Chapter XI: Conclusion (1)

_Recapitulation: 1. Justification of Marxian economics as
comparative sociological economics: 2. Historical
materialism simply a canon of historical interpretation:
3. Marxian social programme not a pure science: 4.
Marxism neither intrinsically moral nor antimoral._

The preceding remarks are partly attempts at interpretation, and partly critical emendations of some of the concepts and opinions expressed by Marx and in the Marxian literature. But how many other points deserve to undergo revision! Beginning with that _concentration of private property in a few hands_, which threatens to become something like the discredited _iron law of wages_, and ending with that strange statement in the history of philosophy that _the labour movement is the heir of German classical philosophy_. And attention could thus be given to another group of questions which we have not discussed (_e.g._ to the conception of future society) in regard to their detailed elucidation and their practical and historical applications.[72] If that _decomposition of Marxism_, which some have predicted,[73] meant a careful critical revision, it would indeed be welcome.

To sum up, in the meantime, the chief results which are suggested in the preceding remarks: they maintain.

1. In regard to economic science, the _justification_ of Marxian economics, understood not as general economic science, but as comparative sociological economics, which is concerned with a problem of primary interest for historical and social life.

2. In regard to the philosophy of history, the _purification_ of historical materialism from all traces of any _a priori_ standpoint (whether inherited from Hegelianism or an infection from ordinary evolutionism) and the understanding of the theory as a simple, albeit a fruitful, _canon_ of historical interpretation.

3. In regard to practical matters, the _impossibility of inferring_ the Marxian social programme (or, indeed, any other social programme) from the propositions of pure science, since the appraisement of social programmes must be a matter of empirical observations and practical convictions; in which connection the Marxian programme cannot but appear one of the noblest and boldest and also one of those which obtain most support from the objective conditions of existing society.

4. In regard to ethics, the _abandonment of the legend_ of the intrinsic _immorality_ or of the intrinsic _anti-ethical_ character of Marxism.

I will add a remark on the second point. Many will think that if historical materialism is reduced to the limits within which we have confined it, it will not only no longer be a legitimate and real scientific theory (which we are indeed prepared to grant) but will actually lose all importance whatever, and against this second conclusion we once more, as we have done already on another occasion, make vigorous protest. Undoubtedly the horror expressed by some for pure science and for abstractions is inane, since these intellectual methods are indispensable for the very knowledge of concrete reality; but no less inane is the complete and exclusive worship of abstract propositions, of _definitions_, of _theorems_, of _corollaries_: almost as if these constituted a sort of aristocracy of human thought. Well! the economic purists (not to draw examples from other fields, though numbers could be found in pure mathematics) prove to us, in fact, that the discovery of scientific theorems,--strictly, unimpeachably scientific,--is frequently neither an over-important nor over-difficult matter. To be convinced thereof we need only remark how many _eponimi_ of new theorems issue from every corner of the German or English schools. And concrete reality, _i.e._ the very world in which we live and move, and which it concerns us somewhat to know, slips out, unseizable, from the broad-meshed net of abstractions and hypotheses. Marx, as a sociologist, has in truth not given us carefully worked out definitions of _social phenomena_, such as may be found in the books of so many contemporary sociologists, of the Germans Simmel and Stammler, or of the Frenchman Durckheim; but he teaches us, although it is with statements approximate in content and paradoxical in form, to penetrate to what society is in its _actual truth_. Nay, from this point of view, I am surprised that no one has thought of calling him 'the most notable _successor_ of the Italian Niccolo Machiavelli'; a Machiavelli of the labour movement.

And I will also add a remark on the third point--if the social programme of Marxism cannot be _wholly included_ in Marxian science, or in any other science, no more can the daily practice of socialist politics be, in its turn, _wholly included_ in the general principles of the programme, which programme, if we analyse it, determines (1) _an ultimate end_, (the technical organisation of society); (2) _an impulse, based on history_, towards this end, found in the objective tendencies of modern society (the necessity for the abolition of capitalism and for a communistic organisation, as the one possible _form of progress_); (3) _a method_ (to accelerate the final phases of the bourgeoisie, and to educate politically the class destined to succeed them). Marx, owing to his political insight, has for many years in a striking manner, joined with, and guided by his advice and his work, the international socialist movement; but he could not give _precepts_ and _dogmas_ for every contingency and complication that history might produce. Now _the continuation of Marx's political work is much more difficult than the continuation of his scientific work_. And, if, in continuing the latter, the so-called Marxians have sometimes fallen into a _scientific dogmatism_ little to be admired, some recent occurrences remind us of the danger, that the continuation of the former may also degenerate into a dogmatism with the worst effects, _i.e._ a _political dogmatism_. This gives food for thought to all the more cautious Marxians, amongst whom are Kautsky and Bernstein in Germany, and Sorel in France; Labriola's new book, too, contains serious warnings on the matter.

_November, 1897._

FOOTNOTES:

[13] 'An immense monograph' (of economics understood) it is called by Professor Antonio Labriola, the most notable of the Italian Marxians, in his recent book (_Discorrendo di filosophia e socialismo_, Rome, Loescher, 1898). But in an earlier work (_In Memoria del 'Manifesto dei Comunisti'_, 2nd ed. Rome, 1895, p. 36) he defined it as '_a philosophy of history_'.

[14] I leave out those who regard the law of labour-value as the _general_ law of value. The refutation is obvious. How could it ever be 'general' when it leaves out of account a whole category of economic goods, that is the goods which cannot be increased by labour?

[15] WERNER SOMBART: _Zur Kritik des oekonomischen Systems von Karl Marx_ (in the _Archiv für soziale Gesetzgebung und Statistik_ Vol. VII, 1894, pp. 555-594). I have not by me the criticism (from the Hedonistic point of view) of this article by Sombart--on the third volume of _Das Kapital_--made last year by BOHM BAWERK in the _Miscellany_ in honour of Knies.

