Most of his work in this area subsequently appeared in the
books The Poverty of Historicism2 and The Open Society and its Enemies (in two
volumes).3 These Popper regarded as his 'war effort' since they were his
'defence of freedom against totalitarian and authoritarian ideas and a warning
about historicist superstitions'.4 History and the social sciences, Popper
argued, were beset by certain deep methodological misconceptions that he
labelled 'historicist'.
It is not clear precisely what doctrine the term refers to,
though Popper is sure that historicism has had a 'persistent and pernicious
influence upon the philosophy of society and and of politics',5 and
consequently upon society and politics itself. However, it is clear that Popper
thinks that Marx is an historicist along with Plato, Hegel, Comte, J.S. Mill
and sociologists such as Karl Mannheim
what doctrine the term refers to, though Popper is sure that
historicism has had a 'persistent and pernicious influence upon the philosophy
of society and of politics', What I will
show is that Marx is not guilty of the crime of historicism — though that still
leaves open the question as to whether some 'Marxists' are. I hope that the
view, held by some Marxists and anti-Marxists alike, that Marx believed in
'historical necessity', or believed that predictions could be made about the
future course of all societies, will be laid to rest. That it is commonly held
that Marx entertained such beliefs is in some measure due to the myth that
Popper has helped spread about Marx's writings by labelling them 'historicist'.
But not entirely, for the interpretation of Marx that Popper criticizes was
held by some Social Democrats earlier this century and was one that Popper
would have encountered in Austria. An instance would be the 'revisionist'6
doctrines of Eduard Bernstein. If the social sciences and history aspire to be
sciences should they accept the methods employed in the paradigm science, Newtonian
mechanics? Popper says that historicists would answer 'No' because they hold
that there are methods quite peculiar to the social sciences that are not to be
found in the natural sciences. Popper's ultimate critique of historicism is
that the methods of the natural sciences have been persistently misunderstood
and that the bottom falls out of the dispute between those who hold that the
methods of natural and social sciences are the same, and those, such as
historicists, who hold that the methods are different.
If historicists reject the methods of the natural sciences
(even as misunderstood), they do not, as Popper describes them, reject all
features of the natural sciences. Some features are quite central as Popper
indicates in his initial broad definition of 'historicism': 'I mean by
"historicism" an approach to the social sciences which assumes that
historical prediction is their principal aim, and which assumes that this aim
is attainable by discovering the "rhythms" or the "patterns",
the "laws" or the "trends" that underlie the evolution of
history'
The discovery of historical laws and the making of
predictions about the future course of society are as characteristic of
historicism as the laws of Newtonian mechanics and the prediction of, say, planetary
phenomena, are characteristic of physics. Impressed by Newtonian mechanics,
Popper says that historicists claim: 'If it is possible for astronomy to
predict eclipses, why should it not be possible for sociology to predict
revolutions?'8 The alleged existence of laws and the making of predictions
based on them are two central features of historicism that will be considered
in relation to Marx's view of history. But a little more needs to be said about
the laws and the kind of predictions that are based on them.
Consider laws first. One of the reasons why historicists
have thought that the methods of the social sciences are different from the
methods of the natural sciences is that only in the natural world are phenomena
governed by laws which hold at all times and places. In contrast, any
regularities of (or uniformities or generalities about) social life hold for
certain historical periods and for certain cultures in certain regions; that
is, they do not hold for all times and places but only for a single period and
region. These social regularities are said to be historically relative to
period and place; outside a given period and place other regularities may hold.
Thus, for example, one should not speak of the 'laws' of economics without
qualification, but rather the economic 'laws' of the feudal period, or of early
industrial capitalism, and so on. Moreover, the social regularities do not
'govern' the period in which they apply as the laws of physics govern the
natural world. The social regularities are man-made and may well be altered by
men if they change their activities radically enough. In criticizing this
aspect of historicism Popper does not deny that there are period-relative
regularities: 'it must be admitted that there may be many regularities in our
social life which are characteristic of our particular period only.' 9 In the
section where Popper discusses period-relative regularities10 his only
criticisms of this aspect of historicism are that (i) period-relative
regularities are a feature of natural as well as social sciences and will not
serve to distinguish historicist claims about one kind of science in contrast
to the other, (ii) such period-relative regularities will not, on Popper's new
theory of scientific methodology, be established inductively, or be in
contravention of some 'regularity of nature' principle, as historicists have
thought. Given that there are period-relative regularities that can be
established, it follows that the historical or social laws that historicists
allege exist must be of a very different character The major difference is that
they must apply to all periods and regions of human history and not just to one
period and region. Popper argues that the historicist must conclude: 'Thus the
only universally valid laws of society must be the laws which link up the
successive periods. They must be laws of historical development which determine
the transition from one period to another.' 1 1
The distinction between period-relative regularities and
laws which link successive periods is important for Popper's interpretation of
historicism. Historicists envisage each society moving through a series of
periods each distinguished by a characteristic set of regularities. This
evolutionary feature marks an important difference between the social sciences
and any natural science. The social sciences deal with a qualitatively changing
social world, each qualitatively different period having distinctive
regularities; the natural sciences deal with a qualitatively unchanging world
governed by universally applicable laws. However, in so far as historicists
allege that there exist laws governing the succession of one period of society
by another, there is no dissimilarity between the social and natural sciences.
Popper gives a philosophical critique of the historicist view that there are
laws of period-succession.12 What is of concern here is whether or not Marx is
committed to the existence of such laws.
Given that historicist laws have a special character, it
follows that the predictions derived from them must also be of a special sort.
Popper calls these 'predictions on a large scale or large-scale forecasts'
whose 'vagueness is balanced by their scope and significance'.13 In their
claims about historical prediction historicists have, again, been impressed by
Newtonian science in which, from a few laws, the positions of the planets can
be predicted at any time in the future. But historicists also recognize that,
owing to the complexity of social events, it may not be possible to make very
exact predictions even if the laws which are alleged to hold are known. For
example, Popper says that historicists will insist: 'Even though revolutions
may be predicted by the social sciences, no such prediction can be exact; there
must be a margin of uncertainty as to its details and as to its timing.' 1 4
Short-term predictions of large-scale events such as revolutions will not be
worth attempting because of the inexactness of the prediction. However,
long-term predictions of revolutions may be attempted, but these predictions
will not be vitiated by inexactness in the timing of the prediction (which also
infects them). Any inexactness in details or timing will be compensated by the
importance of the large-scale event predicted.
