Nineteenth Century Thought (7 page)

16.
  
Productive
forces developing in the womb of bourgeois society:
The
biological metaphor of the womb should here be particularly stressed. The
obvious reference is ro 'life' in society, meaning chat productive forces are
'life' and life enters into a conflict with relations of production. See how
under Marx's dialectical logic, the biological metaphor points towards the
highly desirable 'moral' activity to participate in, or at least support
'life.' However, revolution is nor a 'moral' activity in the accepted meaning
of the term. Instead, it is a historical necessity carried out by the forces of
production the bourgeoisie in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the
industrial working class later.

Economic categories are only the
theoretical expressions, the abstractions
¹
of the social relations
of production....

Mr. Proudhon the economist
understands very well that men make doth, linen, or silk materials in definite
relations of production. But what he has not understood is that these definite
social relations are just as much produced by men as linen, flax, etc.
²
Social relations are closely bound up with productive forces. In acquiring new
productive forces men change their mode of production; and in changing their
mode of production, in changing the way of earning their living, they change
all their social relations. The hand mill gives you society with the feudal
lord; the steam mill, society with the
 
 
industrial capitalist.

The same men who establish their
social relations in conformity with their material productivity, produce also
principles, ideas and categories, in conformity with their social relations.

Thus these ideas, these categories,
are as little eternal as the relations they express. They are historical and
transitory products
³
.

There is a continual movement of
growth in productive forces, of destruction in social relations, of formation
in ideas; the only

ANNOTATIONS

B.
 
Man's
Thought Corresponds to His Social Relations

1.
 
Abstractions:
 
Mark the word. Marx's
stress is on the relation s of production which he calls 'social,' i.e. outside
the restricted private domain of the individual.

2.
  
Social relations are just as much produced
by men as linen, flax, etc.:
This is a difficult idea.
How do men produce social relations? A good point to be considered by nee
historicists as well as cultural materialists who think social relations have a
'link with' since they are situated outside and away from the forces of
production. For explanation, read the last sentence of the paragraph, and then
the next para where Marx sees principles, ideas, etc. as entities 'produced '
as much by people.

3.
 
(Ideas and categories) are historical
and transitory products:
There is no belittling of ideas in
this statement but that ideas have nothing to do with eternity ·and
transcendence.

There is a continual movement of
growth in productive forces, of destruction in social relations, of formation
in ideas; the only immutable thing is the abstraction of movement
⁴
-
mors
immortalis
[eternal death].

-Marx,
Poverty of Philosophy
(1847).

Men are the producers of their
conceptions, ideas, etc.-real, active men, as they are conditioned by a
definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse
corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness can never be
anything else than conscious existence
¹
and the existence of men is
their actual life process. If in all ideology men and their circumstances
appear upside down as in a camera obscura
²
, this phenomenon arises
just as much from their historical life process as the inversion of objects on
the retina does from their physical life process.

In direct contrast to German
philosophy which descends from heaven to
earth
³
,
here we
ascend from earth to heaven. That is to arrive at men in the flesh.

ANNOTATIONS

4.
  
The only immutable thing is the
abstraction of movement:
No mere witticism. Abstraction of
movement or life and a 'raising' of it on the philosophical pedestal is, for
Marx,
eternal death.
Such an abstraction has been considered profundity
itself by philosophers all along the past.

ANNOTATIONS

II.
The Social Nature of Consciousness

1.
   
Consciousness
(is) conscious existence:
Through such a formulation, Marx
pulls consciousness out of the philosopher's domain and puts it at the centre
of social existence.

2.
  
Camera
obscura
:
The primitive camera made of mirrors in the nineteenth
century.

3.
  
Earth:
Keeping
in mind Marx's thought-categories, count in the following lines the number of
words related to life and reality. We come across 'men in the flesh,' 'real
active men,' 'real life process,' 'material life process,' 'empirically
verifible
,' 'material premises,' 'history,' development,'
'material production,'
 
'material
intercourse,' 'real existence,'
'their
thinking and the
products
of
their thinking,' 'the real living individuals
themselves
as
they
are
in actual life' and 'their consciousness' (my italics). These come to fourteen
in number in one short paragraph. Why? The reason is that Marx is here
presenting a theoretical case against consciousness in itself. I say
'theoretical' because Marx does not intend to downgrade consciousness but to counter
the philos
ophical
argument of idealists who
swear by consciousness and
ideas alone.