[16] _Loc. cit._, p. 571, _et seq._

[17] In the _Neue Zeit_ xiv. vol. 1, pp. 4-11, 37-44, I quote from the Italian translation: _Dal terzo volume del 'Capitale,'_ preface and notes by F. Engels, Rome 1896, p. 39.

[18] _Sur la théorie Marxiste de la valeur_ (in the _Journal des Economistes_, number for March 1897, pp. 222-31, see p. 228).

[19] _Discorrendo di socialismo e di filosophia_, p. 21.

[20] It must be carefully noticed that what I call a _concrete fact_ may still not be a fact which is empirically real, but a fact made by us hypothetically and _entirely imaginary_ or a fact _partially empirical_, _i.e._ existing partially in empirical reality. We shall see later on that Marx's typical premise belongs properly to this second class.

[21] I accept the term employed by Labriola so much the more readily since it is the same as that used by me a year ago. See Essay on Loria (_Materialismio Storico_, pp. 48-50).

[22] In making an hypothesis of this nature, Marx distinguished clearly that, in such a case, 'labour-time would serve a _double_ purpose: on the one hand as standard of value, on the other as a standard of the individual share reckoned to each producer in the common labour' (_andrerseits dient die Arbeitzeit zugleich als Mass des individuellen Antheils des Producenten an der Gemeinarbeit, und daher auch an dem individuell verzehrbaren Theil des Gemein products_): See _Das Kapital_ I, p. 45.

[23] This is a different thing from the workmen or operatives in our capitalist society, who form a _class_, _i.e._ a portion of economic society and not economic society in general and in the abstract, producing goods which can be increased by labour.

[24] It may be doubted whether this general application of labour-value to every working economic society was included in the ideas of Marx and Engels, when the numerous passages are recalled in which one or other has declared many times that _in the future communistic society the criterion of value will disappear and production will be based on social utility, cf._ Engels as early as in the _Umrisse_ 1844, (Italian translation in _Critica sociale_ a. v. 1895) _Marx_, _Misère de la philosophie_, 2nd ed. Paris, Giard et Brière. 1896, p. 83; Engels _Antidühring_, p. 335. But this must be understood in the sense that, not being a hypothetical communistic society based on exchange, the function of value (in exchange) would lose, according to them, its practical importance; but not in the other sense that in the opinion of the communistic society the value of goods would no longer equal the labour which they cost to society. Because even in such a system of economic organisation, value-labour would be the economic law which entirely governed the valuation of individual commodities, produced by labour. There would be that clearness of valuation which Marx describes in his _Robinsonia, cf. Das Kapital_, p. 43.

[25] _Dal terzo volume del 'Capitale,'_ pp. 42-55.

[26] Hence also Marx in §4 of Chap. I.: _Der Fetischcharakter der Waare und sein Geheimniss_ (I. pp. 37-50) gave a brief outline of the other economic systems of mediæval society, and of the domestic system: 'Aller Mysticismus der Waarenwelt, all der Zauber und Spuk, welcher Arbeitsprodukte auf grundlage der Waarenproduktion umnebelt, verschwindet daher sofort, sobal wir zu anderen Producktions formen flüchten' (p. 42). The relation between value and labour appears more clearly in the less complex economic systems, because less opposed and obscured by other facts.

[27] _Das Kapital_, Book III., sec. III., Chaps. XIII., XIV., XV., _Gesetz des tendentiellen Falls der Profitrate_ (vol. iii., Part I, pp. 191-249).

[28] The task of Marx's followers ought to be to free his thought from the literary form which he adopts, to study again the questions which he propounds, and to work them out with new and more accurate statements, and with fresh historical illustrations. In this alone can scientific progress consist. The _expositions_ made hitherto of Marx's system, are merely _materials_; and some (like Aveling's) consist entirely in a series of little summaries, which follow the original chapter by chapter and prove even more obscure. For the law of the fall in the rate of profits, see below, chap. V.

[29] 'To follow out completely this criticism of bourgeois economics a knowledge of the capitalist form of production, exchange and distribution is not alone adequate. We ought similarly to study at least in their essential features and taken as terms of comparison, the other forms which have preceded it in time, or exist alongside of it in less developed countries. Such an investigation and comparison has hitherto been briefly expounded only by Marx; and we owe almost entirely to his researches what we know about pre-bourgeois theoretical economics.' (ENGELS, _Antidühring_, p. 154). This was written by Engels twenty years ago; and since then the literature of economic history has grown remarkably, but historical research has been seldom accompanied by theoretical research.

[30] 'Political economy is essentially an historical science.' (ENGELS, _l.c._, p. 150).

[31] What is strange is that ENGELS (in the passage quoted in the penultimate note) says himself most truly that Marx has written _theoretical economics_, nevertheless in the sentence quoted in the last note (which appears in the same book and on the same page) he states definitely that economics in the Marxian sense is nothing but an _historical science_.

[32] _Antidühring_, pp. 150, 155.

[33] _Das Kapital_, I, p. 67.

[34] F.A. LANGE, _Die Arbeiterfrage_, 5th ed., Winterthur, 1894, (the author's last revision was in 1874) see p. 332; _cf._ p. 248 and on p. 124, the quotation from Gossen's book, then very little known.

[35] ADOLF WAGNER, _Grundlegung der politischen oekonomie_, 3rd Ed., Leipzig, 1892, vol. I, pt. I; Bk. I, ch. i. _Die Wirthschaftliche Natur des Menschen_, pp. 70-137.

