From the history of ethics. Socialism

Contents Socialism Introduction. The problem of poverty in socialism Part one. Scientific socialism; his economic and historical-philosophical teachings I. History of socialism: utopian and scientific socialism II. Types of socialism in relation to the plan for the future society. The Utopian Element in Marxism III. Marx's economic teachings Exposition of the theory I have two objectives for the essays I offer; each of them is achieved by means that may seem inappropriate from the point of view of another task. My first task is to prepare, by considering the problems of socialism, a solution to the philosophical question of the relationship of morality to economics. This is a decision to enter into a system of integral worldview. Those readers who are inclined to look at the root of things, who like to look back and look forward, I consider it my duty to warn that this study on socialism is united by a common title “From the history of ethics” with other homogeneous studies “Church Teaching” and “Rationalism”, which will not slow down, under favorable conditions, to appear; nevertheless, these studies are preceded, already prepared for publication, by the work “Justification” life. Introduction to the history and theory of ethics" and conclude with a system of moral philosophy, which I am working on simultaneously with the above-mentioned studies. I say this so that the reader knows - when encountering perplexities and when moving to final conclusions - where to turn and what to expect. My second task is a general examination of socialist theory. I do this not only without regard to the first task, going into details that are unnecessary for my systematic purposes, just as, in turn, the excursions I undertake in the interests of the first task can be considered a luxury for the second task, but also with deliberate popularity. I meet halfway readers of a wide circle - better to say, that certain segment of this circle, the requests of which I take close to my heart. This purpose of popularity I especially hope to serve by the abundance of literal excerpts from the books to which reference is made. Placed in rarely encountered happy conditions, since I had the opportunity to unlimitedly use books not only from the rich academic library, but also from the Imperial Public and Rumyantsev libraries, to which I offer my deep gratitude here, overwhelmed, satiated with the literature of my topic, I cannot forget about the needs of my intended readers, who cannot use even a hundredth part of my former wealth. Who does not know how painful general presentations and obscure references are, if the reader is not familiar with the original works, the indications of quotations are useless for him - who does not know how important it is for the reader to understand the subjects under discussion himself, to rely on solid ground in his conclusions. I do not look at my quotations as decoration for my book, I would like to be useful to my reader - and I do not hesitate to leave some pages in the form of raw material, believing, moreover, that such a technique does not contradict the idea of ​​​​the work entitled “From History”. There is, however, no antagonism between these two tasks. Each of the goals is achieved simultaneously with the fulfillment of the other: both of them merge in one plan for a thorough study of socialism from an ethical-historical point of view. In this regard, the parts have different meanings: the main importance is attached to the last, special part, and the first, general, for all its cumbersomeness, has an introductory meaning in my eyes. I have a negative attitude towards socialism, and I cannot treat it differently due to my ethical and religious convictions. However, the content and tone of my criticism of the socialist system are not determined by my feelings, my personal sympathies. I hope to stand at all times on the level of logical objectivity; I allow myself to use only literature that has scientific authority, and arguments that should not cause I allow myself to use only literature that has scientific authority, and arguments that should not cause disgust on the part of the opposing party, leaving behind as unnecessary and even shameful trash, market writing and propaganda techniques; I find no obstacles to consciously drawing a line of demarcation between the truth of socialism and its lies, considering the latter sufficient for the largest socialist system and not seeing the need to resort to slandering the truth. In general, the gradation of my attitude towards socialism appears as follows. At the beginning (in the introduction) I recognize the importance of the problems that socialism raises. I would not be involved in socialism if I did not consider discussions of the problems it raises to be extremely fruitful. Next, I speak indifferently about the utopian plan of the socialist system. Then I discover scientific inconsistency. Marx’s economic teachings and I recognize the philosophical groundlessness and ill-conceivedness of the theories of historical materialism. Finally, I consider the weakest side of socialism to be its ethical and religious views, from which no compromise is possible, to which not the slightest concession can be made, and I place the center of gravity of all my work in this last part, giving everything that precedes only an introductory meaning. To those readers who will be amazed why from the first word I do not resort to vulgar abuse against socialists and why I generally avoid this by using many of my favorite methods of struggle, I will remind you that no one does such harm to the truth as those who defend the truth by unworthy means. Long-term pedagogical observations have convinced me that slander, silence, exaggeration, exaggeration are very quickly exposed, and when exposed, they cause, as a reaction, anger against the very truth that is so uncleanly defended. Criticism is more obligatory to decency and cleanliness than any other type of literature. Those who are not content with momentary success, who stand aloof from propaganda goals, who want to build firmly and for a long time, who work to develop their own worldview, must use only good-quality material. There is criticism and criticism. There is criticism, which sets as its only task to refute and reject as much as possible and even everything that the other side claims. There is another criticism, which in a given system notes with equal zeal both truth and falsehood, believing that not only false, but also its true provisions, which create internal contradiction, lead to the collapse of an insolvent system. We will see below that the most characteristic property of the socialist system is internal inconsistency, that this entire system is built on the unconscious contradiction of the mechanical and idealistic views, the principles of explanation of the causal and teleological. This alone shows how inapplicable the criticism of the first kind is to socialism, and in general is extremely untenable. Introduction. The problem of poverty in socialism Im Haushalt der reinen Wertlehre galt die Wirtschaft bisher als das Aschenbrodel; wenn die giucklichercn Schwestern im Schmucke zum Tanze fuhren, dann musste sie sich schelten lassen und daheim in der Kiüche sitzen; und doch, wenn der Königssohn sie erst einmal anschauen könnte. Seltsam ist es in der Tat und doch wieder auch leicht verständlieh, wie wenig die idealistischc Philosophie sich bisher um die Wirtschaft gektimmert hat. Wahrheit und Schönheit, Sittlichkcit, Recht und Religion, das sind ewige Werte, welche die ringende Mcnschheit emporziehen; aber Handel und Tausch, Betrieb und Verbrauch, das sind Niedrigkeiten, die den Menschen herabzichen und die, an sich wertlos, nur eriragen werden, um die Notdurft der Völkcr zu befriedigen. Der Gott im Menschen schafft das Gute und Wahre und Schöne, aber das hungrige und frierende Tier im Menschen schafft die Wirtschaft vom Hackbau und der Jagd des Wilden bis zu den Fabriken und Börsen einer zahmeren Menschenart. Reine Werte schöpferisch zu gesialten, bedeutet. sich iiber die wirtschaftlichc Arbeit erheben; und der Philosopher, dessen Blick den Ideen der Wehentwicklung zugewandt ist, hat keinen Grund bei Markten und Handeln und gar bcim eigcnndtzigen Erwerb zu verweilen. Das alles schien so seibstverständlich, dass cs kaum besonderer Begrilndung bedarfte; es gentlgte einfach, Wirtschaftslebcn aus dem Gchegc dcr Philosophie zu verbannen. H. Münsterberg Philosophie der Werte. Socialism, in the general sense of the word, is a practical and theoretical solution to the question of poverty and wealth, the fight against poverty and the equal or fair distribution of wealth. Poverty attracts the attention of representatives of science and public figures as the suffering most characteristic of humans, since it affects both sides of the human being, physical and spiritual. Poverty brings severe physical suffering to a person. “The most severe torment that is possible is inflicted by extreme poverty,” writes Henry George in his essay Progress and Poverty. Poverty, to which huge masses of people are condemned with the progress of civilization, is not the freedom from vanity and temptation that the sages sought and which the philosophers praised: poverty is a humiliating and ossifying slavery that oppresses higher natures, dulls more tender feelings and with its torment forces people to do things that animals would refuse.” "Poverty," says the same author in one of his speeches, "is worse than cholera; poverty destroys more lives than the plague, even in the happiest years. Look at the mortality statistics of our cities; look where life has the shortest duration, where small children are dying like flies - you will see that in the poorer quarters. And the person who looks with carefree eyes at the insane fury of this plague, the person who does nothing to weaken or destroy it - this person is guilty of a crime. Poverty is not only physical suffering; it is also spiritual suffering. The question of poverty - for our time, is not a question of man’s relationship to nature, but it is a question of people’s relationship to each other, a social question, a question of justice. The poverty that oppresses modern society is not from nature. According to Sevastian Faure, “if a huge part of the population is deprived of essential necessities, this is not due to a lack of clothing, nutrients, substances, or housing. Since ancient times, our property allows us to fully satisfy all these needs. If there are many ignorant and illiterate people, it is not at all because humanity is condemned to mental pauperism. The cause of all this physical and mental suffering is not in nature; therefore, you need to look for it elsewhere.” The fault does not lie with the individual. Of course, one or another poor person may himself be to blame for his poverty, just as the wealth of one or another person accumulates and grows as a result of their dishonesty. But along with this personal guilt, there are causes of poverty that are not in the power of the poor - poverty exists not as a result of ignorance and personal guilt, but as “the mother of ignorance and the nurse of crime”; in the same way, capital, in addition to the personal dishonesty of the rich, under modern conditions cannot help but grow and enslave workers. "It is extremely difficult - we read in Hobson 1 - to determine to what extent drunkenness, vices, indolence and other personal defects really constitute the cause of poverty in each individual case. There is, however, reason to think that the large part of cases of extreme poverty and destitution cannot be attributed to these personal vices; on the contrary, it must be attributed to economic causes, for which the persons suffering from poverty are not responsible." personal human guilt, rooted in the socio-economic system, Henry George rightly calls poverty a crime: “poverty is not a personal crime, but a social one, i.e. one for which we are all responsible, rich and poor alike.” We can say with E. Dühring 2: “It is extremely mistaken to believe that the difficulties of life that one has to struggle with in present-day society, and not only at the lower levels of the social ladder, depend on natural deficiency and on the inability to obtain a sufficient amount of food. As the example of America especially shows, the so-called surplus population arises from erroneous or insufficient organization of economic activity.” According to Thomas Carlyle's depiction of modern conditions, the wealth of our time exceeds anything that former times have seen, but never before has wealth given so little joy. "In the midst of full-blooded abundance, the people perish; in the midst of golden walls and full granaries, no one feels safe or satisfied. Carlyle compares our wealth to the gold of Midas. "Midas lusted after gold and insulted the Olympians. He received gold, so that everything he touched became gold - but for him, with his long ears, it was not much better... There is so much truth in these ancient fables! The whole horror of our time is that the suffering of poverty now goes hand in hand with the increase in human power over nature, with the accumulation of wealth in society. Prof. Wallace, author of the famous book “The Wonderful Age,” eloquently depicts modern tragedy. "The more science opens up to us the endless possibilities of human well-being, the more we have to admit our complete inability to use them rationally. Having at our disposal: everything in order to provide people with necessities, comfort and even luxury, and at the same time provide them with complete leisure for spiritual pleasures and aesthetic pleasures, we, however, have so shamelessly disfigured our social economy that a hitherto unheard of harmful luxury has been made the property of a few, while many people are forced to suffer throughout their lives from lack of essentials for a healthy existence. During the last half of this most wonderful century (the 19th century), when science in various ways expanded man’s power over nature to such an extent that it was now possible to produce a hundred times more products than in any of the previous centuries, at such a time a terrible need for basic necessities gripped not only absolutely, but also a relatively larger number of our population than before.” Some suffer from poverty, while others do not know what to do with accumulated wealth, with finished goods. Von Kirchmann - who is better known for the letters to him of the famous Rodbertus 3 - found a pictorial image to compare our social disasters. “Modern society bears a strong resemblance to a group of travelers in the desert. Exhausted by thirst, they find sources sufficient to give everyone something to drink and replenish their strength; however, a small number of people pounce on the very source of the key; out of ill will, they leave the majority only a few drops to quench their thirst; They themselves drink in large sips, but the springs provide more water than they can drink, and because of the satiety and ill will of this bunch of people, half of the flowing water goes into the sand.” The socio-economic question, like the question of suffering and justice, stands at the center of scientific and social!” interests. All types of activity, both those aimed at material well-being and those aimed at satisfying spiritual needs, equally encounter this question. Art for its prosperity, religion for its influence on the people, politics for its success must take an active part in solving a social problem 4. Our time is attentive to the socio-economic issue incomparably more than any of the previous times 5 . To explain this, there is no need to assume that social life today has become more unbearable in terms of the amount and severity of suffering compared to past times, or that the physical suffering of poverty has now increased. The opposite is true. It is well known that today the masses of the people have access to such cultural benefits that even kings never dreamed of before, that on average the lowest classes in a cultured society and the least cultured of European peoples are not as helpless in the face of disasters as they were in the old days or as uncultured peoples are now helpless. Adam Smith in his famous essay 6 rightly writes: “of course, his property (i.e. a poor person from our society, some day laborer, artisan) will turn out to be very simple and ordinary if you compare it with the extraordinary luxury of some rich gentleman, nevertheless, between the household utensils of some European sovereign and the utensils of a hardworking and decent peasant, perhaps there will be less distance than between the furnishings of the latter and the furnishings of some African king reigning over ten thousands of naked savages and arbitrarily disposing of their freedom and lives.” We read the same thing in Roscher 7 "That along with the growth of economic culture, the position of the lowest class in general becomes better, absolutely better, is historically undeniable. If we now heard about such dwellings of the poor, which were built so loosely that to protect from the wind it would be necessary to cover the walls with scarves and put candles in lanterns, then we would be indignant. Meanwhile, during the time of Alfred the Great († 901) even the royal the palaces were so imperfect. The Primate of England, Thomas Beckett, showed luxury in that in winter he ordered his rooms to be covered daily with clean hay or straw, and in summer with green branches, so that guests who could not fit at the table would not ruin their dresses by sitting on the dirty floor. If we compare the housing, food and clothing of today's German soldiers with the time of Frederick the Great, then we can easily recognize what great strides the lowest regime of life has made." 8 In particular, the situation of factory workers in Western Europe has changed significantly for the better since the forties of the last century 9 . And therefore, although until very recently poverty generates, there are quite a few terrible facts from which. the human heart grows colder, they would not be enough to put the social issue in the center of everyone's attention, given the general background of increased well-being of the masses. Until very recently, there were possible facts of starvation in big cities, the murder of children by parents for the sake of receiving insurance money, and the sale of children's bodies, incredibly difficult trades, like that of miners, were possible, the disasters of unemployment, child labor in factories, the sweating system, fetid lodging houses, the market for fun slaves, 10 etc. were possible. It was not the number of these facts, not the visible pain that they testified, that is now giving the social question a universal form make it the main issue of our time, make our time the century of the social issue 11. To explain the modern severity and breadth of this question, one should take into account the increased sensitivity to suffering in the people of our time, which in turn depends not only on the physiological results of a culture that has taken away from us the endurance of savages and easily instills in the people of our time many new needs, but on changed views on life. Expectations from beyond the grave have now dimmed and for many do not exist at all; a conscious thirst for earthly happiness, “earthly paradise,” is spreading everywhere. The motto of our time can serve as the famous poems of Heine: Ein neues Lied, ein besseres Lied, O Freunde, will ich euch dichten: Wir wollen hier auf Erden schon Das Hiimnelreich erricliten. Wir wollen auf Erden glucklich sein, Und wollen nicht mehr darben; Verschlemmen soli nicht der faule Bauch, Was fleissige Hande erwarben. Es wachst hinieden Brod genug Auh Rosen nnd Myrten, Schunheit und Lust,. Und Zuckererbsen nicht minder. Ja, Zuckererbsen fur Jedermann, Sobald die Schoten platzen! Den Himmel Rberlassen wir Den Engeln und den Spatzen 12 Socialism clings to this thirst, expressing it most openly. "The socialist - in the words of Bakunin - has the support of his positive right to life with all its pleasures, both intellectual and moral, as well as physical. He loves life and wants to enjoy it fully; his convictions are part of himself, his duties towards society are inextricably linked with his rights. To observe both, he must live according to justice, like Proudhon, and be ready to die, like Babeuf, but he will never say that human life should be self-sacrifice and that death is the sweetest thing.” Weitling, a socialist tailor, prefaced his book Garantien der Harmonie und Freiheit with the following epigraph: “we want to be free, like the birds of the air; we want, like them, to live life happily, carefree and in sweet harmony.” Jules Guade put it most succinctly and energetically when he said: nous sommes le parti du ventre. This attachment to the earth and forgetfulness of heavenly ideals among the lower classes, of course, only develops the desire for contentment; at the same time, among the rich classes such a psyche is accompanied by a previously unheard-of love of money and acquisitiveness. Wealth has become the goal for which everything else is forgotten. And the rich have always been greedy and money-loving, but never before has this passion been revealed with such arrogance, indiscretion, and exclusivity. Thus, according to Tocqueville's observation, in the 18th century, “people of the upper classes tried more to decorate their lives than to make it convenient for themselves, they craved fame rather than wealth." This is not how life appears to an observer of modern life. Of all the modern economists, Ad. Wagner 13 most carefully dwells on the question of the motives of economic activity. He finds that these motives are very diverse: the economy is determined by motives such as selfish, tact, and not selfish. Egoistic motives constitute a whole group: the first of them is the desire for personal economic gain (Strebeu nach dem eigenen wirthscbaftlichen Vortheil und Furcbt vor eigener wirthschaftlicher Noth), the second is fear of punishment and hope for gratitude (Furcllfc vor Strafe und Hoffnung auf Anerkennung), the third is a sense of honor (EUrgefulil, Geltungsstreben und Furcht vor Schande und Missachtung), the fourth - attracts to activity and aversion to inaction (Drang zur Retlifitigiing und Frendo am Thatigsein, aucli an der Arbeit als soldier, und an den Arbeiisergebnissen als solhen, sowie Furcht vor den Folgen dor Unthatigkeit - Passivital). All these motives are intertwined in various ways, influencing each other, and their combinations are modified in different periods of history, differentiated from people to people, from class to class. Reviewing our time from this point of view, Wagner finds that today almost exclusively egoistic motives operate, and of these, almost exclusively the first motive. The bare thirst for acquisition, acquisition at any cost, by any means, acquisition for the sake of acquisition - now dominates everything 14. Unadorned by any veil, not covered by any fig leaf, the accumulation of wealth finds its only outcome, in physiological pleasure. The life of the modern rich, the financial aristocracy, amazes with unprecedented, fabulous luxury. At their disposal are all the blessings of life, improved and refined by the latest technology, and the modern materialistic trend of minds frees the hands of the monetary aristocracy in using these benefits. Nowadays the rich look at their wealth and use it in an extremely simplified way - and wealth, more than ever before, serves as a source of extreme corruption of morals. Le Bon, the author of the interesting book The Psychology of Socialism, draws readers' attention to these sad results of the dominion of money. "The general pursuit of wealth led to a general decline in morality and all its consequences. This decline was most clearly expressed in the diminishing prestige of the bourgeoisie in the eyes of the lower social strata. The bourgeoisie has aged in one century as much as the aristocrat has in a millennium. The bourgeoisie degenerates earlier than in the third generation, and is refreshed only by the constant influx of elements of the lower race. Bourgeois society can bequeath wealth to its children, but how will it pass on to its offspring random qualities that can only be strengthened in posterity over centuries? Large fortunes have been replaced by hereditary genius, hereditary talents, but these fortunes are too often passed on to miserable descendants. And so, perhaps, the insolent vanity of the big rich and the manner in which they spent their money contributed most of all to the development of socialist ideas." The entire regime of the rich, this entire exhibition of wealth, the vain appearance of luxury, seems to be designed so that, while nourishing a sense of pride in some, it continuously teases a feeling of envy in the lower classes 15. The depravity of the private lives of the rich, the impudence of spending wealth - now, strange as it may seem at first glance, the attitude of capitalists and entrepreneurs towards workers, employees and customers is peacefully combined with business correctness, with legal decency. Whatever the moral qualities of an entrepreneur, life forces him to conduct “business" honestly and openly - already in the name of success of the business, in the name of personal interests. Fraud is now bashfully hidden and even completely removed from the business sphere, as an unprofitable technique. This circumstance has the important result that the disasters that befall all those suffering from capital - workers, buyers, cannot be attributed to random conditions, the personal dishonesty of the capitalist, but are inevitably attributed the prevailing economic system. This is how Engels assesses this circumstance 16. "The law of political economy is such that, as capitalist production develops, the petty frauds and swindles that characterize its lower levels gradually disappear!".. The fraudulent tricks of the Polish Jew, the lowest type of European merchant, - tricks that provide such excellent services in his homeland, betray him as soon as he gets to Hamburg or Berlin. A commission agent, it makes no difference - a Christian or a Jew: whoever comes from Hamburg or Berlin to Manchester is similarly convinced that, in order to sell yarn or fabric profitably, he must first of all put aside the pitiful fraudulent methods that are considered the height of commercial wisdom in his homeland... To the same extent that large-scale industry has developed, the moral level of its representatives has also increased, at least in appearance. Competition among factory owners through petty swindles of workers became impossible; industry has outgrown such pitiful means of making a profit; The time of a millionaire manufacturer was too valuable to waste on trifles. Only people without money were engaged in petty swindling, who had to value every penny so as not to die from competition. Next. The larger the industrial enterprise, the more workers it employs, the greater the losses in trouble in any collision with the latter. Therefore, over time, manufacturers, especially large ones, were overcome by a completely new spirit. They learned to avoid unnecessary disputes, learned to reckon with the existence and power of trade unions, and finally discovered that strikes, while certainly timely, were a very effective means of achieving their own goals. In this way, the largest manufacturers, who had previously been leaders in the struggle against the working class, now became zealous preachers of peace and harmony. In the eyes of large industrialists, the small tweaks of former times not only lost all meaning, but became a direct hindrance to business. Thus, the very development of capitalist production led to the elimination of small pressures, which in previous times worsened the situation of the workers. Thanks to this, the important fact is becoming increasingly clear that the reason for the plight of the working class lies not in petty abuses, but in capitalism itself. And we now need to turn our attention to capitalism, to the capitalist or monetary system of production, which provides the final explanation for the modern social movement. To put it another way, we need to descend to the lowest level of modern social life, which lies at the core of the marked psyche of the rich and poor classes of society. Modern capitalist production is radically different from the natural economy and handicraft production that dominated in ancient and medieval times 17 . Subsistence farming was characterized by the fact that producer and consumer merged into one person. Each economic unit (olχoς. familia, manor) produced everything it needed for itself ("self-productive property"), and it produced only what was needed for its needs. Hence, the occupations of each worker were complex and varied, the occupations of all individual households were quite similar, and their needs were not only essentially similar, differing in the degree of abundance 18, but also simple - compared with later times, so that it remained there was less scope for differences in the lives of rich and poor economic groups. At the same time, there were no motives for significant trade relations between closed households, and trade was almost limited to luxury goods. In urban crafts, which gradually separated from agriculture and acquired independent significance, production became isolated from consumption and split into separate specialties. The artisan was already working for the market, for consumers. But old craft production was significantly different from modern production. Since the craft used simple and few tools, the acquisition of which required an insignificant investment of capital, the craft economy was usually carried out on a negligible scale and was an independent enterprise. The master was an independent owner, he was the owner of the production tools, he himself purchased the raw materials and sold the products of production. “The worker and his means of production remained connected to each other, like a snail with its shell" (Marx). The manager of production and the worker were combined in one person, labor was not separated from capital. This nature of craft production was supported for a long time by the guild organization. But it had to give in to the pressure of capital, which began to accumulate in Europe since the time of the Crusades, which established strong trade relations between Europe and the East, and even more so due to the discovery of America and the sea route to India, which expanded the borders of trade and attracted huge amounts of gold to Europe. This was the reason in the agricultural sector for the replacement of small farmers by the class of large farmers - capitalists and the deprivation of land of the rural population, and in the manufacturing industry for the transition of handicraft production to manufacturing production. In the latter, some features have already emerged that were fully developed in later capitalist production, namely the separation of capital from labor, the entrepreneur from the worker, and the extreme fragmentation of occupations. The invention of machines brought about a reform in production that in place of the possibility of applying capital to production, which was already carried out in manufacture, the need for capital appeared. An expensive machine requires the expenditure of large capital and pays off only with a large production volume, causing a significant accumulation of workers. The decisive decline of small manual industrial labor, which could no longer compete with factory production, combined with the dispossession of the masses, gave undisputed dominance to large-scale factory production with a vast class of industrial workers, the proletariat, which created the most characteristic features in the modern relationship between wealth and poverty. In its history, the factory proletariat experienced difficult conditions of physical existence - long working hours, unbearable housing, low wages, child labor. The physical conditions of workers these days have changed markedly for the better. But the essential features of capitalist production, the money economy, which develop the mental mood common to hired workers who receive no less than university professors, and starving workers who merge with the poor, have not changed and cannot be changed by any reforms. In the capitalist economic system, the separation of capital from labor was realized to the last extreme. The worker has no means of subsistence other than his labor, his labor power. Since labor can be productive only under the condition of combining it with the material factors of production, the worker finds himself completely dependent on who owns the instruments of production. Being legally completely free, giving his labor freely, the worker economically finds himself in complete slavery to the production managers. A simple refusal by the factory administration, even if it was due to a forced reduction in the size of production, puts the worker in a hopeless situation. And even with a job, he can never be sure of the next day. The sharp contrast between wealth and poverty within the same industrial economy, emphasized by the eye-catching luxury of capitalist entrepreneurs, involuntarily forces the working proletariat to evaluate the role of their labor in creating the wealth of enterprise leaders. The entire system of money production serves as a clear expression of the fact that the collective labor of workers creates the wealth of one entrepreneur, that entrepreneurial capital grows at the expense of workers. An integral and most characteristic property of capitalism, a modern money economy, is that the capitalist entrepreneur gets rich at the expense of the workers. Let us now illustrate this scheme of capitalism with more vivid pictures, depicting the matter as it is presented by the proletariat and its supporters. After all, our task is to understand the modern problem of poverty, to understand how the social question is now posed in living reality, in the form of the views and feelings of living people, to understand what their interests, desires, and what their claims are. For now, we have absolutely no need to establish the difference between objective justice and the subjective sense of justice, there is no need to evaluate the claims of the sense of subjective justice, or to decide the question of the applicability of the ethical point of view to social relations. For now, we are stating what is in reality, delving into the meaning of modern speeches, into the content of the thoughts and feelings of the modern poor, the working class, the proletariat. It is a fact that the wealth of capitalist entrepreneurs could not grow without the labor of workers. “No private capital property,” we read in Rothbertus 19, “could increase significantly if each capitalist remained the owner of only his own product. How much more productive labor is now compared to before! Nevertheless, even at the present time, no one could acquire large capital property if he received a profit only from the capital that could occupy his personal labor power alone, and not because the capital and, therefore, the profit would be small, but because he would receive as profit a part of the product of the labor of a single worker, namely himself. In the same way, no one can make a big profit and increase his property in this way, no matter how much capital he owns, if only he alone works with the help of this capital. On the contrary, a person receives the greater profit and the more he can increase his property, the more workers he employs, for the greater the number of times he receives a share of the profit from the product of a single worker.” Emphasized by the contrast between the wealth of the capitalist and the poverty of the proletariat, this truth becomes convincing and painful to the last degree for the proletariat due to the fact that the capital invested in the enterprise grows, and the growth of capital occurs tangibly before the eyes of the workers. And what makes speeches like Liebknecht's popular speech to the workers possible. "The product of the labor of all people, using the same instruments of production - which, of course, always happens among the same people - is approximately the same and, therefore, if each person received the product of individual labor, then everyone would have approximately the same property. But, as you - Liebknecht told the workers - you know, this does not exist in reality, on the contrary, there is complete inequality. Why is this so? You, my friends, being in a factory town, have an excellent opportunity to observe, how social inequality occurs. Each of us knows some manufacturer and has seen how he gets rich. Let us take, for example, Mr. Zimmermann from Chemnitz, a truly exemplary bourgeois, about whom you have all probably heard: twenty or thirty years ago he came to Chemnitz as poor as the poorest of us; he managed to raise a small capital; At that time, large-scale industry was not yet so developed, and capital was not so concentrated in one hand, and it was possible to start an enterprise with a hundred thalers, for which now whole thousands are not enough. Happiness smiled on him, that is, he received orders that were carried out by the workers he hired, excluding the part that fell on his own share, by the way, no more than the part that fell on individual workers, since it is generally known that Mr. Zimmerman’s abilities were in no case above average. Thus, Mr. Zimmerman had at first a dozen workers, then a hundred, and in the end more than a thousand, and now Mr. Zimmerman is a millionaire, therefore, the owner of a corame il faut, while his workers are proletarians who have nothing. Why is there such a difference? This cannot be determined by the quality of the work, since Mr. Zimmerman’s personal work is mediocre in quality. He is probably no better and, moreover, probably no more worked than most of his workers. And yet he became a millionaire, and they remained proletarians. The income of his own labor could not make him a millionaire, since if the labor in his factory brought in so much income that every worker could become a millionaire, then all, or at least the majority of his workers, must become millionaires. They remained proletarians. But here's the thing, my friends. Mr. Zimmerman received more, and his workers received less of the product of each of their labor. Mr. Zimmerman's workers had to remain proletarians in order for him to become a millionaire. And if not every employer becomes a Zimmerman, then in any case each of them, in general, turns into a large capitalist in the same way as Mr. Zimmerman, that is, through the labor of his workers.” Still blessed. Jerome said: if one does not lose, the other cannot find - nisi alter perdiderit, alter non potest invenire. According to the witty remark of Kharazov 20 - "if you determine with mathematical accuracy the weight of various chemical elements, then you can show that matter cannot arise again or disappear during any chemical process. But if the weight of any element, for example, a taken amount of water, is shown to be less than the actual one, then during some processes of chemical change of matter one can observe an imaginary increase in matter, and during others there may be an equally imaginary loss of matter. This the example irrefutably proves the impossibility of profit as a general phenomenon." Bam-Bawerk 21 points to the "remarkable features" of income from capital. "It arises independently of any personal activity of the capitalist; it comes to the capitalist even if he has not even lifted a finger to create it, and it seems that this income is literally produced by capital or, in the old comparison, is born by it. Hell. Wagner states 22 that today "labor and the consumption of products are distributed too unevenly among private owners in production. The benefits brought by technical improvements in production go to a much greater extent in favor of capitalists and entrepreneurs, especially in the field of industry in a close sense, than workers. As a result, the position of the working class is relatively worsening, although it absolutely, as cannot be generally denied, has changed for the better, and consequently, the gulf between the lower and everything increases with the upper classes 23 . Poverty in our time, as a social phenomenon, is distinguished by such features as it has never had before, and the claims of the modern proletariat have a character that the claims of the lower class have never had before. Poverty today, with all the suffering that accompanies it, is rooted in the essence of the socio-economic system, and the proletariat is indignant against the entire class of entrepreneurs, against capitalism itself. Rodbergus expresses the decisive conviction that “these phenomena (i.e., the phenomena of pauperism) stem from economic relations and facts, while very many - and only due to a lack of thorough knowledge of national economy - derive them from social reasons of a more general nature or even from moral reasons.” Prof. Isaev 24 provide important clarifications on this issue. “The discontent of the proletariat is supported by one feature, with which in modern times the formation of huge fortunes is more and more often associated. The rich people of antiquity accumulated fabulous wealth in ways that, for the most part, could not be considered natural. If the source of wealth was not war, which made it possible to rob countless treasures from enemies, then it was the theft of public lands, the occupation of positions in the public service, which gave the official an opportunity to impose heavy taxes on the population. Compared to these methods of acquisition, proper trade was already a less important source of the formation of large fortunes, and industry or agriculture did not at all lead to placing people who diligently engaged in them in the ranks of the rich. And the main methods of acquiring great wealth, being associated with violence, were only tolerated, but did not at all enjoy the protection of the law. People who were not at all inclined to transform the state system raised their voices against them, such as Tiberius Gracchus, who sought to stop the theft of state lands by the Roman rich. The proletarians of our time see that the greatest wealth is acquired in ways that at all points enjoy the sanction of the law. And now there is a case that an official enriches himself from bribes, for which life has developed subtle forms - remuneration for assisting private individuals in obtaining concessions for profitable enterprises. And now the diplomat who caused the war, or the military leader who led it to a favorable outcome, is rewarded with large sums from the indemnity assigned to the defeated password. But these cases of enrichment are completely invisible in the general mass. The law sanctifies the right of private ownership of almost all external nature accessible to human influence; the law sanctifies the contract in all its varieties and requires its strict execution; the law protects the unhindered execution of credit transactions and develops norms that adapt these transactions to all economic acts in all their diversity. And so, under the cover of the law, A makes millions from the fact that he runs an industrial enterprise with thousands of civilian workers, exploited no more than the law allows, B becomes a millionaire because he buys up huge areas of land for next to nothing on the eve of the construction of a railway through them, and C, using extensive credit, buys shares of the emerging enterprise at 100 and after a little time sells at 500-1000 and joins the ranks of those who have palaces, parks, sea yachts. In our time, the main ways to acquire millions of dollars have nothing to do with robbery and violence. The law elevates these methods into a whole system... The awareness of the enormity of the contradiction between ideal and reality, the awareness of the disgustingness of the alliance between legality and hypocrisy causes that sharp discontent of the proletariat, which maintains its readiness for continuous struggle. Imbued with the consciousness that social life must sooner or later be built on the beginning of equal access for all to material and spiritual benefits, the proletarians want not only much more than their ancestors, but also fundamentally different from the desires that filled the working classes in previous centuries. The modern proletariat not only wants to increase its material contentment, but also to achieve the final abolition of the domination of capital in economic life... The meaning and intensity of discontent that engulfs the dispossessed classes of our time cannot be understood if we lose sight of the new principles penetrating the dissatisfied, and the goals that are often not named, which are not directly sought in individual acts of struggle, but which unite the numerous masses. In the old days, the struggle was carried out with a precisely defined enemy (for example, with such and such a landowner) and because of immediate, simple interests (in order, for example, to get rid of his cruelty). Now the struggle is being waged against an entire class of entrepreneurs, and often for the sake of the interests of those not closest to them.” They say: "Never before has the distance between reality and what could and should be been so immeasurably great. Undoubtedly, the modern antagonism of wealth and poverty, the modern attitude of rich and poor cannot but outrage the moral sense 25. But if we look at the social question exclusively from a moral point of view, we will come to the conclusion that our time has no peculiarities in comparison with past times. Any expression of moral indignation against the background of the modern social life would be only a weak echo of the fiery speeches of the ancient prophets and fathers of the church. In the same way, the patristic sermons provide inexhaustible material for moral influence on the poor. But a feature of our time is the now spreading conviction that moral preaching, both directed against the rich and addressed to the poor, cannot solve the social problem. Such a conviction is expressed by J. Hobson. “The life of the poorest and most humiliated classes is inaccessible to the very influence of high civilization. While all their energy is absorbed by the struggle for the continuation of physical existence, civilization cannot influence them. Consideration of greater intrinsic meaning is moral!! life in comparison with the physical should not mislead us. There is no need to think that the more important must precede the less important. We must begin with the lower life before we can rise to the higher. In the individual, the corpus sanum (healthy body) is rightly the object of earlier concern than the mens sana (healthy soul), although the latter may be of greater importance; the same is true of the progress of an entire class. We cannot go to the inhabitants of the poor backwoods and advise them to be neat, thrifty, diligent, steadfast, moral, reasonable, religious, until we, first of all, teach them how to secure for themselves the economic conditions of a healthy physical life. Our poorer classes have neither the time nor the energy nor the desire to be neat, thrifty, reasonable, moral, religious. In our haste, we forget that there is a natural and necessary order for the awakening of desires. Currently, our population in remote areas does not want to be moral and reasonable, does not want to be particularly neat. Therefore, these highest goods must wait their turn, since they depend on the voluntary action of the poor. But these people want better and more plentiful food, more warmth and clothing, better and more secure housing, more confidence in getting work for a decent wage. Until we can help them to satisfy these “lower” desires, we will try in vain to awaken the “higher ones.” We must first take care of a healthy physical existence in order to prepare the soil on which moral seeds can be sown, with the hope of reaping fruit. Only on a solid physical foundation can we erect a majestic edifice of high moral and mental culture.” And further, to prepare this ground through charity, according to the general belief in our time, is considered impossible. Our days are characterized by a low assessment of charity. "The best of the poor are never grateful. They are ungrateful, discontented, disobedient, they are rebellious. And they have every right to be so. They feel that charity is either a ridiculously inappropriate form of partial redress of a gross injustice, or else a sentimental sop, accompanied by the usual insolent attempts on the part of sentimental benefactors to extend their tyranny into their private lives." O. Wilde, to whom these words belong (in the article on socialism), adds: “as for begging, begging is safer than taking, but taking is much nobler than begging.” This is what the modern proletariat thinks: it does not “ask”, but “demands.” Charity these days is practiced on a very large scale - by the government, and by private individuals, and by representatives of industry, but "with all the pacifying measures that philanthropists or industry apply to social moods, broad, ever-increasing waves of discontent arise, disturbing the flow of social life to the bottom. The social question of our time is not a question of mitigating the disasters of the present system, but it is a question of whether the very system that exists today will be preserved. What occupies modern minds is not the problem of social improvement, but the problem of social transformation and reconstruction. The new social interest is directed not so much at results as at causes, not at social therapeutics, but at social bacteriology and social hygiene. With such a state of mind, a strong reaction is often found in reality against the traditional ways of charity and moderate reform measures. Time is wasted - they insistently - that is spent on pruning individual branches of social evil, while the true social question prunes the very root from which these branches grow. Instead of inheriting, our ways of mercy are suitable, it is better to explore - to speak persistently - why mercy is inevitable and why poverty exists. Instead of reforming industrial institutions, let us ask why the results of industry are so cruel, humiliating and unjust. Not the charitable application of modern orders, but a system in which charity would not be necessary, not patronage, but justice, not the magnanimous distribution of excess wealth, but the fair return of wealth to those who created it - these are the demands to which our ears have become accustomed recently and which reveal the nature of the newest social question" 26 . We read the same from Ludv. Stein 27. "There has never been a shortage of attempts to smooth out the old contrast between rich and poor, between masters and slaves. The most common means of softening and weakening this contrast in the Middle Ages was compassion - the carifcas preached by the Church. We do not intend to reject all sociological significance of this caritas, but at the present time it is unsuitable as the exclusive remedy for all social wounds. First, it is too subject to the influence of the subjective arbitrariness and the development of the arrogance of the rich, so that the working masses cannot finish their fate with such a capricious and random distribution of goods, and secondly, the self-awareness of the working classes, thanks to the high standard of living they have achieved, is already so developed that they cannot reconcile for a long time with such a caritas, which even in its mildest form has a bitter aftertaste of alms. The working masses currently reject such alms, they demand economic proportionality of which they do not give them. individualistic capitalism as its own right. And this is not written law and not fundamental or human law - because all such remnants of natural law have long been eaten away by the worm of skepticism, but a commanding right, behind which stands force. Brought up in a public school and disciplined by universal military service, the proletarian does not want to ask for any alms on the basis of natural law; he demands rights insofar as the mass to which he belongs constitutes power.” What has been said makes it clear both why “among the interests that concern humanity, the social question, precisely now, is central and dominant,” and the form that the social question has now taken - the form of the struggle between capital and labor, between capitalists and the proletariat. But in the words of Fouillet 28, “in social reality there are reasons that inevitably lead to socialism, there are disasters for which it serves as a symptom and which require means to combat them.” Socialism is the experience of solving a social problem in the interests of the proletariat. Socialism has two sides - practical and theoretical, it is both the practical program of the party and the scientific and philosophical theory. The socialist or social democratic movement is striking in its grandeur. This is the most significant phenomenon in the modern life of peoples, in which the paths of the future history of mankind are hidden 29. However, in the future we will deal solely with the theoretical side of socialism. And in theoretical terms, socialism is the most significant of all modern scientific and philosophical systems. But according to Masaryk’s correct remark 30, “questions of socialism are primarily questions of philosophy. Modern socialism, with its practice and its theory, forces everyone to reconsider their worldview and their behavior. Socialism becomes the touchstone for our knowledge and for our conscience (Der Socialismus ist zum Prufsteine ​​unseres Wissens and Gewissens gevorden).” A critical study of socialist theory now serves as the surest and necessary path to substantiating a World Outlook 31 . And this is regardless of what the researcher’s final attitude towards socialism is, positive or negative: the problems that socialism poses are indisputably important. Our attitude towards socialism cannot be preliminarily expressed in some simple all-encompassing formula, because socialism itself is a very complex phenomenon. Following Prof. Mackenzie, we can say that in socialism there are different sides, very different from one another. There is a comic side to him, there is a tragic side to him, and there is also a side to common sense. Socialism is comical, as a simple expression of impetuous impatience and discontent, which finds solace in the creation of fantastic images. It is tragic, as an expression of revolutionary rage generated by the unbearable injustice of social orders. But in part it also serves as an expression of a moral principle and an attempt to formulate, at least not entirely adequate, a means of implementing it in life 32 . Our attitude towards socialism from the ethical-religious side can only be negative; from the ethical-religious point of view it has no positive meaning. However, this judgment does not yet reveal the fundamental side of the matter, whereas for us it is important at this point to indicate to the reader the main principle of our judgment about socialism, that is, the basic principles of our research. In principle, we recognize the truth in the demand for organizing the national economy, we see the truth in recognizing the national economic organization as the only way to resolve the social issue. The theoretical significance of socialism is that it is the first experience in building that great philosophy that Rousseau said: la plus grande philosophie e’est de savoir ce qui nous entoure. Socrates did not bring philosophy from heaven to earth - this was done for the first time by scientific socialism, which gave its own name to the real motives of human life, directing the attention of philosophy to those base objects that philosophy has always treated with disdain and even contempt and which, however, lie at the basis of social life. Philosophy was always afraid to step on the dirt of the earth, always lovingly, like boys with soap bubbles, playing with absolute formulas, which burst when lowered to the ground. She wanted to be mystical, but she lost the only path leading to mysticism, and invariably remained rationalism. For mysticism is not about soaring in the sky, but about feeling the autonomous truth of the earth and all earthly relationships. The last secret of life is the inevitability and irrationality of all narrowly human relations of buying and selling, employer and mercenary, the clash of economic interests of family and class, etc. It is these real relations of life that constitute the touchstone for a philosophical system; at a distance from them, only sophistical ingenuity is possible, devoid of any internal content, the dizzying rise of a ball, freed from all ballast, the bizarrely internal movements of a ship without any load. But the fundamental mistake of socialism, which dooms this philosophical system to fatal collapse, is that it considers it possible to rationalize social relations, to organize the economic field according to absolute principles. But this area cannot be ethically rationalized. Based on this thesis, I see in the organization of the national economy a conditional matter of life, a conditional harmonization of earthly interests, but nothing more, in no case a solution to an ethical-religious issue. Our social life is full of untruths. But I am deeply convinced that the injustice of a multimillion-dollar fortune, thriving along with poverty, is in essence, with only a quantitative difference, the same as the injustice that is revealed in my addiction to my only piece, to my only dress, to my wretched home. This does not mean that it is impossible to organize the national economy as a way to combat social evil, but it does mean that such an organization can be determined by conditional considerations, and not by unconditional principles. The practice of life not only does not suffer from this, but even benefits, because the application of absolute principles of behavior to conventional social reality cannot but be harmful, but the philosophical view of life changes significantly. From this fundamental point of view, the question of the relationship of socialism to ethics and religion receives all its significance. To expose this error of socialism, to justify this view means to take a point of view that is fatal to socialism. Having called the economic field conditional, socialism would cease to exist as a philosophy, as a system of ethics and religion, it would turn into a simple economic theory. The system of socialism contains a fatal internal contradiction, since, on the one hand, it recognizes the autonomous truth of the earth and all earthly relations, and on the other hand, it again rationalizes real life. We will see how persistently this contradicts socialism. We would now like to draw attention to the fact that this contradiction in socialism is not an accidental methodological oversight, but that the two poles - personal absoluteness and social convention - are essentially inherent in our life, that the main question of social philosophy is the question of the relationship between these poles. The entire system of socialism is built on the unawareness of this polarity of human life, and the correct formulation of the main socio-philosophical question leads to the inevitable collapse of the theory of socialism. I do not pretend that the view I have outlined on the relationship between economics and ethics will be completely clear to the reader; I do not require the reader to believe in it dogmatically. No, this is just a program that will be carried out throughout our entire study, ending with the last special chapter “morality and economy.” I am only outlining the angle from which I view socialism, that observation point that unites all the departments and excursions of our inheritance and which the reader should never lose sight of. Part one. Scientific socialism; his economic and historical-philosophical teachings I. History of socialism: utopian and scientific socialism State legislation and cooperative associations are directed towards the general, in a broad sense socialist, goals of fair distribution of wealth, if we leave without mention any types of charity and mutual assistance. There are also well-known theorists of both state socialism and the cooperative movement. Theorists of state socialism - Schaeffle, Hell. Wagner 33, we have prof. Yanzhul. To anyone who says that he does not want to hear about any socialism, Scheffle replies that the beginning of socialism lies in the fact of the existence of a church, a state, a school, a science (in Kirche, Staat, Schule, Wissenschaft ist der Socialisms schon leibhaftig vorhanden). The newest socialism only wants to extend the socialist organization that has existed for thousands of years in these areas and into the economic area. And even in this immediate sense, socialism is not just a dream: the modern state has already entered the path of economic socialism - in the form of state institutions of an economic nature, starting with the forestry department and ending with shipyards, arsenals, the commissary, the state bank, post office, and railways 34. Among the theorists of the cooperative movement, Brentano 35, Schulze-Delitzsch, Sidney and Beatrice Webb can be named. And socialism, in the immediate sense of the word, always enters into one or another combination with both the cooperative movement and state legislation. That is why the history of socialism 36 is lost in ancient times 37 . With some indisputability and considerable unanimity, researchers indicate, as traces and stages of the socialist movement, primitive communism, the communist state on the Aeolian Islands, the institution of sissitia on the island of Crete, in Sparta and Careagen 38, the movement associated with the name of the Gracchi in Roman history, Jewish legislation with the institution of the jubilee year, communism in the communities of Essenes and Therapeuts, ancient Christian communism (in the Jerusalem community), communism in the Middle Ages - heretical 39 and monasticism in the era of the Reformation, the communist trend in the English and French revolutions. Kautsky points out two historical roots of modern socialism - the communism of equality, carried out in the named communist experiments, and utopian communism. The first was formed among the lower classes, which a few decades ago stood at the lowest levels, but their spiritual development, while utopianism arose among the upper classes, its representatives belong to the spiritual aristocracy of society. Equality communism is crude and naive, it was created not by national insight, not by disinterested thinking and feeling, but by urgent material needs, the struggle over class interests, while utopianism arose thanks to a deep understanding of reality by highly educated people, free from the influence of the interests of their class. Let us now dwell on utopian communism 40 . The first of the more famous utopian projects of government belongs to the Greek philosopher Plato and is outlined in his dialogue The State. The structure of human society seemed to Plato to be similar to the organization of the human soul. In the human soul, Plato distinguished three parts: reason (ὁ λόγος, τὸ λογιστικὸν), anger, heart, irritable ability, the receptacle of higher, noble passions (ὁθυμός, τὸθυμοειδές), and the desired ability, the receptacle of lower passions, lusts (τὸἐπιθυμητικόν). The mind is called to dominate the rest of the soul, and its dominance gives the virtue of wisdom (ἡσοφία). Irritability, submitting to reason and asserting its dominion over lower inclinations, becomes the virtue of courage (ἡ ἀνδρεία). The third virtue, prudence (ἡ σωφροσύνη), is subordinate to the lower, desirable, faculty of the soul, the mind and heart, in moderation. Finally, Plato knows the fourth virtue, justice (ἡδικαιοσύνη), which applies not to any one faculty of the human soul, but to all together, establishes harmony between them, and consists in ensuring that each part of the soul fulfills its purpose. So society seemed to Plato to consist of three groups or classes: rulers-philosophers, whose virtue should be wisdom, warriors or guards, who should be characterized by courage, and the people, embracing all workers, industrialists, acquirers - the virtue of prudence and submission to the upper classes remains in their lot. In order for each of these groups to fulfill its intended purpose, the philosophers ruled, the warriors were guardians of laws and borders, and the people obeyed. Plato believed in state justice. This relationship of classes in Plato’s state makes it quite clear that he focuses his attention exclusively on the two highest groups, or better yet, on the warrior class, since the rulers are elected from among them. All that is most remarkable in his project is limited to the upbringing and character of life of this group. Considering the most careful education of guards through music (in the classical sense of the word) and gymnastics necessary, Plato designed a decisive communism for them. “First of all, no one (of the guards) should have any property other than what is absolutely necessary πᾶσα ἀνάγκη). Then, none of them should have either a home or a storeroom that anyone could not enter. The necessary things, as many as they require for prudent and courageous devotees of war, are to be determined to be received as a reward for their protection from other citizens in such quantities as would be neither excessive for the year nor scanty. They should live together, eating at a common table, as if in a camp κοινῇ ζῇν)". Communism!" guardians extends to married life. Prescribing for women of this class the same education and occupation as for men, Plato thought that “all these women should be common to all these men (τὰς γυναῖκας ταύτας τῶν ἀνδρῶν τούτων πάντων πάσας εἶναι κοινὰς), that no one should live privately with anyone (ἰδίο δὲ μηδενῖ μηδεμίαν συνοικεῖν), children are also common again (καὶ τοὺς παῖδας αὖ κοινοῦς), so that the child does not know his parent, and the parent does not know his child. In general, Plato considers the main factor of social life to be the despotism of the spiritual aristocracy, into whose jurisdiction all aspects of people’s life are given over and for which “lies and deceit” are even recognized as possible.41 In this way, it seemed to him, it would most likely be possible to achieve the highest state good - the unanimity of all citizens. No less famous than Plato in the field of utopian literature is Thomas More, who published his famous book De optimo reipublicae statu deque nova insula Utopia in 1516. 