The scientific discoveries of KARL MARX
Socialist Action1980sPhil HearseTranscribed or corrected by hand from the printed page.
By Phil Hearse
THE CENTENARY of Karl Marx has been a time for the outpouring of bile and nonsense. In the colour supplements and newspaper articles, the reader will be hard put to it to find what Marx's important theoretical discoveries were.
A random sample from last week's press has Bernard Levin of the Times arguing that Marx was the 'founder of tyrannies'.
Peter Kellner of the New Statesman in an ignorant and foolish article says 'Labour should junk all this nonsense about debts to Marx. The party owes him nothing. His heritage is worthless'.
Even Neal Ascherson in the Observer goes on about where 'Marx went wrong'. So what were the theoretical breakthroughs that Marx made? And how do they aid the struggle of the working class.
The theory of historical materialism
Historical materialism, first systematically expounded in the German Ideology (1845), is without doubt the fundamental scientific discovery of Marx. He himself summed it up with remarkable clarity and acuteness in his famous Preface of 1859:
'The general result at which I arrived and which once won served as the guiding thread for my studies can be briefly formulated as follows: in the social production of their life men enter into definite relations which are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but their social being that determines their consciousness'.
Any careful reading of this passage reveals that Marxism is far from being the 'economic' theory that bourgeois ideologues assert. On the contrary Marxism explains that the 'social relations of production' are fundamental, determining level of social reality.
The ideology, law and politics of a given epoch cannot be understood outside of the social relations of production. Marx's 'guiding thread' enabled the workers movement to understand the development of modern society, the emergence of capitalism, and its own role as the political representative of a subordinate class — the proletariat.
Historical materialism does away 'at a stroke' with the view of history as the doings of great people, and enables the tangled skein of history to be 'penetrated', by revealing the development of the fundamental modern classes — the bourgeoisie and the proletariat — and the ideological and political forces which represent them.
The theory of surplus value
Marx's second great discovery was the real nature of the wage labour-capital relationship. Liberal economic theory explained the wage labour-capital relationship as a free exchange on the market.
The workers sold their labour in return for a wage of equal value — an equal transaction freely struck. Marx explained that the proletariat was a propertyless class forced to sell its labour power. In exchange for the workers' labour power the capitalist advanced a portion of his existing capital (which Marx called 'variable capital') as wages. The capitalist then appropriated the result of the workers production, a newly created 'surplus' value. This theory of surplus value created a scientific basis for understanding the mechanism of capitalist exploration.
The Marxist theory of capitalist crisis
The derivative of Marx's theory of capitalist production was his insight into capitalist crisis, expounded at length in volume 3 of Capital.
Capitalism invariably goes through periods of booms and slumps. The 'motor force' of capitalist production, the incentive to get it going is the production of surplus value, and its result for the capitalists — profit.
A general decline in the rate of profit (the capitalists' 'return'), leads to a period of disinvestment, the closure of factories and mass unemployment. Each capitalist crisis is the result of a combination of specific factors.
But there is a general trend towards crisis in capitalism through the 'tendency of the rate of profit to fall'. As the capitalist production cycle develops, the proportion of accumulated capital — factories, machines etc — in the production process increases. Production becomes more and more technologically intensive. It becomes more and more expensive to produce a given amount of surplus value. The average rate of profit begins to decline, unless counterveiling tendencies intervene.
In the resulting crisis, huge amounts of capital are destroyed as capitalists go bankrupt and the conditions for profitable production are recreated.
The theory of the state
The state only came into existence with class society. Although the state exists to ensure the continued production of the general conditions of production (in capitalism for example the postal service, a central bank, the fire service, etc) each state represents the interests of a particular class, the ruling class. Part of its function in maintaining the general conditions for the continued domination of the ruling class is its repressive function. As Engels put it: 'the state is in the last instance of a body of armed men.' The experience of the Paris Commune convinced Marx that 'the state cannot be seized by the working class and wielded for its own ends'. It must be broken up, 'smashed', and the standing army replaced by the workers in arms.
The revolutionary role of the working class
The proletariat plays a unique role in world history. All previous revolutionary classes have been propertied classes, able to use their growing economic power against the ruling class. The working class on the other hand owns no property. Its sole weapons are its collective organisation and its consciousness.
The proletarian revolution is a uniquely conscious revolution. In order to accomplish its historical task of overthrowing capitalism the working class needs to understand society to act on it. The world outlook of the proletariat is Marxism itself.
But revolutionary class consciousness is not created spontaneously, but is the work of a revolutionary political party which links up with, and explains, the spontaneous struggles of the class.
It is clear that in the world of the 1980's — wracked with capitalist economic crisis, the ever present danger of imperialist war, and a savage capitalist offensive against the working class world-wide, Marxism is the only theory which explains the inter-action of the economic, political and ideological elements of the current crisis.
The immense interest in the Marx centenary in the labour movement stems not from sentimental attachment as Peter Kellner seems to think, but from the fact that Marxism continues to be unrivalled in its explanatory power and its ability to guide the political actions of the working class.
No amount of pompous drivel from Marx's bourgeois, liberal and social democratic detractors will conceal this fact from increasing numbers in the Labour Party and trade unions.
What Marx really said
On historical materialism: The German Ideology. Part 1. Marx and Engels. (Lawrence and Wishart). £2.50. The Communist Manifesto. Marx and Engels. (Pathfinder). 80p.
On surplus value: Wage Labour and Capital. Marx. 50p. Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory. Mandel. (Pathfinder). £1.75.
On capitalist crisis: Capital Vol. 3. Introduction by Mandel. (Penguin). £6.95.
On the Marxist theory of the state: State and Revolution Lenin 50p
On the revolutionary role of the working class: What is to be Done. Lenin. 75p. Leninist Theory of Organisation. Mandel. 25p.
All available from The Other Bookshop. Plus 20 per cent for postage.