I understood the first half of the reading to be to Marx’s
explanation of a Materialist understanding of history. He begins by noting that
men only distinguish themselves from animals by producing their own means of
subsistence. The relationship between a man’s producing his own subsistence and
its relation to his material life is so important that Marx notes that it must
be considered more than just their physical existence, it is the nature of
their life: “Rather it is a definite form of activity of these individuals, a
definite form of expressing their life, a definite mode of life on their part.
As individuals express their life, so they are” (150). The relationship between
materialistic production and life is further expressed by Marx in his parallel
between the level of division of labor and the development of a nation and its
notions of property ownership: “How far the productive forces of a nation are
developed is shown most manifestly by the degree to which the division of labor
has been carried. Each new productive force…causes a further development of the
division of labor” (150). Marx further elaborates the importance of material
and production on society and history in noting that the ruling class, who’s
ideals he notes also tend to becoming ruling, is the class which is materially
dominant: “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas,
i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same
time its ruling intellectual force” (172). With this background, Marx
understands all of the significant changes in history to be evolutions and
revolutions in the material, and therefore, economic sphere. Changes in the
status quo occur not because of some deep change in “man”: “History is nothing
but the succession of the separate generations, each of which exploits the
materials, the capital funds, the productive forces handed down to it by all
preceding generations, and thus, on the one hand, continues the traditional
activity in completely changed circumstances and, on the other, modifies the
old circumstances with a completely changed activity” (172).
I find it interesting how
Marx seeks to explain non-economic episodes in history with an inherently
economic explanation with a materialist approach to history. While I agree that
one can certainly explain much of human history with economic happenings, the
economic underpinnings of the growth of slavery in the US and that role in the
civil war to name just one in the US, I also believe that there are other more
complicated factors that economics cannot entirely explain. In addition, Marx
makes an extended and constant appeal to the scientific and impartial nature of
his materialist history, arguing that this approach is superior to any
religious or philosophical approach to history, but his fanatical commitment to
it makes it become quasi-religious.
Campbell,
ReplyDeleteI found the same qualms within his accounts of history as a discipline and ideology. Marx says, "there exists a materialistic connection of men with one another, which is determined by their needs and their mode of production, and which is as old as men themselves. This connection is ever taking on new forms, and thus presents a 'history' independently of the existence of any political or religious nonsense which would especially hold men together" (157). I found these two sentences a stark juxtaposition of the roots or truth of history--within human materialistic connection--versus a constantly changing, dialectic, dynamic interpretation of what it means to become and study history. This is something I think a lot about within my own studies of history--what's the cold, raw, truth about something that happened in the past? Or how much is what we say about an event in the past truly a translation or reproduction of our current time period--perhaps, seeing what we want to see? Marx's second sentence within this quote suggests that he may agree. History is truly a dialogue between the past and the present that cannot be founded upon an economic, materialistic, connection of humans, but instead, relies on uniquely social and cultural aspects that we cannot always discern.