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KARL MARX & IDEAS IN HISTORY.
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Argues Marx believed ideas to be powerless unless derived from forces of historical materialism, social relations & concrete human action.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Argues Marx believed ideas to be powerless unless derived from forces of historical materialism, social relations & concrete human action.
Paper Introduction:
This study will discuss the position of Karl Marx with respect to the role of ideas in history. The study will make the fundamental argument that Marx believed ideas to be powerless as a force in history unless they are connected with materialism. In other words, ideas are not imposed on history, but emerge from the forces of historical materialism which control human affairs and human thought:
The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. . . . Men are the producers of their . . . ideas . . . as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces. . . . [Ideas] have no history, no development; but men, developing their material production
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we can . . London: Routledge, 1989.Swingewood, Alan. These "imaginary expressions are not at allarbitrary. . . . that the projections of human experience in thought or social institutions are misleadingly separated from man in abstract speculation and acquire a harmful power over him in his social life, dividing him from himself and his fellow men so that he is never truly whole and never truly "at home."[iv] Marx sees ideas as dependent on actual human experience for a numberof reasons. . Another critique of Marx's theory of ideas is presented by Archibald,who argues that Marx's argument about the march of historical materialismis independent of ideas. . . New York: John Wiley &Sons, 1975.Zeitlin, Irving M. The evolution of an idea---such as the idea of capitalitself---can tell us much about the society out of which such ideas arise,as Marx says again and again. Guddat (eds.), Writings of the YoungMarx on Philosophy and Society (Garden City, New York: Anchor,1967), 11.David McLellan (ed.), Marx: The First Hundred Years (New York:St. They are in no wayindependent from the real world of human action and social relations. Ideas which advance it are those which are rooted in actualhuman experience. Again,such ideas cannot tell us everything we need to know about that society.Again, underlying this aspect of Marx's analysis of ideas in history is thesame assumption underlying every aspect of the same subject---ideas,whether "true" or "imaginary" or "mystical," are dependent on historicalmaterialism for their expression and development. as the pre-condition of comprehension" he means simply that no category on its own is sufficient as the starting-point for adequate sociological analysis. . . What most individuals do and do not know and what they do and do not will, are therefore anything but irrelevant to the nature of the system.[xii] Archibald, however, goes on to modify his criticism, pointing outthat Marx meant that workers' ideas do affect the independence of thesystem, but are not "necessary" for that independence. Endnotes BibliographyArchibald, W. . That is the initial and least controversial sense of the argument that "there is no history . [Ideas] have no history, no development; but men, developing their material production and their material intercourse, alter, along with this their real existence, their thinking and the products of their thinking.[i] This view is to be expected from a thinker who sees materialism asthe basis for all relations among human beings. It is not sufficient to begin social analysis with concrete facts as such but rather with abstract wholes. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1972.Korsch, Karl. Again, the underlying argument is thatideas are not independent forces, but are the product of social relations.Ideas coming from social relations cannot be more advanced than thatsociety itself. For Marx, the idea can either advance the cause of human development,or retard it. However, Swingewood writes, Here is the essence of dialectical methodology: social analysis consists of a constant shuttling between the parts and the whole, not simply in one direction but in both. If, forexample, ideas could be shown to be the source of the world (as inidealistic philosophy), then Marxism would be immediately meaningless.Second, Marx's philosophy is rooted in the desire for material change,change which will bring about a more just world for human beings who sufferunder economic and other inequities. Paradoxically, the more advanced thesociety socioeconomically (up through capitalism) the more the ideas ofthat society will be torn with the same contradictions and conflicts thatbeleaguer society itself. . Ideaswhich retard the development of man are not rooted in human experience inthe physical world but are instead abstract and imposed from without. Already in his first economic work we him reproaching Ricardo for having applied the specifically bourgeois concept of rent to "landed property of all epochs and of all countries. This study will discuss the position of Karl Marx with respect to therole of ideas in history. It is an abstract idea simply because there is no proofthat it is grounded in reality, although Marx would argue that hisscientific analysis of history yields conclusive evidence that such an ideais indeed rooted in the real world of human and social relations, and isnot abstract at all. of art" [or of ideas]; that the real history is always of human being making art [or thinking ideas] from their own human resources. . . If ideas andsocial relations were independent of one another, it would rendermeaningless Marxist theory. That is, it is so difficult to keep track ofthe changes taking place in the physical world of human action and socialrelations and economic development, that if it were also necessary to keeptrack of the development of ideas on an independent track from thosematerial changes, the analysis would collapse of its own weight. .