IO The dependence of men on the conditions of production appears much more qualified in the explanation Friedrich Engels gives of historical materialism, during the lifetime of Karl Marx and in agreement with him, in his book against Dühring. There it reads that the " final causes of all social changes and political revolutions " are to be sought, not in the brains of men but 11 in changes of methods of production and exchange. M But " final causes " includes con- current causes of another kind — causes of the second or third degree, etc., and it is clear that the greater the series of such causes is, the more limited as to quantity and quality will be the determining power of the final causes. The fact of its action remains, but the final form of things does not depend on it alone. An issue which is the result of the working of different forces can only be reckoned upon with certainty when all the forces are exactly known and placed in the calculation according to their full value. The ignoring of a force of even a lower degree involves the greatest deviations, as every mathematician knows.
In his later works Engels has limited still further the determining force of the conditions of production — most of all in two letters reprinted in the Sozialistischen Akademiker of October, 1895, the one written in the year 1890, the other in the year 1894. There, " forms of law," political, legal, philosophical theories, religious intuitions or dogmas are enumerated as forces which influence the course of historical struggles and in many cases V are factors II preponderating in the determination of their form. " " There are then innumerable forces thwarting one another,' ' we read, " an endless group of parallelograms of forces, from which one resultant — the historical event — is pro- duced which itself can again be looked upon as the product of a power working as a whole without consciousness or will. For what every single man wills is hindered by every other man, and the result of the struggle is something which no one had intended.' ' (Letter of 1890.) 11 The political, legal, philosophical, religious, literary, artistic evolution rests on the economic evolution. But they all react on one another and on the economic basis. " (Letter of 1895.) It must be confessed that this sounds somewhat differently from the passage from Marx quoted above.
It will, of course, not be maintained that Marx and Engels at any time overlooked the fact that non-economic factors exercise an influence on the course of history. Innumerable passages from their early writings can be quoted against such suppositions. But we are dealing here with a question of proportion — not whether ideologic factors were acknowledged, but what measure of influence, what significance for history were ascribed to them, and in this respect it cannot be denied that Marx and Engels originally assigned to the non-economic factors a much less influence on the evolution of society, a much less power of modifying by their action the conditions of production than in their later writings. This corresponds also 12 to the natural course of the development of every new theory. Such an one always first appears in sharp categoric formulation. In order to gain authority, the untenability of the old theory must be shown, and in this conflict one-sidedness and exaggeration are easily manifested. In the sentence which we placed as a motto to this section of the volume, Engels acknowledges it unreservedly, and in the fol- lowing sentence he remarks: M It is unfortun- ately only too common for a man to think he has perfectly understood a theory and is able forthwith to apply it, as soon as he has made the chief propositions his own." He who to-day employs the materialist theory of history is bound to employ it in its most developed, not in its original, form — that is, he is bound in addition to the development and influence of the productive forces and conditions of production to make full allowance for the ideas of law and morals, the historical and religious traditions of every epoch, the influences of geographical and other circumstances of nature — to which also the nature of man himself and his spiritual disposition belong. This must be kept quite particularly in view when it is a question no longer of simple research into earlier epochs of history, but of foretelling coming developments, if the materialist conception of history is to be of use as a guide to the future.
In a letter to Conrad Schmidt dated October 27th, 1890, Friedrich Engels showed in an excellent manner how from being products of economic development, social institutions 13 become independent social forces with actions of their own, which in their turn may react on the former, and according to circumstances, promote or hinder them or turn them into other directions. He brings forward in the first place the power of the state as an example, when he completes the definition of the state mostly given by him — as the organ of the government of the classes and of repression — by the very important derivation of the state from the social division of labour.* Historical materialism by no means denies every autonomy to political and ideologic forces — it combats only the idea that these independent actions are unconditional, and shows that the development of the economic foundations of social life — the conditions of production and the evolution of classes — finally exercises the stronger influence on these actions. But in any case the multiplicity of the factors remains, and it is by no means always easy to lay bare the relations which exist among them so exactly that it can be determined with cer- tainty where in given cases the strongest motive power is to be sought. The purely economic causes create, first of all, only a dis- position for the reception of certain ideas, but how these then arise and spread and what form they take, depend on the co-operation of a whole series of influences. More harm than * Certainly in the Origin of the Family it is shown in detail how the social division of labour makes the rise of the state necessary. But Engels lets this side of the origin of the state fall completely, and finally treats the state, as in Anti-Diihring, as only the organ of political repression.
