Foundations of Sociological Theory Marx and Engels

SOCIOLOGY 15: FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY FALL 2009 HANDOUT TWO MARX AND ENGELS General Comments Marx's sociology is always a critical sociology. He intends to produce not only an understanding but also a critique of modern western society (i.e., capitalism). However, according to Marx, this criticism can't be based solely on abstract, timeless, or utopian moral ideals. It has to be based as well on a thorough, concrete analysis of capitalist society, which will reveal its inner dynamics and the way in which it creates the objective possibilities for its own transcendence (through revolution). Marx is always scornful of mere moralizing, and of socialists who, as he says somewhere, know nothing about capitalism except that it is bad. He sees capitalism as a stage in a process of historical development, one whose emergence had a certain inner logic, even necessity, but which will just as necessarily give way to a different (and higher) kind of society. Marx's criticism of capitalist (and pre-capitalist) societies is rooted in a powerful conception of human nature, even though Marx would never admit this. This conception involves not a fixed set of drives or instincts, but a set of capacities or possibilities, the realization of which makes people fully human. Human beings have the capacity to freely, consciously, and actively shape their lives in cooperation with others; this is precisely what makes them human. As long as they are not able to do so, as long as they are the pawns of other persons or of impersonal natural or social forces beyond their control, they are not fully human. For Marx, then, freedom, community, and human fulfillment all go together, and he expresses this unity in the idea of communism. History is the conflict-ridden and often contradictory process through which human beings develop and fully realize their nature. Marx thus means his vision of human possibility not simply as an ahistorical abstraction, but as the goal toward which history is actually moving, albeit in indirect, unintended ways. All hitherto existing societies, in contrast, are characterized in different ways by unfreedom, isolation, and the lack of fulfillment (or outright denial) of human possibilities. This condition is captured in the term alienation or estrangement. Although Marx rarely uses the term after writing The German ldeology in the mid-1840s, the concept remains crucial throughout his work. Central to this concept is the idea that in all societies up to and including the present, human beings come to be dominated by their own creations--including their system of social relationships. Much of Marx's work analyzes the specific 1 ways in which human beings are dominated by social forces that confront them as irresistible alien powers. Alienation, however, is not inherent in the human condition; it is the product of certain forms of social organization and can be overcome. Marx integrated his moral vision into a complex analysis of how history works and how societies fit together, which he and Engels sometimes called historical materialism, and into a detailed critique of capitalism. Marx's writing can be divided into two periods. From 1843 to 1848, he developed the basic outline of his thought, including his vision of human nature, a general conception of societies and how they change, and an ambitious agenda for a total analysis of modern societies. From 1848 to nearly the end of his life (in 1883), he labored to complete one important part of this agenda, the critique of "political economy." At the same time, he poured immense effort into political writing of various kinds. Marx and Capitalism As you will discover from reading The Communist Manifesto, Marx was a big fan of capitalism. Writing a century later, Joseph Schumpeter, one of capitalism’s most sophisticated defenders, wrote, Marx was personally much too civilized to fall in with those vulgar professors of socialism who do not recognize a temple when they see it…. No better testimony to his broad-mindedness can be offered than the Communist Manifesto which is an account nothing short of glowing of the achievements of capitalism….Socialism for him was no obsession which blots out all other colors of life… (Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, 3rd edition, pp. 7-8) 2 Class #1: Overview We start with The Communist Manifesto not because it is Marx and Engels’ best known work (which it is), but for several other reasons: The CM captures the spirit and intellectual aspirations of Marx’s work: M&E paint a vast panorama, characterizing and explaining the big changes in western society over three centuries or so, including the dual revolutions of the early 19th century with one big theory. They seek to explain not just economic changes, but political and cultural changes as well. The CM, properly read, opens up for us all three levels on which we will read M&E. 1. A vision of human nature or potential. 2. A general theory of society and history, which addresses both how societies are organized and how they change. 