§ III. Evolution and Economics

We have arrived at the third postulate of the materialistic conception of history: In the process of evolution the economic conditions are the determining and decisive factors. The production and exchange of articles of consumption are the foundation of social order. If production is modified the change entails a gradual transformation of the entire superstructure, society, politics, law, morals, and religion. Some characteristic passages of Marx and Engels, in which this view is formulated, have been quoted above (pp. 41-43). In consequence, “the ultimate causes of all social changes and political revolutions” .. . are to be looked for “in the modifications affecting production and exchange.”

Here is laid bare the very marrow of the materialistic conception of history. The first two postulates discussed above, Marx and Engels have taken over ready made from the schools of Feuerbach and Hegel; the one now under discussion is entirely of their own manufacture.

But by it they are haplessly involved in flagrant contradictions. Their thesis is supposed, of course, to be of general and permanent value and to be equally true throughout every epoch of human history. However, it forms no part of the mathematical sciences. Therefore Marx and Engels must needs concede that there are immutable concepts and principles outside of the exact sciences.

Moreover, it is plain that this postulate has no meaning or value except from the point of view of downright materialism. To him who knows that God has infused into man a spiritual soul according to His own image and likeness, that He has implanted in this soul a yearning after the full possession of truth and goodness, to him, I say, it is perfectly evident that economic conditions cannot be “the ultimate cause of all social changes.” In man there are not only sensual appetites and propensities to be satisfied in the domain of economics, but there are also higher aspirations which wield a decisive influence upon his volition and action and thereby upon the development of social institutions.

It is to be granted, indeed, that before everything else man must live, that he must find nourishment, clothing, and comfortable shelter, and therefore economic activity will ever be of paramount importance in human life. “Primum vivere, dein philosophari.” This truism had no need of being discovered by the giant intellect of Marx. But man does not live by bread alone. His spiritual, immortal soul craves nobler food. He longs to expand the domain of his power and knowledge; he desires to know not only what exists and is done, but also the how and the wherefore. Thus he advances along every line to the first cause of all things, to God, the Fountainhead and ultimate Goal of all being. Here we have the basis and root of religion. Man enters upon an intimate intercourse with the invisible Lord of all things, who is also the Lord and Guide of mankind. Death, moreover, snatches us away after a short span of life, and yet there is within us a yearning after complete happiness, an irresistible longing for immortality.

Thus by thought and reflection every human being, however different the economic conditions of each one may be, will arrive at the belief in a life to come for which our present life is but a time of trial and preparation, a life of eternal retribution for good or evil. Can it be doubted that these thoughts and hopes of immortality are fraught with great influence upon the actions of mankind independently of economic conditions? For, economic conditions are widely different in different places; religion and morality on the other hand are the common heirloom of the human race. To deny all this, to explain religion and morality, law and politics, as the result of economic conditions, to look upon religion, as is done by Marx and Engels, as “the fantastic reflection in the brains of men of the exterior powers which dominate men’s daily existence,” is the grossest materialism.

More especially, the derivation of social and ethical institutions from economic conditions is altogether unwarranted, because every well-ordered system of economics presupposes some kind of social organization, however primitive. To maintain, therefore, that law and order are the product of economic conditions is evidently to put the cart before the horse.

But what is the verdict of history as to the function in the development of mankind ascribed by socialists to the economic conditions? The honest and straightforward inquirer will find that religious and moral concepts have much oftener been the cause of far-reaching economic revolutions than the reverse. The economic and social life of the Israelitic people was determined and supported entirely by its religious faith. Christianity likewise is forsooth not the product of economic conditions in the Roman empire during the rule of Augustus. Christian dogmas were diametrically opposed to the opinions then prevailing, and yet they gradually remodelled society, also in the matter of economics. We need but call to mind the doctrine concerning the duty and the value of labor, the abolition of slavery, the lifting up of woman from the slough of degradation, the reorganization of the family, the creation of countless institutions of Christian charity and mercy.