42 Thomas More achieved the high position of Chancellor of England under Henry VIII; for the firmness of his convictions he was beheaded in 1535. The word ymonia (ou-f voice) means “lack of place”, “nowhere". The author presented his social views in the form of a specific description of the life of the Utopians, the inhabitants of a fictitious island. The main feature in the social system of the Utopians is the absence of property. According to the author of Utopia, “wherever private property exists, where everything and everyone moves with money, it is hardly possible to conduct state affairs fairly and happily, because you cannot act fairly where everything, the benefits go to the worst people, you cannot successfully conduct business where everything is divided among a very few, and even they are not completely satisfied, and the rest are in the grip of utter poverty.” The economic system of the Utopians is communist in nature, and moreover, it is not only the communism of consumption, but also the communism of production. Work is considered obligatory for everyone - as much for economic reasons as for moral reasons. The main occupation of all is agriculture. The land is held in common, so that the inhabitants look upon themselves as cultivators of the soil, and not as owners of the cultivated land. Likewise, agricultural implements are in common use. The entire work process is strictly organized. And the products go into general use. "Products produced by all families are brought to special buildings and distributed in warehouses by variety. From there, each father of the family, without paying anything, receives the amount he and his family need and takes home what he takes, without even expressing gratitude to anyone." The T. More family, unlike Plato, is preserved by the Utopians who do not know either the community of wives or the community of children. The family on Utopia has a patriarchal character. Thomas More with his "Utopia" was somewhat dependent on Plato. Much more significant is the influence that both Plato and even more Thomas More had on subsequent times: they had many followers and imitators. Such was the Dominican monk Tomaso Campanella from Calabria, who wrote in 1611 (in prison) the utopian work Civitas Solis 43, in which he projected the communism of wives and property; such are Harrington with his Oceana of 1656, Abbe Saint-Pierre, author of the works Projet de paix universelle entre les potentate de l’Europe (1716) and Traitc de la Polysynodie (1718). But for our purpose it would be unnecessary to list all the famous utopians. Let us only note that some of them tried to realize their utopian dreams in practice. On the other hand, and practically, the movements in the spirit of communism mentioned above were accompanied by the utopian imaginations of their leaders. Let us especially say a few words about the utopian socialism of the first half of the 19th century, mainly in the thirties and forties. The French Revolution, which had worldwide significance, was a grandiose struggle against absolutism for political human rights, for freedom and equality. Its real reason lay in the inconsistency of the old regime, with its political absolutism and social feudalism, with the newly formed third class, the bourgeoisie, which became a powerful social force, both in wealth and in education. The prosperity of this class required political freedom and a new system corresponding to the changed composition of society. The ideology of the revolution 44 was developed by the entire philosophy of the 18th century, led by Voltaire in the first half (†1778) and Rousseau (†1778) in the second half of the century, and which itself was significantly influenced by English philosophy of the 17th century. The philosophy of the 18th century was strong and influential in its negative part, in that destructive criticism of any tradition - religious, moral, political, which was mainly concentrated in the famous encyclopedia (1751-1780); she also vividly expressed her positive ideals. If we summarize her positive ideological content in a brief formula, we can say that in all areas - religious, moral, legal, economic - she defended the idea of ​​naturalness against historicism - she developed the idea of ​​natural religion, natural morality, natural law. Natural was considered natural and, at the same time, rational, immediately obvious to the mind. The main idea of ​​18th-century philosophy was nourished both by a turn to the natural sciences and a materialistic interpretation of mental and moral life, and by faith in reason, especially clearly imprinted in the notorious Condorcet Experience. It seemed easiest to comprehend what was naturally good, as opposed to what was historically formed and artificial. The task was simplified by the liberation tendency, for which simplicity and natural equality seemed to be a guarantee of individual rights and civil freedom. The state of nature was represented as a state of complete freedom, complete opportunity for everyone to freely dispose of their own person, their own actions, their own property. This was also set as an ideal for the modern political system. These ideas were discovered by Locke and were persistently popularized throughout the 18th century. A particularly passionate preacher of the benefits of the state of nature and civil freedom, protected by the social contract, was J. J. Rousseau, whose writings, despite all their shortcomings, despite his inconsistency, had a colossal influence on the people of the time of the revolution In particular, the political-economic science of that time followed a common path with all the philosophy of the 18th century 45 . Political-economic literature appeared no earlier than state-economic policy. And state economic policy arose during the transition from the average!” centuries to modern times, with the formation of powerful national states and strong state power on the ruins of the feudal system - arose and over time strengthened in the form of comprehensive intervention of state power in the national economy, most importantly in the field of manufacturing and trade. According to the views of the time, wealth was considered exclusively cash, and all government measures, such as the regulation of imports and exports, the customs system, were aimed at achieving a favorable cash balance. The first works in economic literature supported this policy and developed the theory of mercantilism. But then protests arose against mercantilism, based on the harm that state intervention brought to the national economy, both directly through the constraint of petty regulations and indirectly through the customs struggle of states and wars. Already firmly established in the 17th century, the reaction against mercantilism especially developed in the 18th century, and precisely in connection with the general literary and philosophical direction of this century. On the basis of this philosophy, the economic theory of the physiocrats arose (Quesnay † 1744, Turgot † 1776): it was both a turn towards the interests of agriculture and a demand for individual freedom in the economic field, although the recognition of property and inequality, as well as despotism, the physiocrats differed sharply from Rousseau. The school of physiocrats taught about the natural order of the national economy, with which legislation must be consistent. Therefore, according to the natural order, national wealth is created by agriculture, and not by manufacturing and trade: “land is the only source of wealth” (Quesne). Agriculture, like the manufacturing industry, can flourish under the inevitable condition of complete freedom of the individual from state tutelage - “free and unlimited competition" (Quesnay). The school of physiocrats put forward the famous formula: laissez passer, laissez faire 46. The basic principles of the physiocratic school were deepened and brought into a whole system by Adam Smith, 47 the founder of the classical school of political economy. He taught about selfishness and personal calculation as the main factor of economic progress - he taught about the inevitable coincidence of personal gain with the general benefit. The demand for complete freedom of the individual in the economic field followed naturally from here. “A certain person tries with all his might to make the most profitable use of his capital: it is true that he has in mind his own interest, and not at all the public benefit, but concern for personal gain naturally and necessarily prompts him to choose exactly the path that turns out to be the most profitable for society. Pursuing his own benefit, he often works for the common benefit in a more effective manner than if he had set himself such a goal. I have never happened to meet that people who took up a commercial enterprise for the sake of public benefit did anything useful... A statesman who would take upon himself the trouble of telling private individuals how they should use their capital would not only be engaged in a completely useless task, but he would arrogate to himself a power that it would be foolhardy to entrust not only to one person, but to any council or senate; This power can nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a person who is so insane and arrogant that he imagines himself capable of exercising it. The law must allow everyone to take care of their personal interests, because every person knows his exceptional position better than the legislator can know about it.” A. Smith connected a harmonious and fully developed economic doctrine with these general judgments. In contrast to the one-sidedness of previous schools, mercantilists and physiocrats, he considered the source of national wealth not manufacturing and trade and not agriculture, but labor, applied to any type of activity, any labor aimed at satisfying human needs. The success of labor is determined by its division, and this connects labor, on the one hand, with capital, and on the other, with deception. A. Smith saw the basis of value in work. Establishing laws that determine market prices and wages, he, as a practical conclusion from his economic teachings, more specifically expresses the requirement of non-interference by state power, as a requirement of freedom of labor. The works of A. Smith and his closest follower, Ricardo 48, who also stood for economic freedom and developed important issues of economic science, are considered the main works in the history of political economy. Smith's students are numerous. And the theoretically substantiated movement in defense of industrial and commercial freedom gradually strengthened subsequently and reached its most extreme development in the second quarter of the nineteenth century in the English party or school of free traders, also called Manchester after the place from which this direction originated 49 . This school demanded absolute freedom for trade and industry, considered competition the most beneficial factor in the national economy and believed in the complete solidarity of labor and capital, in the coincidence of interests of capitalists and workers. In France, Bastiat († 1850) 50 stood on the side of the free trade movement. The liberal ideology of philosophy of the 18th century and, in particular, individualistic economic ideas were realized by the French Revolution, which proclaimed freedom and equality as its motto 51 . However, the revolution, for all its successes in the political field, did not give people complete freedom. Just as the earlier struggle of European peoples for religious freedom led to the triumph of political absolutism and ended in new slavery; So now the struggle for political freedom and equality has led to an unprecedented rise in socio-economic inequality and socio-economic slavery. The revolution revealed the difference between the political rights of man and his economic liberation; she understood the truth that political freedom, without giving a person complete liberation, only puts in line the struggle for economic freedom and equality (egalite de fait, egalite géelle). The revolution was a purely bourgeois movement, serving entirely the interests of the bourgeoisie, although it was carried out under the banner of universal equality and freedom. It was a struggle between the bourgeoisie and the privileged classes, a struggle against the constraints of social feudalism and absolute monarchy. The entire ideology of the 18th century tended towards the benefit of the bourgeoisie, on which everyone’s attention was focused in the fight against old slavery - new freedom was associated with the successes of the bourgeoisie. And indeed the revolution, having caused significant damage to the old privileged classes and acquired political freedom for the entire people, which is, of course, a necessary condition for economic liberation, brought real benefits only to the bourgeoisie. The revolution, which realized the ideas of liberalism, placed private property in the happiest conditions, gave unprecedented scope to the power of wealth and gave the capitalists the full power of the poor: political freedom set off economic slavery. These advances of liberalism coincided with technical inventions and the application of machines to production from the end of the 18th century, which provided a solid foundation for modern capitalist production. That is why the 19th century was the century of a broad socialist movement, which, by its nature, falls into two periods - socialism of the first half of the century and new socialism of the second half of the century. The first half of the 19th century gave rise to many socialist systems. Already Rousseau, at the end of the 18th century, proclaimed property to be the cause of social evils, although he believed that the emergence of property was inevitable in human history. His contemporary Morelli (Naufrage des isles (lies) flottantes ou la Basiliade du celebre Pilpai 1758 - a utopia according to the plan of T. More - and Code de la nature 1755) and his students Mably (Traite de la legislation ou principes des lois 1766 and Doutes proposes aux philosoplies economises sur l’ordre nature! et essentiel des societes) and Bpncco (Recherclies philosophiques sur le droit de propriety et le vol) were communists. Babeuf († 1797) demanded economic equality and social organization of labor. In the 19th century, socialist systems were composed – in France 52 – by S. Simon (1760–1825), who gave his worldview a religious connotation (Nouveau christianisme) and who had many disciples (Bazaar,. Enfantin, Pequer), - Fourier (1772-1837), the wittiest critic of the bourgeois system and traditional morality, but who introduced too much of the fantastic into his projects for the future system - Cabet (1788-1856), who wrote the socialist novel Voyage en Icarie and who tried to organize an Icarian commune in America, - Proudhon (1809-1865), who called - after Brisso is property stolen. In England, at the end of the 18th and at the beginning of the 19th century, Godwin (1756–1886) wrote, who sharply criticized the capitalist system and dreamed of the coming time when a person would not call anything his property - then in the 19th century there was an influential R. Owen (1771-1858), a philanthropic manufacturer who benevolently benefited his workers, the initiator of the cooperative movement in England, according to whose utopian plans several communist communities were founded - the more famous of which New Harmony. Germany 53, where the socialist movement emerged later than in France and England, belonged during the time under review to V. Weitling (1808–1871), a tailor-writer who dreamed of a communist system. Later, Louis Blanc (1811–1882) in France and Lassalle (1825–1864) in Germany were not such groundless dreamers as the listed socialists, however, they also thought to save humanity with a certain project - the organization of workers' associations. V. Sombart 54 gives a correct general description of socialist thinkers until the forties of the 19th century - the “senior socialists”, Godwin, Owen, Cabet, Proudhon, Weitling. What is common to all of them is their dependence on the rationalistic philosophy of the 18th century. All socialist systems of this time are rational, in other words, utopian, because their authors “do not notice the real engines of social life. The senior socialists relied to faith in the goodness of Providence, whether they call it God or nature. They believe, further, in the natural, reasonable order of human existence, based on the infallible and unchangeable laws of nature. They contrast with it the actual order of life, positive, artificially created. This latter is in their eyes the source of all social evils. To get rid of them, it is necessary to restore the natural order. Just as the origin of a bad artificial order is due to the imperfection of the human mind, so the restoration of the natural order depends on the improvement of the mind, and can be the result of knowledge of the truth. The main thing is for a person to understand the laws of nature that underlie the natural order. The self-described socialist writers considered themselves to have discovered the laws of the natural order. As Sombart rightly noted, they were not embarrassed by the fact that a generation earlier the capitalist economic system with free competition and private property was accepted as the natural order. This was also an opening of the mind. Socialist writers did not change the method, but only the content of the discovery of the mind. They declared the previous discovery false and contrasted it with a new one - socialist. They were not further embarrassed by the fact that for them, too, the new order, the only natural order, turned out to be different in detail - and Owen, Fourier, Weitlng furiously denounced each other. Considering reason to be the main factor in social transformation, rational socialists believed that the entire tactics of their work lay in the education of the masses. The natural order, understandable to the author of the socialist system, must be preached and understood by others, as many as possible. When people are enlightened, the slavery of the old order will fall by itself. These socialists especially counted on the “conversion” of the rich, the powerful. Not only all types of speech and writing served as means of propaganda, but special importance was attached to experiment and the power of example. Therefore, it was common for older socialists and their followers to strive for the establishment of communist communities, preferably in America, where communities of the followers of Fourier, Owen, Cabet arose like mushrooms after rain, and were also short-lived. In connection with this belief in the irresistibility of reasonable arguments and the power of example, there was an aversion to any struggle - to violence and politics. In their optimism, the utopian socialists did not notice that "some elements of society consider the status quo to be completely satisfactory, do not want any changes at all and, therefore, are interested in preserving it. Further, they overlooked that a certain social order prevails because those interested in it also have the power to maintain it, that any social order is nothing more than a definite expression of the relationship of forces between individual social classes." Utopian socialism was replaced by so-called scientific socialism in the second half of the 19th century - from the forties. Its founders were Rodbertus-Jagetzow (1805–1875) 55 and Karl Marx (1818–1883), working all the time with his closest friend, collaborator Fr. Engels (1820–1895), who, putting himself in second place, was of one mind with Marx in all spiritual construction and participated with him in the joint compilation of some works, for example. The Communist Manifesto, other works of Marx gave the latest edition, for example. the second and third volumes of Capital, for all his works, for all his views, he was the best interpreter. Marx, thanks to his literary talent and temperament, especially due to the fact that he developed the socialist system into a coherent worldview and expressed individual theses of the system in the most decisive form, gave scientific socialism his name, so that scientific, or new, socialism and Marxism became synonymous. Recently, Kautsky 56 (also Bebel, Mernig, Liebknecht) and in Russia Plekhanov (Beltov) 57 have been recognized as authoritative guardians of Marxist orthodoxy in Germany. New socialism contrasts itself with the old, just as scientific socialism contrasts itself with utopian socialism. In the Communist Manifesto we read: “The theoretical positions of the collectivists are not based on any principles invented or discovered by this or that world reformer. They are only a generalization of the real conditions of the class struggle taking place before us, of the historical movement developing before our eyes.” F. Engels in Antidühring writes the following: “If our confidence regarding the upcoming transformation of the modern method of distribution of the products of labor with its blatant contradictions of poverty and luxury, hunger and abundance, was based only on the consciousness that this method of distribution is unjust and that justice must finally someday triumph, then our case would be bad and we could wait a long time." The medieval mystics, who dreamed of the imminent advent of the thousand-year kingdom, were already aware injustice of class contradictions. At the dawn of modern history, 350 years ago, Thomas Münzer loudly proclaimed this consciousness to the whole world. In the English and French bourgeois revolutions the same call is heard and then fades away. And if the same call for the abolition of class contradictions and class differences, which until 1830 left the working and suffering masses cold, now finds a response among millions, then it is explained by the fact that both the productive forces created by the modern capitalist mode of production, and the distribution of goods developed by it, came into flagrant contradiction with this very method of production and, moreover, to such an extent that the transformation of the mode of production and distribution, which frightened all class differences must certainly occur, under the threat of the death of the entire society. In this obvious material fact, which in a more or less clear form with an irresistible necessity penetrates the heads of the exploited - it is in it, and not in the ideas of this or that couch potato about justice or injustice, that our confidence in the triumph of the idea is rooted.” The thought of the founders of scientific socialism is very clear; they limit themselves from utopian socialism with sufficient certainty. Unlike utopianism, scientific socialism does not proceed from good wishes, not from an invented or discovered remedy against social evils, not from insight into the mysteries of what is proper and salutary, not from claims to a revelation of a higher mind inaccessible to others, it does not proceed from a verifiable knowledge of real history, from knowledge of the laws governing the course of the actual life of society, from knowledge of the reasons driving hysteria, from knowledge of the means that are at our disposal and with which we need to be consistent in our activities, in setting our goals. This understanding of the scientific nature of the new socialism corresponds to the negative attitude of its representatives towards the design of the future social system. "Our opponents,” writes Kautsky in the Erfurt Program, “claim that a socialist association could be considered feasible and become the goal of reasonable people only if there was a plan for it, carefully inherited and found useful and feasible. Not a single reasonable person will begin to build a house before he has his plan approved by knowledgeable people. Least of all would he be able, without such a pre-arranged plan, to agree to destroy his only home, "To clear a place for this house. Therefore, we must first of all show a picture of the “state of the future,” as socialist associations, or socialist society, are usually called. If we hide this picture, then this is to prove that we ourselves do not know well what we want and do not believe in our own cause." According to Kautsky, this demand of the plan from the new socialism is unfounded. “Such a plan should have been considered a necessary prerequisite for a new system as long as we did not know the laws of social development and believed that social forms are erected as arbitrarily as houses." This is the point of view of the old “utopian" socialism. On the contrary, from the point of view of new socialism, “the formation of a new social form in place of the existing one is no longer only something desirable; it has already become inevitable. In order to figure out for ourselves a new formula of society, “we have to take into account not with our so varied personal inclinations and desires, but with obvious facts." "To develop a plan for the state of the future would not only be idle at the present time, it would also be incompatible with the modern scientific point of view. - Sketching positive projects for the organization of the state of the future would be almost as useful and thoughtful as, for example, writing in advance the history of some upcoming war. “To arbitrarily change the direction of development and accurately predict the forms it will take is beyond the power of anyone, not the most powerful monarch, nor the deepest thinker.” Subsequently we will deal with Marxism as scientific socialism; in particular, we will consider the arguments given by representatives of the new socialism in favor of the inevitability of the onset of the socialist system. But we will preface this subsequent examination of Marxism by noting the utopian element in scientific socialism. Despite its desire to remain on the basis of strict science, Marxism cannot avoid an ideal vision of the future. This is quite natural. Even if we recognize the inevitability of the coming socialist system, there is still no basis for a negative attitude towards the design of the future social system. The onset of a socialist order of social life can only be considered inevitable, as well as possible, by those who have a more or less clear picture of this structure. Even if the new socialists do not value the attractive effect of pictures of the future society as a factor in social evolution, they cannot but have any idea about the future structure of society and cannot help but desire the social order presented to them. And indeed, in the above passage from the Communist Manifesto we encounter the term “collectivism,” which already indicates a certain social system, and Kautsky, in clear contradiction to his own negative judgments, in the same Erfurt Program 58 is already trying to depict the socialist system with some detail, although he calls his work not the invention of recipes for the kitchen of the future, but the scientific processing of data obtained by studying certain facts. "Research of this kind" - it turns out - "is not at all useless, for the clearer the future appears to us, the more expediently we will use our forces in the present. Such work - Kautsky further admits - has probably been done for himself personally by every thinking socialist." This assumption of Kautsky is fully justified by the available literature and the widespread tendency of the new socialists to paint a picture of the future system 59 . Thus, with its ideas about the desired social system, the new socialism is not something incommensurable with utopian socialism - on the contrary, collectivism turns out to be one of the utopian plans for the social economy. We will further give a diagram of the types of socialism in relation to projects of the social system and indicate the position of Marxism among the different forms of socialism. II. Types of socialism in relation to the plan for the future society. Utopian element in Marxism Socialism in relation to the plan of social structure is divided into the following types: 1) centralist socialism and communism 2) corporate socialism; 3) federalist socialism; Centralist socialism, or collectivism, as it has recently been called, subordinates the entire organization of the national economy, within a given socialist society, to one social center. The framework for a socialist society is usually considered to be a modern state, the central organization corresponds to the modern government, and in general the idea of ​​a nationwide organization of the national economy is characteristic of the collective, but a change in the very nature of the modern state is assumed: it will no longer be a form of class domination of the haves over the have-nots, but exclusively an economic system. All means of production (land and tools) belong to the state, and all production is controlled by the central government, of course, through the regional and smaller local organizations subordinate to it. – The most important idea of ​​collectivism is that the entire production of the country is proportionate to the needs of all residents - according to information concentrated in the central institution concentrated in the central institution. And all products are placed at his disposal and then distributed to all residents from public warehouses. Labor is assumed to be obligatory for everyone and strictly organized, but in the consumption of products received from public warehouses, everyone is given freedom. We meet the idea of ​​centralist socialism already in Thomas More's Utopia; it was developed by the students of S. Simon, Bazaar and Enfantin, who owned the formula “from each according to his abilities, each ability according to his deeds,” and Pequer, who preached complete equality in the distribution of products, equal pay for labor in all its branches. The same plan of the socialist state is also adopted by scientific socialism in the person of Rodbertus and Marx with his students. While collectivism, establishing a strict organization of labor and production, preserves private ownership of consumer goods and allows complete freedom in personal disposal of them, communism socializes both production and consumption, establishes both common labor and common use of the products of labor. Ideally, communism preaches more complete freedom of consumption than collectivism: the latter balances distribution with the utility of each person’s labor and thereby defines the limits within which freedom of consumption is set, while communism dreams of unlimited satisfaction of the needs of everyone from the common fund. But considering this dream not feasible under the given living conditions, communism in its practical program is limited to the requirement of equality of all in the right to consumer goods, independent of the working capacity of everyone, and corresponding to this right, either general uniformity in consumption or directly common consumption (common housing, common dining rooms). Complete communism was designed by Plato for the guardian class; consumer communism was practiced in the Jerusalem Christian community; later, many communist communities arose (among other things, the Christian republic founded by the Jesuits in Paraguay and lasted from 1610 to 1768). Cabet is considered the most consistent theorist of communism, who tried to actually implement his ideas. Corporate socialism places all means of production in the hands of trade unions, so that each homogeneous corporation of workers owns the corresponding means of production - farmers with land, weavers with fine factories. All workers of one profession unite into an organized trade union, but internally organized unions do not unite among themselves; each of them conducts its own business in isolation and enters into simple trade relations with other unions. The most famous representatives of corporate socialism, Louis Blanc and Lassalle, designed state management of such trade unions, and Lassalle's opponent Schulze-Delitzsch defended their independence from state intervention and left them exclusively to the force of mutual aid. In federalist socialism, the center of gravity falls on the formation of communes, closed communities - with a limited territory and a certain number of inhabitants. Such a commune, sufficiently numerous for broad cooperation for broad social production, is at the same time a limited, closed community that produces itself!” everything needed for its members. The different communes are not connected by any organization and the path of free competition remains open to them. Famous supporters of federalist socialism were R. Owen and Fourier, who called the communes phalanxes, and the public palaces of the communes - phalansteries. Both R. Owen and Fourier paid the main attention not to the relationship of communes, but to their internal structure. Fourier believed in the possibility of complete harmony of personal passions and interests of unconstrained agreement between all members of the phalanx. His ideal is almost anarchic. Anarchism has a negative attitude towards all types of government, all forms of coercion, and considers mutual voluntary agreement and complete freedom the only possible path to cohabitation and cooperation. Godwin and Proudhon were the most consistent theorists of anarchism; the more famous Kropotkin, who called his system anarchist communism and brought anarchism closer to socialism, can no longer boast of the complete clarity of the plan. Among all the utopian plans for social order, anarchism should be considered the most utopian: it is entirely based on the belief in the moral degeneration of people 61 . The combination of socialism with anarchism is given in syndicalism, although syndicalism is divided into two directions - Marxist syndicalism and anarchist syndicalism. Syndicalism is based on workers' syndicates, trade unions of workers, formed not for the purposes of united work, but for the purposes of economic struggle, and individual trade unions, unlike trade unionism, are united through the labor exchange. The trade union is opposed to the syndicalism of the party organization of social democracy, and the economic struggle is opposed to the parliamentary struggle. Syndicalism takes radical views on issues of class struggle; his tactics are extremely revolutionary. The most famous of the theorists of syndicalism are J. Sorel and G. Lagardelle 62 . So we see that scientific socialism, Marxism, as collectivism, occupies a very definite place in the scheme of utopian projects. Let us take a closer look at this side of the new socialism and give a more detailed explanation of the idea of ​​collectivism in scientific socialism. From the extensive literature mentioned above, we will use the work of Schaeffle, who set himself the important task of presenting the “essence of socialism” as an economic program logically developed (ein consequenter Socialismus) from the collectivist principle, leaving aside various extravagant individual opinions. So, what is the program of collectivism? The replacement of "private capital" (i.e., the speculative, private mode of production, governed only by free competition) with "collective capital", i.e., a mode of production which, based on the principle that the means of production constitute the collective property of the aggregate of all members of society, would establish a united (social, "collective") organization of national labor. This "collectivist" mode of production would eliminate the now dominant competition, placing the production of those wealth that can be produced collectively (cooperatively, socially) under the leadership of industrial institutions and, under the same leadership, distributing the common (social) product of all - among everyone, in accordance with the quantity and social usefulness of the productive labor of each. In a socialist state, all the means of organizing production and the circulation of wealth (i.e. capital, as a concept that generalizes the means of production) must, from the very first steps, become the common property of the entire society, collective bodies which, on the one hand, will unite all individual forces into the social organization of labor (“collective labor”), and on the other hand, distribute the products of social cooperation, in proportion to the work of each individual. With such an order, there is no place for either private profits or “entrepreneurship"; all that remains is the organized (not private) productive labor of everyone in industrial institutions that have a collective structure and are supported by collective capital; what remains is the distribution of salaries in exchange for private profits of profits and wages. The quantity of demand for each branch of production must be established continuously by official statistics of demand emanating from the institutions in charge of sales! " and the commissions directing production, and must serve as the basis social industry plan. An accidental surplus or shortage of products, in comparison with the quantity of demand assumed in the plan for each period, will be periodically balanced from stocks held in public, but no longer private, warehouses. This is the general meaning of “collectivism” as the opposite of “capitalism”; This is the essence of the social “organization of labor”, as the antithesis of the so-called “anarchic competition” of modern life, where, according to socialists, the great task of social metabolism - the production and distribution of wealth - is not a consciously united social function, but is left to the game of rivalry and private pursuit of profit. The socialist organization of capital and labor is incompatible with the existence of speculation, private enterprises, markets, the stock exchange, with the use of money and with all kinds of private rents. Socialism does not agree with the entire modern system of private credit, loans, hiring, rent - not only with private productive capital, but also with private loan capital. Socialism cannot allow the existence of any kind of trade (private trade) and commercial market: metallic money will disappear and will be replaced by working money (“receipts for work”). As a means of payment (in private relations of exchange, payment and loan), money would become completely unnecessary, since under the new system there would be no private loans or private exchange; and as a measure of value, money in a socialist state would be replaced by the average working day, according to which the value of the products would be determined and taken into account in distribution. A public working day would be taken as a unit of value in judicial assessments, fines and penalties: deductions of labor recorded in public work books would most accurately determine the level of penalties from convicted and public debtors. In a socialist society, finally, taxation is unthinkable: everything assigned by society to cover public needs would be taken directly from public warehouses and would go to the maintenance only of public services, since the food reserves in their entirety would be in the hands of society itself. But the principle of production with the help of collective capital does not in the least violate the freedom of choice in relation to individual needs, and also does not prevent each individual from disposing of what he received for his labor in accordance with his desires and needs. The accumulation of property and the formation of private property are compatible with the basic principle of socialism, since it will not extend to the means of production of collective labor, i.e. private ownership of consumer goods. Consequently, the principles of socialism do not imply either the elimination of the independence of the home, or the destruction of family life and freedom of private cohabitation; a socialist state could preserve personal freedom of home life, family education and the right of inheritance for the necessities of life. This leaves room for the free pursuit of humanitarian, scientific and religious goals in the form of different societies. In particular, the maintenance of the church would rely on voluntary contributions from believers; It would even be possible to directly support the church from national income. From this general outline of the collectivist system, one can already see how unfair, on the one hand, the hackneyed objections to socialism are, based on the incorrect assumption that socialism denies property in general and destroys the family 63, and how, on the other hand, how credulous and unfounded are their hopes that socialism will, by some miracle, immediately create an “earthly paradise” and turn them into cooperative owners or masters of production. Now, leaving Schaffle 64, we will look more closely at some points of the collectivist program, consider how scientific socialism answers questions about property, about the family, about the distribution of products and about personal freedom. Own. In the Communist Manifesto we read: "The distinctive feature of collectivism is not the abolition of property in general, but only of bourgeois property. When capital turns into social property, belonging to all members of society, such a transformation will not occur with personal property at all. Only the social character of property will change. It will lose the current character of class property. We do not at all intend to abolish the personal appropriation (by workers) of the products of labor necessary for the maintenance and reproduction of human life, for this appropriation does not gives no net income, which gives power over the labor of another person. Collectivism will not deprive anyone of the opportunity to appropriate their share of the products of social labor; it will only take away the opportunity to enslave, through this appropriation, the labor of another person.” Kautsky: “economic development requires public ownership of the means of production, which does not at all affect private ownership of items of personal consumption.” Wed. Ant. Menger (Neue Staatslehre = New Doctrine of the State): “Private property is the most suitable legal form for the distribution of consumer goods among individual citizens and, as such, will retain its modern meaning in a people’s workers’ state for the distribution of these goods.” Family. The Communist Manifesto on the Family says: "Bourgeois marriage is in reality a community of married women. What the collectivists could be accused of is that they want to replace the hypocritical, disguised community of wives with an open, officially recognized one. It is obvious, however, that with the destruction of modern relations of production, its result will also disappear - the community of wives, that is, official and unofficial prostitution." Engels: “If now economic considerations, due to which wives took into account the usual infidelity of their husbands, disappear, that is, concern for their own existence and even more for the future of children, then the equal status of women, judging by all previous experience, will certainly contribute to the fact that men will become truly monogamous than to the fact that wives will live in polyandry.” Kautsky: “On the destruction of the family, that is, no one in the party is thinking about its abolition through legislation or its violent destruction. Only the grossest perversion could attribute such views to her, and only a fool could imagine that any form of family could be created or abolished by decrees. The modern family does not at all contradict the essence of socialist production. Therefore, the implementation of a socialist society in itself does not at all require the destruction of the existing form of the family.” Also: "The currently characteristic connection of the home with economic production must cease: the house will be separated from the household, but there is no need to turn the peasant's home into public property. Modern socialism is based on public ownership of the means of production, and not on ownership of the means of consumption. For the latter, it does not exclude private property. Among the means of using life and enjoying it, one of the most important, and perhaps the most important, is the home. Public land ownership is completely with it compatible. The abolition of the household does not at all mean the abolition of marriage and family. Having your own kitchen does not mean that home in the sense of home should disappear. Modern culture has developed other family ties beyond the stove and the laundry. The disappearance of the separate household means only the transformation of the family from an economic unit into a purely ethical unit; it only means the fulfillment of a moral need that has now matured, thanks to individualism, which has developed under the influence of modern productive forces. Socialism does not drown out the need of every fully developed individual to create his own hearth, his own “home,” but it will make this need universal and at the same time provide the means to satisfy it." Bebel: “Under the condition that the satisfaction of his needs does not bring any harm to anyone else, he must manage himself. Satisfaction of sexual need is the same personal matter of each person as the satisfaction of any other natural need. No one should give an account of this to another, and those not called should not interfere here. How I eat, how I drink, how I sleep and how I dress is my own business - just like my interactions with a person of the opposite sex. If a union concluded between two people becomes unbearable, brings disappointment and even disgust towards each other, then morality requires an end to such a connection, which has become unnatural and therefore immoral 65... In a socialist society there is nothing to inherit, except for the inheritance of household utensils and personal equipment, so from this point of view, the modern form of marriage disappears. At the same time, the question of the right of inheritance is also eliminated, which socialism does not need to abolish. Since there is no longer private property, then there can be no right of inheritance” 66. We see that collectivism does not fundamentally reject the family, that with the principles of socialist production the family does not stand in inevitable antagonism. However, we also see that socialism does not set as its goal the strengthening of the family principle, that it does not value the social significance of the family 67. treats this social union insufficiently attentively, disdainfully, that in socialism the word in defense of marriage is too rarely heard, as does, for example, Menger 68 . Any personal extravagant opinions on issues of marriage cannot be blamed on the ideas of collectivism, but the mere fact that such opinions, so widespread in modern society, cling with special love to socialism, speaks not in favor of the latter. Distribution of benefits. Socialism is expected to provide the worker with the right to the full product of labor, the right to subsistence and the right to work 69 . How does scientific socialism respond to these claims? Schaeffle, as we have seen, adopts socialism the distribution of goods among everyone in accordance with the quantity and social usefulness of each person's productive labor. P. Lavrov notes to this that “the majority of socialists in all countries accept the opposite teaching: from each according to his strength, to each according to his needs 70 . This teaching at the present moment could with much more right be called the dominant teaching of socialism than the opposite.” Marx 71 distinguished two phases of socialist society. The first phase is the time when socialist society is just emerging, just emerging from the bowels of capitalist society, when in all respects economic, moral, spiritual, it still bears the features of its mother - the old society. In this phase, each individual producer worker receives back from society exactly what he gives it with his labor, with the exception of what is withheld to cover social needs. He receives from society a certificate that he has performed such and such work (with a portion of his work being withheld into the public fund) and according to this certificate he receives from the public stock exactly as much as his work is worth (gleicbviel Arbeit kostet). The same amount of work that he has given to society in one form, he gets back in another form. Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as in commodity exchange, since it is an exchange of equal goods. The right of producers is proportional to the work performed by them; equality consists in the fact that the measurement is made by an equal scale, work. But one person is superior to another physically and spiritually, as a result of which he can either produce more work at the same time, or work for a longer time; and work, in order to serve as a standard, must be determined by duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to serve as a scale. This equal right leads to unequal rights for unequal work. There are no longer class differences left, because each is the same worker as the other, but unequal individual talent and unequal ability to work are tacitly recognized as natural privileges. This right, like any right, in its own way contains the right to inequality. These shortcomings are inevitable in the first phase of communist society, when it has just emerged, after much torment, from capitalist society. In the highest phase of communist society, after the slavish subordination of individuals to the division of labor disappears, and at the same time the opposition between mental and physical labor disappears, after labor becomes not only a means of subsistence, but itself becomes the first vital need, I knew how, together with the all-round development of individuals, the productive forces and all sources of social wealth will flow abundantly - only then will it be possible to transcend the narrow limits of bourgeois law, and society will be able write on your banner: each according to his abilities, each according to his needs 72. Engels, in Anti-Dilhring, expresses his thoughts on the distribution of goods in the following three theses. Firstly: labor has no value, and the worker’s right “to the full product of labor" has no basis. Since labor, under certain social relations, produces not only products, but also values, and this value is measured by labor, it can just as little have a special value as weight, as such, a special whole or heat - a special temperature. But a characteristic feature of all confused social ideas that philosophize about the “true value” is that they imagine that In modern society, the worker receives an incomplete "value" for his labor and as if socialism is called upon to eliminate this. In this case, first of all, it is necessary to establish what the value of labor is; and this is done by trying to measure labor not by its adequate measure, time, but by its product. The worker must receive the "full product of his labor." Not only the product of labor, but also the labor itself must be exchanged directly for the product, an hour of labor for the product of another hour of labor. But here a "dangerous" difficulty immediately arises. The entire product" is distributed. The most important progressive function of society, accumulation, is taken away from it and left to the activity and arbitrariness of each individual. Individuals can do what they want with their "income", society at best remains as rich or poor as it was. So, the means of production accumulated in the past are centralized in the hands of society only so that then all the means accumulated in the future production will again be scattered in the hands of individuals. Their own preconditions, they are struck, are brought to the point of pure absurdity. Secondly, Engels recognizes equality as the principle of distribution of goods, according to him, that from the equality of people as such, the demand for the equality of the social and political status of all people, or at least all citizens of one state or all members of one society, is derived. Thirdly, to the question whether more complex work should not be paid at a higher rate, Engels answers negatively. “In a society of private producers, the cost of producing a trained worker falls on individuals or their families; Therefore, private individuals also receive higher wages for trained labor: a skilled slave was sold at a higher price, a skilled hired worker was paid at a higher price. In a society organized socialistically, these costs are paid by society, therefore the results of them also belong to it, i.e., the highest values ​​​​created by more complex labor. The worker himself cannot claim any surplus.” Kautsky: "For a long time, the distribution of goods in a socialist society will have to take place in forms that will represent a further development of the current forms of wages. All forms of the current system of remuneration - constant salary, time wages, piece wages, bonuses for work exceeding a known norm, different pay for different jobs - all these forms of remuneration are compatible - of course, in a correspondingly modified form - with the essence of socialist society." Bebel: “If someone is endowed by nature with abilities that place him above others, then society is not obliged to reward him for what does not constitute his personal merit. What each person is is what society has made of him. The funds that each person requires for his education are the property of the community. Thus, society cannot undertake to especially reward what it itself has made possible, what is essentially its own product.” Anton Menger 73 "The right to the full product of labor is in no way compatible with our modern social order which in most of Europe recognizes private ownership of land and capital. In a legal order which admits public property with private use, the right to the full product of labor is a natural principle of distribution. In a society organized communistically, where public property is combined with common use, the enforcement of this right is possible, but the practical difficulties presented by such a combination are so great that the basis is distributed Here we must consider the right to livelihood. Fullier 74 ingeniously reveals the internal contradiction between three socialist demands - the right to work, the right to the full product of labor and the right to a means of subsistence - and the inconsistency of all these demands with the right to freedom. ..The protection provided to individuals by society, if it reaches the point of collectivism and communism, leads to the suppression of individual freedom in all its forms. Individuals become juveniles under the tutelage of the collective. The right to work is bought at the price of the right to work freely, to choose the object and type of work, profession, time of work and rest, etc. The right to a full product is bought at the price of the complete transfer of products into the hands of the community, which distributes them at its own discretion, not in accordance with personal intentions: it leads to the elimination of ownership of the benefits owed to my labor. The right to a means of subsistence is purchased at the price of the right for everyone to use the products of their labor, to consume or not to consume them at will and in any way. All rights to anything transferred into the hands of the Providence State destroy the right to do anything. In general, we can say that the socialist declaration of rights leads to the abolition of the declaration of human and civil rights, and is a restoration of the old absolutism in the form of a collective, even more omnipotent and imperious than royal power. Any patronage that is not intended to protect the freedom of the individual turns into slavery.” Lacombe 75 points out other shortcomings of the socialist project. "To base a society on a socialist principle would mean completely banishing economic responsibility from it. Meanwhile, in creating wealth, the latter was almost the only incentive. If you destroy this incentive, will not people then stop working? Let us assume that activity will not stop completely, but there is no doubt that it will weaken, and if in the end they still work, due to the tirelessness of human needs, then the saddest result of the new order of things would be the distribution of labor: under the socialist organization of society, the lazy and the egoists would throw the entire burden of labor onto the shoulders of the kind and generous. Already in modern society such a desire is strongly felt, but we do not even realize to what extent people are dying, crushed by the extra burden that others have placed on them. The victory of socialism would be a complete triumph for the worst.” Bernstein 76 talk about the insurmountability of the task that social democracy undertakes in the future socialist society. “Along with the growth of unselfishness and selflessness among some, we must expect extremely intense expectations and demands among others, and if we imagine the attitude of a part of the workers who make sacrifices for political and professional goals to the entire working class, then we will have to say that the former will, in all likelihood, constitute a minority, while the latter will constitute an enormous majority. Will society be able to immediately satisfy these demands? Can a political revolution that transfers power to social democracy directly reduce the responsibility of everyone to take care of themselves?.. It is necessary to abandon, as the purest utopia, the idea that the socialist transformation will transform the state into an institution that automatically takes care of the food of its members.” Mackenzie 77, dwelling on the formula: “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs,” also draws attention to the fact that in a socialist society there would be no motive for the lazy majority to engage in public affairs. The old saying would be justified: everyone’s business is no one’s business. On the contrary, individuals with exceptional conscientiousness would sacrifice themselves and their development for the immediate cause more than is permissible under the conditions of growth of talent for the benefit of society. There is no way for society to determine whether everyone is doing all the work of which he is capable. no matter how large the staff of supervisors is. Rather, general negligence is to be expected. The capable would become robbed by the incapable, in complete contrast to what happens under free competition. The original difficulty of all such systems would also remain: who would supervise the overseers - quis custodiet custodes? Finally, it must be added that in a socialist society there would be no incentive for the development of talent 78 . Mackenzie considers the distribution of products proportionate to needs to be equally difficult. Man is by nature insatiable, like the sea. Our needs are endless. and it is absolutely impossible to set a limit for them.. You can find the most insatiable of them, but these are rarely the most urgent needs. Then, the distribution of goods according to needs would increase inequality between people even compared to what we see today, and at the same time would weaken the uplifting power of needs and the goods corresponding to them, which lies in personal efforts to satisfy the most urgent needs. It is also difficult, according to Mackenzie, to balance the distribution of benefits with labor. The products of labor do not have a definite value in themselves, and this does not make it possible to evaluate labor according to the degree of usefulness of the products produced. Individual effort depends on the degree of ability. If we take average abilities as a criterion, then how to value works that exceed the level of average abilities? The very concept of effort is vague, unless one is limited to muscular effort, but it is impossible to limit oneself. If we introduce the hedonistic principle of the unpleasantness of labor and the pleasantness of the products of labor, then this would be a return to the modern system of competition. Other critics of socialism also point out that the socialist plan is not adapted to human nature. referring to the productive power of self-interest 79 . Socialism is trying to strengthen its position in one way or another. Some supporters of socialism 80 point out that, unlike managers and workers in state factories, who have no private interest in producing in the most economical way, which explains the well-known low success of modern government industrial enterprises, in a socialist organization everyone will receive more income, the more successfully he and his comrades work; that, further, on a socialist farm or factory, each worker works under the control not of one owner, but of all members of the association. The weakness of this argument is all too obvious. Others 81 count on the fact that people are capable of being imbued with the public spirit to a much greater extent than they are accustomed to assume at the present time. History testifies to the success with which numerous human societies can get used to considering public benefit as their own. A communist association would be the most favorable ground for the development of this feeling, because all ambition, all physical and mental activity, which are now occupied with concerns about private personal benefits, would then begin to look for employment in another sphere and, naturally, would find it in concerns about the general benefit of the association. Under communism, the citizen would be connected with the community for the same reason that so often explained the devotion of a Catholic priest or monk to the interests of his class; he would have no interests different from the general interest. We, they say, do not know the unchangeable human nature. Marx himself authoritatively declared in an essay directed against Proudhon that “all history is nothing more than a continuous modification of human nature.” Nature not only changes, but we must change it. “Philosophers only explained the World one way or another: but the point is to change it,” he said in one of the theses on the philosophy of Feuerbach 82. You cannot rely on egoism as an unshakable ground: egoism itself, or individualism, like capitalism, is a historical phenomenon. With the new socio-economic system, we can expect a new psyche, new motives for activity: selfishness may weaken and even disappear completely. Marx speaks about the historical conditionality of egoism with considerable detail in two works - in an article on the Jewish question (Z ur Iudeiifrage) and in a polemical work against Stirner. In the first article, Marx discusses the conditions under which Jewry can cease to exist, and the Jew appears to him as a fighting selfish man - “this passive, long-standing result of the disintegration of society.” He writes: “for us, the question of the Jew’s ability to emancipate turns into the question of what special element of society must be overcome in order for Jewry to cease to exist? The question of the ability of the current Jew to emancipate is the question of the attitude of Jewry to the emancipation of the current World. This attitude necessarily follows from the special position of Jewry in the present enslaved world." The worldly basis of Jewry is in practical need, in self-interest, in egoism. The worldly cult of the Jew is buying and selling. His worldly God is money. But in emancipation from the buying and selling of money, that is, from practical, real Jewry, this is what the self-emancipation of our time should consist of. Is it possible? On this Marx answers the question positively. “An organization of society that would destroy the preconditions for buying and selling, such an organization would make it impossible for a Jew. His religious consciousness would dissolve like fog in the real vital air of society. On the other hand, when the Jew recognizes his practical essence as worthless and works to destroy it, he works, starting from his previous development, towards the cause of universal human emancipation and fights against the highest practical expression of human self-alienation. We recognize in Jewry a common modern antisocial element, which has now reached its apogee, thanks to the historical development in which the Jews took a very sad and very zealous part. from which his decomposition must necessarily begin... We explain the vitality of the Jew not by his religion, but by the human basis of his religion, practical need, egoism. As soon as society succeeds in destroying the empirical essence of Jewry, buying and selling and its prerequisites, the Jew will become impossible, since his consciousness will no longer have an object, since from that moment the subjective basis of Jewry, the practical need, will become humanized, since the conflict between the individual sensory existence and the generic existence of man will disappear from that moment.” – Marx returns to the same question of the possible disappearance of the antisocial egoistic psyche in his polemical work against Stirner 83 . The general meaning of the criticism of Stirner’s teaching given here comes down to the fact that Stirner does not accept egoism in the empirical meaning of the word, but to elevate “his” egoism to a norm, to duty, to an ideal, to an absolute, he preaches “holy egoism.” In fact, Stirner distinguishes free, conscious, consistent egoism from unfree, unconscious egoism, which is always combined with self-denial. For Stirner, the holy and immaculate have something in common with the godless and vicious - namely, their self-denial. The vicious person renounces all “best feelings," all shame, even natural timidity, and follows only the lust that has mastered him, while the immaculate person renounces natural relationships with the world (“renounces the world”) and follows only the desire that has mastered him. Stirner did not allow any self-denial, nor did he allow that self-denial that society demands from the individual. He asked: “Why is the egoism of those who assert personal interest, but you constantly fall under the power of the priestly or school, i.e., ideal interest (eiuem pfaiffischen oder schulmeisterlichen, d. h. einem idealen Interesse unterliegt)”? Stirner explains this by the fact that “their personality seems to them to be small, too insignificant and in reality it is such - in order to covet everything and fully defend yourself. Marx paraphrases this question this way: why do personal interests, regardless of personal will, develop into class interests, into public interests, which, unlike individual individuals, acquire independent significance, and in this meaning take the form of general interests, as such, they become opposed to actual individuals, and in this opposition, as general interests, can appear to consciousness as ideological, even religious, sacred interests? Why, with this transition of personal interests into class interests, does the personal behavior of the individual reify, becomes alien and at the same time becomes a force independent of him, produced by the mutual relations of people, turns into social relations, into a series of forces that determine and subordinate him and therefore seem to him to be “holy” forces? If Stirner had grasped the fact that with certain methods of production independent of personal will, alien forces independent of them rise above people, then it would be indifferent to him whether this fact is presented religiously or not. Then what seems to him a product of thought, he would perceive as a product of life. Then personal and general interests would turn out to be two sides of the personal development of individuals, due to the empirical conditions of life, only expressions of the same personal development, and the contradiction between them would be imaginary. According to Stirner, the principle of love or publicity 84 creates social life, courtesy, and brotherhood. It is better to say the opposite: life creates a principle. "To our saint" (Stirner), communism seems incomprehensible because communists do not put forward either egoism against self-sacrifice, or self-sacrifice against egoism, and theoretically do not accept this opposition either in a soft or in a sharp ideological form, but discover its material source, with which it disappears by itself. Communists do not preach any morality at all, which Stirler so willingly does. They do not present it to people. moral requirement: love each other, do not be selfish; on the contrary, they know very well that selfishness, like self-sacrifice, is in certain relationships a necessary form of achieving individual goals. Theoretical communists know that the opposition between general and personal interests is an imaginary opposition, and that this opposition is constantly being practically destroyed, then created 85. Recently, the idea of the possible disappearance of egoism under a communist system of society has been repeated frequently 86. We must recognize great strength behind this argument. Indeed, none of the properties of human nature, and also selfishness, cannot be elevated to absolute. Everything in our psyche is conditional. It was a communist system, it corresponded to collectivist feelings; Since the currently dominant private property corresponds to individualism, we can expect new changes in the human psyche. However, do we have reason to hope for a complete return of the past, for the complete disappearance of egoism 87? We should not deny the possibility of further mental evolution, the subsequent complication of individualism, but can we count on a reverse evolution 88? Individualism has strengthened historically, but having strengthened, can it completely give way to primitive psychic collectivism? This is a question for which we do not have the data to answer positively. If we want to leave the realm of prophecy and not leave the scientific soil, we must rely only on the actual composition of human nature. We fully agree with the following words of Anton Menger (from his work cited above): "I consider the study of the ideal social system not only scientific, but also necessary if the socialist movement is to achieve, at least in part, its goals. Only then can utopias be called unscientific when, when creating a social system of the future, they proceed from the view that people, after the introduction of a new social order, will be guided by different motives, or that the connection between cause and effect will change in comparison with the present time. How New and old socialists, not excluding Engels, often ignored these basic rules. One need only remember Cabet, who considered brotherhood to be the only human impulse in a socialist society, as well as its only goal, although it was impossible for him to close his eyes to the fact that all the experiments carried out so far on human nature did not allow him to hope for the implementation of the idea of fraternity in a communist state. Lately we have already met socialists who do not want to listen to fables about the moral degeneration of man in the new socialist society. Prof. Isaev writes 89 the following. "It is empty fun to think and guess about what people will be like in a long series of centuries. Giving free rein to your imagination, trying to create another social novel, you can, at best, sketch a series of beautiful pictures, express some witty propositions. But it is absolutely impossible to predict how our descendants will live in the 50th generation. The limited foresight of the strongest minds guarantees this. And therefore, if anyone becomes to assure me that in 2907 in almost all corners of the globe selfishness will be silent, equality and brotherhood will prevail between people, the beginning of friendliness will set the tone for almost all everyday relationships, that almost everyone will willingly receive from the public income no more than their neighbor receives, then I will not object... People, continues Prof. Isaev will enter the socialist system with the totality of passions, with the character of motives that dominate in capitalist society. No, and there cannot be a force capable of remaking people in a short time only because the instruments of production will be the property not of individuals, but of everyone. The members of the new society will also be dominated by love for themselves and their neighbors, the consciousness that, even with full diligence in work, they still do not contribute to the success of social production. This consciousness will be followed by the conclusion that, due to the great difference between people, they have the right to unequal shares of social income. The opportunity to get more and better satisfy their tastes in the world of consumption will serve as an incentive for many to strain their workforce, to provide services in greater quantity and of better quality. Both now and then the consciousness will be firmly held that the work of an engineer is more difficult than the work of a digger or carpenter, the work of a doctor is more valuable than the work of a tailor, and painting or sculpture requires much more data than the craft of a baker. A socialist society will take into account all these differences and express them in unequal remuneration of people for their work 90 . The nature of power. Collectivists speak out with the greatest certainty on this issue. Promising that increased productivity will not only provide all members of socialist society with daily food, which will be more abundant from day to day, but will also make it possible for them to completely freely develop and improve their physical and spiritual talents 91, and that the discipline in which now “the capitalist keeps his workers” will become “redundant in a social state in which workers produce work at their own expense, just as it now turns out to be almost completely unnecessary with piecework payment 92,” collectivist socialism presupposes a despotic central authority. The Communist Manifesto says: "The first stage of the proletarian transformation is the constitution of the proletariat into the ruling class, the conquest of social power by democracy. The proletariat will use its political dominance in order to concentrate all the means of production in the hands of the state, i.e. organized into the ruling class of the proletariat, and as quickly as possible to increase the mass of productive forces. Of course, this cannot be achieved at first except through despotic attacks on property rights and bourgeois production relations.” Class struggle in France: “Revolutionary socialism defends the continuity of the revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, as a necessary transitional stage towards the elimination in general of all class differences and all those relations of production on which these differences rest, as a necessary transitional stage towards the elimination of all social relations corresponding to these relations of production, and to a radical revolution in the field of all ideas arising from these social relations.” Anton Menger (New Doctrine of the State): “In the transitional era, the dominant form of government will be open or disguised dictatorship.” "The organs of the working people's state, as soon as it sets out on the path of peaceful normal development and develops all the inclinations hidden in its essence, will have to differentiate into organs of order and economic institutions. The tasks of the former will include maintaining the existing balance of forces and protecting external order and tranquility... Economic institutions will prescribe to individual members of the state the type and amount of work required of them and determine the corresponding amount of benefits and services received by each... None 93 democratic sympathies should not prevent the leaders of the new social order from creating a strong government through the expedient organization of state bodies.” “Socialism, from the very beginning of its implementation, must take the path of state legislation, since it is completely unsuited to expansion based on free consent.” According to Fouillet, socialism is unthinkable without coercion. "If socialism were in no way compulsory, it would be nothing more than societarism, that is, the opportunity to join or not to join existing associations, the opportunity to leave them, the opportunity to found others, even the opportunity to live in isolation, in short, complete freedom of the individual and association. Such freedom does not and cannot lead to the socialization of land and tools of labor. If I own neither land, nor capital, nor tools of labor, then am I not defenseless from any coercion and can I really resist it? The disadvantages of such a socialist regime are striking. First of all, one cannot help but be outraged by the very idea of ​​the despotic power of the majority over individual life, the inevitability of public control over the individual 94 . Then, one cannot rejoice at the prospect of a huge bureaucracy, which is inevitable in a socialist society. Even the category of bureaucrats who will have to replace the merchants cannot be small in number, and this will be just as parasitic a class as modern merchants - a class that will cost society more than the current merchants, although it will hardly fulfill its task as well 95. Finally, the democratic management of the national economy itself presents difficulties, which are well explained by Prof. Mackenzie in the previously named book. The expression "society as a whole," writes Mackenzie, "denotes a vast and unwieldy body, composed of a varied multitude of heterogeneous elements - wisdom and folly, charity and self-love, energy and indolence, mixed together in variable and incalculable proportions. And if the management of affairs were transferred into the hands of such a body, there is no way to foresee what would happen. Whether the leadership would go to the most gifted of all citizens, the most energetic and most devoted to the common cause? Experience rather shows that such qualities, with the possible exception of the second one, have not always acquired popular attention for those who possessed them. It cannot be expected that it will be otherwise in the future. A large society can hardly judge which of its citizens is most devoted to the common cause, unless it relies on the own promises and assurances of one or another person. Such a society has no means of determining the abilities of its citizens, except by observing the results of their activities. There is hardly anything more reliable than the judgment of the people on deeds after they have been committed, and therefore socialism would be the true ideal for beings who turn their gaze back. But the great difficulty for us arises from the fact that we look ahead. Es liesse sich Alles trefflich schlichten Könnte man die Sachen zweimal verrichten. If we could step back from our actions, the problem of life would be easy to solve. The average person is a worthy historian, but he is a pitiful prophet: this is the main reason why the leadership of broad affairs cannot be entrusted to society as a whole. The general public is not only incapable of judging the most trustworthy people; but is she even less capable of finding the most important solution in difficult circumstances? So, we have considered the collectivist project of the future society. We have seen that in detail this project presents significant difficulties and has major shortcomings. But, if we ignore these details, if we assume the possibility of eliminating these difficulties, what can we say about the very idea of ​​collectivism, i.e., the socialization of the means of production (land and tools)? We need to speak out about this project in view of the fact that, no matter how unimportant its significance is in the system of theoretical socialism, where it has a place not in the series of principles, but in the series of conclusions, it is more than other parts of this system, known to the general public and has practical significance for the workers' party 96. This idea can take on the character of a moral demand, as we see in biblical and patristic writing 97 . But socialism does not approach the idea of ​​collectivism from a moral point of view; it places it at the basis of the party program. In this form, collectivism is a utopia - the same utopia as those types of socialism that scientific socialism calls utopian. And just as, when applied to the latter, so when applied to collectivism, assimilated by scientific socialism, the indication of a utopian character is a decisive condemnation. Any absolute ideal, including collectivism, moving beyond its inherent subjective sphere and taking on the form of a real program, inevitably becomes utopianism in the derogatory sense of the word. Social projects can lead to success only under the condition that, firstly, they give real power over the socio-economic process. Let us assume that immediately, but with the wave of a magic wand, all the land and all the factories are transferred to the workers. The act of this transfer will have social meaning only if the production process is not disrupted, if it is not stopped, if it is not a meaningless division of capital, depriving it of productive power, if it is not the gutting of the goose that laid the golden eggs. Secondly, the social project must be fully equipped with modern legal technology, beyond which the best wishes will lead to the most terrible consequences 98 Standing outside of these conditions, the absolute ideal can be appropriate and beneficial only in the subjective sphere 99 ; applied to the social sphere bypassing these conditions, it turns into a meaningless and powerless utopia. The meaninglessness and impotence of utopia is that to realize the absolute ideal, allowing it to be possible, in addition to the specified conditions, would be the same as cutting off the reins of a rushing troika, in the hope that everything will be governed by the good desire of the riders. If it is not obvious to you that this hope always brings shame and that for social life the worst but legally worked out project is more useful than the best goal without a real and legal basis: then you must, in any case, agree that there is not a single person in the world who could foresee what will come out of the implementation of any absolute ideal, in particular collectivism, without the specified conditions, and these conditions turn absolute ideals into relative ones. In the fair words of the positivist Durkheim 100a), “the mechanical concept of society does not exclude the ideal, and it would be wrong to reproach it for making a person a passive witness of his own history, but “it is true that such a (social-positivist) ideal can only be proximate and that the horizons that it opens cannot be limitless. In no case could it be assumed to limitlessly strain the forces of society, but only to develop them within the boundaries outlined by a certain state of the social environment. Any excess is evil, just like insufficiency... But if the ideal must always be certain, it can never be final. Since progress is the result of changes taking place in the social environment, there is no reason to assume that it should ever end. In order for it to have a limit, it would be necessary for the medium to become motionless at the given moment, which is impossible. Then, "for progress to stop, it would also be necessary for the relations within human society to become unchanged. It would be necessary for them to be forever established in a certain form, so that not only the entire aggregate, but also each of its constituent elements would retain the same dimensions. But such uniformity is impossible." And if scientific socialism remained on a strictly scientific basis, consistently maintaining its difference from utopianism 101, it would not recommend its social ideal for practice 102. Meanwhile, as Struve correctly notes 103, “at the basis of socialism is the idea of complete rationalization of all processes taking place in society. This is the enormous difficulty of socialism. According to the idea of ​​socialism, the spontaneous economic and social interaction of people should be completely replaced by their planned, rational cooperation and subordination. I deliberately emphasize the word completely, because socialism does not require partial rationalization, but one that would fundamentally cover the entire field of social life. This is the main difficulty of socialism, for it is obvious that neither individual nor collective reason is capable of covering such a vast field and is not capable of subordinating all the processes occurring in it to one plan. This follows from the essence of the matter, and from here it is clear that from a realistic point of view we can only talk about the partial implementation of the tasks of socialism, and not about a complete solution to the problem of socialism” 104. Let us conclude this section with the words of Lavele and Anton Menger. The first writes 105 “If economic knowledge were more widespread, then the workers would know that changes in the social order can only be brought about gradually and that even the most absolute, the most ruthless dictatorship, even if it destroyed to the ground all previous institutions and all acquired rights, could not suddenly transform wage workers into cooperative owners or masters of industry.” Anton Menger writes the same. "Many adherents of revolutionary socialism are inclined to think that as soon as the working class seizes state power, a socialist social order will quickly be introduced, just as changes in the state structure have often occurred - thanks to a successful onslaught. But we must not forget that the political question only slightly concerns the internal life of the people, while an unsuccessful social experiment can directly pose the question of existence to the people. A social question cannot be resolved, like a political one, overnight. Of course, our modern legal order does not satisfy the more existing balance of power between the owners of land and capital and the working class, whose influence on society has noticeably increased with the growth of its education and class consciousness. But the necessary changes will be achieved through a long historical development. III. Marx's economic teachings Having noted the presence of a utopian element in the system of scientific socialism, as a weak side of the sociological structure, we have still done little to criticize the scientific socialist system; we have not even touched upon what scientific socialism itself considers most characteristic in itself. The importance attached to the plan for the future social system, and the picturesqueness of the details of the plan, which give rise to objections, decrease as we move from participants in the practical Social Democratic movement to theorists of socialism, and among the latter - from minor supporters of Marxism to its main representatives. In this direction, there remains a complete possibility for Marxists to retreat from the broken positions of utopian projection: not only those Marxists who reject specific ideas of the coming social system, but not those who paint a picture of the “future state” in more or less vivid terms, attach the main importance to observations of the course of historical development, evidence of the inevitability of the onset of a new system. Engels himself knows that “what is desired is achieved only in rare cases; But for the most part, the goals that people set for themselves come into mutual conflict and contradiction or turn out to be unattainable, partly due to their essence, partly due to lack of means. But at the same time he is convinced: "where randomness dominates on the surface, this randomness itself always turns out to be subordinate to internal, hidden laws. The whole point is to discover these laws." Scientific socialism does this, this is what it wants to do. It attaches the main importance to the discovery of the laws of historical development. He rejects the idea that people's desires could themselves play a historical role. A person can only contribute to the historically inevitable, only to ease the pain of the birth of a new social system - his desires and plans have real significance only if they correspond to the historical course. We must now consider what makes socialism scientific - its evidence of the historical inevitability of the emergence of a socialist society. These are the two main points in the theory of Marxism: the doctrine of surplus value and the materialist understanding of history. Engels in Antidühring calls these precisely two points of socialist theory the two great discoveries of Marx that made socialism a science 106. Of these two main foundations of scientific socialism, the theory of surplus value, otherwise the political-economic doctrine with the adjacent socio-political doctrine as an applied part, answers more specific questions of political economy and will give a special explanation of the capitalist era, and historical materialism is a broader theory of the socio-historical process. The theory of surplus value is more important as the support of socialist aspirations and the scientific and historical justification of the social democratic program, and the theory of historical materialism is more interesting philosophically and introduces us most deeply into the system of socialism as a worldview. In accordance with the objectives of our research, as an ethical-historical work, we will dwell more closely below on the historical and philosophical basis of Marxism, but first we will note the main features of the political-economic doctrine of Marxism with the adjacent socio-political doctrine, since this is necessary for understanding Marxism as a worldview system, in view of the close connection in this system of both theories. In his economic teaching, in particular in the construction of his theory of value, Marx relies on the traditions of the classical school and shows especially strong sympathies, visible through all the layers of sharp criticism, in relation to Ricardo 107 . But while classical political economy was an entirely “pure" political economy, developed abstract laws, applied exclusively the deductive method, and proceeded from the unchangeable properties of an abstract economic man, Marx thickly colored his economic constructions with historical-realistic tendencies, attention to individualizing moments in socio-economic life, recognition of the internal necessity of historical changes. From this side, scientific socialism enters the mainstream of that historical-realistic direction of social, and historical sciences, the second established itself from the beginning of the nineteenth century, as a reaction against the rationalistic views of the 18th century, and is associated with the names of Thierry, Guizot, Schlegel, Schleiermacher. A private, historical school of law was formed, headed by Savigny and Puchta 108. Of the philosophers, Schelling and especially Hegel contributed more to this. In the historical school, the idea of a natural system of society and natural rights was already rejected. person. The positive system and positive law are not established by the arbitrariness of people, but grow organically from the depths of the national spirit and from the conditions of the historical development of the people, therefore they are not subject to rational criticism from the point of view of natural law, that is, moral consciousness, just as arbitrary intervention by governments cannot be beneficial. The positive system has its justification in the character of the people's spirit, in historical conditions, in the given balance of social forces. The views of the historical school were also transferred to political economy: this was done by Roscher, Hildebrand, Kips. But according to Bruno Hildebrand, A. Smith and Ricardo proceeded from the view that all the laws of the national economy, which are based on man’s relationship to material goods, stand outside the conditions of time and space, that they are preserved despite all the variability of phenomena: but they completely forget that man, as a social being, is always a child of civilization and a product of history, and that his needs, his education, his relations to material goods, as well as to people, never remain the same, but just as they are different geographically, they are also historically continuously changing, developing together with the entire culture of mankind 109. Roscher assimilates political economy, like every science of national life, into psychological character; a true national economy must begin with deep amazement at the enormous variability of what people at different times wanted from the national economy. The variability of national economic laws is not an evil that needs to be fought; it is commendable and salutary, since it proceeds in strict accordance with changes in the people themselves and their needs. Each of the most diverse ideal requests can be right, of course, only for his own people and his time; he would become false only if he made a claim to be universally binding. There cannot be one universally obligatory economic ideal for peoples, well, there cannot be one suitable for all dresses according to one standard 110 '). Among the supporters of the historical direction of the socio-historical sciences, Marx occupies an outstanding place. He placed political economy on a broad historical basis, although he set the task of this science to be the search for abstract elements of economic life 111. In the posthumous article Einleitung zu einer Kritik der politischen Oeconomie (Neue Zeit 1903), Marx criticizes the foundation of the old mechanical theory of society. Classical political economy proceeded from the concept of an abstract human individual, the main properties of which were laid down by nature itself, and did not appear as a result of historical development. However, this separate and isolated hunter and fisherman with whom Smith and Ricardo began belongs to the tasteless fictions of the 18th century. The true premise of economic science can only be the individual. producing a social organization in a certain historical form. The deeper we dive into the study of history, the more we become convinced that the human personality is part of a great social whole. Man, in the literal sense of the word, is a social animal, and only under certain social conditions can he separate himself from society as a separate, isolated unit. Consequently, the abstract human personality is a social product of certain, concrete human conditions. Production organized by isolated individuals is as nonsensical as the development of language without people living together. If economists were able, based on the concept of an abstract personality, to build an entire social system, then this was possible only due to the fact that classically Robinson was the son of industrial England, therefore, potentially possessing all the properties of a cultured person 112. It must be remembered that Marx, a student of Savigny and Hegel, adopted the historical-realist trend not in its original form, in which it served conservative politics, but came to it under the pressure of socialist tasks and used it in revolutionary interests, as a result of which Marxism, until very recently, is in more or less hostile relations with the historical school of political economy. His predecessors in the realistic interpretation of reality should most likely be seen in the person of the utopians Saint-Simon, Fourier, Louis Blanc. The historical-realistic method of Marxism is already reflected in its political and economic teachings. Marx sets the task of his doctrine of surplus value to be a historical explanation of the capitalist mode of production. This is explained by Engels. "The old socialism, although they criticized" the existing capitalist mode of production and its rule, could not, however, explain it, and therefore put an end to it; it could only simply deny it as worthless. Meanwhile, the point was, on the one hand, to present this capitalist method as historically conditioned, necessary for a certain historical period, and therefore transient, on the other hand, to reveal its inner nature, which still remained unknown, so as criticism was so far directed more at its harmful results than at the course of development itself. This problem was solved by the discovery of surplus value. It has been proven that the appropriation of unpaid labor is the basis of capitalist production and the exploitation of the worker that occurs during it; that the capitalist, even if he buys labor power at the full value that it has on the commodity market, still extracts from it more value than what he spent on it; and that this surplus value ultimately forms the sum of value from which an ever-growing mass of capital is accumulated in the hands of the propertied classes. The process of capitalist production and the production of capital has been clarified.” Now we will present the political-economic theory of Marx with the socio-political doctrine based on it - according to the first volume of Capital with additions from other works of Marx, preserving, if possible, his own words. The wealth of societies in which the capitalist mode of production dominates is a “huge accumulation of goods.” A product is, first of all, an external object, a thing that, with its properties, satisfies some human need. Any useful thing, for example, iron, paper, etc., can be considered from a double point of view - qualitative and quantitative. Each such thing has many qualities and can therefore be useful in various ways. The revelation of these various aspects and the diverse purposes of things arising from them is a product of historical development. The discovery of social measures for the quantitative side of useful things is of the same historical nature. The usefulness of a thing makes it a use value (Gebrauchswert). But this utility does not hang in the air: conditioned by the properties of the commodity body itself, it does not exist apart from it. The commodity body itself, for example, iron, wheat, diamond, is therefore a use value, or a good, and this property does not depend on how much or little human labor was required to assign these use properties. When we talk about use value, a certain amount of it is always assumed, for example, a dozen watches, a yard of canvas, a ton of iron, etc. Use values ​​are realized only in use or consumption. They form the material content of wealth, whatever its social form. In the modern social form, they are, together with those material carriers of exchange value. Exchange value (Tauschvert) is represented, first of all, in the form of a quantitative ratio, the proportions in which use values ​​of one kind are exchanged for use values ​​of another kind - and this ratio is constantly changing in place and time. Let's take two goods, for example, wheat and iron. Whatever their exchange ratio, it is always possible to create an equation in which a given amount of wheat is equated to any amount of iron, for example, one quarter of wheat = a hundredweight of iron. What does this equation mean? That something common of the same size exists in two different things, in one quarter of wheat and in a hundredweight of iron. Both, therefore, are separately equal to something third, which in itself is neither one nor the other. Each of these two things, therefore, in so far as it has exchange value, can be reduced to this third. This common property cannot be a geometric, physical, chemical, or any other natural property of goods. Their physical properties are generally significant only insofar as they make them useful objects, that is, use values. But on the other hand, it is obvious that characteristic of the exchange relationship of goods is precisely its independence from use values. In the exchange process itself, one use value costs exactly the same. as well as any other, since it is present in the proper proportion. As use values, goods have, first of all, different qualities; as exchange values, they can differ only in quantity and therefore do not contain a single atom of use value. If we leave aside the use value of goods, then they have only one property, namely, that they are all products of labor. But since we leave aside the use value of a product, we, at the same time, are distracted from all those physical elements and forms that make it a use value. It is no longer the case, a house, yarn or any other useful thing: all its perceptible properties have disappeared. It is also no longer a product of carpentry, carpentry, spinning or any other specific productive labor. When the products of labor cease to be utilities, then at the same time the varied labor embodied in them loses its useful character, and, therefore, the difference in the concrete forms of this labor disappears: they no longer differ from each other, but are all reduced to equal human labor, expressing abstract human labor. Let us now consider what, after all these distractions, remains in the products of labor. What remained of them was only one essence, common to all of them and seemingly illusory, a simple clot of indifferent human labor, that is, the expenditure of human labor power - regardless of the form of the expenditure. All these things now express only the fact that human labor power was expended in their production, that human labor was accumulated in them. As crystals of this social substance common to all of them, they are values—commodity values. What is common that is expressed in the exchange relation, or in the exchange value of goods, is their value. Use value, or good, has, according to what has been downloaded, value only because abstract human labor is realized, materialized, in it. How to measure the magnitude of this value? Through the quantity of the “value-creating substance” contained in it, i.e., labor. The very quantity of labor is measured by its duration. But what kind of worker is accepted as the norm, lazy or diligent, skillful or unskillful? The labor that forms the substance of value is the same human labor, the expenditure of the same human labor power. The total labor force of society, expressed in commodity units, is considered here as the same labor force, although it consists of an innumerable number of individual labor forces. Each of these individual labor forces represents the same human force as all the others, since it has the character of an average social labor force and, as such, acts, i.e. uses only averagely necessary, or socially necessary, labor time for the production of any commodity. Socially necessary labor time is that labor time which, under existing normal production conditions in a given society and the average degree of skill and intensity of labor, is necessary for the production of one or another useful thing. Therefore, the value of any useful thing is determined only by the amount of socially necessary labor, or the socially necessary labor time for its production. Each individual product is generally considered here as an average copy of a given type of product. The value of one commodity is related to the value of another, just as the labor time required to produce one is related to the labor time required to produce another. As values, all commodities are only a certain amount of frozen labor time. Consumption products become commodities only because they are the products of private work performed independently of one another. The totality of these private works constitutes social labor as a whole. Since producers enter into mutual social relations only through the deception of their products, the specific social character of their private work is manifested only within the limits of this deception. In other words, private work is actually carried out as links in social labor only through the relationships that exchange establishes between the products of labor and, through these products, between the producers themselves. Only in the process of deception do the products of labor acquire a socially identical objective nature, expressed in their value and different from their diverse nature, expressed in utility. This bifurcation of the product of labor into utility and value manifests itself in practice only when exchange has already acquired such large dimensions and such importance that useful objects are produced directly for exchange, i.e., that the property of objects that makes them valuable is taken into account during their very production. The product does not have any direct use value for the commodity owner, otherwise he would not have brought it to the market. The product of a given commodity owner has use value for another. For its owner directly, it has use value only insofar as it is a carrier of exchange value and, thus, can serve as a means of exchange. Therefore, he wants to give it away in exchange for another commodity, the use value of which satisfies his needs. All goods are non-use values ​​for their owners and use values ​​for their non-owners. Therefore, they must change hands from all sides. But this transfer from hand to hand constitutes their exchange, and the latter puts them into mutual relation as values ​​and realizes them as such. Commodities, therefore, must be realized as values ​​before they can be realized as use values. In the direct exchange of products, each product represents a direct weapon of exchange for its owner, and for the non-owner it is an equivalent, but only insofar as it is a use value for him. The object of deception, therefore, does not yet receive any form of value independent of its own use value, that is, from the individual needs of the persons making the exchange. The necessity of this form develops only with an increase in the number and variety of goods entering the exchange process. The problem arises simultaneously with the means to solve it. The turnover in which commodity owners exchange and compare their own objects with other objects never occurs without the various goods of different commodity owners being exchanged and compared as values ​​within a given turnover with the same third commodity. Such a third commodity, becoming an equivalent for various goods, directly, although within narrow boundaries, acquires a universal, or social equivalent form. This universal equivalent form, with the development of commodity exchange, is associated exclusively with one particular commodity, or crystallizes into the monetary form. The widely developed exchange of goods makes necessary a universal equivalent form - money, that is, some special type of goods - for us gold, silver - in which all other goods express their value, to which all other goods are lured, which express the values ​​of goods, as quantities of the same name, qualitatively equal and quantitatively comparable. Gold and silver, in the form in which they emerge from the bowels of the earth, immediately appear as the direct embodiment of all human labor. This is the source of the magical effects of money. The purely atomistic relations between people in the social process of production, and therefore the material form of their own production relations independent of their control and conscious individual activity, are manifested primarily in the fact that all products of human labor take the form of goods. The mystery of the money fetish is therefore the same mystery of the commodity fetish, which has only become completely visible and dazzles the eye with its metallic shine. The monetary form of goods is price. Price is the monetary name for the labor embodied in a commodity. Since the exchange process of goods transfers them from hands in which they are not use values ​​to hands in which they are use values, it represents a social exchange of substances. The process of commodity deception stops as soon as the product falls into the hands in which it has use value. From the formal side, social metabolism consists in a change in form, or in the metamorphosis of goods. When a commodity is exchanged for gold, it at the same time changes its use form to a form of value. When gold is exchanged for a commodity, at the same time the form of its exchange value turns into the form of use value. The weaver sells 20 arsh. canvas and with the proceeds purchases a Bible, which should enter the weaver's house as a use value and there the need for soul-saving reading will be satisfied. The exchange process, therefore, takes place in two opposite and mutually enabling metamorphoses: in the transformation of goods into money and in the reverse transformation of money into goods. The moments of this commodity metamorphosis represent, at the same time, transactions of the commodity owner: sale - exchange of goods for money: purchase - exchange of money for goods, and the combination of these two acts: sale for purchase. The exchange process of goods occurs, therefore, in the form of such a change