[vi] Another facet of Marx's views of ideas and their role in history hasto do with the consciousness of a society with respect to itself. Again, from Korsch: The principle of historical specification is further demonstrated by the way Marx deals with the different historical forms of "capital" itself. Contrary to popular opinion, Marx did not believe that every societyexperiences economic development in the same way, moving through thevarious epochs from medieval to bourgeois to communist society. First, his philosophy is rooted in the material world, insocial and economic relations. If ideas have a source other than thematerial world, then his materialistic philosophy is threatened. What Swingewood is concerned with is discovering the "big picture."What is it that gives these various epochs a context in which they can becompared to one another. . Ideas, at first, are "merely consciousness concerning theimmediate sensuous environment and consciousness of the limited connectionwith other person and things."[ii] Even in that beginning of history, ideaswere not independent of social relations: "Consciousness is therefore fromthe very beginning a social product, and remains so as long as men exist atall."[iii] Therefore, for Marx, ideas are the product of man's relations withother men (and with things) in society and in material development in thatsociety. . Just as in the present epoch "Industrial Capital" appears as the standard form of all capital, so did "Merchants' Capital and its twin brother, "Interest-bearing Capital," and the various sub-forms of these (more exactly described by Marx as "capital for trading in goods," "capital for trading in money," "capital for lending money"), occupy . . Man---the real, actual human being in a physical body working andsuffering and yearning in the material world---is at the heart of Marxism.Marx's philosophy of ideas in history is, as McLellan writes, part of a polemic against the assumption that the whole of human history was determined by ideas, whether human or extra-human in origin: an assumption which complacently and cruelly ignored the long history and present facts of human labor, through which the necessary physical existence and survival of human beings were gained and assured. That is why we cannot trust a society's ideasabout itself to give us an accurate or comprehensive picture of thatsociety: Do not judge a society in a given period by its consciousness. As Archibald goes on to say, If we stop and reflect . Guddat (eds.). Writings of the Young Marx onPhilosophy and Society. Marx and Modern Social Theory. "Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself, so can we not judge of such a period of transformation by its consciousness. The counter-emphasis, that human labor is central, necessary and thus genuinely originating, remains as Marx's major contribution to modern thought.[v] Marx says in a number of areas that there "is no history" of ideas,of art, of politics, of law, of science, of religion, etc. All relations---in thoughtor in the physical world---flow from material conditions. Marx: The First Hundred Years. see how misleading Marx's references to the capitalist system being "independent of the knowing and willing of individuals" really are. What he means isnot that these "areas" of human concern do not exist, but that they are notin any way independent or distinct from actual, physical, material humanexistence: The whole thrust of Marx's reading of history was then, first, to insist that all cultural processes were initiated by humans themselves, and, second, to argue that none of them could be fully understood unless they were seen in the context of human activities as a whole. observed him argue that this relative independence is itself dependent upon individuals' ignorance of the system and where it has come from, and of the relatively small number and variety of demands they make upon it. . Karl Marx. Landed property has been widely different in character and has played very different parts in the various historical epochs of society.[ix] Ideas, then, develop as the epochs evolve, as the economic systems ofsocieties evolve. . This is true evenfor the most fundamental development of ideas in the beginning of humanexistence. Marxism: A Re-Examination. as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces. Forexample, the concept of alienation is an important part of Marxist theory: By "alienation" Marx meant . . He criticizes all the categories of the bourgeois theorists of society in which that specific character has been effaced. . In every case, Marx says, ideas inhistory are dependent on the changes which occur in the material world inwhich man himself lives and changes. Garden City, New York: Anchor, 1967.Fromm, Erich. . . " More than a society's opinion of itself is necessary in order adequately to comprehend it. New York: Russell & Russell, 1963.McLellan, David (ed.). That is,a society has an idea of itself, and Marx says that this idea cannot beused alone to measure that society. Even ideas which areillusory are still important to Marx as necessary elements in thehistorical march of society. To thecontrary, he applied his theory to specific societies at specific times andin specific stages of development. When Marx writes that "the subject, society, must always be envisaged . . . New York: St.Martin's Press, 1983.Rattansi, Ali (ed.). a predominating position in the epochs preceding capitalistic society and, indeed, in the first phases of capitalist society itself.