by being hit by an asteroid, a
fate that some of them might regard as preferable to socialist revolution. Even
the most deterministic theory of history can be shipwrecked by such contingent
events. All the same, we can still inquire how much of a historical determinist
Marx actually is. If there were no more to his work than the idea of the productive
forces giving birth to certain social relations, the answer would be plain.
This amounts to a full-blown determinism, and as such a case that very few
Marxists today would be prepared to sign up for. 3 On this view, it
is not human beings who create their own history; it is the productive forces,
which lead a strange, fetishistic life of their own.
Yet there is a different
current of thought in Marx's writings, for which it is the social relations of
production which have priority over the productive forces, rather than the
other way around. If feudalism made way for capitalism, it was not because the
latter could promote the productive forces more efficiently; it was because
feudal social relations in the countryside were gradually ousted by capitalist
ones. Feudalism created the conditions in which the new bourgeois class could
grow up; but this class did not emerge as a result of a growth in the
productive forces. Besides, if the forces of production expanded under
feudalism, it was not because they have some built-in tendency to develop, but
for reasons of class interest. As for the modern period, if the productive
forces have grown so rapidly over the past couple of centuries, it is because
capitalism cannot survive without constant expansion.
On this alternative
theory, human beings, in the shape of social relations and class struggles, are
indeed the authors of their own history. Marx once commented that he and
Engels had emphasized
''the class struggle as the immediate driving force of history'' for some forty
years. 4 The point about class struggle is that its outcome cannot be
predicted, and determinism can therefore find no foothold. You might always
argue that class conflict is determined—that it is in the nature of
social classes to pursue mutually clashing interests, and that this is
determined by the mode of production. But it is only now and then that this
''objective'' conflict of interests takes the form of a full-scale political
battle; and it is hard to see how that battle can be somehow predrafted. Marx
may have thought that socialism was inevitable, but he surely did not think
that the Factory Acts or the Paris Commune were. If he had really been a
full-blooded determinist, he might have been able to tell us when and how
socialism would arrive. But he was a prophet in the sense of denouncing
injustice, not in the sense of peering into a crystal ball.
''History,'' Marx writes,
''does nothing, it possesses no immense wealth, it wages no battles. It is man,
real living man, who does all that, who possesses and fights; 'history' is not,
as it were, a person apart, using man as a means to achieve its own aims,
history is nothing but the activity of man pursuing his aims.'' 5 When Marx comments on class relations in the ancient, medieval or modern world,
he often writes as though these are what are primary. He also insists that each
mode of production, from slavery and feudalism to capitalism, has its own
distinct laws of development. If this is so, then one no longer need think in
terms of a rigorously ''linear'' historical process, in which each mode of
production follows on the heels of another according to some inner logic. There
is nothing endemic in feudalism that turns it inexorably into capitalism. There
is no longer a single thread running through the tapestry of history, but
rather a set of differences and discontinuities. It is bourgeois political
economy, not Marxism, that thinks in terms of universal evolutionary laws.
Indeed, Marx himself protested against the charge that he was seeking to bring
the whole of history under a single law. He was
fate that some of them might regard as preferable to socialist revolution. Even
the most deterministic theory of history can be shipwrecked by such contingent
events. All the same, we can still inquire how much of a historical determinist
Marx actually is. If there were no more to his work than the idea of the productive
forces giving birth to certain social relations, the answer would be plain.
This amounts to a full-blown determinism, and as such a case that very few
Marxists today would be prepared to sign up for. 3 On this view, it
is not human beings who create their own history; it is the productive forces,
which lead a strange, fetishistic life of their own.
Yet there is a different
current of thought in Marx's writings, for which it is the social relations of
production which have priority over the productive forces, rather than the
other way around. If feudalism made way for capitalism, it was not because the
latter could promote the productive forces more efficiently; it was because
feudal social relations in the countryside were gradually ousted by capitalist
ones. Feudalism created the conditions in which the new bourgeois class could
grow up; but this class did not emerge as a result of a growth in the
productive forces. Besides, if the forces of production expanded under
feudalism, it was not because they have some built-in tendency to develop, but
for reasons of class interest. As for the modern period, if the productive
forces have grown so rapidly over the past couple of centuries, it is because
capitalism cannot survive without constant expansion.
On this alternative
theory, human beings, in the shape of social relations and class struggles, are
indeed the authors of their own history. Marx once commented that he and
Engels had emphasized
''the class struggle as the immediate driving force of history'' for some forty
years. 4 The point about class struggle is that its outcome cannot be
predicted, and determinism can therefore find no foothold. You might always
argue that class conflict is determined—that it is in the nature of
social classes to pursue mutually clashing interests, and that this is
determined by the mode of production. But it is only now and then that this
''objective'' conflict of interests takes the form of a full-scale political
battle; and it is hard to see how that battle can be somehow predrafted. Marx
may have thought that socialism was inevitable, but he surely did not think
that the Factory Acts or the Paris Commune were. If he had really been a
full-blooded determinist, he might have been able to tell us when and how
socialism would arrive. But he was a prophet in the sense of denouncing
injustice, not in the sense of peering into a crystal ball.
''History,'' Marx writes,
''does nothing, it possesses no immense wealth, it wages no battles. It is man,
real living man, who does all that, who possesses and fights; 'history' is not,
as it were, a person apart, using man as a means to achieve its own aims,
history is nothing but the activity of man pursuing his aims.'' 5 When Marx comments on class relations in the ancient, medieval or modern world,
he often writes as though these are what are primary. He also insists that each
mode of production, from slavery and feudalism to capitalism, has its own
distinct laws of development. If this is so, then one no longer need think in
terms of a rigorously ''linear'' historical process, in which each mode of
production follows on the heels of another according to some inner logic. There
is nothing endemic in feudalism that turns it inexorably into capitalism. There
is no longer a single thread running through the tapestry of history, but
rather a set of differences and discontinuities. It is bourgeois political
economy, not Marxism, that thinks in terms of universal evolutionary laws.
Indeed, Marx himself protested against the charge that he was seeking to bring
the whole of history under a single law. He was
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