correlative term is _subjective_) does not seem to be in place here.
Let us, instead, take account, in a society, only of what is properly
economic life, _i.e._ out of the whole society, only of _economic
society_. Let us abstract from this latter all goods which cannot be
increased by labour. Let us abstract further all class distinctions,
which may be regarded as accidental in reference to the general
concept of economic society. Let us leave out of account all modes of
distributing the wealth produced, which, as we have said, can only be
determined on grounds of convenience or perhaps of justice, but in
anycase upon considerations belonging to society as a whole, and never
from considerations belonging exclusively to economic society. What is
left after these successive abstractions have been made? Nothing but
_economic society in so far as it is a working society_.[23] And in
this society without class distinctions, _i.e._ in an economic society
as such and whose only commodities are the products of labour, what
can value be? Obviously the sum of the efforts, _i.e._ the quantity of
labour, which the production of the various kinds of commodities
demands. And, since we are here speaking of the economic social
organism, and not of the individual persons living in it, it follows
that this labour cannot be reckoned except by averages, and hence as
labour _socially_ (it is with society, I repeat, that we are here
dealing) _necessary_.
Thus labour-value would appear as that determination of value peculiar
to economic society as such, when regarded only in so far as it
produces commodities capable of being increased by labour.
From this definition the following corollary may be drawn: the
determination of labour value _will have a positive conformity with
facts as long as a society exists, which produces goods by means of
labour_. It is evident that in the imaginary county of Cocaigne this
determination would have no conformity with facts, since all goods
would exist in quantities exceeding the demand; similarly it is also
evident that the same determination could not take effect in a society
in which goods were inadequate to the demand, but could not be
increased by labour.
But hitherto history has shown us only societies which, in addition to
the enjoyment of goods not increasable by labour, have satisfied their
needs by labour. Hence this equivalence between value and labour has
hitherto had and will continue for an indefinite time to have, a
conformity with facts; but, of what kind is this conformity? Having
ruled out (1) that it is a question of a moral ideal, and (2) that it
is a question of scientific law; and having nevertheless concluded
that this equivalence is a _fact_ (which Marx uses as a type), we are
obliged to say, as the only alternative, that _it is a fact, but a
fact which exists in the midst of other facts; i.e. a fact that
appears to us empirically as opposed, limited, distorted by other
facts_, almost like a force amongst other forces, which produces a
resultant different from what it would produce if the other forces
ceased to act. _It is not a completely dominant fact but neither is it
non-existent and merely imaginary._[24]
It is still necessary to remark that in the course of history this
_fact_ has undergone various alterations, _i.e._, has been more or
less obscured; and here it is proper to do justice to Engels' remark
in reference to Sombart; that as regards the way in which the latter
defines the law of value 'he does not bring out the full importance
which this law possesses during the stages of economic development in
which it is supreme.' Engels makes a digression into the field of
economic history to show that Marx's law of value, _i.e._ the
equivalence between value and the labour socially necessary, has been
supreme for several thousand years.[25] Supreme is too strong a term;
but it is true that the opposed influences of other facts to this law
have been fewer in number and less intense under primitive communism
and under mediæval and domestic economic conditions, whilst they have
reached a maximum in the society based on privately owned capital and
more or less free universal competition, _i.e._ in the society which
produces almost exclusively _commodities_.[26]
Marx, then, in postulating as _typical_ the equivalence between value
and labour and in applying it to capitalist society, was, as it were,
making a comparison between capitalist society and a part of itself,
isolated and raised up to an independent existence: _i.e._ a
comparison between capitalist society and economic society as such
(but only in so far as it is a working society). In other words, he
was studying the social problem of labour and was showing by the test
implicitly established by him, _the special way in which this problem
is solved in capitalist society_. This is the justification, no longer
_formal_ but _real_, of his method.
It was in virtue of this method, and by the light thrown by the type
which he postulated, that Marx was able to discover and define the
social origin of _profit_, _i.e._ of _surplus value_. Surplus value in
pure economics is a meaningless word, as is evident from the term
itself; since a _surplus value_ is an _extra value_, and thus falls
outside the sphere of pure economics. But it rightly has meaning and
is no absurdity, as a _concept of difference_, in comparing one
economic society with another, one fact with another, or two
hypotheses with one another.
It is also in virtue of the same premise that he was able to arrive at
the proposition: that the products of labour in a capitalist society
do not sell, unless by exception, for their value, but usually for
more or less, and sometimes with great deviations from their value;
which is to say, to put it shortly, _value_ does not coincide with
_price_. Suppose, by hypothesis the organisation of production were
suddenly changed from a capitalist to a communistic system, we should
see at once, not only that alteration in the fortunes of men which
appeals so much to popular imagination, but also a more remarkable
change: a change in the fortunes of things. A scale of valuation of
goods would then fashion itself, very different for the most part,
from that which now exists. The way in which Marx proves this
proposition, by an analysis of the different components of the capital
employed in different industries, _i.e._ of the proportion of fixed
capital (machines, etc.) and of floating capital (wages), need not be
explained here in detail.
And, in the same way, _i.e._ by proving that fixed capital increases
continually in comparison with floating capital, Marx tries to
establish another law of capitalist society, the law of the _tendency
of the rate of profits to fall_. Technical improvement, which in an
abstract economic society would show itself in the decreased labour
required to produce the same wealth, shows itself in capitalist
society in a gradual decline in the rate of profits.[27] But this
section of Volume III of _Das Kapital_ is one of the least developed
in this little worked-out posthumous book; and it seems to me to be
worth a special critical essay, which I hope to write at another time,
not wishing to treat the subject here incidentally.[28]
II
MARX'S PROBLEM AND PURE ECONOMICS (GENERAL ECONOMIC SCIENCE)
_Marxian economics not general economic science and
labour-value not a general concept of value: Engel's
rejection of general economic law: abstract concepts used
by Marx are concepts of pure economics: relation of
economic psychology to pure economics: pure economics
does not destroy history or progress._
Marxian economics is thus a study of abstract working society showing
the variations which this undergoes in the different social economic
organisations. This investigation Marx carried out only in reference
to one of these organisations, _i.e._ the capitalist; contenting
himself with mere hints in regard to the slave and serf organisations,
primitive communism, the domestic system and to savage conditions.[29]
In this sense he and Engels declared that economics (the economics
studied by them), was an historical science.[30] But here, too, their
definition has been less happy than the investigation itself; we know
that Marx's researches are not historical, but hypothetical and
abstract, _i.e._ theoretical.[31] They might better be called
researches into _sociological economics_, if the word _sociological_
were not one which is employed most variously and arbitrarily.
If Marx's investigation is thus limited, if the law of value
postulated by him is the special law of an abstract working society,
which only partially takes effect in economic society as given in
history, and in other hypothetical or possible economic societies, the
following results seem to follow evidently and readily: (1) That
Marxian economics _is not general economic science_; (2) that
labour-value _is not a general concept of value_. Alongside, then, of
the Marxian investigation, there can, or rather must, exist and
flourish a general economic science, which may determine a concept of
value, deducing it from quite different and more comprehensive
principles than the special ones of Marx. And, if the pure economists,
confined to their own special province, have been wrong to show an
ungenerous intellectual dislike for Marx's investigations, his
followers, in their turn, have been wrong to regard ungratefully a
branch of research which was alien to them, calling it now useless,
and now frankly absurd.
Such is, in effect, my opinion, and I freely acknowledge that I have
never been able to discover other antithesis or enmity between these
two branches of research except the purely accidental one of the
mutual antipathy to and mental ignorance of each other, of two groups
of students. Some have resorted to a political explanation; but, with
no wish to deny that political prepossessions are often the causes of
theoretical errors, I do not consider an explanation as adequate and
appropriate, which resolves itself into accusing a large number of
students of allowing themselves blindly and foolishly to be overcome
by passions alien to science; or, what is worse, of knowingly
falsifying their thought and constructing a whole economic system from
motives of practical opportunism.
Indeed Marx himself had not the time or means to adopt an attitude, so
to speak, towards the _purists_, or the _hedonists_, or the
_utilitarians_, or the _deductive_ or _Austrian_ school, or whatever
else they may call themselves. But he had the greatest contempt for
the _oeconomia vulgaris_, under which term he was wont to include also
the researches of general economics, which explain what needs no
explanation and is intuitively evident, and leave unexplained what is
more difficult and of genuine interest. Nor has Engels discussed the
subject; but an indication of his opinion may be found in his attack
on Dühring. Dühring was struggling to find a general law of value,
which should govern all possible types of economic organisation; and
Engels refuted him: 'Anyone who wishes to bring under the same law the
political economy of Terra del Fuoco and that of modern England, can
produce nothing but the vulgarest commonplaces.' He scorns the truth
of ultimate instance, the eternal laws of value, the tautologous and
empty axioms which Herr Dühring would have produced by his method.[32]
Fixed and eternal laws are non-existent: there is then no possibility
of constructing a general science of economics, valid for all times
and in all places. If Engels had meant to refer to those who affirm
the eternity and inevitability of the laws characteristic of
capitalist society, he would have been justified; and would have been
aiming his blows at a prejudice which history alone suffices to
refute, by showing as it does, how capitalism has appeared at
different times, replacing other types of economic organisation, and
has also disappeared, replaced by other types. But in Dühring's case
the criticism was much beside the mark; since Dühring did not indeed
mean to set up the laws of capitalist society as fixed and eternal;
but to determine _a general concept of value_, which is quite another
matter: or, in other words, to show how, _from a purely economic point
of view_, capitalist society is explained by the same general concepts
as explain the other types of organisation. No effort, not even that
of Engels, will suffice to stop such a problem from being stated and
solved; unless it were possible to destroy the human intellect, which,
in addition to particular facts, recognises universal concepts.
It would be instructive to examine the references which there are in
Marx's _Das Kapital_ to unfinished analyses, extraneous to his special
method; for in this dependence on analysis the researches of pure
economics have their origin. What is, for instance, _abstract human
labour_ (_abstrakt menschliche Arbeit_), a concept which Marx uses
like a postulate? By what _method_ is that reduction of _complex_ to
_simple_ labour accomplished, to which he refers as to an obvious and
ordinary matter? And if, in Marx's hypothesis, _commodities_ appear as
_congealed labour_, or _crystalised labour_, why by another
hypothesis, should not all economic goods and not only commodities,
appear as _congealed methods of satisfying needs_ or as _crystalised
needs_? I read at one point in _Das Kapital_: 'Things which in
themselves are not commodities, _e.g._ knowledge, honour, etc., may be
sold by their owners; and thus, by means of their price, acquire the
form of commodities. A thing may formally have a price without having
a value. The expression of the price here becomes _imaginary_ like
certain quantities in mathematics.'[33] Here is yet another
difficulty, indicated but not overcome. Where are these _formal_ or
_imaginary_ prices to be found? And what are they? By what laws are
they governed? Or are they perhaps like the Greek words in Latin
prosody, which according to the school rule, _per Ausoniae fines sine
lege vagantur_?--Questions of this kind are answered by the researches
of pure economics.
