Chapter IX: Introduction (3)

Sombart, avoiding this vulgar confusion, has been better advised in looking for the meaning of the standard set up by Marx in the nature of society itself, and apart from our moral judgments. Thus he says that labour is _the economic fact of greater objective importance_, and that value, in Marx's view, is nothing 'if not the economic expression of the fact of the socially productive power of labour, as the basis of economic existence.'

But this investigation appears to me to be merely begun and not yet worked out to a conclusion; and if I might suggest wherein it needs completion, I should remark that it is necessary to attempt to give clearness and precision to this word _objective_, which is either ambiguous or metaphorical. What is meant by an economically objective fact? Do not these words suggest rather a mere _presentiment of a concept_ instead of the distinct vision of this concept itself?

I will add, merely tentatively, that the word _objective_ (whose correlative term is _subjective_) does not seem to be in place here. Let us, instead, take account, in a society, only of what is properly economic life, _i.e._ out of the whole society, only of _economic society_. Let us abstract from this latter all goods which cannot be increased by labour. Let us abstract further all class distinctions, which may be regarded as accidental in reference to the general concept of economic society. Let us leave out of account all modes of distributing the wealth produced, which, as we have said, can only be determined on grounds of convenience or perhaps of justice, but in anycase upon considerations belonging to society as a whole, and never from considerations belonging exclusively to economic society. What is left after these successive abstractions have been made? Nothing but _economic society in so far as it is a working society_.[23] And in this society without class distinctions, _i.e._ in an economic society as such and whose only commodities are the products of labour, what can value be? Obviously the sum of the efforts, _i.e._ the quantity of labour, which the production of the various kinds of commodities demands. And, since we are here speaking of the economic social organism, and not of the individual persons living in it, it follows that this labour cannot be reckoned except by averages, and hence as labour _socially_ (it is with society, I repeat, that we are here dealing) _necessary_.

Thus labour-value would appear as that determination of value peculiar to economic society as such, when regarded only in so far as it produces commodities capable of being increased by labour.

From this definition the following corollary may be drawn: the determination of labour value _will have a positive conformity with facts as long as a society exists, which produces goods by means of labour_. It is evident that in the imaginary county of Cocaigne this determination would have no conformity with facts, since all goods would exist in quantities exceeding the demand; similarly it is also evident that the same determination could not take effect in a society in which goods were inadequate to the demand, but could not be increased by labour.

But hitherto history has shown us only societies which, in addition to the enjoyment of goods not increasable by labour, have satisfied their needs by labour. Hence this equivalence between value and labour has hitherto had and will continue for an indefinite time to have, a conformity with facts; but, of what kind is this conformity? Having ruled out (1) that it is a question of a moral ideal, and (2) that it is a question of scientific law; and having nevertheless concluded that this equivalence is a _fact_ (which Marx uses as a type), we are obliged to say, as the only alternative, that _it is a fact, but a fact which exists in the midst of other facts; i.e. a fact that appears to us empirically as opposed, limited, distorted by other facts_, almost like a force amongst other forces, which produces a resultant different from what it would produce if the other forces ceased to act. _It is not a completely dominant fact but neither is it non-existent and merely imaginary._[24]

It is still necessary to remark that in the course of history this _fact_ has undergone various alterations, _i.e._, has been more or less obscured; and here it is proper to do justice to Engels' remark in reference to Sombart; that as regards the way in which the latter defines the law of value 'he does not bring out the full importance which this law possesses during the stages of economic development in which it is supreme.' Engels makes a digression into the field of economic history to show that Marx's law of value, _i.e._ the equivalence between value and the labour socially necessary, has been supreme for several thousand years.[25] Supreme is too strong a term; but it is true that the opposed influences of other facts to this law have been fewer in number and less intense under primitive communism and under mediæval and domestic economic conditions, whilst they have reached a maximum in the society based on privately owned capital and more or less free universal competition, _i.e._ in the society which produces almost exclusively _commodities_.[26]

Marx, then, in postulating as _typical_ the equivalence between value and labour and in applying it to capitalist society, was, as it were, making a comparison between capitalist society and a part of itself, isolated and raised up to an independent existence: _i.e._ a comparison between capitalist society and economic society as such (but only in so far as it is a working society). In other words, he was studying the social problem of labour and was showing by the test implicitly established by him, _the special way in which this problem is solved in capitalist society_. This is the justification, no longer _formal_ but _real_, of his method.

It was in virtue of this method, and by the light thrown by the type which he postulated, that Marx was able to discover and define the social origin of _profit_, _i.e._ of _surplus value_. Surplus value in pure economics is a meaningless word, as is evident from the term itself; since a _surplus value_ is an _extra value_, and thus falls outside the sphere of pure economics. But it rightly has meaning and is no absurdity, as a _concept of difference_, in comparing one economic society with another, one fact with another, or two hypotheses with one another.

