approvingly quotes a reviewer of
his work who sees it as demonstrating ''the necessity of the present order of
things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably
pass.'' 10 It is not clear how this austere determinism fits with the
centrality of class struggle.
There are times when
Engels sharply distinguishes historical laws from natural ones, and other times
when he argues for affinities between the two. Marx flirts with the idea of
finding a basis for history in Nature, but also highlights the fact that we
make the former but not the latter. Sometimes he criticizes the application of
biology to human history, and rejects the notion of universally valid
historical laws. Like many a nineteenth-century thinker, Marx hijacked the
authority of the natural sciences, then the supreme model of knowledge, to gain
some legitimacy for his work. But he might also have believed that so-called historical
laws could be known with the certainty of scientific ones.
Even so, it is hard to
credit that that he considered the so-called tendency of the rate of capitalist
profit to decline as being literally like the law of gravity. He cannot have
thought that history evolves as a thunderstorm does. It is true that he sees
the course of historical events as revealing a significant shape, but he is
hardly alone in holding that. Not many people see human history as completely
random. If there were no regularities or broadly predictable tendencies in
social life, we would be incapable of purposive action. It is not a choice
between iron laws on the one hand and sheer chaos on the other. Every society,
like every human action, opens up certain possible futures while shutting down
others. But this interplay of freedom and constraint is far from some kind of
cast-iron necessity. If you attempt to build socialism in wretched economic
conditions, then as we have seen you are very likely to end up with some species
of Stalinism. This is a well-testified historical pattern, confirmed by a whole
number of bungled social experiments. Liberals and conservatives who do not
usually relish talk of historical laws might change their tune when it comes to
this particular instance of them. But to claim that you are bound to end
up with Stalinism is to overlook the contingencies of history. Perhaps the
common people will rise up and take power into their own hands; or perhaps a
set of affluent nations will unexpectedly fly to your aid; or perhaps you might
discover that you are sitting on the largest oil field on the planet and use
this to build up your economy in a democratic way.
It is much the same with
the course of history. Marx does not seem to believe that the various modes of
production from ancient slavery to modern capitalism follow upon one another in
some unalterable pattern. Engels remarked that history ''moves often in leaps
and bounds and in a zigzag line.'' 11 For one thing, different modes
of production do not just follow each other in the first place. They can
coexist within the same society. For another thing, Marx claimed that his views
on the transition from feudalism to capitalism applied specifically to the West
and were not to be universalised. As far as modes of production go, not every
nation has to make the same trek from one to the other. The Bolsheviks were
able to leap from a part-feudalist Russia to a socialist state without living
through a prolonged interlude of extensive capitalism.
Marx believed at one point
that his own nation of Germany had to pass through a stage of bourgeois rule
before the working class could come to power. Later, however, he seems to have
abandoned this belief, recommending instead a ''permanent revolution'' which
would telescope these stages together. The typical Enlightenment view of
history is of an organically evolving process, in which each phase emerges
spontaneously from the next to constitute the whole we know as Progress. The
Marxist narrative, by contrast, is marked
his work who sees it as demonstrating ''the necessity of the present order of
things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably
pass.'' 10 It is not clear how this austere determinism fits with the
centrality of class struggle.
There are times when
Engels sharply distinguishes historical laws from natural ones, and other times
when he argues for affinities between the two. Marx flirts with the idea of
finding a basis for history in Nature, but also highlights the fact that we
make the former but not the latter. Sometimes he criticizes the application of
biology to human history, and rejects the notion of universally valid
historical laws. Like many a nineteenth-century thinker, Marx hijacked the
authority of the natural sciences, then the supreme model of knowledge, to gain
some legitimacy for his work. But he might also have believed that so-called historical
laws could be known with the certainty of scientific ones.
Even so, it is hard to
credit that that he considered the so-called tendency of the rate of capitalist
profit to decline as being literally like the law of gravity. He cannot have
thought that history evolves as a thunderstorm does. It is true that he sees
the course of historical events as revealing a significant shape, but he is
hardly alone in holding that. Not many people see human history as completely
random. If there were no regularities or broadly predictable tendencies in
social life, we would be incapable of purposive action. It is not a choice
between iron laws on the one hand and sheer chaos on the other. Every society,
like every human action, opens up certain possible futures while shutting down
others. But this interplay of freedom and constraint is far from some kind of
cast-iron necessity. If you attempt to build socialism in wretched economic
conditions, then as we have seen you are very likely to end up with some species
of Stalinism. This is a well-testified historical pattern, confirmed by a whole
number of bungled social experiments. Liberals and conservatives who do not
usually relish talk of historical laws might change their tune when it comes to
this particular instance of them. But to claim that you are bound to end
up with Stalinism is to overlook the contingencies of history. Perhaps the
common people will rise up and take power into their own hands; or perhaps a
set of affluent nations will unexpectedly fly to your aid; or perhaps you might
discover that you are sitting on the largest oil field on the planet and use
this to build up your economy in a democratic way.
It is much the same with
the course of history. Marx does not seem to believe that the various modes of
production from ancient slavery to modern capitalism follow upon one another in
some unalterable pattern. Engels remarked that history ''moves often in leaps
and bounds and in a zigzag line.'' 11 For one thing, different modes
of production do not just follow each other in the first place. They can
coexist within the same society. For another thing, Marx claimed that his views
on the transition from feudalism to capitalism applied specifically to the West
and were not to be universalised. As far as modes of production go, not every
nation has to make the same trek from one to the other. The Bolsheviks were
able to leap from a part-feudalist Russia to a socialist state without living
through a prolonged interlude of extensive capitalism.
Marx believed at one point
that his own nation of Germany had to pass through a stage of bourgeois rule
before the working class could come to power. Later, however, he seems to have
abandoned this belief, recommending instead a ''permanent revolution'' which
would telescope these stages together. The typical Enlightenment view of
history is of an organically evolving process, in which each phase emerges
spontaneously from the next to constitute the whole we know as Progress. The
Marxist narrative, by contrast, is marked
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