The philosopher Lange also, who rejected Marx's law of value, which he
regarded as an _extravagant production_, _a child of sorrow_, thinking
it unsuitable--and in this he was justified, as a general law of
value, arrived at the solutions which have since been given of the
latter, a long time before the researches of the purists came into
blossom. 'Some years ago,' he wrote in his book on labour problems,
'I too worked at a new theory of value, _which should be of such a
character as to show the most extreme cases of variation in value as
special cases of the same formula_.' And, whilst adding that he had
not completed it, he intimated that the course which he attempted was
the same as that hastily glanced at by Jevons in his _Theory of
political economy_, published in 1871.[34]
To any of the more cautious and moderate Marxians it is plainly
evident that the researches of the Hedonists are not merely to be
rejected as erroneous or unfounded; and hence an attempt has been made
to vindicate them in reference to the Marxian doctrine as an _economic
psychology_, having its place alongside of true economics itself. But
this definition contains a curious equivocation. Pure economics is
quite apart from psychology. Indeed, to begin with, it is hard to fix
the meaning of the words _economic psychology_. The science of
psychology is divided into _formal_ and _descriptive_. In formal
psychology there is no place either for economic fact nor for any
other fact which may represent a particular content. In descriptive
psychology, it is true, are included representations, sentiments and
desires of an economic content, but included as they appear in
reality, mixed with the other psychical phenomena of different
content, and inseparable from them. Thus _descriptive economic
psychology_ can be, at most, an approximate limitation, by which we
take as a subject of special description the way in which men (at a
given time and place, or even in the mass as hitherto they have
appeared in history) think, feel and desire in respect to a certain
class of goods which are usually called material or economic, and
which, however, stand in need of specification and definition.
Subject-matter, in truth, better suited to history than to science,
which regards such matters only as empty and unimportant
generalisations. This may be seen in the long discussion of the matter
by that most weighty of pedants, Wagner, in his manual, which, of all
that has been written on the question, I think the most worthy of
notice, and which is yet, in itself, a thing very little worthy of
notice or conclusive.[35] An enumeration and description of the
various tendencies which exist in men as they appear in ordinary life:
egoistical and altruistic tendencies, love of self-advantage and fear
of disadvantage, fear of punishment and hope of reward, sense of
honour and fear of disgrace and public contempt, love of activity and
dislike of idleness, feeling of reverence for the moral code, etc.,
this is what Wagner calls _economic psychology_; and which might
better be called: _various observations in descriptive psychology, to
be kept in mind whilst studying the practical questions of
economics_.[36]
But what, pray, has pure economics in common with psychology? The
purists start from the hedonistic postulate, _i.e._ from the economic
nature itself of man, and deduce from it the concepts of _utility_
(_economic_ utility which Pareto has proposed to call by a special
name, _ofelimita_, from the Greek +ôphelimos+]) of _value_, and
directly, all the other special laws in accordance with which man
behaves in so far as he is an abstract _homo oeconomicus_. They do
exactly what the science of ethics does with the moral nature; and the
science of logic with the logical nature; and so on. At this rate then
would ethics be a _psychology of ethics_ and logic a _psychology of
logic_? And, since all that we know passes through the human mind,
ontology would be a _psychology of existence_, mathematics a
_psychology of mathematics_, and we should thus have confused the most
diverse things, ending in a disorder the aim of which would be no
longer comprehensible. Hence we conclude, that with care and the
exercise of a little thought, it will necessarily be agreed that pure
economics is not a psychology, but is the true and essential _general
science of economic facts_.
Professor Labriola, too, shows a certain ill-humour which does not
seem to me entirely justified, towards the pure economists, 'who', he
says, 'translate into _psychological conceptualism_ the influence of
_risk_ and other analogous considerations of ordinary commercial
practice! And they do well--I answer--because the mind desires to give
an account even of the influences of risk and of commercial practice,
and to explain their mechanism and character. And then, _psychological
conceptualism_; is not this an unfortunate connection between what
your intellect shows you that pure economics really is (science which
takes as its starting point an irreducible concept), and that
hazardous definition of _psychology_ which has been criticised above?
Are not the noun and adjective in opposition to one another? And
further, Labriola speaks contemptuously of the '_abstract atomism_' of
the hedonists, in which, 'one no longer knows what history is, and
progress is reduced to mere appearance.'[37] Here too, it does not
seem to me that his contempt is justified; for Labriola is well aware
that in all abstract sciences, concrete and individual things
disappear and that their _elements_ alone remain as objects to be
considered: hence this cannot be made a ground for special complaint
against economic science. But _history_ and _progress_, even if they
are alien to the study of abstract economics, do not therefore cease
to exist and to form the subject of other studies of the human mind;
and this is what matters.
For my part I hold firmly to the economic notion of the hedonistic
guide, to utility-ophelimity, to final utility, and even to the
explanation (economic) of interest on capital as arising from the
different degrees of utility possessed by present and future goods.
But this does not satisfy the desire for a _sociological_, so to
speak, elucidation of interest on capital; and this elucidation, with
others of the same kind, can only be obtained from the comparative
considerations put before us by Marx.[38]
III
CONCERNING THE LIMITATION OF THE MATERIALISTIC THEORY OF HISTORY
_Historical materialism a canon of historical interpretation:
Canon does not imply anticipation of results: Question as
to how Marx and Engels understood it: Difficulty of
ascertaining correctly and method of doing so: How
Marxians understand it: Their metaphysical tendency:
Instances of confusion of concepts in their writings:
Historical materialism has not a special philosophy
immanent within it._
Historical materialism if it is to express something critically
acceptable, can, as I have had occasion to state elsewhere,[39] be
neither a new _a priori_ notion of the philosophy of history, nor a
new method of historical thought; it must be simply a _canon_ of
historical interpretation. This canon recommends that attention be
directed to the so-called economic basis of society, in order that the
forms and mutations of the latter may be better understood.
The concept canon ought not to raise difficulty, especially when it is
remembered that _it implies no anticipation of results_, but only an
aid in seeking for them; and is entirely of empirical origin. When
the critic of the text of Dante's _Comedia_ uses Witte's well-known
canon, which runs: '_the difficult reading is to be preferred to the
easy one_,' he is quite aware that he possesses a mere instrument,
which may be useful to him in many cases, useless in others, and whose
correct and advantageous employment depends entirely on his caution.
In like manner and with like meaning it must be said that historical
materialism is a mere _canon_; although it be in truth a canon _most
rich in suggestion_.
But was it in this way that Marx and Engels understood it? and is it
in this way that Marx's followers usually understand it?
Let us begin with the first question. Truly a difficult one, and
offering a multiplicity of difficulties. The first of these arises so
to speak, from the _nature of the sources_. The doctrine of historical
materialism is not embodied in a classical and definite book by those
authors, with whom it is as it were identified; so that, to discuss
that book and to discuss the doctrine might seem all one thing. On the
contrary it is scattered through a series of writings, composed in the
course of half a century, at long intervals, where only the most
casual mention is made of it, and where it is sometimes merely
understood or implied. Anyone who desired to reconcile all the forms
with which Marx's and Engels have endowed it, would stumble upon
contradictory expressions, which would make it impossible for the
careful and methodical interpreter to decide what, on the whole,
historical materialism meant for them.
Another difficulty arises in regard to the weight to be attached to
their expressions. I do not think that there has yet been a study of
what might be called Marx's _forma mentis_; with which Engels had
something in common, partly owing to congeniality, partly owing to
imitation or influence. Marx, as has been already remarked, had a kind
of abhorrence for researches of purely scholastic interest. Eager for
knowledge of _things_ (I say, of concrete and individual things) he
attached little weight to discussions of _concepts_ and the _forms of
concepts_; this sometimes degenerated into an exaggeration in his own
concepts. Thus we find in him a curious opposition between statements
which, interpreted strictly, are erroneous; and yet appear to us, and
indeed are, loaded and pregnant with truth. Marx was addicted, in
short, to a kind of _concrete logic_.[40] Is it best then to interpret
his expressions literally, running the risk of giving them a meaning
different from what they actually bore in the writer's inmost
thoughts? Or is it best to interpret them broadly, running the
opposite risk of giving them a meaning, theoretically perhaps more
acceptable, but historically less true?
The same difficulty certainly occurs in regard to the writings of
numerous thinkers; but it is especially great in regard to those of
Marx. And the interpreter must proceed with caution: he must do his
work bit by bit, book by book, statement by statement, connecting
indeed these various indications one with another, but taking account
of differences of time, of actual circumstances, of fleeting
impressions, of mental and literary habits; and he must submit to
acknowledge ambiguities and incompleteness where either exists,
resisting the temptation to confirm and complete by his own judgment.
It may be allowed for instance, as it appears to me for various
reasons, that the way in which historical materialism is stated above
is the same as that in which Marx and Engels understood it in their
inmost thoughts; or at least that which they would have agreed to as
correct if they had had more time available for such labours of
scientific elaboration, and if criticism had reached them less
tardily. And all this is of importance up to a certain point, for the
interpreter and historian of ideas; since for the history of science,
Marx and Engels are neither more nor less than they appear in their
books and works; real, and not hypothetical or possible persons.[41]
But even for science itself, apart from the history of it, the
hypothetical or possible Marx and Engels have their value. What
concerns us theoretically is to understand the various possible ways
of interpreting the problems proposed and the solutions thought out by
Marx and Engels, and to select from the latter by criticism those
which appear theoretically true and welcome. What was Marx's
intellectual standpoint with reference to the Hegelian philosophy of
history? In what consisted the criticism which he gave of it? Is the
purport of this criticism always the same for instance in the article
published in the _Deutsch-französische Jahrbücher_, for 1844, in the
_Heilige Familie_ of 1845, in the _Misère de la philosophie_ of 1847,
in the appendix to _Das Komnunistische Manifest_ of 1848, in the
preface to the _Zur Kritik_ of 1859, and in the preface to the 2nd
edition of _Das Kapital_ of 1873? Is it again in Engels' works in the
_Antidühring_, in the article on _Feuerbach_, etc.? Did Marx ever
really think of substituting, as some have believed, _Matter_ or
material fact for the Hegelian _Idea_? And what connection was there
in his mind between the concepts _material_ and _economic_? Again, can
the explanation given by him, of his position with regard to Hegel:
'the ideas determined by facts and not the facts by the ideas,' be
called an inversion of Hegel's view, or is it not rather the inversion
of that of the ideologists and doctrinaires?[42] These are some of the
questions pertaining to the _history of ideas_, which will be
answered some time or other: perhaps at present the time has not yet
arrived to write the history of ideas which are still in the process
of development.[43]
But, putting aside this historical curiosity, it concerns us now to
work at these ideas in order to advance in theoretical knowledge. How
can historical materialism justify itself scientifically? This is the
question I have proposed to myself, and to which the answer is given
by the critical researches referred to at the beginning of this
paragraph. Without returning to them I will give other examples, taken
from the same source, that of the Marxian literature. How ought we to
understand scientifically Marx's _neodialectic_? The final opinion
expressed by Engels on the subject seems to be this: the dialect is
the rhythm of the development of things, _i.e._ the inner law of
things in their development. This rhythm is not determined _a priori_,
and by metaphysical deduction, but is rather observed and gathered _a
posteriori_, and only through the repeated observations and
verifications that are made of it in various fields of reality, can it
be presupposed that all facts develop through negations, and negations
of negations.[44] Thus the dialect would be the discovery of a great
natural law, less empty and formal than the so-called _law of
evolution_ and it would have nothing in common with the old Hegelian
dialect except the name, which would preserve for us an historical
record of the way in which Marx arrived at it. But does this natural
rhythm of development exist? This could only be stated from
observation, to which indeed, Engels appealed in order to assert its
existence. And what kind of a law is one which is revealed to us by
observation? Can it ever be a law which governs things absolutely, or
is it not one of those which are now called tendencies, or rather is
it not merely a simple and limited generalisation? And this
recognition of rhythm through negations of negations, it is not some
rag of the old metaphysics, from which it may be well to free
ourselves.[45] This is the investigation needed for the progress of
science. In like manner should other statements of Marx and Engels be
criticised. What for example shall we think of Engels' controversy
with Dühring concerning the basis of history: whether this is
_political force_ or _economic fact_? Will it not seem to us that this
controversy can perhaps retain any value in face of Dühring's
assertion that political fact is that _which is essential
historically_, but in itself has not that general importance which it
is proposed to ascribe to it? We may reflect for a moment that Engels'
thesis: 'force protects (_schützt_) but does not cause (_verursacht_)
usurpation,' might be directly inverted into another that: 'force
_causes_ usurpation, but economic interest _protects_ it,' and this by
the well known principle of the inter-dependence and competition of
the social factors.
