(This
is based on and mostly from “Marx’s Capital” written by Ben Fine and Alfredo
Saad-Filho)
(For Part-4, please
see the blog entry dated 14-1-2012)
Summary
of Chapter-1, “History and Method”
The first 4 parts
uploaded in my blog so far consist of the chapter 1 of the book “Marx’s
Capital” written by Ben Fine and Alfredo Saad-Filho. This chapter is titled in
the book as “History and Method”. Before
going to read the chapter2, let us summarise this first chapter.
A brief Life
History of Karl Marx
Karl
Marx was born in the town Trier in Germany (Prussia at that time) on 5-5-1818,
in a well to do family and was educated in the best universities at that
time-Bonn and Berlin. He studied History and Philosophy and obtained a
Doctorate in Philosophy. He turned to radicalism and due to his activities he
was banished from Germany, France, Belgium and finally he settled in London in
1849 and lived there till his death on 14-3-1883. He dedicated his life for
pursuing the cause of revolutionary transformation of capitalist society
through his writings and through the agitation and organisation of the working
class. His wife Jenny Von Westphalen belonged to a noble family, but she stood
along with him and became a true colleague and comrade in facing all the
difficulties along with him. Due to the severe poverty faced by him, he lost 3
of his daughters in their childhood.
Marx’s
book ‘Capital” was in 3 volumes. The first volume was published in 1867 when
Marx was alive. But the second and third volumes were published in 1885 and in
1894respectively. Both the volume-II and volume-III were prepared by Engels,
based on the notes left by Marx. Engels was a colleague, friend and comrade of
Marx and together, they have written several books.
The three
sources of the thought of Karl Marx
a)
The German Philosophy and the
development of Marx’s philosophy on that basis
When he
was a student, Marx was a follower of the famous German philosopher at that
time, Hegel. Hegel was an objective idealist.
An idealist in philosophy is one who holds the view that it is the idea
which is the cause and mover of the world. An objective idealist is the
idealist who believes that the idea that causes and moves the world is the idea
that exists outside the thinking head of the philosopher. ( A subjective
idealist is the one who believes that the world is created and moved by his
idea). Hegel believed that the idea is having opposing aspects in it and due to
the contradiction and struggle between these opposing aspects, the idea gets
itself transformed itself in a revolutionary way to a next higher stage and
this process of revolutionary transformation of the idea to higher and higher
stages through the struggle of the opposites in it goes on until it reaches the
stage of Absolute Idea, after which it will not undergo the change any further.
This transformation is not a simple destruction of the old stage, but it is an
absorption and transformation of the elements of the old stage. Hegel called this process in which the new
ideas do not defeat the old as resolve conflicts or contradictions with in
them, the dialectic. According to him the phenomena and
developments in nature and society are a copy, that too, a poor copy of this
ever changing idea.
When Marx
was a student, the followers of Hegel were split into two groups. The “Old Hegelian”
group held the view that the dialectical development of the Idea reached the
final stage in the contemporary Prussian Monarchy. The other group “Young
Hegelians” held the view that the dialectical progress of the Idea had far to
advance. For a short time, Marx was with the “Young Hegelians.” But soon, he
was influenced by thee materialist philosophy of Feurbach. Here materialism
means not clinging to material comforts, but holding the view that it is the matter
and material conditions that cause and move the
idea. Feurbach held that humans created God to satisfy their emotional
need and projected all their best qualities upon the God figure and finally the
God thus created by humas assumed an independent existence in human
consciousness. He told that to regain their humanity, people need to substitute
the love of each other for the love of God. But why at all the emotional need
for God arose, and in what conditions that emotional need will end was not answered by Feurbach.
Marx
developed this materialism of Feurbach beyond religion to the understanding of
society as a whole, and to the understanding of history. Marx came to the
conclusion that human consciousness, ideas and ideology have to be understood
in their relation to the prevailing material and social condition. As the
material and social conditions change, the ideas and ideologies will change. The consciousness, ideas and ideologies of
human beings in Feudal society are different from the consciousness, ideas and
ideologies in the Capitalist society. The consciousness, ideas and ideologies
during the struggle for independence in our country is different from the
present day ideologies. Consciousness is primarily determined by material
conditions. But the material conditions themselves change and develop
dialectically through human history, that is through the conflict among
different classes in the human society.
Marx held
that there are no set of universal rules applicable for understanding human
societies. Specific application of the materialist dialectics (materialist dialectics is the method of
reasoning required to understand the ever changing material reality through the
process of the struggle of the opposites in it and its consequent
transformation into a new higher reality) has to be developed in order to
address each problem. The best known example of the application of Marx is his
critical examination of capitalism in his book Capital. In this work, Marx’s approach has five important broad
features. They are:
1.
The
method for understanding human societies and changes in the societies is not a
fixed set of rules applicable for all societies, but social phenomena have to
be understood in their historical context. Generalisations said to be valid
every where and for all times are meaningless and invalid.
2.
The
concepts useful for understanding one society having a particular mode of
production are not useful for understanding another society with a different
mode of production.
3.
Reality
exists materially and historically, outside the thinking head of the analyst
and in a process of change and development. It is shaped by the social
structure, tendencies and counter tendencies in it and unpredictable contingencies.
Materialist dialectics helps in understanding the past and the present, but it
is impossible to foretell the future.
4.
