Engels on the Subject Matter and Method of Political Economy and the
Coming Revolution
By Thomas Riggins
What is the subject matter and method of political economy according
to Engels? First, though, what is political economy? Today we tend to
teach economics as a special discipline and political science as
another separate subject. This is an attempt by the bourgeoisie to
keep politics and economics independent of one another. Marx and
Engels, as did most nineteenth century thinkers, thought they were
closely interrelated.
Political economy for Engels was the study of the laws governing the
PRODUCTION and EXCHANGE “of the material means of subsistence in human
society." While production and exchange are human functions they are
intimately related to each other and have a reciprocal causative
relationship.
However, there are many different ways to carry out production and
exchange and they vary from society to society and culture to culture.
Thus: “Political economy is therefore essentially a HISTORICAL
science.” By which Engels means its laws are not like those of physics
– the same for all – but conditioned by historical circumstances.
Nevertheless there are some general statements that can made. For
example, Engels thinks it doesn’t matter what society you are dealing
with the modes of production and exchange will CONDITION the way the
society distributes its social product.
He says large and small scale farming always have very different
distribution patterns. This is because the former is associated with
class struggle (masters and slaves, lords and serfs, capitalists and
wage slaves) while the latter can exist without class struggle (i.e.,
without classes).
Modern large scale industry can be contrasted with medieval local
handicraft production controlled by guilds. The latter lacks large
capitalists and permanent wage slaves and the former is, along with
the modern credit system and "free competition" (the exchange form of
modern industry and credit) responsible for both these new classes.
Differences in distribution leads to CLASS DIFFERENCES and the
development of the STATE which originally came about to defend small
groups from external aggression and to protect the common interests
(irrigation systems in the East according to Engels). As classes begin
to develop the state takes on another function, that "of maintaining
by force the conditions of existence and domination of the ruling
class against the subject class."
New forms of distribution are not simply neutral developments of the
interaction of the MODE OF PRODUCTION and the FORM OF EXCHANGE. In
fact as new modes of production and exchange develop the old forms of
distribution, the state, and the laws act as drags trying to maintain
the older forms of distribution. The new mode production and exchange
faces a long struggle before it can cast off the older forms of
distribution.
Engels thought that capitalism, in his time about three hundred years
old, was undergoing just such an antithesis in its forms of
distribution which was leading to its downfall. He described the
antithesis as follows: on the one hand CONCENTRATION OF CAPITAL at one
pole of society (that of the bourgeoisie) and at the other pole
CONCENTRATION OF THE PROPERTYLESS MASSES without much capital into
cities and towns. He thought that as far a capitalism goes this double
concentration "must of necessity bring about its downfall."
Well, Engels' timing was a bit off and the development of monopoly
capitalism (modern imperialism), two world wars, premature revolutions
in underdeveloped regions of the world, and the development of vast
new markets in the third world have postponed the day of reckoning.
Capitalism is now over 450 years old and the CONCENTRATIONS Engels
spoke of are even greater and more unstable. Capitalism has, in fact,
run out of places to go and can no longer rely on the expansion of new
markets to pull it out of the disruptions and market collapse caused
by cyclical overproduction. The DOWNFALL expected by Engels is once
again on the agenda and the current inability of the US, Europe,
Japan, and much of the rest of the world to overcome the present world
wide capitalist crisis means that the final conflict may be closer
than any of us thinks.
As long as capitalist production is on the rise everyone, Engels says,
welcomes it, even the victims of its way of distributing its products.
Capitalism just seems to be the way economics works. The first hints
that something is wrong with the system does NOT come from "the
exploited masses themselves" – it comes from "within the ruling class
itself." Engels gives as examples the great utopians Saint-Simon,
Fourier and Owen.
The appearance of these early objectors indicates that the system has
reached the top of its curve and is just beginning to decline. The
utopians became aware of the horrible conditions of living the system
was forcing upon its wage slaves and were full of moral indignation.
But, Engels says, "moral indignation, however justifiable, cannot
serve economic science as an argument, but only as a symptom."