M good is done to historical materialism if at the outset one rejects as eclecticism an accentuation of the influences other than those of a purely economic kind, and a consideration of other economic factors than the technics of produc- tion and their foreseen development. Eclecti- cism— the selecting from different explanations and ways of dealing with phenomena — is often only the natural reaction from the doctrinaire desire to deduce everything from one thing and to treat everything according to one and the same method. As soon as such desire is exces- sive the eclectic spirit works its way again with the power of a natural force. It is the rebellion of sober reason against the tendency inherent in every doctrine to fetter thought.
Now, to whatever degree other forces besides the purely economic, influence the life of society, just so much more also does the sway of what, in an objective sense, we call historic necessity change. In modern society we have to dis- tinguish in this respect two great streams. On the one side appears an increasing insight into the laws of evolution and notably of economic evolution. With this knowledge goes hand in hand, partly as its cause, partly again as its effect, an increasing capability of directing the economic evolution. The economic natural force, like the physical, changes from the ruler of mankind to its servant according as its nature is recognised. Society, theoretically, can be freer than ever in regard to the economic movement, and only the antagonism of interests among its elements — the power of private and *5 *5 group elements — hinders the full transition of freedom from theory to practice. Yet the com- mon interest gains in power to an increasing extent as opposed to private interest, and the elementary sway of economic forces ceases according to the degree in which this is the case, and in all places where this is the case. Their development is anticipated and is therefore accomplished all the more quickly and easily. Individuals and whole nations thus withdraw an ever greater part of their lives from the influence of a necessity compelling them, without or against their will.
But because men pay ever greater attention to economic factors it easily appears as though these played a greater part to-day than for- merly. That, however, is not the case. The deception is only caused because in many cases the economic motive appears freely to-day where formerly it was concealed by conditions of government and symbols of all kinds. Modern society is much richer than earlier societies in ideologies which are not determined by econo- mics and by nature working as an economic force. Sciences, arts, a whole series of social relations are to-day much less dependent on economics than formerly, or, in order to give no room for misconception, the point of economic development attained to-day leaves the ideological, and especially the ethical, factors greater space for independent activity than was formerly the case. In consequence of this the interdependency of cause and effect between technical, economic evolution, and the evolution i6 of other social tendencies is becoming always more indirect, and from that the necessities of the first are losing much of their power of dictating the form of the latter.
14 The Iron Necessity of History M receives in this way a limitation, which, let me say at once, signifies in regard to the practice of social democracy, no lessening but an increasing and qualifying of its social political tasks.
Thus we see the materialist conception of history to-day in another form than it was pre- sented at first by its founders. It has gone through a development already, it has suffered limitations in absolutist interpretation. That is, as has been shown, the history of every theory. It would be the greatest retrogression to go back from the ripe form which Engels has given it in the letters to Conrad Schmidt to the first definitions and to give it a " monis- tic M interpretation based on these.