Marx
employs materialist dialectics to pinpoint the essential features of the
capitalism and their contradictions (mutually opposing tendencies), to explain
the dynamics (the causes for the movement and development) of the capitalist
mode of production and to identify the sources in the capitalist society which
are potentially capable of or will lead to the revolutionary transformation of
capitalist society to a higher stage of production, to a higher stage of society.
Marx evolved concepts for helping us to reconstruct the realities of capitalist
system in our thought. These concepts help us to understand what are the
strengths and the critical vulnerabilities (weaknesses that will lead to its
end) of the capitalist system.
5.
Marx’s
method focuses on historical change. Social change is determined by the relation of mutual determination
between technology, the social relations between various classes in the society
and the struggle between these classes (example-the capitalist class, working
class, peasants, landlords, agricultural labourers etc) in the society.
b)
The influence of French Socialism
on Marx
In the French revolution took place during 1789, the emerging bourgeoisie class
(comprising of capitalists, traders and professionals, and intellectuals) came to
political power by overthrowing the King and feudal nobles. This they were able
to do by mobilising the urban workers and rural peasants, by the slogan liberty, equality and fraternity. The
king was executed; lands of the nobles and the church were confiscated and
distributed to small peasants. The state was separated from the Church and the
state was declared as secular, without any link to religion. But after the
revolution and seizure of political power, the bourgeoisie did not go further
to bring economic equality. The oppression of the worker and peasant continued.
The French socialists were inspired by the radicalism of the French revolution
and further compelled to think about the future since the bourgeoise failed to implement the demand of liberty, equality and
fraternity. Many of them believed in the necessity and possibility of
revolutionary seizure of political power by the workers in order to establish a
just and equal society. The influence of the French Socialists helped Marx to
understand the struggle taking place between the various classes in the society
and the revolutionary potential of the working class.
c)
The influence of the British
Political Economy on Marx and the development of his economic theory on that
basis
Political economy is the study of the
production, buying, selling,and their relations with the law, custom,
government and distribution of national wealth including the budget. After his
settlement in London in 1849, Marx turned his study to economics in order to
understand contemporary capitalist society, and identify its strengths and
limitations and its potential for transformation into a socialist society. He
particularly developed the labour theory of value from the writings of the
classical British political economists Adam Smith (1723-1790) and, especially
David Ricardo (1772-1823).
These classical political economists held that
the value of a commodity depends upon the quantity labour required to produce
it. At the same time these classical political economists held that the human
beings are having certain timeless characters like greed and they further held
that the categories commodities, wages, prices, profits etc are having timeless existence since the beginning
of human societies and they will be there like that in future also. Karl Marx
questioned these assumptions and tried to understand these categories of
commodities, wages, prices, profits etc in their historical context, that is,
in their origin, development and demise. He decided further to develop the
labour theory of value since he found it insufficient.
Marx
argued that society always has the need to work in order to produce and
consume. While thus producing the material requirements, people enter into
definite relations with each other, as slave or master, lord or peasant,
capitalist or wage worker etc. These are the places to be filled up by the
individuals in the process of production, independently of their individual
choice. These relations are established in the course of historical development
of production. These relations of production which people undergo are best
studied as class relations, except in the primitive tribal societies where
there are no division of labour and classes. A particular set of class
relations is the foundation of a particular mode of production—capitalism has
the class relations of production—capitalist and wage worker. Feudalism has the
class relation of production—the feudal lord and the peasant who has no independence.
The slave societies have the class relations of production—slave owner and
slave. These relations were established in the course of historical development
of production.
These
class relations are the basis on which the concerned society constructs its
state, its legal system, its morals, its religion and its education system etc.
Freedom to buy and sell is a fundamental legal characteristic of capitalistic
society. In feudal society, divine rights of the kings and lords were the legal
foundation. Self justified political, legal, intellectual forms are established
to justify the existing society. These blinker and discourage all other views
except the most conventional view of society, whether by force or by habit or
otherwise. The peasant in feudal society was bound by loyalty to the lord or
king and any vacillation could be punished severely. The wage earner has the
freedom and compulsion to sell his labour power. He is free to sell his labour
power to any capitalist by bargaining. But inorder to survive, he has the
compulsion to sell his labour power. There can be struggle for higher wages,
but this does not question the wage system itself. The mindset will be nurtured
and prepared in the capitalist society in such a way that the wage system is assumed
as natural and eternal. The probing into the nature of the capitalist system is
frowned upon by the authorities. Whereas individual dissent is often tolerated,
the anti capitalist mass movements are invariably repressed.
Marx’s
value theory of labour is a penetrating contribution to social science in that
it concerns itself with the relations that people set between themselves,
rather than the technical relationship between things or the art of
economising. Marx is not interested primarily in constructing a price theory, a
set of efficiency criteria or a series of welfare propositions; he never
intended to be a narrow ‘economist’ or even a political economist. Marx was a
critical social scientist, and his works reject the barriers separating
academic disciplines.
Marx was
concerned with the critical questions concerning the sources of stability and crises in
capitalism, and how the will to change it can develop into a successful
transformative (revolutionary) activity. These questions remain valid into the
twenty first century, and now, the present recession and crises faced by all
the advanced capitalist countries forcefully bring these questions into
focus—whether the capitalism has the crisis in built or as accidental and what
are the possibilities for transforming capitalism by a revolution into a higher
stage, socialism.
