Marx was a Productionist, not a Materialist

[LBird]

Once more, some further discussion about Marx and ‘materialism’, built around a passage from The German Ideology. If any comrades still don’t accept that Marx wasn’t a ‘materialist’, then it will probably not be worth them reading any further. This contribution is for those who think that there might be something to this thesis, and would like to consider it further, in the light of what Marx actually says. I’m keen to read their critical opinions on this subject.

It’s my thesis that any reference to ‘material’ or ‘materialism’ should be replaced with ‘production’ or ‘productionism’. If one has to retain ‘material’ (for ideological or historical reasons), then it should be prefixed with ‘ideal’, so that the reference should be read, not as ‘material’ or ‘materialism’, but as ‘ideal-material’ or ‘idealism-materialism’.

It’s clear that when Marx uses the term ‘material’, he is referring to ‘human production’, not ‘material things’. And as ‘human production’ contains both ‘ideas’ and their practice upon the ‘material’ world, then ‘production’ means both ‘ideas’ and ‘material’, and not simply ‘material’.

It was Engels who began the trend to read the use of the term ‘material’ in Marx, as ‘material’ meaning, well, simply ‘material’. For those who are unsure about challenging the word ‘material’, just think how the word ‘freedom’ is used to confuse workers. Whilst workers accept the market meaning of ‘freedom’, they’ll be as confused as those who accept the Engelsian meaning of ‘material’.

It’s easy to see why Marx’s ‘material’ can seem like Engels’ ‘material’. It’s the same word, for example. But the actual meaning is completely different. Marx means ‘human material production’ (which, being human, can’t be without ‘ideas’, and being production, must involve creation), whereas Engels means ‘material objects’ (which, not being human, can be without ‘ideas’, and being ‘material’ are fixed physical things).

The blame for this, though, lies with Marx himself, not Engels. Almost everybody who has since read Marx has taken the same route as Engels (with Engels’ help, of course), and has read ‘material’ as ‘material’. Whilst we can have sympathy with both Engels and most others who’ve read Marx, because they were not (and aren’t now) academic philosophers, over making this disastrous mistake, Marx cannot be let off the hook so lightly. He should have been aware of his tremendous mistake in emphasising ‘material’ over ‘ideal’ is his own published work. Tragically, his then unpublished works make this ‘human production’ meaning of ‘material’ far clearer, which is why, since they were published periodically since the 1920s, these texts have stimulated a more critical approach to Marx’s use of the term ‘material’.

This error of understanding has lead workers astray for over 100 years, and allowed the ‘materialist conception of history’ to destroy any critical ideas within the proletariat, to the obvious gain of the Leninist cadre parties. It doesn’t take much to realise that, if ‘ideas’ aren’t in the ‘material’, then they must be supplied from elsewhere, outside of workers’ ‘material’ lives: step forward the ‘infallible Central Committee’.

Well, once again, let’s look in more critical detail at Marx’s ‘conception’ of human history (once again, it’s worth pointing out that it was Engels who came up with the phrase ‘the materialist conception’, in his 1858 review of Marx’s A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy).

Marx, The German Ideology, CW5 pp. 53-4, wrote:

This conception of history depends on our ability to expound the real process of production, starting out from the material production of life itself, and to comprehend the form of intercourse connected with this and created by this mode of production (i.e. civil society in its various stages), as the basis of all history; and to show it in its action as State, to explain all the different theoretical products and forms of consciousness, religion, philosophy, ethics, etc. etc. and trace their origins and growth from that basis; by which means, of course, the whole thing can be depicted in its totality (and therefore, too, the reciprocal action of these various sides on one another). It has not, like the idealistic view of history, in every period to look for a category, but remains constantly on the real ground of history; it does not explain practice from the idea but explains the formation of ideas from material practice; and accordingly it comes to the conclusion that all forms and products of consciousness cannot be dissolved by mental criticism, by resolution into “self-consciousness” or transformation into “apparitions,” “spectres,” “fancies,” etc. but only by the practical overthrow of the actual social relations which gave rise to this idealistic humbug; that not criticism but revolution is the driving force of history, also of religion, of philosophy and all other types of theory. It shows that history does not end by being resolved into “self-consciousness as spirit of the spirit,” but that in it at each stage there is found a material result: a sum of productive forces, an historically created relation of individuals to nature and to one another, which is handed down to each generation from its predecessor; a mass of productive forces, capital funds and conditions, which, on the one hand, is indeed modified by the new generation, but also on the other prescribes for it its conditions of life and gives it a definite development, a special character. It shows that circumstances make men just as much as men make circumstances.