If capitalist horrors became more and more manifest in Engels' day
just think what they are like today. Millions around the world are
unemployed or living in poverty and even slavery (or should I say
billions) – armed conflicts on every continent save Australia and
Antarctica over resources and land, and the very oceans as well as the
atmosphere, is in the process of being destroyed in the pursuit of
capitalist profits.
The duty of economists is to explain how all of this is the
consequence of the capitalist mode of production (although many
economists prostitute themselves in the service of the system for the
rewards of position and money at the cost of truth) and beyond that
"to reveal, within the already dissolving economic form of motion, the
elements of the future new organisation of production and exchange
which will put an end to those abuses." Today only the communist,
socialist, and workers parties are able to do this on a grand scale.
In his day, Engels pointed out that political economy had concentrated
on the analysis of the capitalist system and had not yet described
other modes of production from the past. In the century or so since
his death this has been remedied by Marxist historians,
archaeologists, anthropologists, linguists and others.
In the meantime capitalism has developed even greater productive
capacities than Engels imagined – but these "colossal productive
forces" the capitalists can no longer control – they can't control
their exploitation of the earth without destroying it – Exxon Mobil,
BP and other giant oil companies, they can't mine it with polluting
its water and air, blowing off the tops of its mountains, creating
huge rivers of toxic sludge, cutting down it rain forests and melting
its glaciers and driving thousands of species toward extinction.
It only remains for us to show that all the vast powers of production
the capitalists can no longer control "are only waiting to be taken
possession of by a society organized for co-operative work on a
planned basis to ensure to all members of society the means of
existence and the free development of their capacities and indeed in
constantly increasing measure." We should be yelling this from the
roof tops: "We're mad as Hell and we're not going to take it anymore!"
Put that in your tea bag and brew it. If the BP oil "spill" in the
Gulf of Mexico doesn't convince you that the power of modern industry
cannot be safely left in the control of for profit corporations, I'm
afraid nothing will.
The science of political economy can be traced back to the beginnings
of capitalism. Its most famous proponent was Adam Smith (The Wealth of
Nations) but it was also advanced by the great French thinkers of the
Enlightenment. However, Engels points out, these thinkers thought they
were dealing with universal laws of economics, just as physical
scientists propose universal laws of nature.
"To them," Engels says, "the new science was not the expression of the
conditions and requirements of their epoch, but the expression of
eternal reason; the laws of production and exchange discovered by this
science were not the laws of a historically determined form of those
activities, but eternal laws of nature; they were deduced from the
nature of man."
It was the work of Marx, and Engels, that really matured this science
and saw that rather than eternal laws of nature economic laws of
production and distribution were relative to economic systems –
feudalism, capitalism, etc. This is one reason Engels, in his book
Anti-Dühring, could hold Dühring in such disdain who could write,
after Das Capital, that he would, in his own words, explain "the most
general LAWS OF NATURE governing all economics...."
There are a few more ideas exposited by Herr Dühring that Engels wants
to correct. First Dühring thinks that capitalists, for instance, use
FORCE as a means to exploit working people. Engels says this is wrong.
Engels maintains that EVERY socialist worker KNOWS that force does not
cause exploitation it only PROTECTS it: "the relation between capital
and wage –labour is the basis of" exploitation and this relation is an
economic one not one based on force.
Engels says Dühring also confounds the difference between PRODUCTION
and CIRCULATION (i.e., exchange) by lumping them together under and
heading of production and then adds DISTRIBUTION as a second and
INDEPENDENT department of the economy. Far from this being the case,
Engels tells us, distribution is in fact DEPENDENT on the production
and exchange relations of any given society. In fact, if we know these
two relations for any given historical society we can "infer the mode
of distribution" in it.
So, Engels' point is that, after a rough start in the seventeenth
century and blooming forth in the Enlightenment, the science of
political economy became fully scientific in the last half of the 19th
century with the theories of Marx and the work of those economists who
were influenced by him. Through their work working people the world
over slowly became aware of their true role in production and
distribution (the creation of surplus value) and how it is the
exploitation of their labor power that is the basis of the capitalist
system.
