Historical Materialism: A System of Sociology
For purposes of contrast, it would be very interesting to consider the art of the dying bourgeoisie. This art has been expressed with `particular sharpness in Germany, where, by reason of the military collapse and the Peace of Versailles, on the one hand, and the constant menace of a proletarian uprising on the other hand, the general basic note in the life of the bourgeoisie has become particularly gloomy; where the capitalist mechanism is deteriorating most rapidly, and where, therefore, the process of "unclassing", of transforming bourgeois intellectuals into human "riff-raff", is rapidly proceeding, into individuals thrown from their course by the pressure of great events. This condition of hopelessness is expressed in a strengthening of individualism and mysticism. There is a convulsive grasping for a "new style", for new forms of generalization, without any possibility of finding them; each day brings some new "-ism", which does not hold the ground for long. Impressionism is followed by Neo-Impressionism, then by Expressionism, etc. A vast number of tendencies and experiments, an accumulation of paper theories, but no reasonably solid synthesis. This may be observed in painting as well as in music, poetry, sculpture, in short, all along the line. Bourgeois reactionaries, timidly recording the gradual disintegration of their culture, of their:: class, formulate this process in some such way as this; a faith in the mysterious is developing; a belief in witchcraft and miracle-workers, in spiritualism and theosophy. "The head of a group of so called occult devotees writes book after book and delivers lecture after lecture " Diligent spiritualists, Christian Scientists, or theosophists, have a lot to say, but are neither moved by the alleged revelations,`nor moving by their communication" (Max Dessoir: Die neue Mystik und die neue Kunst, in Die Kunst der Gegenwart, Leipzig, 1920, p. 130). "Our latest artists also maintain that what they create is the expression of the contents of visions (my italics, N. B. ), and that each art work consists of `ecstatic gestures' of the soul" (p.132). We are asked to consider this as an expression of magic idealism; "in poetry, sacrificing the sentence to the word, or even Dadaism (the derivation of this name from `da-da', the earliest sound produced by infants, is illustrative of the childish attitude characteristic of this tendency, N. B.) ; in painting and sculpture, a crude childish trifling " Christian Scientists, astrologers and their ilk, distort the admitted fact that wisdom is not exhausted by the logic of syllogisms, into a laudation of prenatal negro metaphysics" ( ibid ., pp.133, 134). Little closed groups, cliques, leagues, are promulgated, within which the. artists surrender themselves to a mysterious contemplation of the hereafter and the joys of this wondrous creation. Together with this tendency, we find an inclination toward "emotional communism", an indication of the profound fall of the bourgeoisie as a class. Mysticism is therefore triumphant. Jules Romains ( Manuel de deification, quoted by Dessoir, ibid., p.137), requires "a state of mystical rapture as a condition for the conquest of the world by art", and Dessoir, having become sufficiently tired of this image, expresses the single hope that this unhealthy mysticism may in some way be healed by a return to the path of faith in the God of earlier days! (p.138). An expressionist theorist, Theodor Daubler ( Der neue Standpunkt, Leipzig, 1919, p.180), excellently expresses this essentially and profoundly individualist point of view of the disintegrated social atoms: "The: center of the world is in every ego, even in the ego-justified work." Of course, this point of view leads to mysticism. "We hear everywhere pronounced the cry: `Away from nature!' It is obvious what this means, as far as expressionist poetry and graphic art are concerned: a departure from what is supplied us by the senses, a transcending of the limits of sensuous experience, a tendency to elevate oneself to that which lies behind phenomena" ( ibid ., p.142). In music we are led to super-music, to anti-music, without harmony, with. out rhythm, without melody, etc. (Arnold Schering: Die expressionistishe Bewegung in der Musik, in the work already quoted, Einführung in die Kunst der Gegenwart, pp.142 et seq .). A general social evaluation of all this business from the point of view of capitalist culture is given by Max Martersteig ( Das iiingste Deutschland in Literatur and Kunst, ibid ., p.25): "The states of rapture produced by the suffering of monstrous things must yield place to reason. No variety of war psychosis or disarmament psychosis may any longer, serve as an excuse for fragmentary and anarchic work." The author invokes a spirit of "highest responsibility", but his invocations will be of no avail, for it is impossible to find a new sublime synthesis in the decaying temple of capitalism; debris and ruins, an incoherent mystical babbling and the "ecstasies" of theosophical sects, will now be inevitable. Such always has been the case in civilizations destined to early extinction.
We shall also say a few words on fashions, which have already been touched upon. In certain respects, fashions are related to art (in " style ": e.g. , the garments and costumes of the Rococo period corresponded perfectly with the Rococo art). In other traits, fashion is connected with standards of conduct, with the rules of decency, customs, etc. Fashions therefore also develop in accordance with the social psychology, the succession of its forms, the rate of change, depending in turn on the character of this social development. Here, for instance, we find the roots of the inordinately swift changes of fashions at the end of the capitalist period. "Our inner rhythmics (corresponding to the headlong course of life, N. B .) require shorter and shorter periods for each new impression" (Georg Simmel: Die Mode, Leipzig, 1918, p.35). Wherein lies the social significance of ions? What is their role in the current of social life? Here is Simmel's brilliant answer: "They are . . . a product of the division along class lines, the case being similar to that of a number of other social formations, particularly with honor, having the double function of holding a group together and at the same time keeping it separate in other groups . . . . Thus, fashions on the one hand express one's connection with those of equal rank, the unity of the circle defined by these fashions, and simultaneously the exclusiveness of this group as opposed to those further down in the scale" ( ibid ., pp.28, 29).
Language and thought, the most abstract ideological categories o f the superstructure, are also functions of social evolution It has sometimes been fashionable among Marxists or pseudo-Marxists to declare that the origin of these phenomena has no relation with historical materialism. Kautsky, for example, went so far as to claim that the powers of human thought are almost unchanging. Such is not the case, however; these ideological forms, so extraordinarily important in the life of society, constitute no exception to the other ideological forms of the superstructure in their own origin and evolution.
