 
HISTORICAL MATERIALISM | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Introduction | ix | |
| CHAPTER I | ||
| Concerning the Scientific Form of Historical Materialism | ||
| 1. Scope of essay: Labriola's book implies that historical materialism is not a philosophy of history: Distinction between a philosophy of history and philosophising about history: Reason why two have been confused: Materialistic theory of History as stated by Labriola not an attempt to establish a law of history: This contrasted with theories of monists, and teleologists: Engels' statement that it is a new method erroneous: New content not new method | 2 | |
| 2. Historical materialism a mass of new data of which historian becomes conscious: Does not state that history is nothing more than economic history, nor does it provide a theory of history: Is simply investigation of influence economic needs have exercised in history: This view does not detract from its importance | 12 | |
| 3. Questions as to relations between historical materialism and socialism; Only possible connection lies in special historical application: Bearing of historical materialism upon intellectual and moral truth: Throws light on influence of material conditions on their development, but does not demonstrate their relativity: Absolute morality a necessary postulate of socialism | 21 | |
| CHAPTER II | ||
| Concerning Historical Materialism Viewed as a Science of Social Economics | ||
| 1. Relation between Professor Stammler's book on historical materialism and Marxism: Distinction between | 25 | |
| CHAPTER III | ||
| Concerning the Interpretation and Criticism of Some Concepts of Marxism | ||
| I. OF THE SCIENTIFIC PROBLEM IN MARX'S 'DAS KAPITAL' | ||
| Das Kapital an abstract investigation: His society is not this or that society: Treats only of capitalist society: Assumption of equivalence between value and labour: Varying views about meaning of this law: Is a postulate or standard of comparison: Question as to value of this standard: Is not a moral ideal: Treats of economic society in so far as is a working society: Shows special way in which problem is solved in capitalist society: Marx's deductions from it | 48 | |
| 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: Engels' 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 | 66 | |
| 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 | 77 | |
| 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 | 93 | |
| 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 | 106 | |
| 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 anti-moral | 115 | |
| 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 other thinkers to arrive at like conclusions | 120 | |
| II | ||
| Meaning of phrase crisis in Marxianism: Sorel's view of equivalence of value and labour mostly in agreement with view put forward above: An attempt to examine profits | 131 | |
| CHAPTER V | ||
| A Criticism of the Marxian Law of the Fall in the Rate of Profits | ||
| Interpretation here given assumes acceptance of Marx's main principles: Necessary decline in rate of profit on hypothesis of technical improvement: Two successive stages confused by Marx: More accurately a decline in amount of profit: Marx assumes that would be an increase of capital: Would be same capital and increase in rate of profits: Decline in rate of profits due to other reasons | 142 | |
| CHAPTER VI | ||
| On the Economic Principle | ||
| TWO LETTERS TO PROFESSOR V. PARETO | ||
| I | ||
| Need for more comprehensive definition of the economic principle: Reasons why the mechanical conception erroneous, economic fact capable of appraisement: Cannot be scale of values for particular action: Economic datum a fact of human activity: Distinction and connection between pleasure and choice: Economic datum a fact of will: Knowledge a necessary presupposition of will: Distinction between technical and economic: Analogy of logic and Æsthetic: Complete definition of economic datum | 159 | |
| II | ||
| Disagreement (1) about method (2) postulates: (1) Nothing arbitrary in economic method, analogy of classificatory sciences erroneous: (2) Metaphysical postulate that facts of human activity same as physical facts erroneous: Definition of practical activity in so far as admits of definition: Moral and economic activity and approval: Economic and moral remorse: Economic scale of values | 174 | |
| Index of Names | 187 | |
INTRODUCTIONToC
The Essays in this volume, as will be apparent, have all of them had an occasional origin. They bear evident traces of particular controversy and contain much criticism of authors who are hardly, if at all, known in this country. Their author thought it worth while to collect them in one volume and it has been, I am sure, worth while to have them translated into English, because though written on different occasions and in different controversies they have all the same purpose. They are an attempt to make clear by philosophical criticism the real purpose and value of Marx's work.
It is often said that it is the business of philosophy to examine and criticise the assumptions of the sciences and philosophy claims that in this work it is not an unnecessary meddler stepping in where it is not wanted. For time and again for want of philosophical criticism the sciences have overstepped their bounds and produced confusion and contradiction. The distinction between the proper spheres of science and history and moral judgment is not the work of either science or
The present state of the controversy about the value of the writings of Karl Marx obviously calls for some such work of disentangling. No honest student can deny that his work has been of great historic importance and it is hard to believe that a book like Das Kapital which has been the inspiration of a great movement can be nothing but a tissue of false reasoning as some of its critics have affirmed. The doctrine of the economic interpretation of history has revivified and influenced almost all modern historical research. In a great part of his analysis of the nature and natural development of a capitalist society Marx has shown himself a prophet of extraordinary insight. The more debatable doctrine of the class war has at least shown the sterility of the earlier political theory which thought only in terms of the individual and his state. The wonderful vitality of the Marxian theory of labour value in spite of all the apparent refutations it has suffered at the hands of orthodox political economists is an insoluble puzzle if it had no more in it than the obvious fallacy which these refutations expose. Only a great book could become 'the Bible of the working classes.'
A disentangler of true and false in so-called Marxianism is obviously needed, and Senatore Croce is eminently fitted for the work. Much of the difficulty of Marx comes from his relation to Hegel. He was greatly influenced by and yet had reacted from Hegel's philosophy without making clear to others or possibly to himself what his final position in regard to Hegel really was. Senatore Croce is a Hegelian, but a critical one. His chief
The application to the doctrine of historic materialism is obvious. It calls attention to one of the factors of the historical process, the economic. This factor it quite rightly treats in abstraction and isolation. A knowledge of the laws of economic forces so obtained may 'light up our perception' of the real historical process, but only darkness and confusion can result from mistaking the abstraction for reality and from the production of those a priori histories of the stages of civilisation or the development of the family which have discredited Marxianism in the eyes of historians. In the first
Once this is clearly understood it is possible to appreciate the services rendered to history by Marx. For Croce holds that economics is a real science. The economic factors in history can be isolated and treated by themselves. Without such isolated treatment they cannot be understood, and if they are not understood, our view of history is bound to be unnecessarily narrow and onesided. On the relative importance of the economic and the political and the religious factors in history he has nothing to say. There is no a priori answer to the question whether any school of writers has unduly diminished or exaggerated the importance of any one of these factors. Their importance has varied at different times, and can at any time only be estimated empirically. It remains a service of great value to have distinguished a factor of such importance which had been previously neglected.
If then the economic factor in history should be isolated and treated separately, how is it to be distinguished? For it is essential to Croce's view of science that each science has its own concepts
Marx, Croce holds was an economist and not a moralist, and the moral judgments of socialists are not and cannot be derived from any scientific examination of economic processes.
So much for criticisms of Marx or rather of exaggerated developments of Marxianism, which though just and important, are comparatively obvious. The most interesting part of Signor Croce's criticism is his interpretation of the shibboleth of orthodox Marxians and the stumbling-block of economists, the Marxian theory of labour
Croce attempts to find a solution by pointing out that the society which Marx is describing is not this or that actual society, but an ideal, in the sense of a hypothetical society, capitalist society as such. Marx has much to say of the development of capitalism in England, but he is not primarily concerned to give an industrial history of England or of any other existing society. He is a scientist and deals with abstractions or types and considers England only in so far as in it the characteristics of the abstract capitalist society are manifested. The capitalism which he is analysing does not exist because no society is completely capitalist. Further it is to be noticed that in his analysis of value Marx is dealing with objects only in so far as they are commodities produced by
A consideration of Marx's own argument forces us therefore to the conclusion that either Marx was an incapable bungler or that he thought the fact that some things have economic value and are yet not the product of labour irrelevant to his argument because he was talking of economic value in two senses, firstly in the sense of price, and secondly in a peculiar sense of his own. This indeed is borne out by his distinction of value and price. Croce developing this hint, suggests that
Now in a society of that kind in which there was no monopoly and capital was at everyone's disposal equally, the value of commodities would represent the value of the labour put into them, and that value might be represented in units of socially necessary labour time. It would still have to be admitted that an hour of one man's labour might be of much greater value to the community than two hours of another man, but that Marx has already allowed for. The unit of socially necessary labour time is an abstraction, and the hour of one man might contain two or any number of such abstract units of labour time. What Marx has done is to take the individualist economist at his word: he has accepted the notion of an economic society as a number of competing individuals. Only he has insisted that they shall start fair and therefore that they shall have nothing to buy or sell but their labour. The discrepancy between the
If this is really the kernel of Marx's doctrine, it bears a close relation to a simpler and more familiar contention, that in a society where free economic competition holds sway, each man gets what he deserves, for his income represents the sum that society is prepared to pay for his services, the social value of his work. In this form the hours worked are supposed to be uniform, and the differences in value are taken to represent different amounts of social service. In Marx's argument the social necessity is taken as uniform, and the difference in value taken to represent differences in hours of work. While the main abstract contention remains the same, most of those who argue that in a system of unfettered economic competition most men get what they deserve, rather readily ignore the existence of monopoly, and assume that this argument justifies the existing distribution of wealth. The chief purpose of Marx's argument is to emphasise the difference between such an economic system and a capitalist society. He is here, as so often, turning the logic of the classical economists against themselves, and arguing that the conditions under which a purely economic distribution of wealth could take place, could only exist in a community
Croce maintains that Marx's theory of value is economic and not moral. Yet it is hard to read Marx and certainly Marxians without finding in them the implication that the values produced in such an economic society would be just. If that implication be examined, we come on an important difficulty still remaining in this theory. The contention that in a system of unfettered economic competition, men get the reward they deserve, assumes that it is just that if one man has a greater power of serving society than another he should be more highly rewarded for his work. This the individualist argument with which we compared Marx's assumes without question. But the Marxian theory of value is frequently interpreted to imply that amount of work is the only claim to reward. For differences in value it is held are created by differences in the amount of labour. But the word amount may here be used in two senses. When men say that the amount of work a man does should determine a man's reward; they commonly mean that if one man works two hours and another one, the first ought to get twice the reward of the second. 'Amount' here means the actual time spent in labour. But in Marx's theory of value amount means something quite different, for an hour of one man's work may, he admits, be equal to two of another man's. He means by amount a sum of abstract labour time units. Marx's scientific
Further the great difficulty in allowing that it is just that men of different abilities should have different rewards, comes from the fact that differences of ability are of the nature of monopolies. In a pure economic society high rewards would be given to rare ability and although it is possible to equate work of rare ability with work of ordinary ability by expressing both as amounts of abstract labour time units, it surely remains true that the value is determined not by the amount of abstract labour time congealed in it but by the law of supply and demand. Where there are differences of ability there is some kind of monopoly, and where there is monopoly, you cannot eliminate the influence of the relation of supply and demand in the determination of value. What you imagine you have eliminated by the elimination of capital, which you can collectivise, remains obstinately in individual differences of ability which cannot be collectivised.
