Historical Materialism and Social Evolution PDF
Preview Historical Materialism and Social Evolution
Historical Materialism and Social Evolution Edited by Paul Blackledge and Graeme Kirkpatrick Historical Materialism and Social Evolution Historical Materialism and Social Evolution Edited by Paul Blackledge Senior Lecturer School of Cultural Studies Leeds Metropolitan University and Graeme Kirkpatrick Lecturer in Sociology University of Northumbria Editorial matter,Selection and Chapter 1 © Paul Blackledge and Graeme Kirkpatrick 2002 Chapter 2 © Paul Blackledge 2002 Chapter 7 © Graeme Kirkpatrick 2002 Remaining chapters © their authors 2002 All rights reserved.No reproduction,copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced,copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988,or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,90 Tottenham Court Road,London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2002 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills,Basingstoke,Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue,New York,N.Y.10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St.Martin’s Press,LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States,United Kingdom and other countries.Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 0–333–99562–7 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Historical materialism and social evolution / edited by Paul Blackledge and Graeme Kirkpatrick. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-333-99562-7 (cloth) 1.Communism and culture.2.Communism and society.3.Historical materialism.4.Social Darwinism.5.Human evolution.I.Blackledge,Paul, 1967 – II.Kirkpatrick,Graeme,1963– HX523 H565 2002 335.4(cid:1)119–dc21 2002025391 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd,Chippenham and Eastbourne Contents List of the Contributors viii 1 Historical Materialism and Social Evolution 1 Paul Blackledge and Graeme Kirkpatrick 2 Historical Materialism: from Social Evolution to Revolutionary Politics 8 Paul Blackledge Evolution 8 Marx, Engels and Darwin 11 Crude evolutionary Marxism 15 The voluntarist reaction 19 In defence of evolutionism 24 Synthesising evolution and revolution 27 Conclusion 30 3 Social Darwinism and Socialist Darwinism in Germany: 1860 to 1900 36 Ted Benton Introduction 36 The diversity of evolutionary biology 39 Evolutionism in culture and politics 45 Conclusion 72 4 A Darwinian Historical Materialism 76 Paul Nolan Natural selection 77 A quasi-Darwinian theory of history 78 A quasi-Darwinian historical materialism 83 Some other difficulties for the theory 92 Conclusion 94 5 Analytical Marxism and the Debate on Social Evolution 98 Alan Carling History and evolution 98 v vi Contents What sort of evolutionary theory is the Marxian theory of history? 100 The asocial argument for the tendency 102 The Natural Primacy of the forces of production 105 The Competitive Primacy of the forces of production 108 Is Competitive Primacy plausible in history? 112 The Feudal Fission thesis 114 A composite theory of history? 116 Modes of production and theories of transition 118 Laibman: between the sundered concept and the floating fact 121 A case in conclusion 123 6 History, Exploitation and Oppression 129 Alex Callinicos Social evolution and rational choice 130 Transitions to capitalism 134 Generalising or dissolving class theory? 141 Exploitation and oppression 147 Divide and rule 152 Conclusion 157 7 Progress and Technology in Habermas’s Theory of Social Evolution 163 Graeme Kirkpatrick Introduction 163 Habermas and the evolution of society 163 The case of the personal computer 173 Habermas, informationalism and social evolution 181 Conclusion 185 8 The Possible Wonders of Technology. Beyond Habermas towards Marcuse: a Critical Framework for Technological Progress 190 Giusseppe Tassone Introduction 190 Communicative reason versus instrumental reason: Habermas’s theory of progress 191 A quasi-Habermasean model for technological progress: Simpson’s longing for a meaningful life 194 Contents vii ‘No concept is more abstract than the idea of a mere machine’: an interpretation of Marcuse’s critical theory of technology 203 9 Lean Production and Economic Evolution in Capitalism 213 Tony Smith Evolutionary mechanisms in capitalism 213 From ‘Fordism’ to lean production 218 Lean production and the conditions for a transition to socialism 223 Index 236 List of the Contributors Ted Bentonteaches sociology at the University of Essex. Paul Blackledge teaches in the School of Cultural Studies at Leeds Metropolitan University. Alex Callinicosteaches in the Department of Politics at the University of York. Alan Carling teaches in the Department of Interdisciplinary Human Studies at the University of Bradford. Graeme Kirkpatrick teaches in the Department of Sociology at the University of Northumbria. Paul Nolan completed his Ph.D. at Birkbeck College, University of London. Tony Smithteaches philosophy at Iowa State University. Giusseppe Tassoneteaches at the University of York. viii 1 Historical Materialism and Social Evolution Paul Blackledge and Graeme Kirkpatrick At the funeral oration for his lifelong collaborator, Engels famously compared Marx’s achievements to those of Darwin: ‘As Darwin discov- ered the law of evolution of organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of evolution of human history’. The contributors to this volume are united in seeking to investigate how these two theories actually relate. Whatever debates we may have concerning this issue one thing at least can be repeated with certainty; both Marx and Engels celebrated the publication of Origin of Speciesand greatly admired Darwin. Engels was the first of the pair to read Darwin’s ‘splendid book’ and warmly recom- mended it to Marx for its repudiation of teleological theories of natural evolution. Once Marx caught up with Engels’ reading he agreed that despite Darwin’s ‘crude English style’ his book ‘contains the basis in natu- ral history for our view’. Interpretation of this line has divided Marxist opinion over the last century. The politically dominant tendency within twentieth-century Marxism tended to reduce historical materialism to a crude form of social evolu- tionism. However, the more interesting theoretical developments of the last century were associated with ‘Western Marxism’, which, in reaction against the ‘orthodoxy’, totally eschewed any reference to Darwinian theory. With the demise of the Soviet Union and the effective dissolu- tion of the mass Communist Parties of Europe as a whole, this polarisa- tion within Marxist and critical thought has been largely overcome. One purpose of the current volume is to highlight the fact that many strands of contemporary critical theory now employ evolutionary concepts. Given this, it must be acknowledged that crude evolutionary inter- pretations of Marxism have proved themselves to be both theoretically and politically crippling. For instance the Marxism of the Second International could not comprehend the maelstrom of barbarism to 1
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