Marx Materialist Conception of History

Marx Materialist Conception of taleWhat is materialist about Marxs view of accounting?IntroductionMarx himself never to the full outlined his materialist theory of history, though it occurs in fragmentary form in all his early work written during the years 1843-48, and is taken for granted in his later thought (Berlin, 1979 56) thus it was left to later theorists to deduce it from his early work. In order to understand what is materialist about Karl Marxs view of history we moldiness source situate his theory within the context in which he worked, for in developing his materialist theory of history Marx was heavily castd by the theories of Hegel for not al one was Hegel the dominant philosopher in Prussia at the time, however Hegel alsoinfluenced Marx in his choice of doctoral dissertation. He chose a study of the materialist philosophies of Democritus and Epicurus, a Hellenistic philosopher who wrote under the rear of Aristotle in precisely the same way as the Young Hegeli ans seemed to be under the shadow of Hegel (Hampsher-Monk, 2001 487).Indeed, Marx has often been linked to the group referred to as the Young Hegelians (Williams, 2003 489) and which include Bruno Baure, Max Stirner, Ludwig Feuerbach and David Strauss (Hampsher-Monk, 2001 485-489) even though Hegel was long dead by the time Marx started his studies. Believing, as I do, that it is not possible to understand Marxs materialism without first understanding Hegels idealist view of history, in the first section I provide a, very brief, overview of Hegels philosophical system of history. In the second I examine Marxs theory of history, demonstrating how he overturns Hegels idealist schema so that instead of being determined by ideas for Marx history is driven by inherent tensions within the mode of production it is class based (Berlin, 1979 59) and therefore materialist. In the conclusion I summarise my argument, highlighting the commonalities amidst the thought of Hegel and Marx whilst utmost that whilst Hegel was indeed an idealist, Marxs view of history was undeniably materialist in that it was ultimately concerned with productive relations but, nonetheless, Marx remained idealistic in his methodology due to the influence of Hegel on his work.Hegel and Historical IdealismGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), pre-eminent philosopher at Jena, Heidelberg and later Berlin Universities (Hampsher-Monk, 2001 409) came to dominate German Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century. He was himself heavily influenced by previous philosophers, including Rousseau (1712-1778), Descartes (1596-1650), Kant (1724-1804), herder (1744-1803) and those thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment (see Hampsher-Monk, 2001 412-421). Hegel developed his comprehensive theory of history by dint of an in-depth examination of religion,1 for he believed that religion, rather than being irrational, was the way in which men in the main achieve the sentience of their being (Hegel in Hampsher-Mon k, 2001 416). For Hegel, history is the process of the unfolding of the eternal, universal Spirit (Berlin, 1979 57) toward absolute knowledge or self-consciousness that is, down with history man has been increasingly freed from nature or necessity via the dialectic, a constant logical criticism (Berlin, 1979 58 Taylor in Marx and Engels, 1985 8). Hegel thus argued that it was possible to point in each historical epoch a dominant set of ideas and its negation (Taylor in Marx and Engels, 1985 8), later termed thesis and anti-thesis, the emerging synthesis being progress. His view of history is therefore teleological and stagist he believed it to be rational and progressive, moving toward improvement in distinct steps through the actions of man historical individuals (Hampsher-Monk, 2001 419 480).For Hegel then, history is driven introductory by ideas it is, ultimately, idealist all change is due to the movement of the dialectic, that works by a constant logical criticism, that is , struggle against, and final felo-de-se of, ways of thought and constructions of reason and feeling (Berlin, 1979 58). Further, Hegel, following Rousseau and influenced by the Ancient Greeks, believed that true freedom was to be found through, rather than against the state, thus opposing the proscribe freedoms of liberal thought (Hampsher-Monk, 2001 415, 424 463) he argued that law and rights are products of mans mastery