Saturday, November 9, 2013
friedrich engels - socialism: utopian & scientific
for a review of the introduction, please click here. also note that this text is taken directly from a larger work, anti-duhring. the pamphlet places three separate stages of socialism within a historical perspective, with a chapter for each stage. sequentially, these stages are utopian socialism (socialism's irrigorous past), scientific socialism (the then present, rigorous state of socialism) and communism (the eventually implemented future of socialism). engels' goal appears to be to separate what he considers to be "respectable" forms of socialism from "primitive" or "naive" forms of socialism, as well as to (ironically) act as somewhat of a socialist clairvoyant.
the utopian stage of socialism is explored through three major icons: st. stephen, charles fourier and robert owens. engels derives this stage out of the disappointment of the french revolution, the so-called "triumph of reason" that climaxed in despotism and perpetual war. according to engels, the french revolution was the product of french "materialism" and the great "materialist" philosophers of the eighteenth century who placed everything in subservience to reason. engels seems to differentiate these "materialist" philosophers from the aforementioned "socialist" philosophers by their attention to class; the french rationalists "do not claim to emancipate a particular class to begin with, but all humanity at once.", whereas st. simon speaks of the class conflict between the "workers" and the "idlers". the purpose of this section seems to be to briefly inform the reader about the roots of socialism without getting into it too much, mostly because engels doesn't want you to get into it too much. in fact, engels wants you to reject these utopian thinkers because "the more completely they (early/utopian systems of socialism) were worked out in detail, the more they could not avoid drifting into pure fantasies.". while engels does clearly hold robert owen in high regard, going so far as to say that "every social movement, every real advance england on behalf of the workers links itself to the name of robert owen.", his real interest is in what he calls "scientific socialism", which is something that he derives from marx.
the second section provides the reader with a cursory outline of the renaissance of dialectics and an explanation of how this renaissance allowed for the construction of a "materialist" history. this "materialist" history is what we would today call "marxist history", the view that history is characterized by class struggle. engels attributes this "materialist history" to marx and conflicts it with what he calls the "idealistic" (and incorrect) view that history is an unending evolutionary process, one where perfection is pushed further and further away as we reach our previous conceptions of it, which he attributes to hegel. in engels' view, this deep discovery necessitates a complete rewriting of all history (a scary proposition!) and is, along with the discovery of surplus value, one of the two breakthroughs that allowed marxism to call itself a "science", despite the loud objections of scientists, no doubt. surplus value is simply the idea that, no matter how much the capitalist pays for labour, the capitalist will always extract a greater value than he pays for labour. i'm going to assume that this is an observation and not a proposed sociological law and then note that a capitalist would both call that greater value "profit" and argue that it's the whole point.
the third section is the heart of the essay and requires a few reads to understand fully. what engels is doing, ultimately, is explaining why we need communism. in the process, he...well, to be blunt, he meanders through a variety of loosely connected historical, economic and philosophical concepts. there's quite a bit written here, but it's not written very coherently; this is more than a translation issue, it's an organization problem. no contemporary editor would let this to pressing. yet, it did make it out (twice!) so this is what we have to deal with...
engels starts off by describing the evolution in production from the medieval guildsman to the socialization of production, with the aim of deriving the natural conflict between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. many years ago, producers were in complete control of their product from the point of gathering raw materials to the point of sale. the producer of a canoe, for example, would begin by carving the canoe and end by selling it. consequently, the producer would both set the price of the product and retain all profit from it's sale. with industrialization, however, came the socialization of production. factories were able to produce products faster and cheaper than individual guildspeople, hopelessly outcompeting them to the point that individual tradespeople became unable to exist upon their skills. faced with the loss of their only source of income, the tradespeople were forced into selling their labour to the very factories that put them out of business. such was the beginning of a new class of individuals, the proletariat - those who have no good to exchange for existence other than their labour. with this change, however, did not come a change in the way that goods are exchanged. the owners of the factories - the capitalists - became the sellers of products which they did not create on their own. so, while the goods were made by several people, they were only sold by one; engels sees this as a contradiction and labels it to the root of the class conflict between the workers and the owners of the factories, manifested as an argument over wages paid out by the capitalists to the workers. of course, both sides will seek to maximize their own share of profits at the expense of the other. at this point, engels' argument is not just reasonable but obvious; nobody disputes the existence of this class conflict or it's irresolvability without the final triumph of one side over the other.