It is also in virtue of the same premise that he was able to arrive at the proposition: that the products of labour in a capitalist society do not sell, unless by exception, for their value, but usually for more or less, and sometimes with great deviations from their value; which is to say, to put it shortly, _value_ does not coincide with _price_. Suppose, by hypothesis the organisation of production were suddenly changed from a capitalist to a communistic system, we should see at once, not only that alteration in the fortunes of men which appeals so much to popular imagination, but also a more remarkable change: a change in the fortunes of things. A scale of valuation of goods would then fashion itself, very different for the most part, from that which now exists. The way in which Marx proves this proposition, by an analysis of the different components of the capital employed in different industries, _i.e._ of the proportion of fixed capital (machines, etc.) and of floating capital (wages), need not be explained here in detail.

And, in the same way, _i.e._ by proving that fixed capital increases continually in comparison with floating capital, Marx tries to establish another law of capitalist society, the law of the _tendency of the rate of profits to fall_. Technical improvement, which in an abstract economic society would show itself in the decreased labour required to produce the same wealth, shows itself in capitalist society in a gradual decline in the rate of profits.[27] But this section of Volume III of _Das Kapital_ is one of the least developed in this little worked-out posthumous book; and it seems to me to be worth a special critical essay, which I hope to write at another time, not wishing to treat the subject here incidentally.[28]

II

MARX'S PROBLEM AND PURE ECONOMICS (GENERAL ECONOMIC SCIENCE)

_Marxian economics not general economic science and
labour-value not a general concept of value: Engel's
rejection of general economic law: abstract concepts used
by Marx are concepts of pure economics: relation of
economic psychology to pure economics: pure economics
does not destroy history or progress._

Marxian economics is thus a study of abstract working society showing the variations which this undergoes in the different social economic organisations. This investigation Marx carried out only in reference to one of these organisations, _i.e._ the capitalist; contenting himself with mere hints in regard to the slave and serf organisations, primitive communism, the domestic system and to savage conditions.[29]

In this sense he and Engels declared that economics (the economics studied by them), was an historical science.[30] But here, too, their definition has been less happy than the investigation itself; we know that Marx's researches are not historical, but hypothetical and abstract, _i.e._ theoretical.[31] They might better be called researches into _sociological economics_, if the word _sociological_ were not one which is employed most variously and arbitrarily.

If Marx's investigation is thus limited, if the law of value postulated by him is the special law of an abstract working society, which only partially takes effect in economic society as given in history, and in other hypothetical or possible economic societies, the following results seem to follow evidently and readily: (1) That Marxian economics _is not general economic science_; (2) that labour-value _is not a general concept of value_. Alongside, then, of the Marxian investigation, there can, or rather must, exist and flourish a general economic science, which may determine a concept of value, deducing it from quite different and more comprehensive principles than the special ones of Marx. And, if the pure economists, confined to their own special province, have been wrong to show an ungenerous intellectual dislike for Marx's investigations, his followers, in their turn, have been wrong to regard ungratefully a branch of research which was alien to them, calling it now useless, and now frankly absurd.

Such is, in effect, my opinion, and I freely acknowledge that I have never been able to discover other antithesis or enmity between these two branches of research except the purely accidental one of the mutual antipathy to and mental ignorance of each other, of two groups of students. Some have resorted to a political explanation; but, with no wish to deny that political prepossessions are often the causes of theoretical errors, I do not consider an explanation as adequate and appropriate, which resolves itself into accusing a large number of students of allowing themselves blindly and foolishly to be overcome by passions alien to science; or, what is worse, of knowingly falsifying their thought and constructing a whole economic system from motives of practical opportunism.

Indeed Marx himself had not the time or means to adopt an attitude, so to speak, towards the _purists_, or the _hedonists_, or the _utilitarians_, or the _deductive_ or _Austrian_ school, or whatever else they may call themselves. But he had the greatest contempt for the _oeconomia vulgaris_, under which term he was wont to include also the researches of general economics, which explain what needs no explanation and is intuitively evident, and leave unexplained what is more difficult and of genuine interest. Nor has Engels discussed the subject; but an indication of his opinion may be found in his attack on Dühring. Dühring was struggling to find a general law of value, which should govern all possible types of economic organisation; and Engels refuted him: 'Anyone who wishes to bring under the same law the political economy of Terra del Fuoco and that of modern England, can produce nothing but the vulgarest commonplaces.' He scorns the truth of ultimate instance, the eternal laws of value, the tautologous and empty axioms which Herr Dühring would have produced by his method.[32] Fixed and eternal laws are non-existent: there is then no possibility of constructing a general science of economics, valid for all times and in all places. If Engels had meant to refer to those who affirm the eternity and inevitability of the laws characteristic of capitalist society, he would have been justified; and would have been aiming his blows at a prejudice which history alone suffices to refute, by showing as it does, how capitalism has appeared at different times, replacing other types of economic organisation, and has also disappeared, replaced by other types. But in Dühring's case the criticism was much beside the mark; since Dühring did not indeed mean to set up the laws of capitalist society as fixed and eternal; but to determine _a general concept of value_, which is quite another matter: or, in other words, to show how, _from a purely economic point of view_, capitalist society is explained by the same general concepts as explain the other types of organisation. No effort, not even that of Engels, will suffice to stop such a problem from being stated and solved; unless it were possible to destroy the human intellect, which, in addition to particular facts, recognises universal concepts.