A preliminary question must first be disposed of: namely, the doubt that at once appears in a discussion of language and thought. It is customary to admit that language is a social relation, a tool in the intercourse between men, an instrument of cohesion; and that Marx is right when he states that it would be absurd to speak of an evolution of language if men did not speak to each other. But the case with thought seems different, for each individual thinks, has his own brain, and only a mystic could attempt to seek the roots of this individual human thought in society. This objection is based on an incomplete understanding of the close relation between thought and language. Thought always operates with the aid of words, even when the latter are not spoken; thought is speech minus sound. The process of thinking is a process of combining concepts, which are always dealt with in the form of word symbols. A person who has made excellent progress in a foreign language may begin to think in that language. In fact, it is easy to find illustrations, in the reader's own experience, of the fact that the process of thought, of rumination, is accomplished with the aid of words. This being the case, and if we admit that speech is associated with society in its origin as well as in its growth, it results logically that the same must be true of thought. And the facts show that the evolution of thought has coincided with that of language. One of the most distinguished philologists, Ludwig Noire, says: "The social activity directed toward a common goal, the most ancient labor of the elders of the clan, is the source from which language and reasoning originated." 28) Human speech is as much an outgrowth of the sounds ejaculated during labor as are music and song. Philology has shown that the original basis of the vocabulary is the so called action roots, the earliest words being such as designated chiefly an action (verbs). In the later growth of language, objects also received their designations (nouns), insofar as these objects were prominent in the labor experience of man; such names were given chiefly to the tools used, and were developed from the verbal terms for the actions involved. Parallel with this evolution proceeded the consolidation of more definite concepts out of the mass of material which - figuratively speaking - filled man's head, echoed in his ears, appeared before his eyes, etc. But the concept is the beginning of thought.
The further evolution of thought and language proceeds along the lines followed by the other forms of the ideological superstructure; namely, they follow the evolution of the productive forces. In the course of this evolution, the external world ceases to be a world per se, becomes man's world; ceases to be mere matter, becomes material for human action; instruments of material labor, coarse at first, later more and more delicate, as well as instruments of scientific knowledge, together with the countless "feelers", such as machines, telescopes, acute reasoning, aid society in its annexation of more and more of this external world to society's sphere of labor and knowledge. A vast number of new concepts, and consequently of new words, is the result; language his enriched and is made to include the totality of subjects that constitute the concern of human thought and speech, i.e., of human communication.
The "fullness of life" results in the "richness" of language. As some shepherd tribes ("pure cattle breeders") have no subject of conversation but their cattle, owing to the fact that the low level of their productive forces restricts their entire life to the sphere of production, and their language therefore remains directly connected with the process of production. If, as a result of enhanced productive forces, a huge and complicated ideological superstructure has been erected, language will of course embrace this superstructure also, i.e., the connection of language with the process of production is more and more indirect; the dependence of language on the technique of production is now an indirect dependence; the causal chain now runs through the dependence of the various superstructural forms on the process of production, and even the latter dependence may no longer be a direct one. The increased :number of words borrowed from foreign languages is a good example of the manner in which language grows. Such borrowings result from an economy of universal dimensions and the development of a number of practically identical things in many countries, or of events having universal significance (telephone, aeroplane, radio, Bolshevism, Comintern, Soviet, etc.). It would lead us too far afield to point out in detail that the character, the style of a language also changes with the conditions of the social life; but it is worth while to mention that the division of society into classes, groups, and occupations also impresses its mark on a language; the city-dweller has not the same language as the villager; the "literary language" is different from "common" speech. This difference may become so great as to prevent men from understanding each other; in many countries there are popular "dialects" that can hardly be understood by the cultured and wealthy classes; this is a striking example of the class cleavage in language. And the various occupations have their special languages; learned philosophers, accustomed to dwell in a world of subtle distinctions, write - and sometimes even speak - a language that only their fellows can understand. The desire to indulge in such forms of expression is partly due to the same cause that produces fashions in dress; namely, to distinguish these persons from "everyday mortals". Thus, a Russian noble landowner would show his "class" by bringing back with him from Paris, clothes of foreign design, an expensive mistress, and an accentuated pronunciation of the letter r . Wundt shows that the peculiar intonation of the Puritans also had this social character; they not only took the names of patriarchs and prophets, but even imitated in their speech the chanting tones in which the Bible is still read aloud in the Jewish synagogues. Wundt rightly observes that the philologist cannot afford to consider language as a phenomenon that is isolated from human society; on the contrary, our conjectures as to the evolution of linguistic forms must accord with our view of the origin and evolution of man in general, the growth of the forms of social life, the origin of customs and law.
Thought has not always followed the same lines. Certain respectable scholars find that science originates in man's mysterious and universal inclination toward causal explanations, but they do not consider the question of the cause of this extremely laudable tendency. But we may now consider the mutability of the types of thought to have been definitely established. Thus, Lévy-Brühl devotes a whole book 29) We are quoting chiefly from Professor A. Pogodin's Russian work, Border-Regions between the Animal and Human, in New Ideas in Sociology, Collection No.4to the mode of thought of savages, which he considers entirely different from the present "logical" thought, terming it pre-logical. In savage thought, details and specific things are often not distinguished from the general or even the whole; one thing is confused with another. The entire world is not a system of things, but a system of mobile forces, man being one of these; individual man is not a personality: personality is absolutely socialized, being absorbed in society and not distinct from the latter. The "fundamental law" of savage thought is not the concept of causal succession, but what Lévy-Brühl terms the law of "participation" ( loi de la participation ), if it is possible to exert an influence on any object under conditions which-from our point of view-preclude such a possibility. "The law of participation permits him to shift from the individual to the group and from the group to the individual without the slightest difficulty. Between a bison and bisons in general, between a bear and bears in general, between a reindeer and reindeers in general, this psychology accepts a mystical participation. 30)
This psychology has no place for the species as an aggregate, or for the individual existence of its members, in our sense of these words." Lévy-Brühl himself finds a connection between this type of thought and a certain type of social existence, in which personality had not yet been differentiated from society, i.e., he connects this stage of thought with primitive communism.
Causality, as found among savages, is not our causality, but an animistic causality, the result of the inclination of the savage to seek a spiritual, divine, or daemonic principle operative in all situations. All things that come to pass have been "ordained" by someone: cause seems identical with a command emanating from a superior spirit. The law of causal succession becomes the whim of the Supreme Being, the spiritual ruler (or rulers) of the universe. Therefore, while the tendency to seek causes seems to be present in man, savage man seeks causes of a specific kind, causes emanating from a certain higher power. Of course, this type of thought is also related with a certain social order. It is typical for a society that already shows the presence of a hierarchy in production and social polity.
The further course of development presents the same process; it has already been touched upon in our discussion of philosophy. The above examples suffice to show that thought and the forms of thought are a varying quantity, and that this variability is based on the variability in the evolution of society, its organization of labor, and its technical backbone.