3. A critique of capitalism, which says not only what is wrong with it but how it will change into something better. The CM is a piece of political writing, which keeps us focused on the fact that Marx tried not only to understand the world but also to change it. Reading “The Manifesto”: (1) Pay attention to the guidance M&E give you. At the start (p. 473), they clearly start the purpose of the document, to state the views, aims, and tendencies of “The Communists.” They divide their essay into four sections, each of which does something different. (2) The challenge of reading the CM is teasing out the broad historical and sociological argument woven into what ostensibly is a political pamphlet. In “The Manifesto,” we meet two compelling actors with markedly different fates, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie goes from a revolutionary class re-shaping the contours of the whole world to a defeated class that brings about its own demise. The proletariat goes from an oppressed, dehumanized mass to a revolutionary class that liberates itself and the rest of humanity by overthrowing capitalism and creating a communist society. It is important to recognize that for Marx and Engels, the fate of neither class is wholly of its own making. Both bourgeoisie and proletariat act within a social system with a distinct logic of development. Question: How does the logic of capitalism shape the fate of bourgeoisie and proletariat? In what ways is the bourgeoisie “revolutionary” and why? How/why will it do itself in? In what ways is the proletariat debased and dehumanized? How does it rise from these depths? Pay close attention to the following sentence: “A similar movement is going on before our own eyes” on p. 478. It marks an important transition in the CM. Pp. 473-478 portray the rise of capitalism and the bourgeoisie, celebrating their triumphs. Pp. 478-483 depict growing crisis and contradiction in a world 3 over which the bourgeoisie have lost control. In short, Marx and Engels juxtapose two apparently opposite processes, yet they say that they are similar. What do they mean???? Parts II and III of the CM attempt to clarify M&E’s own position. In particular they distinguish their “communist” vision from other kinds of “socialism” (that is, other critiques of capitalism). This is very important: Capitalism attracted many kinds of critics, yet Marx and Engels believed they had a distinctive (and superior) perspective. How is their critique different from the others that they discuss? Class #2: Alienation and Species Being In his earliest writings in 1843 and 1844, most no more than notes, Marx in effect spelled out his basic assumptions about human nature and his fundamental moral vision, which are keys to his vision of history and his critique of capitalism. The notions of "alienation" (or "estrangement") and "species being" are central to this effort. Note that in these early writings, Marx (with Engels) is working his way out of the German philosophy in which he was originally trained, hence the references to Hegel, Feuerbach, and Bauer. Pp. xix-xvii of Tucker’s introduction may be helpful in figuring out what is going on. Alienation or estrangement implies that something we produce or some part of who we are somehow comes to confront us as an uncontrollable, alien, even hostile force. Species being in effect refers to those characteristics or capacities that distinguish us as human beings. The expression or realization of this species being in alien form is the ultimate form of estrangement. In three of the assigned readings, Marx discusses alienation with regard to religion, political activity, and work. Note how he draws parallels among the three. Reading tips: These are difficult, confusing texts!!! They are not much more than notes. They build on philosophers we haven’t read, using concepts that are unfamiliar to us. None of the usual guideposts for reading are here: No Table of contents, index, introduction or conclusion. No clear division into parts. No clear statement of purpose. “The Manifesto” at least says upfront what its purpose is and has sections that address different things. HOW DO WE MAKE SENSE OF THEM??? When texts are this confusing, the last thing you want to do is try to understand them line by line. You need to find the right question to ask or the central concepts to understand. Focus on the ideas of alienation/estrangement. Marx gives us a clue about how to proceed by telling us that his discussions of religion, politics, and labor are all making a similar point (see pp. 34 and 74) about alienation. He (and the editor) also attempt to define “species being,” on pp. 33-34 (note) and 75-76. Focus on the following questions: 4 What form does alienation take in religion, political activity, and work? In particular, in what ways, according to Marx, are we estranged from our “species being”? In "Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right," Marx calls religion an "inverted world consciousness" and "the opium of the people" (53-54). What precisely is "inverted" about religion and in what way does it serve as a drug? In "On the Jewish Question," Marx distinguishes the "rights of man" from the "rights of citizen" and criticizes the constitutions of both France and the U.S. for subordinating the latter to the former. What are these two kinds of rights? Why is Marx critical of subordinating the rights of citizen to the rights of man? Marx also distinguishes “political emancipation” from “human emancipation.” What is the difference? Marx says "human emancipation will only be complete when the real, individual man has absorbed into himself the abstract citizen." (46) In what sense can the "real" individual "absorb" the "abstract citizen"? In “Estranged Labor", Marx talks about the multiple ways in which labor can be alienated. In particular, he focuses on alienation from the product of labor, from the act of production itself, and from "species being." What is the nature of alienation in each case? As far as you can tell, what exactly is “species being”? Based partly on his vision of human nature, Marx asks how we should understand human beings. The "Theses on Feuerbach" provides the beginning of an answer. In essence what Marx says is that human beings are at once actors (subjects) and the objects of various natural and social forces. Neither materialism (which conceives of humans as objects) nor idealism (which treats subjectivity in the abstract) will do. Furthermore, human beings are social creatures: they exist not in the abstract but in sets of social relationships. The key to alleviating human suffering is not changing consciousness but changing society. Class #3: The Materialist Theory of History and Society Later in the 1840s and into the early 1850s, Marx and Engels developed their general analysis of how societies are structured and how they change. To oversimplify greatly, there are two core ideas. First is the idea that “social being” (more specifically, the mode of production) determines consciousness. The second is that societies, understood as different modes of production, contain the seeds of their own destruction; all societies develop “contradictions” that lead to their undoing. The selections from The German Ideology and “Marx on the history of his opinions” lay out these ideas in general terms. The rest of the readings apply them in different ways (as does “The Manifesto,” which you might look back at about now). 