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    Schumpeter's discussion about the sociological and economical implications of this great political document (perhaps the most important one since the Vindication of the Human Rights) of the twentieth century

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    57 views14 pages

    The Comunist Manifesto in Economics and Sociology - Schumpeter

    Uploaded by

    Ian Caetano
    Schumpeter's discussion about the sociological and economical implications of this great political document (perhaps the most important one since the Vindication of the Human Rights) of the twentieth century

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO IN SOCIOLOGY AND ECONOMICS JOSEPIC A, SCHUMPETER 11s paper is to appraise the posi- I tion of the Communist Masifeso in the history of scientific sociology aiid economics and incidentally in Marx's own scicntifie work (Sees. IIT and IV). Some of the necessary framework will be provided and some extra-scien- tile aspects will he noticed first Sees. [ and 1), But [wish to emphasize at the putset that this isin no sense an essay in Marxology, that is, in what has by now become a special discipline of Marx the man and the thinker; and also that, but for ap inevitable minimum, ¥ shall neg lect many of those things that readers might expect to find in & centenary ap- praisal. Very obviously, the Manifesto vwas more than a piece of analysis. But it igas apiece of analysis that Lam going to discuss it, without any intention, if this need be added, of either debunking or loriying it Friedrich Engels’ Preface to 8. Moore's English translation of the Manifesto, "We cnerely note, fom Bagel Proface that dhe Commsintt tontesie was written, tn Geran, in Tansey sSap, and sent tothe printer” eal fm in London) in February that the fist Presb ‘randasion becime avaiablebefore Jute of the mise Vrst Enaish one in GJ. Tracy's ar [Laren fr 1Sgos itt the est aan ws published in the perdi ib bnokeme fem Wahl and Clopia's Wabis ‘hae Konan tration Buus) appeseed in ‘Spo, aouther (Plehapoy's) in take, There were several arsations into aie lager betore the frit of the 18804 Lew before the German Soci Desntie party placed itself on Meict groun Theauthentic German edit of rps tna particule interest because of arn’ aod Engel’ joint Prelace dated London, January 30, 1888, tells us all we need to know about the nature of the publication, the conditions under which it appeared, and its fortunes, Later research, including the work of the Mars Engels Institute, has added a number of details and corrected others, none of which, however, is of importance to our purpose.’ But Engels’ Preface itself is important for us in several respects. First, Engels made it quite clear that the pamphict should not be called the manifesto of a communist party, for the communist group that “commissioned!” Marx and Engels to write its “platform” did not amount to anything like what is usually meant by a “party.” The Com- munist League, suceessor of the League of the Just, was a small group founded for purpose’ of education and propagan- a that should not have been called @ ““workingmen’s association” either, for both its original German membership and the allies that it found later in vari- fous Wester capitals of Europe consisted mainly of isolated individuals who were intellectuals rather than manual work- ers. The group, dissolved in 1852 (after the “Communist trials” of Cologne), ‘was numerically insignificant and is not known to have exerted any influence on the contents of the Manifesie. Viewed from the standpoint of the latter, it was hardly more than a “letterhead.” Second, Engels’ Preface explains why the classic document of modern socialism should have been called the communist raanifesto, In 1847, 0 he told his readers, 199 socialism had become a respectable middle-class movement, ie, it had ceased to be a working-class movement and revolutionary. Using a later expres- sion, we may say that socialists—or, more correctly, some of them—had be: come “reformist.” Still more important vwas it for Marx and Engels to distance themselves from the various groups of “utopian” socialists that were then no longer being taken seriously. Rather than risk being mised up with these groups, they resolutely ranged themselves with the “crude, rougbhewn, purely: instine- tive communism” which they attributed to at least a portion of the working elass ‘This resolve accounts for, and in part ex uses, Marx’s and Engels’ failure to ree ‘ognize doctrinal priorities of to ‘writers in several important points Thied, with admirable tact and feeling, Engels. “considered himself bound to state that the fundamental proposition which forms its [the Marrifesto's] nucle- us, belongs to Marx,” while reserving his own claims to the extent that both he and Mary had been moving independent- ly of each other toveard that proposition for “some years before 1845”—pechaps since 1843. For this he offered his Condi- fion of the Working Class in England i 184 as evidence which there is no reason to refuse, on the understanding that the undeniable difference between the two men in depth of comprehension