in form: Commodity - Money - Commodity. T–D–T. In its material content, this movement is C–T, the exchange of goods for goods, the exchange of products of social labor, the result of which exhausts the process itself. Serving as an intermediary in the circulation of goods, money acquires the function of a medium of circulation. The change of forms in which the material exchange of the products of labor takes place, C–M–C, determines that the same value represents as a commodity, the starting point of this process and, as a commodity, returns back to this very point. Thus, this movement of goods is a cycle. Its monetary form, on the contrary, disappears as soon as its cycle ends. It results in the constant removal of money from its starting point, rather than its return to it. The form of movement directly given to money by commodity circulation consists in its constant transfer from the hands of one commodity owner to the hands of another. This constitutes circulation, or circulation of money. Commodity circulation is the starting point of capital. Money as money and money as capital at first differ only in their different form of circulation. The direct form of commodity circulation is C–M–C, the transformation of goods into money and the reverse transformation of money into goods, sale for purchase. But next to this form we find a second, completely different from it, form M-T-M, the transformation of money into goods and the reverse transformation of goods into money, purchase for sale. Money, which in its movement describes this last cycle, turns into capital, becomes capital, and by its very purpose is capital. The form of circulation D–T–D, according to the result of the process, is the exchange of money for money, D–D. Obviously, the process of converting M-C-M would seem absurdly empty if one sum of money were exchanged for the same amount, for example, 100 pounds, in this roundabout way. Art. per 100 f. Art. One amount of money may generally differ from another only in its size. The process M–C–M owes its content not to the qualitative difference of its extreme members, since they are both money, but only to their quantitative difference. As a result of this process, more money is removed from circulation than was brought into circulation at the beginning of the operation. Cotton bought for 100l. Art., resold, for example, for 100+10 f. Art., or for 110 f. Art. The full form of this process should therefore be represented as follows: D – T – D, where D = Δ D, i.e. equals the originally spent amount plus some increment. This increment, or surplus compared to the original value, Marx calls surplus value (Mehrwert, surplus-value). The initially advanced value is thus not only preserved in circulation, but its value also changes in circulation: a certain surplus value is added to it, or it increases. And it is this movement that turns it into capital. The simple circulation of goods—selling for purchase—serves as a means to achieve an ultimate goal that lies outside circulation, namely, for the appropriation of use values, i.e., to satisfy needs. The circulation of money as capital, on the contrary, is a self-sufficient goal, since with it the use of value occurs only within this ever-renewing and equal movement. Therefore, the movement of capital is not limited by anything. A change in the value of money, which is supposed to turn into capital, cannot occur in itself, because, as a means of purchase and payment, it realizes only the price of the goods that are bought with it, or for which it is paid, and at the same time, preserving its own form, it seems to freeze like a fossil in a given value. In the same way, this change cannot occur from the second act of circulation - the resale of the commodity - for this act only transforms the commodity from its natural form back into the monetary form. The change must, therefore, be made with the commodity that is purchased in the first act of M–C, but not with the value of this commodity, since equivalents are exchanged, that is, the commodity is paid for according to its value. Change, therefore, can only come from the use value of this commodity as such, that is, from its consumption. In order to extract value from the consumption of a commodity, our owner of money must be so happy as to discover within the sphere of circulation, on the market, a commodity whose use value would have the special property of generating value, a commodity whose actual consumption would itself be the materialization of labor and, therefore, the creation of value. And the owner of money actually finds such a specific product on the market - the ability to work, or labor power. To transform money into capital, the owner of money must find on the commodity market a free worker, free in a double sense: on the one hand, the worker, being a free person, must have his labor power at his disposal, as his own commodity, on the other hand, he should not have other goods for sale, he must be free from everything, free from any objects necessary to materialize his labor power. The value of labor power, like the value of any other commodity, is determined by the labor time necessary for the production, and, consequently, for the reproduction of this specific commodity. Since it is a value, labor power itself represents only a certain amount of average social labor embodied in it. Labor power exists only as the ability of a living person. The production of the first, therefore, presupposes in advance the existence of the second. Once a living personality is present, the production of labor power consists of its reproduction, its restoration, or the maintenance of its life (and its offspring). To maintain his life, a person needs a certain amount of means of subsistence. The labor time necessary for the production of labor power is thus reduced to the labor time necessary for the production of these means of existence, or, in other words, the value of labor power is the value of the means of subsistence necessary to support the life of its owner (and his family). Natural needs, for example, food, clothing, heating, housing, etc., are different, depending on the climatic and other natural characteristics of the country. On the other hand, the extent of the so-called necessary needs, as well as the method of satisfying them, represent a product of historical development and are therefore determined, for the most part, by the cultural level of the country, and, therefore, by the way, are significantly determined by the conditions under which and, consequently, with what habits and life requirements the class of free workers was formed. In contrast to all other commodities, the determination of the value of labor power thus contains historical and moral elements. But for a certain country and in a certain period of time, the average level of necessary means of subsistence is a given value. If we assume that the mass of goods required to produce labor power on average per day contains 6 hours of social labor, then half a day of average social labor is embodied in labor power every day, or in other words, half a working day is needed for the daily production of labor power. This quantity of labor required for the daily production of labor power constitutes its daily value, or the value of daily renewed labor power. If half a day of average social labor is expressed in the amount of gold of 3 shillings or 1 taler, then one taler is the price corresponding to the daily value of labor power. If the owner of labor power sells it daily for one taler, then the selling price of labor power is equal to its value; I, according to our assumption, am the owner of money, striving to convert his talers into capital, to pay this value. But the past labor contained in labor power, and the living labor which it can perform, its daily means of subsistence and its daily expenditure, are two completely different quantities. The first determines its exchange value, the second constitutes its use value. The fact that to maintain the life of a worker for 24 hours requires only zero working day does not in the least prevent him from working all day. The value of labor power and its exploitation in the labor process are therefore two different quantities. This difference in value is what the capitalist had in mind when he purchased labor power. Its useful property, its ability to produce yarn or boots, was only a conditio sine qua non: labor must be spent in a useful form in order to form value. Of decisive importance here was the specific use value of this product, that is, its ability to be a source of value, and, moreover, of more value than the value that it itself has. This is the specific service that the capitalist expects. from the workforce. And at the same time he acts in accordance with the eternal laws of commodity exchange. In fact, the seller of labor power, like the seller of any other commodity, realizes exchange value by alienating its use value. He cannot receive one without giving the other. The use value of labor power, labor itself, belongs just as little to its seller as the use value of sold oil belongs to the oil merchant. The owner of the money paid a day's worth of labor power; belongs to him, therefore its consumption in the course of one day, i.e. daily labor. The fact that the daily maintenance of labor power costs only zero working day, although labor power can act, that is, work, a dead day, that therefore the value created by its consumption in the course of one day is twice its own value, constitutes a special happiness for the buyer, but in no case does it constitute. injustice towards the seller. This is the exploitation of labor power by capital, or the worker by the capitalist. That part of the working day, during which the worker produces only the value of his labor power, Marx calls necessary labor time, and the labor spent during this time is necessary labor: necessary for the worker, since this labor is independent of the social form of the labor process; necessary for the capitalist and the capitalist world, since the constant existence of the worker is the basis of capital’s own existence. The second period of the labor process, during which the worker works beyond the limits of necessary labor, although it costs him labor, waste of labor power, but does not create any value for him, the worker. It forms surplus value, which gives the capitalist all the charm of a smile to a creation created from nothing. Marx calls this part of the working day surplus labor time (Sugrlusarbeitezeit), and the labor spent during this time is surplus labor (Mehrarbeit, surplus labor). Understanding value in general as frozen labor time, as materialized labor, and he considers surplus value as frozen surplus labor time, as materialized surplus labor. Different socio-economic formations, for example, a slave society and a society based on wage labor, differ from each other only in the form in which this surplus labor is squeezed out of the direct producer. If both parts of the working day are equal, this means that the worker works one half of the day for himself and the other half for the capitalist. This is how Marx substantiates the position that capital is the materialization of someone else’s unpaid labor. And this forms the first half of his economic theory. He doesn't stop there, however. In the second half of his theory, he tries to prove that in the depths of capitalist production the conditions for the coming socialist system are taking shape, that capital is digging its own grave, and that the socialist system will be an inevitable consequence of this process. This theory of social development includes a number of private theories as separate links. The theory of accumulation and centralization of capital. If the surplus value is not spent on personal consumption. but is spent and used in the form of capital, then new capital arises and is added to the old one. This transformation of surplus value into capital is called capital accumulation. In the commodity mode of production, in which the means of production are the property of private individuals, where workers therefore either produce goods in isolation and independently or, in the absence of means for independent production, sell their labor power as a commodity, cooperation on a large scale can only be realized due to the age of individual capital, or as the social means of production and means of subsistence become the private property of individual capitalists. The soil of commodity production allows production on a large scale only in the capitalist form. A certain accumulation of capital in the hands of individual commodity producers therefore constitutes a necessary prerequisite for a specifically capitalist mode of production. It can be called primitive accumulation, because it is not the historical result of a specific capitalist mode of production, but its historical basis. No matter how it happens, all the ways to increase social productivity of labor that arise on this basis are at the same time ways to increase the production of surplus value, or surplus product, which serves as an educational element of accumulation. “These methods, therefore, are at the same time methods of producing capital with the help of capital, or methods of its accelerated accumulation. The continuous transformation of surplus value into capital is expressed in the increasing amount of capital entering the production process. It in turn becomes the basis for production on a larger scale, for the accompanying methods of increasing labor productivity and for accelerating the production of surplus value. If, therefore, a certain degree of accumulation of capital is a condition of the specifically capitalist mode of production, then the latter, in turn, determines a more rapid accumulation of capital. With the accumulation of capital, therefore, the specific capitalist mode of production develops, and with the specific capitalist mode of production, the accumulation of capital develops. Since the capitalist represents personified capital, the motive for his actions is not use value and consumption, but exchange value and its increase. As a fanatic of increasing value, he mercilessly forces humanity into production for the sake of production. In this role, he shares with the treasure collector an absolute thirst for enrichment. But what for him is an individual mania, for the capitalist it is the action of a social mechanism in which he is only one wheel. In addition, the development of capitalist production makes it necessary to constantly increase the capital invested in an industrial enterprise, and competition imperatively dictates to each individual capitalist the laws inherent in the capitalist mode of production, as external coercive laws. It forces him to constantly expand his capital in order to preserve it, but he can increase it only through progressive accumulation. Each of the individual capitals that make up social capital represents a more or less significant concentration of the means of production and a correspondingly greater power of the capitalist over a larger or smaller army of workers. Each accumulation becomes a means of new accumulation. By multiplying the amount of wealth acting in the form of capital, accumulation increases the concentration of total capital in the hands of individual capitalists, and consequently expands the conditions for production on a large scale and for a specifically capitalist mode of production. This is the accumulation of capital and the concentration of means of production. This theory could be called die rein teclmische Konzentrationstheorie (following some exponents of Capital). This accumulation and concentration must be distinguished from the concentration (neutralization) of capital (die socialökonomische Konzentrationstheorie). This theory (the second half of the general theory of accumulation and concentration of capital) is as follows. The increase in social capital occurs through the increase of many individual capitals. Other things being the same, each of these individual capitals, and with it the concentration of the means of production, increases in proportion to what part of the social capital it forms. At the same time, there are offspring of the original capital, which, having separated from it, act as new independent capitals. A big role in this is played, by the way, by the division of property in capitalist families. Therefore, with the accumulation of capital, the number of capitalists more or less increases. Two circumstances characterize this role of concentration, directly resting on accumulation, or even identical with it. Firstly, the increasing concentration of social means of production in the hands of individual capitalists, other things being equal, is limited by the degree of increase in social wealth. Secondly, part of the social capital invested in each individual branch of production is divided among many capitalists who confront each other as independent and competing commodity producers. So, we see that not only accumulation and the concentration that accompanies it is fragmented and occurs at the same time at many points, but also the increase in functioning capital is accompanied by the formation of new ones and the fragmentation of old ones. Accumulation is thus, on the one hand, a growing concentration of the means of production and a growing dominance over labor, on the other hand, the mutual repulsion of many individual capitals. This fragmentation of all social capital into many individual capitals, or the mutual repulsion of its component parts. their attraction is counteracted. This is no longer a simple concentration of the means of production, identical with accumulation, not a simple domination over labor. This is the concentration of already formed capitals, the destruction of their individual independence, the expropriation of the capitalist by the capitalist, the transformation of many small capitals into a small number of large ones. This process is different from the first. that it presupposes only a change in the distribution of existing and functioning capital, and that its field of action is not limited, therefore, by the absolute growth of social wealth or the absolute limits of accumulation. In one place capital accumulates in one hand in enormous masses, because in other places it has disappeared from many hands. Competition forces goods to become cheaper. The cheapness of goods depends, caoteris paribus, on labor productivity, which in turn depends on the size of production. Large capitals therefore beat smaller ones. Moreover, with the development of the capitalist mode of production, the minimum amount of individual capital required to conduct business under normal conditions increases. Therefore, small capitals are forced out into those spheres of production in which large-scale industry is found only sporadically, or which it has not yet completely mastered. Competition is rampant here in direct relation to the number and in inverse relation to the size of the competing capitals. It always ends in the death of many small capitalists, whose capital partly passes into the hands of their winner, partly disappears. As capitalist production and accumulation develop, competition and credit also develop - these two most powerful levers for the centralization of the concentration of capital. At the same time, the progress of accumulation increases the material for centralization, i.e., individual capitals, while the expansion of capitalist production creates, on the one hand. social need, on the other - technical means for those huge industrial enterprises, the implementation of which is connected with the previous concentration of capital. At present, therefore, the force of mutual attraction of individual capitals and the tendency towards centralization are stronger than ever. Even if the relative size and energy of movement towards centralization are to a certain extent determined by the amount of mystical wealth already achieved and the degree of perfection of the economic mechanism, then the progress of concentration does not at all depend on the positive increase in social capital. And this is precisely what distinguishes decentralization from concentration, which is only another expression of expanded reproduction. Centralization can occur through a simple change in the distribution of existing capital, due to a simple change in the quantitative grouping of the constituent parts, social capital. Capital may here have grown to enormous proportions in some hands because in another place it has slipped away from many hands. In a given branch of industry, centralization would reach its extreme limits if all the capital spent on it merged into one single capital. In any given society, these limits would be reached only at the moment when all social capital was united in the hands of any one capitalist or in the hands of some one society of capitalists. Centralization completes the shares of accumulation, enabling industrial capitalists to expand the size of their operations. It is obvious, however, that accumulation is a very slow procedure in comparison with centralization, which only needs to change the quantitative grouping of the integral components of social capital. The process of accumulation and concentration entails important negative aspects of industrial life - crises and impoverishment of workers. Crises. As long as machine production expands in any branch of industry at the expense of handicraft or manufacturing, its success is as sure as the victory of an army armed with needle guns over an army of archers. This first period, when the machine is just beginning to gain its sphere of action, is important, decisive, in view of the extraordinary profits that are produced with the help of machines. This profit not only in itself forms a source of accelerated accumulation, but also constantly attracts to a particularly profitable sphere of production a large share of additional social capital, which is constantly being re-formed and looking for new premises. The special advantages of the first period of "sturm und drang" are repeated in those branches of production where machines are again introduced.But as soon as the factory system has reached a certain breadth and a certain maturity in its development; as soon as its technical basis, i.e. machines are produced by machine; as soon as a revolution took place in the mining of coal and iron, as well as in the method of processing metals, and in transport; in general, as soon as the general conditions of production are created and correspond to large-scale industry, from that moment on the machine method of production acquires a certain elasticity, the ability for rapid expansion, the limits of which are set only by the raw material and the sales market. This enormous, shocking expansion of factory production and its dependence on the world market necessarily gives rise to feverish productivity and, following the production fever, an overflow of markets, the reduction of which paralyzes production. Industrial life thus turns into a successive series of periods of average recovery, prosperity, overproduction, crisis and stagnation. The insecurity and instability to which machine production exposes labor, and consequently the fate of the worker, becomes normal when this periodicity of the industrial cycle occurs. Just as a celestial body, once brought into a certain movement, constantly repeats it, so social production, once it is thrown into this movement of alternating expansion and contraction, also constantly repeats it. Actions in their turn become causes, and the various recurrences of the whole process, which constantly reproduces its own conditions, take the form of periodicity. But only from the moment when machine production, having taken deep enough roots, began to have an overwhelming influence on all national production; how, thanks to him, foreign trade began to predominate over internal trade: how the world market successively annexed vast territories in the New World, Asia and Australia; how, finally, the number of individual industrial nations that entered the arena of international economic struggle became quite significant - only from that moment did repeated cycles begin, the phases of which span entire years, and which always abut a general crisis, which ends one cycle and is the starting point for another. For the present time, the period of these cycles is 10–11 years, but there is no reason to consider this value constant. On the contrary, it should be assumed that it is changing and that the duration of the cycles will gradually decrease. Crises indicate that modern bourgeois society, which has created such powerful means of production and deception, is like a magician who cannot cope with the underground forces he himself has caused. In recent decades, the history of industry and trade has been a history of the rebellion of the productive forces against the modern organization of production, against property relations, which are the condition of existence for the bourgeoisie and its rule. Each crisis systematically destroys not only the mass of already created products, but also a significant part of the productive forces themselves. Society is struck by an epidemic that would seem absurd in any other historical era - an epidemic of overproduction. Society suddenly returns to a state of barbarism; one might suppose that famine or a wave of destruction had deprived him of all means of subsistence; it seems as if all its industry and trade have completely perished. Why? Because society has an excess of civilization, an excess of means of subsistence, an overdeveloped industry and trade. Productive force. which it has at its disposal not only no longer contribute to the development of bourgeois property relations, but, on the contrary, have become too powerful for these relations, which for them are turning into a path; and whenever the social productive forces manage to free themselves from these fetters, this liberation is accompanied by a shock to the entire social system and threatens the existence of bourgeois property. The bourgeois system turns out to be too cramped to accommodate the wealth created in its own depths. Impoverishment of workers. The greater the social wealth, the greater the functioning capital, the size and energy of its growth, and, consequently, the greater the absolute size of the proletariat and the productive power of its labor, the greater the industrial reserve army. The labor force, ready for the services of capital, develops due to the same reasons as the force of expansion of capital. The relative size of the industrial reserve army increases with the forces in which the wealth lies. But the larger this reserve army is in comparison with the active labor army, the greater the permanent surplus of population, or those layers of workers whose poverty is in inverse relation to the burden of their labor. Finally, the more disabled people, etc., these Lazars of the working population, and, in general, the more significant the entire industrial reserve army, the greater the official pauperism. This is the absolute universal law of capitalist accumulation. The mechanism of capitalist production and accumulation itself constantly adapts the number of workers to the need for self-expansion of capital. The first word of this adaptation is the creation of relative overpopulation, or an industrial reserve army, and the last word is the poverty of larger and larger sections of the active labor army and the downward weight of pauperism. The law according to which a larger and larger mass of means of production can, thanks to the progress of labor productivity, be set in motion with less and less expenditure of human power - this law on capitalist soil, where it is not the workers who control the tools of labor, but the tools of labor control the worker, is expressed in the fact that the greater the productive power of labor, the greater the pressure of workers on their means of occupation, the more unstable therefore are the conditions of their existence, the basis of which is the sale of their own strength to increase someone else's wealth, or for the self-expansion of capital. Thus, the faster increase in the means of production and labor productivity than in the productive population in a capitalist society is expressed, on the contrary, in the fact that the working population is constantly growing faster than the self-expansion needs of capital. Under the capitalist system, the application of all methods of increasing the social productive power of labor occurs at the expense of the individual worker. All means for the development of production are transformed into means of domination over the producer and his exploitation: they disfigure the worker, making him a half-man, humiliate him, turning him into an appendage of the machine: destroying the tediousness of labor, they at the same time abolish its content, alienate the spiritual forces of the labor process from the worker to the same extent that science unites with this latter as an independent force; they mutilate the conditions in which the worker works, subject him during the labor process to the most petty, viciously capricious despotism, transform his entire life into working time, throw his wife and children under the juggernaut chariot of capital. But all methods of producing surplus value are at the same time methods of accumulation, and any expansion of accumulation becomes, on the contrary, a means of developing these methods. It follows that as capital accumulates, the worker's position must worsen, whether his wages are high or low. Finally, the law which always maintains the balance between the relative surplus of population, or the industrial reserve army, and the extent and energy of accumulation, chains the worker more strongly to capital than the hammer of Hephaestus chained Prometheus to the rock. This law determines the accumulation of poverty corresponding to the accumulation of capital. The accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time the accumulation of poverty, the torments of labor, slavery, ignorance, savagery and moral decline at the opposite pole, that is, on the side of the class producing its own product in the form of capital. All forms of social order that have existed until now were based on the antagonism of the oppressor and the oppressed class. But in order to oppress any class, it is necessary, at the very least, to provide it with such conditions of existence that would allow it to live in slavery. In the flourishing era of feudalism, the serf managed to become a citizen of the urban community, and the embryonic bourgeois of the Middle Ages became a real bourgeois under the yoke of feudal absolutism. The modern worker, on the contrary, not only does not rise with the progress of industry, but sinks lower and lower, sinks even below the standard of living of his own class. The worker falls into poverty, poverty grows even faster than population and wealth. Thus, it becomes obvious that the bourgeoisie is incapable of fulfilling the role of the ruling class and elevating the conditions of its class existence into the highest law governing the entire society. She cannot rule because she is unable to provide for the existence of her slave, even in the conditions of his life of servitude, because she forces him to sink to a position in which she herself has to feed him, and not feed from him. Society can no longer exist under the domination of the bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with the existence of society. The theory of social revolution (soziale revolution), or the theory of collapse (Zusammenbruchsthiorie, Zusammenbruchshypothese). The idea of ​​social revolution is briefly expressed in Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie - in the introduction. At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with existing production relations, or, to serve only as their legal expression, with property relations, among which they have hitherto moved. These relations are transformed from forms of development of productive forces into their path. Then comes the era of social revolution 113. Marx speaks about the agents of the coming social catastrophe, the proletariat, in the Communist Manifesto. The proletariat prepares itself for its role by becoming impoverished and becoming embittered against its oppressors. But this is not enough. Added to this is the fact that the proletariat, being the inevitable offspring of large-scale industry, is united as a result of the very progress of industry. The most basic condition for the existence of the bourgeois class and its dominance is the accumulation of wealth in the hands of private individuals, the formation and growth of capital. Capital cannot exist without wage labor. But the very fact of the existence of wage labor is possible only under the dominance of competition among workers. The progress of industry, of which the bourgeoisie is a passive and unconscious agent, replaces the separation of workers through competition; they are united through association. Thus, with the development of large-scale industry, the bourgeoisie slips away from under its feet the ground on which its property relations and its method of appropriation are based. The bourgeoisie produces first of all its own gravediggers. Its emergence and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable. The proletariat goes through various phases of development. His struggle against the bourgeoisie begins from the day he was born. First, the struggle is waged one by one by each individual worker, then by workers of the same factory, finally by workers of the same profession in a given locality against the bourgeois who directly exploits them. They are not content with fighting against the bourgeois mode of production alone, but also direct the stratum to fight against the instruments of production: they destroy foreign goods with which they have to compete, smash machines, set fire to factories and try to win back the lost position of the medieval artisan. At this stage of development, the proletariat is an incoherent mass, scattered throughout the country and separated by competition. If workers sometimes unite in order to act as a united mass, this is not the result of their independent unification, but of the unification of the bourgeoisie, which, in order to achieve its political goals, must set the entire proletariat in motion, and at the moment this may still be possible. At this stage of development, the workers are not yet fighting their own enemies, but the enemies of their enemies, that is, the remnants of the absolute monarchy, the landowners, the non-industrial bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie. Meanwhile, with the development of industry, the proletariat not only grows numerically, but also concentrates in larger masses; The strength of the proletariat is growing, and they are beginning to recognize this strength. The interests and conditions of existence of the proletarians are not more and more equalized, but to the extent that the machine smoothes out any differences between different types of labor and brings wages almost everywhere to the same low level. As a result of the ever-increasing competition between the bourgeoisie themselves and the trade crises it generates, earnings become more and more uncertain; the continuous improvement of machines makes the worker's position more and more precarious; individual clashes between the worker and the bourgeois take on more and more the character of a clash between two classes. Workers begin to form coalitions to fight against the bourgeoisie in order to maintain a given level of wages. They even go so far as to form permanent associations, anticipating this occasional struggle. In some places this struggle turns into open uprisings. Sometimes workers manage to win, but this victory is ephemeral. The real result of their struggle is not so much immediate success as an increase in workers' solidarity. The sense of solidarity is strengthened by improved communication routes, allowing workers in different fields to establish relationships with each other. And one simple contact is already enough to transform the struggle of workers in individual localities, which everywhere have the same form, into a national struggle, into a class struggle. But every class struggle is a political struggle. From that time on, the immediate goal of all factions of the proletariat became the organization of the proletarians into a class party, depriving the bourgeoisie of dominance, and the acquisition of political power by the proletariat. The last act of the future social revolution, the collapse of the capitalist system and the onset of the socialist state, Marx paints with bright colors in Capital, as the historical trend of capitalist accumulation. The historical genesis of capital means only the expropriation of the means of another producer, the decomposition of private property based on one’s own labor. Private property, as the opposite of public, collective property, exists only where the tools of labor and external working conditions belong to private individuals. But depending on whether these private individuals are workers or non-workers, private property has a different character. The infinitely varied shades that it presents at first glance are only a reflection of the transitional states that lie between these two extremes. The worker's private ownership of the means of his production constitutes the basis of small-scale production, while small-scale production is a necessary condition for the development of social production and the free individuality of the worker himself. True, this mode of production also exists within the framework of slavery, serfdom and other relations of dependence. But it flourishes, develops all its energy, acquires a completely classical form only where the worker is a free private owner of his working conditions, who himself puts it to work, a peasant - the owner of the land, which he cultivates as a craftsman - the owner of the tools with which he handles it, like a virtuoso with a tool. This mode of production involves the fragmentation of land and other means of production. It excludes both the concentration of the latter and cooperation, i.e. wholesale, does not allow the division of labor within the same production process, social domination over nature and control of its forces, and the free development of social productive forces. It is compatible only with the very narrow, spontaneous framework of production and society. To perpetuate it would mean to “decree universal mediocrity.” At a certain stage of its development, it itself generates the material means of its destruction. From this moment on, the forces and passions that it fetters awaken within society. It must be destroyed, and it is destroyed. Its destruction, the transformation of individual and scattered means of production into a concentrated and social one, i.e. the small property of the many into the large property of the few, the taking away of the means of subsistence and the instruments of labor from the masses, this terrible and difficult expropriation of the masses constitutes the prehistoric period in the life of capital. It includes a number of violent methods. The expropriation of direct producers is carried out with the most merciless vandalism, under the influence of the lowest motives, the dirtiest, most petty-evil passions. Private property, obtained by one’s own labor and which marks, so to speak, the merging of the individual independent producer with the conditions of her labor, is being replaced by capitalist private property, based on the exploitation of someone else’s, but formally free, labor. After this process of transformation had already sufficiently decomposed the old society in depth and breadth, and the workers found themselves transformed into proletarians, and the conditions of their labor into capital, after the capitalist mode of production had already stood on its own legs, further socialization (Veryesellschaiiuny, socialisation) of labor and the further transformation of land and other means of production into means of production, socially exploited, that is, jointly used, in other words, further expropriation of private owners takes on a new form. Now it is no longer the worker who runs an independent economy who is subject to expropriation, but the capitalist who exploits many workers. This expropriation occurs due to the operation of the immanent laws of capitalist production itself, through the concentration of capital. Some capitalists constantly beat many others. Hand in hand with this centralization, or expropriation of many capitalists by a few, the cooperative form of the labor process, the conscious technical application of science, the planned exploitation of the land, the transformation of the instruments of labor into those that can only be used jointly, and the economization of all means of production through their use as means of combined, social labor are developing on an ever larger scale; finally, the involvement of all peoples in the network of the world market is accomplished and, thus, the international character of the capitalist regime is established. Along with the constant decrease in the number of capitalist magnates who usurp and monopolize all the benefits of this transformative process, the mass of poverty, oppression, slavery, degeneration, exploitation increases, but, on the other hand, the resistance of the ever-increasing working class, trained, united and organized by the mechanism of the capitalist mode of production itself, increases. The monopoly of capital turns into fetters for the further development of the mode of production that has developed with it and under its domination. The centralization of the means of production and the socialization of labor reach a point at which they become incompatible with their capitalist shell. She's torn. The hour of capitalist private property is striking. The expropriators are expropriated. The capitalist mode of appropriation, resulting from the capitalist mode of production, and, therefore, capitalist private property is the first negation of individual private property based on one’s own labor. But capitalist production creates, with the necessity of a natural process, its own negation. This is the negation of the negation. It restores not private property, but individual property on the basis of all the acquisitions of the capitalist era, i.e., the cooperation of free workers and their joint ownership of the means of production, including land. The transformation of fragmented private property, based on the own labor of producers, into capitalist property is, of course, a process incomparably slower, more difficult and more difficult than the transformation of capitalist property, actually based on the social exploitation of the means of production, into public property. There it was a question of the expropriation of the masses by a few usurpers; here it was a question of the expropriation of a few usurpers by the people. The criticism is factual. Marx's economic teaching can be seen from two sides: firstly, from the factual side, and secondly, from the principled side. In the first respect, the question is asked whether Marx’s economic theories correspond to the facts of economic life: and in which respect it is asked whether Marx’s economic teachings have proven the inevitability of the onset of a socialist system. For our special, philosophical task, only a fundamental consideration of Marx’s economic teaching is important, but in the interests of a general judgment about socialist doctrine, we will first dwell on the actual criticism of his economic theories. But there is a vast literature criticizing Marx's economic theories. Next, I will present the results of critical literature, making changes from the best critical works 114. Criticism of the labor theory of value. Marx adhered to the labor theory of value and, namely, the absolute labor theory of the given. In constructing this theory, he had many predecessors, but surpassed them all in his talented development and presentation of the theory. This significance has been retained by his economic teaching to this day: to this day it remains the most perfect presentation of the labor theory of value. Although almost fifty years have passed since the publication of the first volume of Capital, nothing significant has been written on the labor theory of value during all this time that could equal Marx’s work. This significance of Marx’s work is explained by the fact that after him the labor theory of value, which has numerous supporters, was left by the best representatives of political economy. It was replaced by the theory of marginal utility, developed by the Austrian school 115. In any case, criticism of Marx's theory turns out to be a verdict on the labor theory of value. The labor theory of value held by Marx must be declared untenable. Marx, as we have seen, accepts that the two exchanged things have something common to both of them in equal quantities, that both objects are equal to the third, which in itself is neither one nor the other. To discover this generality, he examines sequentially all the properties of goods. The sought-after common property cannot be any natural property of goods, geometric, physical, chemical, which serves as the basis of use value and has exactly the same meaning as any other, if only it is present in the proper proportion. If we leave aside the use value of goods, then, according to Marx, they retain only one property, that they are a product of labor. But Marx's method contains gross errors, which Wehm-Bawerk ingeniously exposed. Sifting through all the properties of a commodity, so that in the end only their property remains, he from the very beginning puts into the sieve, from those having exchange value, only those things that have that property which he ultimately wishes to see as “common,” and leaves everything else outside, the sieve. He acts like a man who strongly desires that a white ball should come out of an urn, and prudently promotes this result by putting only white balls into the urn. Indeed, from the very beginning he limits the scope of his study of the substance of exchange value to "commodities", and he does not give a precise definition of this term. In any case, he understands it narrower than "good" and reduces it to the products of labor, as opposed to the gifts of nature. But it’s clear as day that since exchange really denotes an equation that presupposes the existence of a “common of the same size,” then it is necessary that this common can be sought and found in all types of goods that come in exchange, not only in the products of labor, but also in the gifts of nature, such as, for example, in earth, wood, water forces, seams of coal, quarries, oil deposits, mineral waters, gold mines, etc. The fact that goods that have value, but are not a product of labor, are excluded in the search for a common property that serves as the basis of exchange value, is, under such conditions, a methodological, mortal sin. This is no different from what if a physicist, wanting to find the cause of a property common to all bodies, for example, gravity, is based on filtering one group of bodies through a sieve, for example. of transparent bodies he carried out a general review of all the properties of transparent bodies, and about all other properties he argued that they cannot be the cause of gravity, and, on the basis of this, he concluded that transparency must be the cause of gravity. If Marx had not limited the scope of his research to the products of labor, but had looked for a common property in the gifts of nature that have exchange value, then it would have been obvious that labor cannot be this general property. If he had expressed this limitation clearly and distinctly, then he himself and his readers would undoubtedly have stumbled upon a gross methodological error - they would have laughed at the naive trick, thanks to which the property of being a product of labor happily turned out to be a general property of the circle of things after everything had been previously excluded from it; by their nature, this also includes things that have exchange value, but are not products of labor. Is it true that, with the exception of their use value, goods will only have the property that they are a product of labor? Is this really the only property? Wouldn't goods that have exchange value, for example, still have the common property that they are rare in relation to need? Or that they are objects of supply and demand? Or that they are appropriated? Or that they are “products of nature”? Isn’t it common for exchange values ​​to also have the property that they cause costs to their producers - a property that Marx so clearly recalls in his third volume? Why can’t the basis of value just as well lie in one of these general properties, instead of the property of being a product of labor? Indeed, in favor of the latter, Marx never once gave us even a hint of a positive basis; its only basis is negative, that happily abstract use value is not the basis of exchange value. But isn’t this negative basis equally valid for all other general properties not noticed by Marx? Yes, and even more! Marx excludes use value as the basis of exchange value, on the grounds that in exchange, each use value has exactly the same value as any other - goods, as use values, are primarily different in quality, and as exchange values, they can be different only in quantity, and therefore do not contain an atom of use value. At the same time, Marx, in relation to labor, makes a distinction between its quality, corresponding to different types of labor, and its quantity - for him, all goods, as values, are only a certain amount of frozen labor time. But from here. it follows that in the exchange relation not only does one use value have the same value as any other, but also one kind of labor and products of labor “has exactly the same value as any other, if they exist only in the proper proportion.” In other words, the same conditions on the basis of which Marx just excluded use value also exist in relation to labor. Labor and use value have qualitative and quantitative sides. Since the use value, for example, a table, a house, yarn, is qualitatively different, the work of a joiner, a carpenter and a spinner is also qualitatively different. And since it is possible to compare labor of various kinds in terms of quantity, it is also possible to compare use values ​​of various kinds in terms of the amount of use value. If Marx had changed the order of the investigation, he could, through the same inferential apparatus with which he eliminated use value, eliminate labor and, in the same way in which he crowned labor with a premium, exalt use value as the only remaining, and therefore the desired, general property, while declaring chainness as a frozen use value (Gebrauchs-Werth-Gallerte). It can be argued quite seriously that in both paragraphs of Capital, where (in the first) the influence of use value is abstracted and (in the second) it is proven that labor is the desired general property, the subjects can be rearranged without any damage to the external logical correctness of the reasoning. By changing the structure of the sentences, it is possible to substitute labor and products of labor everywhere in the first paragraph instead of use value, and in the second paragraph instead of labor - use value 116. Marx makes the same logical mistakes in the question of complex labor, which he leads to simple labor, while justifying himself by observation. Let us assume for now that this is true, and let us take a closer look at how and by what factors the unit of measure should be established for this reduction, corresponding to observation, to which Marx refers. Here we come across a phenomenon that is very natural, but at the same time very unfavorable for Marx’s theory, namely, that the unit of measure for reduction is established by nothing other than actual exchange relations. Marx's argument is a cireulus vitiosus. It is necessary, after all, to explain the exchange relations of various goods: why, for example, is a figurine, for the manufacture of which the sculptors spent one day of their labor, exchanged for rubble, which cost five days of work for the stone crushers, and not for a larger or smaller amount of crushed stone? How does Marx explain this? He says that the exchange relation is this and not another because one day of labor for a sculptor must be reduced to five days of simple labor. Why should it be brought to exactly five days? Because this is exactly what happened, as observation indicates, by a social process. What kind of social process is this? The one that needs to be explained. The facts say that the exchange value depends on the amount of labor that their production cost for only one part of the goods and, moreover, not directly. The imaginary "law" that the value of goods is determined by the amount of labor embodied in them, a significant part of the goods does not obey at all, while the rest do not always obey, and if they obey, then never exactly - these are data of experience that the theorist of value has to take into account. Without a doubt, the cost of labor is a circumstance that has a strong influence on the exchange value of many goods, but not as a final cause, for in this case it would have to be common to all phenomena of the given, but as a partial, intermediate. The influence of labor on the value of goods can be expressed only in partial laws of value. The laws that formulate the influence of labor on the exchange value of goods will relate to the general law of value in approximately the same way as the law: “the west wind brings rain” relates to the general theory of rain. The west wind is a very common intermediate cause of rain, just as the expenditure of labor is a very common intermediate cause of the value of goods; but the essence of rain rests just as little on the west wind as the essence of value rests on expended labor. 