It would be instructive to examine the references which there are in Marx's _Das Kapital_ to unfinished analyses, extraneous to his special method; for in this dependence on analysis the researches of pure economics have their origin. What is, for instance, _abstract human labour_ (_abstrakt menschliche Arbeit_), a concept which Marx uses like a postulate? By what _method_ is that reduction of _complex_ to _simple_ labour accomplished, to which he refers as to an obvious and ordinary matter? And if, in Marx's hypothesis, _commodities_ appear as _congealed labour_, or _crystalised labour_, why by another hypothesis, should not all economic goods and not only commodities, appear as _congealed methods of satisfying needs_ or as _crystalised needs_? I read at one point in _Das Kapital_: 'Things which in themselves are not commodities, _e.g._ knowledge, honour, etc., may be sold by their owners; and thus, by means of their price, acquire the form of commodities. A thing may formally have a price without having a value. The expression of the price here becomes _imaginary_ like certain quantities in mathematics.'[33] Here is yet another difficulty, indicated but not overcome. Where are these _formal_ or _imaginary_ prices to be found? And what are they? By what laws are they governed? Or are they perhaps like the Greek words in Latin prosody, which according to the school rule, _per Ausoniae fines sine lege vagantur_?--Questions of this kind are answered by the researches of pure economics.

The philosopher Lange also, who rejected Marx's law of value, which he regarded as an _extravagant production_, _a child of sorrow_, thinking it unsuitable--and in this he was justified, as a general law of value, arrived at the solutions which have since been given of the latter, a long time before the researches of the purists came into blossom. 'Some years ago,' he wrote in his book on labour problems, 'I too worked at a new theory of value, _which should be of such a character as to show the most extreme cases of variation in value as special cases of the same formula_.' And, whilst adding that he had not completed it, he intimated that the course which he attempted was the same as that hastily glanced at by Jevons in his _Theory of political economy_, published in 1871.[34]

To any of the more cautious and moderate Marxians it is plainly evident that the researches of the Hedonists are not merely to be rejected as erroneous or unfounded; and hence an attempt has been made to vindicate them in reference to the Marxian doctrine as an _economic psychology_, having its place alongside of true economics itself. But this definition contains a curious equivocation. Pure economics is quite apart from psychology. Indeed, to begin with, it is hard to fix the meaning of the words _economic psychology_. The science of psychology is divided into _formal_ and _descriptive_. In formal psychology there is no place either for economic fact nor for any other fact which may represent a particular content. In descriptive psychology, it is true, are included representations, sentiments and desires of an economic content, but included as they appear in reality, mixed with the other psychical phenomena of different content, and inseparable from them. Thus _descriptive economic psychology_ can be, at most, an approximate limitation, by which we take as a subject of special description the way in which men (at a given time and place, or even in the mass as hitherto they have appeared in history) think, feel and desire in respect to a certain class of goods which are usually called material or economic, and which, however, stand in need of specification and definition. Subject-matter, in truth, better suited to history than to science, which regards such matters only as empty and unimportant generalisations. This may be seen in the long discussion of the matter by that most weighty of pedants, Wagner, in his manual, which, of all that has been written on the question, I think the most worthy of notice, and which is yet, in itself, a thing very little worthy of notice or conclusive.[35] An enumeration and description of the various tendencies which exist in men as they appear in ordinary life: egoistical and altruistic tendencies, love of self-advantage and fear of disadvantage, fear of punishment and hope of reward, sense of honour and fear of disgrace and public contempt, love of activity and dislike of idleness, feeling of reverence for the moral code, etc., this is what Wagner calls _economic psychology_; and which might better be called: _various observations in descriptive psychology, to be kept in mind whilst studying the practical questions of economics_.[36]

But what, pray, has pure economics in common with psychology? The purists start from the hedonistic postulate, _i.e._ from the economic nature itself of man, and deduce from it the concepts of _utility_ (_economic_ utility which Pareto has proposed to call by a special name, _ofelimita_, from the Greek +ôphelimos+]) of _value_, and directly, all the other special laws in accordance with which man behaves in so far as he is an abstract _homo oeconomicus_. They do exactly what the science of ethics does with the moral nature; and the science of logic with the logical nature; and so on. At this rate then would ethics be a _psychology of ethics_ and logic a _psychology of logic_? And, since all that we know passes through the human mind, ontology would be a _psychology of existence_, mathematics a _psychology of mathematics_, and we should thus have confused the most diverse things, ending in a disorder the aim of which would be no longer comprehensible. Hence we conclude, that with care and the exercise of a little thought, it will necessarily be agreed that pure economics is not a psychology, but is the true and essential _general science of economic facts_.

Professor Labriola, too, shows a certain ill-humour which does not seem to me entirely justified, towards the pure economists, 'who', he says, 'translate into _psychological conceptualism_ the influence of _risk_ and other analogous considerations of ordinary commercial practice! And they do well--I answer--because the mind desires to give an account even of the influences of risk and of commercial practice, and to explain their mechanism and character. And then, _psychological conceptualism_; is not this an unfortunate connection between what your intellect shows you that pure economics really is (science which takes as its starting point an irreducible concept), and that hazardous definition of _psychology_ which has been criticised above? Are not the noun and adjective in opposition to one another? And further, Labriola speaks contemptuously of the '_abstract atomism_' of the hedonists, in which, 'one no longer knows what history is, and progress is reduced to mere appearance.'[37] Here too, it does not seem to me that his contempt is justified; for Labriola is well aware that in all abstract sciences, concrete and individual things disappear and that their _elements_ alone remain as objects to be considered: hence this cannot be made a ground for special complaint against economic science. But _history_ and _progress_, even if they are alien to the study of abstract economics, do not therefore cease to exist and to form the subject of other studies of the human mind; and this is what matters.