And the class war? In what sense is the general statement true that
_history is a class war_? I should be inclined to say that history is
a class war (1) when there are classes, (2) when they have
antagonistic interests, (3) when they are aware of this antagonism,
which would give us, in the main, the humourous equivalence that
history is a class war only when it is a class war. In fact sometimes
classes have not had antagonistic interests, and very often they are
not conscious of them; of which the socialists are well aware when
they endeavour, by efforts not always crowned with success (with the
peasantry, for example, they have not yet succeeded), to arouse this
consciousness in the modern proletariat. As to the possibility of the
non-existence of classes, the socialists who prophesy this
non-existence for the society of the future, must at least admit that
it is not a matter intrinsically necessary to historical development,
since in the future, and without classes, history, it may well be
hoped will continue. In short even the particular statement that
'history is a class war,' has that limited value of a canon and of a
point of view, which we have allowed in general to the materialist
conception.[46]
The second of the two questions proposed at the beginning is: How do
the Marxians understand historical materialism? To me it seems
undeniable that in the Marxian literature, _i.e._ the writings of the
followers and interpreters of Marx, there exists in truth a
_metaphysical danger_ of which it is necessary to beware. Even in the
writings of Professor Labriola some statements are met with which have
recently led a careful and accurate critic to conclude that Labriola
understands historical materialism in the genuine and original sense
of a metaphysic, and that of the worst kind, a metaphysic of the
contingent.[47] But although I have myself, on another occasion,
pointed out those statements and formulae which seem to me doubtful in
Labriola's writings, I still think, as I thought then, that they are
superficial outgrowths on a system of thought essentially sound; or to
speak in a manner agreeing with the considerations developed above,
that Labriola, having educated himself in Marxism, may have borrowed
from it also some of its over-absolute style, and at times a certain
carelessness about the working out of concepts, which are somewhat
surprising in an old Herbartian like himself,[48] but which he then
corrects by observations and limitations always useful, even if
slightly contradictory, because they bring us back to the ground of
reality.
Labriola, moreover, has a special merit, which marks him off from the
ordinary exponents and adapters of historical materialism. Although
his theoretical formulae may here and there expose him to criticism,
when he turns to history, _i.e._ to concrete facts, he changes his
attitude, throws off as it were, the burden of theory and becomes
cautious and circumspect: _he possesses, in a high degree, respect for
history_. He shows unceasingly his dislike for formulae of every kind,
when concerned to establish and scrutinise definite processes, nor
does he forget to give the warning that there exists 'no theory,
however good and excellent in itself, which will help us to a summary
knowledge of every historical detail.'[49]
In his last book we may note especially a full inquiry into what could
possibly be the nature of a _history of Christianity_. Labriola
criticises those who set up as an historical subject the _essence_ of
Christianity, of which it is unknown where or when it has existed;
since the history of the last centuries of the Roman Empire shows us
merely the origin and growth of what constituted the Christian
society, or the church, a varying group of facts amidst varied
historical conditions. This critical opinion held by Labriola seems to
me perfectly correct; since it is not meant to deny, (what I myself,
do not deny) the justification of that method of historical
exposition, which for lack of another phrase, I once called _histories
by concepts_,[50] thus distinguishing it from the historical
exposition of the life of a given social group in a given place and
during a given period of time. He who writes the _history of
Christianity_, claims in truth, to accomplish a task somewhat similar
to the tasks of the historians of _literature_, of _philosophy_, of
_art_: _i.e._ to isolate a body of facts which enter into a fixed
concept, and to arrange them in a chronological series, without
however denying or ignoring the source which these facts have in the
other facts of life, but keeping them apart for the convenience of
more detailed consideration. The worst of it is that whereas
literature, philosophy, art and so on are determined or determinable
concepts, Christianity is almost solely a bond, which unites beliefs
often intrinsically very diverse; and, in writing the history of
Christianity, there is often a danger of writing in reality the
history of a _name, void without substance_.[51]
But what would Labriola say if his cautious criticism were turned
against that _history of the origin of the family, of private property
and of class distinctions_, which is one of the most extensive
historical applications made by the followers of Marx: desired by
Marx, sketched out by Engels on the lines of Morgan's investigations,
carried on by others. Alas, in this matter, the aim was not merely to
write, as could, perhaps, have been done, a useful manual of the
historical facts which enter into these three concepts, but actually
an _additional history_ was produced: A history, to use Labriola's own
phrase, of the _essence_ family, of the _essence_ class and of the
_essence_ private property, with a predetermined cadence. A 'history
of the family,' to confine ourselves to one of the three groups of
facts,--can only be an enumeration and description of the particular
forms taken by the _family_ amongst different races and in the course
of time: a series of particular histories, which unite themselves into
a general concept. It is this which is offered by Morgan's theories,
expounded by Engels, which theories modern criticism have cut away on
all sides.[52] Have they not allowed themselves to presuppose, as an
historical stage, through which all races are fated to pass, that
chimerical matriarchate, in which the mere reckoning of descent
through the mother is confused with the predominance of woman in the
family and that of woman in society? Have we not seen the reproofs and
even the jeers directed by some Marxians against those cautious
historians who deny that it is possible to assert, in the present
condition of the criticism of sources, the existence of a primitive
communism, or a matriarchate, amongst the Hellenic races? Indeed, I do
not think that throughout this investigation proof has been given of
much critical foresight.
I should also like to call Labriola's attention to another confusion,
very common in Marxian writings, between _economic forms of
organisation_ and _economic epochs_. Under the influence of
evolutionist positivism, those divisions which Marx expressed in
general: the _Asiatic_, the _antique_, the _feudal_ and the
_bourgeois_ economic organisation, have become four historical
_epochs_: _communism_, _slave organisation_, _serf organisation_, and
_wage-earning organisation_. But the modern historian, who is indeed
not such a superficial person as the ordinary Marxians are accustomed
to say, thus sparing themselves the trouble of taking a share in his
laborious procedure, is well aware that there are four _forms_ of
economic organisation, which succeed and intersect one another in
actual history, often forming the oddest mixtures and sequences. He
recognises an Egyptian mediævalism or feudalism, as he recognises an
Hellenic mediævalism or feudalism; he knows too of a German
_neo-mediævalism_ which followed the flourishing bourgeois
organisation of the German cities before the Reformation and the
discovery of the New World; and he willingly compares the general
economic conditions of the Greco-Roman world at its zenith with those
of Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Connected with this arbitrary conception of historical epochs, is the
other of the inquiry into _the cause_ (note carefully; into the cause)
of the transition from one form to another. Inquiry is made, for
instance, into the _cause_ of the abolition of slavery, which must be
the _same_, whether we are considering the decline of the Greco-Roman
world or modern America; and so for serfdom, and for primitive
communism and the capitalist system: amongst ourselves the famous
Loria has occupied himself with these absurd investigations, the
perpetual revelation of a single cause, of which he himself does not
know exactly whether it be the earth, or population or something
else--yet it should not take much to convince us, (it would suffice
for the purpose to read, with a little care, some books of narrative
history), that the transition from one form of economic, or more
generally, social, organisation, to another, is not the result of a
_single cause_, nor even of _a group of causes which are always the
same_; but is due to causes and circumstances which need examination
for each case since they usually vary for each case. Death is death;
but people die of many diseases.
But enough of this; and I may be allowed to conclude this paragraph by
reference to a question which Labriola also brings forward in his
recent work, and which he connects with the criticism of historical
materialism.
Labriola distinguishes between historical materialism as an
interpretation of history, and as a general conception of life and of
the universe (_Lebens-und-Weltanschauung_), and he inquires what is
the nature of the _philosophy immanent_ in historical materialism; and
after some remarks, he concludes that this philosophy is the _tendency
to monism_, and is a _formal_ tendency.
Here I take leave to point out that if into the term _historical
materialism two different things_ are intruded, _i.e._: (1) a method
of interpretation; (2) a definite conception of life and of the
universe; it is natural to find a philosophy in it, and moreover with
a tendency to monism, because it was included therein at the outset.
What close connection is there between these two orders of thought?
Perhaps a logical connection of _mental coherence_? For my part, I
confess that I am unable to see it. I believe, on the contrary, that
Labriola, this time, is simply stating _à propos_ of historical
materialism what he thinks to be the necessary attitude of modern
thought with regard to the problems of ontology; or what, according to
him, should be the standpoint of the socialist opinion in regard to
the conceptions of optimism and pessimism; and so on. I believe, in
short, that he is not making an _investigation_ which will reveal the
philosophical conceptions underlying historical materialism; but
merely a _digression_, even if a digression of interest and
importance. And how many other most noteworthy opinions and
impressions and sentiments are welcomed by socialist opinion! But why
christen this assemblage of new facts by the name of historical
materialism, which has hitherto expressed the well-defined meaning of
a way of interpreting history? Is it not the task of the scientist to
distinguish and analyse what in empirical reality and to ordinary
knowledge appears mingled into one?
IV
OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE IN FACE OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS
_Socialism and free trade not scientific deductions: Obsolete
metaphysics of old theory of free trade: Basis of modern
free trade theories not strictly scientific though only
possible one: The desirable is not science nor the
practicable: Scientific law only applicable under certain
conditions: Element of daring in all action._
It has become a commonplace that, owing to Marx's work, socialism has
passed _from utopia to science_, as the title of a popular booklet by
Engels expresses it; and _scientific socialism_ is a current term.
Professor Labriola does not conceal his doubts of such a term; and he
is right.