117 The most important evidence of shortcomings in Marx's doctrine of value is the insurmountable difficulty in resolving, from the point of view of labor value, the question of specific market prices, which was the reason for the sharp contradiction between the first and third volumes of Capital. In fact, Marx distinguishes capital, which serves the capitalist for appropriating surplus value, into two component parts: one part is intended for payment of labor - “variable capital”, the other is spent on material means of production, material, tools, machines, etc. - “constant capital”. Since only living labor can actually create new surplus value, then only the part of capital converted into labor force can change and increase its value in the process of production, which is why Marx called it “variable" capital. Only it reproduces its own value and, in addition, creates some surplus, surplus value. The value of the worn-out means of production is simply preserved, being restored in a changed form, but in an unchanged value - hence the name “constant capital” - in the value of the product; it is not able to “create surplus value". It inevitably follows, and Marx did not miss the opportunity to emphasize this, that the mass of surplus value that can be produced by any capital is in direct relation not to the entire value of capital, but only to its variable part. From this it follows further that capitals are the same quantities must produce unequal amounts of surplus value if their combination of constant and variable components - Marx calls this their “organic structure” - is different. If we then, together with Marx, call the ratio of surplus value to the variable part of capital converted into wages the “rate of surplus value”, and its ratio to the total capital spent by the capitalist, according to which in practice he usually calculates the assigned surplus value, the “rate of profit”, then it turns out that, with an equal degree of exploitation or an equal rate of surplus value, capitals of unequal organic structure must bring unequal rates of return. Capitals in which the nominal part predominates must bring higher rates of profit than those capitals in which the fixed part predominates. Experience, however, shows that, according to the law of profit management, capital, regardless of the difference in their structure, generally brings the same rates of profit. Thus, a clear contradiction is revealed between what is and what, according to the teachings of Marx, should be. Marx himself drew attention to the existence of this contradiction. He mentioned it succinctly already in the first volume, but called it only “apparent” and was referred to subsequent parts of his system for resolution. The third volume of Capital, which appeared later, tries to solve this problem. In fact, it contains a detailed clarification of the problem, but not a resolution of it, but a confirmation of an irreconcilable contradiction and a silent, unacknowledged, embellished, but in essence still a renunciation of the teachings of the first volume. Marx now develops the following doctrine. He categorically calls that in reality, as a result of the action of competition, the rates of profit of capital, whatever their organic structure, are and should be equated to one average rate of profit. Further, he categorically admits that equal rates of profit with an unequal organic composition of capital are possible only if individual goods are exchanged for each other not in proportion to the value determined by labor, but somewhat differently: goods in the production of which capital with a larger percentage of a constant part took part (capitals of a “higher structure”) are exchanged above their value, but. goods in the production of which capital took part, with a smaller percentage of a constant part and a larger percentage of a variable one (capitals of a “lower structure”), are exchanged below their value. Finally, Marx categorically admits that the formation of prices in practical life actually occurs in this way. In real life, goods are no longer exchanged in proportion to their values, but are exchanged in proportion to the price of production, i.e., the value of the commodity, which, in addition to the compensation of wages paid and means of production worn out, also contains the average profit on the capital expended in production... These assumptions and statements of the third volume are in flagrant contradiction with the basic teachings of the first volume. In the first volume, readers are told that two commodities equated to each other in exchange must contain something in common of the same magnitude, and that this common thing of the same magnitude is labor. From the third volume we learn that two commodities equated to each other in exchange in reality constantly contain and necessarily must contain unequal amounts of labor... Never before, concludes Bam-Bawerk, has the beginning of any system been more decisively and sharply exposed as a lie by its end. From what has been said, it indisputably follows that the labor justification of value cannot be recognized as an explanation of what actually exists. What is it, if we cannot call it pure delusion? It is not an explanation of the present, but it is an idea of ​​what should be, the implementation of which must be expected only in the future - it is not the fruit of an observing mind, but it is a naked heart thirsting for truth. Thus, in the very core of Marxism, which claims to be a pure scientific theory, there is a moral feeling, and no matter how respectable this feeling may be, no matter how appropriate it may be in questions of this kind, its presence does not serve Marxism well: Marx’s economic theory is torn by internal contradiction. That the labor theory of value arises from a moral source has been openly recognized by other labor value theorists. This was the teaching of Thomas Aquinas about justum pretium, that is, about the price corresponding to requirements. justice. Thomas Aquinas called fair an exchange of products that would correspond to the amount of labor expended on their production. This theory was a Christian social ideal, a moral requirement of Christianity addressed to public life. Then Proudhon, in Systeme des contradictions economiques, solves the problem of constructing value, that is, establishing a value in which the exploitation of labor by the ruling classes would not take place; labor value is in his system the path to the implementation of this ideal system, a “constituted value.” Marx, disputing Proudhon in this, as in other points of his system, and calling the labor theory of value not a theory of a “new social world”, not a “revolutionary theory of the emancipation of the proletariat,” as he did. Proudhon, but a scientific interpretation of modern economic life. formula of modern oppression of the worker, signs the death warrant of his economic system. Even Rodbertus, who, like Marx, is credited with the absolute labor theory of value, does not forget, to the detriment of the consistency of his system, the ethical character of this theory. Here is what he writes in his second letter to Kirchmann: “although the market value in the turnover left to itself is under the changing influence of general supply and demand, it still gravitates towards the productive force spent on creating the product, to the costs of the productive force: it invariably strives to provide a fair reward. For selfishness in the presence of competition will lead to the fact that no one will receive for a long time for a smaller amount of expended productive force a greater amount of it in the exchanged product, since everyone would strive for such profitable production until equilibrium is restored again and until equal expenditures of productive force, equal costs, equal labor begin to be exchanged in the exchanged products. However, the movement of the actual market, like the movement of a pendulum, will always deviate in both directions from this point of rest, although the school of Ricardo, which most of all followed in the footsteps of Adam Smith, took this simple desire as an achievement and based all its further deductions on such an assumption, which in reality does not exist. What Ricardo assumes to be realized must yet take place and constitutes one of the greatest and most important national-economic ideas in practical terms. In natural state law, the social contract was initially considered as a historical fact lying behind, until a more correct understanding recognized in it only the idea according to which individual rights and obligations should be regulated, that is, something realized in its essence in the future; similarly, the coincidence of the exchange value of products with the quantities of labor they cost is not a fact, but one of the grandest economic ideas that have ever been sought to be realized.” 118 1). So, the idea of ​​labor value is the idea of ​​what should be, which penetrated into Marx’s economic theory beyond his consciousness 119 . And, of course, there is no reason to narrow this idea to labor relations; on the contrary, moral feeling reveals exploitation in all areas of socio-economic life, and each type of exploitation has the same significance as the other. Franka makes the right judgments.” The usual proposition, arising from the labor theory of exchange value and its corresponding scheme of distribution, that the working class is in a dependent position and exploited as a producer and not as a consumer, is incorrect. This position can be considered true only if it is understood in the broadest sense in which it is usually not understood. Since surplus value is a part of social income, and since the latter must be produced before it can be distributed, it is obvious that surplus value is also created not by consumption, but by production, and that, therefore, it can be “extracted” from the members of society only insofar as they are engaged in production. This, however, does not in any way predetermine in what ways this “extraction” will take place, i.e., whether exploitation will be associated with those relations between members of society in which they act as producers, namely, with relations of hiring labor, or with those in which they act as consumers. Both are equally possible and equally exist in reality. We can, with the same morality, consider low wages as the source of exploitation, as well as the high price of products purchased by the worker. that all sellers of goods gave up profit when selling, selling products at prices of production costs, it is easy to see that for the worker this would be tantamount to the acquisition in his wages of the full product of labor. Since the class of sellers coincides with the class of capitalists (in the supposed scheme of a society consisting of only capitalists and workers), the refusal of the class of sellers from profit is at the same time the refusal of the capitalist class from surplus value and, therefore, the cessation of “exploitation”. Consumer societies of workers, which take away for the benefit of the working class part of the profits of traders and capitalists in those branches of production that produce consumer goods for the working class, provide practical confirmation of this theoretical calculation. In general, we cannot identify the process of extracting surplus value with any specific economic action, because this process can only be revealed as a result of the entire process of distribution of all social income and is nothing more than a special expression for the modern order of distribution. Thus, the worker is exploited in this sense not as a producer or as a consumer, but as a member of economic society in general, as a participant in the entire sum of the economic activities of society. Having established the ethical character of the labor history of value, which completely undermines its scientific significance, we must clearly understand what follows from this and what does not follow. The collapse of the labor theory of value does not in any way mean the death of the cause of the workers and, in general, of the disadvantaged: this cause is sufficiently established on moral feeling, on their subjective sense of justice. We can agree with Bernstein's opinion: “surplus labor is empirical, proven by experience, a fact that does not require deductive proof at all. Whether Marx’s theory of value is correct or not has absolutely no significance for proving the existence of surplus labor.” A slight change would need to be made to these words - it would be necessary to say: surplus labor is a fact proven by moral experience, proven beyond doubt for the oppressed themselves. Tugan Baranovsky expresses this idea better. “To discover the social content of income not based on labor, it is not necessary to proceed from any theory of value. The very widespread opinion that socialist criticism of the existing economic system must inevitably be based on absolute labor value is based on a gross misunderstanding. Utopian socialism was much more scientific in this regard, since it did not strive for the impossible objective justification of its social and ethical demands. To prove that income not based on labor is based on violence, social oppression, it is enough to refer to the obvious fact that workers work for the benefit of capitalists not out of love for them and not out of love for the work, but out of necessity, out of necessity. But in addition to its objective scientific part, accounting for the exploitation of labor contains subjective, ethical aspects. The latter must inevitably be included in its composition for the sole reason that the very concept of exploitation of labor has an ethical character. By exploitation of man by man we mean the use of a person’s personality for certain external purposes to the detriment of his interests. Such use is condemned by our moral conscience. Why? Obviously because we recognize a person’s personality as a sacred and supreme goal in itself, because a person should never serve in someone else’s hands as a means for something outside of themselves. The idea of ​​equality, the equivalence of the human person underlies the concept of exploitation of man by man. The idea of ​​the equivalence of the human person thus constitutes an irreducible ethical element of the theory of labor exploitation. Take away the ethical idea of ​​the equal value of the individual from the theory of labor exploitation, and the entire theory will lose its practical significance. The cause of the oppressed is based on their moral sense. This is what Marx unconsciously expressed with his theory of labor value. Other socialists openly recognize the need for moral support for the socialist movement. Such is the French socialist Malon 120, Effertz 121 quite unsuccessfully trying to prove the central position of the individual in the human economy on the basis that this is a human economy, and not an economy of bees and not an economy of bulls: in a human economy, an active role belongs to man, just as in the economy of bees and bulls it would belong to bees and bulls - a person is a person for a student of the human economy, just as, for a student of the economy of bees, and bulls would be individuals bees and bulls. This opinion would be fair if we were talking about the relationship of man to animals, but this basis is not enough when it comes to the relationship in the economic sphere of man to man, class to class. The economic area is an objective area, since in it relations between people are adopted not directly, but through the medium of economic products; but from an objective point of view, to recognize a person as a person, no less is needed than the presence of moral consciousness in him - the oppressed will be recognized as individuals in class relations only under the condition that moral consciousness has awakened in them. And undoubtedly, Marx himself contributed no little to strengthening the moral consciousness of workers with his teaching on labor value. Reducing the labor theory of value to moral consciousness, to a subjective sense of justice does not mean the collapse of the cause of workers and the oppressed in general, but it does mean that this cause cannot be founded scientifically and objectively. The moral requirement of uniformity in the distribution of goods cannot be formulated theoretically, and a scientific theory, limited to its own limits, cannot lead to any moral conclusions. The moral requirement cannot be expressed theoretically, for “an existence based on personal labor cannot be considered more natural than an idle existence: nature tolerates both. The question of order, with which questions of value and surplus value are connected, is a secondary question: exploitation is only a special case of the intrusion of one person into the sphere of manifestation of the powers of another, and the spheres of manifestation of the forces and aspirations of individual people can collide under an ideal order” (Shor). On the other hand, the theory cannot justify any ought. “Marx’s surplus value or Rodbertus’s rent is nothing more than a part of social income given by society to those classes or individuals who themselves have not returned to society the corresponding shares of social labor. Whatever the exchange value of this part of the social income, no matter on what basis these classes or individuals appropriate it to society as a whole, this part of the income, like any other, was worth the expenditure of a certain amount of social labor, and therefore it values ​​it in proportion to this amount of social labor. This still does not at all resolve the question of whether such an appropriation of part of the social income by persons who did not participate in its production is legal and useful, whether it is removable or not; all these are socio-political or ethical questions, the resolution of which lies in a completely different area and is completely independent of the simple statement of this appropriation 2 (Frank) 122. Criticism of the theory of accumulation and concentration of capital. But following the succession of critics, especially Bernstein and Weisengrün, the theory of accumulation and concentrated capital was brilliantly justified. Recently there has been such an accumulation of capital and such a concentration of production in the form of cartels and trusts that Marx was hardly threatened. In the United States, the development of such giant enterprises is especially typical. Weisengrun recognizes this theory as the most successfully constructed and does not consider it an exaggeration to say that it has a peculiar charm that is difficult to resist. However, the other half, the theory of the doctrine of the centralization of capital, on which Marx bases the tendency to expropriate the expropriators, does not stand up to criticism. The evidence against this theory is carefully compiled by Bernstein. The concentration of industrial enterprises, he says, does not proceed parallel to the centralization of capital, contrary to the erroneous belief of Social Democracy. There is nothing like it. The form of a joint stock company largely counteracts the centralization of capital through the concentration of production. It makes it possible to significantly fragment already concentrated capital, but makes it unnecessary for individual magnates to appropriate capital for the purpose of concentrating production. The opinion that with the formation of trusts and fusions, as if there is an accumulation of capital in a relatively decreasing number of hands, Bernstein finds inconsistent with the facts of reality. The number of shareholders of the large American “steel” trust reaches 50 thousand people. When 34 large English spinning mills were united into a trust, of the total capital expended of 80 million marks, 26.7 million remained in the hands of the sellers, and the remaining 53.3 million were distributed among 3934 shareholders. When the 22 dyehouses of Broadford were united into a trust, the entire capital expended was 60 million marks, of which the sellers received 20 million, as well. shareholders (10,731 people) 40 million marks; The share and dividend capital of the five largest English breweries, amounting to 194 million marks, is distributed among 16 thousand shareholders, and the bond capital, amounting to 122 million, is apparently distributed in the same way. If the continuous progress of technology and the concentration of production in an increasing number of industries is a fact, the meaning of which is currently hidden even by inveterate reactionaries, then the truth is no less undoubted that in general a number of industries, small and medium-sized industries are showing full viability along with large ones 123. No matter what area of ​​economic life we ​​turn to, we are nowhere. We encounter significant changes or reductions in the number of medium-sized enterprises. No matter how cramped the position of individual owners of medium-sized enterprises may be, no matter how great at any given moment in the ranks of the various economic classes the number of such enterprises that arise only to perish the next day, this does not matter for the whole: the overall picture does not change from this. From this, of course, it does not follow that the progressive growth of large and colossally large enterprises is a mere fiction. What the statistical tables do not prove is that the growth of large-scale production means a reduction in medium-sized production; it rather follows from them that there is not a struggle for the existence of these two categories of production, but their parallel development 124). Not only have the old middle classes (i.e. small capitalists) not disappeared and are not disappearing, but – as Masaryk observed – capitalism itself is constantly creating new middle classes. What we see in each of the large factories constitutes a general phenomenon: between the entrepreneur and manager on the one hand, and the worker on the other, there is a whole series of intermediaries, replenishing very important work, performing important functions, without which neither the capitalist nor the workers could exist. These are engineers, scribes, forwarders, merchants, etc. What happens in industry, the same thing happens in trade. Despite the rapid growth of large trading houses, both medium and small trading enterprises continue to hold on. It would be an unrealistic illusion to expect that large-scale industry will absorb small and medium-sized industry in the near future; it is the same utopia to expect that medium-sized and small shops will be absorbed by capitalist commercial affairs. Finally, Bernstein shows that the doctrine of a decrease in the number of capital magnates also cannot be considered true - rather, the diametrically opposite statement is true. Wherever we draw the line - at 10,000, 20,000, 50,000, 100,000 marks of income, the result is that the number of persons with such income increases faster than any other category of persons receiving income. And their number increases in direct proportion to the increase in their total income, so that each of them, on the average, always remains equally rich. For example, let's take the numbers of Berlin millionaires: in 1854 in all of Berlin there were only 6 owners of a million thalers, in 1900 there were already 639; there were then 23 owners of 1.5 million marks, now there are 1323. Thus, we have to put an end to the belief in a constant decrease in the number of magnates and capital. The closer the moment of “collapse” of the capitalist economic system approaches, the more expropriators swarm around us. The matter of “expropriation” becomes more and more difficult. All previous discussions about Marx's theory refer to different branches of mechanical production and. not related to agriculture. Meanwhile, agriculture, more than any other area of ​​the national economy, reveals the weakness of Marx's theory. It is especially noteworthy that in agriculture not only the theory of centralization and concentration of capital is not justified, but even the theory of capital accumulation and concentration of production. Here's what Ed writes about it. David. The peasant is not at all worried about the death sentence that Marx's theory pronounces. History does not know a single example when peasants went bankrupt due to the technical superiority of large owners. Many peasant lives were destroyed by force of arms and predatory seigneurial rights, patronage by feudal lords and clerics. Terrible poverty was the result of such predation. But in competition at work, the peasant has so far remained invincible everywhere. Large-scale agriculture, supposedly designed to destroy peasant farming, is getting worse every decade: and it would have been even worse if legislation had not rushed to its aid. With difficulty, relying on the crutches of customs protection - the author is talking about his Germany - and government handouts, large-scale agriculture is still holding on. – Rarely has a theory been so accepted by practice as Marx’s agrarian theory. It arose by extending the laws of mechanical production to organic production, and, under the influence of specifically English relations, easily found access to the world of socialist ideas. But it must be stated that there is a deep difference in essence between agricultural and industrial production. The basis of agricultural production is an organic process, the basis of industrial production is a mechanical process. This basic profound difference in production processes determines the use of completely different methods of work for agriculture and industrial production. Human labor is assigned a completely different role in each branch of production, and for this alone it is already possible to recognize in advance as false the idea of ​​​​the similarity of production evolution in industry and agriculture. Cooperation, division of labor, and the use of machines are the main factors for the greater productivity of large-scale farming in mechanical production. In agriculture, these factors are not of decisive importance. The benefits of cooperation on a large scale are negligible, and further, in those sectors where cooperation is important for agriculture, individual owners can easily use its benefits through friendly organizations. On the other hand, with the size of the cultivated field, the inconvenience of wide cooperation and the difficulty of control increase enormously. The division of labor that exists in manufacturing is completely unthinkable in agriculture. The very nature of the biological production process protests against the replacement of sequence in time by proximity in space, which exists in mechanical production. Agriculture cannot follow mechanical production in the specialization of labor. Agricultural machines are very significantly inferior to the machines of a large factory. Instead of a large, firmly installed dynamo, the farmer is forced to content himself with small mobile engines, among which draft animals still occupy the leading place. How wonderful are some agricultural machines, but what can isolated machines mean, moved from place to place, doomed to the inactivity of single machines for whole weeks and months, in comparison with the continuously operating automatic machine of some factory, which even manages the work of people chained to it, as if making up its parts! Moreover, even the minor use of machinery that is possible in agriculture does not at all constitute an indisputable privilege of a large-scale farm. Most agricultural machines are small in size, built to replace draft animals and are also available to small owners. Further, due to the fact that agricultural machines work only occasionally, it is possible for rural owners to collectively use large machines, especially the steam thresher and winnower, which play such an important role in the farm. In mechanically processed production, the improvement of machines plays a primary role: it constitutes the essence of progress in production itself. In the field of organic mining production, the improvement of machines is an essential, but far from the most important factor of progress. The mechanical-technical principle here is not the dominant conditioning principle!” progress. Agriculture was revolutionized not by technical inventions, but by scientific discoveries. The newest era in agriculture begins not with the use of the steam engine, but with the discovery of a real connection between the soil, plant and animal organisms. The physical and chemical improvement of the soil, the regulation of moisture conditions, the rational general and special increase of nutrients by natural, artificial and vegetable fertilization, the propagation of useful plants and animals, the breeding of ennobled varieties suited to given natural conditions and special purposes, the individualized care of cultivated organisms and their protection from countless enemies and dangers - this is the soil on which agricultural progress has celebrated its greatest triumphs. The faster execution of auxiliary mechanical work is an important, but not the main element of production progress. The essence of the latter is to increase the intensity of life through rational changes in the external conditions of the development of organisms and their internal makeup. – If technical progress is available to small farms in most cases, then scientific progress is always available – without exception. In this regard, large-scale farming even has to fight against obstacles that small-scale farming is completely unaware of. The application of all improvements in the field of plant nutrition, care for them, and their protection constantly requires masses of skilled manual work. But where will large-scale farming get it from? It is forced to operate with a crowd of uninterested employees who are very easy to control. The peasant himself is his own owner, tirelessly working, interested and caring worker. – The essence, method and means of organic production determine the enormous importance that the personal interest of the worker should have, both in the size of the annual harvest and in maintaining soil fertility. The importance of this psychological factor increases as the economy moves to a higher intensity, since with intensity the risk of losses due to inattention and negligence also increases. Agriculture is completely unaware of the internal automatic self-control of modern industrial production. Hence it is clear why in agriculture, with increasing intensity, the chances of large-scale farming decrease. This does not mean that individual specialists with outstanding abilities are not able to achieve remarkable results in large-scale farming: outstanding abilities, of course, prevail here over particularly unfavorable conditions. But it can be argued that, in general, with increasing intensity, small-scale farming is placed in more favorable conditions than large-scale farming. The more intensive the culture, agricultural or pastoral, the more difficult it is to manage the economy with the help of other people's workers. Therefore, the worldwide economic trend of the grouping. in which crops with the least labor absorption move away from large markets, and with the greatest labor absorption approach them, should have appeared at the same time as a tendency towards fragmentation of farms in industrial countries and regions. Bulgakov comes to the same conclusions. According to him, if for the manufacturing industry Marx’s diagnosis cannot be denied a certain relative correctness, then he must be recognized as completely wrong regarding agriculture. In agriculture, not only is there no concentration, but decentralizing tendencies appear with extreme force. Anyone for whom a better future is inextricably linked with the idea of ​​concentration must give up on agriculture as a completely hopeless area. But since agriculture and industry (as well as trade) are characterized by, if not opposite, then at least different courses of development, can the development of the capitalist economy be determined by any one dominant tendency, as Marx tried to do? Obviously not. A formula by which this course of development would be determined in the direction of concentration or vice versa would be incorrect, because it would not take into account the entire actual complexity of development. Therefore, Marx’s general view of the development of capitalism inevitably leading to collectivism is also incorrect. That agriculture forms a part of the national economy that is not subsumed under socialist theory is of particular importance in view of the fact that in the future, as one can assume, agriculture, standing in the background of a modern capitalist economy, obscured by industry, will take a leading position. It is possible to assume that based on the law of diminishing soil fertility. 125 By virtue of this law - according to Bulgakov - although the productive capabilities of countries exporting agricultural products have not yet been exhausted, this direction of development is still coming to an end, which perhaps our generation will still live to see. Starting from a certain point, the export of agricultural products cannot but begin to decline, and their prices rise, which will make the import of these products from distant countries unprofitable. Countries will be forced to turn to their own agriculture, a new stage is beginning in the development of the world population... The past leaves as a legacy to the future the grain question, which is more terrible and more difficult than the social question - a question of production, not distribution. The recently published book by Gerg is interesting on this issue. Hildebrand 126. Considering modern economy as the dominance of industry over agriculture, in other words, the dominance of the city over the countryside and industrial countries over agricultural ones. Hildebrand suggests that the time is not far when industry and agriculture will reverse their roles. The aristocratic city is a superstructure over the rural base, fed by the countryside, and aristocratic industrial countries live and will live at the expense of agricultural countries until the latter acquire their own industry within a fairly broad framework. Industrial democracy will give way to the dominance of rural democracy; industrial states will become poorer than agricultural countries. The implementation of the socialist plan 127 will no longer be useless for the industrial proletariat: entire countries will face the formidable question of combating the dire need for agricultural products... Criticism of crisis theory. According to Bernstein, the plasticity of modern credit with the colossal accumulation of capital, the improvement of means of communication - mail, telegraph, personal and commodity movement, trade statistics and messages, the development of the organization of entrepreneurs - all these are facts, and it is simply inconceivable that they do not have a significant influence on the relationship between productive activity and the position of the market. So it's very likely. that in the future, with the progress of economic development, we will not have to deal with industrial crises of a character already known to us, and that therefore, it will be necessary! abandon all calculations for such a crisis as a prelude to a great social revolution. Weisengrun asks where are the facts that would indicate one-sided social development in the sense of expropriation of the expropriators? On the contrary, everywhere we see obvious symptoms of the consolidation of capitalism in all positions, ensuring it for the future, as far as can be foreseen, although concentration in industry has not yet been completed, and in agriculture it is observed only to an insignificant extent. Look around: prospects for new vast markets for the sale of goods are opening up everywhere, and at the same time new obstacles to that aggravated state of the national economy, to the long-term crisis that Marxism dreams of. At the end of the 19th century, colonial policy assumed dimensions and such colossal significance that no one foresaw in the middle of the century. Moreover, the new colonial policy, although mostly unconsciously, is guided by social motives that the old colonial economy, which was guided exclusively by the motive of conquest, did not have. In the Anglo-Saxon world large industry flourishes more than anywhere else. At the same time, here for the first time the opposition of the capitalist class to the prolonged crisis takes firm forms. Imperialism, i.e., the tendency to firmly bind vast spaces with common economic interests, to chain vast colonies with the iron chains of economic calculation to the metropolis, the ever stronger desire to create an economically united and thus great England, marks the first step of later capitalism towards self-preservation. The second point is formed by the mentioned new colossal policy of the great continental powers and especially by the well-founded hopes of economic Europe and America to expand the sphere of influence in China. The third point is that you will build a great Siberian railway, opening up a new economic world that will serve for many decades as a huge market for more than one Russian industry. The fourth point is the development of Russian industry itself and the cultural and economic awakening of this great people, but still at a relatively low stage of development. Each of these circumstances separately marks a bulwark against the threatening long-term crisis, apart from which, with extremely concentrated production, no change in the position of capitalism can be expected - and the combined action of all these factors should hinder the tendency towards expropriation of the expropriators all the more. Another very important circumstance is added here. Capitalism is protected both from the outside and from the inside by cartels and trusts that face the future. They reflect the concern of representatives of the new economic system for themselves. Of course, the cartels could open an easy way to expropriate the expropriators, but this would only be possible if there were no other delaying circumstances... How, in view of such facts, can we speak of a clear, absolute, inevitable, and mechanically necessary, active tendency towards the expropriation of the expropriators? In contrast to this, we can rather speak of a tendency towards the perpetuation of capitalism, which under different historical conditions could take a different form, but for the near future would be strong enough to delay the tendency towards expropriation of the expropriators. Where do crises come from and why are they becoming so increasingly frequent? According to Marxism, this is because blind and frantic competition forces more and more products that cannot find a market to be thrown onto the world market. The sale of goods is constantly decreasing, economic circulation is in confusion, and a crisis is at hand. One more thing joins here. Capitalism, which has long lost the ability to curb the revolutionary productive forces, must tolerate their excessive growth. So, on the one hand, the overproduction of goods, on the other hand, the inability of capitalism to organize, lead first to a sporadic, then to a chronic crisis. But we see that even under these conditions there can be no talk of overproduction of goods: the opening of new markets least of all allows for the possibility of a chronic crisis. What can we say about the second factor – the inability of capitalism to organize? This is where the importance of cartels comes into play. It is not the only, but the most important symptom of the fact that, starting from a certain stage of development, the capitalist class acquires the ability to create organizations and intervene consciously and fruitfully in the production process. Here we are not talking about the socio-political side of cartels, but only about their significance in the history of economic evolution. No matter how harmful cartels are for workers, they are, in any case, beneficial for capitalists. But they are useful not only for individual capitalists, but also for capitalists as a class, as a social group. A large capitalist tycoon does not need cartels as much as an average one. Trusts and all kinds of unions of entrepreneurs are, first of all, a protective measure for the class of middle capitalists. This is as suitable a form for average capitalists as workers' unions are for organized proletarians and rural societies for peasants. Cartels can break up, just as workers' unions die for various reasons. In general, this proves nothing against either cartels or workers' unions. Viewed from the point of view of the history of social evolution, cartels have a dual social significance. Firstly, they are protection for the middle capitalist class, and secondly, they help reduce and slow down chronic crises. In those industries in which cartels begin to be used, the possibility of competition is eliminated, and without competition and without difficulties in sales there can be no room for prolonged crises 128 Criticism of the theory of worker impoverishment. When this theory of Marx took shape, then it was a simple statement of fact 129 - and it was a generally accepted theory. But the impoverishment of the workers was only a temporary phenomenon. According to Tugan-Baranovsky, the first steps of capitalism led to a significant deterioration in the position of the working class, but further successes of capitalist industry went, in some part, to the benefit of the workers. The reasons for this change were quite complex. The capitalist mode of production increases labor productivity, and this is, in itself, a circumstance favorable to increasing wages. But as long as factory production does not play a dominant role in the country, high labor productivity in the factory creates a tendency not to increase, but to decrease the earnings of the working classes of the population. The fact is that factories compete in this case with various forms of small-scale production - crafts, handicrafts, domestic capitalist industry. Every success of machine technology causes a fall in the price of the manufactured product, and due to this, the price of competing manual labor products also falls, resulting in a reduction in the earnings of the corresponding groups of small producers. As long as these small producers competing with the factory predominate numerically, so long will the growth of labor productivity in the sphere of large-scale machine production have a depressing effect on the economic position of the mass of the population remaining with the same methods of production. But even among the factory workers themselves, wages cannot rise significantly in this period of capitalist development, since the ruin of small producers causes an influx of workers into factories and thereby drives down the price of labor. All this was observed in the leading capitalist countries of Europe in the first half of the last century. In the end, the factory won decisively; in the most important branches of industry it became the dominant form of production. Then the situation changed. Further increases in labor productivity created a tendency for wages to rise, as the total amount of product produced by the worker and to be divided between him and the capitalist increased (Modern Socialism). The improvement in the economic situation of workers has been noted by many observers. Sidney Webb's book, Labor in the Longest Reign, 1837–1897. Issued under the auspices of the Fabian Society, became particularly famous. No matter how inclined we are - we read here - at times to think badly about the present situation of the people, it is clear that, in general, after 1837 a significant step forward was made. In a very large number of working professions and in almost all localities, the earnings of men have greatly increased, enabling them to enjoy some comforts that were unimaginable sixty years ago. In many cases, working hours have become shorter, working conditions have improved, and the general standard of living has increased significantly. Home life, both in town and country, became more comfortable; sanitary conditions have been completely changed in many respects; education has become more intensive and extensive; at the same time, such aids to mental life as libraries, museums, art galleries, music and wholesome entertainment have become much more accessible to the worker. In a word, most of the population has become more cultured than sixty years ago. However brutal our industrial system may be, life in England has become more humane in almost every way. The shortcomings that still exist should not obscure the progress made from our eyes. The panegyrics of the optimistic statisticians of our time are justified in this respect 130 . Among the ways that have recently been strenuously leading to an improvement in the economic position of the working class, the first place is occupied by workers' unions and cooperative organizations, as well as factory legislation. Hammacher wittily discovers that Marx's economic theory does not prove the inevitability of the impoverishment of workers. According to the economic teachings of Marx, the direct goal of the capitalist and a specific motive for production is the production of surplus value. Surplus value is created by the worker and obtained by the capitalist through the exploitation of the worker, whose earnings are determined by the amount of means of subsistence for him and his family, his necessary needs. An increase in labor productivity benefits only the capitalist, not the worker. The capitalist, striving solely for the production of surplus value and interested exclusively in exchange value, must constantly lower the price of goods. “Since relative surplus value 131 increases in direct relation to the development of the productive power of labor, while the value of commodities decreases in inverse relation to the same development, and since as a result of this one and absolutely identical process cheapens commodities and increases the surplus value contained in them, this circumstance solves the riddle that the capitalist, who is interested only in the production of exchange value, constantly at the same time strives to lower the exchange value of commodities.” On the other hand, labor power is assessed according to the socially necessary time for its maintenance, according to the cost of its reproduction, but the average level of the so-called necessary needs, or necessary means of subsistence, must be constant for a certain country and in a certain period of time. If the rate of surplus value 132 is constantly increasing, the share of the working day that is spent on surplus work is increasingly lengthening, and necessary work is being reduced, then - under the assumptions of Marx himself - should and even can the position of the worker worsen? Of course, if his earnings are constantly determined by the costs of reproduction, then they must fall as this necessary time decreases - in this Marx is right. But he glimpses under what conditions this reduction is possible. Obviously, to the same extent that wages fall, the costs of production of labor power actually fall. After all, the level of needs contains “historical and moral elements.” Consequently, wages can fall only if, at the same time, as a result of increased unpaid surplus labor, the value of goods correspondingly decreases and the purchasing power of wages actually increases. In general, the constancy of real wages and salaries seems natural: whoever is already at the level of necessary needs and receives only as much as is necessary for his reproduction, his level of living needs cannot be lowered by any cash from the reserve army, because otherwise he would sink, which Marx does not allow, below the “moral” limit and would die of starvation. According to his theory of surplus value, Marx would have to come to the conclusion that the position of the worker remains absolutely equal, even if some capitalists usurp the benefits of the unusually increased productivity of labor. But does that harsh law really exist that with the increase in material wealth, with the increase in capital, the deduction from the products of labor in favor of the capitalist becomes greater and greater? Does wage labor move in inverse proportion to the productivity of the national economy? Hammacher agrees with Dietzel that wages rise and fall with economic productivity. In the same way, the general purchasing power rises with rising productivity of the national economy and falls with falling productivity. This fundamentally overcomes pessimism in discussing the labor question and puts an end to the iron law of wages. There is no tendency towards the physical impoverishment of workers at all. The theory of impoverishment, once generally accepted, has now been abandoned by everyone, 133 even by socialists, 134 who already allow themselves to speak at most about social poverty, and not about physical poverty. Engels, in the draft Erfurt Program, did not approve of the phrase: “the number of proletarians is increasing and the poverty is increasing.” He said: “in such an absolute form, this is not true. The organization of workers and their ever-increasing resistance places, if possible, a certain limit on the growth of poverty. But what is undoubtedly increasing is the insecurity of existence. This is what I would contribute” 135. Kautsky, in his response to Bernstein, insists on the impoverishment of workers not as a law, but only as a tendency of capitalist society. He offers even more insistently a different understanding of poverty. “The word poverty can mean physical poverty, but also social poverty. Poverty in the first sense is measured by the physiological needs of a person, which, however, did not remain unchanged everywhere and not at all times, but which still did not develop as quickly as social needs, the dissatisfaction of which gives rise to social poverty. If we understand this word in its physiological sense, then, of course, Marx’s expression would be untenable. It is precisely in the most progressive countries that one can no longer observe a general increase in physical poverty; All the evidence, on the contrary, indicates that physical poverty is decreasing in these countries, although very slowly and not everywhere. The standard of living of the working class is now higher than it was 50 years ago. Of course, it would be a mistake to measure its increase by an increase in monetary payment. We should not forget how much the cost of living has risen since then... Success is not nearly as great as it seems when looking at the money... But if the rise of the working class from physical poverty is such a slow process, then from this we can already conclude that its social poverty is constantly increasing, since labor productivity is growing unusually quickly. This means nothing more than that the working class is increasingly deprived of participation in the cultural progress that it produces, that the standard of living of the bourgeoisie is rising faster than that of the proletariat, that social antagonism between these classes is growing... The bourgeois themselves speak about the growth of poverty in the social sense, they only gave it a different name; they call it demandingness (Begehrlichkeit). But it's not the words that matter. The main thing is the fact that the antagonism between the needs of workers and the ability to satisfy them from the wages they receive, and at the same time the antagonism between wage labor and capital, is growing more and more. In this growing poverty of the physically and spiritually strong working class, and not in the growing despair of the half-brutalized hordes covered with ulcers, the author of Capital saw a powerful lever for the transition to socialism. The effect of this poverty is not destroyed by pointing out the rising standard of living of the working class.” Kautsky “is certainly wrong in his assertion that the theory of social impoverishment he developed is nothing other than the true theory of Marx.” No, Marx was not talking about the demands of the workers, but about the “accumulation of poverty, the torment of labor, slavery, ignorance, savagery and moral decline” of the workers. He could not talk about anything else, because only by pointing out the increasing physical poverty of the workers and their degeneration, physical and moral, could he hope to substantiate the theory of social catastrophe as a spontaneous process. Kautsky's understanding is a clear rejection of Marx's theory. But regardless of this, the fact of the growing discontent of the workers noted by Kautsky can be fully accepted. Criticism has neither the opportunity nor the need to dispute this fact 136. But this fact belongs to the field of moral and psychological and stands out from the boundaries of naturalistic theory, which claims to establish a natural law. We can again point out the fatal inevitability with which Marxism rests on moral and psychological soil. And we will also say again that this moral-psychological element with its present strength strengthens the social movement 137, but, perceiving it, the system of Marxism ceases to be a scientific doctrine and loses support for the causal justification of the future socialist society 138. Criticism of the theory of social revolution. Bernstein writes that the idea of ​​the collapse of the capitalist system contradicts both actual economic development and general cultural progress. History does not provide a single example of such (violent) expropriation. Even the destruction of feudalism took place in a completely different way than we usually assume and than Marx and Engels assumed when they were developing their theory. When feudalism fell, bourgeois property was already fully developed. By all indications, the fall of capitalist property will take place in the same way. Collective property will not develop as a result of the violent destruction of capitalist property, but, on the contrary, the latter will disappear when collective property reaches a high degree of development. Particularly thorough critical judgments about this hypothesis were expressed by P. Struve in his article. Die Marxsche Theorie der sozialen Entwicklung. The idea that the entire legal system does not correspond to the entire social economy is unrealistic: the legal system and the social economy are abstract concepts, not real beings or relationships. Equally little empirically substantiated is the idea that the development of society in all points of social life simultaneously accelerates intolerable contradictions, which are somehow eliminated in their entirety - the idea of ​​a completely uniform and unambiguous development of all social phenomena. The entire course of social development, but of Marxist theory, breaks down - as sharply as possible - into “critical” and “organic” epochs: critical epochs are recognized as characterized by contradiction, and organic ones by harmony between economics and law. Contrary to this, one must always keep in mind that 1) only individual economic and legal phenomena, as mass phenomena, are real and, therefore, actually active, that, therefore, law and economy have a real existence only in the form of these individual facts, and that 2) the appearance that individual phenomena can all occur simultaneously according to an unambiguous formula is created only by the generalization of social phenomena into the concepts of “economy” and “law” that causes this preconceived opinion. In real social life there is neither an absolute contradiction between law and economics, nor absolute harmony between them, but there are constant partial collisions and reconciliations of the economic and legal areas. In their form and through their mediation, the transformation of society takes place. The adaptation of law to the social economy does not stop for a single moment, and the development of economic phenomena not only takes place within the framework of the social system of a given time, but it is precisely this that transforms this framework and expands it. The concept of social revolution, as a theoretical concept, not only has no value and purpose, but is also downright misleading. If a “social revolution” should mean a complete revolution of the social system, then for modern thinking it appears as nothing other than a long continuous process of social transformations. Even though political revolution represents the cornerstone of this development, producing a revolution, the strength of this process does not in the least degree depend on such an event and can well be conceivable without it. For the Marxist theory of the growing contradiction between law and economics, a revolution destroying this contradiction was, in any case, logically necessary. For those who do not accept this formula of contradictions in such a universal meaning, social revolution is not a new concept - it is only another name for social evolution and its results. The “dialectical” understanding necessarily leads to the presentation of social transformation under a greatly simplified image of political revolution. This presentation of the matter must definitely be called crude and unfounded: social transformation is logically a very complex process of development, and the more content we put into this process, the more difficult it is to present it as a “revolution.” Otherwise, the larger the revolution, the less it can be limited to individual revolutionary acts. A real social revolution presupposes and contains much more than individual revolutionary or reformative legislative acts of factors possessing “political force” at a given time. If by social revolution we think of a complete revolution of the social system, then we can formulate the relationship of such a revolution to a political revolution, to a “revolution,” as follows: the more revolutionary a social transformation, the less “revolutionary” it can be. The complexity and richness of the content exclude the simplicity of the method. Marx and Marxists naively confuse evolutionism and revolutionism. This confusion is crystallized in the well-known phrase that a simple quantitative change turns into a new quality - a phrase that is given the meaning of a real explanation of the event of social revolution. Meanwhile, this phrase is nothing more than a description of an event through logical categories. The true meaning of this description, to which uncritical minds attach a mystical-dialectical meaning, is established by the theory of knowledge. Struve accepts the “law of continuity of all change” established by Kant, which reveals the epistemological significance of evolutionism. The constancy of any, even the most profound, change is a necessary cognitive-theoretical and psychological postulate for the comprehensibility of this change. The evolutionary principle is like the law of causality: it serves as a universally binding form in which we must imagine a profound change in things in order to understand it. The old saying: natura non facit saltus must, accordingly, be changed into a new formula: intellectus non patitur saltus. It follows that the concept of revolution cannot be an independent theoretical concept and cannot express a special type of social transformation. The concept of revolution, thus, moves into the same area to which Kant’s philosophy includes free will (in the sense of causeless action), substantiality of the soul, etc.: these are practically very important, but theoretically optional concepts. “Transformation of quantity into quality” - this formula is just another logical expression that designates a deep change in “the same thing” as permanent and measurable. Through this representation, this qualitative change becomes clear to us. And if it is necessary to prove the need for a transition from capitalism to socialism, then this transition should be presented as a generally understandable process, that is, as a continuous and cause-based change in society. From a cognitive-theoretical point of view, it is completely false - when explaining socialism genetically - to irreconcilably oppose it to capitalism, as a result of which the theoretical proof of its inevitability becomes downright impossible. When justifying socialism as a necessary formation of society, the matter at hand - since capitalism is in reality given, and socialism is about to happen - is not about finding what separates both formations, but about what - on the contrary - connects them 139. From a theoretical, i.e., evolutionary-historical point of view, the favorite point in Marxist literature to the complete essential difference between socialism and capitalism and to the impossibility of realizing socialism within the framework of capitalist society and by its means is an instance against historical necessity and even against the possibility of socialism. To prove the necessity of this passionately desired impossible, a social miracle is called upon to help - a social revolution, which, with its inherent creative power, realizes the transition from quantity to quality. This whole concept contains a strange contradiction: the essential difference between capitalism and socialism necessarily requires a social revolution, and the latter (the transformation of quantity into quality) abstractly assumes a continuous transition from capitalism to socialism, which is excluded by their essential difference. The theory of collapse, or the theory of social revolution, must, according to Struve’s well-founded conclusion, be recognized as a logically and abstractly untenable teaching. It turns out to be a renunciation of the realistic view of Marxism 140. The criticism is fundamental. A fundamental criticism of Marx's economic teachings poses the question: does this teaching justify the inevitability of the onset of the socialist system? And in order not to make a negative answer to this question dependent on any accidental mistakes in justification, we give the question a more decisive form: is it possible to scientifically prove the historical necessity of the onset of certain social orders? This specific question hides two general questions of philosophical interest: firstly, is it possible to build a goal and plan for social activity on the basis of known facts and laws of social reality? secondly, is scientific prediction of the social future possible? The philosophical meaning of these two questions is expressed as follows: is it possible to rationalize social life in these two ways - by knowing the laws of reality and by foreseeing the future? We will consider this question in its closest relation to the theories of Marxism - starting from them and returning to their criticism. The starting point for us is the fact that the theory of collapse, which crowns all economic theories of Marx, has two sides, consists of two ideas: firstly, the idea of ​​the collapse of the capitalist system, as a natural process occurring according