Philosophy and Marxism Today

Frederick Engels on the Theoretical Development of Modern Socialism

2011-11-06T12:42:00.001-08:00

Thomas Riggins

Engels discusses the theories of modern socialism in chapter two of part three of his book Anti-Dühring: Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science. We are informed that socialism is a politico-economic theory based on the materialist conception of history. Unlike idealist conceptions that history is based on the great ideas and actions of famous individuals (the view of Bertrand Russell for one), or guided by spiritual forces, or the expression of a grand plan set up by some deity or other (there are several choices as to which deity came up with the plan) materialists believe that the existence of the various institutions and social structures that have developed overtime, and by which various groups of humans arrange their social institutions, belief patterns, and social relations are to be understood, in the last analysis, by a study of how they interact to make their daily bread (production) and how they come to distribute what they made to each other (distribution). Thus the causes of the different phases of human development , Engels says, "are to be sought, not in the philosophy but in the economics of each particular epoch."

Today, Engels says (he means the 1870s in Europe but his comments are still as true now as then) there is a growing sense that something is basically wrong and unfair in how our national and international economic system operates. It can't employ all who wish to work, millions of people are living in poverty, famines droughts brought about by human activity engulf large sections of the globe and hunger stalks the streets of many of our largest cities, families are homeless and uprooted, and our schools and colleges fail to properly educate the youth to understand the world they live in. Yet a very small group of wealthy people grow richer and richer while the vast majority of humanity suffers and wastes away.

This shows, according to Engels, that new ways of production and distribution have evolved and that the social order we live in has not kept up with these developments. In fact our social order has become dysfunctional and is holding back all the possible potential improvements in human welfare that the new productive and distributive powers could provide. It is the task of socialists to discover and point out the current impediments which prevent the productive system from reaching its full potential and to discover the means of benefiting all humanity rather than just a small portion. And, he says: "These means are not to be invented, spun out of the head, but discovered with the aid of the head in the existing material facts of production."

Our present society is the creation of a class of people consisting of merchants, shopkeepers, owners of small manufacturing concerns, all those who made their living either by buying, selling, and trading commodities, small farmers who trucked their product to market and those who ministered to them (doctors, lawyers, teachers and preachers). Underneath this class was a class of laborers who made the commodities, or helped in their storage and distribution, upon which the former relied for their income. This latter class became the working class of today and the former the class of people living off of the surplus value created by the working class. Marx and others referred to them as the bourgeoisie or capitalists.

This mode of production, the creation of commodities for a market, has come to be called capitalism. The first capitalists found themselves subservient to a powerful ruling class of nobles consisting of feudal lords and (mostly) hereditary monarchs who lived by means of agricultural exploitation of serfs and taxation of the income of the developing bourgeoise. This ruling class stifled the productive capacity of the bourgeoise and prevented it from reaching its true potential. In other words, the bounds within which the feudal system restricted the capitalists were incompatible with that class's growing mode of production and so, Engels says, the "bourgeoisie broke up the feudal system and built upon its ruins the capitalist order of society."

Once the feudal bonds were broken (the French Revolution was one of the most dramatic instances) the capitalist mode of production flourished and developed the productive forces of society to unprecedented heights, only in its turn to find that its own associated method of distribution contradicted its mode of production. The social product is a collective creation of working people in all the branches of production but it is appropriated by a small number of capitalists who own and control the means by which this social product is created. The social product is then distributed in a way that increases the social wealth of the capitalist class at the expense of the well being of the working people, ultimately leading to their impoverishment. The only way the working people can free themselves from the exploitation of the capitalist class is by uniting together and abolishing it.

This conflict is waged daily in every work place, factory, field, and mine where the capitalist mode of production holds sway. This very active and real class warfare is a feature, 24/7, of daily life in almost every country on the face of the earth, and just like high blood pressure (the silent killer) it is going on and even intensifying whether the people involved are aware of it or not.

Engels says, "Modern socialism is nothing but the reflex in thought , of this conflict in fact; its ideal reflection in the minds, first, of the class directly suffering under it, the working class." The fact that in many countries many, and even most, working people are lacking this "reflex in thought" is testament to the power of the capitalist class, through its mass media and control of the education system, means of entertainment, and professional sports, to fill the heads of working people with illusions and a false sense of reality.

How did this class warfare between workers and capitalists begin? It was not to be found in the Middle Ages because the peasant farmers and handicraft men, or their families, made their own necessities by and large, and the products of their labor belonged to them. They could use them themselves or take them to market as commodities or pay their taxes and feudal dues in kind or exchange them with one another.

With the progress of invention it was possible for a person to set up shop with, say, many looms, and put many hands to work side by side with the peasant with his own loom in his hut making products for himself. Now the product of the man with many looms belonged to him and loom workers were given wages.

Engels says the old division of labor of the peasant village with products being exchanged in kind began to break up as this primitive factory system began to evolve. "In the midst of the old division of labour, grown up spontaneously and upon no definite plan, which had governed the whole of society, now arose division of labor upon a definite plan, as organized in the factory; side by side with individual production appeared social production." Planning locally, and eventually central planning, was a major feature of the success of capitalism. Whatever the problems of 20th century socialism were, they did not result from the use of central planning per se.

As the capitalist system evolved it eventually replaced individual production with social production but kept in place individual appropriation of the products that were produced-- thus creating a new class of exploited human beings that became known as the proletariat who soon began to stand outcast and starving amid the wonders they had made, which wonders were now the property of the bourgeoisie.

As production for a market became more and more wide spread it was soon discovered, Engels points out, that: "Anarchy reigns in socialized production." This is because no one can really tell what the fate of the the commodities they are making will be, will there be a demand for them, will they be sold at a profit or loss. Even with the planning involved in setting up the factory system there always remains this risk factor under capitalism.

Capitalism thus finds itself subject to the laws of EXCHANGE ("the only persistent form of social interrelations") which manifest themselves in competition. The anarchy became exacerbated since capitalism destroys competing modes of production and will not co-exist with them; thus handicrafts were replaced by the system of manufacture and manufacture by steam powered machinery.

This all happened under pressure of the age of discovery, starting roughly with the voyages of Columbus, and planting of colonies which vastly increased the number of markets and sealed the fate of the handicraft system which could not keep up with demand. It also led to the outbreaks of wars between nations fighting for market share-- a form of anarchistic behavior that still marks the world capitalist system.

It is at this point that Engels turns to Darwinian images to describe the relations of capitalists to one another. Both Marx and Engels were very impressed with The Origin of Species but neither were so-called "social Darwinists." Nevertheless today's globalization is simply an extension of the world market of the nineteenth century that Engels described as a universal struggle of existence between different capitalist elites and whole nations and those who fail are "remorselessly cast aside"-- unless, of course they get government stimulus money and bailouts.

"It is," Engels says, "the Darwinian struggle of the individual for existence transferred from nature to society with intensified violence." Capitalism reduces humanity back to its natural animal form of existence. This is the result of the intensification of the contradiction between socialized mode of production and the private capitalist appropriation of the social product.

One of the results of the unfettered competition between capitalists is that they lose control of their own economic system, as we see going on at present, and as it crashes the anarchy of production (which also reigns in the financial sector) forces "the great majority" of the people into becoming "proletarians." The current Occupy Wall Street Movement (OWSM) reflects the fact the "middle class" (actually a better paid strata of the working class mixed with small business people and professionals) is being forced into lower paid jobs, unemployment, bankruptcy, and debt and sees no way out for itself in this economy. They are becoming part of the surplus population (from the point of view of the capitalists) and don't like it. They have yet to fully realize that this is the natural outcome of capitalism and their only hope for a better life is to support socialist economic measures.

The OWSM is a natural response to what is the latest breakdown in the capitalist system. Engels dates the first general breakdown to the Crisis of 1825-- caused by over speculation by the banks (esp. the Bank of England) in unsound investments in Latin America (esp. Peru). Just as our current crisis, investors were given misinformation about the soundness of their investments and when the market collapsed were left holding bag. The banks use the term "asymmetric information" to note that what they know about the investment and what you know is different. The term "fraud" would be more to the point. In 1825 France bailed out England, in our current crisis the US taxpayers bailed out the banks.

These panics used to occur about every ten years but there was some stabilization after World War II and we had about 60 years of minor panics and recessions before this current world wide on going economic crash of the capitalist system-- with no end in sight. However, for Engels, what looks like a financial crisis is really a crisis in production. Socialized production has made too many goodies for the markets so factories laid off working people who then could not pay their bills-- esp. the fraudulent mortgages. Since the financial sector had cooked up so many mortgages based on "asymmetric information" the whole economy began to fall apart.

So many factories remain closed or under utilized that unemployment balloons, and the great productive forces available to our economy are dormant until the capitalists can figure how to get them going again in such a way that they, not the American people, can once again appropriate the wealth that will be created by the workers. The added twist of our day is that capitalists, their industries having become unproductive during the down turn, add to their profits by getting out of paying taxes, by adding fees and surcharges to service products, and by hiking interest rates to private borrowers (credit cards for example) even while commercial interest rates are held low by government intervention via the Federal Reserve.

As the corporate world flounders, as the auto industry recently did, it relies on "its official representative"-- namely the state-- to come to its aid. It should be obvious to all that the state which Lincoln called "of the people, for the people, by the people" is now "of, for, and by the corporations"-- it is their referee.

Engels says that the state will eventually be forced to take over the commanding heights of the economy simply because the capitalists can no longer control them due to the growing contradiction between the socialized productive forces (masses of workers united with or without unions in the creation of the social product in factories and industries and subject to increasing unemployment and poverty) and the private appropriation of the social product by the 1 to 10% of the ruling class and its top functionaries. The tipping point has not yet been reached, but it is coming-- if not in this crisis, then the next it will present itself.

This state takeover under capitalism is not yet socialism, Engels tells us, even though the commanding heights will have been converted into state property. However, the takeover reveals that all the functions of running the economy can be taken over by state "salaried employees." Since the "modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine" as it is forced to nationalize failing industries "it actually becomes the national capitalist." The state directly exploits the working people having done away with individual, and incompetent, private capitalists (done in by their own creation).

This is not a stable situation and in a democracy it cannot last. The contradiction between the state and the people brings "to a head" the capitalist relation between people and their government and this must "topple over." State capitalism is not, therefore, the answer to the class conflict, "but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements" leading to that answer.

Once the people understand the source of their problems is the private appropriation of the social product, then the 99% can really set an agenda to put the 1% in their place. Here is what Engels thinks should happen. The people should set about " the harmonizing of the modes of production, appropriation, and exchange." Hopefully they can do this through political action and the regulation of the three modes. Engels says "it depends only upon ourselves to subject them to our own will" and if we don't do so these forces will continue to work against us and to master us. State capitalism will be transformed in the direction of socialism.

The greatest challenge is to become conscious of the need for what is to be done especially when that need is the take over of the economy by the people because "this understanding goes against the grain of the capitalist mode of production and its defenders"--i.e., the capitalists, the major political parties, the mass media, the mainstream churches, and the public and private education systems as well as the leadership of most unions and mass organizations as presently constituted.

Nevertheless, according to Engels, as the crisis deepens this consciousness will begin to develop in all of the above institutions except for the capitalist class itself and those completely dependent upon it. The working people and its allies and friends, the 99%, will have to take political power out of the hands of the corporations and their flunkies, if they have not already been nationalized, and turn the current privately held means of production into state property.

A by product of this action, the abolition of private property, is that the 1% will no longer have the means to dominate the 99%-- all people will be equally working for their own and the common good. This is what Engels means when speaking of the ending of classes and class exploitation.

An even more startling consequence, to both his own time and ours, is Engels' (and Marx's) belief that the state will disappear. Even the most jaded Libertarian or demented tea bagger could never hope to get government reduced to zero. But Engels points out that throughout history the role of the state has been to control the 99% in the interests of the 1%-- be they slave owners, feudal lords, or capitalists. This role will no longer exist in a society where everything (economically speaking) is owned and managed by the people collectively at the points of production and distribution. There will still be planning commissions and civic associations, but the state, as we know it, will be superfluous.

This doesn't mean that the state will be formally abolished by some sort of declaration or proclamation. It will just slowly wither away over time as its functions become moribund. At least this is the ideal that Engels has in mind for it; perhaps like "liberty and justice for all" it will remain an ideal that every generation comes closer to but never 100% attains, then again maybe Engels will be right.

We must be mindful that all of this speculation about the coming to power of the working people, the disappearance of the 1%, the transition to socialism, etc., is dependent on the development of the productive forces of society to such a high degree of perfection that they can eliminate scarcity and there will be the possibility of abundance of food and other necessities and luxuries for all and that the only reason for poverty and suffering is the control of society by the 1% in its own selfish interests.

In the language of philosophy this means that Sartre's proposition in the Critique of Dialectical Reason : "Scarcity is a fundamental relation of our History and a contingent determination of our univocal relation to materiality" leading to his assertion "There is not enough for everybody" does not hold, it has been overcome and negated, for our world. Indeed, Engels thought it did not hold even in the nineteenth century. We have the productive capacity but we cannot use it due to the capitalist framework within which it exists. It is as the sick person-- the medicine exists to cure him but he hasn't the money to buy it, so he dies.

If this is ever done, and it is a big IF, the world humanity will find itself in after the passing of the capitalist mode of production will be very different from the world of today. Commodity production will cease as there will be no market and no anarchy of production. Objects with use values will be made according to a central plan and they will be made to satisfy human needs not to be sold for profit. There will be no more struggle for existence as all humans will be provided for and, Engels says, for the first time humanity will live as humans should and not be subject to an animal existence. For the first time humanity will control the laws of its own social existence and economy and not be subjected to them. The pre-history of humanity will be over and the true history of humanity will begin. It will be the beginning not the end of history. It will be the leap of humanity "from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom."

Well, as the Chinese say, a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, I hope we have made that step on September 17, 2011 a few blocks from Wall Street in Liberty Square. But even if we haven't and Engels was at heart an utopian and his vision of the future a dream, still a dream, if that is all it is, can, as Martin Luther King, Jr. taught us, inspire people to fight for a better world.

Frederick Engels on the Historical Development of Modern Socialism

2011-07-12T17:56:00.000-07:00

Thomas Riggins

In the first chapter of Part Three of his classic work Anti-Dühring, Engels discusses the origins of the modern socialist movement. He begins with the enthronement of "Reason" by the pre-revolutionary 18th century French philosophers who thought that only reason could be used to answer any of the questions of existence.

After the overthrow of Louis XVI and the abolition of the monarchical French state, a new state was constructed by the revolutionaries-- one based on "eternal" reason and designed to be completely rational. The spiritual progenitor of this state was Rousseau's book The Social Contract.

But "eternal" reason turned out to be simply the explanation of existence from the point of view of the rising bourgeois class. The complexity of the new political reality they had created quite eluded them as the contradictions between their class and the newly conscious masses of the disposed poor of Paris and the countryside began to manifest themselves.

The wretched of the earth exerted themselves and the bourgeois rational state fell apart and morphed into the Reign of Terror under which the masses, for a moment, gained "the mastery" and saved the Revolution. With the abolition of feudalism the bourgeoisie had expected social peace but instead got a furious international response and the development of an intense struggle between the poor and the rich at home.

After Robespierre and the Jacobins, representing the French masses, were overthrown on 9 Thermidor Year II (July 27, 1794) by the conservative bourgeoisie, the new ruling class lost faith in its own ability to rule. After five years of corrupt government under the Directory, they surrendered to the coup d'etat of Napoleon Bonaparte on 18 Brumaire Year IX (November 9, 1799).

All this turmoil was a reflection of the "development of industry upon a capitalist basis [which] made poverty and misery of the working masses conditions of existence of society." From the dispossessed Paris masses (the "have-nothings" and other disadvantaged groups the proletariat began to develop "as the nucleus of a new class." However, at this time "the antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, was still very incompletely developed."

At this historical juncture the three "founders" of socialism appeared: Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Owen. First on the scene was Claude Henri Comte de Saint-Simon (1760-1825). The Revolution was supposed to be a victory of the Third Estate (production workers) over a ruling class of idlers (the nobility and the Catholic hierarchy and its priests). But, in reality Engels says, the victory did not go to the Third Estate as a whole but only that part of it owning property, "the socially privileged part."

Saint-Simon saw the Revolution as a struggle between "workers" (anyone engaged in productive activity) and "idlers"-- people living off unearned income. For him "the workers were not only the wage workers, but also the manufacturers, the merchants, and the bankers." Science and Industry must move to the forefront and lead the revolution. The undeveloped nature of the class struggle within the Third Estate is apparent-- the proletariat and the capitalists are in the same "class." (I can't say the vast majority of the American people have gone much beyond that stage of consciousness yet but it has recently begin to dawn on them that class struggle is real).

Saint-Simon's heart was in the right place as he wanted to improve the conditions of the lowest and greatest number of the Third Estate-- what would become the proletariat and included the masses of downtrodden peasants, the most numerous and poor; Engels quotes him: "la class la plus nombreuse et la plus pauvre." However his socialism was utopian as he expected the bankers to lead the way into the new world! "The bankers especially were to be called upon to direct the whole of social production by the regulation of credit." Ironically the bankers today, the finance capitalists, do control production but in their interests not those of "la plus nombreuse et la plus pauvre."

Saint-Simon actually thought the rich bourgeoisie, bankers and manufactures, would change themselves into public servants and use their ruling positions to help the poor and oppressed. But at least he realized the "poor and oppressed" made up the majority of "the people" (Third Estate). In fact Engels credits him with understanding that the Revolution was a three way struggle-- Nobility vs. the Bourgeoisie AND the propertyless masses even though there was a tendency to group the latter two together when contrasted to the Nobility.

His greatness was in proclaiming that "all men ought to work" and recognizing that within the bourgeois revolution the Reign of Terror represented the power of "the toiling masses" against the haut bourgeoisie. Engels quotes Saint-Simon addressing himself to the poor masses: "See what happened in France at the time when your comrades held sway there; they brought about a famine." The "they" are the bourgeois enemies of Robespierre and the rule of the Parisian sans culottes.

Saint-Simon also saw a future where economics was more important than politics , i.e., the administration of things (planned economy) over the administration of people (the bourgeois state)-- i.e, he envisioned "the abolition of the state." We find in Saint-Simon the seeds, Engels says, of "almost all the ideas of later Socialists that are not strictly economic."

Following on the appearance of Saint-Simon came the ideas of Francois-Marie Charles Fourier (1772-1837). He contrasted the actual living conditions of the people after the establishment of bourgeois rule ("material and moral misery") with the pictures of what life would be like painted by their pre-revolutionary propaganda and by the "rose-colored phraseology of the bourgeois ideologists of his time."

In his first book, The Theory of the Four Movements (1808) he wrote, "Social progress and changes of a period are accompanied by the progress of women towards freedom, while the decay of the social system brings with it a reduction of the freedoms enjoyed by women." Therefore, "Extension of the rights of women is the basic principle of all social progress."

Engels says of him, with respect to the above passage, that: "He was the first to declare that in any given society the degree of woman's emancipation is the natural measure of the general emancipation." This not only tells us a lot about Saudi Arabia, but where our own society is heading with its failure to pass an Equal Rights Amendment and the movement to restrict the right to abortion, as well as the recent Supreme Court ruling that the woman discriminated against for years at Walmart have no right to a class action suit to redress their grievances.

Fourier also divided the history of human development up to the present era into "four stages of evolution," which were 1.) Savagery 2.) the Patriarchate 3.) Barbarism, and 4.) Civilization. In this scheme "Civilization" appears with the development of capitalism in the 1500s and he says "that the civilized stage raises every vice practiced by barbarism in a simple fashion into a form of existence, complex, ambiguous, equivocal [and] hypocritical."

Engels says that for Fourier civilization develops along "a vicious circle" throwing up contradictions it cannot resolve and arriving at the exact opposite destinations that it wants to arrive at or at least pretends to want to arrive at so that, as Fourier writes, "under civilization POVERTY IS BORN OF SUPER-ABUNDANCE ITSELF." For example the US, the richest country in the world, has 25% of its children at or under the official poverty line-- a completely ridiculous society!

One of the things Engels admires about Fourier is his masterly use of the dialectical method in his writings, which he compares to that of Hegel "his contemporary." Engels also says something curious here. He says Fourier postulates the "ultimate destruction of the human race" which he introduced into historical science just as Kant had introduced the "ultimate destruction of the Earth" into natural science. But, in this pre-Star Trek world, Kant's end of the Earth scenario would have entailed the end of the human race as well.

Saint-Simon and Fourier were products of the French Revolution but, Engels points out, at the same time over in England just as great a revolution was taking place. The whole basis of bourgeois society was being changed by the development of steam engines and tool making machines and manufacture (from the Latin "manus" hand) was being replaced by gigantic factories were machines tended by workers began to to turn out commodities rather than commodities directly made by them, "thus revolutionizing the whole foundation of bourgeois society."

This industrial revolution began to divide society in to a powerful group of capitalists on one hand, and propertyless proletarians on the other. The heretofore large and stable middle class began to break up and tended to be forced down into the lower class of workers-- "it now led a precarious existence." Sound familiar?

However, then the term "middle class" had a different meaning than it does now. Then it meant the class of artisans and small shop keepers who thrived in the era of manufacture. Now it is used to refer to an income group consisting of well paid workers and professionals whose wages were partially subsidized by the mega-profits of the imperialist international capitalist corporations who bought a modicum of social peace at home at the expense of the international solidarity of first world workers with third world workers and peasants by the creation of a labor aristocracy, according to Lenin, in the metropolitan countries.

Professionals such as lawyers, doctors and the parasitical class of preachers and priests were also included. With the decline of high paying production jobs in the West due to the rise of industry in the third world, among other factors, these high wage jobs are disappearing forcing the "middle class" down into lower paying jobs and so, as in the first days of capitalism, it now leads "a precarious existence."

Another difference is that today we have labor unions, pro-working class political parties and associations, and growing class awareness which is developing into a major class battle for the protection of people's jobs, life styles and incomes. This battle is just beginning and should grow as today's world capitalist system proceeds further down the path of decay and self destruction.

But in the England of the early 1800s, capitalism was on the rise and not the decline. It was into this world that the third great early founder of socialism arose: Robert Owen (1771-1858).
Owen was a materialist in philosophy and thought that humans were the product of their heredity (although at this time nothing was known of genes or DNA or any of the mechanisms of heredity) and their environment, most particularly their childhood environment.

For 29 years (1800-1829) he managed New Lanark the large cotton-mill employing around 2500 "hands" in Scotland. And, Engels says, by "simply placing the people in conditions worthy of human beings" the workers lived in a society without "drunkenness, police, magistrates, lawsuits, poor laws, [or] charity." He sent all the children off to school at age 2, put the working day at 101/2 hours (not the 13 or 14 that was the norm) and kept everyone on full wages when there was a four month shut down due to a cotton crisis AND made large profits and doubled the value of the business. Well, my goodness! Why didn't all the capitalists follow suit?

They didn't follow suit, for the same reason Owen fought with the other shareholders at new Lanark-- they didn't like the extra expenses that had to be put out for "conditions worthy of human beings." After Owen left in 1829 the community continued, in one form or another, under different capitalists, until 1968 when it went bust. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site drawing in around 400,000 tourists a year to visit it and the house where Owen lived.

In his work "The Revolution in Mind and Practice" (1849) Owen wrote he was unhappy with New Lanark because "The people were slaves at my mercy." He pointed out that New Lanark's 2500 workers, with steam power, created as much social wealth as it it took 600,000 workers to create a couple of generations earlier. Those 600,000 had to be paid living wages just as the 2500-- so what happened to all the surplus wealth saved in wages that would have gone to 597,500 extra workers? It was pocketed by the capitalists.

This new wealth was being generated all over England. It was being used to wage the wars of the Empire and to maintain an oppressive aristocratic and bourgeois order at home. "And yet this new power was the creation of the working class." Owen wanted this vast new wealth to go to the working class that created it for the building of a new society in which it would be, as Engels says "the common property of all, to be worked for the common good of all."

In his day, because of his reforms at New Lanark, Owen was considered a great philanthropist. He was lionized and respected and welcome at the tables of the rich and powerful. But as soon as he started talking about the working class creating all the wealth and how it ought to build a new society based on "common property" he was dropped like a hot potato, became persona non gratia, and shunned by official society. He therefore went to the working class and became a union leader and, Engels says, "Every social movement, every real advance in England on behalf of the workers links itself on to the name of Robert Owen."

Owen called for the overthrow of three great impediments to the advance of the working class and the reform of society along communist lines-- private property, religion, and "the present form of marriage (Engels)." Marriage is going through some radical changes nowadays and it is certainly very different from the forms of marriage Owen would have seen in the early 19th century. But private property and religion (i.e., supernaturalism and superstition) are still major impediments that hold back social progress for workers.

The last few pages of this chapter Engels devotes to vituperative attacks against Dühring and his negative views of the three utopians compared to whom Dühring is a pipsqueak. Engels says Dühring displays "a really frightful ignorance of the works of the three utopians." Their works are still worth reading (Dühring's are not) and whatever limitations they have were the result of the undeveloped conditions of early industrial capitalism.

But, since the time of the utopians and today (the 1870s) "modern industry has developed the contradictions laying dormant in the capitalist mode of production into such crying antagonisms that the approaching collapse of this mode of production is, so to speak, palpable."

Well they may have been "palpable" to Engels, but capitalism is still around, sad to say. And once again the palpability of capitalist collapse is in the air. From the looming default of Greece, to the threat of defaults spreading to Spain, Portugal and Italy which will bring down the Euro-zone and mobilize millions of workers to take to the streets of Europe, to the failure of the recovery in the United States and the desperate turn to the Tea Party by big capital to nurture home grown fascism to attack the workers and their unions, the smell of capitalist decay is everywhere. Let us hope this generation of workers will pay due to the long ago optimism of Frederick Engels.

Russell, Mao and the Fate of China

2011-06-27T09:09:00.000-07:00

Russell, Mao and the Fate of China

Thomas Riggins

[I] In 1922 Bertrand Russell, then probably the most famous living philosopher in the world, published The Problem of China [POC]. This book was the result of Russell's being invited to China to give a series of lectures and conduct meetings with leading Chinese over a period of about six months. In POC Russell diagnoses the problems facing China as a result of its semi-occupation by European and Japanese imperialism. In the course of the book he also makes several recommendations and predictions concerning the future development of China.

The future leader of China, Mao Zedong, was either present at one of Russell's lectures or read a detailed account of it in the Chinese press. The purpose of this article is to discuss Russell's blueprint for Chinese liberation and compare it to what the Chinese, under the leadership of the Communist Party, actually did. Another purpose is to point out that many of Russell's comments about the role of the United States made over 90 years ago, as well as what was needed in China, are still relevant today.

A word of caution. Russell considered himself a radical and a "socialist", perhaps even a theoretical "communist" (although he was hostile to many of the actions of the Russian Bolsheviks) at this time. After WWII and up to the late 1950s Russell was a cold war anti-Communist, though not a ridiculous mindless one a la Sidney Hook and those in his milieu, before coming to his senses in the 1960s. I am only concerned, in this article, with Russell's political statements and opinions in the early 1920s. Some of Russell's views, while commonly held in the 20s, are completely politically incorrect by today's standards-- I will note them with explanation marks (!!) but otherwise I will not address them or pass over them in silence. These are usually remarks dealing with the nature of the "Chinese mind" or "character" as if all Chinese think a certain way.

This article will deal with Chapter One of POC: "Questions.''

In trying to understand China, Russell thinks he is dealing with a totally alien culture. He is forced to ask himself what his ultimate values are, what makes one culture or society "better" than another, and what ends does he wish to see triumph in the world. He says different people have different answers to these questions and he thinks they are just subjective preferences not amenable to argument. He will merely state his own and hope his reader will agree with him. Russell is no objectivist in morals. The ends he values are: "knowledge, art, instinctive happiness, and relations of friendship and affection." He believes in the goals, if not always the methods, of communism (although he is not a Marxist), and thinks a socialist society will best approximate the ends he wants. There are elements in Chinese culture that also reflect his ends better than they are reflected in Euro-American culture.

Russell thinks a nation should be judged not only on how its own people are treated, but also on how it treats others. He finds China, in this respect, better than the imperialist nations of the West. In the following quote Russell uses the word "our" and I want to stress that he does not intend to restrict its meaning to the British Empire but uses it inclusively to refer to the major imperialist nations of Europe and the English speaking world or even to "capitalist" nations thus including Japan.

"Our prosperity," he writes, "and most of what we endeavor to secure for ourselves, can only be obtained by widespread exploitation of weaker nations ." The Chinese, however, obtain what they have by means of their own hard work. China is radically different today but I think what Russell says about it is still basically correct and what he says about "us" hasn't changed very much at all.

What happens in China, he says will determine the whole future course of world history. There are tremendous resources in China and whether they are to be controlled "by China, by Japan, or by the white races [!!], is a question of enormous importance, affecting not only the whole development of Chinese civilization, but the balance of power in the world, the prospects of peace, the destiny of Russia, and the chances of development toward a better economic system in the advanced nations."

This remark is as true today as it was some 90 years ago. Chinese civilization, however, is now, at least, much more in the hands of the Chinese, the world balance of power remains in flux, the destiny of Russia is still undetermined, and a better economic system for the West (i.e., socialism) is still a distant dream but may be positively influenced by the economic development of China.

I didn't mention the "prospects for peace" and that is because in the short term Russell was absolutely correct: the civil war and revolution in China, World War II (in the Pacific), the Korean War, and the Vietnam War all had China, in one way or another, as their focus and the hope of eventually controlling her resources as a backdrop. Today as well many circles in the West, associated with international finance capital, see China as a future threat and the US military has contingency plans for a war with her. So, Russell was quite prescient to see the economic resources of China as the focal point of contemporary history.

[II] Russell discusses the internal state of China, as he understood it in 1920-21, in his chapter "Modern China" in The Problem of China. He thinks there are only two ways the Chinese can escape from imperialist domination. The first way is for China to become a strong military power. Russell thinks this would be a disaster.

However since "the capitalist system involves in its very essence a predatory relation of the strong towards the weak [a perfectly good Leninist proposition even if clumsily expressed], internationally as well as nationally" he proposes a second way for Chinese liberation. The foreign imperialist powers will have to " become Socialistic." Russell thinks this is the only real solution for the Chinese.

It didn't occur to Russell that China might free itself by military means and work towards socialism at the same time. It goes without saying that the Chinese would be waiting for kingdom come to be liberated if they had taken Russell's advice and expected Europe and America to turn socialist.

Russell, as did many in his generation, expected a major war to eventually break out between Japan and the United States over which would be top dog in the far east, but did not see that war as an opportunity for the victims of imperialism to break free and become independent. At any rate, in respect to his "only" solution to Chinese liberation, Russell was wildly off the mark-- despite his Leninist grasp of the nature of capitalism.

Russell did, however, urge progressives to support the fledgling government of Sun Yat-sen which was at this time battling the war lord system. No one at that time foresaw that the Kuomintang would degenerate into a fascist despotism under Sun's successor Chiang Kai-shek, or that the recently founded Communist Party of China would be the eventual vehicle both for Chinese liberation and regeneration.

Russell's next comment was completely correct and was about an issue that, after the success of the revolution, the Chinese took very seriously. Russell wrote that "in the long run, if the birth-rate is as great as is usually supposed, no permanent cure for their poverty is possible while their families continue to be so large."

The introduction of birth control and the one child policy, which was a drastic step and is now being reevaluated, probably helped to considerably contain the population from an unmanageable explosion (not to credit natural disasters and the unintended consequences of policies that turned out to be mistaken with respect to premature industrial expansion and agricultural reforms in the 1950s).

Another problem the Chinese would have to overcome before they could hope to compete with the West, according to Russell, was lack of a modern educational system for the masses. This too the CPC saw as a major problem and immediately after coming to power launched a mass literacy program and built schools and institutions of higher learning throughout China.

This was a prerequisite, Russell said, as Chinese workers would need education and skills in order to command decent wages (he did not foresee a socialist revolution in China). Nevertheless industrialization in China, as in all other countries, would begin to develop by methods that are "sordid and cruel." Intellectuals, he remarked, "wish to be told of some less horrible method by which their country may be industrialized, but so far none is in sight."

Whether you are capitalist or socialist, it appears, if you are starting from a primitive economic base the only way you can accumulate capital to make industrial advances is to take it from the surplus value created by the working class. As we will see Russell thinks state capitalism, or state socialism (they are the same for him), would be the best way for the Chinese to go-- but he doesn't envision a revolution.

Russell now hits upon a major problem which I think was responsible for some of the major errors of the Mao era. "There is one traditional Chinese belief which dies very hard, and that is the belief that correct ethical sentiments are more important than detailed scientific knowledge. This view is, of course, derived from the Confucian tradition, and is more or less true in a pre-industrial society."

One would think that Russell, with commitments to science as the basis for correct knowledge of the world, would hold that "detailed scientific knowledge" is always to be preferred; how would a pre-industrial society ever advance to a higher level without also developing science?

In the 1950s and 60s Mao pushed the line that politics ( "correct ethical sentiments") was the correct guide to action and could win out over any objections based on economic (scientific) considerations. This led to the twin disasters of the Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. There was no basis in Marxism for the views he was espousing even though Mao used Marxist terminology to try and explain his thought. If Russell was correct, this would have been a case of the unconscious Confucian substrata in Mao's world view manifesting itself in Marxist guise.

Mao himself was ant-Confucian at this time so even he was blind to the real origins of the reactionary policies he was peddling in Marxist dress. I should also point out that it was only one wing of Confucianism that held to this view-- an Idealist trend that developed in the Ming Dynasty and that there were other wings of Confucianism that were materialistically motivated. Mao had indeed studied Ming Confucianism and was influenced by it in his youth, and, I think, unconsciously after he assumed power.

[III] Russell's chapter, "Present Forces and Tendencies in the Far East" (in The Problem of China) deals with the balance of power in this region in the 1920s and focuses on China, Japan, Russia and America. I will omit his comments on Japan here and concentrate on China's dealings with America and the influence of Russia. Russell points out that the interests of Britain are (leaving India to the side) basically the same as those of America-- at least its ruling sector of finance capital and NOT "the pacifistic and agrarian tendencies of the Middle West."

At this time Russell thought that the two most important "moral forces" in the Far East were those emanating from Russia and America. He thought the Americans to be more idealistic than the jaded imperialists running the European capitalist states. However he thought that cynical imperialist views were an inevitability as a nation's power increased and the Americans would abandon their idealism.

We must keep this in mind, he warns us, "when we wish to estimate the desirability of extending the influence of the United States." Today we can see that Russell was right. The United States has evolved into the most cynical and ruthless imperial power in the world, encircling the globe with its garrisons and fleets, and subjecting whole nations and peoples to its bloody domination in search of power, wealth, and resources.

All this, however, was in the future. The benign United States that appeared to Russell was that of the Harding Administration and the Washington Naval Conference, presided over by Secretary of State Charles Evan Hughes. The conference was held from late 1921 to early 1922 and was the first disarmament conference in modern history. It was designed to reign in Japanese aggression in China, limit naval construction, and keep the Open Door Policy in place in China.

Russell thought America's policy at the conference was a liberal one, but only because the outcome of the conference was in line with American interests in the Far East. What Russell really believed was that "when American interests or prejudices are involved liberal and humanitarian principles have no weight whatever." Have we seen anything to contradict this assessment since the days of Warren Harding (or those of George Washington for that matter)?

If American plans for the future economic development of China should be successful Russell thought it would be disastrous for China. It would certainly be good for America and her allies, but would involve "a gradually increasing flow of wealth from China to the investing countries, the chief of which is America [the CPC appears to have reversed this flow]; the development of a sweated proletariat [still a problem]; the spread of Christianity [another great evil]; the substitution of American civilization for Chinese [not yet but McDonalds and KFC have secured beach heads];…. the gradual awakening of China to her exploitation by the foreigner [China was already awake when Russell wrote]; and one day, fifty or a hundred years hence [around 1972 or 2022], the massacre of every white man throughout the Celestial Empire at a signal from some vast secret society."

Well, the great awakening was already at hand when Russell wrote, he was just blind to it. China liberated itself in a little over 25 years, despite the best actions the US and its allies could do to prevent it, and no vast secret society sprang up to threaten every "white man." The Celestial Empire has become a People's Republic.

Well, Russell's vision of the future was off, but the definition he gave of what the West considers "good" government was spot on, even today: "it is a government that yields fat dividends for capitalists." This is still the game plan in the 21st century.

Russell now embarks on some ill founded speculations which, nevertheless, hint at a grain of truth. He predicts, for example "it is not likely that Bolshevism [as seen in Russia-tr] as a creed will make much progress in China." He gives the following three reasons: 1) China has a decentralized state tending towards feudalism whereas Bolshevism requires a centralized state. Russell doesn't seem to understand a successful socialist revolution would reverse this tendency.

2) China is more suitable for anarchism because the Chinese have a great sense of personal freedom and the Bolsheviks need to have (and do have) more control over individuals "than has ever been known before." This is strange. The Chinese had just emerged from an oriental despotism under the Manchus that had regulated everything including dress and hair styles for the population, and had no tradition of anything like "personal freedom" as had developed in Europe.

3) Bolshevism opposes "private trading" which is the "breath of life to all Chinese except the literati." But ninety percent of the Chinese at this time were basically illiterate peasants most of whom were under the control of a feudalistic landlord class. The Chinese masses had more in common with the Russian masses than Russell seemed to realize.

The greatest appeal of Bolshevism, Russell said, was to the youth of China who wanted to develop industry by skipping the stage of capitalist development. But Russia was now engaged in the New Economic Policy and Russell thought this signaled a slow return to capitalist methods which would disillusion the Chinese.

But, Russell said, the fact that as a creed Bolshevism [i.e., Marxism] would not hold any lasting appeal, Bolshevism "as a political force" had a great future. What he meant was that Bolshevik Russia would continue to play the Great Game in Asia and follow in the footsteps of Tzarist imperialism with Bolshevik imperialism since "the Russians have an instinct for colonization" [!!].

Here is where Russell becomes very confused in his analysis. He doesn't really define "imperialism." Marxists at this time defined it as the international policy of monopoly capitalism based on the control of the state by financial capital sometimes allied with industrial capital. In this sense Bolshevik imperialism was a contradiction in terms. As far as "the Russians," lumped together without any attempt at class analysis, having an "instinct" to become colonialists -- such general statements are useless in trying to describe social reality.

Regardless, Russell thinks it would not be so bad for Russia to become hegemonic in Asia. The Russians could enter into more nearly equal relations with Asian peoples because their "character" [!!] is more "Asiatic" than that of the "English speaking-nations." English speaking nations would not be able to have the same understanding and ability "to enter into relations of equally" with these strange inscrutable Orientals. As a result an Asian Block of nations would arise as a defensive block and this would be good for world peace as well as "humanity."

Russell recommends that outside powers leave off meddling with the Chinese and attempting to impose their own values on them as the Chinese will, left to themselves, "find a solution suitable to their character" for their own political problems. This idea is of "national character" is quite unscientific and if Russell had understood what he read of Das Kapital and other Marxist writings and substituted some such phrase as "find a solution based on their own historical development and class relations" he would have made better sense. POC would have been better understood, in fact, if "national character" had been replaced by "historical development" whenever it occurred along with a brief description of that development.

Russell goes on to predict what the future of China will most likely be. Marxists, as great predictors of the future themselves, especially its inevitable trends and outcomes, understand what a risky business this is and should have great sympathy for Russell's wrong headed prognosis.

Since the US emerged unscathed from WW I it had an excess of available capital to invest and would be the principal nation involved in China's future development. "As the financiers are the most splendid feature of the American civilization, China must be so governed as to enrich the financiers." The US will contribute greatly to building educational institutions in China so that Chinese intellectuals will end up serving the interests of the big Trusts just as American intellectuals do. As a result a conservative anti-radical reform system will be produced and touted as a great force for peace. But, Russell points out: "it is impossible to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear or peace and freedom out of capitalism."

The US will encourage the growth of a stable government, foster an increase in income to build up a market for American goods, discourage other powers besides themselves from meddling in China, and look askance upon all attempts of the Chinese to control their own economy, especially the nationalization of the mines and railroads, which Russell sees as a "form of State Socialism or what Lenin calls State Capitalism." The reference to Lenin is in respect to the New Economic Plan (NEP) in Russia.

The US would also keep lists of radical students and see to it that they would not get jobs, try to impose its puritan morality on the Chinese, and because Americans think their own country and way of life are "perfect" they will do great damage to what is best in Chinese culture in their attempts to make China as much as possible resemble what they call "God's own country."

As a result of all this a "Marxian class-war will break out" between Asia and the West. The Asian forces will be led by a socialist Russia and be fought for freedom from the imperialist powers and their exploitation. These views are very different from those Russell will be representing in his future Cold War phase.

Ever the pessimist, Russell sees this war as so destructive all around that probably "no civilization of any sort would survive it." When the actual war came is was very destructive, but it was a civil war between the bourgeois democratic capitalist powers and the authoritarian fascist capitalist powers into which the Russians were drawn against their will and from which the Chinese emerged as a free and independent people determined to build socialism.

Russell ends his chapter on a socialist note about the evils of the "present "(1920s)
system of world wide capitalist domination. Russell's conclusion is almost a perfect description of the world we live in today. "The essential evil of the present system," he says, "as Socialists have pointed out over and over again, is production for profit instead of for use." American power may, for a while, impose peace, but never freedom for weak countries. "Only international Socialism can secure both; and owing to the stimulation of revolt by capitalist oppression, even peace alone can never be secure until international Socialism is established throughout the world."

[IV] The last chapter in Bertrand Russell's The Problem of China is entitled "The Outlook for China." Russell, writing in 1922, thinks that China (due to its population and resources) has the capacity to become the second greatest power in the world (after the United States). Today the US seems to be slipping economically so maybe China will become number one in the world sometime in the present century.

Three things will have to about for China to reach its full potential. Russell lists them as: 1.) The establishment of an orderly government [the CPC has accomplished this requirement]; 2.) Industrial development under Chinese control [this too has been brought about by the CPC whether you call it "market socialism" or "state capitalism"]; 3.) the spread of education [ditto care of the CPC].

All three prerequisites put forth by Russell have been attained if not quite in the manner he imagined in his book. Let's look at some of Russell's elaborations on these prerequisites.

First, the problem of orderly government: Russell says that in the 1920s China was functionally anarchic with battling warlords and weak central governments in the north and south of the country. He envisioned an eventual constitutional setup and a parliamentary form of government. But he cautioned that even so the masses of the people (Russell uses the term "public opinion") will have to be guided by what amounts to a Leninist political party using democratic centralist methods.

Here is what Russell wrote: "It will be necessary for the genuinely progressive people throughout the country to unite in a strongly disciplined society, arriving at collective decisions and enforcing support for those decisions upon all its members." That is just what happened under the leadership of CPC.

Second, the problem of industrial development: China, or any country for that matter, to be truly free has to also be economically free and that requires that it has control of its own railroads and natural resources. He thus thinks the Chinese government should own the railroads and the mines of China. He also thinks that state ownership of "a large amount" of the industry in China should also occur. "There are many arguments for State Socialism, or rather what Lenin calls State Capitalism, in any country which is economically but not culturally backward."

Russell thinks that is possible for China, with a strong and honest government, to skip over the stage of capitalism and lay the foundations for socialism. This is tricky business as the Chinese would find out much later. If you skip too far and too fast you can trip and fall on your face. With the right government "it will be possible to develop Chinese industry without, at the same time, developing the overweening power of private capitalists by which the Western nations are now both oppressed and misled." We can only hope that China is heading in this direction.

Third, the problem of education: Russell says that "Where the bulk of the population
cannot read, true democracy is impossible. Education is a good in itself, but is also essential for developing political consciousness, of which at present there is almost none in rural China."