[36] I may be allowed to remark that in similar discussions, economists usually make the serious mistake _of making the concept economic coincide with the concept egoistic_. But the economic is an independent sphere of human activity, in addition to all the others, such as the spheres of ethics, æsthetics, logic, etc. The moral _goods_ and the satisfaction of the higher moral _needs_ of man, just because they are _goods_, and _needs_, are taken into account in economics, but still _only as goods and needs_, not as _moral_ or _immoral_, _egoistic_ or _altruistic_. In like manner, a _manifestation_ (by words or by any other means of expression) is taken into account in æsthetics; but only _as a manifestation _not_ as true, false, moral, immoral, useful, harmful, etc._ Economists are still impressed by the fact that Adam Smith wrote one book of theory and of ethics, and another of economic theory; which may interpret to mean that one dealt with a theory of _altruistic_ facts and the other with one of _egoistic_ facts. But if this had been so, Adam Smith would have discussed, in both of his chief works, facts of an ethical character, estimable or reprehensible; and would not have been an economist at all; a ridiculous conclusion which is a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the identification of economic action with egoism.

[37] _Discorrendo di socialismo e di filesophia_, l. vi.

[38] It is strange how among the students of pure economics also this need for a different treatment makes itself felt, leading them to contradictory statements and to insuperable perplexities. PANTALEONI, _Principî di economia pura_, Florence, Barbara, 1889, p. 3, Ch. iii § 3 (pp. 299-302), contradicts Böhm-Bawerk, inquiring whence the borrower of capital at interest is able to find the wherewithal to pay the interest. PARETO, _Introd. critica agli Estratti del Capitale del Marx_, Ital. trans. Palermo, Sandron, 1894, p. xxx, n.: 'The phenomena of _surplus value_ contradicts Marx's theory which determines values solely by labour. _But, on the other hand, there is an expropriation of the kind which Marx condemns._ It is not at all proved that this expropriation helps to secure the hedonistic maximum. _But it is a_ _difficult problem how to avoid this expropriation._' A learned and accurate Italian work which attempts to reconcile the opinions of the hedonistic school with those of the followers of Ricardo and Marx, is the memorandum of Prof. G. RICCA SALERMO, _La theoria del valore nella storia delle dottrine e dei fatti economici_, Rome 1894. (extr. from the _Memorie dei Lincei_, s. v. vol. I., pt. i.)

[39] See above, chap. I.

[40] The over-abused Dühring was not mistaken when he remarked that in Marx's works expressions occur frequently 'which appear to be universal without being actually so' (Allgemein aussehen ohne es zu sein). _Kritische Geschichte der Nationalökonomie und des Socialismus_, Berlin, 1871, p. 527.

[41] GENTILE, _Una critica del materialismo storico_ in the _Studî storici_ of Crivellucci, vol. VI, 1897, pp. 379-423, throws doubt on the interpretation offered by me of the opinions of Marx and Engels, and on the method of interpretation itself. I gladly acknowledge that in my two earlier essays I do not clearly point out where precisely the textual interpretation ends and the really theoretical part begins; which theoretical exposition, only by conjecture and in the manner described above, can be said to agree with the inmost thoughts of Marx and Engels. In his recent book, _La filosofia di Marx_, Pisa, Spoerri, 1899 (in which the essay referred to is reprinted), Gentile remarks (p. 104), that, although it is a very convenient practice, and in some cases legitimate and necessary 'to interpret doctrines, by calling a part of their statement worthless or accidental in form and external and weak, and a part the real substance and essential and vital, it is yet necessary to justify it in some way.' He means certainly, 'justify it as historical interpretation,' since its justification as correction of theory cannot be doubtful. It seems to me that even historically the interpretation can be justified without difficulty when it is remembered that Marx _did not insist_, (as Gentile himself says) on his metaphysical notions; and did certainly insist on his historical opinions and on the political policy which he defended. Marx's personality as a sociological observer and the teacher of a social movement, certainly outweighs Marx as a metaphysician which he was almost solely as a young man. That it is worth the trouble to study Marx from all sides is not denied, and Gentile has now admirably expounded and criticised his youthful metaphysical ideas.

[42] I confess that I have never been able to _understand_--however much I have considered the matter--the meaning of this passage (which ought however to be very evident, since it is quoted so often without any comment), in the preface to the second edition of _Das Kapital_: 'Meine dialektische Methode ist der Grundlage nach von der Hegel'schen nicht nur verschieden, sondern ihr direktes Gegentheil. Für Hegel is _der Denkprocess_, den er sogar unter dem Namen _Idee_ in ein selbständiger subjeckt verwandelt, der Demjurg des Wirklichen, das nur seine äussere Erscheinung bildet. Bei mir ist umgekehrt _das Ideelle_ nichts Andres als das im Menschenkopf umgesetzte und ubersetzte Materielle.' (_Das Kapital_ I, p. xvii.) Now it seems to me that the _Ideelle_ of the last phrase has _no relation_ to the _Denkprocess_ and to the Hegelian _Idea_ of the preceding phrase, _cf._ above pp. 17. Some have thought that by the objections there stated, I intended to deny Marx's Hegelian _inspiration_. It is well to repeat that I merely deny the _logical relation_ affirmed between the two philosophical theories. To deny Marx's Hegelian inspiration would be to contradict the evidence.

[43] Answers to several of the questions suggested above are now supplied in the book already referred to, by GENTILE: _La Filosofia di Marx_.

[44] _Antidühring_, pt. I. ch. xlii., especially pp. 138-145, which passage is translated into Italian in the appendix to the book by Labriola referred to above: _Discorrendo di socialismo e di filosophia_, _cf._ _Das Kapital_, I. p. xvii, 'Gelingt dies und spiegelt sich nun das Leben des stoffs ideell wieder, _so mag es aussehen_, als habe man es mit einer Konstruction a priori zu thun.'

