Marxism: Philosophy and Economics

251 Pages·2012·0.78 MB·English

by  Thomas Sowell

MARXISM
Philosophy and Economics
by
Thomas Sowell
Preface
This slim volume distills more than a quarter of a century of research and
thought on the economic and philosophic doctrines of Karl Marx. Over this long
span of time, it has been possible to separate the essential from the non-essential
in the theories of Marx and Engels, and thus to say in a small book what would
otherwise take several volumes. The most non-essential—indeed, intellectually
counterproductive—aspect of Marxism has been the elaborate jargon and
stylized rhetoric in which its substance has been discussed, especially by
followers and interpreters. Marxists, non-Marxists, and anti-Marxists alike have
become bogged down in turgid words, when the real subject is "the blaze of
ideas," to use Marx's own phrase.[1]
Wherever possible, I have quoted the original words of Marx and Engels.
But passage-quoting is not enough. For Marxian writings that fill many volumes
and span several decades of changing circumstances and evolving doctrines,
context is crucial. Interpretation is a demanding responsibility that cannot be
discharged merely by stringing quotes together. However, it is not necessary to
believe the doctrine that one can "prove anything" by lifting quotes from Marx.
On the contrary. Much recent interpretive literature, especially in economics,
inadvertently demonstrates that various interpretations of Marx cannot be
supported by quotes from his writings. even articles in learned journals and
scholarly books have solemnly and extensively analyzed particular "Marxian"
doctrines without a single citation of anything ever written by Karl Marx. Often
this "Marxism" bears no relationship to the work of Marx or Engels. In this way,
particular doctrines and whole systems have emerged that might more accurately
be called Samuelson-"Marxism" or Sweezy-"Marxism," etc. These modern
concoctions have acquired a life of their own through sheer repetition, citation,
and inertia.
While this book will not spend much space on refuting the secondary
literature, there will be points at which the original Marxian analysis and
doctrines will be contrasted with more recent fabrications bearing similar labels.
Because the main purpose of this book is interpretation, its critical evaluation of
Marxism will be saved until the last chapter.
A stylistic note may be in order. Because of Marx's penchant for italicized
words, it should be noted here that all emphases are in the original, unless
specifically stated otherwise.
specifically stated otherwise.
My own philosophic, economic, and political orientations have ranged
widely across the spectrum from the time of my undergraduate honors thesis on
Marx at Harvard in 1958, through various articles on Marx in scholarly journals
in the United States, Britain, and Canada during the 1960s, to the present work.
What is gratifying is to be able to read back over these earlier efforts and see
how little difference my own changing viewpoints have made in the purely
interpretive analysis.
Compared to my earlier writings on Marx, the present book draws on
additional knowledge, later scholarship by others, newly unearthed facts and
more recently translated works—notably Marx's Grundrisse. But this has largely
meant putting flesh and blood on a skeleton that has not changed essentially in
form. What has become possible today is a more three-dimensional look at one
of the most intellectually and morally challenging visions of the modern era, and
one which this and succeeding generations will have to confront in one way or
another.
Thomas Sowell
The Hoover Institution
September 3, 1982
Chapter 1 Economics and Philosophy
Philosophy and economics were not simply separate interests of Karl Marx.
His philosophy provided the intellectual framework and the very language in
which Marx discussed economics. That language must be understood in order to
understand Marxian economics, regardless of whether or not the economic
substance is logically independent. The philosophy is also important in itself as
the driving force behind a vision that has come to dominate a major part of the
globe and of the human species.
Marxian philosophy and economics derive from many sources, as well as
bearing the unique imprint of Karl Marx and his lifelong friend and collaborator,
Frederich Engels. The towering figure of G.W.F. Hegel stands out among the
philosophers influencing Marx's thought, but other elements of his philosophy
go as far back as Democritus, Epicurus and Lucretius in ancient times, Helvetius
and Holbach in the eighteenth century, and Feuerbach among the contemporaries
of the young Marx. In economics, the analysis and terminology of David
Ricardo provide much of the background for Marx's Capital, but the intellectual
predecessor of both men was Adam Smith, patron saint of laissez-faire
capitalism.
A sharp distinction must be made between saying that the form of Marxian
thought was shaped by some predecessor and saying that the substance was
similar. The difference may be illustrated by comparing Hegel's description of a
certain period of history with Marx's description, which was quite similar in
form, but utterly different in content.
First Hegel:
These three events—the so-called Revival of Learning, the flourishing of
the fine Arts and the discovery of America and of the passage to India by
the Cape—may be compared with that blush of dawn, which after long