By "democracy" Russell then, and almost all Western governments and their intellectual tools today, mean "bourgeois democracy"-- i.e., "democratic" institutions and constitutions that guarantee the government will be controlled by, for, and of one of two contending classes that exist in the modern capitalist world, i.e., the capitalist class. Russell proclaimed his belief in "socialism" (Mao even said Russell believed in "communism") but he never transcended the bourgeois concept of "democracy" inculcated in him by the British ruling class by which he was educated.

But the wider, and I believe correct, meaning of "democracy" (rule of the "demos" or people) includes other forms of government than those proclaimed by the bourgeoisie and their lackeys. It must refer to any form of government that objectively rules in the interests of its people i.e., the vast majority of its population composed of working people, called by old time communists "the toiling masses" and historically personified by the "people's democracies" and "people's republics" of eastern Europe and Asia, and by the only completely democratic state in the Western Hemisphere, Cuba.

In just a few years after Russell wrote the above words, hundreds of millions of the peasants of "rural China" would develop a political consciousness that would lead to the overthrow of the rule by landlords and capitalists in China and the establishment, however flawed, of a true people's republic. Then they learned to read.

Russell was both correct and incorrect in saying the following: "Until it has been established for some time, China must be, in fact if not in form, an oligarchy, because the uneducated masses cannot have any effective political opinion [or in the case of the US-- miseducated masses]. If that "oligarchy" is a real communist party (not one in name only) it will bring to the masses the correct political opinion that they and they alone control their own destiny and can abolish their subjection to a class that only lives off of their exploitation. The one party state may be the instrument leading to this liberation and its own eventual elimination, along with the state, but it also gives to the masses "effective political opinion" and if it doesn't it may find itself being eliminated ahead of schedule.

Russell hoped the Chinese, by combining "Western" science with their traditional culture, would create a new civilization free of the deficiencies of the capitalist West. What we are seeing now, in the 21st century, in China is perhaps the fulfillment of Russell's vision but it is a synthesis of Marx, left wing Confucianism, and modern science. Hopefully the coming century will see the end of Western "civilization" as we know it, a predatory war based imperialist system attempting to enchain the world, and the establishment of a real new world order. The values of Bertrand Russell will be better remembered and served in such a world.

Epilogue: What Mao thought of Russell's views on China.
Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung
COMMUNISM AND DICTATORSHIP
November 1920. January 1921
[Extracted from. two letters to Ts’ai Ho-sen[1895-1932 a leader of the CPC, arrested in Hong Kong by the British and turned over to the Kuomintang which killed him- tr], in November 1920 and January 1921.]

In his lecture at Changsha, Russell .... took a position in favour of communism but against the dictatorship of the workers and peasants. He said that one should employ the method of education to change the consciousness of the propertied classes, and that in this way it would not be necessary to limit freedom or to have recourse to war and bloody revolution.... My objections to Russell's view point can be stated in a few words: 'This is all very well as a theory, but it is unfeasible in practice' .... Education requires money, people and instruments. In today's world money is entirely in the hands of the capitalists. Those who have charge of education are all either capitalists or wives of capitalists. In today's world the schools and the press, the two most important instruments of education are entirely under capitalist control. In short, education in today's world is capitalist education. If we teach capitalism to children, these children, when they grow up will in turn teach capitalism to a second generation of children. Education thus remains in the hands of the capitalists. Then the capitalists have 'parliaments' to pass laws protecting the capitalists and handicapping the proletariat; they have 'governments' to apply these laws and to enforce the advantages and the prohibitions that they contain; they have 'armies' and 'police' to defend the well-being of the capitalists and to repress the demands of the proletariat; they have 'banks' to serve as repositories in the circulation of their wealth ; they have ' factories', which are the instruments by which they monopolize the production of goods. Thus, if the communists do not seize political power, they will not be able to find any refuge in this world; how, under such circumstances, could they take charge of education? Thus, the capitalists will continue to control education and to praise their capitalism to the skies, so that the number of coverts to the proletariat's communist propaganda will diminish from day to day. Consequently, I believe that the method of education is unfeasible.... What I have just said constitutes the first argument. The second argument is that, based on the principle of mental habits and on my observation of human history, I am of the opinion that one absolutely cannot expect the capitalists to become converted to communism.... If one wishes to use the power of education to transform them, then since one cannot obtain control of the whole or even an important part of the two instruments of education — schools and the press — even if one has a mouth and a tongue and one or two schools and newspapers as means of propaganda.... this is really not enough to change the mentality of the adherents of capitalism even slightly; how then can one hope that the latter will repent and turn toward the good? So much from a psychological standpoint. From a historical standpoint.... one observes that no despot imperialist and militarist throughout history has ever been known to leave the stage of history of his own free will without being overthrown by the people. Napoleon I proclaimed himself emperor and failed; then there was Napoleon III. Yuan Shih-K'ai failed; then, also there was Tuan Ch'i-jui.... From what I have just said based on both psychological and a historical standpoint, it can be seen that capitalism cannot be overthrown by the force of a few feeble efforts in the domain of education. This is the second argument. There is yet a third argument, most assuredly a very important argument, even more important in reality. If we use peaceful means to attain the goal of communism, when will we finally achieve it? Let us assume that a century will be required, a century marked by the unceasing groans of the proletariat. What position shall we adopt in the face of this situation? The proletariat is many times more numerous than the bourgeoisie; if we assume that the proletariat constitutes two-thirds of humanity, then one billion of the earth's one billion five hundred million inhabitants are proletarians (I fear that the figure is even higher), who during this century will be cruelly exploited by the remaining third of capitalists. How can we bear this? Furthermore, since the proletariat has already become conscious of the fact that it too should possess wealth, and of the fact that its sufferings are unnecessary, the proletarians are discontented, and a demand for communism has arisen and has already become a fact. This fact confronts us, we cannot make it disappear; when we become conscious of it we wish to act. This is why, in my opinion, the Russian revolution, as well as the radical communists in every country, will daily grow more powerful and numerous and more tightly organized. This is the natural result. This is the third argument.....
There is a further point pertaining to my doubts about anarchism. My argument pertains not merely to the impossibility of a society without power or organization. I should like to mention only the difficulties in the way of the establishment of such form of society and of its final attainment.... For all the reasons just stated, my present viewpoint on absolute liberalism, anarchism, and even democracy is that these things are fine in theory, but not feasible in practice....

Karl Marx on Eugen Dühring

2011-05-17T18:27:00.000-07:00

Thomas Riggins

Anti-Dühring is Engels' enduring criticism of the mishmash of philosophy, science, and socialism published in Germany by Eugen Dühring (1833-1921) in the middle of the 19th century as an alternative to the thought of Karl Marx. Engels' book is divided into three parts-- philosophy, political science, and socialism. But Engels did not write every chapter in his famous book. Chapter 10, the last of the section on political economy, was written by his friend and life long collaborator Karl Marx. This article discusses Marx's opinions of Dühring in that chapter, entitled, "From the Critical History."

It is Dühring's 1871 work Critical History of Political Economy that Marx intends to critique, beginning with Dühring's claim that his work in Political Economy "is absolutely without precedent." Here we will find a definitive treatment of the subject in a scientific manner. The science is, he says, "peculiarly mine."

Dühring's first great "discovery" is that Political Science is a modern creation with no medieval or ancient roots. Marx points out, however, that this claim to modernity was already put forth by him in Capital and Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. The difference is that Marx begins with the great founders of this science(from William Petty (1623-1687) and Boisguillebert (1646-1714) to Ricardo (1772-1823) and Sismondi (1773-1842)) while Dühring begins with the "wretched abortions" of later bourgeois economists. Marx also has respect for the medieval and classical traditions.

Of course, since Political Science was founded in an attempt to scientifically understand modern CAPITALISM, you will not find it in the classical (slave) world , nor the middle ages (feudal). Capitalist societies are based on commodity production and exchange but there was limited commodity production and exchange in both the classical period and the Middle Ages and what the Ancients and other pre-moderns had to say about it is still worth while; Marx especially defends the economic writings of Aristotle (384-322 BC) and Plato (427-347 BC) from Dühring's unerudite "criticisms."

Dühring is also ignorant of the history and development of political economy in the modern period. For example, he takes a minor work [Antonio Serra's Breve trattato of 1613 as a defining work of Mercantilism-- the dominant economic theory of capitalism for its first 250 years of existence, ending around the time of Adam Smith (1723-1790)] while completely ignoring Thomas Mun's (1571-1641) A Discourse of Trade of 1609 which was "the mercantilist gospel" for the entire Seventeenth Century.

Worse than that is Dühring's treatment of William Petty, "the founder of modern political economy." After much hard thinking and many investigations, Petty in 1662
formulated one of the bed rock foundations of political economy as a science (Treatise on Taxes and Contributions). Here, Marx says he "lays it down in a definite and general form that the values of commodities must be measured by equal labour." Further, in a work of 1672 (Anatomy of Ireland) Petty has overcome "the last vestiges of mercantilist views."

These are great intellectual feats for the founder of the new science. Marx says about Petty, and this applies to Marx himself in our day, that what is "quite natural in a writer who is laying the foundations of political economy and is necessarily feeling his way, experimenting and struggling with a chaos of ideas which are only just taking shape, may seem strange in a writer who is surveying and summarizing more than a hundred and fifty years of investigation whose results have already passed in part from books into the consciousness of the generality." That Dühring fails to grasp this and thinks that "there is fair measure of superficiality" in Petty's thinking, only shows, Marx avers, that Dühring is a "vainglorious and pedantic mediocrity."

One of Petty's great successors was the the philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) who, besides his works on the social contract and the foundations of epistemology, also wrote an important work in the fledgling science of political economy: Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interests and Raising the Value of Money, 1691.

Petty had already compared interest to "rent on money"-- i.e. to "rent of land and houses." His position was that all rent should be unregulated and determined by the market. This, of course, is a reactionary view today but not so in 1691. This was part of the fight against Mercantilism which progressives in those days rightly viewed as a system that held back social and economic progress by using the state to impose import duties and taxes to defend domestic markets and subsidize exports.

Trying to regulate interest rates, i.e., rent on money, Petty felt was "against the law of nature". Petty, Marx wrote, "declared that legislative regulation of the rate of interest was as stupid as regulation of exports of precious metals [a pillar of Mercantilism] or regulation of exchange rates." Ideas that are reactionary and unworkable today (just think of the ridiculous economic and philosophical bloviations of Ayn Rand and her followers) in the end stage of capitalism, were forward looking and progressive during it birth pangs.

Locke, whose economic essay, basically followed Petty's lead, had a great influence in those European countries struggling to go beyond the strictures of the Mercanilists or economic nationalists. Petty, who is, incidentally credited with the invention of the laissie faire school, was also supported by Sir Dudley North (1641-1691) in A Discourse on Trade, 1691, a contemporary of Locke's, whose work, Marx says "is a classical exposition, driven home with relentless logic, of the doctrine of free trade-- both foreign and internal…."

Locke and North deserve credit for furthering Petty's views and in developing them along new lines. But Dühring sees none of this. For Marx, the period 1691-1752 is crucial for the understanding of the development of political science. In was in this period that the writers influenced by Petty, Locke, North, and others, laid down the foundations for overthrowing Mercantilism. This period is a blank page for Herr Dühring. Dühring passes directly to David Hume (1711-1776) and the physiocrats. Marx has many interesting things to say about Hume as an economist (his philosophy is not mentioned) and why Dühring is so enamored with him.

Hume published his Economic Essays in 1752 and they are, in our current terminology, basically a plagerised version of the 1734 work of Jacob Vanderlint (died 1740) Money Answers All Things. While Hume almost literally follows Vanderlint, he is, according to Marx, "less profound." Dühring is unaware of Vanderlint and praises Hume while none the less failing to understand what he says.

Since Dühring doesn't have a real understanding of Hume I will just present Marx's views for the record. Hume's theory of money is that money is just a TOKEN of value and, ceteris paribus, "commodity prices rise in proportion to the increase in the volume of money in circulation, and fall in proportion to its decrease." Hume is basically saying that the increase in the amount of gold and silver in circulation, due to the imports from the New World, increases the prices of commodities. He also notes that this takes some time to spread through out the country until it finally trickles down to the working people: in Hume's words "it must first quicken the diligence of every individual before it increases the price of labour." So old is Reaganomics.

But Hume is not, according to Marx, addressing the "real scientific question" in this description-- i.e., how an increase in money "affects the prices of commodities." However, Marx does not answer this question here as he really wants to remark on Hume's theory of INTEREST. Hume says it is the not the money supply but the rate of profit that regulates the amount of interest (here he attacks Locke's view). Hume's theory is not original. Just as he got almost all his ideas from Vanderlint on most economic issues, his interest theory is just a rehash, and not as exact, of the work of J. Massie (died 1784) An Essay on the Governing Causes of the Natural Rate of Interest, 1750.

Hume, by the way, maintains a low interest rate means a nation is in a "flourishing condition." Well maybe in his day-- but we have low interest rates in the USA and we are hardly "flourishing", at least with respect to the majority of the population which is made up of working people.

There are other problems with Hume's ideas, according to Marx. Marx says "he had not the slightest understanding of the function of the precious metals as the measure of value." This is because he didn't know what "value" itself meant in terms of capitalist production. For example, he corrects Locke for holding that the precious metals only have "an imaginary value" by saying what they really have is "a fictitious value." These views are "much inferior" not only to those of Petty but to his contemporaries as well who were writing on these subjects-- esp. his friend Adam Smith.

Hume also is blind to the economic world coming into existence all around him. He holds to the outmoded view "that the 'merchant' is the mainspring of production." Despite these limitations, Marx concedes that in his day Hume was still a "respectable" political economist. His criticism is meant to dispel the over wrought praise Hume is given by Dühring. Because, while respectable, Marx adds, "he is anything but an original investigator, an even less an epoch making one."

Why does Marx think that Dühring likes Hume so much? It is because Dühring identified with Hume. Hume was denounced by the church for some of his views, but not so much as Gibbon was for his, Dühring too fell afoul of the authorities for some of his views. Hume attained a better reputation as a philosopher, and Dühring thinks that will also be his fate (it was not to be.)

Marx can't resist giving two quotes which many Hume fans would resent. The first is from a popular German world history book by Friedrich Schlosser (1766-1861): "In politics Hume was and always remained conservative and strongly monarchist in his views." He was also highly racist in his views on Africans. And William Cobbett (1762-1835) calls him "selfish" and a "lying Historian" [Hume wrote a history of England] and implies he was an hypocrite for attacking monks for their fatness, their not having wives or children and begging for their bread while he himself was without "a family or a wife and was a great fat fellow, fed, in considerable part, out of public money, without having merited it by any real public services."

Well, enough about Hume. Marx next turns his attention to Dühring and the physiocrats, especially the Tableau Economique of Francois Quesnay (1694-1744). Marx says Dühring's attempt to explain Quesnay's economic theories (the physiocrats were the first real school of modern economics, not counting the Mercantilists as modern!, and Quesnay was the founder) is completely mixed up and confused and shows, once again, that Dühring doesn't know what he is talking about. But so that WE can understand what the school was all about, Marx undertakes to explain it for our benefit.

The physiocrats divided society into three classes: the PRODUCTIVE class-- i.e., agricultural workers and farmers-- all wealth comes from a nation's agricultural production; the LANDLORDS [landowners, the nobility, the Church] who live off of the surplus produced by the farmers; and the STERILE class [the industrial bourgeoisie, merchants, etc, who live off of the raw materials and surpluses of the productive class. Where's the proletariat? Sorry, 17th century France was too backward to have noticed this newly developing class.

Quesnay is not describing the actually real existing economy of France-- he is constructing a simple MODEL that represents a starting point for understanding the actual economy (just as Marx did in Das Kapital). Marx says Quesday makes three premises to simplify the model: 1) he only looks at circulation between the classes and not within them; 2) he only deals with simple reproduction and constant prices; and 3) he treats all the annual purchases between the classes as a lump sum. Marx also notes that at this time almost all the non-food articles consumed by peasant families in Europe were home made and "treated as supplementary to agriculture."

Lets start the ball rolling: the Tableau (all figures are based on the value of French money in the 17th century) the total value of the harvest for one year is the starting point. This amount will be the "total reproduction" in France for that year-- let us refer to it as 5 economic units [5EU-- this was 5 million livres in those days].

Since the farmers are the only productive class they have the entire 5EU to themselves. They produced it by investing 2EU in seeds, etc., so they have a surplus of 3EU. They give 2EU to the landlords as RENT and the landlords then buy food from them in the amount of 1EU for the year so now the farmers have 2EU and the landlords 1EU.

With their 1EU left, the landlords buy the things they need to live on, etc., [other than agricultural goods] from the STERILE class. The farmers also buy from the Sterile class say 1EU but the sterile class has to buy food from the farmers but it does not buy back as much in EUs from the farmers as the farmers gave to it because, instead of a fair trade in equivalents, the sterile class has extracted a profit from the farmers by selling their commodities to them above the cost of production AND above their real value.

By the end of the year it is time to reap another harvest and the cycle continues. I have simplified Marx's exposition because the physiocrats are now only of historical interest and the main point has been shown-- i.e., that for them all wealth is produced by the farmers and is then distributed about society to the other classes.

Having finished with the physiocrats Marx makes two more observations on Dühring's incompetence. First, Dühring thinks that the physiocratic school ended with Turgot (1727-1781) the originator of the Idea of Progress and controller-general of France, 1774-76, in charge of economic reforms under Louis XVI. But Marx says the school actually ended with Mirabeau (1749-1791) "the leading economic authority in the Constituent Assembly of 1789."

Second, Dühring barely mentions Sir James Steuart (1712-1780) whose work was between Hume and Adam Smith and who "permanently enriched the domain of political economy" (with An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy, 1767). And what he does say about him is wrong.

Marx ends his chapter with the opinion that Dühring's Critical History is not worth reading, and he is particularly upset that Dühring begins his history with the large landlords of ancient history and doesn't know anything about "the common ownership of land in the tribal and
village communities, which is the real starting-point of all history."

And with that said, we conclude our review of Part II of Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science.

Frederick Engels and Eugen Dühring on the Natural Laws of Economics and Ground Rent

2011-03-06T11:09:00.001-08:00

Thomas Riggins

Engels deals with Dühring's views on ground rent and the natural laws of economics in chapter nine of part two ("Political Economy") of his famous book "Anti-Dühring." Dühring claims that his theories on capitalism and socialism are the scientifically correct ones, not the overrated views of Herr Karl Marx, and that the worker's movement should follow his ideas not those of Marx and Engels. Engels proposes to look at Dühring's views on the "natural laws" of economics and of ground rent to see if there is anything to them.

The FIRST NATURAL LAW of economics, somehow overlooked by Adam Smith and others, has been discovered by Herr Dühring and is thusly quoted by Engels: "The productivity of the economic instruments, natural resources and human energy is increased by INVENTIONS and DISCOVERIES." This is pretty vapid, according to Engels, as are the following four other "laws" discovered by Herr Dühring. Law Two: (the division of labour) "The cleaving of trades and the dissection of activities raises the productivity of labour." Law Three: "DISTANCE AND TRANSPORT are the chief causes which hinder or facilitate the co-operation of the productive forces." Law Four: "The industrial state has an incomparably greater population capacity than the agricultural state." And finally, Law Five: "In economics nothing takes place without a material interest."

Engels says that Dühring's method in explicating economics is the same as in his discussions of philosophy: poorly expressed commonplaces and banal formulations of so-called natural laws. Dühring gives no proofs, just dogmatic assertions about the nature of wages, the earnings of capital and the nature of ground rent. In previous articles we have discussed Dühring's views on capital, wages, and surplus value, so now let us turn our attention to the meaning of "ground rent."

In his own words, Dühring says ground-rent is "that income which the proprietor AS SUCH draws from the land." But this is a legal right of the proprietor, it doesn't tell us what the economic basis of ground-rent is, so Dühring must dig a little deeper. Engels says he then compares a farm lease to "the loan of capital to an entrepreneur" but come across a "hitch" in so doing. The "hitch" is that we are not dealing with natural laws but historically developed laws. Ground-rent, Engels points out "is a part of political economy which is specifically English."

This is because England developed an economic system in which "rent had in fact been separated from profit and interest." Unlike Germany (Dühring's model) England developed large scale agricultural industries and the farmer (unlike the German peasant) hires workers to work his lands "on the lines of full-fledged capitalist entrepreneurs."

In England we have the three main bourgeois classes and their incomes: landlords getting ground-rent, capitalists getting profits, and workers getting wages. In England it is quite clear, though Dühring doesn't see it, that the farmer's income is "profit on capital." This has been known at least since the time of Adam Smith.

Smith (The Wealth of Nations) tells us labour revenue is called WAGES, that from stocks, etc., PROFIT, and from the land RENT. This is very clear when each type goes to different individuals, the worker, the capitalist, the landlord. However when the same individual gets two or more of these types of income "they are sometimes confounded with one another."

This is exactly what Herr Dühring is guilty of, according to Engels. Dühring sees that the capitalist farmer exploits rural labour and this exploitation puts revenue in his pocket, thus it becomes unavailable to the landlord as rent. So, the capitalist farmer is living on "rent" (not the exploitation of surplus labour) which has been taken from that which would have been available to the landlord.

In this amazing notion, that the landlord pays "rent" to his tenant farmer, we can see just how confused Dühring really is. Dühring thinks that ground-rent is "the whole surplus product obtained in farming by the exploitation of rural labour." Everyone else who has seriously studied this subject divides the surplus product from agriculture into ground-rent AND profit on capital.

But Dühring thinks there is NO real difference between the earnings of capital and ground rent; the one is revenue from industry and/or commerce the other from agriculture. This is the result of his view that all surplus wealth is the result of the subjugation and domination of man by man. The agricultural surplus is rent and the industrial surplus is profit on capital.

Dühring's views pit him against the views of "all classical political economy" which divides agricultural surplus into both the profit of the farmer AND ground rent.

Engels has accomplished what intended in this chapter of Anti-Dühring--i.e., that Dühring doesn't understand what ground rent is. Engels has not, however, explained just what it is himself.

It is not my purpose here to give an exposition on ground rent and the distinctions between rent, profits of production and interest, all of which are derived from the surplus value created by labour power. For this I refer you to volume three of Das Kapital.

I will note, however, that the notion of ground rent is a controversial subject as can be seen from a recent article by Benjamin Kunkel in THE LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS of Feb. 3, 2011. In "How Much is too Much" Kunkel reviews two recent books by David Harvey, THE ENIGMA OF CAPITAL: AND THE CRISES OF CAPITALISM and A COMPANION TO MARX'S 'CAPITAL'.

Kunkel points out that many Marxists are embarrassed by the concept of ground rent because it SEEMS difficult to reconcile the labour theory of value with the concept of rent since unimproved land doesn't incorporate human labour power.

David Harvey suggests that ground rent is "fictitious capital" ["virtual" capital?] and writes that it is based on a "claim on future profits from the use of land or, more directly, a claim on future labour."

These discussions, however, take us beyond the parameters of Engels' critique of Eugen Dühring and his misconceptions regarding ground rent.

ENGELS ON CAPITAL AND SURPLUS VALUE

2011-01-28T20:56:00.001-08:00

Thomas Riggins

In chapters seven and eight of part two of Anti-Dühring ("Capital and Surplus Value"), Engels continues his role as Marx's bulldog. Again, Herr Dühring has gone too far in his criticisms of Marx and must be put in his place by sounder judgment and sharper intellect. Dühring has claimed Marx says that "capital is born of money" and the birth pangs took place at the "opening of the sixteenth century." Dühring calls Marx's ideas a mixture of history and logic which have become "bastards of historical and logical fantasy."

This upsets Engels to no end who himself responds that Dühring has "a crude and inept manner of expressing himself. Marx's real statement on this subject is found in Das Kapital vol 1, part 2, chapter 4 "The General Formula For Capital" where he writes: "As a matter of history, capital, as opposed to landed property invariably takes the form at first of money; it appears as moneyed wealth, as the capital of the merchant and of the usurer. But we have no need to refer to the origin of capital in order to discover that the first form of the appearance of capital is money. We can see it daily under our very eyes. All new capital to commence with, comes on the stage, that is, on the market, whether as commodities, labour, or money, even in our days, in the shape of money that by a definite process has to be transformed into capital."

But how does this transformation take place. Capital is used to invest to make more money and more capital. So how do I turn money into capital? Engels says when I take my own commodities to market I sell them to get money to buy things I need to live on. This is simple exchange. The capitalist goes to market to buy things he does not need to live on; he buys them in order to sell them for what he paid plus a profit-- and increment in money. "Marx calls this increment
SURPLUS VALUE."

But where does it come from? Capitalism results in an increase in the values in circulation so it can't come from cheating (that would effect the distribution not the amount of values) nor
from buying under or selling above the values of the commodities because the sum of values still remains the same. Yet capitalists do accumulate riches by selling dearer than they have bought."This problem," Engels says,"must be solved, and it must be solved in a PURELY ECONOMIC way, excluding all cheating and the intervention of any force-- the problem being: how is it possible constantly to sell dearer than one has bought, even on the hypothesis that equal values are always exchanged for equal values?"

The most important contribution of Marx to economic thought was the solution to this problem; Engels calls it "epoch-making." Here is the solution as presented by Engels. The increment doesn't take place in the money itself, nor in the price of the commodity sold (at this stage we are dealing with the exchange of equivalents: price = value, later we see how they can
differ). But something does change in the bought commodity--not its exchange VALUE but its USE-VALUE. The increment takes place during the commodity's consumption; and not just any commodity, but a very specific one.

Here is what Marx says about this from Das Kapital vol 1, chapter vi "The Buying and Selling of Labour Power": "In order to be able to extract value from the consumption of a commodity, our friend, Moneybags, must be so lucky as to find, within the sphere of circulation, in the market, a commodity, whose use-value, whose actual consumption, therefore, is itself an embodiment of labour, and, consequently, a creation of value. The possessor of money does find on the market such a special commodity in capacity for labour or labour-power."

But how is the value of labour-power determined? Again Marx: "The value of labour-power is determined, as in the case of every other commodity, by the labour-time necessary for the production, and consequently also the reproduction, of this special article. So far as it has value, it represents no more than a definite quantity of the average labour of society incorporated in it. Labour-power exists only as a capacity, or power of the living individual. Its production consequently pre-supposes his existence. Given the individual, the production of labour-power consists in his reproduction of himself or his maintenance. For his maintenance he requires a given quantity of the means of subsistence. Therefore the labour-time requisite for the production of labour-power reduces itself to that necessary for the production of those means of subsistence; in other words, the value of labour-power is the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the labourer."

This also includes the cost of raising a family of little baby laborers to take his place in the next generation. Suppose a worker could produce in six hours the value of goodies he needs to live on and Moneybags gives the worker the full value of his labor power. The goodies cost
$60 and that is what the capitalist gives the worker, paying him $10 an hour. The worker has also made $60 worth of goodies for the capitalist. An even exchange-- no increment for the capitalist.

What to do? The capitalist will hire the worker for $5 an hour for 12 hours. This is what free labor and the labor market are all about. After 12 hours the worker gets his agreed upon wage, buys his $60 of goodies and goes home. The capitalist however has been left with $60 from the first 6 hours AND $60 from the last 6 hours of the worker's toil. He sells the first $60 worth of goodies and gets his money back-- and sells the surplus $60 of goodies and makes a profit; a profit he did not work for but that he expropriates from the surplus value created by the worker. And this, Engels says, is how the "trick has been performed. Surplus-value has been produced; money has been converted into capital." Marx has thus demonstrated how surplus-plus value is created and has revealed "the core around which the whole existing social order has crystallized."

Now, under capitalism there is a "prerequisite" without which the capitalist can not get his hands on surplus-value and that is he must go to market and hire a FREE LABOURER. That is, a worker who can sell his labour power as a commodity and it is the only commodity he can sell. This is the condition working people have found themselves in since the end of the fifteenth century and the disintegration of the feudal order. Marx says "It is clearly the result of a past historical development." Marx and Engels appeared after this transitional period had been underway for about 400 years and we are two centuries further on than they. The present great world wide capitalist depression may or maynot be the "final conflict" which will mark the disintegration of capitalism and the arrival of the socialist order but as Marxists we must always be open to that possibility and continue to hold down the fort.

What is the upshot of all of Dühring's criticism of Marx and his proposed explanation of how capitalism works? Well, we need not go over all of Dühring's arguments and bombast against Marx. Suffice it to say that Engels concludes that Dühring actually steals his ideas from Marx, puts them forth in his own words and style and attacks Marx to cover up his theft; as Engels puts it Dühring "commits a clumsy plagiarism of Marx."

Just what, then, is the difference in Dühring's conception of capital and Marx's? For Marx every class dominated mode of production sweats surplus labour out of the productive class-- be they slaves, serfs, or modern workers (wage slaves). But it is only when, under a regime based on commodity production for a market, when the means of production employ surplus labour in the form of surplus value, that we have capitalism. This is a specific historical stage in the evolution of production. Dühring says any system that uses "surplus labour in any form" produces capital. He thus blurs the distinctions between different modes of production and makes capital an eternal law of nature with regard to economic activity.

What is more, for Dühring surplus value becomes simply the earnings of capital and is equivalent to profit. Whereas Marx makes it very clear in volume one of Das Kapital that surplus value should NOT be confused with profit. Dühring appears to only credit the capitalist in his role as a manufacturer as generating profit (surplus value.) Since Dühring claims to be explaining what Marx believes, Engels points out that Dühring should have paid more attention to what Marx ACTUALLY wrote. The profit made by the MERCHANT, Marx clearly says, is also a part of surplus value and the merchant can make a profit only because the industrial or manufacturing capitalist sells his product to him BELOW its full value "and thus relinquishes to him a part of the booty."

There are other subforms of surplus value besides manufacture's and merchant's profit, e.g., interest and ground-rent. But the explanations of these subdivisions will have to await volumes two and three of capital: only the outlines are being laid down in volume one. The complete explanation awaits "a scientific analysis of competition" and we can't make that analysis until the real inner nature, the essence, of capital is revealed in volume one. Engels gives as an analogy the understanding we have of the seeming motions of the planets which is based on knowledge of their real motions "which are not directly perceptible to the senses." [Empiricists take note!] Nevertheless, Marx gives us enough information in volume one to at least grasp in broad outline the subforms of surplus value to be dealt with in the later volumes.

It is because he doesn't know how competition works and also doesn't understand what Marx has said about it in volume one of Das Kapital, that Herr Dühring can't figure out how capitalists get back all that they have put out plus the surplus product at prices way above "the natural outlays of production." Where does this profit come from? He can't answer this question so he flees from the field of economics to that of politics and claims that the capitalist imposes a surcharge on his products by means of force. But Engels says FORCE can seize wealth but cannot produce it. Not only that, but Dühring leaves unexplained the ORIGIN of force itself. Dühringian economics gets us nowhere.

But all is not lost for Herr Dühring. His research finally leads him to some correct answers, although his distinctive way of expressing himself is not as clear as we might wish. Engels provides two quotes from Dühring that are on the right track. "IN EVERY CASE THE NET PROCEEDS OBTAINED BY THE UTILIZATION OF LABOUR-POWER CONSTITUTE THE INCOME OF THE MASTER...." And:"The characteristic feature of earnings of capital is that they are AN APPROPRIATION OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE PROCEEDS OF LABOUR-POWER."

What, Engels asks, is the INCOME OF THE MASTER but the surplus product the worker makes after the deduction for wages? What is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE PROCEEDS OF LABOUR-POWER but that part which comes after the worker has created the value of his own maintenance-- i.e., surplus value? So where did Herr Dühring finally get a clue to the correct explanation of the relation between capital and surplus value? He got it, Engels says by "in his own style, DIRECTLY COPYING from CAPITAL"[i.e., volume one of Das Kapital]. So much for Herr Dühring's alternative theory of economics.

ENGELS ON SKILLED AND UNSKILLED LABOUR

2011-01-12T10:24:00.000-08:00

Thomas Riggins

In Chapter Six ('Simple and Compound Labour') of Part Two of his classic work Anti-Dühring, Frederick Engels addresses a charge made by the German professor Eugen Dühring to the effect that in his work Das Kapital Marx has made a major blunder which amounts to a socially dangerous heresy regarding socialism. What could this heresy be?

Dühring says that Marx's theory of value is only the common theory that all values are the result of labour and measured by labour-time. But Marx sheds no light on the difference between skilled and unskilled labour. In fact Marx is wrong when he tries to explain the difference by saying one person's labour can be worth more than another's because it has more average labour-time compounded within it. See below where Engels says Marx has no such conception regarding the "worth" of labour.

Dühring says that all labour-time is of absolutely equal value but one worker can have another's labour-time hidden within his own. For example, when I use a hammer made by another to do my work. The reason Marx can't see this, and actually thinks, one person's labour may be worth more than another's is his prejudice against giving the same value to the labour-time of a porter and to that of an architect. He also refers to Marx's theory as hazy lucubrations.

Engels tells us that the wrath of Dühring has been brought forth by a passage in Das Kapital (it is found in section two of Chapter One of Vol. 1) in which Marx distinguishes between skilled and unskilled labour. It runs as follows: "But the value of a commodity represents human labour in the abstract, the expenditure of human labour in general. And just as in society, a general or a banker plays a great part, but mere man, on the other hand, a very shabby part, so here with mere human labour. It is the expenditure of simple labour power, i.e., of the labour power which, on an average, apart from any special development, exists in the organism of every ordinary individual. Simple average labour, it is true, varies in character in different countries and at different times, but in a particular society it is given. Skilled labour counts only as simple labour intensified, or rather, as multiplied simple labour, a given quantity of skilled being considered equal to a greater quantity of simple labour. Experience shows that this reduction is constantly being made. A commodity may be the product of the most skilled labour, but its value, by equating it to the product of simple unskilled labour, represents a definite quantity of the latter labour alone. The different proportions in which different sorts of labour are reduced to unskilled labour as their standard, are established by a social process that goes on behind the backs of the producers, and, consequently, appear to be fixed by custom. For simplicity’s sake we shall henceforth account every kind of labour to be unskilled, simple labour; by this we do no more than save ourselves the trouble of making the reduction."

The main thing to notice is that Marx is talking about measuring the value of commodities that their producers exchange with one another in a simple society of commodity production. There is no such thing as "absolute value" involved and Marx is only setting up his definitions and categories in this first chapter of Das Kapital. Here he only states the relation between simple and compound labour, or skilled and unskilled labour. Engels remarks that this process of reducing skilled to unskilled labour in order to quantify it as a measure of value, at this point, "can only be stated but not as yet explained." Dühring is jumping the gun.

Not only that, but, Engels maintains, labour itself can have no value because value "is nothing
else than the expression of the socially necessary human labour materialized in an object." Labour is the measure of value and speaking of the value of labour is like speaking of the weight of heaviness. Here Engels remarks on Dühring's "brazenness" in his assertion earlier that Marx thought the labour time of one person was more valuable than that of another and that labour has a value. It was Marx "who first demonstrated that labour CAN have NO value, and why it cannot" [it is the measure of value not value itself].

This notion of Marx's is very important for socialism, Engel insists, as it is crucial for the socialist goal of liberating labour power "from its status as a COMMODITY." It is also the clue to the view, unlike Dühring's that distribution and production are completely separate departments within capitalism, that distribution will be geared to the interests of production and that production itself will be governed, reciprocally, "by a mode of distribution which allows ALL members of society to develop, maintain and exercise their capacities with maximum universality."

Dühring is simply wrong if he thinks every worker creates the same amount of value in the same amount of time. One worker works faster, another slower, one has more skill, another less, that is why an average has to be arrived at which is the basis of the notion of "socially necessary labour time." This is also why the slogan "Equal wages for equal labour time" is really a bit utopian. Unions of course demand equal hourly wages for all workers in the the same job grade because of the difficultly of measuring the value that each worker actually creates. Now that some unions have agreed to a two tier wage system even they are tacitily admitting the impracticability of "Equal wages for equal labour time." Anyway women and minorities and nonunionists have often been paid less for the same labour time. This results in a tendency for union wages to decline, as we now see happening. If working people only understood the socialist model of economics they would never tolerate the treatment doled out to them by the owning class.

How will the distinction between unskilled (simple) and skilled (compound) labour be handled under socialism? Engels says that under private production the costs of training a worker to become a skilled worker is paid for by private individuals and so they reap the rewards. A trained slave sells for more money and a skilled worker gets a higher wage.

However, under socialism the cost of training is borne by society [or the state]. The worker therefore has no right to higher pay for the extra values he creates. The extra value is reaped by society and used for general social purposes (education, medical care, food subsidies, the fire department, etc). This explains why medical doctors in socialist societies are seen as underpaid. They are not. The state paid for their skill and they work for fair wages, not having astronomical debts to pay off to private lenders, etc. Another slogan bites the dust here as it is not possible to adhere to it in either capitalism or socialism and that is the worker's demand that they should get "the full proceeds of labour." Under socialism the full preceeds of labour are collectively distributed throughout society on the basics of social needs. It is only in this sense that the workers can receive the "full" proceeds of their labour.

Engels on the Theory of Value

2011-01-03T09:16:00.001-08:00

Thomas Riggins

Engels discusses the origin of the Marxist theory of value in Part II, Chapter V of his 1878 book Anti-Dühring confuting the views of the self styled "socialist" German professor Eugen Dühring. He does this by first taking issue with Dühring's faulty views and then presenting what he takes to be the correct, Marxist, outlook.

Dühring holds, in the first place, that the primary lesson of political economy is that the rule of wealth (and those who control it)throughout all world history is to be understood, in his words, as "economic power over men and things." Engels rejects this opinion for two reasons. First, the wealth associated with the ancient tribal and village societies at the basis of civilization was in no way created my "domination over men." These were cooperative non- class societies. Second, when we do come to more advanced class riven societies the wealth they created was more the domination over things that were then used to dominate men. Through out history we see "that wealth dominates men exclusively by means of the things which it has at its disposal."

The reason Dühring has explained wealth as primarily the domination over men is that he wishes to remove the discussion of exploitation from the realm of economics to that morality in order to resuscitate a version of Proudhon's "Property is theft" slogan. Dühring has divided the production of wealth into two great divisions; one of PRODUCTION and the other of DISTRIBUTION.
The production of wealth that is domination over things is GOOD but the wealth produced by domination over men is unjust and BAD.

Dühring's ideas applied to present day capitalism amount to the following: the capitalist system's production of wealth is fine and good and can be preserved, but the capitalist system's method of distribution is evil and bad and must be abolished. Engel's says views like this, that we can keep the capitalist mode of production and at the same time create a different and just mode of distribution, are "nonsense" and are expounded by people who have never grasped "the connection between production and distribution."

Dühring, having explained the origin of wealth, now turns to the subject of VALUE, and explains to us what "value" is. The value of a thing is, he says "the price or any other equivalent name, for example wages." The idea that Price = Value = Wages is absurd according to Engels.

So, what we have to find out is what value is and how it is determined. Dühring continues with a longer bombastic discussion of value and finally arrives at the conclusion that something's value depends on the labor time it takes to make it. He says: "The extent to which we invest our own energy into them (things) is the immediate determining cause of the existence of value in general and of a particular magnitude of it."

This is pretty pitiful as, Engels points out, this was already known, in the general way Dühring puts it, long before his (Dühring's) own time. And besides that, it is wrong in the way Dühring expresses it. It is not just your own energy-- you have to make something with a USE VALUE and you have take into consideration the SOCIALLY NECESSARY labor time it takes to make something.

But Dühring's theory gets worse. Besides the labor it contains there is another factor determining "value" and that is the fact another group of men besides the workers intervene and demand payment for the access to nature and the tools necessary for labor. This is done by force, "sword in hand," and amounts to an increase in the price of commodities and their value so that this group can collect its money. Dühring says this amounts to a "tax surcharge" imposed by force [added to the orignal or 'real' value].

Engels makes short work of this theory. If this is how prices are really set and value determined then what we have is, in effect, monopoly pricing. There are only two ways this could work. First all the sellers are jacking up the prices of their products. So as sellers they are reaping the profits of their "tax surcharge." But since all the products undergo this increase, the sellers, when they are buyers, also have to pay it and the surcharge cancels out. Engels says in this case "the prices have changed nominally but in reality -- in their mutual relationship -- have remained the same" and Dühring's forced increase in value is an 'illusion'."

The second way of explaining the increase in value is the "tax surcharge" actually represents real value that the men with "swords in hand" are getting-- namely they are getting value added to their products in the form of the unpaid labor of the working people. And this is just Marx's "theory of SURPLUS-VALUE." So Dühring's explanation of the creation of value is either an illusion or it is Marx's theory, a theory which Dühring rejects.

At least Dühring thinks he rejects it. His own theory, however, is just a "slovenly and confused" version of the theory of value proposed by David Ricardo and improved by Marx. Marx says: "The value of commodities is determined by the socially necessary general human labour embodied in them and this in turn is measured by its duration. Labour is the measure of all values, but labour itself has no value."

Dühring is trying to revive a really outmoded view that the value a commodity has is determined by the PRODUCTION OUTLAYS one of which, WAGES, measures what Dühring calls the "expenditure of energy" of the workers. This accounts for the production value of a commodity. The rest of the "value" is the "surcharge" added by the capitalist.

The view that wages = value = price [putting the "surcharge" aside] has been outmoded since the days of David Ricardo, Marx's immediate predecessor. Engels points out this view coexisted in Adam Smith with the view that labour time was the determinant of value but no one following scientific principles uses it now. However, there are still some who try to explain value this way [as true then as in 2010] for it is "the shallowest sycophants of the existing capitalist order of society who preach the determination of value by wages..." and who even say the capitalist's profits are themselves his wages-- i.e., "the wages of abstinence", of risk, management, etc. This is the kind of vulgar economics upon which Dühring founds his socialism.

Let's look at the real beginning of human society. At some time in the distant past primitive groups of ancient humans scrabbled about in bands spending most of their time in search of food. This conditioned lasted for untold generations from the time of our separation from the common ancestor we shared with the chimpanzees-- about five million years ago. Sometime in the last ten to twenty thousand years in our own species some groups (Engel's says "families") began to collect or create more food and useful instruments than they needed for day to day survival. A surplus of subsistence was created beyond the costs of maintaining the population and the surplus even was able to grow to the point of a creating a "social production and reserve fund."

The creation of this fund was a revolutionary historical development and the beginning of all human progress from then until now. However in "history, up to the present, this fund has been the possession of a privileged class, on which also devolved, along with this possession, political supremacy and intellectual leadership." Today, as in the past, this fund is a social fund made up of "the total mass of raw materials, instruments of production and means of subsistence." Every war imperialist or guerrilla, revolt, revolution, peasant uprising, worker's strike and election is a struggle over the control of this fund between those who control (or wish to control) it and those who make it. Socialism will exist when this fund is controlled by those who actually create it-- the productive portion the society-- the working people-- and it has become THE COMMON PROPERTY OF SOCIETY.

Today this fund, in almost every country in the world, rests in the hands of the capitalist class. This would be impossible if value was determined by wages. In that case the workers would get back in wages the value they created and there would be no capitalist exploitation.

It is, however, the quantity of socially necessary labour expended, not wages that determines value. The workers create more value for the capitalist than he pays out in wages and this fact f explains the origin of the profit on capital. It was Marx who discovered that these profits were merely a part, along with other kinds of appropriation, of the surplus value created by the workers. It is our duty as Marxists to educate the working people about these facts. One the workers are aware of the true origin of THE WEALTH OF NATIONS they will take steps to end their own exploitation and in so doing the exploitation of humanity in general.

Engels: The Force Theory of Herr Eugen Dühring

2010-12-31T06:18:00.000-08:00

Thomas Riggins

Chapters two, three and four of Part Two of Anti-Dühring "Political Economy" deal with Dühring's theory that political systems and power are PRIMARY and economic relations are SECONDARY-- both historically and in the present day. Engels says Dühring gives no evidence or arguments in favor of this theory (which he claims is ORIGINAL) but simply asserts it as a given. Engels says this is old hash and has been the way history has been seen since the beginning. The true history of mankind has actually taken place behind the scenes and is the real basis for the pompous doings of the kings and presidents, popes and generals that strut the stage and are memorialized in the history books.

