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While thus in Ricardo the turn to formalism was historically necessary and, thereby, theoretically justified, the progressive
KARL MARX formalistic anaemia of the later period brought none of the great theoretical advantages of which the sceptics and the cynics of present-day "pure" Economics are so proud. They are so convinced of their superiority over the "unscientific" methods applied by the classical economists that they even accept without demur the reproach that their new theoretical science has become a mere plaything, purged of any political significance and of any possibility of application. Following the example of some modern mathematicians, logicians, and physicists, but without in any other respect keeping pace with the achievements of those real sciences, they want to carry on, in a field which cannot otherwise boast of any particular purity, the business of "pure" science, not for any useful purpose but merely "for the greater glory of God." The actual outcome of this later development of Political Economy was a gradual decay. At the same rate as under the impact of the changed conditions of bourgeois production, bourgeois economic theory abandoned its original comprehensive social tendency, it abandoned also its formal scientific qualities, its impartiality, its logic, and fecundity. "From the year 1830 dates the finally decisive crisis."1 Henceforth any genuine development of Political Economy was precluded by the real historic development of bourgeois society. Marxism restored, consciously and on a higher level, the connection between Political Economy and social science which had spontaneously and unconsciously evolved with the bourgeois classicists at an earlier stage. Only for this reason had the science of Political Economy any interest, only thus did it assume its important place in the whole of the Marxian social research. For this reason alone, it appears absurd that so many people should rack their brains to find out why Marx never paid the slightest attention to that "new departure" which, since the middle of the 19th century, is assumed to have been made by an
PROM POLITICAL ECONOMY TO "ECONOMICS" altogether new economic science based on subjective value and the theory of so-called "marginal" utility. Marx did take cognizance of every new word, true or false, which was contributed to any economic question during his lifetime, even by the least important Epigone of classical Political Economy. His adherence to the classicists did not make him neglect the work of another school which, to a certain extent, preceded the theorists of "marginal value" in an attempt to reconstruct economic research by stressing "subjective" value (value in use) rather than classical "objective" value (value in exchange). He did not shrink, though he sighed under the burden, from the task of refuting the many inconsistencies of the leaders of the so-called "kathedersozialistische" school, from Rodbertus to Adolf Wagner. His apparent neglect of the new questions raised by the theorists of marginal utility sprang from an entirely different source. By the very principle of his socio-economic research, Marx was not interested in the thoughts of people who, though still calling their science "Economics," did not have anything in common with that research into the material foundations of society which had formed had formed the them of classical Political Economy, any more than he would have been interested in some other auxiliary inquiry into a group of natural and technical facts not particularly important for the historical change of society. An economic doctrine indifferent to its social implications aroused the attention of Marx only when in spite of its purely "theoretical" concern, it afterwards did serve to draw practical application from its purely theoretical contents, and thus, like Duehring's "socialist" doctrine in the 70's, found supporters within the ranks of the workers' movement. This, however, did not take place with the theory of marginal utility until some years after Marx's death when, in Engels' phrase, G. B. Shaw and his followers endeavoured to base a plausible kind of "vulgar" socialism upon "Jeavons' and Menger's use-value and marginal-utility theory," in order "to build on this 99 KARL MARX rock the Fabian church of the future." That is why Marx in all his comprehensive criticism of traditional economic theory never considered the theory of marginal utility while, on the other hand, Friedrich Engels, when editing the third volume of Capital, bestowed a critical after-thought upon this newest theoretical attempt, if only in that somewhat curt and deprecatory remark.1 1 See Engels' Preface to Capital, III, 1894. 100 CHAPTER III FROM POLITICAL ECONOMY TO MARXIAN CRITIQUE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
The Marxian "critique" is not the first appearance of a genuine principle of criticism as a driving force in the development of economic science. Already in the earlier phases of Political Economy the Mercantile system had been criticised by the Physiocrats, the Physiocrats by Adam Smith, and Adam Smith by Ricardo. Nor was that earlier economic criticism a matter of pure theory. Each new phase of the theoretical development implied a new phase in the real historical development of the capitalistic mode of production. There was no clear distinction ; in fact, every historical phase was in itself a criticism of the preceding phase. For all that, the actual historical and theoretical "subject" of economic science remained unchanged through all these stages. The bourgeois class in its revolutionary struggle 101 KARL MARX against the obsolete forms of feudal production, could not, and did not, distinguish its particular interests as a class from its general interest in the whole of historical progress. Even after the defeat of feudalism, it could still for a