over nature, rather than a continuation of the rights of nature as in Locke (Hinchman, 1984 25), and that therefore equality is created in society via the act of mutual recognition (Hampsher-Monk, 2001 440) and which he illustrates with the mythical encounter between the master and the hard worker.2 Therefore, for Hegel, the state is not oppressive, but liberating as it presents the means by which man is able to realise his own freedom. It was both this idealism and this freedom via the state that Marx, following Feuerbach, sought to invert.Marx and Historical materialismSo, for Hegel, history or social change was the result of tensions between different ideas, between thesis and anti-thesis. Karl Marx (1818-1883) however, via his reassessment of Hegel, was to overturn this theory, turning the idealist schema into a materialist one for Marx, rather than history being the result of ideological tension it was the result of tensions between the classes (Berlin, 1979 59) in short, he sought to invert Hegelian idealism the weapon of criticism cannot replace the criticism of weapons, and material forces must be overthrown by material force (Marx, 1975 251) in that he believed it was not ideas that drives history but the relations of production (Marx, 1975 384). In short, Marx believed that it is practical activity by real humans that counts, and not the conceptual activity of Hegel, and it is economic history that is most classic of all (Hampsher-Monk, 2001 500 513) in short his history was materialist.Following Hegel, Marx believed that the history of humanity is a single, non-repetitive process, which obeys discernable laws (Berlin, 1979 57), but he disagreed with Hegels idealism, following the follow-up of Hegel by Feuerbach in believing that such(prenominal) idealism was in fact a mystification (Berlin, 1979 57) he instead argued that the point of philosophy was to change the worldly concern (Marx, 1975 244-245) Philosophers have only interpreted that world, in various ways the point, however, is to change it (Marx in Hampsher-Monk, 2001 512) via praxis, or practical philosophy (Bottomore, 1979 6). Further, unlike Hegel, Marx did not believe that devotion was the way in which men generally achieve the consciousness of their being (Hegel in Hampsher-Monk, 2001 416), but instead was made by man it is an inverted consciousness of the world at one and the same time the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering it is the opium of the people (Marx, 1975 244, original emphasis). He also distan ced himself from Hegels dislike of the empirical sciences (Berlin, 1979 67) instead his practical philosophy seeks, like the empirical sciences, to be emancipatory.He argued that, when examining each historical epoch, it was possible to seize the key tension that is, like Hegel who argued that thesis and anti-thesis pushed history forward, for Marx it was a key socio-economic tension which led to revolution and so pushed forward history the ancient world gave way to the medieval, slavery to feudalism, and feudalism to the industrial bourgeoisie (Berlin, 1979 64). In short all history has been a history of class struggles, of struggles between dominated and peremptory classes at various stages of social development Marx and Engels, 1985 57). Thus, rather than the actions of the world historical individuals of Hegel (Hampsher-Monk, 2001 480) for Marx it was the actions of an entire class in the future this was to be the proletariat that drives progress one particular class underta kes from its particular situation the universal emancipation of society (Marx, 1975 254). Each revolution in the past, itself the result of the classes material circumstances, or the mode of production, had contributed to historical progress. Thus, rather than the idealist history of Hegel, for Marx history is materialist it is the result of actual conflict in the real world, conflict which is the result of material forces (Taylor in Marx and Engles, 1985 9 18). Hegels idealism becomes, under Marx, a method (Hampsher-Monk, 2001 489) which reveals that while the state may make men formally free, this freedom is in fact only come up (Hampsher-Monk, 2001 492-493) as people are actually embedded in the relations of production and are therefore unequal.ConclusionI have simplified Marxs philosophy here, and thus missed the importance of thinkers such as Rousseau, Voltaire, Saint-Simon, Bauer and the Scottish Enlightenment on the development