storms first betokens the return of a bright and glorious day.[2]
Then Marx:
The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement
and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the
conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for
conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for
the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalized the rosy dawn of the era of
capitalist production.[3]
Marx was quite open and frank in declaring himself "the pupil of that
mighty thinker," Hegel, and deliberately used "the modes of expression
particular to him," in writing Capital.[4] But he also sharply distinguished "the
method of presentation" from the substantive inquiry.[5] To say that
Hegelianism was the language in which Marx expressed many concepts is not to
say that Marx's substantive statements repeat Hegel. It does say, however, that
understanding the peculiar language and intellectual framework of a Hegel or a
Ricardo is necessary for understanding the economics of Marx. As the
distinguished economist J.A. Schumpeter once observed: "This is all the more
important because the necessity for it does not show on the surface." That is,
words like "alienation" or "contradiction" (from Hegel) or "wages" and "value"
(from Ricardo) can be taken in their ordinary senses and Marx interpreted
coherently—but incorrectly, and completely missing the point of his arguments.
Marx's business cycle theory, for example, has been grossly misunderstood by
interpreters who have seized upon the word "contradiction" in its ordinary (non-
Hegelian) sense. Marx's predictions about wage levels under capitalism have
likewise been greatly distorted by interpreters unfamiliar with the peculiar
Ricardian concepts of "rises" and "falls" in wages.
Marxism is not inherently difficult to understand, in either its philosophic or
economic aspects. It has, however, been made difficult by a number of
circumstances. One was Marx's method of presentation, especially in his massive
classic, Capital. Other sources of difficulty are the numerous and diverse
interpretations by writers who ahve no troubled themselves to study the
philosophic and economic framework of Marx's ideas. Schumpeter listed a
formidable set of prerequisites for studying Marx[6]—and these can also be read
as a list of reasons why so few interpreters have understood Marxism. Much of
the modern economic literature, for example, sidesteps the whole problem of
interpretation by taking what is commonly believed about Marxian economics as
a starting point, and then elaborately analyzes and critiques the implications of
these "Marxian" doctrines—often without a single reference to anything actually
written by Karl Marx.[7]
Another source of interpretive difficulty is that the classic writings of Marx
and Engels were polemics written against competing doctrines. Many of these
competing doctrines were prominent at one time but have now disappeared into
competing doctrines were prominent at one time but have now disappeared into
obscurity, so that later interpreters have not fully understood what it was that
Marx and Engels were arguing against—and therefore have not always
understood the real thrust and limits of their words.
In addition to its own peculiar problems of interpretation, Marxism shares a
common danger in the history of ideas—the tendency to interpret earlier writers
by reading back into them later ideas and events. Thus Keynes' ideas have been
read back into Malthus, and fascism into Pareto. To avoid this fatal trap, Marx's
communism (with a small c) will be distinguished from twentieth-century
Communism as the doctrine of a particular set of parties or governments. The
degree of correspondence between the two is an empirical question to be
investigated at the end of the analysis, not a foregone conclusion to be assumed
at the outset.
Finally, there are claims made by some scholars that Engels did not really
understand Marx's ideas, and that much that is taken as authentic Marxism is
Engels' writings is incorrect or misleading.[8] This would be unfortunate, if true,
for Engels' writings are often much clearer than Marx's and a valuable source of
clarification would be lost. Nevertheless, this claim will be examined in later
specific discussions. For now, it may suffice to point out that Engels and Marx
collaborated for four decades, exchanged letters with great regularity,[9] and
each wrote part (or all) of some writings that appeared under the other's name,
[10] in addition to their explicit co-authorship of many writings. It is no small
task to intellectually separate Marx from Engels, nor has this task been seriously
undertaken by those who depict Engels—an intelligent and well-read man—as
misunderstanding a friend whose ideas he was more familiar with than anyone
else in the world.
In short, there are difficulties of interpretation due to the original sources,
the intellectual background, and a prior interpretive literature that obscures more
than it clarifies. These are the author's problems. The reader's problem is
whether the Marxian ideas—once disentangled—are excessively complex in
themselves. They are not. That should become apparent in the chapters that
follow, as we examine first the philosophy, then the economics, and finally the
historical legacy of Karl Marx.
The approach here will be neither an uncritical exposition of Marxism nor a
continuous sniping at the Marxian ideas in the process of explaining them.
Rather, the exposition and the critique will take place in separate chapters.