On the other hand, we hear the followers of other leaders, for
instance the extreme free traders (to whom I refer by preference
_honoris causa_, because they, too, are amongst the _idealists_ of our
times), in the name of science itself, condemn socialism as
_anti-scientific_ and declare that free trade is the only scientific
opinion.
Would it not be convenient if both sides retraced their steps and
mortified their pride a little, and acknowledged that _socialism and
free trade_ may certainly be called _scientific_ in metaphor or
hyperbole; but that neither of them are, or ever can be, scientific
deductions? And that thus the problem of socialism, of free trade and
of any other practical social programme, may be transferred to another
region; which is not that of pure science, but which nevertheless is
the only one suited to them?
Let us pause for an instant at free trade. It presents itself to us
from two points of view, _i.e._ with a two-fold justification. In the
older aspect it undeniably has a metaphysical basis, consisting in
that conviction of the goodness of natural laws and that concept of
_nature_ (natural law, state of nature, etc.) which, proceeding from
the philosophy of the 17th century, was predominant in the 18th
century.[53] 'Do not hinder Nature in her work and all will be for the
best.' A similar note is struck, only indirectly, by a criticism like
that of Marx; who, when analysing the concept of _nature_, showed that
it was the ideological complement of the historical development of the
middle class, a powerful weapon of which this class availed itself
against the privileges and oppressions which it intended to
overthrow.[54] Now this concept may indeed have originated as a weapon
made occasional use of historically, and nevertheless be intrinsically
true. _Natural law_ in this case, is equivalent to _rational law_; it
is necessary to deny both the rationality and the excellence of this
law. Now, just because of its metaphysical origin, this concept can be
rejected altogether, but cannot be refuted in detail--it disappears
with the metaphysic of which it was a part, and it seems at length to
have really disappeared. Peace to the _sublime goodness_ of natural
laws.
But free trade presents itself to us, among its more recent
supporters, in a very different aspect--the free traders, abandoning
metaphysical postulates, assert two theses of practical importance:
(_a_) that of an _economic hedonistic maximum_, which they suppose
identical with the maximum of social desirability;[55] and (_b_) the
other, that this hedonistic maximum can only be completely secured by
means of the fullest economic liberty. These two theses certainly take
us outside metaphysics and into the region of reality; but not
actually into the region of science. Indeed the first of them contains
a statement of the ends of social life, which may perhaps be welcome,
but is not a deduction from any scientific proposition. The second
thesis cannot be proved except by reference to experience, _i.e._ to
what we know of human psychology, and to what, by approximate
calculation, we may suppose that psychology will still probably be in
the future. A calculation which can be made, and has been made with
great acumen, with great erudition and with great caution and which
hence may even be called scientific, but only in a metaphorical and
hyperbolical sense, as we have already remarked: hence the knowledge
which it affords us, can never have the value of strictly scientific
knowledge.[56] Pareto, who is both one of the most intelligent and
also one of the most trustworthy and sincere, of the recent exponents
and supporters of free trade,[57] does not deny the limited and
approximate nature of its conclusions; which appears to him so much
the more clearly in that he uses mathematical formulae, which show at
once the degree of certainty to which statements of this kind may lay
claim.
And, in effect, communism (which has also had its metaphysical period,
and earlier still a theological period) may, with entire justice, set
against the two theses of free trade, two others of its own which
consist: (_a_) in a different and not purely economic estimate of the
maximum of social desirability; (_b_) in the assertion that this
maximum can be attained, not through extreme free trade, but rather
through the organisation of economic forces; which is the meaning of
the famous saying concerning the _leap from the reign of necessity_
(=free competition or anarchy) _into that of liberty_ (=the command of
man over the forces of nature even in the sphere of the social natural
life). But neither can these two theses be proved; and for the same
reasons. Ideals cannot be proved; and empirical calculations and
practical convictions are not science. Pareto clearly recognises this
quality in modern socialism; and agrees that the communistic system,
as a system, is perfectly conceivable, _i.e._ theoretically it offers
no internal contradictions (§ 446). According to him it clashes, not
with scientific laws, but with _immense practical difficulties_
(_l.c._) such as the difficulty of adopting technical improvements
without the trial and selection secured by free competition; the lack
of stimuli to work; the choice of officials, which in a communistic
society would be guided, still according to him, not by wholly
technical reasons, as in modern industry, but on political and social
grounds (837). He admits the socialist criticism of the waste due to
free competition; but thinks this inevitable as a practical way of
securing equilibrium of production. The real problem--he says--is:
whether without the experiments of free competition it is possible to
arrive at a knowledge of the line (the line which he calls _mn_) of
the complete adaptation of production to demand, and whether the
expense of making a unified (communistic) organisation of work, would
not be greater than that needed to solve the equations of production
by experiments (718, 867). He also acknowledged that there is
something parasitical in the capitalist (Marx's _sad-faced knight_);
but, at the same time, he maintains that the capitalist renders social
services, for which we do not know how otherwise to provide.[58] If it
be desired to state briefly the contrasts in the two different points
of view, it may be said that human psychology is regarded by the free
traders as for the most part, determined, and by the socialists, as
for the most part changeable and adaptable. Now it is certain that
human psychology does change and adapt itself; but the extent and
rapidity of these changes are incapable of exact determination and are
left to conjecture and opinion. Can they ever become the subject of
exact calculation?
If now we pass to considerations of another kind, not of what is
desirable, that is of the ends and means admired and thought good by
us; but of what under present circumstances, history promises us;
_i.e._ of the objective tendencies of modern society, I really do not
know with what meaning many free traders cast on socialism the
reproach of being Utopian. For quite another reason socialists might
cast back the same reproach upon free trade, if it were considered as
it is at present, and not as it was fifty years ago when Marx composed
his criticism upon it. Free Trade and its recommendations turn upon an
entity which _now at least_, does not exist: _i.e._ the national or
general interest of society; since existing society is divided into
antagonistic groups and recognises the interest of each of these
groups, but not, or only very feebly, a general interest. Upon which
does free trade reckon? On the landed proprietors or on the industrial
classes, on the workmen or on the holders of public dignities?
Socialism, on the contrary, from Marx onwards, has placed little
reliance on the good sense and good intentions of men, and has
declared that the social revolution must be accomplished chiefly by
the effort of a class directly interested, _i.e._ the proletariat. And
socialism has made such advances that history must inquire whether the
experience that we have of the past justifies the supposition that a
social movement, so widespread and intense, can be reabsorbed or
dispersed without fully testing itself in the sphere of facts. On this
matter too I gladly refer to Pareto, who acknowledges that even in
that country of free traders' dreams, in England, the system is
supported not owing to people's conviction of its intrinsic
excellence, but because it is in the interests of certain
_entrepreneurs_.[59] And he recognises, with political acumen, that
since social movement takes place in the same manner as all other
movements, along the line of least resistance, it is very likely that
it may be necessary to pass through a socialistic state,--in order to
reach a state of free competition (§ 791).
I have said that the extreme free traders, much more than the
socialists, are _idealists_, or if one prefers it, _ideologists_.
Hence in Italy we are witnesses of this strange phenomenon, a sort of
fraternising and spiritual sympathy between socialists and free
traders, in so far as both are bitter and searching critics of the
same thing, which the former call the _bourgeois tyranny_ and the
latter _bourgeois socialism_. But in the field of practical activity
the socialists (and here I no longer refer especially to Italy)
undoubtedly make progress whilst the free traders have to limit
themselves to the barrenness of evil-speaking and of aspirations,
forming a little group of well-meaning people of select intelligence,
who make audience for one another.[60] By this I mean no reproach to
these sincere and thoroughly consistent free-traders: rather I
sincerely admire them; their lack of success is not their own fault.
I wish merely to remark that if ideals, as the philosopher says, have
short legs, those of the free traders' ideals are indeed of the
shortest.
I could continue this exemplification, bringing forward various other
social programmes, such as that of state socialism, which consists in
accepting the socialist ideal, but as an ultimate end perhaps never
fully attainable, and extending its partial attainment over a long
course of centuries; and in relying for the effective force, not in a
revolutionary class, nor simply in the views of right thinkers, but in
the state, conceived as a creative power, independent of and superior
to individual wills. It is certainly undeniable that the function of
the state, like all social functions, owing to a complication of
circumstances, amongst which are tradition, reverence, the
consciousness of something which surpasses individuals, and other
impressions and sentiments which are analysed by collective
psychology, acquires a certain independence and develops a certain
peculiar force; but in the estimation of this force great mistakes are
made, as socialist criticism has clearly shown: and, in any case,
whether it be great or small, we are always faced by a calculation;
and one moreover, in the region of opinion, which region science may,
in part, yet bring under its power, but which in a great degree will
always be rebellious to it.
Oh the misuses which are made of this word _science_! Once these
misuses were the monopoly of metaphysics, to whose despotic nature
they appeared suitable. And the strangest instances could be quoted,
even from great philosophers, from Hegel, from Schopenhauer, from
Rosmini, which would show how the humblest practical conclusions, made
by the passions and interests of men, have often been metaphysically
transformed into inferences from the Spirit, from the Divine Being,
from the Nature of things, from the finality of the universe.
Metaphysics hypostatised what it then triumphantly inferred. The
youthful Marx wittily discovered in the Hegelianism of Bruno Bauer,
the _pre-established harmony of critical analysis_ (Kritische Kritik)
under German _censorship_. Those who most frequently have the word in
their mouths make a sort of Sibyl or Pythia of a limited intellectual
function. But the _desirable_ is not science, nor is the
practicable.[61]
Is scientific knowledge then in fact superfluous in practical
questions? Are we to assent to this absurdity? The attentive reader
will be well aware that we are not here discussing the _utility_ of
science, but the possibility of _inferring_, as some claim to do,
_practical programmes from scientific prepositions_; and it is this
possibility only which is denied.
Science, in so far as it consists in knowledge of the laws governing
actual facts, may be a legitimate means of simplifying problems,
making it possible to distinguish in them what can be scientifically
ascertained from what can only be partially known. A great number of
things which are commonly disputed, may be cleared up and accurately
decided by this method. To give an example, when Marx in opposition to
Proudhon and his English predecessors (Bray, Gray, etc.) showed the
absurdity of creating _labour bonds_, _i.e._ labour-money; and when
Engels directed similar criticisms against Dühring, and then again,
perhaps with less justification, against Rodbertus[62] or when both
established the close connection between the method of production and
the method of distribution, they were working in the field proper to
scientific demonstration, trying to prove an inconsistency between the
conclusions and the premisses, _i.e._ an internal contradiction in the
concepts criticised. The same may be said of the proof, carefully
worked out by the free traders, of the proposition: that protection of
every kind is equivalent to a destruction of wealth. And if it were
possible to establish accurately that law of the tendency of the rate
of profits to decline, with which Marx meant to correct and widen the
Ricardian law deduced from the continuous encroachments of the rent of
land, it could be said, _under certain conditions_, that the end of
the bourgeois capitalist organisation was a scientific certainty,
though it would remain doubtful what could take its place.