For my part I hold firmly to the economic notion of the hedonistic guide, to utility-ophelimity, to final utility, and even to the explanation (economic) of interest on capital as arising from the different degrees of utility possessed by present and future goods. But this does not satisfy the desire for a _sociological_, so to speak, elucidation of interest on capital; and this elucidation, with others of the same kind, can only be obtained from the comparative considerations put before us by Marx.[38]

III

CONCERNING THE LIMITATION OF THE MATERIALISTIC THEORY OF HISTORY

_Historical materialism a canon of historical interpretation:
Canon does not imply anticipation of results: Question as
to how Marx and Engels understood it: Difficulty of
ascertaining correctly and method of doing so: How
Marxians understand it: Their metaphysical tendency:
Instances of confusion of concepts in their writings:
Historical materialism has not a special philosophy
immanent within it._

Historical materialism if it is to express something critically acceptable, can, as I have had occasion to state elsewhere,[39] be neither a new _a priori_ notion of the philosophy of history, nor a new method of historical thought; it must be simply a _canon_ of historical interpretation. This canon recommends that attention be directed to the so-called economic basis of society, in order that the forms and mutations of the latter may be better understood.

The concept canon ought not to raise difficulty, especially when it is remembered that _it implies no anticipation of results_, but only an aid in seeking for them; and is entirely of empirical origin. When the critic of the text of Dante's _Comedia_ uses Witte's well-known canon, which runs: '_the difficult reading is to be preferred to the easy one_,' he is quite aware that he possesses a mere instrument, which may be useful to him in many cases, useless in others, and whose correct and advantageous employment depends entirely on his caution. In like manner and with like meaning it must be said that historical materialism is a mere _canon_; although it be in truth a canon _most rich in suggestion_.

But was it in this way that Marx and Engels understood it? and is it in this way that Marx's followers usually understand it?

Let us begin with the first question. Truly a difficult one, and offering a multiplicity of difficulties. The first of these arises so to speak, from the _nature of the sources_. The doctrine of historical materialism is not embodied in a classical and definite book by those authors, with whom it is as it were identified; so that, to discuss that book and to discuss the doctrine might seem all one thing. On the contrary it is scattered through a series of writings, composed in the course of half a century, at long intervals, where only the most casual mention is made of it, and where it is sometimes merely understood or implied. Anyone who desired to reconcile all the forms with which Marx's and Engels have endowed it, would stumble upon contradictory expressions, which would make it impossible for the careful and methodical interpreter to decide what, on the whole, historical materialism meant for them.

Another difficulty arises in regard to the weight to be attached to their expressions. I do not think that there has yet been a study of what might be called Marx's _forma mentis_; with which Engels had something in common, partly owing to congeniality, partly owing to imitation or influence. Marx, as has been already remarked, had a kind of abhorrence for researches of purely scholastic interest. Eager for knowledge of _things_ (I say, of concrete and individual things) he attached little weight to discussions of _concepts_ and the _forms of concepts_; this sometimes degenerated into an exaggeration in his own concepts. Thus we find in him a curious opposition between statements which, interpreted strictly, are erroneous; and yet appear to us, and indeed are, loaded and pregnant with truth. Marx was addicted, in short, to a kind of _concrete logic_.[40] Is it best then to interpret his expressions literally, running the risk of giving them a meaning different from what they actually bore in the writer's inmost thoughts? Or is it best to interpret them broadly, running the opposite risk of giving them a meaning, theoretically perhaps more acceptable, but historically less true?

The same difficulty certainly occurs in regard to the writings of numerous thinkers; but it is especially great in regard to those of Marx. And the interpreter must proceed with caution: he must do his work bit by bit, book by book, statement by statement, connecting indeed these various indications one with another, but taking account of differences of time, of actual circumstances, of fleeting impressions, of mental and literary habits; and he must submit to acknowledge ambiguities and incompleteness where either exists, resisting the temptation to confirm and complete by his own judgment. It may be allowed for instance, as it appears to me for various reasons, that the way in which historical materialism is stated above is the same as that in which Marx and Engels understood it in their inmost thoughts; or at least that which they would have agreed to as correct if they had had more time available for such labours of scientific elaboration, and if criticism had reached them less tardily. And all this is of importance up to a certain point, for the interpreter and historian of ideas; since for the history of science, Marx and Engels are neither more nor less than they appear in their books and works; real, and not hypothetical or possible persons.[41]