But here I have entered beyond the limits of Croce's argument. His critical appraisement of Marx's work must be left to others to judge who
A.D. Lindsay.
CHAPTER I. CONCERNING THE SCIENTIFIC FORM OF HISTORICAL MATERIALISMToC
Historical materialism is what is called a fashionable subject. The theory came into being fifty years ago, and for a time remained obscure and limited; but during the last six or seven years it has rapidly attained great fame and an extensive literature, which is daily increasing, has grown up around it. It is not my intention to write once again the account, already given many times, of the origin of this doctrine; nor to restate and criticise the now well-known passages in which Marx and Engels asserted the theory, nor the different views of its opponents, its supporters, its exponents, and its correctors and corruptors. My object is merely to submit to my colleagues some few remarks concerning the doctrine, taking it in the form in which it appears in a recent book by Professor Antonio Labriola, of the University of Rome
For many reasons, it does not come within my province to praise Labriola's book. But I cannot
I
1. Scope of essay: Labriola's book implies that historical materialism is not a philosophy of history: Distinction between a philosophy of history and philosophising about history: Reason why two have been confused: Materialistic theory of history as stated by Labriola not an attempt to establish a law of history: This contrasted with theories of monists, and teleologists: Engels' statement that it is a new method erroneous: New content not new method.
Any reader of Labriola's book who tries to obtain from it a precise concept of the new theory of history, will reach in the first instance a conclusion which must appear to him evident and incontestable, and which I sum up in the
The philosophical reaction of realism overthrew the systems built up by teleology and metaphysical dogmatism, which had limited the field of the historian. The old philosophy of history was destroyed. And, as if in contempt and depreciation, the phrase, 'to construct a philosophy of history,' came to be used with the meaning: 'to construct a fanciful and artificial and perhaps prejudiced history.'
It is true that of late books have begun to re-appear actually having as their title the 'philosophy of history.' This might seem to be a revival, but it is not. In fact their subject is a very different one. These recent productions do not aim at supplying a new philosophy of history, they simply offer some philosophising about history. The distinction deserves to be explained.
The possibility of a philosophy of history presupposes the possibility of reducing the sequence of history to general concepts. Now, whilst it is possible to reduce to general concepts the particular factors of reality which appear in history
From such realistic standpoints, now as always, any and every philosophy of history has been criticised. But the very reservations and criticisms of the old mistaken constructions demand a discussion of concepts, that is a process of philosophising: although it may be a philosophising which leads properly to the denial of a philosophy of history. Disputes about method, arising out of the needs of the historian, are added. The works published in recent years embody different investigations of this kind, and in a plainly realistic sense, under the title of philosophy of history. Amongst these I will mention as an example a German pamphlet by Simmel, and, amongst ourselves a compendious introduction by Labriola himself. There are, undoubtedly, still philosophies of history which continue to be produced in the old way: voices clamantium in deserto, to whom may be granted the consolation of believing themselves the only apostles of an unrecognised truth.
Now the materialistic theory of history, in the form in which Labriola states it, involves an entire abandonment of all attempt to establish a law of history, to discover a general concept under which all the complex facts of history can be included.
One of these sections, which might be called that of the monists, or abstract materialists, is characterised by the introduction of metaphysical materialism into the conception of history.
As the reader knows, Marx, when discussing the relation between his opinions and Hegelianism employed a pointed phrase which has been taken too often beside the point. He said that with Hegel history was standing on its head and that it must be turned right side up again in order to replace it on its feet. For Hegel the idea is the real world, whereas for him (Marx) 'the ideal is nothing else than the material world' reflected and translated by the human mind. Hence the statement so often repeated, that the materialistic view of history is the negation or antithesis of the idealistic view. It would perhaps be convenient to study once again, accurately and critically, these asserted relations between scientific socialism and Hegelianism. To state the opinion which I have formed on the matter; the link between the two views seems to me to be, in the main, simply psychological. Hegelianism was the early inspiration of the youthful Marx, and it is natural that everyone should link up the new ideas with the old as a development, an amendment, an antithesis. In fact, Hegel's Ideas—and Marx knew this perfectly well—are
But the metaphysical materialism of the authors of the new historical doctrine, and the name given to the latter, have been not a little misleading. I will refer as an example to a recent and bad little book, which seems to me symptomatic, by a sufficiently accredited socialist writer, Plechanow.
Labriola is most careful to avoid this confusion: 'Society is a datum,' he says, 'history is nothing more than the history of society.' And he controverts with equal energy and success the naturalists, who wish to reduce the history of man to the history of nature, and the verbalists, who claim to deduce from the name materialism the real nature of the new view of history. But it must appear, even to him, that the name might have been more happily chosen, and that the confusion lies, so to speak, inherent in it. It is true that old words can be bent to new meanings, but within limits and after due consideration.
In regard to the tendency to reconstruct a materialistic philosophy of history, substituting an omnipresent Matter for an omnipresent Idea, it suffices to re-assert the impossibility of any such construction, which must become merely superfluous and tautologous unless it abandoned itself to dogmatism. But there is another error, which is remarked among the followers of the materialistic school of history, and which is connected with the former, viz., to anticipate harm not only in the interpretation of history but also in the guidance of practical activities. I refer to the teleological tendencies (abstract teleology), which also Labriola opposes with a cutting attack. The very idea of progress, which has seemed to many the only law of
It must be admitted that a little of the blame for the teleological and fatalistic misunderstandings fall on Marx himself. Marx, as he once had to explain, liked to 'coquette' with the Hegelian terminology: a dangerous weapon, with which it would have been better not to trifle. Hence it is now thought necessary to give to several of his statements a somewhat broad interpretation in agreement with the general trend of his theories.
I think then that better homage would be rendered to the materialistic view of history, not by calling it the final and definite philosophy of history but rather by declaring that properly speaking it is not a philosophy of history. This intrinsic nature which is evident to those who understand it properly, explains the difficulty which exists in finding for it a satisfactory theoretical statement; and why
II
2. Historical materialism a mass of new data of which historian becomes conscious: Does not state that history is nothing more than economic history, nor does it provide a theory of history: Is simply investigation of influence economic needs have exercised in history: This view does not detract from its importance.
I have now reached the point which for me is fundamental. Historical materialism is not and cannot be a new philosophy of history or a new method; but it is properly this; a mass of new data, of new experiences, of which the historian becomes conscious.
What are these points of view and experiences which are offered by the materialistic theory of history?
That section of Labriola's book which discusses this appears to me excellent and sufficient. Labriola points out how historical narration in the course of its development, might have arrived at the theory of historical factors; i.e., the notion that the sequence of history is the result of a number of forces, known as physical conditions, social organisations, political institutions, personal influences. Historical materialism goes beyond, to investigate the interaction
To understand this point of view accurately is not easy, and it is misunderstood by all those who, rather than take it in the concrete, state it absolutely after the manner of an absolute philosophical truth. The theory cannot be maintained in the abstract without destroying it, i.e. without turning it into the theory of the factors, which is according to my view, the final word in abstract analysis.
Labriola grants that the supposed reduction of history to the economic factor is a ridiculous notion, which may have occurred to one of the too hasty defenders of the theory, or to one of its no less hasty opponents.
With all these concessions he realises, if I am not mistaken, that it is useless to look for a theory, in any strict sense of the word, in historical materialism; and even that it is not what can properly be called a theory at all. He confirms us in this view by his fine account of its origin, under the stimulus of the French Revolution, that great school of sociology—as he calls it. The materialistic view
At this stage someone will say:—But if the theory, in the strict sense, is not true, wherein then lies the discovery? In what does the novelty consist? To speak in this way is to betray a belief that intellectual progress consists solely in the perfecting of the forms and abstract categories of thought.
Have approximate observations no value in addition to theories? The knowledge of what has usually happened, everything in short that is called experience of life, and which can be expressed in general but not in strictly accurate terms? Granting this limitation and understanding always an almost and an about, there are discoveries to be made which are fruitful in the interpretation of life and of history. Such are the assertions of the dependence of all parts of life upon each other, and of their origin in the economic subsoil, so that it can be said that there is but one single history; the discovery of the true nature of the State (as it appears in the empirical world), regarded as an institution for the defence of the ruling class; the proved dependence of ideals upon class interests; the coincidence of the great epochs of history with the great economic eras; and the many other observations by which the school of historical materialism is
From this point of view too, I entirely agree with Labriola in regarding as somewhat strange the inquiries made concerning the supposed forerunners and remote authors of historical materialism, and as quite mistaken the inferences that these inquiries will detract from the importance and originality of the theory. The Italian professor of economics to whom I referred at the beginning, when convicted of a plagiarism, thought to defend himself by saying that, at bottom, Marx's idea was not peculiar to Marx; hence, at worst, he had robbed a thief. He gave a list of forerunners, reaching back as far as Aristotle. Just lately, another Italian professor reproved a colleague with much less justice for having forgotten that the economic interpretation had been explained by Lorenzo Stein before Marx, I could multiply such examples. All this reminds me of one of Jean Paul Richter's sayings: that we hoard our thoughts as a miser does his money; and only slowly do we exchange the money for possessions, and thoughts for
In regard to historical narrative then, the materialistic view of history resolves itself into a
III
3. Questions as to relation between historical materialism and socialism: Only possible connection lies in special historical application: Bearing of historical materialism upon intellectual and moral truth: Throws light on influence of material conditions on their development, but does not demonstrate their relativity: Absolute morality a necessary postulate of socialism.