An excellent recapitulation of this subject is the magnificent formulation made by Karl Marx in his A Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy:
"In the social production of their lives, men enter into specific, necessary relations, independent of their wills, production relations, which correspond to a certain specific stage in the evolution of their material productive forces. The totality of these production relations constitutes the economic structure of society, the real basis, over which there rises a legal and political superstructure, and to which there correspond specific social forms of consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political, and mental life-process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being determines their consciousness" ( Zur Kritik der politischen Okonomie, Stuttgart 1915, p.IV.).
The huge "superstructure" that rises over the economic basis of society is of rather intricate internal "structure". It includes material things (tools, instruments, etc.), the most various human organizations, furthermore, strictly coordinated systems of ideas and forms; furthermore, vague, non-coordinated thoughts and feelings; finally, an ideology "of the second degree", sciences of sciences, sciences of arts, etc. We are therefore obliged, in 8t precise analysis, to resort to a certain definition of terms.
We shall interpret the word "superstructure" as meaning any type of social phenomenon erected on the economic basis: this will include, for instance, social psychology, the social-political order, with all its material parts (for example, cannons), the organization of persons (official hierarchy), as well as such phe. nomena as language and thought. The conception of the superstructure is therefore the widest possible conception.
The term "social ideology" will mean for us the system of thoughts, feelings, or rules of conduct (norms), and will therefore include such phenomena as the content of science (not a telescope, or the personal staff of a chemical laboratory) and art, the totality of norms, customs, morals, etc,
Social psychology will mean for us the non-systematized or but little systematized feelings, thoughts and moods found in the given society, class, group, profession, etc.
e. Social Psychology and Social Ideology
In our treatment of science and art, law and morality, etc., we were dealing with certain unified systems of forms, thoughts, rules of conduct, etc. Science is a unified, coordinated system of thoughts, embracing any subject of knowledge in its harmony. Art is a system of feelings, sensations, forms. Morality is a more or less rigid coordination of rules of conduct giving inner satisfaction to the individual. Many other ideologies may be similarly defined. But social life also includes a great mass of incoherent, non-coordinated material, by no means presenting an appearance of harmony, for instance, "ordinary, everyday thought" on any subject, as distinguished from "scientific thought". The former is based on fragments of knowledge, on disorderly, scattered thoughts; it is a mass of contradictions, or incompletely digested notions, freakish conceptions. Only when this material has been subjected to the sharp test of criticism, and stripped of its contradictions, do we begin to approach science. But, alas, we live in "every-day" life! Among the countless mutual interactions between men, out of which social life is built up, there are many such non-coordinated elements: shreds of ideas (yet expressing a certain knowledge), feelings and wishes, tastes, modes of thought, undigested, "semi-conscious", "vague conceptions of God" and "evil", "just" and "unjust", "beautiful" and "ugly", habits and views of daily life; impressions and conceptions as to the course of social life; feelings of pleasure or pain, dissatisfaction and anger, love of conflict or boundless despair, many vague expectations and ideals; a sharp critical attitude toward the existing order of things, or a delighted acceptance of this "best of all worlds"; a sense of failure and disappointment, cares as to the future, a bold burning one's bridges behind one, illusions, hopes of the future, etc., etc., ad infinitum. These phenomena, when of social dimensions, are the social psychology. The difference between the social (or "collective") psychology and ideology is merely in their degree of systematization. The social psychology has often been apparent in bourgeois society in the mysterious envelope of the so called "popular spirit" or Zeitgeist, frequently conceived as a peculiar single social soul, in the literal sense of the word. But, of course, a folk-soul, in this sense, does not exist, any more than there can exist a society which is an organism with a single center of consciousness. Society then becomes a huge monster lying in the midst of nature
In the absence of such an organism, we can hardly speak of a mysterious folk-soul or a "popular spirit", in this mystical sense. Yet we do speak of the social psychology, to distinguish it from the individual psychology. This apparent contradiction may be answered as follows: the mutual interaction between men produces a certain psychology in the individual. The "social" element exists not between men but in the brains of men; the contents of these brains are a product of the various conflicting influences, the various intersecting interactions. No mental life exists except that which is found in the individual "socialized" human being, who is subject to all such interactions; society is an aggregate of socialized humans and not a huge beast of whom the individual humans are the various organs.
G. Simmel excellently describes this: "When a crowd of people destroy a house, pronounce a judgment, utter a cry, we here have a summation of the actions of the individual persons, constituting a single event recognized as a realization of a single conception. A frequent confusion takes place here: the single physical result of many, subjective mental processes is interpreted as the result of a single mental process, namely, a process in the collective soul" (G. Simmel: S oziologie; Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung, Leipzig, 1908, pp.559 560). Or - to use another example - when some new and greater thing than their individual aspirations or actions arises from the mutual interaction of men, "when examined closely " we find that such cases also involve the conduct of individuals, who are influenced by the fact that each is surrounded by other individuals; this results in nervous, intellectual, suggestive, moral transformations of man's mental constitution as compared with its operation with regard to different situations, in which such influences are absent. If these influences, mutually interacting, produce an internal modification in all the members of the group, in a like direction, their total action will no doubt have a different aspect from that of each individual, if each had been placed in a different, isolated situation" (ibid ., p.560).
Yet such words as Zeitgeist, popular mood , etc., are not without meaning: they indicate the existence of two conditions that may be noted everywhere: they indicate the real existence, first, of a certain predominant current of thoughts, feelings, moods, a prevailing psychology, at any given time, giving color to the entire social life; second, the alteration of this prevailing psychology according to the "character of the epoch", i.e., according to the conditions of social evolution.
The prevailing social psychology involves two principal elements: first, general psychological traits, perhaps found in all classes of society, for the situations of the various classes may have certain common elements in spite of class differences; second, the psychology of the ruling class, which enjoys such prominence in society as to set the pace for the entire social life and subject the other classes to its influence. The former case is illustrated in the feudal eras, in which the feudal lord and the peasant present certain common psychological traits: love of traditional practices, routine, submission to authority, fear of God, generally backward ideas, suspicion of innovation, etc. This results from the fact that both classes live in a stagnant and almost inert society; the more mobile psychology is later developed in the cities. Another cause of this condition is the unlimited authority enjoyed by the feudal lord on his estate and by the peasant in his family. The family then was an organized labor unit; in fact, the labor bond remains an important element in the peasant family to this day. The authority of the feudal lord is therefore found paralleled in the patriarchal order of labor relations in the family, as expressed in the complete submission to the "head of the family": "the old man knows!" At a certain stage of social evolution, the Zeitgeist was a conservatism of feudal nobility and peasant serf. In addition, of course, the prevailing social psychology also presents factors characteristic of the feudal lords alone, which were disseminated only by virtue of the dominant position of the feudal nobility.