Dühring's idea that all the previous history of mankind is based on man's enslavement of man-- i.e., on force-- and that this is the only way we can explain it is exemplified by his example of Robinson Crusoe and Friday. Crusoe enslaves Friday. But why does he do this? Engels says "only in order that Friday should work for Crusoe's benefit." That is for an ECONOMIC MOTIVE. Dühring has reversed the true relation between political order and economic order and does not see "that force is only the means and that the aim is economic advantage."

Slavery, by the way, the condition from which Dühring starts out his "political force is the basis of history" nonsense is itself the result of prior historical and economic developments.
Slavery requires two preconditions: tools and material for the slave to work upon and a food supply to provide a basic subsistence for the slave. This means that a prior historical period in which distribution of social wealth has developed must have preceded the introduction of slavery.

Engels gives as examples primitive societies with common land ownership where there was no slavery or it "played only a very subordinate role." This is also true of ancient Rome before it became an imperial power. Even in the US, Engels says, the cotton industry of England was more important than force in maintaining slavery in the South so that "in those districts where no cotton was grown or which, unlike the border states, did not breed slaves for the cotton growing states, it died out of itself without any force being used, simply because it did not pay."

But wait a minute. Doesn't this sound right about the world we live in? Dühring says capitalist property today is the result of the use of force in the past and in fact all past property accumulations are also based on force (Rome, Egypt, etc.,) and force is, in Dühring's words, "that form of domination AT THE ROOT OF WHICH LIES not merely the exclusion of fellow-men from the use of the natural means of subsistence, but also... the subjection of man to make him do servile work." It sounds right. Big business and the oil giants use force to take over natural resources (Niger Delta, Iraq, the Amazon), they force masses of third world workers into sweat shops at low wages, etc. Why isn't Dühring right on?

Well, Engels says he is not: "Private property by no means makes it appearance in history as the result of robbery [so much for 'property is theft'] or force. On the contrary, it already existed ... in the ancient primitive communes of all civilized peoples." Engels gives many examples of the development of private property by trade, individual labor, and the accumulation of wealth in the form of domestication of animals-- none of which involved force or robbery. His logical argument is, however, that before you can use force to take someone's property or to steal it from him, it (i.e., property) must already exist "therefore force may be able to change the possession of, but cannot create, private property as such." If Dühring had meant this he would have been correct but force is NOT at the root of the domination of man by private property.

Nor is force the cause of the "subjection of man to make him do servile work" at least with respect to modern capitalism. At this point Engels gives a long quote from DAS KAPITAL [from Vol. 1: Section One of Chapter XXIV "Conversion of Surplus Value Into Capital"] the upshot of which is that economies based on commodity production where property is based on the labor put into it evolve into capitalist economies where surplus value develops and labor becomes separated from property and "property," Marx writes, "turns out to be the right, on the part of the capitalist, to appropriate the unpaid labour of others or its product, and to be the impossibility on the part of the labourer, of appropriating his own product. The separation of property from labour has become the necessary consequence of a law that apparently originated in their identity."

Engels points out that Dühring never mentions Marx's arguments (since they would demolish his own) and that the whole structure of modern exploitation and servitude "can be explained by purely economic causes; at no point whatever are robbery, force, the state, or political interference of any kind necessary."

Again, Dühring is totally wrong when he writes "political conditions are the decisive cause of the economic situation." If that were the case, Engels says, then capitalism would have been voluntarily brought about by the feudal system; but that didn't happen. In the struggle to overthrow feudalism "the decisive weapon" was the ECONOMIC power of the bourgeoisie. An example being the great French Revolution of 1789 which broke out because the capitalist system had become the dominant economic power but, "The 'political conditions' in France remained unaltered, while the 'economic situation' had outgrown them." As a result the nobles no longer had an important social function but they nevertheless tried to keep control of the social wealth "in the revenues that came to" them.

This is not unlike today (2010). We have a socialized economy in that the large industries and banks etc., could be kept running by their workers alone if the capitalist class vanished overnight-- they too have no important social function. Even though they are useless they still fight to control the social wealth and increase their revenues. When the workers finally wake up to this fact, and their living conditions are as desperate as the French in 1789, the game will be up for the capitalists. A few more depressions will suffice one hopes.

While the living standards of the world's working class approaches, day by day, the level of the French in 1789 we find, as Engels says, "the bourgeoisie has already come close to occupying the position held by the nobility in 1789 [in our day they are no longer "close" they have equaled the position of the old nobility-tr]: it is becoming more and more not only socially superfluous, but a social hindrance; it is more and more becoming separated from productive activity, and like the nobility in the past, becoming more and more a class merely drawing revenues...." All this not only points to a socialist future but decisively shows that Dühring's view that politics determines economics is a "delusion."

THE SECRET WORLD OF THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY?

2010-12-28T18:48:00.000-08:00

Thomas Riggins

The New York Review of Books for 9-30-10 has an interesting article by Ian Johnson, former Beijing bureau chief for the WSJ, reviewing Richard McGregor's THE PARTY: THE SECRET WORLD OF CHINA'S COMMUNIST RULERS. I don't know how secret it can be if there is a whole book about it.

There are some interesting facts revealed in this review that readers of our sites will find useful. We are told that the CPC is basically the heart and soul of contemporary China and that the views of some, that the party is becoming irrelevant, are dead wrong. Johnson informs us that while many polices of the party are not actually "communist" it is still "Leninist in structure" and its organization and workings "would be recognizable to the leaders of the Russian Revolution." Coming from a WSJ reporter I don't know if this a compliment or not. McGregor's book also shows that despite its "secretive tendencies" the CP "can be usefully analyzed." Maybe the secret world is not really so secret after all.

Johnson says one big misunderstanding about China, and it is a BIG one, is that China "has been privatizing the economy." There is a stock market to be sure and many shares have been sold to investors around the world but "almost all Chinese companies of any size and importance remain in government hands." This is a socialist sine qua non I would think.

This fact is relatively unknown to outside investors due to "ignorant or unethical Western investment banks and lawyers." It seems that ultimate decision making in all really important Chinese companies is made by the Organization Department of the CPC and the NOT the board of directors of the company-- i.e., the party remains "in control of all personnel decisions." CEOs and directors thus dance to the tune of the party.

What about smaller companies, those not belonging to the commanding heights of the economy? Here too "government control still remains pervasive" if less direct. What Johnson means is that "the manager is often a former official or close to Party circles." Johnson is wrong to call this "government control" since even he admits "that these companies are run as the manager sees fit." What he really means is that there is a climate of shared values and aspirations between middle management and the party.

The party also has control of the government as the party, through the medium of "leading small groups" of experts and senior party leaders that have been set up to advise each of the ministries. These groups exist from the top "down to the grass roots." Westerners object to this system, especially in the legal system because judges are not independent and merely "translate court decisions made by Communist Party legal affairs committees into rulings." This objection is based on the Western notion that the only free and democratic organization of government has to be based on bourgeois notions of democracy and any other notions of democracy, especially socialist or people's democracy is bogus. This overlooks the fact that most bourgeois democracies are themselves bogus.

While many Western "experts" on China write off the CPC in the long term, Johnson shares the view that "the West has consistently underestimated the Party's ability to adapt and thus might be excessively negative about its future."

Johnson has some criticisms of his own but they seem to be motivated by his WSJ background. He thinks China needs more reform efforts and while he says "reforms haven't quite ground to a halt" nevertheless the state sector is making a comeback because the CPC has a policy "of recentralizing control." But this is what you would expect a socialist state to do.

He also faults Chinese foreign policy for being concerned with only two "narrow concerns." The first is territorial (Tibet and Taiwan) and the second is "resource extraction in Africa and Central America." Well the first is a concern with the territorial integrity of the country, which is actually being threatened, and is hardly a "narrow concern." Nor is the second, which deals with China's relation to the Third World and its trade policies. By all accounts most African and Central American countries have had better and fairer deals with the Chinese than with the West. Johnson doesn't even mention the CPC's push to increase the unionization of its workforce, which is in complete harmony with socialist principles.

All in all this is an interesting article which should be read by anyone interested in contemporary China and certainly by anyone contemplating buying and reading Richard McGregor's THE PARTY.

Marxism, Mosques, and Mockery

2010-12-22T18:13:00.000-08:00

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and the New York Islamic Cultural Center

Thomas Riggins
(From PA archives)

Spending six weeks in South Florida (Boca Raton) I thought I would be missing the action in NYC. Not the case. The "Ground Zero Mosque" flap is spreading throughout the land. The fact that the social center envisioned by some American Muslims is not a mosque (it is social center but also has a prayer room) nor is it to be located at ground zero doesn't seem to matter to the rabid opposition opposed to an Islamic center in lower Manhattan.

A Rasmussen poll released on August 23 claims 62% of those polled oppose the Islamic center. According to the New York Post (a paper subsidized by the ultra right billionaire Rubert Murdock) the pollsters reported that the opposition is based on the belief that the Islamic center is "a deliberate provocation that dishonors the memories of the 3000 [sic] people that died that day."

Marxists and other progressives understand that this is nonsense since the Islamic religion and Muslims in general are in no way responsible for the events of 9/11. We do know that right wing elements, including elements from the growing proto-fascist right, are using this issue for political purposes making a mockery of the constitutional rights of all Americans in the hopes of damaging the Obama administration and the Democratic congress.

Obama's comments were perfectly appropriate for a US President: all Americans have the right of religious freedom under the law and no group of right wing anti-American fanatics, tea baggers included, have a right to force their views on the rest of us.

The military has even stated that this anti-Islam agitation is hurting the war effort and threatening the lives of our troops. Ok, our troops should not be there in the first place and should be brought home immediately, but it shows the hypocrisy of the Dick Amorys, Newt Gingrichs, and John McCains and their ilk that they could care less about the troops in the field than a few extra votes from their crazed supporters.

Another mockery is the way The New York Post reports on this dispute: by twisting the facts and trying to stir up religious and ethnic hatred between Americans-- all to further Murdock's anti-working class political agenda. As evidence I offer the following headline From same issue of the NYP: "US worse than al Qaeda: imam" accompanied by a photo of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is the imam associated with the Islamic center, being hosted by the US embassy in Bahrain last Sunday. He is described as the imam "who decried Muslim blood on US hands." The subtext is, of course, here is this anti-American Muslim fanatic being sent to the Muslim world by the Obama administration as a guest of the State Department for who knows what evil purposes being hidden from the American people and he wants to build HIS mosque at GROUND ZERO!!! Yikes! Call out the Minuet Men!

Let's look at the actual story written by Murdock's mouthpiece, one Jennifer Fermino, pretending to be a reporter for a publication pretending to be a newspaper. Here is the first sentence, it sets the tone: "The Islamic cleric who wants to build a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero once claimed in a jaw-dropping speech that the United States has killed more innocent civilians than al Qaeda."

Two points: 1. This would be "jaw-dropping" only to ignorant Yahoos who know nothing about the history of US foreign policy and the conduct of the US military. 2. The statement happens to be true. In just one war alone, the Vietnam War, the US killed more innocent civilians than all the terrorist organizations in the world have managed to kill. The same is true of the civilian deaths in Iraq. If Ms. Fermino is so ignorant as not to know that she at least has an excellent qualification to be a NYP "reporter."

Here is what Imam Rauf actually said in a speech he gave in 2005: "We tend to forget in the West [if we ever knew-tr], that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaeda has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims. You may remember that the US-led sanctions against Iraq led to the death of over half a million Iraqi children. This has been documented by the United Nations."

Ms Fermino calls these statements "incendiary" but does not reveal to us that they are also true, which happens to be the case.

Imam Rauf said the following as well, which is also true, and he should be congratulated for his courage: "What complicates the discussion intra-Islamically, is the fact that the West has not been cognizant and has not addressed the issue of its own contribution to much injustice in the Arab and Muslim world. It is a difficult subject to discuss with Western audiences [they are distracted by constantly dropping their jaws-tr] but it is one that must be pointed out and must be raised."

The NYP also says he used the N word in his speech (he used it in a context describing how people SHOULD NOT judge other people-- by skin color or gender) not as US military slang uses it to describe Arabs as
sand n's.

This whole story is biased and designed to discredit the imam for speaking the TRUTH! It is based on a audio tape that can be heard on the Ayn Randroid website AtlasShrugs. I wish Atlas would shrug all the Randroids, Ferminos and other crypto-fascists opposing religious freedom and stirring up ethnic and religious hatred off the backs of the American people.

Ross Douthat on "The Marriage Ideal"

2010-12-14T13:18:00.001-08:00

Thomas Riggins

The ultra-conservative Ross Douthat, an op ed columnist for The New York Times, has a piece in Monday's paper (8-9-2010 "The Marriage Ideal") which, as is usual with this ideological trend, distorts the issues involved in question of gay marriage.

His article appears sparked by Federal Judge Vaughn Walker's ruling last week "that laws defining marriage as a heterosexual union are unconstitutional, irrational and unjust. That they are irrational and unjust is obvious to any thinking person, their constitutionality will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.

Douthat agrees that the usual arguments in defense of heterosexual marriage as the only form that should be legally recognized are wrong (I think he means invalid and unsound). These are those based on claims of naturalness, tradition, universality, etc. But Douthat points out that other cultures have different conceptions of the nature and purpose of marriage and none of the arguments heard by Judge Walker were convincing.

Since those opposed to gay marriage are NOT really defending "some universal, biologically inevitable institution" just what are they defending, Douthat asks? Luckily for the defenders of traditional marriage only, who obviously don't know what they are talking about and can only give wrong headed arguments to federal judges, Douthat DOES know and is going to enlighten all of us.

The heterosexual marriage ideal "holds up the commitment to lifelong fidelity and support by two sexually different human beings-- a commitment that involves mutual surrender, arguably, of their reproductive self-interest-- as a unique admirable kind of relationship."

Well this is a find and admirable ideal for some, but should it be the only legal marriage relationship under US and international law? Has an anti-divorce clause also been slipped in? And what about a person who is both physically and in gender consciousness a male and a person who is transsexual and a physical male but whose gender consciousness is female: are these two sexually different human beings allowed to marry under the heterosexual only rules? They are heterosexual afterall.

Douthat maintains that this heterosexual ideal, including the nuclear family, isn't claiming to be the only possible way for a marriage to be arranged but that it is "worthy of distinctive recognition and support." And who would not agree? As long as its recognition and support does not come at the expense of other people's marriage ideals and does not involve special rights and laws that discriminate against those alternatives.

Many cultures don't have this marriage ideal that Douthat puts forward: "It's a particularly Western understanding, derived from Jewish ["Thank G-d I was not born a woman"] and Christian beliefs ["Women is destined to live under the authority of man" St. Thomas] about the order of creation ["Neither was man created for the woman; but the woman for the man"--St. Paul], and supplemented by later ideals about romantic love [the passive woman on the pedestal], the rights of children [let's deny them citizenship under the 14th Amendment if their parents lack papers], and the equality of the sexes [this last bit is laughable considering the majority of the heterosexual marriage only crowd are chauvinists in extremo.]"

Well at least we see where the heterosexual marriage only crowd is coming from in Douthat's construction. It's basically an attempt to force a particular religious interpretation of marriage on everybody else. Extremely un-American to say the least.

Douthat fears that this noble ideal of the meaning of marriage, which only exists in the fantasy world of ultra-conservatives, may be lost to newer "post-modern" ways of thinking. If this happens we will be "giving up one of the great ideas of Western civilization"-- patriarchal, repressive bourgeois marriage as one of the "great ideas" of the West! Barf. If you want to know the real meaning of this great ideal read about marriage in Simone de Beauvoir's still great book THE SECOND SEX.

Douthat thinks there must be a distinction made between gay marriage and his ideal form: "But based on Judge Walker's logic-- which suggests that any such distinction is bigoted and un-American-- I don't think a society that declares gay marriage to be a fundamental right will be capable of even entertaining this idea." Speed the Day.

Lenin: Materialism and Empirio-criticism: A Commentary for the New Century

2010-12-06T07:59:00.000-08:00

READING LENIN: Materialism and Empirio-criticism
c. 2008 by Thomas Riggins

Here is a famous work of Lenin's that outlines what Marxist philosophy is all about. It's 100 years old this year and we might ask ourselves what is still valid in this classic. Have new philosophic developments in the last 100 years made this work outmoded? I am going to discuss this book chapter by chapter.This post is over 26,000 words and will print out in 75 pages, so don't read it on line. I suggest you print it out and read it at your leisure.

The Prefaces.

Why did Lenin write this book? He tells us because a number of people calling themselves "Marxists" have been attacking "orthodox" Marxism ("dialectical materialism") and calling it outmoded and wanting to supplement it with new ideas borrowed from bourgeois philosophy.
Engels is specifically attacked as being "antiquated" and his views on dialectics are said to be a species of "mysticism." None of the books that Lenin attacks are of much interest today and the names of the authors have mostly been forgotten. Perhaps you will recall the name of A.A. Bogdanov, certainly the name Lunacharsky will ring a bell as he later became the first Commissar of Enlightenment under the Bolsheviks.

Lenin is not opposed to criticism of the views of Marx and Engels. He mentions approvingly Mehring's critique of "antiquated views of Marx" which was undertaken from a dialectical materialist standpoint. Any historians out there reading this are encouraged to send in comments about just what these views were and where Mehring made them as Lenin does not discuss them in the Prefaces.

Besides defending the "orthodox" view from heretics, Lenin also wanted to know what drove ostensible Marxist's to bourgeois philosophy. What, he asks, "was the stumbling block to these people" that made them desert the orthodox position. Well, in our own day we have a similar problem. Engels is still attacked and efforts are made to cut Marx away from Engels
and make Engels some sort of hack. We also have ordinary language Marxists, existentialist Marxists, phenomenological Marxists, postmodern Marxists, etc., etc.

I'm using Vol. 14 of the CW for the text. The book itself seems to be out of print. Maybe you can find a copy online. If you google 'materialism and empiro-criticism" the first entry you get should be an online copy of the book so if you don't have a hard copy you can still read it.

"In Lieu of an Introduction"

It really is an introduction, about sixteen pages in which Lenin compares the so-called Marxists he is about to criticize to Bishop George Berkeley
who is, wrongly I think, considered by many to have been a subjective idealist-- i.e., someone who thinks the existence of "external" objects is dependent on the human mind.

Lenin says, for example, "Denying the 'absolute' existence of objects, that is the existence of things outside human knowledge, Berkeley bluntly defines the view point of his opponents as being that they recognise the 'thing-in-itself.'"

This is an unfortunate sentence, using as it does both Kantian terminology eighty years in advance of its creation and substituting the term "human knowledge" for Berkeley's term "mind."

A few pages later, Lenin corrects himself with a more nuanced view of Berkeley's position. "Deriving 'ideas' from the action of a deity upon the human mind, Berkeley thus approaches objective idealism: the world proves to be not my idea but the product of a single supreme spiritual cause that creates both the 'laws of nature' and the laws distinguishing 'more real' ideas from less real, and so forth."

Actually, Berkeley is an objective idealist as he holds that the objects that we see existing in the world about us truly have an independent existence from human beings and the world would be just as it is even if there were no humans in existence. Lenin also believes this. What differentiates them is Berkeley has an extra entity which Lenin does not have-- ie., a spiritual being "God" in whose Mind everything exists. Except for this, Lenin and Berkeley have pretty much the same world view (minus dialectics) when it comes to the "real" existence of the external world. Anyone who doubts this need only read "Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous" [1713]. In his desire to smash his contemporary philosophical opponents, Lenin has not given Berkeley his due. He is much more sophisticated than the people Lenin is opposing.

Berkeley's philosophy of "to be is to be perceived" (esse est percipi) is nicely expressed by Ronald Knox:

There was a young man who said, "God
Must think it exceedingly odd
If he finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there's no one about in the Quad."
REPLY
Dear Sir:
Your astonishment's odd:
I am always about in the Quad.
And that's why the tree
Will continue to be,
Since observed by
Yours faithfully,
GOD.

Better is Lenin's interpretation of the views of Hume and Diderot. His reading of Hume is filtered through Thomas Huxley (Darwin's bull dog) and his 1879 book "Hume" from which he quotes. "'Realism and idealism are equally probable hypotheses' (i.e., for Hume). Hume does not go beyond sensations. 'Thus the colours red and blue, and the odour of a rose, are simple impressions.... A red rose gives us a complex impression,
capable of resolution into the simple impressions of red colour, rose-scent, and numerous others." Hume admits both the 'materialist position' and the 'idealist position;' the 'collection of perceptions' may be generated by the Fichtean 'ego' or may be a 'signification' and even a 'symbol' of a 'real something.' This is how Huxley interprets Hume." This is more or less how Hume is still interpreted and he is also still very popular in English speaking philosophical fora and lurks in the background of modern bourgeois philosophical "materialism" and "realism."

In the same generation as Hume, Lenin appreciates the materialism of the French philosophe Diderot, and puts forth (in passing which I have emphasized) an important principle in the following quote. "And Diderot, who came very close to the standpoint of contemporary materialism (THAT
ARGUMENTS AND SYLLOGISMS ALONE DO NOT SUFFICE TO REFUTE IDEALISM, AND HERE IT IS NOT A QUESTION FOR THEORETICAL ARGUMENT) notes the similarity of the premises both of the idealist Berkeley, and the sensationalist Condillac" (a French version of Locke from whom both he, Berkeley and Hume ultimately derive.) We shall see later how important the passage I highlighted will become.

Lenin likes the way Diderot uses the example of a self-conscious piano to explain his views. Such a piano would be able to play on its own the "airs" played upon it. All the problems about the origin of our sensations-- internal, external, etc., Diderot is quoted as saying would be solved by "a simple supposition which explains everything, namely, that the faculty of sensation is a general property of matter, or a product of its organisation."

Now to conclude. This little introduction was just to give some background before Lenin takes up the cudgel against the "Marxist" idealists of his own day. We shall see that they all, to a greater or lesser extent, are influenced by the ideas of the Physicist Ernst Mach (remembered today not for his philosophy but for the Mach number-- object speed divided by the speed of sound). "For the present," then Lenin says, "we shall confine ourselves to one conclusion: the 'recent' Machists have not adduced a single argument against the materialists that had not been adduced by Bishop Berkeley." Remember-- I need your input-- if I overlooked something important in this reading please bring it up in the comments.

Chapter One Section One "Sensation and Complexes of Sensations'

Lenin begins by stating the basic idea of the theory of knowledge (epistemology) of the two betes noirs of empirio-criticism Ernst Mach and Richard Avenarius. This is, that what we experience when we experience "the external world" is what goes on in our own brain-- id est, the "elements" making up the "external world" are actually INTERNAL complexes of sensations.

Lenin says, "Mach explicitly states... that things or bodies are complexes of sensations, and that he quite clearly sets up his own philosophical point of view against the opposite theory which holds that sensations are "symbols" of things (it would be more accurate to say images or reflections of things). The latter theory is PHILOSOPHICAL MATERIALISM."

Lenin bases his view on that of Engel's in his work "Anti-Duhring." Engel's uses the term Gedanken-Abbilder which Lenin translates as "mental images" or "mental pictures." "Picture" in German, however is das Bild (which can also mean "image") and since Engel's didn't use the term Gedanken-Bilder, I will not use "picture" but "image" (das Abbilder). Engels believes that really existing external things produce "thought-images" in the human brain. I like the German word used for the English "brainwave"-- i.e., der Gedankenblitz, pl., die Gedankenblitzen, literally "thought-wave, waves."

So the question, as I see it, is what is the relation of our Gedankenblitzen to the real world when we experience what we take to be an external world. Are they the reflections of external reality, or is external reality simply deduced and constructed out of the Gedankenblitzen? Lenin says, "Anybody who reads 'Anti-Duhring' and 'Ludwig Feuerbach' with the slightest care will find scores of instances when Engels speaks of things and their reflections in the human brain, in our consciousness, thought, etc. Engels does not say that sensations or ideas are 'symbols' of things, for consistent materialism must here use 'image', picture, or reflection instead of 'symbol', as we shall show in detail in the proper place." Well, we shall see. At this point it would appear I could be a "consistent" materialist as long as I held that my Gedankenblitzen symbols were produced by actually existing external objects independent of the human brain. We will reconsider this when we get to the "proper place."

Lenin says that Mach goes on to explain that we have experiences of certain complexes of sensation that are so intense and consistent that we have become "habituated" (Mach must have gotten this term from Hume) to ascribe the origin of these experiences to an external reality. For Mach, this particular thought wave is no proof of an actually existing external world. We are not justified in going beyond the reality of our own sensations.

Remember Diderot and his piano from last week? Lenin says that he represents "the real views of materialists." Which "views do not consist in deriving sensations from the movement of matter or in reducing sensations to the movement of matter, but in recognising sensation as one of the properties of matter in motion. On this question Engels shared the standpoint of Diderot." This is not clear to me. If sensation is a property of "matter in motion" have we not reduced sensations to the "movement of matter"? Perhaps this will become clearer later.
.
Lenin now switches his attention from Mach to Richard Avenarius (1843 to 1896). His works appear to be out of print in English at any rate (if they were ever translated). [Trivia: his mother was Cacile Wagner, Richard Wagner's little sister.] Lenin quickly establishes Avenarius' idealist credentials with a quote from his Prolegomena zu einer Kritik der reinen Erfahrung: "We have recognised that the existing [thing-tr] is substance endowed with sensation; substance falls away, sensation remains; we must then regard the existing as sensation, at the basis of which there is nothing which does not possess sensation." This is animism! The reason "substance" falls away is that we don't need it to explain the world. All we know is what we experience-- i.e., sensation. Avenarius coined the term "empirio-criticism" to describe his philosophy and his thought was the major influence on Mach.

Bogdanov (1873-1928) makes his first appearance in this section. A. A. Bogdanov was the nom de guerre of A.A. Malinovski. who at one time was the the #2 Bolshevik after Lenin and a leader of the discredited Proletkul't movement after the revolution. He was an MD who founded the first blood transfusion and research institute in Russia. It is now called The Bogdanov Institute. He lost a power struggle with Lenin (the book we are studying was written to discredit him in the eyes of Bolsheviks) and turned to research. He used his institute to do blood experiments trying to halt aging and reverse the aging process. In fact, when Lenin died his brain was given to Bogdanov to study as well as his body to see if it could be reanimated. It couldn't. Bogdanov accidentally killed himself while doing a blood transfer experiment on himself. There is an interesting article about him on Wikipedia and in Volume 3 of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. He was very interesting character who deserves to be better known.

Under the influence of Wilhelm Ostwald (a psychologist) as well as Mach and Avenarius, Bogdanov tried to update Marxist materialism by blending it with the thought of the empirio-ctiticists. The result was his book "Empirio-monism" which is the object of Lenin's ire. It is however only mentioned in passing in this section. In fact Lenin even likes the quote from Empirio-monism that he reproduces here because the Machist Bogdanov ("from forgetfulness") formulates his new position using words that actually describe a materialist outlook, which is that sensation is "the direct connection between consciousness and the external world."

This gives Lenin the opportunity to set forth what he thinks is the major fallacy of Idealism. "The sophism of idealist philosophy," he says, "consists in the fact that it regards sensation as being not the connection between consciousness and the external world, but a fence, a wall, separating consciousness from the external world-- not an image of the external phenomenon corresponding to the sensation, but as the 'sole entity.'"
This is I think the MAIN POINT of this section.

Lenin ends this section with some remarks on three other Machians whose Idealism he is going to deal with: the English philosopher Karl Pearson [1857-1936, better known as the founder of mathematical statistics], and the physicists Pierre Duhem [1861-1916] and Henri Poincare
[1854-1912].

Chapter One Section Two "The Discovery of the World Elements"

What are the "world elements" that Mach has supposedly discovered? In his "Mechanics" (1883) he wrote, "All natural science can only picture and represent complexes of those ELEMENTS which we ordinarily call SENSATIONS."

Lenin says Mach is confused, because in "The Analysis of Sensations" he says, "A colour is a physical object when we consider its dependence, for instance, upon the source of illumination (other colours, temperatures, spaces and so forth). When we, however, consider its DEPENDENCE upon the RETINA ... it is a PSYCHOLOGICAL object, a SENSATION."

Here it seems physical and psychological objects are dissimilar. Lenin calls Mach's view an "incoherent jumble." It seems that Mach wants it both ways, but by having two sorts of objects, physical and a sensation, Mach has slipped into MATERIALISM despite his claim that there are only sensations and their complexes.

This is the viewpoint of natural science and materialism: "matter acting upon our sense-organs produces sensation." The empirio-crticists seem either unaware of their problem here, or just confused. Lenin quotes one of the most important followers of Mach and Avenarius, Joseph Petzoldt [ Ludwig Wittgenstein's teacher ] who wrote that "In the statement that 'sensations are the elements of the world' one must guard against taking the term 'sensation' as denoting something only subjective and therefore ethereal, transforming the ordinary picture of the world into an illusion."

This is really muddled and Lenin says he can't help "harping" about it. He tells the empirio-criticists that they must give up their world elements and "simply say that colour is the result of the action of a physical object on the retina, which is the same as saying that sensation is a result of the action of matter on our sense organs."

Lenin points out that in fact, as Mach and Avenarius grew older they began to modify their beliefs and materialist elements, as it were, forced themselves upon them. Here is the strong Machian position from "Analysis of Sensations"-- " It is not bodies that produce sensations, but complexes of elements (complexes of sensations) that make up bodies."

But this view is somewhat modified. Avenarius, according to his disciple Rudolf Willy, ended up also accepting some form of "naive realism"-- i.e., the stance of regular people that there are real existing thing outside our minds. And his biographer, Oskar Ewald, conceded that he ended with a contradictory system with "idealist" and "realist" positions. [NOTE: Academic philosophy generally prefers the word "realist". Lenin uses "materialist" in deference to Marx and Engels and because he thinks it is more honest.]

Back to Bogdanov Bashing: Bogdanov says he is not a Machian. He only took one thing from Mach. Yes, but what he took, Lenin says "is the BASIC ERROR of Machism." And what is this basic error, the source of Bogdanov's "philosophical misadventures"? It is that "the external world, matter" is thought to be "identical with sensations."

Not only does he assert this, but he reproduces the equivocations and confusions of Avenarius et al when he writes in "Empirio-monism" that "insofar as the data of experience appear IN DEPENDENCE UPON THE STATE OF A PARTICULAR NERVOUS SYSTEM, they form the PSYCHICAL WORLD of that particular person; insofar as the data of experience are taken OUTSIDE OF SUCH A DEPENDENCE, we have before us the PHYSICAL WORLD."

I would like to insert here a note on the use of the term "metaphysics." In the period under discussion this was a term of abuse. Marxists referred to two groups as "metaphysicians"-- the idealists and the mechanical [i.e., non-dialectical] materialists. Dialectical Materialism (Diamat) was a "science." On the other hand idealists and agnostics (those neutral on the realism antirealism issue) called all the materialists "metaphysicians" for, as Lenin puts it, "it seems to them that to recognise the existence of an external world independent of the human mind is to transcend the bounds of experience." Lenin will deal with this later in his book,

For the present I think the main point of this section was to show that "What appeared to Bogdanov to be truth is, as a matter of fact, confusion, a wavering between materialism and idealism." This is due to the fact that "the amendment made by Mach and Avenarius to their original idealism amounts to making partial concessions to materialism."

Chapter One Section Three: The Principal Co-Ordination and "Naive Realism"

Lenin now turns to two works by Avenarius, "The Human Concept of the World" and the "Notes." He will give us the essence of the doctrine of the "Principle Co-Ordination" and its relation to our everyday notions of naive realism. Avenarius' thesis is that of, in his own words, "the INDISSOLUBLE CO-ORDINATION OF THE SELF AND THE ENVIRONMENT." The self and the environment are always together, like a horse and carriage or love and marriage! The self is the CENTRAL TERM and the environment is the COUNTER TERM of this co-ordination.

Avenarius thinks this doctrine leaves the belief in naive realism untouched, and Mach ("Analysis of Sensations") thinks so as well. Lenin thinks this is nuts. In fact, he claims this view, which supposedly co-ordinates naive realism with the self (consciousness), is just warmed over Fichte.

Lenin means Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814, 'The Father of German Nationalism'-- a dubious honor), an Idealist who wrote in 1801 that you should "Take care, therefore, not to jump out of yourself and to apprehend anything otherwise than you are able to apprehend it, as consciousness AND the thing, as the thing AND consciousness; or more precisely, neither the one nor the other, but that which only subsequently becomes resolved into the two, that which is the absolute subjective-objective and objective-subjective." The so-called newest philosophy was just a rehash, a century later, of early German Idealism.

Now, what has this empirio-critical doctrine have to do with naive realism? According to Lenin, the naive realism (of "any healthy person") is "the view that things, the environment, the world, exist INDEPENDENTLY of our sensation, of our consciousness, of our SELF and of man in general."

Not only does the world have an independent existence human beings have knowledge about it because it interacts with our nervous system, also a part of the world, and reproduces images of itself of which we are conscious-- human consciousness being a higher order property of the organization of matter. "Materialism." Lenin says, "DELIBERATELY makes the 'naive" belief of mankind the foundation of its theory of knowledge."

Lenin takes great pains to stress that this is not just the partisan view of diamat that he is pushing, but it is the standpoint of modern natural science and of scientists in general, even those who would not consider themselves followers of diamat. (Dialectical Materialism)

As evidence for this view he turns to Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920, 'The Father of Modern Psychology,' along with William James) who maintained the view that any given reality cannot be described without a reference to the "self" (Avenarius and company) is, in his words, "a false confusion of the content of real experience with reflections about it."

Lenin also bolsters his argument my quoting from a 1906 article in 'Mind", still the leading English philosophy journal, by Norman Kemp Smith (1872-1958, best known for his translation of Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason'-- still the gold standard). After discussing Avenarius' theory of the principle co-ordination of the world of sense experience and the natural world of naive realism viewed as one of complexes of sensations, Smith concludes that Avenarius has failed completely to capture the meaning of naive realism as it is understood by realists [materialists].

Avenarius, Smith writes, "argues that thought is as genuine a form of experience as sense-perception, and so in the end falls back on the time-worn argument of subjective idealism, that thought and reality are inseparable, because reality can only be conceived in thought, and thought involves the presence of the thinker. Not, therefore, any original and profound reestablishment of realism, but only the restatement in its crudest form of the familiar position of subjective idealism is the final outcome of Avenarius' positive speculations."

Lenin has pretty much made his main point in this section, which i will reiterate in a moment. He gives a few more examples of how mixed up Avenarius' views are (from W. Schuppe and O. Ewald-- both of whom will be dealt with in later sections). He again says "it is important to note" that all attempts to combine materialism (realism) and subjective idealism a la Mach and Avenarius into some transcendental philosophy that includes them both is IN FACT an "empty, pseudo-scientific claim." Lenin says that "To build a theory of knowledge on the postulate of the indissoluble connection between the object and human sensation ('complexes of sensations' as identical with bodies; 'world-elements' that are identical both psychically and physically; Avenarius' co-ordination and so forth) is to land inevitably into idealism."

And finally, to end this section, Lenin turns to R. Willy, the disciple of Avenarius, who has to admit that the attempt of his master to reconcile empirio-criticism and naive realism is a failure. Willy says you have to take the belief that Avenarius actually subscribed to naive realism "cum grano salis." Willy writes, "As a dogma, naive realism would be nothing but the belief in things-in-themselves existing outside man in their perceptible form." Willy thinks that is ridiculous, and perhaps it is in the way he formulated it. I mean, "in their perceptible form" is loaded-- there is an X out there but is that X 100% equal to how our senses perceive it?

At any rate, Willy is forced to concede that Avenarius' book, "The Human Concept of the World" is one that "entirely bears the character of a RECONCILIATION between the naive realism of common sense and the epistemological idealism of school philosophy. But that such a reconciliation could restore the unity and integrity of [basic] experience I would not assert." QED.

Next we will go over Section 4 of Chapter One, "Did Nature Exist Prior to Man?" [Believe it our not this is still a big issue, even one of the presidential candidates thinks that Nature only existed for 5 days prior to man (our actual president [ Bush 2] is uncertain -- a Yale graduate, oh well if they let Buckley through I guess anyone can go there)! And the people of the world are supposed to take our country seriously!].

cum grano saltis = with a grain of salt
The phrase comes from Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia, regarding the discovery of a recipe for an antidote to a poison. In the antidote, one of the ingredients was a grain of salt. Threats involving the poison were thus to be taken "with a grain of salt" and therefore less seriously.-- Wikopedia

Chapter One Section Four: Did Nature Exist Prior to Man?

This seems to be a big problem for Empirio-criticism. Lenin will look at the views of Avenarius and his two followers R. Willy and J. Petzoldt and see how this question is dealt with by two of the Russian "Marxist" Machists, Bazarov and Valentinov.

Avenarius, as we know, has a two term co-ordination; Man-Nature, (with Man as the central term) to explain how we gain knowledge of the contents of the world. Since natural science clearly states that the earth existed before humans it would seem impossible to take the world's contents to be "complexes of sensations." Avenarius therefore introduces the notion of the "potential" into his philosophy.

When there are no actual humans about there are "potential" humans to sense the complexes of sensations by which reality presents itself. Avenarius talks about embryonic humans-- they are not FULLY human but also not equal to zero. So also, before any actual humans there are "integral parts of the environment" that have the capacity to become human, etc. So we have a saving co-ordination of Potential(Man)-Nature. On the face of it this is a completely preposterous solution.

"No man at all educated or sound-minded," Lenin says, "doubts that the earth existed at a time when there COULD NOT have been any life on it, any sensation or any 'central term', and consequently the whole theory of Mach and Avenarius, from which it follows that the earth is a complex of sensations ('bodies are complexes of sensations') or 'complexes of elements in which the psychical and physical are identical', or a 'counter-term of which the central term can never be equal to zero', is PHILOSOPHICAL OBSCURANTISM, the carrying of subjective idealism to absurdity."

Petzoldt, Lenin remarks, realized that Avenarius' position was ridiculous and decided to improve upon it. It is true that we can think about areas without or before there were human beings, he says, but "The epistemologically important question, however," Petzoldt writes, "is not whether we can think of such a region at all, but whether we are entitled to think of it as existing, or as having existed, independently of any individual mind."

We shall see that Petzoldt's attempt to improve on Avenarius is not any better than the original. Avenarius puts too much weight on the human SELF, whether actual or potential according to Petzoldt, whereas, "The only thing," he says, "the theory of knowledge should demand of any conceptions of that which is remote in space or time is that it be conceivable and can be uniquely determined; all the rest is a matter for the special sciences."

The expression "uniquely determined" is just Petzoldt's way of saying "the law of causality" according to Lenin. Petzoldt knows that natural science maintains the existence of the earth before humans and he also knows that Avenarius' lack "of the objective factor" in his philosophy puts it at odds with science and this has forced him "to resort to causality (unique determination). The earth existed, for its existence prior to man is causally connected with the present existence of the earth."

Petzoldt's "solution" actually wipes out the "complexes of sensations" hypothesis regarding the nature of the external world and he "only entangled himself still more, for only one solution is possible, viz., the recognition that the external world reflected by our mind exists independently of our mind."

Our old friend, the hapless R. Willy, is the next to try and save the "complexes of sensations." What could be experiencing the earth before there were humans? Well, he says, "we must simply regard the animal kingdom --- be it the most insignificant worm --- as primitive fellow-men if we regard animal life only in connection with general experience." So now a primitive worm is the stand in for human consciousness in the "principle co-ordination." Besides being a ludicrous theory it fails to solve the main issue because the earth existed before there any primitive worms as well. The empirio-criticists should, I think, just have appealed to Berkeley because his concept of God would have solved their problems.

Willy came up with his worm argument in 1896, but he eventually abandoned it and returned to the fray in 1905 with a new solution to the problem. Forget about the so-called millions of years before man came into existence. Time too is a product of the complexes of sensations. This means, he goes on to say, "that things outside men are only impressions, bits of fantasy fabricated by men with the help of a few fragments we find around us ['fragments' of what?]. And why not? Need the philosopher fear the stream of life?"

Well, the answer to that is NO! I hope my fellow philosophers will all agree to that! But we cannot follow Willy to his carpe diem conclusion! "And so I say to myself: abandon all erudite system-making and grasp the moment [seize the day] the moment you are living in, the moment which alone brings happiness." Lenin is unimpressed. Rather than be forced by their own logic into a materialist acceptance of the objectivity of the world, the empirio-criticists scurry off into a solipsistic world of their own making. So much for them.

Lenin now wants to see how the home grown "Marxist"- Machists in Russia handle this problem. He will first discuss A. Bazarov, real name V.A. Rudnev, 1874-1939. Bazarov joined the party in 1896, was a Bolshevik from 1904 to 1907 and was a Menshevik from 1917 until 1919. After 1921 he was employed by the Soviet government as a planner. His demise in 1939 raised my suspicions, but he seems to have died naturally from what I could gather from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia.

Lenin is criticizing Bazarov's book "Studies 'in' the Philosophy of Marxism." One of the main objections Lenin has to this book is that it treats Plekhanov (1856-1918, The Father of Russian Marxism) as the only representative of Materialism and ignores Marx and Engels! The work that Bazarov attacks is Plekhanov's "Notes to Engel's 'Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy'" (1892).

In that work Plekhanov has a passage in which he asks the Idealists what was the world like in the period before there were humans, a period such as the Mesozoic era. Plekhanov is addressing himself to Kantians but his remarks are just as, if not more, applicable to Empirio-monism (the Russian version of Machism) as represented by Bogdanov and Bazarov.

In that remote period Plekhanov asks if was the ichthyosauruses and the archaeopteryxes who were responsible for contemplating the world order? Idealism cannot answer this question hence it must be rejected as contrary to modern science.

This burns up Bazarov and he jumps all over Plekhanov saying that even he, Plekhanov, cannot know what "things-in-themselves" are like. We only know how they act on our senses and he quotes Plekhanov: "Apart from this action [on the senses] they possess no aspect." Therefore whatever Plekhanov had to say about ichthyosauruses and archaeopteryxes in attacking the Kantians applies equally to him.

Well, if Plekhanov burned up Bazarov, Bazarov has succeeded in burning up Lenin who proceeds to jump on him in turn. Lenin asks Bazarov if he is just taking cheap shots at Plekhanov ( having "a fencing bout " with him ) or is he actually trying to explain materialism. If he thought Plekhanov was wrong he should have explained the correct materialist position, but perhaps Bazarov is himself ignorant of the correct materialist teaching. "If Bazarov," Lenin says, "does not know that the fundamental premise of materialism is the recognition of the external world, of the existence of THINGS outside and independent of our mind, this a truly striking case of crass ignorance."

Well, Bazarov may be confused. Lenin is correct to say the existence of the external world "independent of our mind" is fundamental to MATERIALISM-- but it is also compatible with OBJECTIVE IDEALISM, as Lenin had earlier remarked himself when referring to Hegel back in Section 3: "Hegel's absolute idealism is reconcilable with the existence of the earth, nature, and the physical universe without man, since nature is regarded as the 'other being' of the absolute idea."

Unfortunately, Lenin makes a big mistake when he says here that Berkeley "rebuked the materialists for their recognition of 'objects in themselves' existing independently of our mind and reflected by our mind." Berkeley did rebuke materialists but not for believing that things exist independently from the human mind. The external world has an independent existence from human beings as the idea of God-- analogous to Hegel's other being of the Absolute Idea. Berkeley is thus an absolute idealist. Except for the mislabeling of Berkeley, Lenin's argument is essentially correct.

Bazarov's fulminations against Plekhanov are off target. As for Valentinov, who supports Bazarov, we can ignore this gentleman as Lenin, in a brief paragraph, shows that his position is "an incoherent jumble of words."

Chapter One Section FIVE: DOES MAN THINK WITH THE HELP OF THE BRAIN?

After reading some of the philosophers reviewed by Lenin you might agree that they are not using their brains when they think, but that would be wrong. Bazarov, Lenin tells us, certainly thinks the answer to the above question is yes. Bazarov says if you say " 'every mental process is a function of the cerebral process', then neither Mach nor Avenarius would dispute it." But Lenin says Bazarov is wrong and doesn't really understand what is at issue. Avenarius, for example, Lenin writes, explicitly says, "Sensations are not 'psychical functions of the brain'."

Materialism says just the opposite: "Thought and consciousness are products of the human brain," (Engels: Anti-Duhring). This is also the view of modern science. But Avenarius, Lenin points out, "rejects this materialist standpoint and says that 'the thinking brain' is a 'FETISH OF NATURAL SCIENCE' " (The Human Concept of the World).

He, as well as Mach, thinks that science is mistaken in adopting the common sense materialist view. He says that science is engaged in making an incorrect INTROJECTION when it puts the external world that we experience inside of us-- i.e., in our brains and "in our central nervous system." Lenin will let Bogdanov explain what Avenarius means.

Bogdanov maintains that Avenarius is trying to avoid IDEALISM with his theory of INTROJECTION. According to Bogdanov, the "gist" of the theory is developed to answer the problems of the dualism of mind and body and goes like this: we have direct acquaintance with physical objects including other people. We don't have direct acquaintance with the "mind" of another person, so we postulate it as an "hypothesis ." We think the other person's "mind" is IN his body; the person's experiences "are inserted (introjected) into his organism." But Avenarius thinks this is "a superfluous hypothesis" and is responsible for the contradictions arising from mind/body dualism. If we refuse to introject we won't have mind/body dualism hence we avoid IDEALISM. This is what Bogdanov believes.

Indeed! Lenin says Bogdanov "swallowed the bait" that Avenarius' real target was IDEALISM. Avenarius' main theory is, Lenin reminds us, that "of the 'indissoluble' connection of the 'complete' experience, which includes not only the SELF but also the tree [that we are experiencing], i.e., the environment." Our experience is one unified reality self/tree NOT two realities a tree AND a refection of the tree in our brain.

Avenarius may have a point about what our experience IS but should we STOP there or can we try to further explain what is involved with that experience. Avenarius wants to explain the world from the GIVEN, but perhaps there is more to the "given" than meets the eye. At least Lenin thinks so and that is why he is a materialist.

What Bogdanov failed to understand, according to Lenin, is that in the theory of "introjection" Avenarius "refuted" Idealism "only insofar as he 'refutes' the existence of the object without the subject, matter without thought, the external world independent of our sensations; that is, it is refuted IDEALISTICALLY." The way that mind body dualism is refuted by materialism is "that the mind does not exist independently of the body, that mind is secondary, a function of the brain, a reflection of the external world." What could Bogdanov have been thinking when 16 years after this was written the Soviet Government delivered Lenin's brain to him at his new institute with instructions to reanimate it? Its still on the shelf, unfortunately.

Even while Bogdanov and the Russian Machists were misunderstanding Avenarius and pushing their own philosophy of "empirio-monism" under the guise of a revamped Marxism, Avenarius' own followers in the West had come to reject his theory of "introjection" as unscientific and as just another form of the Idealism it had claimed to overcome. This leads Lenin to remark that, "The Russian Machists will soon be like the fashion-lovers who are moved to ecstasy over a hat which has already been discarded by the bourgeois philosophers of Europe."

CHAPTER ONE SECTION SIX: "THE SOLIPSISM OF MACH AND AVENARIUS

Por fin! We have arrived at the end of chapter one. This section is only a few pages long and it sums up the entire chapter. Lenin has established that empirio-criticism is based on SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM: "The world is our sensation --- this is the fundamental premise, which is obscured but in no wise altered by the word 'element' and by the theories of the 'independent series', 'co-ordination', and 'introjection'."

To hammer home his contention that the philosophy of Mach and Avenarius is a form of SOLIPSISM (only the thinking subject is known to exist-- i.e., for any person such as you, only you exist) and unscientific, Lenin ends the chapter with a quote from the great Austrian physicist L. Boltzmann (1844 - 1906 ): "What is immediately given is only the sense-impression, or only the one thought, namely, the one we are thinking at the present moment. Hence, to be consistent, one would have to deny not only the existence of other people outside one's SELF, but also all conceptions we ever had in the past." This is ridiculous ERGO so is empirio-criticism. Nevertheless, there are five more chapters in Lenin's book.

Chapter Two "The Theory of Knowledge of Empirio-Criticism and of Dialectical Materialism II : Section One "The 'Thing-In-Itself', or V. Chernov Refutes Frederick Engels"

Lenin will be reacting to Chernov's article "Marxism and Transcendental Philosophy" from a 1907 collection of articles. Victor Chernov (1873-1952) was a founder of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, the Minister of Agriculture in the Provisional Government (1917), and an émigré in 1920. He later fought in the French Resistance and died in New York City.

Lenin has chosen Chernov to attack because, unlike the "Marxist" Machists who attack materialism in the guise of defending (!) Engels against Plekhanov, Chernov takes Engels head-on which makes him "a MORE principled [i.e., honest] literary antagonist than our comrades in party and opponents in philosophy."

Chernov, like many contemporary Marxians, seeks to divide Engels' thought from that of Marx calling his thinking "naive dogmatic materialism." Chernov is especially upset with Engels' argument against the Kantian "thing-in-itself."

For non philosophers, Kant's "thing-in itself" is roughly this: the world as experienced by us is filtered through our perceptual apparatus and mental structure so we experience a world of phenomena that appears to us in space and time (which are parts of OUR mental structure ) and we can never directly experience things-in-themselves (which do not exist in space and time) which give rise to the phenomenal world we experience.

The question is this-- can we know the "real" world (the "noumenal" world) or can we only know the "phenomenal" world? Kant thought his philosophy was a good reply to that of Hume who held that we only know our ideas and can't prove anything about where they come from. To get out of this SKEPTICISM Kant postulated a real noumenal world that was the basis of the law abiding phenomenal world our mental faculties revealed to us.

In his book "Ludwig Feuerbach, etc.," Engels said that the way to refute Kant with respect to our ability to know the real world as it is in-itself, not just for-us, is by PRACTICE: "The most telling refutation of this as of all other philosophical crotchets is practice, namely, experiment and industry. If we are able to prove the correctness of our conceptions of a natural process by making it ourselves, bringing it into being out of its conditions and making it serve our own purposes into the bargain, then there is an end to the Kantian incomprehensible [ungraspable] 'thing-in-itself.'"

Chernov becomes very upset with Engels over this and makes fun of his so-called "refutation" of the thing-in-itself. Of course,Kantians also accept the results of modern scientific practice so PRACTICALLY speaking a Kantian and a Materialist will be saying the same thing with just different words. The Materialist will appeal to a metaphysical principle of science called Occam's Razor (after William of Occam a 14th century Scholastic) which says "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best " or "Don't multiply entities needlessly." In this case, why have two worlds (noumenal and phenomenal) in Kantianism when one will do the job in Materialism?

Lenin accuses Chernov of not understanding Engels' criticism. Engels' is not just criticizing Kant, but also Hume as well. What Hume and Kant have in common "is that they both IN PRINCIPLE FENCE OFF the 'appearance' from that which appears, the perception from that which is perceived, the thing-for-us from the 'thing-in-itself'."

As we make new discoveries in science about the properties of the world, what was formerly unknown becomes known-- 'i.e., the unknown thing-in-self becomes known! In other words, Lenin says, when "we accept the point of view that human knowledge develops from ignorance" we will, as Engels indicated, find innumerable examples of the "transformation of 'things-in-themselves' into 'things-for-us.'" The classic example given by Engels is the discovery that alizarin, a coloring agent derived from plants, can also be produced from coal tar.

Lenin draws three conclusions from all this: 1) things exist outside of our consciousness; 2) there is no difference between noumena and phenomena, "only between what is known and what is not yet known"; 3) we have to use dialectics "to determine how KNOWLEDGE emerges from IGNORANCE." [How, and if, DIALECTICS is fundamentally different from SCIENTIFIC METHOD is not a question we will go into here.]

So much for the critique of Engels' treatment of the "thing-in-itself." The next question has to do with whether there was a big difference between the views of Marx and those of Engels. The dispute centers on the interpretation of Marx's SECOND THESIS on Feuerbach: "The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory, but is a practical question. In practice man must prove the truth, i.e., the reality and power, the 'this-sidedness' [DIESSEITIGKEIT] of his thinking. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question."

Chernov is using Plekhanov's translation into Russian which renders the passage with Diesseitigkeit as prove thinking "does not stop at this side of phenomena" instead of the literal "prove the this-sidedness of thinking" [talk about Scholastic arguments!]. Plekhanov is accused of covering up a difference between Marx and Engels by making it LOOK LIKE ", Chernov writes, "Marx, like Engels, asserted the knowability of things-in-themselves and the 'other-sidedness' of thinking."

This is such a bogus argument, according to Lenin. Chernov should consult Marx himself if he has a problem with Plekhanov (who was only paraphrasing anyway.) Lenin claims that Chernov must be totally ignorant about materialism if he doesn't understand that ALL materialists consider the thing-in-itself as knowable and there is no difference between Marx, Engels, and Plekhanov. Lenin then cites some long paragraphs form a bourgeois author (A. Levy, La philosophie de Feuerbach et son influence sur la litterature allemande, Paris, 1904)-- which we need not go over-- to show that EVEN people who don't claim to be socialists have no problem understanding Marx's materialism!

CHAPTER TWO SECTION TWO "'TRANSCENDENCE', OR V. BAZAROV 'REVISES' ENGELS

Back to Bazarov! Having taken care of Chernov, Lenin now turns to a distortion of Engels by Bazarov. In "On Historical Materialism" (the introduction to Socialism: Utopian and Scientific) Engels criticizes Agnosticism (i.e., views such as Hume, Mill, Huxley, etc.). According to Lenin, the main point of the Agnostic "is that he DOES NOT GO BEYOND sensations, that HE STOPS ON THIS SIDE OF PHENOMENA, refusing to see anything 'certain' beyond this boundary of sensations." We have ideas and impressions but we don't know where they come from ultimately. The materialist takes the extra step (based on practice) and infers a real world of things of which our sensations are the reflections.

It is the whole Humian line that Engels takes on, not just this or that representative, for, as Lenin notes, "professional philosophers are very prone to call original systems the petty variations one or another of them makes in terminology or argument."

So how does "practice" refute the Humian agnostic (skeptic about things other than impressions and ideas: maybe there is something external causing the impression, maybe not-- who knows?) "If these perceptions have been wrong," Engels writes, "then our estimate of the use to which an object can be turned must also be wrong, and our attempt must fail." Therefore, images in the mind correspond to external things: "Verification of these images," Lenin says, " differentiation between true and false images, is given by practice."

Now lets see how Bazarov goes about revising Engels! In the first place, Bazarov thinks that Engels is refuting KANT'S idealism in the passages under consideration, when it is HUME that is his target. This is because Bazarov doesn't know the difference between the two philosophies and confuses Kantianism with idealism in general. So, one more time: idealism holds that things equal our sensations, Kant says we only know our sensations but there is an unknowable thing-in-itself behind them, Hume is neutral-- he doesn't know where the sensations come from, and materialists (and Objective Idealists such as Hegel) think the mind reflects an objective external reality.

Bazarov also says that Engels' argument refutes not only Kant, but also the materialist Plekhanov ( whom Bazarov calls an "idealist"! )-- this is because he wants to sneak in a Machist solution and doesn't want to take Engels head on. Bazarov says Plekhanov agrees that our sensations are SUBJECTIVE and that therefore that he holds the real world is beyond EVERYTHING THAT IS IMMEDIATELY GIVEN and so this makes him a Kantian idealist! This is nonsense because for Kant that BEYOND is an unknown thing-in-itself while for Engels and Plekhanov the BEYOND is a world of material ( i.e., independent) objects that are KNOWABLE by sensation by means of PRACTICE. Bazarov's critique is "nothing but wretched mystification" based on confusion and ignorance. Lenin also thinks Bazarov's use of the word "subjective" is loaded. Engels' speaks of HUMAN senses as reflecting the external world.

Lenin says Bazarov is "juggling" with quotes from Engels to try to lay the foundations for a Machist interpretation of Marxism. But you cannot be a Marxist without accepting the real existence of external objects without the mind "which by acting on our sense-organs evoke sensations." [Note that Marxists are NOT the only ones who hold this view but Marxists are a subset of the set of all those who hold this view.] Lenin also says "one can be a materialist and still differ on what constitutes the criterion of the correctness of the images presented by our senses." This is an important observation and should be noted. But what cannot be denied is that Bazarov is WRONG to say that SENSE PERCEPTION is "the reality existing outside us" SENSE PERCEPTION, Lenin stresses, "is NOT the reality existing outside us, it is only the IMAGE of that reality."

At the end of this section Lenin deals with Bazarov's contention that Engels, unlike Plekhanov, does not have anything to say about what exists beyond the boundaries of sense perception. As Bazarov puts it, Engels "nowhere manifests a desire to perform that 'transcendence', that stepping beyond the boundaries of the perceptually given world."

This is where Bazarov tips his hand, using the word "transcendence", a technical term in Kantianism, to discuss Engels views. It is a TRANSCENDENCE, Kant says, to move from the perceptually given to the thing-in-itself, a move based on FAITH not knowledge. Hume, representing the agnostics, does not allow this move at all. Bazarov has taken a partial quote from "Anti-Duhring" and misrepresented it as if Engels had no opinion about the 'thing-in-itself."

Here is the full quote from Engels: "The unity of the world does not consist in its being, although its being is a pre-condition of its unity, as it certainly must first BE, before it can be ONE. Being, indeed, is always an open question beyond the point of where our sphere of observation ends. The real unity of the world consists in its materiality, and this is proved not by a few juggled phrases, but by a long and wearisome development of philosophy and natural science."

It is obvious that by "where our sphere of observation ends" Engels is NOT, as Bazarov would have it, speaking about the boundary between perception and the Kantian "thing-in itself." He is taking about what we can say about the existence of things on the other side of the moon, or as Lenin puts it , "of men on Mars": things which are, so far, beyond the range of our knowledge. [But no longer so due to the growth of scientific knowledge since the time of Engels and Lenin.]

So much for Bazarov and his attempts to turn Engels into a crypto-Machist! Next week we will go over the next two sections, 3 & 4, of Chapter Two.

Chapter Two : Section Three: "L. Feuerbach and J. Dietzgen on the Thing-In-Itself"

In this section Lenin discusses the views of two materialists, Feuerbach and Dietzgen. Feuerbach is a classical materialist, not a dialectical materialist, but his philosophy is the link between Hegel and Marx and Engels. The thing-in-itself for Feuerbach is something "existing objectively outside of us," Lenin says, and acting "upon our sense-organs.... Sensation is a subjective image of the objective world, of the world AN UND FUR SICH" [i.e., in and for-itself].

This view of Feuerbach is basic to all forms of materialism. "The 'doctrine' of Machism that since we know ONLY SENSATION," Lenin concludes, "we cannot know of the EXISTENCE of anything beyond the bounds of sensation, is an old sophistry of idealist and agnostic philosophy served up with a new sauce."

Well, I suspect that readers of this outline have all heard about Feuerbach and know something of his materialism from Marx and Engels. If you want to read something by him I recommend his THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY, which as been translated into English by George Eliot (of Silas Marner and The Mill on the Floss fame).

However, you may not be as familiar with Joseph Dietzgen, the next person discussed by Lenin. Dietzgen (1828-1888) was a self educated German tanner who indepently developed a philosophy of dialectical materialism. He was extremely influential in the socialist movement in the last half of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. If you Google his name you will find some interesting articles about him.

Lenin quotes Dietzgen, as an independent materialist: "Unhealthy mysticism unscientifically separates the absolute truth from the relative truth. It makes of the thing as it appears and the 'thing-in-itself', that is, of the appearance and the verity, two categories which differ TOTO COELO [completely, fundamentally] from each other and are not contained in any common category."

When trying to explain the relation of perception to the thing-in-itself we have already seen how the Russian Machists, especially Bogdanov, confuse the materialist position with Kantianism and agnosticism. "The reason for Bogdanov's distortion of materialism," according to Lenin, "lies in his failure to understand the relation of absolute truth to relative truth (of which we shall speak later)." Section 5 is dedicated to this topic, but first we will look at Section 4.

CHAPTER TWO SECTION FOUR: "Does Objective Truth Exist?"

Bogdanov, in his book "Empirio-monism" tries to explain what constitutes "objective" truth. Truth, he tells us, "is an ideological form, an organizing form of human experience...." But, Lenin says, "If truth is ONLY an ideological form, there can be no truth independent of the subject, of humanity, for neither Bogdanov nor we know any other ideology but human ideology." But this is absurd for science tells us it is a truth that the earth existed prior to man and his ideologies!

Is this subjectivism some failing in Bogdanov as a person? Lenin thinks not. Bogdanov personally "refuses to own himself a Machist" but still is influenced by the "new" philosophy. It is this mixture of Marxism and Machism that causes the muddle of Empirio-monism. Thus, "Bogdanov's denial of objective truth is an inevitable consequence of Machism as a whole and not a deviation from it." His deviation is from materialism.

Engels, who criticizes both Hume and Kant, even States that Hegel had in fact refuted the main points in both their philosophies. Lenin then quotes Hegel: "For empiricism the external in general is the truth, and if then a supersensible too be admitted, nevertheless knowledge of it cannot occur and one must keep exclusively to what belongs to perception. However, this principle in its realisation produced what was subsequently termed MATERIALISM. This materialism regards matter, as such, as the truly objective." But Lenin does not here follow up on Hegel.

Instead, he agrees that experience is the source of all knowledge and that materialists hold that OBJECTIVE REALITY is the source of experience. If you don't hold to this view you become inconsistent and the "inconsistency of your empiricism, of your philosophy of experience, will in that case lie in the fact that you deny the objective content of experience, the objective truth of knowledge through experience."

The Machists think that the "new" physics has made the views of the older materialists "antiquated." Now Lenin was writing a hundred years ago and physics has moved on a pace-- string theory , etc., but he is absolutely right when he says it is "unpardonable to confuse, as the Machists do, any particular theory of the structure of matter with the epistemological category, to confuse the problem of the new properties of new aspects of matter (electrons for example) with the old problem of the theory of knowledge, with the problem of the sources of our knowledge, the existence of objective truth, etc."

This category, "matter", which refers to the objective reality revealed to humans by means of their sense organs has not become "antiquated", Lenin says, since the days of Plato and Democritus.

Chapter Two : Section Five: "Absolute and Relative Truth, or the Eclecticism of Engels as Discovered by A. Bogdanov"

This great discovery was made, says Lenin, in the preface to Book III of Bogdanov's Empirio-monism. Bogdanov thinks he is ridiculing Engels when the latter gives as examples of "eternal truths" such statements as "Napoleon died on May 5, 1821" or "Paris is in France." To Bogdanov this is too trivial for words.

"What sort of 'truth' is that?", he asks, "And what is there eternal about it? The recording of a single correlation, which perhaps even has no longer any real significance for our generation, cannot serve as the starting-point for any activity and leads no-where." For some reason Bogdanov calls such "truths" eclectic, as if Engels is just uncritically adopting them from all different forms of materialism.

Of course the examples given by Engels are "trivial", but they are given to make a point, which is that there are many examples of objective and eternal truths all around us and that idealist philosophers are just being foolish when they try to make a big mystery about "truth." Bogdanov's objections are just "turgid nonsense" according to Lenin.

"To be a materialist," Lenin writes, "is to acknowledge objective truth, which is revealed to us by our sense-organs. To acknowledge objective truth, i.e., truth not dependent upon man and mankind, is, in one way or another, to recognise absolute truth."

What we have to do is get away from these trivial criticisms and examine DIALECTICALLY the distinction that Engels was trying to make between relative and absolute truth in his criticism of Duhring's philosophy. By ignoring the context of Engels' argument Bogdanov only reveals his own incompetence.

By thinking dialectically Engels arrives at a concept of absolute truth that grows out of relative truth. Each one of us as an individual has a part of the truth, relative truth, but absolute truth is the whole which gradually reveals itself, but only partially at any one time.

"For Bogdanov (as for all Machists)," Lenin writes, "recognition of the relativity of our knowledge EXCLUDES even the least admission of absolute truth. For Engels absolute truth is compounded from relative truths. Bogdanov is a relativist; Engels is a dialectician."

Absolute truth (the reality behind the world of our sensations) is built of the relative truths we gain from experience. Towards the end of this section Lenin says, "Dialectics -- as Hegel in his time explained -- CONTAINS an element of relativism, of negation, of skepticism, but IS NOT REDUCIBLE to relativism."

What is at issue, and which Bogdanov and the other Machists fail to see, is "the CORRESPONDENCE between the consciousness which reflects nature and the nature which is reflected by consciousness." This is something that Marx and Engels understood (and Dietzgen and Feuerbach as well). Bogdanov and the Machists, under the guise of modern science are just repeating "ancient trash."

SECTION SIX: "The Criterion of Practice in the Theory of Knowledge"

"'The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from from practice is a purely scholastic question,' says Marx in his second Thesis on Feuerbach,'' Lenin points out, and Engels repeats: "The success of our action proves the conformity of our perceptions with the objective nature of the things perceived."

And what does Mach have to say about the criterion of practice? According to Lenin Mach, in The Analysis of Sensations, makes a distinction between theory and practice. Mach: "Physiologically we remain egoists and materialists with the same constancy as we forever see the sun rising again. But theoretically this view cannot be adhered to."

This is supposed to be the newest scientific viewpoint (1908). I won't go into the newest viewpoints (2008), but will remark that the battle continues! But it is an old battle. A hundred years before Lenin it was raging, Fichte, and two thousand years before that with the Greeks as well as in other philosophical traditions.

"Of course, we must not forget that the criterion of practice can never, in the nature of things, either confirm or refute any human idea COMPLETELY. This criterion too is sufficiently 'indefinite' not to allow human knowledge to become "absolute", but at the same time it is sufficiently definite to wage a ruthless fight on all varieties of idealism and agnosticism."

CHAPTER THREE: THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE OF DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM AND OF EMPIRIO-CRITICISM. III

SECTION ONE: "What is Matter? What is Experience"

Lenin says the first question is posed to the materialists while the second is put to the idealists (including the Machists) and agnostics. About 'matter' Avenarius says, "Within the purified, 'complete experience' there is nothing 'physical'-- 'matter' in the metaphysical absolute conception -- for 'matter' according to this conception is only an abstraction...." This theory Lenin calls "disguised subjective idealism."

Mach says, "What we call matter is a certain systematic combination of the ELEMENTS (sensations)." This is also subjective idealism. Lenin also has a quote from Pearson's "The Grammar of Science" to the same effect. He also says that the Russian Machists are totally off base when they equate these views to those of modern science. They are simply the old views of the idealists dressed up in new clothing.

Matter, Lenin says, "is that which, acting upon our sense-organs produces sensation." Bogdanov doesn't like this formulation and complains that materialists are not advancing and that their arguments, in his words, "prove to be simple repetitions." This only shows his ignorance as there are in fact basically only two main lines in philosophy with regard to this issue.

"One expression," Lenin points out, "of the genius of Marx and Engels was that they despised pedantic playing with new words, erudite terms, and simple 'isms', and said simply and plainly: there is a materialist line and an idealist line in philosophy, and between them there are various shades of agnosticism. The vain attempts to find a 'new' point of view in philosophy betray the same poverty of mind that is revealed in similar efforts to create a 'new' theory of value, a 'new' theory of rent, and so forth."

So much for "matter." Now, how is "experience" used in empirio-criticism?
I should say right off the bat that Lenin says "experience"-- the major concept of empirio-criticism -- is NOT clearly defined by the empirio-critics! With Avenarius it is vague and circular as when he says "pure experience is experience to which nothing is admixed that is not in its turn experience."

This is a definition which the philosopher A. Riehl in 1907 said "obviously revolves in a circle". And, Norman Kemp Smith, in "Mind" vol. XV, remarked, "The vagueness of the term 'experience' stands him in good stead, and so in the end Avenarius falls back on the time-worn argument of subjective idealism." Mach even goes so far as to say, "The acceptance of a divine original being is not contradictory to experience."

The confusion over this term can be seen in its use by Bogdanov. According to Lenin, when Bogdanov says, "consciousness and immediate mental experience are identical concepts" and that matter is "not experience" but "the unknown which evokes everything known" he is being an IDEALIST. Yet he is being a MATERIALIST when he says that those who go beyond experience only arrive at "empty abstractions and contradictory images, all the elements of which have nevertheless been taken from experience."

Mach in several works makes pronouncements in a materialist vein, so much so in fact that Lenin says he "instinctively accepts the customary standpoint of natural scientists, who regard experience materialistically."

All this goes to show that Engels was correct in saying there are only two fundamental positions with regard to "experience"-- i.e., the materialist and the idealist.

SECTION TWO: "PLEKHANOV'S ERROR CONCERNING THE CONCEPT 'EXPERIENCE'"

This is a short section where Lenin wants to correct a statement Plekhanov made in his book "L. Feuerbach". Plekhanov wrote, "A German writer has remarked that for empirio-criticism EXPERIENCE is only an object of investigation, and not a means of knowledge. If that is so, then the contrasting of empirio-criticism and materialism loses all meaning and discussion of the question whether or not empirio-criticism is destined to replace materialism is absolutely vain and idle." Lenin thinks this is a "complete muddle."

According to Lenin, Plekhanov must have had in mind, and not really understood, the following from Avenarius filtered through his disciple F. Carstanjen. Lenin says, "Fr. Carstanjen is almost literally quoting Avenarius, who in his "Notes" emphatically contrasts his conception of experience as a 'means of knowledge' in 'the sense of the prevailing theories of knowledge, which essentially are fully metaphysical."

Now, Carstanjen maintains that Avenarius did not investigate if experience , i.e., "all 'human predications', as the OBJECT of investigation" was real or not. What he did was simply classify "all possible human predications, BOTH IDEALIST AND MATERIALIST, without going into the essence of the question." As a result, Plekhanov's muddled conclusion above is unwarranted and in error

CHAPTER THREE: THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE OF DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM AND OF EMPIRIO-CRITICISM. III

SECTION THREE: "Causality and Necessity in Nature"

Lenin thinks the question of causality is important and wants to begin to look at this issue from the standpoint of materialist epistemology. To do this he turns to Feuerbach's criticism of the philosopher Rudolf Haym [1821-1901, member from the center right of the National Assembly at Frankfort in 1848 and best known for his 1857 biography of Hegel] who attacked him on this issue.

Feuerbach quotes what Haym says about Feuerbach's book "The Essence of Religion": "Nature and human reason are for [Feuerbach] completely divorced, and between them a gulf is formed which cannot be spanned from one side or the other."

Haym is responding to Feuerbach's statement in his book that we "apply human expressions and conceptions to [the phenomena of nature], as for example: order, purpose, law; and are obliged to do so because of the character of our language."

Feuerbach goes on to point out that the big split between nature and human reason that Haym sees is not really there. He says his statement "does not assert that there is actually nothing in nature corresponding to the words or ideas of order, purpose, law." He was just trying to deny their identity (Idealism).

Feuerbach in fact claims that it is theism that makes this division, not materialism. "The reason of the theists splits nature into two beings -- one material, and the other formal or spiritual." Lenin discusses this Feuerbach-Haym dispute and concludes, "Feuerbach's views are consistently materialist."

Lenin says, "The recognition of objective law in nature and the recognition that this law is reflected with approximate fidelity in the mind of man is materialism." We should keep in mind the expression APPROXIMATE FIDELITY as Lenin often gets a bit carried away and talks about PHOTOGRAPHIC equivalence which many interpret as ABSOLUTE FIDELITY. This may be too strong a claim.

Since Marx and Engels were influenced by Feuerbach (he was the bridge between them and Hegel his philosophy being a materialist mutation of Hegel's Objective Idealism), Lenin makes the following remark about Engels that "to anyone who has read his philosophical works at all attentively it must be clear that Engels does not admit even a shadow of doubt as to the existence of objective law, causality and necessity in nature."

Lenin now makes some comments about Joseph Dietzgen who had been portrayed by the Machists as a subjectivist with respect to causality. Lenin tells us that while "we can find plenty of confusion, inexactnesses and errors in Dietzgen" so that as a philosopher "he is not entirely consistent", nevertheless the Machist view of him is totally false. He was a materialist and, Lenin quotes him as saying "that 'the causal dependence' IS CONTAINED 'in the things themselves'."

Lenin now demonstrates that Avenarius' line on causality is the same as that of Hume and his agnosticism on this issue. Avenarius, just as Hume, says we do not observe "causes" in nature, ie., "necessity", "All we experience," says Avenarius, "is that the one [event] follows the other.... Necessity therefore expresses a particular degree of probability with which the effect is, or may be, expected." Lenin calls this "subjectivism." With the development of physics in the last one hundred years, especially quantum mechanics, this has become the standard scientific view regarding "causality" and Lenin appears to be wrong in this respect. Materialism can live with a probabilistic universe if it recognizes that probability is an objective feature of reality as it presents itself to us.

But Mach and Avenarius are not justified by these developments. Mach says, "In nature there is neither cause nor effect.... I have repeatedly demonstrated that all forms of the law of causality spring from subjective motives and that there is no necessity for nature to correspond with them."

Modern science and modern materialism detect probability frequencies as objective features of quantum interactions independent of "subjective motives." Since, as Lenin says, the real issue is whether causal connections are the result of "objective natural law or properties of our mind", there is nothing in modern science that does not support the materialist position.

Lenin deals in a similar fashion with Pearson (who says "MAN IS THE MAKER OF NATURAL LAW), Petzoldt (who says "Our thought demands definiteness from nature, and nature always accedes to this demand; we shall even see that in a certain sense it is compelled to accede to it"), Willy (who maintains "We have long known, from the time of Hume, that 'necessity' is a purely logical (not a 'transcendental' characteristic...".

Now, two new subjectivists pop up: Henri Poincare [1854-1912, world famous French scientist] ("The only true objective reality is the internal harmony of the world," and this does not exist except in us); and Philipp Frank [1884-1966, Austrian scientist who later became a logical positivist who taught at Harvard] ("experience merely fills in a framework which man brings with him by his very nature....").

All the above were anti-materialism, or at least agnostics, and the reason Lenin added them to his critique was because they only varied here and there from Hume and Kant. These variations led Yushkevich and other Russian Machists to hail them as producing new ideas in philosophy. Lenin thinks that nonsense. Lenin says the essence of these "new" viewpoints "does not necessarily lie in the repetition of Kant's formulation, but in the recognition of the fundamental idea COMMON to both Hume and Kant, viz., the denial of objective law in nature and the deduction of particular 'conditions of experience', particular principles, postulates and propositions FROM THE SUBJECT, from human consciousness, and not from nature."

Lenin then grants that the Russian Machists "would like to be Marxists" and have read Engels' views on causality but are utterly confused. Yushkevich [P.S. Yushkevich, 1873-1945 was a Russian Memshevick], for example, "preaches" a new fad called "empirio- symbolism" and informs us that energy, in his own words, "is just as little a thing, a substance, as time, space, mass and other fundamental concepts of science: energy is a constancy, an empirio-symbol, like other empirio-symbols that for a time satisfy the fundamental human need of introducing reason, Logos, into the irrational stream of experience."

And let us not forget Bogdanov's "Empirio-monism" where we can read that the laws of nature "are created by thought as a means of organising experience, of harmoniously co-ordinating it into a symmetrical whole."None of this derives from the thought of Marx or Engels but derives from the philosophy of Kant.

CHAPTER THREE: THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE OF DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM AND OF EMPIRIO-CRITICISM. III

SECTION Four: "The 'Principle of the Economy of Thought' and The Principle of 'The Unity of the World'"

This section opens with a discussion of Bazarov, Avenarius and Mach. The idea of 'economy of thought' in nature and in epistemology is one of the reasons that empirio-critics hold SENSATION is all that exists. Why have "sensation" and "matter" if everything can be explained by the first idea?

Lenin says thought is "economical" when it describes reality without using extra terms and entities which really don't exist. He writes, "Human thought is "economical" when it CORRECTLY reflects objective truth, and the criterion of this correctness is practice, experiment and industry."

There is no doubt that Mach and his followers reject the above formulation and subscribe to subjectivist and idealist notions. Lenin cites, in their own words, others who have also come to this conclusion: Richard Honigswald [an Austrian neo-Kantian who was born in Hungary in 1875 and died in New Haven, Connecticut in 1947] said Mach is near to the "Kantian circle of ideas ("Zur Kritik der Machschen Philosophie", 1903), Wundt, whom we have seen before, says Mach is "Kant turned inside out" ( "Systematische Philosophie, 1907), and James Ward [1843-1925 was professor of Mental Philosophy and of Logic at Cambridge] maintains Mach's criterion of simplicity (i.e., economy of thought) "is in the main subjective, not objective "("Naturalism and Agnosticism, 3rd ed.).

Lenin concludes, by saying that those Russians who want to be Marxists and who try to merge empirio-criticism into Marxism are "simply ludicrous."

Lenin next turns to the idea of "the unity of the world." Duhring had said the reason the world appears to be unified (we have one world after all) is due to the unity of thought-- viz., it is a deduction from the unity of thought. Engels says in "Anti-Duhring" that, "The real unity of the world consists in its materiality, and this is proved not by a few juggled phrases, but by a long and wearisome development of philosophy and natural science."

Is this clear enough? Not for the likes of Yushkevich who says of this quote, "First of all it is not clear what it is meant here by the assertion that 'the unity of the world consists in its materiality.'"

Lenin is quite frustrated by this and wonders why Yushkevich calls himself a Marxist if the most elementary propositions of Marxism (viz., the objective and materialist basis of reality) are " 'not clear' to him."

As far as the unity of the world is concerned, Yushkevich says of the propositions from which this is deduced that, "it would not be exact to say that they have been deduced from experience, since scientific experience is possible only because they are made the basis of investigation." This is a form of KANTIANISM, and in the hands of Yushkevich "it is nothing but twaddle."

SECTION FIVE: "Space and Time"

Lenin says that Marxists reject both Kantianism ( space and time are forms in the human mind and have no existence on their own) and Humean agnosticism ( I don't know where these ideas come from). He supports Feuerbach who says, "Space and time are not mere forms of phenomena but essential conditions ... of being."

In other words, what is the answer Marxists should give if asked "are space and time real or ideal, and are our relative ideas of space and time APPROXIMATIONS to objectively real forms of being; or are they only products of the developing, organising, harmonising, etc., human mind?"

The answer to this question is the fundamental epistemological dividing line separating different philosophies. Lenin thinks all Marxists need to be on the side of Engels when he asserts that, "The basic forms of all being are space and time, and being out of time is just as gross an absurdity as being out of space."

Mach, on the other hand, according to Lenin holds that "it is not man with his sensations that exists in space and time, but space and time that exist in man, that depend upon man and are generated by man." This is what empirio-criticism leads to and, among some, to "defending medieval 'nonsense' [i.e., religion]."

The truth is, Lenin points out, that the "existence of nature IN TIME, measured in millions of years [in our day by billions of years], PRIOR TO the existence of man and human experience, shows how absurd this idealist theory is."

There now follow a few pages where Lenin defends the objectivity of time and space against Mach who thinks that Newton's views may not actually be applicable. Here Lenin seems to equate Newton's notion of ABSOLUTE time and space with the materialist view the denial of which leaves room for fedeism [religion]. Newton was, however, himself a Deist and left room for God in his system. Modern physics has adopted the views of Einstein concerning time and space which are very different from those of Newton.

Since Lenin devotes a chapter (chapter five) to physics, we will postpone a detailed discussion here, as likewise his views on the "atom". Lenin's main point, however, remains, regardless of the further developments in natural science since his time, and that is that the world dealt with by science is not created by the human mind but has objective and independent existence.

Lenin does agree with Mach in rejecting a fourth spacial dimension. Mach is no "believer" and rejects a fourth spacial dimension so as not to aid "many theologians, who experience difficulty in deciding where to place hell." Lenin, of course, doesn't worry about the location of Hell. He would probably agree with Sartre that Hell is other people (especially mensheviks). His point is that Mach, thinking that Space and Time are products of the human mind, unconsciously adopts the materialist position (as it was in his time) when he asserts there are only three spacial dimensions because he assumes this to be an objective fact and is thus inconsistent.

Also, in this section, you might think when Poincare says that space and time are relative and "we impose them on nature" that he is thinking of the new Theory of Relativity (1905). Einstein, however, thought of his theory as an objective fact about the universe.

Lenin also discusses Karl Pearson again, who openly declares that his Machism is based on Hume and Kant and with whom Mach himself says he is in complete agreement. Nevertheless, the Russian Machists, posing as Marxists (they were all members of the bolshevik faction except for two mensheviks) keep claiming that Machism is an advance, is not idealism, and is a "new" philosophy. Bazarov even says "Many of Engels' particular views, as for instance, his conception of 'pure' [i.e., 'objective'] space and time, are now obsolete."

Of course many of Engels' views are obsolete, based as they were on the level of science in the nineteenth century, but the objectivity of space and time is not one of them. I will now quote a delightfully vituperative sentence about Bazarov and idealists in general.

"Like all the Machists, Bazarov erred in confusing the mutability of human conceptions of time and space, their exclusively relative character, with the immutability of the fact that man and nature exist only in time and space, and that beings outside time and space, as invented by the priests and maintained by the imagination of the ignorant and downtrodden mass of humanity, are disordered fantasies, the artifices of philosophical idealism, rotten products of a rotten social system."

In "The Future of an Illusion" Freud referred to the disordered fantasies of religion as forms of neuroses and religious people as neurotics. The US of A is by these measures, of both Lenin and Freud, populated by an immense number of disordered downtrodden neurotics who, in addition, are both ignorant and infected with false consciousness. It is my hope this Reading Lenin series will reduce their numbers but I have no expectation that it will.

Lenin ends this section with some choice remarks about Bogdanov and his notion that space and time are forms "of social co-ordination of the experiences of different people" ("Empirio-monism"). He holds that space and time adapt themselves to our perceptions. Lenin says just the opposite is the case and perceptions "and our knowledge adapt themselves more and more to OBJECTIVE space and time, and REFLECT them ever more correctly and profoundly."

CHAPTER SIX SECTION SIX "FREEDOM AND NECESSITY"

This is a short section but exceedingly interesting. It begins with a quote from Lunacharsky praising Engels for having a "wonderful page" in "Anti-Duhring" which he says is a "wonderful page of religious economics." Lunacharsky says this might lead a non-religious person to "smile." Lenin says it rather leads not to a smile but a feeling of "disgust" with his (Lunacharsky's) "flirtation with religion." This, along with the last section, is giving me the impression that Lenin didn't care much about religion.

The passage from Engels is so important that Lenin quotes it in its entireity, and I must also if we are to see how wacked out Lunarcharsky's interpretation is. Here is what Engels wrote:

"Hegel was the first to state correctly the relation between freedom and necessity. To him, freedom is the appreciation ["recognition" is usually used] of necessity. 'Necessity is BLIND only INSOFAR AS IT IS NOT UNDERSTOOD.' [Actually, Hegel got this from Spinoza. It ultimately derives from the Stoics.--tr] Freedom does not consist in an imaginary independence from natural laws, but in the knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility this gives of systematically making them work towards definite ends. This holds good both in relation to the laws of external nature and to those which govern the bodily mental existence of men themselves --- two classes of laws which we can separate from each other at most only in thought but not in reality. Freedom of the will therefore means nothing but the capacity to make decisions with knowledge of the subject. Therefore the FREER a man's judgement in relation to a definite question, the greater is the NECESSITY with which the content of this judgement will be determined.... Freedom therefore consists in the control over ourselves and over external nature, a control founded on knowledge of natural necessity."

According to Lenin, Engels is making four important points in this passage (none of them having anything to do with being soft on religion). First, the recognition of objective laws of nature and natural necessity-- i.e., materialism. Second, "the necessity of nature is primary and human will and mind secondary." Third, he accepts "blind necessity" i.e., "the existence of a necessity UNKNOWN to man. Fourth, he jumps from theory to practice and it is this practice which "provides an OBJECTIVE criterion of truth."

All this adds up to the fact that Engels' views are entirely based on the philosophy of dialectical materialism. The Russian Machists take a little bit of diamat from Engels (the "wonderful pages"), a dash from Marx, then some idealism and agnosticism from Mach, mix it all together "and call this hash a DEVELOPMENT of Marxism." As far as Lenin is concerned they are nothing more than "philosophical obscurantists." The Russian "Marxists," inspired by Mach, continue to see him and empirio-criticism, not as a part of the subjective idealist movement or as an eclectic mix, but as compatible with the ideas of Marx and, for most, those of Engels as well. Now it is time to move on to Chapter Four.

CHAPTER FOUR: THE PHILOSOPHICAL IDEALISTS AS COMRADES-IN-ARMS AND SUCCESSORS OF EMPIRIO-CRITICISM

SECTION ONE: "The Criticism of Kantianism from the Left and from the Right"

The first point Lenin makes is that Mach himself states, in "Analysis of Sensations," that he started out as a Kantian and then identified more with Berkeley and Hume. So there is no doubt about his relation to the Idealist tradition. But what of Avenarius?

Avenarius claims that as far back as 1876 he, though liking Kant, was the first to "purify" him by getting rid of the a priori nature of reason (i.e., the categories or filters by which we MUST experience the world) and by dumping the "thing-in-itself" because it is not experienced but, he writes, "imported into it [experience] by thought."

Lenin says that Avenarius' views are the same as Mach's and that it is not true that he was the first to object to apriorism and the "thing-in-itself." In 1792 Schulze-Aenesidemus [Aenesidemus, an ancient Skeptic, was the pen name of Gottlob Ernst Schulze 1761-1833, Schopenhauer's teacher at Gottingen] had made the same objections. They had also been made by Fichte. The "thing-in-itself" was too much of a concession to materialism and the categories were not themselves experienced, being preconditions.

The Russian Machists have missed the point that Avenarius and Mach have criticized Kant from the Right (idealism) not the Left (materialism). What is more, they have made (they being Bogdanov, Bazarov, Yushkevich and Valentinov) the charge that Plekhanov has made a "luckless attempt to reconcile Engels with Kant by the aid of a compromise -- a thing-in-itself which is just a wee bit knowable." Lenin says this quote from their works shows a "bottomless pit of utter confusion'' both of Kant and of classical German philosophy [one of the three component parts of Marxism].

Lenin says, "The principal feature of Kant's philosophy is the reconciliation of materialism with idealism, a compromise between the two, the combination within one system of heterogeneous and contrary philosophical trends."

Yes, but here is a question to think about. Why is this not a dialectical unity of opposites, a synthesis of a thesis (idealism) and antithesis (materialism), making Kantianism a higher philosophy than either of the others? Why is dialectical materialism so hostile to Kantianism rather than trying to make a synthetic unity with it?

At any rate, the Russian Machists did not notice, I think, that Lenin is saying when Engels or Plekhanov use the term "thing-in-itself" they are not referring to Kant's transcendental noumena but to the objective independently existing objects we find in the real world. Plekhanov is not trying to "reconcile Engels with Kant."

Lenin ends this section by quoting Feuerbach and his follower Albrecht Rau (can't tell you much about him: if you are not in Wikopedia you do not exist) and Engels' disciple Paul Lafargue as well as Kautsky (his book "Ethics") about the perils of Kantianism and he concludes by saying, "Thus the ENTIRE SCHOOL of Feuerbach, Marx and Engels turned from Kant to the left, to a complete rejection of all idealism and of all agnosticism."The Russian Machists may call themselves "Marxists" but they are far from Marx and his ideas in philosophy.

CHAPTER FOUR: THE PHILOSOPHICAL IDEALISTS AS COMRADES-IN-ARMS AND SUCCESSORS OF EMPIRIO-CRITICISM

SECTION TWO: "How the 'Empirio-Symbolist' Yushkevich Ridiculed the 'Empirio-Criticist' Chernov"

Yushkevich attacked Chernov for saying that Mikhailovsky* (who was influenced by Comte and Spencer) was a forerunner of Mach and Avenarius. He appears to think Mach and Avenarius are very different birds from either Comte or Spencer.

Lenin says this shows that Chernov is an "ignoramus in philosophy." The idealist and agnostic trends in philosophy are represented by Hume and Kant as well as by Comte and Spencer, Mikhailovsky and Mach and Avenarius, and also the Neo-Kantians.

Materialists reject this whole trend however it appears as Neo-Kantianism or as "positivism (Comte). Yushkevich's hairsplitting differentiation's cannot change the fact Mach and Avenarius regularly praised both Hume and Kant and so his attack on Chernov is meaningless. Yushkevich is trying to focus us away "FROM THE ESSENCE OF THE MATTER to empty trifles."

Lenin also notes that among the idealists and agnostics various eclectic mixtures of Kant, Hume and Berkeley are possible with different philosophers stressing different combinations.

He particularly mentions T.H. Huxley ("the famous English scientist") who came up with word "agnostic." The English agnostics, Lenin says, probably inspired Engels' term "shamefaced materialists." Huxley, for example, while rejecting materialism and claiming that if forced to choose an outlook would choose idealism because "our one certainty is the existence of the mental world", nevertheless also says "there can be little doubt that the further science advances, the more extensively and consistently will all the phenomena of Nature be represented by materialistic formula and symbols."

Huxley mixes up Hume and Berkeley just as much as Mach or Avenarius, but the latter two are out and out idealists and subjectivists in their intentions, while for the former "agnosticism serves as a fig-leaf for materialism."

*Nikolai Konstantinovich MIKHAILOVSKII, 1842-1904: "Russian publicist, sociologist, literary critic, and one of the theoreticians of the Narodnik (Populist) movement."-- from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia

SECTION THREE: "The Immanentists as Comrades-In-Arms of Mach and Avenarius."

Lenin now turns to the philosophy of the immanentists (W. Schuppe 1836-1913, A. v. Leclaire, J. Rehmke 1848-1930, & R. Schubert-Soldern 1852-1924) little remembered today. For them truth comes from within not from without and Lenin says they are in the same trend as the empirio-criticists. Lenin writes it is "Mach's opinion that this 'new' philosophy is a broad CURRENT in which the immanentists are on the same footing as the empirio-criticists and the positivists." The immanentists, for their part, have a similar view about their relation to Mach and Avenarius. They are milk siblings.

Charles Renouvier (1815-1903 French neo-Kantian, foundedr of "neo-criticism") is next on Lenin's list. His philosophy is a mixture of Hume and Kant. He supports religion, ultimately, and completely rejects any independently existing thing-in-itself. The Russian Machists face a charge of "guilt by association" [not always out of place] since they rely on Mach, and F. Pillon (1830-1914), a follower of Renouvier, says that to a great extent "Mach's positive science agrees with neo-critical idealism." One of Renouvier's ideas is that the present universe (!) came into being when a primitive humanity fell out of harmony with the Cosmic Order thru egotism and injustice. "Birds of a feather...."

Lenin says the Russian Machists are "ashamed" of their relationship to the immanentists and fudge what the latter say; they "are afraid to tell the plain and clear truth" about them. Which is that, "There is NOT ONE of them who has not FRANKLY made his more theoretical works on epistomology lead to a defense of religion and a justification of medievalism of one kind or another."

The section closes with a few more examples of what these philosophers peddle. Lenin says their views will end up in "the museum of reactionary fabrications of German professordom" A few Russians, I think, may also be exhibited as, for instance, Bazarov who says "sense-perception IS the reality existing outside us."

As for the German speakers, we have Schuppe maintaining that the external world "belongs to consciousness" and Schubert-Soldern holding forth against the "metaphysics" of a really independent objective world. We needn't quote the rest of the gang.

Lenin has made his point that the Russian "Marxists" trying to blend Mach and Marx are unwitting reactionaries in philosophy. "Only among the handful of Russian Machists does Machism serve exclusively for intellectual chattering. In its native country its role as a flunkey to fideism is openly proclaimed."

CHAPTER FOUR: THE PHILOSOPHICAL IDEALISTS AS COMRADES-IN-ARMS AND SUCCESSORS OF EMPIRIO-CRITICISM

SECTION FOUR: IN WHAT DIRECTION IS EMPIRIO-CRITICISM DEVELOPING?

How is this philosophy doing 20 years on from its hay day with Mach and Avenarius? Like any ideology, Lenin says, it "is a living thing which grows and develops," so let us see what it is doing today (1908). Lenin picks a book to look at ("Introduction to Philosophy",1903) by Hans Cornelius. Cornelius is recommended by Mach himself. Well, Cornelius ends up with
immortality and God, yet claims to be neither an idealist nor a materialist!

This shows that Lenin's contemporary, Bogdanov is all wet in understanding what is going on in philosophy as he makes the claim that God, free will, and immortality cannot fit into Mach's philosophy. How then can Mach see Cornelius as a disciple?

The whole thrust of this section is show how, in philosopher after philosopher, English, French, or German, Mach's and Avenarius' philosophy of empirio-criticism is used to justify fideism and all sorts of religious notions. We need not go over these philosophers as they are not particularly well known today (2008). The Russian Machist "Marxists" seem oblivious to all this and write as if Machism is new form of philosophy outside of the confines of fideism.

SECTION FIVE: A. BOGDANOV'S "EMPIRIO-MONISM"

Bogdanov claims to be following Engels' views (referred to as "the sacramental formula of the primacy of nature over mind") but Lenin will show that this is hooey. In "Empirio-monism" Bogdanov writes that "he regards all that exists as a continuous chain of development, the lower links of which are lost in the chaos of elements, while the higher links, known to us, represent the EXPERIENCE OF MEN -- psychical and, still higher, physical experience."

But this is not Engels and it certainly is not materialism. "Nature," Lenin points out, "is in fact reached [by Bogdanov] as the result of a long transition, THROUGH ABSTRACTIONS OF THE 'PSYCHICAL'." A few lines later Lenin says, The essence of Idealism is that the psychical is taken as the starting-point; from it external nature is deduced, AND ONLY THEN is the ordinary human consciousness deduced from nature." We know that the "elements" referred to in the "chaos of elements" are equal to "sensations."

Bogdanov denies all religions, yet his philosophy is a gateway to fideism since the inchoate elements/sensations have a physical origin from which the human mind deduces the physical world. No matter how "atheistic" a philosopher may be, this road always lead to "God" in one form or another.

Bogdanov speaks of "cognitive socialism" arising as a result of humans socially organizing their experiences. This is "insane twaddle" according to Lenin. "If socialism is thus regarded, the Jesuits are ardent adherents of 'cognitive socialism', for the starting-point of their epistemology is divinity as 'socially-organised experience.' And there can be no doubt that Catholicism is a socially-organised experience; only, it reflects not objective truth (which Bogdanov denies, but which science reflects), but the exploitation of the ignorance of the masses by definite social classes."

However, no philosophy is stagnant and Bogdanov's has evolved over the years from his first book (1899) to the present (i.e., Lenin's present, 1908). There have been four stages in the development of Bogdanov's thought: 1) a "natural-historical" materialist phase when he was "semi-consciously and instinctively faithful to the spirit of natural science; 2) he became a follower of Ostwald's "energetics"* described by Lenin as "a muddled agnosticism which at times stumbled into idealism." Ostwald's "Lectures on Natural Philosophy" is dedicated to Mach. 3) Bogdanov, without completely leaving Ostwald behind, soon went over to Mach. 4) Trying to eliminate the subjective idealist elements in Mach, Bogdanov wrote his "Empirio-monism" in order "to create a semblance of objective idealism."

Lenin says that Bogdanov is now 180 degrees from his starting point. He now has a 5th stage to go through and he can return to the ranks of the materialists. He must reject all that remains of Machian idealism in his thought. Lenin will have to wait and see if he does. [But you can check out the Bogdanov article in Wikepedia to see what happened to him.]

*Wilhelm Ostwald (1853-1932) won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1909.
There is a short but interesting article about his life at:
HYLE--International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry, Vol. 12, No.1 (2006), pp. 141-148. http://www.hyle.org HYLE Biography Wilhelm Ostwald (1853-1932)
by Mi Gyung Kim-- you can just google: Wilhelm Ostwald energetics.

SECTION SIX: THE "THEORY OF SYMBOLS" (OR HIEROGLYPHS) AND THE CRITICISM OF HELMHOLTZ

This section is a supplement dealing with some crticisms from the Machist side of propositions coming from the Marxist side. Our old friend Bazarov has a good time making fun of an error of Plekhanov's-- namely his theory that sensations are symbols or "hieroglyphs of real things and not their copies and images. Sticking with Engels, Lenin says, "Engels speaks neither of symbols nor of hieroglyphs, but of copies, photographs, images, mirror-reflections of things."

Bazarov attacks Plekhanov, however, not to correct him according to the views of Engels, but to indirectly attack Engels by making fun of materialism from a Machist standpoint disguised as "Marxism." To clarify what is going on, Lenin will discuss Helmholtz's* ["a scientist of the first magnitude"] theory of symbols (symbols, hieroglyphs, are the same) and how it was criticized by both materialists and Machists, as well as by other idealists.

Like most scientists Helmholtz's philosophical opinions are confused and inconsistent, according to Lenin. But let's see if we can give Helmholtz the benefit of the doubt. The following quote from his "Physiological Optics" Lenin cites as an example of "agnosticism": "I have ... designated sensations as merely SYMBOLS for the relations of the external world and I have denied that they have any similarity or equivalence to what they represent."

Helmholtz is seemingly contradicting Engels. But let us agree our sensations give a "photograph" like image of reality. But a photograph of a cat is completely different from a cat. To actually be an agnostic Helmholtz would have to say that he doesn't know if there is anything in the external world responsible for his "cat" image (or "symbol") and that perhaps it comes from some internal psychic process that we do not know about. But he does not say that.

Here is what he says, "Our concepts and ideas are EFFECTS wrought on our nervous system and our consciousness by the objects that are perceived and apprehended." Lenin says this is "materialism." The objects exist independently of us. But this does not contradict the previous statement. When I see a red rose I do so because my eyes have evolved to react to visible (to humans) light which is a small band of waves on the electromagnetic spectrum along with radio waves, X ray, infra red and ultra violet waves, etc. Bees have evolved eyes that can see ultra- violet waves which we don't detect. Our "red rose" looks very different to a bee. The rose is red for us, in itself it is much more than it is for us. This is the sense which Helmholtz means by our sensation being a symbol.

Lenin and Helmholtz may be just having a verbal disagreement and not a disagreement of substance. Lenin says because Helmholtz says our sensations are symbols of the external world which, when we learn to read them properly can "direct our actions so as to achieve the desired result....," he has lapsed into "subjectivism" and a denial of objective truth and reality. This is too strong and I believe it is incorrect. The rose is part of objective reality-- it is red for us and ultra-violet for the bee. That the red rose is a symbol of my love-- is that objective or subjective?

I also think Lenin is wrong to say that Helmholtz presents a "flagrant untruth" when he says "An idea and the object it represents obviously belong to two entirely different worlds...." Helmholtz is only saying, more or less, what Plato (I think truthfully) would have said, viz., when I look at the "Mona Lisa" my sensation is not the same as the picture on the wall, and the picture on the wall is not anything like the woman painted by Leonardo.

That this is so is seen when Helmholtz says, "As to the properties of the objects of the external world, a little reflection will show that all the properties we may attribute to them merely signify the EFFECTS wrought by them either on our senses or on other natural objects." Lenin also says this is materialism.

All these terminological arguments are rooted in the Kantian background of many German thinkers. Most of whom would be on exhibit in Lenin's Museum of Reactionary Fabrications of German Professordom. Lenin wants us to believe that our knowledge comes from interaction with the real world and is not a priori (google this term)-- i.e., given to us before any possible experience. But is not the following an a priori statement, even a Kantian one (!)-- before you see anything at all in the world you know it must reflect a certain narrow band in the electro-magnetic spectrum. If it doesn't it may exist but you will never see it, just as you will never hear the sound your dog hears from the dog whistle. And if this is an a priori truth gained from experience then it is a synthetic a priori truth, and Kant's philosophy is back on the table. Materialism will have to deal with it.

Lenin concludes that Helmholtz is a "shame faced materialist" with a Kantian slant, just as Huxley, save that the latter's slant was towards Berkeley. That Kantian element in Helmholtz is totally non necessary because he has a basically realist (materialist) position. Lenin provides a quote from Feuerbach's student Albrecht Rau to back this up. "Had Helmholtz remained true to his realistic conception, had he consistently adhered to the basic principle that the properties of bodies express the relations of bodies to each other and also to us, he obviously would have had no need of the whole theory of symbols; he could then have said briefly and clearly: the sensations that are produced in us by things are reflections of the nature of those things." Helmholtz has fallen victim to Ockham's razor.

Lenin ends this section by noting the critics of Helmhottz from the Machist side object to his being too much of a materialist, and concludes that Plekhanov did make a mistake when he was explaining materialism, but that Bazarov only muddied the waters and finally, from Kant and Helmholtz "the materialists went to the left, the Machists to the right."
*
Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (August 31, 1821 – September 8, 1894) was a German physician and physicist who made significant contributions to several widely varied areas of modern science. In physiology and physiological psychology, he is known for his mathematics of the eye, theories of vision, ideas on the visual perception of space, color vision research, and on the sensation of tone, perception of sound, and empiricism. In physics, he is known for his theories on the conservation of energy, work in electrodynamics, chemical thermodynamics, and on a mechanical foundation of thermodynamics. As a philosopher, he is known for his philosophy of science, ideas on the relation between the laws of perception and the laws of nature, the science of aesthetics, and ideas on the civilizing power of science. A large German association of research institutions, the Helmholtz Association, is named after him.-- from Wikepedia. The whole aricle is worth reading. Helmholtz University was one of the major institutions of the DDR.

CHAPTER FOUR SECTION SEVEN: TWO KINDS OF CRITICISM OF DUHRING

In this section Lenin points out that the so called Russian "Marxist" Machists, Valentinov and Bogdanov, try to show the weaknesses of materialism by criticizing the ideas of contemporary bourgeois materialists such as Buchner [1824-1899] Vogt [1817-1895] and Moleschott [1822-1893]. They then apply these these criticisms to Marxist materialism.

This is a big distortion according to Lenin. No one has criticized the bourgeois materialists more than Marx and Engels. But Marx and Engels criticized them for the limitaions in their materialism, not for the materialism itself, which is what the Machists object to.

Engels ponts out three basic limitations of the bourgeois materialists. They did not advance beyond the materialism they inhereted from the eighteenth century-- i.e., they did not develop it. The three limitations are, first, they were mechanical materialists. Today we would call them "reductionists." Engels says (in his "Ludwig Feuerbach") that they indulged in "the exclusive application of the standards of mechanics to processeses of a chemical and organic nature."

Second was the "ANTI-DIALECTICAL CHARACTER OF THEIR PHILOSOPHY." Because of this Engels calls them metaphysical materialists, using "metaphysics" as equivalent to "non dialectical." This usage has spread in Marxism but it is not the way the word is used in philosophy and it sometimes causes misunderstandings, especially when people talk about dialectics as a form of metaphysics.

Third, Lenin says, "was the preservation of idealism 'up above', in the realm of the social sciences, a non-understanding of historical materialism." So M & E were not attacking them because of their materialism but because they were not materialist enough. For not seeing that, Lenin calls Valentinov and Bogdanov "ignoramuses."

The rest of this section is basically a repeat of the above arguments applied to Duhring. The Machists in Germany attacked him as an extreme leftist materialist, while Engels doesn't think much of Duhring as a philosopher of materialism at all. This is the reason for the section's title. While the Machists thought Duhring was too much of a materialist, Lenin says, "For Engels, ON THE CONTRARY, Duhring was NOT A SUFFICIENTLY steadfast, clear and consistent materialist."

SECTION EIGHT: HOW COULD J. DIETZGEN HAVE FOUND FAVOUR WITH THE REACTIONARY PHILOSOPHERS?

We have talked about Dietzgen before. He was a self educated worker who arrived at Dialectical Materialism on his own, but had sometimes a confused way of expressing himself. Lenin writes, "Dietzgen, unlike Engels, expresses his thoughts in a vague, unclear, mushy way. But apart from his defects of exposition and individual mistakes he not unsuccessfully champions the 'MATERIALIST THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE', 'DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM.'"

At one time his writings were well known on the left and he was a big influence. But today he is not so well known. This is no doubt because the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin are widely available and much clearer.

Some of the Machists appealed to Dietzgen to support their views but at heart he was a true materialist and follower of Marx and Engels. Lenin says, "J. Dietzgen could find favour with the reactionary philosophers because he occasionally gets muddled."

At the close of this section Lenin lists the "socialist authorities." They were, in 1908: Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Paul Lafargue* [1842-1911], Franz Mehring** [1846-1919], and Karl Kautsky [1854-1938]. We know Kautsky fell from Grace due to his support of WWI. The new list then became Marx, Engels, Lenin. After Lenin died Stalin added himself. Stalin's theoretical writings were never on the same level as Marx, Engels and Lenin and he was removed from the list in 1956 (for violations of socialist legality and for creating a cult around himself). He also killed many innocent people in a drive to always be numero uno). Different national parties often try to make their ephemeral leaders "socialist authorities" but this rarely succeeds. Mao is still holding on in some parties. Gramsci is highly respected in some circles, not to mention Che. My own feeling is that a generation from now the list will be Marx, Engels, Lenin and Castro.

* A famous quote from Marx concerns PL's views at one time:
"Lafargue was the subject of a famous quotation by Karl Marx. Shortly before Marx died in 1883, he wrote a letter to Lafargue and the French Workers' Party leader Jules Guesde, both of whom already claimed to represent "Marxist" principles. Marx accused them of "revolutionary phrase-mongering" and of denying the value of reformist struggles. This exchange is the source of Marx's remark, reported by Friedrich Engels: "ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste" ("what is certain is that [if they are Marxists, then] I myself am not a Marxist")."-- Wikepedia

** FM wrote the first (and some think the best) bio of Karl Marx. He was also one of the three top leaders of the Spartacist League along with Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg.

CHAPTER FIVE: THE RECENT REVOLUTION IN NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHICAL IDEALISM

(Preliminary remarks before Section 1)

Lenin's preliminary remarks are to remind us that he is not dealing with physics but with epistomology. His time was a time of revolutionary advances in physics-- relativity theory, quantum mechanics, radioactivity, etc., simillar to our times-- i.e., string theory, multiple universes, the big bang, etc. The "Marxist" Machists were using the new developments in physics in Lenin's day to try and attack materialism because many of the principles of that philosophy had been been formulated before the "new" physics.

This being the case, it is good that Lenin quotes a passage from "Ludwig Feuerbach" in which Engels says that "with each epoch-making discovery even in the sphere of natural science ["not to speak of the history of mankind"], materialism has to change its form."

So, what are we to deal with in this chapter on physics? There are many new schools of physics, as well as philosophy, looking to meet up. If we want physics to be materialism's suitor we must show that the latter is the most compatible of the contending match ups.

SECTION ONE: THE CRISIS IN MODERN PHYSICS.

Well, from our point of view this is not "modern physics" so I am not going to spend a lot of time on it. The roots of our own contemporary physics [2008] however do go back to this time: the discovery of the electron, relativity, etc. The concept of the "ether" is still in use, however, at this time (1908).

Lenin discusses two books. First, "The Value of Science" by Henri Poincare. This book says that the old physical "laws" are being undermined by the new discoveries. The author concludes that physics isn't really about an objective reality and he ends up saying, in his own words: "whatever is not thought is pure nothing." So, he is in the camp of Mach and the idealists.

The other book is by Abel Rey: "The Physical Theory of the Modern Physicists." Lenin gives his take on Rey's views: "Anti-intellectualism is a doctrine that denies the rights or claims of reason. Hence, in its philosophical aspect, the essence of the 'crisis in modern physics' is that the old physics regarded its theories as 'real knowledge of the material world', i.e., a reflection of objective reality. The new trend in physics regards theories only as symbols, signs, and marks for practice, i.e., it denies the existence of an objective reality independent of our mind and reflected by it."

In essence, Rey is saying that "matter" has disappeared! Lenin's next section will deal with this and is where we will take up next week (Section 2. "Matter Has Disappeared").

CHAPTER FIVE SECTION TWO: "MATTER HAS DISAPPEARED"

The fact that old concepts of matter no longer apply in the new physics has led many to conclude that "matter has disappeared." The Russian Machist "Marxist" Valentinov, for example, says, "The statement that the scientific explanation of the world can find a firm foundation 'ONLY in materialism' is nothing but a fiction, and what is more, an absurd fiction." Lenin says Valentinov shows a "virgin innocence" of the nature of materialism and doesn't realize our knowledge of matter is "penetrating deeper." Hmmmm.

The notion that "matter disappears" (it becomes energy, electricity, etc.) "means that," Lenin says, "the limit within which we have hitherto known matter disappears...." Marxists (materialists) are not arguing with physical scientists about how physical reality appears to us-- i.e., about new PROPERTIES of matter-- but about the SOURCE of our knowledge about it. It is an epistemological problem that divides materialists from idealists. "For," Lenin writes, "the SOLE 'property' of matter with whose recognition philosophical materialism is bound up is the property of BEING AN OBJECTIVE REALITY, or existing outside the mind."

What is "the error of Machism in general"? It does not understand the basis of materialism and does not differentiate metaphysical from dialectical materialism. Changes is our scientific understanding of the world is not a problem for diamat! Lenin, for example, uses the "ether" as an example of something existing independently of the human mind and reproaches the idealists for thinking it only a mind dependent convention. But the science of your day may not be the science of tomorrow. The "ether" turned out to be a construction of the human mind.

So Lenin was wrong, but his real claim, that "dialectical materialism insists on the approximate, relative character of every scientific theory of the structure of matter and its properties," is not wrong, and so, where it matters, Lenin was right.

The people who really got it wrong were Bogdanov (in 1899) and Valentinov and Yushkevich with "their ignorance of dialectics" and their talk about "the immutable essence of things" and "substance". If they had understood Engels they never would have discoursed on physics in that way. Any particular physical theory of reality is subject to revision. The unchanging requirement for diamat, Lenin says, is the "unconditional recognition of nature's EXISTENCE outside the mind and perception of man...." Matter has far from disappeared.

SECTION THREE: IS MOTION WITHOUT MATTER CONCEIVABLE?

To the idealists of Lenin's day there was no problem with talking about "motion" after they had eliminated "matter" from their systems. The idealists still "think" there is motion going on-- the motion of the succession of their "sensations." But, Lenin says, the "concept matter expresses nothing more than the objective reality which is given us in sensation. Therefore, to divorce motion from matter is equivalent to divorcing thought from objective reality, or to divorcing my sensations from the external world-- in a word, it is to go over to idealism."

The purpose of this argument is not to refute idealism but to show that the Russian Machist "Marxists", Bogdanov et al, are closet idealists. In order to establish this Lenin once again analyzes the philosophy of energetics as propounded by Ostwald ("Lectures on Natural Philosophy," Leipzig, 1902). But first, recall that for diamat matter and motion are inseparable-- you can't have one without the other, and that Bogdanov, before he was influenced by Mach was following Ostwald's "energetics.

One of Lenin's favorite words is "muddle", which he uses to describe many of the idealist positions he discusses in MEC. Here is why energetics is a "muddle." Ostwald writes, "That all external events may be presented as processes between energies can be most simply explained if our mental processes are themselves energetic and impose this property of theirs on all external phenomena." This is, as Lenin, points out, a form of Kantianism: external reality reflects our mind rather than vice versa.

Ostwald is trying to subsume "mind" and "matter" under energy. But this is just playing with words. "Motion" also for him is a form of energy and in his system, then, we have everything reduced to energy and thus we have motion without matter. But as a scientist, Ostwald mostly talks about MATERIAL motion not "mental processes." When Marxists criticize Ostwald it is for deviations away from material motion, for idealists the criticism is just the opposite.

Here is Bogdanov in "Empirio-monism": Ostwald, "every now and again converts 'energy' from a pure symbol of correlations between the facts of experience into the SUBSTANCE of experience, into the 'world stuff'." Bogdanov and the other Russian Machists are deeply rooted in the idealist philosophy and, whatever may be their political convictions, they are far from Marxism in their philosophical understanding of the world.

SECTION FOUR: THE TWO TRENDS IN MODERN PHYSICS AND ENGLISH SPIRITUALISM

In order to explain the two trends in physics Lenin will have one representative of each present his own case. The first will be the physicist Arthur W. Rucker [1848-1915] representing natural science, the second will be the philosopher James Ward [1843- 1925] representing epistemology.

Rucker says, "The question at issue is whether the hypotheses which are at the base of the scientific theories now most generally excepted [1901--tr] are to be regarded as accurate descriptions of the constitution of the universe around us, or merely as convenient fictions." This latter viewpoint is the position of Bogdanov, Yushkevich, and the Russian Machists.

Now, Rucker admits that this latter method is able to achieve "great scientific successes", but he does not think that "it is the last word of science in the struggle for truth." So, Rucker asks, "Can we argue back from the phenomenon displayed by matter to the constitution of matter itself ... whether we have any reason to believe that the sketch which science has already drawn is to some extent a copy, and not a mere diagram of the truth?"

After discussing atoms, the ether, and electrons Rucker prefers the copy theory. Lenin says, "The gist of his position is this: The theory of physics is a copy (becoming ever more exact) of objective reality. The world is matter in motion, our knowledge of which grows ever more profound."

This may an argument over words. How can the Ptolemaic geo-centric universe of Dante, or even the Copernican universe, which still uses epicycles, be a "copy" of the universe as it is as opposed to a symbolic representation? Physicists today (2008) don't know what the universe is really like.* Seventy four per cent of it is composed of something called "dark energy" and they have no idea what that is, so how can their descriptions be a "copy" of anything?

It should be enough, for materialism, to hold that whatever is out there has been around before there were any humans (even before there was the Earth) and so it exists in objective reality independent of the human mind (i.e., the cerebral cortex of human brains).

Now for the other school, represented by James Ward ("Naturalism and Agnosticism", 1906). Ward says both members of his school (such as Gustav Kirchhoff [1824-1887] and Poincare) and those who think like Rucker practice physics in the same way (use "the same methods of verification"). "But the one believes that it is getting nearer to the ultimate reality and leaving mere appearances behind it; the other believes that it is only substituting a generalised descriptive scheme that is intellectually manageable, for the complexity of concrete facts.... In either view the value of physics as systematic knowledge ABOUT things is unaffected; its possibilities of future extension and of practicable application are in either case the same." So why all the commotion? It is because the "speculative difference" is so great that it is important to know which is correct. Now it would seem to me that two theories with the same practical application are the same theory on a deeper level.

Be that as it may, Lenin takes Ward's words very seriously as he sees in them an opening for religion. Lenin maintains that materialism recognizes the objective reality of the entities reflected in theory and Ward doesn't "regarding theory as only a systematisation of experience...." In Ward's case he ends up deducing spiritualism from his philosophy ["the real world is an aggregate of interacting 'spirits' or monads"--Great Soviet Encyclopedia]. So Lenin has a point.

This is also a contemporary problem for people who want to reconcile science and religion. Either science is telling us something about ultimate reality (and religion is just an illusion) or it isn't. Ward thought all scientific truth was relative and "tentative" and thus, to quote Lenin, "it cannot reflect reality." Lenin says this is the price paid in capitalist countries for the "cohabitation" of theology and science. Science goes its way but leaves epistemology to the philosophers and theologians.

At least this is true for "cultured fideism", it does not apply to the yahoo fundamentalism of backwoods Protestantism which denies evolution and, like Mike Hukabee, thinks the world is 6000 years old! Lenin, on the other hand, maintains, as a fundamental principle of diamat, that the only proper epistemology for science is materialism and this rules out religious superstition all together.

Now it is time for an interesting metaphysical speculation. Ward writes that materialism is dependent upon the hard solid indestructible atom and since we now know the atom IS destructible, materialism must fall by the wayside. Lenin responds by saying, "The destructibility of the atom, its inexhaustibility, the mutability of all forms of matter and its motion, have always been the strong hold of dialectical materialism. All boundaries in nature are conditional, relative, movable, and express the gradual approximation of our mind towards knowledge of matter. But this does not in anyway prove that nature, matter itself is a symbol, a conventional sign, i.e., the product of our mind."

Granted that Lenin is correct about "matter itself"-- what about our THEORIES about the nature of matter and the universe? Are they not the product of our mind? Are they "copies" even "photographic copies" of "matter itself" or are they conventional and often far from the truth of what "matter itself" really is "in itself" versus what it is "for us" at any particular time? Does Kant still have a right to a hearing? IF the nature of really turns out to be based on string theory how can the atomic models of Lenin's day be a copy? An approximate copy is not a copy. Ponderous pondering indeed.

* Cf. The New York Times Science Section for 6-3-2008: "Dark, Perhaps Forever: The Universe Unexplained" by Dennis Overbye.

CHAPTER FIVE SECTION FIVE: "THE TWO TRENDS IN MODERN PHYSICS, AND GERMAN IDEALISM"

German Idealism, in its neo-Kantian incarnation is using the crisis in physics to declare materialism dead. Lenin refers to the "well-known" Kantian Hermann Cohen [1842-1918] who declared in 1896, in a new introduction to the "History of Materialism"-- "the falsified history of materialism written by F. Albert Lange" [1825-1878]-- that the new physics has turned matter into "force" and "energy" thus it has brought "about the victory of idealism."

Heinrich Hertz [1857-1894] ("the famous physicist") is drafted by Cohen as an ally. Lenin says this is an example of how the idealists grasp at any vague or incomplete statement by scientists and try to use it as a support for anti-materialism. Lenin turns to Hertz's work "Mechanics" to see what he actually thinks.

"If we inquire into the real reason why physics at the present time prefers to express itself in terms of the theory of energy," Hertz says, "we may answer that it is because in this way it best avoids talking about things of which it knows very little...."

After more quotes from this text, Lenin tells us that it is not because "matter" has been abandoned by the physicists that they speak in terms of energy, etc., but because, since the disintegration of the indivisible "atom" they have not yet advanced to a more solid and concrete explanation of nature in the new physics as had been promoted in the old physics. "It is evident from this that the possibility of a non-materialist view of energy did not even occur to Hertz."

Lenin next turns to Eduard von Hartmann [1842-1906] ("far more reactionary that Cohen") and his book "Die Weltanschauung der modernen Physik, Leipzig, 1902) where he remarks, "Modern physics had grown up on a realist basis and it was only the neo-Kantian and agnostic movement of our own time that led it to re-interpret its results in an idealist spirit."

Lenin likes von Hartmann because go goes all the way! "It is highly instructive," Lenin says, "to see how this irreconcilable partisan idealist (non-partisans in philosophy are just as hopelessly thick-headed as they are in politics) explains to the physicists what it means to follow one epistemological trend or another."

The physicists, von Hartmann thinks, have begun to follow idealism as a fashion. To be serious they will have to begin to see that the external world is completely psychical in nature and to abandon all their views about realism when it comes to nature. There is no compromising mish-mash such as produced by Bogdanov, et al.

SECTION SIX: THE TWO TRENDS IN MODERN PHYSICS, AND FRENCH FIDEISM

Once materialism has been abandoned and Machism adopted it will come back to bite you. Here is what happened to Poincare. This great physicist adopted Mach's outlook with regard to physics-- that our knowledge is a symbolic representation of our sense data, only to find that the philosopher Le Roy pounced upon his ideas to justify religion. Science is just one symbolic way at looking at the world of experience, so religion is just another way. Neither has any claim to a so-called "objective reality." I'm not sure the religious folk really like this sort of defense, but Poincare was, Lenin says, "abashed" by these conclusions and sought to distance himself from Le Roy (in the "Value of Science").

What Poincare failed to see was that Le Roy's views do follow from the idealism that is the source of Mach's views. Both religion and science claim to see a world dependent on human beings and the mind. Poincare, however, still thinks that even if he agrees with Mach, that science is made up of conventional symbols, yet there is something "objective" about it. The objects of science "are real inasmuch as the sensations they invoke in us," says Poincare, "appear to us to be united by some sort of indestructible cement and not by an ephemeral accident."

Poincare may be a great scientist, Lenin remarks, but "only the Voroshilov-Yushkeviches can take him seriously as a philosopher." He flees from materialism via Machism and at the first sign of religion "TAKES REFUGE UNDER THE WING OF MATERIALISM'' and the existence of objective external objects.

The last six or seven pages of this section Lenin devotes to the philosophy of Abel Rey which he says is "imperative." Rey, unlike Ward, Cohen, Hartmann et al, seeks to prove "the illegitimacy of the idealist (and fideist) conclusions drawn from the new physics." We first met Rey back in Reading Lenin 17, now we see him in a little more depth.

Rey calls the two trends in physics "conceptualism" [this is Machism and allied idealist views] and neo-mechanism [materialism]. Rey wants to keep some form of viable Machist philosophy and at the same time deny any support to religion.

He says that Mach's meaning when he refers to "experience" has been misunderstood. Rightly understood it would be seen not to be a prop for religion. He says, "Experience is that over which our mind has no command.... Experience is the object that faces the subject." A little later he says, "Objective is that which is given from without, imposed by experience; it is that which is not of our making, but which is made independently of us and which to a certain extent makes us."

So Rey is really, Lenin says, what Engels called a "shamedfaced materialist". "The fundamental characteristic of materialism is that it STARTS FROM the objectivity of science, from the recognition of objective reality reflected by science, whereas idealism NEEDS 'detours' in order, in one way or another, to 'deduce' objectivity from mind, consciousness, the 'psychical.'"

Rey's "embellishment" of Mach tries to remove the differences between his thought and materialism. But, says Lenin, he ignores a major thesis of Mach regarding cause and effect, namely ''THAT THERE IS NO PHYSICAL NECESSITY, BUT ONLY LOGICAL NECESSITY!"

And this is Rey's problem. The reason he became "muddled" is "because he had set himself the impossible task of 'reconciling' the opposition between the materialist and the idealist schools in the new physics."

There is a very interesting note in this section. Lenin quotes the French physicist Alfred Cornu [1841-1902] who said that the more we learn about nature the more we see that Descartes [1596-1650] was right in holding "that in the physical world there is nothing save matter and motion." Cornu goes on to say that the recent new discoveries in physics are attempts to give us a more detailed knowledge of matter and motion and that "the return to Cartesian ideas is obvious." Lenin remarks that Cornu and others were/are ignorant of the fact "that the dialectical materialists Marx and Engels had freed this fundamental premise of materialism from the one -sidedness of MECHANICAL MATERIALISM."

Attempts to reconcile modern physics and idealism, such as Rey's, result from ignorance of diamat. His own epistemology is materialist for he admits that a law of nature has practical significance and in his book says this "is fundamentally the same as saying that this law of nature has objectivity." The muddle is to try and unite this view with the views of Mach & Co. All of this is further evidence of Lenin's thesis that there are ONLY two trends in modern physics, materialism and idealism, and there is no "third way."

CHAPTER FIVE SECTION SEVEN: A RUSSIAN "IDEALIST PHYSICIST"

We can basically skip over this section as it adds nothing new to Lenin's argument. It is a review of an obituary of a Russian scientist, N. I. Shishkin [died 1906], by "our notorious reactionary philosopher" L. M. Lopatin [1855-1920]. Shishkin was a Machist and was praised by Lopatin, whose work "lies in the borderland between philosophy and the police department." Lenin was in exile and cut off from Russian intellectual developments when he wrote MEC and this short section was written to give the Russian audience something to chew on. According to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Lopatin was an idealist whose philosophy was a form of personalism influenced by Leibniz and his theory of monads.

SECTION EIGHT: THE ESSENCE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF "PHYSICAL" IDEALISM

There are two major points that Lenin wants to make at the outset of this section. "Firstly", he says, "Machism is ideologically connected with only ONE school in ONE branch of modern natural science. Secondly, and THIS IS THE MAIN POINT, what in Machism is connected with this school IS NOT WHAT DISTINGUISHES IT FROM ALL OTHER TRENDS AND SYSTEMS OF IDEALIST PHILOSOPHY, BUT WHAT IT HAS IN COMMON WITH PHILOSOPHICAL IDEALISM IN GENERAL." One has only to compare the French, German, English and Russian representatives of Machism, as Lenin has done, to see that this is so.

What we find is that the main idea of the Machist version of the new physics is "denial of the objective reality given us in sensation and reflected in our theories, [and] doubt as to the existence of such a reality."

Lenin thinks the popularity of this idealistic "deviation towards reactionary philosophy" is only temporary ("a transitory period of sickness") -- a growth ailment he calls it, "mainly caused by the ABRUPT BREAK-DOWN of old established concepts." We should all be able to understand this. The abrupt break-down of the USSR and eastern European socialism in our own time has led to similar reactionary consequences not only in science and philosophy but in the theory and practice of Marxism as well.

If Marxism is a science, i.e., "scientific socialism"-- then these words of Lenin about physics should also apply to it. "The materialist spirit of physics, as of all modern science, will overcome all crises, but only by the indispensable replacement of metaphysical materialism by dialectical materialism."

This raises some serious questions. Few scientists today call themselves "dialectical materialists." Can we say they are "shamefaced" dialectical materialists? Can we say they are practicing diamat more or less unconsciously?

Lenin gives a long quote from Abel Rey the gist of which is that as physics has become more and more mathematical it has begun to lose contact with real objects and to deal with mathematical abstractions. Lenin thinks this is one of the reasons for the growth of idealist tendencies in the new physics.

Another reason is the growth of RELATIVISM. This is not a reference to the theory of relativity, first proposed by Einstein in 1905, and Einstein is never mentioned in MEC. Lenin thinks that the principle of the relativity of our knowledge leads to idealistic conclusions in the brains of people ignorant of dialectics.

The fact that the old truths of physics are breaking down and being replaced has made many think that there is no objective truth-- only relative. Diamat, as expounded by Engels in "Anti-Duhring," maintains that "truth" is indeed relative and changes as we learn more about the objects of nature, but relative truths still reflect objects that exist independently of man. It is not true that "there can be no objective truth independent of mankind."

"Engels," Lenin writes, "reproached the earlier materialists for their failure to appreciate the relativity of all scientific theories, for their ignorance of dialectics and for their exaggeration of the mechanical point of view."

The last few pages of this chapter, yes we are finally finishing Chapter Five (one more to go), are devoted to a book by Duhem, "Theory of Physics." In this book Duhem writes "A law of physics, properly speaking, is neither true nor false, but approximate." That would be fine, says Lenin-- IF Duhem really understood the "but." Diamat recognizes the provisional nature of all knowledge and as science advances that our world conception will also advance (and sometimes retreat).

Duhem, the practicing physicist, also thinks this way. But, ignorant of dialectics, he has been led into Machism and sometimes thinks the reason laws are "but approximate" is because there is no actual objective reality out there, independent of mankind, in the first place. Lenin doesn't say that Duhem is in a "muddle" but he does say he is VACILLATING.

Physical idealism is the result of the failure of mechanical materialism to deal with the revolutionary new developments in physics and will vanish when science takes the step from metaphysical to dialectical materialism.

Lenin chose physics to illustrate his theories. He could have picked any number of sciences had he so wished. I should also note the conditions of 1908 are not unique. Marxism itself, as a scientific world view, is going through a similar crisis today in 2008 as was physics in 1908. Lenin's methods of analysis are as useful today as they were then.

Ever since the "Prague Spring" and the "Cultural Revolution" Marxism has been in crisis. The fall of the Soviet Union is but one consequence, not the cause. Like the 1908 crises in physics, the crisis in Marxism is one of relativism where old established ideas have been thrown aside by new historical events and no new consensus has emerged. Each national party has its own version and formerly despised views historically considered as revisionist, opportunist or products of bourgeois idealism are back on the agenda under new names and guises parading about as the latest interpretations of "scientific socialism."

To paraphrase Lenin, all the old truths of Marxism, including those which were regarded as firmly established and incontestable, prove to be relative truths, leading many to believe there can be no objective universally applicable Marxist principles and each national party is free to go its own way.

This is all the result of the breakdown of the international communist and workers movement as a result of World War II and its aftermath and the current weakness of the Marxist parties in the face of world imperialism. But there are signs of a new world historical shift to the left. Again, to paraphrase Lenin, this shift is being made and will be made by modern Marxists; but it is advancing towards the only true dialectical materialist philosophy and method of struggle by zigzags, not in a straight line, and instinctively not consciously, gropingly and unsteadily with no clear vision of the final conflict and goal, and oftentimes with its back to it.

We should keep all this mind, and especially the need for theory and ideological struggle to strengthen the progressive movement and we should especially study the history of the movement over the last two centuries so that the errors of the past will not become the failures of the future. Keep this in the forefront as we approach the end of our course in Materialism and Empirio-criticism.

CHAPTER SIX: EMPIRIO-CRITICISM AND HISTORICAL MATERIALISM

The Russian Machists comprise two groups. The first is made up of conservatives and reactionaries grouped around V. Chernov (already discussed), and the other group is made up of "would be Marxists" who think they can harmonize the philosophy of Avenarius and Mach with that of Marx and Engels. Lenin, in this chapter, will show that this is a hopeless task.

SECTION ONE: THE EXCURSIONS OF THE GERMAN EMPIRIO - CRITICISTS INTO THE FIELD OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Lenin begins by discussing an 1895 article by a disciple of Avenarius named Franz Blei [1871-1942], "Metaphysics in Political Economy." Among other things the article maintains that Marxism is metaphysical because of its belief in "materialism" and "objective" truth and "that there was indeed nothing behind the Marxist teaching save the 'subjective' views of Marx."

Lenin has no doubt that the party members, remember Bogdanov was a Bolshevik leader, flirting with Machism will reject Blei's version of Marxism. But, says Lenin, "You must not blame the mirror for showing a crooked face." Blie gives a true reflection of the social views of his movement. Rejecting his views would show the "good intentions" of the Russian "Marxist" Machists, but would show even better "their absurd eclectical endeavors to combine Marx and Avenarius."

The next Machist Lenin looks at is Petzoldt, whom we have seen before. He has a philosophy of "stability" which is based on "human nature." The tendency is for humanity to attain a state of "stability." This conflict free state will come about on its own by the operations of human nature. It cannot be brought about by socialism. But "moral progress" towards this stability and equality can be seen in our [1908] time. Wages are going up for workers and profits are going down, and there is the foundation of the Salvation Army all of which is evidence for Petzoldt's views! Lenin says this is just "hackneyed rubbish" and represents not a scientific understanding of social science but the "infinite stupidity of the philistine." Now it is time to look at the Russian Machists.

SECTION TWO: HOW BOGDANOV CORRECTS AND "DEVELOPS" MARX

Bogdanov wrote an article in 1902 in which he quotes the famous passage from Marx's introduction to "Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy" about consciousness being a reflection of material reality. Bogdanov then concludes, "SOCIAL BEING AND SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS ARE, IN THE EXACT MEANING OF THESE TERMS, IDENTICAL." Lenin thinks this is nonsense.

In complex societies, and especially in capitalism, people are NOT CONSCIOUS of their social being. Thomas Frank's book "What is the Matter with Kansas" is an example of that. What Marx says is that social consciousness REFLECTS social being. But just what does this mean? Lenin says, "A reflection may be an approximately true copy of the reflected, but to speak of identity is absurd. Consciousness in general REFLECTS being-- that is a general thesis of ALL materialism."

I hate to say it, but there seems to be a problem with this formulation. Does it account for FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS? Working people voting for Republicans, or even Democrats for that matter, are not manifesting a consciousness that reflects their actual social being as cogs in the capitalist machine. What is the distorting mechanism and how does it supervene to block even an "approximately true copy of the reflected"? At any rate, Bogdanov is certainly wrong to be talking about an identity relation between reality and it reflection.

Lenin says Bogdanov's formulation is based on the IDEALISM inherent in the Machist position that outer reality is the same as the sensations we have of it: that outer reality is in fact sensation. "Sense-perception is the reality existing outside us" as Bazarov puts it.

Bogdanov wants to be a good Marxist; Lenin says Bogdanov MINUS Machism "is a Marxist," but is hampered by his idealist deviations. With regard to Machism: "If certain people reconcile it with Marxism, with Marxist behaviour, we must admit that these people are better than their theory, but we must not justify outrageous theoretical distortions of Marxism."

Social production was complex in Marx's day and is even more complex today. Actions of producers in Iowa can have effects on people in Africa. The world economy of capitalism is so vast and interconnected that no one can know all that is going on. Even "seventy Marxes," Lenin says, could not grasp it. But Marx has discovered the OBJECTIVE LAWS that govern the development of capitalism, and this is the most important thing.

Once we understand this we understand "the highest task of humanity." And what is this task? It is to understand these objective laws, Lenin says "to comprehend this objective logic of economic evolution," SO THAT we conform our social consciousness to this logic and the social consciousness "of the advanced classes of all capitalist countries." This is a task, I fear, we are woefully deficient at in the present social environment of capitalism.

Bogdanov and the Russian Marxists did not contribute to this task when they, whatever their good intentions, mixed up reactionary bourgeois idealism with Marxism. Historical materialism sees social being (here the capitalist process) as independent of human consciousness which reflects it with greater or lesser precision. The philosophy of Marx and Engels "is cast from a single piece of steel, you cannot eliminate one basic premise, one essential part, without departing from objective truth, without falling a prey to bourgeois-reactionary falsehood." Is this too strong a statement? Is Lenin too fundamentalist? Or is this correct and far too many so called Marxists, even in our own day, have fallen into a similar stance as that of Bogdanov? I don't mean being "Machist" but are they eliminating a fundamental pillar of Marxism (the dictatorship of the proletariat, the labor aristocracy, class struggle, democratic centralism, internationalism, etc.,) and expecting the house to remain standing?

Bogdanov's desire to "update" Marxism is not based on any real empirical analysis of the facts. In fact, Lenin says, he "is not engaged in a Marxist enquiry at all; all he is doing is to reclothe results already obtained by this enquiry in a biological and energeticist terminology. The whole attempt is worthless from beginning to end...."

At the close of this section Lenin makes some interesting comments about Marx and Engels that are certainly relevant today. He says that for Marx "the transfer of biological concepts IN GENERAL to the sphere of the social sciences is PHRASE-MONGERING." This is certainly true of social Darwinism, but what about modern (2008) attempts to do this? Has science advanced to where this is no longer phrase-mongering? I am thinking of sociobiology, evolutionary psychology and neuroscientific explanations being applied to the social sciences.

While Lenin has spent most of the time in MEC discussing episte-mology, he nevertheless says that as Marx and Engels transcended Feuerbach they emphasized not materialist epistemology (which they certainly believed in) but rather "the materialist conception of history." He says they put the stress "rather on DIALECTICAL materialism than on dialectical MATERIALISM and insisted on HISTORICAL materialism rather than on historical MATERIALISM."

The Russian Machists have been confused by their embracement of empirio-criticism which is more interested in spreading an idealistic form of epistemology then it is in thinking seriously about the problems of historical materialism. This leads to the falsification of Marxism by nonmaterialist doctrines and is also a "characteristic feature of modern revisionism in political economy, in questions of tactics [especially in a possible tendency to confuse tactics and strategy--tr] and in philosophy generally, equally in epistemology and in sociology."

SECTION THREE: SUVOROV'S "FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY"

This section is about an essay by S. A. Suvorov that appeared in the collection "Studies 'in' the Philosophy of Marxism" which book we have discussed before. Lenin heaps scorn on Suvorov for making up new terms for already existing aspects of historical materialism developed by Marx, and using biological examples to try and illustrate social phenomena. Sovorov would be making what today we call a "category mistake." Sovorov's essay is so out of date and behind the times we need not spend any more time on it. The book it appeared in was a collection by all of the usual Russian Machist suspects and elicited from Lenin the comment
that "we arrive at the inevitable conclusion that there is an inseparable connection between reactionary epistemology and reactionary efforts in sociology."

CHAPTER SIX: EMPIRIO-CRITICISM AND HISTORICAL MATERIALISM -SECTION FOUR: PARTIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PHILOSOPHICAL BLOCKHEADS

Lenin will now discuss Machism and religion. He reminds us that there are two basic trends in philosophy: materialism and idealism and that the basic question between these TWO GREAT CAMPS revolves around the question of the priority or matter over mind or vice versa.

Lenin opposes all attempts to blur this twofold division within philosophy by the invention of a "third way" that tries to squirm around these two schools. The greatness of Marx, according to Lenin, was his "insistence upon MATERIALISM and contemptuous derision of all obscurity, of all confusion and all deviations towards IDEALISM." Engels also followed this path both before and after the death of Marx.

Engels opposed the neo-Kantians, the positivists and Machists as well as the Humeans. Speaking about Engels' views on Thomas Huxley, Lenin wrote, "That 'positivism' and that 'realism' which attracted, and which continue to attract, an infinite number of muddleheads, Engels declared to be AT BEST A PHILISTINE METHOD OF SMUGGLING IN MATERIALISM while publicly abusing and disavowing it." Lenin asks if Engels said that about Huxley, "a very great scientist", what would he say about today's [1908] muddleheads?

Lenin answers his own question by writing, "they are a contemptible MIDDLE PARTY in philosophy, who confuse the materialist and idealist trends on every question." They produce nothing but "conciliatory quackery." This quackery is also used by religion to gain respectability. By and large religion is the great ally of reaction and bourgeois domination.

Lenin quotes J. Dietzgen: "The materialist theory of Knowledge is 'a universal weapon against religious belief' and not only against the 'notorious, formal and common religion of the priests, but also against the most refined, elevated professorial religion of muddled idealists'" So,it appears it was from Dietzgen that Lenin picked up "muddle- heads" an expression he is overly fond of using. Lenin appears to think that one of the functions of Marxist journalism and writing is to disabuse the public of any faith in faith.

Lenin agrees that Ostwald, and Mach, and Poincare and all the others (almost) are important scientists making contributions to physics, chemistry, history, etc., but they cannot "BE TRUSTED ONE IOTA when it comes to philosophy." Nor can they be trusted in political science, outside of "factual and specialised investigations." This is because both philosophy and political science are, in our society, PARTISAN endeavors.

Lenin adds an interesting footnote at this point about another "reactionary bourgeois philosophy"-- one we still have with us-- namely, PRAGMATISM. Lenin has gotten hold of William James' PRAGMATISM. A NEW NAME FOR SOME OLD WAYS OF THINKING, published in 1907, and has not been impressed. "Pragmatism ridicules the metaphysics both of materialism and idealism, acclaims experience and only experience, recognises practice as the only criterion, refers to the positivist movement in general, ESPECIALLY TURNS FOR SUPPORT TO OSTWALD, MACH, PEARSON, POINCARE AND DUHEM, for the belief that science is not an 'absolute copy of reality' and ... successfully deduces from all this a God for practical purposes, and only for practical purposes, without any metaphysics, and without transcending the bounds of experience."

This is not very different from Machism, according to Lenin, and is similar to Bogdanov's view, especially with regards to James' definition of "Truth"-- i.e., "a class-name for all sorts of definite working values in experience."

So what is "the task of Marxists" when confronted with all this anti-materialist literature? It is to take what is worthwhile from bourgeois thought and shape it in conformity with Marxism. Lenin tells us we can make NO PROGRESS is our thinking, about "new economic phenomena" (but other areas of knowledge are also meant) unless we make use "of the works" of the bourgeois intellectuals. So one task is to study them and not just our own people. The second task is to enrich dialectical and historical materialism with the valid information gained. We should NOT REVISE Marxism to be in accord with bourgeois thought.

Lenin uses Lunacharsky as an example of a Marxist who has allowed himself to be tainted by the influence of Machism to such an extent that he entertains notions derived from RELIGION (shudder). Some of Lunacharsky's statements: he speaks of the "deification of the higher human potentialities" and mentions "religious atheism" and "scientific socialism in its religious significance" and even writes "For a long time a new religion has been maturing within me." Lenin doesn't go for this. I note that around this time the British philosopher Bertrand Russell was talking about Social Democracy as a form of religion.

Lenin says, "this attitude [is] in no way like that of Marx, Engels, J. Dietzgen and even Feuerbach, but is the VERY OPPOSITE." Lenin is not at all neutral on this issue. "The neutrality of a PHILOSOPHER in the question IS IN ITSELF servility to [religion]." And: "Once you deny objective reality given us in sensation, you have already lost every weapon against [religion]."

Lenin says that Lunacharsky's mixing up of religious and Marxist categories is "shameful." Lenin is totally opposed to piecemeal Marxism, of taking some parts of the theory and ignoring others. It is true the Marxism is a guide to action and not a dogma, but it is a unified theory in which every doctrine is logically implied by and logically implies every other. You cannot, for example, reject the dictatorship of the proletariat on the one hand and on the other speak sensibly about class struggle and its outcome. "A single claw ensnared and the bird is lost," Lenin writes. Idealism and religious chatter a la Bogdanov, Lunacharsky, Yushkevich, etc., "this is what one inevitably comes to if one does not recognise the materialist theory that the human mind REFLECTS an objectively real external world."

CHAPTER SIX: EMPIRIO-CRITICISM AND HISTORICAL MATERIALISM -SECTION FIVE: ERNST HAECKEL AND ERNST MACH

In this last section of Chapter Six, Lenin turns his attention to the philosophy of science of Machism. All of the Machists reject the natural materialist standpoint of the sciences, calling it metaphysics. Petzoldt, for example, declares the scientific assumption of external reality no better than the Indian belief that the world rests on the back of a giant elephant. "It makes no difference," he says, "whether the world rests on a mythical elephant or on just as mythical a swarm of molecules and atoms epistemologically thought of as real and therefore not used merely metaphorically."

All of this Lenin calls "SHEER OBSCURANTISM, out-and-out- reaction." He then mentions the "storm provoked by Ernst Haeckel's THE RIDDLE OF THE UNIVERSE." This was a popular book written by a famous scientist, which was translated into many languages and appeared in many editions-- it was a best seller as we would say.

Haeckel (1834-1919) was a biologist and his book was written to explain the origin of life using Darwin's theory of evolution as the basis of his explanation. Haeckel's book, published in 1899, is still in print. He was denounced by theologians and professional philosophers alike for his theories. Lenin says there was "one underlying motif" in the attacks on Haeckel, namely, "they are all against the 'METAPHYSICS' of natural science, against 'dogmatism', against 'the exaggeration of the value and significance of natural science', against 'natural-scientific MATERIALISM.'"

What is seemingly so strange about this is that Haeckel is actually a reconciliationist who "RENOUNCES MATERIALISM" and wants religion and science to work together. The problem is, as Lenin sees it, is that despite "his personal conciliatory tendencies and proposals concerning religion" [in this he is somewhat like Steven Jay Gould] nevertheless "THE GENERAL SPIRIT of his book, the INERADICABILITY of natural-scientific materialism and its IRRECONCILABILITY with ALL official professorial philosophy and theology .... GIVES A SLAP IN THE FACE" to all forms of Machism and subjective idealistic tendencies. Haeckel himself does not see the contradiction between his method and his goal due to "philosophical naiveté."

The Machists and other idealist humbugs realize this and also realize that a hundred thousand readers of THE RIDDLE OF THE UNIVERSE will pick up the natural scientific (materialist) attitude towards the world that these idealists have been combatting. This is also the Marxist view-- i.e., the view of dialectical materialism. Lenin says: "The 'war' on Haeckel HAS proved that this view of ours corresponds to OBJECTIVE REALITY, i.e., to the class nature of modern society and its class ideological tendencies."

Lenin concludes this chapter with a reference to Franz Mehring's review of THE RIDDLE OF THE UNIVERSE in NEUE ZEIT. Haeckel's problem is that he has no conception of HISTORICAL materialism. He is unable to apply his natural scientific materialism to social problems. Mehring writes, "Haeckel is a materialist and monist, not a HISTORICAL materialist." And,
"he who wants to be convinced that natural-scientific materialism must be broadened into historical materialism if it is really to be an invincible weapon in the great struggle for emancipation of mankind, let him read Haeckel's book."

Haeckel's book demonstrates that natural scientific materialism underlies the method of the natural sciences and its dialectical development into historical and dialectical materialism is the only basis for bringing about the final liberation of humanity and the solution of the social question.

Who could have predicted in 1908 what the world would be like in 2008?
How can we know what 2108 will look like? Will Lenin still be read? If the social question hasn't been solved, I think so.

CONCLUSION:

There are "four standpoints", Lenin says, that Marxists should start from in evaluating empirio-criticism.

1. Understand "the THOROUGHLY REACTIONARY character of empirio-criticism.

2. Recognize that "the whole school of Mach and Avenarius is moving more and more definitely towards idealism" along with the most reactionary idealists.

3. Know that the "vast majority of scientists ... are invariably on the side of materialism."

4. Finally, "one must not fail to see the struggle of parties in philosophy, a struggle which in the last analysis reflects the tendencies and ideology of the antagonistic classes in modern society."

SUPPLEMENT TO CHAPTER FOUR, SECTION 1: FROM WHAT ANGLE DID N.G. CHERNYSHEVSKY CRITICISE KANTIANISM?

Lenin added this while the book was at the printers. He added it as an extra dig at the Russian Machists wanting to be Marxists. Most people in the West, and especially in the USA will never have heard of Chernyshevsky (1828-1889) but he was very a famous Russian revolutionary democrat and socialist who would have been well known to all of Lenin's readers.

The point Lenin wanted to make was that Chernyshevsky opposed Kant from the left, as a disciple of Feuerbach, while Bogdanov et al opposed Kant from the right, from the Machist and hence idealist position and were backwards in their thinking even compared to Chernyshevsky whose views dated from the the 1850s and 60s.

So much then for MATERIALISM AND EMPIRIO-CRITICISM. But since so little is known about Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevskii (NGC) here, I culled some info from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia [GSE] to introduce him. You can also Google him.

The three major influences on NGC were German philosophy, French utopian socialism and English political economy (the same three factors that Lenin called the component parts of Marxism). NGC's philosophy was based on the anthropology of human nature and was a form of RATIONAL EGOISM. We look out for our own interests. This should lead us to become socialists ["The Anthropological Principle in Philosophy," 1860].

NGC was a follower of Feuerbach who was, in NGC's own words, "the culmination of German philosophy, which --- having now for the first time achieved positive solutions --- has abandoned its former scholastic type of metaphysical transcendentalism and, admitting that its own results has merged with the general theory of natural science and anthropology." For NGC, practice was the source of truth, it was "that immutable touchstone of all theory."

In 1855 he wrote THE AESTHETIC RELATION OF ART TO REALITY in which he declared "beauty is life" meaning "what is of general interest in life --- THAT is the content of art." [All quotes are from NGC's works.] Art should look to the real world and portray it and "pass judgment on its manifestations."

In his 1857 work LESSING; HIS TIME, LIFE, AND WORK, he maintained that "the principal motive force of historical development" could in certain historical situations be literature.

While NGC was a pre-Marxist revolutionary, he did hold that "intellectual development, like development in any other area, including the political, depends on economic circumstances."

In 1861 he wrote a study called "Essays on Political Economy (According to Mill)", in which he attacked the bourgeoisie, developed his own economic theory which he called "theory of the working people" which stated "the need to replace the present economic system with a communist one."

NGC held that with socialism, "the separate classes of hired worker and employer will disappear, being replaced by a single class of people who will be workers and managers at the same time." NGC, being a pre-Marxist as I said, thought that Russia would be able to skip over the stage of capitalism and build socialism directly based on peasant communes. The GSE says that he, along with Herzen, was the founder of NARODNICHESTVO (the Narodnicks), also known as POPULISM.

The Russian government persecuted NGC from the early 60s to the end of his life by imprisoning him (seven years at hard labor) and placing him in internal exile for his writings and ideas. His 1862 novel, WHAT IS TO BE DONE was read by Lenin who used the title for one of his most important early works. Lenin had great respect for NGC and said that he was the only high level philosophical materialist in Russia from the 1850s up to 1888.

Well, comrades and friends, if you have persevered thus far you have finally reached the end of our course. Another one is brewing for the Fall, so be prepared! FINIS CORONAT OPUS.

THE ONCE AND FUTURE COMMUNIST

2010-11-30T11:28:00.001-08:00

FREDERICK ENGELS ON THE SUBJECT MATTER AND METHOD OF POLITICAL ECONOMY AND THE COMING REVOLUTION
(Reflections on Chapter 1 Part 2 of Anti-Dühring)

Thomas Riggins

What is the subject matter and method of political economy according to Engels? First, though, what is political economy? Today we tend to teach economics as a special discipline and political science as another separate subject. This is an attempt by the bourgeoisie to keep politics and economics independent of one another. Marx and Engels, as did most nineteenth century thinkers, thought they were closely interrelated.

Political economy for Engels was the study of the laws governing the PRODUCTION and EXCHANGE “of the material means of subsistence in human society." While production and exchange are human functions they are intimately related to each other and have a reciprocal causative relationship.

However, there are many different ways to carry out production and exchange and they vary from society to society and culture to culture. Thus: “Political economy is therefore essentially a HISTORICAL science.”
By which Engels means its laws are not like those of physics-- the same for all-- but conditioned by historical circumstances.

Nevertheless there are some general statements that can made. For example, Engels thinks it doesn’t matter what society you are dealing with the modes of production and exchange will CONDITION the way the society distributes its social product.

He says large and small scale farming always have very different distribution patterns. This is because the former is associated with class struggle (masters and slaves, lords and serfs, capitalists and wage slaves) while the latter can exist without class struggle (i.e., without classes).

Modern large scale industry can be contrasted with Medieval local handicraft production controlled by guilds. The latter lacks large capitalists and permanent wage slaves and the former is, along with the modern credit system and "free competition" (the exchange form of modern industry and credit) responsible for both these new classes.

Differences in distribution leads to CLASS DIFFERENCES and the development of the STATE which originally came about to defend small groups from external aggression and to protect the common interests (irrigation systems in the East according to Engels). As classes begin to develop the state takes on another function, that "of maintaining by force the conditions of existence and domination of the ruling class against the subject class."

New forms of distribution are not simply neutral developments of the interaction of the MODE OF PRODUCTION and the FORM OF EXCHANGE. In fact as new modes of production and exchange develop the old forms of distribution, the state, and the laws act as drags trying to
maintain the older forms of distribution. The new mode production and exchange faces a long struggle before it can cast off the older forms of distribution.

Engels thought that capitalism, in his time about three hundred years old, was undergoing just such an antithesis in its forms of distribution which was leading to its downfall. He described the antithesis as follows: on the one hand CONCENTRATION OF CAPITAL at one pole of society (that of the bourgeoisie) and at the other pole CONCENTRATION OF THE PROPERTYLESS MASSES without much capital into cities and towns.
He thought that as far a capitalism goes this double concentration "must of necessity bring about its downfall."

Well, Engels' timing was a bit off and the development of monopoly capitalism (modern imperialism), two world wars, premature revolutions in underdeveloped regions of the world, and the development of vast new markets in the third world have postponed the day of reckoning.

Capitalism is now over four hundred fifty years old and the CONCENTRATIONS Engels spoke of are even greater and more unstable. Capitalism has, in fact, run out of places to go and can no longer rely on the expansion of new markets to pull it out of the disruptions and market collapse caused by cyclical overproduction. The DOWNFALL expected by Engels is once again on the agenda and the current inability of the US, Europe, Japan, and much of the rest of the world to overcome the present world wide capitalist crisis means that the final conflict may be closer than any of us thinks.

As long as capitalist production is on the rise everyone, Engels says, welcomes it, even the victims of its way of distributing its products. Capitalism just seems to be the way economics works. The first hints that something is wrong with the system does NOT come from "the exploited masses themselves"-- it comes from "within the ruling class itself." Engels gives as examples the great utopians Saint-Simon, Fourier and Owen.

The appearance of these early objectors indicates that the system has reached the top of its curve and is just beginning to decline. The utopians became aware of the horrible conditions of living the system was forcing upon its wage slaves and were full of moral indignation. But, Engels says, "moral indignation, however justifiable, cannot serve economic science as an argument, but only as a symptom."

If capitalist horrors became more and more manifest in Engels' day just think what they are like today. Millions around the world are unemployed or living in poverty and even slavery (or should I say billions)-- armed conflicts on every continent save Australia and Antarctica over resources and land, and the very oceans as well as the atmosphere, is in the process of being destroyed in the pursuit of capitalist profits.

The duty of economists is to explain how all of this is the consequence of the capitalist mode of production (although many economists prostitute themselves in the service of the system for the rewards of position and money at the cost of truth) and beyond that "to reveal, within the already dissolving economic form of motion, the elements of the future new organisation of production and exchange which will put an end to those abuses." Today only the communist , socialist, and workers parties are able to do this on a grand scale.

In his day, Engels pointed out that political economy had concentrated on the analysis of the capitalist system and had not yet described other modes of production from the past. In the century or so since his death this has been remedied by Marxist historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, linguists and others.

In the meantime capitalism has developed even greater productive capacities than Engels imagined-- but these "colossal productive forces" the capitalists can no longer control-- they can't control their exploitation of the earth without destroying it-- Exxon, BP, and other giant oil companies, they can't mine it with polluting its water and air, blowing off the tops of its mountains, creating hugh rivers of toxic sludge, cutting down it rain forests and melting its glaciers and driving thousands of species toward extinction.

It only remains for us to show that all the vast powers of production the capitalists can no longer control "are only waiting to be taken possession of by a society organized for co-operative work on a planned basis to ensure to all members of society the means of existence and the free development of their capacities and indeed in constantly increasing measure." We should be yelling this from the roof tops: "We're mad as Hell and we're not going to take it anymore!" Put that in your tea bag and brew it. If the BP oil "spill" in the Gulf of Mexico doesn't convince you that the power of modern industry cannot be safely left in the control of for profit corporations, I'm afraid nothing will.

The science of political economy can be traced back to the beginnings of capitalism. Its most famous proponent was Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations) but it was also advanced by the great French thinkers of the Enlightenment. However, Engels points out, these thinkers thought they were dealing with universal laws of economics, just as physical scientists propose universal laws of nature.

"To them," Engels says, "the new science was not the expression of the conditions and requirements of their epoch, but the expression of eternal reason; the laws of production and exchange discovered by this science were not the laws of a historically determined form of those activities, but eternal laws of nature; they were deduced from the nature of man."

It was the work of Marx, and Engels, that really matured this science and saw that rather than eternal laws of nature economic laws of production and distribution were relative to economic systems-- feudalism, capitalism, etc. This is one reason Engels, in his book Anti-Dühring, could hold Dühring in such disdain who could write, after Das Capital, that he would, in his own words, explain "the most general LAWS OF NATURE governing all economics...."

There are a few more ideas exposited by Herr Dühring that Engels wants to correct. First Dühring thinks that capitalists, for instance, use FORCE as a means to exploit working people. Engels says this is wrong. Engels maintains that EVERY socialist worker KNOWS that force does not cause exploitation it only PROTECTS it: "the relation between capital and wage -labour is the basis of" exploitation and this relation is an economic one not one based on force.

Engels says Dühring also confounds the difference between PRODUCTION and CIRCULATION (i.e., exchange) by lumping them together under and heading of production and then adds DISTRIBUTION as a second and INDEPENDENT department of the economy. Far from this being the case, Engels tells us, distribution is in fact DEPENDENT on the production and exchange relations of any given society. In fact, if we know these two relations for any given historical society we can "infer the mode of distribution" in it.

So, Engels point is that, after a rough start in the seventeenth century and blooming forth in the Enlightenment, the science of political economy became fully scientific in the last half of the nineteenth century with the theories of Marx and the work of those economists who were influenced by him. Through their work working people the world over slowly became aware of their true role in production and distribution (the creation of surplus value) and how it is the exploitation of their labor power that is the basis of the capitalist system.

It is important to note that, for Marxists, it is not the idea that capitalism is somehow unjust and immoral (a la Dühring) that is the key point. Engels writes: "If for the impending overthrow of the present mode of distribution of the products of labour, with its crying contrasts of want and luxury, starvation and surfeit, we had no better guarantee than the consciousness that this mode of distribution is unjust, and that justice must eventually triumph, we should be in a pretty bad way, and we might have a long time to wait."

Engels appears to be a bit too optimistic. We are still waiting for the "impending overthrow" of capitalism. It has been overthrown in a few places but it has also been restored in large areas where it was previously overthrown. So, I think we are still waiting for a general overthrow-- which is long overdue. We should be impatient, but not unduly so. We have been waiting a hundred years or so while many of our fellows have been waiting over two thousand years for the overthrow of this earthly order with even less likelihood of being gratified. But we still "might have a long time to wait."

Well, just why did Engels think we would have a short wait? The reason was that unlike previous centuries when the only forces opposed to the exploitation of the masses of people by the few were based on appeals to morality or ethics, the nineteenth century saw the creation of a MATERIAL FORCE, not an ideal or religious one, that could actually contest and overthrow the existing economic order based on exploitation.

Two great revolutions had recently created movements calling for the end of class exploitation and for the equality of the people-- the English and French bourgeois revolutions. But these movements, Engels says "up to 1830 had left the working and suffering classes cold." But in Engels' day this call and this movement has in one generation "gained a strength that enables it to defy all the forces combined against it and to be confident of victory in the near future."

What made Engels so confident? There were two factors. First, modern industrial capitalism had created a working class ("called into being" a proletariat) that not only had the power to overthrow class privilege but the class system itself and further this is something it must do "on pain of sinking to the level of the Chinese coolie." Second, the bourgeoisie "has become incapable of any longer controlling the productive forces" created by modern industry. The bourgeoisie is "a class under whose leadership society is racing to ruin like a locomotive whose jammed safety-valve the driver is to weak to open."

History has a way of sometimes frustrating our expectations. To the working people of the generation following that of Engels, Lenin and the Russian Revolution represented the promise of the socialist victory. The bourgeois locomotive went off the rails and the resulting crash created two world wars and brought down the colonial empires of the Western Powers (at least de jure.)

However, unbeknownst to Engels, another engine was waiting in the roundhouse. This was the engine of US Imperialism which reconstructed the failed bourgeois system after the Second World War and brought about the downfall of the Russian Revolution. For a generation the call for the abolition of the classes left the workers of the US and it allies once again cold.

Meanwhile, against all expectations, the "Chinese coolies" had liberated themselves and created their own working class and are now creating a modern society based on a mixed economy. However, Engels was not too far off the mark. The advanced workers (in terms of pay scales) of the West are seeing their incomes sinking to the level of the Chinese. This will continue unless they "warm up" to the idea of socialism.

What are the future chances of socialism? Engels two factors are still at work. Capitalism is ripe for overthrow. As far as factor one is concerned. The class consciousness of the workers directed towards this end does not seem to be as developed as in Engels day. This is due to the massive pro capitalist propaganda both in the educational system and the mass media. But this hold is weakening and working people around the world are slowly beginning to wake up from their long sleep and see capitalism for what it really is. A naked system of human exploitation that can and must be replaced.

As for the second factor. The bourgeoisie is out of control! The rain forests, the oceans and the atmosphere are being destroyed by their run away system. These words of Engels are absolutely true today: "both the productive forces created by the modern capitalist mode of production and the system of distribution of goods established buy it have come into crying contradiction with that mode of production itself, and in fact to such a degree that, if the whole of modern society is not to perish, a revolution in the mode of production and distribution must take place, a revolution that will put an end to all class distinctions."

Unfortunately, I cannot agree with Engels that these two factors give me confidence that the Revolution will soon arrive. But that our society will perish if it doesn't seems all too apparent.

ENGELS ON THE DIALECTICS OF THE NEGATION OF THE NEGATION

2010-11-28T09:10:00.000-08:00

Thomas Riggins

Engels discusses the negation of the negation in Chapter XIII of Part One of Anti-Dühring [on Philosophy].

It seems that Herr Dühring approves of Marx's discussion of primitive accumulation at the end of Vol. I of Das Kapital: he calls it "relatively the best part of Marx's book." However, he has one big objection, viz., that Marx uses the "dialectical crutch" of "Hegelian verbal jugglery" to explain how private property will become social property. That verbal jugglery consists of the Hegelian concept of "the negation of the negation."

Herr Dühring thinks Marx ends up spouting nonsense since that is what "must necessarily spring" from using "Hegelian dialectics as the scientific basis" of one's discussion. This upsets Engels, but Dühring could take comfort from the fact that most bourgeois economists today would agree with him. In fact, it is because they agree with him that most of them themselves spout nonsense

Before getting down to the nitty-gritty of the negation of the negation, Engels wants to take Dühring to task for thinking Marx was spouting nonsense when he spoke of property being both individual AND social at the same time.

Engels now explains the meaning of Marx's notion of property being both individually and socially owned at the same time. This problem comes up in Chapter 32 of volume one of DAS KAPITAL ("Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation").

In this chapter Marx details how the growth of capitalism led to the concentration of workers into factories and their loss of their own tools (which as individual craftsmen they formerly owned) resulting in their dependence on the capitalists not only for employment but also for the tools with which to work.

This development of capitalism is the FIRST NEGATION , with respect to the workers, of private property-- i.e., they lose their means of production to the capitalists (their tools and handicraft properties. But capitalism brings about its own negation (the SECOND NEGATION). This means that it gives birth to socialism as a result of its own internal contradictions ("with the inexorability of a law of Nature"). Thus Marx says: "It is the negation of the negation." [The "It" is socialism.]

"This does not, " Marx writes, "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 and of the means of production."

So, Engels maintains, Herr Dühring is way off the mark by calling that notion of Marx's a lot of contradictory Hegelian nonsense. Engels says, "To anyone who understands plain talk this means that social ownership extends to the land and other means of production, and individual ownership to the products, that is, the articles of consumption."

How can Dühring be so confused with regard to Marx's meaning? He misquotes Marx's words over and over again. Engels decides it is either because Dühring can't understand Marx, or he is quoting him from memory and getting it wrong.

It is important to realize that Marx is not using dialects in a mechanical fashion to construct his description of capitalism. Marx's famous observation, in this chapter of Das Kapital, that "One capitalist always kills many" and that capitalism should lead to socialism, is the result of an EMPIRICAL investigation of the capitalist mode of production. Due to competition and monopoly, capitalist concentration leads to the domination of a few big corporations, to over production and to the relative impoverishment of the working masses.

These masses, however, have been trained to work in large socialized industrial enterprises which run on principles of specialization of functions and cooperation of labor. It is a small step from this capitalist set up to socialism. Only the private ownership of these effectively socialized means of production needs to be replaced by public ownership.

Right now, Spring 2010, General Motors Corporation is already a virtually socialized enterprise (60% owned by the American people). It is only the lack of a socialist consciousness in the working class that allows GM to remain under capitalist control and allows representatives of the capitalist class to be elected to positions of governance in the US.

What Marx showed was that this process of change by which the petty producers were eliminated and replaced by the capitalist enterprises has now developed to the point where capitalism has, as Engels says, "likewise itself created the material conditions from which it must perish." [It's taking its sweet time about it.]

The point is that this is an HISTORICAL PROCESS, and Engels says "if it is at the same time a dialectical process, this is not Marx's fault, however annoying it may be to Herr Dühring."

This means that Marx is not appealing to the NEGATION OF THE NEGATION to demonstrate the historical necessity of the transformation of capitalism into socialism. He is doing just the opposite according to Engels. He is showing, by an appeal to history, that such a transformation is already under way and that this is the trend of future development. Only after doing this does Marx also point out this development can be described as well "in accordance with a definite dialectical law." He is NOT saying the law determines this development. E=mc2 does not determine that mass and energy are interchangeable, but that they are allows us to discover that E=mc2. Failure to realize this shows "Herr Dühring's total lack of understanding of the nature of dialectics."

Engels proceeds to give several examples of dialectical thinking that exemplify the negation of the negation. For example, in olden times there was common ownership of land which was negated by private property and all the attendant evils of that negation are currently manifest in our time and can only be eliminated by a negation of the negation (socialism).

Engels discusses how this was seen by Rousseau as far back as the middle of the 18th century, and although he did know the "Hegelian jargon" he nevertheless developed "a line of thought which corresponds exactly to the one developed in Marx's CAPITAL." Let's look at the work Engels refers to.

Rousseau wrote the DISCOURSE ON THE ORIGIN OF INEQUALITY in 1755. Unlike most of the thinkers of the Enlightenment Rousseau thinks that the development of civilization, the growth of private property and individualism have led to the intensification of human inequality rather than being forces for the growth of liberty, equality and fraternity.

The invention of agriculture brought about he concept of property and the idea of justice to ensure the rights of people with respect to it. It is not possible, Rousseau says, “to conceive how property can come from anything but manual labor.”

But once property in land and its products was introduced greed, competition, the desire to accumulate the produce and labors of others was also introduced. “All these evils were the first effects of property, and the inseparable attendants of growing inequality.”

We must remember that in the state of nature there is no “right” to property other than what a person, by his/her own labor can extract for the necessities of life. The growth of private property, the development of classes, the foundation of the state and laws to protect private property represent a negation of the original existential condition of humanity vis a vis nature.

Now, under the rule of law and living in a state, how do the rich and powerful few prevent the many, the poor and oppressed, from asserting their rights to their own labor and the natural use of the products of nature? That is, how do they keep their negation of the natural state from being negated?

Rousseau says “the rich man, thus urged by necessity, conceived at length the profoundest plan that ever entered the mind of man: this was to employ in his favor the forces of those who attacked him, to make allies of his adversaries, to inspire them with different maxims and to give them other institutions as favorable to himself as the law of nature was unfavorable.”

This was done by appealing to all to join together in forming a society based on laws designed to protect everyone from everyone. Here is what we should do, said the first usurpers of the common property of humanity: “Let us, in a word, instead of turning our forces against ourselves, collect them in a supreme power which may govern us by wise laws, protect and defend all the members of the association, repulse their common enemies, and maintain eternal harmony among us.”

Well this certainly sounds good. Liberty and Justice for All-- who could be against that. Throw in motherhood and apple pie and you have an unbeatable formula. Thus, Rousseau says, “All ran headlong to their chains, in hope of securing their liberty.”

This was, "or may have been," Rousseau says, "the origin of society and law." This was a clever set up pulled off by the rich. Engels would suggest, I am sure, that it was probably not consciously done. This scenario is a retroactive description based on a rational analysis of the consequences of the agricultural revolution. Rousseau lacked the vocabulary, as did Enlightenment intellectuals in general, to describe these historical developments as purely objective developments. This vocabulary would have to await Hegel, Feuerbach and Marx.

The result of the negation of individuals living in a state of nature was the appearance of civilization and the existence of numerous independent political organizations which recreated the conditions of the state of nature but now. on a higher level, between states and peoples.

One need only turn to the daily press to read about the outrages in Afghanistan, the rape of Iraq for its oil, or the constant bullying of small states by powerful ones to see the truth of Rousseau's words that this change is responsible for "national wars, battles, murders, and reprisals, which shock nature and outrage reason; together with all those horrible prejudices which class among the virtues the honor of shedding human blood. The most distinguished men hence learned to consider cutting each other's throats a duty; at length men massacred their fellow-creatures by thousands without so much as knowing why, and committed more murders in a single day's fighting, and more violent outrages in the sack of a single town, than were committed in the state of nature during whole ages over the whole earth." Well, this is where we find ourselves today. I hope left-center unity will get us out of here to a better place.

The remedy to this state of affairs, the negation of the negation, is the abolition of private property and the establishment of a world socialist order. The heroic attempt, and temporary defeat, to establish this order in the last century reminds us of the immense difficulty involved in this task, but it in no way diminishes the need to do it.

Engels gives several other examples of the negation of the negation for the edification of Herr Dühring but I think his point is sufficiently clear. He concludes his discussion of philosophy (part one of Anti-Dühring) with a brief conclusion (Chapter XIV) which is that Herr Dühring has absolutely nothing of importance to say about philosophy. Nevertheless, as we have seen, he served as a useful foil for Engels to give a fine presentation of Marxist philosophy. And so we conclude this brief introduction to Engels thought. If you persevered to the end with me-- thanks.

ENGELS ON DIALECTICS: QUANTITY & QUALITY

2010-11-25T07:51:00.000-08:00

Thomas Riggins

Engels discusses the dialectics of quantity and quality in chapter 12 of part one of Anti-Dühring. In this chapter Engels takes on Dühring anti-dialectical approach to philosophy. Not having understood Hegel, Dühring thinks that since a contradiction appears to be absurd (how can you have A and not-A at the same time?) there can be no contradictions in reality. Engels sets himself the task of clearing up Dühring confusions.

Examples of contradictions in nature, according to Engels are, for example, MOTION, where a body is "in one and the same place and also not in it" and LIFE, where a being "is at each moment itself and yet something else." This, I must admit, sounds a bit like Sartre's existentialism and is perhaps for our time a bit more metaphorical than scientific. What Engels means by motion being a contradiction is perhaps best expressed in the following quote from the article "Motion" in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.

"The contradictory nature of motion consists in the unbroken unity of two opposing factors --- changeability and stability, motion and rest. in fact, the concept of change makes sense only in connection with the idea of a relatively stable, continuously fixed state. This very change, however, is at the same time also a fixed state, which continues and maintains itself; that is, it also possesses stability. In this contradictory unity of changeability and stability the leading role is played by changeability, for everything new in the world first appears by means of it, whereas stability and rest merely fix what has been attained through this process" (from the article by V.I. Sviderskii).

Dühring also makes fun of Das Kapital because of Marx's use of dialectics.
Marx's book, Dühring writes , is an example of the "absence of natural and intelligible logic" resulting in "dialectical frills and mazes and conceptual arabesques." As an example of Dühring complete misunderstanding of Marx's Das Kapital, Engels focuses on his attack on Marx's use of the dialectical notion that quantitative changes bring about qualitative changes.

Here is what Dühring himself has to say about this: "What a comical effect is produced by the reference to the confused, hazy Hegelian notion that quantity changes into quality, and that therefore an advance, when it reaches a certain size, becomes capital by this quantitative increase alone!"

By adding the word "alone" Dühring falsifies both the Hegelian law and Marx's understanding of it. This is what Marx wrote in Vol. 1 of Das Kapital when he discussed how a sum of exchange values, after reaching a certain quantity could become capital. "Here, as in natural science, IS SHOWN the correctness of the law discovered by Hegel (in his LOGIC) that merely quantitative differences beyond a certain point pass into qualitative changes."

Engels says Marx held a sum of exchange values can become capital only when it reaches a definite minimum size, depending on the conditions, "this fact is a PROOF OF THE CORRECTNESS of the Hegelian law." Dühring says Marx held BECAUSE quantity changes in to quality THEREFORE at a certain sum exchange value will become capital. The part about "depending on the conditions" is left out so "the very opposite" of what Marx meant [ i.e., an effect is taken as a cause] is put forth as his meaning. This is typical of what Dühring calls his "philosophy of reality." And, Engels adds, "he has the cheek to describe as COMIC the nonsense which he himself has fabricated."

One of the most obvious examples of the dialectical law under discussion is that of H2O. Water in the solid state becomes a liquid with the quantitative addition of heat and with even more heat the liquid state qualitatively changes into a gas.

Engels also points out that all of Part IV of Das Kapital (where Marx discusses the production of relative surplus value and modern industry, etc.) "deals with innumerable cases in which quantitative change alters the quality, and also qualitative changes alter the quantity, ot the things under consideration." The molecular theory of modern [1880s] chemistry is also based on this law.

Thus, Engels maintains, in both the social world and the natural world around us we "can see how 'quantity changes into quality,'and this allegedly confused, hazy Hegelian notion appears in so to speak corporeal form in things and processes--- and no one but Herr Dühring is confused and befogged by it."

Next we will deal with the last chapter on Engels' discussion of philosophy in Anti-Dühring-- the chapter on the negation of the negation.

Marxism and Vegitarianism

2010-11-23T19:34:00.001-08:00

Thomas Riggins

Mark Rowlands has an interesting review of Jonathan Safran Foer's new book, EATING ANIMALS, in the TLS of March 5, 2010 ("Choice Cuts"). It raises important moral, and for Marxists, I think, political problems, that arise from the way animals are killed and consumed under the capitalist dominated meat production industry (under which almost ALL our meat is produced in the US-- ie., by CAFOs or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations.

Unfortunately, Foer's argument is based on LOGICAL conclusions deduced from readily available empirical facts and , as Rowlands points out human beings in general "don't respond well to logical argument"-- especially when they are engaged in politics. Marxists, however, if they have escaped from the mental disorder of sectarianism and have matured beyond the infantile disorder of ultra-leftism, may prove an exception since their whole philosophy ultimately derives from a logical conclusion deduced from Marx, after he read Hegel's Logic, regarding the way to end human exploitation by means of abolishing the extraction of surplus labor by capitalists.

Well, let us look at Foer's arguments and see if Marxists should also fight to end the exploitation of our fellow animals-- not only on moral grounds but also on the grounds of the SELF INTEREST of the working people of the world. The following is based on Rowlands' review, Double quotes (") are from Foer's book, single quotes (') from Rowlands.

Why did Foer write this book? Because he has recently become a parent and he wanted to set forth examples of the best moral behavior and health behavior for his children. It may turn out that this example applies to all of us.

The book is based on three empirical facts (scientific facts) which are used as premisses to draw a conclusion that any person who is rational (and not an overly irrational teabager) will accept. The premisses are:

1. Human beings do not need to eat animals to live healthy lives.

2. They way animals are now treated and killed for us to eat 'causes suffering on an unimaginable scale' [this presupposes we think this is morally wrong-tr].

3. The way animals are now raised for food is 'environmentally catastrophic.'

THEREFORE: We should not use animals for food as they are now treated and raised.

Notice this is not an absolute vegetarian conclusion, and indeed the author calls for what he terms "contingent vegetarianism"-- but more on this later. Let's look at the evidence for the truth of the three premisses.

Premiss One: The American Dietetic Association says that vegetarian diets are appropriate for humans at all stages of life and that meat eating is unnecessary [like smoking-- it just a bad habit--tr] and is healthy for us--less cancer and heart disease. [Working people would certainly benefit from better and more healthy diets and Marxists should be advocating for vegetarianism as tribunes of the people--tr].

Premiss Two: the 'horrors of factory farms are well known.' Cattle are supposed to be killed by a bolt to the brain, to cite just one example, but investigations have shown a 'non-negligible minority' are still alive and conscious when the skin is peeled off their faces and their legs are chopped off. Similar horrors happen to pigs, chickens, horses, etc. [Since many humans are singularly unaffected by the torture and killing of animals (hunters fishers, fans of cock, dog, and bull fights, fur wearers, etc.,) this may be the weakest premiss-- tr].

Premiss Three: The UN Climate Commission (Pew Commission) reports that the the animal food industry 'is responsible for more climate change emissions than all forms of transport combined-- in fact, nearly 40 per cent more.' Talk about reducing gas emissions! And don't forget all the government unregulated animal poop flooding the nation, getting into the food supply-(E. coli comes from animal intestines--what's it doing in peanut butter?), as well as the water supply. I hope you don't live near a factory pig farm.

What is "contingent vegetarianism?" Foer himself has become "a committed vegetarian." He is not vegan. Cheese and milk seem to be ok, but in so far as the dairy business is also part of the CAFO system (dairy cows end up there as do their calves) premiss two seems applicable.

Foer leaves open the possibility of humane (?) farming which allows for limited meat ending but Rowlands thinks that Foer's arguments are stronger that Foer himself thinks they are. 'The qualified nature of his conclusion -- contingent vegetarianism -- suggests that he hasn't quite understood just how convincing his book is.'

My take is that vegetarianism is the only politically correct position to take vis a vis the interests of the working class, and not only the working class but all of humanity as well. First, how can Marxists not advocate the most healthy diet possible for people? Capitalist agribusiness pushes meat for profit not out of concern for human well being. Second,if we destroy the earth, sea and atmosphere with unending pollution the working people and all other segments of humanity cannot possible survive. CAFOs are major contributors to this pollution. The capitalists have no intention of doing anything serious about ending pollution as long as their super profits keep rolling in. To defend our class and humanity we should advocate AT LEAST contingent vegetarianism.

I think that under capitalism we will not be able to change significantly the eating habits of people. It will take the complete reeducation of humanity that will be required under socialism to bring up future generations of humans dedicated to people before profits, the abolition of war, protection of the environment, the end of economic exploitation, and the end of the killing and eating of animals with all of its attendant cruelty.

Nevertheless, this is a topic worthy of consideration and discussion by the international communist and worker's movement. The time has come for both individual Marxists, and, indeed, whole parties to debate this issue and come to a consensus based on the scientific evidence and the logical conclusions derived from it.

ENGELS ON FREEDOM AND NECESSITY

2010-11-22T08:28:00.001-08:00

Thomas Riggins

Engels discusses this topic in Chapter XI, Part I of Anti-Dühring (Morality and Law. Freedom and Necessity). Dühring claims to discuss the problems of law and politics with knowledge gained from "the MOST EXHAUSTIVE SPECIALIZED STUDIES." And he contrasts his own in depth studies with the "admittedly neglected legal studies of Herr Marx."

Well, if Thomas Henry Huxley was Darwin's Bulldog, Engels was Marx's and nothing sets him off more that Dühring's propensity to portray himself in a favorable light at the expense of Marx, especially when Marx's knowledge of the subject matter under review was many magnitudes greater than the paltry speculations put forth by Dühring.

In his discussion on law and politics Dühring begins by making sweeping generalizations about the law in general, such as that "revenge" is the basis of criminal law, and then moves on to comparisons of French law with the Prussian 'Landrecht'-- all of which reveals that Herr Dühring knows very little about these matters. He seems ignorant of the fact that French law,that is, modern civil law [outside of England] "rests on the social achievements of the Great French Revolution" as embodied in the Code Napoléon.

Dühring puts himself forward as a great student of the law, but Engels points out that he is not only ignorant with regard to French law, but that his ignorance carries over to Roman law and even Germanic law (especially its English version "which is the only Germanic law which has developed independently of Roman authority up to the present day and spread to all parts of the world....")

Dühring's form of socialism has another great defect and that is his rampant anti-Semitism. Engels says "his hatred of the Jews" is carried "to ridiculous extremes" which he "exhibits on every possible occasion." Engels really takes Dühring to task over this issue. Dühring thinks that hatred of Jews is based on "natural grounds" and is a "natural judgment" while Engels says it is a wide spread prejudice "inherited from the bigotry of the Middle Ages."

What is worse is that Dühring thinks one of the arguments in favor of "socialism" is that it will lead to better methods of Jew control. These are Dühring's words: "socialism is the only power which can oppose population conditions with a rather strong Jewish admixture." Engels sums up his view of Dühring's opinions as those of a man full of "grandiloquent boasts" and exhibiting "the crassest ignorance."

At this point Engels remarks that when dealing with questions of morality and law it is hard to ignore the question of "free will." Are all our actions predetermined or can we be held responsible for them? Herr Dühring gives two, conflicting, answers to this problem. His first answer is that there is a tug of war in the mind (brain) between instincts and reason. Our instincts pull us one way and reason another. The more rational we are, the more educated and subject to reason, the less we will be subject to the irrational emotions driven by out instinctual impulses. Dühring thinks this explanation will do away with the silly notion of "inner freedom." Each individual's behavior will be determined by his or her proportion of rational to irrational "drives".

Engels does not really evaluate this first answer, but says it is blown out of the water by Dühring's second answer. Engels quotes Dühring: "We base moral responsibility on freedom, which however means nothing more to us than susceptibility to conscious motives in accordance with out natural and acquired intelligence. All such motives operate with the inevitability of natural law, notwithstanding an awareness of possible contrary actions; but it is precisely on this unavoidable compulsion that we rely when we apply the moral levers."

I think the problem is this second answer ends up with "unavoidable compulsion." Yet the first answer also says about the same thing. The tug of war between reason and unreason will be resolved by the preponderance of the strength of each force within the individual. Engels calls it a "parallelogram of forces" resulting in the action taken being a mean between them. So perhaps Engels overstates the case that Dühring's two answers contradict each other.

Be that as it may, Engels is really interested in the second answer. It is not, he says, the result of any original thinking on the part of Dühring. It is a dumbed down version of Hegel, as is so often the case with Dühring's views. It was Hegel who "was the first to state correctly the relation between freedom and necessity". "Necessity," Hegel wrote, " is BLIND only IN SO FAR AS IT IS NOT UNDERSTOOD."

Engels explains that. FREEDOM is knowing what the laws of nature are and how we can use them "towards definite ends." This is true both for the natural [or external] realm (physics, chemistry, etc.,) and for the inner or mental realm. These two sets of laws can be separated conceptually (the physical and mental) but they are actually one set in reality. "Freedom of the will therefore means nothing but the capacity to make decisions with knowledge of the subject."

This means the more knowledge you have, the more educated you are about the things you are dealing with the FREER you are in dealing with them and at the same time the more NECESSITY comes into play-- i.e., of knowing what necessary actions must be done to attain the goal sought. Engels says, with respect to the will, "the uncertainty, founded on ignorance, which seems to make an arbitrary choice among many different and conflicting possible decisions, shows precisely by this that it is not free, that is is controlled by the very object it should it self control. And since freedom increases with knowledge of the world it, like equality, and law and morality, is "necessarily a product of historical development."

The greatest liberation from natural necessity of humankind on record, yet still strictly determined by physical laws, was the discovery of how to make FIRE: "the generation of fire from friction." Engels says that in our [his] age we might think the greatest advance in human control of nature, and thus in freedom, was the invention of the STEAM ENGINE and the modern world that it has made possible. We would be wrong. Fire was the very first of the forces of nature that humans began to learn how to control and it was this feat of "man" that "thereby separated him for ever from the animal kingdom."

Nevertheless, the invention of the steam engine was a great leap forward. Engels thought that the steam engine had so increased the productive forces of humankind that we could, in the age of steam, solve the social problem. For the increase in the PRODUCTIVE FORCES "alone make possible a state of society in which there are no longer class distinctions" in which there be will enough socially created product for all and "for the first time there can be talk of real human freedom"-- that is, "of an existence in harmony with the laws of nature that have become known."

Well, if we are threatening to destroy our environment, killing the oceans, and destroying the last of the oxygen producing rain forests (the lungs of the planet) and billions of people are facing starvation and famine, something has gone amiss in the last century and a half and we are definitely out of sync with the laws of nature while the increase in the productive forces is bringing servitude not freedom to masses of humanity. Engels vision is on hold.

Engels, however, was no utopian socialist, and would not have been shocked if he had been told that the human race was still many generations away from his musings on the attainment of "real human freedom." He had a longer time frame than many of his erstwhile followers who throw in the towel whenever there is a major setback. "But how young the whole of human history still is," he wrote, "and how ridiculous it would be to attempt to ascribe any absolute validity to our present views, is evident from the simple fact that all past history can be characterized as the history of the epoch from the practical discovery of the transformation of mechanical motion into heat up to that of the transformation of heat into mechanical motion." Engels' views are, of course, not absolutely valid, but I see nothing that has happened in the miniscule slice of time that has expired since he expressed them and the present day which would lead one to think they are out of date.

ENGELS ON "EQUALITY"

2010-11-21T10:49:00.000-08:00

Thomas Riggins

Engels discusses this topic in Chapter X, Part I of Anti-Dühring (Morality and Law. Equality). Engels discusses Dühring's method of analysis. Dühring thinks you break a subject down to its most simple components and then, using mathematical axioms, you can logically deduce what its true nature is. Engels calls this the A PRIORI method. In this method you logically deduce the nature of the object from its concept not from from the object itself. Then you reverse the process. You take your refurbished concept of the object and then judge the nature of the object by means of it instead of just studying the object itself. This is the garbage in, garbage out method.

In discussing "equality", Herr Dühring deduces the nature of society by logic "instead of from the real social relations of the people around him." He says the simplest form of society consists of just two people. Here you have two human wills and at this stage the two are ENTIRELY EQUAL to one another. From this Dühring says we can deduce "the development of the fundamental concepts of right." These two persons, by the way, are men.

Engels calls these two equal men "phantoms" because to be entirely equal they have to be free from any real life distinctions, including sexual distinctions and experiences, and thus become just abstract creations of Dühring's brain not real people at all.

Now what would justify one person becoming subordinate to another if they are entirely equal? Well if one of the two wills was, Engels explains, "afflicted with inadequate self-determination" then Dühring allows for its subordination. In other words the entirely equal wills are not entirely equal after all. Engels gives two more examples from Dühring in which "equality" will be replaced by inequality and subordination: they are "when two persons are 'morally unequal'" and when they are unequal mentally. Of course it is Herr Dühring and his followers who decide the moral and mental qualifications.

All this goes to show, Engels concludes, that Dühring has a shallow and botched outlook regarding the notion of equality. But this does not mean the idea of equality does not play "an important agitational role in the socialist movement of almost every country." The issue of Human Rights is the contemporary version of this debate. Following Engels, I will say that the "scientific content" of Human Rights will "determine its value for proletarian agitation."

The scientific content will be established by studying the history of the idea of Human Rights (AKA "equality.") It took thousands of years to get from the ideas about equality in the ancient world to those that the socialist movement holds, or should hold today. In the classical world of Greece and Rome inequality was as important as equality (slaves versus Roman citizenship for example).

Christianity recognized a form of equality-- all were equally subject to original sin. There was also, early on, the equality of the ELECT. But these were really bogus forms of equality as far as THIS world was concerned. Then, when the Germans overran the Roman Empire the ideals of human equality were set back for a thousand years due to the entrenchment of the FEUDAL ORDER.

Nevertheless, within that order a class was growing that would "become the standard- bearer of the modern demand for equality: the bourgeoisie." As a result of the maritime discoveries of the fifteenth century (da Gama, Columbus, etc.,) markets began to grow and the handicraft industries of the middle ages expanded into manufacturing concerns. This economic revolution took place within the political structure of feudalism. The bourgeoisie began to champion the notion of human rights and equality because human labor qua labor was seen as of equal value, a fact recognized in bourgeoisie political economy as the law of value "according to which," Engels writes, "the value of a commodity is measured by the socially necessary labour embodied in it." This connection was first brought to light by Marx in Das Kapital, Engels says.

The social contradiction between the new economic order of capitalism and the feudal political order brought about the great revolutions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Engels explains that "where economic relations required freedom and equality of rights, the political system opposed them at every step." It is interesting to note that the bourgeoisie was able to wrest power from the feudalists and is to day's dominant ruling class. The same contradiction on a higher level, this time between the working classes and the bourgeoisie, has not been resolved. But only a revolutionary transfer of political power to the workers can overcome the economic problems, as well as the social questions of war and imperialism, that mark the present period of bourgeoisie decline.

Engels points out that with the decline of the Roman Empire and the development of independent states each claiming the same rights to nationhood as the others, and being, in the bourgeois world at least, on similar levels of development, the notion of equality gave way to to that of universal human rights. That "universal human rights" are basically bourgeois rights is illustrated by the fact that "the American constitution, the first to recognize the rights of man, in the same breath confirms the slavery of the coloured races existing in America: class privileges are proscribed, race privileges sanctioned."

The logical extension of the call for the abolition of class privileges by the bourgeoisie is the working class' call for the abolition of classes themselves. There are two aspects to the demand for equally made by the working people. The first is a protest against the poverty and oppression of the workers as compared to the wealth and power of the rich. This first aspect is spontaneous and "is simply an expression of the revolutionary instinct" of oppressed people. The second aspect is derived from the bourgeoisie's own ideals and demand for equality in face of the feudal order and is put forth "in order to stir up the workers against the capitalists with the aid of the capitalists' own assertions." In both cases, according to Engels, the real demand of the workers is not class equality but the ABOLITION OF CLASSES. Any demand beyond [i.e., other than] that, he says, "passes into absurdity."

What Engels has tried to show is that our modern notions of human rights and of human equality are not eternal verities good for every time and clime. Both the bourgeois and proletarian versions are historical products. So are the views of the Taliban, for example, on the treatment of women and the rights of non Islamic people or those of some South Africans on the number of wives a man can have. These views as well as those we call "modern", by which we mean 'Western" in their capitalist or working class incarnations developed as a result of "definite historical conditions that in turn themselves presuppose a long previous history."

Those values, therefore, WE take for granted are the product of a specific historical trajectory in which they functioned to bring about and stabilize the world capitalist system. Engels says, quoting Marx, if the modern notion of human rights "already possesses the fixity of a popular prejudice" this is due to the continuing influence of the Enlightenment on our times. The task of socialists today is to agitate for truly effective universal human rights-- and these include the right to a living income, to health, to food, housing, education, and to live in a world at peace-- attainable once and for all through the abolition of classes.

ENGELS ON "ETERNAL TRUTHS"

2010-11-10T18:52:00.000-08:00

Thomas Riggins

Engels discusses this topic in chapter IX of Anti-Dühring (Morality and Law. Eternal Truths). He begins as usual by calling Dühring's statements on this topic BALDERDASH: and well he might since the good Herr begins by saying, "He who can think only by means of language has never yet learnt what is meant by ABSTRACT and PURE thought. "Indeed! Thinking without language? This prompts Engels to say then the "animals are the most abstract and purest thinkers." This quip is reminiscent of Hegel's response to the theologian Schleiermacher who said the essence of Christianity was unquestioning faith in your Lord. Hegel said then "the dog makes the best Christian."

Dühring is not a relativist on the subject of laws and morals. There is only one true moral law, not only for humans but creatures form outer space as well. He says, morals "must occur in concordant fashion among all extra-human beings whose active reason has to deal with the conscious ordering of life impulses in the form of instincts." By "extra-human beings" he means those living "on other celestial bodies." "Rational beings" would be (following Kant) a better term I think.

Dühring is quite insistent about this sort of thing, writing, "GENUINE TRUTHS ARE ABSOLUTELY IMMUTABLE ... so that it is altogether stupid to think that the correctness of knowledge is something that can be affected by time and changes in reality." What he is claiming is that human knowledge can attain, as Engels says, "sovereign validity and an unconditional claim to truth."

Well, is that true? "Is human thought sovereign?" Engels asks us to consider the following (it is very instructive for those who accuse Marxists of being DOGMATIC): "... in all probability we are just at the beginning of human history [not at the End of History as some pundits declared tr], and the generations which will put US right are likely to be far more numerous than those whose knowledge we --- often enough with a considerable degree of contempt --- have the opportunity to correct." This is to ward off Herr Dühring and his absolutely immutable balderdash. With some exceptions Engels has held up fairly well I think (with some refurbishing along the way.)

As for human knowledge being sovereign, Engels says it is "in its disposition, its vocation, its possibilities and its historical ultimate goal; it is not sovereign and it is limited in its individual realization and in reality at any particular moment." As for "eternal truths," Herr Dühring's conception is too idealistic and not of much use in the actual practice of science. Reason would arrive at the point where the intellectual world would be completely at a stand still if we had only Dühring's immutable truths to work with. But this does not mean that there are NO eternal truths at all.

Well there are some such as 2+2=4, water is H2O, Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC. Simple mathematical, chemical, historical truths, etc., but certainly no BIG eternal truths such as Dühring has in mind-- laws of history or of politics.

Especially when we are dealing with social phenomena are we not going to find eternal laws. This type of knowledge is always limited and relative and, as Engels points out , these kinds of law "exist only in a particular epoch and among particular peoples and are by their very nature transitory." And as for the dogmatism of Marxists-- Engels wants to stress that NO "individual whatsoever is in a position to deliver the final and ultimate truth." One can imagine what he would have thought of the Cult of Personality.

Outside of trivial truths we cannot have much faith that absolutely immutable truth is going to be available to us in the physical and social sciences with respect to truth and error, but what about morality and the knowledge of good and evil? Well, throughout history and all over the world we find different moralities and moral outlooks and some "are in direct contradiction to each other."

In the West we have two versions of Christian feudal morality, Catholic and Protestant, and many subdivisions of these as well. No morality is "true" in the sense of ultimate reality. Different classes have different values. There is a bourgeois morality and a working class morality. Engels thinks the morality of the future is, for us, truer than that which represents the past. The working class represents the future of humanity, for Engels, and so as far as "truth" is concerned it is working class morality that is "true" for us. It has been over a hundred and thirty years since Engels wrote Anti-Dühring and we have seen two large scale experiments in working class control-- the Chinese and Soviet experiments. It would be interesting to compare the morality taught in these two dispensations with Western bourgeois notions of morality. The following reference is a place to start [The Role of Morality in Communist Production by GeorgLukács1919 www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/1919/morality.htm. ]

Engels says the three classes of modern society are the feudal aristocracy, the the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. I think by now only the last two have any relevance in the major parts of the world. These two have different moral ideals, although many strata of the proletariat have been contaminated by bourgeois values. But the fact of these two different moral outlooks shows "that men, consciously or unconsciously, derive their ethical ideas in the last resort from the practical relations on which their class position is based--- from the economic relations in which they carry on production and exchange."

If there are areas of agreement between differing moralities, Engels says, this is because they have shared a common historical development and thus overlapping is to be expected. Engels rejects any attempt to impose eternal truths of morality since they are the products of historical conditioning. He also thinks there has been progress in moral ideas as in other fields (science, medicine, industry, etc.) and this is due to the class struggle, the struggle of people to free themselves from exploitation and poverty, which has led to moral reforms. But a truly human morality that rests on foundations independent of class struggle "becomes possible only at a stage of society which has not only overcome class antagonisms but has even forgotten them in practical life."

THE ORGANIC WORLD: NATURAL PHILOSOPHY IN ENGELS' ANTI-DUHRING

2010-10-27T07:59:00.001-07:00

Thomas Riggins
(Engels and Philosophy)

Frederick Engels discusses the state of natural philosophy in the nineteenth century in light of the views of Herr Eugen Dühring in chapters seven and eight of Part I "Philosophy" of his
classic work Anti-Dühring (Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science.)

Dühring doesn't have much to say about the transition from the inorganic to the organic world. He seems to favor a gradual transition whereas Engels thinks of things in terms of a leap, no matter how gradual it appears to outside observation. Again, Dühring appears to be borrowing his views from Hegel without giving the latter credit. Hegel at least recognized the leap involved-- a quantitative change leading to a qualitative one, so he is far in advance of Dühring.

Dühring also lifts the idea of teleology in nature from Hegel, but in an incorrect and mangled fashion. Teleological explanations, i.e., nature working towards ends, are no longer fashionable in natural science-- since God was kicked out as an explanatory device. But even as he dumps all over Dühring, Engels seems more supportive of Hegel's view. In his Logic (the section on the Doctrine of the Notion),Hegel appeals to "purpose" to explain life arising out of chemism.

For Hegel this is an "inner purpose" which, Engels points out, is completely within nature itself and to be explained from the nature of the elements at hand. It is not "purpose" coming from the outside from some other source than nature itself (such as God, or eternal wisdom, etc.) Confusion with regard to these different meanings of purpose results in people "thoughtlessly ascribing to nature conscious and purposive activity." Dühring, who calls Hegel "crude" himself makes this mistake and speaks of nature "knowing'' and indirectly "willing" such and such actions and results. Hegel would never make such an error. Yet Dühring even has the nerve to attack DARWIN for, in his own words, "pseudo-scientific mystifications " when that is just what he himself has done.

Darwin is attacked for using the ideas on population put forth by Malthus as part of his theory of evolution. Dühring also says Darwin got his ideas from animal breeders and copied the views of Lamarck. So Darwin's views are "frivolous." Dühring, according to Engels holds that if you take out Lamarck then Darwinism "is a piece of brutality directed against humanity." Dühring doesn't like the struggle for existence aspect of the theory.

Marx and Engels were early enthusiasts of Darwin so it is no surprise that Engels mounts a major assault against Dühring on this issue. He both explains Darwin's theory and gives a robust defense. Natural selection is analogous to animal and plant breeding. In the latter case humans select the traits that pop up and breed those individuals to the neglect of others until they have created a new breed of plant or animal.

In nature there is no conscious selection. If a trait turns up, and is useful, and the individual survives to breed and pass it on, then eventually, if it leads to better reproductive survival and success it will produce a new population with the trait and the older population will die out and be replaced (all other things being equal). This is the origin of species. And there is a struggle for reproductive success-- "the survival of the fittest." [This phrase was first used by Herbert Spencer as a synonym for natural section but was picked up and used by Darwin as well.]

It was true that Darwin did use Malthus' theory of population to illustrate the struggle for survival in the natural world and this was an error. Malthus' theories have long been discredited, Engels says, and all trace of them could be booted out of Darwinism without in any way harming the theory. It would only strengthen it.

It is strange, then, that Engels does not mention the work of Michael Thomas Sadler (1780-1835) whose The Law of Population (1832) was a major anti-Malthusian work. But there were many other critics as well and for Engels the most important would have been none other than Karl Marx. Engels notes "the organisms of nature also have their laws of population, which have been left practically uninvestigated, although their establishment would be of decisive importance for the theory of the evolution of species." Since Engels' day this has come about through the development of population genetics as part of the modern evolutionary synthesis developed by scientists such as Ernst Mayer, J.B.S. Haldane, R.A. Fisher, Sewall Wright, George Gaylord Simpson and others.

Another complaint Dühring brings against Darwin had, at the time, more substance. He complains that Darwin's theory "produces its transformations and differences out of nothing." Engels admits that Darwin does not explain the CAUSES which produce the changes brought about by natural selection. The laws of genetic inheritance had not yet been discovered by the science of Darwin's day. [Actually they had been by Mendel but his work was ignored and they had to be discovered all over again at the beginning of the last century.]

Engels says these causes, whatever they are "up to the present are in part absolutely unknown." He should have left the "in part " out because what he thought was the known part turned out to be wrong. Engels writes: "In recent times the idea of natural selection was extended, particularly by Haeckel, and the variation of species conceived as a result of the mutual interaction of adaptation and heredity, in which process adaptation is taken as the factor which produces variations and heredity as the preserving factor."

Engels had read Erst Haeckel's [1834-1919] Schöpfungsgeshichte which, since Haeckel didn't like natural selection, put forth a theory explaining evolution based on Darwin, Lamarck and Goethe. By using Lamarck, the notion of acquired characteristics, independent of genetic mutation, being inherited maintained its unscientific foothold in biology. Haeckel was also one of the founders of "scientific" racism. Haeckel's influence on Engels had some unfortunate unintended consequences for the history of Soviet science (e.g., Lysenko).

Engels is correct is criticizing Dühring for attributing "purpose" to nature, but he himself adds some confusion to this point when he writes, with regard to tree frogs being green and polar animals being white, that although "the colours can only be explained of the basis of physical forces and chemical agents" the animals are nevertheless, with respect to their colours, "purposely ADAPTED to the environment in which they live." This use of "purpose" is a relic of Lamarck's evolutionary theory. The animals were adapted due to random genetic mutations that happened to prove of advantage in their environments-- they were not PURPOSELY adapted. Natural selection is the only modality at work in evolution that we can so far state we know to be at work. If Engels had known about Mendel's discoveries he would never had expressed himself in this way. But Engels' main point is that Dühring's view of purpose in nature, being due to "ideas," leads to Deism and hence to mixing up spirit with natural processes.

Engels next takes issue with Dühring's claim that Darwin traced the origin of all life on earth back to a single common ancestor. Dühring finds fault with this view and Engels quotes The Origin of Species to show that Darwin actually said "SOME FEW BEINGS" were at the root of all life on Earth. That was then. Today many, if not most, biologists hold that there was indeed a UNIVERSAL COMMON ANCESTOR from which all life has descended. Darwin actually ends The Origin of Species with the following: "There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

The view today, if it hasn't changed recently--science goes by so fast these days-- is that there are three great "kingdoms" of life, or FORMS. The first is the Archaea-- simple one celled critters without a cell nucleus. These are the oldest life forms. From them evolved the Eubacteria (bacteria) and also, a billion years later or so, the Eukarya-- critters one or many celled that have a cell nucleus-- this includes us and everything else that has a cell nucleus. Somewhere back there in the primeval soup the first Archaean cell started up and-- voíla--here we are and everything else too.

How do we know it came about this way? Well, we still don't know anymore than Engels, who wrote: "With regard to the origin of life, therefore, up to the present, natural science is only able to say with certainty that it must have been the result of chemical action."

The next attack on Dühring, in this first chapter on organic nature, concerns Dühring's characterizing Darwin as superficial for thinking the origin of new traits is sexual. Engels rejoins Darwin says natural selection is only concerned with the PRESERVATION of these traits not their origin. Without having Mendel's discoveries at hand, neither Darwin, nor Dühring, nor Engels have any idea how natural selection actually works. Basically there is a mutation in a gene making up the DNA in an X or Y (or both) chromosome[where sexual reproduction is concerned] and this is passed along to the off spring. If it is useful and the off spring lives to pass it on a new trait can become established and eventually a fish becomes a philosopher.

Dühring is also upset because he thinks Darwinists put down Lamarck and his theory of acquired characteristics. Engels says this in not true. Darwin and his followers do not "belittle" Lamarck and in fact recognize "his great services" and have "put him up again on his pedestal."

It is true that modern science does not "belittle" Lamarck. He was a great pioneer and the first one to advocate evolution based on natural law and a materialist framework. But his views on how evolution works and how new traits arise and are passed on-- just by the need for them or because animals acquire them from their environment-- has been basically disowned by modern science.

Engels still used some Lamarckian views in his scientific writings (Australian Aborigines can't learn geometry as easily as Europeans because Europeans have studied it longer) but that was the science of his day and it is difficult to jump out of your time and place 100% of the time. But he did write that "The theory of evolution itself is however still in a very early stage, and it thereby cannot be doubted that further research will greatly modify our present conceptions, including strictly Darwinian ones, of the process of the evolution of species."

Further research actually did modify the conceptions of Engels' day, but in the direction of strengthening and deepening our appreciation of the Darwinian theory. Engels would have been among the first to accept this.

This discussion is based on Part I Chapter VII of Anti-Dühring. Chapter VIII consists of some concluding remarks by Engels concerning Herr Dühring's views on the nature of life and consciousness, but the science is so out of date I don't think we gain much going over this chapter except to be reinforced in the view that Dühring was no match for Engels.

Engels does however make a methodological comment about definitions in science to which I want to call attention. In the antepenultimate paragraph of this chapter Engels says, "From a scientific standpoint all definitions are of little value." He means that to really understand a subject you have to have "an exhaustive knowledge" of it. In Marxism, I think, we have a lot of definitions from the classics. Definitions of the working class, of the capitalist class, of the state, of class struggle, of the dictatorship of the proletariat, etc., etc. These definitions are part of the common language Marxists use to communicate with each other and to explain Marxist ideas to non Marxists. There are some who get all upset with some of these definitions and want to to strike them out of the Marxist lexicon. Well, Engels has just said definitions are of little value in science because science seeks exhaustive knowledge. True, but we can't expect everyone to have digested all three volumes of Das Kapital before we can talk to them.

So, Engels continues by saying, "But for ordinary usage such definitions are very convenient and in places cannot well be dispensed with; moreover, they can do no harm, provided their inevitable deficiencies are not forgotten." So, maybe we should remember this before we start cleaning up our lexicon. There is a big difference between updating the lexicon and abolishing it. There are some people who no longer speak the common language at all and you would never suspect they were Marxists after listening to them.

In the next chapter of his book Engels will discuss "Eternal Truths." Let's see if he has found any other than death and taxes.

Engels: World Schematism in Anti-Dühring

2010-10-19T19:28:00.000-07:00

ANTI-DÜHRING: Part One: Philosophy -- World Schematism
[Engels and Philosophy 2]

Thomas Riggins

There are eleven chapters in Part One of Anti-Dühring which deal with the topic of philosophy. This posting deals with chapters four, five and six.

Engels opens chapter four [World Schematism] with a couple of "oracular passages' from Dühring which amounts to about two pages of the latter's philosophical mumbo-jumbo which Engels translates for us. Dühring is trying to say that he begins by thinking about "being" and uses his thoughts to deduce the world since there can be nothing beyond his thoughts. Engels, shows that this belief in the "identity of thinking and being" is simply lifted from Hegel.

What is comical about Dühring is how he tries to prove the NON-EXISTENCE of God with this idea. He thinks Thought and Being form a unity (an identity of substance). He then uses the ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT to prove there is no God (this argument is usually used with the opposite intention.) The God version is like this: When we think of God we think of a Being that is Perfect. Existence is a perfection. Therefore when we think of a Perfect Being we are forced to think it must exist (otherwise we are not really thinking of a perfect being), therefore God exists.

Dühring's version: When I think of Being I think of one idea, i.e., of a Unity, therefore there is no God. This is because all the things having being are parts of the unified world of experience. God as a separate being would make two things, not a Unity. There is no problem for a pantheist-- God = Nature = the Material World, no problem. Religious people won't go for this since God is just anothet word for the universe-- who will answer prayers, etc.

Well, Engels believes in the unity of Being, i.e., of the material world, but he doesn't think it can be proved by Dühring's idealistic speculations. Engels says the unity of the world isn't due to its being, its existence, but it does have to exist before it can be a unity. Also note that beyond what we can observe being is "an open question." We can't discover world unity without "a long and wearisome development of philosophy and natural science."

Engels spends the rest of the chapter showing that Dühring, who is trying to deduce the world we live in from the first abstract notions of Being (unity), as against Nothingness, and the emergence of Becoming, has done no more than produce an inferior pilfering of Hegel's Logic, Part I, the doctrine of Being. And while Dühring speaks of the "delirious fantasies" of Hegel, he himself has taken all his ideas from him. Engels really resents Dühring for calling Marx more or less "ridiculous" for following Hegel in saying "quantity is transformed into quality." This from a man who stole almost all his ideas from Hegel.

Well, enough of this: on to the next chapter: Five-- "Natural Philosophy. Time and Space".
The first thing to keep in mind is that physics today is very different from the 1870s and 80s. There is no point in turning to Engels for a physics lesson. All I want to do is contrast Engels attitudes towards science with those of Dühring.

Dühring claims to answered all the questions regarding the nature of space and time . To this absurd claim Engels counters by pointing that he has only lifted his ideas from Kant's CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON (first part, Second Division, Book II, Chapter II, Section II: The First Antinomy of Pure Reason). There Kant says, "The world has a beginning in time, and with regard to space is also limited." Dühring rephrases this in his organ jargon and calls it (his great discovery) "The Law of Definite Number." As Aquinas with Aristotle, Dühring borrows what he likes from Kant and junks the rest.

The rest of this chapter deals with Dühring's views on the nature of infininity and the science of mechanics as well as the nature of motion and rest. We need not bother ourselves with these speculations. Engels real point is to show that Dühring's views are borrowed from others and his treatment of the topics is not only derivitive but incoherent.

Don't forget, Engels wants to discredit Dühring's reputation as a great philosopher because he has joined the German socialist movement and is seeking to become a leader by down playing Marx. Engels' real targets are his views on economy and political science. By showing that he is a boob in philosophy and natural science it is more likely we will agree on his boobishness in these latter areas as well.

Let us move on to chapter six,"Natural Philosophy. Cosmogony, Physics, Chemistry."

Again we are dealing with outdated science, nevertheless Engels makes some general observations that are of interest. As far as Dühring is concerned he is out to lunch when it comes to understanding science. Even thoughthis chapter is dedicated to refuting his views we can just ignore him and concentrate on those things of general interest brought up by Engels.

Engels mentions that Kant's Nebular Hypothesis, that the all the celestial bodies were made out of rotating nebular clouds of dust and particles, "was the greatest advance made by astronomy since Copernicus." Engels thinks this so because Kant's theory for the first time allowed people to see that nature had a history. Thed stars and planets were not eternal fixtures of the heavens but had an historical development just as every thing else in nature. [While Kant certainly popularized the Nebular Hypothesis, some version of which is still taught in Astronomy today, it was actually the Swedish mystic theologian and scientist Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) who first put forth the Nebular Hypothesis.]

Dühring dismisses Kant and has his own theory which Engels shows is completely unscientific. Dühring claims only matter "is the bearer of all reality." The old materialists spoke of matter AND motion. You can't just start with only matter because then you can't explain where motion comes from. The Marxist solution is summed up by saying, "MOTION IS THE MODE OF EXISTENCE OF MATTER." Engels has old fashoned physics in mind when he talks about the conservation of motion, etc., but his views can easeily be updated to a more modern vocabulary. Today science speaks of the conservation of energy, momentum, and angular momentum and that these three cannot be created or destroyed.

This chapter has a few more pages where Engels rags on Dühring's views on chemistry and some other topics but since the science here is outmoded we can pass on. Chapter seven begins Engel's discussion of the organic world and that is where the next section of this exposition will pick up.

The Philosophy of Liezi

2010-09-29T05:12:00.000-07:00

THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIEH TZU [LIEZI]
Thomas Riggins

Number 14 in a series on Chinese Philosophy from a Marxist Perspective

“Well, that was a good dinner Fred. Are you ready to discuss Lieh Tzu?”

“There isn’t much to discuss Karl. Only four pages of text in Chan [Source Book in Chinese Philosophy] devoted to him.”

“He has to be in there for something. What’s his claim to fame?”

“Why don’t you look in your Great Thinkers of the Eastern World book?”

“I will, then its back to Chan. James D. Sellman wrote this article on Lieh Tzu. Listen to this: ‘Liehzi is the third major classic of philosophical Daoism (Taoism). As with the other two classics--- the Laozi (Lao Tzu) and the Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu), the author and the date of composition of the Liehzi are obscured by a lack of historical evidence...”

“At least we know we have the third Taoist classic-- all four pages of it in Chan!”

“And note this from The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion. ‘Lieh-tzu was fond of transmitting his ideas and thoughts by reinterpreting ancient folk tales and myths. A characteristic feature of his view of life were mechanical processes, not admitting of free will.’”

“We will see something of that aspect of his thought in the last section I’ll read Karl.”

“It sounds a lot like Wang Ch’ung to me.”

“Let me tell you Karl, that I don’t think Lieh Tzu’s book is really third in rank. Chan says its unoriginal, except perhaps for his skepticism, and borrows heavily from Chuang Tzu. We should also note that the book dates from around 300 AD and that Lieh Tzu lived around 400 BC! so how many of his own views are present is questionable. The book is a compilation by much later scholars. Also the section right after Wang Ch’ung and before Lieh Tzu in Chan is on the Taoist Huai-nan Tzu. He dies in 122 BC and Chan calls him ‘the most prominent Taoist philosopher between ancient Taoism of the fourth century B.C. and Neo-Taoism of the third and fourth centuries A.D.’”

“So why did we skip him?”

“Chan says his ‘originality is negligible.’ He just reiterated Lao and Chuang. And he was very politically active not just taking the world as it comes. He had to commit suicide due to a failed plot of rebellion. He was also rationalistic like Wang Ch’ung and the Lieh Tzu.”

“So Taoism is not so passive as we have been led to think! Lets get back to ‘Lieh Tzu’ then.”

“The selection is divided into A and B sections. Section A is called ‘The Yang Chu Chapter.’”

“ Yes, I remember Yang Chu from our discussion on Mencius. Yang was the fellow who advocated egoism and wouldn’t sacrifice even one hair to help the world.”

“That’s right Karl. Here is the quote from Mencius: ‘7A:26. Mencius said, ‘Yang Chu’s choice was “everyone for himself.” Though he might save the entire world by plucking out a single hair, he would not do it.’ The ‘Yang Chu Chapter’ is included as one of the eight chapters (its actually number seven) of the Lieh Tzu, but it was probably a separate work, according to many scholars, and just ended up being part of the Lieh Tzu when it was eventually compiled in the Third Century AD.”

“Go ahead and read some of the chapter.”

“The following is Lieh Tzu’s view of life. He starts by saying how ‘Pain and sickness, sorrow and suffering, death [of relatives] and worry and fear’ take up so much of one’s life.’ Then he asks, ‘This being the case, what is life for?’ “

“If he were Sartre he might say its not ‘for’ anything!”

“But he has a negative view anyway. He says, ‘Being alone ourselves, we pay great care to what our ears hear and what our eyes see, and are much concerned with what is right and wrong for our bodies and minds. Thus we lose the great happiness of the present and cannot give ourselves free rein for a single moment. What is the difference between this and many chains and double prisons?’”

“The Buddhist view to be sure! Life is suffering.”

“He goes on, sounding Taoist to me, ‘Men of great antiquity knew that life meant to be temporarily present and death meant to be temporarily away. Therefore they acted as they pleased and did not turn away from what they naturally desired. They would not give up what could amuse their own persons at the time. Therefore they were not exhorted by fame. They roamed as their nature directed and would not be at odds with anything.’”

“Chan calls this Taoism?”

“He calls it ‘negative Taoism’. He says this compilation of writings came about because, as many scholars suggest, ‘that at the time of political chaos in the third century, some writers, trying to escape from intolerable situations, utilized the names of Lieh Tzu and Yang Chu and took refuge under the purely negative aspects of Taoism.’”

“That political chaos was occasioned by the fall of the Han Dynasty in 220 AD and the contentions of three kingdoms fighting each other to build up an Empire again (the states of Shu, Wu and Wei.) Wei finally won out and set up the Tsin Dynasty which lasted until 420. Just thought you would like to know the history.”

“Thanks for the info Karl. I have one last quote from Yang here; ‘Yang Chu said, “The myriad creatures are different in life but the same in death. In life they mat be worthy or stupid, honorable or humble. This is where they differ. In death they all stink, rot, disintegrate, and disappear. This is where they are the same. However, being worthy, stupid, honorable or humble is beyond their power, and to stink, rot, disintegrate, and disappear is also beyond their power. Thus life, death, worthiness, stupidity, honor, and humble station are not of their own making. All creatures are equal in these, [that is, they all return to nature]. The one who lives for ten years dies. The one who lives for a hundred years also dies. The man of virtue and the sage both die; the wicked and the stupid also die. In life they were (sage-emperors) Yao and Shun; in death they were rotten bones. Thus they all became rotten bones just the same. Who knows their difference? Let us hasten to enjoy our present life. Why bother about what comes after death?”...’.”

“Spoken like a true Taoist, or perhaps, a contemporary secular humanist. What do we have from the rest of the Lieh Tzu?”

“Chan has two sections so we can get a ‘feeling tone’ from Lieh’s philosophy.”

“A ‘feeling tone’? An interesting term you lifted from Christopher Caudwell’s Illusion and Reality.”

“Actually I lifted it from you Karl. You use it a lot when we discuss art and I know you like Caudwell.”

“Its a good term Fred. In art or philosophy or a poem, when you experience these things, besides their rational content they should also provide a ‘feeling tone.’ Caudwell maintained that all our experience is a fusion of objective and subjective reality. I would say the larger our intellectual and emotional consciousness, the larger our understanding of the world. We have a larger intellectual world and a world of feeling tones (i.e., of emotional responses) for having studied Chinese philosophy as well as Western philosophy.”

“That’s why I said ‘feeling tone’ Fred. The type of feeling tone in this case is not just ‘pure’ emotion but a feeling we get from rationally directed emotional understanding. Reason ruling emotions in a Platonic or Spinoza sense. Does what follows ‘feel’ like Taoism from what you know about it. If it does and we can rationally explain why then our emotions and reasons are harmonious.”

“We are getting too far afield here Fred. Read the passages.”

“This is from the one on ‘Skepticism.’ We have a discussion between King T’ang of Yin [part of the Shang Dynasty] and his minister Hsia Chi. The King wants to know about the existence of the past and asks ‘don’t things have before or after.’ Hsia Chi tells him ‘There is no ultimate in the beginning or end of things. The beginning may be the end and the end may be the beginning. Who knows their order? As to what exists outside of things or before the beginning of events, I do not know.’ Next King T’ang asks, ‘Is there any limit to the above, the below, or the eight directions?’ Hsia Chi responds, ‘If there is nothing, then it is infinite. If there is something, then there must be a limit. How do I know?’”

“Looks to me like King T’ang should get a new minister since Hsia doen’t know anything.”

“Very funny Karl. But this is the nature of skepticism. I think Hsia is trying to make the point that people, even kings, ask a lot meaningless questions that don’t have much to do with the important things in life. Here is a more practical question. The King wants to know what the world outside of China is like. Hsia tells him the world outside China is just as the same as China. He knows from traveling around many places and talking to people from remote places. He then speculates, ‘ From this I know the regions within the four seas, the four wildernesses, and the four outermost regions are no different. Thus the lesser is always enclosed by the greater, and so on without end. Heaven and earth, which enclose the myriad things never reaches a limit. Likewise, the enclosing of heaven and earth never reaches an end. How do I know that there is not a greater universe outside our own? This is something I do not know?’”

“He has the same basic ignorance of the ultimate nature of reality as do our contemporary speculative cosmologists.”

“That he does. He ends by saying, ‘Those who maintain that heaven and earth are destructible are wrong and those who maintain that they are indestructible are also wrong. Whether they are destructible or indestructible, I do not know.’ He adds, however, that practically speaking this type of knowledge doesn’t affect our lives. ‘However, it is the same in one case and also the same in the other.’ In other words what difference does it make to us if, to use a modern example, if the Sun explodes in four billion years or not!.”

“This is a bit like Confucius’ refusal to discuss abstract metaphysical problems divorced from the real world. In Lieh it is called ‘skepticism.’ The feeling tone I am getting is that Taoists shouldn’t bother themselves with such questions.”

“What do you think of this last excerpt on ‘Fatalism’? ‘Effort said to Fate (Ming, Destiny), “How can your achievement be equal to mine?” “What effect do you have on things,” replied Fate, “that you wish to compare with me?” “Well,” said Effort, “longevity and brevity of life, obscurity and prominence, honorable and humble stations, and poverty and richness, are all within my power.”’ Effort is making quite a claim here. I guess we like to think these things may be in our control. But Fate produces examples along the line of ‘why do bad things happen to good people’ if its all due to Effort. Finally Fate says, ‘If what you mentioned were all within your power, how is it that one enjoyed longevity while the other suffered brevity of life [i.e., wicked King Chou vs. Yen Hui, Confucius’ favorite student, who died young), that the sage was obscure while a violator of virtue was in a prominent position, that the worthy had a humble station while the stupid enjoyed honor, and that the good were poor but the wicked were rich?’ Then ‘Effort said. “If, as you say, I have no effect on things, then are things, being what they are, the result of your control?” “Since you already speak of it as fate,” replied Fate, “how can there be any control? As for me, if a thing is straight, I push it straighter, and if it is crooked, I let it remain so. Longevity, brevity of life, obscurity, prominence, humble and honorable stations, and richness and poverty all come of themselves.”’”

“Well, Fred, it looks like Effort gets kicked out of the picture entirely. Perhaps it would be better for us, as opposed to Lieh, to agree that Fate pushes things along or leaves them alone, but that Effort joins in on the side of agents so that Effort is also present when the results ‘all come of themselves.’ “

“That makes more sense to me Karl, and I don’t want to get into a big discussion on ‘freedom vs. determinism’, but what you propose is NOT the negative Taoism of the Lieh Tzu.”

“C’est la vie.”

Well its getting Late, Karl. How about we meet for breakfast then come back here and discuss some more Neo-Taoism, especially Kuo Hsiang?”

“OK Fred, see you tomorrow.”

The Philosophy of Wang Chong (Wang Ch'ung)

2010-09-29T05:05:00.000-07:00

Number 13 in a series of dialogues on Chinese philosophy from
a Marxist perspective.

by Thomas Riggins

“Well Fred, that was a nice lunch. Are we ready to discuss our next Chinese thinker?”