[45] LANGE, indeed, in reference to Marx's _Das Kapital_, remarked that the Hegelian dialectic, 'the development by antithesis and synthesis, might almost be called an _anthropological discovery_. Only in history, as in the life of the individual, development by antithesis _certainly does not accomplish itself so easily and radically, nor with so much precision and symmetry as in speculative thought_.' (_Die Arbeiterfrage_, pp. 248-9.)

[46] With regard to the _abstract_ classes of Marxian economics and the _real_ or _historical_ classes, see some remarks by SOREL in the article referred to in the _Journal des Economistes_, p. 229.

[47] G. GENTILE, _o.c._ in _Studî storici_, p. 421. _cf._ 400-401.

[48] Labriola has indeed an exaggerated dislike for what he calls the _scholastic_: but even this exaggeration will not appear wholly unsuitable as a reaction against the method of study which usually prevails among the mere men of letters, the niggardly scholars, the empty talkers and jugglers with abstract thought, and all those who lose their sense of close connection between science and life.

[49] _Discorrendo di socialismo e di filosophia_, l. ix.

[50] _In torno alla storia della cultura_ (Kulturgeschichtein _Atti_ dell Accad. Pont.; vol. xxv. 1895, p. 8.)

[51] 'If by Christianity is meant merely the sum of the beliefs and expectations concerning human destiny, these beliefs'--writes Labriola--'vary as much, in truth, as in the difference, to mention only one instance, between the free will of the Catholics after the Council of Trent, and the absolute determination of Calvin!' (_L.c._ ix.)

[52] Without referring to the somewhat unmethodical work of Westermarck, _History cf Human Marriage_, see especially Ernst Grosse's book, _Die Formen der Familie und die Formen der Wirthschaft_, Freiburg in B., 1896.

[53] This connection is shortly but carefully dealt with by INGRAM, _History of Political Economy_, Edinburgh, A. & C. Black, 1888, p. 62.

[54] See, amongst many passages, MARX, _Misère de la philosophie_, p. 167, _et seq._ ENGELS, _Antidühring_, p. 1, _et seq._

[55] On the hedonistic maxima, _cf._ Bertolini-Pantaleoni, _Cenni sul concetto di massimi edonistici individuali e collectivi_ (_in Giorn, degli Econ._, s II vol. iv.) and Coletti, in the same _Giornale_, vol. v.

[56] In regard to this metaphysical use of the word science; there even exists in Italy a _Rivista di polizia scientifica_! And the metaphor may pass here also.

[57] _Cours d'économie politique_, Lausanne, 1896-7.

[58] _Cf._ also his criticism of Marx already referred to: p. xviii.

[59] Sauf l'Angleterre, où règne le libre échange _principalement parcequ'il est favourable aux intérêts de certains entrepreneurs_, le reste des pays civilisés verse de plus en plus dans le protectionnisme (§. 964.)

[60] See the _Giornale degli economisti_, excellent in all its critical sections; and especially Pareto's _chronicles_ therein.

[61] It may be remarked that in the difficulty of distinguishing the purely scientific from the practical lies the chief cause of the dangers and poverty of the social and political sciences. And we may even smile at those scientists or their ingenious admirers, who claim to accomplish the salvation of the social and political sciences, by applying to them the methods, as they say, of the natural sciences. (An Italian astronomer, ingenuous as clever, has suggested the formation of sociological observatories which, in a few years would make sociology something like astronomy!) Alas! the matter is not so simple; all sociologists intend indeed to apply exact methods; but how can this application succeed when one advances _per ignes_ or over ground which moves; _d'una e d'altra parte sì come l'onda chefugge e s'appressa_? (From both sides like the wave which ebbs and flows.)

[62] See the preface of the German translation of _Misère de la philosophie_, 2nd ed. Stuttgart, 1892, and now also in French in the reprint of the original text of the same work (Paris, Giard et Brière, 1896.)

[63] The word _communism_ is also more appropriate, since there are so many _socialisms_ (democratic state, catholic, etc.). On the relation between the materialistic theory of history and socialism, see GENTILE, _op. cit._, _passim_.

[64] _Pantagruel_, III, 39-43.

[65] The absurdity of this interpretation will come out clearly if it is merely remembered that there are many cases in which the capitalist manufacturer pays for the labour of his workman, _a price higher than what he then realises on the market_; cases, it is true, where the capitalist is proceeding towards ruin and bankruptcy; but which he cannot, on this account, always avoid. 'Marx part des recherches faites par cette école Anglaise, dont il avait fait une étude approfondie; et il veut _expliquer le profit sans admettre aucun brigandage_.' (SOREL, _art. cit._, p. 227.)

[66] See in _Antidühring_, p. 303, the historical justification of class divisions.

[67] From among the many passages which support this interpretation, _cf. Antidühring_, pp. 152-3, 206 and especially pp. 61-2, and the preface to the German translation of _Misère de la Philosophie_, 2nd ed. Stuttgart, 1892 pp. ix-x, _cf._ also Labriola, _o.c._ _Lett. VIII._

[68] See LABRIOLA, _o.c. l. cit._, the remarks on the difficulty with which the theory of historical materialism meets owing to mental dispositions, and amongst those who wish _to moralise socialism_.

One instance, in some respects analogous to this which arises from the discussions on Marx's ethics, is the traditional criticism of Machiavelli's ethics: which was refuted by De Sanctis (in the remarkable chapter devoted to Machiavelli, in his _Storia della letteratura_), but which continually recurs and is inserted even in Professor Villari's book, who finds this defect in Machiavelli: that he did not consider the _moral question_.