This limitation '_under certain conditions_' is the point to be
noticed. All scientific laws are abstract laws; and there is no bridge
over which to pass from the concrete to the abstract; just because the
abstract is not a reality, but a form of thought, one of our, so to
speak, abbreviated ways of thinking. And, although a knowledge of the
laws may _light up_ our perception of reality, it cannot become _this
perception itself_.
Here we may agree with what Labriola justly felt, when, showing his
dissatisfaction with the term _scientific socialism_, he suggested,
though without giving any reasons, that that of _critical communism_
might be substituted.[63]
If then from abstract laws and concepts we pass to observations of
historical fact, we find, it is true, points of agreement between our
ideals and real things, but at the same time we enter upon those
difficult calculations and conjectures, from which it is always
impossible to eliminate, as was remarked above, the diversity of
opinions and propensities.
In face of the future of society, in face of the path to be pursued,
we have occasion to say with Faust--Who can say I believe? Who can say
I do not believe?
Not indeed that we wish to advocate or in any way justify a vulgar
scepticism. But at the same time we need to be sensible of the
relativity of our beliefs, and to come to a determination in practice
where indetermination is an error. This is the point; and herein lie
all the troubles of men of thought; and hence arises their practical
impotence, which art has depicted in Hamlet. Neither shall we wish, in
truth, to imitate that magistrate, famous for miles around the
district where he officiated for the justice of his decisions, of whom
Rabelais tells us, that he used the very simple method, when about to
make up his mind, of offering a prayer to God and settling his
decision by a game of odd and even.[64] But we must strive to attain
personal conviction, and then bear always in mind that great
characters in history have had the courage to _dare_. '_Alea jacta
est_,' said Cæsar; '_Gott helfe mir, amen!_' said Luther. The brave
deeds of history would not be brave if they had been accompanied by a
clear foresight of the consequences, as in the case of the prophets
and those inspired by God.
Fortunately, logic is not life, and man is not intellect alone. And,
whilst those same men whose critical faculty is warped, are the men of
imagination and passion, in the life of society the intellect plays a
very small part, and with a little exaggeration it may even be said
that things go their way independent of our actions. Let us leave them
to their romances, let them preach, I will not say in the market
places where they would not be believed, but in the university lecture
rooms, or the halls of congresses and conferences--the doctrine that
science (_i.e._ their science) is the ruling queen of life. And we
will content ourselves by repeating with Labriola that 'History is the
true mistress of all us men, and we are as it were _vitalised_ by
History.'
V
OF ETHICAL JUDGMENT IN FACE OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS
_Meaning of Marx's phrase the 'impotence of morality' and his
remark that morality condemns what has been condemned by
history: Profundity of Marx's philosophy immaterial:
Kant's position not surpassed._
Labriola, with his usual piquancy, lashes those who reduce history to
a _case of conscience_ or to an _error in bookkeeping_.
With this he recalls us to the two-fold consideration (1) that for
Marx the social question was not a moral question, and (2) that the
analysis made by Marx of capitalism amounts to a proof of the laws
which govern a given society, and not indeed to a proof of _theft_, as
some have understood it, as though it would suffice to restore to the
workman the amount of his wrongfully exacted surplus labour, so that
the accounts may turn out in order, and the social question be
satisfactorily solved.[65]
Leaving the second consideration, which yet gives us an instance of
the ludicrous travesties which may be made of a scientific theory, let
us pause for a moment over the first formula, which usually gives the
greatest offence to non-socialists; so much so that many of them wish
to put a little salt in the broth and complete socialism by morality.
In actual fact, offence and moral indignation have never been caused
less appropriately.
Those remarks in Marx's writings which savour of moral indifference,
bear a very limited and trivial meaning. Consider a moment, as indeed
has been considered many times, that no social order of any kind can
exist without a basis of slavery, or serfdom, or hired service; that
is to say that slavery, or serfdom, or hired service are natural
conditions of social order, and that without them a thing cannot
exist, which is so necessary to man that, at least since he was man,
he has never done without it, viz., society. Faced by such a fact,
what meaning would our moral judgment have, directed against these
governing human beings who call themselves slave owners, feudal lords
and bourgeois capitalists, and in favour of these governed human
beings who call themselves slaves, serfs, free labourers; neither of
whom could be different from what they are, nor could otherwise fulfil
the function assigned to them by the very nature of things.[66] Our
condemnation would be a condemnation of the inevitable; a Leopardian
curse directed against the _brutal power which rules in secret to the
general harm_. But moral praise or blame has reference always to an
act of will, good or bad; and such judgments would on the contrary be
directed against a fact, which has not been willed by anyone, but is
endured by every one because it cannot be different. You, indeed, may
lament it; but by lamenting it, you not only do not destroy it, you do
not even touch it, _i.e._, you waste your time.
This is what Marx calls the impotence of morality, which is as much as
to say that it is useless to propound questions which no effort can
answer and which are therefore absurd.
But when, on the other hand, these conditions of subjection are not
conceived as necessary for the social order in general, but only as
necessary for a stage in its history; and when new conditions make
their appearance which render it possible to destroy them (as was the
case in the industrial advance toward serfdom, and as the socialists
reckon will happen in the final phase of modern civilisation in regard
to wage earners and capitalism); then moral condemnation is justified,
and, up to a certain point, is also effective in quickening the
process of destruction and in sweeping away the last remnants of the
past.
This is the meaning of Marx's other saying: that morality condemns
what has already been condemned by history.[67]
I cannot manage to see any difficulty in agreeing to remarks of this
kind, even from the standpoint of the strictest ethical theories.
There is here no question of misunderstanding the nature of morality,
and of wishing to make it into something fortuitous or relative; but
simply of determining the conditions of human progress, turning the
attention from the inevitable effects to the fundamental causes, and
seeking remedies in the nature of things and not in our caprices and
pious wishes. It must needs be thought that the opposition proceeds,
not from intellectual error, but rather from human pride, or vanity it
may be, owing to which many desire to retain for their wretched words
a little of the virtue of the divine word, which created light by its
decree.[68]
The same feeling must perhaps be present as the basis of the horror
which usually greets the other practical maxim of the socialists; that
the workman educates himself by the political struggle. But Labriola
is fully justified in admiring in the advance of German socialism 'the
truly new and imposing instance of social pedagogy; viz. that, amongst
such an enormous number of men, particularly of workmen of the lower
middle class, a new consciousness is developing, within which compete
in equal degree, a direct sense of the economic situation, which
incites to the struggle, and the socialist propaganda understood as
the goal or point of arrival.' What means have the preachers of moral
maxims at their disposal, to secure a result equal to this? Who are
these workmen who combine in associations, who read their newspapers,
discuss the acts of their delegates and accept the decisions of their
congresses, if not _men who are educating themselves morally_?
But there is not only a question of vanity and pride in that feeling
of aversion, which animates many with regard to the practical maxims
of the socialists, and in the desire, which people also show, of
undertaking in the name of morality or religion, the spiritual
direction of the education of the working man; nor shall we wish to be
so ingenuous and complacent as to confine ourselves to such a partial
explanation. There is more, there is, I might almost say, an
_apprehension_ and a _fear_. An apprehension, little justified, lest
the political organisation of the proletariat may lead to a brutal and
unrestrained outbreak of the masses and to I know not what kind of
social ruin; as if such outbreaks were not recorded by history in
precisely those periods in which it is usual to suppose that the
dominion of religion over conscience was greatest,--as in the
_jacqueries_ of the fourteenth century in France, and again in the
_peasants' wars_ in Germany,--and in which there was no organisation
and political culture amongst the common people.[69] A _fear_, which
is on the contrary thoroughly justified and arises from the knowledge
that instinctive and blind proletariat movements are conquered by
force; whereas organisation combined with an enlightened
consciousness, is not conquered or only suffers temporary reverses.
Does not Mommsen remark, in reference to the slave revolts in ancient
Rome; that _states_ would be very fortunate if they were in no other
dangers besides those which might come to them from the revolts of
the proletariat, _which are no greater than the dangers arising from
the claws of hungry bears or wolves_?
These statements concerning ethics and socialist pedagogy having been
explained, someone might yet ask:--But what was the philosophical
opinion of Marx and Engels in regard to morality? Were they
relativists, utilitarians, hedonists, or idealists, absolutists, or
what else?
I may be allowed to point out that this question is of no great
importance, and is even somewhat inopportune, since neither Marx nor
Engels were philosophers of ethics, nor bestowed much of their
vigorous ability on such questions. It is indeed of consequence to
determine that their conclusions in regard to the function of morality
in social movements and to the method for the education of the
proletariat, contain no contradiction of general ethical principles,
even if here and there they clash with the prejudices of current
pseudo-morality. Their personal opinions upon the principles of ethics
did not take an elaborate scientific form in their books; and some wit
and some sarcasm are not adequate grounds upon which to base a
discussion of the subject.
And I will say yet more; in ethical matters, I have not yet succeeded
in freeing myself from the prison of the Kantian Critique, and do not
yet see the position taken up by Kant surpassed; on the contrary, I
see it strengthened by some of the most modern tendencies, and to me
the way in which Engels attacks Dühring with regard to the principles
of morality in his well-known book, does not in truth appear very
exhaustive.[70] Here again the procedure is repeated which we have
already criticised in connection with the discussions upon the general
concept of value. Where Dühring, owing to the exigencies of scientific
abstraction, takes for consideration the isolated individual and
explicitly states that he is dealing with an abstract illustration
(_Denkschema_), Engels remarks, wittily but erroneously--that the
isolated man is nothing but a new edition of the first Adam in the
Garden of Eden. It is true that in that criticism are contained many
well-directed blows; and it might even be called just, if it refers
only to ethical conceptions in the sense of assemblages of special
rules and moral judgments, relative to definite social situations,
which assemblages and constructions cannot claim absolute truth for
all times, and all places, precisely because they are always made for
particular times and particular places. But apart from these special
constructions, analysis offers us the essential and ruling principles
of morality, which give opportunity for questions which may, truly, be
differently answered, but which most certainly are not taken into
account by Marx and Engels. And, in truth, even if some may be able to
write on the _theory of knowledge according to_ _Marx_,[71] to write
on the principles of ethics according to Marx seems to me a somewhat
hopeless undertaking.
VI
CONCLUSION
_Recapitulation: 1. Justification of Marxian economics as
comparative sociological economics: 2. Historical
materialism simply a canon of historical interpretation:
3. Marxian social programme not a pure science: 4.
Marxism neither intrinsically moral nor antimoral._
The preceding remarks are partly attempts at interpretation, and
partly critical emendations of some of the concepts and opinions
expressed by Marx and in the Marxian literature. But how many other
points deserve to undergo revision! Beginning with that _concentration
of private property in a few hands_, which threatens to become
something like the discredited _iron law of wages_, and ending with
that strange statement in the history of philosophy that _the labour
movement is the heir of German classical philosophy_. And attention
could thus be given to another group of questions which we have not
discussed (_e.g._ to the conception of future society) in regard to
their detailed elucidation and their practical and historical
applications.[72] If that _decomposition of Marxism_, which some have
predicted,[73] meant a careful critical revision, it would indeed be
welcome.
