Reply to Anton
On Your use of the Literary and the Historical
I quite like your introduction and attempts to combine an understanding of Marx’s theory of history with Marxist literary theory.
Christopher Hill especially believed that understanding historical literature (what people wrote to understand and explain their lives) was very important for Marxist historians. In fact if you look at the work of the CPGB historians (Hill, Hobsbawm, Kiernan, etc) there are a lot of references to Literature. I think it is a tradition that Marxist historians should keep – understanding the intellectual as well as the practical realities of class societies.
If you want to know more about Marxist approaches to literature as a tool of historical research then check out the work of Hill (17th century literature), Kieman (on Shakespeare), T. J. Clark and Hobsbawm (19th century bourgeois literature), and of course Raymond Williams.
You should read Wickham’s recent edited collection of essays by Marxist historians on the future of Marxist historiography (Marxist History Writing for the 21st Century).
On Historical Agency (Class Struggle and Revolution)
The two aspects of Marx’s theory that I think you have not adequately looked at are (1) the concept of class struggle and (2) the part played by Revolutionary upheaval in the historical process.
Marx’s conception of the mode, relations and forces of production are important but from my perspective these do not provide the human agency of historical change – nor do I think Marx understood them as such (thus I reject the argument of economic, technological or any other determinism in Marx’s theory). I accept that social change is precipitated by conflicts between the productise forces and the social relations but their ultimate expression can not occur without the human agency. Without these dual forms of agency (class struggle, revolution) then Marx’s theory is one sided and would be determinist. Thus while I think you have done a brilliant job of describing the basis of Marx’s theory (abstraction and concrete analysis of the mode of production, forces of production, relations of production) it is incomplete without an analysis of the active human aspect of the theory. Thus your analysis of the base must be combined with an analysis of Marx’s dual doctrine of historical agency (class struggle and revolution) if we are to understand fully Marx’s theory of history.
The agency, the change, for any (major) historical change comes from human action – class struggle in its most basic form. This belief in the agency of human activity is the most important part of Marx’s theory of history because it gives power of historical change to the mass of people – rather than history unfolding at the whim of some great man or something else. Engels suggested that if Marx had outlined the materialist theory of history in full he would have stressed the active element – the agency of class struggle/revolution – of the theory. "I use 'historical materialism' to designate the view of the course of history, which seeks the ultimate causes and the great moving power of all important historic events in the economic development of society, in the changes in the modes of production and exchange, with the consequent division of society into distinct classes and the struggles of these classes." Frederick Engels, Socialism Utopian and Scientific – p 51
Perhaps I have read too much into the historiography and method of the CPGB historians group but it is this agency of human struggle (within the context of the economic base and the, social, political superstructure) which is the key thing that I think must be stressed within the materialist method of history. You have to read E.P. Thompson’s The Poverty of Theory. The strength of “history from below” comes from its stressing of the agency of oppressed classes in the acts of the historical process. Marxist historiography must continue to stress that (while also examining what a ruling class is doing – history from above). It is this that has always most attracted me to Marxist historical theory.
“Revolution” (the act of) is another important part of how Marx sees change (real, ultimate) historical change. From revolution in the ancient world, to the bourgeois revolutions, and ultimately the socialist revolution. I think we have to underline the importance of revolution in creating massive socio-economic historical change (alongside class struggle in the arbitrary). Conflicts within an existing mode of production (between the relations of production and its forces, and other forces) can create the reason for change and class struggle gives the opportunity to create or prevent that change but without revolution (in one sense or another – social, political, economic, philosophical) that change is practically unrealised.
Focusing Marx’s theory of history within a dialogue of revolution as key part of creating socio-economic change (change in the historical sense) is also important for the practical rebuilding of Marxist history theory. It is needed to defend against the revisionist trend in recent decades within the history of revolutions – especially the bourgeois revolutions (which see no socio-economic aspects underlying them or indeed any real historical change caused by them or even developing from them). See the debate on the French Revolution in recent years – suggesting that it changed very little of French society and was but a cultural change.
If we can show the importance of revolution in historical change in the past we not only defend Marxist theories of history but we also have then an argument showing that in any future change revolution is an inevitable part. Human history is a history of revolutions and struggles –for Marxist historical theory fundamental socio-economic change has rarely come without them.