We set out from real, active men, and on the basis of
their real life process we demonstrate the development of the ideological
reflexes and echoes of this life process. The phantoms formed in the human
brain are also, necessarily, sublimates of their materials life process, which
is empirically verifiable and bound to material premises. Morality, religion,
metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms of
consciousness, thus no longer retain the semblance of independence. They have
no history, no development; but men, developing their material production and
their material intercourse, alter, along with this their real existence, their
thinking and the products of their thinking. Life is not determined by
consciousness, but consciousness by life. In · the first method of approach the
starting point is consciousness taken as the living individual; in the second
it is the real living individuals themselves, as they are in actual life, and
consciousness is considered solely as their consciousness.

This
method of approach is not devoid of premises. It starts out from the real
premises and does not abandon them for a moment. Its premises are men, not in
any fantastic isolation or abstract definition, but in their actual,
empirically perceptible process of development under definite conditions. As
soon as this active life process is described, history ceases to be a
collection of dead facts as it is with the empiricists (themselves still
abstract), or an imagined activity of imagined subjects, as with the idealists.
⁴

Where
speculation ends-in real life-there real, positive science
⁵
begins;
the representation of the practical activity, of the practical process of
development of men. Empty talk about consciousness ceases, and real knowledge
has to take its place.

ANNOTATIONS

4.
  
History ceases to be ...
as with the idealists:
Here, Marx uses dialectical logic to take a position against
empiricists as well as idealists. For him, history is neither 'dead facts' nor
'an imaginative activity of imagined subjects.'

5.
  
Positive science:
According
to Marx, this leads us to 'real history' and its study. Nevertheless, Marx
treats science as a theoretical tool "to facilitate
,»
as he says, "the arrangement of historical material. "Thus he gives a
clear indication that theory is co understand and use for the purpose of
effecting change. Marx would not be one of those who say chat theory is
practice.

When
reality is depicted, philosophy as an independent branch of activity loses its
medium of existence. At the best its place can only be taken by a summing-up of
the most general results, abstractions which arise from the observation of the
historical development of men. Viewed apart from real history, these
abstractions have in themselves no value whatsoever. They can only serve to
facilitate the arrangement of historical material, to indicate the sequence of
its separate strata. But they by no means afford a recipe or schema, as does
philosophy, for neatly trimming the epochs of history.

-Marx
and Engels,
The
German Ideology
(1846).

The ideas of the ruling class are in
every epoch the ruling ideas; i.e. the class, which is the ruling material
force of society,
¹
is at the same time its ruling intellectual
force. The class which
 
has the
means
 
of material
 
production
 
at its disposal,
 
has control at
the same time over the means of mental production,
²
so that
thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental
production
 
are subject
 
to
 
it.
The ruling
 
ideas
 
are nothing
 
more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships,
the dominant
 
material
 
relationships
 
grasped as ideas;
³
hence of the relationships which make the
one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The
individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness,
and therefore, think. In so far, therefore, as they rule as a class and
determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do
this in their whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as
producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas
of their age; thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch
⁴
.

ANNOTATIONS

III. Classes and Ideology

1.
      
The
ruling material force of society:
This is Marx's definition of
'class.' He also calls it here the 'ruling intellectual force.'

2.
      
Mental
production:
Ideas are mental production, i.e. products of the
mind. What about literature?

3.
      
Dominant
material relationships grasped as ideas:
'Material
relationships' refers here to the relations of production. Note how precisely
Marx talks of the nature of ideas.

4.
      
The
ruling ideas of the epoch:
'Epoch' helps Marx in widening
the scope of ideas. For instance, there is "a whole range" as well as
the activity of regulating "the production and distribution of ideas"
in an epoch.