To sum up, in the meantime, the chief results which are suggested in
the preceding remarks: they maintain.
1. In regard to economic science, the _justification_ of Marxian
economics, understood not as general economic science, but as
comparative sociological economics, which is concerned with a problem
of primary interest for historical and social life.
2. In regard to the philosophy of history, the _purification_ of
historical materialism from all traces of any _a priori_ standpoint
(whether inherited from Hegelianism or an infection from ordinary
evolutionism) and the understanding of the theory as a simple, albeit
a fruitful, _canon_ of historical interpretation.
3. In regard to practical matters, the _impossibility of inferring_
the Marxian social programme (or, indeed, any other social programme)
from the propositions of pure science, since the appraisement of
social programmes must be a matter of empirical observations and
practical convictions; in which connection the Marxian programme
cannot but appear one of the noblest and boldest and also one of those
which obtain most support from the objective conditions of existing
society.
4. In regard to ethics, the _abandonment of the legend_ of the
intrinsic _immorality_ or of the intrinsic _anti-ethical_ character of
Marxism.
I will add a remark on the second point. Many will think that if
historical materialism is reduced to the limits within which we have
confined it, it will not only no longer be a legitimate and real
scientific theory (which we are indeed prepared to grant) but will
actually lose all importance whatever, and against this second
conclusion we once more, as we have done already on another occasion,
make vigorous protest. Undoubtedly the horror expressed by some for
pure science and for abstractions is inane, since these intellectual
methods are indispensable for the very knowledge of concrete reality;
but no less inane is the complete and exclusive worship of abstract
propositions, of _definitions_, of _theorems_, of _corollaries_:
almost as if these constituted a sort of aristocracy of human thought.
Well! the economic purists (not to draw examples from other fields,
though numbers could be found in pure mathematics) prove to us, in
fact, that the discovery of scientific theorems,--strictly,
unimpeachably scientific,--is frequently neither an over-important nor
over-difficult matter. To be convinced thereof we need only remark how
many _eponimi_ of new theorems issue from every corner of the German
or English schools. And concrete reality, _i.e._ the very world in
which we live and move, and which it concerns us somewhat to know,
slips out, unseizable, from the broad-meshed net of abstractions and
hypotheses. Marx, as a sociologist, has in truth not given us
carefully worked out definitions of _social phenomena_, such as may be
found in the books of so many contemporary sociologists, of the
Germans Simmel and Stammler, or of the Frenchman Durckheim; but he
teaches us, although it is with statements approximate in content and
paradoxical in form, to penetrate to what society is in its _actual
truth_. Nay, from this point of view, I am surprised that no one has
thought of calling him 'the most notable _successor_ of the Italian
Niccolo Machiavelli'; a Machiavelli of the labour movement.
And I will also add a remark on the third point--if the social
programme of Marxism cannot be _wholly included_ in Marxian science,
or in any other science, no more can the daily practice of socialist
politics be, in its turn, _wholly included_ in the general principles
of the programme, which programme, if we analyse it, determines (1)
_an ultimate end_, (the technical organisation of society); (2) _an
impulse, based on history_, towards this end, found in the objective
tendencies of modern society (the necessity for the abolition of
capitalism and for a communistic organisation, as the one possible
_form of progress_); (3) _a method_ (to accelerate the final phases of
the bourgeoisie, and to educate politically the class destined to
succeed them). Marx, owing to his political insight, has for many
years in a striking manner, joined with, and guided by his advice and
his work, the international socialist movement; but he could not give
_precepts_ and _dogmas_ for every contingency and complication that
history might produce. Now _the continuation of Marx's political work
is much more difficult than the continuation of his scientific work_.
And, if, in continuing the latter, the so-called Marxians have
sometimes fallen into a _scientific dogmatism_ little to be admired,
some recent occurrences remind us of the danger, that the continuation
of the former may also degenerate into a dogmatism with the worst
effects, _i.e._ a _political dogmatism_. This gives food for thought
to all the more cautious Marxians, amongst whom are Kautsky and
Bernstein in Germany, and Sorel in France; Labriola's new book, too,
contains serious warnings on the matter.
_November, 1897._
FOOTNOTES:
[13] 'An immense monograph' (of economics understood) it is called by
Professor Antonio Labriola, the most notable of the Italian Marxians,
in his recent book (_Discorrendo di filosophia e socialismo_, Rome,
Loescher, 1898). But in an earlier work (_In Memoria del 'Manifesto
dei Comunisti'_, 2nd ed. Rome, 1895, p. 36) he defined it as '_a
philosophy of history_'.
[14] I leave out those who regard the law of labour-value as the
_general_ law of value. The refutation is obvious. How could it ever
be 'general' when it leaves out of account a whole category of
economic goods, that is the goods which cannot be increased by labour?
[15] WERNER SOMBART: _Zur Kritik des oekonomischen Systems von Karl
Marx_ (in the _Archiv für soziale Gesetzgebung und Statistik_ Vol.
VII, 1894, pp. 555-594). I have not by me the criticism (from the
Hedonistic point of view) of this article by Sombart--on the third
volume of _Das Kapital_--made last year by BOHM BAWERK in the
_Miscellany_ in honour of Knies.
[16] _Loc. cit._, p. 571, _et seq._
[17] In the _Neue Zeit_ xiv. vol. 1, pp. 4-11, 37-44, I quote from the
Italian translation: _Dal terzo volume del 'Capitale,'_ preface and
notes by F. Engels, Rome 1896, p. 39.
[18] _Sur la théorie Marxiste de la valeur_ (in the _Journal des
Economistes_, number for March 1897, pp. 222-31, see p. 228).
[19] _Discorrendo di socialismo e di filosophia_, p. 21.
[20] It must be carefully noticed that what I call a _concrete fact_
may still not be a fact which is empirically real, but a fact made by
us hypothetically and _entirely imaginary_ or a fact _partially
empirical_, _i.e._ existing partially in empirical reality. We shall
see later on that Marx's typical premise belongs properly to this
second class.
[21] I accept the term employed by Labriola so much the more readily
since it is the same as that used by me a year ago. See Essay on Loria
(_Materialismio Storico_, pp. 48-50).
[22] In making an hypothesis of this nature, Marx distinguished
clearly that, in such a case, 'labour-time would serve a _double_
purpose: on the one hand as standard of value, on the other as a
standard of the individual share reckoned to each producer in the
common labour' (_andrerseits dient die Arbeitzeit zugleich als Mass
des individuellen Antheils des Producenten an der Gemeinarbeit, und
daher auch an dem individuell verzehrbaren Theil des Gemein
products_): See _Das Kapital_ I, p. 45.
[23] This is a different thing from the workmen or operatives in our
capitalist society, who form a _class_, _i.e._ a portion of economic
society and not economic society in general and in the abstract,
producing goods which can be increased by labour.
[24] It may be doubted whether this general application of
labour-value to every working economic society was included in the
ideas of Marx and Engels, when the numerous passages are recalled in
which one or other has declared many times that _in the future
communistic society the criterion of value will disappear and
production will be based on social utility, cf._ Engels as early as in
the _Umrisse_ 1844, (Italian translation in _Critica sociale_ a. v.
1895) _Marx_, _Misère de la philosophie_, 2nd ed. Paris, Giard et
Brière. 1896, p. 83; Engels _Antidühring_, p. 335. But this must be
understood in the sense that, not being a hypothetical communistic
society based on exchange, the function of value (in exchange) would
lose, according to them, its practical importance; but not in the
other sense that in the opinion of the communistic society the value
of goods would no longer equal the labour which they cost to society.
Because even in such a system of economic organisation, value-labour
would be the economic law which entirely governed the valuation of
individual commodities, produced by labour. There would be that
clearness of valuation which Marx describes in his _Robinsonia, cf.
Das Kapital_, p. 43.
[25] _Dal terzo volume del 'Capitale,'_ pp. 42-55.
[26] Hence also Marx in §4 of Chap. I.: _Der Fetischcharakter der
Waare und sein Geheimniss_ (I. pp. 37-50) gave a brief outline of the
other economic systems of mediæval society, and of the domestic
system: 'Aller Mysticismus der Waarenwelt, all der Zauber und Spuk,
welcher Arbeitsprodukte auf grundlage der Waarenproduktion umnebelt,
verschwindet daher sofort, sobal wir zu anderen Producktions formen
flüchten' (p. 42). The relation between value and labour appears more
clearly in the less complex economic systems, because less opposed and
obscured by other facts.
[27] _Das Kapital_, Book III., sec. III., Chaps. XIII., XIV., XV.,
_Gesetz des tendentiellen Falls der Profitrate_ (vol. iii., Part I,
pp. 191-249).
[28] The task of Marx's followers ought to be to free his thought from
the literary form which he adopts, to study again the questions which
he propounds, and to work them out with new and more accurate
statements, and with fresh historical illustrations. In this alone can
scientific progress consist. The _expositions_ made hitherto of Marx's
system, are merely _materials_; and some (like Aveling's) consist
entirely in a series of little summaries, which follow the original
chapter by chapter and prove even more obscure. For the law of the
fall in the rate of profits, see below, chap. V.
[29] 'To follow out completely this criticism of bourgeois economics a
knowledge of the capitalist form of production, exchange and
distribution is not alone adequate. We ought similarly to study at
least in their essential features and taken as terms of comparison,
the other forms which have preceded it in time, or exist alongside of
it in less developed countries. Such an investigation and comparison
has hitherto been briefly expounded only by Marx; and we owe almost
entirely to his researches what we know about pre-bourgeois
theoretical economics.' (ENGELS, _Antidühring_, p. 154). This was
written by Engels twenty years ago; and since then the literature of
economic history has grown remarkably, but historical research has
been seldom accompanied by theoretical research.
[30] 'Political economy is essentially an historical science.'
(ENGELS, _l.c._, p. 150).
[31] What is strange is that ENGELS (in the passage quoted in the
penultimate note) says himself most truly that Marx has written
_theoretical economics_, nevertheless in the sentence quoted in the
last note (which appears in the same book and on the same page) he
states definitely that economics in the Marxian sense is nothing but
an _historical science_.
[32] _Antidühring_, pp. 150, 155.
[33] _Das Kapital_, I, p. 67.
[34] F.A. LANGE, _Die Arbeiterfrage_, 5th ed., Winterthur, 1894, (the
author's last revision was in 1874) see p. 332; _cf._ p. 248 and on p.
124, the quotation from Gossen's book, then very little known.
[35] ADOLF WAGNER, _Grundlegung der politischen oekonomie_, 3rd Ed.,
Leipzig, 1892, vol. I, pt. I; Bk. I, ch. i. _Die Wirthschaftliche
Natur des Menschen_, pp. 70-137.
[36] I may be allowed to remark that in similar discussions,
economists usually make the serious mistake _of making the concept
economic coincide with the concept egoistic_. But the economic is an
independent sphere of human activity, in addition to all the others,
such as the spheres of ethics, æsthetics, logic, etc. The moral
_goods_ and the satisfaction of the higher moral _needs_ of man, just
because they are _goods_, and _needs_, are taken into account in
economics, but still _only as goods and needs_, not as _moral_ or
_immoral_, _egoistic_ or _altruistic_. In like manner, a
_manifestation_ (by words or by any other means of expression) is
taken into account in æsthetics; but only _as a manifestation _not_ as
true, false, moral, immoral, useful, harmful, etc._ Economists are
still impressed by the fact that Adam Smith wrote one book of theory
and of ethics, and another of economic theory; which may interpret to
mean that one dealt with a theory of _altruistic_ facts and the other
with one of _egoistic_ facts. But if this had been so, Adam Smith
would have discussed, in both of his chief works, facts of an ethical
character, estimable or reprehensible; and would not have been an
economist at all; a ridiculous conclusion which is a _reductio ad
absurdum_ of the identification of economic action with egoism.
[37] _Discorrendo di socialismo e di filesophia_, l. vi.
[38] It is strange how among the students of pure economics also this
need for a different treatment makes itself felt, leading them to
contradictory statements and to insuperable perplexities. PANTALEONI,
_Principî di economia pura_, Florence, Barbara, 1889, p. 3, Ch. iii §
3 (pp. 299-302), contradicts Böhm-Bawerk, inquiring whence the
borrower of capital at interest is able to find the wherewithal to pay
the interest. PARETO, _Introd. critica agli Estratti del Capitale del
Marx_, Ital. trans. Palermo, Sandron, 1894, p. xxx, n.: 'The phenomena
of _surplus value_ contradicts Marx's theory which determines values
solely by labour. _But, on the other hand, there is an expropriation
of the kind which Marx condemns._ It is not at all proved that this
expropriation helps to secure the hedonistic maximum. _But it is a_
_difficult problem how to avoid this expropriation._' A learned and
accurate Italian work which attempts to reconcile the opinions of the
hedonistic school with those of the followers of Ricardo and Marx, is
the memorandum of Prof. G. RICCA SALERMO, _La theoria del valore nella
storia delle dottrine e dei fatti economici_, Rome 1894. (extr. from
the _Memorie dei Lincei_, s. v. vol. I., pt. i.)
[39] See above, chap. I.
[40] The over-abused Dühring was not mistaken when he remarked that in
Marx's works expressions occur frequently 'which appear to be
universal without being actually so' (Allgemein aussehen ohne es zu
sein). _Kritische Geschichte der Nationalökonomie und des
Socialismus_, Berlin, 1871, p. 527.
[41] GENTILE, _Una critica del materialismo storico_ in the _Studî
storici_ of Crivellucci, vol. VI, 1897, pp. 379-423, throws doubt on
the interpretation offered by me of the opinions of Marx and Engels,
and on the method of interpretation itself. I gladly acknowledge that
in my two earlier essays I do not clearly point out where precisely
the textual interpretation ends and the really theoretical part
begins; which theoretical exposition, only by conjecture and in the
manner described above, can be said to agree with the inmost thoughts
of Marx and Engels. In his recent book, _La filosofia di Marx_, Pisa,
Spoerri, 1899 (in which the essay referred to is reprinted), Gentile
remarks (p. 104), that, although it is a very convenient practice, and
in some cases legitimate and necessary 'to interpret doctrines, by
calling a part of their statement worthless or accidental in form and
external and weak, and a part the real substance and essential and
vital, it is yet necessary to justify it in some way.' He means
certainly, 'justify it as historical interpretation,' since its
justification as correction of theory cannot be doubtful. It seems to
me that even historically the interpretation can be justified without
difficulty when it is remembered that Marx _did not insist_, (as
Gentile himself says) on his metaphysical notions; and did certainly
insist on his historical opinions and on the political policy which he
defended. Marx's personality as a sociological observer and the
teacher of a social movement, certainly outweighs Marx as a
metaphysician which he was almost solely as a young man. That it is
worth the trouble to study Marx from all sides is not denied, and
Gentile has now admirably expounded and criticised his youthful
metaphysical ideas.
[42] I confess that I have never been able to _understand_--however
much I have considered the matter--the meaning of this passage (which
ought however to be very evident, since it is quoted so often without
any comment), in the preface to the second edition of _Das Kapital_:
'Meine dialektische Methode ist der Grundlage nach von der Hegel'schen
nicht nur verschieden, sondern ihr direktes Gegentheil. Für Hegel is
_der Denkprocess_, den er sogar unter dem Namen _Idee_ in ein
selbständiger subjeckt verwandelt, der Demjurg des Wirklichen, das nur
seine äussere Erscheinung bildet. Bei mir ist umgekehrt _das Ideelle_
nichts Andres als das im Menschenkopf umgesetzte und ubersetzte
Materielle.' (_Das Kapital_ I, p. xvii.) Now it seems to me that the
_Ideelle_ of the last phrase has _no relation_ to the _Denkprocess_
and to the Hegelian _Idea_ of the preceding phrase, _cf._ above pp.
17. Some have thought that by the objections there stated, I intended
to deny Marx's Hegelian _inspiration_. It is well to repeat that I
merely deny the _logical relation_ affirmed between the two
philosophical theories. To deny Marx's Hegelian inspiration would be
to contradict the evidence.
[43] Answers to several of the questions suggested above are now
supplied in the book already referred to, by GENTILE: _La Filosofia di
Marx_.
[44] _Antidühring_, pt. I. ch. xlii., especially pp. 138-145, which
passage is translated into Italian in the appendix to the book by
Labriola referred to above: _Discorrendo di socialismo e di
filosophia_, _cf._ _Das Kapital_, I. p. xvii, 'Gelingt dies und
spiegelt sich nun das Leben des stoffs ideell wieder, _so mag es
aussehen_, als habe man es mit einer Konstruction a priori zu thun.'
[45] LANGE, indeed, in reference to Marx's _Das Kapital_, remarked
that the Hegelian dialectic, 'the development by antithesis and
synthesis, might almost be called an _anthropological discovery_. Only
in history, as in the life of the individual, development by
antithesis _certainly does not accomplish itself so easily and
radically, nor with so much precision and symmetry as in speculative
thought_.' (_Die Arbeiterfrage_, pp. 248-9.)
[46] With regard to the _abstract_ classes of Marxian economics and
the _real_ or _historical_ classes, see some remarks by SOREL in the
article referred to in the _Journal des Economistes_, p. 229.
[47] G. GENTILE, _o.c._ in _Studî storici_, p. 421. _cf._ 400-401.
[48] Labriola has indeed an exaggerated dislike for what he calls the
_scholastic_: but even this exaggeration will not appear wholly
unsuitable as a reaction against the method of study which usually
prevails among the mere men of letters, the niggardly scholars, the
empty talkers and jugglers with abstract thought, and all those who
lose their sense of close connection between science and life.
[49] _Discorrendo di socialismo e di filosophia_, l. ix.
[50] _In torno alla storia della cultura_ (Kulturgeschichtein _Atti_
dell Accad. Pont.; vol. xxv. 1895, p. 8.)
[51] 'If by Christianity is meant merely the sum of the beliefs and
expectations concerning human destiny, these beliefs'--writes
Labriola--'vary as much, in truth, as in the difference, to mention
only one instance, between the free will of the Catholics after the
Council of Trent, and the absolute determination of Calvin!' (_L.c._
ix.)
[52] Without referring to the somewhat unmethodical work of
Westermarck, _History cf Human Marriage_, see especially Ernst
Grosse's book, _Die Formen der Familie und die Formen der
Wirthschaft_, Freiburg in B., 1896.
[53] This connection is shortly but carefully dealt with by INGRAM,
_History of Political Economy_, Edinburgh, A. & C. Black, 1888, p. 62.
[54] See, amongst many passages, MARX, _Misère de la philosophie_, p.
167, _et seq._ ENGELS, _Antidühring_, p. 1, _et seq._
[55] On the hedonistic maxima, _cf._ Bertolini-Pantaleoni, _Cenni sul
concetto di massimi edonistici individuali e collectivi_ (_in Giorn,
degli Econ._, s II vol. iv.) and Coletti, in the same _Giornale_, vol.
v.
[56] In regard to this metaphysical use of the word science; there
even exists in Italy a _Rivista di polizia scientifica_! And the
metaphor may pass here also.
[57] _Cours d'économie politique_, Lausanne, 1896-7.
[58] _Cf._ also his criticism of Marx already referred to: p. xviii.
[59] Sauf l'Angleterre, où règne le libre échange _principalement
parcequ'il est favourable aux intérêts de certains entrepreneurs_, le
reste des pays civilisés verse de plus en plus dans le protectionnisme
(§. 964.)
[60] See the _Giornale degli economisti_, excellent in all its
critical sections; and especially Pareto's _chronicles_ therein.
[61] It may be remarked that in the difficulty of distinguishing the
purely scientific from the practical lies the chief cause of the
dangers and poverty of the social and political sciences. And we may
even smile at those scientists or their ingenious admirers, who claim
to accomplish the salvation of the social and political sciences, by
applying to them the methods, as they say, of the natural sciences.
(An Italian astronomer, ingenuous as clever, has suggested the
formation of sociological observatories which, in a few years would
make sociology something like astronomy!) Alas! the matter is not so
simple; all sociologists intend indeed to apply exact methods; but how
can this application succeed when one advances _per ignes_ or over
ground which moves; _d'una e d'altra parte sì come l'onda chefugge e
s'appressa_? (From both sides like the wave which ebbs and flows.)
[62] See the preface of the German translation of _Misère de la
philosophie_, 2nd ed. Stuttgart, 1892, and now also in French in the
reprint of the original text of the same work (Paris, Giard et Brière,
1896.)
[63] The word _communism_ is also more appropriate, since there are so
many _socialisms_ (democratic state, catholic, etc.). On the relation
between the materialistic theory of history and socialism, see
GENTILE, _op. cit._, _passim_.
[64] _Pantagruel_, III, 39-43.
[65] The absurdity of this interpretation will come out clearly if it
is merely remembered that there are many cases in which the capitalist
manufacturer pays for the labour of his workman, _a price higher than
what he then realises on the market_; cases, it is true, where the
capitalist is proceeding towards ruin and bankruptcy; but which he
cannot, on this account, always avoid. 'Marx part des recherches
faites par cette école Anglaise, dont il avait fait une étude
approfondie; et il veut _expliquer le profit sans admettre aucun
brigandage_.' (SOREL, _art. cit._, p. 227.)
[66] See in _Antidühring_, p. 303, the historical justification of
class divisions.
[67] From among the many passages which support this interpretation,
_cf. Antidühring_, pp. 152-3, 206 and especially pp. 61-2, and the
preface to the German translation of _Misère de la Philosophie_, 2nd
ed. Stuttgart, 1892 pp. ix-x, _cf._ also Labriola, _o.c._ _Lett.
VIII._
[68] See LABRIOLA, _o.c. l. cit._, the remarks on the difficulty with
which the theory of historical materialism meets owing to mental
dispositions, and amongst those who wish _to moralise socialism_.
One instance, in some respects analogous to this which arises from the
discussions on Marx's ethics, is the traditional criticism of
Machiavelli's ethics: which was refuted by De Sanctis (in the
remarkable chapter devoted to Machiavelli, in his _Storia della
letteratura_), but which continually recurs and is inserted even in
Professor Villari's book, who finds this defect in Machiavelli: that
he did not consider the _moral question_.
I have always asked myself for what reason, by what obligation, by
what agreement, Machiavelli was bound to discuss all kinds of
questions, even those for which he had neither preparation nor
sympathy. Can it be said, by way of example, to some one who is
researching in chemistry:--Your weak and erroneous spot is that you
have not gone back from your detailed investigations to the general
metaphysical enquiries into the principles of reality?--Machiavelli
starts from the establishment of a fact: the condition of war in which
society found itself; and gives rules suited to this state of affairs.
Why should he, who was not cut out for a moral philosopher, discuss
the ethics of war? He goes straight to practical conclusions. Men are
wicked--he says--and to the wicked it is needful to behave wickedly.
You will deceive him who would certainly deceive you. You will do
violence to him who would do violence to you. These maxims are neither
moral nor immoral, neither beneficial nor harmful; they become one of
the two according to the subjective aims and the objective effects of
the action, _i.e._ according to the _intentions_ and the _results_.
What is evident is that a morality which desired to introduce into war
the maxims of peace would be a morality for lambs fit for the
slaughter, not for men who wish to repel injustice and to maintain
their rights. 'And if men were all good, this precept would not be
good, etc., etc.' says Machiavelli himself. (_Principe_, ch. xviii).
Villari is also troubled by the old formula concerning the 'end which
justifies the means' and the 'moral end' and the 'immoral means'. It
is however sufficient to consider that the _means_, just because they
are _means_, cannot be divided into _moral_ and _immoral_, but merely
into _suitable_ and _unsuitable_. _Immoral means_, unless as an
expression in current speech, is a contradiction in terms. The
qualification moral or immoral can only belong to the end. And, in the
examples usually given, an analysis made with a little accuracy shows
at once, that it is never a question of immoral _means_ but of immoral
ends. The height of the confusion is reached by those who introduce
into the question the absurd distinction of _private_ and _public_
morality.
I may be pardoned the digression; but, as I said, questions which are
really analogous re-appear now in connection with the ethical maxims
of Marxism.
[69] And it would be to the point to draw a comparison between the
peasants' rebellions, with which modern Italy has supplied us with
another example in recent years, and the political struggles of the
German workmen, or the economic struggles of the Trade Unions in
England.
[70] See in particular P.I. ch. ix., _Moral und Recht, Ewige
Wahrheiten_.
[71] See, in particular, MARX'S ideas: _Ueber Feuerbach_, in 1845, in
the appendix to Engels' book, _Ludwig Feuerbach und der Ausgang der
Klassischen deutschen Philosophie_, 2nd ed. Stuttgart, 1895, pp.
59-62; and _cf._ ANDLER in _Revue de metaphysique_, 1897, LABRIOLA,
_o.c. passim_ and GENTILE, _l.c._, p. 319. From this point of view
(_i.e._ limiting the statement to the theory of knowledge) we might
speak like Labriola of historical materialism as a philosophy of
practice, _i.e._ as a particular way of conceiving and solving, or
rather of over-coming, the problem of thought and of existence. The
philosophy of practice has now been designedly studied by Gentile in
the volume referred to.
[72] Some interpretations would be merely verbal explanations. To some
it will appear a very hard statement that socialism aims at abolishing
the State. Yet it suffices to consider that the State, among
socialists, is synonymous with difference of classes and the existence
of governing classes, to understand that as in such a case, we can
speak of the _origin_ of the State, so we can speak of its _end_;
which does not mean the end of organised society (_cf. Antidühring_,
p. 302). The conception of _the way in which capitalist society will
come to an end_ demands no little critical working out; on this point
the thought of Marx and Engels is not without obscurities and
inconsistencies (_cf. Antidühring_, pp. 287 _et seq._ and p. 297).
[73] See CH. ANDLER, _Les origines du socialisme d'état en Allemagne_,
Paris, Alcan, 1897. Andler promises a book, and is now giving a course
of lectures on the _decomposition of Marxism_.
_CHAPTER IV._ RECENT INTERPRETATIONS OF THE MARXIAN THEORY OF VALUE
AND CONTROVERSIES CONCERNING THEM
I
_Labriola's criticism of method and conclusions of preceeding
essays answered: His criticism merely destructive:
Tendency of ether thinkers to arrive at like
conclusions._
I have always discussed frankly the views expressed in the writings of
my eminent friend Professor Antonio Labriola. I am therefore glad that
he has taken the same liberty with me, and has subjected to a vigorous
criticism (in the French edition of his book on _Socialismo e la
filosofia_),[74] my interpretation of the Marxian theory of value.[75]
Labriola has been impelled to this also from a wish to prevent my
opinions from appearing, 'to the reader's eyes,' as a supplement,
approved by him, of his own personal ones. And though I do not think
that 'to the reader's eyes' (I will however add _intelligent_
readers), this would be possible, since, I have always carefully
indicated the points, and they are neither few nor unimportant, where
we disagree: yet being convinced that clearness is never superfluous,
I welcome his intention to make it still plainer that I am not he,
and that he thinks with his mind whilst I think with mine.
Labriola rejects entirely the method adopted by me, which he describes
variously as _scholastic_, _metaphysical_, _metaphorical_, _abstract_,
_formal logic_. When I take pains to point out the differences between
_homo oeconomicus_ and man, moral or immoral, between personal
interest and egoism,[76] he shrugs his shoulders, he does not refuse a
certain indulgence to this _traditional scholasticism_, and compares
me to the man in the street who speaks of the rising or setting of the
sun, or of _shining light_ and _warm heat_. When I firmly maintain the
theoretical necessity for a _general economics_ in addition to the
heterogeneous considerations of sociological economics, he taxes me
with creating, _in addition to all the visible and tangible animals,
an animal as such_. And he charges me, moreover, with wishing to
attack history, comparative philology and physiology in order to
substitute for all these the plain _Logic_ of Port Royal, so that
instead of studying examples of epigenesis which have actually
occurred, such as the transitions from invertebrates to vertebrates,
from primitive communism to private property in land, from
undifferentiated roots to the systematic differentiation of nouns and
verbs in the Ariosemitic group, it might suffice to register these
facts in concepts passing from the more general to the more
particular, in the series A a^1 a^2 a^3 etc.
But I hardly know how to defend myself seriously from such
accusations, because it obliges me to repeat what is too obvious,
_i.e._, that to make concepts does not mean to _create entities_; that
to employ metaphors (and language is all metaphor), does not mean to
_believe mythology_; that to construct experiences in thought, and
scientific abstractions, does not mean to substitute either one or the
other for _concrete reality_; that to make use, when needful, of
formal logic, does not mean to ignore _fact_, _growth_, _history_.
When Marx expounds historical facts I know no way of approaching him
except that of historical criticism, and when he defines concepts and
formulates laws, I can only proceed to recognise the content of his
concepts, and to test the correctness of his inferences and
deductions. Thus I have followed this second method in studying his
theory of value. If Labriola knows another and better one, let him
state it. But what could this _other_ one possibly be? Real logic? In
that case let us boldly re-establish Hegel, it will be the lesser
evil, at least we shall understand one another. Or a still worse
alternative, what monstrous empirical-dialectic or evolutionist method
may it be, which confuses together and abuses two distinct procedures,
and lends itself so readily to the lovers of prophecy? Or is it merely
a question of new phraseology by which we shall go on humbly working,
more or less well, with the old methods, whilst detesting the old
words? Or again, is this dislike for formal logic nothing but a
convenient pretext for dispensing with any vindication of the concepts
which are employed?
Marx has stated his concept of _value_; has expounded a process of
transformation of _value_ into _price_; has reconstructed the nature
of profit as _surplus value_. For me the whole problem of Marxian
criticism is confined within these limits:--Is Marx's conception
substantially erroneous (entirely, owing to false premisses, and
partially, owing to false deductions)? or, is Marx's conception
substantially correct, but has it been subsumed under a category to
which it does not belong, and has search been made in it for what it
cannot supply, whilst what it actually offers has been ignored? Having
come to this second conclusion I have asked myself: Under what
conditions and assumptions is Marx's theory _thinkable_? And this
question I have tried to answer in my essay.
What Marx wished to do, or mistakenly thought himself to be doing is,
I think, of interest to criticism up to a certain point; although the
history of science shows that thinkers have not always had the
clearest and plainest knowledge of the whole of their thought; and
that it is one thing to discover a truth, and another to define and
classify the discovery when made. It may be allowed that he who
confuses ideological with historical research thus best reproduces
Marx's _spirit_; but in this case the work will be an artistic
recasting or a psychological reproduction, not a criticism; and will
gather up with the sound also the unsound portion of Marx's thought.
To go into details. Labriola tries to prove the emptiness or vagueness
of some of my definitions and the falsity of some of my reasoning. I
having asserted that capitalist economics is a special case of general
economics, Labriola remarks, '_en passant_,' that it is nevertheless
the only case which has given rise to a theory and to divisions of
schools; and I acknowledge that I do not understand the point of this
remark, although it is said to be made '_en passant_.' Both Marx and
Engels lamented that the ancient and medieval economic systems had not
been studied in the same way as the modern. Thus there are conceivable
at least three economic theories, ancient, medieval and modern, and is
it not lawful to construct a general economics; _i.e._ to study in
isolation that common _element_ which causes these three groups of
facts to be all three denoted by a common name? Labriola then asks
what this general and extra-historical economics can consist of, and
whether it can never be of service to the conjectural psychology of
primitive man: he jests after the manner of Engels, who in truth has
sometimes joked too much during a discussion on serious matters. Is it
incredible that I too should jest? But I do not think there is
occasion to do so! He wonders at my _insatiability_, because having
accepted the hedonistic theories, I wish to accept Marx's theories
too: as though my entire proof was not intended to make it plain that
the antithesis between these theories exists only in imagination; and
that Marx's theory is not an economic system entirely opposed to other
systems ('_quelque chose de tout-à-fait opposé_' are Labriola's own
words), but a special and partial inquiry; and as though by hedonism I
meant all the personal convictions, philosophical, historical and
political, of those who follow, or say that they follow, its guidance,
and not indeed _only what follows legitimately from its axiom_. When I
call the explanation of the nature of profits, offered by the
hedonistic school, an _economic explanation_, he inquires
sarcastically: 'Could it possibly be _non-economic_?' But my statement
contains no pleonasm: the adjective _economic_ is added to mark off
the hedonistic explanation from that of Marx, which, to my thinking,
is not purely economic, but historical and comparative, or
sociological, if it is preferred. He wonders that I speak of a
_working society_, and asks: 'As opposed to what?' 'Perhaps to the
saints in paradise?' But I have pointed out the opposition between a
hypothetical _working society_,--_i.e._ such that all its goods are
produced by labour,--and a society, economic certainly, but not
exclusively working, because it enjoys goods given by nature, as well
as the products of labour. The saints in paradise form another
irrelevant jest.