Two things seem to me to deserve some further explanation. What is the relation between historical materialism and socialism? Labriola, if I am not mistaken, is inclined to connect closely and almost to identify the two things. The whole of socialism lies in the materialistic interpretation of history, which is the truth itself of socialism; to accept one and reject the other is to understand neither. I consider this statement to be somewhat exaggerated,
The final point which I think demands
The history of the origin of intellectual truth is undoubtedly made clearer by historical materialism, which aims at showing the influence of actual material conditions upon the opening out, and the very development of the human intellect. Thus the history of opinions, like that of science, needs to be for the most part re-written from this point of view. But those who, on account of such considerations concerning historical origins, return in triumph to the old relativity and scepticism, are confusing two quite distinct classes of problem. Geometry owes its origin no doubt to given conditions which are worth determining; but it does not follow that geometrical truth is something merely historical and relative. The warning seems superfluous, but even here misunderstandings are frequent and remarkable. Have I not read in some socialist author that Marx's discoveries themselves are of merely historical importance and must necessarily be disowned. I do not know what meaning this can have unless it has the very trivial one of a recognition of the limitation of all human work, or unless it resolves itself into the no less idle remark that Marx's thought is the offspring of his age. This onesided history is still more dangerous
It would perhaps have been well if Labriola had dwelt a little more on this point. A strong tendency is found in socialistic literature towards a moral relativity, not indeed historical, but substantial, which regards morality as a vain imagination. This tendency is chiefly due to the necessity in which
And in conclusion, I repeat my regret, already expressed, concerning this name materialism, which is not justified in this case, gives rise to numerous misunderstandings, and is a cause of derision to opponents. So far as history is concerned, I would gladly keep to the name realistic view of history, which denotes the opposition to all teleology and metaphysics within the sphere of history, and combines both the contribution made by socialism to historical knowledge and those contributions which may subsequently be brought from elsewhere. Hence my friend Labriola ought not to attach too much importance, in his serious thoughts, to the adjectives final and definite, which have slipped from his pen. Did he not once tell me himself that Engels still hoped for other discoveries which might help us to understand that mystery, made by ourselves, and which is History?
May, 1896.
FOOTNOTES:
CHAPTER II. CONCERNING HISTORICAL MATERIALISM VIEWED AS A SCIENCE OF SOCIAL ECONOMICSToC
1. Relation between Professor Stammler's book on historical materialism and Marxism: Distinction between pure economics and general historical economics: Socialism not dependent on abstract sociological theory: Stammler's classification of the social sciences: His definition of society: Of social economics: Of social teleology: Nature of Stammler's social science does not provide abstract sociology: Social economics must be either pure economics applied to society or a form of history.
The attentive reader of Professor Stammler's book,
A number of attempts have been made, based in the first instance on Marx's statements, to build up on these statements a general theory of history or of society. It is on these attempts then, and not on the least bold amongst them, that Stammler bases his work, making them the starting point of his criticism and reconstruction. It may be precisely
We cannot, indeed, deny that the materialistic view of history has in fact developed in two directions, distinct in kind if not in practice, viz.: (1) a movement relating to the writing of history, and (2) a science and philosophy of society. Hence there is no ground for objecting to Stammler's procedure, when he confines himself to this second problem, and takes it up at the point to which he thinks that the followers of historical materialism have brought it. But it should be clearly pointed out that he does not concern himself at all with the problems of historical method. He leaves out of account that is, what, for some people—and for me amongst them—is the side of this movement of thought which is of living and scientific interest.
Professor Stammler remarks how in the propositions employed by the believers in historical materialism: 'the economic factor dominates the other factors of social life,' 'the economic factor is fundamental
In the main, this is recognised by Professor Stammler himself when he gives an admirable explanation of the current meaning of the expressions: economic facts and political facts, revolutions more political than economic and vice versa. Such distinctions, he says, can only be understood in the concrete, in reference to the aims pursued by the different sections of society, and to the special problems of social life. According to him, however, Marx's work does not deal with such trifling matters: as, for instance, that so-called economic life influences ideas, science, art and so on: old lumber of little consequence. Just as philosophical materialism does not consist in the assertion that bodily facts have an influence over spiritual, but rather in the making of these latter a mere appearance, without reality, of the former: so historical materialism must consist in asserting that economics is the true reality and that law is a fallacious appearance.
But, with all deference to Professor Stammler, we believe that these trifling matters, to which he contemptuously refers, are precisely what are dealt with in Marx's propositions; and, moreover, we think them neither so trifling nor of such little consequence. Hence Professor Stammler's book does not appear to us a criticism of the most vital part of historical materialism, viz., of a movement or school of historians. The criticism of history is made by history; and historical materialism is history made or in the making.
'The necessity for the socialisation of the means of production is not proved scientifically.' Stammler means that the concept of necessity as employed by many Marxians, is erroneous; that the denial of teleology is absurd, and that hence the assertion of the socialisation of the means of production as the social programme is not logically accounted for. This does not hinder this assertion from being possibly quite true. Either because, in addition to
All these reservations are needed in order to fix the scope of Stammler's investigation; but it would be a mistake to infer from them that we reject the starting point of the inquiry itself. Historical materialism—says Professor Stammler—has proved unable to give us a valid science of society: we, however, believe that this was not its main or original object. The two statements come practically to the same thing: the science of society is not contained in the literature of the materialistic theory. Professor Stammler adds that although historical materialism does not offer an acceptable social theory, it nevertheless gives a stimulus of the utmost intensity towards the formation of such a theory. This seems to us a matter of merely individual psychology: suggestions and stimuli, as
There is a tendency, at present, to enlarge unduly the boundaries of social studies. But Stammler rightly claims a definite and special subject for what ought to be called social science; that is definite social data. Social science must include nothing which has not sociability as its determining cause. How can ethics ever be social science, since it is based on cases of conscience which evade all social rules? Custom is the social fact, not morality. How can pure economics or technology ever be social science, since those concepts are equally applicable to the isolated individual and to societies? Thus in studying social data we shall see that, considered in general, they give rise to two distinct theories. The first theory regards the concept society from the causal standpoint; the second regards it from the teleological standpoint. Causality and teleology cannot be substituted the one for the other; but one forms the complement of the other.
If, then, we pass from the general and abstract to the concrete, we have society as existing in
| Social Science. | General Study of Society. Study of Concrete Society. | Causal. Teleological. of the form (technical science of law). of the matter (social economics). of the possible, (practical problems). |
The first investigation relating to society, that concerned with causality, would be directed to solving the problem of the nature of society. Many definitions have been given of this up to the present: and none of them can be said to be generally accepted, or even to claim wide support. Stammler indeed, rejects, after criticism, the definitions of Spencer or RÜmelin, which appear to him to be the most important and to be representative of all the others. Society is not an organism (Spencer), nor is it merely something opposed to legalised society (RÜmelin): Society, says Stammler, is 'life lived by men in common, subject to rules which are externally binding.' These rules must be understood in a very wide sense, as all those which bind men living together to something which is satisfied by outward performance. They are divided, however, into two large classes: rules properly speaking legal, and rules of convention. The second class includes the precepts of propriety and of custom, the code of knightly honour, and so on. The distinctive test lies in the fact that the latter class are merely
The form and matter of social life thus come into conflict, and from this conflict arises change. By what test can the issue of the conflict be decided? To appeal to facts, to invent a causal necessity which may agree with some ideal necessity is absurd. In addition to the law of social causality, which has been expounded, there must be a law of ends and ideals, i.e., a social teleology. According to Stammler, historical materialism identifies, nor would it be the only theory to attempt such an identification, causality and teleology; but it, too, cannot escape from the logical contradictions which such assertions contain. Much praise has been given
Let us omit, for the present, an examination of Stammler's construction of teleology, which includes some very fine passages (e.g. the criticism of the anarchist doctrine) and ask instead: What is this social science of Stammler, of which we have stated the striking and characteristic features? The reader will have little difficulty in discovering that the second investigation, that concerning social teleology, is nothing but a modernised philosophy of law. And the first? Is it that long desired and hitherto vainly sought general sociology? Does it give us a new and acceptable concept of society? To us it appears evident that the first investigation is nothing but a formal science of law. In it Professor Stammler studies law as a fact, and hence he cannot find
As to the second investigation, that concerning teleology, there would be some difficulty in including it in the number of sciences if it be admitted that ideals are not subjects for science. But here Professor Stammler himself comes to our assistance by assigning the foundation of social teleology to philosophy, which he defines as the science of the True and of the Good, the science of the Absolute, and understands in a non-formal sense.