Historicists, however, misunderstand the nature of
prediction in the sciences, Popper claims, and give us prophecies instead. In
Popper's view the difference between a prophecy and a prediction is that a
prediction is conditional while a prophecy is unconditional. The difference can
be illustrated as follows. In Newtonian mechanics we can predict the position
of a planet at a given time in the future if we are given some antecedent
conditions such as the positions of the planets now and the assumption that the
solar system will remain isolated from outside influence between now and the
future time (for example, no wandering celestial body will crash through our
system upsetting the movement of the planets). A conditional prediction is then
formed: if we are given these antecedent conditions, then the planet will be in
such-and-such a position at the future time. When we are assured that the
antecedent conditions do hold (for example, we do know the positions of the
planets now and know that the solar system is a regular isolated system) then
we can turn our conditional prediction into an unconditional prediction and
simply assert: the planet will be in such-andsuch a position at the specified
future time. Popper has no argument against unconditional prediction provided
we realize that such predictions do depend on some antecedent state of affairs
holding. In any case Popper's distinction between conditional and unconditional
prediction is logically sound.
What errors do historicists commit? They give, allegedly
from their laws, unconditional predictions about some future large-scale event,
such as a revolution, without realizing that unconditional predictions can come
only from conditional predictions in which some antecedent state of affairs has
been specified. This must include some description of the social system as it
is now, and a claim that the social system behaves regularly and is well
isolated from outside influence (as in the case of the solar system when
predictions of planetary movements are made). Historicist predictions, Popper
argues, are deficient in a number of respects: (i) there are not any
historicist laws on the basis of which such predictions can be made; (ii) even
if there were, historicists never specify the antecedent conditions which must
hold for genuine prediction rather than prophecy; (iii) social systems are not
sufficiently isolated from influences which upset their regular behaviour. One
of Popper's major criticisms of historicism concerns (iii). He argues that
social systems can never be sufficiently isolated for prediction to be
possible.15 They are always changing under the influence of the growth of
knowledge and scientific and technological innovation in ways that can never be
anticipated; they are not regular and closed systems like the solar system.
Because historicists ignore these features of correct prediction in the natural
sciences, Popper calls their form of unconditional prediction in the social
sciences 'prophecy'. Historicists simply assert in oracular fashion that
such-and-such a large-scale event will occur. .
Popper also argues
that historicist prophecy involves a kind of fatalism: We may predict (a) the
coming of a typhoon, a prediction which may be of the greatest practical value
because it may enable people to take shelter in time; but we may also predict
(b) that if a certain shelter is to stand up to a typhoon, it may be
constructed in a certain way.. . .These two kinds of prediction are obviously
very different.. ..Inthe one case we are told about an event which we can do nothing
to prevent. I shall call such a prediction a 'prophecy' 16
Popper has already told us that a prophecy is an
'unconditional prediction'. It is confusing now to define a prophecy as 'an
event which we can do nothing to prevent'. We can do nothing to change the
position that the planet Mars will occupy tomorrow, but this has nothing to do
with any prediction, conditional or unconditional, that we make about its
position tomorrow. The second confusing definition of prophecy aside, Popper's
two examples do illustrate the distinction between conditional and
unconditional prediction, and do suggest that historicist prophecy is committed
to a weak kind of fatalism. Historicists do not claim that there is nothing we
can do in the face of the evolution of society in accordance with the laws of
period-succession. But they do claim that what actions we perform must fit in
with the main current of historical events. Marx, Popper says, represents this
position well for he 'teaches neither inactivity nor real fatalism' but 'the
futility of any attempt to alter impending changes; a peculiar variety of
fatalism, a fatalism in regard to the trends of history as it were'. 1 7 Like
the coming typhoon we are fated to the storm of revolution; but we can act to
protect ourselves and live with it. What we cannot do, allege historicists, is
alter the typhoon of impending social change.
With this account of historicist laws of period-succession
and historicist prophecy we can now investigate whether Marx is an historicist.
Did Marx think that there was a necessary sequence of
periods of historical development governed by laws which determine the
transition from one period to the next? That Marx thought there were distinct
periods, or modes of production, in human history is familiar enough. He says
at the end of the well-known brief summary of his theory of historical
materialism: 'In broad outline, the Asiatic, ancient, feudal and modern
bourgeois modes of production may be designated as epochs marking progress in
the economic development of society'. 1 8 But, as most commentators point out,
Marx has only claimed that there has been such a sequence of modes of
production and not that each mode has followed from another in accordance with
some law of succession. Marx's view as to what the precise sequence of modes of
production had been in Europe changed from his first account in his unpublished
work1 9 to letters written late in his life, and is clearly a matter for
empirical research. The refinements that Marx made to the historical sequence
in no way suggest that the sequence of modes is law-governed.
In fact there is much
evidence to show that Marx thought that there were alternative ways in which
the series of modes might have developed. In the book from which the last quotation
was taken Marx says: 'A careful study of Asiatic, particularly Indian, forms of
communal property would indicate that the disintegration of different forms of
primitive communal ownership gives rise to diverse forms of property.' 2 0 This
book, published by Marx in 1859, was based on a small part of extensive notes
written between 1857 and 1859 and recently published as the Griindrisse. In a
section on pre-capitalist economic forms of society,21 Marx discusses a large
range of possible modes of production, and in particular the possible paths of
evolution from primitive communism.2 2 In his careful introduction to this
material Hobsbawm summarizes Marx's views:
Broadly speaking, there are now three or four alternative
routes out of the primitive communal system, each representing a form of the
social division of labour already existing or implicit within it: the oriental,
the ancient, the Germanic, (though Marx of course does not confine it to any
one people) and a somewhat shadowy Slavonic form which is not further discussed
but has affinities with the oriental. .. .Marx's view of historical development
was never simply unilinear, nor did he ever regard it as a mere record of
progress. 2 3
Marx's work on very early modes of production in the
Grundrisse was based on his first-hand knowledge of classical texts and
contemporary anthropological studies. But his interest in modes of production
was much wider than this and dominated by his investigation of the capitalist
mode. Earlier modes of production were studied only in so far as they made the
capitalist mode possible, for not all earlier modes would lead, either directly
or indirectly, to capitalism.
