Historical materialism and the economics of Karl Marx

by Benedetto Croce

Would it not be convenient if both sides retraced their steps and mortified their pride a little, and acknowledged that socialism and free trade may certainly be called scientific in metaphor or hyperbole; but that neither of them are, or ever can be, scientific deductions? And that thus the problem of socialism, of free trade and of any other practical social programme, may be transferred to another region; which is not that of pure science, but which nevertheless is the only one suited to them?

Let us pause for an instant at free trade. It presents itself to us from two points of view, i.e. with a two-fold justification. In the older aspect it undeniably has a metaphysical basis, consisting in that conviction of the goodness of natural laws and that concept of nature (natural law, state of nature, etc.) which, proceeding from the philosophy of the 17th century, was predominant in the 18th century.[53] 'Do not hinder Nature in her work and all will be for the best.' A similar note is struck, only indirectly, by a criticism like that of Marx; who, when analysing the concept of nature, showed that it was the ideological complement of the historical development of the middle class, a powerful weapon of which this class availed itself against the privileges and oppressions which it intended to overthrow.[54] Now this concept may indeed have originated as a weapon made occasional use of historically, and nevertheless be intrinsically true. Natural law in this case, is equivalent to rational law; it is necessary to deny both the rationality and the excellence of this law. Now, just because of its metaphysical origin, this concept can be rejected altogether, but cannot be refuted in detail—it disappears with the metaphysic of which it was a part, and it seems at length to have really disappeared. Peace to the sublime goodness of natural laws.

But free trade presents itself to us, among its more recent supporters, in a very different aspect—the free traders, abandoning metaphysical postulates, assert two theses of practical importance: (a) that of an economic hedonistic maximum, which they suppose identical with the maximum of social desirability;[55] and (b) the other, that this hedonistic maximum can only be completely secured by means of the fullest economic liberty. These two theses certainly take us outside metaphysics and into the region of reality; but not actually into the region of science. Indeed the first of them contains a statement of the ends of social life, which may perhaps be welcome, but is not a deduction from any scientific proposition. The second thesis cannot be proved except by reference to experience, i.e. to what we know of human psychology, and to what, by approximate calculation, we may suppose that psychology will still probably be in the future. A calculation which can be made, and has been made with great acumen, with great erudition and with great caution and which hence may even be called scientific, but only in a metaphorical and hyperbolical sense, as we have already remarked: hence the knowledge which it affords us, can never have the value of strictly scientific knowledge.[56] Pareto, who is both one of the most intelligent and also one of the most trustworthy and sincere, of the recent exponents and supporters of free trade,[57] does not deny the limited and approximate nature of its conclusions; which appears to him so much the more clearly in that he uses mathematical formulae, which show at once the degree of certainty to which statements of this kind may lay claim.

And, in effect, communism (which has also had its metaphysical period, and earlier still a theological period) may, with entire justice, set against the two theses of free trade, two others of its own which consist: (a) in a different and not purely economic estimate of the maximum of social desirability; (b) in the assertion that this maximum can be attained, not through extreme free trade, but rather through the organisation of economic forces; which is the meaning of the famous saying concerning the leap from the reign of necessity (=free competition or anarchy) into that of liberty (=the command of man over the forces of nature even in the sphere of the social natural life). But neither can these two theses be proved; and for the same reasons. Ideals cannot be proved; and empirical calculations and practical convictions are not science. Pareto clearly recognises this quality in modern socialism; and agrees that the communistic system, as a system, is perfectly conceivable, i.e. theoretically it offers no internal contradictions (§ 446). According to him it clashes, not with scientific laws, but with immense practical difficulties (l.c.) such as the difficulty of adopting technical improvements without the trial and selection secured by free competition; the lack of stimuli to work; the choice of officials, which in a communistic society would be guided, still according to him, not by wholly technical reasons, as in modern industry, but on political and social grounds (837). He admits the socialist criticism of the waste due to free competition; but thinks this inevitable as a practical way of securing equilibrium of production. The real problem—he says—is: whether without the experiments of free competition it is possible to arrive at a knowledge of the line (the line which he calls mn) of the complete adaptation of production to demand, and whether the expense of making a unified (communistic) organisation of work, would not be greater than that needed to solve the equations of production by experiments (718, 867). He also acknowledged that there is something parasitical in the capitalist (Marx's sad-faced knight); but, at the same time, he maintains that the capitalist renders social services, for which we do not know how otherwise to provide.[58] If it be desired to state briefly the contrasts in the two different points of view, it may be said that human psychology is regarded by the free traders as for the most part, determined, and by the socialists, as for the most part changeable and adaptable. Now it is certain that human psychology does change and adapt itself; but the extent and rapidity of these changes are incapable of exact determination and are left to conjecture and opinion. Can they ever become the subject of exact calculation?