ant ana lytic power be appropriately balanced against the fact that in those years Engels was certainly farther along, as an ‘economist, than was Marx. 2 We sholl dou with thi “nuclews” at longth (Seon IH and 1V below), ince tent all Cat ‘of scentie interest inthe Monies. ut Engels’ eet seaering of [on p. 6 9f the Iotersational Publishers diy page rlerences |Brouhout ext te to this eiian) 1s strongly recommended to rhe Teadersattetion, Were no fr enoaderstions of pace F should quote iin fl JOSEPIT A, SCHUMPETER Fourth, Engels was far from wishing to claim for the Manifesto any causal im- portance in the course of social history; in fact, he could not have done so with: out contradicting the Marxist interpre- tation of history. But he claimed much too much ior the First International (p-4), which, “on its breaking up in 1874, Jeft the workers quite diferent men from what it hadl found them in 1864," And, on the lower level on which a Marsist is bound to keep when speaking of a mere document, Engels was the victim of a similar optical delusion as rogards the Monifeso, Por him, the Manifesio not only “reflects, to some extent, the history of the modern working-class movernent” but also is “the common platform ac- Knowiedged by millions of workingmen fom Siberia {0 California” (p. 5). This ‘must mean, if anything, that the history of the modern working-class movement is correctly interpreted by the fragmen- tary theory of the Manifesio—whercas it is quite clear thatt isnot, because, not to mention other reasons, the increasing s0- cial and political weight of the working class has been a result of increasing real vwages per head, hence the consequence of a development the very possibility of which Marxism (especially in 1848) ex- plicitly denied. [t must also mean that the ideology of the proletariat, or of a large part of it, was (in 1888) Correctly rensdered by the class-strugale ideology of the Monifesto whereas itis equally clear that this was not the ease for the 2 the question of the aehovements of the Fist Interaional as ben verge in mist, ong #0 the Joint ellots of ie adcrent and fis exemses, bot ft ehom vied with each other for oppaite reasons, fh Ssngzerating fs inuonce Bi Tesh be eet {hat Haid not amount fa'm rest deal, singe the Uraleunioneleent that way sepreseste lent but ‘quoliied support aad siace the eet ofthe membec: Ship consisted of persons sehnse own opinion about their importance was shared hy nob except a few police slices. ‘THR COMMUNIST MANIFESTO large majority of workers and that, at best, only small minorities then followed the Marxist lag. However, so imbued are many of us with the idea that the ar- gument of the Communist Manifesto re- fects either social reality or the modal workman's genuine attitude toward his class position in capitalist society that it seems worth while, before we proceed, to scrutinize this part of the Marxist saya. ‘The reader will presently be able to satisiy himself that [ have no intention of minimizing the intellectual performance embodied in the Commuist Manifesto Bul no amount of respect for it can alter te fact that its position ia the history of socialist thought is closely wound up with the acceptance of Marxism, first, by smal] but efficient groups in France and Russia and, second and more important, by the great Social Democratic party of Germany (Erfurt Program, 1891), But this accepptance which raised the Mani- {esto to the place it occupies now was not 's conversion to the one and only possible truth, not a victory of light over dark- ness, not the socialist day of Damascus, but a tactical move that was very possi bly a tactical mistake—as the compari- son of German and English develop- ments suggests, Some doubters —not less stalwart socialists than the Marxists: arose practically at once, and the revi- sionist controversy was in full swing be- fore Tong. Tf the party was unable to make short work of these doubters and, hhad to be content with a formal recanta- tion that did mot mean much, this was because the masses, especially the trade- unions, responded to them and failed to take kindly to the class-struggle philoso- phy of the Manifesta, True, extensive pedagogical efforts in the party schools eventually did convert an increasing number of them; but substantially that situation—the unavowed rift between the party, which was dominated by Marist intellectuals, and the trade tuaions, which were much more directly under the control of the workmen-—per- sisted and ereated difcultes throughout hhecause the masses felt that the Marxist ideology was not their own but that itsas imposed upon them by intelocnals sche Ioad adopted another intellectuals idea of ‘what their ideology ought tobe ul All that matters for us, within the limited purpose of this paper, is to be found in the first of the four sections of the Manifest, Not that the ather three sare uninteresting: here and there, we are impressed by a sparkle or an arristingly bitter phrase oF a clever squil. But th belong tothe historian of political thought rather than to the historian of economic analysis. We may therefore deal summarily with them. Let us glance at the last section