to inexorable laws, regardless of human will, and, secondly, the idea of ​​a social revolution carried out by the proletariat. These aspects of the theory would need to be considered separately. One could say: we have covered the first side of the theory, now we need to discuss the second side. But the fact is that the first side of the theory of Marxism is inseparable from the second, that the first idea, although it can be discussed in the abstract, all boils down, in general, to the second: the idea. We assert that the theory of collapse, in addition to the fact that it does not correspond to the realistic view of Marxism, does not substantiate the historical necessity of a socialist future because it ultimately makes the entire process dependent on the consciousness, on the psyche, on the will of the proletariat. Even with the mechanical dissection of the theory of collapse, it is clear that the collapse of the capitalist system, the expropriation of the expropriators, represents, according to the second side of the theory, a plan that the proletariat needs to carry out in order to realize the socialist community. It cannot be said that “this expropriation occurs due to the operation of the immanent laws of capitalist production itself”; no, this expropriation is carried out by the proletariat, and “by the action of the immanent laws of capitalist production” it is only prepared and conditioned. If we think through the composition of this theory, if we logically determine the mutual relationship of the factors of the social revolution, then it will be obvious that the only subject among these factors is the proletariat, and the other factor - the “immanent laws of capitalist production” - in relation to it is only the path of its actions. The unifying formula of the theory should be this: the expropriation of the expropriators will be carried out by the proletariat according to the immanent laws of capitalist production. The “necessity of the natural process,” with which “the negation of capitalist production is carried out by itself,” at the last moment of the process, in any case, is replaced by the active participation of the proletariat. “When, according to Kautsky, they talk about the insurmountability and spontaneous necessity of the process of social development, it is naturally assumed that people are people, and not soulless automatons, people with certain needs, with certain physical and spiritual forces, which they try to use for their own good. By passively submitting to what seems inevitable, we would not at all allow social development to take its own path, but would lead it to stagnation. Never before has a social revolution been accomplished unnoticed and without the active intervention of those most oppressed by the ruling system.” That is why the Communist Manifesto sets the “immediate goal of the collectivists” as “the organization of the proletarians into a class party, the deprivation of the bourgeoisie’s dominance, the acquisition of political power by the proletariat.” The proletariat are the gravediggers of the bourgeoisie, if it wants to dig its grave, if it wants to “win,” if it wants to at least push the falling one. If we move from the mechanical dissection and unification of the theory of collapse to a deeper, psychological definition of the mutual relationship of the factors of the social revolution, then we will encounter a dilemma: either the goal and plan of the subject of this social process are entirely the result of knowledge of the given material foundations of social life, knowledge of the laws of social development, or they are determined by personal interests, their clash and their combinations. The first assumption corresponds to the idea of ​​scientific socialism. The very scientific nature of socialism lies in the recognition of the possibility of determining social goals on the basis of knowledge of the laws of social development. This idea is revealed throughout Marx’s entire economic teaching; it is also expressed by Marx in separate theses. So in Die heilige Familie he writes: “Private property in its economic movement pushes itself towards its own destruction, but only through a development independent of it, unconscious, against its will and conditioned by the nature of the matter itself, only through the birth of the proletariat as a proletariat - this poverty conscious of its spiritual and physical poverty, this consciousness of its rejection and thereby abolishing selflessness... The point is not in what the individual proletarian or even the entire proletariat sees his goal at the moment. The point is what the proletariat really is, and what, according to its essence, it will historically be forced to do. His goal and his historical mission are foreshadowed in the most clear and indisputable way by his own situation in life, as well as by the entire organization of modern bourgeois society.” Kautsky expresses this same idea with complete clarity. We have already seen that in the Erfurt Program he calls his image of the future socialist community “not the invention of recipes for the kitchen of the future, but the scientific processing of data obtained through the study of certain facts.” He writes even more decisively in his discussion of ethics and the materialist understanding of history. Here he says that our social goals must be consciously, systematically and consistently determined by social cognition. “The direction of social development in reality depends not on our moral ideal, but on certain given material conditions. These material conditions to a certain extent determined, even in early periods, the moral desire and social goals of classes striving to improve their situation, but, for the most part, this happened unconsciously. But even if conscious, directing, social cognition was present, as, for example, in the eighteenth century, it still acted unsystematically and inconsistently to create social goals.” The interpretation of social development proposed by Marxism “for the first time taught us to establish our social goals exclusively based on knowledge of given material foundations.” There is “no place for any moral ideal in scientific socialism, the scientific study of the laws of motion of the development of the social organism in order to understand the necessary trends and goals of the proletarian class struggle.” According to Bernstein 141, “German Social Democracy currently recognizes as the theoretical basis for its activities the doctrine developed by Marx and Engels, which they called scientific socialism. This must mean that while Social Democracy, as a militant party, represents certain interests and tendencies and fights for the goals set for itself, in determining these goals it ultimately recognizes only data that can be proven objectively and based only on experience, logic and similar evidence.” Thus, scientific socialism leads us to the first of the questions posed: is it possible to construct a goal and plan for social activity on the basis of known facts and laws of social reality? This question should be answered in the negative. The economic goal is directly determined by our desires, our interests, our moral feelings, or, as they say, our ideals, and external conditions and social laws, which constitute the object of socio-historical knowledge, serve only as a means that we use to achieve our goals. This is how the historian Klyuchevsky understands the relationship between socio-historical factors. “People sometimes feel the awkwardness of their position, the heaviness of the social order in which they live, but they are unable to either define or clearly explain this heaviness and awkwardness. Historical study reveals irregularities in the structure of society, painfully and dimly felt by people, indicates the abnormal relationship of any social elements and its origin, and makes it possible to figure out means of restoring the disturbed balance” 142. For determining a goal, historical knowledge has only the significance that it limits the area of ​​the possible, that from a number of goals or ideals not created by it, it forces one to choose one goal as the only one feasible under given conditions. “Our ideals,” says the same historian, “are not suitable for everyone, not always and not everywhere. In order to know which of them and to what extent can be implemented in a certain society and at a certain time, one must thoroughly study the available reserve of forces and means that this society has accumulated for itself.” The goal must be possible in order to be reasonable: it must be in accordance with the laws of social development, but activity is created not by knowledge of these laws, but by interests and ideals. The relation of our practice to social laws is the same as its relation to natural laws 143. We want to build a bridge across the river at a famous place; Whether this is possible will be shown by studying the laws of mechanics as applied to a given building material and a given area. But no matter how undoubted these laws are, studying them will not in itself give rise to the desire to build a bridge in this place: the desire comes to knowledge from the heart. The same applies to social laws: social cognition cannot serve as the only source, the only explanation of social practice. We read a thorough judgment on this issue in Stammler's book 144. “If social development consisted exclusively in a single integral natural process according to causal necessity, then any conscious decision to follow it would be simply nonsense. Exactly the same as a conscious decision to revolve with the earth around the sun. Here, precisely, two different and mutually exclusive, opposite classes are clearly expressed and mixed together in the possible content of our ideas. One of two things: either I cognize the phenomenon and movement in its natural necessity and, on special grounds, foresee a causally inevitable result - then in general, in relation to this natural process, there is no longer any place for either will or decision. Or I have a firm decision and the will to achieve a certain result - then here, in essence, lies a moment that testifies that the immutable natural necessity of a given event has not yet been recognized as undoubted and reliable. Absolutely right: in fact, we have will and decision - this is an undoubted fact, which is proven by every act of self-deepening - a fact established in the content of our ideas. And there is no doubt that social aspirations of this kind, thanks to the possibility of cognizing the causal connection between the phenomena of social movements, in no case seem contradictory or in themselves meaningless. For here the same thing is repeated: experience, as scientific knowledge, is nothing more than the unification of existing perceptions under one common angle of view: but the idea of ​​a choice having to be made and a goal having to be established is in its content completely different from the idea of ​​such representations that are perceptions, and its further investigation is subject to a special law. But since this is actually recognized - and where is it not in human life! – since in general it is necessary to admit and recognize social aspirations in the full sense of the word, the soil of exclusively causal research has thereby already been abandoned. Mere cognition of a causally cognized process does not admit of any striving. And where there is aspiration and will, the result they imagine cannot be understood as a fact explained according to the law of causality.” In general, in the words of Münsterberg 145, “no knowledge of facts in the world can tell us what we should do, and no science can show us what our intentions and our duties, our goals and our ideals should be. We want to trust only the facts and in our blindness we do not see the basic fact that facts have value only when they serve to achieve some final ends that the will must create and which no knowledge can provide.” Struve 146 for the awareness of objective economic phenomena uses the term limitation in contrast to motivation: the economic entity is not motivated by them, but is limited. Also Tugan-Baranovsky 147: “the ideal gives us the supreme goals of our activity, science indicates the means for achieving these goals and supplies us with the correct criterion for determining what is feasible for our goals and to what extent” 148. If we apply these general judgments to scientific socialism, then we will be forced to distinguish in it what it “sees” in itself, and what scientific socialism “really” is, what it is “in its essence.” Scientific socialism distinguishes itself from utopian socialism in the sense that the utopians created a plan for a future society entirely from their own heads, not in accordance with reality, while scientific socialism captures the plan of a new society in the features of a given reality. This is what Engels writes in Antidühring. “The Utopians were Utopians because they could not be anything else in that era when capitalist production was still so poorly developed. They were forced to construct the elements of the new society from their own heads, because these elements had not yet appeared clearly to everyone in the old society itself; when drawing a plan for a new building, they limited themselves to appealing to reason, because they could not yet appeal to contemporary history” 149. This is how scientific socialism looks at itself, but that is not what it really is. In fact, it is impossible to define social goals entirely from social cognition without reference to the sphere of desires, interests, ideals - and scientific socialism does not really represent such a definition of social goals. Scientific socialism cannot and does not differ from utopian socialism in its attitude to the ideal, to the assessment of reality - in this respect, both socialisms are equal; scientific socialism can claim to differ from utopian socialism only in its relation to the means and conditions for the realization of the social ideal. Utopian socialism sketched out plans for an ideal system in exactly the same way as scientific socialism does today, that is, based on desires and ideals; but the utopians, from the many plans swarming in people’s heads, for example, did not choose a possible plan for paying attention to the laws governing the real life of society, and the newest socialists, for example, make this choice: this is the whole difference between scientific socialism and utopian 150. In other words, this difference arises only on the question of possibility, but not on the question of the necessity of a future society. Struve151 says correctly: “The (utopian) ideal remained (in scientific socialism) unchanged (compared to utopianism); only the view on the conditions for its implementation has changed. The ideal itself stands outside science or, if you like, above it, although it needs scientific sanction. Just as the soul needs a body, so the ideal needs reality to be on its side, so that, due to the necessary course of things, the future belongs to it. Another way to put it is this: an ideal goal always needs a real connection with a real means.” Therefore, scientific socialism “does not pretend to provide an answer to the question: what to do? This issue is resolved in another instance - interests and ideals. He only says: how to do it” 152. Let us apply this judgment about socialism, in particular and more specifically, to two points of scientific socialist theory: firstly, to the assessment of the active role of the proletariat in this theory and, secondly, to the significance of the ideal element in Marxism’s own scientific and economic views. We have seen that when calculating the factors of the social revolution, Marxism adds to the action of the immanent laws of capitalist production the action of the proletariat in the last act of the revolution. We further saw that in its formulas Marxism looks at social revolution as a natural process and, accordingly, recognizes the goals of the proletariat as arising with natural necessity from the given economic organization of modern society. Meanwhile, in fact, in a detailed disclosure of its views, in a specific description of the different phases of the social revolution, Marxism assigns to the proletariat, and precisely its consciousness - its interests, moral feelings, ideals, a more active and more original role. And, first of all, this economic organization, which is described as if objectively, explained as if causally, is actually illuminated in these descriptions, in Marxist theories, from a subjective point of view. From a purely objective side, social laws are entirely within the realm of causal necessity, but from the point of view of the subject of social action, in this case the proletariat, they constitute only a means of social action, a condition for the realization of desires, they make social action and the achievement of ideals possible. In all economic theories that culminate in the theory of collapse and constitute its basis and content - in the theory of surplus value, in the theory of accumulation and concentration of capital, concentration of production, the organization of the capitalist economy is assessed from the point of view that it makes possible the implementation of the socialist ideals of the proletariat. The Marxist formula proclaims: “the bourgeoisie produces its own gravediggers. Its defeat and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.” This inevitability, it turns out, has the only real meaning that the organization of labor, inevitable for capitalist production, makes the onset of a socialist system completely conceivable and possible. This real meaning of these theories is revealed by Engels in Antidühring. “The transfer of all means of production into the hands of society has often, since the appearance in history of the capitalist mode of production, been presented, more or less unclearly, both to individuals and to entire factions as a future ideal. But this transition became possible for the first time (erst möglich), became a historical necessity for the first time, when the material conditions for its implementation turned out to be present (die materiellen Bedingungen ihrer Durchführung). Like any other social progress, it becomes feasible (wird ausführbar) not due to the dawning understanding that the existence of classes is contrary to justice, equality, etc. etc., not due to a simple desire to abolish class divisions, but due to certain new economic conditions. The disintegration of society into exploiters and exploited, into ruling and oppressed classes was a necessary consequence of the previous insignificant development of production.” When the products of social labor barely exceeded the satisfaction of urgent needs, then, along with members of society wholly immersed in work, it was necessary, according to Engels; there exists a small class of people free from worries about daily subsistence and having the opportunity to devote themselves to the management of labor, government, affairs, justice, science, the arts, etc. “But if, thus, the division into classes has a certain historical justification, then this justification was valid only for a given time, for given social conditions. The division into classes was based on the insignificance of production, but it will be abolished as a result of the full development of the latest productive forces." The existence of the ruling class becomes redundant. “This moment has now arrived... The opportunity to provide, through social production, to all members of society an existence that is not only materially completely satisfactory and becomes richer from day to day, but also guarantees them the complete unhindered disclosure and manifestation of their physical and spiritual inclinations, this possibility has now been realized for the first time, but has already been realized” 153. Moreover, other economic theories of Marxism - the theory of crises and the theory of the impoverishment of workers - what significance do they have without relation to subjective assessment? But to the above exposition of these theories, the crises and impoverishment of the workers testify and prove that “society can no longer exist under the domination of the bourgeoisie,” that “the bourgeoisie is unable to fulfill the role of the ruling class.” In the words of Engels in Antidühring, “on the one hand, the capitalist mode of production leads to the conviction (wird überführt) of its own inability to further control the forces of production; on the other hand, these productive forces themselves demand with increasing energy their liberation from their property of being capital, the actual recognition of their character as social productive forces. It is precisely this resistance exerted by the powerfully developing productive forces against their capitalist character, this growing compulsion to recognize (Zwang zur Anerkennung) their social nature, that increasingly forces (nöthigt) the capitalist class itself to treat them as social productive forces, insofar as this is at all possible within capitalist relations.” What does this all mean? The only thing is that crises and impoverishment of workers serve as motives for changing the social system. No matter how Engels strikes at the moment of coercion, calling crises a coercive means to a social revolution (Zwangsmittel der gesellschaftlichen Umwälzung), he cannot obscure the indication of the moment of motivation hidden here. All the more decisively one can speak about the significance of the impoverishment of the workers for the proletariat itself. Here we may be talking about nothing other than motives; Outside of motivation, there is no reason to talk about any spontaneous inevitability here. And when Marx writes that “the bourgeoisie cannot rule because it is unable to ensure the existence of its slave,” and Engels repeats after him that “only now has the ruling and exploiting class become superfluous, has even become an obstacle to social development, and now only it is inexorably eliminated, although it has direct power at its disposal,” then they simply do not finish their thoughts. The thought of Marxism is conveyed to the end by Kautsky, as if he were letting it slip in his negative review of Menger’s book Neue Sittenlehre - it is known how many are eager to notice the motes in the eye of another, without feeling the log in their own eye. Kautsky writes: “If Menger were right in his explanation of morality, if the latter really resulted from material coercion, which various social factors of power are able to produce, then any social development would be impossible. For it follows from the protest of the rising classes against those who enjoy political power. And political or social struggle is unthinkable without moral indignation at the enemy. Where does it come from if the coercive force of those in power produces morality? Perhaps it will be pointed out that the political and economic organizations of the enslaved can also reveal a certain coercive force, which in this case gives rise to oppositional morality. But without a preceding moral indignation, the development of opposition organizations of the enslaved classes is completely unthinkable. Moral indignation towards the ruling class is the initial form in which the opposition of the developing class is expressed. It forms the basis of every other form of opposition, and when some class, already degraded, has long ceased to show political and social resistance to the new regime imposed on it, it retains a protest against this regime for a long time in its moral consciousness. Moral indignation against a given political and social situation, against material coercion on the part of social authorities, is the first and last basic form of the phenomenon of class contradiction, the most primitive and longest-lasting motivating cause of class struggle 154. The point is clear: Marxism, not remaining in the pure area of ​​objective knowledge, rests on another area - interests, moral feelings, ideals. He finds himself forced to reckon with the moral and mental principle and count on it. Together with one critic, we can say that the problem posed by Marx is not a problem of logic, but a problem of psychology 155. The socio-psychic element is an unstable, fluctuating, changeable element that cannot be rationalized. We will now pose a question - which we could pose, or repeat, and somewhat lower 156 - the question: how does scientific socialism, regardless of this socio-psychological element of its system, consider it possible to insist on the historical inevitability of the socialist organization of the economy, that is, to attribute a deterministic character to the entire socio-economic process? This question can be answered. We see that the entire socio-economic process has a dualistic composition, formed from two elements: a logical-objective element, allowing for the formation of the laws of socio-economic life, and a subjective-psychic element, not amenable to such rationalization 157 . Scientific socialism mixes these different sides of the socio-historical process and transfers the features of one side to the other, and assimilates the character of the part into the whole process. He does the same thing as if the bridge builders considered the entire construction process inevitable due to the independence of the laws of mechanics from the personal will. There are laws of socio-economic existence, with which social practice must be consistent, which make only certain plans possible; Marxists transfer the need for these laws to the entire process of implementing a certain plan, achieving a certain ideal. Their speech always moves from the necessity of these laws to the motives of the socialist movement, to an understanding of the conditions of social construction, obscuring the break that lies here, so that the latter is almost hidden from our discernment. Here is how Engels writes: “Large industry has developed the contradictions hidden in the capitalist mode of production into such blatant antagonisms that the approaching collapse can be, so to speak, felt by hand, that new productive forces can be preserved and further developed only with the introduction of a new mode of production corresponding to their current stage of development, that the struggle between the two classes created by the existing mode of production and constantly reproduced with the increasing aggravation of their mutual contradiction has embraced everything. civilized countries and is intensifying every day, and that an understanding of this historical process has already been achieved, the conditions for the social transformation that has become necessary thanks to it, and the main features of this transformation determined by it.” It is easy to concretely and tangibly imagine the emergence of a new system from the elements of the existing society, but whether the action of social transformation can be easily accomplished is another question. Engels makes no distinction between them. For him, the need for a natural process imperceptibly transforms into a moral or reasonable need for transformation. In particular, the notorious method of finding “social contradictions” inevitably leads to a subjective factor. The capitalist mode of production is proving its bankruptcy, and the need to recognize the social nature of the productive forces is growing. Representatives of scientific socialism are convinced that the natural inevitability of the laws governing the national economy flows into the motivated action of social transformation, the natural inevitability of means becomes a fatal compulsion of action. But is there really no break? According to Engels, “modern large-scale industry has created, on the one hand, the proletariat, a class which for the first time in history can put forward a demand for the abolition not of this or that specific class organization, not of this or that particular class privilege, but of classes in general, and which is placed in such a position that it must carry out this demand under threat (sie diese Forderung durchführen muss bei Strafe), otherwise, it will sink to the position of the Chinese coolie And, on the other hand, the same large-scale industry has created in the person of the bourgeoisie a class that has a monopoly of all instruments of production and means of subsistence, but in every period of speculation and the subsequent collapse proves (beweist) that it has become incapable of further domination over the productive forces that have outgrown its power, a class under whose leadership society rushes towards disaster, like a locomotive whose driver is unable to open a pinched safety valve. In other words, the fact is that both the productive forces created by the modern capitalist method of production and the system of distribution of goods developed by it came into blatant contradiction with this very method of production and, moreover, to such an extent that a revolution in the method of production and distribution, which will eliminate all class differences, must certainly occur in order not to perish the entire modern society (falls nicht die ganze moderne Gesellehaft untergehn soll). In this tangible material fact, which in a more or less clear form with an irresistible necessity penetrates into the heads of the exploited proletarians aufdrängt), - in it, and not in the ideas of this or that learned couch potato about justice or injustice, our confidence in the victory of modern socialism is rooted" 158 . Also Kautsky in the Erfurt Program: “If we consider the abolition of private ownership of the means of production inevitable, this does not mean that one fine day the roasted pigeons of social revolutions will fly into the mouths of the exploited without the efforts of these parties. We consider the collapse of modern society inevitable because we know that economic development, with the necessity of a natural process, creates conditions that force the exploited to fight against private property, that it increases the number and strength of the exploited and reduces the number and strength of the exploiters interested in preserving the existing one, that it finally leads to a situation intolerable for the mass of the population, which leaves them with a choice only between passive extinction or an active revolution in the existing system of property.” The same is briefly stated in the Communist Manifesto: “Class war always ended either in a radical restructuring of the entire social system, or in the death of both fighting classes.” We ask: where does this irresistible necessity of the natural process come from, with which the understanding of the impending destruction of society penetrates into the heads of the exploited and into their hearts the desire to counteract this destruction, to make every effort to save society - with which the proletariat must put forward a demand for the abolition of the class organization and incline the choice between passive extinction and an active revolution of the existing system towards a socialist society? Isn’t this necessity a simple reflection in the heads of Marxists of the necessity with which the means and conditions of social practice are given to knowledge, and isn’t this reflection projected from the heads of Marxists into the feelings and will of the proletariat? Yes, the nature of necessity from the given reality of means and conditions is transferred by Marxism to the perspective of social practice, which thus seems to be in the hands of knowing Marxists. The scientific system of Marxism performs the same optical illusion to which we succumb in any panorama. We find this obvious comparison in E. Filippovich 159. “The socialist program,” writes this author, “can be compared to large, skillfully arranged panoramas that show us wonderful landscapes in the distance, while in the immediate vicinity our gaze is attracted by real things, tactile, material reality, and this materially composed part of the spectacle is completely imperceptible, perceptible only for acute vision, into a picture. Likewise, by Marxism, the fantasy of dejected souls from the real phenomena of social life, such as the concentration of industrial production, gradually increasing socialization in the sense of cooperation of many to achieve one goal, is elevated to a country of the future, which is applied to reality simply as a picture. How this picture should become reality and how this reality will then develop, Marxist socialism is not without reason silent about this, for historically necessary development, it is true, can be identified by its tendencies, but the forms that the new society created through them will take cannot be determined arbitrarily. These development trends, noted by Marxism, are the concentration of production, both in industry and in agriculture, the accumulation of capital in a gradually decreasing number of hands, at the same time the growing impoverishment of the masses of the population, the regular repetition of crises as a consequence of the anarchy of production and the insignificant purchasing power of the majority of the population, and finally, the collapse of this organization and the transfer of political power to the masses organized by capitalism itself. None of these trends in economic development now goes unchallenged, and even where they are recognized, their strength and their relative importance for overall development are disputed - and this not only outside the socialist circle, but also within it itself. If we take Marxism in the strict sense, then it would lead to fatalism, because the immanent forces operating in production and exchange will themselves lead to a social goal. Marx and Engels themselves did not want to wait for this. The gradually growing and strengthening working masses have little indication of the future state; they want to improve their existence and run it themselves.” We see that Marxism emerges from the pure realm of social cognition, since it is forced to take into account the psyche of the subject of the social revolution, the proletariat, and count on this active factor. In addition, Marxism moves out of the field of knowledge and in the other direction - towards its ideal, which it takes as a measure for assessing economic reality. The economic system of Marxism is not only the fruit of social knowledge, a causal explanation of reality, pure science, but it also contains an ideal element; at the same time, it is a teleological system. The ideal of Marxism is the highest economic productivity, the productivity of human labor. Marx expressed his views with complete clarity in the following passage from Theorien über den Mehrwert, from the part dedicated to Dove. Ricardo. “Ricardo,” writes Marx, “with full right for his time, considers the capitalist mode of production as the most profitable for production in general, as the most profitable for the creation of wealth. He wants production for production's sake, and in this he is right. If one asserts, as Ricardo’s sentimental opponents did, that production as such is not the goal, then one forgets that production for production’s sake means nothing more than the development of human productive forces, therefore, the development of the wealth of human nature, as an end in itself. If, as Sismondi does, we contrast this goal with the good of the individual, then this is tantamount to the assertion that the development of the race must be delayed in order to ensure the good of the individual, that, therefore, no war can be waged, because in war, individuals in any case die. Sismondi is right only in relation to those economists who obscure this contrast and deny it. Those who make such a contrast do not understand that this development of the faculties of the species - man, although accomplished primarily at the expense of the majority of human individuals and known human classes, ultimately destroys this antagonism and coincides with the development of the individual, that, consequently, the highest development of individuality is bought only by the historical process in which individuals are sacrificed; Let us not talk about the futility of such reflections, since the interests of the race and in the kingdom of people, as in the kingdoms of animals and plants, always find satisfaction in the interests of individuals. Ricardo's straightforwardness was, therefore, not only scientifically conscientious, but also scientifically obligatory for his point of view. But as a result of this, he was also indifferent to whether the development of the productive forces killed the landed property or the workers. If this progress devalues ​​the capital of the industrial bourgeoisie, for Ricardo it is equally desirable. If the development of the productive power of labor deprives the value of available fixed capital by half, then what does it matter? says Ricardo: the productivity of human labor has doubled. There is, therefore, scientific integrity here. If Ricardo's understanding generally corresponds to the interests of the industrial bourgeoisie, it is only because its interests coincide with the interests of production or the productive development of human labor, and insofar as they coincide. Where the interests of developing the productive power of labor conflict with the interests of the bourgeoisie, Ricardo speaks out just as straightforwardly against the bourgeoisie as in other cases against the proletariat and aristocracy.” Attention should be paid to the presence of a subjective element in the ideal of Marxism, and it does not matter that the subject in the Marxist system is not an individual, but a race, not a person, but humanity. This element distinguishes Marxism from the classical school, from Hell. Smith and Ricardo, although this difference is masked by Marx's identification of production for production's sake with the development of the wealth of human nature. However, it is not difficult to decompose the ideal of Marxism into objective and subjective elements. It is difficult to observe this decomposition in Marxism’s own formulas, but it is easy and even necessary to assume it. Let us imagine a society with the highest productivity and with a weak development of the wealth of human nature; let us imagine another society with productivity not so high, but with a more favorable position for individuals and groups. Let's ask Marxists which society they would prefer. Ricardo would have directly pointed to the first society; Marxists would have avoided a direct answer under the pretext that the highest productivity is accompanied by the development of the richness of human nature. Let us not be embarrassed by such an answer. The first society is, in the eyes of Marxists, a modern capitalist society: they do not miss a single opportunity to emphasize the “magical” development in this society of productive forces, which for the first time makes possible the secure existence of all members of society and the full development of their spiritual and physical inclinations, but does not yet provide this development, since the upper classes are degenerating from economic obesity, and the proletariat is running wild from impoverishment. Marxists prefer the future socialist society to him. Why? Is even higher productivity a fact in a socialist society? Of course not. Such productivity is only guesswork, while the development of productive forces in modern society is undoubtedly a fact. If it were all about economic productivity, then there would be no reason to prefer the cranes of the distant future to the tits - and especially the cranes - of the present. What is undeniable for Marxists and what eliminates for them any hesitation in making a choice is the development of the physical and spiritual forces of all members of the future society, which becomes possible with the productivity of human forces already achieved today. In the ideal of Marxism, the development of human nature is not assumed only as a conclusion, but is put in the foreground. And even among Marx’s direct statements one can find confirmation of this. This is what he writes in the third volume of Capital. “Surplus labor in general, as labor exceeding the amount of given needs, must always exist. But in capitalist or slave-owning, etc. economies, it has an antagonistic form and is complemented by inactivity and idleness of a certain part of society. A certain amount of surplus labor is required in the form of insurance against accidents, a necessary progressive expansion of the process of reproduction, corresponding to the development of needs and progress of the population, which from a capitalist point of view is called accumulation. One of the civilizing aspects of capital is that it forces this surplus labor in a way and under conditions that are more beneficial for the development of productive forces, social relations and the creation of elements for a new higher social structure than under previous forms, under serfdom, slavery, etc. Thus, on the one hand, it brings to a level at which coercion and monopolization of social development (understanding by this also its material and mental benefits) of one part of society at the expense of another disappears; on the other hand, it creates a material means and a germ for relations that will make it possible, in a higher social form, to combine such surplus labor with a much more significant limitation of time devoted to material labor in general, for surplus labor, depending on the development of labor productivity, can be significant when the entire working day is short and relatively insignificant when the working day is long... The actual wealth of society and the possibility of a constant expansion of its process of reproduction depends, therefore, not on the duration of surplus labor, but on its productivity and on more or less variety of production conditions in which it takes place. The kingdom of freedom comes in reality only when labor, forced by need and external expediency, ceases; therefore, in essence it is outside the sphere of material production proper. Just as a savage, in order to satisfy his needs, to maintain his existence and reproduction, has to fight with nature, civilized man has to do the same, and this has to be done under all kinds of social forms and under all kinds of methods of production. With its development, this area of ​​natural necessities expands, since its needs increase, but at the same time the productive forces that satisfy them also increase. Freedom in this area can only consist in the fact that man, who has become a social being, - the united producers, regulates their exchange of substances with nature intelligently, subordinates it to their control, instead of letting it rule over them as a blind force, so that this is done with the least waste of force and under conditions most worthy of their human nature and most corresponding to it. But this still remains the realm of necessity. Behind it begins the development of human powers, which serves as its own end, a real kingdom of freedom, which, however, can only flourish if it has such a kingdom of necessity as its foundation. The main condition for this is a reduction in working hours.” The point is clear - the development of productive forces is a condition for the kingdom of freedom, the development of human nature serves as an end in itself, the development of productive forces is valuable because it leads to a reduction in the working day. The presence and even predominance of the subjective or moral element in the ideal of Marxism makes it possible to call this ideal subjective-moral in its content. But even if Marxists argue against such an interpretation of their ideal, highlighting the objective side - the development of productive forces, the accumulation of economic wealth, if we make the concession that we recognize the moral element in their ideal only as a conclusion, an assumption, then we still have the right to call the last principle of the economic system of Marxism ideal, yet their ideal is subjective in the sense of its application to the assessment of economic reality. Economic productivity, or the development of productive forces, in other words, the accumulation of national wealth - for the economic system of Marxism is not only, as for Ricardo, a point of view adopted for reviewing the material of economic science, and a formal principle of the economic system, it is also not only an empirical goal of social development. It cannot be said that Marxism accepts economic productivity as a formal principle of the economic system, considers under what conditions the development of the productive forces rises or falls, but it does not matter to it whether this principle is and should be implemented in reality; nor can it be said that Marxism accepts this principle simply because, in empirical reality, every society strives for the highest economic productivity. No, economic productivity, identical with the development of the wealth of human nature, for Marxism is a reasonable ideal 160 that must be realized in reality, which makes it possible to distinguish true reality from untrue, for example. “the real wealth of society” (i.e. true). According to Marx, not only everything that is real has a justification for itself, but everything that is rational must become real 161. The economic system of Marxism is permeated with an unconscious teleology of an absolute, metaphysical nature; history, according to the meaning of this system, is governed by reasonable norms - logical or ethical. The most striking expression of the teleological character of the economic system of Marxism must be recognized as its inherent optimism. According to Marx and Engels, the threat of the death of society or its lower productivity has an objective historical significance, socio-historical life is determined by the idea of ​​greater productivity, and societies with less development of productive forces must give way to societies with higher productivity. Can such a view be recognized as realistic? Can Marxism, by adopting this view, remain in the field of social cognition, a causal explanation of reality? According to the correct judgment of P. Struve, one of the most insightful critics of Marxism, “the dynamic thesis of Marx’s sociological teaching is revealed to us not as a theory of development or evolution, but as the most unambiguous theory of progress, or improvement of society. It contains the assumption that it survives, that is, it turns out to be the most adapted to life, the economically most productive, i.e. economically the most reasonable. This assumption contains two points that are closely related. Firstly, it means introducing a teleological, purely “human” criterion of economic rationality into the scheme of evolution. Secondly, such an assumption paints this entire scheme in an optimistic color, which is generally characteristic of all theories of progress. It is absolutely clear that the greatest productivity (or the greatest economic rationality) should not at all (“must” in the sense of natural necessity) mean the greatest adaptability to life; this in a given period of time may or may not help, this is a special case of evolution, which is fundamentally impossible to elevate to its general law. Productivity (in the economic sense) stands in connection with other mental qualities, and its increase means an increase in these qualities, the refinement of the entire spiritual organization, which means, in a word, the improvement of man. But the improvement of organization from such a human point of view is not at all logical and does not always historically mean a better adaptation to life, if we consider the issue precisely from a positive scientific point of view” 163. Just as a historical transition from greater economic productivity to less is possible, the victory of societies with the least development of productive forces, so in the same way a realistic view must recognize the possibility of the death of human societies 164. What is socialist optimism based on? From what spring does the spring of this hope for a better future flow? Obviously, such a spring can only be the faith of the human heart. And at no other point in its system does theoretical Marxism coincide as much as at this point with the social-democratic movement: both in theory and in practice, later socialism, like utopian socialism before it, is moved by faith. And it is precisely faith that creates the idea of ​​a catastrophic, “miraculous” salvation of society. S. Bulgakov came up with the happy idea of ​​drawing a comparison between the modern socialist movement and the ancient Judeo-Christian apocalypticism, an idea prompted by the history of those religious and social movements that serve as historical links connecting the ancient apocalypticism with later socialism. And he found the closest affinity between these chronologically distant historical phenomena. “In socialism we must distinguish between a goal or ideal and a movement or practice. The latter is the subject of scientific political economy and realistic social policy, the former belongs to the field of beliefs and hopes of a religious (in the broad sense of the word) nature. The basis of socialism as a worldview is the old chiliastic belief in the ecstasy of an earthly paradise (as is often directly expressed in socialist literature) and in the earthly overcoming of historical tragedy. Socialism is a rationalistic translation of Jewish chiliasm, translated from the language of cosmology and theology into the language of political economy, and all its dramatis personae therefore received an economic interpretation. The chosen people, the bearer of the messianic idea, or, as later in Christian sectarianism, the people of “saints”, were replaced by a proletariat with a special proletarian soul and a special revolutionary mission, and this chosenness is no longer determined by internal self-determination, as a necessary condition for messianic election, but by the external fact of belonging to the proletariat, position in the production process, a sign of class. The role of deus ex machina, facilitating the transition to chiliasm, in socialism, according to the spirit of the time and its favorite scientific mythology, is played by the “laws” of the development of society or the growth of productive forces, which first prepare this transition, and then, with a certain maturity of the process, due to its “internal and inevitable dialectics” force the transition to socialism, commanding to make a “leap from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom.” Thus, this role, previously assigned to the messiah or directly to the Divine, is here assigned to an impersonal, largely mythological abstract, the pantheistic concept of the “law of development of productive forces”, while, however, it also serves the same service - the locomotive that will deliver the historical train from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom - to Zukunftstaat or to the capital of Morov's Utopia" 165. Marxism believes in its ideal: this is important for us to state. But we can also ask: does he have the right to believe? is his faith justified by the foundations of his system? No. He violates the scientific nature of his system by introducing an element of faith into it, and he undermines the right to believe with the positive scientific principles he professes: in Marxism, teleology is not faith, but superstition 166 Let us now turn to the second of the questions posed above: is it possible to rationalize social life through scientific prediction of the future? In other words, is it possible to be guided in social life by a forecast regarding the future, or is it possible to predetermine the future based on the past and present? And this question should be answered in the negative. In this way it is impossible to rationalize social life, since scientific prediction of the historical future is impossible 167. What does scientific prediction of the future mean and in what sense is it possible? To make a scientific prediction of the future, one must know, firstly, the laws that determine the connection between phenomena in a given area, and, secondly, the state of the system of phenomena at a given point in time, under the assumption that the factors will remain unchanged throughout the entire period of time over which the scientific forecast extends 168 . It follows that scientific prediction is possible only in relation to natural phenomena and impossible in relation to social phenomena. There are laws governing social life 169; The state of social life at a given moment in time is accessible to knowledge, but the factors of social life are not immutable. They must be recognized as changeable, whether we, together with Meyer 170, recognize chance and free will among the factors of social life, or accept, following Bergson, the possibility of a creative beginning in our life, 171 or evaluate the historical role of individual invention, discovery (invention), as the French sociologist Tarde does, 172 or, finally, take into account the immense complexity of mental causation, which does not allow a completely identical repetition of historical events and leaving room only for a regressive, and not a progressive, explanation of them, to which Simmel 173 and Bernheim 174 drew our attention. There are laws that determine social life, but there is no socio-historical pattern in the sense of the unconditional and mechanical necessity of historical development 175. The history of mankind takes place not in the form of a cycle (Kreislauf), but in the form of unlimited development (Entwicklung) 176. Every day in history has something new compared to the entire past. “The facts of history,” according to Xenopol 177, “are constantly changing. Apparently they are repeated, but in reality they are always different. The essence of human life remains the same, but it always appears in different forms... Facts are never repeated in the same form. These are the same old facts plus something new: A + x, of which x plays the most important role.” To foresee the future means to foresee this changeable x - and this, first of all, is the psyche of future generations, their ideals, views, hopes, aspirations, as well as future discoveries and inventions 178. This impossibility of scientific prediction of the historical future is not a temporary result of our imperfect historical knowledge, and there is no room for hope for the discovery of the laws of historical development. Even if our historical knowledge were more perfect, if we were able to discover the laws of social development, this would not give us the possibility of a complete, practically useful for the social order, prediction of the future. The very perfection of knowledge would make the possibility of socially useful provision doubtful. From the very moment of their discovery, historical laws would cease to “belong to history”: they would become means of our practice 179 . Knowledge, true or imaginary, of the laws of social movement gives everyone interested the power to use them in their own interests, and this circumstance already changes the course of social development - to the foreseen A, to the known “essence of human life”, an unexpected individual form is added, an unexpected x, which devalues ​​foresight. Such a change would not have occurred only if the prediction did not affect the interests of people, or if the interest coincided with the natural direction of history, if all members of society were equally interested in this direction. But when interests diverge, people's desires collide in various ways and change in various ways, foresight is no longer possible. This is how the theory of impoverishment did not come true. According to Whipper 180, “The theory of impoverishment has probably acted on the imagination of a great many people, but it has never served as a rule of action. The working masses did not wait for the final deterioration of their fate; they did not pose the question: “all or nothing”; they organized themselves into trade unions that pushed for local and private improvements; they entered into the political struggle, introduced their representatives to parliament, took up so-called practical politics, took care of the protection of factory labor, participated in insurance legislation,” etc. The state moved towards the workers, and Marx’s prediction did not come true. For their part, the capitalists take measures of self-preservation and, through cartels, devalue the theory of crises. Bernstein, the theorist of the degeneration of radical socialism into revisionism, into the practice of compromise, rightly said 181: “Human history has not been developing for a long time in the sense that its tendencies reach their extreme conclusions” 182. We are forced to make a distinction between the unconscious course of socio-historical development and emerging consciousness: the law of socio-historical development completely dominates people only under the condition of the unconsciousness of the social process 183; on the contrary, emerging consciousness, or knowledge of the law, frees man from blind necessity. True, we can think that the whole society lives unconsciously, and this provides a basis for the blind necessity of the socio-historical process, and one sage, say Marx, comprehends the law of this process, and this provides a basis for foreseeing the future. This is conceivable, but only until this sage reveals his secret... Let us draw the last conclusion from our reasoning as applied to the criticism of scientific socialism. If social life cannot be completely rationalized, then the scientific construction of a system that unites social cognition with a social ideal is impossible; in particular, scientific socialism is impossible. This verdict on scientific socialism can be considered not only firmly founded, but also generally accepted among critics of Marxism. We will quote Sombart's review 184. “Marx wanted to contrast scientific socialism with utopian socialism. Now we are convinced that this idea is unsuccessful at its very core. The world-historical significance of Marx’s merit (insofar as it concerns socialism) lies not in its scientific character, but in the substantiation of the social movement on the real principles of historical development and interest, and this has nothing to do with science; an attempt to scientifically prove the necessity of socialism must be considered unsuccessful, because it is never possible to prove the correctness of social aspirations, the struggle for a new system that still needs to be created. Science can only discover the