Much oftener, however, we encounter cases in which the social 'psychology, i.e., the prevailing social psychology, is that of the ruling class. In the second chapter of the Communist Manifesto, Marx says: "The prevailing ideas of a period have always been simply the ideas of the ruling class." The same might be said of the social psychology prevalent at a given time. Our discussion of ideologies has already shown a number of examples of feelings, thoughts, moods, predominant in society. Let us examine a specific case: the psychology of the Renaissance, with its highly developed pursuit of pleasure, its parading of Latin and Greek words, its ingenious erudition, its love of distinguishing one's own ego from the "mob"; its elegant contempt for medieval superstition, etc.; this psychology obviously has nothing in common with that of the Italian peasantry of the same epoch; but was a product of the commercial cities, and of the financial cities, of the financial-commercial aristocracy in those cities. At precisely this period, the city began to control the provinces; the cities were ruled by bankers, who married into the families of the prominent nobility. The psychology of this class was the ruling psychology; it is expressed in many monuments - literary and other monuments - of the epoch. The development of the productive forces among the ruling class causes mighty levers to be fashioned for molding the psychology of the other classes. "The three or four metropolitan sheets will, in our future, determine the opinion of the provincial papers and therefore the popular will ", is the frank statement of Oswald Spengler, 31) the philosopher of the German bourgeoisie of the present day.
Yet, it is obvious that no permanent, uniform, integral "social psychology" may exist in a class society; at most there are certain common traits, whose importance should not be exaggerated.
The same applies to so called "national characteristics", "race psychology", etc. It goes without saying that Marxists do not "in principle" deny the possibility of certain common traits in all the classes of one and the same nation. In one passage, for instance, Marx even allows for a certain influence of race, in the following words: "The same economic basis - the same in its principal conditions - may present infinite variations and gradations in their manifestation, owing to countless different empirical circumstances, natural conditions, racial relations, historical influences working from without, etc., which cannot be understood without analyzing these empirically given circumstances" (Marx: Capital, vol, iii). In other words, if any two societies are passing through the same stage of civilization (feudalism, let us say), they will nevertheless present certain (perhaps unimportant special traits. These special traits are the result of certain deviations: in the conditions of evolution, as well as of the special conditions of evolution in the past, It would be absurd to deny such peculiarities, as it is impossible to deny certain peculiarities in the "national character," "temperament," etc. To be sure, the presence of a class psychology may by no means be taken as a proof of certain special "national" traits (Marx, for instance, spoke of the philosophy of Bentham as a "specifically English" phenomenon; Engels described the socialism of the economist Rodbertus as a "Prussian junker socialism," etc.). We may therefore also agree with Dr. E. Hurwicz - now Cunow's companion-in-arms in the noble task of destroying the Bolsheviks - when he writes: "Vocational psychology does not exclude the possibility of national psychology", and "the psychology of caste does not differ in this respect from the local psychology: neither precludes the possibility of a national psychology" (E. Hurwicz: Die Seelen der Völker, Gotha 1920, pp.14, 15). But the facts are these: Marxists explain these national traits on the basis of the actual course of social evolution; they do not merely point at them; in the second place, they do not overestimate these peculiarities, or remain oblivious of the forest because of its many trees, while the worshipers of "national psycholy," etc., lose sight of the forest altogether; in the third place, they do not set down the absurd things cooked up by learned and unlearned babblers and philistines on the subject of the "national soul". Everyone knows, for example, that any Russian philistine considers philistinism to be a permanent and immutable quality of the Germans; yet the German workers are now proving that such is not the case. We all know also how much humbug has been written about the "Slavic spirit". When Hurwicz exclaims with rapture that Bolshevism is merely a topsy-turvy Tsarism, that the government methods in both cases are the same, etc., he reveals to us not the properties of the "Russian spirit", allegedly responsible for this similarity, but the qualities of the spirit of an international petty bourgeois, now serving as a prop to the Social-Democratic parties.
The class psychology is based on the aggregate of the conditions of life in the classes concerned, and these conditions are determined by the position of the classes in the economic and social political environment. But the intricacy of any social psychology must not be overlooked. For example, similarities of form may be found in quite different class psychologies; thus, two classes engaged in a life and death struggle with each other of course represent an entirely different content of feelings, aspirations, impressions, illusions, etc., while the form of their psychology may quite similar: passionate zeal, furious and fanatical aggression, even their specific forms of heroic psychology.
The fact that the class psychology is determined by the totality of the conditions of the class life, based on the general economic situation, should not lead us to ascribe the class psychology to selfish interest, which is a very frequent error. No doubt class interest is the main sinew of the class struggle, but class psychology includes many other elements. We have already observed that the philosophers of the ruling class in the period of the decline of the Roman Empire preached self-extermination with some success, because their preaching was an outgrowth of the psychology of this class, a psychology of repletion, satiety, of disgust with life. The causes for this psychology may be definitely traced; we have already found its roots in the parasitic rô1e of the ruling class, which did nothing and merely lived in order to consume, to try out, to surfeit itself with all things, as was natural in view of its economic situation, its function (or lack of function) in the general economy. The psychology of satiety and necromania was a class psychology. Yet we may not say that Seneca, when he preached suicide, was expressing the interest of his class. 32) The hunger strikes in the Tsarist prisons, for example, were acts in the class struggle, a protest in order to fan the flame of conflict, a symbol of solidarity, a device to maintain the ranks of the fighters, and this struggle was dictated by class interests. At times, despair seizes the masses or certain groups, after a great defeat in the class struggle, which is of course connected with class interest, but the connection is somewhat peculiar: the conflict went on under the impulse of the hidden springs of interest, but now the fighting army has been defeated; the result is: disintegration, despair, a longing for miracles, a desire to escape mankind; thoughts turn heavenward. 33) After the defeat of the great insurrections in Russia in the Seventeenth Century, which had taken the form of religious dissent, "protest assumed many varied forms under the influence of defeat and despair": retirement to the wilderness, self-incineration. "Hundreds, even thousands, seek their death in the flames .... ecstatic dreamers clothe themselves in pure funereal raiment and lie down in the coffins that have already been prepared, to wait for the crack of doom." 34) This psychology also finds expression in the two contemporary poems quoted by Melgunov
Dear Mother Desert,
Release me from earth's sufferings,
Receive me in your arms,
Dear Mother Desert,
Kind Mother, keep me.
and:
Coffin of pine-wood,
There will I lie,
Waiting for the last trump.