frst, the one that issues in the resouniing call —Sworkingmen of all countries, unite —and, iinmediately before that, in the treacherous phrase which sounds so wrong in the light of more recent dev ‘opments, namely, that ina revolution “the proletarigns have nothing: to lose ‘but their chains." For the rest, this see- tion discusses the principle of temporary tactical alliances with nonsocialist par {ios and in its two pages contains a num- ber of statements that Mars and Engels themselves felt to he obsolete in 1672. We also notice, with a wey smile, the admonitory statement that “communists disdain to conceal their views, ‘The third section an socialist and com- rmunist literature is devoted to the evitable task of discrediting all the ‘groups that sponsored competitive (and highly substitutable) currents of thought. Everything considered, the job is well 202 done, and our quarzel should not be with what Marx and Engels wrote but with those who take this sort of thing serious- ly. There is, however, a point about this series of vituperations that is of interest to the man primarily concemed with analysis. Each indictment especially that of the “reactionary” socialism of the feudal and official classes and that of the psende-socialism of the bourgeois clas, not so much that of the utopians—is drawn up according to a definite schema, Marx and Engels realized that every group or “movement” needs same ideas ‘with which to verbalize itself, some inte fat from which to derive support, and some organization through which to act. Within their general irame of thought (Gee below, Sec. TMD this conception took ‘a particular form: the interest was de- fined as economic class interest; the or szanization as wel as the ideas were pure ly derivative and determined by the cle- ‘cumstances of the class and the means that its positon in the economic and so- cial structure put within its each. And they proceeded to analyze the various types af socialism and quasi-socialism at which they aimed in terais of this meth od. They refrained, of course, from ap: plying the principle involved to comamu- nisin of their ov brand, but, hovwever distorted by the bias inseparable from their polemical purpose, it worked fairly successfully with “feudal” and bour- igeois” socialisms oF reformisms: there is, g.,a considerable amount of truth, even though not the whole truth, in’ their analysis of the manner in which sectors fof the aristocracies and yentries of Eu rope were driven back upon_prolabor policies by the rise of the bourgeois power+ Inthe second section Marx and Engels altended to two very necessary tasks. ‘The one was to protect the communism JOSEPH A. SCHUMPETER Which they meant to stand for against popular aspersions. Following a hallowed practice of all ages, they selected these asporsions wisely and stated them at the lowest possible level—just as radicals do today. Aided by this device, they ay did a yood job-—a masterpiece in fact, in cluding the opponents’ strong points and replacing fact and reasoning by emphatic sssertion—“the workingmen. have no country"—whenever convenient. The necessity of the other task arose from the fact that no group can do without an ‘immediate program” unless it is pre- pared to put itself (politically) out of the running. It was all very well to proclaim the principles of organizing the proletar ‘at 30 a8 to enable "it" to step into the pasion of a ruling class, to eonquer po litical power, and to wrest—but, mind, “iy degrees” all capital from the bour” gecisie, “to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state . and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible” (p. 30) “The spiteful ssection on Germano “trae” socialite (abuied in the eatee) of "retary fecitsa’) should not go unmentioned It ied figured by persmal venient ts are nt uralina tna who ance had been a would be Pritdoen Dut contalnssone hing at ake mo nly amusing ‘but also ive the Kind of (rath th i in every minlevolent caricature. 1 could havever nut bape {esrn the geste of reer by goings ‘Tania was the fest rogue sodaist to admit ciesely thet the paletarit never coal o wd frupcipate ici” ey witont beng cers hy intellect * Phisisns nearas Mex ever went in denn he ‘ontouce of the scala economy” As exeryborly Keng, hi slentie wove wa emttely devoted to fxplning the esplulist proces with 9 view to fvoving that it vou, bye o i ag Lure fata macalinn. He thieby creed a difeliy for Lis followers hich Usey never overcame tse wa dn for her by ects of bourses complex fon, expec by Barone. By Inpiaton, however, that presge ithe Committ Miferts covert nore roam chan it sec to dat few sigh a5 theraer will easy perceive. Gbserve in paeticuar ‘THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO But foliowers, if there were to be any, were bound to ask: Yes; but what wou? And Marx faced the question, In presenting his answer, he was ver obviously aware of a dificulty: the deca- logue oF measures that he felt able to draw up Was sure to sound insipid after all the glowing chetorie that had gone be- Tore. So he protfered comfort to the faith- ful, frst, by calling these measures “des- potic intoads on the rights of property