Engels Today: A Centenary Appreciation

223 Pages·1996·25.57 MB·English

by  Christopher J. Arthur (eds.)

ENGELS TODAY
Also by Christopher J. Arthur
DIALECTICS OF LABOUR: Marx and his Relation to Hegel
Engels Today
A Centenary Appreciation
Edited by
Christopher 1. Arthur
Honorary Lecturer in Philosophy
University of Sussex
First published in Great Britain 1996 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills. Basingstoke. Hampshire RG21 6XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-333-66531-2 ISBN 978-1-349-24871-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-24871-1
First published in the United States of America 1996 by
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division.
175 Fifth Avenue.
New York. N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-16013-5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Engels today: a centenary appreciation I edited by Christopher J.
Arthur.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-16013-5 (cloth)
I. Engels. Friedrich, 1820-1895. I. Arthur. C. J. (Christopher
John), 1940- .
HX274.7.E53E44 1996
335.4'092-dc20 96-14477
CIP
Editorial matter, selection, Introduction and Chapter 8 © Christopher J. Arthur 1996
Chapters 1-6 © Macmillan Press Ltd 1996, Chapter 7 © Sean Sayers 1996
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 96
Contents
Notes on the Contributors vii
Introduction ix
Christopher ]. Arthur
1 Engels and Democracy 1
Terrell Carver
2 Engels: Revolutionary Realist? 29
Andrew Collier
3 Engels Without Dogmatism 47
John O'Neill
4 Engels and the Politics of Nature 67
Ted Benton
5 The Condition of the Working Class in England:
150 Years On 95
Anne Dennehy
6 Engels's Origin: Legacy, Burden and Vision 129
Lise Vogel
7 Engels and Materialism 153
Sean Sayers
8 Engels as Interpreter of Marx's Economics 173
Christopher ]. Arthur
Index 211
v
Notes on the Contributors
Christopher J. Arthur studied at the Universities of Nottingham
and Oxford; he taught philosophy for many years at the Univer
sity of Sussex. He is the author of Dialectics of Labour: Marx and His
Relation to Hegel (1986); he edited The German Ideology by Marx and
Engels (1970), Law and Marxism by E. Pashukanis (1978) and Marx's
Capital: A Student Edition (1992).
Ted Benton is Professor of Sociology, University of Essex. He is
the author of Natural Relations (1993), The Rise and Fall of Struc
tural Marxism (1984) and Philosophical Foundations of Three Sociologies
(1977).
Terrell Carver is Professor of Political Theory, University of Bristol.
He is the author, among other works, of Friedrich Engels: His Life
and Thought (1989), Marx and Engels: The Intellectual Relationship
(1983) and A Marx Dictionary (1987); he also edited The Cambridge
Companion to Marx (1991).
Andrew Collier is Reader in Philosophy at the University of South
ampton. Among other works he is the author of Critical Realism
(1994), Socialist Reasoning (1990), Scientific Realism and Social Thought
(1989).
Anne Dennehy is a Research Student in the Department of Social
Medicine, University of Bristol.
John O'Neill lectures in philosophy at the University of Lancaster.
His publications include Worlds Without Content: Against Formalism
(1991), Ecology, Policy and Politics: Human Well-Being and the Natural
World (1993) and The Market: Ethics, Information, Politics (1996).
Sean Sayers is Reader in Philosophy at the University of Kent,
Canterbury. He is the author of Reality and Reason: Dialectic and the
Theory of Knowledge (1985) and (with Richard Norman) of Hegel, Marx,
and Dialectic: A Debate (1980). He was a founding editor of Radical
Philosophy, of which he is currently book reviews editor.
vii
viii Notes on the Contributors
Lise Vogel, Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies at Rider
University, Lawrenceville, New Jersey, was 1994-95 Harris Distin
guished Visiting Professor at Denison University. She is the author
of Woman Questions (1995), Mothers on the Job: Maternity Policy in
the U.S. Workplace (1993) and Marxism and the Oppression of Women:
Toward a Unitary Theory (1983).
Introduction
J.
Christopher Arthur
Friedrich Engels died in London on the 5th of August 1895, aged
74. At his centenary, it is generally recognized that, whereas he
became famous as the 'other half' of 'Marx and Engels' (playing
second fiddle as it were), he was in truth a distinct figure in his own
right, who made an enormous contribution to the trajectory of radical
thought to the present day. In particular, what cannot be under
estimated is his contribution to what came to be known as 'Marxism',
both at its genesis and in its diffusion after Marx's death in 1883.
Indeed, the French Marxologist Maximilien Rubel considers him to
be the veritable founder of 'Marxism', so important were his works
in establishing the tradition.
Engels was born on 28 November 1920 in Barmen, a town in the
Wupper valley. He was the eldest child of a mill-owning family
which had connections in Bremen and Manchester, cities with which
the young Engels became familiar. Although he did not study for
a degree, he took the opportunity of his military service in Berlin to
make connections with university circles, notably with the 'Young
Hegelian' movement.
From an early date he enjoyed writing for the press and his art
icles became increasingly radical in content. This radicalism was
largely informed by his first-hand knowledge of commercial life. It
is said that he became a communist in 1842.
While Marx was editor of the Rheinische Zeitung he published
articles by Engels. The two met briefly at the Cologne offices of the
paper in November 1842; but it was in 1844, at their second meeting
(in Paris), that they discovered how much they agreed with each
other; the two became lifelong friends.
There is little doubt that Engels was ahead of Marx in his appre
ciation of the importance of class struggle and in his understanding
of the necessity to mount a critique of political economy. The evid
ence for this statement lies in his masterpiece The Condition of the
Working Class in England (1845), and in his earlier essay Outlines of a
Critique of Political Economy. Marx thought very highly of these works
and continually cited them in his own writings.
ix
Introduction
X
The beginning of the collaboration of Engels with Marx is attested
to by their joint works of the 1840s, The Holy Family and German
Ideology. While the final literary form of the Manifesto of the Commun
ist Party (1848) was due to Marx, Engels made a full contribution to
its content through providing Marx with drafts and advice.
The two men moved back to Germany to participate in the 1848-
49 revolution, Engels again contributing to Marx's re-established
paper, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. In May 1849 Engels joined the
armed revolt that broke out against the Prussian monarchy; this
rebellion was finally crushed in July, Engels escaping to Switzerland.
Following the failure of the revolution, both .men settled in Eng
land for good; but while Marx, in London, set himself to the task
of researching his great work on Capital, Engels's intellectual work
went into eclipse as he concentrated on earning a living (and through
this subsidising Marx) at the Manchester branch of the family finn.
His main writing during this period concerned military tactics and
warfare. His study on the political and military aspects of Prussian
relations with Italy, Po und Rhein, was very successful, and, being ori
ginally anonymous, was widely believed to be the work of a gen
eral. Indeed, Engels's expert articles on military affairs, appearing
in various publications, earned him the nickname 'General' with the
Marx family.
Upon his retirement from business, and his move to London in
1870, Engels was free to devote all his energy to political work, both
organizational (he was immediately elected to the General Council
of the International) and literary. His great facility with languages
gave Engels a continuing role in liaison with numerous European
socialist movements.
One of Engels's most influential works, written in the service of
the movement, arose almost accidentally. The popularity of works
by Dr Eugen Diihring, a new adherent to socialism, caused first W.
Liebknecht, and then Marx himself, to urge Engels to refute these
unwelcome doctrines. It was with some reluctance that Engels took
up the challenge. Since Diihring's work ranged widely over philo
sophy, economics, history and science, as well as socialist theory
itself, Engels found he was imperceptibly constructing an entire
'system' himself.
What began as a chore ended as the most influential textbook
on Marxism ever written. As Engels later put it: 'The polemic was
transformed into a more or less connected exposition of the dia
lectical method and of the communist world outlook fought for by