I have always asked myself for what reason, by what obligation, by what agreement, Machiavelli was bound to discuss all kinds of questions, even those for which he had neither preparation nor sympathy. Can it be said, by way of example, to some one who is researching in chemistry:--Your weak and erroneous spot is that you have not gone back from your detailed investigations to the general metaphysical enquiries into the principles of reality?--Machiavelli starts from the establishment of a fact: the condition of war in which society found itself; and gives rules suited to this state of affairs. Why should he, who was not cut out for a moral philosopher, discuss the ethics of war? He goes straight to practical conclusions. Men are wicked--he says--and to the wicked it is needful to behave wickedly. You will deceive him who would certainly deceive you. You will do violence to him who would do violence to you. These maxims are neither moral nor immoral, neither beneficial nor harmful; they become one of the two according to the subjective aims and the objective effects of the action, _i.e._ according to the _intentions_ and the _results_. What is evident is that a morality which desired to introduce into war the maxims of peace would be a morality for lambs fit for the slaughter, not for men who wish to repel injustice and to maintain their rights. 'And if men were all good, this precept would not be good, etc., etc.' says Machiavelli himself. (_Principe_, ch. xviii). Villari is also troubled by the old formula concerning the 'end which justifies the means' and the 'moral end' and the 'immoral means'. It is however sufficient to consider that the _means_, just because they are _means_, cannot be divided into _moral_ and _immoral_, but merely into _suitable_ and _unsuitable_. _Immoral means_, unless as an expression in current speech, is a contradiction in terms. The qualification moral or immoral can only belong to the end. And, in the examples usually given, an analysis made with a little accuracy shows at once, that it is never a question of immoral _means_ but of immoral ends. The height of the confusion is reached by those who introduce into the question the absurd distinction of _private_ and _public_ morality.

I may be pardoned the digression; but, as I said, questions which are really analogous re-appear now in connection with the ethical maxims of Marxism.

[69] And it would be to the point to draw a comparison between the peasants' rebellions, with which modern Italy has supplied us with another example in recent years, and the political struggles of the German workmen, or the economic struggles of the Trade Unions in England.

[70] See in particular P.I. ch. ix., _Moral und Recht, Ewige Wahrheiten_.

[71] See, in particular, MARX'S ideas: _Ueber Feuerbach_, in 1845, in the appendix to Engels' book, _Ludwig Feuerbach und der Ausgang der Klassischen deutschen Philosophie_, 2nd ed. Stuttgart, 1895, pp. 59-62; and _cf._ ANDLER in _Revue de metaphysique_, 1897, LABRIOLA, _o.c. passim_ and GENTILE, _l.c._, p. 319. From this point of view (_i.e._ limiting the statement to the theory of knowledge) we might speak like Labriola of historical materialism as a philosophy of practice, _i.e._ as a particular way of conceiving and solving, or rather of over-coming, the problem of thought and of existence. The philosophy of practice has now been designedly studied by Gentile in the volume referred to.

[72] Some interpretations would be merely verbal explanations. To some it will appear a very hard statement that socialism aims at abolishing the State. Yet it suffices to consider that the State, among socialists, is synonymous with difference of classes and the existence of governing classes, to understand that as in such a case, we can speak of the _origin_ of the State, so we can speak of its _end_; which does not mean the end of organised society (_cf. Antidühring_, p. 302). The conception of _the way in which capitalist society will come to an end_ demands no little critical working out; on this point the thought of Marx and Engels is not without obscurities and inconsistencies (_cf. Antidühring_, pp. 287 _et seq._ and p. 297).

[73] See CH. ANDLER, _Les origines du socialisme d'état en Allemagne_, Paris, Alcan, 1897. Andler promises a book, and is now giving a course of lectures on the _decomposition of Marxism_.

_CHAPTER IV._ RECENT INTERPRETATIONS OF THE MARXIAN THEORY OF VALUE AND CONTROVERSIES CONCERNING THEM

I

_Labriola's criticism of method and conclusions of preceeding
essays answered: His criticism merely destructive:
Tendency of ether thinkers to arrive at like
conclusions._

I have always discussed frankly the views expressed in the writings of my eminent friend Professor Antonio Labriola. I am therefore glad that he has taken the same liberty with me, and has subjected to a vigorous criticism (in the French edition of his book on _Socialismo e la filosofia_),[74] my interpretation of the Marxian theory of value.[75] Labriola has been impelled to this also from a wish to prevent my opinions from appearing, 'to the reader's eyes,' as a supplement, approved by him, of his own personal ones. And though I do not think that 'to the reader's eyes' (I will however add _intelligent_ readers), this would be possible, since, I have always carefully indicated the points, and they are neither few nor unimportant, where we disagree: yet being convinced that clearness is never superfluous, I welcome his intention to make it still plainer that I am not he, and that he thinks with his mind whilst I think with mine.

Labriola rejects entirely the method adopted by me, which he describes variously as _scholastic_, _metaphysical_, _metaphorical_, _abstract_, _formal logic_. When I take pains to point out the differences between _homo oeconomicus_ and man, moral or immoral, between personal interest and egoism,[76] he shrugs his shoulders, he does not refuse a certain indulgence to this _traditional scholasticism_, and compares me to the man in the street who speaks of the rising or setting of the sun, or of _shining light_ and _warm heat_. When I firmly maintain the theoretical necessity for a _general economics_ in addition to the heterogeneous considerations of sociological economics, he taxes me with creating, _in addition to all the visible and tangible animals, an animal as such_. And he charges me, moreover, with wishing to attack history, comparative philology and physiology in order to substitute for all these the plain _Logic_ of Port Royal, so that instead of studying examples of epigenesis which have actually occurred, such as the transitions from invertebrates to vertebrates, from primitive communism to private property in land, from undifferentiated roots to the systematic differentiation of nouns and verbs in the Ariosemitic group, it might suffice to register these facts in concepts passing from the more general to the more particular, in the series A a^1 a^2 a^3 etc.