But even for science itself, apart from the history of it, the hypothetical or possible Marx and Engels have their value. What concerns us theoretically is to understand the various possible ways of interpreting the problems proposed and the solutions thought out by Marx and Engels, and to select from the latter by criticism those which appear theoretically true and welcome. What was Marx's intellectual standpoint with reference to the Hegelian philosophy of history? In what consisted the criticism which he gave of it? Is the purport of this criticism always the same for instance in the article published in the _Deutsch-französische Jahrbücher_, for 1844, in the _Heilige Familie_ of 1845, in the _Misère de la philosophie_ of 1847, in the appendix to _Das Komnunistische Manifest_ of 1848, in the preface to the _Zur Kritik_ of 1859, and in the preface to the 2nd edition of _Das Kapital_ of 1873? Is it again in Engels' works in the _Antidühring_, in the article on _Feuerbach_, etc.? Did Marx ever really think of substituting, as some have believed, _Matter_ or material fact for the Hegelian _Idea_? And what connection was there in his mind between the concepts _material_ and _economic_? Again, can the explanation given by him, of his position with regard to Hegel: 'the ideas determined by facts and not the facts by the ideas,' be called an inversion of Hegel's view, or is it not rather the inversion of that of the ideologists and doctrinaires?[42] These are some of the questions pertaining to the _history of ideas_, which will be answered some time or other: perhaps at present the time has not yet arrived to write the history of ideas which are still in the process of development.[43]

But, putting aside this historical curiosity, it concerns us now to work at these ideas in order to advance in theoretical knowledge. How can historical materialism justify itself scientifically? This is the question I have proposed to myself, and to which the answer is given by the critical researches referred to at the beginning of this paragraph. Without returning to them I will give other examples, taken from the same source, that of the Marxian literature. How ought we to understand scientifically Marx's _neodialectic_? The final opinion expressed by Engels on the subject seems to be this: the dialect is the rhythm of the development of things, _i.e._ the inner law of things in their development. This rhythm is not determined _a priori_, and by metaphysical deduction, but is rather observed and gathered _a posteriori_, and only through the repeated observations and verifications that are made of it in various fields of reality, can it be presupposed that all facts develop through negations, and negations of negations.[44] Thus the dialect would be the discovery of a great natural law, less empty and formal than the so-called _law of evolution_ and it would have nothing in common with the old Hegelian dialect except the name, which would preserve for us an historical record of the way in which Marx arrived at it. But does this natural rhythm of development exist? This could only be stated from observation, to which indeed, Engels appealed in order to assert its existence. And what kind of a law is one which is revealed to us by observation? Can it ever be a law which governs things absolutely, or is it not one of those which are now called tendencies, or rather is it not merely a simple and limited generalisation? And this recognition of rhythm through negations of negations, it is not some rag of the old metaphysics, from which it may be well to free ourselves.[45] This is the investigation needed for the progress of science. In like manner should other statements of Marx and Engels be criticised. What for example shall we think of Engels' controversy with Dühring concerning the basis of history: whether this is _political force_ or _economic fact_? Will it not seem to us that this controversy can perhaps retain any value in face of Dühring's assertion that political fact is that _which is essential historically_, but in itself has not that general importance which it is proposed to ascribe to it? We may reflect for a moment that Engels' thesis: 'force protects (_schützt_) but does not cause (_verursacht_) usurpation,' might be directly inverted into another that: 'force _causes_ usurpation, but economic interest _protects_ it,' and this by the well known principle of the inter-dependence and competition of the social factors.

And the class war? In what sense is the general statement true that _history is a class war_? I should be inclined to say that history is a class war (1) when there are classes, (2) when they have antagonistic interests, (3) when they are aware of this antagonism, which would give us, in the main, the humourous equivalence that history is a class war only when it is a class war. In fact sometimes classes have not had antagonistic interests, and very often they are not conscious of them; of which the socialists are well aware when they endeavour, by efforts not always crowned with success (with the peasantry, for example, they have not yet succeeded), to arouse this consciousness in the modern proletariat. As to the possibility of the non-existence of classes, the socialists who prophesy this non-existence for the society of the future, must at least admit that it is not a matter intrinsically necessary to historical development, since in the future, and without classes, history, it may well be hoped will continue. In short even the particular statement that 'history is a class war,' has that limited value of a canon and of a point of view, which we have allowed in general to the materialist conception.[46]

The second of the two questions proposed at the beginning is: How do the Marxians understand historical materialism? To me it seems undeniable that in the Marxian literature, _i.e._ the writings of the followers and interpreters of Marx, there exists in truth a _metaphysical danger_ of which it is necessary to beware. Even in the writings of Professor Labriola some statements are met with which have recently led a careful and accurate critic to conclude that Labriola understands historical materialism in the genuine and original sense of a metaphysic, and that of the worst kind, a metaphysic of the contingent.[47] But although I have myself, on another occasion, pointed out those statements and formulae which seem to me doubtful in Labriola's writings, I still think, as I thought then, that they are superficial outgrowths on a system of thought essentially sound; or to speak in a manner agreeing with the considerations developed above, that Labriola, having educated himself in Marxism, may have borrowed from it also some of its over-absolute style, and at times a certain carelessness about the working out of concepts, which are somewhat surprising in an old Herbartian like himself,[48] but which he then corrects by observations and limitations always useful, even if slightly contradictory, because they bring us back to the ground of reality.