One particular case study which began to interest Marx in
the 1870s was that of the Russian agricultural village community or mir. (Marx
had begun to learn Russian and read contemporary sources in 1870 in order to
study Russian economic organization.) In early 1881 Vera Zasulich, a prominent
narodnik, wrote to Marx about the possible future development of Russia and in
particular of the mir. She wanted to know whether to attain communism Russia
must imitate Western Europe and first develop capitalism, or whether it could
bypass this and build upon the communal nature of the mir. Marx wrote drafts of
three letters and finally sent her a brief fourth in which his conclusions
about the evolution of the mir were tentative. He clearly asserted that Russia
did not have to imitate Western Europe and pass through the capitalist mode of
production, but that there was nothing in Capital itself, which was strictly
limited to the countries of Western Europe, that would tell for or against the
viability of the mir. However he agreed that the mir 'is the fulcrum of
Russia's social revival, but in order that it might function in this way one
would first have to eliminate the destructive influences which assail it'. 2 4
In the third draft Marx had written:
As the last phase of the primitive formation of society, the
agricultural community is at the same time a transitional phase to the
secondary formation, i.e. transition from society based on common property to
society based on private property. The secondary formation comprises, as you
must understand, the series of societies based on slavery and serfdom.
But does this mean that the historic career of the
agricultural community must inevitably lead to this result? Certainly not. The
dualism within it permits of an alternative: Either the property element in it
will overcome the collective element, or the other way around. Everything
depends on the historical environment in which it occurs. 2 5
The last sentence is important. The mir clearly contains a
number of possible paths of development; which path emerges depends on other
external factors. If, as Popper alleges, Marx had uncovered laws which govern
the succession of one mode of production by another, it would have been an easy
matter for Marx to apply the laws in the case of the mir and predict what mode
was to succeed it. But Marx's method of reasoning is not by the application of
some kind of historicist law of succession, because he did not believe that
there was such a law. Rather his method of reasoning, in reply to Zasulich, was
to discover what other external causal factors could operate in conjunction
with the specific features of the mir which would lead it to develop in one way
rather than another, or disappear altogether.
There was another way in which Marx thought that one mode of
production could succeed another which has nothing to do with a mode's internal
development in the presence, or absence, of external factors, and has nothing
to do with historicist laws of evolution. Conquest or force could lead to one
mode being imposed on another. For example, in an article on India for the New
York Daily Tribune, Marx argued that war and colonization in India was bringing
about a direct transition from the asiatic communal mode of production to
capitalism.26 In the 'Introduction' he wrote for the Griindrisse, first
published in 1903, Marx said about conquest:
In all cases of conquest, three things are possible. The
conquering people subjugates the conquered under its own mode of production
(e.g., the English in Ireland in this century, and partly in India), or it
leaves the old mode intact and contents itself with tribute (e.g., Turks and
Romans); or a reciprocal interaction takes place whereby something new, a
synthesis, arises (the Germanic conquests, in part). 2 7
Marx also claimed that the internal force of the state also
hastened 'the process of transformation of the feudal mode of production into
the capitalist mode' since 'force is the midwife of every old society pregnant
with a new one'. 2 8
Marx's general theory of history, historical materialism,
requires only that there be a sequence of modes of production. Empirical
investigation would reveal what the historical sequence had been in a given
region. There would also be a certain order in the sequence of modes due to the
possibilities of development inherent in each mode. For example, it is clear
that any mode which depended on a high level of technology in production and
used, say, electricity would not come immediately before a mode which had a low
level of technology and did not use electricity. But the order is not
necessitated and may be overridden by force, war or conquest. The general
picture is not of a unilinear sequence of modes of production unfolding
inevitably in accordance with some law of succession, but of multilinear paths
of possible development from one mode to another, the actual path 'depending on
the historical environment in which the mode occurs'. There is no mention of,
or use for, laws governing the transition from one mode to another.
What are the sources of Popper's charge that Marx held that
there were such laws? They are few and all involve the use of dialectical
terminology. In the Afterword to the second German edition of Capital, Volume
I, Marx, perhaps glad of a favourable review after a number of unfavourable
ones, quotes from an anonymous Russian reviewer. The reviewer stated that Marx had
shown that each historical period had specific laws of its own and that there
were 'special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a
given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one'. 2 9 These
'special laws' at first sight look like examples of historicist laws of
period-succession. Marx extracts more from the review:
The one thing which is of moment to Marx, is to find the law
of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and not only is that
law of moment to him, which governs the phenomena, in so far as they have a
definite form and mutual connexion within a given historical period. Of still
greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their development,
i.e., of their transition from one form into another, from one series of
connexions into a different one.. . .Consequently, Marx only troubles himself
about one thing: to show, by rigid scientific investigation, the necessity of
successive determinate orders of social conditions For this it is quite enough,
if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of
things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably
pass over; and this all the same, whether men believe or do not believe it,
whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. 3 0
In summary, Marx says that what the reviewer pictures as the
method employed in Capital is, in fact, the 'dialectical method'. Then later in
the Afterword, Marx tells us that his dialectical method is the 'direct
opposite' of Hegel's and that while writing Capital he re-read Hegel and in
that work 'coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him'. 3 1 Though
the modes of expression are little used, they occur in crucial passages with the
result that Marx's 'coquetting' has led to the spilling of much critical ink.
