Further notes on Chris Harman's already concise How Marxism Works... This is the second part of an intended 13. Chapter 1 can be read here.

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2: The Importance of History

As said in the final lines of Chapter 1, Marx concluded that ideas themselves cannot change society, because ideas themselves do not exist in thin air; they, like humans, are part of the material world, always found in a specific social and historical context.

Human behaviour is determined by material forces – “being determines consciousness”, not the other way round. This is called materialism. Marx felt materialism was progressive – a step forward – as opposed to religious and idealist ways of interpreting the world. Materialism accounts for changing social conditions in a scientific way, instead of praying to a mysterious God or relying on some sort of vague “spiritual change” in people.


Mechanical materialism

But just because something is materialist does not mean it is automatically correct. Just as there have been mistaken scientific theories, there are also materialist arguments that seem to contradict themselves, or fall short of a full analysis of current society because they neglect history as a whole.

“Human nature”

One such argument is the “human nature” argument. Many people see human beings as animals who are “naturally” aggressive, dominating, competitive, greedy, selfish, etc. This false argument is upheld by those most opposed to social change. Since it is “human nature” to be greedy and competitive, they claim, what is the point in trying to change society? They offer this argument (which isn't an argument at all) as a way of accounting for “failed revolutions”.

But “human nature” is dependent on social and historical factors, like everything else. It changes from society to society. (Harman uses the example of scientists first trying to give Sioux Indians IQ tests; the Indians lived in a society dependent on co-operation – they could not understand why they were not allowed to help each other on the tests.)

The problem with the “human nature” argument is that it does not – because it can not – account for the vast differences in human behaviour throughout the world, historically and geographically. Why have certain nations, for instance, got reputations specific to their culture, and why do certain people of certain nationalities not fit into that culture? Likewise, the “human nature” argument does not account for the great civilisations of the human race – Egypt, Ancient Greece, Rome, the Incas, the modern industrial city...

“Individual transformation”

Another materialist view of society treats humans as similar to animals trained at the circus: it is possible to transform human behaviour, it says, it just depends on who leads the people.

Though a step forward from the human nature argument, this “reformist materialism” also fails to explain how society as a whole can develop. If we are all animals at the circus, who has tamed us, and in turn who can tame us in the future? How exactly does human behaviour change?

The problem with this “conditioning” process is that it can often divide society into a hierarchy; in the absence of leaders, people turn to an outside force such as “God” for their leadership (“letting idealism in through the back door”), or else people become self-appointed guides who maintain the current society because their values are ultimately conditioned by it.

“Population pressure”

Another crude view of society points to the rise in population to account for humanity's problems. But this view ignores the fact that in the US corn is burned whilst people in India (for example) starve; it also ignores that 150 years ago the US could not feed 10 million people, while today enough is produced to feed 200 million people.

Crucially, the “population pressure” argument ignores the fact that every mouth that has to be fed is also an extra person who can create wealth by working.


Historical materialism

The above forms of materialism were called “mechanical materialism” by Marx. All of them, he said, forget that as well as being part of the material world, human beings are conscious, acting, living, material creatures whose very existence can and does change it.

Marx wrote: “Men can be distinguished from animals by consciousness, by religion or anything else you like. They themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence – their food, shelter and clothing.”

Human beings are animals; they descended from ape-like creatures. Just like any other animal, a human needs to feed himself and protect himself from the climate around him in order to survive. This is the essential biological fact of humanity.

What distinguishes humans from other animals is the ability to act upon their environment in order to adapt to it. They can use their large brains and forelimbs to manipulate objects to their will. It is this that allows humans to adapt to a vast range of environments – social conditions – without actually changing their biological make-up.

In contrast, consider the fate of a pride of lions placed in treacherously snowy conditions, or that of a polar bear in the jungle...

Even the lives of the earliest humans were very different to our own culturally speaking, but 100,000 years ago their physical features were very similar to modern man; 30,000 years ago, their physical features were identical. It is these physical features that allow humans to change their surroundings to their own advantage.

The ways in which humans have changed their surroundings are various: early on they used sticks and stones to kill their prey (necessarily, because a human cannot outrun a wild beast, nor is a human stronger than a wild beast); they lit torches from naturally occurring fires for both necessary heat and light; they covered themselves with vegetation and animal skin, not out of modesty or prudishness but because of the necessary needs of shelter and protection.

Over many tens of thousands of years, humans have learned to make fires directly, to shape weapons and tools using raw materials, to even grow food from seeds, to store such food in pots they themselves made; they have domesticated certain animals in order to transport from one place to another.

All of these technological developments have impacted human life enormously. From a Marxist view, this is significant: the impact of such developments has been enormous not because it has made human life “easier”, but because it has actually affected the very essence of human life itself.

Human as social being

The technological developments listed above – made possible by humans' biological make-up, their ability to impact their environment in order to change or resist it – changed the organisation of human life. How, that is, human life is organised socially.

From the beginning, human life has been social. Humans have never been lone predators; they have only been able to survive through co-operation. Co-operation is required in order to kill beasts for food and protection, to gather food and to keep fires going for heat and light.

Close co-operation through time caused them to communicate with one another; they would utter sounds; languages developed.

The early humans were organised into very simple, very small social units, since there was not enough natural material to support many individuals at a time. Because of this, all effort was spent on survival necessities: gathering food, acquiring shelter, etc.

Everyone did the same “job” and lived the same sort of life, as a result. There were no class divisions, because such divisions were unnecessary, detrimental.