But I hardly know how to defend myself seriously from such accusations, because it obliges me to repeat what is too obvious, _i.e._, that to make concepts does not mean to _create entities_; that to employ metaphors (and language is all metaphor), does not mean to _believe mythology_; that to construct experiences in thought, and scientific abstractions, does not mean to substitute either one or the other for _concrete reality_; that to make use, when needful, of formal logic, does not mean to ignore _fact_, _growth_, _history_. When Marx expounds historical facts I know no way of approaching him except that of historical criticism, and when he defines concepts and formulates laws, I can only proceed to recognise the content of his concepts, and to test the correctness of his inferences and deductions. Thus I have followed this second method in studying his theory of value. If Labriola knows another and better one, let him state it. But what could this _other_ one possibly be? Real logic? In that case let us boldly re-establish Hegel, it will be the lesser evil, at least we shall understand one another. Or a still worse alternative, what monstrous empirical-dialectic or evolutionist method may it be, which confuses together and abuses two distinct procedures, and lends itself so readily to the lovers of prophecy? Or is it merely a question of new phraseology by which we shall go on humbly working, more or less well, with the old methods, whilst detesting the old words? Or again, is this dislike for formal logic nothing but a convenient pretext for dispensing with any vindication of the concepts which are employed?

Marx has stated his concept of _value_; has expounded a process of transformation of _value_ into _price_; has reconstructed the nature of profit as _surplus value_. For me the whole problem of Marxian criticism is confined within these limits:--Is Marx's conception substantially erroneous (entirely, owing to false premisses, and partially, owing to false deductions)? or, is Marx's conception substantially correct, but has it been subsumed under a category to which it does not belong, and has search been made in it for what it cannot supply, whilst what it actually offers has been ignored? Having come to this second conclusion I have asked myself: Under what conditions and assumptions is Marx's theory _thinkable_? And this question I have tried to answer in my essay.

What Marx wished to do, or mistakenly thought himself to be doing is, I think, of interest to criticism up to a certain point; although the history of science shows that thinkers have not always had the clearest and plainest knowledge of the whole of their thought; and that it is one thing to discover a truth, and another to define and classify the discovery when made. It may be allowed that he who confuses ideological with historical research thus best reproduces Marx's _spirit_; but in this case the work will be an artistic recasting or a psychological reproduction, not a criticism; and will gather up with the sound also the unsound portion of Marx's thought.

To go into details. Labriola tries to prove the emptiness or vagueness of some of my definitions and the falsity of some of my reasoning. I having asserted that capitalist economics is a special case of general economics, Labriola remarks, '_en passant_,' that it is nevertheless the only case which has given rise to a theory and to divisions of schools; and I acknowledge that I do not understand the point of this remark, although it is said to be made '_en passant_.' Both Marx and Engels lamented that the ancient and medieval economic systems had not been studied in the same way as the modern. Thus there are conceivable at least three economic theories, ancient, medieval and modern, and is it not lawful to construct a general economics; _i.e._ to study in isolation that common _element_ which causes these three groups of facts to be all three denoted by a common name? Labriola then asks what this general and extra-historical economics can consist of, and whether it can never be of service to the conjectural psychology of primitive man: he jests after the manner of Engels, who in truth has sometimes joked too much during a discussion on serious matters. Is it incredible that I too should jest? But I do not think there is occasion to do so! He wonders at my _insatiability_, because having accepted the hedonistic theories, I wish to accept Marx's theories too: as though my entire proof was not intended to make it plain that the antithesis between these theories exists only in imagination; and that Marx's theory is not an economic system entirely opposed to other systems ('_quelque chose de tout-à-fait opposé_' are Labriola's own words), but a special and partial inquiry; and as though by hedonism I meant all the personal convictions, philosophical, historical and political, of those who follow, or say that they follow, its guidance, and not indeed _only what follows legitimately from its axiom_. When I call the explanation of the nature of profits, offered by the hedonistic school, an _economic explanation_, he inquires sarcastically: 'Could it possibly be _non-economic_?' But my statement contains no pleonasm: the adjective _economic_ is added to mark off the hedonistic explanation from that of Marx, which, to my thinking, is not purely economic, but historical and comparative, or sociological, if it is preferred. He wonders that I speak of a _working society_, and asks: 'As opposed to what?' 'Perhaps to the saints in paradise?' But I have pointed out the opposition between a hypothetical _working society_,--_i.e._ such that all its goods are produced by labour,--and a society, economic certainly, but not exclusively working, because it enjoys goods given by nature, as well as the products of labour. The saints in paradise form another irrelevant jest.