Labriola, moreover, has a special merit, which marks him off from the ordinary exponents and adapters of historical materialism. Although his theoretical formulae may here and there expose him to criticism, when he turns to history, _i.e._ to concrete facts, he changes his attitude, throws off as it were, the burden of theory and becomes cautious and circumspect: _he possesses, in a high degree, respect for history_. He shows unceasingly his dislike for formulae of every kind, when concerned to establish and scrutinise definite processes, nor does he forget to give the warning that there exists 'no theory, however good and excellent in itself, which will help us to a summary knowledge of every historical detail.'[49]

In his last book we may note especially a full inquiry into what could possibly be the nature of a _history of Christianity_. Labriola criticises those who set up as an historical subject the _essence_ of Christianity, of which it is unknown where or when it has existed; since the history of the last centuries of the Roman Empire shows us merely the origin and growth of what constituted the Christian society, or the church, a varying group of facts amidst varied historical conditions. This critical opinion held by Labriola seems to me perfectly correct; since it is not meant to deny, (what I myself, do not deny) the justification of that method of historical exposition, which for lack of another phrase, I once called _histories by concepts_,[50] thus distinguishing it from the historical exposition of the life of a given social group in a given place and during a given period of time. He who writes the _history of Christianity_, claims in truth, to accomplish a task somewhat similar to the tasks of the historians of _literature_, of _philosophy_, of _art_: _i.e._ to isolate a body of facts which enter into a fixed concept, and to arrange them in a chronological series, without however denying or ignoring the source which these facts have in the other facts of life, but keeping them apart for the convenience of more detailed consideration. The worst of it is that whereas literature, philosophy, art and so on are determined or determinable concepts, Christianity is almost solely a bond, which unites beliefs often intrinsically very diverse; and, in writing the history of Christianity, there is often a danger of writing in reality the history of a _name, void without substance_.[51]

But what would Labriola say if his cautious criticism were turned against that _history of the origin of the family, of private property and of class distinctions_, which is one of the most extensive historical applications made by the followers of Marx: desired by Marx, sketched out by Engels on the lines of Morgan's investigations, carried on by others. Alas, in this matter, the aim was not merely to write, as could, perhaps, have been done, a useful manual of the historical facts which enter into these three concepts, but actually an _additional history_ was produced: A history, to use Labriola's own phrase, of the _essence_ family, of the _essence_ class and of the _essence_ private property, with a predetermined cadence. A 'history of the family,' to confine ourselves to one of the three groups of facts,--can only be an enumeration and description of the particular forms taken by the _family_ amongst different races and in the course of time: a series of particular histories, which unite themselves into a general concept. It is this which is offered by Morgan's theories, expounded by Engels, which theories modern criticism have cut away on all sides.[52] Have they not allowed themselves to presuppose, as an historical stage, through which all races are fated to pass, that chimerical matriarchate, in which the mere reckoning of descent through the mother is confused with the predominance of woman in the family and that of woman in society? Have we not seen the reproofs and even the jeers directed by some Marxians against those cautious historians who deny that it is possible to assert, in the present condition of the criticism of sources, the existence of a primitive communism, or a matriarchate, amongst the Hellenic races? Indeed, I do not think that throughout this investigation proof has been given of much critical foresight.

I should also like to call Labriola's attention to another confusion, very common in Marxian writings, between _economic forms of organisation_ and _economic epochs_. Under the influence of evolutionist positivism, those divisions which Marx expressed in general: the _Asiatic_, the _antique_, the _feudal_ and the _bourgeois_ economic organisation, have become four historical _epochs_: _communism_, _slave organisation_, _serf organisation_, and _wage-earning organisation_. But the modern historian, who is indeed not such a superficial person as the ordinary Marxians are accustomed to say, thus sparing themselves the trouble of taking a share in his laborious procedure, is well aware that there are four _forms_ of economic organisation, which succeed and intersect one another in actual history, often forming the oddest mixtures and sequences. He recognises an Egyptian mediævalism or feudalism, as he recognises an Hellenic mediævalism or feudalism; he knows too of a German _neo-mediævalism_ which followed the flourishing bourgeois organisation of the German cities before the Reformation and the discovery of the New World; and he willingly compares the general economic conditions of the Greco-Roman world at its zenith with those of Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Connected with this arbitrary conception of historical epochs, is the other of the inquiry into _the cause_ (note carefully; into the cause) of the transition from one form to another. Inquiry is made, for instance, into the _cause_ of the abolition of slavery, which must be the _same_, whether we are considering the decline of the Greco-Roman world or modern America; and so for serfdom, and for primitive communism and the capitalist system: amongst ourselves the famous Loria has occupied himself with these absurd investigations, the perpetual revelation of a single cause, of which he himself does not know exactly whether it be the earth, or population or something else--yet it should not take much to convince us, (it would suffice for the purpose to read, with a little care, some books of narrative history), that the transition from one form of economic, or more generally, social, organisation, to another, is not the result of a _single cause_, nor even of _a group of causes which are always the same_; but is due to causes and circumstances which need examination for each case since they usually vary for each case. Death is death; but people die of many diseases.

But enough of this; and I may be allowed to conclude this paragraph by reference to a question which Labriola also brings forward in his recent work, and which he connects with the criticism of historical materialism.