the next thing that engels discusses is what he calls the "anarchy of production". what he's really describing is competition. in the old days, workers only produced what they were asked to produced. that aforementioned canoe would not have been randomly built and sold in a marketplace; an agreement would have been reached with the buyer before the canoe was built. with industrialization, however, goods were just produced with the hope that they would be sold eventually. as multiple factories/companies ended up doing this, often producing the same surplus goods, a type of competition that was hitherto unknown began to develop. engels has a distinct distaste for this; he describes competition using words such as "anarchy" and "animalistic", blames it for the existence of commercial wars and even goes so far as to claim that the struggle between individual companies is darwinian in nature. he once again sees this conflict between organized and chaotic production as a symptom of the contradiction between capitalistic appropriation and socialized production.
engels then turns to the topic of machinery replacing human labour, inevitably resulting in labour surpluses, which he calls the "industrial reserve army". these labour surpluses then reduce wages through market forces, which destroys the market altogether because the increasingly unemployed workers have no buying power beyond subsistence. the capitalists must consequently search for foreign markets to sell the goods produced by the workers. the process is consequently one of wealth trickling upwards to a select few, leaving a mass of starving slaves to work the machines that are unable to afford to purchase the very good that they make. furthermore, engels sees this as inevitable within any capitalist society. production consequently must seek greater and greater foreign markets to justify it's own existence, which is of course impossible. as mechanization increases, production increases faster than markets are able to grow, leading to surpluses of goods and subsequent market crashes; this is the marxist explanation for recessions, and while we may argue today that it's a little over-simplified, it's basically correct. this is also considered to be inherent within market capitalism and an inescapable implication of the anarchy of production, as demonstrated by the historical fact of boom and bust cycles.
engels finishes the essay by outlining what he sees as the necessary and correct ordering of steps involved in a communist revolution. first, the capitalists must recognize the social nature of production. once they have fully understood this aspect of the nature of production, they will understand that the most efficient way to exploit workers and markets is to form trusts, or monopolies. however, as engels puts it, "no nation will put up with production conducted by trusts, with so barefaced an exploitation of the community by a small band of dividend-mongers", so the trusts will inevitably eventually be placed directly under the direct control of the state, reducing the capitalists to mere bureaucrats. engels does not see this as a final solution because he views the state as a crude means for the capitalists to control the workers in the first place; within a marxist framework, the final solution is the end of the state altogether. it is truly the class relation that is abolished by reducing the capitalists to proletarians, as they now *also* must rely *only* upon their labour to survive. the class struggle consequently absolves itself along with class itself, anarchy in production is replaced with order and the state ceases to exist along with it's justification for existence, exploitation based on class. the emancipation is total - not just of the proletariat, but of all of society from the violence of the class relation.
i'm going to restrict my brief critical analysis to the very last part of the essay and reduce it to the fact that engels has completely ignored the third class, the aristocracy, which is of course still present in society and in government in some way or another, either through direct power or through indirect, financial power. the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" is not used here, but the concept is also essentially aristocratic. so long as the aristocracy still exists, the reduction of the bourgeoisie to the proletariat will obviously merely result in the reconstruction of a feudal relation, and i don't mean to offer an alternate proof of hayek's thesis. to be fair, it must have been assumed that the aristocracy was initially eliminated in the bourgeois revolution, but this does not accurately reflect any historical bourgeois revolution. an active mechanism to reduce the aristocracy to wage slavery must also be incorporated, lest socialism become a road to serfdom.
full text:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Engels_Socialism_Utopian_and_Scientific.pdf
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/books/congress/HX/276.E55/index.html
friedrich engels - on historical materialism
required reading
"on historical materialism" is the title present in the feuer text, but the essay (which is the introduction to the 1892 edition of socialism: utopian and scientific) has apparently also been subsequently published as a standalone text. the core of the essay compares and contrasts the approaches of the british and continental aristocracies to the question of religion, coming to the conclusion that the british aristocracy took a much more "effective" approach in controlling its population.