causal relationship of the empirical world; she will go beyond the limits of her competence if she wants to prove the correctness or even just the necessity of something desired, something that has not yet occurred. Of course, practical desire can successfully take advantage of scientific knowledge. Its justification is not that it is true, but that it is valuable and full of power. Scientific socialism is an internal contradiction. Therefore, it is necessary to radically separate science from socialism” 185. The scientific political and economic justification of socialism can be considered finished. However, Marxism, even if it agreed with criticism of its economic teaching, may, for its part, not recognize its cause as completely lost. It seems possible to transfer the whole question to a new level, from the sphere of science to the sphere of philosophy. On a scientific-empirical basis, we come across the dualism of social phenomena, the original subjective realm of interests, moral feelings, ideals, but won’t this originality of the subjective realm turn out to be illusory, this social dualism relative, if we delve into the behind-the-scenes, not amenable to direct observation, side of socio-historical life? Will not this apparent dualism be reduced to philosophical monism if we ask questions about the latest results, about the historical significance of the motives of social action and about the historical root of human motives? This is what Engels says in his essay about L. Feuerbach. “Whatever the course of history, people make it this way: each pursues his own affairs, and as a result of the many aspirations acting in different directions and their varied effects on the outer world, history is obtained. The question, therefore, comes down to what this multitude of individuals wants... But, on the one hand, many individual aspirations operating in history in most cases lead to consequences that are not at all the ones that were in mind. Very often these consequences are directly opposite to the desires of the actors. And for this reason alone, the motives that guided the figures are, in the final analysis, only of secondary importance. On the other hand, a new question arises about what are the forces that gave the will of people this or that direction, what are the historical reasons that were reflected in the heads of leaders in the form of these impulses.” In response to this question, Marxism offers its theory of historical materialism. So we, gradually going deeper, moved from considering Marxism as a collectivist plan for a social system to its economic teaching, and from economic theories we move on to its historical and philosophical teaching. Historical materialism constitutes the last premise of scientific socialism, its deepest foundation. Prelims of poverty Cursus der National – und Socialokonom Kyfci cantonal and social economy in. Sociale Bricfe an Kirchmann. See 2 (and 3) letter Zur Beleuchtung der socialen Frage K to the sanctification of the social question. ) Fr. G. Peabody The approach to the social question – an introduction to the study of social ethics: Art, if it is to flourish, must concern itself with the problems of the common life and contribute to the happiness and solace of the masses of men; religion, if it is to control modern life, must add to its ministry to the single soul the redemption of the social world: and democracy, having won its political victory, has now before it a further conflict with feudalism, paternalism, and privilege entrenched in their industrial strongholds. The ideals of other ages-aesthetic, religious, and political find themselves reproduced and comprehended in the new ideal of a better world which marks the age of the Social Question. – Schäffle Das gesellschaftliche System dcr mcnschlichen 'Wirthscliafl § 22: Die National-Oekonomie vermag zu zeigen, dass eben die specifisch wirth – schaftliche Untugend, d. h. Volksunwirthschaftlichkeit im Einzelncn und im Ganzcn, Folgc sittlich defector Gcsammtzust&ndc ist. dass dcr Materiaiis mus zu keiner vollendeten und nachhaitigen Volkswirthschaft gelangen kann. Die christliche Ethik sollte endlich um ihrer selbst willen die rigo- rose Verachtung dcr Volkswirthschaft fahren lasscn und viclmehr ihre Geltung gerade fur Volkswirthschaft nachweisen. However, exaggeration must be avoided. They even find it possible to say that the economic question in ancient times was posed with the same urgency as it is today. R. Guiraud Etudes éeopotschisv et Tantiqwte: Les questions economiqucs avaient, dans les society's antiques comme dans la n6tre, une importance preponderate etc. An inquiry into the nature and causes of the Wealth of nations= Research about the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. System der Voiksicirlhschaft volume five: System der Armenpflege wul Armenpolitic System of vision of food and measures against poverty. Ricardo On the principles of political economy and taceation The beginning of political economy: “Many of the conveniences that the home of the English worker now has at his disposal would have been considered luxuries in the distant times of our history.” We will return to this issue below. Marxism tendentiously overlooked the fact that the welfare of workers in general was improving. He mistakenly thinks that the oppressed state of the workers is more favorable for the advent of socialism. In fact, increasing the well-being of the lower classes must be considered among the conditions for the socialist movement of the workers. Impartial thinkers understand this. So E. f. Hartmann in Die sozialen Kernfragen writes Die Unzufricdenheit der Bcsitzlosen... heute starker ist als jc zuvor, wcil ihre Lage heute relativ besser und damit ihre Energie heute grosser ist als je zuvor... Let us recall the famous observation of A. Tocqueville (The Old Order and Revolution): “Revolution does not always begin with transition from evil to even greater evil; more often than not, the people, who have endured the most painful laws without complaining and as if not feeling them, suddenly throw them away as soon as the severity is relieved. The evil, patiently endured until now, as inevitable, seems unbearable with the appearance of the thought of getting rid of it. You can read about the social disasters of Europe in the 19th century in Carlyle, Henry George, Engels The Condition of the Working Class in England, Marx's Capital vol. 1, S. Faure Dark Sorrow, Mackay The Anarchists, Bureau La misbre des clauses laborieuset en Angleterre et en France. Gelda Ztcei Bucher zur socialen Geschichte Englands, Butsa Life and Labor of the People in London, Hobson Problems of poverty. The problem of the wiemployed Problems of poverty and unemployment, Schippel Modern poverty and modern overpopulation. Prof. Peabody Jesus Christ and the social question (among human interests the social question is just now central and commanding); The approach to the social question (it is the age of the Social Question. I will sing a new song, a better song to you, friends: already here on earth we want to establish a heavenly kingdom. We want to be happy already on earth and not endure need; what diligent hands have obtained should not be consumed by a lazy belly. On the earth grows enough bread for all people, many roses and myrtle, beauty and joy and sweet peas. Yes, everyone will get some sweet peas as soon as the pods burst, and we will give up the sky to the angels and sparrows.” Grundlegung (ley politischen Oekopotk I (3 Liy). Die Offentliche Mcinung und das sittliehe GefiThl jcdcs Einzelnen stumpft ab, die Art des Erwerbs, des Yerbrauche wird gleichgiliig. "Gelderwerb urn jeden Preis", auch um den der Ehre, des Anstands, des Gewissens, "Gelderwerb auf jede Art", auch durch wildeste Speculation, durch grfisste Ausbcutung Anderer, durch sittlich bedenldichste Mittel mit den traurigsten Folgen fQr Andre, auf hilsslichsten Wcgen, „Gelderwcrb in mfiglichster Hbhe”, auch weit fiber den eigenen Bedarf, Qber cin vernfin ftiges Maass des Verbrauchs, der Lebensweisc, der Vermögensbildung, der berechtigten Zukunftsftlrsorgc fur sich und die Semen hinaus, “Geldverbrauch zu frivolster, thdrichsler Genusssucht und Eitclkeit” – das werden die Zielpunkte. zu den ihrigen. W. Roscher Gruvdlagen der NationaiSkonomie (System dvr YoHcsieirtlischafl V. 1): Wo Rcichthum und Armuth durch eine Kluft getrennt sind, welche der Arme gar keme Hoffnung hat je zu dberfliegen: wie ungemilder wird da der Stolz auf der einen Sene, der Neid auf der andem wflthenl Nun gar in den Brcnnpunktcn der Volkswirthschaft, den grossen StSdten, wo sich dem tiefsten Elende ganz dicht zur Seitc der frechste Luxus stellt, und das Elend selbst. seine Massenhaftigkeit erkennend, sich gegen- seitig aufhetzt. Schon die blossc auffalligc Kleinzahl der Besitzendcn muss die Opposition verschSrfen. Die Lagt der arbeitenden Kiasse in England—The situation of the working class: in England. Wed. Bücher's classifications of the form of social economy Die Entsteiiung der Volksucirtschaft=The origin of the national economy. “In ancient times, the division of national property was only quantitative, differing only in the size of the parts, which for the most part was determined by the size of land ownership, since this determined the number of slaves and other movable property... Therefore, in ancient times in the economic field there was no other opposition than poor and rich, which in modern society no longer has a predominant meaning.” Rodbertus Untersuchungen auf dens Gebiete der National-Oekonomie des klassischen Alterithuns – Studies in the field of national economy of classical antiquity. Zur Beleuchtung der socialen Fragt = Toward the sanctification of the social question. Das System ties Marxismus. DarsteUuvy unJ Jiritik. Geschichte und Kritik der Kapitalzinxtheorie – Capital and profit. History and criticism of interest on capital. Rede fiber die tori ale Ggaue=Social question. W. Roscher Grundlagen der Xationalokonomie (System der Volkswirthschaff 13. 1): Es ist leider nicht zu leugnen, dass gerade auf dem Gipfel der Volksentwicklung cine Mcnge von Tendenzen mflehtig sind, welche, ohne das Entgegentreten iiberwiegender Heilkrafte, die Reichen immer nocli reicher, die Armen, wenigstens relativ, noch armer machen, und somit den Mittclstand von beiden Seiien her schmiilern. Isn’t it outrageous to hear that hiring a person and hiring cattle, for example. Are horses identical acts and subject to the same laws of the market? Bagehot Econoviic studies: hiring a man and hiring a horse arc obviously acts of the same species. The laws which settle monetary value arc the same in the case of labor as in other cases. Wed. Stolzmann DU xociah KaUtijoru in der Volksivirtschaftslehre I. Thorough judgments on the topic that from the point of view of political economy, as dealing with the organization of human labor. the worker should not be a thing, but a person, see Effertz's Arbeit und Boden. Peabody Jesus Christ and the social question. Die soziale Frage im Lichte der Philosophies The social question from a philosophical point of view. Le socialisme et la sociologie reformist. Hammacher Das philosophisch-ökonomische System des Morxmnus: Wie man sich auch zu ihr (towards the social democratic movement) stellen mag, eins kann man ihr nicht absprechen, das Grosszugige, ja Unerhörte des Ganzen. Noch nie in der bekannten Geschichte des Menschenge schlechtes wurden solchc Massen in fast alien Kulturländern in gesetzmässiger Form planmässig organisiert; noch nie stand cine soziale Klasse so bewusst und offen in scharfer und doch legaler Opposition gegen andere Gesellschaftsklassen. Die pfiilosophischen und sociologischen Grundlagen des Philosophical and sociological foundations of Marxism Wed. especially Stammler's Wirtschaft und Recht nach der waterialistischen Geschichtsauffassung - Economy and law from the point of view of a materialist understanding of history. An introduction to social philosophy. The author wittily further defines the motives for the spread of socialism: Some people call themselves Socialists, as boys call themselves pirates and brigands, because they think it fine: some become Socialists, as men become pirates and brigands, because they arc driven to it by misery and despair: some are Socialists to please the mob, and some because they are the mob: and some again are inspired by the consciousness of a profound moral truth. Hell. Wagner in Ch'undUgung der politischm Oekonomie understands by Staatssocialismus more than jede Maassregel "positivcr Socialpolitik", durch welchc irgend wie in das „freie Spicl“ der wirthschaftlichen Kräfte eingegriffen wird, besonders auf dcm Gebiete der Arbeiterverhaltnisse. According to his definition, der eigtntliche Staatssocialismus ist nun in der That, wie der bkonomischc Individualismus und Socialismus, cine eigene geschlossene okonomisdie Doctrin und ein System der IVirthschaftspolitik. Er nimmt bewusst und mit beslimmteu Tendtnzen und Zidyuwkten und geicollten Foigen eine vermittdnde Stellung in Theorie und Praxis der Volkswirthschaft zwischen jeden beiden, dem Individualismus und dem Socialismus, ein. Bai und Leben des socialen Korpers III. Die Arbeitergilden der Qegwoart et al. Pohlmann Gesrhichte des antiken Kommunistnus und Sozialmnus; Thoms- sen Le socialisme depv.is Fantiquite jusqu'it la constitution franqaise du 1–1 Janv. 1851 an; Adler Ge which te des Socialismus und Communismus von Plato bis cur Gegemcart; Kautsksch Geschichte des Socialismus in Einzddarstdlungen – From ukmoriu public. currents; Sudre Histoirc du conmunisme ou refu tation historiqxie des et pies socialistes; Shcheglov History of social systems; L. Stein Die socials, Frage im Lichte der Philosophie The social question from a philosophical point of view; Gragam Socialism new and old - Socialism new and old; Tugan-Baranovsky Modern socialism in its historical development. D. Koigen Zur Vorgesdnchte des modernen philosophischen Socialismus in Dtulschland; Die Idee des Socialismus ist so alt, wie die menschlichc Gesellschaft selbst, aber nicht alter. Aristotle Polil. II, century 7. 8. See also Dbllinger Beitnige cur Sektengeschichte des Mittelalters. See also Vogt's Social Utopias and Świętochowski's History of Utopia. Plato figured out what the rulers should do, and the rulers instill in the citizens certain ideas (fairy tales) about their origin to destination, and thus the whole world is reorganized. It comes not from a given reality, but from a thought that flashed in a person’s mind, and to want, based on this thought, to remake (“save”) the whole world - this is what utopianism consists of. Translations by Tarls, Henkel. Nzsledovasha Tarle, Kautskago, Vipsra, Ditiel and others. M. Kovalevsky. The Origins of Modern Democracy; Lichtenberger Le socialisme et la révolutionfrançaise – Socialism and the French Revolution, Espinas Philosophie sociale de XVIII siècle et la révolution. I recommend Paul Janet not Philosophie de la révolution française, but Les origines du socialisme contemporain. In Taine's Les origines de la France contemporaine, see Lancien régime. See works on the history of political economy by Chuprov, Miklashevsky, Roscher, Ingram, Dühring, Kritische Geschichte der Nationaldkonomie und des Socialisms, Tugan-Baranovsky Essays on the Contemporary History of Political Economy and Socialism, etc. A. Oncken Die Maxime Laissez faire et laissez aller, ihr Ur sprung, ihr Warden, B. Gflntzberg Die Gesellschafts – und Staalslehre der Fhisiohatcn; G. Wcullersse Le nwuvemcnt physiocratique; Gigts Physiocrats. Translated from the works of the physiocrats: F. Quesnay, selected passages in the Library of Economists, vol. VI and Turgot Reflections on the creation and distribution of wealth by prof. Miklashevsky. His work on political economy An inquiry into Oxe nature and causes of the WeaUh of Nations appeared in 1776. There are several translations: an outdated Elder 1802–1806, a complete translation by Bibikov and an abridged one in the Library of Economists, vol. I. His main political and economic work, On the principles of political economy and taxation, is a complete translation by H. Sieber of the Works of David Ricardo and incomplete in the Library; economists V. II. A translation of the works of the main representative of Manchester, Cobden († 1666), famous for his fight against the Corn Laws (Anti-Corn-Law League), is given in the Library of Economists in. X. See Library of Economists, vol. VII. Everything that has been said about the ideology of the revolution, in accordance with the work plan, is extremely condensed and must be understood as a scheme that was extremely complicated in historical reality. See also M. Ferraz Socialist lie, naturalizing et posilivime. Also Mehring Geschichte der dcutschen Sozialdeniokratie – History of the German Social Democrats. Sozialmnus und soziaie Bewegung=Socialism and social movement. Also S. Prokopovich Problems of socialism, Tugan-Baranovsky Essays on modern political economy and socialism The most important works of Robertus: Zur Erkenntniss unserer staatswirtschaftlichen Zustände 1842 Towards the knowledge of our state economic order. Sociale Briefe an Kirchmann from 1850 1 letter: The social significance of the state economy, 2 and 3: Towards the elucidation of the social question, 4: Capital. Untersuchungen auf dem Gebiete der Nationalökonomie des klassischen Alterthums since 1864 Studies in the field of national economy of classical antiquity vol. 1–4. Zur Erklärung und Abhülfe der heutigen Creditnoth des Grundbesitzes since 1868. 2) The most important works of Marx and Engels: Marx and Engels Aus dem literarischen Nachlass 3 volumes Literary heritage vols. I and II (early works of Marx and Engels. In particular, there are: Marx's Zur Kritik der HegelschenRechtsphilosophie = To the criticism of Hegel's philosophy of law, Zur Judenfrage To the Jewish question, Engels Umrisse zu einer Kritik der Nationalökonomie Outlines for a Critique of National Economy, Die LageEnglands The State of England, Marx and Engels Die heilige Familie, oder Kritik der kritischen Kritik The Holy Family, or the Critique of Critical Criticism). Marx and Engels Das kommunistische Manifest (1847). There are many translations: The Communist Manifesto, Capitalism and Communism, etc. Marx and Engels Briefe an F. A. Sorge (1906) Letters to Sorge. Marx Misère de la philosophiez Das Elend der Philosophie (1847) The poverty of philosophy. Lohnarbeit und Kapital 1849 – Wage labor and capital. Die Klassencumpfe m Frankreich 1848 his 1850 (1850) – Class struggle in France from 1848 to 1850. Revolution mid Kontre-Revolution in Deutschland 1851– 2 Germany in 1848–50 Der 18 Brumairc des Louis Bonaparte 1852 18th Brumairc des Louis Bonaparte. Enthüllungen über den Kommunisten-Prozess zu Köln (1853)=Cologne trial of the communists a. Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie (1859) = Criticism of certain provisions of political economy. Lohn, Preis und Profi (1865) Wages, Price and Profit. Das Kapital in three volumes from 1867. Several translations. For the first volume the best ed. P. Struve. Der Biirgerhrieg in Frankreich (1871) The French Civil War. Thtorien ber uden Mehrwert in three volumes 1905–1910 (ed. Kautsky (part) Theory of surplus value II part IV volume of Capital. David Ricardo. Engels Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England (1845) – The condition of the working class in England. Zur Wohnungsfrage (1872) Housing question. Herrn E. Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft (1877) – Philosophy. Political economy. Socialism. (Abbreviated Anti-Duhring). Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigemthums und des Stoats 1S84-- Origins of family, private property and the state. Ludw. Feuerbach und der Ausgang der klassischcn deutschen Philosophic 1886 (1888) Ludwig Feuerbach. Some of the other writings of Marx and Engels will be listed below. Kautsky's thoughts important for the philosophy of socialism: Karl Marx ökonomische Lehre Economic teachings of Karl Marx. Thomas More und seine Utopien=Thomas More and his utopia. Ethik und materialistische Geschichtsauffassung – Ethics and the materialist understanding of history. Die Sozialdemokratie und die katholische Kirche=Social Democracy and the Catholic Church. Das Erfurter Programm – Erfurt Program – Economic development and social order. Bernstein und das Sozialdemokratische Programm – Reply to Bernstein. Collection of articles Die historische Leistung von Karl Marx – Karl Marx and his historical significance. Die Agrarfrage - The Agrarian Question. Der Ursprung des Christentums – The Ancient World, Judaism and Christianity. Vermehrung und Entwicklung – Reproduction and development in nature and society. On the question of the development of a monistic view of history. Criticism of our critics. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Materialismus. For twenty years. From defense to attack. Basic questions of Marxism. Anarchism and socialism. I will also name some of our other Marxists of recent times: A. Bogdanova (Basic elements of a historical view of nature, Knowledge from a historical point of view, From the psychology of society, Empiriomonism, A short course in economic science, (and Stepanov) A course in political economy), Lunacharsky (works will be named below), Axelrod (Orthodox) (Philosophical essays), Yushkevich, Valentinov (Philosophy of construction Marxism), Bazarov (On two fronts, etc.). They (and others) are the authors of the collections Essays on a Realistic Worldview, Essays on the Philosophy of Collectivism, etc. Such learned socialists (Tugan-Baranovsky, Struve, Bulgakov, etc.) whose significance and works go beyond the boundaries of socialism will be discussed below. In general, Russian socialists are recognized as having the honor of broadly developing the philosophical side of socialism. Also in Am Tod nach der Revolution - The day after the revolution. M Bebel Die Frau und der Sozialismus – Woman and Socialism, Unsere Ziele Our goals; Anton Menger Neue Staatslehre – New doctrine, about the state; Renard Le régime socialiste; Stern Thesen über den Socialismus; Köhler Der socialdemokratische Staat; Vermishev Creative socialism. Wed. description of socialist society in Schaeffle Bau und Leben des socialen Körpers V. III; Kapitalismus und Socialismus 2 Aufl., also Quintessenz des Socialismus – The Essence of Socialism, Hell. Wagner's Grundlegung der politischen Oekonomie, Gietz Kapital und Arbeit und die Reorganization der Gessellschaft, Kathrein Moralphilosophie V. II – Socialism, Prof. Ivanyukova Essays on economic policy. It should also be noted that utopias have flourished in recent times. These are: Bellamy Looking Backward - The Future Century (see Golovin's careful analysis of this novel Socialism as a positive teaching), Hertzky Entrückt in die Zukunft, Atlanticus Ein Blick in den Zukunftstaat, W. Morris News from Nowhere - News from Nowhere, Anatole France Sur la pierre blanche - On a white stone, Bogdanov Red Star, etc. d. I borrow this diagram from prof. Tugan-Baranovsky. There are other classifications of forms of socialism, in my opinion, less successful. This is the classification of K. Diehl in the study of R.I. Proudhon. Seine Lehre und sein Leben. Cp. his Ueber Socialismus und, Kommunismus und Anarchismus.. The mutual relationship between socialism and anarchism is well said in Dole’s The spirit of democracy: Different groups of men offer two apparently opposite social ideals, – socialism and anarchy. These ideals arc opposite, as seen from the level of men’s selfishness; they involve a strife. But develop them both, set them to work, mix plenty of humanity with them, and they presently grow at the top strangely alike. They represent different elements or strands in the common human nature. Translated from their works: J. Sorel Social essays on modern economics. Degeneration of capitalism and socialism, - Reflections on violence, G. Lagardelle General strike. Also articles by them and other syndicalists in the collection Social Movement in Modern France. The history of syndicalism is presented by Paul Louis, E. Leone, Olivetti, Chernov, Kritskaya and Lebedev, Kozlovsky. Once again I want to remind you of the folly of creating false ideas about socialism in the interests of fighting it: fighting at windmills can only lead to defeat from real dangers, and not to victory. One cannot but agree with the following words of Schaffles (Van und Leben (les socta'en Korpers V. III): Die beliebten Beschwichtigungsbeweise: der Socialismus ist unmoglich, wcil er die "absoluten und ewigen" Grundlagen der Gesellschaft: Privateigenthum, Ehe, Familic, Erbrecht (Religion) aufhebt, sind sammtlich haltlos. Selbsttauschung in ein zweites und potenziertes 89 hincintrciben. Wie denn ware es mOglich, das” der Socialismus tiglich Fortschritte macht, wenn die obigen Behaupiungen auch nur einigen Grand bitten! Donquixote zu sein und mit Windmuhlcn zu fechten But he also gives a solid critique of socialism. In particular, his popular brochure Quiniessenx des Socialismus - The Essence of Socialism is complemented by another brochure of his Die Aussiehtslosigkeit der Socialdemokratie. Ergilnzung der Quintessenz des Socialismus. The same with B. Bax Ethics of socialism: Society is directly concerned with the 1) production of offspring, 2) with the care that things sexually offensive to the majority shall not be obtruded on public notice, or obscenity on Joung persons.” Beyond this all sexual actions (of course excluding criminal violence or fraud) are matters of purely individual corcern. When a sexual act from whatever cause is not and cannot be productive of offspring, the feeling of the majority has no locus standi in the matter. Not only it is properly outside the sphere of coercion, but it does not concern morality at all. It is a question simply of individual taste. The latter may be good or bad, but this is an aesthetic and not directly a moral or social question. P. Lavrov comes close to Bebel (in the notes to the Russian edition of Scheffde’s book The Essence of Socialism): “The maintenance of children and the elderly will disappear from the concerns of adults. Raising children from the first minutes of their existence will constitute a social function, no matter who it is entrusted to (parents or outside specialists), and any arbitrariness of parents in this case will be eliminated. A woman, as a worker with muscles and brains, as a member of an economic, political, cultural union, will be completely independent of a man and completely equal to him. Prostitution, like any kind of trading in anything, cannot take place. All instruments of labor, muscular and brain, cannot be the monopoly property of the family, as a separate group. The only connection will remain attachment in its various forms of sexual passion, personal sympathy, harmony of ideas, partnership in work and goals, respect, perhaps parental feeling, and all these attachments will be indisputable figures of the community only for the time that they exist, and to the extent that they exist. How much of the current family life will remain in family life based on this connection?” How is this possible from a purely positive point of view, which, for example, we find in Durkheim’s study of suicide, recently translated into Russian by me in the Theology. Vst. 1912 June. Neue Staatslehre - New Doctrine of the State: "Free love will very soon strengthen to extraordinary proportions the sexual life, which is necessary for the spiritual and physical well-being of man only within very narrow limits. An unusually large choice in connection with the consciousness of complete irresponsibility will inevitably strengthen this most powerful of all natural instincts far beyond its modern limits. There is no need to replace modern marriage with free love or communal marriage." For the history of these claims, see Anton Menger’s book Das liecht auf den volien Arbeitsertrag = The right to the full product of labor. This is the formula of Cabet: h chacun suivant ses besoins, de chacun suivant ses forces (Voyage en Icarie) and Louis Blanc: de chacun scion ses facult6s, chacun selon ses besoins (Questions (G aujourd'kui et de demain). Zur Kritik des socialdemokratischen Parteiprogramms (Neue Zeit). In einer höheren Phase.... kann der cr.gc bGrgerliche Rechtshorizont ganz Qbcrschritten werden und die Gescllschaft auf ihre Fahnen schrcibcn: Iedcr nach semen FShigkciten, jedem nach seinen Bedfirfnisscn. Cp. Capital: "Let us imagine a union of free people who work with common instruments of production and spend their individual labor forces consciously as a single social labor force. The total product of the union is a social product. Part of this product will again serve as a means of production. It will remain a public property. But the other part is consumed by members of the community, and therefore must be distributed among them. The method of this distribution will change in accordance with the nature of the social productive organism itself and according to the degree of historical development of the producers. Suppose, that the share of each producer in the means of subsistence is determined by his working time. In this case, working time serves as a measure of the individual participation of producers in the general work, and therefore of the share of the total product that is intended for individual consumption.” Das Recht auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag – The right to the full product of labor. Le socialism et la sociologie reformiste. L'hiftoire considered comine science= Sociological foundations of history. Zur Geschichte und Theorie des Socialisimui=essays on the history and theory of socialism. An introduction to social philosophy. We have only to add that in such a society there would be no sufficient stimulus to the development of talent. The sharpening of our intellect would increase responsibility without adding to reward; and as there are always some to whom a pillow is more attractive than a crown of thorns, or even of laurel, there would always be some who would allow their talents to rust, and persuade themselves and others that they did not possess them. It would the paradise of all the Skimpoles. ) Also and Schäffle Ban und Ld/en des socialcn Körpers B. Ill ( Kapilallismus und Socialismus): Das Fabuliren davon, dass der Socialstaat von selbst, gar alsbald einen Bflrgersinn herstellen werde, um Alle aus Licbe zum Ganzen zur höchsten Arbeitsamkeit, Folgsamkeit, Wirfhschaftlichkeii and s. w zuverrabgen, ist und bleibt cin Fabuliren, auf das der ncuere Socialismus z. Th. vcrzichtet hat. Es ist eitel Thorheit, ja mehr es ware ein selbstmbrderisches Yertrauen, welches sich vermessen wflrde, den Collectivismus einfahren zu wollen, ohne gesellschaftlich alle jene Garantien individueller Wirthlichkeit mindestens sicherzustellen. welche der heutigen Volkswirthschaft dadurch innewohnen, dass die tiichtige Erfill- lung dcs Produktions–und Ilandclsbcrufcs und des Lohndicnstcs mit dem Privatinteresse verknupft ist Ohne Wettkampf und hbheres Einkommen fttr hohere Leistung keine voile Entwickelung! See also Schäfer Die Unverdnbarkeit des sosialistischen Zukunftstaates .mil der mensddichen Natur. Prof. Ivanyukov Essays on economic policy. D. S. Mill The principles of political economy – Foundations of political economy. Wed. Capital: “By acting on external nature and changing it, man at the same time changes his own nature.” The work of Marx and Engels Sankt Max, preserved in fragments, is printed in the Document des Sozialismus volumes III and IV. The Sankt Max (Dokumente des Sozialismus) erroneously says Lebens - oder Sozietätsprizip instead of Liebes - oder Societätspricip, as Stirner reads Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum. Der Kommunismus ist deswegen unserem Heiligen rein unbcgreiflich, weil die Kommunisten weder den Egoismus gegen die Aufopferung, noch die Aufopferung gegen den Egoismus geltend machen, und theoretisch diesen Gegensatz weder in jener gemiulichen. noch in jener überschwengliehen, ideologischen Form fassen, vielmehr seine materielle Geburtsstätte nachweisen, mit welcher er von selbst verschwindet. Die Kommunisten predigen überhaupt keine Moral, was Stirner im ausgedchntesten Masse tut. Sie stellen nicht die moralische Forderung an die Menschen: liebet euch unter einander, seid keine Egoisten p. p; sic wissen im Gegenteil sehr gut. dass der Egoismus ebenso wie die Aufopferung eine unter bestimmten Verhalmissen notwendige Form der Durchsetzung der Individuen ist usw. Pannekoek Ethik und Sozialismus: Wir sagen, dass in der Zukunft in einer sozialistischer Gesellschaft dieser Trieb(Egoismus) abnehmen und sogar verschwinden wird. – In Stammler’s Wirtschaft und Recht nach der materialistischen Geschichtsavffassung = Economy and Law from the point of view of a materialist understanding of history, the socialist (in dialogue with the bourgeois) says: “The typical qualities of a person - what you call human nature - are only a reflex of economic relations, and their originality is entirely determined by this soil that feeds them. Change the social situation “millien” - “environment”, and at one stroke you will change the morals, habits, passions and feelings of people, etc. Together with the disappearance of the modern division of labor, which seems to be connected with Engels in Antpdühring. The idea that with the progressive development of society a simple return to primitive forms of life, in particular to the primitive homogeneity of labor, is impossible, is quite firmly substantiated (following O. Comte Cours de philosophis poxitive t. IV) by De Greef in Le transfovtnisme social. Such a return is possible only in the sense of regression, degeneration; and with a progressive movement, the old returns only in a more complex and differentiated form. We can expect not the disappearance, but the complication of egoism. Individuality and socialism. Also E. Vanderveld Socialist system (in the collection Problems of Socialist Culture: “It is obvious that the distribution of all products according to the formula; communists: “to each according to his needs is applicable only in a state of society in which products will be in sufficient abundance, and workers will be sufficiently conscious so that there is no longer a need, on the one hand, to limit private consumption, and on the other, to seek incentives to work in the disparity of its remuneration.” On the other hand, the formula: “to each according to his work,” which is completely opposite in meaning to the communist formula, is absolutely applicable only in a state of society in which each worker is the private owner of his means of production, where it is therefore possible to accurately determine the share of each in the total amount of products... Nothing will prevent a socialist society, in one form or another, from introducing inequality in the remuneration of labor, to the extent that this will be socially useful from the point of view of production and to the extent that it will be necessary to assign certain advantages to individual workers or certain categories of workers in order to increase their energy and their ability to work. Engels Anti-Diihring: Die Miiglichkeit, vermittelst der gesellschaftlichen Produktion alien Gesellschaftsgliedern eine Existenz zu sichern, die nicht nur ruatcricll vollkommcn ausrcichcnd ist unci von Tag zu Tag reicher wird. sondern die ihnen auch die vollstandige freie Ausbildung und Beihiitigung ihrer körperlichen und geistigen Anlagen garantirt, diese Moglichkeit ist jetzt zum erstenraal da, aber sie ist da. – This is one of those passages in this most important work of Engels that is not available in the Russian translation, which suffers from large omissions. B. Bucks The ethics of socialism: Were a majority to seek to directly regulate the details of the private life of individuals at points where it does not directly come in contact with public life, any resistance on the part of individuals would be justified. Those entrusted with the carrying out of the mandates of the majority in such a case should be treated as common enemies, and if necessary destroyed. Even though the private conduct of individuals might have an indirect bearing on the commonweal, this would not justify direct interference; any temporary inconvenience would be better than the infraction of the principle of the inviolability of the individual from coercive restraint within his own sphere. The same is readable, in Katrein:... Ebcnso wenig lassi sic’n annehmen, dass die oberste Centralbehorde im socialistischcn Staat cinfachhin den Bedarf in Bezug auf Art und Masse dcr Producte durch einen Machtsprtich fextsetze und danach die Production rcgele. Denkbar ist ein solches Verfahren allerdings. Aber um davon zu schweigen, dass dasselbe mit der demokra- tischen Organization im Sinne der Socialisten im Widerspruch steht, wSre es die vollendctste Kncchtschaft. Die Freiheit beruht vor allcm darauf,. dass man selbst nach Gutdiinkcn bestimmen kann, wie man sein Lcben in Bezug auf Kost, Kleidung, Wohnung. Untcrhaltung, Bildungsmittcl u. s. w. cinrichtcn will. Wer das nicht mehr kana und sich allcs von einer BehOrde vorschreiben lassen muss, ist ein Sklavc. mag man ihn auch mit den Socialisten „freien Genossen" nennen. Die Freiheit der Bcdarfsbestimmung ist auch die Grundlagc jedes Culturfortschrittes. Fr. Bastia Ce que Gop voit et ce que Gop tie voit pas, ou Iiconomit politique en une lecon: Quoi qu’it en soit. Puisqu'il faut recourir a ce que les socialistes nomment un parasite, quel est. du negociant ou du fonctionnaire, le parasite le moins extgeant?– A la verite, le consommateur est oblige de rembourser au commerce ses frais dc transport, de transbordement, de magasinage, de commission etc.; mais dans quel systeme ne faut-il pas que celui qui mange le bib rembourse les frais qu’il faut fairc pour qu’il soit a sa portde?–Mais est-ce que vos delegues et vos fonctionnaires iront pour rien a Odessa? Est-ce qu'ils voyageront et travailleront sur le principe de la fraternity? Ne faudra t-il pas qu'ils vivent? ne faudra-t-il pas que lcur temps soit paye? et croyez-vous que cela ne depassera pas mille fois les deux ou trois pour cent que gagne le negociant, taux auquel il est pret e souscrire? And even J. Sorel: “we can imagine what a revolution that would have given power to our official socialists would have led to: all bourgeois ideology would have been preserved, bourgeois power would have reigned with all its vices.” Engels in the preface to the Class Struggle in France: “Our article acquires particular importance due to the fact that it was the first to proclaim a formula in which the workers’ party of all countries of the world, united among themselves, briefly summarizes their demand for economic reorganization: the appropriation by society of the means of production.” Old Testament commandment: "The land must not be sold forever, for the land is Mine: you are strangers and settlers with me" (Lev. XXV. 23). John Chrysostom: "The beginning and root of wealth must certainly be hidden in some injustice. Why is this so? Because at first God did not make one rich and another poor, and having brought (people), He did not show one many golden treasures, and deprived another of it. acquisitions, but gave everyone the same land for cultivation. How then, when it constitutes common property, do you own so many and so many plots, and your neighbor does not have a single piece of land?.. Isn’t it evil that one owns what belongs to the Lord, and that one enjoys the common property? Isn’t it God’s land and its fulfillment? From such extracts taken from John Chrysostom and other Church Fathers, one could compile a whole book (see Exemplary Teaching of the Ancient Church on Property and Alms). Obviously, all communism and collectivism are not subject to moral condemnation. But the holy fathers in their conclusions did not go further than preaching mercy... I refer the reader to the writings of Schmoller, whose views are presented below. It must be remembered that Marx did not resort to a moral justification for collectivism. See Engels's preface to the Poverty of Philosophy. "If we say: this is not fair, this should not be so, then these conclusions have nothing to do with political economy. We are only saying that a given economic fact (that is, the workers do not own the entire product) contradicts our moral feeling. And therefore Marx never resorted to such a justification for his communist demands." De, la division du travail social. Prokopovich Problems of socialism: "Both in the field of criticism of the capitalist system and in the construction of the basic principles of a socialist society, the socialist theory of Marx cannot be opposed to the preceding theories of Fourier, the Saint-Simonists, Louis Blanc and Peccoeur, as something completely new. In the development of socialist thought there is no gap implied by the opposition of scientific socialism to utopian socialism. Continuity in the development of socialist systems is undeniable." Tugan-Baranovsky Essays on the modern history of political economy and socialism: “Utopian socialism is much more scientific than Engels allowed, and in so-called scientific socialism there is much more utopia than the author of Capital thought. In outlining their social ideal, socialists must, as does Schäffle Vai und Leben des sodalen Körpers III. preface the project with the following remark: Wir bemerken, dass das Folgende kein praktisch durchzufuhrender Vorschlag sein will, den ein Einziger nicht liefern kann. Noch weniger beansprucht das Folgende, ein Bild des wirklichen Entwickclungsganges der nächsten volkswirthschaftlichen Zukunft darzustcllcn Den wirklichen Verlauf einer weitausholenden Zukunf kann kein Stcrblicher voraus angeben; noch im J. 1789 wusste Niemand. was aus der liberal bürgerlichen Neuerung sich entwickeln sollte. Nur eine Vorstellung des Möglichen, vom Worth disciiwionefähigei- Thesen, wollen wir gewinnen. The mistake of collectivism is that it absolutizes one of the possible forms of national economic life. Shaffle and Hell. Wagner, who recommend the joint use of three forms of national economic organization (according to Schäffle: private economic - die speculative, vom Privatinteresse des Kapitals getragene. public economic - die öffentliche, staatlich-corporative. auf obrigkeitlicher Gewalt beruhende, and charitable organization - die von freier Hingebung – Liberalitat –bewirkte Organisation; according to Wagner: privatwirthschaftliche, or individualistische, – gemein, namely zwangsgemeinwirthschaftiiche, or communistisck-socialistische, and caritative. Cp. L. Stein Die soziale Frage im Lichte der Philosopfie=The social question from a philosophical point of view – “mixed form.” economy" - and E. Sax Grundlegung der theoretischen Sfaatsirirtschaft - two forms: Individualsmus and Collectivismus, express complete objections to any absolutization in this area. Schaeffle finds the very question of whether the entire national economy should be a private economic or collectivist organization to be false: for each there is its own area, each is appropriate and useful within its own limits, all three organizations presuppose one another, rely one on top of the other. To give one of them absolute and exclusive importance, regardless of the changing demands of the time and the different nature of individual areas of national economic life, would mean losing all solid ground under one’s feet. (Das geiellschaftliche System der mtnscldichtn Wirtlischaff: Alle drei Grundorganisationen der wirksamsten Bediirfnissbcfricdigung sind einander stützende und haltende Glieder einesgrossartigen w(irthschaftlichen) Aufbaues der Gcsellschaft. Keine Form ist Universalschablone volksvv (irthschaftiicher) Verbindung, keine entzicht sich dem Gescz gcschichtlicher Veranderung. unier ihren eigenthümlichcn Voraussezungen und alle nebeneinander in ihrern specitischen Bereiche, jede seilgemuss , anzuwenden, miissen im vorhincin vcrdachlig erscheinen und jede überstürzte Geltendmachung solcher Formen, für welche die Voraussezungen ihrer Reife noch nicht erzieli sind und ohne dass man auf die Erzielung dieser Vorbedingungcn hinarbeitet muss als verfehlt gelten! Bedlirfnisses besser in der cincn oder in der andern Form oder zu welchen Theilen sie in alien drei Formen stattfinden soli. grösseren Zciträumen grosse Umbildungen. § 130: Ob und welche einselne Zweige, namentlich der materiallen Production, mithin auch der zu ihrem Betrieb gehörigen, eventuell im Privateigenthum stehenden Objecte (Grundstücke, Kapitalien. Einrichtungen, Anstalten) den Privatwirthschaften zu entziehen und auf die Zwangsgcmcinwirthschaftcn als Gemeineigenthum zu übertragen sind. das ist zwar nach der allgemeinen ökonomischen Natur und Function dieser Zweige. eminent historische und örtlich verschieden sich gestaltende, gestaltet daher nur eine relative Beantwortung... And the entire second volume of Wagner's Grundlegung, the best study on property, proceeds from the basic thesis that in the legal-economic sphere there can be nothing absolute). Le socialism contempoeain = Modern socialism. Herrp E. Diihrinys Umwahung der Wiesemchnftr. Diese beiden grosseu Entdeckungen: die materialistische Geschichtsauffassung und die Enthftllung des Geheimnisses der kapitalistischen Produktion vermittelst des Mehrwerths. verdanken wir Marx. Mit ihnen wurde der Sozialismus cine W'isscnschaft. die es sich nun zunachst darum handclt, in alien ihren Einzelnheiten und Zusanimcnhangen weiter auszuarbeiten. This is what Theorien über den Mehncert II = The Theory of Surplus Value, Part II, Volume IV of Capital, also convinces of. David Ricardo. See prof. Novgorodtseva Historical school of lawyers, its origin and fate. Die Nationalökonomic der Gegencart und Zukunft: Sie gehen von der Ansicht aus, dass alle Gesetze der Volkswirthschaft, weil sie in dem Verhaltniss des Menschen zu den Sachgutern gegründet seien, über Zeit und Raum erbaben, bei allem Wechsel der Erscheinungen fest bleiben, und vergessen dabei ganzlich, dass der Mensch als sociales Wesen stets ein Kind der Civilization und ein Product der Geschichte ist, und dass seine Bedurfnissc, seine Bildung, seine Keziehungen zu den Sachgütern wie zu den Menschen nicmals dieselben bleiben, sondern sowohl geographisch verschieden sind, als auch historisch sich immer verandem und mit der gesammten Kultur des Menschengeschlechts fortschreiten. Grundlagen der Nationalökonomie (System der Volksirirthschaft 1 V.): Jede Wissenschaft vom Volksleben, so namentlich auch die unserige, ist psychologisch.. Muss der echten Nationalökonomik (Staaiswissenschaft. Rechtsphilosophie etc.) eine gründliche Vcrwunderung vorangehen ilber die ungeheuere Veranderlichkeit dessen, was die Menschen zu verschicdcner Zeit von der Volkswirthschaft (vom Staate, Rechie etc.) begehrt habeu... Ohne Zweifel sind alle volkswirthschaftlichen Gesetze und Anstalten urn des Volkes willen da, nicht umgckehrt. lhre Wandelbarkeit ist daher an sich durchaus kein Uebel. dessen die Menschheit vielleieht streben mülsste Herr zu werden; sondern sic ist löblich und heilsam, insoferne sie den Umwandlungen des Volkes selbst und seiner Bedürfnissc genau parallel läuft. Die verschiedensten Idealschilderungen brauchen daher nicht nothwendig cinander zu widersprechen. Eine jede von ihnen kann Reeht Jiaben, natürlich nur für ihr Volk, ihr Zeitalter; sie würde in diesem Fall nur dann irren, wenn sie sich als allgemein gultig hinstellen wollte. Es gibt ebenso wenig cin allgemein gültiges Wirthschaftsideal der Völker, wic ein allgemein passendes Kleidermass der Individuen. Hildebrand, Roscher, Knies constitute the so-called old historical school of political economy. According to the observations of historians of political economies (see, for example, Prof. Simonenko Political Economy in its Newest Directions), the old historical school did not break ties with the entire previous development of economic science and recognized as true most of the natural laws of the national economy revealed by the school of Hell. Smith, this can especially be said about Roscher, who defines the very science of political economy as “the study of the laws of development of the national economy.” This distinguishes the old historical school from the new historical school, which “does not want to know any natural laws of the nature of the national economy. It dwells exclusively on the study of the various conditions affecting the people's well-being in different periods of historical development and at the present time among different peoples, thanks to the diversity of the social and state organization of the latter, the diversity of accepted customs, as well as the differences in legislation and tasks set by the state in its economic policy. The new historical direction rejects, as unnecessary ballast, everything that has been done so far by economic science in elucidating the general laws of the national economy. Representatives of this trend also admit, in general principle, the enormous importance of external nature in the national economy, and therefore the need to conform in the matter of economic technology to its requirements and immutable laws. As for any immutable laws arising from the mental nature of man, the existence of such is completely rejected by all representatives of the new historical movement on the basis that mental nature is not something permanent, but entirely depends on the success of cultural development, as morals become softer, aesthetic requirements, refined concepts of fair and unfair - more true, religious ideas more sublime. Otherwise, this direction is called socio-ethical, socio-political, also Katheder - Sociaiisten. Among them are Schmoller, Schäffle, Wagner (who considers herself on the issue of method to be part of the old historical school, and highly values ​​the theoretical direction of the classical school), Brentano. Schoenberg and others. This trend, currently dominant (especially in Germany) - we will discuss it in detail below in our study - has a conservative character and is hostile to Marxism (speaking in general, with significant diversity in this regard) See N. N. Alekseev. Social and natural sciences in the historical relationship of their methods, part 1. I refer the reader to this very good book in general on the question of the historical theories of Marxism. Mr. Alekseev reconciles the objectifying and individualizing tendencies of Marxism in the idea of ​​social laws, which in their form are naturally necessary, but in their content are transitory and changeable. Wed. Prof.'s judgment Skvortsova Foundations of Political Economy "In the forties, alongside the opponents of the classical school, came representatives of a school that further developed the basic principles of Smith and Ricardo and used the deductive method to study economic life, but at the same time confirming its conclusions with extensive historical information. A common feature in the teachings of Marx and Rodbertus is that they declare themselves evolutionists, i.e. they recognize that economic development and the transition of society from one stage in another it is accomplished gradually and out of necessity.” Auf einer gewissen Stufe ihrer Entwicklung geraten die materiellen Produktivkräfte der Cesellschaft in Widerspruch mit den vorhandenen Produktionsverhaltnissen, oder, was nur ein juristischer Ausdruck dafür ist, mit den Eigentumsverhältnissen, innerhalb deren sie sich bisher bewegt hatten. Aus Entwicklungsformen der Produktivkräfte schlagen diese Verhältnisse in Fesseln derselben ein. Es tritt dann eine Epoche sozialer Revolution ein. ) The best essays on criticism of Marx's economic theories: Bam-Bawerk Zum Ahsckluss des Marx'schen Systems= Marx's theory and this criticism. Gesehichle und Kritik der Kapitalzinstheorie=Capital and profit.. History and criticism of the theory of interest on capital. E. Bernstein Die Voraussetrungen des Socialismus und die Aufgabe dev Socialdemokratie=Social problems=Historical materialism. Zur Gvsehichte und Thiorie des Socialismus=Essays from the science of socialism. Die heutige Socialdemocracy in Theorie und Praxis=Theory and practice of modern social democracy. Bortkiewicz Wertrechnung und Preisrechnmig hit Marxschen System (Brauns Archiv) Bulgakov Capitalism and agriculture. (Also articles in various magazines and collections: On some basic concepts of political economy, What is labor value, Third volume of Capital by K. Marx). Weisengrün Das Ends des Marxismus. Gatti Socialism and Agriculture. Hammacher Das philosophisch-ökonomische System des Marxismus. David Socialismus und Landmrtschaft=Socialism and Agriculture. Diehl Ueber das Verhüllniss von Wert und Preis im ökonomischen System von K. Marx. Sombart Zur Kritik des ökonomischen Systems von K. Marx (Brauns Archiv) = K criticism of the economic system of Karl Marx (Scientific Review). Sozialismus und soziale Bewegung=Socialism and social movement. Croce Materialismo storico ed economie marxista=Economic materialism and Marxist economics. Komorzynski Der S Band von K. Marx “Das Kapital”. Masaryk Die philosophischen und sociologischen Grundlagen des Marxismus= Philosophical and sociological foundations of Marxism. Prokopovich On the criticism of Marx. Riekes Wert und Tauschwert. Zur Kritik der Marxschen Wertlehre. Struve Die Marxsche Theorie der socialen Entwicklung (Brauns Archiv) and other articles in various magazines, esp. in Life (To the criticism of some main problems and provisions of political economy, Basic antinomy of the theory of labor value). Slonimsky Economic theory. K. Marx. Tugan-Baranovsky Theoretical foundations of Marxism. Modern socialism in its historical development. Essays on the modern history of political economy and socialism. Trofimov against Capital Marx. Frank Marx's theory of value and its significance. Kharazov Dus System, des Marxismus. Darstellung und Kritik. Shor The main problems of the theory of political economy. Altera pars had its say in Kautsky’s response to Bernstein, in Plekhanov’s book Critique of Our Critics, Olenova The So-Called “Crisis of Marxism”, etc. Carl Menger is considered the founder of the Austrian school of political economy; his students are Wieser, Bam-Bawerk, Sachs, Filippovich. This school resolutely defended theoretical, or pure, abstract political economy (Menger Untersuchunger über die Methode der Socialwissenschaften und der Politischenhen Oekonomie insbesondere = Studies on the methods of the social sciences and political economy in particular, Sachs Wesen und Aufgabe der Politischen Oekonomie, Filippovich Ueber Aufgabe nod Methode der Politischen Oekonomie). She does not give up all the acquisitions of the historical school. but rejects its one-sidedness: the historical explanation of socio-economic phenomena is only one of the possible explanations. According to Menger, phenomena can be studied from a double point of view: individual (historical, in the broadest sense of the word) and generic (theoretical). The task of the first direction of research is to understand specific phenomena in their individual essence and their individual connection; the task of the second is to understand the forms of phenomena (types) and typical relationships (laws of phenomena). The historical elucidation of specific social phenomena is by no means the only one to which we can strive on the path of scientific research; Theoretical science must stand alongside it. Whatever the degree of accuracy of the laws inherent in the field of social phenomena, this cannot concern the nature of national economics as a theoretical science. Whatever the severity of the types and typical relationships in the national economy and, in general, whatever their nature, the essence of theoretical national economics in any case can only consist in the explanation of precisely these types and typical relationships, or, in other words, the general essence and general connection of the laws of national economic phenomena, but not the essence and connections of individual phenomena of the national economy, i.e. not in historical clarifications, or practical rules for economic activities of people. Theoretical research, both in general and in the field of national economy in particular, can follow two paths: either the realistic-empirical path, which cannot lead to the establishment of exact, so-called “natural laws,” or through abstract research in the exact direction. On the latter path, human, or ethical, phenomena are reduced to their first and simplest constitutive factors, and science, applying to these latter a measure corresponding to their nature, strives to reveal the laws according to which more complex human phenomena are formed from these simplest elements. Menger recognizes the primary factors of human economy as the needs, utilities provided to people directly by nature, and the desire for the fullest possible satisfaction of needs, or egoism. Of course, this egoism is an abstraction, because the motives of human actions are very complex, but there is no doubt that people in their economic aspirations are guided, if not exclusively, then predominantly, by their personal interests. The main fruit of this method of political economy is the subjective theory of value, the theory of marginal utility, which glorified the Austrian school, set forth in K. Menger's Grundsätze der Volkswirtschaftslehre=Ocnoeanie political economy, Wieser Über den Ursprung und die Hauptgesetze deswirtschaftlichen Werthes and Der naturlich Wertch. Böhm-Bawerk Gründzuge der Theorie des wirtschaftlichen Güterwerthes = foundations of the theory of the value of economic goods, Sachs Grundlegung der theoretischen Staatswirtschaft. Filippovich Grundrise der politischen Oekonomie I: Allgemeine Volkswirtschaftslehre – Foundations of Political Economy. (Independently of the Austrian school, the theory was developed by Jevons, Theory of Political Economy, Walras, and much earlier by Gossen). Recently, supporters of the theory have been numerous. I will present this theory based on the book by Bam-Bawerk. The suitability of things from the point of view of human well-being is either utility, when a given thing is generally capable of serving for human well-being (for example, a glass of water, which can be drawn in any quantity from a source), or value, when a given thing is not only the cause, but at the same time a necessary condition for human well-being (for example, a single glass of water in the hands of a person traveling through the desert. For the formation of value, it is necessary that rarity be combined with utility - rarity is not absolute, but only relative, i.e. in comparison with the size