It is obvious that the phenomenon of class psychology is of very complicated nature, not capable of direct interpretation as interest only, but always to be explained by the concrete environment in which the specific class has been placed.
In the psychological structure of society, i.e., among the various forms of the social psychology, we must not omit to mention the psychologies of groups, occupations, etc. There may be several groups within one class; thus, the bourgeoisie includes a bourgeoisie of high finance, a trading bourgeoisie and an industrial bourgeoisie; the working class includes the aristocracy of skilled labor, together with slightly skilled labor and wholly unskilled labor. Each of these groups has special interests and special characteristics; thus, the highly skilled worker likes his work and is even proud of being superior, as a worker, to the others; on the other hand, he is ambitious, and assumes certain bourgeois inclinations, together with his high collar. Each occupation bears its mark; when we berate the bureaucrats, we mean a certain professional psychology of negative virtue: routine, red-tape delays, precedence of form over substance, etc. Vocational types of psychology arise, their mental traits a direct result of the character of their activity, whence follows also a corresponding tinge in their ideology. Friedrich Engels says: "Among the practical politicians and the theorists in jurisprudence, and among the jurists in particular, this fact is first completely lost sight of. Since in each single instance the economic facts must take the form of juristic motives so as to be sanctioned in the form of law, and since, therefore, a backward view must be taken over the whole existing system of law, it follows therefrom (in the opinion of these persons, N. B.) that the juristic form appears to be the whole and the economic content nothing at all." 35) His trade psychology will quickly betray a man; a minute's conversation will tell you whether you are dealing with a clerk, a butcher, a reporter, etc. It is a characteristic fact that all these traits are international; you find them everywhere. By the side of the class psychology, which is the plainest, most pregnant and most significant form of the social psychology, we find a group psychology, a vocational psychology, etc.; being determines consciousness. In this sense we may say that each grouping of men-even in an amateur chess club or chorus-imparts a certain-sometimes almost imperceptible -stamp on its members. But since the existence of a certain grouping of persons is nevertheless always associated with the economic structure of society, being ultimately dependent on the latter, it follows that all the varieties of the social psychology are quantities to be explained by the social mode of production, the economic structure of society.
What is the relation between the social psychology and the social ideology? The social psychology is a sort of supply-chamber for ideology; or, it may be compared with a salt solution out of which the ideology is crystallized. At the beginning of this section, we stated that the ideology is distinguished by the great coordination of its elements, i.e., the various feelings, thoughts, sensations, forms, of which it is composed. The ideology systematizes that which has hitherto been not systematized, i.e., the social psychology. The ideologies are a coagulated social psychology . For example, early in the history of the workers' movement, there was a certain crude discontent among the working class, a sense of the "injustice" of the capitalist order, a vague desire to replace this system by some other system; we could not call this an ideology. Later, however, this vague tendency was definitely formulated. Things were coordinated, a set of demands (a program, platform) arose, a specific "ideal" began to appear, idealism, etc.; here we have an ideology. Or, we may find that the discomforts of a situation, and the aspiration to cast it off, find expression in a work of art; here also we have an ideology. It is sometimes difficult to draw the line sharply; the actual process is a slow solidification, consolidation, crystallization of the social ideology out of the social psychology. A change in the social psychology will of course result in a corresponding change in the social ideology, as we have pointed out above. The social psychology is constantly changing, simultaneously with the alterations in the economic conditions from which they grow, for the latter bring about a constant regrouping of these social forces, a growth of new relations, based on the successively altered levels of the productive forces as has been already point out.
Having given a number of examples in our discussion of ideology, we need not dwell upon the alterations in social psychology as connected with the alterations in ideology; we shall merely point out that the latest books are now devoting considerable attention to the question of the so called "spirit of capitalism", ix., the psychology of the entrepreneurs. For instance, the works of Werner Sombart (Der Bourgeois, etc.), Max Weber, and more recently Professor Dr. Hermann Levy (Soziologische Studien über das englische Volk , Jena 1920). Marx wrote, in the First Volume of Capital: "Protestanism, by changing almost all the traditional holidays into workdays, plays an important part in the genesis of capital" (Chicago, 1915, p.303, footnote) Marx repeatedly points out that the bigoted, frugal, parsimonious, and at the same time energetic and persistent mentality of Protestanism, abhorring the pomp and luxury of Rome, is identical with the mentality of the rising bourgeoisie. People poked fun at this statement; but now prominent bourgeois scholars are developing this very theory of Marx, of course without giving credit to its originator. Sombart proves that the most varied traits (avarice for gold, untiring lust for adventure, inventive spirit, combined with calculation, reason, sobriety) gave rise to the so called capitalist spirit" by reason of their united presence. It goes without saying that this spirit could not have developed out of itself, but was shaped by an alteration in the social relations; parallel with the growth of the capitalist "body" proceeded a growth of the capitalist "spirit". All the fundamental traits of the economic psychology are reversed: in the pre-capitalist era, the basic economic notion of the nobility was that of a "decent" life, "according to station". "Money exists in order to be spent," wrote Thomas Aquinas; things were managed poorly, irrationally, without proper bookkeeping; tradition and routine predominated; the tempo of life was slow (almost every other day a holiday) initiative and energy were lacking. On the other hand, the capitalist psychology, which replaced the feudal-chivalrous psychology, is based on initiative, energy, briskness, rejection of routine, rational calculation and reflection, love of accumulating riches, etc. The complete upheaval in men's minds proceeded simultaneously with the complete upheaval in the production relations.