Of course it is possible to construct a version of Marx’s theory of history which purges the dialectic (Cohen’s Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence) or the agency of human activity (Althusser) but in my mind without class struggle or revolution Marx’s theory of history is inevitably weakened. Class struggle gives humanity agency within the framework of society (an agency that is actually much greater than those in bourgeois historiography give it credit for). Revolution allows practical destruction of that framework and the creation of new ones. Ultimately the strength in Marx’s theory of history comes from its concrete understanding of the basis of society and linking that to human activity.
So my main critique is you have to further develop the importance of agency within Marx’s theory of history. You’ve outlined it in some parts but I think some expansion is needed.
The Preface of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
Your quotation and analysis of the Preface of A Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy is quite good but when dealing with the preface it must be remembered that Marx’s outline of the materialist conception of history within it deliberately excluded the notion of class struggle because of police censorship. Marx was desperate to get something published in Germany in the 1850s and so cut out deliberately provocative statements from the Critique (anything the police censors could use).
In applying the method of the conception of history outlined by the Preface the most important thing to keep in mind is the degree of correspondence or conflict between the productive forces and the social relations of production – which is what the Preface succinctly outlines – but to also acknowledge that the Preface does not really outline the entirety of the theory (such as class struggle and revolution – despite a short reference to the epoch of social revolution). Marx and Engels understood this Marx later lamented that the Preface lacked an outline of the active element of historical materialism – class struggle.
We thus must be very careful in the use of the Preface as the “outline” of Historical Materialism. You have avoided those possible problems.
Forces of Production
Note – I will look at the Harman/Callinicos debate below. This section looks at Forces of Production outside of that debate.
Marx and Engels did not believe that human history featured a continuous growth of the productive forces. Rather, the development of the productive forces was characterised by social conflicts. Some productive forces destroyed other productive forces, sometimes productive techniques were lost or destroyed, and sometimes productive forces could be turned into destructive forces. There is a large paragraph in the German Ideology which outlines this (Part I: Feuerbach. Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook: D. Proletarians and Communism).
This is why I am critical of Cohen’s conception of Historical Materialism – his theory of the development of the means of production and productive forces being the driving force of history. Although I think his work is important in stressing that the productive forces are important. I think he just goes too far.
In my mind, the productive forces reflect not just the means of producing but also reflect in some forms the relationship of people to the objects and forces of nature used for the production of material wealth. (These relationships can be different than the more formal relations of production – these are relationships between a person and their tools, rather than the person/people in organized producing society).
We must remember that the productive forces remain a human activity (despite the fact that the idea of productive forces conceives of technology within the human/nature dialectic). In my understanding the productive forces are not this overbearing, all powerful determiner of human history (this is the worst sort of technological determinism). The productive forces are created by human labour and thus must be understood through the human relationship and not as stand–a-lone.
Marx identified three components of the production: human labour, subject of labour, and means of labour (Capital Vol. I, p 174). Productive forces are the combining of human labour and the means of labour; means of production are the union of the subject of labour (resources) and the means of labour.
My view that the Productive forces are a very wide set of forces and that the human element is critical to understanding them. Setting out my view of this is important for when I get to Harman/Callinicos.
The Harman/Callinicos Debate
From my reading of Harman on the whole productive forces debate it seems that he is agreeing with Cohen’s and Althusser’s narrow interpretation of those forces as merely elements of production (to prove the forces of production as the prime mover). While I am not saying that Harman’s views on this are the same as Cohen or Althusser, similarities should be noted. That is bad. Too narrow for my liking – it breaks with Marx’s theories of totality and it ignores the fact that the forces of production include combining those elements with human labour. Thus Harman is wrong to separate the forces of production as arbitrarily as he does and to be so narrow in his definition of them.
Callinicos is more interesting in how he focuses his view of Marxian history as an attempt to understand exploitation, which lies inside any analysis of relations of production, and is hostile to the teleology of ‘orthodox historical materialism’—the idea that the movement to a socialism is an eventually inevitable consequence of the contradictions between the productive forces and the relations of production. While I agree with him that the relations of production should also be stressed I also disagree on the opposite reason I disagree with Harman – he divorces the relations of production from the forces of production.