We come to the group of concrete sciences, i.e., those which have for their subject society as given in history. No one who has had occasion to consider the problem of the classification of the sciences, will be inclined to give the character of independent and autonomous sciences to studies of the practical problems of this or that society, and to jurisprudence, and the technical study of law. This latter is only an interpretation or explanation of a given existing legal system, made either for practical reasons, or as simple historical knowledge. But what we think merits attention more than these
Stammler holds forth at length against economics regarded as a science in itself, which has its own laws and which has its source in an original and irreducible economic principle. It is a mistake, he says, to put forward an abstract economic science and subdivide it into economic science relating to the individual and social economic science. There is no ground of union between these two sciences, because the economics of the isolated individual offers us only concepts which are dealt with by the natural sciences and by technology, and is nothing but an assemblage of simple natural observations, explained by means of physiology and individual psychology. Social economics, on the other hand, offers the peculiar and characteristic conditions of the externally binding rules, under which activities develop. And what can an economic principle be if not a hypothetical maxim: the man who wishes to secure this or that object of subjective satisfaction must employ these or those means, 'a maxim which is more or less generally obeyed, and sometimes violated'? The dilemma lies then between
Stammler might say that if the science of economics thus interpreted is not properly a social science, he leaves it on one side, because his object is to construct a science which may be fully entitled to the name of social economics. But—let us, too, construct a dilemma!—this social economics, to which he aspires, will either be just economic science applied to definite social conditions, in the sense now indicated, or it will be a form of historical knowledge. No third thing exists. Ein Drittes ist nicht da!
And indeed, for Stammler an economic phenomenon is not any single social fact whatever, but a group of homogeneous facts, which offer the marks of necessity. The number of economic facts required to form the group and give rise to an economic phenomenon cannot be determined in general; but
Now this account of the concept of social economics is capable of two interpretations. The first is that it is intended to describe a science, which has indeed for its object (as is proper for sciences) necessary connections, in the strict sense of the word. But how establish this necessity? How make the concepts suitable to social economics? Evidently by allowing ourselves to be guided by a principle, by abstracting a single side from concrete reality; and if it is to be for economics this principle can be none other than the economic principle, and social economics will consider only the economic side of
The other interpretation is that Stammler's social economics does not indeed accomplish the dissolving work of analysis but considers this or that social life in the concrete. In this case it could do nothing but describe a given society. To describe does not mean to describe in externals and superficially; but, more accurately, to free that group of facts from every obscurity, showing what it actually is, and describing it, as far as possible in its naked reality. But this is, in fact, historical knowledge, which may assume varied forms, or rather may define in various ways its own subject. It may study a society—in all its aspects during a given period of time, or at a given moment of its existence, or it may even take up one or more aspects of social life and study them as they present themselves in different societies and at different times, and so on. It is history always, even when it avails itself of comparison as an instrument of research. And such a study will not have to make concepts, but will take them as it needs them from those sciences, which do, in fact, elaborate concepts.
Thus it would have been to great interest to see the working out of this new social economics of Stammler a little more clearly, so that we might determine exactly in which of the aforesaid two classes it ought
September 1898.
FOOTNOTES:
CHAPTER III. CONCERNING THE INTERPRETATION AND
CRITICISM OF SOME CONCEPTS OF MARXISMToC
I
OF THE SCIENTIFIC PROBLEM IN MARX'S 'DAS KAPITAL'
Das Kapital an abstract investigation: His society is not this or that society: Treats only of capitalist society: Assumption of equivalence between value and labour: Varying views about meaning of this law: Is a postulate or standard of comparison: Question as to value of this standard: Is not a moral ideal: Treats of economic society in so far as is a working society: Shows special way in which problem is solved in capitalist society; Marx's deductions from it.
Notwithstanding the many expositions, criticisms, summaries and even abbreviated extracts in little works of popular propaganda, which have been made of Karl Marx's work, it is far from easy, and demands no small effort of philosophical and abstract thought, to understand the exact nature of the investigation which Marx carried out. In addition to the intrinsic difficulty of the subject, it does not appear that the author himself always realised fully the peculiar character of his
Nevertheless the inquirer who asks himself what is the method and what the scope of Marx's investigation, and puts on one side, of course, all the historical, controversial and descriptive portions (which certainly form an organic part of the
(1) As regards method, Das Kapital is without doubt an abstract investigation; the capitalist society studied by Marx, is not this or that society, historically existing, in France or in England, nor the modern society of the most civilised nations, that of Western Europe and America. It is an ideal and formal society, deduced from certain hypotheses, which could indeed never have occurred as actual facts in the course of history. It is true that these hypotheses correspond to a great extent to the historical conditions of the modern civilised world; but this, although it may establish the importance and interest of Marx's investigation because the latter helps us to an understanding of the workings of the social organisms which closely concern us, does not alter its nature. Nowhere in the world will Marx's categories be met with as living and real existences, simply because they are abstract categories, which, in order to live must lose some of their qualities and acquire others.
(2) As regards scope, Marx's investigation does not cover the whole field of economic fact, nor even that one ultimate and dominant portion, whence all economic facts have their source, like rivers flowing from a mountain. It limits itself, on the contrary, to one special economic system, that which occurs in a society with private property in
But, even when these two points are settled, the real essence of Marx's investigation is not yet explained. Were Das Kapital nothing but what we have so far defined, it would be merely an economic monograph on the laws of capitalist society.
What then did Marx accomplish, and to what treatment did he subject the phenomena of capitalist society, if not to that of pure economic theory? Marx assumed, outside the field of pure economic theory, a proposition; the famous equivalence between value and labour; i.e. the proposition that the value of the commodities produced by labour is equal to the quantity of labour socially necessary to produce them. It is only with this assumption that his special investigation begins.
Some of them have explained the law of labour-value as an historical law, peculiar to capitalist society, all of whose manifestations it determines;
Criticism was thus bewildered between entire acceptance, combined with a clearly erroneous interpretation, and entire and summary rejection of Marx's treatment; until, in recent years, and especially after the appearance of the third and posthumous volume of Das Kapital, it began to seek out and follow a better path. In truth, despite its eager defenders, the Marxian doctrine has always remained obscure; and, despite contemptuous and
Sombart, then, breaking openly with the interpretation of Marx's law of value as a real law of economic phenomena, and giving a fuller, and I may say, a bolder expression to the timid opinions already stated by another (C. Schmidt), says, that Marx's law of value is not an empirical but a conceptual fact (Keine empirische, sondern eine gedankliche Thatsache); that Marx's value is a logical fact (eine logische Thatsache), which aids our thought in understanding the actual realities of economic life.
This interpretation, in its general sense, was accepted by Engels, in an article written some months before his death and published posthumously. To Engels it appeared that 'it could not be condemned as inaccurate, but that, nevertheless,
The acute and courteous remarks on the theory of value, published lately in an article in the Journal des Economistes by an able French Marxian, Sorel, indicate a movement in the same direction. In these remarks he acknowledges that there is no way of passing from Marx's theory to actual phenomena of economic life, and that, although it may offer elucidation, in a somewhat limited sense, it does not appear further that it could ever explain, in the scientific meaning of the word.
And now too Professor Labriola, in a hasty glance at the same subject, referring clearly to Sombart, and partly agreeing and partly criticising, writes: 'the theory of value does not denote an empirical factum nor does it express a merely logical proposition, as some have imagined; but it is the typical premise without which all the rest would be unthinkable.'
Labriola's phrase appears to me, in fact, somewhat more accurate than Sombart's; who, moreover, shows himself dissatisfied with his own term, like someone who has not yet a quite definite concept in view, and hence cannot find a satisfactory phrase.
This standard or type being postulated, the investigation, for Marx, takes the following form. Granted that value is equal to the labour socially necessary, it is required to show with what divergencies from this standard the prices of commodities are fixed in capitalist society, and how labour-power itself acquires a price and becomes a commodity. To speak plainly, Marx stated the problem in unappropriate language; he represented this typical value itself, postulated by him as a standard, as being the law governing the economic phenomena of capitalist society. And it is the law, if he likes,
From a formal point of view there is nothing absurd about the investigation undertaken by Marx. It is a usual method of scientific analysis to regard a phenomenon not only as it exists, but also as it would be if one of its factors were altered, and, in comparing the hypothetical with the real phenomenon, to conceive the first as diverging from the second, which is postulated as fundamental, or the second as diverging from the first, which is postulated in the same manner. If I build up by deductive reasoning the moral rules which develop in two social groups which are at war one against another, and if I show how they differ from the moral rules which develop in a state of peace, I should be making something analogous to the comparison worked out by Marx. Nor would there be great harm (although the expression would be neither fortunate nor accurate) in saying, in a figurative sense, that the law of the moral rules in time of war is the same as that of the rules in time of peace, modified to the new conditions, and altered in a way which seems, ultimately, inconsistent with itself. As long as he confines himself to the limits of his hypothesis Marx proceeds quite correctly. Error could come in only when he or others confuse the hypothetical with the real,
But the formal justification is insufficient: we need another. With a formally correct method results may be obtained which are meaningless and unimportant, or mere mental tricks may be performed. To set up an arbitrary standard of comparison, to compare, and deduce, and to end by establishing a series of divergencies from this standard; to what will this lead? It is then, the standard itself which needs justification: i.e. we need to decide what meaning and importance it may have for us.
This question too, although not stated exactly in this way, has occurred to Marx's critics; and an answer to it has been already given some time ago and by many, by saying that the equivalence of value and labour is an ideal of social ethics, a moral ideal. But nothing could be imagined more mistaken in itself and farther from Marx's thought than this interpretation. What moral inference can ever be drawn from the premiss that value is equal to the labour socially necessary? It we reflect a little, absolutely none. The establishment of this fact tells us nothing about the needs of the society, which needs will make necessary one or another ethical-legal system of property and of methods of distribution. Value may certainly equal labour, nevertheless special historical conditions will make necessary society organised in castes or in classes,
But this investigation appears to me to be merely begun and not yet worked out to a conclusion; and if I might suggest wherein it needs completion, I should remark that it is necessary to attempt to give clearness and precision to this word objective, which is either ambiguous or metaphorical. What is meant by an economically objective fact? Do not these words suggest rather a mere presentiment of a concept instead of the distinct vision of this concept itself?
I will add, merely tentatively, that the word objective (whose 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
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
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.
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
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
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
In this sense he and Engels declared that economics (the economics studied by them), was an historical science.