The first definitions are rather to be supple- mented by those letters. The fundamental idea of the theory does not thereby lose in uniformity, but the theory itself gains in scientific character. Only with these supplements does it become truly a theory of the scientific treatment of history. In its first form it could become in the hand of a Marx a lever of mighty historical discoveries, but even his genius was led by it to all kinds of false conclusions.* * *' It is much easier,' ' says Marx in a much-quoted passage in Capital, " to find by analyses the earthly kernel of religious, hazy imaginations than by the reverse process to evolve from the actual conditions of life their i7 Finally, the question arises, up to what point the materialist conception of history has a claim to its name, if we continue to widen it in the above-mentioned manner through the inclusion of other forces. In fact, according to Engels' explanations, it is not purely materialist, much less purely economic. I do not deny that the name does not completely fit the thing. But I seek progress not in making ideas confused, but in making them precise; and because it is of primary importance in the characterisation of a theory of history to acknowledge in what it differs from others, I would, far from taking offence at the title "Economic Interpretation of History/ ' keep it, in spite of all that can be said against it, as the most appropriate description of the Marxist theory of history.
Its significance rests on the weight it lays on economics; out of the recognition and valuation of economic facts arise its just services to the science of history, and the enrichment which this branch of human knowledge owes to it. An economic interpretation of history does not necessarily mean that only economic forces, only economic motives, are recognised; but only that economics forms an ever recurring decisive force, the cardinal point of the great movements in history. To the words "materialist conception heavenly form. The latter is the only materialistic and therefore scientific method " (Capital, I., 2nd ed., p. 386). In this contrast there is great exaggeration. Unless one already knew the heavenly forms, the method of deduc- tion described would lead to all kinds of arbitrary con- structions, and if one knew them the deduction described is a means of scientific analysis, but not a scientific antithesis to analytic interpretation.
i8 i8 of history ' ' still adhere all the misunderstandings which are closely joined with the conception of materialism. Philosophic materialism, or the materialism of natural science, is in a mechani- cal sense deterministic. The Marxist conception of history is not. It allots to the economic foundation of the life of nations no uncondi- tioned determining influence on the forms this life takes.
(c) The Marxist Doctrine of Class War and of the Evolution of Capital.
The doctrine of the class wars rests on the foundation of the materialist conception of history. " It was found," writes Engels in Anti-Dühring, " that all history* hitherto was the history of class wars, that the classes fighting each other are, each time, the outcome of the conditions of production and commerce — in one word, of the economic conditions of their epoch " (3rd edition, page 12). In modern society it is the class war between the capitalist owners of the means of production and the pro- ducers without capital, the wage workers, which imprints its mark on history in this respect. For the former class Marx took from France the term Bourgeoisie, and for the latter the term Proletariat. This class struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat is accord- ingly the antagonism, transferred to men, which is in the conditions of production to-day, that * In the fourth edition of the work Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, follow here the limiting words "with the exception of primitive societies."
19 is, in the private character of the method of appropriation and the social character of the method of production. The means of production are the property of individual capitalists who appropriate to themselves the results of the production, but the production itself has become a social process; that means, a production of commodities for use made by many workers on a basis of systematic division and organisation of labour. And this antagonism conceals in itself, or has, a second conflict, as a supplement: the systematic division and organisation of work within the establishments for production (workshop, factory, combination of factories, etc.) is opposed by the unsystematic disposal of the produce on the market.
The starting point of the class struggle between capitalists and workers is the antagon- ism of interests which follows from the nature of the utilisation of the labour of the latter by the former for profit. The examination of this process of utilisation leads to the doctrine of value and of the production and appropriation of surplus value.