The most crucial passage is in the chapter entitled 'Historical Tendency of
Capitalist Accumulation' where the tendency, via 'the negation of the
negation', leads to the abolition of capitalism. The often-quoted paragraph
says:
The capitalist mode of appropriation, the result of the
capitalist mode of production, produces capitalist private property. This is
the first negation of individual private property, as founded on the labour of
the proprietor. But capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a
law of Nature, its own negation. It is the negation of the negation. This does
not re-establish private property for the producer, but gives him individual
property based on the acquisitions of the capitalist era: i.e., on co-operation
and the possession in common of the land of the means of production. 3 2
On first reading it seems that the Russian reviewer is
correct and that some kind of dialectical law governs the evolution of modes of
production. Popper seizes on this paragraph and says: 'In Marx's view it is the
main task of sociological science to show how these dialectical forces are
working in history, and thus to prophesy the course of history.' After quoting
the above paragraph he adds: 'Prophecy certainly need not be unscientific, as predictions
of eclipses and other astronomical events show. But Hegelian dialectic, or its
materialistic version, cannot be accepted as a sound basis for scientific
forecasts.' 3 3
Has Marx in fact attempted a deduction of the dissolution of
capitalism from dialectical laws as Popper alleges? A logical analysis of the
alleged inference (which will not be made here) would show that it is seriously
defective in moving from premises, which include the 'dialectical laws', to a
conclusion which is a prediction about a future mode of production involving
'collective ownership'. But does Marx regard himself as having made an
inference to, and thereby a prediction or a prophecy about, the future
evolution of society? The answer is 'No', and is clearly given by Marx in a
letter 3 4 written in 1877 to the editorial board of the journal
Otechestvenniye Zapiski in reply to a Russian critic's false interpretation of
Capital. He says:
The chapter on primitive accumulation does not claim to do
more than trace the path by which, in Western Europe, the capitalist economic
system emerged from the womb of the fuedal economic system. It therefore
describes the historical process which by divorcing the producers from their
means of production converts them into wage workers (proletarians in the modern
sense of the word) while it converts the owners of the means of production into
capitalists. .. . At the end of the chapter the historical tendency of production
is summed up thus: That it 'begets, with the inexorability of a law of Nature
its own negation'; that it has itself created the elements of a new economic
order, since at the same time it provides for an unprecedented expansion of the
productive forces of social labour and the universal development of every
individual producer; that capitalist property, which actually rests already on
a collective mode of production, can only be transformed into social property.
At this point I have not furnished any proof, for the good reason that this
statement is itself nothing else but a general summary of long expositions
previously given in the chapters on capitalist production.
Clearly Marx thinks that the capitalist mode of production
can develop into a 'new economic order' and that in that new order capitalist
individual property will be transformed into social property. He uses the
phrase 'begets with the inexorability of a law of Nature its own negation' to
describe this transformation, but no reference to any 'law of Nature' is
intended, nor is any proof of the transformation furnished from such a law.
Rather, the grounds on the basis of which Marx thinks that capitalist
individual property will be transformed into social property have to do with
arguments based on his earlier account in Capital of the capitalist mode of
production and its inherent possibilities of development (which he thinks are
limited to only one possible development, i.e. to social property). Whether or
not one agrees with Marx about the future transformation of capitalist
individual property to social property, the main point against Popper's
interpretation is that Marx's reasoning is not based on an appeal to some
historicist law of dialectical evolution of modes of production. Rather, Marx's
reasoning is based on the character of the capitalist mode of production as he
has described it, and the claim that there is only one way left for it to
develop, i.e. towards social property. (This latter claim is subject to much
qualification in Capital, Volume III, Chapter 28, where Marx discusses the
evolution, within the capitalist mode of production, to collective property in
the form of co-operatives and joint-stock companies. In this chapter Marx also
uses dialectical terminology but there is no hint of 'dialectical laws'
governing the evolution.)
Marx continues his letter almost in anticipation of Popper's
charge of historicism:
Now what application to Russia could my critic make of this
historical sketch? Simply this: If Russia wants to become a capitalist nation
after the example of the Western-European countries — and during the last few
years she has been taking a lot of trouble in this direction — she will not
succeed without having first transformed a good part of her peasants into
proletarians; and then, once drawn into the whirlpool of the capitalist
economy, she will have to endure its inexorable laws like other profane nations.
That is all. But that is too little for my critic. He insists on transforming
my historical sketch of the genesis of capitalism in Western Europe into an
historico-philosophic theory of the general path of development prescribed by
fate to all nations, whatever the historical circumstances in which they find
themselves. . . .
Marx re-emphasizes that in Capital his account of the
development of the capitalist mode of production is restricted to the countries
of Western Europe; other regions with other modes of production in different
historical circumstances are not fated to evolve into the capitalist mode.
Popper's historicist interpretation of Marx is consistent with this point, for
Popper does not claim that there are laws governing the succession of modes of
production from which one can deduce, or prophesy, that all modes of production
must evolve into one mode, the capitalist mode. But Popper's historicist
interpretation does require that there be laws of period-succession, that is,
that there be 'an historico-philosophic theory independent of the historical
circumstances in which nations find themselves'. The 'inexorability' that Marx
speaks of concerns the period-relative laws of the capitalist mode of
production itself. These laws would only apply once a nation entered upon
capitalism and would not govern either its arriving at the capitalist mode from
some other mode, or its departing from the capitalist mode for some other.
However, Marx thought that, under certain conditions, the operation of these
laws would lead to the internal breakdown of the capitalist mode of production.
Examples of these laws and conditions will be mentioned later; it will be seen
that they cannot be laws of period-succession.
In the final paragraph of the letter Marx gives an example
of his manner of thinking about the evolution of modes of production that is
very like the approach he adopted in his several replies to Vera Zasulich.
Briefly, he says that in various places in Capital he discussed the fate which
overtook the plebeians of ancient Rome. Originally they were free peasants
cultivating their own land. In due course they were expropriated and driven off
the land. But they did not become wage labourers as did the similarly
expropriated agricultural workers during the sixteenth-century periods of
enclosure. Marx says of the plebeians: . . .
alongside them there developed a mode of production which
was not capitalist but based on slavery. Thus events strikingly analagous but
taking place in different historical surroundings led to totally different
results. By studying each of these forms of evolution separately and then
comparing them one can easily find the clue to this phenomenon, but one will
never arrive there by using as one's master key a general
historico-philosophical theory, the supreme virtue of which consists in being
supra-historical.
