Responding more fully to Mikhailovsky's reference to Morgan and the concept about the reproduction of Man, Lenin says,
“The theory was that in order to “elucidate” history one must seek the foundations not in ideological, but in material social relations. Lack of factual material made it impossible to apply this method to an analysis of certain very important phenomena in ancient European history—for instance, that of gentile organisation—which in consequence remained a riddle. But then, the wealth of material collected by Morgan in America enabled him to analyse the nature of gentile organisation; and he came to the conclusion that its explanation must be sought not in ideological (e.g., legal or religious), but in material relations.” (p 150)
So, Morgan's work itself confirmed the theory Marx had proposed as an hypothesis. A more recent parallel would be Einstein's Theory of Relativity, which could only be postulated as a theory until such time as its hypotheses could be tested. Once it was possible to put very precise chronometers into space, and to measure time in space, compared to on the ground, it was possible to verify the hypothesis and show that time slows down at higher speeds.
“Secondly—argues our philosopher— procreation is not an economic factor. But where have you read in the works of Marx or Engels that they necessarily spoke of economic materialism? When they described their world outlook they called it simply materialism. Their basic idea (quite definitely expressed, for instance, in the passage from Marx quoted above) was that social relations are divided into material and ideological. The latter merely constitute a superstructure on the former, which take shape independent of the will and consciousness of man as (the result) the form of Man's activity to maintain his existence.” (p 151)
Mikhailovsky makes great play of the idea that procreation has physiological rather than economic roots. But, not only is this irrelevant, because Marx and Engels' theory is one of materialism not purely economic determinism, it fails to recognise that economics itself is essentially a study of how man goes about the process of his own reproduction and development. He goes from the physiological basis of reproduction to the idea that these physiological, sexual and family ties continue in importance. He says,
“They have, of course, undergone considerable modification under the pressure of the increasing complexity of life in general, but with a certain amount of dialectical dexterity it might be shown that not only legal, but also economic relations themselves constitute a superstructure on sexual and family relations.” (p 151)
Mikhailovsky's chosen vehicle for this argument that institutions and ideas flow from these sexual and family relations is the existence of inheritance. Mikhailovsky writes,
“What is transmitted by inheritance is the products of economic production” (“the products of economic production”!! How literate! How sonorous! What elegant language!) “and the very institution of inheritance is to a certain degree determined by the fact of economic competition. But, firstly, non-material values are also transmitted by inheritance—as expressed in the concern to bring up children in the spirit of their fathers.” So the upbringing of children is part of the institution of inheritance! The Russian Civil Code, for example, contains a clause saying that “parents must endeavour by home upbringing to train their” (i.e., their children's) “morals and to further the aims of government.” Is this what our philosopher calls the institution of inheritance?—“and, secondly, even confining ourselves solely to the economic sphere, if the institution of inheritance is inconceivable without the products of production transmitted by inheritance, it is just as unthinkable without the products of procreation, without them and without that complex and intense psychology which directly adheres to them.” (p 152)
As Lenin points out, it is a strange conception of inheritance that defines it in terms of the upbringing of children, and the idea that inheritance can be explained by procreation, because without it there are no children who can inherit, is equally fatuous.
“Why, this is a veritable discovery of America! Until now everybody believed that procreation can explain the institution of inheritance just as little as the necessity for taking food can explain the institution of property. Until now everybody thought that if, for instance, in the era when the fief system flourished in Russia, the land was not transmissible by inheritance (because it was regarded as conditional property only), the explanation was to be sought in the peculiarities of the social organisation of the time. Mr. Mikhailovsky presumably thinks that the explanation of the matter is simply that the psychology which adhered to the products of procreation of the fief holder of that time was distinguished by insufficient complexity.” (p 152-3)
And, of course, as Engels demonstrates in “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and The State”, based on Morgan's work, although human society has always produced children, it has not always had inheritance. Inheritance can only arise after private property itself arises. Even in terms of Mikhailovsky's definition of inheritance as the upbringing of children, this applies, because, in the primitive commune, the upbringing of children is itself a collective not a private function.
“Scratch the “friend of the people”—we may say, paraphrasing the familiar saying—and you will find a bourgeois.” (p 153)
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