Means of production and social relations

“Wealth” is the means of human life – the food, shelter, protection, etc. needed to sustain it. Changes in the ways wealth is produced (the means of production, or forces of production) affect the way humans interact (the social relations, or relations of production).

So when humans developed ways of growing their own food (by planting seeds and domesticating animals), and developed ways of storing this food, there was a complete revolution in social life. It was no longer necessary to move about from place to place in search of life's necessities; humans had to co-operate in a different way now, in order to clear land and harvest food. They could live in much greater numbers than previously; they could exchange wealth (goods) with other settlements.

From this, it is not difficult to see how the first towns could develop. Because there was now more time available, some people could lead lives that were different to the previous hunter-gatherers; they would specialise in other essentials, such as making pots for storing food, or metals for tools and weapons. Now that food could be stored, and a surplus of food could be gathered and accumulated, there was now a motive for war, alongside the necessity of co-operation.

When humans discover new ways of dealing with the world around them, they unavoidably change that world, and so they also change themselves, because in changing the world, they change their own social relations. The forces of production change the relations of production; these together constitute “society”. From this, we can analyse how each society is determined by its forces of production and the social relations that these forces create. Essentially, we can analyse the current contradictions found within capitalist society.

The forces and relations of production determine the scientific and intellectual “culture” of any given historical period, for reasons that become evident after only a basic analysis.

Some examples...

300 years ago in Britain the vast majority of the population lived on the land and produced food using techniques unchanged for centuries. Intellectually, the people were bounded by local village life, run and influenced by the local church. The vast majority of people did not need to read or write, and so they never did.

200 years ago, though, industry developed. (See Harman's essay “From Feudalism To Capitalism”.) Many, many people were drawn into factories and again, as they had when the first towns began to develop, their social life changed drastically. In order to work properly and efficiently, it was now necessary for people to read and write.

People had to travel to their work, which was in big towns instead of the previous small villages; railways and steamships, a result of other developing needs and scientific progress, made it possible to travel across the earth.

Material changes in production affect the ways in which people live and the ideas they have.

As a further example of how old ideas are changed by new forces of production, look at how immigrant workers often find their customs and religious attitudes are contradictory to the new system. Look also at the rise in feminist ideas (I'll come back to that in Chapter 12) as a result of historical changes in women's relation to the forces of production.

Historical materialism against idealism and mechanical materialism

Only historical materialism can explain the changes in the way humans co-operate in order to produce the things that feed, clothe and shelter them, and how these changes in turn affect the way in which society as a whole is organised and the ideas that inhabit that society.

Idealism might concede that there are changes in society, but it does not treat society itself as something material; because of this, what changes society must always be external. This is often in the form of “God” or some other unknown, mystical force.

Mechanical materialism sees humans as conditioned by the material world, but sees them as passive to it, unable to actively engage with it and change it to their advantage; as a result, it fails to offer any meaningful analysis of how society has changed. Essentially, this means it cannot offer an explanation as to how society can change.

Historical materialism explains both how human beings are conditioned by the world in which they live and how they react back upon the world. In reacting back, they change the environment that conditioned them in the first place; thus, over time (historically), they change themselves also (materially). From this, we can analyse the development of intellectual movements, trends and ideas through history alongside the essential social context of that period. Crucially, we can also deal with current trends and ideas in order to see how far we are from socialism and what needs to be done...

The socialist question

In Chapter 3 I'll deal with the class struggle as a vital part of socialism, but first, a few final notes on the development of the forces of production and how these developments challenge old social relations...

Understanding social changes throughout history boils down to understanding how humans sustain their essential needs: food, shelter, clothing. The ways in which we go about sustaining these needs are always changing, because in developing one way, society changes and so another way becomes necessary. This is key to a Marxist view of history.

However, this does not mean that developments in the forces of production are automatically successful. This is often called technological determinism; Marx rejected it, because if we look at history itself, there have been many instances where people have rejected such developments because they clash with established ways of thinking.

Under the Roman Empire, ideas as to how to grow more crops were rejected because it would require more work than the established social relations of slave-master. When Ireland was under Britain's rule in the 18th century, the British tried to stop industrial development in Ireland because it clashed with business interests in London.

Marx said the ruling ideas of any historical period are only the ideas of those in rule. Established “laws” are often simply prejudices; if for example India's food problem could be solved by slaughtering so-called “sacred” cows, the solution would be ignored because it clashed with established religious views.

Developments in production challenge existing social relations and give rise to potential new social relations; but this does not mean that the new social relations automatically give rise to a new social organisation of human life. (Read Lenin's The State and Revolution for an analysis of how those opposed to social change must be overcome.)

If a revolution is successful, then, those fighting for new social relations can put such relations into place; if those opposed to the revolution are successful in suppressing it, new forms of production cannot come into operation. This causes production itself to stagnate, or even regress and go backwards.

Essentially, this is the class struggle inherent to all human stages of history, which we'll deal with in the next chapter.

As highlighted here, though, capitalism – the way things currently are – has not always been in place; it arose out of particular human needs at a particular time in history. Likewise, capitalism will not last forever; the problem is, socialism is not an inevitable “next step”, because nothing is “technologically determined” (and so the success of ideas are not inevitable either). Just as the fall of the Roman Empire resulted in the Middle Ages, capitalism can and will – without an organised effort to overcome its social relations – result in barbarism.

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Next up: The class struggle