In this example, as in replies to Vera Zasulich and
elsewhere, Marx's thinking about the evlolution of forms of society involves a
careful weighing of various causal factors to determine which of various
possible developments will be the actual one. There is no wheeling out of big
dialectical guns to prophesy the future course of evolution of all forms of
society independently of their historical circumstance. Nor is it claimed that
all nations are fated to some particular future development in accordance with
historicist laws, or that they are fated to the same future development.
So far Popper's historicist laws of period-succession have
been taken to be laws which link up successive periods. But there are two
different interpretations of these laws as is suggested by William Dray in his
book Philosophy of History.35 The first interpretation is the one that we have
assumed, namely, that the laws tell us what the pattern of the past has been
(even though no such law has been specifically formulated in the case of Marx,
or could be if the thesis of this paper is correct). Dray cites examples of
those who have thought they have discerned some pattern: Vico whose 'corsi e
ricorsi' represents the 'spiraling' advance of history, or Hegel who discerned
a progressive but 'dialectically evolving' pattern in history, both in contrast
to Niebuhr who thought that no pattern could be discerned in the chaos of
worldly affairs. Also, both J.S. Mill and Popper's historicist Marx would claim
that there was a 'pattern' law of development, as yet not specifically
formulated, which would be instantiated by each pair of consecutive stages in
the course of human history. However, such 'pattern' laws do not tell us what
causes the evolution of one stage of history into the next. A second kind of
law is required which tells us about the causal mechanism at work in such
evolutions. Laws of this kind would tell us how period changes take place;
'pattern' laws only tell us that period changes take place. Dray also cites
examples of those who have thought that they have discovered laws of causal
mechanism: Toynbee with his theory of the 'response' societies make to
'challenge', or Spengler with his concept of quasi-biological 'destiny' built
into each social organism. Such examples are excessively vague and not even
well founded, but they do illustrate the difference between the two kinds of Law.
Popper includes this second, quite distinct, interpretation
of laws period-succession in his account of historicism. In a section of The
Poverty of Historicism entitled 'Social Dynamics' he develops further the
analogy between Newtonian dynamics and the historicist view of history. In
Newtonian dynamics a theory was proposed about the motions of bodies that were
caused by forces; in its application to particular systems, such as the solar
system, all the forces acting had to be taken into account before the motions
of the planets could be calculated on the basis of these forces. Similarly, an
historicist will propose a theory about the causal 'forces' at work in history,
suggest laws which govern the 'forces', and try to determine in concrete cases
how the 'forces' act in transforming each stage of human history. As Popper
suggests: 'to penetrate to its roots, to the universal driving forces and laws
of social change — this is the task of the social sciences, as seen by
historicism.'36 The 'forces' responsible for change will be given in 'laws of
process, of change, of development — not the pseudo-laws of apparent
constancies or uniformities'.3 7 There are, then, two kinds of historicist laws
of period-succession that are quite independent of one another. The first is a
law of pattern or sequence; the second a law about the cause or mechanism of
period change.
Marx's theory of historical materialism does make general
claims about the causal mechanisms at work in the material basis of society
when one mode of production is transformed into another. Briefly,3 8 the
general account is that each mode of production comprises a set of'forces of
production' combined in a specific way, 'the relations of production'. (Forces
of production include: the means of production such as tools, machinery and raw
material; labourers and their particular skills to use the means of production;
the cooperative effect of the division of labour; capital; and so on. The
relations of production include the class and the work relations in which men
stand, and the general economic relations of production, consumption,
distribution and circulation of commodities.) The prevailing relations may be
conducive to the growth and development of the forces of production, but, in so
developing them, the forces come into 'conflict' with the existing relations of
production. The conflict is resolved when the relations are transformed and the
developed forces of production work within a new set of relations of
production. This is a general model which guided Marx's thinking about the
overall structural features of each period of society. As it stands it has no
empirical content and must be applied to a specific period in the history of a
society before any testable consequences arise. In precisely the same way
Newton's general theory, comprising the three laws of motion and the law of
universal gravitation, must be applied to concrete systems (such as the solar
system, a moving projectile, a swinging pendulum, etc.) before any testable
consequences arise. In both Marx's theory and Newton's it is essential to
distinguish between the general framework principles which constitute the theory
or model, and the concrete systems to which the framework principles can be
applied in order to give each theory empirical content and yield testable
consequences.
Marx applied his general theory to a number of specific
stages in human history, the most extensive application being to the capitalist
period from the sixteenth century. Marx's general model suggests that in cases
of the transformation of one mode of production into another we look at the
'conflict' that can develop in a mode between the forces and relations of
production. Such conflicts are not immediately evident and may require
considerable analysis of the particular mode of production concerned. Marx
claimed that he had found a number of such conflicts at the heart of the
capitalist mode; for example, the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to
fall in Capital, Volume III, or the theory of crises in Capital, Volume II.
Again, much analysis and empirical research is required to uncover the form the
conflict takes in other modes of production as has been indicated in Marx's
work on pre-capitalist modes of production and in his replies to Vera Zasulich
about the Russian mir. Marx was also aware that in any concrete transformation
of one mode of production into another there were more causal factors at work
than just those which could be found in the material basis of society; i.e.,
there were political, religious, state, legal, and moral factors at work as
well as the conflict factors due to the developing forces of production and the
ensuing antagonism between these forces and the relations of production. But
the conflict factors in the material basis of society were regarded as being
the fundamental causal factors. In general, Marx's claim is that for each
instance of a transformation of one stage of society into another, there is a
set of causal factors which gives rise to the change. The set of causal factors
for each transformation may comprise a number of very different ingredients.