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
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.
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
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
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
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 ?f?????) 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
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.'
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.
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,
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
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.'
In his last book we may note especially a full inquiry into what could possibly be the nature of
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
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
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
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,
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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,
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
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.
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
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.
Fortunately, logic is not life, and man is not
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
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
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
This is the meaning of Marx's other saying: that morality condemns what has already been condemned by history.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
November, 1897.
FOOTNOTES:
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.
CHAPTER IV. RECENT INTERPRETATIONS OF THE MARXIAN THEORY OF VALUE
AND CONTROVERSIES CONCERNING THEMToC
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),
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,
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,
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
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
I called Marx's concept of surplus-value a concept of difference; and Labriola reproaches me for not being able 'to say exactly what I understand by
The following of Labriola's assertions is not original, but is nevertheless quite gratuitous: 'Pure economics is so little extra-historical, that it has borrowed the data from real history, of which it makes two absolute postulates: the freedom of labour and the freedom of competition, pushed to their extreme by hypothesis.' If I open Pantaleoni's well-known treatise, I read in the very first paragraph of the Teoria del valore, Ferrara's fundamental theory that: 'value is above all a phenomenon of the economics of the individual or isolated person.' So little do the legal conditions of society enter into the necessary postulates of pure economics.
After which, Labriola ought not to be horrified if I have written: 'that Marx has taken his celebrated equivalence
Labriola does not consider justified the comparison which I have drawn, (metaphor for metaphor), between the commodities which in Marxian economics are presented as the crystallisations of labour and the goods which in pure economics might well be called quantities of possible satisfactions for crystallised wants. 'Hitherto—he exclaims—only sorcerers have been able to believe, or to cause it to be believed, that by desires alone a part of ourselves might be glutinised into any goods whatsoever.' But what does glutinise mean? To obtain the commodity a costs us x labour of a given kind, this is Marx's congealed labour. Pure economics, using a more general formula, states that it costs us that body of wants which we must leave unsatisfied: this is the form of congealment which pure economics might supply. There is no question, in the one case, of an objective reality, as Labriola seems to think, or in the other of an imagined sorcery; but in both cases it is a matter of the literary use of imaginative expressions to denote mental attitudes and elaborations. In this connection Labriola, as if to limit their range, says that Marx, as an author, belonged to the seventeenth century. May I be allowed, as a humble student
The reader will be tired of these replies to a negative criticism; but negative criticism is nevertheless all that Labriola offers us. What is his interpretation of Marx's thought? Or which does
In truth, though without wishing to deny the difficulty of Marx's thought and of the form in which he expresses it, I think that the mystery may be at length cleared up. And I say this, not only on account of my inward conviction of the truth of my own interpretation, but also on account of the agreement in which I find myself with several critics, who, almost at the same moment, and by
A similar tendency shows itself in what has been written on the subject by Sombart, in 1894, by Engels in 1895, by myself in 1896, by Sorel in 1897, by myself more at length in 1897, and again by Sorel in June of last year (1898).
II
Meaning of phrase crisis In Marxianism: Sorel's view of equivalence of value and labour mostly in agreement with view put forward above: An attempt to examine profits independently of theory of value: Is not possible: Surplus product same as surplus value.
I think it opportune, however, to return to those elaborations of Sorel, which Labriola summarily
But here I may be allowed to make a remark. Labriola is also waging war with Sorel: his book Discorrendo, etc., arising out of a series of friendly letters to Sorel, which I undertook to edit in Italy, is published in French with an appendix directed against me, and a preface directed against Sorel. The ground of the quarrel is especially in connection with the so-called crisis in Marxism.
Now if the crisis in Marxism be understood as the assertion of the need for a revision and correction of the scientific ideas, of the historical beliefs, of the material of observed facts, which are current in Marxian literature, well and good: in such a crisis I too believe. If it means also a change in the programmes and practical methods, I neither agree nor disagree, having never concerned myself with the subject in dispute. If the danger is really existent the apprehension of which seems to obsess and disturb Labriola, that a crisis in Marxism of whatever kind, or the commencement of it, may be neutralised by those to whose interest it is to lead astray and scatter the labour movement, then provideant consules. But whether there be crisis or no crisis, whether purely scientific or also practical, whether apprehensions are well-founded or imagined and exaggerated, all these things have no
Sorel at first supposes,
In his second article he abandons this interpretation, being convinced that Marx's ideal construction
But Sorel now advances to precisely this conclusion, borrowing a happy phrase from his first article: that Marx's work is not intended to explain by means of laws analogous to physical laws, but only to throw partial and indirect light on economic reality.
What are the limits of Marx's ideal construction, and in what do his hypotheses consist? I have said that the concept of labour-value is true for an ideal society, whose only goods consist in the products of labour, and in which there are no class distinctions. Sorel does not think it necessary to eliminate as I have done, the divisions of classes. But, since he writes: 'Marx, like Ricardo, conceived a mechanical society, perfectly automatic, in which competition is always at its maximum efficiency, and exchanges are effected by means of universal information; and he supposed that the various sociological conditions are measurable in intensity, and that the numbers resulting can be connected by mathematical formulÆ; hence in such a society, utility, demand, and commerce in commodities are results of the divisions of classes; value will not in consequence be a function of this condition, although it is truly a function of the conditions of production; utility, demand, can only appear in the forms of the function, in the parameters referring to the social divisions.' Since he, I repeat, does not in his hypothesis, make labour-value dependent on the
We should have then: (1) a working economic society without differences of classes, law of labour-value; (2) Social divisions of classes, origin of profit, which, but only in comparison with the preceding type and in so far as the concepts of the former are carried over into the latter, may be defined as surplus-value; (3) Technical distinction between the different industries requiring different combinations of capital (different proportions of fixed and floating capital). Origin of the average rate of profits, which in relation to the preceding type, may be regarded as a change in, and equalisation of, surplus-values; (4) Appropriation of the land by part of a social class. Pure rent; (5) Qualitative differences in land. Differential rent. Which rents, pure and differential, present themselves, but only in comparison with the preceding types, as cut off from the amounts of surplus-value and of profits. Sorel agrees with me that the concept of labour-value, obtained in the manner described, is not only not a law in the same sense as a physical law, but is also not a law in the ethical sense, i.e. one that could be understood as a rule of what ought to exist. It is a law, he says, in an entirely Marxian sense. This I too tried to express when I wrote in my essay: 'It is a law in Marx's conception, but not in economic reality. It is clear that we may conceive the divergencies in relation to a standard as the rebellion of
It seems to me that the jurist Professor Stammler in his book Wirthschaft und Recht nach der materialistischen Geschichtsauffassung,
Sorel believes that Marx's method has rendered all the assistance of which it is capable, and cannot aid the study, which it is needful to make, of
But, whilst Sorel's book seems to me welcome in the endeavour to understand and define the score of Marx's economic inquiries, I cannot form the same judgment of another attempt made to reform the basis of Marx's system by rejecting his method, and a part of his results. I refer to a recent book by Dr Antonio Graziadei,
As to the construction, on his own account, of a theory of profits which is independent of that of value, Graziadei accomplishes this in a very curious way: viz. by carefully avoiding the words value and labour, and by speaking instead only of product. Profits, according to him, do not arise out of surplus-labour or surplus-value, but out of surplus-product; hence we can, and ought, in theory, to start from the concept of product and not concern ourselves with value, which is a superficial growth of the final stage of the market.
Surplus product! But surplus-product, in so far as it is an economic surplus-product, is value. Certainly, the capitalist who pays wages in kind, and in getting back again the goods advanced by him, also appropriates the other part of the product
And here we are again at the theory of value, from which we have vainly attempted to escape. Moreover, since Graziadei is essentially concerned with the economics of labour, here we are again at Marx's exact concept of labour value. Tamen usque recurrit!
Fermare il sole.'
April, 1899.
FOOTNOTES:
CHAPTER V. A CRITICISM OF THE MARXIAN LAW OF THE FALL IN THE RATE OF PROFITSToC
Interpretation here given assumes acceptance of Marx's main principles: Necessary decline in rate of profit on hypothesis of technical improvement: Two successive stages confused by Marx: More accurately a decline in amount of profit: Marx assumes that would be an increase of capital: Would be same capital and increase in rate of profits: Decline in rate of profits due to other reasons.
This law is set forth in the third section of the third book (posthumous) of Das Kapital. A few criticisms have been made of it, which vary from that of Sombart, who says that it is developed in the most striking manner (in glÄnzendster Weise), to that of Loria, who defines it as 'a metaphysical pistol shot (sic) from beyond the Rhine,' and thinks that he refutes it by an objection which is in fact quite inappropriate. Others have thought the law certainly true, but that it explained only partially the fact of the decline in the rate of profits and required to be combined with other laws already known to classical economics. But most of those who have studied Marx's economic theories have not examined it at all; his opponents (like BÖhm Bawerk) reject it by implication, when they reject Marx's fundamental principles; the Marxians
The examination of it attempted here, rests on the same basis as Marx's theories, i.e. it is made from the standpoint of those who accept the essentials of these theories, and hence the premiss of labour-value, the distinction between fixed and floating capital, the view of profits as arising from surplus-value, and of the average rate of profits as arising from the equalisation, owing to competition, of the various rates of surplus-value. It is true that I accept all these things in a certain sense, which is not the sense of the ordinary Marxian, inasmuch as they are not looked upon as laws actually working in the economic world, but as the results of comparative investigations into different possible forms of economic society. But such a reservation, which relates to a question discussed by me at length elsewhere,
In order that our study may be clear, it is above all necessary to distinguish the two groups of facts, or the two stages in the same capitalist society which Marx confused and embraced in a single somewhat obscure view.