Labriola distinguishes between historical materialism as an interpretation of history, and as a general conception of life and of the universe (_Lebens-und-Weltanschauung_), and he inquires what is the nature of the _philosophy immanent_ in historical materialism; and after some remarks, he concludes that this philosophy is the _tendency to monism_, and is a _formal_ tendency.

Here I take leave to point out that if into the term _historical materialism two different things_ are intruded, _i.e._: (1) a method of interpretation; (2) a definite conception of life and of the universe; it is natural to find a philosophy in it, and moreover with a tendency to monism, because it was included therein at the outset. What close connection is there between these two orders of thought? Perhaps a logical connection of _mental coherence_? For my part, I confess that I am unable to see it. I believe, on the contrary, that Labriola, this time, is simply stating _à propos_ of historical materialism what he thinks to be the necessary attitude of modern thought with regard to the problems of ontology; or what, according to him, should be the standpoint of the socialist opinion in regard to the conceptions of optimism and pessimism; and so on. I believe, in short, that he is not making an _investigation_ which will reveal the philosophical conceptions underlying historical materialism; but merely a _digression_, even if a digression of interest and importance. And how many other most noteworthy opinions and impressions and sentiments are welcomed by socialist opinion! But why christen this assemblage of new facts by the name of historical materialism, which has hitherto expressed the well-defined meaning of a way of interpreting history? Is it not the task of the scientist to distinguish and analyse what in empirical reality and to ordinary knowledge appears mingled into one?

IV

OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE IN FACE OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS

_Socialism and free trade not scientific deductions: Obsolete
metaphysics of old theory of free trade: Basis of modern
free trade theories not strictly scientific though only
possible one: The desirable is not science nor the
practicable: Scientific law only applicable under certain
conditions: Element of daring in all action._

It has become a commonplace that, owing to Marx's work, socialism has passed _from utopia to science_, as the title of a popular booklet by Engels expresses it; and _scientific socialism_ is a current term. Professor Labriola does not conceal his doubts of such a term; and he is right.

On the other hand, we hear the followers of other leaders, for instance the extreme free traders (to whom I refer by preference _honoris causa_, because they, too, are amongst the _idealists_ of our times), in the name of science itself, condemn socialism as _anti-scientific_ and declare that free trade is the only scientific opinion.

Would it not be convenient if both sides retraced their steps and mortified their pride a little, and acknowledged that _socialism and free trade_ may certainly be called _scientific_ in metaphor or hyperbole; but that neither of them are, or ever can be, scientific deductions? And that thus the problem of socialism, of free trade and of any other practical social programme, may be transferred to another region; which is not that of pure science, but which nevertheless is the only one suited to them?

Let us pause for an instant at free trade. It presents itself to us from two points of view, _i.e._ with a two-fold justification. In the older aspect it undeniably has a metaphysical basis, consisting in that conviction of the goodness of natural laws and that concept of _nature_ (natural law, state of nature, etc.) which, proceeding from the philosophy of the 17th century, was predominant in the 18th century.[53] 'Do not hinder Nature in her work and all will be for the best.' A similar note is struck, only indirectly, by a criticism like that of Marx; who, when analysing the concept of _nature_, showed that it was the ideological complement of the historical development of the middle class, a powerful weapon of which this class availed itself against the privileges and oppressions which it intended to overthrow.[54] Now this concept may indeed have originated as a weapon made occasional use of historically, and nevertheless be intrinsically true. _Natural law_ in this case, is equivalent to _rational law_; it is necessary to deny both the rationality and the excellence of this law. Now, just because of its metaphysical origin, this concept can be rejected altogether, but cannot be refuted in detail--it disappears with the metaphysic of which it was a part, and it seems at length to have really disappeared. Peace to the _sublime goodness_ of natural laws.

But free trade presents itself to us, among its more recent supporters, in a very different aspect--the free traders, abandoning metaphysical postulates, assert two theses of practical importance: (_a_) that of an _economic hedonistic maximum_, which they suppose identical with the maximum of social desirability;[55] and (_b_) the other, that this hedonistic maximum can only be completely secured by means of the fullest economic liberty. These two theses certainly take us outside metaphysics and into the region of reality; but not actually into the region of science. Indeed the first of them contains a statement of the ends of social life, which may perhaps be welcome, but is not a deduction from any scientific proposition. The second thesis cannot be proved except by reference to experience, _i.e._ to what we know of human psychology, and to what, by approximate calculation, we may suppose that psychology will still probably be in the future. A calculation which can be made, and has been made with great acumen, with great erudition and with great caution and which hence may even be called scientific, but only in a metaphorical and hyperbolical sense, as we have already remarked: hence the knowledge which it affords us, can never have the value of strictly scientific knowledge.[56] Pareto, who is both one of the most intelligent and also one of the most trustworthy and sincere, of the recent exponents and supporters of free trade,[57] does not deny the limited and approximate nature of its conclusions; which appears to him so much the more clearly in that he uses mathematical formulae, which show at once the degree of certainty to which statements of this kind may lay claim.