The problem, as I see it, with Harman and Callinicos is that while attempting to distinguish the importance of their selected relationship (forces or relations) they have arbitrarily disconnected the one from the other. Both are needed and both are interconnected.
I agree with you that we can’t separate one from the other as easily as Harman and Callinicos try to. I also agree with Barker that we should see the forces of production and relations of production in some way related. Harman and Callinicos (in my mind) are guilty of quoting Marx without taking his wider meaning or keeping in mind Marx’s views on totality. Harman’s conception of narrow forces of production (and their supposed domination by the upper classes) is incredibly troublesome – too limited - as I outlined in the above section.
As for Baker failing to stress labour power I have not read any of his work so I am not qualified to comment.
However, I am slightly unhappy with Callinicos’ idea of “class” in history being an objective reality whether or not its members have any consciousness of themselves as a collective. In my mind Class is an objective reality (as a result of the relations of production) but the construction of consciousness is too important for Callinicos to just ignore (See E.P. Thompson). The Marxist medieval historian Chris Wickham has some things to say on this as well. Consciousness and the building of consciousness are important when understanding human agency. Human activities (and history) occur within the connections of the mode, means, forces and relations of production but consciousness is vital for informed activity. It does not mean activity cannot happen without consciousness – but it helps.
What we both must do is get our hands on Callinicos’ book “Making History: Agency, Structure, and Change in Social Theory” and have a real in-depth reading group on it – as well as bring in Harman’s work. http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=210&pid=17890 - even if it is just the two of us.
As a historian, I am of course more interested in how these theories works historically for understanding past class societies. So, for example, I would have liked Callinicos, Harman, Baker and Brenner to each explain how their models explain the logic of development of individual modes of production (not just the capitalist mode, but the feudal, ancient and (the problematic) Asiatic modes as well). These modes in their ‘normal operation’, not just in social/revolutionary crisis. Harman can’t any longer but the others still can.
What is needed is to show via actual historical evidence of past (and current) class societies the development of these relations and forces as Callinicos and Harman describe them. The superiority of Harman or Callinicos (or their dual faults) will be shown by actual historical research – not just theoretical conjecture.
Dialectics
This section was very well put together and showed very well the importance Marx placed on the dialectic in his own method. I don’t really have much to say on this.
The Purpose of Marx’s Theory of History
I think you need to come up with what you think the purpose of Marx’s theory of history is for this paper.
For me (this is just my own philosophical conception and you don’t have to accept it) understanding Marx’s purpose for his theory of history is of great importance. Why did Marx come up with a theory of history in the first place? I think it is Marx’s stressing of the importance of understanding history for a political end (understanding the origins and structures of existing class societies in order to overthrow them). Marx didn’t study history or come up with a model for understanding it for purely intellectual development – he did it so he could understand how human society developed to the point it had (class society) and how that reality could be changed. This political consequence is ultimately (in my mind) why bourgeois historians hate historical materialism so much – because it has a definitive political objective in mind. It combines the historical and the political.
“The purpose of Marx’s theory of history is that we understand history in order to make it” – if you will forgive the obvious ripping off of the 11th Feuerbach Thesis.
Conclusion - On Marxist History Writing
A unifying theme that I took from your paper was an attempt to answer real problems in Marxian historical theory – on method, theory and problems of formulaic Marxism - especially page 33. “How can we write history in the vein of Marx’s theory and still comply with the intricacies of the period being studied?” Intricacies which (at first glance) possibly contradict Marx’s theory (for example the English Revolution as bourgeois revolution despite a lack of concrete bourgeois ideology at its start).
This is a serious problem and I think solved by studying what Marx had to say on history not as a clear cut guide into which we pour history and expect a clear cut result. Instead we should take his method and apply it as best possible while at the same time actually studying the period. E.P. Thompson was quite right when he critiqued Althusser’s versions of Historical Materialism as an “excuse not to study history”. You are also right when suggesting that Marx’s theory is not a formula but a method of analysis.