the essay begins with a defence of "materialism", which engels defines as a peculiarly english philosophy ultimately rooted in bacon's scientific method. to bacon, and apparently engels, "natural philosophy" (the archaic name for "science") is the only true philosophy. however, bacon was also an alchemist; it was only through the further development of hobbes and locke that english materialism, in a fully atheist form, was to be exported to france for still further development. the point that engels is trying to make is twofold: (1) that materialism had it's roots and origins within england and not france or germany as may have been popularly thought at the time and (2) that despite the advancements in thought that were occurring in english universities, the "unwashed masses" of english peasants and the bourgeoisie were still deeply ignorant and deeply religious.
engels also separates materialism from both agnosticism and deism in case there was any question as to the atheistic nature of what he is proposing. he casts aside deism without so much as a second thought by quoting marx as follows "deism is but an easygoing way of getting rid of religion". he spills much more ink on agnosticism but does not give it much more respect. agnosticism, according to engels, is an archaic approach to the question of religion because the science of the day had discarded the necessity of a creator. of what value is a creator if it is not accountable for the creation? he further derides agnostics as materialists in all but name by going through a long-winded argument that is essentially little more than a summary of hegel's response to kant...
if i may interject, i'd like to point out that this introductory section will probably come off as largely juvenile by today's standards. after all, the double-slit experiment (and quantum physics in general) is enough to go back to taking kant seriously again. the contempt that engels shows for his irrational, ignorant opponents actually makes him come off as somewhat of an atheist fundamentalist, which also characterizes the text with a large dosage of irony.
this cursory delve into the mainstream philosophical questions of the day aside, the text is actually primarily a brief history lesson. it places the three major battles of the bourgeoisie against the aristocracy within the context of the english and continental approaches to religion. central to marxist history is, of course, the idea of class struggle, particularly between three classes: the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. also keep in mind that the purpose of religion within a marxist framework is, of course, to control the population....
the first battle between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie was the reformation. marx keys in on two of the many reformers, luther and calvin, in order to contrast what happened in england with what happened in germany. in germany, the aristocracy won handily; lutheranism became, like roman christianity, a deeply feudal religion. calvin, on the other hand, produced republican movements in holland, scotland and england, the latter of which led to the second struggle, the "glorious revolution". this "glorious" revolution, however, was somewhat of a failure; the english aristocracy had actually defeated the upstart bourgeoisie, placed it back under its own subservience and left it in philosophical ignorance. enlightened philosophies such as materialism continued to be hoarded by the aristocracy; the bourgeoisie languished in the ignorance of christianity. on the continent, however, materialism flourished and with it came the third battle, the french revolution. according to engels, the french revolution was the first time that the bourgeoisie successfully usurped power from the aristocracy (for a brief time).
while the french revolution was occurring in france, the industrial revolution was occurring in england. by definition, the primary beneficiaries of the industrial revolution would be the english bourgeoisie, who finally saw their power eclipse the aristocracy - through peaceful, financial means and not through violent class struggle. the bourgeoisie then used that newfound financial power to gain political power by passing bills through parliament, such as the reform act. in other words, they legislated themselves into power; however, they were never able to push the aristocracy out of power. a second conclusion of the industrial revolution was the creation of a new class, the proletariat, which began for the first time to organize politically through the creation of new parties, such as the chartists in england. all of that led to the first uprisings of the proletariat, in 1848, which were crushed not by the bourgeoisie but by the aristocracy. interestingly, engels notes that the british aristocracy responded to these uprisings by increasing funding for religious proselytization across the country side.
the years after 1848 saw increasing unrest amongst the proletariat throughout europe, especially in germany. again, engels points out that the bourgeoisie and aristocracy came to the common conclusion that, in order to prevent the "destruction of society", the working class must be evangelized. in england, no such approach was necessary because the british aristocracy had already spent lavishly on maintaining a religious proletariat and bourgeoisie; engels comes to his key statement of the essay while discussing this,
They had come to grief with materialism. "Die Religion muss dem Volk erhalten werden" — religion must be kept alive for the people — that was the only and the last means to save society from utter ruin. Unfortunately for themselves, they did not find this out until they had done their level best to break up religion for ever. And now it was the turn of the British bourgeoisie to sneer and to say: "Why, you fools, I could have told you that 200 years ago!"
engels ends the essay by deducing that germany, not england, will be the scene of the first proletarian revolution.
full text:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Engels_Socialism_Utopian_and_Scientific.pdf
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/books/congress/D/16.9.E57/index.html
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