Essay
Base and Superstructure
Mechanical materialism and its aftermath
The answers given to these questions lead to very different views about
how society develops.
At the one extreme, there is the view that the base is the forces of
production, that they inevitably advance, and that this in turn leads to
changes in society.
Political and ideological struggle is then seen as playing no real role.
Human beings are products of their circumstances, and history proceeds
completely independently of their will. The outcome of wars,
revolutions, philosophical arguments or what-not is always determined in
advance. It would have made not one iota of difference to history if
Robespierre had walked under a carriage in 1788 or if the sealed train
had crashed in April 1917.
This view of Marxism is based upon a certain reading of Marx himself, in
particular upon a powerful polemical passage in The Poverty of
Philosophy:
‘In acquiring new productive forces, men change their mode of
production; and in changing their mode of production, in changing their
way of earning a living, they change all their social relations. The
handmill gives you society with a feudal lord; the steam mill society
with an industrial capitalist.’ Kаrl Mаrx аnd Frеdеrіck Еngеls,
Cоllеctеd Wоrks, Prоgrеss Publіshеrs, Mоscоw, 1975, Vоl. 6, p. 166.
It is in the years after Marx’s death that such a mechanical,
determinist view of history comes to be regarded as ‘Marxist’ orthodoxy.
It was during this period that Marxism came to hegemonise the German
workers’ movement, and through it the Second International. But it was
Marxism as seen through the eyes of Karl Kautsky, the ‘Pope of Marxism’.
For Kautsky, historical development had inevitably produced each mode of
production in turn – antiquity, feudalism, capitalism – and would
eventually lead to socialism. There was an ‘inevitable…adaptation of
forms of appropriation to forms of production’. Kаrl Kаutsky, Thе
Еcоnоmіc Dоctrіnеs оf Kаrl Mаrx, Lоndоn, 1925, p. 365. Revolutionary
movements could not alter this pattern of development. Thus the Hussites
of the 15th century and the revolutionary Anabaptists of the 16th
century had been able to fight courageously and to present the vision of
a new society; but, for Kautsky, they could not alter the inevitable
development of history:
‘The direction of social development does not depend on the use of
peaceful methods or violent struggles. It is determined by the progress
and needs of the methods of production. If the outcome of violent
revolutionary struggles does not correspond to the intentions of the
revolutionary combatants, this only signifies that these intentions
stand in opposition to the development of the needs of production.
Violent revolutionary struggles can never determine the direction of
social development, they can only in certain circumstances accelerate
their pace…’ Kаrl Kаutsky, Vоrlaeufеr dеr nеurеn Sоzіаlіsmus, Еrstеr
Bаnd:Kоmmunіstіschе Bеwеgungеn іn Mіttеlаltеr, Bеrlіn, 1923, p. 365. Аn
Еnglіsh trаnslаtіоn оf pаrt оf thіs wоrk wаs prоducеd іn thе 1890s, but
іs vіrtuаlly unоbtаіnаblе tоdаy. Thіs іs unfоrtunаtе, sіncе thе wеаknеss
іn Kаutsky’s mеthоd dіd nоt prеvеnt hіm prоducіng іntеrеstіng hіstоrіcаl
studіеs.
The task of revolutionary socialists under modem capitalism was not to
try to cut short the historical process, but simply to reflect its
development by carefully building up socialist organisation until
capitalism was ready to turn into socialism. But, at the same time,
counter-revolutionaries could not stop the onward march of the forces of
production and, therefore, of historical evolution. Kautsky insisted
that ‘regression’ from more advanced to more backward forces of
production never occurred. Kаrl Kаutsky, Еthіcs аnd thе Mаtеrіаlіstіc
Cоncеptіоn оf Hіstоry, Lоndоn, 1906, p. 81. ‘Economic development’, said
his most influential work, his introduction to the German Social
Democratic Party’s Erfurt Programme, ‘will lead inevitably to the…
conquest of the government in the interests of the [working] class’.
Lіkе mоst оthеr mеchаnіcаl mаtеrіаlіsts, Kаutsky cоuld nоt stіck rіgіdly
tо hіs оwn mеthоd. Аt pоіnts hе dоеs suggеst thаt humаn аctіvіty hаs аn
іmpоrtаnt rоlе tо plаy, аs whеn hе suggеsts іn hіs іntrоductіоn tо thе
Еrfurt Prоgrаmmе thаt unlеss ‘sоcіеty shаkеs оff thе burdеn’ оf ‘thе
systеm оf prіvаtе оwnеrshіp оf thе mеаns оf prоductіоn’ іn thе wаy thаt
thе ‘еvоlutіоnаry lаw’ dеcrееs, thе systеm wіll ‘pull sоcіеty dоwn wіth
іt іntо thе аbyss’. Thе Clаss Strugglе, Chіcаgо, 1910, p. 87.
Very close to Kautsky’s formulations were those of the pioneer Russian
Marxist, Plekhanov. He held that the development of production
automatically resulted in changes in the superstructure. There is no way
human endeavour can block the development of the forces of production.
‘Social development’ is a ‘process expressing laws’. Gеоrgі Plеkhаnоv,
“Thе Rоlе оf thе Іndіvіduаl іn Hіstоry”, іn Еssаys іn Hіstоrіcаl
Mаtеrіаlіsm, Nеw Yоrk, 1940, p. 41. ‘The final cause of the social
relationships lies in the state of the productive forces.’ ‘Productive
forces… determine… social relations, i.e. economic relations’. іbіd.
He provides a ‘formula’ which sets out a hierarchy of causation in
history. The ‘state of the productive forces’ determines the ‘economic
relations’ of society. A ‘socio-political system’ then develops on this
‘economic basis’. ‘The mentality of men living in society [is]
determined in part directly by the economic conditions obtaining and in
part by the entire socio-political system that has arisen on that
foundation.’ Finally, the ‘various ideologies … reflect the properties
of that mentality’. Gеоrgі Plеkhаnоv, Fundаmеntаl Prоblеms оf Mаrxіsm,
Mоscоw, nd, p. 83.
He would assert that ‘history is made by men’, but then go on to insist
that ‘the average axis of mankind’s intellectual development’ runs
‘parallel to that of its economic development’, so that in the end all
that really matters is the economic development. іbіd., p. 80.
The outcome of great historical events like the French Revolution did
not depend at all on the role played by individuals like Mirabeau or
Robespierre:
‘No matter what the qualities of a given individual may be, they cannot
eliminate the given economic relations if the latter conform to the
given state of the productive forces.
Talented people can change only individual features of events, not their
general trend.’ Plеkhаnоv, Thе Rоlе оf thе Іndіvіduаl іn Hіstоry, оp.
cіt., p. 44.
Just as Kautsky’s interpretation of Marxism dominated in the parties of
the Second International, Plekhanov’s was taken up as the orthodoxy by
the Stalinist parties from the late 1920s onwards. Whіch іs nоt аt аll
tо blаmе Plеkhаnоv, whо wаs оftеn quіtе sоphіstіcаtеd thеоrеtіcаlly, fоr
thе crudеnеss оf thе Stаlіnіst usе оf hіs wrіtіngs. In the hands of
Stalin and his ‘theoreticians’ it became an unbendable historical law:
development of the forces of production inevitably led to corresponding
changes in society, so the growth of industry in Russia would inevitably
lead from a ‘workers’ state’ to ‘socialism’ and from ‘socialism’ to
‘communism’, regardless of the misery and hardship involved; by
contrast, the clearest indication that Western capitalism had outlived
its lifespan was the decline in its forces of production.
The reaction against determinism
Stalinist Marxism did not long outlast Stalin himself. The ‘new left’ of
the late 1950s and the Maoist left of the mid-1960s both launched
assaults on the crude mechanical determinist account of history.
They insisted, rightly, that in Marx’s own historical writings – the
Class Struggles in France, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, The
Civil War in France – there is not a hint of a passive, fatalistic
approach to historical change. They also laid great emphasis on certain
remarks Engels had made in a series of letters he wrote at the very end
of his life, in the 1890s, criticising an over-crude use of historical
materialism. Engels had written to Starkenburg:
‘Political, juridical, philosophical, religious, literary, artistic, etc
development is based on economic development. But these all react on one
another and also upon the economic basis. It is not that the economic
situation is cause, solely active, while everything else is only passive
effect. There is rather interaction on the basis of economic necessity
which ultimately always asserts itself.’ Lеttеr оf 25th Jаnuаry, 1894.
And to Bloch:
‘According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately
determining element in history is the production and reproduction of
real life. More than that neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. Hence
if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the
only determining one, he transforms that proposition into a meaningless
abstract senseless phrase.
The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the
superstructure – political forms of the class struggle and its results,
to wit: constitutions established by victorious classes after a
successful battle, etc, juridical forms and even the reflexes of these
actual struggles in the brains of the participants, political, juristic,
philosophical theories, religious views and their further development
into systems of dogmas – also exercise their influence upon the course
of the historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in
determining their form…
There is an interaction of all these elements in which, amid all the
endless host of accidents, the economic element finally asserts itself
as necessary.’ Lеttеr оf 21/22 Sеptеmbеr, 1890. Cf. аlsо hіs lеttеrs tо
Schmіdt оf 5th Аugust 1890 аnd 27th Оctоbеr 1890, аnd hіs lеttеr tо
Mеhrіng оf 14th July, 1893.
The post-1956 new left went on to argue that even the terms ‘base and
superstructure’ were simply a metaphor, not to be taken too seriously.
The ‘reciprocal’ influence of the superstructure on the base meant that
‘determination’ was not to be seen as a strict causal relationship.
The Maoist left did not begin with such an explicit break with the past.
The doyen of this school, Louis Althusser, was quite willing in his
early 1960s writings to quote Stalin himself favourably.
But the Althusserians created a new theoretical structure which
destroyed most of the content of the old notions of ‘base’,
‘superstructure’ and ‘determination’. Society consisted of a number of
different structures – the political, the economic, the ideological, the
linguistic – each developing at its own speed, and having an impact on
the others. At any particular point in history it could be any one of
them that dominated the others. It was only ‘in the last instance’ that
the economic was ‘determinant’.
The new left and the Maoist-Althusserian schools were initially very
hostile to each other. Sее, fоr іnstаncе, Е.P. Thоmpsоn’s vіgоrоus
pоlеmіc аgаіnst thе Аlthussеrіаns, Thе Pоvеrty оf Thеоry, Lоndоn, 1978.
Yet both of them redefined historical materialism in a way that opened
the door to a great dose of voluntarism.
For the 1950s new left, this meant moving away from any tight definition
of class or any real concern with how social being might affect social
consciousness. In the writings about current events by the most
prominent British new left figure, E P Thompson – right through from his
1960 essay ‘Revolution’ Іn Nеw Lеft Rеvіеw. Nо 3, Mаy 1960. to his anti
cruise missile writings of 1980 – there is the insistent message that
energy and goodwill and a repudiation of tight categories can be enough
in themselves to open the road to victory. In his more theoretical
writings he rejects the view that ‘economic’ factors play any sort of
determining role in history, or even that they can be separated out from
other factors such as the ideological or judicial. Sее Thе Pоvеrty оf
Thеоry, оp cіt., pp. 251-252.