and on the conditions of bourgeois pre duction”? and, second, by pointing out-~ very truly-—that these measures, “though economically insufficient and wenfennble my italics,” tend to “outstrip them- selves” and will necessitate further in roacls upon the old social order. After this, ne further comment is nee ed on the decalogue (p, 30), from the abolition of property in land and the heavily progressive income tax, through the government national bank and the “ext owned by the state,” to the free education of all chi dren in public schools, except this. tion 8 reads: “Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies [my italics), especially for agriculture.” Bul for this Hitlerian item and the cx tension of public enterprise, the program might have secured J. S. Mill's blessing, hhul it been submitted to him, Anything really incompatible with the bourgeois ‘economics of the time~so far as repre- sented by J.S. svas conspicuous by on of factories {hat Alara—sho thereby proved how desply rented hereasineighisenth-centryyatnalism took it for granted at The “proetiit,” feed hath Fr Tnurjene inition and fom the eapialet ‘could ave: noimoce resting ines than 10 span sacety's “productive forces Thos consersative Republicans of our dey hve the authors Mas ssl fr eating bey prowessve insiene tac. despotic inpand fon the rghis of property" —eespetulysubaat 203 absence, eg, any tampering with profits cor with free trade. um For the purpose of analyzing the scien- tific contents of the Manifesto (Sec. 1) we shall introduce a distinction that is rot to everyone's taste and in particular entirely non-Marsist® but presents de ve expository advantages the dis- tinction between economic sociology and economics, By “economic sociology” (the Gorman Wirtschaftssotiologie) we denote the description and interpretation—or ‘Interpretative eco. nomically eelevant institutions, including description" —of * By ancpaan, Tv recogni that he se mont af the feet steion af the Afonso sithin the range of empincal wien. Neverteles, Tsball adit and even eniasoe tha i as forms Ibtes an idcology In fact, [have dane sp already in the preceting pr of thi piper. There howe to eantadicion tn this an adelagen) conception ray be developed or implemented by scentiic {ole uf dnatie and a iene place of wore inay contin any amaunt of Keo ey of ext Sientte preconceptions hope that thls wil be- feome clear ae-ve po alo (Lave tre to expin {Us pat ato in'my Presdeniat Ades atthe American Hennamie, Aenstion’ anal meeting at toi see tmcrcon Femmemie Kevee, Mace, ‘ool. For Ghe Ge being, ii slices to sate that colonies are nt necessarily woong” tht is, Hot necevariy" Incpahle of scieie. were apd that, even If thay ate, they dono necessarily Sextroy theeesentie natoreand val heals Srih which they ae amalaamatel ° ison seen feature ofthe Marist system shat rcs the sca proces 9s Canale) fnvible whole and ses tly ane concep schema inal its putt. Exaple: most of usu the ence "socal cass” forthe purpres of eaciehgy nly inthe “pure” economies of today tere are nneinnes inthis sense hat aly elses inthe sense Uf economic entegoren, ey of ely of ical that have sone eunomiecharcerte fo commen But with Mure the sola cise tht is @ Uving feeling, acting sciolricl entity (sal the el othiseeonomic theory One can fully renee and feven ade the Marnst conception from the ended of whieh the sconumcelaies of "pee ‘ono left bonis specter whoa relations Ianeanother ate tipped of Ui aoa conten” as Marsiss sya et consider ian inpedinent To efeeuve anal 208 habits and all forms of behavior in gener- al, such as government, property, private enterprise, customary or “rational” be~ havior. By “oconomics"—or, if you pev- for, “economies proper”—we denote the interpretative description of the econom- ic mechanisms that play within any zziven state of those institutions, such as market mechanisms. Or, to use a felicl- tous, if not completely synonymous, turn ‘of phrase of Professor G. Colm, economic sociology deals with the problem of how people came to behave as they do at any time and place; and economies with the problem of how they do behave and what economic results they produce by behav- ing as they do. No question of principle is involved in this distinction. Its simpl an expository device that, in itself is in capable of being “right” or “wrong” and is to be judged merely from the stand- point of the categories “convenient” or “inconvenient.” This economic sociology of the Manifesto, imbedded in a historical sketch thai has been rightly called, by Professor S. Hook, a ‘miracle of com- pression,” is far more important than its economies proper and will be deatt with first. It contains, more or less definitely, at least three contributions that are all ‘warped by ideological bias but are all of the first order of importance, 1 THE EoONOMUC INTERPRETATION OF So far as L enn see, the historical sketch referred to describes changes in social structures and in their cultural comple ments in terms of economic change alone, both as regards the manner in_ which “feudal society” had disintegrated and as regards the manner in which “bourgeois, society” was disintegrating. Such events