1. Why does Engels say that the development of capitalism intensified the anarchy of commodity production? Why does he think that social possession of the means of production will bring social forces under the control of human will?
2. How large a part does conscious will play in social development, according to Marx and Engels? Do you agree?
3. According to Engels what makes social science possible, despite the difference between natural and human action?
4. Is the position of Engels in Letters on Historical Materialism consistent with the position of Marx and Engels in The German Ideology on the dependence/independence of morality, religion, philosophy and the like?
Read the whole of the lecture on Historical Materialism (Articles, Chapters and Lectures, p.249 ff), and read Lukes, "Marxism, Morality and Justice", in Articles, Chapters and Lectures, p.66ff.
On p.177 (using the original pagination), under I, 5 lines down, underline "morality is a form of ideology", and 9 lines below that underline "On the other hand". On p.178, 10 lines down, underline "Morality ... ideology", and on p.181, middle of page, "On the other hand". On p.185, Put a mark beside "As for Engels" and read to that point.
Now on p.185, in the first line of the quote from Engels' "Anti-Duhring, underline "reject... moral dogma", and on p.186 underline "And yet on the other hand." On p.186 put a mark beside "The only sustained treatment", and read to there.
Now on p.186 underline "To Kantian-influenced Marxists", and on p.187 in the middle underline "Against all this". On p. 189 put a mark beside "Other classical Marxists" and read to there.
Now underline on p.189 "Plekhanov" and "Lenin" and on p.190 near the bottom "Yet, on the other hand". Make a mark on p.191 near the bottom beside "Trotsky's" and read to there. Now make a mark on p.192 near the bottom beside "It may, however", and read to there. Now read to the end of section I.
On p.195, at the end of the first line of II, paragraph 2, underline "tactics". At the end of the 1st line of the next paragraph underline "relativism", and on p.196, paragraph beginning "A third approach", underline "abstractness". Put a mark at the beginning of the next paragraph, "Perhaps". Read to there.
Now on p.196, at the end of the second line after "perhaps", underline "ideological", and 2 lines down "justice". In the middle of the next page underline "are functional to"; 1/2 way down p.198 "Justice is a judicial concept", and near the bottom of p.199 "any social system... general rules", and on p.200, 9 lines down "any rule". Put a mark on p.201 beside "Now we begin to see", and read to there.
On p.201, 6 lines down from "Now we begin to see", underline "wider senses" and in the first line of the next paragraph, "narrow sense". On p.202, 2/3 down, underline "Marxism denies that limited sympathies and resources are invariant features", and 3 lines from bottom of page "a unified society of abundance". On p.203, put a mark beside "I hope to have shown", and read to there. Now read the rest.
See lectures:
Marx on Capitalism
The
Marginalist Theory
Historical
Materialism
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