It is important to note that, for Marxists, it is not the idea that
capitalism is somehow unjust and immoral (a la Dühring) that is the
key point. Engels writes: "If for the impending overthrow of the
present mode of distribution of the products of labour, with its
crying contrasts of want and luxury, starvation and surfeit, we had no
better guarantee than the consciousness that this mode of distribution
is unjust, and that justice must eventually triumph, we should be in a
pretty bad way, and we might have a long time to wait."
Engels appears to be a bit too optimistic. We are still waiting for
the "impending overthrow" of capitalism. It has been overthrown in a
few places but it has also been restored in large areas where it was
previously overthrown. So, I think we are still waiting for a general
overthrow – which is long overdue. We should be impatient, but not
unduly so. We have been waiting a hundred years or so while many of
our fellows have been waiting over two thousand years for the
overthrow of this earthly order with even less likelihood of being
gratified. But we still "might have a long time to wait."
Well, just why did Engels think we would have a short wait? The reason
was that unlike previous centuries when the only forces opposed to the
exploitation of the masses of people by the few were based on appeals
to morality or ethics, the nineteenth century saw the creation of a
MATERIAL FORCE, not an ideal or religious one, that could actually
contest and overthrow the existing economic order based on
exploitation.
Two great revolutions had recently created movements calling for the
end of class exploitation and for the equality of the people – the
English and French bourgeois revolutions. But these movements, Engels
says "up to 1830 had left the working and suffering classes cold." But
in Engels' day this call and this movement has in one generation
"gained a strength that enables it to defy all the forces combined
against it and to be confident of victory in the near future."
What made Engels so confident? There were two factors. First, modern
industrial capitalism had created a working class ("called into being"
a proletariat) that not only had the power to overthrow class
privilege but the class system itself and further this is something it
must do "on pain of sinking to the level of the Chinese coolie."
Second, the bourgeoisie "has become incapable of any longer
controlling the productive forces" created by modern industry. The
bourgeoisie is "a class under whose leadership society is racing to
ruin like a locomotive whose jammed safety-valve the driver is to weak
to open."
History has a way of sometimes frustrating our expectations. To the
working people of the generation following that of Engels, Lenin and
the Russian Revolution represented the promise of the socialist
victory. The bourgeois locomotive went off the rails and the resulting
crash created two world wars and brought down the colonial empires of
the Western Powers (at least de jure.)
However, unbeknownst to Engels, another engine was waiting in the
roundhouse. This was the engine of US imperialism which reconstructed
the failed bourgeois system after the Second World War and brought
about the downfall of the Russian Revolution. For a generation the
call for the abolition of the classes left the workers of the US and
it allies once again cold.
Meanwhile, against all expectations, the "Chinese coolies" had
liberated themselves and created their own working class and are now
creating a modern society based on a mixed economy. However, Engels
was not too far off the mark. The advanced workers (in terms of pay
scales) of the West are seeing their incomes sinking to the level of
the Chinese. This will continue unless they "warm up" to the idea of
socialism.
What are the future chances of socialism? Engels two factors are still
at work. Capitalism is ripe for overthrow. As far as factor one is
concerned. The class consciousness of the workers directed towards
this end does not seem to be as developed as in Engels day. This is
due to the massive pro capitalist propaganda both in the educational
system and the mass media. But this hold is weakening and working
people around the world are slowly beginning to wake up from their
long sleep and see capitalism for what it really is. A naked system of
human exploitation that can and must be replaced.
As for the second factor. The bourgeoisie is out of control! The rain
forests, the oceans and the atmosphere are being destroyed by their
run away system. These words of Engels are absolutely true today:
"both the productive forces created by the modern capitalist mode of
production and the system of distribution of goods established buy it
have come into crying contradiction with that mode of production
itself, and in fact to such a degree that, if the whole of modern
society is not to perish, a revolution in the mode of production and
distribution must take place, a revolution that will put an end to all
class distinctions."
Unfortunately, I cannot agree with Engels that these two factors give
me confidence that the Revolution will soon arrive. But that our
society will perish if it doesn't seems all too apparent.
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