But there will be in each case one common ingredient that is fundamental and is
due to the particular form that the conflict between the forces and relations
of production takes in the stage of the society which undergoes the
transformation. For example, Marx thought that one of the forms the conflict
would take in the capitalist mode of production would be for the rate of profit
to fall with increased capital accumulation thereby undercutting the very
thing, profit, that the capitalist mode depends upon. But not all modes of
production will suffer from this particular conflict factor that Marx says
infects the capitalist mode. Thus, the conflict between the forces and relations
of production is a common causal ingredient in each social transformation, but
the form it takes is different for each transformation; and so, the precise
character of the causal mechanism at work in each transformation is different.
What, if anything, is wrong with Marx's general claim that
for each social transformation there is one fundamental causal factor which,
along with other causal factors, gives rise to the transformation? Such a claim
does not imply that there are general causal laws governing the transition from
one stage of society to another. Marx's general theoretical model only claims
that in social transformations there is a conflict between the forces and
relations of production to be uncovered. This existential claim is not a causal
law, and it only has testable consequences when it is applied to a particular
stage of a society and the special form that the conflict takes is revealed.
Though Popper has much to say in criticism of 'social dynamics', none of it
touches the account given of Marx's view of the causal mechanisms which
underlie each social transformation. Marx does not claim that there is a causal
law which governs the transition of each stage of society into another. The
absence of a causal law of this sort is quite consistent with there being
particular causal factors at work giving rise to each transformation, and these
particular causal factors being in the long run due to the general conflict
between forces and relations of production.
With the collapse of Popper's charge against Marx that he
held there were historicist laws of period-succession, also falls the second
charge that Marx made prophecies on the basis of these laws. Still, the claim
that Marx made predictions, or prophecies, about the future course of society
lingers. It remains to show that the only thing Marx had in common with a
prophet was a luxuriant beard.
Was Marx confused about the logical distinction between
conditional and unconditional prediction, and did he make prophecies? Certainly
in the polemical Manifesto of the Communist Party Marx writes of proletarian
revolution. On the eve of the 1848 revolutions in Europe, Marx may have had
good reasons, though not historicist ones, for predicting revolution. The 1848
revolutions failed; the falseness of Marx's prediction (if, in fact, he made a
prediction, for this is not clear in the Manifesto) in no way impugns its
status as a prediction and turns it into a prophecy. In the Manifesto Marx also
claims that there will be a growing polarization into two classes, the
bourgeois and the proletarian, with a growing immiserization of the
proletariat. Is this an example of false Marxian prophecy? When Marx wrote the
Manifesto he had not developed his theory of the economics of capitalism that
subsequently appeared in Capital. In that work he returns to the theme of
immiserization in a chapter entitled 'The General Law of Capitalist
Accumulation'. Here Marx gives a fuller investigation of the relationship
between capital accumulation and demand for labour, and specifies under what
conditions this demand may rise and under what conditions there may be a
relative surplus population, or industrial reserve army of the unemployed. He
announces what he calls the 'absolute general law of capitalist accumulation':
The greater the social wealth, the functioning of capital,
the extent and energy of its growth, and, therefore, also the absolute mass of
the proletariat and the productiveness of its labour, the greater is the
industrial reserve army. The same causes which develop the expansive power of
capital, develop also the labour-power at its disposal. The relative mass of
the industrial reserve army increases therefore with the potential energy of
wealth. But the greater this reserve army in proportion to the active
labour-army, the greater is the mass of a consolidated surplus-population,
whose misery is in inverse ratio to its torment of labour. The more extensive,
finally, the lazarus-layers of the working-class, and the industrial reserve
army, the greater is official 39 pauperism.
Popper quotes this extract in The Open Society and its
Enemies as an example of 'how completely wrong Marx was in his prophecies'.4 0
But he omits the two sentences which immediately follow the above extract from
Capital. 'This is the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation. Like all
other laws it is modified in its working by many circumstances, the analysis of
which does not concern us here.' A qualification such as this, overlooked by
Popper, indicates that Marx was not making an unconditional prediction, or
prophecy, about the masses of unemployed that will always accompany capitalism,
but, rather, a conditional prediction. In fact Marx is well aware that there
are opposing tendencies and he discusses them in detail. In the same chapter he
investigates the conditions under which there can be an increased demand for
labour with increasing accumulation and says: 'For since in each year more
labourers are employed than in its predecessor, sooner or later a point must be
reached, at which the requirements of accumulation begin to surpass the
customary supply of labour, and, therefore, a rise of wages takes place.' 4 1
Marx also discusses the effect on his 'absolute general law' of a change in the
'technical composition of capital', i.e., the greater use of machinery and more
extensive automation. Popper is in the company of some Marxists who think that
Marx made an unconditional prediction or prophecy concerning the increase in
the industrial reserve army of unemployed proletarians who might carry out
revolution. In contrast, Marx is aware that the law cannot assert itself in
conditions totally free from any outside influences. In the beginning of Part
VII of Capital, of which the chapter we have been discussing is a section, Marx
lists a number of assumptions he has made before proceeding to investigate the
effects of capital accumulation in relative isolation from other matters, and
adds: 'An exact analysis of the process, therefore, demands that we should, for
a time, disregard all phenomena that hide the play of its inner mechanism.'4 2
rate of profit to fall' announced in Capital, Volume III, is
an example of historicist prophecy. 4 3 This law excited Marx when he
discovered it because it was a good example of the contradictory tendencies
which he thought existed within the capitalist mode of production; it claimed
that the very means employed to gain more surplus, and thus profit, caused a
decline in the rate at which profit was obtained. But the law is not an
unconditional prophecy and depends on a number of conditions holding before it
can assert itself fully. In Chapter 13 Marx announces the law and follows it in
the next chapter, entitled 'Counteracting Influences', with a list of six
influences and methods for staving off the action of the law. In commenting on
this law, capital accumulation, and the forces leading to the dissolution of
capitalism, Marx says these processes 'would soon bring about the collapse of
capitalist production if it were not for counteracting tendencies, which have a
continuous decentralizing effect alongside the centripetal one'. 4 4 Even
Marx's prediction of the collapse of capitalism is a conditional prediction and
not a prophecy! The main point against Popper is that he has mistaken the
character of Marx's predictions. The question about the correctness of Marx's
laws is not the issue. That Marx's conditional predictions might be false in no
way affects the claim that they are not prophecies. In fact, there is still
much debate over the correct formulation and import of Marx's law of the
tendency of the rate of profit to fall as well as debates about the truth or
falsity of each of these formulations. But this is not germane to the point
raised by Popper.
Many commentators misunderstand some important features of Marx's
method of approach to his subject which would quickly explain a number of
features of his laws of capitalism, such as the two just mentioned. A
discussion of Marx's methodology is outside the scope of this paper, but a few
comments are necessary. Sweezy sums up Marx's use of a 'method of abstraction'
succinctly: 'Marx believed in and practiced what modern theorists have called
the method of "successive approximations", which consists in moving
from the more abstract to the more concrete in a step-by-step fashion, removing
simplifying assumptions at successive stages of the investigation so that
theory may take account of and explain an ever wider range of actual
phenomena.' 4 5 Marx himself says right at the beginning of Capital, Volume
III: 'In Book I we analysed the phenomena which constitute the process of
capitalist production as such, as the immediate productive process, with no
regard for any of the secondary effects of outside influences.. . . The various
forms of capital, as evolved in this book, thus approach step by step the form
which they assume on the surface of society... J 4 6 And further, in the
'Introduction' he wrote to the Grundrisse,47 Marx gives an account of his
method of abstraction from the organic whole of society to the laws governing
the 'inner mechanism' of the capitalist mode of production. In the light of
these methodological comments it can be seen that almost any law of capitalism
that Marx proposed would be conditional and dependent upon the degree of
abstraction made from the total overall functioning of a capitalist society.
Two general comments are required about Marx's use of the
term 'law'. Initially a distinction was drawn between laws of period-succession
and laws, or generalities, regularities or uniformities, which hold only for a
given historical period. Now the distinction between a law and a regularity (or
uniformity or generality) is important. The regularity 'all trade union
officials vote for radical political parties' may well be true, but clearly it
is not a law governing human behaviour. If we admit that there are period
regularities, can we also admit there are laws which hold only for a given
period? Marx's two laws that we have just considered are clearly not laws of
period-succession but are confined to the period of the capitalist mode of
production. (They do, of course, contribute to Marx's understanding of the
processes of dissolution at work within the capitalist mode, but they are not
laws which hold in all period or link successive periods.) If the laws are
period-relative, can they really be laws? As we have seen above in the
introductory comments about historicism, Popper has pointed out that
period-relative laws are not 'universally valid', and are not like natural laws
of physics because they are man-made. The latter claim is vague and its precise
import need not concern us. The former, however, can involve a confusion over
what is meant by 'universally valid'. Popper has argued that only laws of
period-succession can be universally valid. But this does not literally mean
than the laws are instantiated at all times and places. Rather it means (on the
'pattern' interpretation of what these laws are): whenever periods of
such-and-such kind occur, then they are followed by periods of another kind. Here
'universally valid' means what logicians call a 'universal hypothetical'.
Consider another example: whenever people catch measles,
then they come out in spots. This universal hypothetical is not to be confused
with a generality which looks superficially the same: all people catch measles
and come out in spots. This, if true, would require that all people instantiate
the generality. The universal hypothetical does not require that all people
instantiate it in order for it to be true, but only those few people who do in
fact get measles. And further, if medical science should ever eradicate measles
the latter generality would clearly be false, while the former universal
hypothetical would still be true, but would only have been instantiated over
the finite period of time before the disease was eradicated. Now both Popper's
laws of period-succession and period-relative laws are universal hypothetical
in the logical sense specified above; and they are, as a consequence, both
correctly describable as laws. The fact that period-relative laws may only be
instantiated for the finite time that the historical period survives no more
impugns their status as laws than would the universal hypothetical about
measles be impugned if science were to eradicate the disease. Thus there can be
both inter-period laws of succession and intra-period laws governing only one
period. The latter laws would, unlike the former laws, not be instantiated
outside a given period.
A second general comment is required about the sense in which
Marx could speak of his two laws as being either an 'absolute general law' or a
'law of tendency'. If there are always countervailing tendencies preventing
capitalist society from behaving strictly in accordance with Marx's alleged
laws, then in what sense can we speak of them being 'absolute general'; and in
what sense is a 'law of tendency' genuinely a law? Another illustration from
Newtonian mechanics may be helpful. Consider Newton's law of gravitation which
tells us about the force of attraction which always acts between two bodies
drawing them together. Now if, in fact, forces of attraction were the only
forces acting, then the earth would have long ago disappeared into the sun, and
the whole universe, perhaps, collapsed into one gigantic ball. Clearly there
are countervailing forces preventing this happening and no, or very few, pairs
of bodies behave strictly in accordance with this law alone. We could say that
it is a 'law of tendency' or 'absolute general law' that is over-ridden almost
everywhere. Again, Newton's Second Law tells us that moving bodies will, under
the action of no forces, travel in straight lines. But no body in the universe
moves in a straight line because there is always some force acting on it. Thus
no body in the universe acts purely in accordance with just one of Newton's
laws; the behaviour of bodies is so modified by the action of various kinds of
force that all behaviour is governed by a number of laws simultaneously and is
never a pure instance of just one of Newton's laws. Similarly, we could say
that no capitalist nation exhibits purely the behaviour suggested by any one of
the two laws of Marx that we have considered, or any one of the other laws that
Marx postulates. Always the behaviour is modified in ways which seem counter to
the pure operation of the law. Marx is aware of this analogy between his laws
of capitalist production and the laws of Newtonian mechanics when he says:
It is not our intention to consider, here, the way in which
the laws, immanent in capitalist production, manifest themselves in the
movements of individual masses of capital, where they assert themselves as
coercive laws of competition. . . . But this much is clear; a scientific
analysis of competition is not possible, before we have a conception of the
inner nature of capital, just as the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies
are not intelligible to any but him, who is acquainted with their real motions,
motions which are not directly perceptible by the senses.48
If the behaviour of no body ever purely instantiates that
prescribed by each Newtonian law taken alone, and if the behaviour of no
capitalist society ever purely instantiates that prescribed by each of Marx's
laws of the capitalist mode of production taken alone, then how do we tell if each
is a true, or a false, theory? This is a large question not discussed in this
paper. The main point is that there is a good sense in which Marx's laws are
general tendencies and this is a sense in which laws of physics can be general
tendencies.
