[73] See Ch. Andler, Les origines du socialisme d'état en Allemagne, Paris, Alcan, 1897. Andler promises a book, and is now giving a course of lectures on the decomposition of Marxism.
CHAPTER IV. RECENT INTERPRETATIONS OF THE MARXIAN THEORY OF VALUE
AND CONTROVERSIES CONCERNING THEM[ToC]
I
Labriola's criticism of method and conclusions of preceeding essays answered: His criticism merely destructive: Tendency of ether thinkers to arrive at like conclusions.
I have always discussed frankly the views expressed in the writings of my eminent friend Professor Antonio Labriola. I am therefore glad that he has taken the same liberty with me, and has subjected to a vigorous criticism (in the French edition of his book on Socialismo e la filosofia),[74] my interpretation of the Marxian theory of value.[75] Labriola has been impelled to this also from a wish to prevent my opinions from appearing, 'to the reader's eyes,' as a supplement, approved by him, of his own personal ones. And though I do not think that 'to the reader's eyes' (I will however add intelligent readers), this would be possible, since, I have always carefully indicated the points, and they are neither few nor unimportant, where we disagree: yet being convinced that clearness is never superfluous, I welcome his intention to make it still plainer that I am not he, and that he thinks with his mind whilst I think with mine.
Labriola rejects entirely the method adopted by me, which he describes variously as scholastic, metaphysical, metaphorical, abstract, formal logic. When I take pains to point out the differences between homo œconomicus and man, moral or immoral, between personal interest and egoism,[76] he shrugs his shoulders, he does not refuse a certain indulgence to this traditional scholasticism, and compares me to the man in the street who speaks of the rising or setting of the sun, or of shining light and warm heat. When I firmly maintain the theoretical necessity for a general economics in addition to the heterogeneous considerations of sociological economics, he taxes me with creating, in addition to all the visible and tangible animals, an animal as such. And he charges me, moreover, with wishing to attack history, comparative philology and physiology in order to substitute for all these the plain Logic of Port Royal, so that instead of studying examples of epigenesis which have actually occurred, such as the transitions from invertebrates to vertebrates, from primitive communism to private property in land, from undifferentiated roots to the systematic differentiation of nouns and verbs in the Ariosemitic group, it might suffice to register these facts in concepts passing from the more general to the more particular, in the series A a1 a2 a3 etc.
But I hardly know how to defend myself seriously from such accusations, because it obliges me to repeat what is too obvious, i.e., that to make concepts does not mean to create entities; that to employ metaphors (and language is all metaphor), does not mean to believe mythology; that to construct experiences in thought, and scientific abstractions, does not mean to substitute either one or the other for concrete reality; that to make use, when needful, of formal logic, does not mean to ignore fact, growth, history. When Marx expounds historical facts I know no way of approaching him except that of historical criticism, and when he defines concepts and formulates laws, I can only proceed to recognise the content of his concepts, and to test the correctness of his inferences and deductions. Thus I have followed this second method in studying his theory of value. If Labriola knows another and better one, let him state it. But what could this other one possibly be? Real logic? In that case let us boldly re-establish Hegel, it will be the lesser evil, at least we shall understand one another. Or a still worse alternative, what monstrous empirical-dialectic or evolutionist method may it be, which confuses together and abuses two distinct procedures, and lends itself so readily to the lovers of prophecy? Or is it merely a question of new phraseology by which we shall go on humbly working, more or less well, with the old methods, whilst detesting the old words? Or again, is this dislike for formal logic nothing but a convenient pretext for dispensing with any vindication of the concepts which are employed?