And, in effect, communism (which has also had its metaphysical period, and earlier still a theological period) may, with entire justice, set against the two theses of free trade, two others of its own which consist: (_a_) in a different and not purely economic estimate of the maximum of social desirability; (_b_) in the assertion that this maximum can be attained, not through extreme free trade, but rather through the organisation of economic forces; which is the meaning of the famous saying concerning the _leap from the reign of necessity_ (=free competition or anarchy) _into that of liberty_ (=the command of man over the forces of nature even in the sphere of the social natural life). But neither can these two theses be proved; and for the same reasons. Ideals cannot be proved; and empirical calculations and practical convictions are not science. Pareto clearly recognises this quality in modern socialism; and agrees that the communistic system, as a system, is perfectly conceivable, _i.e._ theoretically it offers no internal contradictions (§ 446). According to him it clashes, not with scientific laws, but with _immense practical difficulties_ (_l.c._) such as the difficulty of adopting technical improvements without the trial and selection secured by free competition; the lack of stimuli to work; the choice of officials, which in a communistic society would be guided, still according to him, not by wholly technical reasons, as in modern industry, but on political and social grounds (837). He admits the socialist criticism of the waste due to free competition; but thinks this inevitable as a practical way of securing equilibrium of production. The real problem--he says--is: whether without the experiments of free competition it is possible to arrive at a knowledge of the line (the line which he calls _mn_) of the complete adaptation of production to demand, and whether the expense of making a unified (communistic) organisation of work, would not be greater than that needed to solve the equations of production by experiments (718, 867). He also acknowledged that there is something parasitical in the capitalist (Marx's _sad-faced knight_); but, at the same time, he maintains that the capitalist renders social services, for which we do not know how otherwise to provide.[58] If it be desired to state briefly the contrasts in the two different points of view, it may be said that human psychology is regarded by the free traders as for the most part, determined, and by the socialists, as for the most part changeable and adaptable. Now it is certain that human psychology does change and adapt itself; but the extent and rapidity of these changes are incapable of exact determination and are left to conjecture and opinion. Can they ever become the subject of exact calculation?

If now we pass to considerations of another kind, not of what is desirable, that is of the ends and means admired and thought good by us; but of what under present circumstances, history promises us; _i.e._ of the objective tendencies of modern society, I really do not know with what meaning many free traders cast on socialism the reproach of being Utopian. For quite another reason socialists might cast back the same reproach upon free trade, if it were considered as it is at present, and not as it was fifty years ago when Marx composed his criticism upon it. Free Trade and its recommendations turn upon an entity which _now at least_, does not exist: _i.e._ the national or general interest of society; since existing society is divided into antagonistic groups and recognises the interest of each of these groups, but not, or only very feebly, a general interest. Upon which does free trade reckon? On the landed proprietors or on the industrial classes, on the workmen or on the holders of public dignities? Socialism, on the contrary, from Marx onwards, has placed little reliance on the good sense and good intentions of men, and has declared that the social revolution must be accomplished chiefly by the effort of a class directly interested, _i.e._ the proletariat. And socialism has made such advances that history must inquire whether the experience that we have of the past justifies the supposition that a social movement, so widespread and intense, can be reabsorbed or dispersed without fully testing itself in the sphere of facts. On this matter too I gladly refer to Pareto, who acknowledges that even in that country of free traders' dreams, in England, the system is supported not owing to people's conviction of its intrinsic excellence, but because it is in the interests of certain _entrepreneurs_.[59] And he recognises, with political acumen, that since social movement takes place in the same manner as all other movements, along the line of least resistance, it is very likely that it may be necessary to pass through a socialistic state,--in order to reach a state of free competition (§ 791).

I have said that the extreme free traders, much more than the socialists, are _idealists_, or if one prefers it, _ideologists_. Hence in Italy we are witnesses of this strange phenomenon, a sort of fraternising and spiritual sympathy between socialists and free traders, in so far as both are bitter and searching critics of the same thing, which the former call the _bourgeois tyranny_ and the latter _bourgeois socialism_. But in the field of practical activity the socialists (and here I no longer refer especially to Italy) undoubtedly make progress whilst the free traders have to limit themselves to the barrenness of evil-speaking and of aspirations, forming a little group of well-meaning people of select intelligence, who make audience for one another.[60] By this I mean no reproach to these sincere and thoroughly consistent free-traders: rather I sincerely admire them; their lack of success is not their own fault. I wish merely to remark that if ideals, as the philosopher says, have short legs, those of the free traders' ideals are indeed of the shortest.

I could continue this exemplification, bringing forward various other social programmes, such as that of state socialism, which consists in accepting the socialist ideal, but as an ultimate end perhaps never fully attainable, and extending its partial attainment over a long course of centuries; and in relying for the effective force, not in a revolutionary class, nor simply in the views of right thinkers, but in the state, conceived as a creative power, independent of and superior to individual wills. It is certainly undeniable that the function of the state, like all social functions, owing to a complication of circumstances, amongst which are tradition, reverence, the consciousness of something which surpasses individuals, and other impressions and sentiments which are analysed by collective psychology, acquires a certain independence and develops a certain peculiar force; but in the estimation of this force great mistakes are made, as socialist criticism has clearly shown: and, in any case, whether it be great or small, we are always faced by a calculation; and one moreover, in the region of opinion, which region science may, in part, yet bring under its power, but which in a great degree will always be rebellious to it.