5 The German Ideology is really the pivotal work here. In it, Marx and Engels in effect move from a philosophy of alienation to a sociology of production and social classes. The "division of labor” is the bridging concept and as such has multiple meanings. Marx's sociology begins with the "mode of production," the specific organized way in which human beings at a particular time and place produce things to meet their needs and thus reproduce themselves. He uses the idea of “division of labor” to understands this mode of production. Pay attention to how ideas of classes and inequality emerge in the discussion. Marx and Engels go on to examine the relationship between this mode of production (this "definite mode of life") and consciousness. He says that "life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life" (p. 155). [In "Marx on the history of his opinions," he argues more pointedly that the "economic structure of society" is the "real foundation" upon which not only consciousness but also politics and everything else is built (p. 4).] Later in The German Ideology, they are more specific still, claiming that "the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas"(p. 172) and that “all struggles within the state...are merely the illusory forms in which the real struggles of the different classes are fought out among one another.” (p. 160-161) “Marx on the history of his opinions,” in the course of reviewing his intellectual and political development from 1842 to 1859, summarizes his materialist theory and then puts society into motion, presenting a theory of social change. Central to this theory are "contradictions" between the forces and relations of production, which create periodic revolutions, replacing one mode of production with another. Questions: How do the basic ideas presented here apply to the argument in “The Manifesto”? Do we see “forces of production” coming into conflict with “relations of production”? Do we see the mode of production shaping the rest of society? We have three applications of Marx and Engels’ theories, each distinctive. "On Historical Materialism" is most interesting for the way it links changes in the mode of production (and in social classes) to political and cultural change. It is best to ignore the initial superficial philosophical observations about Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, and et al. and pay closer attention to pp. 54 ff. Engels says that the "long fight of the bourgeoisie against feudalism culminated in three great, decisive battles." (p. 55) These three battles are the Reformation, the English Revolution, and the French Revolution. Engels thus is explaining the most important events in three centuries of European history in terms of the rise of the bourgeoisie (and presumably the development of capitalism). In The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Marx attempts to use notions of class and class conflict to explain political events in France between 1848 and 1851, including the revolution of 1848, the establishment of a democratic 6 republic, and the overthrow of that republic by its elected president, Louis Bonaparte, who in effect became the first popular dictator. The events are complicated and so is Marx’s analysis. The small selection we read here focuses only on the role of the peasants in that drama. Peasants, Marx argued, provided the base of support for Bonaparte. Though oppressed by high taxes and mortgages, they give passive support to a dictator rather than organizing on their own. In other words, while proletarians respond to oppression by organizing, French peasants don’t. Why? Finally, the two articles on India apply Marx’s ideas to a non-Western society coming under the influence of British capitalism. The colonial situation in effect brings two modes of production into play, the indigenous one in India and global capitalism. Pay attention to how Marx characterizes the “Asiatic” mode of production in India and how he explains why it has been static for centuries. Pay attention also to how British imperialism is destroying that mode of production and with what consequences. There is much to puzzle over here. Marx has previously pictured history as a succession of modes of production, each leading to its own collapse and the emergence of a new one. He explicitly places the Asiatic mode in the sequence he lays out on p. 5. Now, discussing India, he pictures the Asiatic mode of production as static, resisting change for centuries. Questions: How do Marx and Engels modify or adapt their theories as they apply them to specific historical cases? Do the modifications enrich or eviscerate their theories? Class #4 The Critique of Capitalism Marx spent much of his time writing a long, detailed critique of capitalism, completing at least two lengthy outlines and a multi-volume work called Capital. At the risk of impiety, I am going to ignore most of it and focus on what I think are some of the important points. The selections from Engels’ essay “Socialism” along with our earlier reading of “The Manifesto,” present parts of the argument that capitalism develops contradictions that will lead to its demise and transcendence. Questions: What contradictions do Marx and Engels see? Why/how do they expect them to be “fatal”? Marx did not spend much time spelling out what socialism or