“You mean Wang Ch’ung? I am, but maybe you should put him in context. I’m not really familiar with the historical background. Chan speaks of the ‘Western Han’ period from 206 BC to 8 AD and the ‘Eastern Han’ period from 25 to 220 AD. Wang was living in this latter period, but there is a gap of sixteen years! “

“I’ll give you a brief update from where we left off in the Ch’in Dynasty. “

“I remember the Ch’in Dynasty from our discussion on the Legalists.”

Karl walked over to his book case and pulled down a blue paperback. “I’m going to base this on Jacques Gernet’s A History of Chinese Civilization. I read this book a few years ago when my TV was in the shop.”

“Fill me in.”

“Basically it goes like this. In the 3rd Century BC the Ch’in Kingdom expanded and conquered the six or seven other major independent states in China and by 221 BC had established the first historical empire in Chinese history. The Ch’in ruler, Prince Cheng, then called himself huang-ti or ‘august sovereign.’ Notice the word ‘august.’ By choosing to translate huang based on the title of Augustus Caesar we assimilate Chinese reality to a Western understanding. But no harm done in this instance. Huang-ti is the title of the Chinese supremo so we translate it ‘emperor.’ Prince Cheng is known as the first [shih] emperor so we call him by the name Shih Huang-ti. He lived from 259 to 210 BC. He died prematurely, please note, from taking Taoist [religious not philosophical ] elixirs for youth and longevity so this should remind us, especially the Taoists among us, not to mess with Mother Nature!”

“Get on with it!”

“The Legalists, as you remember, influenced Shih Huang-ti who was fairly intolerant. He thought that in order to hold his empire together everyone should basically think the same way-- his way.”

“We’ve seen how successful that tactic is!”

“In 213 BC Shih Huang-ti ordered the destruction of all books (he kept copies for his files) in order to get rid of different ways of thinking. So there was a big bonfire in his capital city Hsien-yang. He also wiped out all his critics that he could find. But he overdosed on his Taoist potion three years later and his son became emperor (Second Emperor). By the way, that big terra cotta army that has become so famous of late, as a big Chinese tourist attraction, that’s from the recently discovered tomb of Shih Huang-ti.”

“Oh yeah! That’s a famous discovery. You see stuff about the terra cotta army everywhere.”

“To make a long story short, after the death of Shih Huang-ti all sorts of revolts and insurrections broke out against Second Emperor and the Ch’in state was gone by 202 BC. It was replaced by the Han Dynasty founded by Han Kao-tsu (Liu Chi, one of the rebels). This dynasty lasted until 220 AD with one interruption by a usurper named Wang Mang who ruled from 9 to 23 AD. Wang Ch’ung lived right in the middle of this period, more or less, from c. 27 to 100 AD or so.”

“Are we ready to get into his philosophy now?”

“Almost Fred. I just need to point out that after the book burning of 213 BC a new script for writing developed and all the texts that survived were copied or reconstructed with this script. This was called ‘new text’ and, please note, that Tung Chung-shu’s philosophy was developed on the basis of the new texts.”

“So?”

“So this. Under the Emperor Wu Ti (147-87 BC) a big discovery was made of a cache of the ancient Chinese classics from before the Ch’in period. They were found hidden in Confucius’ old house! These were written in the old script and a school grew around them called the Old Text School.”

“I see. There were differences between the same works depending on whether they were old texts or new texts.”

“That is exactly right. The upshot of all this is that the mystical magical tendencies of Tung derive from the new texts. Wang Ch’ung based himself on the old texts and these became the orthodox version of the classics. Here is what Gernet says (p.165)-- i.e., ' that the victory, after the Han period, of the old texts ‘was to cause the almost total disappearance of the vast esoteric literature of the Han period, and it was only in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that certain scholars and philosophers took it into their heads to rehabilitate the forgotten tradition represented by the works of Tung Chung-shu’ and others.”

“So Tung really is only of historical interest.”

“Yes, and I should note Wang Ch’ung was dormant as well until a couple of centuries ago. Now, Fred, what have you got there on Wang Ch’ung?”

“Here is what Chan [Source Book in Chinese Philosophy] says, and I’m glad for the digression into history-- it makes Chan a little clearer. He lists six characteristics of Wang’s intellectual environment. 1.) Dominance of Confucianism-- thanks to Tung Chung-shu by the way. 2.) The Yin-Yang mysticism had corrupted Confucianism into less than rational positions-- also thanks to Tung. 3.) Man and Nature were reciprocally influencing one another. 4.) Omens and unexplained events were to be interpreted in the light of #3. 5.) Heaven had ends and purposes but it was ‘not anthropomorphic.’ Its ‘will’ could be determined by omens and such. 6.) Spiritual beings abounded and could also influence us by means of signs and wonders. ‘Wang Ch’ung rose in revolt against all these prevalent beliefs.’”

“Yes, he is considered a rationalist or a naturalist according to what I’ve read. But I don’t think he surpasses Hsun Tzu.”

“OK. The quotes I’m going to read to you all come from Wang’s book The Balanced Inquiries, or Lun-heng.”

“Lets hear them!”

“This is called ‘On Original Nature’-- chapter 13: ‘Man’s feelings and nature are the root of government by men and the source of ceremonies and music. Therefore as we investigate the matter, we find that ceremonies are employed to check the excess of the nature and feelings and music is used to regulate them. In man’s nature there are the qualities of humbleness, modesty, deference, and compliance. Hence ceremonies have been instituted to adjust them to their proper expression. In men’s feelings there are the qualities of like and dislike, pleasure and anger, and sorrow and joy. Hence music has been created to enable their feelings of reverence to be expressed everywhere. Nature and feelings are therefore the reason why systems of ceremonies and music have been created.’”

“Good explanation.”

“He continues: ‘Shih Shih of the Chou ( Chou Dynasty: 1111-249 BC) maintained that in nature some are born good and some are born evil. Take the good nature and cultivate it, and goodness will develop. Take the evil nature and cultivate it, and evil will develop. Thus in nature some belong to yin (passive cosmic force) and some belong to yang (active cosmic force), and some are good and some are evil. It all depends on cultivation.’”

“ Shih Shih was a third generation Confucian, but I don’t go for some are born good and some evil. I’m holding out for nurture not nature. I agree with Wang about ‘cultivation’ but I think in general we are born neutral and we turn out as we are cultivated in whatever society we are born into.”

“Well Wang seems to like Shih Shih as he goes on to maintain that both Mencius and Hsun Tzu are wrong about human nature being at birth one (good) or the other (evil). He also attacks Tung Chung-shu’s position that Mencius and Hsun Tzu were both correct as the former was talking about yang (nature) and the latter about yin (feelings). But Wang thinks its more complicated as both nature and feelings are a mixture of yin and yang.”

“How does Wang resolve all this?”

“His thesis is: ‘The truth is that in nature, some people are born good and some born evil. It is just as some people’s capacity is high and some people’s is low.’ And so he concludes, ‘At bottom I consider Mencius’ doctrine of the goodness of human nature as referring to people above the average, Hsun Tzu’s doctrine of evil nature of man as referring to people below the average, and Yang Hsiung’s (53 BC - AD 18) doctrine that human nature is a mixture of good and evil as referring to average people.’”

“Yang Hsiung?”

“Chan has a little three page chapter on him right before Wang. He is mostly remembered of the theory that Wang mentions.”

“There seem to be a lot theories about this Fred, and they all seem non-verifiable. Anyway, since all the sages agree that it is education that brings about the correct activity all the theories are practically equivalent. A pragmatist would think they are all the same in the long run.”

“Chan has a comment on this as follows: ‘Wang’s own theory is new but it is not a real advance, for the presence of either good or evil is not explained. In accepting Yang Hsiung’s theory of mixture as referring to average people, he seems to believe in three grades of human nature.... However, his main thesis is dualism. Inasmuch as the Western Han period is characterized by a dualistic approach to human nature, in terms of good nature and evil feelings, Wang’s own dualism, in terms of good and evil natures, shows little progress.’”

“So we have a dualism of some sort-- either of natures or of nature versus feelings?”

“Thus far Wang hasn’t particularly distinguished himself. I will now turn to ‘On Spontaneity’-- his chapter 54.”

“OK.”

“He says, ‘When the material forces (ch’i) of Heaven and Earth come together, all things are spontaneously produced, just as when the vital forces (ch’i) of husband and wife unite, children are naturally born. Among the things thus produced, blood creatures are conscious of hunger and cold. Seeing that the five grains are edible, they obtain and eat them. And seeing that silk and hemp can be worn, they obtain and wear them. Some say that Heaven produces the five grains in order to feed man and produces silk and hemp in order to clothe man. This is to say that Heaven becomes a farmer or a mulberry girl for the sake of man. This is contrary to spontaneity. Therefore their ideas are suspect and should not be followed.’”

“This must be the aspect of his thought that leads to his being called a naturalist.”

“I think you are correct Karl. He continues, ‘Let us discuss these concepts according to Taoism. Heaven (T’ien, Nature) gives forth and distributes material force universally into all things. Grains overcome hunger and silk and hemp save people from cold. Consequently people eat grains and wear clothing of silk and hemp. Now, that Heaven does not purposely produce the five grains and silk and hemp in order to feed and clothe man is very much like the fact that there are calamities and strange transformations but not for the purpose of reprimanding man. Things are spontaneously produced and man eats them and wears them, and material forces spontaneously change [in strange ways] and people are afraid of them. To talk otherwise may be agreeable to the minds of people. But if lucky influences from Heaven are intentional. where would spontaneity be, and where would non-action (wu-wei) be found?’”

“It looks like his naturalism stems from his study of Taoism. But this is also the Confucianism of Hsun Tzu or at least very similar to it .”

“Listen to this: ‘Someone asks: Man is born from Heaven and Earth. Since Heaven and Earth take no action [that is, Karl, they just are as they are] and since man is endowed with the nature of Heaven [and Earth] , he should take no action either. And yet he does take action. Why?’”

“A good Taoist question Fred. What does Wang say?”

“He says, ‘I reply: A person who is rich and pure in perfect virtue is endowed with a large quantity of vital force and is therefore able to approximate Heaven in being spontaneous and taking no action. Those who are endowed with little vital force do not follow moral principles and do not resemble Heaven and Earth. They are therefore called unworthy. By that is meant that they are not similar to Heaven and Earth. They are therefore called unworthy. Since they do not resemble Heaven and Earth, they do nor belong to the same class as sages and worthies and therefore take action.’ And he concludes, ‘Heaven and Earth are like a furnace. Their work is creation. Since the endowment of the vital force is not the same in all cases, how can all be worthy?...’”.

“I have a problem with Wang about this Fred.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t like the idea of transmission of virtue or worthiness being based on Nature. I understand that people are worthy and unworthy but I’m not going to grant that it is due to their original vital force given at birth by Heaven or some such idea. I don’t see that the view that some people are born good and some evil is actually an advance on Mencius or Hsun Tzu. They at least don’t break humanity into two contrary groups-- the worthy and the unworthy based on what we today would call hereditary principles. Except in rare and unusual instances Mencius and Hsun Tzu at least hold to the basic unity of humanity. We can all be sages with the right education in both of their systems. But in Wang’s I don’t see that this is the case. There is a ‘class’ of sages and worthies based on an original endowment of vital force. However progressive Wang is with regard to rejection of spirits and omens, etc., he is definitely a social reactionary with regard to his ideas on the origin of a ‘class’ of worthies.”

“I tend to agree with you about this Karl. But lets see what else Wang has to say.”

“Go on.”

“He says, ‘The way of Heaven is to take no action. Therefore in the spring it does not act to start life, in summer it does not act to help grow, in autumn it does not act to bring maturity, and in winter it does not act to store up.... When we draw water from wells or breach water over a dam in order to irrigate fields and gardens, things will also grow. But if rain falls like torrents, soaking through all stalks, leaves and roots, in an amount equivalent to that in a pond, who would prefer drawing water from wells or breaching water over a dam? Therefore to act without acting is great. ‘”

“I get it Fred. If we just follow nature things will work out for us. But, you know, sometimes we are forced to act whether we like to or not. Wang’s Taoist view, however, does have a lot of merit. Look what our economic system based on private profit is doing to the environment!”

“Here is Chan’s comment about all this. ‘The net effect of Wang Ch’ung’s naturalism is to depersonalize Heaven and to deny the existence of design in any form. One would expect that his rationalism and naturalism would promote the development of natural science in China. Joseph Needham, however, has suggested that instead of fostering the development of science, Wang actually deterred it, for according to Needham [Science and Civilization in China], there must be a lawgiver before there can be natural laws. If Wang Ch’ung were alive, the first question he would ask would be, “What is your evidence to prove it?”’”

“And quite rightly so Fred. Needham misses the ball here. Hsun Tzu had the same idea about Heaven and Naturalism before Wang came along so why didn’t he get blamed for retarding science? The reason is that major intellectual events such as the growth and development of science are not due to this or that individual but to the circumambient cultural forces of a given historical environment in toto.”

“So you don’t need a ‘lawgiver’?”

“I don’t think so, but at least the notion of regularity such as the nonpersonal nous postulated by Anaxagoras. ‘Spontaneity’ may be a confusing concept from the scientific point of view if it implies that there is no regularity involved, which I don’t think is what Wang and the Taoists mean.”

“Now we come to his ‘Treatise on Death’, his chapter 62. We have a view similar to that of Epicurus! Wang says, ‘People today say that when men die they become spiritual beings (kuei, ghosts), are conscious, and can hurt people.... If a man has neither ears nor eyes (senses), he will have no consciousness.... When the vital forces have left man... [The whole body] decays and disappears. It becomes diffused and invisible, and is therefore called a spiritual being (kuei-shen, earthly and heavenly spirits).... When a man dies, his spirit ascends to heaven and his flesh and bones return (kuei) to earth, and that is why an earthly spiritual being (kuei) [and a heavenly spiritual being (shen) ] are so called. To be an earthly spiritual being (kuei) means to return (kuei) .... To be a heavenly spiritual being (shen) means to expand (shen). When the expansion reaches its limit, it ends and begins again. Man is born of spiritual forces. At death he returns to them. Yin and Yang are called kuei-shen. After people die, they are also called kuei-shen).... After a man dies he does not become a spiritual being, has no consciousness, and cannot speak. He therefore cannot hurt people.’”

“Today we would call that a secular humanist position.”

“Chan also has additional selections of Wang’s views. This one, from Chapter Five, concerns ‘Accidence vs. Necessity’: ‘Crickets and ants creep on the ground. A man lifts his foot and walks across it. Those crickets and ants he steps on are pressed to death, whereas those he does not step on remain completely alive and unhurt. When fires sweep through wild grass, that which has been pressed down by wheels does not burn. Some ordinary folks are delighted and call it lucky grass. Now, what the feet do not step on and what the fire does not reach are not necessarily good, for the lifting of the foot and the spread of the fire are accidental.’”

“So what goes down, goes down not as a result of Heaven’s ‘plan’ its just sort of random-- i.e., accidental. He doesn’t mention necessity at all in what you read Fred. This more than anything might explain the failure on his part to have stimulated the growth of science, not, as Needham said, the lack of a ‘law giver’. We are like crickets and ants in the face of Nature.”

“This is his view on ‘Strange Phenomena’ -- chapter 43: ‘As the ruler acts below, the material force of Heaven comes after man accordingly. But I say: This is also doubtful. For Heaven can activate things, but how can things activate Heaven? Why? Because man and things are bound by Heaven and Heaven is the master of man and things.... Therefore man living in the universe is like a flea or louse being inside a garment or a cricket or an ant inside a hole or a crack. Can the flea, louse, cricket, or ant, by being obedient or disobedient, cause the material force inside the garment or the hole to move or to change? Since the fleas, louse, cricket, or ant cannot do so, to say that man alone can is to fail to understand the principle of the material force of things. As the wind comes, trees’ branches swing. But trees’ branches cannot cause the wind.’”

“Crickets and ants again! This is pretty good in some respects for the first century AD. Just think of the kinds of superstition about things like this even today. But there is a down side.”

“And what might that be Karl?”

“The science problem again. It's this passive attitude towards Nature or Heaven. Humans are different from crickets and ants in the Western tradition. We are rational animals says Aristotle. Bacon set out to understand Nature and control it. ‘knowledge is power,’”Nature to be commanded must first be obeyed,’ etc. So we learn about the material force, unlike the crickets and ants, and use it to our advantage. Failure to think in these terms inhibited the development of theoretical science more than a lack of a ‘law giver.’”

“You have a point Karl. Now, another question. Have you ever wondered why bad things happen to good people?”

“Often.”

“Well then, here is Wang on ‘Fate’ (Chapter Six): ‘With respect to man’s appointment of fate, when his parents give forth their vital forces, he already gets his fortunes and misfortunes.’”

“Sounds like genetic determinism! Don’t tell me Wang is a nature over nurture determinist.”

“Hold your horses Karl. Let me finish with Wang’s ideas here. ‘Man’s nature is different from his fate. There are people whose nature is good but whose fate is unlucky, and there others whose nature is evil but whose fate is lucky. Whether one is good or evil in his conduct is due to his nature, but calamities and blessings, and fortunes and misfortunes, are due to fate. Some people do good but get calamities. This is a case of good nature but unlucky fate. Some people do evil but get blessings. This is a case of evil nature but lucky fate.”

“So what can this mean? The transformative power is neglected here-- good and evil is by nature he says. And fate is due to the vital force from the parents? I think I know where he is coming from here, but I see you only have one quote left so let me return to this with a little end presentation I have here.”

“OK. I think we see the philosopher kings putting in an appearance in this last quote. It's from chapter 56 ‘The Equality of Past and Present.’ Here is what he says, ‘The world was well governed in earlier ages because of sages. The virtue of sages earlier or later was not different, and therefore good government in earlier ages and today is not different.... In ancient times there were unrighteous people, and today there are gentleman of established integrity [as in olden times]. Good and evil intermingle. What age is devoid of them?’”

“And that is the end of Chan on Wang?”

“Yes.”

“Well, before we say goodbye to Wang, I want to be sure we have him down pat, as it were, so I will make a few concluding remarks.”

“Go ahead.”

First, I just want to list here the five ‘Major Ideas’ that are attributed to Wang. This list is from Randall L. Nadeau’s article on Wang in Great Thinkers of the Eastern World. The list sums up our discussion.”

“So list the list.”

“OK. 1. Natural events have natural causes. 2. Beliefs in gods, ghosts, and supernatural phenomena are superstitious falsehoods. 3. There is no correspondence between human events and natural phenomena; the processes of nature are not influenced by human behavior and have no moral significance. 4. There is no correspondence between moral virtue and personal destiny; fortune and misfortune are the result of fate. 5. Human nature may be good or evil; those of good nature can become evil, and those of evil nature can become good.”

“Finished?”

“Just about. Our discussion and my list indicate that Wang Ch’ung was pretty much of a rationalist, but he had one weakness of his era.”

“Such as?”

“It appears that number three on the list above may have to be modified since he had a weakness for astrology. Jacques Gernet writes, ‘Criticizing the notion of individual destiny (ming)... he sees the diversity of human destinies as the result of three independent factors: innate physical and intellectual aptitudes, the chance combination of circumstances and accidents, but also-- and here Wang Ch’ung shows how much he remains a prisoner of his age-- the astral influences which acted on the individual at his birth (p.165).’”

“Well then, as they say, ‘his virtues were his own, his vices those of the age.’ Lets go have dinner. Then whom shall we discuss?”

“Take Chan along to bone up. We’ll talk about the Taoist Lieh Tzu or Liezi whose work dates from around 300 AD.”

ENGELS AND PHILOSOPHY

2010-09-27T07:31:00.001-07:00

ANTI-DÜHRING: Part One: Philosophy -- Classification & Apriorism

Thomas Riggins

There are eleven chapters in Part One of Anti-Dühring which deal with the topic of philosophy. This part begins with Chapter Three: "Classification. Apriorism."

Dühring, Engels informs us, believes philosophy is the supreme form of the consciousness of all the PRINCIPLES of willing and knowledge and, since all the forms of being are studied by consciousness, then these principles must appear to consciousness as objects of philosophy. Being thus appears to us under three headings-- as the form of the universe, as Nature, and as the human world. Being appears to us in that order as a logical progression.

What Dühring proceeds to do is deduce the structure of the world system and the role of the human sciences from this logical structure produced by his philosophical consciousness. This is IDEALISM and quite the method used by Hegel half a century before. Dühring is quite confused as the facts relating to the nature of the universe and humankind are to be discovered by the study of Nature and History and the logical structure arrived at by philosophers is only valid, insofar as it is valid, because it is derived from experience of the external world not because it is imposed upon it.

Idealists were struck by the fact that the laws of thought and the laws of nature were in such close correspondence but failed to see that the laws discovered by the human brain were so discovered because the brain is a part of nature. Thus, "it is self-evident that the products of the human brain, being in the last analysis also products of nature, do not contradict the rest of nature's interconnections but are in correspondence with them."

Dühring's idealism leads him, Engels says, to view human consciousness as not human! Here are Dühring's own words: It's "a degradation of the basic forms of consciousness and knowledge to attempt to rule out or even put under suspicion their sovereign validity and their unconditional claim to truth, by applying the epithet 'human' to them." But consciousness (human) and knowledge (human) have only developed through the process of evolution in human brains. How can Dühring think they have some kind of transcendental existence?

Engels writes that "no materialist doctrine can be founded on such an ideological basis." But let us see if we can salvage some of Dühring's idea here. Granted that A=A is a human concept developed in a human brain. But A=A appears as a basic law of thought -- it would hold for any rational consciousness including non-human extraterrestrial rational beings. So we can agree that A=A or Reason may not be limited to just the human brain or to the Earth.

Engels says that Dühring, by separating thought from being a human product "has to sever it from the only real foundation on which we find it, namely man and nature." Well, maybe "thought" can be severed from the human brain-- how can we rule out that some other star system does not have intelligent life that reasons on the basis of A=A. But still this would be the result of a process of nature, the natural conditions of this other star system. So Engels is still basically correct, but Dühring too has his point: that rational consciousness may exist independently of humanity(even though we have yet to discover any other rational creatures in the universe). But it is no "degradation" to Reason to call it human.

Engels main point remains true-- we understand the world structure not from our minds but THROUGH our minds. In this sense we don't need philosophy "but positive knowledge of the world" that is "not philosophy, but positive science." I think Engels goes too far when he suggests "if no philosophy as such is any longer required, then also there is no more need of any system, not even of any natural system of philosophy." I want to suggest that we still need philosophy. DIAMAT itself is a philosophical system based on scientific realism or naturalism (materialism). Just a few sentences later in Anti-Dühring Engels himself makes some observations that suggest that we will still need philosophy.

I will argue that Engels, in fact, proposes ideas remarkably similar to what Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) the great English skeptic will say, some seventy years later than Anti-Dühring, is the nature of philosophy. Here is Russell, from the introductory remarks to his HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY: "Philosophy, as I shall understand the word, is something intermediate between theology and science. Like theology, it consists of speculations on matters as to which definite knowledge has, so far, been unascertainable; but like science, it appeals to human reason rather than to authority, whether that of tradition or that of revelation. All DEFINITE knowledge-- so I should contend-- belongs to science; all DOGMA as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology. But between theology and science there is a No Man's Land, exposed to attack from both sides; this No Man's Land is philosophy." Needless to say, when some kind of definite knowledge is discovered in No Man's Land it quickly moves on over into science leaving philosophy behind.

Now, what Engels has to say about knowledge is pretty much the same as Russell, so much so that Engels, save for stylistic differences, could have himself penned Russell's words. What does he say? Engels says that the goal of science is to give a complete description of nature. The mind, via perceptions of the external world, constructs a mental image of "the world system." The scientific world view is the result of an interconnection between the processes of nature and our mental image of them.

But, Engels says, it is not possible for us to attain a complete scientific description of this interconnection. If we ever attained a complete understanding of nature, the mind and history, it would mean knowledge "had reached its limit." If we made society in agreement with this absolute knowledge it would be the End of History ('further historical evolution would be cut short). "This is absurd, it is nonsense", says Engels.

Humanity faces a big contradiction. We strive to attain absolute knowledge, but due to the nature of the world system and of mankind, it is unattainable. "Each mental image of the world system is and remains in actual fact limited, objectively by the historical conditions and subjectively by the physical and mental constitution of its originator." This being the case every advance in knowledge brings about new conditions and new problems ad infinitum. So, as it were, there will always be a speculative No Man's Land where philosophy will be located between dogmas of the past on one side and definite knowledge on the other.

So, Engels rejects Dühring's concept of Being. He also rejects his ideas about mathematics. In pure mathematics, Dühring says, the mind works "with its own free creations and imaginations" with regard to figures and numbers it deals with ideas which are "the adequate object of that pure science which it can create of itself" and so with a "validity which is independent of PARTICULAR experience and of the real content of the world."

Engels agrees that the particular experience of individuals can be left out of account, 2+2=4 will still be 2+2=4, but rejects the idea that in mathematics the mind is only working "with its own creations and imaginations." Ideas of number and figure "have not been derived from any source other than the world of reality." [Since the "mind" is part of that world this would seem to follow ipso facto.] Engels means they are "borrowed exclusively from the external world" and do "not arise in the mind out of pure thought." [Whatever is "pure thought" anyway?]

Higher mathematics can become very abstract and seemingly removed from the empirical world but this is the result of the historical evolution of mathematical thought that seems to result in "the free creations and imaginations of the mind."

The truth is, Engels says, "Like all other sciences, mathematics arose out of the NEEDS of men." As knowledge evolves the concepts and laws derived from concrete reality become more and more abstract until they seem to be independent of their mundane origins. They then begin to appear "as something independent, as laws coming from outside, to which the world has to conform." This is what has happened with economics and political science. The economic laws of capitalism, an economic system created by mankind after a long social evolution, now appear as independent economic laws to which all economic life must conform. We make the idols we worship.

So much for chapter three of Anti-Dühring. But I should remark that Engels makes a few more remarks about mathematics that, while they are not crucial to his argument, have been attacked as showing confusion with regard to his understanding of the axiomatic method and the relation of mathematics to logic. Anyone wishing to pursue these criticisms should start with a paper by Jean van Heijenoort, "Frederick Engels and Mathematics" available on the internet.

Stay tuned.
[Anti-Dühring 3]

Anti-Dühring: The General Introduction

2010-09-22T15:12:00.001-07:00

Thomas Riggins

Modern Socialism, says Engels, is the product of the class war between capitalists and workers and the irrational anarchy rampant in capitalist production. Its theoretical elaboration is descended from the French philosophers in years just prior to the Great French Revolution. In a note we are informed that the FIRST socialists were Morelly and Mably.

Morelly published THE CODE OF NATURE in 1755. Nobody really knows anything about "Morelly" and this name might have been a pseudonym for either Francois-Vincent Toussaint OR Denis Diderot. Gabriel Bonnot de Mably (1709-1785) published ENTRETIENS DE PHOCION in 1757.

Engels says the French thinkers just before the Revolution were "extreme revolutionists" and means that as a compliment. They did not accept any authority except REASON. "Reason became the sole measure of everything." Engels then quotes HEGEL on the Revolution as a "dawn of a new day" the advent of the Kingdom of Reason. "All thinking beings," Hegel wrote in The Philosophy of History, "participated in celebrating this holy day."

Today we know that this "holy day" was not of Reason but was "the idealized kingdom of the bourgeoisie." Great as the French thinkers were (especially Rousseau with his Contrat Social) they could not "go beyond the limits imposed upon them by their epoch." And we should keep this in mind too when we read Engels (and Marx)-- these giants of the nineteenth century-- in the twenty-first century.

Capitalist development was still in its infancy in the eighteenth century and the bourgeoisie put itself forward as the representative of all the classes being oppressed by feudalism. The bourgeoisie, the workers, and peasants comprised "the people" against the exploiters (the feudal nobility). But there are always hints of the coming struggle between the bourgeoisie and its class allies. Engels gives three examples:
1. The Reformation-- The Peasant's War-- Thomas Münzer, the Anabaptists.
2. The great English Revolution-- The Levelers.
3. the great French Revolution [Engels likes to put "great" in front of any revolution]- Babeuf.

Engels says even though the workers as a class were just beginning to form in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there were still thinkers that had begun to express the interests of the future class, although in a utopian manner [Thomas More "Utopia" 1516, Thommaso Campanella "City of the Sun 1623]. Then came 'the three great utopians"-- i.e., Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Owen. What the three had in common, according to Engels, is that they presented systems of universal social salvation and did not base themselves on the working class as such.

All these systems, Engels says, end up in "the dust hole" just because they are as irrational as the bourgeoisie that they represent: in the last analysis they just can't work to liberate humanity. "To make a science of socialism," Engels says, "it first had to be placed upon a real basis."

So, part of the real basis was rooted in the French philosophers -- materialism and revolution, but something else was still needed-- dialectics. And that was provided by HEGEL. Hegel's philosophy was the high point of German philosophy. "Its greatest merit was taking up again of dialectics as the highest form of reasoning.

Hegel made advances on the philosophy of Aristotle ("the Hegel of the ancient world") and developed ideas first enunciated by the ancient Greeks. Other philosophers responsible for laying the real basis for socialism as a science who Engel's mentions are Heraclitus, Descartes, Spinoza, Diderot and Rousseau.

The Greeks saw a world in flux and change, everything in motion and change (for the most part at least, there were major exceptions) and they laid the foundations of modern science, also the Arabs (Muslims) of the middle ages contributed, but real modern science actually dates from the middle of the fifteenth century. Due to the influence of thinkers such as Bacon and Locke, Engels says, the idea of flux and dialectical thinking was given up and people began looking at the world as made up of unchanging forces and objects subject to immutable mathematical laws. Engels calls this "the metaphysical mode of thought" characterizing the eighteenth century. It will have to give way to the dialectical mode of thought before socialism can be scientific.

This won't be so difficult because, as Engels says, "Nature is the proof of dialectics" and the biggest blow against the metaphysical outlook was struck by DARWIN whose theory of evolution reveals a biological world in constant change and flux. But this theory can also be extended to the solar system and the universe itself as revealed by KANT and LAPLACE and their formulation of the nebular hypothesis which put an end to NEWTON'S eternally enduring universe. HEGEL, of course, saw the course of human history as an evolutionary development. So, by the mid nineteenth century the natural, biological, and human sciences were all poised to be studied with the dialectical method.

Hegel's idealism proved inadequate to a correct understanding of the world. Hegel's view was that the flux and change of evolution was the reflection in the material wold of the development and manifestation of the Absolute Idea, which when once achieved would then arrive at rest. Engels considered this an unresolvable contradiction-- that world of flux would end up at rest. So idealism is replaced by MATERIALISM which sees the process of change as unending. But Engels may have a contradiction too. Why should the social question end with the arrival of socialism. If flux is eternal why would not a socialist world also change and break up (as we have apparently seen happen around 1989-91)?

Perhaps we are getting ahead of ourselves. Lets stay with Engels' intro. We have arrived at scientific socialism based on science and a materialist outlook. We can make sense of the social question without resorting to metaphysics or utopian schemes. A scientific study of how capitalism works, that is the world economic system currently in place, is now possible. The secrete of capitalism is not revealed simply by enumerating its bad social consequences. That won't tell us how it works. The secrete is to reveal how SURPLUS VALUE works, how unpaid labor "is the basis of the capitalist mode of production."

There is a short second part of the introduction, "What Herr Dühring Promises"[2] this is about six pages. I am only going to say a few words about this section. It is basically a series of quotes from Dühring's works showing what a ridiculous megalomanic he was. He claimed to have arrived at the absolute final truth about philosophy, science, socialism, etc., and anyone who disagreed with him was simply backwards and wrong. Engels mocks Dühring's oversized ego in this section.

Well, this is enough on the Introduction to Anti-Dühring. I will now proceed to Part One "Philosophy" and go over the fourteen chapters devoted to this topic. Keep in mind, that Engels doesn't see any role for modern philosophy over and above the role of science for understanding the world-- except for logic and dialectical thinking.
[Anti-Dühring 2]

Why Did Engels Write Anti-Dühring?

2010-09-10T14:58:00.000-07:00

Thomas Riggins

In the 1870s the German professor Eugen Dühring joined the German Social Democratic Party. He made a lot of friends and began interpreting socialism along lines that were new and different and which he thought were more in accord with modern science. Engels' German comrades asked him for clarification on some of these new views as Dühring was starting to collect a following. Engels, however, was busy doing other things. But after three years of requests he decided to write the book ANTI-DÜHRING: HERR EUGEN DÜHRING'S REVOLUTION IN SCIENCE. This book became one of the most important of the so-called Marxist "classics" and is a basic foundational document for the understanding of DIAMAT (Dialectical Materialism).

In this article I will make some comments on the prefaces to the work (there are three for the three German editions made in Engels' lifetime) before going on to review the First Part of the work, that devoted to philosophy, to try and situate it in our time at the beginning of the 21st century.

Engels tells us that Anti-Dühring is an extension of the world view first developed by Marx in his book THE POVERTY OF PHILOSOPHY, then extended by the COMMUNIST MANIFESTO and DAS KAPITAL. To make sure that this solo flight would properly represent their joint philosophy, Engels read aloud the whole manuscript to Marx and the latter even wrote a chapter for the book (chapter ten of part two). I note this because many people today try to divorce the thought of Marx from that of Engels and maintain that Anti-Dühring is a deviation from Marx's philosophical views which were more sophisticated than those of Engels.

In order to write the book, Engels first took eight years to review the math and natural sciences of his day. The reason he did this was to convince himself that the laws of the materialist dialectic of motion which he and Marx had detected at work in history and in the evolution of human consciousness, were equally at work in Nature. These laws were first developed by the German philosopher G.W.F. HEGEL but, Engels says, in a "mystic form." Once stripped of this form, Marx and Engels were able to apply the dialectical method to both the natural and historical sciences.

Engels was aware that the charge might be made that the dialectic was being forced upon Nature from the outside and that the "facts" were being forced into the straight jacket of the theory. This serious charge is still made today by the bourgeois opponents of Marxism. Engels however says that he did all he could to avoid this: "to me there could be no question of building the laws of dialectic into nature, but of discovering them in it and evolving them from it."

Engels lived in a time of rapid scientific advance towards the end of the 19th century. Only a few years before he wrote the second preface to his book, he says, the LAW OF THE CONSERVATION OF ENERGY was propounded ("the great basic law of motion") but it was put forth NOT qualitatively but only quantitatively as the "indestructibility and uncreatabilty of
motion."

But now (1885-- the time of the second preface) Engels sees a more dialectical approach as scientists are beginning to discuss THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENERGY which when fully understood will remove "the last vestige of an extra mundane creator." A mere ten years after Engel's death (1895) Einstein published his famous equation E=mc2.

Engels says we still see rigid barriers in Nature-- the wave vs particle theory of light had not yet bloomed into quantum physics-- but had he lived I don't think Engels would have been thrown off by such seeming contradictions. Contradiction is the essence of dialectics. He writes that: "The recognition that these antagonisms and distinctions, though to be found in nature, are only of relative validity, and that on the other hand their imagined rigidity and absolute validity have been introduced into nature only by our reflective minds-- this recognition is the kernel of the dialectical conception of nature."

So, the purpose of the book is to reaffirm the scientific nature of Diamat, to exclude the erroneous accretions of Herr Dühring, and to demonstrate that modern science, including Diamat, is the result of a long tradition of philosophical development whose two poles (as we shall see) include Aristotle and Hegel.

Engels thinks that science must "assimilate the results of the development of philosophy during the past two and half thousand years" to avoid basing itself on some bogus world view [as the Nazi movement later did] and to also get rid of its metaphysical (i.e., mechanistic and non-dialectical) baggage which is "its inheritance from English empiricism."

In the next article I will look at the two part introduction to Anti-Dühring.
[Anti-Düring I]

Beyond Belief? Five New Books on Religion

2010-08-30T17:36:00.000-07:00

Superstition Marches On

Thomas Riggins

Jonathan Benthall has an article called "Beyond Belief: In Spite of Science and Secularism, Religions are Gaining Strength -- But Are They Offering More Than a 'Storm-Shutter' or a New Global Market?" [TLS 12-11-2009]. Under the heading "Philosophy of Religion" (although there is little philosophy involved) he reviews five recent books on religion [Michael King: POSTSECULARISM, Terry Eagleton: REASON, FAITH, AND REVOLUTION, John Micklethwait & Adrian Wooldridge: GOD IS BACK, Paul Froese, THE PLOT TO KILL GOD, and Michael Jackson, THE PALM AT THE END OF THE MIND]. From what I could glean from the review none of the books seem interesting nor deep and, unless one is already predisposed to be sympathetic to superstition and its baneful grip on the human spirit, not worth the time and effort to read. Here are some impressions from Benthall's review.

Mike King: POSTSECULARISM: THE HIDDEN CHALLENGE TO EXTREMISM, 324pp. This is, among other things, an attack on Richard Dawkins, whose militant attack on Theism is still upsetting people. King says Dawkins wants to "arrogate to science what is the proper domain of a quite different human impulse-- the poetic and mystical." He accepts the "non-overlapping magisteria" supported by Steven Jay Gould, adding a third, as Bentall points out, of the arts. These domains are "autonomous with regard to science." He goes on to reject,the reviewer quotes him, "the monoculture of the mind" reflected by the fundamentalists of both religion and scientists-- "ultra-scientism" as Benthall puts it. Well, all I can say is that science wants to explain what is really going on in our world and what ever "poetic and mystical" views turn you on are fine but it is a delusional superstition to think that is the way to world understanding. Astrology is certainly "autonomous' with regard to Astronomy but let us not dignify it as a "non-overlapping magesterium." Religion was a pre-scientific way of looking at the world. Today it simply a tool by which the exploited are more easily controlled by their masters. Once the exploited catch on, if ever-- its doesn't look so good that they will-- it's all over.

Terry Eagleton: REASON, FAITH, AND REVOLUTION: REELECTIONS ON THE GOD DEBATE 185pp (Yale). Benthall tells us that Eagleton is turned off by the "doctrinal ferocity" of atheists such as Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens whom he lumps together as "Ditchkins." Eagleton himself rejects the version of God as a vengeful proponent of hell fire and brimstone and thinks that the message of Jesus has been betrayed by the mainstream interpretation of the Christian churches. He is sympathetic to a left Christianity based on a concept of Original Sin that results in a "tragic humanism." But how can you base anything on the fairy tale of "Original Sin?" Benthall says Eagleton finds it "scandalous" that opponents of religion such as Dawkins and Hitchens" can just dismiss the "work of religiously committed people over centuries in alleviating suffering, working for peace and standing up to dictators." Well perhaps it's not so scandalous when you reflect on the fact that compared to the religiously committed who over centuries inflicted suffering, worked for war and blindly followed dictators-- the number of people Eagleton is referring to is a drop in the bucket. As Bertrand Russell said, first religion does a great deal of harm and then a little good. I don't think we need spend much time on this type of jejune apologetic.

John Micklethwait & Adrian Wooldridge: GOD IS BACK: HOW THE GLOBAL RISE OF FAITH IS CHANGING THE WORLD. The first author is an editor (and a Catholic) the second a senior staff member (and an atheist) at THE ECONOMIST, a major organ of bourgeois propaganda and misinformation. Benthall says the thrust of this book is to oppose the "standard view" that religion in the US is "exceptionally elevated" as opposed to Europe and other developed countries "with the drift away from the churches" and that this is the trend of history. "Elevated" is a strange word to use, I think, to describe the primitive nativistic and quite ridiculous beliefs of most American Christians. Everyone who studies the philosophy of religion grants that the US is full of undereducated, unsophisticated, antiscientific, homophobic, racist Bible thumpers to a greater degree than other industrialized areas of the world. That this is "elevated religiosity" is debatable. The authors see, with the exception of Europe, the world trending in the American direction with the rapid growth of religious sects and cults (not their terminology) in the neocolonial world and in China. They are confident that China will become a Christian country. The Chinese "middle class" is better educated than its American counterpart so I doubt this will happen. As we continue to exploit and destroy the neocolonial world, religion can be expected to grow and prosper in this area as it is the sigh of the oppressed after all. Our authors understand this as Benthall writes they hold that, "People take cover from the 'hurricane of capitalism' under the canopy of religion." Since THE ECONOMIST supported Bush's imperialist oil grabbing invasion of Iraq, our authors well know what the "hurricane of capitalism" is capable of.

Paul Froese, THE PLOT TO KILL GOD: FINDINGS FROM THE SOVIET EXPERIMENT IN SECULARIZATION, 264pp (U 0f Ca Press). Using only English language sources, Froese sets out to test the six propositions he thinks are at the basis of the Soviet attitudes toward religion. The six are as follows, according to Benthall's review. 1) Religion is a primitive illusion. 2) Religious rites and values are more important than the gods. 3) Religious leaders are functions of state power. 4) Religious behavior is mostly based on rational choice (!?) [I really doubt the Soviets believed religion was both a primitive illusion AND involved rational choice. Froese puts this one in because he will propose a "market model" for religion later on in his book and most bourgeois thinkers believe markets are the result of "rational choice" such as spending more than you have.] 5) Religion is only concerned with the supernatural. [Another dubious Froese proposition attributed to the Soviets, who were well aware of the social, political, and economic roles that religion concerns itself with.] 6) Religion is subject to market forces the same as businesses are. Benthall says the author has "a personal leaning towards the market model" --i.e., 6) and this, in my opinion, is why he thinks the Soviets believed 4) as well. This whole scheme is cooked up out of Froese's brain. He wonders why the Soviets did not just co-op the Russian Orthodox Church, as the Tzars had, and use it to further the aims of the state. "Froese wonders, Benthall writes, "why Soviet propagandists spent so much effort in creating a substitute religion [i.e., Atheism ] when they could have co-opted an existing one [Orthodoxy] more easily." Froese thinks the Soviet leaders were all like Putin. It does not occur to him that the Bolsheviks sincerely thought religion was a mental poison that imprisons the minds of the masses and makes them slaves and stupid at the same time. The free human beings of the future would be free of the God Delusion.

Michael Jackson [no, not THAT Michael Jackson], THE PALM AT THE END OF THE MIND: RELATEDNESS, RELIGIOSITY, AND THE REAL. This book will claim a little more of our attention as, unlike the twaddle before, there is some real thinking going on here. The author is a social anthropologist influenced by phenomenology. Benthall quotes him on a need for a modern understanding of religion. Jackson writes, "We need to approach religiosity without a theological vocabulary, repudiate the notion of religion as a sui generis phenomenon, and distance ourselves from the assumption of a necessary relationship between espoused belief and subjective experience." He thinks religion is search for "what matters". Well, this would give it a broader extension than it now has. He thinks that religion develops at the extreme limits of human experience when we arrive at "those critical situations in life where we come up against the limits of language, the limits of our strength...."

"It would seem," Jackson writes, "that for all human beings, regardless of their world views, it is in border situations when they are sorely tested ... that they are most susceptible to those epiphanies, breakthroughs, conversions, and revelations that are sometimes associated with the divine [?? what is the 'divine'?- that's theological vocabulary ] and sometimes simply taken as evidence of the finitude, uncertainty, and thrownness of human existence." This is, of course, an echo of the EXISTENZ philosophy of Karl Jaspers and his notion of "limit-situations." It is also, like Jasper's philosophy, a form of anti-scientific irrationalism. Here is Benthall: "For him [i.e., Jackson], a given interpretive vocabulary is at its most disputable when it appears to privilege one way of representing reality by depreciating others." Taken literally this would mean that the scientific method, the only way so far that we have arrived at propositions that have universal applicability, would be on a par with metaphysical speculations and religious intuitions. Benthall thinks that Jackson's way of looking at the world could lead to "spiritual principles compatible with modern science" and concludes that Jackson's way of looking at religion could result in "a shared 'religious' sensibility that may be fitfully emerging to unite different peoples and traditions, in ways influenced by, but not entirely decreed by, the gods of the marketplace." Yet again with the "marketplace." This "shared 'religious' sensibility" already exists in the form secular humanism based on the scientific outlook-- a form of Deism without the deity-- and we do not need to go whoring after new gods. Secular humanism + Marxism should do the trick.