I have only 2 disagreements with this, both minor. First, is that I think we can safely track an increase in our 'forces of production' if we define these as what we have at our disposal to transform nature in order to meet historically developing ends, which is not to say that there have not been cataclysms which through societies (or possibly even the species) backwards -- for example, that is how I understand the fall of Rome. Second, when he says the English Revolution would seem to contradict Marx's conception because it lacked "concrete bourgeois ideology at its start". I think it is worth making the distinction between the class-in-itself (that is a population relationally constructed be its antagonisms to other classes and by its relation to the means of production) and the class-for-itself (a class which constitutes itself into a political force). E.P. Thompson's conception of a class requires 'class consciousness' and class agency, both of which silently assume an already constituted class! The requirement that a class must become aware of itself as a class before it counts as one has obvious difficulties, but it also would seem to preclude any understanding of the middle classes which under most circumstances cannot possibly behave as a class-for-itself.
ReplyDeleteIn everything else, Rhys is probably spot on.
Rhys gives this counter (probably correct) to my disagreements:
ReplyDeleteOn the destruction of the forces of production: I will note that while you are correct that the trend through human history has been the expansion of the forces that the rare exceptions of the destruction of the forces (such as in the case of Rome, the 14th century crisis) are still important and must be integrated into the Marxist theory of history – especially if such a version of the theory stresses the forces of production (such as Cohen and the Analytical Marxists).
On bourgeois ideology in the English Revolution: I would just like to reiterate that I do think that a bourgeois class existed in England in the 17th century Revolution - I do not agree with the critiques of revisionist historians that suggested otherwise. What I stress by my example of the historiography of the English Revolution is the need to have concrete arguments against these "possible contradictions" - which right wing historians have clung on. On the face of it (according to right wing historians) a bourgeois class did not exist because they were not consciously bourgeois. The task of a Marxist historian is to here show that because of both their relations to English production and because of a developing ideology throughout the 16th and 17th centuries such a class did exist. This is why I noted that it is necessary to study the periods – rather than randomly applying Marx’s theory and hoping the theory will just mesh with history (ala Althusser). These contradictions between class and consciousness reminded me of R.H. Tawney’s reply to a right wing historian who asked him if the English Revolution was a bourgeois one. “Of course it was, the problem is that the bourgeoisie was on both sides”.
E.P. Thompson's conception of class consciousness is still useful in this case because he suggests that the process of the creation of the class is important for its consciousness/unconsciousness as a class. This has helped a lot in the case of the history of the English bourgeoisie. Prior to the 1500s it could be argued that no serious English bourgeois ideology existed (as a serious political force) – the 1600s and after is a different matter (see Christopher Hill’s the Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution). The process of the development of the class (and its actions) during the turmoil in the years preceding and during the 17th century Revolution meant that such a consciousness did develop (even if it did not declare itself as “bourgeois”). Consciousness therefore did exist – even if it was not a consciousness that declared itself to exist and it was contradictory.
ReplyDeleteJust to reiterate my point on contradictory bourgeois consciousness - here is a brilliant quote from Hill (my italics for emphasis) written around 1990.
'The Marxist conception of a bourgeois revolution, which I find the most helpful model for understanding the English Revolution, does not mean a revolution made by the bourgeoisie. There was no self conscious bourgeoisie which planned and willed the revolution. But the English Revolution was a bourgeois revolution because its outcome, though glimpsed by few of its participants, was the establishment of conditions far more favourable to the development of capitalism than those which prevailed before 1640".
Through my italics I want to suggest that Hill thought that in as much a bourgeois ideology and consciousness existed it was contradictory - but it existed on one form and via a few individuals who glimpsed its implications (Bacon, Harrington, Lilburne, Milton, Cromwell, etc). Even if a consciousness is not fully aware and is contradictory – it remains a consciousness.
I mentioned Thompson because he stresses that consciousness is important – even contradictory consciousness -but he did not discard the importance of the relations classes to production. We must remember that he was critiquing an Althusser who simply cared about arbitrary relations. It is in that context that Thompson considered the importance of consciousness – and even then only in relation to a revolutionary class which can develop a non contradictory, conscious revolutionary consciousness (i.e. the working class in the epoch of capitalism). Thompson was correct in stressing that both relations and consciousness are important and relate to each other in a dialectical way – not one or the other (which I think is probably more in vein with Marx). Thompson's conception of class may have some problems but I think it is closer to Marx in its application to history than anyone else has achieved.