considerable time quite honestly regard itself as promoting the general welfare of society. During this phase Political Economy was even striving, to co-operate, with the utmost impartiality, in the solution of the new economic problems emerging from the increasingly unsatisfactory conditions of the real people, that is, the actually working section of the as yet undivided industrial society. That state of things was profoundly changed by the new historical development which set in with the economic crisis of 1825 and with the great political changes of 1830. Henceforward, the new conditions established within bourgeois society no longer permitted an impartial analysis of the economic principles underlying those conditions. A strictly scientific investigation of social development was possible only from the standpoint of that class whose task in history is to transcend the narrow bourgeois horizon and, ultimately, to do away with classes altogether.1 The theoretical system of Ricardo marks the turning point. The complete impartiality of the genuine scientific investigator which appears everywhere in the work of Ricardo, had seemed miraculous already to his contemporaries. "Mr. Ricardo seemed to have dropped from another planer," said Lord Brougham. With faultless clarity, this English banker of the beginning of the 19th century, who nowhere goes beyond the boundaries of the bourgeoisie,2 presented in his system the inherent disharmonies as well as the harmonious and progressive features of the bourgeois mode of production ; more particularly he revealed the inevitable opposition arising between the two industrial classes. He 1 See Marx, Postscript, 1873. 2 "The 'parallelograms of Mr. Owen" appear to be the only form of society which he knew outside the bourgeois one" (Marx, Critique of Political Economy). 102 POLITICAL ECONOMY declared from the outset that the principal problem in Political Economy is to state the proportions in which the whole produce of society is allotted to each of the three social classes: the proprietors of land, the owners of capital, and the property-less labourers.1 Thus "the contrast of class interests, of wages and profits, of profit and rent," became indeed, as was later stated by Marx, the very "pivot" of Ricardo's economic investigation.3 The position of Ricardo in the history of economic science is precisely analogous to that occupied by Hegel in philosophical thought, just as in a preceding phase the economics of Adam Smith had corresponded to the philosophy of Kant. This analagous historical position appears most clearly in Ricardo's important contribution to what we have described in an earlierr chapter as the "bourgeois self-criticism."3 The scientific criticism of the existing capitalistic system, which pervades the economic system of Ricardo, surpasses the occasional comments of the earlier economists on the unpleasant sides of the new bourgeois conditions even more than the earlier philosophical critics had been surpassed by Hegel. While in dealing with Hegel we had to disregard the mystifying form of his statements in order to find out his realistic advance on his predecessors, the superiority of Ricardo's criticism over that of his forerunners is clear like day. His critical statements not only surpass all previous criticism in their sweeping power of generalization and in the irresistible logic of their reasoning. A more decisive difference appears in their very premises, namely, in the fact that they rest no longer on that naive faith in the fundamental perfection or the unlimited perfectibility of the new world order, which had prevailed among the economists of the preceding period quite as much as among the philosophers. Political Economy in its first period had been optimistic and
2 See Postscript, 1873; see also Marx's letter to Weydemeyer, 5-3-52 3 See above, pp. 61 et seq.
KARL MARX confident to the extent that along with the blessings of the new bourgeois mode of production it could afford to acknowledge their purchase price. "Not for a single moment did it deceive itself as to the birth pains of wealth, but what is the use of crying over historical necessity?"1 Even for Adam Smith it had still been fairly easy, in his great inquiry into the best possible ways to raise the general wealth of society, to regard the interests of the "inferior order" of the wage-labourers as well as those of the two "superior orders" (profit and rent). He had even endeavoured to oppose the tendency of the newly arrived bourgeoisie to monopolize for itself the advantages won in a common battle and to bring definitely to the front the neglected interests of the common man. He did not thereby endanger, but rather tightened the apparent unity of the two industrial classes which were at that time still busy conquering the last surviving prerogatives of the landed aristocracy. A different situation was faced by Ricardo when in a supplementary chapter added to the third edition of his Principles he did not uphold the favourable view on the effects of machinery which he had expressed in the preceding chapters of his work but which in the meantime had been proved to him by Sismondi to be erroneous both in fact and in theory. While he had then emphasized the "general good" which must of necessity be brought about by "these mute agents which are always the produce of much less labour than that which they displace,"2 he now carefully re-examined his earlier position. A more realistic consideration of the "influence of machinery on the interests of the different classes of society" led him to the conclusion that the opinion entertained by the labouring class, that the employment of machinery is frequently detrimental to their interests, is not founded on prejudice and error, but is conformable to the correct principles of Political Economy.3 1 See Capital, I, p. 558. 2 See Principles of Political Economy, chap, i, § 5. 3 Ibid. chap. xxxi.