Kautsky, indeed, is confident of his ability to derive the origin of Christianity from the economic conditions of imperial Rome. According to him “the aversion from earthly things, the death-longing of Christianity” is to be explained “from the material conditions of Rome under the emperors.”¹ But how does this agree with the fact that Christianity did not originate on Roman soil but in the country of the despised Jews, where it had been foretold during twenty centuries in types and prophecies, and whence it spread throughout the world by the preaching of Jewish apostles? And besides, is the longing for death, the aversion from earthly things to be found at all in Christianity or perhaps even something peculiar to it? Only ignorance of the true nature of Christianity can prompt such assertions. Christianity teaches that this life is a preparation for the life to come, and that on the threshold of eternity every man will be confronted by a severe judgment, which will decide his eternal bliss or his eternal misery. But is this peculiar to Christianity? Is not the same doctrine to be found with the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Greeks, and Romans?

¹ Neue Zeit, 1896–1897, vol. I. p. 215.

But the most significant point is the fact that Christianity is firmly based not on abstract ideas and opinions but on undoubted historical occurrences. During the reign of Augustus there appeared in Judæa the Messias expected by the chosen people for more than two thousand years. By countless miracles and prophecies, more especially by His glorious Resurrection, He proved Himself to be the Son of God sent by the Father. Already St. Paul strongly insists on this fact as upon the foundation of our belief; and many who were witnesses of the fact have sealed their testimony with their blood. Are these facts to be explained as the result of the then-existing economic conditions? Will the method of production and exchange prevalent at that time afford us any light on the question why Christ, without having pursued any course of studies, was enabled to proclaim a wonderful and exalted doctrine, which as a leaven has transformed the world; why at His command poor and ignorant fishermen were capable of preaching successfully the mystery of the cross, a stumbling-block to the Jews and a folly to the Gentiles, and of spreading the fame of their miracles and doctrines throughout the world?

The futility of any such explanation is evident to every one whose mind and heart have not yet drifted away from Christianity and common sense and landed on the shallows of materialism pure and simple. But, if the origin of Christianity cannot be derived from economic conditions, it is labor lost to account for the development of western civilization since the time of Christ by appealing to the methods of production and exchange. If every religion is but the “intellectual reflex in men’s brains of their economic position,’ how could the Catholic Church throughout all times and in all places remain essentially the same in spite of different economic conditions from country to country and from century to century?

What we have said of Christianity in general may be illustrated by many particular instances. Consider, e.g., the powerful influence of the crusades upon western civilization. Were they perhaps owing to economic conditions and not rather the outcome of Christian faith? Also Mohammedanism, the Renaissance, and the Reformation have introduced sweeping changes and have directed the course of social development into different orbits. The English and French Revolution can be traced back ultimately to religious ideas, the latter more especially to the moral and religious frivolity prevalent at the court and disseminated by the encyclopedists. And as regards our present social evolution, also in the line of economics, is it not due for the greater part to the false ideas of modern liberalism ?

Thus we might pass in review the whole of history, everywhere the fact would be apparent that the course of civilization has been shaped by religious and moral ideas at least as much as by economic conditions. “The profoundest problem of the world’s history to which all others are subordinate,” thus Goethe remarks, “is the conflict between belief and unbelief.” But to one more point we must call attention, a point which brings the untenability of the socialistic conception of history into the strongest relief. Who can calculate the influence brought to bear on their contemporaries and on posterity by great men—statesmen, generals, artists, scientists, saints? We need but call to mind a Cyrus, an Alexander the Great, a Pericles, Constantine, Clovis of France, Charlemagne, Alfred the Great, Stephen I. of Hungary, Henry VIII. of England, Peter the Great, and countless others. Let us suppose Alexander the Great had been in the place of the Emperor Charles V., or Napoleon in that of Louis XVI., modern history would probably have taken a different course. Are men of genius the outgrowth of the economic conditions of their time and country? Of course, the great deeds of great men presuppose certain social conditions; but under the very same circumstances there are a thousand different possibilities as to the course of development, all of which very often depend on the character, talent, and energy of one man.

This weak point in the materialistic conception of history has not been left unchallenged by socialists themselves. We refer here in the first place to the interesting controversy in the Neue Zeit¹ between Kautsky and the English socialist Belfort-Bax.

¹ Neue Zeit, 1895–96, vol. II. pp. 652 sqq., and 1896–97, vol. I. p. 231.

The latter was of opinion that the Marxian historical theory, at least in the form in which it is advocated by Mehring, Plechanow, and Kautsky, stands in need of correction. He himself distinguished two parallel factors in evolution, one internal and the other external. The external factor consists of the economic conditions, the internal is in the “psychic impulse,” in the ideas and opinions which dominate the doings of men. Both factors are at work simultaneously, but to a certain degree they are independent of each other.

Kautsky, on his part, spurned the imputation of holding views different from those of Marx and Engels. Also in his opinion, he said, mind is a factor in evolution, but in a subordinate not in a ruling position. He granted, too, that there are other interests besides those of economics, but he maintained that the state of production by creating conditions which present new problems to the intellect determines the direction of evolution.

Both disputants are right, in as far as they assign to the intellect an important part in the evolutionary process; but they blunder egregiously if they imagine that from the materialistic point of view any independent activity can be ascribed to the intellect. Kautsky, indeed, tries to reduce this activity to a minimum. He assigns a task to the mind, but it is the task of the servant. “Mind,” he says, in the passage referred to above, “ puts society in motion, not however as master of the economic conditions, but as their servant. They assign to it the tasks to be accomplished. And therefore they also determine the results which the mind can and must obtain in the given circumstances.”

How can the mind be an independent factor over and above the economic conditions, if there exists nothing besides matter and motion, and if the mind itself, as Kautsky confesses, is but “a function of the brain”? Marx and Engels certainly entertained no such views. They looked upon society, politics, law, and religion as the “superstructure” reared upon the economic conditions and subject to the same changes as the latter. Ina much-quoted passage Marx tells us: “Certain forms of social consciousness correspond to the sum total of production conditions in any given society.” Again he says: ‘The ideological world is nothing else than material substance transformed in the brains of men; man’s mode of existence determines his thoughts.” Engels glories in the fact of having proved, together with Marx, that “the whole of history hitherto is a history of class struggles, that the classes warring against each other are the inevitable results of the economic conditions prevalent at that epoch, that the economic structure of society always forms the objective basis which affords the ultimate explanation for the entire superstructure of ethical and political institutions and of religious and political thought in any given period of history. Hereby idealism was driven from its last stronghold, from its conception of history; the materialistic conception of history was firmly established and a way was found of explaining man’s consciousness from his mode of existence instead of the reverse, as had been done heretofore.”¹

¹ Engels, E. Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft, p. 11.

It is, therefore, quite against the spirit of Marx to derive the origin of economic conditions also from religious ideas. Marx as well as Engels maintains that religion is but “the fantastic reflection in the brains of men of those exterior powers which rule their daily life.” But the reflection is determined by the reflected object, not the object by the reflection.²

² Also Professor Sombart, an ardent admirer and disciple of Marx, offers an explanation of historical development according to which “all the beliefs, ideals, philosophical views of men are the product of circumstances.” Sozialismus und soziale Bewegung, p. 52.

Bernstein is much more radical than Belfort-Bax in his criticism of the materialistic conception of history. He confronts the theory with the fact that the course of history is influenced not only by economic conditions, but also by local and national peculiarities, by political, religious, and moral facts and ideas. To his mind it is preposterous to apply the economic conditions as a uniform and automatic explanation of complicated historical phenomena. Historical materialism will never do away with the fact “that men make their own history, that men have brains, and that the disposition of men’s brains is not so entirely a mechanical matter as to be governed solely by the state of economics. Why are workingmen, who as a class are in exactly identical situations, often diametrically opposed in their line of action? Their proceedings are influenced not only by various modes of thought, but also by historical reminiscences and traditions. Signal defeats are felt for many years in their demoralizing and disorganizing influence on the vanquished class.”¹

¹ Bernstein, Zur Geschichte und Theorie des Sozialismus (1901), p. 245.

According to Bernstein the materialistic conception of history furthermore forces its adherents to the conclusion that the decisions and actions of men are after all but the necessary result of the material conditions of production. The fact is, however, that men manifest an ever-increasing ability of directing the economic evolution and of making it subservient to their own interests. The economic forces no longer exercise their unlimited sway. ‘Individuals and nations withdraw more and more of their existence from the influence of a necessity which asserts itself without or even against their will.”²

² Bernstein, Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus, p. 10.

In this matter Bernstein’s position is unexceptionable. Furthermore he tries to show that in later life Marx and Engels abandoned part of their former views and assigned a greater sphere of action to non-economic factors. Also this may be admitted. The question now is, whether, after all these concessions to “ideological” factors, historical materialism still remains intact. We think not. Materialism to be true to its principles can never acknowledge “mind” as an independent factor in history.