f. The Ideological Processes considered as differentiated labour
The question of ideologies and of the superstructure in general must also be considered from another standpoint. We have already seen that the various forms of the superstructure are a composite quantity, by the nature of their construction, and include things as well as persons; the ideologies themselves are a sort of mental product. This being the case, we necessarily consider the forms of the superstructure in their evolution (and consequently also the ideological process) as a special form of social labor (but not of material production; the two must not be confused) In the beginnings of "human history", i.e., at the time when surplus labor did not exist, we find practically no ideology. Only later as surplus labor arises, "a class which is relieved of directly productive labor is formed by the side of the great rnajority which does nothing but toil; this new class takes care of the common concerns of society: supervision of labor, affairs of state, justice, sciences, arts, etc. Therefore, we find at the basis of the division into classes: the law of the division of labor" (Friedrich Engels: Die Entwicklung der Sozialismus von der Utopie zur Wissenschaft, Berlin, 1920, p.49) In one passage, Marx designates priests, lawyers, the ruling classes, etc., as the "ideological classes". In other words, the ideological processes may be considered as a specific form of labor within the general labor system. This labor is not material production, nor does it constitute a portion of this material production, but results from the latter, as our study of ideologies has shown, and sets up an independent domain of social activity. The increasing division of labor is an expression of the increasing pro ductive forces of society, wherefore the growth of the pro ductive forces conditions also a division of labor in the field of production, accompanied by an isolation of the ideological labor having its own division of labor. "The division of labor is not a characteristic of the economic world; its growing influence may be observed in the most varied fields of society, in the increasing specialization of political, administrative, legal functions. The same thing may be observed in art and science." 36) We may now view the whole of society as a huge working mechanism, with many subdivisions of the divided social labor. This great labor aggregate may be divided into two great categories, first, material labor, "production" as such; second, the various forms of labor in the superstructure, the work of supervision, etc., as well as ideological labor as such, The organization of this labor goes hand in hand with the organization of material labor, and is along the same general lines; it includes a class hierarchy, those holding the means of production being at the top, and those without such means at the bottom. In the process of material production (1) those in charge have a special role in this process, which is (2) determined by the fact that the means of production are in their hands, and (3) they also have control of distribution by virtue of this circumstance; such also is the case in almost all the branches of "superstructural" labor. The army has already served as an illustration; the same might be noted in science and art. A great technical laboratory, under capitalist society, has an internal organization similar to that in the factory. The theatre, under capitalism, has its owner, its manager, its actors, its "supes"; its technical employees, its clerks, workers, just as in a factory. We consequently find here, ( i.e., in a class society) various functions socially connected with these persons; the higher function involves, so to say, a possession of the "means of mental production", constituting a class monopoly; in the distribution of the products of material production (men live, of course, by consuming material commodities), the possessors of these "instruments of mental production" obtain a greater share of the social product than their subordinates.
We know how firmly the ruling classes have clung to the monopoly of knowledge. In antiquity, the priests who held this monopoly barred the "temples of science", to which they admitted but a few chosen ones; knowledge itself was enveloped in the shroud of a divinely awful mystery, accessible to only a few of the wise and just. The store set by this monopoly by the ruling classes is apparent, for example, from the following words of the well-known German idealist philosopher, F. Paulsen: "Anyone whose social conditions force him to remain a manual worker by trade and status, would not find it a gain to have received the schooling of a scholar; such training would not enhance, but darken his life" (Friedrich Paulsen: Das moderne Bildungswesen, in Kultur der Gegenwart, part i, section i, p.24; we may observe in passing that this gigantic work, the Kultur der Gegenwart - a product of the finest brains among the German professors - is dedicated to Emperor William II!). Apparently the honored philosopher and idealist regards a man as bound down to the compulsory labor of capitalism, even in his mother's womb, and deprives him of education even before he has seen the light of the sun.
The monopoly character of education was the principal reason for the opposition of the Russian intellectuals to the revolution of the proletariat; conversely, one of the principal achievements of the proletarian revolution was the abolition of this monopoly.
: An inspection of material production will show that it is divided into a number of branches; in the first place, into manufacturing and agriculture, both of which are further subdivided into a great number of sections, from mining operations and grain-growing to the manufacture of pins and the raising of lettuce. Here, as in the "superstructure", there are large subdivisions (such as those previously considered, i.e., administration, the setting of standards, of science, of art, of religion, of philosophy, etc.); furthermore, each of these subdivisions is further ramified (for instance, science now consists of many branches; so does art). In material production, as we have seen, a certain rough proportion must exist - if society is to go on - between the various branches of production. Even in a blind, capitalist social order, with no social plan of production at all, but rather with anarchy in production, i.e., a disproportion between the various branches of production, even here we find a constant adjustment within this anarchy; violent disturbances of this proportion meet with their reaction, of course, not without much pain, and not for long periods, but there is a certain temporary equilibrium, for otherwise capitalist society would go to pieces as the result of a single industrial crisis. While it is possible for a society to exist in spite of the fact that there is no harmony between its material production and the other forms of its labor, the non-material forms, such a society will not grow but decline. For instance, where too much labor is allotted to the maintenance of theaters, the government mechanism, or the church, or art, the productive forces themselves will decline. It is obvious that this would be the case, for instance, in a community in which there was one worker and seven men supervising and calculating his product, with two others encouraging him by singing, and another man governing the whole process. Since all must eat, it is obvious that such a labor system would not endure for long. But it is also quite obvious that - in spite of all the effort the workers might put in - a working community would fare very badly unless its various members formed a coordinated system, in which their product was duly tabulated, and in which certain individuals took care of relations with the outside world. Therefore, if society as a whole is to endure, there must exist within it a certain condition of equilibrium (though it be unstable) between the material work as a whole and the superstructural work as a whole. Let us assume for a moment that all the scholars (mathematicians, engineers, chemists, physicists, etc.) in the United States of America should disappear overnight; the huge production of that country could not go on, based as it is, on scientific calculation, but would decline. Let us assume, on the other hand, that 99 per cent. of the present workers should suddenly be miraculously transformed into learned mathematicians, not participating in production. The resulting bankruptcy would be complete; society would perish. Not only is a certain proportion (even though its limits be indefinite) necessary in any society between the total material labor and the total superstructural labor, but the distribution of labor within the superstructure, i.e., among the various forms of the "mental" supervising and other activity, is also of importance. As there is a certain equilibrium between the various forms of material labor (these various forms tend to equilibrium, as Marx puts it), so there must be a certain modicum of such equilibrium between the branches of ideological work, in fact, of the "superstructural" work in general. The coordination of these ideological "branches of production" is ultimately determined by the economic structure of society. Why, for instance, was so vast a quantity of national labor in ancient Egypt devoted to the construction of the huge pyramids, great Pharaonic statues, and other monuments of feudal art? For the simple reason that Egyptian society could not have maintained itself without constantly impressing upon the slaves and peasants the sublimity and the divine power of their rulers. In the absence of newspapers and telegraph agencies, art served as the ideological bond; it was therefore a sine qua non for this society and took an enormous share of the country's labor budget. Similarly, "ethics", the establishment of moral standards, assumed a very important place in Greece at the end of the Fifth Century B.C, because the question of the relations between men and of the regulation of these relations, had become particularly acute, even for the ruling classes, who were impelled by the great gulfs that had opened up, to seek to conciliate divergent tendencies. Art is but feebly developed in the United States of America of our day, while the same country is a pioneer in the study and application of the science of organized production as a whole (the Taylor system, vocational psychology, psycho-physiology of labor, etc.), because American capitalism does not need to resort to art in order to mould the minds of the people; this task is excellently performed by a capitalist newspaper press that has been perfected to the point of virtuosity; the question of a national production, a "scientific management", is of immense importance in the life of such a system.