[my bold/italics]

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01b.htm

 

Here Marx rejects both pure, non-practical ‘idealism’ (by dismissing ideas alone, which are not put through the test of practice) and pure, unconscious ‘materialism’ (by emphasising human active practice, necessarily containing ideas, which changes (creates, modifies, revolutionises, makes) the ‘material’).

Production, life, practice, all include creative, critical, human ‘ideas’ and material nature, and require an understanding of their ‘totality’ and ‘reciprocal’ interaction. Marx both dismisses ‘criticism’ which is without ‘practice’, and emphasises ‘social production’. This is ‘productionism’, or ‘idealism-materialism’, and neither simple ‘materialism’ nor simple ‘idealism’.

When Marx uses the term ‘material’, he links it to ‘human production’, not ‘physical things’.

[DJP]

I think you're mistaken. Marx was clearly a goatist, that is he thought that everything is a goat. I have used the Microsoft Word autocorrect feature to correct the entire Marx and Engles collected works so now every reference to "material" and "materialism" has been changed to "goat" and "goatism" respectivly.More on goatism can be found here:https://philosophynow.org/issues/71/Everything_is_a_Goat

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

I think you're mistaken. Marx was clearly a goatist, that is he thought that everything is a goat. I have used the Microsoft Word autocorrect feature to correct the entire Marx and Engles collected works so now every reference to "material" and "materialism" has been changed to "goat" and "goatism" respectivly.More on goatism can be found here:https://philosophynow.org/issues/71/Everything_is_a_Goat

You're not doing the reputation of the SPGB any favours by giving childish answers to serious philosophical problems confronting workers who wish to move towards socialist ideas, DJP.The fact that you don't even understand that there is a problem with 'materialism', never mind your inability to wrestle with it by discussing Marx, Engels and the later Marxists, and philosophers of science, in a serious way, is now very clear to anyone reading these continuing discussions.I'd recommend that the SPGB get some other members, who can critically discuss these issues, to intervene.What's most laughable is that what I'm proposing would give a serious philosophical basis to the SPGB's politics, which Engels' 'materialism' clearly doesn't, but that members like DJP can't even see the contradictions between 'materialism' and SPGB strategy.I've said it before, and I'll continue to say it: Engels' 'materialism' provides a philosophical basis to Leninism.

[Young Master Smeet]

Lbird,small problem with your citation.  The German Ideology was cop-written by Charlie & Fred, so those words above are Fred's words.  Per Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_German_Ideology

Quote:

The text itself was written by Marx and Engels in Brussels in 1845 and 1846 but it was not published until 1932. The Preface and some of the alterations and additions are in Marx's hand; the bulk of the manuscript, however, is in Engels' hand, except for Chapter V of Volume II and some passages of Chapter III of Volume I which are in Joseph Weydemeyer's hand. Chapter V in Volume II was written by Moses Hess and edited by Marx and Engels.

BTW, you're not really hashing over anything that Raymond Williams didn't when he discovered Marx wasn'tr a mechanical materialist.  That was back in 1950-something.

[ALB]

You never give up, do you!I'm not going to argue with you because every time anybody does you end up insulting them. But I will point out some factual errors.First, the German Ideology was written jointly by Marx and Engels. In fact the passage you quote was literally written by Engels. Chris Arthur in his edition of the work published by Lawrence & Wishart in 1970 explains:

Quote:

The extant manuscript of the first chapter "Feuerbach" consists of pages halved into two columns, the left filled with most of the text in Engels' script — he wrote more smoothly and quickly than Marx — from joint dictation. The right-hand column has many additions from both authors.