I called Marx's concept of _surplus-value a concept of difference_; and Labriola reproaches me for not being able 'to say exactly what I understand by these words.' And yet I am not in the habit of speaking or writing when I do not exactly know what I want to say; and here I believe that I have clearly expressed a thought which I had exceedingly clearly in my mind. Let us take two types of society: type A consisting of 100 persons, who, with capital held in common and equal labour, produce goods which are divided in equal proportions; type B consisting of 100 persons, 50 of whom own the land and the means of production, _i.e._ are capitalists, and 50 are shut out from this ownership, _i.e._ are proletarians and workmen; in the distribution, the former receive, in proportion to the capital which they employ, a share in the products of the labour of the latter. It is evident that in type A there is no place for _surplus value_. But neither in type B are you justified in giving the name _surplus-value_ to that portion of the products which is swallowed up by the capitalists, except when _you are comparing_ type B with type A, and _are considering the former as a contrast to the latter_. If type B is considered by itself, which is precisely what the pure economists do and ought to do, the product which the 50 capitalists appropriate, _i.e._ their profits, is a result of mutual agreement, arising out of different comparative degrees of utility. Turn in every direction and in pure economics you will find nothing more. The expropriatory character of profit can be asserted only when to the second society, we apply, almost like a chemical reagent, the standard, which, on the other hand, is characteristic of a type of society founded on human equality, a type 'which has attained the solidity of a popular conviction' (Marx). Profit 'is surplus-labour _not paid for_', says Marx, and it may be so; but _not paid for_ in reference to what? In existing society it is certainly paid for, by the price which it actually secures. It is a question then, of determining in what society _it would have that price_ which in existing society _is denied it_. And then, indeed, it is a question of _comparison_.

The following of Labriola's assertions is not original, but is nevertheless quite gratuitous: 'Pure economics is so little extra-historical, that it has borrowed the data from real history, of which it makes two absolute postulates: the freedom of labour and the freedom of competition, pushed to their extreme by hypothesis.' If I open Pantaleoni's well-known treatise, I read in the very first paragraph of the _Teoria del valore_, Ferrara's fundamental theory that: 'value is above all a phenomenon of the _economics of the individual or isolated person_.' So little do the legal conditions of society enter into the necessary postulates of pure economics.

After which, Labriola ought not to be horrified if I have written: 'that Marx has taken his celebrated equivalence[77] "between value and labour from outside the field of pure economics." He will ask me: from whence then has he taken it? And I reply: _from a special and definite type of society_, in which the legal organisation and the pre-supposed conditions of fact make value correspond to the quantity of labour.

Labriola does not consider justified the comparison which I have drawn, (metaphor for metaphor), between the commodities which in Marxian economics are presented as the _crystallisations of labour_ and the goods which in pure economics might well be called _quantities of possible satisfactions for crystallised wants_. 'Hitherto--he exclaims--only sorcerers have been able to believe, or to cause it to be believed, that by desires alone a part of ourselves might be glutinised into any goods whatsoever.' But what does _glutinise_ mean? To obtain the commodity _a_ costs us _x_ labour of a given kind, this is Marx's _congealed labour_. Pure economics, using a more general formula, states that it costs us that body of wants which we must leave unsatisfied: this is the form of _congealment_ which pure economics might supply. There is no question, in the one case, of an objective reality, as Labriola seems to think, or in the other of an imagined sorcery; but in both cases it is a matter of the literary use of imaginative expressions to denote mental attitudes and elaborations. In this connection Labriola, as if to limit their range, says that Marx, as an author, belonged to the seventeenth century. May I be allowed, as a humble student of literature, and the author of several investigations into the character and origin of seventeenth century style,[78] to protest. Seventeenth century style consists in ingenuity, _i.e._ in putting cold intellectuality into an æsthetic form; hence the forced comparison, the lengthy metaphor, the play on words and the equivocations. But Marx, on the contrary, misuses poetic expressions, which give the content of his thought with unrestrained vigour. We find in him just the opposite of seventeenth century style: not a lack of connection between the form and the thought, but such a violent embrace of the former by the latter that the unlucky form sometimes runs the risk of being left suffocated.[79]

The reader will be tired of these replies to a negative criticism; but negative criticism is nevertheless all that Labriola offers us. What is his interpretation of Marx's thought? Or which does he accept, out of those offered? Here Labriola is silent. It is true that on another occasion I believed that I discerned in his statement that 'labour-value is the _typical premiss_ in Marx, without which all the rest would be unthinkable,' an agreement with my thesis. But I see now that I must have been deceived, and that the words must have another meaning; which, however, warned by the unlucky attempt already made, I shall not attempt further to specify. In the meantime Sombart has _built castles in the air_; Sorel has made _hasty_ or _premature elaborations_; the present writer _has not understood_ (see p. 224). Are we then faced by a mystery? Our friend, Labriola, relates (p. 50) a story of Hegel who is said to have declared that _one only of his pupils had understood him_. (The anecdote, I may add, is recounted by Heinrich Heine in a much wittier manner).[80] Is the same thing to be repeated with regard to Marx's theory of value?

In truth, though without wishing to deny the difficulty of Marx's thought and of the form in which he expresses it, I think that the mystery may be at length cleared up. And I say this, not only on account of my inward conviction of the truth of my own interpretation, but also on account of the agreement in which I find myself with several critics, who, almost at the same moment, and by independent methods, have arrived at results nearly similar to my own.

'Or, se im mostra la mia carta il vero,
Non è lontano a discoprirsi il porto....'[81]

A similar tendency shows itself in what has been written on the subject by Sombart, in 1894, by Engels in 1895, by myself in 1896, by Sorel in 1897, by myself more at length in 1897, and again by Sorel in June of last year (1898).[82] Certainly truth and falsehood cannot be decided by external signs, the intellect being the only judge of them, and a judge who allows scope for infinite appeals. But nevertheless it is natural that under the circumstances pointed out above, a feeling of hope and confidence must arise that the discussion is about to be closed, that the problem is at length _ripe for solution_.

II

_Meaning of phrase crisis In Marxianism: Sorel's view of
equivalence of value and labour mostly in agreement with
view put forward above: An attempt to examine profits
independently of theory of value: Is not possible:
Surplus product same as surplus value._

I think it opportune, however, to return to those _elaborations_ of Sorel, which Labriola summarily judges with such severity, in order to make some remarks about them, not in refutation but in support, and to explain a certain point where there may seem to be disagreement between us, which perhaps has no reason to exist.