If now we pass to considerations of another kind, not of what is desirable, that is of the ends and means admired and thought good by us; but of what under present circumstances, history promises us; i.e. of the objective tendencies of modern society, I really do not know with what meaning many free traders cast on socialism the reproach of being Utopian. For quite another reason socialists might cast back the same reproach upon free trade, if it were considered as it is at present, and not as it was fifty years ago when Marx composed his criticism upon it. Free Trade and its recommendations turn upon an entity which now at least, does not exist: i.e. the national or general interest of society; since existing society is divided into antagonistic groups and recognises the interest of each of these groups, but not, or only very feebly, a general interest. Upon which does free trade reckon? On the landed proprietors or on the industrial classes, on the workmen or on the holders of public dignities? Socialism, on the contrary, from Marx onwards, has placed little reliance on the good sense and good intentions of men, and has declared that the social revolution must be accomplished chiefly by the effort of a class directly interested, i.e. the proletariat. And socialism has made such advances that history must inquire whether the experience that we have of the past justifies the supposition that a social movement, so widespread and intense, can be reabsorbed or dispersed without fully testing itself in the sphere of facts. On this matter too I gladly refer to Pareto, who acknowledges that even in that country of free traders' dreams, in England, the system is supported not owing to people's conviction of its intrinsic excellence, but because it is in the interests of certain entrepreneurs.[59] And he recognises, with political acumen, that since social movement takes place in the same manner as all other movements, along the line of least resistance, it is very likely that it may be necessary to pass through a socialistic state,—in order to reach a state of free competition (§ 791).

I have said that the extreme free traders, much more than the socialists, are idealists, or if one prefers it, ideologists. Hence in Italy we are witnesses of this strange phenomenon, a sort of fraternising and spiritual sympathy between socialists and free traders, in so far as both are bitter and searching critics of the same thing, which the former call the bourgeois tyranny and the latter bourgeois socialism. But in the field of practical activity the socialists (and here I no longer refer especially to Italy) undoubtedly make progress whilst the free traders have to limit themselves to the barrenness of evil-speaking and of aspirations, forming a little group of well-meaning people of select intelligence, who make audience for one another.[60] By this I mean no reproach to these sincere and thoroughly consistent free-traders: rather I sincerely admire them; their lack of success is not their own fault. I wish merely to remark that if ideals, as the philosopher says, have short legs, those of the free traders' ideals are indeed of the shortest.

I could continue this exemplification, bringing forward various other social programmes, such as that of state socialism, which consists in accepting the socialist ideal, but as an ultimate end perhaps never fully attainable, and extending its partial attainment over a long course of centuries; and in relying for the effective force, not in a revolutionary class, nor simply in the views of right thinkers, but in the state, conceived as a creative power, independent of and superior to individual wills. It is certainly undeniable that the function of the state, like all social functions, owing to a complication of circumstances, amongst which are tradition, reverence, the consciousness of something which surpasses individuals, and other impressions and sentiments which are analysed by collective psychology, acquires a certain independence and develops a certain peculiar force; but in the estimation of this force great mistakes are made, as socialist criticism has clearly shown: and, in any case, whether it be great or small, we are always faced by a calculation; and one moreover, in the region of opinion, which region science may, in part, yet bring under its power, but which in a great degree will always be rebellious to it.

Oh the misuses which are made of this word science! Once these misuses were the monopoly of metaphysics, to whose despotic nature they appeared suitable. And the strangest instances could be quoted, even from great philosophers, from Hegel, from Schopenhauer, from Rosmini, which would show how the humblest practical conclusions, made by the passions and interests of men, have often been metaphysically transformed into inferences from the Spirit, from the Divine Being, from the Nature of things, from the finality of the universe. Metaphysics hypostatised what it then triumphantly inferred. The youthful Marx wittily discovered in the Hegelianism of Bruno Bauer, the pre-established harmony of critical analysis (Kritische Kritik) under German censorship. Those who most frequently have the word in their mouths make a sort of Sibyl or Pythia of a limited intellectual function. But the desirable is not science, nor is the practicable.[61]

Is scientific knowledge then in fact superfluous in practical questions? Are we to assent to this absurdity? The attentive reader will be well aware that we are not here discussing the utility of science, but the possibility of inferring, as some claim to do, practical programmes from scientific prepositions; and it is this possibility only which is denied.

Science, in so far as it consists in knowledge of the laws governing actual facts, may be a legitimate means of simplifying problems, making it possible to distinguish in them what can be scientifically ascertained from what can only be partially known. A great number of things which are commonly disputed, may be cleared up and accurately decided by this method. To give an example, when Marx in opposition to Proudhon and his English predecessors (Bray, Gray, etc.) showed the absurdity of creating labour bonds, i.e. labour-money; and when Engels directed similar criticisms against Dühring, and then again, perhaps with less justification, against Rodbertus[62] or when both established the close connection between the method of production and the method of distribution, they were working in the field proper to scientific demonstration, trying to prove an inconsistency between the conclusions and the premisses, i.e. an internal contradiction in the concepts criticised. The same may be said of the proof, carefully worked out by the free traders, of the proposition: that protection of every kind is equivalent to a destruction of wealth. And if it were possible to establish accurately that law of the tendency of the rate of profits to decline, with which Marx meant to correct and widen the Ricardian law deduced from the continuous encroachments of the rent of land, it could be said, under certain conditions, that the end of the bourgeois capitalist organisation was a scientific certainty, though it would remain doubtful what could take its place.