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Anti-Duhring, Part I, Philosophy Dialectics, XII – Quantity and Quality - Part 2 of 14

The petty-bourgeois, moral socialists, of the type of Sismondi, Proudhon and the Narodniks, similarly, focused on those vicissitudes and effects of industrial capital on the workers, but did so, not on the basis of seeking a continuation of the rule of the landed aristocracy, but of a utopian expansion of small-scale commodity production and exchange. As Lenin set out, in relation to the Narodniks, this economic romanticism was utopian because of the laws of that commodity production and exchange, set out by Marx, that necessarily leads, via competition, to the development of industrial capital, and consequently leads to a concentration and centralisation of capital into monopoly capitalism/imperialism, which forms the basis of Socialism.

Again, this utopian, petty-bourgeois socialism is seen, today, in the form of the “anti-capitalists”, and “anti-imperialists”, the “anti-monopoly alliances”, and so on. All of these trends subordinate the interests of workers to the interests of capital, in one form or another. As Lenin noted, in relation to the Narodniks, they subordinated workers' interests to the interests of the most backward, reactionary forms of capital, i.e. to small scale capital, but, in so doing, ultimately subordinated workers to the interests of big capital, because, whatever the intentions of the Narodniks/moral socialists, the laws of capital, and the role of the capitalist state, inevitably leads to the domination of that large-scale, monopoly capitalism/imperialism.

As Lenin also pointed out, in relation to the Narodniks, the idea that you could go back to the conditions of small-scale commodity production, and peasant production, i.e. of large-scale direct production, without also the social relations that went with it, i.e. the social relations of feudal society, was a utopian, reactionary, pipe-dream. So, whenever attempts have been made to engineer such a regression, it always involves the petty-bourgeoisie establishing some kind of authoritarian/Bonapartist regime, which, inevitably, even after some period of social chaos, collapses. The regime of Pol Pot is, perhaps, the most obvious example of that, but the attempts of the Brexiters, culminating in the Truss government, is another. All forms of economic nationalism, including the utopian, reactionary notion of “Socialism In One Country”, or national roads to socialism, are simply an extension of this reactionary, utopian, petty-bourgeois socialism.

The Marxist response to the vicissitudes of industrial capitalism is not a desire to hold back that development of capital, i.e. “anti-capitalism”, but to fight for the interests of the working-class that also arises, and grows along with that capital. When that capital grows to mammoth proportions, in the form of large-scale, socialised capital, in the shape of monopoly capitalism/imperialism, the Marxist response is not to advocate for the interests of the small-scale capital being destroyed by it, but to advocate for the workers themselves to insist on their right to control what is, then, their collectively owned capital.

Similarly, as Trotsky pointed out in The Program of Peace, when this monopoly capitalism/imperialism extends this process on a global/international scale, with the more powerful capitalist states annexing the smaller states, the role of Marxists is not to advocate for the bourgeois, and still less the pre-bourgeois, ruling classes of those smaller states, but is to advocate for the unity of the working-class, and for its interests within this new, progressive political entity. As Lenin noted, we are advocates not of the self-determination of nations, which means, in reality, of the ruling-class of those nations, and the continued exploitation and oppression of their workers, but of the self-determination of the workers themselves, across nations.

The same applies with inter-imperialist wars such as WWI and II, and, now, the war between NATO/Ukraine and Russia, which is one part of the developing WWIII between US imperialism/NATO and Russia/China/BRICS+. Marxists do not line the working-class up behind the ruling class of each of these contending imperialist camps, but insist on the primacy of the interests of the working-class, expressed in the form, “The Main Enemy Is At Home!” By these means, the Marxists seek to establish precisely that bridge which takes the working-class from the one condition of being subordinated to the other stage of being the dominant class, a process which, given the size of the working-class, in reality, means only the transformation of its consciousness, a transformation from being a class in itself to being a class for itself.

The petty-bourgeois socialist can never achieve that, because they only see the world in terms of a series of discrete events (stages), in which the working-class is enrolled only to support a “lesser-evil”. The working-class is, thereby, reduced to always being not a class for itself, but only a class for some other more powerful class, even though this other class only appears to be so, because it acts as a class for itself, whereas the workers do not.

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Anti-Duhring, Part I, Philosophy Dialectics, XII – Quantity and Quality - Part 1 of 14

Part I, Philosophy Dialectics, XII – Quantity and Quality

Engels quotes Duhring,

“The first and most important principle of the basic logical properties of being refers to the exclusion of contradiction. The contradictory is a category which can only appertain to a combination of thoughts, but not to reality. There are no contradictions in things, or, in other words, contradiction accepted as reality is itself the apex of absurdity ... The antagonism of forces measured against each other in opposite directions is in fact the basic form of all actions in the life of the world and its creatures. But this opposition of the directions taken by the forces of elements and individuals does not in the slightest degree coincide with the absurd idea of contradictions.” (p 150)

In other words, Duhring, much as with the TSSI, referred to previously, sees the world in terms of discrete units, be it of time or space, or of things existing within that time and space. These discrete units exist separated from one another (i.e. are each self-identical, and so static), and can only, thereby, be antagonistic to, or complementary to one another. In a different context, this same philosophical method, leads to “lesser-evilism”, and “campism”. In other words, the working-class may, indeed, be seen as such a discrete “self-identical” unit, but its role becomes one of being antagonistic to or complementary to some other, discrete, self-identical unit, such as the bourgeois state, “democratic imperialism”, or else “anti-capitalist”, or “anti-imperialist” forces, dependent upon a subjective determination of what represents the “lesser-evil”.

On this basis, the interests of the working-class can only be given primary consideration (though this is far from what those that operate on this basis say, abstractly, in their literature) when it, as such a self-identical static unit has, somehow, already become the dominating force in society. This is much like the way that Stalin argued that it was only legitimate to support and call for the creation of workers' soviets at the point that the proletarian revolution, and seizure of state power, i.e. the insurrection, was under way, as criticised by Trotsky in relation to the Chinese revolution, and Spanish Revolution.

It sees no connection between the two, of insisting, at all times, on the primacy of the interests of the working-class, and its independent activity, in support of those interests, and its own dynamic development, arising from that. It sees the working-class as just a static, self-identical thing, which is, now, not a dominating, but a dominated class, but which, at some other, “discrete” unit of time, in the future, may become, somehow, the dominating force, at which time, it becomes possible to agitate for, and insist on its interests being primary. The continuity, or as Duhring would call it, the “bridge” between these two, “self-identical” states is for them a mystery, just as Duhring could never identify, by his method, any such bridge between two “self-identical” static conditions, i.e. between stasis and motion.

The consequence of such a philosophical method is necessarily opportunism. It subordinates the working-class, in the here and now, to some other social-class, and its immediate interests. As Marx and Engels describe, in The Communist Manifesto, that is what various forms of reactionary socialists did, in the 19th century. Feudal Socialism, sought to attach the working-class to the old landed aristocracy, as it sought to protect its interests against the revolutionary bourgeoisie, by attacking the vicissitudes of industrial capital, and its effect on workers. That is what is still seen, today, in the shape of Toryism, Brexit protectionism and nationalism, and those sections of “the Left” that attach themselves to it.

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Anti-Duhring,Part I, Philosophy, XI – Morals and Law. Freedom and Necessity - Part 6 of 6

As Marx and Engels, and later Lenin, described, the bourgeois revolution does not arise as a product of conscious will. It arises, largely, behind Men's backs. The bourgeoisie do not arise as a class as an act of conscious self-will, but as a result of the fact that a section of a completely different class, the serfs, are released from the land, and, thereby, their means of subsistence, which, in turn, drives them into the towns to become independent commodity producers, which both expands the size of towns, as market places, and expands commodity production and exchange itself.

It is this change in material conditions, as commodity production and exchange expands, relative to direct production, that makes visible and significant the quantitative differences already existent within the class of petty producers. Those quantitative differences meant that previously the more efficient were simply  more affluent.  Each must, now, compete in the market, and, as Lenin explains in detail, this applies not only to the independent commodity producers in the towns, but also to the domestic industrial production of the peasant, who produces commodities in exchange for money, to pay rents and taxes, etc.

The more efficient, independent commodity producers become the winners in the competition between them, and thrive. But, now, the losers, instead of becoming slaves or paupers, see their competitors simply employ them as wage-labourers, and their own means of production taken from them becoming, thereby, transformed into capital. What were previously only quantitative differences are now transformed into a qualitative difference.  The victors become a new bourgeois/capitalist class, the losers a new, industrial proletariat.

Engels notes Duhring's comment, in relation to the stages of life of the individual, and appreciation of different stimuli, relevant to each successive stage.

“The method whereby total interest in life can be kept active” (a fitting task for philistines and those who want to become such!) “consists in allowing the particular and so to speak elementary interests, of which the total interest is composed, to develop or succeed each other in accordance with natural periods of time.” (p 149)

Applied to society, this succession of stages, and the interests relevant to it, can be seen in the “stages theory” of the Mensheviks, and adopted by the Stalinists and other reformists.

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Anti-Duhring,Part I, Philosophy, XI – Morals and Law. Freedom and Necessity - Part 5 of 6

Indeed, Duhring's view of history is rather like that of the TSSI that I have criticised in the past – one based upon comparative statics, of discrete units of time, stitched together, like still photographs rather than a motion picture. As such, it does not comprehend either motion or the role of contradiction, continuity and simultaneity. For it, things are one thing or another, and cannot simultaneously be both, despite the fact that this is, indeed, the nature of of material reality and movement.

“The philosophy of reality’s contempt for all past history is justified as follows:

“The few thousand years, the historical recollection of which has been facilitated by original documents, are, together with the constitution of mankind so far, of little significance when one thinks of the succession of thousands of years to come... The human race as a whole is still very young, and when in time to come scientific recollection has tens of thousands instead of thousands of years to reckon with, the intellectually immature childhood of our institutions becomes a self-evident premise undisputed in relation to our epoch, which will then be revered as hoary antiquity”.” (p 146)

It will, indeed, be the case, if humanity does not destroy itself, via thermonuclear, inter-imperialist war, that, in the millions of years it is able to prosper under a global, socialist society, everything, today, will seem incredibly primitive. But, as Engels noted, earlier, in relation to fire, it remains a more significant development than the use of fire to produce mechanical motion, because, without the ability to produce fire, all of the subsequent developments would have been impossible.

“this “hoary antiquity” will in any case remain a historical epoch of the greatest interest for all future generations, because it forms the basis of all subsequent higher development, because it has for its starting-point the moulding of man from the animal kingdom, and for its content the overcoming of obstacles such as will never again confront the associated men of the future.” (p 146)

But, also, as Engels notes, if humanity does survive into these future millennia, and its socialist foundations open up all of these unconstrained possibilities, not least the development of the truly human aspects of the individual, freed from the constraints of class, and material needs, why choose, as the point at which the “absolute truths” and laws, relating to this future, are established as being the closure of the period of previous history, of its “hoary antiquity”, i.e. up to the appearance on the scene of Herr Duhring?

Duhring has to explain the basis of movement from one “self-identical state” to another, and his basis for this applied both to the individual and to society is his “law of difference”. For the individual, this “law of difference” amounts to this. If we observe the nature of sensation, it amounts to the nervous system transmitting messages to the brain. If the given stimulus is persistent, the nerves become deadened, and it is only in a change of condition, and of stimuli that a change of sensation is noticed. Duhring says,

“At most the torment of boredom also enters into it as a kind of negative life impulse... A life of stagnation extinguishes all passion and all interest in existence, both for individuals and for peoples. But it is our law of difference through which all these phenomena become explicable.” (p 147)

In essence, Duhring is saying that, after long periods of history of doing the same thing, societies, as much as individuals, become bored, and choose to do something different! The fact of individuals and societies doing the same thing, day in day out, does lead to idiocy, as Marx and Engels noted, in relation to the bourgeois revolution rescuing millions from the idiocy of rural life, but that revolution was not the product of society consciously choosing to do something different. Still less was it a consequence of it doing so out of a sense of boredom!

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Anti-Duhring,Part I, Philosophy, XI – Morals and Law. Freedom and Necessity - Part 4 of 6

The more the facts relevant to making any decision are known, the more rationality dictates the necessity of a certain conclusion. If the facts are not known, then the possibility of various conclusions arise, and the validity of any particular conclusion is uncertain.

“Freedom of the will therefore means nothing but the capacity to make decisions with knowledge of the facts. Therefore the freer a man’s judgment is in relation to a definite point in question, the greater the necessity with which the content of this judgment will be determined; while the uncertainty, founded on ignorance, which seems to make an arbitrary choice among many different and contradictory possibilities of decision, shows precisely by this that it is not free, that it is commanded by the very object it should itself command. Freedom therefore consists in the command over ourselves and over external nature, a command founded on knowledge of natural necessity; it is therefore necessarily a product of historical development.” (p 144)

Engels makes the comparison between the discovery of the ability to produce fire by friction (mechanical motion) and the discovery of the ability to produce mechanical motion from fire, via the steam engine. The effect on production and the development of society by the latter is far greater than that of the former. However, the role of the former is far greater, because what it signifies is Man's separation from the animal kingdom for all time. It meant not only the ability to produce heat at will, reducing the constraint imposed by climate, but to cook food, considered important in the ability to consume and absorb sufficient nutrition for the development of the human brain. It also made possible the smelting of metals, production of pottery, glass and so on.

We might, now, draw a comparison with the development of cybernetics, genetics and so on, which offer the means of enabling human consciousness to free itself from the constraints of the human body, not to mention the implications of artificial intelligence.

“True, Herr Dühring's treatment of history is different. In general, as a story of error, ignorance and barbarity, of violence and subjugation, it is a repulsive object to the philosophy of reality; but considered in detail it is divided into two great periods, namely (1) from the self-identical state of matter up to the French Revolution, (2) from the French Revolution up to Herr Dühring; the nineteenth century remains

“still in essentially reactionary, indeed from the intellectual standpoint it is that (!) even more so than the eighteenth”. Nevertheless, it bears socialism in its womb, and therewith “the germ of a mightier regeneration than was imagined (!) by the forerunners and heroes of the French Revolution”. (p 145-6)

Duhring, therefore, sees no historical process, linking one epoch with another, and the creation of material conditions in one epoch, whose further development results in contradiction, and the resolution of that contradiction via social revolution, the replacement of the existing social relations by new ones, the creation of new forms of property, and social classes resting on them, as their personification, i.e. of class struggle, and consequently, also, to political revolution, as the political, ideological and legal superstructure is thrown into the air, and a new one, consistent with the new social relations is erected in its place.

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Anti-Duhring,Part I, Philosophy, XI – Morals and Law. Freedom and Necessity - Part 3 of 6

Engels turns, now, to the question of freedom and necessity. I have discussed this relation, elsewhere. At one extreme, absolute freedom would require the ability to act without any constraint, but that is only possible for a God. Everything else is constrained, at the very least, by natural laws. At the other extreme, an absolute absence of freedom implies no power to act, and only to be acted upon, such as with a rock, eroded by the elements etc. In between there is a gradation. Plants are constrained by the laws of nature, but they evolve, not as an act of conscious will, but purposively, they have a freedom of movement within narrow limits – to adapt to their environment. Animals are constrained by laws of nature, but can operate within them to their advantage. They have much greater freedom of movement and action than plants. Man is also constrained by natural laws, but represents a break from the animals by acting to consciously utilise those laws, and change the material conditions of his existence.

Duhring proposed two solutions to the problem. He writes,

“All false theories of freedom must be replaced by, what we know from experience is the nature of the relation between rational judgment on the one hand and instinctive impulses on the other, a relation which so to speak unites them into a single mean force. The fundamental facts of this form of dynamics must be drawn from observation, and must in general also be estimated, as closely as possible according to their nature and magnitude with regard to the calculation in advance of events which have not yet occurred. In this manner the silly delusions of inner freedom, which people have chewed and fed on for thousands of years, are not only thoroughly cleared away, but are replaced by something positive, which can be made use of for the practical regulation of life”. (p 143)

Duhring, therefore, posits absolute freedom as the expression of rational behaviour, and lack of freedom arising from instinctive behaviour. He doesn't ask what might lead to one or the other of these predominating over the other. For example, suppose I am playing tennis. Will I tend to act instinctively or deliberately over which stroke to play? If I live in a primitive society, where survival is tenuous, will I spend long periods rationalising how best to survive, or act instinctively to find food and shelter, as quickly as possible?

Instead, Duhring simply sees these two impulses always acting within the mind pulling in opposite directions, although recent research, in relation to things like sport, shows that instinctive reactions tend, more often than not, to, also, result in correct decisions.

Engels notes,

“On this basis freedom consists in rational judgment pulling a man to the right while irrational impulses pull him to the left, and in this parallelogram of forces the actual movement follows the direction of the diagonal. Freedom would therefore be the mean between judgment and impulse, between reason and unreason, and its degree in each individual case could be determined on the basis of experience by a “personal equation”, to use an astronomical expression.” (p 143)

How does this relate to morality? Engels quotes Duhring's later comment, which destroys his earlier argument.

“We base moral responsibility on freedom, which however means nothing more to us than susceptibility to conscious motives in accordance with our natural and acquired intelligence. All such motives operate with the inevitability of natural law, notwithstanding an awareness of the possible contradictions in the actions; but it is precisely on this unavoidable compulsion that we rely when we apply the moral levers”. (p 143)

In other words, moral behaviour depends upon freedom, and the ability to make rational decisions. As I have set out, elsewhere, circumstances might prevent rational judgement, and require an instinctive response. Durhing's second definition of freedom is, Engels says, just a vulgarisation of the Hegelian conception in which freedom is the recognition of necessity.

“Freedom does not consist in an imaginary independence from natural laws, but in the knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility which is thus given of systematically making them work towards definite ends. This holds good in relation both to the laws of external nature and to those which govern the bodily and mental existence of men themselves — two classes of laws which we can separate from each other at most only in thought but not in reality.” (p 144)

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