[x] Another reason that Marx insisted that ideas flow from materialconditions and concrete human action is that to place ideas in the superiorposition to the material world, or to give equal standing to ideas and theactual world, would make his theory impossibly complicated. New York: Van NostrandReinhold, 1967.-----------------------Erich Fromm, Marx's Concept of Man (New York: Frederick Ungar,1972), 197-98.Ibid., 2 3.Ibid.Loyd D. . Marx and the Missing Link: "Human Nature."Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press International, 1989.Easton, Loyd D., and Kurt H. The study will make the fundamental argument thatMarx believed ideas to be powerless as a force in history unless they areconnected with materialism. They express a rigorous necessity; that of the mode of action ofthe relations of production. In fact, of course, we have . . . . . . Men are the producers of their . As society develops, as material production becomes moresophisticated and complex, as man himself in his own consciousness, self-consciousness, and in his relations with others becomes more developed andcomplex, ideas also become more complex. Inevitably, ideas took a secondary position in thisphilosophy. As a materialistand a humanist, Marx centered reality in the physical world and in theaction of human beings. Without such a context, the epochs and the eventsand ideas of those epochs will be very difficult to analyze and understand.Marx, of course, supplies this "big picture" with his very abstract ideathat history will conclude with the revolution and the emergence of thecommunist society toward which all history has been moving, according toMarxist theory. His moral compass also focused on human beings andtheir suffering and his desire to find a way to envision alleviation ofthat suffering. Marx's Concept of Man. Marx clearly argued, in any case, that ideas did not create the worldas it is, but are rather results of the way the world is. Ideology, Method and Marx. . . . Swingewood writes that Marx claims that his theory deals only in theconcrete and the specific, and that an idea, to be meaningful, must beconnected directly and clearly in the analysis to the material conditionsfrom which it emerged. These imaginary expressions arise . . Accordingly, his position on the role ofideas in history is also time and place specific. Such ideas may lead to the intensification of thestruggle between the classes, in the short run, but they nevertheless helpto eventually bring about the revolution and the coming of communism. . Zeitlin, Marxism: A Re-Examination (New York: VanNostrand Reinhold, 1967), 124-25.Ali Rattansi, Ideology, Method and Marx (London: Routledge,1989), 121.Karl Korsch, Karl Marx (New York: Russell & Russell, 1963), 24.Ibid., 26.Alan Swingewood, Marx and Modern Social Theory (New York: JohnWiley & Sons, 1975), 44-45.W. . . . Still, ideas can be useful in analyzing and understandingstages of history, as long as one keeps those ideas epoch-specific. In other words, ideas are not imposed onhistory, but emerge from the forces of historical materialism which controlhuman affairs and human thought: The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Peter. Easton and Kurt H. Marx also argues that dialectical materialism is at work inadvancing society, so that the ideas which are products of such a societyare also subject to those dialectics. The fundamental principle of dialectical theory is that empirical facts must be integrated into a whole or they remain abstract, superficial, and theoretically misleading.[xi] In other words, the various historical epochs yield ideas which arerooted in those epochs, and the significance of these ideas change fromepoch to epoch, evolving as the social relations and means of productionevolve. The same idea can beexpressed and understood in completely different ways in different epochs.As Korsch writes, Marx comprehends all things social in terms of a definite historical epoch. Peter Archibald, Marx and the Missing Link: "Human Nature"(Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press International,1989), 35.----------------------- 1 . . Therefore, ideas which do not relateto this end are, for Marx, meaningless. This is the error of all economists who represent bourgeois production conditions as eternal." The scope of the principle of historical specification is clearly demonstrated in this example. ideas . It is not that there is a contradiction amongthese various meanings of a particular idea, but rather that the materialconditions of the epoch change and cause the idea to be reinterpreted onthe basis of such change. . .from the relations of production themselves."[viii] In other words, ideas may be imaginary impressions, but they stillcan tell the analyst much about the reality of the relations of productionsin that society at a particular stage of its historical development. Martin's Press, 1983), 25.Ibid., 23.Irving M. Consciousness must be explained in its intimate connection with, and dependence upon, the tension between productive forces and the relations of production.[vii] Ideas emerge from the historical development of social relations, butnot all of those ideas are true ideas which reflect the reality of society,even with that society's contradictions and conflicts. Studying various aspects of the social consciousness alone will not yield an understanding either of that consciousness or of that society. .
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