Lenin engages in a short digression on ethics. He quotes Engels from Anti-Duhring.
“Freedom is the appreciation of necessity.” (p 420)
I have written a post some time ago on this myself. (The Freedom of Reason)
Mikhailovsky confused determinism with fatalism. Whilst trying not to deny the operation of laws, Mikhailovsky falls between two stools, using Mirtov's idea that freedom of will is a fact of our consciousness. Lenin notes,
“It is clear that, applied to sociology, these ideas could provide nothing but a utopia or a vapid morality which ignores the class struggle going on in society. One therefore cannot deny the justice of Sombart’s remark that “in Marxism itself there is not a grain of ethics from beginning to end”; theoretically, it subordinates the “ethical standpoint” to the “principle of causality”; in practice it reduces it to the class struggle.” (p 420-21)
Struve attacked the Narodniks who claimed that the Russian intelligentsia was “non-estate”, and so was able to pursue “pure” ideas. But, Struve argues it is precisely that which makes it impotent. But, this is not enough, Lenin says, because, if, in fact, the position of the intelligentsia is considered, in the post Reform period, it can be seen that “Russia’s advanced, liberal, “democratic” intelligentsia was a bourgeois intelligentsia. The fact of the intelligentsia being “non-estate” in no way precludes the class origin of its ideas.” (p 421)
The bourgeoisie has always and everywhere opposed feudalism and the estate system in the name of the whole people, and it was right to do so, Lenin says, because “the institutions criticised were actually hampering everybody.” (p 422) Moreover, “the people” is undifferentiated. But, once capitalism develops, “the people” is differentiated, and so a class struggle ensues. The bourgeoisie's claims to have ended the system of estates is a fraud designed only to hide the fact that two new great class camps have been created in antagonism to each other.
Initially, in Russia, the Narodniks represent a largely undifferentiated peasantry, as against the liberals representing the bourgeoisie. But, the further economic development means that the differentiation of the peasantry into a rural bourgeoisie and rural proletariat becomes undeniable. The Narodniks rejected Marxism, which left them as simply representatives of the petty-bourgeoisie, of that section of the peasantry and handicraft producers that was in the process of differentiation. It meant they were left advocating liberal ideas.
“The Russian “non-estate intelligentsia,” therefore, represents “a real social force” inasmuch as it defends general bourgeois interests. If, nevertheless, this force was not able to create institutions suitable to the interests it defended, if it was unable to change “the atmosphere of contemporary Russian culture” (Mr. V. V.), if “active democracy in the era of the political struggle” gave way to “social indifferentism” (Mr. V. V. in Nedelya, 1894, No. 47), the cause of this lies not only in the dreaminess of our native “non-estate intelligentsia,” but, and chiefly, in the position of those classes from which it emerged and from which it drew its strength, in their duality. It is undeniable that the Russian “atmosphere” brought them many disadvantages, but it also gave them certain advantages.” (p 422-3)
Struve says that the necessity of the disintegration of the old system must be proved. But, this is a wrong formulation, Lenin says. If what is meant by the old system is serfdom then its not a question of necessity but of simply recognising an established fact. If what is meant is rather “people's production” then even Struve himself has said it is a fantasy. More or less immediately after the Reform, commodity production took hold, and the more commodity production took hold, the more this took the form of capitalist production. What was required, therefore, was not proof of necessity, but proof of the actual degree of disintegration.
Lenin says,
“... the Russian data also justify the law that “commodity economy is capitalist economy,” i.e., that in our country, too, commodity economy is growing everywhere into capitalist economy; it must be proved that everywhere a system prevails which is bourgeois in essence, and that it is the rule of this class, and not the famous Narodnik “chance happenings” or “policy,” etc., that lead to the liberation of the producer from the means of production and to his working everywhere for others.” (p 424)
But, this formulation is also not accurate. As Marx and Engels describe, commodity production and exchange go back 10,000 years, but did not lead to capitalist production or capitalist economy. For that, as Marx describes, in Theories of Surplus Value, a whole series of other historical conditions must exist. What Lenin should have said is, assuming the existence of all these other conditions, commodity production and exchange inevitably results in competition, which results in a concentration of the means of production in a few hands as capital, which results in production becoming capitalist production, and the economy becoming a capitalist economy.
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