The first stage is marked by the fact, pure and simple, of a technical improvement. Now technical improvement, among its logical, or what is the same thing, its necessary effects, in no way includes that of an increase in the amount of total capital employed, nor that of leaving the quantity of total capital unchanged. It has rather exactly the opposite as its necessary and immediate effect: i.e. that of limiting the capital employed. It is unnecessary to warn the reader that we are here treating of economic science and that increase and decrease refer always to economic values. In its simplest form, supposing the quantity of objects produced to be constant (200 shoes are required, and there is no reason to increase the production), technical progress will consist, purely and simply, in a saving of social expense: the same production at less expense. And since all cost, in Marx's hypothesis resolves itself into social labour, there will be the same production with less
This simplest case does not then give us Marx's law, but this other law; 'Technical improvement, supposing all the other conditions remain unchanged, causes a decrease in the amount (not the rate) of surplus-value and of profits.' This law assumes that the 1/10 of the labourers left unemployed become entirely superfluous. These ten labourers are henceforth to be a dead weight supported by the charity of others, or to die of starvation, or to emigrate—to a new world. Let them be left to their fate. Social production will remain at its former level, thanks to the technical improvement, but accomplished without their help. This is the hypothesis; but given this hypothesis, of what importance is the law? To see this clearly it will suffice
But Marx did not think of this truism. He wished to determine exactly the organic law of the variations in the rate of profits. In fact—as is seen in the illustration given—he does not at all suppose that the energy of labour may become superfluous; but rather that the labourers will find fresh employment with an increase in the original fixed capital. Given technical improvement and production also will be increased; this is the second stage which he considers. The 100 labourers are still all working, the fixed capital with which they work must be increased from 500 to 700, and the total has hence become 1200. The law which he deduces,
The crux of Marx's proof lies in the statement; that the labourers who would have had to remain unemployed, find on the contrary employment, but with a capital increased by so much (= 200) over the original. Is this statement correct? On what does Marx base it?
To this fundamental proposition my criticism refers, itself equally fundamental. If it is admitted it amounts to a most complete denial of the truth of the Marxian law. Nevertheless I state my idea in the form of a criticism and doubtfully, because, in dealing with a thinker of Marx's rank, it is necessary to proceed cautiously, and to remember (which I do not forget) that several times errors ascribed to him have been explained as mistakes of his opponents.
For what reason, I ask myself, do the ten un-occupied labourers, in order to be employed afresh, require a constant capital larger than the original?
The technical improvement has not diminished the natural utility of the production (also in our hypothesis it has not increased it either, but has left it unchanged); but it has only diminished its value. There will be then, with the improved technical organisation, raw materials, tools, clothing, foodstuffs, etc., of the same total natural utility as
Turning to our illustration, the ten labourers will find employment with a capital which, like the utility, has remained the same, but economically has decreased to 900. This means that the rate of
To this criticism of mine I have found no answer, either explicit or implicit, in Marx's work. Only in one passage, where he speaks of the counteracting causes, and in particular of surplus population (Chap, XIV., § iv.), he hints at the case where labour power may be re-employed with a minimum capital. It may be said that here Marx passed close to the difficulty, without striking upon it, i.e. without becoming aware of its importance. And, if he had struck on it, I doubt whether he would have overcome it and passed on; I think rather that his theory would have gone to pieces.
I foresee that it may be said: you have assumed that, owing to the technical improvement, not only would a number of labourers remain unemployed, but also a fraction of the original total capital, i.e. of means of production and means of subsistence; and when the labourers are re-employed, it is true that during the new cycle of production, other fractions of unoccupied capital will not unite with the original fractions, but precisely for this reason the
However it is regarded, this thesis seems to me indefensible; and even more indefensible if, leaving aside for a moment logical trains of reasoning and arithmetical calculations, we look at it with the clear intuition of common sense. See here—to follow the strict hypothesis set forth by Marx—on one side a capitalist class, and on the other a proletarian class. What effect does technical improvement have? It increases the wealth in the hands of the capitalist class. Is it not intuitively evident that, as a result of technical improvement, the capitalists can, by anticipating commodities whose value is continually decreasing, obtain the same services which they obtained at first from the proletariat? And that hence the relation between value of services and value of capital will change in favour of the former, i.e. that the rate of profits will increase? When commodities (capital) are anticipated, which formerly were reproduced by five hours of labour and now are reproduced by four, the workman will continue to work ten hours.
Marx's mistake has been that he has inadvertently attributed a greater value to the fixed capital, which after the technical improvement is worked by the same labourers as before. Certainly anyone who looks at a society in two successive stages of technical development, will find in the second stage a greater number of machines and of tools of every kind. This is a question of statistics, not of economics. Capital (and Marx appears to have neglected this point for the moment) is not estimated by its physical extension, but by its economic value. And economically that capital (supposing all the other conditions remain constant) must be worth less; otherwise no technical improvement would have taken place.
An external circumstance which might serve to explain Marx's error is the fact that the third book of Das Kapital is a posthumous work, some parts of which are hardly sketched out, and amongst these that of the law of the rate of profits, which, moreover, does not relate to the establishment of principles, but, being a consequence and an application or these, was perhaps not worked out to the same extent as
As we have disputed the actual basis of the Marxian law, it seems indeed superfluous to follow out its further developments, which are advanced in a form worked out with but little care. It is enough to remark that in these developments, as in general, throughout Das Kapital, there is a continuous medley of theoretical deductions and historical descriptions, of logical and of material connections. The defect, however, becomes in this instance an advantage, because many of the observations made by Marx, understood as historical
Marx attributed the greatest importance to the discovery of the law of the fall in the rate of profits. Herein lay for him 'the mystery over which all economists from Adam Smith onwards have toiled'; and in the different attempts to solve the problem he saw the explanation of the divergence between the various schools of economists. Ricardo's bewilderment in face of the phenomenon of the progressive decrease in the rate of profits seemed to him fresh evidence of the earnestness of mind of that writer, who discerned the vital importance of the problem for capitalist society. That the solution had not been found before his, Marx's, time, appeared to him easily explicable, when it was remembered that until then political economy had sought gropingly for the distinction between fixed and floating capital without succeeding in formulating it, and had not been able to explain surplus-value in distinction from profits, nor profit itself in its purity, independently of the separate fractions of it in competition amongst themselves; and that,
His explanation being now rejected, a double problem presents itself. The first question relates to fact. It is needful to ask: does the fact spoken of actually exist, and how does it exist? Has a gradual decline in the rate of profits been ascertained? And in which countries, and in what circumstances? The second question relates to the cause: since, whilst we have seen that there could only be one economic reason for the phenomenon, (the law of demand and supply), there may be several historical causes, and these may vary in different cases. The decline in the rate of profits may happen owing to a nominal increase in wages due to an increase in the rent of land, or it may happen owing to a real increase in wages due to stronger organisation among the workpeople, or it may happen owing to an increase, also real, in wages resulting from saving and from growing accumulations, which increase the capital in search of employment. This investigation must be made without prejudices, whether optimistic or pessimistic, apologetic or controversial; and economists have sinned but too often in all these ways. The listeners have seized upon the result of limited and qualified investigations, now in order to sing a hymn to the spontaneous force of progress, which will gradually cause the disappearance of capitalists or reduce interest to 1/2 per cent.; now in
May 1899.
FOOTNOTES:
CHAPTER VI. ON THE ECONOMIC PRINCIPLEToC
TWO LETTERS TO PROFESSOR V. PARETO
I
Need for more comprehensive definition of the economic principle: Reasons why the mechanical conception erroneous, economic fact capable of appraisement: Cannot be scale of values for particular action: Economic datum a fact of human activity: Distinction and connection between pleasure and choice: Economic datum a fact of will: Knowledge a necessary presupposition of will: Distinction between technical and economic: Analogy of logic and Æsthetic: Complete definition of economic datum.
Esteemed Friend,
On reading the little paper, which you were courteous enough to send me, on how to state the problem of pure economics,
I have on several occasions heard something like a feeling of distaste expressed for the endless discussions about value and the economic principle which absorb the energies of economic science. It is said that if this splitting of hairs over the scholastic accuracy of its principle were abandoned, the science might throw light on historical and practical questions which concern the welfare of human society. Apparently you have not allowed yourself to be alarmed by the threatened distaste of readers; nor indeed am I. Can we silence the doubts which disturb us? Could we have assurance whilst silencing these doubts that we were not endangering just those practical issues which the majority have at heart? Issues which we ourselves have at heart since we are certainly not able, like the monks of old, to free ourselves from interest in the affairs of the age. May not science be, as Leibniz said, quo magis speculativa, magis practica? We must then go our way, and endeavour to satisfy our doubts, with all the caution and self-criticism of which we are capable; since they cannot be suppressed. On the other hand we should endeavour also not to offer our solutions to the public except when our knowledge,—wide if it may be so (yet necessarily imperfect)—of the literature on the subject, gives us some confidence that we are not repeating things already
The new school of economic thought, of which you are such a worthy representative, has a merit of no small significance. It has reacted against the anti-scientific tendencies of the historical and empirical schools, and has restored the concept of a science of pure economics. This means indeed nothing more than a science which is science; the word pure, unless tautologous, is an explanation added for those who are ignorant or unmindful of what a science is. Economics is neither history nor discussion of practical issues: it is a science possessing its own principle, which is indeed called the economic principle.
But, as I had occasion to remark at another time,
You have now rejected the first two, because you think that mechanical and hedonistic
You no longer say, indeed, as in your previous essay: 'L'Économie pure n'est pas seulement semblable À la mÉchanique: c'est, À proprement parler, un genre de mÉchanique.' But you still say that 'Pure economics employs the same methods as rational mechanics, and has many points of contact with this science.' Although you do not pause over the mechanical considerations, it is not from a clear conviction that a datum in economics, as such, is quite different from a datum in mechanics; but merely because it seems to you convenient to omit such considerations, of which you do not deny, but rather admit, the possibility.