of this thought (Bottomore, 1979 4-11 Hampsher- Monk, 2001). Also, some authors, including Althusser, have argued that Marx should be shared out into early and later Marx (Williams, 2003 491) with the early stage representing his humanist phase, whilst the later his mature work, being where he developed his materialist, social scientific view of history (Williams, 2003 491). In this essay, however, I have concentrated on his early work in order to demonstrate the materialist nature of his understanding of history I have make this for two reasons firstly, I feel that to divide Marxs philosophy into early and late stages misses the continuity of his thought secondly, by concentrating on his critique of Hegel, a critique to which he does not return to in his later work, I have been able to demonstrate both his continuation of, and opposition to, the idealism of Hegels philosophy of history for while Marx undeniably sought to overturn Hegelian philosophy, the framework of the new theory is undeviatingly Hegelian (Berlin, 1979 57). Indeed, recent scholarship appears to stress the continuity between Marxs and Hegels thought Marx and Hegel can be usefully read as sharing a common emancipatory theory of human social history, tempering any putative epistemological break between them (Williams, 2003 495-495). Both believed that poverty was the result of commercial society, rather that the result of misfortune or individual failings and that such poverty entails hallucination (Hampsher-Monk, 2001 456-457) both are positive when describing organizations in which men pursue common goals, for Hegel via the corporation (Hampsher-Monk, 2001 459) for Marx via the establishment of communism (Marx and Engles, 1985). However, whereas for Hegel history was driven forward by ideas and the actions of world historical individuals (Hampsher-Monk, 2001 480), for Marx it was to be the actions of an entire class, the proletariat, that would drive progress and bring about communism and whilst both theorists share a concern with ali enation, for Marx this alienation is the result of material forces the process by which man creates things out of nature, comes to be dominated by those creations, but ordain finally overcome that alienation through recovering control of his own (material) creations (Hampsher-Monk, 2001 499). For Marx, therefore, history is ultimately materialist.BibliographyBerlin, Isaiah (1979 1973) Historical Materialism, Karl Marx, Bottomore, Tom (Ed.), Oxford Basil Blackwell, pp. 56-68.Bottomore, Tom (1979 1973) Introduction, Karl Marx, Bottomore, Tom (Ed.), Oxford Basil Blackwell, pp. 4-42.Hampsher-Monk, Iain (2001 1992) G.W.F. Hegel and Karl Marx, A History of Modern Political Thought Major Thinkers from Hobbes to Marx, Oxford Blackwell, pp. 409-482 483-561.Hinchman, Lewis P (1984) The Origins of Human Rights A Hegelian Perspective, The Western Political Quarterly, Vol.37, No. 1, pp. 7-31.Marx, Karl and Engles, Friedrich (1985 1888) The Communist Manifesto, Introduced by Taylor, A.J.P. (Ed.) , Moore, Samuel (Trans.), capital of the United Kingdom Penguin Classics.Marx, Karl (1975) A Contribution to the Critique of Hegels Philosophy of Right Introduction (1843-4) and Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, Early Writings, Colletti, Lucio (Ed.), Livingstone, Rodney and Benton, Gregory (Trans.), London Penguin, pp. 243-257 279-400.Williams, Michael (2003) Review Article Marx and Hegel New Scholarship, proceed Questions, Science and Society, Vol. 67, No. 4, pp. 489-496.1Footnotes1 Art, religion and philosophy all represented, for Hegel, the development of the consciousness, with art being intuition in material form, religion truth in a veil, while philosophy was self-reflection (Hampsher-Monk, 2001 476).2 In this encounter, which is a life and death struggle for mutual recognition, the loser becomes the slave as he submits to the separates will rather than face death, while the winner becomes the master he has obtained the recognition of the slave but only by becoming dep endant on the slaves labour. The slave becomes a labourer, but recognises his own worth through his own labour he experiences self-hood through his impact on the physical world. The masters selfhood is sustain by the slaves submission, but it is a negative identity in order to attain true self-hood the master must recognise the other as equal. Society is thus the result of mutual recognition (see Hampsher-Monk, 2001 426-427 Hinchman, 1984).