Historical Materialism and the Economics of Karl Marx | Page 9

by the
materialistic theory of history?
That section of Labriola's book which discusses this appears to me
excellent and sufficient. Labriola points out how historical narration in
the course of its development, might have arrived at the theory of
historical-factors; i.e., the notion that the sequence of history is the
result of a number of forces, known as physical conditions, social
organizations, political institutions, personal influences. Historical
materialism goes beyond, to investigate the interaction of these factors;
or rather it studies them all together as parts of a single process.
According to this theory -- as is now well known, and as Marx
expressed it in a classical passage -- the foundations of history are the
methods of production, i.e. the economic conditions which give rise to
class distinctions, to the constitution of rank and of law, and to those
beliefs which make up social and moral customs and sentiments, the

reflection whereof is found in art, science and religion.
To understand this point of view accurately is not easy, and it is
misunderstood by all those who, rather than take it in the concrete, state
it absolutely after the manner of an absolute philosophical truth. The
theory cannot be maintained in the abstract without destroying it, i.e.
without turning it into the theory of the factors, which is according to
my view, the final word in abstract analysis.(6*) Some have supposed
that historical materialism asserts that history is nothing more than
economic history, and all the rest is simply a mask, an appearance
without reality. And then they labour to discover the true god of history,
whether it be the productive tool or the earth, using arguments which
call to mind the proverbial discussion about the egg and the hen.
Friedrich Engels was attacked by someone who applied to him to ask
how the influence of such and such other historical factors ought to be
understood in reference to the economic factor. In the numerous letters
which he wrote in reply, and which now, since his death, are coming
out in the reviews, he let it be understood that, when together with
Marx, upon the prompting of the facts, he conceived this new view of
history, he had not meant to state an exact theory. In one of these letters
he apologists for whatever exaggeration he and Marx may have put into
the controversial statements of their ideas, and begs that attention may
be paid to the practical applications made of them rather than to the
theoretical expressions employed. It would be a fine thing, he exclaims,
if a formula could be given for the interpretation of all the facts of
history! By applying this formula, it would be as easy to understand
any period of history as to solve a simple equation.(7*)
Labriola grants that the supposed reduction of history to the economic
factor is a ridiculous notion, which may have occurred to one of the too
hasty defenders of the theory, or to one of its no less hasty
opponents.(8*) He acknowledges the complexity of history, how the
products of the first degree first establish themselves, and then isolate
themselves and become independent; the ideals which harden into
traditions, the persistent survivals, the elasticity of the psychical
mechanism which makes the individual irreducible to a type of his
class or social position, the unconsciousness and ignorance of their own

situations often observed in men, the stupidity and unintelligibility of
the beliefs and superstitions arising out of unusual accidents and
complexities. And since man lives a natural as well as a social
existence, he admits the influence of race, of temperament and of the
promptings of nature. And, finally, he does not overlook the influence
of the individual, i.e. of the work of those who are called great men,
who if they are not the creators, are certainly collaborators of history.
With all these concessions he realises, if I am not mistaken, that it is
useless to look for a theory, in any strict sense of the word, in historical
materialism; and even that it is not what can properly be called a theory
at all. He confirms us in this view by his fine account of its origin,
under the stimulus of the French Revolution, that great school of
sociology -- as he calls it. The materialistic view of history arose out of
the need to account for a definite social phenomenon, not from an
abstract inquiry into the factors of historical life. It was created in the
minds of politicians and revolutionists, not of cold and calculating
savants of the library.
At this stage someone will say: -- But if the theory, in the strict sense,
is not true, wherein then lies the discovery? In what does the novelty
consist? To speak in this way is to betray