So give Engels a break!Second, Engels, in his [1859] review of Marx's A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy,  uses the phrase "the materialist conception of history". He was not speaking there about a "materialist conception" of the physical world.Third, Marx had no objection to the well-known summary of his views in the Preface to that work being called "materialist".

LBird wrote:

It’s my thesis that any reference to ‘material’ or ‘materialism’ should be replaced with ‘production’ or ‘productionism’. If one has to retain ‘material’ (for ideological or historical reasons), then it should be prefixed with ‘ideal’, so that the reference should be read, not as ‘material’ or ‘materialism’, but as ‘ideal-material’ or ‘idealism-materialism’.It’s clear that when Marx uses the term ‘material’, he is referring to ‘human production’, not ‘material things’. And as ‘human production’ contains both ‘ideas’ and their practice upon the ‘material’ world, then ‘production’ means both ‘ideas’ and ‘material’, and not simply ‘material’.

The distinction you are trying to draw is (I think) between philosophical materialism (as a theory of the nature of "reality") and materialist conception of history (as a theory of history and society).There's no need to invent a new term for the latter as "historical materialism" fits the bill exactly.Having said this I think Marx will have been some kind of philosophical materialist too (how could he have been anything else?), even though he didn't write about this as much as Engels.

[LBird]

I've dealt with these so-called 'objections', time and time again.I know Engels was involved in the GI. That's why in his 'science and nature' writings he contradicts himself. He was confused about 'materialism'.I know Engels wrote about 'materialist conception of history'. The point is, Marx thought of nature as inseparable from human history, too, whereas Engels didn't.Why these 'objections' are trotted out each time, I don't know.

ALB wrote:

The distinction you are trying to draw is (I think) between philosophical materialism (as a theory of the nature of "reality") and materialist conception of history (as a theory of history and society).

[my bold]No, I wish comrades would read what I write, rather than what they want me to have written.Your 'philosophical materialism' is Engels' view. This is in effect MATERIALISM.Your 'materialist conception of history' is a mythical Marx, who saw his ideas as including 'nature', so his 'm c of h and s' was not a 'theory of history and society' which is separate from 'nature'. Your concept here is in effect IDEALISM.I'm trying to lay a basis for a unified 'theory of human production' (ie. Marx's aim), which includes both human ideas, history and society, and their interaction with nature.Marx doesn't separate out 'nature' from 'society', so neither of your 'distinctions' are Marx's view, which on the contrary is IDEALISM-MATERIALISM.If comrades disagree with me, as I keep saying, that's fine.But at least come to understand what I'm saying, and so know what you disagree with.I'm asking how can a unified philosophy of 'theory and practice', which requires both ideas and nature, be covered by either 'philosophical materialism' (which ignores human ideas/consciousness/society/history) or by (what you call above) 'materialist conception of history' which is about 'history and society' (but not nature)?I keep saying it, but there is a third alternative, and it is the one Marx outlined in the Theses on Feuerbach, a unifying of parts of both idealism and materialism, and a rejection of parts of id. and mat.So, please ALB, recognise that I'm drawing THREE 'distinctions', not TWO.

ALB wrote:

Having said this I think Marx will have been some kind of philosophical materialist too (how could he have been anything else?),…

[my bold]What part of 'idealism-MATERIALISM'  do you seem to be unable to grasp? Why you keep saying that I'm ignoring Marx's 'materialism', I don't know. I'm saying he's both an idealist and a materialist: hence, theory and practice.All I ask is that comrades read the section of the GI that I've quoted above. It's clear that Marx is discussing human production when he talks of 'materialism', and not 'physical things'. He talking as much about 'ideas' as about 'material'.

[ALB]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

BTW, you're not really hashing over anything that Raymond Williams didn't when he discovered Marx wasn'tr a mechanical materialist.  That was back in 1950-something.

Just checked what Raymond Williams (ex-CP) wrote about "materialism" in his 1970 work Keywords:

Quote:

Marx's critique, of the materialism hitherto described, accepted the physical explanations of the origins of nature and of life but rejected the derived forms of social and moral argument, describing the whole tendency as mechanical materialism. This form of materialism had isolated objects and had neglected or ignored subjects especially human activity as subjective. Hence his distinction between a received mechanical materialism and a new historical materialism, which would include human activity as a primary force. (….) Marx's sense of interaction — men working on physical things and the ways they do this, and the relations they enter into to do it, working also on 'human nature', which they make in the process of making what they need to subsist — was generalised by Engels as DIALECTICAL (q.v. )materialism, and extended to a sense of laws, not only of historical development but of all natural or physical processes. In this formulation, which is one version of Marxism, historical materialism refers to human activity, dialectical materialoism  to universal processes. [his emphasis]

In his discussion of the word "dialectic" he says:

Quote:

Hegel's version of the dialectical process had made spirit primary and world secondary. This priority was reversed, and  dialectics was then 'the science of the general laws of motion, both of the external world and of human thought — two sets of laws which are identical in their substance but differ in their expression' (Engels, Essay on Feuerbach).  This was the 'materialist dialectic, later set out as  dialectical materialism, and applied to both history and nature (in Dialectics of Nature). (…) There has been immense controversy about the relation of dialectical materialism to the thought of Marx, who did not use the term; to its idealist predecessors; and to the natural sciences. Some Marxists prefer the more specific  historical materialism,  not wishing to extend the  dialectical description to natural processes, while others insist that the same basic laws apply to both.

So, you are right, YMS, there is nothing new under the Sun (whether or not it goes round the Earth).Ironically, perhaps, we in the SPGB have not been too keen on "dialectical materialism".

[ALB]

Just come across this from the Introduction to Karl Marx. Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy edited by TB Bottomore and Maximilien Rubel (one of the books on our recommended reasing list):

Quote:

Marx's method has usually been called 'historical materialism'. This is misleading in so far as it attributes to Marx a philosophical intention which he did not have. He was not concerned either with the ontological problem of the relation of thought and being, or with problems of the theory of knowledge. Speculative philosophy of this kind was what Marx rejected, in order to substitute science for metaphysics in a new field of knowledge.Marx spoke of the 'materialist basis' of his method of investigation. In his postcript to the second edition of Capital, he refers the reader to the preface to his Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy for a fuller explanation of his 'materialism'. An examination of this preface, which condenses into a few propositions the theory worked out fifteen years earlier in the Brussels and Paris manuscripts, shows that the term 'material' is employed simply to designate the fundamental primary conditions of human existence. The expression used as 'material life', 'material conditions of life', 'material productive forces', 'modes of production of material life', 'material transformation of the economic conditions of production', etc.[emphasis added]

Looks like a 1 all draw then, unless Marx's preparedness to be regarded as some kind of 'materialist' is not taken into account (how could he not have been prepared to given the number of times he used the word 'material' ! )In any event, I would have thought that the word "productionist" would be open to a greater misunderstanding than "materialist". Isn't it something the Green don't like because it favours ever-increasing production even at the expense of the environment?If people don't like "historical materialism", what about "social materialism"?

[LBird]

At least you're prepared to continue to engage with this problem, ALB. Bottomore and Rubel's book is one of the sources that started me on this apparently thankless task.

ALB wrote:

Looks like a 1 all draw then, unless Marx's preparedness to be regarded as some kind of 'materialist' is not taken into account (how could he not have been prepared to given the number of times he used the word 'material' ! )

Why you (and others) keep arguing that 'Marx was prepared to be regarded as some kind of 'materialist', as some sort of comeback to those thinkers who themselves keep saying that 'Marx was some kind of materialist' (including me, when I use the formulation 'idealist-MATERIALIST'), I don't know.It's as if the word 'materialist' has for youse a religious conotation, and the reciting of it wards off evil, especially in the guise of nasty 'Idealists', that Engels warned you about.Unless, as Bottomore, Rubel and lots of other Marxists and Communists have said for nearly a century, we discuss the problematic meaning of 'materialism', then we'll remain stuck in the 19th century.

ALB wrote:

In any event, I would have thought that the word "productionist" would be open to a greater misunderstanding than "materialist".

If that's the case, then fine, we should come up with another term which captures the necessity of regarding the 'ideal' and the 'material' as being of equal significance. Polemically, I've used 'idealism-materialism', as these are the terms used in the Theses on Feuerbach by Marx, and any comrades reading the text for the first time, needs to be familiar with those terms and their relationships and refashioning by Marx within the text.

ALB wrote:

If people don't like "historical materialism", what about "social materialism"?

No. Because it contains the term 'materialism', but not the term of equal significance for humans and their knowledge, 'idealism', Marx's 'active side'. Either both are included, or both are removed and a new term, which captures human theory and practice ('production', perhaps?). Whilst the term only includes 'materialism', we'll continue with comrades thinking it's only about 'materialism' (ie. physical things, touchable objects, (even biological 'sense-impressions', as opposed to 'perception', which is social and requires 'ideas')).Given that you've read Dietzgen, ALB, whereas the rest here seem not to have, you're aware of his argument about the equality of 'things' and 'ideas', and that he tried to capture this 'idealism-materialism' with his term 'dialectical materialism', which for him amounted to the same thing as my term. [to any other comrades reading, Dietzgen's 'dia mat' is nothing to do with the later 'Dialectical Materialism' of Engels, the Second International, and the Russians].Since you are aware of this sensitivity to 'materialism' since Marx was still alive, I'm not sure why you can't see that there are three 'distinctions' (your term) to be drawn, between 'idealism', 'materialism' and a third which Marx clearly argued for in his Theses.The best I can come up with is that in  the context of his times, Marx was so opposed to 'religion', and identified modern 'idealism' as synonymous with it, and so felt thus compelled to retain 'materialism' in his discussion of human social production, that he wasn't aware of how it would pan out as the 19th century progressed. The massive advances by bourgeois science using positivism and its 'truths' about the 'material world' (and its separation of 'social' and 'physical' science) would not have been apparent to Marx for much of his life.Whatever happened, there is no excuse for us not to use the advances of the 20th century to help us to understand Marx's work (especially as Engels, when not discussing 'matter' and 'material', actually was in step with Marx's 'idealism-materialism').Put simply, Marx wasn't a 'materialist', in the common usage of that term, which is the exclusion of the 'ideal'. If 'ideas' are removed from our class' approach, then they will be re-inserted later by others. And I mean by 'The Party'.PS. please, in any replies by anyone, don't simply say what's been said before, addressed by me, and my replies ignored.

[Young Master Smeet]

Quote:

If that's the case, then fine, we should come up with another term which captures the necessity of regarding the 'ideal' and the 'material' as being of equal significance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_monismWhy reinvent the wheel?

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Quote:

If that's the case, then fine, we should come up with another term which captures the necessity of regarding the 'ideal' and the 'material' as being of equal significance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_monismWhy reinvent the wheel?

From a very brief look, YMS, the thinkers referred to seem to be 'pragmatists'.They are not Socialists/Communists.If your ideology says that 'science' can be done without involving 'politics', then this link may be of some use to you.Because I'm a Communist, I don't think that any human 'theory and practice' can be done without a consideration of 'society'. The pragmatists ignore society, and focus on individuals and their personal experiences. Pragmatism is rooted in 19th century US social and political thinking.'Materialists' ignore ideology, whereas Communists don't.

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

Put simply, Marx wasn't a 'materialist', in the common usage of that term, which is the exclusion of the 'ideal'.

And this is where you are going wrong. Most people that use the term "materialism" will not be denying the existence of ideas / mental phenomena / experience etc (though they won't be calling it the 'ideal'). It just that 'mental' is a catergory of "material" phenomena, just as "cow" is a catergory of the phenomena we refer to as "animals". You just seem to keep reverting to the same Cartesian dualisms..I'm putting a longer quote in the hope that it might inspire a ligtbulb moment…

Strawson wrote:

Materialism is the view that every real, concrete phenomenon in the universe is physical. It is a view about the actual universe, and for the purposes of this paper I am going to assume that it is true.It has been characterized in other ways. David Lewis once defined it as ‘metaphysics built to endorse the truth and descriptive completeness of physics more or less as we know it’, and this cannot be faulted as a terminological decision. But it seems unwise to burden materialism—the view that every real concrete phenomenon in the universe is physical—with a commitment to the descriptive completeness of physics more or less as we know it. There may be physical phenomena which physics (and any non‐revolutionary extension of it) cannot describe, and of which it has no inkling, either (p.20) descriptive or referential. Physics is one thing, the physical is another. ‘Physical’ is a natural‐kind term—it is the ultimate natural‐kind term —and no sensible person thinks that physics has nailed all the essential properties of the physical. Current physics is profoundly beautiful and useful, but it is in a state of chronic internal tension. It may be added, with Russell and others, that although physics appears to tell us a great deal about certain of the general structural or mathematical characteristics of the physical, it fails to give us any further insight into the nature of whatever it is that has these structural or mathematical characteristics—apart from making it plain that it is utterly bizarre relative to our ordinary conception of it.It is unclear exactly what this last remark amounts to (is it being suggested that physics is failing to do something it could do?), but it already amounts to something very important when it comes to what is known as the ‘mind–body problem’. Many take this to be the problem of how mental phenomena can be physical phenomena given what we already know about the nature of the physical. But those who think this are already lost. For the fact is that we have no good reason to think that we know anything about the physical that gives us any reason to find any problem in the idea that mental phenomena are physical phenomena. If we consider the nature of our knowledge of the physical, we realize that ‘no problem of irreconcilability arises’. Joseph Priestley saw this very clearly over two hundred years ago, and he was not the first. Noam Chomsky reached essentially the same conclusion over thirty years ago, and he was not the last. Most present‐day philosophers take no notice of it and waste a lot of time as a result: much of the present debate about the ‘mind–body’ problem is beside the point.[…]Genuine materialism requires concerted meditative effort. Russell recommends ‘long reflection’. If one hasn't felt a kind of vertigo of astonishment, when facing the thought, obligatory for all materialists, that consciousness is a wholly physical phenomenon in every respect, including every experiential respect—a sense of having been precipitated into a completely new confrontation with the utter strangeness of the physical (the real) relative to all existing common‐sense and scientific conceptions of it—, then one hasn't begun to be a thoughtful materialist. One hasn't got to the starting line.Some may find that this feeling recurs each time they concentrate on the mindbody problem. Others may increasingly think themselves—quietistically, apophatically, pragmatically, intuitively—into the unknownness of the (non‐mental) physical in such a way that they no longer experience the fact that mental and non‐mental phenomena are equally physical as involving any clash. At this point ‘methodological naturalism’—the methodological attitude to scientific enquiry into the phenomena of mind recommended by Chomsky—will become truly natural for them, as well as correct. I think it is creeping over me. But recidivism is to be expected: the powerfully open state of mind required by true materialism is hard to achieve as a natural attitude to the world. It involves a profound reseating of one's intuitive theoretical understanding of nature.

[Young Master Smeet]

I hardly think Bertrand Rusell counts as apolitical, now, does he?n  Although he was most closely linked with Logical Positivism (IIRC).  In any case, neutral monism most closely described what we have been discussing, that there is one stuff in the world and that mind and matter are of equal status.Since when have you been a communist?  That comes as a complete surprise to me.

[Young Master Smeet]

Actually, you may enjoy skimming this:http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17350/17350-h/17350-h.htm#II_IAs Russell says:

Quote:

By far the most important aspect of the Russian Revolution is as an attempt to realize Communism. I believe that Communism is necessary to the world, and I believe that the heroism of Russia has fired men's hopes in a way which was essential to the realization of Communism in the future. Regarded as a splendid attempt, without which ultimate success would have been very improbable, Bolshevism deserves the gratitude and admiration of all the progressive part of mankind. But the method by which Moscow aims at establishing Communism is a pioneer method, rough and dangerous, too heroic to count the cost of the opposition it arouses.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Since when have you been a communist?  That comes as a complete surprise to me.

It doesn't come as a surprise to me that you don't recognise the significance of political ideology in science, because you're not a Communist.

[Author]

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