Rhys
E.P. Thompson's conception of class consciousness is still useful in this case because he suggests that the process of the creation of the class is important for its consciousness/unconsciousness as a class. This has helped a lot in the case of the history of the English bourgeoisie. Prior to the 1500s it could be argued that no serious English bourgeois ideology existed (as a serious political force) – the 1600s and after is a different matter (see Christopher Hill’s the Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution). The process of the development of the class (and its actions) during the turmoil in the years preceding and during the 17th century Revolution meant that such a consciousness did develop (even if it did not declare itself as “bourgeois”). Consciousness therefore did exist – even if it was not a consciousness that declared itself to exist and it was contradictory.
ReplyDeleteJust to reiterate my point on contradictory bourgeois consciousness - here is a brilliant quote from Hill (my italics for emphasis) written around 1990.
'The Marxist conception of a bourgeois revolution, which I find the most helpful model for understanding the English Revolution, does not mean a revolution made by the bourgeoisie. There was no self conscious bourgeoisie which planned and willed the revolution. But the English Revolution was a bourgeois revolution because its outcome, though glimpsed by few of its participants, was the establishment of conditions far more favourable to the development of capitalism than those which prevailed before 1640".
Through my italics I want to suggest that Hill thought that in as much a bourgeois ideology and consciousness existed it was contradictory - but it existed on one form and via a few individuals who glimpsed its implications (Bacon, Harrington, Lilburne, Milton, Cromwell, etc). Even if a consciousness is not fully aware and is contradictory – it remains a consciousness.
I mentioned Thompson because he stresses that consciousness is important – even contradictory consciousness -but he did not discard the importance of the relations classes to production. We must remember that he was critiquing an Althusser who simply cared about arbitrary relations. It is in that context that Thompson considered the importance of consciousness – and even then only in relation to a revolutionary class which can develop a non contradictory, conscious revolutionary consciousness (i.e. the working class in the epoch of capitalism). Thompson was correct in stressing that both relations and consciousness are important and relate to each other in a dialectical way – not one or the other (which I think is probably more in vein with Marx). Thompson's conception of class may have some problems but I think it is closer to Marx in its application to history than anyone else has achieved.
Rhys
E.P. Thompson's conception of class consciousness is still useful in this case because he suggests that the process of the creation of the class is important for its consciousness/unconsciousness as a class. This has helped a lot in the case of the history of the English bourgeoisie. Prior to the 1500s it could be argued that no serious English bourgeois ideology existed (as a serious political force) – the 1600s and after is a different matter (see Christopher Hill’s the Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution). The process of the development of the class (and its actions) during the turmoil in the years preceding and during the 17th century Revolution meant that such a consciousness did develop (even if it did not declare itself as “bourgeois”). Consciousness therefore did exist – even if it was not a consciousness that declared itself to exist and it was contradictory.
ReplyDeleteJust to reiterate my point on contradictory bourgeois consciousness - here is a brilliant quote from Hill (my italics for emphasis) written around 1990.
'The Marxist conception of a bourgeois revolution, which I find the most helpful model for understanding the English Revolution, does not mean a revolution made by the bourgeoisie. There was no self conscious bourgeoisie which planned and willed the revolution. But the English Revolution was a bourgeois revolution because its outcome, though glimpsed by few of its participants, was the establishment of conditions far more favourable to the development of capitalism than those which prevailed before 1640".
ReplyDeleteThrough my italics I want to suggest that Hill thought that in as much a bourgeois ideology and consciousness existed it was contradictory - but it existed on one form and via a few individuals who glimpsed its implications (Bacon, Harrington, Lilburne, Milton, Cromwell, etc). Even if a consciousness is not fully aware and is contradictory – it remains a consciousness.
I mentioned Thompson because he stresses that consciousness is important – even contradictory consciousness -but he did not discard the importance of the relations classes to production. We must remember that he was critiquing an Althusser who simply cared about arbitrary relations. It is in that context that Thompson considered the importance of consciousness – and even then only in relation to a revolutionary class which can develop a non contradictory, conscious revolutionary consciousness (i.e. the working class in the epoch of capitalism). Thompson was correct in stressing that both relations and consciousness are important and relate to each other in a dialectical way – not one or the other (which I think is probably more in vein with Marx). Thompson's conception of class may have some problems but I think it is closer to Marx in its application to history than anyone else has achieved.