But here I may be allowed to make a remark. Labriola is also waging war with Sorel: his book _Discorrendo_, etc., arising out of a series of friendly letters to Sorel, which I undertook to edit in Italy, is published in French with an appendix directed against me, and a preface directed against Sorel. The ground of the quarrel is especially in connection with the so-called _crisis in Marxism_.

Now if the _crisis in Marxism_ be understood as the assertion of the need for a revision and correction of the scientific ideas, of the historical beliefs, of the material of observed facts, which are current in Marxian literature, well and good: in such a crisis I too believe. If it means also a change in the programmes and practical methods, I neither agree nor disagree, having never concerned myself with the subject in dispute. If the danger is really existent the apprehension of which seems to obsess and disturb Labriola, that a crisis in Marxism of whatever kind, or the commencement of it, may be neutralised by those to whose interest it is to lead astray and scatter the labour movement, then _provideant consules_. But whether there be crisis or no crisis, whether purely scientific or also practical, whether apprehensions are well-founded or imagined and exaggerated, all these things have no connection with the questions raised by me, which relate to the erroneousness of this or that theoretical or historical statement of Marxism, and the way in which this or that must be understood in order to be regarded as true. This is my standpoint and on this ground alone I admit discussion. I may be mistaken, but this must be proved to me. But if, on the contrary, the only answer vouchsafed to me is that the crisis in Marxism results from the international reaction, of which ingenious critics are taking advantage, I shall be left it is true, somewhat bewildered; but I shall not on this account be convinced that the theory of value is true, in the burlesque sense, for example, in which it is expounded by Stern in his well-known propagandist booklet.

Sorel at first supposes,[83] wittily enough, that Marx had built up different economic spheres, the first of which (that of labour-value) is the simplest; the second, including the phenomenon of an average rate of profit, and the creation of cost of production, is more complex, and the third, in which is observed the effect of rent of land, is still more complex. In passing from the simple to the more complex sphere, we should find again the laws of the preceding one, modified by the new data introduced, which would have given rise to new phenomena.

In his second article he abandons this interpretation, being convinced that Marx's ideal construction does not aim at supplying a complete explanation of the phenomena of economics by means of the increasing complexity of his combinations. And, in my opinion, he did well to abandon it; not only for the excellent reason stated by him, that Marx's inquiry does not include an entire system of economics, but also because the process suggested by him does not explain why Marx, in analysing the economic phenomena of the second or third sphere, ever _used concepts whose place was only in the first one_. It does not explain what I have called the _eliptical comparison_, and herein lies the difficulty of Marx's work, or rather of the literary statement of his thought. If the correspondence between labour and value is only realized in the simplified society of the first sphere, why insist on translating the phenomena of the second _into terms of the first_? Why give the name transformation of surplus value to what makes its appearance as the natural economic result of capital which must have (from its very nature as capital) a profit? Does Marx offer an explanation connecting ground and consequence, or does he not rather draw a _parallel between two different phenomena_, by which the diversities illuminating the origins of society are set in relief?

But Sorel now advances to precisely this conclusion, borrowing a happy phrase from his first article: that Marx's work is not intended to explain by means of laws analogous to physical laws, but only to throw partial and indirect light on economic reality.

The method which Marx employs in his inquiry, says Sorel, is a _metaphysical instrument_; he makes a _metaphysics of economics_. This expression may be satisfactory or not, according to the different meanings given to the word _metaphysics_; but the idea is accurate and true. Marx builds an ideal construction which helps him to explain the conditions of labour in capitalist society.

What are the limits of Marx's ideal construction, and in what do his hypotheses consist? I have said that the concept of labour-value is true for an ideal society, whose only goods consist in the products of labour, and in which there are no class distinctions. Sorel does not think it necessary to eliminate as I have done, the divisions of classes. But, since he writes: 'Marx, like Ricardo, conceived a mechanical society, perfectly automatic, in which competition is always at its maximum efficiency, and exchanges are effected by means of universal information; and he supposed that the various sociological conditions are measurable in intensity, and that the numbers resulting can be connected by mathematical formulæ; hence in such a society, utility, demand, and commerce in commodities _are results of the divisions of classes_; _value will not in consequence be a function of this condition_, although it is truly a function of the conditions of production; utility, demand, can only appear in the forms of the function, _in the parameters referring to the social divisions_.' Since he, I repeat, does not in his hypothesis, make labour-value dependent on the division of classes, it seems to me that this is practically to _leave out_ the fact of the division. And it is perhaps clearer to omit it explicitly.

We should have then: (1) a working economic society without differences of classes, law of labour-value; (2) Social divisions of classes, origin of profit, which, _but only in comparison with the preceding type and in so far as the concepts of the former are carried over into the latter_, may be defined as surplus-value; (3) Technical distinction between the different industries requiring different combinations of capital (different proportions of fixed and floating capital). Origin of the average rate of profits, which in relation to the preceding type, may be regarded as a change in, and equalisation of, surplus-values; (4) Appropriation of the land by part of a social class. Pure rent; (5) Qualitative differences in land. Differential rent. Which rents, pure and differential, present themselves, but only in comparison with the preceding types, as cut off from the amounts of surplus-value and of profits. Sorel agrees with me that the concept of labour-value, obtained in the manner described, is not only not a law in the same sense as a physical law, but is also not a law in the ethical sense, _i.e._ one that could be understood as a rule of what ought to exist. It is a law, he says, _in an entirely Marxian sense_. This I too tried to express when I wrote in my essay: 'It is a _law_ in Marx's _conception_, but not _in economic reality_. It is clear that we may conceive the divergencies in relation to a standard as the rebellion of reality in opposition to that standard, to which we have given the dignity of law.'