Once again, here, we see Marx's materialist method, in defining social development, and its parallels with the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection. If we examine the primitive commune, each of its members are treated equally. But, for the reasons Marx describes in The Critique of the Gotha Programme, referring to the first stage of communism, this equal treatment necessarily results in inequality, because not all humans are equal; some are stronger, some faster, some more intelligent. Equal treatment means that the natural advantages of the stronger, faster, fitter or more intelligent will result in inequality. However “desirable” it may have been, subjectively and morally, for everyone to be equal, and enjoy a high standard of living, objectively it was not possible, and society could not develop in that way.
As Engels describes in “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and The State”, the commune dissolves precisely because this equal treatment results in inequality. The stronger, fitter, faster and more intelligent members become increasingly differentiated from the rest. Some may become warrior chiefs, others astronomers/astrologers/priests and healers. Already, in these roles, a division of labour enables them to abstain from general labour, thereby, establishing the principle that the majority must labour in order that some may not.
The more beneficial position of some, within the commune, means that they see the potential to improve their position by turning some of their instruments of labour into private property, which can be passed down through their family, and this creates the conditions for the establishment of the family unit, as distinct from the commune. Once this process is underway, it means that these families that enjoy these privileged positions, can enhance them. As soon as labour productivity rises to a level where more can be produced by an individual in a day than is required for their own reproduction, it means their surplus product can be appropriated by someone else. It may take the form of becoming a servant in someone else's household, but logically leads to the development of slavery as a mode of production.
As Engels describes in Anti-Duhring, this process of the development of slavery can be explained solely by resort to material conditions, and economic self-interest. Slavery cannot be explained in terms of subjective sociology, morality or force. A slave cannot be brought into existence purely by force, because, unless labour productivity is sufficiently developed, the slave can produce no surplus product.
Moreover, as Marx comments, in his description of the scientific honesty of Ricardo, not only does this process have nothing to do with morality or subjective “desirability”, rather than being determined by objectively determinable natural laws, arising from material reality, but also, viewed in these terms, this very inequality that is a function of the process, which leads to wealth and power being concentrated in the hands of an elite few, is itself “desirable”, because it is by this means, and only by this means, that science and the forces of production are developed to the stage whereby that inequality can itself be ended by the “historic reversal”, which puts the means of production back into the hands of the associated producers themselves.
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