of the existing need for things of a given kind. The magnitude of the benefit brought to a person by material goods is at the same time a measure of the value of material goods. To be convinced of this, only one thing is required - to impartially and with casuistic rigor examine what benefit, in the sense of human well-being, depends under given conditions on a given thing. From the point of view of our well-being, the benefit that the possession of material goods represents for us lies largely in the satisfaction of our needs. Our needs are extremely different but important. We usually measure the degree of their importance by the severity of the harmful consequences that their dissatisfaction entails for our well-being. Accordingly, we recognize the highest importance for those needs, the dissatisfaction of which leads to death, we assign the second most important place to those needs, the dissatisfaction of which is very harmful to our health, to our honor, to our happiness; third place is occupied by those needs, the dissatisfaction of which causes us short-term suffering, grief or deprivation, and finally, the very last place belongs to those needs, the dissatisfaction of which is accompanied by only mild troubles for us or deprives us of the most insignificant pleasures. Based on these characteristics, all human needs can be divided into categories according to their importance. However, it is one thing to have a range of different types of needs, and another thing to have a range of individual specific needs. When determining the value of material goods, one should take as a basis not the rock of types of needs, but only the rock of specific needs; Most of our needs can be met in parts. In this sense, they can be called divisible needs. When I’m hungry, I don’t necessarily have to choose one of two things: either eat my fill or remain completely hungry - no, I can simply mitigate my hunger by taking a moderate amount of food; Perhaps later I will completely satisfy my hunger by eating a second and third portion of food, but maybe... I will limit myself to the first and partial exhaustion of hunger. This explains the possibility that within a given type of needs there are specific needs (or parts of needs) that have different meanings. Added to this is another very important circumstance. The same kind of sensation, repeated continuously, from a certain moment begins to give us less and less pleasure, and finally, this pleasure even turns into its opposite - into unpleasantness and disgust. Consequently, specific partial needs, into which our feelings of dissatisfaction can be divided, and successive partial satisfactions, which can be obtained with the help of equal amounts of material goods, have in most cases unequal values ​​and, moreover, gradually decreasing to zero. Therefore, firstly, within the same type of needs there may be specific needs (or parts of needs) of unequal importance. Further, in the most important types of needs there are lower and lowest levels of importance. The more important type of needs differs from the less important only in that for the former, so to speak, the top protrudes more upward, while the base for all lies at the same level. Finally, that a specific need of a more important, in general, type turns out to be lower than the individual specific needs of a less important, in general, type, this is not only a possibility, but a regular and organic phenomenon. All this can be depicted in the following diagram (according to Menger’s book without the complicating omissions of Bam-Bawerk): In this diagram, Roman numerals from I to X indicate different types of needs and their meaning in descending order, starting, for example, with the need for food. Arabic numerals 10–1 indicate specific needs belonging to different types and their meaning. From the diagram it is clear that the more important the type of needs, the higher the most important specific need belonging to it is issued, but in the most important type of needs there are specific needs of the least importance 1, while in all other types, less important, there are individual specific needs, the importance of which is expressed by higher numbers. We were talking about the comparative importance of needs, but the economic assessment of a thing depends on another question: the satisfaction of which of several or many needs really depends on a given material good? The question arises due to the fact that, firstly, one and the same thing can usually serve to satisfy several different specific needs, and, moreover, needs of unequal importance: and secondly, very often we have at our disposal several copies of the same type of material goods, and it depends on our discretion which particular copy to use to satisfy an important need, which to satisfy an unimportant need. When I go hunting, I have two completely identical breads. One of these breads is needed to feed myself, and the other is needed to feed my dog. It is clear that it is much more important for me to satisfy my own need for food than my dog's. It is also clear that it depends on my will which bread I should eat myself and which one I should give to the dog. So the question is, the satisfaction of which of the two existing needs depends in this case on my bread? Every prudent owner will take care first of all to satisfy his most important needs, then less important needs, then even less important ones, and so on. People are guided by the same simple principles even in the case when the available stock of material goods is reduced due to the destruction of one copy. If a hunter loses one piece of bread, precisely intended to satisfy his own hunger, then he will not want to doom himself to death by starvation in order to feed his dog with a second piece of bread; on the contrary, quickly changing the original plan for satisfying needs, he will replace the lost bread with the remaining bread to feed himself, and leave a less important need for him unsatisfied, i.e., make the dog starve. So, the matter is presented in the following form: for all needs that are higher than the most unimportant, the most “last”, i.e., occupying the lowest step in the ladder of needs that must be satisfied with the help of cash, the loss of a thing does not respond at all, since to satisfy them, a copy is taken to replace the lost one, which was originally intended to satisfy this “last” need. In the same way, those needs that are lower than the “last” are not affected by the loss of a given thing, because they still do not receive satisfaction even in the case when the thing is preserved intact. On the contrary, the loss of a thing falls entirely and exclusively on the “last" of the needs that are supposed to be satisfied; this “last” need is still satisfied when the corresponding thing is available, and does not receive satisfaction when such a thing is not available. This is the sought-after need, the satisfaction of which depends on the presence of the given thing. So. The value of a material good is determined by the importance of that specific need (or partial need) that occupies the last place in the series of needs satisfied by the entire available stock of material goods of this kind. If this is the smallest benefit, standing on the very border of what is possible and acceptable from an economic point of view. called economic marginal benefit (Grenznutzen), then the law of the magnitude of the value of material goods will be expressed in the following formula - the value of a thing is measured by the magnitude of the marginal benefit of this thing. This is the central point of the theory of marginal utility, which, as Tugan-Baranovsky puts it, has every chance of becoming generally accepted in science. However, even in this theory, critics point out quite a few shortcomings, and many experiments are already known about combining (the theory of compromise) the labor theory of value and the theory of marginal utility. I will name some more works on the question of economic value, in addition to those mentioned above - in this footnote, as well as in the previous footnote: Sieber David, Ricardo and Karl Marx in their socio-economic studies, Manuilov. The concept of value according to the teachings of economists of the classical school, Orzhentsky Doctrine of economic phenomena. Introduction to the theory of value, etc. Bogrov Critical-historical essay, theory of value, Gerlach U eber die Bedingungen der wirtschaftlichen Tätigkeit Erörterungen zur Wertlehre, Wicksell über Werl, Kapital und Rente, L. v. Buch Intensitet der Arbeil. Wert und Preis der Ware. Neumann in Sohönberg's Handbuch der Poliltichen Oekonomie I, also Grundlagen der V olkswirthscaftslehre. Kaulla Die geschichtliche Entwicklung der modernen Werttheorien, Rost Die Wert – und Preistheorie mit Beriicksichtigung ihrer dogmengeschichtlichen Entwicklung . Bam-Bawerk refuses to admit the idea that such dialectical tricks for Marx himself were the basis and source of his conviction: such a great thinker as Marx would not have chosen such a tortuous and unnatural path if he really cared most importantly about developing his own conviction and about the free and impartial inheritance of the actual state of affairs. According to Bzm-Bawerk, Marx’s conviction was not based on the foundations that he put forward in his system. Here, first of all, the prestige of such authorities as Smith and Ricardo had an effect. Although they did not substantiate, but presented their idyll of labor value as a natural state, Marx acted as the heir to their views. Being an ardent socialist, he willingly followed their authority. Is it any wonder that to a thought that confirms to such an extent; his economic worldview, he did not react with more skepticism than Ricardo, who, however, had to go against it? Is it any wonder that... using the same material that forced the classics to express half-vague, half-contradictory, and by no means substantiated judgments. Did Marx personally believe in their authenticity, firmly, unconditionally, with ardent conviction? He himself did not need further proof for his system, only a formal justification was needed. And he turned to logical-dialectical speculation to prove what he wanted. Thus, it could happen that such a powerful mind as Marx was, either without noticing the monstrous logical incongruities, or justifying them as a means of justifying what he was convinced of, gave an example of such a ponderous, so constantly and so obviously false logic. Value, without a doubt, depends on labor, only this dependence is not an exact quantitative dependence. If only we could make an accurate quantitative observation of the various actions of people who create certain goods, and then compare the resulting amount of labor corresponding to the goods. with the values ​​of the goods, there would be a discrepancy between those and other values. This discrepancy between value and labor is expressed by such a large magnitude that it cannot be neglected in economic calculations. The lack of correspondence between labor and the value of goods does not make it possible to determine how much the active factor, human power, and how much others participated in the production of a given good. A given person or group, delivering a certain amount of product to society, could acquire these products partly due to the skillful use of passive factors of production, while other persons or groups, with the same means and the same amount of labor, would receive a less significant amount of product than this. In exactly the same way, several individuals or small groups can produce some surplus by combining their forces for a common purpose. This excess would not exist. if these economic entities acted alone. In both cases, the relationship between individuals and groups, on the one hand, and society, on the other, can take a wide variety of forms, depending on the position that individual parts will occupy in relation to the totality of parts - society (Shor). Wed. Zur Erkenntniss unserer staotsucirts-haftlichcn Zustände ch. IV. Of the later authors, see Stammler Die Lehre von dem richtigen Hechte and Wirtschaft und Recht nach der materialischen Geschichtsauffassung=Economy and law from the point of view of a materialist understanding of history. However, criticizing Aristotle, Marx writes: "that in the form of the value of goods, all types of labor are expressed as identical and therefore equivalent human labor, Aristotle could not see this from the very form of value, since Greek society rested on slave labor, and therefore its natural basis was the inequality of people and their labor power. The secret of the expression of value, the equality and equivalence of all types of labor, because and since they all represent human labor in general - this mystery could only be solved then, when the idea of human equality had already gained the strength of popular prejudice.” Cf. Many critics of Marxism point to the moral character of the labor theory of value. So Wenkstern Marx: Wenn Marx den aittlichen Begriff der Gleichheit und gleichen Gültigkeit aller Arbeit, seiner materialistischen Auffassung gemäss, aus den Verhältmissen der Wirtschaft her Vorgehen lässt, so bildet doch dieser sittliche Begriff die Grundlagc seiner ganzen theory. Auf ihm, der Gleichheit und gleichen Gültigkeit aller Arbeit, ist der Wert und Mehrwert, die Accumulation, die industrielle Reservearmee und der schliessliche Zusammenbruch des Kapitalismus aufgebaut. Die rein ökonomischen Entwicklungen, welche mit dem Wert beginnen, sind dennoch alle diesen einen sittlichen Elements – der Gründung auf die Idee der Gleichheit– teilhaftig und dadurch zugleich zu sittlichen Begriffen gestempelt. - Ben. Croce: “Isn’t the interest that impels us to construct below surplus value largely a moral or, say, social interest? Is it possible to talk about surplus value in pure economics? Doesn’t the proletarian sell his labor power for what it is worth in his existing position in modern society?" - C. Gide in the Fundamentals of Political Economy: “We should not hesitate in choosing between two explanations of value (the theory of marginal utility and the labor theory). The first is an expression of what is: in reality, the value of things is proportional to the desires of people. The second explanation is only an expression of what should be: it would be desirable that the value of things were proportional to the labor of people." P. Struve On some basic philosophical motives in the development of economic thinking. Realism and nominalism in political economy in the Proceedings of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, vol. value, or natural price, that is, into the objective value of later economists. The “law of value” becomes the idee fixe of political economy. And the realistic motive of thinking appears most clearly in this area in the writer in whom it is combined with the greatest breadth of the general philosophical concept of economic science, in Marx... Labor value turns not only into the law, but also into the “substance of price”... The connecting link between the materialist Marx and the idealist Hegel was not in the dialectic, which Marx acquired in a purely external way and which seemed to him and is still provided to his faithful followers by some kind of logic of an evolutionary principle, but precisely in the power that the realistic motive had over the minds of both of these thinkers.” Wieser in Der natiirliche Wtrth, also noting the moral goals of the labor theory of value adopted by Marx (Wieser, like the entire Austrian school, does not include these goals in the content of political economy, considers this theory as a socialist program for assessing goods in a future society, and points out its complete unsuitability: Nicht einen Tag würde der zukilnftige Wirtlischaftsstaat mit jener Werthconstruction verwaltet werden können. mag für die persönliche Ordnung des Einkommens bedeutungsvoll sein, für die sachliche Auftheilung des Ertrages ist sie belanglos) from the social interests of the economy. The fact is that Marx considers surplus labor necessary for the future, although it will no longer have an antagonistic form. Marx clearly expresses his thought in Volume III of Capital. Surplus labor in general, as labor that exceeds the amount of given needs, must always exist. But in capitalist or slave-owning, etc. economies, it has an antagonistic form and is complemented by inactivity and idleness of a certain part of society. A certain amount of surplus labor is required as insurance against accidents by the necessary progressive expansion of the reproduction process, corresponding to the development of needs and progress of the population, which from the capitalist point of view is called accumulation, etc. Thus, and in terms of Marx’s economic theories, we can confirm “the gullibility and groundlessness of the workers’ hope that socialism will turn them into cooperative owners or masters of production” (p. 65). In other words, subjective moral consciousness receives socio-historical significance in no way due to connection with an absolute moral principle that would have objective significance, for an objective principle can only be a conditionally social one, expressing the established balance of social forces, so to appeal to it in favor of the regenerating class would be circuhis vitiosus, and an absolute moral principle can only be personal. Subjective moral consciousness receives social significance solely as a result of the group or class force into which it grows. And vice versa - there is no better way to create class power than by reviving moral consciousness, especially if it is supported by religious faith. On the contrary, the same moral consciousness can weaken the power of the ruling classes, although the opposite also happens. Outside of this influence on the relationship of social forces, in the social sciences there can be no talk of moral consciousness, but this discussion remains entirely within the bounds of exact science if moral consciousness is considered within the framework of social influence on the relationship of forces. Herzen speaks (From the Other Shore) on this issue too harshly and decisively. "Aristocracy," he writes, "in general, more or less educated anthropophagy; a cannibal who eats his slave, a landowner who takes a terrible percentage from the land, a manufacturer who grows rich at the expense of his worker - constitute only modifications of the same cannibalism. However, I am ready to defend the crudest anthropophagy, if one person considers himself as a dish, and another wants to eat it - let him eats: they are worth it, one to be a cannibal, the other to be a meal. – While the developed minority, absorbing the lives of generations, barely guessed why they could live so cleverly; While the majority, working day and night, did not quite realize that all the benefits of work for others and both sorrows were a natural order, the world of anthropophagy could hold on. People often mistake a prejudice or a habit for the truth - and then it does not oppress them: but when they once realized that their truth is nonsense, the matter is over, then only by force can one be forced to do what a person considers absurd. - The worker no longer wants to work for another - that’s the end of anthropophagy, that’s the limit of aristocracy. The whole thing has now stopped because the workers did not count their strength, that the peasants lagged behind in education; when they extend their hand to each other, then you will say goodbye to your leisure and, to your luxury, to your civilization, then the absorption of the majority into creating a bright and luxurious life for the minority will end... In the idea, the exploitation of man by man is now over. It's over because no one considers this relationship fair. To say this means to value, but not overestimate, moral consciousness in social terms. On the contrary, we recognize the opinion of Tugan-Baranovsky as completely unfounded, who puts moral consciousness, as the basis of socialism, in inextricable connection with the abstract ethical principle of Kant’s philosophy. “Throw away the doctrine of the absolute value of the human person - and all the democratic demands of our time will turn out to be empty rhetoric. Therefore, it is necessary to recognize the idea of ​​​​the equivalence of the human person as the main ethical idea of ​​modern socialism.” We will return to this issue below. However, the philosophical ill-conceivedness of Tugan-Baranovsky’s thesis is already sufficiently visible from the fact that he recognized “the idea of ​​the equivalence of the human personality, which found its most systematic expression in the philosophy of Kant, as the only theoretical justification for the socialist worldview, since it is based on ethical principles, and exposes himself by adding: “Socialism is the desire to realize, in real life, all those rights that are now theoretically recognized by everyone as the inalienable property of man.” If the strength of a social movement depends on the number (“all”) of those who recognize moral truth, then it is not a matter of a theoretical principle. Transcendental philosophy is from here like from earth to heaven. - And again. Just as social movements are not based on a theoretical principle, so an abstract principle, in turn, does not inevitably lead to one specific implementation. And this should be admitted by Mr. Tugan-Baranovsky, who declares that “Kant, who gave the unshakable theoretical justification for socialism, he was by no means a socialist.” The increase in average production is especially carefully proven by J. Wolf System der Socialpolitik and others. Conclusions. Bernstein is confirmed by statistical data from the most recent days. Mill: “All objects and forces of nature, which are in limited quantities, are limited relative to the extreme limit of their productive power and long before reaching this extreme limit they begin to satisfy the increase in demand with a progressive burden of the conditions of their productivity." But Mill mistakenly believed that even now “the stinginess of nature, and not social justice, is the cause of the suffering that befalls a nation with an excess of population." From the latest works, see P. Maslova Theory of the development of the people farms. Die Erschütterung der Indusiricherrschaft und des Industriensozialismus. Die Lebenshaltung der proletarischen Schichten innerhalb der Industriestaaten ist beim Uebergang zum Sozialismus um nichts gebessert, wenn gleichzeitig die ausländische Bauerngrundlage entschwindet, so hoher Steigerung auch die heimische Agrarproduktion noch fähig ist... Was wird in diesem Falle des Versagens das Schicksal des Industriestaatlichen Proletariat sein? Sehr einfach: Es erfährt in Hunger und Blösse, dass es überflüssig geworden ist sobald ihm die feste Bauerngrundlage unter den Füssen fehlt. Ueberflüssig und zugleich hilflos. Es nützt ihm nichts mehr, die Kapitalisten enteignen zu wollen, denn die industriellen Produktionsmittel sind nicht mehr verwertbar. Hammacher correctly notes: Von einem bevorstehenden Zusam menbruche des Kapitalismus im Marxistischen Sinne kann nicht die Rede sein, da er ja selbst jene Formen der Organization gefunden hat, die nach dem ursprünglichen Programm des Marxismus nur durch die assoziierten Arbeiter, die Diktatur des Proletariat möglich werden sollten. Struve: Die “Verelendungstheorie” war in der ersten Hälfte des XIX. Jahrhunderts eine einfache Konstatierung des wirklichen Verlaufs der Dinge. The noted facts sufficiently prove the inconsistency of the Marxist theory, but in order, regardless of this, not to form exaggerated ideas about the improvement in the situation of the workers, according to Sidney Webb, we will make another excerpt from the same book of his. “While the condition of the majority of those living on wages has improved since 1837, another portion have received little or nothing of the general share of increased wealth and the fruits of civilization. If we take the individual aspects of life and draw a certain line below which, in our opinion, the worker cannot decently live, we will find that in relation to wages, to the number of hours of work, to premises and to the general progress of civilization, the percentage of those who are below the line is less than it was in 1837. But we should also find that the present level is almost as low as then, and that the total number of persons under the line we have drawn is in the present time is probably greater than in 1837. Such poverty has scarcely ever existed, and its prevalence is the same or even more extensive. The dirt of 1837 has not been washed away from our hands and minds. The fact that the most prosperous part, having multiplied itself and increased its wealth, has left a significant part of society in stagnation, increases our responsibility. The moral of this entire review is that, apparently, very great efforts are still needed to raise the level of this degraded mass.” For German industry, see Conrad's Grundriss zum Studium der politischen Oekonomie 4 Th. Statistical; in particular, on the improvement of the situation of the agricultural working population in Germany from 1882 to 1895 Goltz Vorlesungen über Agrarwesen und Agrarpolitik. Among the Russian authors on the issue of improving the situation of workers, see Prof. Isaeva. Questions of sociology. Marx calls absolute surplus value the surplus value produced by lengthening the working day, and relative surplus value the surplus value that arises from the reduction of necessary labor time and from the corresponding change in the mutual relation of the two components of the working day. Marx calls the norm of surplus value its relative value, that is, the ratio in which the value of variable capital has increased, the ratio of surplus value to variable capital, in other words, the degree of exploitation of labor power. Wed. also Nostica Das Aufsteigen des Arbeiterstandes in England. Ein Beiltrag zur socialen Geschichte der Gegenwart, J. Wolf various works. And in French: Gad Qualre ans de lutte and Sorel Avenir socialiste des syndicals. In the latest edition, this point of the Erfurt program looks like this: “For the proletariat and for the declining middle strata – the philistinism, the peasants – it (the predominance of large-scale production) means an increasingly insecure existence, an increase in need, oppression, enslavement, humiliation, exploitation.” A strange mixture of new understanding and old. Hammacher: Nicht obwohl, sondern gerade weil es den Arbeitern besser geht, nimmt der Groll des Klassenkampfes zu. Der Gegensatz zwischen Bourgeoisie und Proletariat ist objectiv geringer geworden, aber subjectiv grösser, weil er stärker empfunden wird. Wed. Hammacher: In leizter Linie kommt es gar nicht darauf an, ob nach objectiven Merkmalen ein sozialer Antagonismus vorhanden ist, sondern als historische Tatsache ist es nur – eben nach Marx Unterscheidung zweier Etappen der Genesis der Klasse – psychologisch wirksam. Weil die beginnende Emanzipation dem Arbeiter das Bewusstsein seiner. Lage gebracht hat. die ihn bei allen Anlagen doch von den hehrsten Kulturgütern der Nation ausschliest, weil er aufgehört hat, die Knechtschaft als eine notwendige, selbstverständliche Institution anzusehen, deswegen hat ihn eine Unruhe ergriffen, die die politische Opposition in dem Masse verstärkte, als man ihr entgegenkam... Wenn der Philister klagt, wie Kautsky sagt, “die Begehrlichkeit” der Massen steige fortwährend an, so liegt doch gerade hierin die Grösse der Arbeiterbewegung, das Symptom intellektueller und moralischer Reife, auf das auch der politische Gegner Ursachle hat, stolz zu sein. Hammacher: So tritt an Stelle der Marxistischen eine psychologische Verelendungstheorie. Die Sensibilität wächst, während der erreichte Fortschritt nicht mehr in die seelische Disposition eingeht und als selbstverständlich geworden nicht mehr veranschlagt wird. Hierdurch wird der Emanzipationskampf des Proletariats weiter getrieben werden, ohne dass man freilich deshalb von einer kausalen Notwendigkeit des sozialistischen Zukunftsstaates sprechen könnte. \Let us note, in addition to what has been said, one more internal contradiction in the theory of Marxism. According to Marx, the socialist system will be the result of the broad development of the productive forces (cf. below the words of Engels), the fruit of a high cultural upsurge, the work of a broad outlook. But could the impoverished and savage proletariat bear the weight of this matter on their shoulders? This internal contradiction in Marx’s theories was pointed out by Struve in Art. Die Marxsche Theorie der socialen Entwicklung. Here we read: Es darf nicht vergessen werden, dass der Sozialismus für Marx uneingeschränkt die Blüte der Kultur bedeutete. Er nahm für seinen Sozialismus alle kulturellen Errungenschaften der Bourgeoisie in Anspruch. Solange die fortschreitende Verelendung der Volksmassen eine über jeden Streit erhabene Thatsache war und als unabänderliche immanente Tendenz der herschenden Wirtschaftsordnung aufgefasst wurde, war das Eintreten des alle Kulturfortschritte der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft übernehmenden und sie weiterführenden Sozialismus platterdings unmöglich. Eine Verelendung und sozialpolitische Reifwerdung der Arbeiterklasse, welche dieselbe befähigen sollte, die denkbar grossartigste soziale Umwälzung ins Werk zu setzen, schlossen einander für eine realistische Betrachtung einfach aus. The same idea is carefully developed by Gammacher. He points out not only the methodological error of Marxism, but also the actual connection between socialism and capitalism, which takes away any justification from the theory of collapse. He writes: Ironie der Geschichte hat gewollt, dass das Heilmittel der Organisation, das nach Marx nur die revolutionäre Tat des Proletariats verwirklichen konnte, von den Unternehmern selbst annektiert ist. Damit ist aber einer Verbindung von Kapitalismus und Sozialismus von selbst die Bahn eröffnet. Indem langsam der liberale Individualismus zurückweicht, beginnen die Gegensätze zwischen beiden als Wirtschaftsformen überhaupt zu verblassen und zu verschmelzen. Wed. also called by him Naumann Neudeutsche Wirtschaftspolitik and Das Schicksal des Marxismus in Neue Rundschau 1908. Die sogenannte "Zusammenbruchstheorie" oder die Theorie von der sozialen "Revolution" hat sich somit für uns als eine logisch-begrifflich unhaltbare Lehre erwiesen. Sie bedeutet konsequent durchdacht eine Absage von der realistischen Grundansicht des Marxismus. Die Voraussetzungen des Socialismus und die Aufgabe, der Socialdemokratie. The question of in what sense we can talk about a socio-historical law is explored below. Now we use this term with a meaning that would not contradict any of the known theories of the socio-historical process, which does not presuppose a special scientific theory. Nevertheless, of course, we are obliged to take into account the theory of contingency of the laws of nature, about which see also Prof. Vvedensky Essay on modern French philosophy. Wirtschaft und Recht nach der materialistischen Geschichtsauffassung= Economy and law from the point of view of a materialist understanding of history Essays on the modern history of political economy and socialism. Also Fouillet Le socialisme et la sociologie réformiste: La vraie science sociale n’est à l’avance ni socialiste ni individualiste. Elle étudie d'abord le réel et s'efforce, – tâche déjà énorme – d'en saisir tous les principaux éléments, toutes les lois dominantes, ainsi que les grandes réactions des faits sociaux les uns sur les autres. Quand elle deviant sociologie appliquée, elle cherche ce qui est désirable au point de vue juridique, moral, économique; Puis elle se demande quelles modifications de la réalité sont actuellement possibles en vue de cet idéal. S. Bulgakov Philosophy of Economics: “Social policy, as a type of technology, due to its effective nature, is guided by will: it sets policy ideals, while science only consults on means, not goals. Even Plekhanov From defense to attack: “A person can learn the truth by studying the laws of nature and realize his ideals based on these laws.” Let us remember that the problem raised here has long been discussed with special attention by the historical school of political economy. So Kautz Die National-Oekonomik als Wissenschaft: Was wir thun können und thun dürfen, ist die Feststellung von concreten, geschichtlichen, progressiven, Idealen und Musterbildern, durch welche auf das gerade hier und gerade jetzt Leistbare, Mögliche und Erreichbare hingewiesen würde. Bei aller Beachtung der Schranken und Grenzen der Menschennatur im Allgemeinen, so wie auch aller Besonderheiten und Eigentümlichkeiten der einzelnen Völker und Staatenkreise, werden wir hierdurch einerseits den Blick für das Historisch-Gegebene und das Ideal-Geforderte gleichmässig offen halten, andererseits dem freien schöpferischen Elemente des Menschengeistes seine volle Berechtigung wahren, zugleich aber auch die fundamentale und bedeutsame Thatsache vor Augen halten, dass nur das jeweilig Mögliche, Realisirungsfähige und Erreichbare ins Auge gefasst werde und die Theorie der National-Oekonomik zur Erkenntniss jener besonderen Wege. Veranstaltungen und Mitteln leite, welche für die organisch sich entwickelnde Menschheit und die einzelnen Völker, nach den verschiedenen Lebensaltern und nationalen Eigentümlichkeiten verschieden sind u. s. w. Marx says more cautiously in The Poverty of Philosophy: “As long as the proletariat has not yet developed enough to be constituted into a class, so long, therefore, the very struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is not yet of a political nature, and the productive forces have not yet sufficiently developed in the depths of the bourgeoisie itself to make it possible to provide for the material conditions necessary for the emancipation of the proletariat and for the formation of a new society, so long the theoreticians (of the proletariat) are only utopians, who, wanting to satisfy the needs of the oppressed classes, invent systems and seek a regenerating science." The Utopians, as Bernstein so well says (Zur Geschichte und Theorie des Socialismus = Essays on the History and Theory of Socialism), “were mistaken about the given means and the existing possibilities.” However, utopian socialism, according to the correct observation of Prokopovich (Problems of Socialism), was never entirely the product of the head - all utopian projects idealized some real orders, real experiences. Plato’s “State” represents only the development and idealization of the common meals that existed in Sparta and Crete, the communism of T. More, Morelli and Babf is an idealization of the courtyard communities of medieval peasants, the socialism of Fourier and Louis Blanc is an idealization of productive associations of cheese makers and artisans, the state socialism of Bazaar, Peccoeur (and Marx) is an idealization of state-owned industrial enterprises of modern times. On various topics (Art. Freedom and historical necessity). It is also well said by Prokopovich in Problems of Socialism. “And after the seizure of political power, the proletariat can use science only as a service tool, and not as a guiding principle. The guiding principle will remain the interests and needs of the people.” Die Möglichkeit, vermittelst der gesellschaftlichen Produktion allen Gesellschaftsgliedern eine Existenz zu sichern, die nicht nur materiell vollkommen ausreichend ist und von Tag zu Tag reicher wird, sondern die ihnen auch die vollständige freie Ausbildung und Bethätigung ihrer körperlichen und geistigen Anlagen garantirt, diese Möglichkeit ist jetzt zum erstenmal da, aber sie ist da. The moral teaching of socialism, in particular Menger and Kautsky, is discussed below. Let's look at the above passage again. Das durch Marx gestellte Problem ist nicht ein solches der Logik, sondern der Psychologie. W. Wagner in Arch. f. syst. Phil. XVII. After we point out the presence of idealism in the scientific socialist system and consider the question of possibility; historical predictions. Chicherin Philosophy of law speaks of the natural and free sides of economic life. On the one hand, “the effect of personal interest in the economic field does not completely depend on human arbitrariness. A person can achieve his goals only by conforming to the needs of others and obeying the laws that govern these relationships. These laws are not the product of human will: they flow from the nature of things, from man’s relationship to the material world and to other free units. Just as a person can subjugate his physical nature only by obeying its laws, so in the economic field he can achieve his goals only by obeying the laws that govern it.” On the other hand, “there is a common feature between economic relations and moral requirements that both are phenomena of freedom, as a result of which these two areas remain independent, and their agreement is left to the free will of individuals. Economic science examines what kind of relations arise from the interaction of free units when conquering external nature and turning it to the benefit of man, and by what laws these relations are governed.” We find recognition of dualism in social life among sociologists and psychologists Giddings, Mackenzie and especially Ward, whom we will discuss below. Deserves exceptional attention Art. The basic dualism of the socio-economic process and the idea of ​​natural law (Questions of philosophy and psychology, book 104) Struve. According to the view developed here, in a single socio-economic process, there are two series of phenomena, at each given moment, or rather, in each period of time being studied, significantly different from one another. One series, which can be rationalized, i.e., directed according to the will of a particular subject, the other series, which cannot be rationalized, proceeds spontaneously, out of compliance with the will of any subject. The first series of phenomena consists of the relationship of man or, more generally and more precisely, of human subjects to nature - they are fundamentally amenable to complete rationalization. Man, of course, cannot rationalize nature itself to the end, but he can rationalize his relationship to nature to the end. Nature can confront man as something “given”, independent of him, but both in principle and in fact this “given”, i.e., the degree of independence of nature from man, can be taken into account and does not represent anything mysterious; since nature is not only given to man, but also depends on him, it is completely visible to him, and not only does not represent anything mysterious, but, on the contrary, is completely subject to his control, is an obedient link in his economic plan. That is why the relations of human subjects to nature are fundamentally amenable to rationalization, since the “irrational” in them is some known and constant “given”, which can be easily and simply pushed into the rational plane. The second series of phenomena that does not allow rationalization of the socio-economic process is relationships between people. Relations between people, not being simply “given” in contrast to the phenomena and forces of nature, cannot be entirely in the power and control of any human subject; Struve calls them “natural,” departing in terminology from Mill, W. Hildebrand and Marx. Marx, it is true, noticed this feature of relations between people, but he recognized it only as a historical feature of commodity production. In fact, this dualism is inherent in every socio-economic process, no matter how society is organized economically, if only economic communication exists to one degree or another in this society. And this dualism constitutes one of the main provisions of the historical school of political economy. So Knies Die politische Oekonomie vom geschichtlichen Standpuncte exposes the thesis (der Satz), dass eine ökonomische Thatsache nicht in einer naturgesetzlichen Manifestation von Gesetzen der realen Welt allein besteht, dass sie vielmehr erst durch das Hinzutreten einer Thätigkeit des Menschen zum Vorschein kommt. Auch das nationalökonomische Gesetz kann deshalb nicht der Ausdruck von naturgesetzlichen Wirkungen der realen Welt allein sein. Es handelt sich hier vielmehr um Erscheinungen, welche sich Functionen in der Grössenlehre zur Seite stellen lassen. Wie der Begriff der Geschwindigkeit eine Function ist von Bewegung und Zeit, so sind die ökonomischen Thatsachen und durch sie auch die nationalökonomischen Gesetze Ergebnisse aus einer Combination von zwei unterschiedlichen Factoren, deren einer, der reale Factor, dem Erscheinungsgebiet der materiellen Aussenwelt angehörig ist, während der andere, der personale Factor, dem Geistesleben in dem Innern des Menschen entstammt. From this was derived an Stelle eines Absolutismus der Lösungen das Princip der Relativität as applied to political economy. N. E. Dühring’s Umwälzung der Wissenschaft. Die Entwicklung der wirtschaftspolitischen Ideen im 19. Jahrhundert. Kharazov Das System des Marxismus: Es ist unmöglich, ernstlich zu bestreiten, dass Marx letzten Endes doch ein Ideal vorschwebte, an dem er die bestehenden Produktionsverhältnisse mass und beurteilte, – das war das Ideal der Produktivität menschlicher Arbeit und der Verkürzung des Arbeitstages, als Grundbedingung eines Reiches der Freiheit, “der menschliehen Kraftentwicklung, die sich als Selbstzweck gilt.” Und von dem Standpunkte dieses Ideals aus hat er die bestehende kapitalistische Wirtschaft verworfen. Hammacher Das philosophisch-ökonomische System des Marxismus: Der Satz, dass der Inhalt des historischen Geschehens logisch verlaufe, kann nichts anders bedeuten, als dass eine substantielle Vernunft in ihm wirksam ist. Kharazov Das System des Marxismus: Hier wird der Marxismus teleologisch, obwohl es ihm selbst vielleicht verborgen bleibt, und zwar erhält er diesen teleologischen Charakter nicht allein in jenem bedingten Sinne, dass er die Wirksamkeit gewisser Zwecke anerkennt, die wirkliche Menschen im Laufe der historischen Entwicklung verfolgen, sondern auch in dem absoluten Sinne, dass er einen über oder vor der ganzen bisherigen Geschichte stehenden und. erst in der Zukunft zur Verwirklichung gelangenden Zweck – den der Verkürzung des Arbeitstages – annimmt, ja sogar zur Basis gewisser bejahender oder verwerfender Werturteile über die mit kausaler Notwendigkeit vor sich gehenden Geschehnisse macht. The problem of the growth of productive forces in the theory of social development (in the Collection of articles dedicated to Klyuchevsky). Hammacher Das philosophisch-ökonomische System des Marxismus: Wahrscheinlicher als der Zukunftsstaat, ebenso statthaft als der Ersatz durch eine andere Privatwirtschaft ist eine dritte Möglichkeit, der Untergang der Gesellschaft überhaupt. Was rechtfertigt den Optimismus von Marx und Engels, dass in einem künftigen Reiche der Freiheit eine Negation der Negation, eine Synthese notwendig wird und nicht das leere Chaos des Nichts, in dem Wirtschaft und Kultur im ganzen zugrunde gehen? Um so näher liegt ein solcher Pessimismus, da die Widersprüche, mit denen der Kapitalismus behaftet sein soll, letzthin ethische waren. Selbst Marx hat schliesslich nolens volens zugegeben, dass er nicht sowohl unlogisch als unsittlich ist. Vom naturwissenschaftlichen Standpunkt leuchtet offenbar eher die Möglichkeit ein, dass in solchem ​​Falle die egoistischen Kapitalisten und das ausgebeutete Volk dem allgemeinen Verfall preisgegeben werden. Apocalypticism and socialism (Two Cities). Hammacher Das philosophisch-ökonomische System des Marxismus: Man sieht leicht, dass Glaube an die Immanenz eines normativen, sei es eines logischen oder eines sittlichen Prinzips im materialistischen System, ein logisch und sachlich ungerechtfertigter Wahn ist... Der idealistische Metaphysiker trägt mit dem Gedanken der immanenten Teleologie den Glauben in die Wissenschaft, der materialistische den Aberglauben. Rickert, in his book The Boundaries of Natural Science Concept Formation (Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung) also dwells on the idea that foreseeing the future, if it were available to us, would extinguish our will, our desire. “If we could foresee the future in its individuality and, therefore, if we knew exactly what was about to happen, all desire and action would immediately lose its meaning. So, we have reason only to rejoice in the fact that there are no historical laws. The irrationality of reality, which sets the limit to any natural-scientific understanding, is at the same time one of the highest blessings for someone who, always striving, makes an effort. The hand that has covered the future with a veil impenetrable to us humans is merciful. If the future in its individuality were the object of our knowledge, it would never be the object of our desire. In a completely rational world, no one can act.” Chuprov Essays on the theory of statistics, Naville Nouvelle classification des sciences, Simmel Die Probleme der Geschichtsphilosophie, Husserl Logische Untersuchungen. I recognize sociology as a special science, different from both historical science and philosophy, as the science of the laws of social life, without, however, touching on the question of whether sociology, as a science of, say, forms of community life, is different from private social sciences, or whether it exists only in the latter. See Menger's Untersuchungen über die Methode der Socialwissenschaften und der Politischen Oekonomie insbesondere, Kistiakowski's Gesellschaft und Einzelwesen. Eine methodologische Studie, Simmel's Soziologie. Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung (Chapter 1: Das Problem der Soziologie), Kovalevsky Sociology vol. 1 I distinguish social law from historical law, which will be discussed below: in this place I am not talking about what a historical law is, but about what it is not - that there is no historical law. Sociology was identified with history by Fustel de Coulanges. On the difference between history and sociology, see Bernheim's Lehrbuch der Historischen Methode und der Geschichtsphilosophie and Grotenfelt's Die Wertschätzung in der Geschichte. I also distinguish sociology from the philosophy of history, which, in my opinion, deals with the question of the meaning of history, the highest synthesis of human development, and which, in my opinion, can only be part of a personal worldview, and not science. With this remark, I only want to indicate in what sense I use these terms: hitherto they have been used extremely unsteadily - each sociologist, philosopher of history and theorist of history in their own way. Zur Theorie und Methodik der Geschichte. Geschichtsphilosophische Untersuchungen : Die Naturwissenschaft kann berechnen und voraussehen, wie die Constellation der Planeten in einem bestimmten Moment sein wird – vorausgesetzt, dass nicht ein neues, bisher unbekanntes Moment störend dazwischentritt, etwa ein fremder Weltkörper sich in das Sonnensystem verirrt; sie kann aussprechen, dass wenn Dynamit entzündet wird, eine Explosion erfolgen muss. Aber vorauszusagen, ob jene Constellation beobachtet wird, ob und wann in einem Einzelfalle diese Explosion stattfindet, ob dabei ein bestimmter Mensch verwundet, getödtet, gerettet wird, mit andern Worten, ob das historische Ereigniss eintritt, das ist ihr unmöglich, denn das hängt vom Zufall und vom freien Willen ab, den sie nicht kennt, wohl aber die Geschichte. Creative evolution (Évolution créatrice): Our personality is continuously developing, growing, maturing. Every moment has something new added to the old. Let's say more, not only new, but also unexpected... Science looks at things from the point of view of their repetition. She can only operate on what is considered repeatable. What eludes it is what is non-repeating and irreversible in successive moments of any history... The essence of mechanical explanations is that they recognize the possibility of calculating the future and the past as functions of the present, and that thus everything is assumed to be given. But - we know time as a flow that cannot be passed in reverse order or repeated again,” etc. Let us also recall the principle of growth of psychic energy formulated by Wundt, see his Essay on Psychology, Logic, System of Philosophy. Tarde recognizes three factors in social life: invention, which is individual, imitation, through which an invention becomes common property, and conflict between different inventions (opposition), as a result of which one invention prevails over others. Tarde devoted three of his most important works to the study of these three factors: Les lois de limitation (The Laws of Imitation), La logique sociale (Social Logic) and L’opposition universelle. The views expressed in these books are briefly summarized by the author in Les lois sociales. Esquisse dune sociologie. In the first of these works, Gard writes: “It is an erroneous conclusion that statistics will one day be able to predict future social conditions as accurately as an astronomer predicts the future transit of Venus. But... statistics is concentrated in the area of ​​imitation and the area of ​​invention is forbidden for it. The future will be what its inventors will be, whom statistics do not know and whose appearance does not contain anything that could be formulated in the form of a law.” Die Probleme der Geschichtsphilosophie : Solange wir nur Kollektivwirkungen kennen, stehen wir jeder neuen komplexen Thatsache in Bezug auf ihre kausalen Verknüpfungen völlig unbelehrt gegenüber; denn mag sie in noch so vielen Punkten mit einer früher festgestellten übereinstimmen, so genügt doch die kleinste Abweichung, um jede Bestimmung ihrer Wirkung illusorisch zu machen, weil wir mangels der Auflösung in Teilursachen und Teilwirkungen nicht wissen können, welchen Teil der früher beobachteten Wirkung, die Abänderung in der Ursache alterieren wird. Die Ereignisse, deren Verknüpfung zu historischen Gesetzen wir suchen, sind aus so vielen Beiträgen zusammengesetzt, dass man die genaue Wiederholung des verursachenden an einer anderen Stelle von Zeit und Raum getrost als unmöglich bezeichnen kann. Lehrbuch der historischen Methode und der Geschichtsphilosophie : Die historische Erkenntnis hat es mit den ursächlichen Zusammenhängen von Erscheinungen zu thun, welche ihrem Wesen nach durch psychische Kausalität bestimmt sind und daher ihrem Wesen nach nur von ihren qualitativ differenten Zwecken aus begriffen und regressiv erklärt, nicht aus allgemeinen Gesetzen progressiv abgeleitet und unter allgemeine Begriffe subsumiert werden können. Gesetze und Begriffe naturwissenschaftlicher Art sind nicht zureichende Mittel historischer Erkenntnis. – Wed. by the same author Einleitung in die historische Wissenschaft = Introduction to historical science: “Mental causation, no less than physical, rests on the beginning of universal natural necessity and also has its own general laws, but it explains the phenomena of its field differently: not in the sense of once and for all determined and predetermined consequences of the corresponding causes (progressively), but in the sense of consequences that occurred under the special circumstances of a single case and the causes of which are still subject to determination (regressive). – Hammacher Das philosophisch-ökonomische System des Marxismus:... die objektiven Gesetze der Geschichte, auch wenn die kausale Tatsächlichkeit möglichst einwandfrei festgestellt ist, nur hypothetischen Wert beanspruchen können, da man nicht weiss, ob nicht der Mensch sich selbst gerade nach dieser Richtung geändert hat. Weisengrün Das Ende des Marxismus:... keine Entwicklungsnotwendigkeit, im absoluten und mechanischen Sinne in sozialen Dingen... Rickert in the above-mentioned work: “Even if it were possible to apply those concepts of laws that can sometimes be found in any historical presentation, and then talk about development trends,” still, due to the real historical connection of various events, there would always only be the possibility that a certain event would occur, fitting under some relative historical concept. The absolutely non-foreseeable impact of any other historical objects can always disrupt the “development trend” and therefore excludes any reliability of prediction.” Kistyakovsky Categories of necessity and justice in the study of social phenomena: “The onset of some higher stage of development, like any specific phenomenon, cannot be absolutely necessary, since it will always be the result of the intersection of many causally determined series at a certain point in space and at a certain point in time. It will always be in conflict with unconditional necessity, as non-spatial and timeless. Consequently, an economic materialist can be given unconditional confidence in the need for the next stage of development by his moral sense and belief that the desire for the most just social system is inherent in everyone and is universally obligatory; for everyone." Wed. his Gesellschaft und Einzelwesen. Knies Die politische Oekonomie vom geschichtlichen Standpuncte: Wir erkennen in dem Bezirk des Geistigen unter Anderem insbesondere auch nicht Veränderungen in einem "Kreislauf", welche immer wieder zu vorhergegangenen Stufen zurückkehren, sondern eine andauernd zu neuen Stufen fortschreitende Entwicklung. La théorie de Vhistoire. Schmoller Ueber einige Grundfragen des Rechts und der Volkswirtschaft in the collection Ueber einige Grundfragen der Socialpolitik und der Volkswirtschaftslehre ): Jedes Urteil über die socialen Organizationsformen der Zukunft schliesst ein Urteil über die Zukunft der Technik und ein Urteil über das psychologisch-moralische Triebleben der künftigen Generationen in sich. Cp. Mackenzie An introduction to social philosophy: History cannot even tell us that the past must have been as it was: much less can it enable us to predict that, amid the ever-changing stream of conditions, the future will in any particular respects resemble what the past has been. Meyer Zur Theorie und Methodik der Geschichte : in dem Moment, wo sie (Gesetze des historischen Lebens) entdeckt wären, würden sie aufhören der Geschichte anzugehören, sie würden für die historische Forschung niemals Objecte, sondern Voraussetzungen sein. Prof. Khvostov Theory of the historical process: “Social life changes during the very process of carrying out the planned reforms. Each reform therefore has to be carried out in a situation that has already been changed by its implementation, that is, different from the one in which the reform was conceived.” Essays on the theory of historical knowledge. Zur Geschichte und Theorie des Socialismus = Essays on the History and Theory of Socialism. Wed. Schmoller Ueber einige Grundfragen der Socialpolitik und der Volkswirtschaftslehre : Es giebt keine Revolution, die absolut nötig, absolut unvermeidlich wäre. Jede Revolution ist durch zeitgemässe Reform zu verhindern. Understanding the inhibitory influence on the course of historical events from the conscious activities of groups interested in this, understanding the inevitability of “direct” intervention by persons with opposing interests who do not want to mitigate social conflicts, lies at the basis of syndicalism. Sorel expressed this with complete clarity and decisiveness in his Reflections on Violence. Marx was mistaken in assuming that the bourgeoisie would not need pressure in order to use its strength: a new and completely unforeseen fact turned out to be - the bourgeoisie seeking to reduce its strength. The bourgeoisie, misled by the preachers of morality, returns back to the ideal of conservative moderation and tries to ease the oppression of production: this creates “uncertainty” of the situation, confusing the path outlined by Marx. Syndicalism consciously wants to correct this uncertainty by using the violence of the proletariat. The violence of the proletariat appears on the scene at the same time as the social world seeks to mitigate social conflicts; the violence of the proletariat returns the masters to their role as producers and thus restores class differences at the very time when they seemed to be confused in one democratic swamp. J. Sorel compares the Marxist theory of social development with Hartmann’s “philosophy of the unconscious.” Sozialismus und soziale Bewegung = Socialism and social movement. Struve writes in Die Marxsche Theorie der sozialen Entwicklung on this point with his usual thoughtfulness: Wenn man sich nach der Herkunft der Begriffe “Soziale Revolution”, “Zusammenbruch der kapitalistischen Gesellschaft” etc. fragt, so ist keine andere Antwort auf diese Frage möglich als folgende: diese theoretischen Pseudobegriffe sind dem unvermeidlich irreführenden Bestreben erwachsen praktisch politische Postulate des Sozialismus, d. h. eines sozialen Ideals, in theoretische Begriffe im Dienste einer geschichtlichen d h. kausal genetischen Betrachtung umzuprägen. Was als leitende Ideen im sozialen Jdeal einer streitbaren sozialen Gruppe für einen bestimmten historischen Moment berechtigt sein mag, ist keineswegs ohne weiteres für die theoretische Erkenntnis des wirklichen gesellschaftlichen Geschehens verwertbar... Eine regulative sozialpolitische Idee, ein soziales Ideal, welches starr ist und starr sein soll, ist für das Erfassen des gesellschaftlichen Entwicklungsprozesses gar nicht verwendbar. Für die entwicklungsgeschichtliche Betrachtung ist der Sozialismus, wenn sie diesen Begriff und dieses Wort benützen will, in so und so beschaffenen realen Vorgängen und Tendenzen der kapitalistischen Gesellschaft erschöpft, der praktische Sozialist aber kann und meinetwegen darf in denselben nur – “Verewigung” der kapitalistischen Gesellschaft erblicken. Es ist offenbar aussichtslos diese zwei Standpunkte versöhnen zu wollen: denn sie arbeiten mit ganz verschiedenen Begriffen und wenden ganz verschiedene Massstäbe an. Sie können sich gegenseitig psychologisch aushelfen – aber logisch müssen sie immer grundsätzlich autonom bleiben. Es hiesse sich überhaupt einem Wahne hingeben, wollte man praktische Ideale mit theoretischen Einsichten zur vollständigen Deckung bringen. In diesem Sinne liegt in der Wortverbindung: wissenschaftlicher Sozialismus eine grosse Utopie eingeschlossen. Der Sozialismus kann – seiner Natur nach, als soziales Ideal – in der Wissenschaft nie aufgeben und sie der Wissenschaft nie unterordnen. On the same issue they spoke: Bernstein Wie ist wissenschaftlicher Sozialismus möglich? = Is scientific socialism possible? - Woltmann, Stammler and many others. etc. You might be interested in: