What superficially exist as abstract categories – labour, money, value, production, exchange, distribution, property, nation, population – are, in fact, complex and contradictory phenomena, whose reality is historically determined, so that their nature is fundamentally different, depending upon the historical and social content in which they exist.
“and they retain their full validity only for and within the framework of these conditions.” (p 210)
Many biologists have attempted to explain human societies by analysing animal behaviour. One of the more popularised examples, from my youth, was Desmond Morris' The Human Zoo, and The Naked Ape. But, such approaches are facile and back to front. If you want to understand evolution, be it of species, or of social organisms, it is necessary to look at the mature form, and work back to see where the process of evolution was leading, and what material conditions meant that this rather than that set of characteristics were advantageous, and become dominant.
“The anatomy of man is a key to the anatomy of the ape. On the other hand, rudiments of more advanced forms in the lower species of animals can only be understood when the more advanced forms are already known. Bourgeois economy thus provides a key to the economy of antiquity, etc. But it is quite impossible (to gain this insight) in the manner of those economists who obliterate all historical differences and who see in all social phenomena only bourgeois phenomena. If one knows rent, it is possible to understand tribute, tithe, etc., but they do not have to be treated as identical.” (p 211)
Every society retains fragments of the societies that preceded it. They constitute reactionary forces that drag it backwards, if allowed to do so. The petty-bourgeoisie constitute such a reactionary force, as manifest, for example, in Brexit, and other such reactionary, petty-bourgeois, nationalistic demands for national self-determination, and so on. As Marx describes, in The Communist Manifesto, such reactionary forces sought to hold back, or even turn back, capitalist development, not just in the form of the petty-bourgeois Sismondists, but also the continued vestiges of feudal landlordism. They seek to present themselves in radical garb, as being “anti-capitalist”.
As I have set out in detail, Lenin also polemicised against such forces, represented by the Narodniks. And, even today, we have the same reactionary, petty-bourgeois forces that present themselves as “anti-capitalist”, “anti-monopoly”, “anti-imperialist” and so on, which was manifest in Britain over Brexit, but which was symptomatic of an overall strengthening of the position of the petty-bourgeoisie since the 1980's, and signified its capture of conservative parties in Britain, Europe and North America. It is also seen in relation to the social patriotism of the opposing camps in relation to the Ukraine-Russia War.
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