It is significant for capitalist production and the order of society founded thereon, that men in their economic relations stand opposed to one another throughout as buyers and sellers. It recognises in social life no general legal rela- tions of dependence but only actual ones follow- ing from purely economic relations (differences of economic means, relation of hirer and hired, etc.). The worker sells to the capitalist his power to work for a definite time, under definite 20 conditions, and for a definite price — wages. The capitalist sells the products (manufactured with the help of the worker — that is, by the whole of the workers employed by him) in the goods market at a price which, as a rule and as a condition of the continuance of his undertaking, yields a surplus above the amount which the manufacture costs. What is, then, this surplus? According to Marx it is the surplus value of the labour accomplished by the worker. The goods are exchanged on the market at a value which is fixed by the labour embodied in them, measured according to time. What the capitalist has put in in past — we would even say dead — labour in the form of raw material, auxiliary material, wear and tear of machinery, rent, and other costs of production, appears again unchanged in the value of the product. It is otherwise with the living work expended on it. This costs the capitalist wages; it brings him an amount beyond these, the equivalent of the value of labour. The labour value is the value of the quantity of labour worked into the product; the worker's wages is the selling price of the labour power used up in production. Prices, or the value of labour power, are deter- mined by the cost of maintenance of the worker as it corresponds with his historically developed habits of life. The difference between the equivalent (erlös) of the labour-value and the labour-wage is the surplus value which it is the natural endeavour of the capitalist to raise as high as possible and in any case not to allow to sink.
21 But competition on the market of commodities presses constantly on the price of commodities, and an increase of sales is again only obtained by a cheapening of production. The capitalist can attain this cheapening in three kinds of ways: lowering of wages, lengthening of the hours of work, an increase in the productivity of labour. As at a given time there are always definite limits to the first two, his energy is always being turned to the last one. Better organisation of work, inter-unification of work and perfecting of machinery are, in the more developed capitalist societies, the predominating means of cheapening production. In all these cases the consequence is that the organic com- position of capital, as Marx calls it, is changing. The relation of the portion of capital laid out in raw materials, tools for work, etc., increases; the portion of capital laid out in labour wages decreases; the same amount of commodities is produced by fewer workers, an increased amount by the old or even by a less number of workers. The ratio of the surplus value to the portion of capital laid out in wages Marx calls the rate of surplus value or of exploitation, the ratio of the surplus value to the whole capital invested in producing he calls the rate of profit.
From the foregoing it is self-evident that the rate of surplus can rise at the same time as the rate of profit falls.
According to the nature of the branch of pro- duction we find a very different organic com- bination of capital. There are undertakings where a disproportionately large portion of the 22 capital is spent on instruments of work, raw material, etc., and only a relatively small amount on wages; and others where the wages form the most important part of the expenditure of capital. The first represent higher, the second lower, organic combinations of capital. If an equal proportionate rate ruled throughout between the surplus value attained and the labour wage, in these latter branches of produc- tion the profit rates would in many cases exceed those in the first by multiples. But that is not the case. In a developed capitalist society goods are sold not at their labour values but at their prices of production, which consist of the cost of production (workers' wages plus dead work used up) and of an additional expense which corresponds with the average profit of the whole social production, or the profit rate of that branch of production in which the organic combination of capital shows an average ratio of wages-capital to capital employed for the other purposes. The prices of commodities in the different branches of production, there- fore, show by no means the same relation to their value. In some cases they are constantly far below the value, and in others constantly above it, and only in those branches of produc- tion with an average composition of capital do they approach the value. The law of value disappears altogether from the consciousness of the producers; it works only behind their backs, whilst the level of the average profit rate is regulated by it at longer intervals only.
The coercive laws of competition and the 23 growing wealth of capital in society tend to lower constantly the profit rate, whilst this is delayed by forces working in opposite direc- tions but is not permanently stopped. Over- production of capital goes hand in hand with forces creating a superabundance of workers. Greater centralisation is always spreading in manufactures, commerce, and agriculture, and an expropriation of the smaller capitalists by the greater grows. Periodic crises brought about by the anarchy in production in conjunction with the under-consumption of the masses are always reappearing in a more violent and more destructive character; and they hasten the process of centralisation and expropriation by the ruin of innumerable small capitalists. On the one side is generalised the collective — co- operative— form of the process of work on an always growing scale, in an ascending degree; on the other side increases "with the constantly diminishing number of capitalist magnates who usurp and monopolise all the advantages of this process of transformation, the mass of misery, oppression, servitude, deterioration, exploitation, but also with it the revolt of the working class constantly increasing and taught, united and organised by the mechanism of the capitalist process of production itself. M Thus