communism would look like, so the few places he addresses this issue are noteworthy. "Critique of the Gotha Program" is a polemic against the program for unifying the two German socialist parties into the Social Democratic Party. We are not interested in the Gotha Program itself or why it irritated Marx. Instead, we focus on Marx’s discussion of different notions of “rights.” The assigned 7 passage presents the principles of right or equity that ought to govern communist society. Marx pronounces capitalist notions of equal rights inadequate for a communist society. Questions: What does he find wrong with capitalist ideas of rights? How do those rights reflect the limits of capitalist society? What would he put in their place? "The Civil War in France" is Marx's analysis of the Paris Commune, a revolutionary government that ruled Paris briefly in 1870-71, after France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian war. It is a classic piece of Marx's journalism, written as events unfolded and full of remarkable insights. We are interested in Marx's use of the Commune as a prototype for government in post-revolutionary society. Questions: What contrasts does Marx draw between the institutions of the French Third Republic and those of the Commune? In what ways are the institutions of a (capitalist) republic inadequate for building communism? How does Marx turn the local, short-lived Commune into a model of post-capitalist society? (See pp. 634-635) Summing up Marx and Engels Finally, think about this: On pp. 439-441, Marx distinguishes the "realm of necessity," in which humans heretofore have lived, from "the realm of freedom" to be built after the overthrow of capitalism. Marx and Engels have made this distinction elsewhere as well. Engels uses the same terms in "Socialism," p.716. He also says that with the overthrow of capitalism, man "emerges from mere animal conditions of existence into really human ones," p. 715. Marx says that capitalism "brings... the prehistory of human society to a close." (p. 5) What is the significance of these distinctions? What does "freedom" mean here? In what sense have human beings always been unfree, not only under capitalism but also in all hitherto existing societies? In what ways have they lived in "animal conditions of existence"? In what sense has all of human history really been "prehistory"? What can we get from Marx? Marx was plainly and blatantly wrong about so many things. Capitalism hasn’t destroyed itself; indeed it is thriving. Communist revolutions haven’t occurred in Germany, France, or the U.S., but in largely agrarian societies with small industrial sectors (Russia, China). The mass support has come not from workers, but from peasants. The societies that revolutions have ushered have been far from the socialist utopia envisioned by Marx. Contrary to Marx, ties of nation, race, and ethnicity have not faded away. Still, we can get a lot from Marx. 8 1. Marx did have insights into the logic of capitalism. A century and half ago, he foresaw globalization, the continuing search for cheap labor, and the growth of a commodity culture. He identified the revolutionary nature of capitalism--its capacity to remake the world in its image. (See Barber’s Jihad vs. McWorld) He foresaw the gap between the productive capacity of capitalism and the actual alleviation of human suffering. 2. Marx understood how capitalism could take almost any human activity, separate out the parts that require creative intelligence from the more routine parts, and then organize these routine parts as simple, repetitive tasks. Marx saw this process at work in modern industry. Today we can see this at work at Wal-Mart or at customer service centers around the globe. 3. Marx’s idea of alienation remains powerful. How often do the products of human activity become an alien force dominating people’s lives? 3. Although class conflict has not led to revolution or anything near that in advanced capitalist societies, class conflict within and outside the democratic process has been central to the politics of advanced capitalist societies over the last 100 years. Marx and Sociology Marxism remains a vibrant presence on its own and within several social science disciplines. Sociologists Erik Wright and Michael Burawoy talk about two ways that sociologists incorporate Marxism into their thinking, “Using Marxism” and “Building Marxism.” Many sociologists use Marxism by adding Marxist ideas to those of others. There is a kind of “common-sense” sociology today that focuses on issues of inequality and conflict, which combines the ideas of Marx with those of Weber and many others. You can see this in theories of social movements and collective action, for example, Charles Tilly’s From Mobilization to Revolution. A smaller number of sociologists commit themselves to building Marxism as a distinct theory of society, history, and social change. Accepting the failure of socialist revolution, many Marxists over the last eighty years or so have focused on the “social reproduction” of capitalism. This means looking at the mechanisms that mitigate the contradictions of the system and dampen tendencies toward militancy. The work of Gramsci and several generations of critical theory are devoted to this. Other Marxists have focused on capitalism as a world system, in which contradictions and inequalities play out between core and peripheral societies. Still other Marxists have worked at unpacking the idea of socialism and coming up with specific changes in capitalist societies that might counter the logic of the market and exploitation. Erik Wright’s “Real Utopias” project is especially interesting. 9 The specter of Marx also haunts most other radical theories of society, which often begin as a critique of Marxism, especially in societies like France where Marxism was once so powerful. Foucault, Bourdieu, and many other important “post-modern” social theorists developed their ideas as arguments with Marx. 10