Now I on the contrary, say decisively that the data of economics is not that of mechanics, or that there is no transition from the mechanical aspect of a fact to the economic aspect; and that the very possibility of the mechanical point of view is excluded, not as a thing which may or may not be abstracted from, but as a contradiction in terms, which it is needful to shun.
Do you wish for the simplest and clearest proof of the non-mechanical nature of the economic principle? Note, then, that in the data of economics a quality appears which is on the contrary repugnant to that of mechanics. To an economic fact words can be applied which express approval or disapproval. Man behaves economically well or ill, with
It seems to me that on this point we ought easily to be agreed. To ascertain it, it is sufficient to appeal to internal observation. This shows us the fundamental distinction between the mechanical and the teleological, between mere fact and value. If I am not mistaken, you assign to metaphysics the problem of reducing the teleological to the mechanical, value to mere fact. But observe that metaphysics cannot get rid of the distinction; and will only labour, with greater or less good luck, at its old business of reconciling opposites, or of deriving two contraries from one unity.
I foresee what may be advanced against this assertion of the non-mechanical nature of the economic principle. It may be said: What is not mechanical, is not measurable; and economic values, on the contrary, are measured. Although hitherto the unit of measurement has not been found, it is yet a fact that we distinguish very readily larger and smaller, greater and least values and construct scales of values. This suffices to establish the measurability and hence the essentially mechanical nature of economic value. Look at the economic man, who has before him a series of possible actions a, b, c, d, e, f, ...; which have for him a decreasing value,
And there is no fault in the deduction granted the existence of the scale of values, which we have just illustrated by an example. Granted the existence: but, supposing this to be an illusion of ours? If the man in the example, instead of being the homo oeconomicus were the homo utopicus or heterocosmicus, not to be found even in imaginative constructions?
This is precisely my opinion. The supposed scale of values is an absurdity. When the homo oeconomicus in the given example, selects a, all the other actions (b, c, d, e, f, ...) are not for him values smaller than a; they are merely non-a; they are what he rejects; they are non-values.
If then the homo oeconomicus could not have a, he would be acting under different conditions: under conditions without a. Change the conditions and the economic action—as is well known—changes also. And let us suppose that the conditions are such that, for the individual acting, b represents the action selected by him; and c, d, e, f, ... those which he omits to do, and which are all non-b, i.e. have no value.
If the conditions change again and it is supposed that the individual decides on c, and then on d, and then on e, and so on. These different economic actions, each arising under particular conditions, are incommensurable amongst themselves. They are different; but each is perfectly adapted to the given
But then what are these numbers, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 ...? They are symbols, symbols of what? What is the reality beneath the numerical symbol? The reality is the alteration in the actual conditions; and these numbers show a succession of changes: neither more nor less than is indicated by the alphabetic series, for which they are substituted.
The absurdity involved in the notion of greater or smaller values is, in short, the assumption that an individual may be at the same moment under different conditions. The homo oeconomicus is not at the same moment in a, b, c, d, e, f ... but when he is in b, he is no longer in a; when he is in c he is no longer in b. He has before him only one action, approved by him; this action rules out all the others which are infinite, and which for him are only actions not preferred (non-values).
Certainly physical objects form part of the data of economics; and these, just because they are physical, are measurable. But economics does not consider physical things and objects, but actions. The physical object is merely the brute matter of an economic act: in measuring it we remain in the physical world, we do not pass over to that of economics, or else, when measured, the economic fact has become volatile. You say that 'political economy only concerns itself with choices, which fall on things that are variable in quantity and capable of measurement'; but pardon me, dear friend,
I think that I have explained, shortly, but adequately for a wise man like yourself, the reasons why the mechanical conception of the economic principle is untenable. If calculations and measurements come into problems that are called economic they do so just in so far as these are not problems in pure economics.
This non-mechanical datum, which is an economic datum, you call choice. And this is all right. But to choose means to choose consciously. A choice made unconsciously, is either not a choice or not unconscious. You speak of the unconscious actions of man; but these cannot be the actions of the man in so far as he is man but movements of man in so far as he is also animal. They are instinctive movements; and instinct is not choice except metaphorically. Hence the examples you bring forward of dogs, of cats, of sparrows, of rats, and of asses from Buridano, are not facts of choice; and hence are not economic facts. You consider animal economics as an unfruitful science, which exhausts itself in descriptions. Look more closely and you will see that this science does not exist. An economics of the animals, understood in the sense of the naturalists, has not been written, not because it is not worth while, but because it is impossible to write it. Whence could it be obtained unless from books
This analysis ought to lead us to conceive of an economic datum as an act of man; i.e. as a fact of human activity.
And from this recognition is inferred in its turn the true criticism of the hedonistic conception of the economic principle. You say that 'the equations of pure economics express merely the fact of a choice, and can be drawn up independently of the ideas of pleasure and pain,' but you admit at the same time that the fact of the choice 'can be expressed equally well as a fact of pleasure.'
It is true that every case of economic choice is at the same time, a case of feeling: of agreeable feeling if the economic choice is rightly made, of disagreeable feeling, if it is ill made. Man's activity develops itself in the human mind, not under a pneumatic bell, and an activity which develops rightly, brings as its reflex, a feeling of pleasure, that which develops badly, one of displeasure. What is economically useful, is, at the same time pleasurable.
But this judgment cannot be converted. The pleasurable is not always economically useful. The mistake in the hedonist theory consists in making this conversion. Pleasure may appear unaccompanied by man's activity, or may be accompanied by a human activity which is not economic. Herein lies the fundamental distinction between pleasure and choice. A choice, is in the concrete, inseparable
If psychology be understood (as it is usually understood) as the science of psychical mechanism, economics is not a psychological science; this Herr von Ehrenfels fails to grasp. I do not know whether you have read the two volumes hitherto published on the System der Werttheorie.
An economic datum is not then a hedonistic datum, nor, in general, a mechanical datum. But as the fact of man's activity, it still remains to determine whether it is a fact of knowledge or of will: whether it is theoretical or practical.
You, who conceive it as choice, can have no doubt that it is a fact of practical activity, i.e. of will. This is also my own conclusion. To choose something can only mean to will it.
But you somewhat obscure the conclusion now indicated when you speak of logical and illogical actions, and place actions properly economic amongst the former. Logical and illogical bring us back to theoretical activity. A logical or illogical action is a common way of speaking; but it is not a way of speaking exactly or accurately. The logical work of thought is quite distinct from the action of the will. To reason is not to will.
Nor is to will to reason; but the will presupposes thought and hence logic. He who does not think, cannot even will. I mean by willing, what is known to us by the evidence of our consciousness; not Schopenhauer's metaphysical will.
In knowledge, in so far as it is a necessary presupposition of economic action, is found, if not a justification, an explanation of your phrases about
Thus an economic fact is a fact of practical activity. Have we attained our object in this definition? Not yet. The definition is still incomplete and to complete it we must not only cross another expanse of sea, but avoid another rock: viz. that of the conception of economic data as egoistic data.
This error arises as follows: if an economic fact is a practical activity, it is still necessary to say how this activity is distinguished from moral activity. But moral activity is defined as altruistic; then, it is inferred, economic data will be egoistic. Into this mistake has fallen, amongst others, our able Professor Pantaleoni, in his PrincipÎ d'economia pura, and in other writings.
The egoistic is not something merely different from a moral fact; it is the antithesis of it; it is the immoral. In this way, by making the economic principle equivalent to an egoistic fact, instead of distinguishing economics from morality, we should be subordinating the former to the latter, or rather should deny it any right to exist, recognising it as something merely negative, as a deviation from moral activity.
A datum in economics is quite different. It does not form an antithesis to a moral datum; but is in the peaceable relation of condition to conditioned. It is the general condition which makes the rise of ethical activity possible. In the concrete, every action (volition) of man is either moral or
It seems to me that you approach gropingly to this conception of the economic principle, as relating to practical actions, which taken in the abstract, are neither moral nor immoral; when at one point in your last essay, you exclude from economic consideration choices, which have an altruistic motive; and further on, exclude also those which are immoral. Now, since choices are necessarily either altruistic or egoistic, either moral or immoral, you have no way of escaping from the difficulty except the one which I suggest; to regard economics as concerned with practical activity in so far as it is (abstractly) emptied of all content, moral or immoral.
I might enlarge further on this distinction and show how it has an analogy in the sphere of theoretical activity, where the relation of economics to ethics is repeated in the relation of Æsthetics to logic. And I might point out the reason why scientific and Æsthetic productions cannot be subjects of economic science, i.e. are not economic products. The reason given, in this connection, by Professor Ehrenfels, is, to say the least of it, curious: he remarks that: 'the relations of value upon which the data of logic and Æsthetics rest, are so simple that they do not demand a special economic
This, then, is a rapid statement of how I arrive at the definition of the data of economics, which I should like to see at the beginning of every economic treatise. The data of economics are the practical activities of men in so far as they are considered as such, independent of any moral or immoral determination.
Granted this definition, and it will be seen also that the concept of utility, or of value or of ofelimity, is nothing but the economic action itself, in so far as it is rightly managed, i.e. in so far as it is really economic. In the same way as the true is thinking activity itself, and the good is moral activity itself.
And to speak of things (physical objects) as having or not having value, will appear simply a metaphorical usage to express those causes which we
To connect with these general propositions the different problems which are said to belong to economic science, is the task of the writer of a special treatise on economics. It is your task, esteemed friend, if after having studied these general propositions, they seem to you acceptable. To me it seems that they alone are able to safeguard the independence of economics, not only as distinct from History and Practice but as distinct from Mechanics, Psychology, Theory of Knowledge, and Ethics.
Naples, 15th May 1900.
II
Disagreement (1) about method (2) postulates: (1) Nothing arbitrary in economic method, analogy of classificatory sciences erroneous: (2) Metaphysical postulate that facts of human activity same as physical facts erroneous: Definition of practical activity in so far as admits of definition: Moral and economic activity and approval: Economic and moral remorse: Economic scale of values.