For
instance, in an age and in a country where royal power, aristocracy, and
bourgeoisie are contending for mastery and where, therefore, mastery is shared,
the doctrine of the separation of powers proves to be the dominant idea and is
expressed as an "eternal law." The division of
labour
,
which we saw above as one of the chief forces of history up till now, manifests
itself also in the ruling class as the division of menial and material
labour
, so that inside this class one part appears as the
thinkers of the class (its active, conceptive ideologists, who make
 
the perfecting
 
of the
 
illusion
 
of the class about
itself their chief source of livelihood), while
 
the others' attitude to these ideas and illusions is more passive and
receptive, because they are in reality the active
 
members
 
of
 
this class and have less time
to make up illusions and ideas about themselves. Within this class this
cleavage can even develop into a certain opposition
⁵
and hostility
between the two parts, which, however, in the case of a practical collision, in
which the class itself is endangered, automatically comes to nothing, in which
case there also vanishes the semblance that the ruling ideas were not the ideas
of the ruling class and had a power distinct from the power of this class. The
existence of revolutionary ideas in a particular period presupposes the
existence of a revolutionary class; about the premises for the latter
sufficient has already been said above.

If
now in considering the course of history we detach the ideas of the ruling
class from the ruling class itself and attribute to them an independent
existence, if we confine ourselves to saying that these or those ideas were
dominant , without bothering ourselves about
 
the
 
conditions
 
of
 
production
 
and
 
the
 
producers
 
of
 
these ideas, if we then ignore the
individuals and world conditions which are the source of the ideas, we can say,
for instance, that during the time
 
that
 
the
 
aristocracy
 
was
 
dominant, the concepts
honour, loyalty, etc., were dominant, during the dominance of the bourgeoisie
the concepts freedom, equality, etc.

ANNOTATIONS

5.
       
This
clevage
can even develop into a certain opposition:
Cleavage between
thinkers and 'active members' of the ruling class. The question is: Who wins if
there is a tussle between the two on an issue and the interests of the ruling
class are threatened? Marx's answer is: The latter, obviously as the thinkers
are conveniently dumped. Hence, even "the semblance that the ruling ideas
were not the ideas of the ruling class and had a power distinct from the power
of this class" disappears.

The
ruling class itself on the whole imagines this to be so. This conception of
history, which is common to all historians, particularly since the 18th
century, will necessarily come up against the phenomenon that increasingly
abstract ideas hold sway, i.e., ideas which increasingly take on the form of
universality.
 
For each new class which
puts itself in the place of one ruling before it, it compelled , merely in
order
 
to
 
carry
 
through
 
its
 
aim ,
 
to
 
represent
 
its
 
interest
 
as the common
 
interest of all the members
 
of
society, put
 
in an
 
ideal form; it will give its ideas the form
of universality, and represent them as the only rational, universally valid
ones. The class making a revolution appears from the very start, merely because
it is opposed to a
class,
not as a class but as the representative of
the whole of society;
⁶
it appears as the whole mass of society
confronting the one ruling
class.
It can do this because, to start with,
its interest really is more connected with the common interest of all other
non-ruling classes, because under the pressure of conditions its interest has
not yet been able to develop as the particular interest of a particular class.
Its victory, therefore, benefits also many individuals
 
of the other
 
classes which
 
are not winning a
dominant position,
 
but
 
only
 
in so far
 
as it
 
now
 
puts
 
these
 
individual s in
 
a position
 
to raise themselves into the ruling class. When the French
bourgeoisie
 
overthrew the power
 
of the aristocracy, it thereby made it
 
possible
 
for
 
many
 
proletarians
 
to
 
raise
 
themselves
 
above
 
the proletariat,
 
but only in so far as they became bourgeois.
Every new class, therefore, achieves its hegemony only on a broader basis than that
of the class ruling previously, in return for which the opposition of the
non-ruling class against the new ruling class later develops all the more
sharply and profoundly.

ANNOTATIONS

6.
       
Not as a class but as the
representative of the whole of society:
A class
in
itself but not
for
itself. Such a practice enables an active social group to become the leader
of the whole society. Such a leadership of ideas or perspective is hegemony of
the class which in the process of political struggle isolates the existing
ruling class from its
nonruling
supporters. Marx
visualizes here the complex process of revolution-making.

Both these things determine the fact that the struggle
to be waged against this new ruling class, in its turn, aims at a more decided
and radical negation of the previous conditions of society than could all
previous classes which sought to rule.

The
whole semblance, that the rule of a certain class is only the rule of certain
ideas, comes to a natural end, of course, as soon as society ceases at last to
be organized in the form of class rule, that is to say as soon as it is no
longer necessary to represent a particular interest as general or "the
general interest" as ruling.

-Marx
and Engels,
The
German Ideology
(1846).