POLITICAL ECONOMY No wonder that the later pseudo-scientific apologists of capitalism should denounce him on this count as the Father of Communism. Said a leading American economist in 1848: The system of Mr. Ricardo is one of discord ... it tends to foster enmity between classes and nations ... His book is the right textbook for the demagogue who aims at power through agrarianism, war, and plunder.1 All post-Ricardian developments of Political Economy testify to the fact that the historical struggle waged between the progressive industrial class and the obstructive forces of feudal oppression had now been finally superseded by a new revolutionary conflict arising within bourgeois society between the two hitherto united classes produced by modern industry itself — bourgeoisie and proletariat. The first of the various schools to work out the scientific results of classical Political Economy under the changed historical conditions of the 19th century sprang up immediately after Ricardo's death. From this school started the attempt with which we have dealt above, to use the Ricardian theory as a weapon against the existing economic system of society and thus to derive anti-bourgeois conclusions from bourgeois principles.2 But in the main the spokesmen of this new school contented themselves with celebrating the victory of the Ricardian principles over all pre-Ricardian economics in a series of splendid tournaments which were for the most part displayed in scattered review-articles, occasional papers, and pamphlets and were, after long oblivion, rediscovered and recognized in their historical importance, mainly by the endeavours of Marx.3 This last polemical intermezzo preceding
2 See above, p. 90 et seq. 3 See the detailed discussion of this whole school in Theories of Surplus Value, III.
KARL MARX the final collapse of the fighting spirit in bourgeois economic theory — a skirmish resembling, as Marx said, the "Sturm und Drang" period of economic science that had raged in France after Dr. Quesnay's death, but not more than "Indian summer reminds us of the spring"1 — covered roughly the decade 1820 to 1830. After that it dragged on in ever weaker manifestations to the Repeal of the Corn Laws in England in 1846 and to the outbreak of a new revolution on the continent in 1848-49. Another tendency of post-Ricardian economics is represented by a school of pseudo-scientific writers who flattened, diluted, and gradually entirely dispersed the theoretical results reaped from the work of classical economists. The theoretical contents of the prolific writings of this school are most aptly, if somewhat cruelly, described by Marx as a mere "vulgarization" of the scientific achievements of Political Economy. The "vulgar" successors of the great classical economists have, indeed, not added any new contribution to that genuine work of discovery by which their scientific predecessors had discerned the inner relations of the modern bourgeois mode of production and thus brought forward the necessary premises for its genetic presentation. Scientific analysis was everywhere replaced by mere conceptual reflection. That simple reproduction of the given external conditions, which for the classicists had been merely one of the constituents of their theory — its "vulgar" element — was now finally set up as a separate existence. Yet this was not the lowest point reached in the gradual decay of a formerly vigorous and vital science. A still more complete loss of scientific character was seen, when later, along with the further development of the real oppositions inherent in the life of bourgeois society, economic science itself split in mutually opposing parts. Bourgeois economists, when no longer confronted with their own internal dissensions, but with a group of socialistic dissenters opposing them from without, promptly threw over all 1 See Postscript, 1873. 106 POLITICAL ECONOMY semblance of unbiassed theoretical research. From a mere neglect of the progressive tasks of true science, they turned to a conscious defence of existing bourgeois conditions against the impending socialistic menace embodied in the writings of Sismondi, Owen, Fourier, St. Simon. The more the stern outlines of the class strife asserted themselves in the actual development of capitalist society, the more the economists applied themselves to a misrepresentation and, ultimately, to an entire negation of these new historical tendencies. At each further step in the unavoidable development of "class" and "class discord" within reality, they strengthened their desperate efforts to keep these embarrassing topics entirely out of their theoretical picture. They even endeavoured to purge the classical concepts of any such impurities wherever they had already been introduced into economic theory by their great scientific predecessors. Thus bourgeois economists became even incapable of a faithful registration of external facts. By the combined effect of all these self-established obstructions, the "vulgarized" economic theory of the 19th century became poorer and poorer in theoretical content. There is, however, a difference between the earlier stage when, for instance, Say had "vulgarized" Adam Smith, and the latter stage when MacCulloch, Bastiat, and others had “vulgarized” Ricardo. In the earlier phase the "vulgarizers" had found then material as yet unfinished, and thus had been compelled to contribute, though in a diminishing degree, to the solving