Esteemed Friend,
Our disagreement concerning the nature of economic data has two chief sources:
Would it for instance be in conformity with the nature of the thing, to cut away, as you wish to do, only that group of economic facts which relates to objects capable of measurement? What intrinsic connection is there between this merely accidental attribute, measurability, of the objects which enter into an economic action, and the economic action itself? Does measurability lead to a modification in the economic fact by changing its nature, i.e. by giving rise to another fact? If so, you must prove it. I, for my part, cannot see that an economic action changes its nature whether it relates to a sack of potatoes, or consists in an exchange of protestations of affection!
In your reply you refer to the need of avoiding waste of time over matters that are too simple, for which 'it is not worth while to set in motion the great machine of mathematical reasoning.' But this need relates to the pedagogy of the professional chair or of the book, not to the science in itself, which alone we are now discussing. It is quite evident that anybody who speaks or writes lays more stress on those portions which he thinks harder for his hearers and readers to grasp, or more useful to be told. But he who thinks, i.e. speaks with himself, pays attention to all portions without preferences and without omissions. We are now concerned with thought, that is with the growth of
Nor need we be turned aside by an analogy with the classes of facts, made by zoology and other natural sciences. The classifications of zoology and botany are not scientific operations, but merely views in perspective; and, considered in relation to really scientific knowledge, they are arbitrary. He who investigates the nature of economic data, does not, however, aim at putting together, in perspective and roughly, groups of economic cases, as the zoologist or the botanist do, mutilating and manipulating the inexhaustible, infinite varieties of living creatures.
Upon the confusion between a science and the exposition of a science is based also the belief that we can follow different paths in order to arrive at a demonstration of the same truth. Unless in your case, since you are a mathematician, it arose from a false analogy with calculation. Now, calculation is not a science, because it does not give us the reasons of things; and hence mathematical logic is logic in a manner of speaking, a variety of formal logic, and has nothing to do with scientific or inventive logic.
When we pass to the question of the postulates, you will certainly be surprised if I tell you that the disagreement between us consists in your wish to introduce a metaphysical postulate into economic science; whereas I wish here to rule out every
How could you defend this postulate of yours except by a metaphysical monism; for example that of Spencer? But, whilst Spencer was anti-metaphysical and positivist in words, I claim the necessity of being so in deeds; and hence I cannot accept either his metaphysics or his monism, and I hold to experience. This testifies to me the fundamental distinction between external and internal, between physical and mental, between mechanics and teleology, between passivity and activity, and secondary distinctions involved in this fundamental one. What metaphysics unites philosophy distinguishes (and joins together); the abstract contemplation of unity is the death of philosophy. Let us confine ourselves to the distinction between physical and mental. Whilst the external facts of nature,
By this appeal to experience and by this rejection of all metaphysical intrusion, I place myself in a position to meet the objection which you bring forward to my conception of economic data. You think that the ambiguity of the term value comes from this, that it denotes a very complex fact, a collection of facts included under a single word. For me, on the contrary, the difficulty in it arises from its denoting a very simple fact, a summum genus, i.e. the fact of the very activity of man. Activity is value. For us nothing is valuable except what is an effort of imagination, of thought, of will, of our activity in any of its forms. As Kant said that there was nothing in the universe that could be called good except the good will; so, if we generalise, it may be said that there is nothing in the universe that is valuable, except the value of human activity. Of value as of activity you cannot demand a so-called genetic definition. The simple and the original is genetically indefinable. Value is observed immediately in ourselves, in our consciousness.
You see from this that the question raised by me, whether by choice you meant conscious or unconscious choice, is not a careless question. It is equivalent to this other one; whether the economic fact is or is not a fact of will. 'This does not alter
To prove to you how, in all this, I omit every moral consideration, I will give you another example: that of a knave who thinks it ofelimo to himself to murder a man in order to rob him of a sum of money. At the moment of assassination, and although remaining a knave at heart, he yields to an emotion of fear or to a pathological feeling of compassion, and does not kill the man. Note carefully the terms of the hypothesis. The knave will call himself an ass and an imbecile, and will feel remorse for his contradictory and inconclusive conduct; but not indeed a moral remorse (of that he is, by hypothesis, incapable), but, precisely, a remorse that is merely economic.
It seems to me that there is another confusion, easy to dispel, in your counter criticism to my criticism of the scale of values (economic) you say that 'there is no need for one person to find himself at the same moment under different conditions; it is enough that he can picture to himself these different conditions.' Can you in truth picture yourself being at the same moment under different conditions? Fancy has its laws; and does not allow the
I do not know whether I have answered all your objections, but I have endeavoured to answer all those which seem to me fundamental. A dispute, in which questions of method and of principle are at stake need not be carried on pedantically into minute details; we must depend to some extent on the assistance of the readers, who, putting themselves mentally in the position of the two disputants, work out for themselves the final application. I wish merely to add that it is my strongest conviction that the reaction against metaphysics (a far-sighted reaction in that it has freed scientific procedure from admixture with the arbitrary judgments of feeling and belief) has been pushed forward by
From what I have now stated you will easily discover exactly how far we are in agreement in the establishment of the principles of Economics and how far we disagree. If my new observations should assist in further reducing the extent of the disagreement, I shall indeed be glad.
Perugia, 20th October, 1900.
FOOTNOTES:
It is true that Trivero believes that, by going back to the general concept of need, he can establish the parent theory on which rest the particular doctrines of needs; and amongst them economics, which concerns itself with economic needs. If there are species—he says—we ought to determine of what genus they are species. But he will allow me to remark that the genus to look for is, as logic teaches, the proximate genus. To jump to such a great distance as to reality or to fact, would only lead to the noble discovery: that economic needs are part of reality, are a group of facts.
And what he does is to make an equally valuable discovery: that the true theory of history is the theory of needs, which, granted his definition of needs, is as much as to say that history is history of reality and the theory of it is—the theory.
I have then no objection to make to the meaning which Trivero wishes to give to the word need; but I must assert that, having given it this meaning, he has not afterwards constructed the theory of anything, nor thrown light on any special group of facts.
For real economic theory his book is quite useless. Economists do not recognise the needs of things and plants and animals, but only human needs, or those of man in so far as he is homo oeconomicus and hence a conscious being. I too believe that it is right to work out philosophically the principle of economics; but in order to do this, Trivero should have studied economic science. He declares that 'he does not want to hold fast to anyone's petticoats.' This statement is superfluous if it means that each individual ought to base his own scientific convictions on reason and not on authority. It is dangerous if it signifies, on the contrary, an intention to spare himself the trouble of studying other people's books, and of reconstructing everything from the beginning by his own personal efforts and by the aid of general culture alone. The result obtained—being far from satisfactory—should deter the author (who will not grumble at my plain speaking), from returning to this unfruitful method in the future.
INDEX OF NAMES*ToC
*Marx's name is omitted. The Asterisks indicate notes.
- Aristotle, 18
- Aveling, E., 66*
- Bauer, B., 102
- Bernstein, E., 119
- Bertolini, A., 96
- BÖhm-Bawerk, 54, 76,* 142
- Bray, 103
- Coletti, F., 115*
- Croce, B., 129,* 131*
- DÜhring, E. 69, 79,* 84, 103, 114
- Durckheim, E., 118
- Ehrenfels, Christian Von, 168, 172
- Engels, F., 7, 11, 14, 18, 19, 25, 26, 28, 41, 55, 63, 67, 69, 78-81, 83, 84, 89, 95,* 103, 114-116, 124, 131*
- Fechner, 180
- Ferrara, F., 127
- Gentile, G., 80,* 83,* 86,* 104,* 115*
- Gray, A., 103
- Graziadei, A., 138-140, 179*
- Grosse, E., 90*
- Hegel, G.F., 6, 11, 81-82, 102, 122, 130
- Heine, H., 130
- Helvetius, 8
- Herbart, 24, 25
- Holbach, 8
- Kant, E., 24, 25, 43, 113-114, 179
- Kautsky, K., 119, 137
- Ingram, 95*
- Jevons, 72
- Labriola, Antonio, 1, 5, 9, 10-15, 18, 21-26, 51,* 55, 76, 84,* 86-93, 106, 109,* 110, 111, 114, 119, 120-132
- Lange, A.F., 8, 41, 71, 72*
- Leibniz, 160
- Loria, A., 49, 91, 138, 142
- Machiavelli, N., 110,* 118
- Manzoni, A., 19
- Mommsen, T., 122
- Morgan, 89
- More, Thomas, 19*
- Pantaleoni, M., 76,* 96, 127, 171
- Parrto, V., 74, 76,* 96-101, 159-186
- Plechanow, G., 8
- Proudhon, P.G., 103
- Rabelais, 105
- Ricardo, D., 53, 135, 156, 157*
- Ricca, Salermo G., 77*
- Richter, G.P., 18
- Rodbertus, K., 103*
- Rosmini, 102
- RÜmalin, 36
- Sanctis (de), F., 110*
- Schiller, 25*
- Schmidt, C., 54
- Schopenhauer, A., 102
- Simmel, G., 5, 24, 118
- Smith, A., 74*
- Sombart, W., 54,* 55, 60, 63, 131,* 142
- Sorel, G., 55, 86,* 119, 131-138
- Spencer, H., 36, 178
- Stammler, R., 27-47, 118, 137,* 138, 170
- Stein, L., 18
- Stern, G., 133
- Trivero, C, 181,* 182
- Villari, P., 110*
- Wagner, A., 73*
- Westermarck, E., 90*
- Witte, 78
- Wundt, 180*
EDINBURGH; J.C. THOMSON
AT THE MERCAT PRESS
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Footnote 92: ittle replaced with little
Footnote 95: "Materialismio Storico" replaced with "Materialismo Storico"
Note that on page 166 that the word 'measurabilility' is likely to be a typo either for 'measurability' or 'measurably'