It remains to consider whether Marx made prophecies about
the proletarian revolution which was to overwhelm bourgeois society. Marx's
Manifesto is often suggested as a source for such prophecies but a careful
reading suggests that no such prophecies were made. Expressions of hope for
such a revolution, or the suggestion of methods to be employed in bringing
about a revolution, do not constitute making predictions or prophecies. But in
the Manifesto neither hopes are expressed nor are revolutionary tactics outlined.
In fact, Marx was never a theoretician about revolutionary tactics in the way
Lenin, Mao, or Che Guevara have been.
Marx's views on the possibility of revolution are more
complex than is suggested by simple-minded predictions of the form: 'a
revolution will take place by such-and-such a time'. Many writers, including
Popper, rely on one or two brief quotations from Marx's writings that suggest
that Marx had such a straightforward prophecy in mind. This is far from the
case. Marx always thought that a revolution required certain material
conditions the absence of which could not be compensated by a desire, no matter
how strong, for revolution:
And if these material elements of a complete revolution are
not present — namely, on the one hand the existing productive forces, on the
other the formation of a revolutionary mass, which revolts not only against
separate conditions of the existing society, but against the existing
'production of life' itself, the 'total activity' on which it was based — then
it is absolutely immaterial for practical development whether the idea of this
revolution has been expressed a hundred times already, as the history of
communism 49 proves.
On other occasions Marx emphasizes the need for a struggle
on the part of the proletariat. In a letter to Engels of 9 April 1863, Marx
complains about the 'bourgeois infection' of the English working class; and in
a 'Confidential Communication' of 1870 says: 'The English have all that is
needed materially for social revolution. What they lack is the sense of
generalisation and revolutionary passion.'50 This suggests that the material
conditions of a revolution may be present, but, without a revolutionary mass of
people, no revolution will occur. Marx's theory of revolution is too complex to
go into here. But it is clear that Marx did not have in mind a straightforward
prediction of the kind: 'a revolution will occur at such a place within a
certain time'. There is nothing in Marx's theory that suggests the possibility
of such 'large-scale forecasts'. But there is in Marxist political practice a
role for long-term goals and aims, and these are quite distinct from
predictions. The aims, goals and strategies of a revolutionary mass of people
do enter into Marx's theory of revolution thereby making a simple prediction of
a revolution impossible.
On revolution in England Marx was particularly guarded in
his remarks. He said in a 'Speech on the Hague Congress':
We know that heed must be paid to the institutions, customs
and traditions of the various countries, and we do not deny that there are
countries, such as America and England, and if I was familiar with its
institutions, I might include Holland, where the workers may attain their goal
by peaceful means. That being the case, we must recognise that in most
continental countries the lever of the revolution will have to be force; a
resort to force will be necessary one day in order to set up the rule of
labour. 5 1
And in an interview in 1871:
In England, for instance, the way to show political power
lies open to the working class. Insurrection would be madness where peaceful
agitation would more swiftly and surely do the work. In France a hundred laws
of repression and mortal antagonism between classes seem to necessitate the
violent solution of social war. 5 2
And in a letter to Hyndman in 1880:
If you say that you do not share the views of my party for
England I can only reply that that party considers an English revolution not
necessary, but — according to historic precedents — possible. If the unavoidable
evolution turn into a revolution, it would not only be the fault of the ruling
classes, but also of the working class. Every pacific concession of the former
has been wrung from them by 'pressure from without'. Their action kept pace
with that pressure and if the latter has more and more weakened, it is only
because the English working class know not how to wield their power and use
their liberties, both of which they possess legally.
In Germany the working class was fully aware from the
beginning of their movement that you cannot get rid of a military despotism but
by a Revolution. At the same time they understood that such a Revolution, even
if at first successful, would finally turn against them without previous
organization, acquirement of knowledge and propaganda. Hence they moved within
strictly legal bounds. 5 3
Far from predicting revolutions Marx seems to have thought
that in certain countries under certain conditions they would not, and need
not, occur. In places where he thought revolutions might occur two ingredients
were deemed necessary (but not sufficient): first, certain material conditions
had to be present, and second, revolutionary goals aimed for by a revolutionary
mass of people.
That Marx did not make predictions about revolutions, but
rather adopted a wait-and-see attitude, is clear from his comments on the Paris
Commune. And in the Critique of the Gotha Programme Marx asks: 'What
transformation will the state undergo in a communist society? In other words,
what social functions will remain that are analogous to the present functions
of the state? This question can only be answered scientifically and even a
thousandfold combination of the word "state" and the word
"people" will not bring us a flea-hop nearer the problem.' 5 4 He did
make suggestions as to what should be aimed at in revolutionary situations and
after this quotation he speaks of the ''revolutionary dictatorship of the
proletariat'. But it is clear from this passage that no predictions,
large-scale or otherwise, are made. Rather, Marx is himself interested in
discovering what transformation the state will undergo, and in suggesting
revolutionary strategies that can be adopted to achieve certain ends.
In a review of Capital I, Marx was surprised to find himself
reproached for having confined himself 'to the mere critical analysis of actual
facts, instead of writing receipts for the cook-shops of the future'. 5 5 Since
then he has always been reproached for the opposite. Morever, Marx was aware of
those critics who would metamorphose his 'historical sketch of the genesis of capitalism
in Western Europe into an historico-philosophical theory of the general path of
development prescribed by fate to all nations'. The claim that Marx established
historicist laws and made historicist predictions is a falsification of the
correct character of his theoretical approach.
ROBERT NOLA
===
===
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario