Part 5 (1/2)
IV.
THE MARXIAN SYSTEM.
I. THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
As a guide to his studies from 1843-4 onwards, Marx used the conception of history, or method of investigation, which--in contradistinction to the idealist conception of history of Hegel--was named materialistic. As its nature is dialectic--as it seeks to conceive in thought the evolving antagonisms of the social process--it is, like Hegel's dialectic, a conception of history and a method of investigation at the same time. Nowhere did Marx work out his method of investigation in a special and comprehensive form; the elements of it are scattered throughout his writings, particularly in the Communist Manifesto and in the ”Poverty of Philosophy,” and serve the purpose of polemics or demonstration. Only in the preface to his book, ”On the Critique of Political Economy” (1859) did he devote two pages to a sketch of his conception of history, but in phraseology which is not always clear, sequential, or free from objection. It was the intention of Marx to write a work on Logic, where he would certainly have formulated clearly his materialistic dialectic. As, however, his fundamental ideas on this subject are available, we are able to extract the essentials of his position.
A glance over human history suffices to teach us that from age to age man has held to be true or false various opinions on rights, customs, religion, the State, philosophy, land-holding, trade, industry, etc., that he has had various economic arrangements, and forms of the State and of society, and that he has gone through an endless series of struggles and wars and migrations. How has this complicated variety of human thought and action come about? Marx raises that question, which, so far as he is concerned, does not aim in the first place at the discovery of the origin of thought, of rights, of religion, of society, of trade, etc.; these he takes to be historically given. He is rather concerned to find out the causes, the impulses, or the springs which produce the changes and revolutions of the essentials and forms of the mental and social phenomena, or which create the tendencies thereto. In a sentence: What interested Marx here was not the _origin_, but the development and change of things--he is searching for the dynamic law of history.
Marx answered: The prime motive power of human society, which is responsible for the changes of human consciousness and thought, or which causes the various social inst.i.tutions and conflicts to arise, does not originate, in the first place, from thought, from the Idea, from the world-reason or the world-spirit, but from the material conditions of life. The basis of human history is therefore material.
The material conditions of life--that is, the manner in which men as social beings, with the aid of environing nature, and of their own in-dwelling physical and intellectual qualities, shape their material life, provide for their sustenance, and produce, distribute and exchange the necessary goods for the satisfaction of their needs.
Of all categories of material conditions of existence, the most important is production of the necessary means of life. And this is determined by the nature of the productive forces. These are of two kinds: inanimate and personal. The inanimate productive forces are: soil, water, climate, raw materials, tools and machines. The personal productive forces are: the labourers, the inventors, discoverers, engineers, and finally, the qualities of the race--the inherited capacities of specific groups of men, which facilitate work.
The foremost place among the productive forces belongs to the manual and mental labourers; they are the real creators of exchange-value in capitalist society. The next place of importance is taken by modern technology, which is an eminently revolutionising force in society.--(”Capital” (German), Vol. I., Chapters 1, 12, 13 and 14, ”Poverty of Philosophy” (German edition, 1885, pp. 100-101.))
So much for the conception ”Productive Forces,” which plays an important part with Marx. We come now to the other equally important notion, ”Conditions of production.” By this phrase Marx understands the legal and State forms, ordinances and laws, as well as the grouping of social cla.s.ses and sections: thus, the social conditions which regulate property and determine the reciprocal human relations in which production is carried on. The conditions of production are the work of men in society. Just as men produce various material goods out of the materials and forces made available to them by Nature, so they create out of the reactions of the productive forces upon the mind definite social, political, and legal inst.i.tutions, as well as systems of religion, morals, and philosophy.
”Men make their own history, but do not so spontaneously in conditions chosen by them, but on the contrary, in conditions which they have found ready to hand transmitted and given.”--(Marx, ”The Eighteenth Brumaire,” I.)
That is to say, under the influence of productive work and its needs, men build their form of society, their State, their religion, their philosophy and science. The material production is the substructure or the groundwork, while the corresponding political, religious, and philosophical systems are the superstructure. And in such a manner that the superstructure corresponds to the foundation, lends it strength, and promotes its development.
The foundation is material, and the superstructure is the psychical reflex and effect.
In broad outlines this conception may be ill.u.s.trated somewhat as follows:
Primitive human groups lived under Communism and were organised according to blood relations.h.i.+p. Their deities have the characteristics of their natural environment, and reflect the physical effects of this environment upon the primitive mental life of the ”savage”; their religion, their morality, and their laws promote the communal life and the tribal discipline. Feudal society is based on the possession of land by the n.o.bles and on the industrial labour of the corporations of the towns. The inherited religious ideas are soon transformed in accordance with the dominant interests of these historical periods (primitive Christianity became a State religion); all religious, ethical, and philosophical ideas antagonistic to these interests were fought and persecuted. The middle-cla.s.s society, which is based on personal property, is endeavouring to sweep away all vestiges of communal and corporation rights, to set free the individual, to mobilise labour and property, to abolish Feudalism and the old Church and monasterial inst.i.tutions, and to put in their place the individual relation between man and G.o.d, or the personal conscience (the Reformation), introducing individual rights as well; it struggles against the independent sovereignty of the feudal domains, and labours for a united national territory, which will afford greater scope to trade and commerce; it supports Absolutism, so long as the latter is in conflict with the feudal lords; and when, afterwards, Absolutism is a hindrance to the development of middle-cla.s.s society, this also is fought and a const.i.tutional monarchy or a republic demanded. And all this takes place not because certain human intelligences, by reason of more intense thought, or enlightenment, or the call of a supernatural power, are primarily at work, but as a consequence of the influence of the material basis, of the economic foundation of society, upon the mind, which translates and transforms these external realities into religious, juridical, and philosophic conceptions:
”It is not the consciousness of men which determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness.”--(Marx, Preface to ”Critique of Political Economy.”)
Man, even the most heroic, is not the sovereign maker and law-giver of social life, but its executive; he only follows out the tendencies and currents set up by the material foundation of society. Nevertheless, a great deal depends upon the executive officials. If they possess comprehensive knowledge, energetic natures, and outstanding capacities, they are able, within the boundaries drawn for them, to accomplish great things, and to accelerate the development.
”Up to the present the philosophers have but interpreted the world; it is, however, necessary to change it.”--(Marx, ”Theses to Feuerbach.”)
We have referred in various places to interests. We are not to understand by this personal, but general social or cla.s.s interests.
Marx is not of the opinion that everybody acts in accordance with his personal welfare. This is not Marxian doctrine, but that of the middle-cla.s.s moral philosophers, like Helvetius (1715-1771) and Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), who regarded pleasure and pain of the individual as the measure and motive of his actions and conduct. Marx is rather of the opinion that men often, in the most important events of their lives, act contrary to their personal interests, as in their feelings and thoughts they identify themselves with that which they hold to be the interests of the community or of their cla.s.s. According to Marx, individual interest generally plays a slight part in history. He is preoccupied with the collective interest of social production. Only the latter does he hold to be determining in the formation of the intellectual superstructure.
Up till now we have only spoken of various forms of production and society, and their corresponding mental systems. But we do not yet know why and how one form of production and society becomes obsolete and gives place to another, that is, how and why revolutionary changes are brought about. Or in other words: we have hitherto considered the statics of society; we will now look at its dynamics.
The revolutionary changes in society depend on two groups of phenomena, which, although casually connected with each other, yet work differently. One of these groups of phenomena is technical, and consists in changes in the productive forces. The other group, which is the effect of the first, is of a personal nature, and consists in struggles between the social cla.s.ses. Let us consider the first group of causes.
As the productive forces expand, through greater skill on the part of the worker, through discoveries of new raw material and markets, through the invention of new labour processes, tools and machines, and through the better organisation of trade and exchange, so that the material basis or the economic foundation of society is altered, then the old conditions of production cease to promote the interests of production. For the conditions of production: the former social cla.s.ses, the former laws, State inst.i.tutions, and intellectual systems were adapted to a state of the productive forces which is either in process of disappearing, or no longer exists. The social and intellectual superstructure no longer corresponds to the economic foundation. The productive forces and the conditions of production come into conflict with each other.
This conflict between the new realty and the old form, this conflict between new causes and the obsolete effects of bygone causes, begins gradually to influence the thoughts of men. Men commence to feel that they are confronted with a new external world, and that a new era has been opened.
Social divisions acquire a new significance: cla.s.ses and sections which were formerly despised gain in social and economic power; cla.s.ses which were formerly honoured decline. While this transformation of the social foundation is proceeding, the old religious, legal, philosophical, and political systems cling to their inherited positions, and insist on remaining, although they are obsolete and can no longer satisfy mental needs. For human thought is conservative: it follows external events slowly, just as our eye perceives the sun at a point which the sun has in reality already pa.s.sed, as the rays require several minutes of time in order to strike our optic nerves. We may recall Hegel's fine metaphor: ”The Owl of Minerva begins its flight only when twilight gathers.” However late, it does begin. Great thinkers gradually arise, who explain the new situation, and create new ideas and trains of thought which correspond to the new situation. The human consciousness gives birth to anxious doubts and questionings, and then new truths; leading to differences of opinion, disputes, strifes, schisms, cla.s.s struggles, and revolutions.
In the next chapter we will consider more closely the cla.s.s struggle between Labour and Capital. Meanwhile, we will look at the cla.s.s struggle generally.
In primitive societies, where private property is yet unknown, or still undeveloped, there are no cla.s.s distinctions, no cla.s.s domination, and no cla.s.s antagonisms. The chief, the medicine man, and the judge regulate or supervise the observance of the customary usages, religious ceremonies, and social arrangements. But as soon as the old order is dissolved, and private property develops, in consequence of trade with other peoples or through wars, there arise cla.s.ses of those who possess and those who do not. The possessing cla.s.s carries on the Government, makes laws, and creates inst.i.tutions, which chiefly serve the end of protecting the interests of the possessing and ruling cla.s.ses. The intellectual structure of the cla.s.s society likewise corresponds to the interests of those who possess and rule. So long as these interests promote the common good in some measure, so long as the old forms of production and the old conditions of production are largely in harmony with each other, a certain truce prevails between the cla.s.ses. But should there set in the above-mentioned opposition between the productive forces and the conditions of production, the latter will cease to satisfy the oppressed cla.s.ses, and cla.s.s conflicts will arise, which will either result in legal compromises (reforms) or will end in the overthrow of the society concerned, or will lead to a new set of conditions.