A certain proportion between the parts is therefore necessary in the field of "superstructural" (and consequently of any ideological) labor, so long as society is in a state of equilibrium, this proportion between the various branches of mental work, and their distribution, being determined by the economic structure of society and the requirements of its technology.
An interesting application of these observations may be made to the school, which is one of the fields of ideological labor. Indeed, schools (universities, high schools, elementary schools) are the sphere of common social labor in which instruction is given, in which the labor forces are endowed with a certain skill, a specific "training", simple human labor power being thus transformed into specific labor power. One person studies medicine, another law, military science, engineering, etc. The same condition of affairs is found throughout the field of instruction, i.e., all those special processes in which specific abilities are imparted to men, which are required for the performance of more or less specialized functions; essentially there is no difference between the trade school that turns out locksmiths, and the educational institution that turns out the geniuses of the pulpit, or the Tsarist cadet school, producing its crack officers. It follows that: the school system, its division into various branches (commercial schools, trade schools, cadet schools, schools of engineering, universities, etc.) are an expression of society's need for various kinds of skilled - material and mental-labor.
A few examples will clarify our thought.
In the Middle Ages, the school stood in the sign of the priesthood. Feudal society could not exist without a tremendous development of religion. Therefore: "The monastic and cathedral schools and the overwhelming number of chancellor universities, the life in the bursae, and the instruction in the artistic faculty - all these had a monastic priestly tinge, everything having been devised and arranged according to the ecclesiastical theological spirit" (Theobald Ziegler: Geschichte der Pädagogik, in Handbuch der Erziehungs- und Unterrichtslehre für höhere Schüler, vol. i, Miinchen 1895, P. 33). "Except the few medical and legal professional schools, the universities as well as the lower schools were concerned above all with the training of clerics" (ibid.). In addition, there were schools for training knights; in these, "education" no longer served to develop priestly "labor power", but brightly "labor power". The boys were instructed chiefly in seven virtues (probitates); these were "the seven probitates of the knight, six of them being purely physical arts (equitare, natare, sagittare, cestibus certare, aucupari, scacis ludere: riding, swimming, archery, fencing, hunting, chess-playing) and the remaining one, versificare, poetry and music" ( ibid .). Obviously, this must have produced a different type of man, necessary for feudal society.
But now we have the growth of cities, the commercial bourgeoisie, etc.; the result of this condition is well described by Professor Ziegler, whom we have already quoted: "But (p.34) new educational needs arise in another field. In the blossoming cities, the merchant and the artisan (my italics. N.B.) required a different practical education than was given to the scholar or judge; the erection of schools by the city was resorted to, for the purpose of providing these circles with the necessary important instruction."
With the development of industrial capitalism and the increasing demand for skilled labor, the so called trade school is born in the field of material labor. "In order to support the national industry, governments and private persons began to establish trade and artisan schools, destined to provide such vocational instruction to the pupils as they had formerly obtained in the master's shop" (N. Krupskaya: Popular Education and Democracy , Moscow, 1921, p.94., in Russian). This school undergoes certain changes with the growth of large-scale industry, and the increasing demand for masters, supervisors, foremen, etc. ( ibid ., p.96). Simultaneously, the intermediate schools and higher trade schools, giving more prominence to natural science and mathematics, now flourish on a very large scale, also commercial universities, agricultural schools, etc
The above cited German idealist philosopher, F. Paulsen, expounds the significance of capitalist education with frank brutality. These passages in his work are so instructive and give so precise a picture, that we must present them unabridged (Paulsen's frankness may be explained by the fact that he is contributing to a thick and heavy volume which will not fall into the hands of the workers; he therefore writes for the capitalist bandits only, and can afford to tell tales out of school)
"The actual outline of the educational system is determined everywhere, in the main, by the outline of society and its stratification. . . The form of the public educational system will always reflect the condition of the society producing it. Society shows everywhere a double stratification: a grouping according to the form of the social performance of labor, and a grouping by property relations. The first grouping furnishes the division into vocational stations; the difference in property gives rise to the division into social classes. Both have an influence on the educational system; the main outlines of the social performance of labor, the vocational social station, determine on the whole the varieties of instructional type; the class membership or the property standing of their families to a great extent determines the distribution of young men to the various courses. . . It (society) needs and has motor, executive, and mentally operating and guiding functions and organs. The first group includes all those whose labor achievement is essentially that of bodily strength and manual dexterity; here we should place the industrial workers and artisans of all kinds, rural workers and small peasants, and, lastly, those employed in trade and transportation as the lowest executive instruments. The second, group includes those whose vocational task essentially is that of controlling the social labor process and giving instructions and guidance to manual laborers; here belong the factory owners and technical specialists, managers of great farms, merchants and bankers, higher employees in trade and transportation, also subaltern officials in the service of nation and community. The third group, finally, includes those professions customarily classed as "learned"; their practice requires an independent grasping and extending of scientific knowledge: here belong research workers and inventors, also the incumbents of the higher places in the civil and military service, in church and school, physicians, engineers in high position, etc." (Paulsen, in Kultur der Gegenwart, part i, section i, pp.64, 65). The grading of the schools corresponds to these three groups. Paulsen's statements are an excellent indication of the school mechanism: on the one hand, it provide the necessary number of labor forces for each material and mental task; on the other hand, the higher ideological functions always remain fixed to a certain class, the educational monopoly, and with it the capitalist order of society, being thus maintained. But Paulsen is wrong in placing himself and his ilk over the manufacturers and bankers whose boots the learned gentlemen lick on all necessary and unnecessary, occasions.
Thus the school illustrates the practical roots of all ideologies. If any mathematician should be indignant at our suggesting that his "pure science" has any earthly import, we shall merely ask him to inform us why mathematics is studied by the merchants' sons in the commercial high schools, the would-be agronomists in the agricultural schools, the would-be engineers in the engineering schools, etc. He may reply that only the riff-raff of the profession would consent to give them instruction; we should then ask him why `pure mathematicians - who really seem quite ignorant of practical life - should deliver lectures before persons preparing for the professions of engineering or agriculture. Our mathematician may go so far as to say that there are some scholars that give no instruction, deliver no lectures. But surely - as we should then assert - these men write books which are read by professors who give instruction to future engineers who make use of what knowledge they acquire in order to calculate problems in the construction of bridges, steam-boilers, electrical power stations, etc.
Furthermore, the case of the school indicates the relative need of the specific society for various types of skilled labor, including the "highest".
The various sciences are therefore as much interconnected by the bond of labor as are the various branches of material labor. Likewise, the other branches of ideological labor are connected with the sciences, all being based ultimately and constantly on material labor.
g. The Significance of the Superstructure
We may now take up a more detailed study of the significance of all the varieties of the superstructure, including the ideologies, which may best be done in a critical examination of the objections commonly raised by the opponents of the theory of historical materialism.
First, there are the objections to the practical roots of ideology, to the claim that the forms of the "superstructure", including those of ideology, have any significance as services. We are told that scholars or artists very often are not concerned at all with the practical role played by their thoughts or constructions. On the contrary, the scholar, in his search for "pure truth", is merely expressing his love of this goddess; his marriage to her is a love-match, based on no practical considerations of any kind. Similarly, we are told that the true artist loves art for art's sake. Art is his highest goal; art alone gives life meaning for him. As a. jurist may declare that he would wish to see the world destroyed; rather than that justice be not done ( fiat justitia, pereat mundus !), so the true musician would give everything else in the world for a single glorious symphony. The true artist lives for his art, the, scholar for science, the jurist for the state (Hegel, for instance, considers the Prussian junker capitalist state to be the highest manifestation of the world-spirit in human history, and therefore worthy of receiving self-sacrifice), etc.
Now, is it true that scholars and artists have this attitude, or are they pulling the wool over the eyes of the public? While the latter may sometimes occur, we have not the right to approach the subject from this angle. Thousands of examples prove that a true scholar, or artist, or theoretical jurist, loves his vocation as he loves himself, without regard to its practical phases. But it would be wrong to have the matter end there, for the subject of the psychology of the ideologists is not to be confused with their objective role; man's view of his labor is not identical with the role, the significance, of his labor for society. Let us examine the growth of an ideology. Mathematics, for instance - arose on the basis of practical needs - became specialized and divided off into a number of branches. The specialist is not aware of the practical needs satisfied by his science. He is interested in his "own work"; the more he loves it, the more productive will it be. Other persons, working in other fields, will apply his theory. Before the days of specialization, the practical significance of science was apparent to everyone; now it has been lost. Knowledge formerly served practice, even in men's minds; it still serves practice, but the minds of the closeted specialists represent knowledge as entirely divorced from practice. The causes are not far to seek; man's thinking is influenced by his being. To a man working in one ideological field only, this field must appear as the navel of the earth, about which all else revolves. This man lives in the atmosphere of his specialty, for - as Engels has excellently put it - ideology is simply the "occupying oneself with thoughts as with independent entities developing independently, subject only to their own laws." 37) Before the days of specialization, a man might have thought: "I guess I'll take up some geometry, in order to measure the fields down by the shore next year." But the mathematical specialist would probably say: "I have got to solve this problem; it is my life-work." Somewhat different in expression, but identical in sense, is Ernst Mach's formulation of the case: "For the artisan, and more still for the scientist, the quickest, simplest mental acquisition - with the slightest mental outlay - of a certain field of natural phenomena is itself an economic object, in which, although it was originally a means to an end, there is now no longer a thought of physical need, once the corresponding mental impulses have developed and demand exercise." 38) Thus, the system of the superstructure, from the social-political to the philosophical phase inclusive, is connected with the Cmnomic basis and the technical system of the specific society, being a necessary link in the chain of social phenomena.
In this connection, Engels says in a letter addressed to Franz Mehring, dated July 14, 1893: "Ideology is a process accomplished, to be sure, by so called thought, but with a false consciousness. This mess does not know the actual motive forces behind it, otherwise it would not be an ideological process. Being a process of thought, it derives its content as well as its form from pure thought, either on its own part or on that of its predecessors. It works with mere mental material, which it assumes and accepts as the product of thought, and for which it does not seek any more remote process, that may be independent of thought, and all this is self-evident to this process, for it regards all action, since it works through thought, as also in the last instance based on thought " This illusion of an independent history; of national constitutions, legal systems, ideological conceptions, in each special field of knowledge, is the element that leads most persons astray mentally" (Mehring: Geschichte der deutsehen Sozialdemokratie, Note to Book i, Stuttgart 1919, p.386).
Another frequent objection to our theory results from pretending that it declares economy to be the only true element in life, all other elements being childish folly, illusions, vague mists. This conception represents historical materialism as stating the existence of various factors in history: economy, politics, art, etc., some of which are very important, others unimportant, with the economic "factor" as the only real "factor", all the others being a sort of fifth wheel of the wagon. This representation of the Marxian conception is then diligently bombarded with refutations; it is pointed out that many other things are important besides economy; but it would be erroneous to interpret our view of ideology in this way; the superstructure is not "child's play". We have shown that a destruction of the capitalist state would make capitalist production impossible, that a destruction of modern science would involve also that of large-scale production and technology; that an elimination of the means of human intercourse, language and literature, would cause society to disintegrate. The theory of historical materialism does not deny the importance of the superstructure in general and of the ideologies, in particular, but explains them. As we have shown in our chapter on Determinism and Indeterminism this is quite a different attitude.
It would be equally incorrect to consider the various "factors" from the point of view of their unequal value; to admit the importance of economy, but to belittle that of politics or science. Many misunderstandings result from such an interpretation. Why attempt to set up a scale of the relative importance, of these "factors" when we recall that capitalist economy could not exist without capitalist politics? It would be difficult to decide whether - in a rifle - the barrel or the trigger was the more important; or - in the human body - the left hand or the right foot; or - in a watch - the spring or the cog-wheel. Some things are more important than others; economy is more important than dancing; but in many cases it is absurd to make such a statement A system may contain sections that are of equal importance for the existence of the whole. The trigger is as important in a rifle as the barrel; a single screw in a piece of mechanism may be as important as any other part, for without it the mechanism might cease to be a mechanism. Similarly, in a consideration of the "superstructural" labor, as a portion of the total social labor, it would be equally absurd to ask either of the following questions: Which is more important for modern industry, metallurgy or mining? Which is more important, direct material labor, or labor in economic administration? At certain stages in evolution, the two may be inseparable. "This theory (the theory of these factors, N. B.) played the same role in the evolution of social science. The progress of natural science has shown us the unity of these forces, the modern doctrine of energy. Likewise, the progress of social science has necessarily led to a displacement of the theory of factors - this product of social analysis - by a synthetic conception of social life." 39) We therefore reject the theory of factors. But there remains a basis for the distinction between material production and the superstructure, and for a study of their mutual relations.