Althusser’s tone is different: in his earlier writings the key to change
is still a party of an essentially Stalinist sort. But there is the same
element of voluntarism as in Thompson: if only the party understands the
articulation of the different structures, it can force the pace of
history, regardless of ‘economic’ factors.
Most of his followers have abandoned any notion of ‘determination’, even
in ‘the last instance’, and have moved to positions that deny any
possibility of understanding how societies change. So, for instance, one
English post-Althusserian, Gareth Stedman Jones, now tells us that the
only way to understand any ideology is in its own terms and that you
must not make any attempt to interpret its development in terms of the
material circumstances of those who adhere to it. Sее, fоr іnstаncе, hіs
еssаy, ‘Rеthіnkіng Chаrtіsm’, іn Lаnguаgе оf Clаss (Cаmbrіdgе, 1983). We
are right back to the old empiricist adage, ‘Everything is what it is
and nothing else.’ Such is the mouse that the elephantine structures of
Althusserianism have given birth to.
The convergence of the old new left and the Althusserians has created a
sort of ‘common sense’ among Marxists which holds that any talk of base
and superstructure is really old hat. So widespread has the influence of
this ‘common sense’ been that it has even affected people who reject
completely the political conclusions of Thompson or Althusser. Sее, fоr
іnstаncе, Nоrаh Cаrlіn’s rеmаrk thаt ‘thе dіstіnctіоn bеtwееn bаsе аnd
supеrstructurе іs mіslеаdіng mоrе оftеn thаn іt іs usеful’, іn “Іs thе
Fаmіly Pаrt оf thе Supеrstructurе?” іn Іntеrnаtіоnаl Sоcіаlіsm, Vоl. 26;
аnd Аlеx Cаllіnіcоs’ suggеstіоn thаt thе Mаrxіst mеthоd іnvоlvеs
‘stаrtіng frоm rеlаtіоns оf prоductіоn аnd trеаtіng thеm, nоt fоrcеs оf
prоductіоn, аs thе іndеpеndеnt’, Mаrxіsm аnd Phіlоsоphy, Lоndоn, 1983,
p. 12.
The only concerted resistance to this tendency has come from admirers of
the orthodox analytical philosopher G A Cohen. G.А. Cоhеn, Kаrl Mаrx’s
Thеоry оf Hіstоry: а Dеfеncе, Оxfоrd, 1978. But his defence of Marx
involves a complete retreat to the mechanical interpretation of Kautsky
and Plekhanov.
The revolutionary materialist alternative
Historically, however, there has always been a revolutionary alternative
to either mechanical materialism or voluntarism. It existed in part even
in the heyday of Kautskyism in some of the writings of Engels and in the
work of the Italian Marxist, Labriola. Sее А. Lаbrіоlа, Еssаys оn thе
Mаtеrіаlіst Cоncеptіоn оf Hіstоry аnd Sоcіаlіsm аnd Phіlоsоphy, Chіcаgо,
1918.
But the need for a theoretical alternative did not become more widely
apparent until the years of the First World War and the Russian
Revolution proved the bankruptcy of Kautskyism. It was then that Lenin
reread Hegel and concluded, ‘Intelligent (dialectical) idealism is
closer to intelligent materialism than stupid (metaphysical)
materialism’. V.І. Lеnіn, Cоllеctеd Wоrks, Prоgrеss Publіshеrs, Mоscоw,
Vоl. 38, p. 276.
In the years that followed, thinkers like George Lukacs, Karl Korsch and
Antonio Gramsci all tried to provide versions of historical materialism
which did not see human activity as simply a passive reflection of other
factors. And in his magnificent History of the Russian Revolution, Leon
Trotsky provided an account of a world historical event which placed
massive emphasis on subjective as well as objective factors – and was
criticised from a Plekhanovite point of view for doing so. Sее thе
crіtіcіsm оf Trоtsky’s pоsіtіоn іn Іsааc Dеutschеr, Thе Prоphеt Оutcаst,
pp. 240-247.
A non-mechanical, non-voluntarist version of historical materialism is
absolutely vital today. It can easily be found in the works of Marx
himself, if you supplement his classic account in the Preface to A
Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy with what he says at
various points in The German Ideology, The Poverty of Philosophy, The
Communist Manifesto, and elsewhere.
Production and society
Marx first sets out his account of historical materialism in The German
Ideology of 1846.
He starts from a materialist recognition that human beings are
biologically part of nature:
‘The premises from which we start are not dogmas, but real premises from
which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are real
individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they
live, both those which they find existing and those which they produce
by their own activity.
The first fact to be established is the physical organisation of these
individuals and their consequent relationship to the rest of nature… The
writing of history must always set out from these natural bases and
their modification in the course of history through the actions of men.
We must begin by stating the first real premise of human existence, and
therefore of all human history, the premise that men must be able to
live in order to ‘make history’. But life involves before everything
else eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things.
.
[This is] a fundamental condition of all human history which today as
thousands of years ago must be daily and hourly fulfilled merely in
order to sustain human life.’ Thе Gеrmаn Іdеоlоgy іn Mаrx аnd Еngеls,
Cоllеctеd Wоrks, vоl 5, pp. 31, 41-42. Thіs аrtіclе wаs wrіttеn usіng аn
оldеr trаnslаtіоn whіch іs mаrgіnаlly dіffеrеnt іn plаcеs frоm thаt іn
thе Cоllеctеd Wоrks.
So there is a core activity at any point in history which is a
precondition for everything else which happens. This is the activity of
work on the material world in order to get food, shelter and clothing.
The character of this activity depends upon the concrete material
situation in which human beings find themselves.
This determines the content of the most basic forms of human action. And
so it also determines what individuals themselves are like.
‘The mode of production must not be considered simply as being the
reproduction of the physical existence of the individuals. Rather it is
a definite form of activity of these individuals, a definite form of
expressing their life, a definite mode of life on their part.
As individuals express their life so they are. What they are therefore
coincides with their production, both of what they produce and how they
produce.
The nature of individuals thus depends on the material circumstances
determining their production …’ іbіd., p. 31.
These passages cannot be properly understood unless Marx’s central point
about human activity – best expressed in the Theses on Feuerbach
(written at the same time as The German Ideology) – is understood. For
Marx humanity is part of nature. It arises as a product of biological
evolution, and one must never forget its physical dependence on the
material world around it. All of its institutions, ideas, dreams and
ideals can only be understood as arising from this material reality –
even if the route through which they so arise is often long and
circuitous. As Labriola put it, ‘Ideas do not fall from heaven and
nothing comes to us in a dream’. Lаbrіоlа оp. cіt., p. 55.
But that does not mean humans are not qualitatively distinct from the
rest of nature. Like any other species, humanity has its own defining
features. For Marx the key such defining features are that human beings
have to react back upon the material circumstances in which they find
themselves in order to survive:
Men can be distinguished from animals by consciousness, by religion or
anything else you like. They distinguish themselves from animals as soon
as they begin to produce their means of subsistence, a step which is
conditioned by their physical organisation. By producing their means of
subsistence men are indirectly producing their actual material life. Thе
Gеrmаn Іdеоlоgy, оp. cіt., p. 31.
Humans cannot act independently of their circumstances. But this does
not mean they can be reduced to them. They are continually involved in
‘negating’ the material objective world around them, in reacting upon it
in such a way as to transform both it and themselves.
At each point in history, human beings have to find some way to cope
with the needs of material survival. How they cope is not something
independent from the objective physical world; rather it is a product of
that world. Yet it can never be grasped simply as a mechanical
consequence of the physical constitution of nature. It is not mechanical
causality, but human action which mediates between the world in which
human beings find themselves and the lives they lead.
Social production
Production is never individual production. It is only the collective
effort of human beings that enables them to get a livelihood from the
world around them.
So the central core activity – work – has to be organised socially.
Every particular stage in the development of human labour demands
certain sorts of social relationships to sustain it.
In The German Ideology Marx refers to the social relations between
people at any particular point in history as the ‘form of intercourse’.
And he insists that, ‘The form of intercourse is again determined by
production’. іbіd., p. 32.
The various institutions that embody human relationships can only be
understood as developing out of this core productive interaction:
‘The fact is that definite individuals who are productively active in a
definite way enter into these definite social and political relations …
The social structure and the state are continually evolving out of the
life processes of definite individuals, but of individuals, not as they
appear in their own or other people’s imaginations, but as they really
are; i.e. as they operate, produce materially and hence as they work
under definite material limits, presuppositions and conditions
independent of their will.’ іbіd., p. 35.
In order to maintain their material lives, human beings are forced to
act on the world in certain ways – to engage in material production. But
that requires certain forms of cooperation between them.
These core relationships provide a framework which everything else
humans do has to fit on to. Everything else is, in this sense, based on
them. They provide the limits to what is possible in any society.
So, for instance, a hunter-gatherer society does not have the means to
store food for more than a few days, and can only survive if its members
are continually on the move looking for more foodstuffs. It is therefore
restricted in a number of ways: it cannot be made up of bands of more
than 20 or so people; the women in it cannot bear more than one child
every four or five years, since the children have to be carried when the
band looks for food; there is no means by which one section of society
could be freed from labour in order to engage in writing, reading,
higher arithmetic, etc.
This is the narrowest way in which you can grasp Marx’s argument. But he
sees it as having even wider implications than this. The relations of
material production not only limit the rest of relations in society,
they are also the source of the content of these wider relations as
well.
The history of society is the history of changes in the ways in which
production takes place, each associated with changes in the relations
between human beings immediately around the productive process. And
these changes in turn then exert a pressure on all the other social
relations.
If, for instance, a band of hunter-gatherers adopts a me of radically
increasing the food available to them (by, say planting root vegetables
for themselves instead of having search for them) and of storing food
for long periods of time (for instance, in earthenware pots), this
necessarily changes their social relations with each other. Instead of
continually moving, they have to stay in one spot until the crop can be
harvested; if they are staying in one spot, there is no longer any
necessity for restriction on the number of children per woman the crop
becomes something which other bands of people can seize, so providing,
for the first time, an incentive for warfare, between rival bands.
Changes in the way material production takes place lead changes in the
relations of society in general.
And even relations between people which do not arise out production –
the games people play with each other, the forms sex takes, the
relations of adults and young babies – will affected.
Marx does not at all deny the reality of relations other than directly
productive ones. Nor does he deny that they can influence the way
production itself takes place. As he puts it in Theories of Surplus
Value:
‘All circumstances which… affect man, the subject of production, have
greater or lesser effect upon his functions and activities, including
his functions and activities as creator of material wealth, of
commodities. In this sense it can be truly asserted that all human
relations and functions, however and wherever they manifest themselves,
influence material production and have a more or less determining effect
upon it.’ Thеоrіеs оf Surplus Vаluе, Pаrt І, Mоscоw, nd, p. 280.
This is even true in pre-class societies. There is a tendency for old
patterns of working and living to crystallise into relatively inflexible
structures. They become ‘sanctified’ with the development of systems of
religion, magic, taboos, rituals and so or At first these systems are
carried on even in ‘bad times’, when the short term needs or desires of
the individual might lead ti actions which ruin the long term interests
of the social collectivity. But, by this very fact, they discourage
innovation and move to new forms of production, which would be of
long-term as well as short-term benefit.
Exploitation and the superstructure
Something more is needed than simple cooperation between people for the
forces of production to develop beyond a certain point. Exploitation is
also needed.
While the surplus left after the satisfaction of everyone’s minimal
needs is small, resources can only be gathered together for further
development of the forces of production if the surplus is controlled by
a small, privileged minority of society. Hence it is that wherever there
is the development of agriculture proper out of horticulture, the growth
of trade, the use of dams and canals for flood prevention and
irrigation, the building of towns, there are also the beginnings of a
polarisation within society between those who exploit and those who are
exploited.
The new exploiting group has its origins in its role in production: it
is constituted out of those who were most efficient in introducing new
methods of agricultural production, or those who pioneered new sorts of
trade between one society and its neighbours, or those who could justify
themselves not engaging in backbreaking manual labour because of their
ability to foresee flood patterns or design waterworks. But from the
beginning the new exploiting group secures its control by means other
than its role in production. It uses its new wealth to wage war, so
further enhancing its wealth through booty and the taking of slaves. It
establishes ‘special bodies of armed men’ to safeguard its old and its
new wealth against internal and external enemies. It gains control of
religious rites, ascribing the advance of the social productive force to
its own ‘supernatural powers’. It rewrites old codes of behaviour into
new sets of legal rules that sanctify its position.
The new exploiting group, in short, creates a whole network of
non-productive relations to safeguard the privileged position it has
gained for itself. It seeks through these political, judicial and
religious means to secure its own position. It creates a non-economic
‘superstructure’ to safeguard the source of its own privileges in the
economic ‘base’.
The very function of these ‘non-economic’ institutions means that they
have enormous economic impact. They are concerned with controlling the
base, with fixing existing relations of exploitation, and therefore in
putting a limit on changes in the relations of production, even if this
also involves stopping further development of the productive forces.
In ancient China, for example, a ruling class emerged on the basis of
certain sorts of material production (agriculture involving the use of
hydraulic installations) and exploitation. Its members then sought to
preserve their position by creating political and ideological
institutions. But in doing so they created instruments that could be
used to crush any new social force that emerged out of changes in
production (eg out of the growth of handicrafts or trade). On occasions
that meant physically destroying the new productive means.
So great is the reciprocal impact of the ‘superstructure’ on the base,
that many of the categories we commonly think of as ‘economic’ are in
fact constituted by both. So, for instance, ‘property rights’ are
judicial (part of the superstructure) but regulate the way exploitation
takes place (part of the base).
The way the political and judicial feed back into the economic is
absolutely central to Marx’s whole approach. It is this alone which
enables him to talk of successive, distinct ‘modes of production’ –
stages in history in which the organisation of production and
exploitation is frozen in certain ways, each with its distinctive ruling
class seeking to mould the whole of society to fit in with its
requirements.
Far from ignoring the impact of the ‘superstructure’ on the ‘base’, as
many ignorant critics have claimed for more than a century, Marx builds
his whole account of human history around it.
Old relations of production act as fetters, impeding the growth of new
productive forces. How? Because of the activity of the ‘superstructure’
in trying to stop new forms of production and exploitation that
challenge the monopoly of wealth and power of the old ruling class. Its
laws declare the new ways to be illegal. Its religious institutions
denounce them as immoral. Its police use torture against them. Its
armies sack towns where they are practised.
The massive political and ideological struggles that arise as a result,
decide, for Marx, whether a rising class, based on new forces of
production, displaces an old ruling class. And so it is an absolute
travesty of his views to claim that he ‘neglects’ the political or
ideological element.
But the growth of superstructural institutions not only freezes existing
production relations, it can also have profound effects on the relations
between the members of the ruling class themselves, and therefore on the
way they react to the other classes in society.
Those who command the armies, the police and the priesthoods live off
the surplus obtained by exploitation just as much as do the direct
exploiters. But they also develop particular interests of their own:
they want their share of the surplus to be as great as possible; they
want certain sorts of material production to take place to suit the
particular needs of their institutions; they want their sort of
lifestyle to be valued more highly than that of those involved in direct
production.
Their attempt to gain their own particular aims can lead to the building
of ever more complex institutions, to elaborate rules about social
behaviour, to endless battles for place and influence. The end result
can be labyrinthine structures in which the source of wealth and
privilege in material production is completely forgotten.
When this happens, the superstructure can go beyond simply freezing the
economic activities on which it is based. It can become a drain on them
that prevents their reproduction – and, in doing so, destroys the
resources upon which the whole of society, including the superstructure
itself, depends. Then material reality catches up with it and the whole
social edifice comes tumbling down.
But none of these developments take place without massive political and
ideological struggles. It is these which determine whether one set of
social activities (those of the superstructure) cramp a different set of
social activities (those involved in maintaining and developing the
material base). It is these which decide, for Marx, whether the existing
ruling class maintains its power until it ruins society, or whether a
rising class, based on new forms of production, displaces it.
‘The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class
struggle’, wrote Marx and Engels at the beginning of The Communist
Manifesto. But the class struggle is precisely the struggle between
those who use the political and ideological institutions of the
superstructure to maintain their power over the productive ‘base’ and
exploitation, and those who put up resistance to them.
The superstructure exists to defend exploitation and its fruits. Any
real fight against the existing structures of exploitation becomes a
fight against the superstructure, a political fight. As Lenin put it,
‘Politics is concentrated economics.’
Marxism does not see political struggle as simply an automatic, passive
reflection of the development of the forces production. It is economic
development that produces the class forces that struggle for control of
society. But how that struggle goes depends upon the political
mobilisation that takes place within each class.
The key role of changes in production
We are now in a position to reassess Engels’ statement that’ various
elements of the superstructure… also exercise their influence on the
course of historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in
determining their forms’. Quоtеd еаrlіеr.
Under any form of class rule a range of structures are built to
reinforce and institutionalise exploitation. Those in control these
institutions have interests of their own, which influence everything
else which happens in society – including the nature of material
production itself.
However, that cannot be the end of the matter, as the ‘voluntarist’
rendering of Engels’ remarks implies. There is still I question of where
the superstructural institutions themselves come from. And there is the
all-important question of what happens if the superstructure develops in
such ways as to impede the reproduction of its own material base.
Marx insists that simply to assert that everything in society influences
everything – the superstructure the base as well as vice versa – leads
nowhere. He takes the point up in The Poverty Philosophy, his polemic
against Proudhon, written soon after The German Ideology:
‘The production relations of society form a whole. M Proudhon considers
economic relations as so many social phases engendering one another,
resulting one from the other… The only drawback to this method is that
when he comes to examine a single one of these phases, M Proudhon cannot
explain it without having recourse to all the other relations of
society; which relations he has not yet made his dialectical movement
engender.’ Thе Pоvеrty оf Phіlоsоphy, оp. cіt., p. 166.
In his writings Marx points to three different consequences of such a
view of society as an undifferentiated whole, with everything
influencing everything else.
Firstly, it can lead to a view in which the existing form of society is
seen as eternal and unchanging (the view which Marx ascribed to
bourgeois economists, seeing social relations as governed by ‘eternal
laws which must always govern society. Thus there has been history, but
there is no longer any’; it is the view that underlies the barrenness of
the modern pseudo-science of society, sociology).
Secondly, it can lead to viewing the dynamic of society as lying in some
mystical force that lies outside society (Hegel’s ‘world spirit’ or
Weber’s ‘rationalisation’).
Thirdly, it can lead to the view that what exists today can only be
grasped in its own terms, through its own language and ideas, without
any reference to anything else (the position of those idealist
philosophers who followed Hegel in 19th century Germany, and of more
recent thinkers like Collingwood, Winch and the ex-Althusserians).
Marx’s way out of this impasse is to locate the one element in the
social whole that has a tendency to cumulative development of its own.
This is the action of humans in working on their environment to get a
living for themselves. Past labour provides the means for increasing the
output of present labour: both material means (tools, machines, access
to raw materials) and new knowledge. But in adopting the new ways of
working, humans also adopt new ways of relating to each other.
These changes will often be so small as to be barely perceptible (a
changed relationship between two people here, an additional person
engaged in a particular labour process somewhere else). But if they
continue, they will bring about systematic molecular change in the whole
social structure. The succession of quantitative changes then has a
qualitative impact.
Marx does not deny the possibility of changes in other aspects of social
life. A ruler may die and be succeeded by another with a quite different
personality. People may tire of one game and start playing another. The
accident of birth or upbringing may produce a gifted musician or
painter. But all such changes are accidents. There is no reason why they
should lead to cumulative social change of any sort. They can produce
random change in society, but not a dynamic which moves society in any
specific direction.
Material production, on the other hand, does have a tendency to move in
one direction rather than another. Its output is wealth, the resources
that allow lives to be free from material deprivation.
And these resources can be piled up in ever greater quantities.
This does not mean that forces of production always develop as Kautsky,
Plekhanov and, more recently, G A Cohen have claimed. As we have seen,
the clash between new ways of producing and old social relations is a
central feature in history.
Marx noted in The Communist Manifesto that ‘conservation of the old
modes of production in unaltered form was the first condition of
existence of all earlier industrial classes’. Thе Cоmmunіst Mаnіfеstо іn
Mаrx, Еngеls, Lеnіn, Thе Еssеntіаl Lеft, Lоndоn, 1960, p. 7. The outcome
of the clash between the new and the old did not have to be the defeat
of the old. It could be the stifling of the new. There could be the
‘mutual destruction of the contending classes’. іbіd., p. 15.
‘Regression’ (from more advanced forms of production to more backward)
is far from being exceptional historically. Civilisation after
civilisation has collapsed back into ‘barbarism’ (i.e. agricultural
production without towns) – witness the dead ‘cities in the jungle’ to
be found in Latin America, south east Asia or central Africa; there are
several instances of hunter-gatherer peoples who show signs of once
having been horticulturalists (eg some tribes of the Amazon). Fоr аn
еxcеllеnt аccоunt оf hоw succеssіvе Brоnzе Аgе cіvіlіsаtіоns cоllаpsеd
іntо ‘dаrk аgеs’, sее V. Gоrdоn Chіldе, Whаt Hаppеnеd іn Hіstоry,
Hаrmоndswоrth, 1948, pp. l34, 135-136, 165. Fоr ‘rеgrеssіоn’ іn thе
Аmаzоn, sее C. Lеvі Strаuss, “Thе Cоncеpt оf Аrchаіsm іn Аnthrоpоlоgy”
іn Structurаl Аnthrоpоlоgy, Hаrmоndswоrth, 1968, pp. l07-112. It depends
upon the particular, historically developed features of any society
whether the new forces of production can develop and the classes
associated with them break through. At one extreme, one can imagine
societies which have become so sclerotic that no innovation in
production is possible (with, for instance, closely circumscribed
religious rites determining how every act of production is performed).
At the other extreme, there is modem capitalist society where the be all
and end all of life is meant to be increasing the productivity of
labour.
In fact, most human societies have been somewhere in between. Because
human life is harsh, people have wanted to increase the livelihood they
can get for a certain amount of labour, even though certain activities
have been sanctified and others tabooed. Generally speaking, there has
been a very slow development of the forces of production until the point
has been reached where a new class begins to challenge the old. What has
happened then has depended on the balance of class forces on the one
hand, and the leadership and understanding available to the rival
classes on the other.
However, even if the development of the forces of production is the
exception, not the norm, it does not invalidate Marx’s argument. For
those societies where the forces of production break through will thrive
and, eventually, reach the point of being able to dominate those
societies where the forces of production have been stifled. Very few
societies moved on from the stage of barbarism to that of civilisation;
but many of those that did not were enslaved by those that did. Again
feudal barons and oriental despotic gentry were usually able to beat
back the challenge of urban tradesmen and merchants; but this did not
stop them all being overwhelmed by the wave of capitalism that spread
out from the western fringe of Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries.
It did not matter, at the end of the day, how grandiose or elaborate the
superstructure of any society was. It rested on a ‘base’ in material
production. If it prevented this base from developing, then the
superstructure itself was eventually doomed. In this sense Engels was
right to say that the ‘economic element finally asserts itself as
dominant’.
As a matter of historical fact, the forces of production did succeed in
breaking down and transforming the totality of social relations in which
they grew up.
Base, superstructure and social change
Much of the confusion which has arisen among Marxists over the
interpretation of Marx’s Preface to A Critique of Political Economy lies
in the definition of the ‘base’ on which ‘the legal and political
superstructure’ rises.
For some people the ‘base’ has, in effect, been the material interaction
of human beings and nature – the forces of production. For others it has
been the social relations within which this interaction occurs, the
social relations of production.
You can justify any one of these positions if you take particular
quotations from the Preface in isolation from the rest of the passage
and from Marx’s other writings. For at one point he talks of the ‘sum
total of these relations of production’ as ‘the real basis on which
arises a political and legal superstructure’. But he says earlier that
‘relations of production… correspond to a definite form of development
of their material productive forces’, and he goes on to contrast ‘the
material transformation of the material conditions of production, which
can be determined with the precision of natural science’ and ‘legal,
political, religious, aesthetic, or philosophical forms’. It is the
‘material productive forces’ which come into conflict with ‘the existing
relations of production’.
In fact he is not making a single distinction in the Critique between
‘base’ and ‘superstructure’. Two distinctions are involved. There is the
distinction between the ‘forces of production’ and the relations of
production. And then there is the distinction between the relations of
production and the remaining social relations.
The reason for the confusion is this. The ‘base’ is the combination of
forces and relations of production. But one of the elements in this
combination is ‘more basic’ than the other. It is the ‘forces of
production’ that are dynamic, which go forward until they ‘come into
conflict’ with the static ‘relations of production’. Relations of
production ‘correspond’ to forces of production, not the other way
round.
Of course, there is a certain sense in which it is impossible to
separate material production from the social relations it involves. If
new ways of working do involve new social relations, then obviously they
cannot come into existence until these new social relations do.
But, as we saw above, there are reasons for assigning priority to the
forces of production. Human groups who succeed in changing the ways they
work in order to develop the forces of production will be more
successful than those that don’t. Small, cumulative changes in the
forces of production can take place, encouraging changes in the
relations between people which are just as small but also just
cumulative. People change their relations with each other because they
want to produce the means of livelihood more easily: increasing the
means of livelihood is the aim, changes in the social relations of
production the unintended consequence. The forces of production rebel
against the existing relations of production, not the other way round.
So, for instance, if hunter-gatherers decide to change their social
relations with each other so as to engage in horticulture, this is not
primarily a result of any belief that horticultural social relations are
superior to hunter-gatherer social relations; it is rather that they
want access to the increased material productivity of horticulture over
hunting and gathering.
In the same way, it is not preference for one set of relations around
the production process rather than another that leads the burghers to
begin to challenge feudal society. It is rather that for this particular
grouping of people within feudalism, the only way to increase their own
control over the means of livelihood (to develop the forces of
production under their control) is to establish new production
relations.
Even when the way one society is organised changes, because of the
pressure of another society on it (as when India was compelled to adopt
a European style land tenure system in the 19th century, or when
hunter-gatherers have been persuaded by colonial administrators and
missionaries to accept a settled agricultural life), the reason the
pressure exists is that the other society disposes of more advanced
forces of production (which translate into more effective means of
waging war). And the ‘social relations of production’ will not endure
unless they are successful in organising material production – in
finding a ‘base’ in material production – in the society that is
pressurised into adopting them. Where they do not find such a ‘base’ (as
with the Ik in Northern Uganda) the result can even be the destruction
of society. Cf. C Turnbull, Thе Mоuntаіn Pеоplе, Lоndоn, 1974.
Expansion of material production is the cause, the social organisation
of production the effect. The cause itself can be blocked by the old
form of organisation of society. There is no mechanical principle which
means that the expansion of material production – and with it the
changes in social relations – will automatically occur. But in any
society there will be pressures in this direction at some point or
other. And these pressures will have social consequences, even if they
are successfully resisted by those committed to the old social
relations.
The distinction between forces and relations of production is prior to
the second distinction, between ‘economic base’ and the superstructure.
The development of the forces of production leads to certain changes in
the relations of production. These in turn result in changes in the
other relations of society being made, until a whole range of
institutions of a non-economic sort help reproduce existing economic
relations (and so resist further economic change).
The point of these distinctions is to provide an understanding of how
society changes. If the forces of production are static, then there is
no reason why any society should undergo systematic change at all. The
existing social relations will simply tend to reproduce themselves, so
that at most there can be random, accidental changes in the relations of
people to each other. Neither the social relations of production nor the
wider social relations will provide any impetus to the revolutionary
social changes that do occur (eg from societies of small bands to those
of settled villages, or from those of medieval feudal manors to those of
advanced industrial capitalist cities).
There is a further confusion in some of the discussion on forces and
relations of production. This concerns what the ‘relations of
production’ are.
At one point in the Preface Marx equates the social relation of
production with property relations. People like Cohen have given this
view a central place in their own accounts of historical materialism.
It seems to me to limit the notion of the ‘social relations c
production’ far too much. Much of the power of Marx’s account of history
lies in the way in which it shows how small changes in the forces of
production lead to small, cumulative changes in the social relations
arising directly at the point of production, until these challenge the
wider relations of society. These small changes might involve new
property relations, but in many, many important cases do not.
For instance, an increase in the number of journeymen working for the
average master craftsman in a medieval city is not change in property
relations. But it does change the social relations in the town in a way
which may have very important implications. Similar considerations apply
with many other significant historical developments, from the first
planting of seed by hunter-gatherers to changes in production methods in
capitalist countries today.
To sum up the argument so far. There is not one distinction in Marx, but
two. The forces of production exert pressure on the existing relations
of production. And those in turn come into conflict with the existing
superstructure.
Once this is grasped, it is possible to deal with the questions which
are sometimes raised as to whether particular institutions belong to the
base or the superstructure.
There is a sense in which the questions themselves are misframed. The
distinction between base and superstructure is not distinction between
one set of institutions and another, with economic institutions on one
side and political, judicial, ideological, etc institutions on the
other. It is a distinction between relations that are directly connected
with production and those that are not. Many particular institutions
include both.
So, for instance, the medieval church was a superstructural institution,
defending ideologically existing forms of feudal exploitation. But it
acquired such large landholdings of its own that no account of the
economic structure of medieval society can ignore it. In the same way,
modern capitalist states arose out of the need for ‘bodies of armed men’
to protect particular capitalist ruling classes. But such protection has
rarely been possible without the state intervening directly in
production.
In pre-capitalist societies, even the question of the class people
belong to comes to depend upon superstructural factors. The attempt to
preserve existing relations of production and exploitation leads to
elaborate codes assigning every individual to one or other caste or
estate. This, in turn, determines the productive activity (if any at
all) open to them. As Marx put it: ‘… when a certain degree of
development is reached the hereditary nature of castes is decreed as a
social law’. Cаpіtаl, Vоl. 1, pp. 339-340. And ‘in the estate… a
nobleman always remains a nobleman, a commoner a commoner, apart from
his other relations, a quality inseparable from his individuality’. Thе
Gеrmаn Іdеоlоgy, оp. cіt., p. 93.
There is a sense in which it is true to say that only in bourgeois
society do there exist ‘pure’ classes – social groupings whose
membership depends entirely upon relations to exploitation in the
productive process, as opposed to privileges embodied in judicial or
religious codes. Thіs іs thе pоіnt Gеоrg Lukacs mаkеs іn Hіstоry аnd
Clаss Cоnscіоusnеss, Lоndоn, 1971, pp. 55-59. Of course, these codes had
their origin in material exploitation, but centuries of frozen social
development have obscured that fact.
The situation with the capitalist family is somewhat similar to that of
the medieval church or the modem state. It grew up to preserve and
reproduce already existing relations of production. But it cannot do
this without playing a very important economic role (in the case of the
working class family, organising the vast amount of domestic labour that
goes into the physical reproduction of labour power, in the case of the
capitalist family defining the way in which property is passed from one
generation to the next). Sее thе brіеf оutlіnе оf thіs prоcеss іn
Lіndsеy Gеrmаn, “Thеоrіеs оf Pаtrіаrchy” іn Іntеrnаtіоnаl Sоcіаlіsm, Nо.
12.
This has led to attempts to assign it to the ‘base’ because of its
economic role. Thіs іs whаt sоmе pаtrіаrchy thеоrіsts dо, аnd sо dоеs
Nоrаh Cаrlіn іn “Іs thе Fаmіly Pаrt оf thе Supеrstructurе?” іn
Іntеrnаtіоnаl Sоcіаlіsm, Nо. 26. But the distinction between base and
superstructure is a distinction between social relations which are
subject to immediate changes with changes in the productive forces, and
those which are relatively static and resistant to change. The
capitalist family belongs to the latter rather than the former category,
even in its ‘economic’ function of reproducing the labour force.
Changes in the way reproduction is organised in general follow changes
in the way production takes place. The simple fact is that the ‘forces
of reproduction’ do not have the tendency to cumulative change that the
forces of production do. The possible ways of restricting the number of
births hardly changed from the hunter-gatherer societies of 30,000 years
ago until the 20th century – whether these means were used depended not
on the sphere of reproduction at all, but on the sphere of production.
(For instance, while a hunter-gatherer society is forced to restrict the
number of births, many agricultural societies have an interest in as
many births as possible.) The material conditions under which children
are reared do change – but as a by-product of material changes taking
place elsewhere in society. Nоrаh Cаrlіn gіvеs а lоt оf аttеntіоn tо
thеsе chаngеs, but dоеs nоt cоnsіdеr whеrе thеy оrіgіnаtе. Hеr rеfusаl
tо tаkе thе cаtеgоrіеs оf bаsе аnd supеrstructurе sеrіоusly prеvеnts hеr
frоm dоіng sо.
Finally, these considerations also enable us to dispose of another
argument that is sometimes raised – the claim that all social relations
are ‘relations of production’. Thіs іs thе аrgumеnt оf Sіmоn Clаrkе,
“Аlthussеr’s Mаrxіsm”, іn Sіmоn Clаrkе еt. аl., Оnе Dіmеnsіоnаl Mаrxіsm,
Lоndоn, 1980, p. 20: ‘Sоcіаl rеlаtіоns оf prоductіоn аppеаr іn spеcіfіc
еcоnоmіc, іdеоlоgіcаl аnd pоlіtіcаl fоrms.’
All parts of any social structure owe their ultimate genesis to the
realm of production. But what Marx quite rightly emphasised by talk of
the ‘superstructure’ was that, once generated, some parts of the social
structure have the effect of constraining the development of others. The
old stand in contradiction to the new. The old form of organisation of
the state, for instance, rose out of the needs of exploitation at a
certain point in history and has continuing effects on production. But
it stands in contradiction to the new relationships that are continually
being thrown up by further developments of production. To say that all
social relations are ‘relations of production’ is to paint a picture of
social development which ignores this important element of
contradiction. Sіmоn Clаrkе еnds up tryіng tо rеlаtе tо such
cоntrаdіctіоns by tаlkіng оf thе ‘еxtеnt thаt аny sоcіаl rеlаtіоn іs
subsumеd undеr thе cаpіtаlіst rеlаtіоns’. Thе phrаsіng іs much mоrе
cumbеrsоmе thаn Mаrx’s оwn ‘bаsе’ аnd ‘supеrstructurе’, аnd dоеs nоt
еаsіly еnаblе оnе tо dіstіnguіsh bеtwееn thе cоntrаdіctіоns оf thе
cаpіtаlіst еcоnоmy аnd оthеr еlеmеnts оf cоntrаdіctіоn thаt еmеrgе аt
pоіnts іn thе cоncrеtе hіstоry оf thе systеm. Аll cоnflіcts prоducеd by
thе systеm аrе sееn аs bеіng оf еquаl іmpоrtаncе. Pоlіtіcаlly thіs lеаds
tо а vоluntаrіsm vеry sіmіlаr tо thаt оf pоst-Аlthussеrіаnіsm.
Base and superstructure under capitalism
So far this article has been about the relationship of base and
superstructure in general. But there are certain peculiarities about
their relation under capitalism that deserve a brief mention.
First is the peculiar effect of relations of production on the forces of
production. Marx stresses that, for pre-capitalist societies, the
established relations of production tend to retard the forces of
production. Under capitalism, by contrast, the survival of each
individual capital depends upon expanding the forces of production at
its disposal more rapidly than its rivals:
‘The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the
instruments of production and thereby the relations of production and
with them the whole relations of society… Constant revolutionising of
production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions,
everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch
from all earlier ones.’ Mаrx & Еngеls, Thе Cоmmunіst Mаnіfеstо іn
Sеlеctеd Wоrks, Mоscоw, 1962, Vоl. 1, p. 37.
Marx holds that the contradiction between the forces of production and
the relations of production still comes to the fore eventually, but in a
quite specific way.
The growth of the social productive forces of humanity – increased
productivity – involves combining ever greater amounts of past labour to
each unit of present labour. Under capitalism this takes the form of an
increase in the ratio of investment to the workforce. Investment grows
more rapidly than the source of all potential profit, living labour. Yet
the mainspring of production in this system is the rate of profit, i.e.
the ratio of profit to investment.
The contradiction between the drive to invest and the low level of
profit to sustain investment finds expression, for Marx, in a growing
tendency to stagnation in the system, ever greater disproportions
between the different elements of the economy, and ever deeper economic
crises. For those of us who live in the 20th century, it also means an
ever present tendency for economic competition to turn into military
conflict, with the threat of the forces of production turning into full
fledged forces of destruction. Fоr а much fullеr dеvеlоpmеnt оf thеsе
іdеаs sее my Еxplаіnіng thе Crіsіs, Bооkmаrks, Lоndоn, 1984.
A second difference lies in the way in which under capitalism there is
not only a conflict between the development of economic relations and
non-economic constraints on them, but also a conflict between different
elements of the economy, some of which are seen by Marx as ‘more basic’
than others. The source of surplus value lies in the realm of
production. But growing out of the realm of production are a whole range
of activities to do with the distribution of this surplus between
different elements of the capitalist class – the buying and selling of
commodities, the credit system, the stock market, and so on. These take
on a life of their own in a similar way to the different elements in the
political and ideological superstructure, and that life affects what
happens in the realm of production. Yet, at the end of the day, they
cannot escape the fundamental fact that the surplus they dispose of
comes from exploitation at the point of production – something which
expresses itself in the sudden occurrence of cyclical crises.
None of this means that the distinction between base and superstructure
is redundant under capitalism. What it does mean is that there are even
more elements of contradiction in this system than previously. Analysing
these concretely is a precondition for knowing the way the system is
moving and the possibilities of building a determined revolutionary
opposition to it.
Superstructure and ideology
What is the relationship of ideas and ideology to the dichotomy of base
and superstructure?
Marx is insistent that ideas cannot be divorced from the social context
in which they arise. He says: ‘Definite forms of social consciousness
correspond to…the economic structure, the real basis’, ‘the mode of
production of material life conditions the social, political and
intellectual life process in general’, ‘social being… determines…
consciousness’ [my emphases].
To understand these strong assertions you have to understand how Marx
sees ideas and language as developing.
Ideas arise, for him, out of the material interaction of human beings
with the world and each other:
‘The production of ideas of conceptions of consciousness is at first
directly interwoven with the material activity and the material
intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the
material intercourse of men appear at this stage as the direct efflux of
their material behaviour. The same applies to mental production as
expressed in the language of politics, laws, morality, religions,
metaphysics, etc of a people. Men are the producers of their
conceptions, ideas, etc – real active men, as they are conditioned by
the development of their productive forces and the forms of intercourse
corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness can
never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of
men is their actual life process.’ Thе Gеrmаn Іdеоlоgy, оp. cіt., p. 36.
Every idea can be shown to have its origin in the material activity of
humans:
‘We set out from real active men and on the basis of this we demonstrate
the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life
process. The phantoms of the human brain are necessarily sublimates of
men’s material life process, which can be empirically established and
which is bound to material preconditions.’ іbіd., p. 36.
He implies there are a number of stages in the development of
consciousness. Animals do not possess consciousness; at most they are
immediately aware of fleeting impressions around them. Humans begin to
move beyond this stage of immediate awareness only as they begin to
interact socially with each other on a regular basis, in acting
collectively to control their environment. So he argues that it is only
when humans have developed to the stage of ‘primary historical relations
do we find that man also possesses “consciousness”.’ іbіd., p. 43.
In the process of acting together to get a livelihood, humans create for
the first time a material medium that enables them to fix fleeting
impressions as permanent concepts:
‘From the start the ‘spirit’ is afflicted with the curse of being
‘burdened’ with matter, which here makes its appearance in the form of
agitated layers of air, sounds, in short in language. Language is as old
as consciousness, language is practical consciousness that exits for
other men and for that reason alone it really exists for me personally
as well; language like consciousness only arises from the need, the
necessity of intercourse with other men.’ іbіd., pp. 43-44.
Or, as he puts it elsewhere, ‘language is the immediate actuality of
thought’. іbіd., p. 446.
Knowledge, then, is a social product. It arises out of the need for
communication, which in turn is a product of the need to carry out
social production. Consciousness is the subjective expression of
objectively existing relations. It originates as consciousness of
participation in those relationships. Its embodiment, language, is a
material process which is one of the constituents of these
relationships. ‘Ideas and thoughts of people, then, are ideas and
thoughts about themselves and of people in general…for it [is] the
consciousness not merely of a single individual but of the individual in
his interconnection with the whole of society’. іbіd., p. 83.
Marx’s materialism amounts to this. Mind is developed upon the basis of
matter. It depends for its functioning upon the satisfaction of the
needs of the human body. It depends for the form of its consciousness
upon the real relationships between individuals. The content of the
individual mind depends upon the individual’s material interaction with
the world and other people.
But the human mind cannot simply be reduced to matter. The individual
human being who thinks has the ability to act. The subjective develops
out of the objective, but is still real.
As Marx put it in the first of the Theses on Feuerbach: ‘The chief
defect of all hitherto existing materialism is that the thing, reality,
sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of an object of
contemplation, but not as human sensuous activity, not subjectively …
Feuerbach does not conceive human activity itself as objective
activity.’
However, if Marx asserts the reality of individual thought and activity,
he also emphasises their limits. Thought arises from activity. And as
soon as the link with activity is broken, thought is seen to lose some
of its content: ‘Man must prove the truth, i.e. the reality and power,
the this-sidedness of his thinking, in practice.’
So thinking is only ‘real’ in so far as it has practical application,
insofar as it alters the world. There is an objective reality apart from
human awareness. But it is only through their activity that humans can
make contact with this reality, link their consciousness to it ‘The
question of whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking
is not a question of theory but is a practical question… the dispute
over the reality or non-reality of thinking that is isolated from
practice is a purely scholastic question’. Mаrx & Еngеls, Cоllеctеd
Wоrks, Vоl. 5, pp. 3-5.
It is in the coming together of humanity and the world in activity that
both the reality of the world and the truth of thought are determined.
Marx’s historical materialism does not hold that will, consciousness and
intention play no part in history. Human action is continually changing
the world in which human beings find themselves, and their relationships
with each other.
The mechanical materialist Kautskyite interpretation of Marxism makes
the very mistake Marx himself ascribes to Feuerbach. It fails to see
that history is the history of human activity. But social activity
involves consciousness.
It is human beings with particular ideas who invent new tools, challenge
existing ways of living, organise revolutionary movements or fight to
defend the status quo. The contradictions between the forces of
production and the relations of production, between the base and the
superstructure, find expression in arguments, organised disagreements
and bitter struggles between people. These are part of the real
development of society. To deny that is to present a picture of society
in which explosive antagonisms no longer exist.
But consciousness never arises in a void. It is a subjective link
between objective processes. The ideas of any individual or group
develop on the basis of material reality and feed back into that
reality. They cannot be reduced to that reality, but neither can they be
divorced from it.
It is this link which enables us to make sense of Marx’s notions of
‘false consciousness’ and ‘ideology’.
False consciousness
When people are engaged in material practice they have an immediate
awareness of their action and of the part of the world it impinges on
which is unlikely to be false. Unless they are blind or deranged they
know they are digging into the ground or aiming rifles at other people,
or whatnot. At this level their activity and their consciousness
coincide. But the content of this consciousness is minimal. In fact it
hardly deserves the name ‘consciousness’ at all.
But alongside such immediate awareness there is always a more general
consciousness. This attempts to go beyond that which people immediately
know and to provide some overall conception of the context they find
themselves in. It tells them, for instance, that they are not simply
digging, but are providing themselves with a future livelihood, or that
they are not simply aiming their rifles, but are defending their
‘fatherland’.
There is no guarantee of the ‘truth’ or ‘reality’ of this general
consciousness. An economic crisis can mean that, however hard you dig,
you won’t be able to sell the crop you grow and gain a livelihood; your
rifle may be defending the profits of a multinational, not some alleged
‘fatherland’.
Whereas immediate consciousness is part and parcel of your activity and
therefore must be ‘real’ in certain very limited senses, general
consciousness can be no more than a blind accompaniment to activity. In
this sense it finds no expression in the world. It has, in Marx’s words,
no ‘this-sidedness’ and no ‘reality’. Or the outcome of the activity it
guides is different to what is expected. Its objective content is
different to its subjective content. It is at best partially ‘real’. Thе
dіstіnctіоn bеtwееn dіffеrеnt fоrms оf cоnscіоusnеss wаs оnе оf thе
fruіts оf Gеrmаn phіlоsоphy аnd іs tо bе fоund іn thе еаrlіеr pаrt оf
Hеgеl, Phеnоmеnоlоgy оf Mіnd. Mаrx, оf cоursе, gіvеs а dіffеrеnt
sіgnіfіcаncе tо thіs dіstіnctіоn thаn dоеs Hеgеl. Thе prоblеm оf hоw іt
іs pоssіblе tо mоvе frоm ‘іmmеdіаtе’ cоnscіоusnеss tо а truе gеnеrаl оr
‘mеdіаtеd’ cоnscіоusnеss іs thе cоncеrn оf Lukaacs’ mаjоr phіlоsоphіcаl
еssаy, “Rеіfіcаtіоn аnd thе Cоnscіоusnеss оf thе Prоlеtаrіаt” іn Hіstоry
аnd Clаss Cоnscіоusnеss, оp. cіt., p. 446.
Yet Marx is insistent that even ‘false’ general consciousness originates
in real activity. So in criticising one particular form of ‘unreal’
consciousness, the ‘German’ ideology of idealist philosophy, he writes:
‘The philosophers would only have to dissolve their language into the
ordinary language from which it is abstracted to recognise it as the
distorted language of the actual world and to realise that neither
thought nor language in themselves form a reality of their own, that
they are only manifestations of actual life…
For philosophers one of the most difficult tasks is to descend from the
world of thought to the actual world. Language is the immediate
actuality of thought. Just as philosophers have given thought an
independent existence, so they had to make language into an independent
realm. This is the secret of philosophical language in which thoughts in
the form of words have their own context. The problem of descending from
the world of thoughts to the actual world is turned into the problem of
descending from language to life.’ Thе Gеrmаn Іdеоlоgy, оp. cіt., p.
446.
‘We have seen that the whole problem of the transition from thought to
reality, hence from language to life, exists only in philosophical
illusion.’ Іbіd, p449.
Such a view of abstract philosophical thought leads straight to the
contempt for it expressed in the Theses on Feuerbach: ‘Social life is
essentially practical. All the mysteries which mislead theory into
mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the
contemplation of this practice.’
On the face of it, the view he puts forward is very close to that of
philosophers who have denied any possibility of general philosophical,
social or historical notions. Thus the linguistic philosophy of
Wittgenstein claims that all the traditional problems of philosophy
arise because philosophers have taken the concepts of ordinary life and
used them out of context. Fоr а cоmpаrіsоn bеtwееn Mаrx аnd
Wіttgеnstеіn, sее А. MаcІntyrе, ‘Brеаkіng thе Chаіns оf Rеаsоn”, іn Е.P.
Thоmpsоn (еd.), Оut оf Аpаthy, Lоndоn, 1960, p. 234.
In a somewhat similar way ‘historicist’ thinkers have insisted that no
idea or social practice can be understood outside the particular
historical and cultural context in which it is found; any attempt at a
wider explanation must be false. І usе ‘hіstоrіcіst’ hеrе іn thе
trаdіtіоnаl sеnsе оf а rеlаtіvіsm whіch sаys thаt thеrе аrе nо gеnеrаl
crіtеrіа оf truth оr fаlsіty, but thаt thе cоrrеctnеss оf іdеаs dеpеnds
оn thе cоncrеtе hіstоrіcаl sіtuаtіоn іn whіch thеy аrе put fоrwаrd. Thіs
іs, fоr іnstаncе, thе sеnsе іn whіch thе tеrm іs usеd by Grаmscі. Іt іs
nоt tо bе cоnfusеd wіth Kаrl Pоppеr’s usе оf іt іn Thе Pоvеrty оf
Hіstоrіcіsm аs а tеrm оf аbusе tо rеfеr tо vіrtuаlly аny gеnеrаl аccоunt
оf hіstоry.
But Marx’s view is very different to these. They see false notions as
arising as a result of the strange desire of philosophers to generalise,
of a weird ‘mental cramp’ which afflicts people. And they conclude that
all generalisation is wrong.
Marx, by contrast, sees false generalisation, the result of the divorce
of theory from practice, as itself having material roots. Only in a
society without classes can the general notions develop straight out of
the immediate experiences of people, without distortion. For everyone in
society is then involved in a single, shared cooperative activity.
Ideology and class society
Once there is a division between exploiting and exploited classes, and,
based on that, a growing division between mental and manual labour, the
single practice disintegrates and with it, the possibility of a single
view of the world.
In a class society the social whole is continually rent asunder by the
clash between the development of the forces of production and the
existing relations of production, a clash which finds expression in the
struggle between different social groups.
Different groups will have different practical aims, some in the
preservation of existing social relations, some in their overthrow so as
to allow the development of new social relations based upon new forces
of production. The result is that different sections of society have
different experiences of social reality. Each will tend to develop its
own overall view of society, which will be markedly different to that
developed by the others.
Such views are not only accounts of what society is like. They also
serve to bind people together for the practical task of preserving or
transforming society, for each prioritises some sorts of practical
social activity to the detriment of others.
It is only in the minds of certain empiricist philosophers that
description and prescription, fact and value are distinct. What is
‘good’ or ‘valuable’ from the point of view of one social group and its
activity will be ‘bad’ for another social group. What one section of
society sees as essential to the preservation of social life, because it
preserves the existing relations of production, will be seen as bad by
another because it obstructs the development of new forces of
production. Categories which were previously unproblematic, simply
descriptions of what was necessary to maintain society and human life,
become prescriptions expressing the desires of different, opposed
groups.
The struggle for social domination between the different groups is, in
part, a struggle by each to impose its view of society, its way of
organising social activity, upon the others. It has to assert that its
notions are ‘true’ and the others ‘false’; or at least to show that the
meaning given by other social groups to their activities can be
subordinated to its own overall visions of the world.
The attempt of philosophers to measure rival conceptions of the world
against a single lodestone of ‘truth’ is pan of this struggle. They
attempt to generalise the experience of a particular class in such a way
as to enable it to dominate the thinking of other classes. But because
of the real contradictions between the experiences and interests of
different classes, this is an endless quest. Any philosophical view can
always be countered by another, since each has roots in the
contradictory experiences of material life. That is why every great
philosophy eventually slides into mysticism.
But this does not mean, for Marx, that different views of the world are
equally valid (or equally false). For some provide a more comprehensive
view of society and its development than others.
A social group identified with the continuation of the old relations of
production and the old institutions of the superstructure necessarily
only has a partial view (or a series of partial views) of society as a
whole. Its practice is concerned with the perpetuation of what already
exists, with ‘sanctifying’ the accomplished fact. Anything else can only
be conceived as a disruption or destruction of a valuable, harmonious
arrangement. Therefore even at times of immense social crisis, its
picture of society is one of a natural, eternally recurring harmony
somehow under attack from incomprehensible, irrational forces.
Ideology and science
A rising social group, associated with an advance of the productive
forces, has a quite different approach. At first, at least, has no fear
of new forms of social activity which disrupt the old relations of
production and their superstructure along with it. It identifies with
and understands these new forms of activity. Yet at the same time,
because it is also in collision with the old order, it has practical
experiences of that as well. It can develop some sort of view of society
which sees how all the different elements fit together, the forces of
production and the relations of production, the base and the
superstructure, the oppressed class and the oppressing class.
Because it has a practical interest in transforming society, its general
ideas do not have to be either a blind commentary on events or a
mysticism aimed simply at preserving the status quo. They can be a
source of real knowledge about society. They can act not just as a
banner to rally people behind, but as a guide to effective action. They
can be scientific, despite their origin in the practice of one social
group.
Marx certainly thought this was the case with classical political
economy. Again and again he refers to the ‘scientific’ merit of the
writings of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, and even of some of the
mercantilist and physiocratic economists who preceded them.
They were ‘scientific’ because they tried to cut through the superficial
appearances of society to grasp the ‘inner connections between the
economic categories – or the hidden structure of the bourgeois economic
system’, ‘to attempt to penetrate the inner physiology of bourgeois
society…’ Thеоrіеs оf Surplus Vаluе, Lоndоn, 1951, p. 202.
This ‘esoteric’ approach, which looks to the underlying social reality,
is in marked contrast with a simply ‘exoteric’ approach which takes for
granted the existing external social forms. The classical political
economists never succeed fully in breaking with the ‘exoteric’ method,
but they begin to move in that direction, and in doing so lay the basis
for a scientific understanding of the inner structure of capitalism.
Their ability to develop a scientific understanding is related to the
class they identify with – the rising industrial capitalists. Marx
described Smith, for instance, as ‘the interpreter of the frankly
bourgeois upstart’, Thеоrіеs оf Surplus Vаluе, Vоl. 1, Mоscоw nd, p.
279. ‘writing in ‘the language of the still revolutionary bourgeoisie,
which has not yet subjected to itself the whole of society, the state,
etc’. іbіd, p. 291.
Because the industrial capitalists do not yet control society, they have
to adopt a critical view of its external features, to seek an objective
analysis of the extent to which these features fit in with the drive to
capital accumulation. This leads to the attempt to locate the production
of wealth in the labour process, and to contrast ‘productive’ labour
which creates surplus value with the parasitic functions of the old
state, church and so on.
Ideology and the superstructure
The situation changes radically when the rising class has consolidated
its hold. Then it no longer has any use for a revolutionary critical
attitude towards society as a whole. The only practical activity it is
interested in is that which reproduces existing economic and social
relations. And so its ‘theory’ degenerates into attempts to take
different superficial aspects of existing society and present them as if
they provided general laws about what all societies must be like.
For Marx, ‘ideology’ is a product of this situation. The dominant social
class controls the means by which a distinct layer of people can be
freed from physical labour so as to engage in intellectual production.
But, dependent upon the ruling class for their sustenance, these
‘intellectuals’ will tend to identify with it – the ruling class
establishes all sorts of mechanisms to ensure that.
Identifying with the ruling class means stopping short of any total
critique of existing social relations and taking for granted the form in
which they present themselves. The particular aspects of existing
society are then seen as self-sustaining, as lacking any common root in
social production.
So you get a series of separate, self-contained disciplines: ‘politics’,
‘neo-classical economics’, ‘psychology’, ‘sociology’ and so on. Each of
these treats aspects of a unitary social development as if they occurred
independently of each other. ‘History’ becomes a more or less arbitrary
linking together of events and personages. And philosophy becomes the
attempt to overcome the separation of these disciplines through looking
at the concepts they use at ever greater degrees of remoteness from the
world of material production and intercourse.
Such ways of looking at the world are ‘ideological’, not because they
are necessarily conscious apologetics for the existing ruling class, but
because the very way in which they are structured prevents them seeing
beyond the activities and ideas which reproduce existing society – and
therefore also the ruling class – to the material processes in which
these are grounded. They sanctify the status quo because they take the
concepts it uses at face value, instead of-seeing them as transitory
products of social development.
‘Ideology’ in this sense is linked to the superstructure. It plays about
with concepts which arise in the superstructure, seeking to link and
derive one from the other, without ever cutting through surface
appearances to look at the real process of social production in which
the superstructure and its concepts arise.
It is the contradictions of such ‘ideological’ arguments that can only
‘be resolved by the descent from language to life’.
But this descent can only be made by thinkers who identify with a rising
class. For they alone are identified with a practice which puts into
question all existing social relations, seeking to criticise what
happens on the surface of society, linking it to underlying relations of
material production and exploitation.
While the thinkers of an established ruling class are confined to
continual elaboration in the realm of ideology, the thinkers of a rising
class can begin to develop a scientific understanding of social
development.
Our theory and theirs
A rising class’ thinkers cannot simply proclaim that they have the
truth. They have to prove it.
First, they have to show that they can take up and develop the insights
which the thinkers of earlier rising classes made. So, for instance,
Marx set out in his economic writings not simply to give his explanation
of the workings of capitalism, but also to show how he could complete
the work of classical political economy by solving problems it had set
itself without success.
Second, it has to be able to show how the superficial social features
which ideology deals with can be derived from the underlying social
processes it describes. As Marx puts it, it has to be able to derive the
‘exoteric’ from the ‘esoteric’. So a scientific Marxist analysis of any
society has to be able to provide an understanding of the various
ideological currents of that society, showing how they arise out of the
real world, expressing certain aspects of it, but in a distorted way.
Finally, at the end of the day, there is only one real test of any
science: its ability to guide practice. And so arguments within Marxism
itself can only be finally resolved in the course of revolutionary
working class struggle.
A very important point underlies all this discussion. Not all ideas
about society are ‘ideological’. The scientific understanding which the
thinkers of a rising class develop is not. Nor is the immediate
awareness which people have of their actions. This only becomes
‘ideological’ when it is interpreted through a framework of general
ideas provided by an established ruling class. By contrast, if it is
interpreted through the theory of a rising class, it is on its way to
becoming the true self-consciousness of a society.
‘Ideology’ is part of the superstructure in the sense that it is a
passive element in the social process, helping to reproduce old
relations of production. But revolutionary self-consciousness is not. It
is an active element, arising out of people’s material circumstances,
but feeding back into them to change them.
In the real world there are all sorts of hybrid sets of ideas which lie
somewhere in between science and ideology, between true and false
consciousness. People’s experience can be of partial challenges to the
existing society. They gain partial insights into the real structure of
society, but seek to interpret them through piecemeal adjustments to old
ideological frameworks.
Even the output of the ideologies of the existing order cannot be
dismissed out of hand. The worst of them cannot completely ignore those
experiences of the mass of people which challenge the ruling class’s
view of the world: their ideological function means they have, somehow,
to try to prove that those experiences are compatible with the ruling
class’s view. So the worst hack journalists or TV commentators have to
recognise that there is opposition to the ruling class, reporting on
strikes, demonstrations and so on, if only to condemn such struggles and
to isolate those involved in them. The worst pulp novelists have to
start from some image of ordinary people’s lives, however distorted, if
they are to find a mass audience. The most reactionary priests are only
effective insofar as they can provide illusory relief to the real
problems of their parishioners.
This leads to all sorts of contradictions within the ruling ideology.
Some of its most prominent proponents can be those who make most efforts
to relate to people’s lived experiences. The ideology itself encourages
‘social scientists’, historians, writers, artists and even theologians
to make enormous efforts to fit empirical observation and experience
into their accounts of reality. But this inevitably leads to
contradictory accounts, with some of the ideologues beginning to
question some of the tenets of the established ideology. Marx recognised
that a great writer or artist is able to reflect all the contradictory
experiences that beset people who live in his or her society, and, in
the process to begin to go beyond the limits set by his or her class
position. In a few cases this even leads them to a break with their own
class and to identify with the revolutionary opposition to it.
A scientific understanding of social development demands a complete
break with the whole method of the pseudo-social sciences of those who
defend the existing social order. But that does not mean that we can
neglect the elements of truth that those who practise these disciplines
stumble across. Still less can we ignore the often quite profound grasp
of the social process to be found in certain non-Marxist historians or
in great novelists like Balzac or Walter Scott.
Marxism shows its superiority over bourgeois thought not by simply
treating all bourgeois thinkers with contempt, but rather by showing
that it can encapsulate the advances made by bourgeois thinkers into its
own total view of reality – something which no bourgeois ‘social
scientist’ can do and which no bourgeois thinker has attempted since
Hegel.
The central role of class struggle
The Marxist approach begins, then, by pointing to the contradictory ways
in which the forces of production and the relations of production, the
base and the superstructure, material reality and people’s ideas,
develop. But none of these contradictions simply resolve themselves, as
the mechanical materialists assert. Their resolution only takes place on
the basis of the struggles of human beings, of class struggles.
Once you have societies divided between those who produce directly and
those who live off a surplus product, any growth of the productive
forces, however slow and piecemeal, leads to a corresponding change in
the objective weight of the different classes in society. And some ways
of developing the productive forces lead to qualitative changes, to new
ways of extracting a surplus, to the embryos of new exploiting and
exploited classes (and, eventually, to the formation of a class that can
run society without exploiting anyone).
But the new ways of producing always face resistance from at least some
of those whose interests lie in preservation of the old ways. The
advance of every new mode of production is always marked by bitter class
wars (even if, as with the religious wars of the 16th and 17th
centuries, these ways do not always involve clean breaks between
classes, but often complicated, cross-cutting alliances between the most
dynamic section of the rising class and certain interest groups within
the old order). Whether the new ways of producing break through depends
on who wins these struggles. Economic developments are very important in
this. They determine the size of the different classes, their
geographical concentration (and therefore the ease with which they can
be organised), their degree of homogeneity, the physical resources at
their disposal.
Such direct economic factors can certainly create a situation in which
the rising class cannot gain a victory, whatever it does. The objective
balance of forces is too powerfully weighted the other way. But when the
objective factors create a situation of near equality of forces for the
rival classes, what come to matter are other factors – the ideological
homogeneity, the organisation and the leadership of the rival classes.
For the mechanical materialist, ideas are simply an automatic reflection
of material being. But in real historical processes of social
transformation it is never that simple.
The institutions of the old ruling class are continually trying to
define the ways in which people throughout society see themselves and
their relations with others. The members of the rising class at first
accept these definitions as the only ones available to them: so for
instance, the early medieval burghers accepted the precepts of medieval
Catholicism in their totality.
But the members of a rising class get involved in practical activity
which cannot easily be encompassed by the old definitions. People begin
to do things which the old world view says they should not. The
institutions that enforce the old worldview then threaten punitive
action against them.
At this point two options are open. Those involved in the new forms of
activity concede to the pressures on them from the old order, and the
new forms of activity cease. Or they generalise their clash with the old
ideology, developing out of elements of it a new total worldview, behind
which they attempt to rally all those in a similar objective situation
to themselves.
A new system of ideas is not just a passive reflection of economic
changes. It is rather a key link in the process of social
transformation, mobilising those affected by cumulative small-scale
changes in production into a force whose aim is to change social
relations in their entirety.
Take, for instance, the classic debate on Protestantism and the rise of
capitalism. According to opponents of Marxism, like Max Weber, it was
the autonomous ‘non-economic’ development of a new religious ideology
which alone provided the ground in which new capitalist ways of
producing could take root. Puritanism caused capitalism.
According to the mechanical materialists, it was the other way round.
Protestantism was simply a mechanical reflection of the development of
capitalist relations. Capitalism was the cause, Protestantism was the
effect.
Each missed out a vital link in the chain of historical development.
Protestantism developed because some people in a feudal society began to
work and live in ways that are not easily reconcilable with the dominant
ideology of medieval Catholicism. They began to reinterpret some of its
tenets so as to make sense of their new forms of behaviour. But this led
to clashes with the ideological guardians of the old order (the church
hierarchy). At this point a series of figures emerged who tried to
generalise the challenge to the old ideology – Luther, Calvin, etc.
Where the challenge was unsuccessful or where those who made it were
forced to compromise (as in Germany, France and Italy), the new ways of
working and living became no more than marginal elements in a continuing
feudal society. But where the challenge was successful (in Britain and
the Netherlands) it liberated the new ways of working and living from
the old constraints – it generalised bourgeois forms of production.
The same relationship holds between the workers’ struggle under
capitalism and the ideas of revolutionary socialism.
Initially, workers try to fit their experience of fighting back against
aspects of capitalism into ideological frameworks that are bequeathed to
them from the past. These frameworks shape the form their struggles
take, so that the struggles are never a simple reflection of material
interests. ‘The deadweight of the past hangs like a nightmare on the
brain of the living’, as Marx put it. Thе Еіghtееnth Brumаіrе оf Lоuіs
Bоnаpаrtе іn Cоllеctеd Wоrks, Vоl. 11, p. 103. Іt іs nоnsеnsе fоr
pоst-Аlthussеrіаns lіkе Gаrеth Stеdmаn Jоnеs tо clаіm thаt а Mаrxіst
аpprоаch іnvоlvеs аn аttеmpt tо ‘dеcоdе… pоlіtіcаl lаnguаgе tо rеаd а
prіmаl аnd mаtеrіаl еxprеssіоn оf іntеrеst’, Lаnguаgе оf Clаss, оp.
cіt., p. 21. But the process of trying to interpret their new
experiences through old frameworks creates a tension within the old
frameworks, which is only resolved as people try to change the
frameworks.
As Antonio Gramsci put it, ‘The active man of the masses works
practically, but he does not have a clear, theoretical consciousness of
his actions, which is also a knowledge of the world insofar as he
changes it.’ So there are ‘two sorts of consciousness’, that ‘implicit
in his actions’, and that ‘superficially explicit, which he has
inherited from the past and which he accepts without criticism’:
“This ‘verbal’ conception is not without consequences; it binds him to a
certain social group, influences his moral behaviour and the direction
of his will in a more or less powerful way, and it can reach the point
where the contradiction of consciousness will not permit any action…
[Therefore] the unity of theory and practice is not a given mechanical
fact, but a historical process of becoming.” Аntоnіо Grаmscі,
“Аvrіаmеntо аllо Studіо dеllа Fіlоsоfіа dеl Mаtеrіаlіsmо Stоrіcо” іn
Mаtеrіаlіsmо Stоrіcо (Turіn, 1948), trаnslаtеd іn Thе Mоdеrn Prіncе,
Lоndоn, 1957, pp. 66-67.
Thus the Chartists of the 1830s and 1840s attempted to come to terms
with new experiences through older, radical democratic notions. But this
created all sorts of contradictory ideological formulations. That was
why some of the most popular orators and writers were people like
Bronterre O’Brien, Julian Harvey and Ernest Jones who began to
articulate people’s experience in newer, more explicitly socialist ways.
Marxism itself was not a set of ideas that emerged fully formed out of
the heads of Marx and Engels and then magically took a grip of the
working class movement. The birth of the theory was dependent on a
distillation by Marx and Engels of the experiences of the young workers’
movement in the years prior to 1848. It has been accepted by workers
since then, insofar as it has fitted in with what struggles were already
beginning to teach them. But its acceptance has then fed back into the
struggles to influence their outcome.
The theory does not simply reflect workers’ experience under capitalism;
it generalises some elements of that experience (those of struggling
against capitalism) into a consciousness of the system as a whole. In
doing so, it gives new insights into how to wage the struggle and a new
determination to fight.
Theory develops on the basis of practice, but feeds back into practice
to influence its effectiveness.
The point is important because theory is not always correct theory.
There have historically been very important workers’ struggles waged
under the influence of incorrect theories:
Proudhonism and Blanquism in France in the second half of the 19th
century; Lassallianism in Germany; Narodnism and even Russian
Orthodoxism in Russia in the years before 1905;
Peronism in Argentina; Catholicism and nationalism in Poland; and, of
course, the terrible twins, social democracy and Stalinism.
In all of these cases workers have gone into struggle influenced by
‘hybrid’ views of the world – views which combine a certain immediate
understanding of the needs of class struggle with a more general set of
ideas accepting key elements of existing society. Such a false
understanding of society in its totality leads to enormous blunders –
blunders which again and again have led to massive defeats.
In the face of such confusion and such defeats, nothing is more
dangerous than to say that ideas inevitably catch up with reality, that
victory is certain. For this invariably leads to a downplaying of the
importance of combining the practical and the ideological struggle.
The role of the party in history
The other side of the coin to the mechanical materialists’ downgrading
of the ideological struggle has been a tendency for certain socialist
academics to treat the ideological struggle as something quite separate
from practical conflicts. This is especially true of the reformists of
the now defunct Marxism Today and of the Labour left.
But the struggle of ideas always grows out of struggle in the world of
material practice, where ideas have their root, and always culminates in
further such material struggles. It was the everyday activity of
craftsmen and merchants under feudalism which gave rise to heretical,
Protestant, religious formulations. And it was the all too real activity
of armies which fought across the length and breadth of Europe which, at
the end of the day, determined the success or failure of the new
ideology.
The new idealists often claim their theoretical inspiration from Antonio
Gramsci, but he was insistent on the connection between theoretical and
practical struggle:
‘When the problem of the relation of theory and practice arises, it does
so in this sense: to construct on a determined practice a theory that,
coinciding and being identified with the decisive elements of the same
practice, accelerates the historical process in act, makes the practice
more homogeneous, coherent and efficacious in all its elements, that is,
giving it the maximum force; or else, given a certain theoretical
problem, to organise the essential practical elements to put it into
operation.’ Mаtеrіаlіsmо Stоrіcо, оp. cіt., p. 38.
If you want to challenge capitalism’s ideological hold today, you cannot
do so unless you relate to people whose everyday struggles lead them to
begin to challenge certain of its tenets. And if you want to carry the
challenge through to the end, you have to understand that the
ideological struggle transforms itself into practical struggle.
The transformation of practice into theory and theory into practice does
not take place of its own accord. “A human mass does not ‘distinguish’
itself and does not become independent ‘by itself’ without organising
itself, and there is no organisation without intellectuals, that is,
without organisers and leaders…” іbіd., trаnslаtеd іn Thе Mоdеrn Prіncе,
оp. cіt., p. 67.
A rising class develops a clear set of ideas insofar as a polarisation
takes place within it, and what is, at first, a minority of the class
carrying the challenge to the old ideology through to its logical
conclusion.
At a certain stage in the ideological and practical struggle that
minority crystallises out as a separate ‘party’ (whether it calls itself
that or not). It is through the struggle of such parties that the
development of the forces and relations of production find expression in
new ideas, and that the new ideas are used to mobilise people to tear
the old superstructure apart. In a famous passage in What is to be
Done?, Lenin said that ‘political ideas’ are brought to the working
class from outside. If he meant that workers played no part in the
elaboration of the revolutionary socialist world view he was wrong. Аs
hе hіmsеlf lаtеr аdmіttеd. V.І. Lеnіn, Cоllеctеd Wоrks, Vоl. 6, p. 491.
If he meant that practical experience did not open workers up to
socialist ideas he was wrong. Nоtе hіs cоmmеnt іn 1905, ‘Thе wоrkіng
clаss іs іnstіnctіvеly, spоntаnеоusly, sоcіаl dеmоcrаtіc…’, quоtеd іn
Chrіs Hаrmаn, “Pаrty аnd Clаss” іn Tоny Clіff еt. аl., Pаrty аnd Clаss,
Bооkmаrks, Lоndоn, 1996. But if he meant to stress that socialist ideas
do not conquer the class without the separation off of a distinct
socialist organisation, which is built through a long process of
ideological and practical struggle, he was absolutely right.
The famous discussions of the mechanical materialists were about the
‘role of the individual in history’. Gеоrgі Plеkhаnоv, Thе Rоlе оf thе
Іndіvіduаl іn Hіstоry, оp. cіt. But it was not the individual, but the
party, which became central for the non-mechanical, non-voluntaristic
materialism of the revolutionary years after 1917.
Trotsky explains in his masterpiece, the History of the Russian
Revolution, that revolutions occur precisely because the superstructure
does not change mechanically with every change in the economic base:
‘Society does not change its institutions as the need arises the way a
mechanic changes his instruments. On the contrary, society actually
takes the institutions which hang upon it as given once and for all. For
decades the oppositional criticism is nothing more than a safety valve
for mass dissatisfaction, a condition of the stability of the social
structure.’ Lеоn Trоtsky, Hіstоry оf thе Russіаn Rеvоlutіоn, Lоndоn
1965, Prеfаcе tо Vоl. 1, p. 18.
The ‘radical turns which take place in the course of a revolution’ are
not simply the result of ‘episodic economic disturbances’. ‘It would be
the crudest mistake to assume that the second revolution [of 1917] was
accomplished eight months after the first owing to the fact that the
bread ration was lowered from one and a half pounds to three quarters of
a pound.’ An attempt to explain things in these terms ‘exposes to
perfection the worthlessness of that vulgarly economic interpretation of
history which is frequently given out as Marxism’. іbіd., Іntrоductіоn
tо Vоls. 2 & 3, p. 510.
What become decisive are ‘swift, intense and passionate changes in the
psychology of classes which have already been formed before the
revolution’. іbіd., Prеfаcе, p. 8. ‘Revolutions are accomplished through
people, although they be nameless. Materialism does not ignore the
feeling, thinking, acting man, but explains him’. іbіd., Іntrоductіоn,
p. 511.
Parties are an integral part of the revolutionary process:
‘They constitute not an independent, but nevertheless a very important
element in the process.
Without the guiding organisation, the energy of the masses would
dissipate like steam not enclosed in a piston box. But nevertheless,
what moves things is not the piston or the box, but the steam.’ іbіd.,
p. 9.
But parties always involve a subjective element in the way that economic
forces and the formation of classes do not. Parties have to be organised
around certain ideological postulates, and that requires the effort,
activity and argument of individuals.
In Russia in 1917 the contradictions in material reality could not be
resolved without the working class seizing power. But the working class
could not become conscious of that need without a minority in the class
separating itself off from the ideas of the majority. There needed to be
‘the break of the proletarian vanguard with the petty bourgeois bloc’.
іbіd., Vоl. 1, p. 334. Many workers began to move, under the pressure of
events, to make this break. But they were held back at first from
consummating the break because of their own confused ideas: ‘They did
not know how to refuse the premise about the bourgeois character of the
revolution and the danger of the isolation of the proletariat’. іbіd.,
p. 302. ‘The dictatorship of the proletariat was to be inferred from the
whole situation, but it had still to be established. It could not be
established without a party’. іbіd., p. 343.
The fact that the human material existed to build a party before 1917
was a result of objective historical developments. But these
developments had to find expression in the activity and ideas of
individuals. And once the revolution started, the activity of the party
was not a blind reflection of reality. True, ‘The party could fulfil its
mission only by understanding it’, іbіd, p. 343. but that depended on
the ability of different individuals to articulate ideas about the
objective situation and to win party members to them.
This was where, for Trotsky, one individual, Lenin, did play an
unparalleled role. He was ‘needed’ for the party to understand events
and act effectively. ‘Until his arrival, not one of the Bolshevik
leaders dared to make a diagnosis of the revolution.’
He was not a ‘demiurge of the revolutionary process’, acting on it as an
arbitrary element from outside. ‘He merely entered into the chain of
objective historical forces. But he was a great link in that chain.’
Without Lenin many workers were beginning to grope towards a knowledge
of what needed to be done. But their groping needed to be generalised,
to become part of a new total view of the revolution. ‘Lenin did not
impose a plan on the masses: he helped the masses to recognise and
realise their own plan’. іbіd, p. 339.
The arguments would have taken place without him. But there is no
guarantee they would have been resolved in a way which would have
enabled the party to act decisively:
‘Inner struggle in the Bolshevik Party was absolutely unavoidable.
Lenin’s arrival merely hastened the process. His personal influence
shortened the crisis.
Is it possible, however, to say confidently that the party without him
would have found its road? We would by no means make bold to say that.
The factor of time is decisive here, and it is difficult in retrospect
to tell time historically.
Dialectical materialism at any rate has nothing in common with fatalism.
Without Lenin the crisis, which the opportunist leadership was
inevitably bound to produce, would have assumed an extraordinarily sharp
and protracted character. The conditions of war and revolution, however,
would not allow the party a long period for fulfilling its mission. Thus
it is by no means excluded that a disoriented and split party may have
let slip the revolutionary opportunity for many years.’ іbіd, p. 343.
The individual plays a role in history, but only insofar as the
individual is part of the process by which a party enables the class to
become conscious of itself.
An individual personality is a product of objective history (experience
of the class relations of the society in which he or she grows up,
previous attempts at rebellion, the prevailing culture, and so on). But
if he or she plays a role in the way a section of the class becomes
conscious of itself and organises itself as a party, he or she feeds
back into the historical process, becoming ‘a link in the historical
chain’.
For revolutionaries to deny this is to fall into a fatalism which tries
to shrug off all responsibility for the outcome of any struggle. It can
be just as dangerous as the opposed error of believing that the activity
of revolutionaries is the only thing that matters.
The point is absolutely relevant today. In modem capitalism there are
continual pressures on revolutionary Marxists to succumb to the
pressures of mechanical materialism on the one hand and of voluntaristic
idealism on the other.
Mechanical materialism fits the life of the bureaucracies of the Labour
movement. Their positions rest upon the slow accretion of influence
within existing society. They believe the future will always be a result
of gradual organic growth out of the present, without the leaps and
bounds of qualitative change. That is why a Marxism which is adjusted to
their work (like that of the former Militant tendency or the pro-Russian
wing of the old Communist Party) tends to be a Kautskyite Marxism.
The voluntarism of the new idealism fits in with the aspirations of the
new middle class and of reformist intellectuals. They live lives cut off
from the real process of production and exploitation, and easily fall
into believing that ideological conviction and commitment alone can
remove from the world the spectres of crisis, famine and war.
Revolutionary Marxism can only survive these pressures if it can group
fighting minorities into parties. These cannot jump outside material
history, but the contradictions of history cannot be resolved without
their own, conscious activity.
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