as the colonization of overseas countries ‘1 take this opportunity to cal attention tothe now elton of Pyofentor ALM Heber’ Kes! War's Inloeltion of Uetory [93h JOSEPH A. SCHUMPETER that widened markets and, later on, steam and machinery that revolutionized industrial production and passed sen- tonce of economic death on the artisan's crafts, and hence on the artisan’s world, are clearly visualized as steps in a purely economic process that is conceived of as going on autonomously, according to its ‘own law, carrying its own motive power within iteli. And all the rest of social life =the social, political, legal structure, all the beliefs, arts, habits, and schemes of vvalues—is not less clearly conceived of as deriving from that one prime mover— it is but steam that rises from the galloping horse. These two propositions define Marx's economic interpretation of history" Marx may not, when he wrote For Mara and most of his followers the “ia tevintiie™nepet ofthis thors was of enurs, very tnpoctant. Haale served ever Tat terilsi—in the plmophical sense is pled nits aegptance. Al tht ie nee eget th the TPrpoaiion that the eeonomie strvture and an Ihaviduet’s or groups loation in Tt exert very ‘rong infence on his ot ts thouekt aod eho ‘This quite compatible, ep, wlll a elt the frecdom afi orany other eeligiousor mtapaysicel fonviton, fort yomble toad hat atte Ivand hietaseally, people yield to dat iuence and lod, neverteles that, on mstaplyskal and ‘orl princpi hey arene wheel complied to Ai. Ta this tent the term "matenabate iter Pretaion of Kstony" or whisorca atria 8 risnomer. Furermore—as has been aiied by seeral stauneh Narvsis, eg hy Plekiamow the ‘Scone Interpretatnn of ishry fore oes sat omen idea, oral pen, lo gence on fig anise ereatons to dependence uoow ie pe ling ade of reduction so completely as my ingy with the tenn tht Hes fo The gallon hvac might sugges, ths analy Was Hrended to fender Mara’ ova vetsiono his theny, tut now i Isimportanc-tomote that is theory rains meaning tidy se 3 sensing hypothe, tatulnss if that Sesion be moved, Infact I's eene on the one Baad, hit Stara’s own account of the histo toceSs implies the Yecsuition of psychological Finke form of reaction that are wot reduable 10 ‘objeetve” eontions of predation; an on the other hand, that nonesonamc factor must enter the picture in omer to explain hy and how 2 ven Sock! stuatiog, damiaated by eoliions of pro Aberin, "produces a phenomenon 0 completly ‘Sonmenssrable with the at isa piven mere 8a TUE COMMUNIST ALAyieRSTO the Manifesto, have been so fully in pos session of these two propesitions as he was when he wrote the Preface of The Critique of Political Economy (38505 English trans, .9:1)the almost desper ate brevity of the Manifest leaves room also for a somewhat different interpreta tion, Presumably Engels was right, how- ever; and, if he was, then the birth of the economic interpretation of history dates from 1844. Mars’s claims to originality and priority have often been called into question, But they ate at least as good as Darwin's. Only Saint Simon seems to me to have any right to figure as a genuine forerunner; the cases for other candidates rest, [ believe, largely on their sponsors’ inadequate comprehension of what the economic interpretation of history really sno mere emphasis upon the historical importance of economic conditions or, till worse, interests" comes near it Assuming, then, that Mare intended to present, by way of application, the economic interpretation in the Comma- nist Marsfesio, we svust, with a brevity that rivals that of the Manifest itself, try to formulate an appraisal of the im portance of this contribution to economic sociology. Of course, we shall do so in the Tight of the further information that Mars supplied in the Critigue and in the first volume of Capital. In the first place, it is a working hy pothesis. Mars himself, as he tells us in the Preface to the Critique, considered it as “the leading thread in'my studies.” As such, it works sometimes extremely. "is relevant to note that even Engel in Bs widest Manes dre, defended storia ma tevin on the grand thay sus, eee interests na lnm large a sy aon explain ing the historical process Unless we atedute thie tllp toan ocason that was aot propitious to cate fal fomaisinn, thie would roan. thne the yal filly tad nts pt fase Mae's heh Tn sme respects, his Bonk o Bistoric materialise, saber stengihens this eupicion, 205 well, eg, in the explanation of the po- litical and cultural changes that came upon bourgeois society in the course of the nineteenth century; sometimes not at all, eg., in the explanation of the ‘emengence of feudal domains in western Eutope in the seventh centuey-—where the “relations of production” etween the various classes of people were im- posed by the politcal (military) organi- zation of the conquering Teutonic tribes. We may indeed qualify the hypothesis in various ways, €4., by allowing for thee! fect of past conditions of production, or else define the concept of relations’ ot conditions of production s0 widely as to include almost all the relations and con-

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