http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/
Trained
as a philosopher, Marx turned away from philosophy in his mid-twenties,
towards
economics and politics. However, in addition to his overtly
philosophical early
work, his later writings have many points of contact with contemporary
philosophical debates, especially in the philosophy of history and the
social
sciences, and in moral and political philosophy. Historical materialism —
Marx's theory of history — is centered around the idea that forms of
society
rise and fall as they further and then impede the development of human
productive power. Marx sees the historical process as proceeding
through a
necessary series of modes of production, characterized by class
struggle,
culminating in communism.
Marx's economic analysis of capitalism is based on his version of the
labour
theory of value, and includes the analysis of capitalist profit as the
extraction of surplus value from the exploited proletariat. The
analysis of
history and economics come together in Marx's prediction of the
inevitable
economic breakdown of capitalism, to be replaced by communism. However
Marx
refused to speculate in detail about the nature of communism, arguing
that it
would arise through historical processes, and was not the realisation
of a
pre-determined moral ideal.
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In The German
Ideology Marx
and Engels contrast their new materialist method with the idealism
which had
characterised previous German thought. Accordingly, they take
pains to set
out the ‘premises of the materialist method’. They start, they say, from ‘real
human beings’, emphasising that human beings are essentially
productive, in
that they must produce their means of subsistence in order to satisfy
their
material needs. The satisfaction
of needs engenders new needs of both a material and social kind, and forms of
society arise corresponding
to the state of development of human
productive forces.
Material life determines, or at least ‘conditions’ social life, and so
the
primary direction of social explanation is from material production to
social
forms, and thence to forms of consciousness. As the material means of production develop,
‘modes
of co-operation’ or economic structures rise and fall, and eventually
communism
will become a real possibility once the plight of the workers and their
awareness of an alternative motivates them sufficiently to become
revolutionaries.
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In
the sketch of The
German Ideology, all the key
elements of historical materialism are
present, even if the terminology is not yet that of Marx's more mature
writings. Marx's statement in 1859 Preface renders much the same view
in
sharper form. Cohen's reconstruction of Marx's view in the Preface
begins from
what Cohen calls the Development
Thesis,
which is pre-supposed, rather than explicitly stated
in the Preface. This is the thesis that
the productive forces tend to develop, in the sense of becoming more
powerful,
over time. This states not that they always do develop, but
that there is a
tendency for them to do so. The
productive forces are the means of production, together with
productively
applicable knowledge: technology, in other words. The next
thesis is the primacy
thesis,
which has two
aspects. The first states that the nature
of the economic structure is explained by the level of development of
the
productive forces, and the second that the nature of the superstructure
— the
political and legal institutions of society— is explained by the nature
of the
economic structure. The nature of a
society's ideology, which is to say the religious, artistic, moral and
philosophical beliefs contained within society, is also explained in
terms of
its economic structure, although this receives less emphasis
in Cohen's
interpretation. Indeed many activities may well combine aspects of both
the
superstructure and ideology: a religion is constituted by both
institutions and
a set of beliefs.
Revolution and epoch change
is understood as the consequence of an economic structure no longer
being able to continue to develop the forces of production.
At
this point the development of the productive forces is said to be
fettered,
and, according to the theory once an economic structure fetters
development it
will be revolutionised — ‘burst asunder’ — and eventually replaced with
an
economic structure better suited to preside over the continued
development of
the forces of production.
In outline, then, the theory has a pleasing simplicity and power. It seems plausible that human productive power develops over time, and plausible too that economic structures exist for as long as they develop the productive forces, but will be replaced when they are no longer capable of doing this. Yet severe problems emerge when we attempt to put more flesh on these bones.
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The theoretical issue is whether a plausible elaborating explanation is available to underpin Marxist functional explanations. Here there is something of a dilemma. In the first instance it is tempting to try to mimic the elaboration given in the Darwinian story, and appeal to chance variations and survival of the fittest. In this case ‘fittest’ would mean ‘most able to preside over the development of the productive forces’. Chance variation would be a matter of people trying out new types of economic relations. On this account new economic structures begin through experiment, but thrive and persist through their success in developing the productive forces. However the problem is that such an account would seem to introduce a larger element of contingency than Marx seeks, for it is essential to Marx's thought that one should be able to predict the eventual arrival of communism. Within Darwinian theory there is no warrant for long-term predictions, for everything depends on the contingencies of particular situations. A similar heavy element of contingency would be inherited by a form of historical materialism developed by analogy with evolutionary biology. The dilemma, then, is that the best model for developing the theory makes predictions based on the theory unsound, yet the whole point of the theory is predictive. Hence one must either look for an alternative means of producing elaborating explanation, or give up the predictive ambitions of the theory.
4.4 Rationality
The driving force of history, in Cohen's reconstruction of Marx, is the development of the productive forces, the most important of which is technology. But what is it that drives such development? Ultimately, in Cohen's account, it is human rationality. Human beings have the ingenuity to apply themselves to develop means to address the scarcity they find. This on the face of it seems very reasonable. Yet there are difficulties. As Cohen himself acknowledges, societies do not always do what would be rational for an individual to do. Co-ordination problems may stand in our way, and there may be structural barriers. Furthermore, it is relatively rare for those who introduce new technologies to be motivated by the need to address scarcity. Rather, under capitalism, the profit motive is the key. Of course it might be argued that this is the social form that the material need to address scarcity takes under capitalism. But still one may raise the question whether the need to address scarcity always has the influence that it appears to have taken on in modern times. For example, a ruling class's absolute determination to hold on to power may have led to economically stagnant societies. Alternatively, it might be thought that a society may put religion or the protection of traditional ways of life ahead of economic needs. This goes to the heart of Marx's theory that man is an essentially productive being and that the locus of interaction with the world is industry. As Cohen himself later argued in essays such as ‘Reconsidering Historical Materialism’, this may appear one-sided, and ignore other powerful elements in human nature. Such a criticism chimes with a criticism from the previous section; that the historical record may not, in fact, display the tendency to growth in the productive forces assumed by the theory.