of real economic problems. In the later phase they dropped all independent theoretical effort and occupied themselves with a mere plagiarizing of the doctrines of Ricardo and with an arguing away of the unpleasant aspects.1 The deductions which the socialist Ricardians had been unable to draw, and which the "vulgar" economists had deliberately dodged, were formulated fifty years later by a new school of 1 See Marx, Theories of Surplus Value, 111, pp. 281 et seq 107 KARL MARX economic research. The true conclusions of classical Political Economy were drawn by Marx. The "critical" tradition of the classical epoch of Political Economy was revived by the Marxian "Critique" of Political Economy in Capital. This new criticism, however, was more than a transition from a given phase to a further developed phase of economic science. It implied a change of the class which henceforth was to be the historical as well as the theoretical "subject" of all Political Economy. While previous criticisms had for their practical aim a further "development" of the bourgeois mode of production, the Marxian criticism aims at its complete overthrow.1 "Critique" of Political Economy, then, is the theory of an impending revolution. Not only Marx and Engels, but all revolutionary Hegelians of the 40's and 50's of the last century, had used the word "critique" in tins large historical sense.2 The terminology fell into complete oblivion during the sad period of decline which set in after the collapse of the Chartist movement and the 1 For a succinct statement of the matter discussed in this Chapter see Rosa Luxumbourg in Neue Zeit, XVIII, ii, p. 182: "Classical Political Economy, with invincible logic, finally resulted everywhere in a form of self-criticism, namely, the criticism of the bourgeois order. Ricardo, in England, provided the direct starting point for a whole school of English socialists (Thompson, Gray, Bray, and others) ; in France, the first "flattener" of the classical economists, Say, was immediately followed by Sismondi; in Germany, we find socialist sympathies already in Rau, who was followed by Rodbertus and Thuenen. Marx completed the transformation of Political Economy into its opposite, a socialist analysis of capitalism." 2 See the writings of Ruge, Bruno Bauer, Feuerbach and other left Hegelians which already use the term "critique" generally in their titles, one improving upon the other in ever new variations. From among the earlier writings of Marx and Engels we note: Marx, "Critique" of Hegel's Philosophy of Law, Engels, Outlines of a "Critique" of National Economy (both in the first and only volume of the German-French Yearbooks, published by Ruge and Marx, Paris, 1844); Towards a "Critique" of National Economy (Marxian MSS. of 1844, now published MEGA, I, iii, pp. 31 et seq.); The Holy Family: "Critique of the Critical Critique" (pamphlet against Bruno Bauer and his followers by Enggels and Marx, Frankfurt, 1845); The German Ideology: a "Critique" of the New German Philosophy as represented by Feuerbach, B. Bauer, and Stirner, and of German Socialism and its various Prophets" (MSS. by Marx and Engels, 1845-46, now published MEGA, I, v). 108 POLITICAL ECONOMY triumph of the counter-revolution in the whole of Europe consequent upon the defeat of the Paris proletariat in June, 1848. Thus a complete abandonment of all revolutionary "critical" tendencies in theory coincided with the abandonment of the last residues of a practical revolutionary tendency. Marx and Engels were the only ones who rescued from oblivion both the practical and the theoretical aspects of a truly revolutionary “critique”1 1 See Marx — Critique of Political Economy, 1859, and Capital, a Critique of Political Economy, 1867. 109 CHAPTER IV SCIENTIFIC VERSUS PHILOSOPHICAL CRITICISM OF POLITICAL ECONOMY MARX'S approach to Political Economy was from the outset that of a critical and revolutionary student of society rather than that of an economist. Yet a long period was still required before, from the first discovery of Political Economy as an "anatomy of civil society" through a series of intermediate phases, he arrived at his final scientific and materialistic investigation and critique of the whole complex of ideas and facts constituting the historical existence of "Political Economy." Marx was already an outspoken revolutionary and even a proletarian socialist at the time when he regarded a really developed "Political Economy" as it existed in England and France as being in itself revolutionary progress, and practically identified the aims of Political Economy with the aims of socialism. He contrasted this modern form of relating industry to the State, or the "world of wealth" to the "world of politics," with the reactionary form in which that "main problem of modern times" had then begun to occupy the attention of the Germans. "While the problem in France and England is worded Political Economy, or wealth controlled by society, in Germany it is termed, National Economy, or nationality controlled by private property."1 If we apply to Marx the terms which he, but a short time later, was to apply to a similar standpoint, we may say that during this short first period Marx had criticized politics only from the standpoint of economics, but had not yet extended his revolutionary criticism to the economic basis Yüklə 0,99 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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