2

Toward a History of Social Thought

As human beings, we all have some conception of ourselves and what we are about. Our choice, therefore, is whether we want to accept one view of reality as true (and reject all others as false), or whether we want to critically examine our own view in the light of competing views and decide for ourselves which is closest to the truth.

We may, if we wish, simply accept as true what we are told by our parents, peer groups, or churches, or by George Bush and the Reader's Digest, or even by the Communist Party, USA, and let it go at that. Although this may provide a sense of intellectual and emotional security, this is largely illusory for it is obtained by wearing intellectual blinders.

A more fruitful option, I suggest, is to try to understand what these different "blind men" are telling us and to take from each of their views what we can use to develop our own conception of the truth. While this latter course may have its risks in that it leads through a confusion from which we may never emerge, it also has its rewards. It gives us the basis for better understanding of our fellow human beings and for a more secure understanding of ourselves. Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. Although this may be extreme, it is true that we will lead fuller and richer lives through a critical examination of our varied options.

In pursuing this option, our tendency is to turn to science. If we are confused about the nature of galaxies, photosynthesis, or the love life of Guatamalan tree frogs, we can turn to discussions of these things by scientists with fair confidence of obtaining unbiased answers to our questions. This is not the case, however, with the social sciences. If we ask social scientists about human societies, we will end up right back with the blind men—functionalists, structuralists, symbolic interactionists, conflict theorists, ethnomethodologists, supply-side economists, Keynesians—all with differing ideas about the nature of human society and the significance of human social life. And then, of course, there are the Marxists who keep talking about class struggle.

Why don't social scientists get their act together and provide us with answers comparable to those of the natural sciences,? To answer this question, we must review the nature and historical development of social science in relationship to the changing structure of society. We shall then be in a better position to evaluate the different perspectives of the social science.

2.I. The Nature of Social Science

2.I.1. What Is Science?

The term, science, comes from the Latin word, scire, "to know." Science, then, is an attempt to understand reality. As such, science responds to a universal human need, for all people in all societies have some understanding of reality. But when we think of science we think of much more than this. The term science conjures up images of men in white coats surrounded by expensive equipment. Science is a source of unquestioned authority in our society, providing for modern Americans what priests and magicians provided for ancient Babylonians. Science not only cures our ills, devises new weapons, and sends men to the moon, science tells us the latest truths about far flung galaxies, sub-atomic particles, and the secrets of DNA. Science essentially defines reality for us. The hegemony of science is so complete that even fundamentalist Christians appeal to science for validation of their views of "scientific creationism."

What is it that gives science its tremendous power and authority in our society? To answer this question, we must look at science as an institution. We must examine both the institutional framework within which scientific activity takes place and the sources of support for such activity.

Science, first of all, is a product of human labor, the social productive activity of scientists. Scientists, such as astronomers, marine biologists, or nuclear physicists, are people with expert knowledge of some particular aspect of reality who are paid to preserve, transmit, and extend that knowledge. Scientists work within scientific communities, groups of scientists who are linked together through reading and writing for scholarly journals and books, through membership in professional organizations, and through participation in scholarly meetings.

Now, since scientific communities devote themselves to the mental labor of scientific activity, they must be supported by society, or more precisely, by the ruling class. Such support comes primarily through salaries at Universities or research organizations, through research grants from the government or private foundations, and through consultant fees for businesses or government agencies. Through such support, the ruling class is able to control scientific activity.

Science is very much a modern phenomenon. Although incipient forms of science may be found among the ancient Sumerians, Egyptian, Greek, Chinese, Indian, Islamic and Native American civilizations, modern science is closely associated with the rise of the bourgeoisie in European civilization. The natural sciences give the bourgeoisie domination over nature; the social sciences provide domination over society.

Science, then, is a social activity. Rather than seeing science as some kind of disembodied intellectual activity, it is better seen as the social productive activity of a group of human beings that are members of society and are supported by society. Their position in society and their sources of support necessarily influences the nature of the scientific enterprise. Although this may seem less important in the physical sciences (although it certainly helps us understand why there is more research on the technology of fossil fuels and nuclear power, which are very profitable, than on solar power, which is less so), it is vital in the social sciences as will become clear in our discussion.

In examining the nature of social science, we need to look at the scientific method of multiple working hypotheses, at the concepts of scientific paradigms and scientific revolutions, at the conservative and radical traditions in social science, and at the class base of social science.

2.I.2. Multiple Working Hypotheses

In one of the classic essays on the scientific method, Chamberlain observed that there have been three phases of intellectual development, which he terms "the method of the ruling theory," "the method of the working hypothesis," and "the method of multiple working hypotheses" (1897:395).

In the method of the ruling theory, we assume that we already know the essential nature of the phenomena in question and simply need to explain or interpret specific features in terms of what we already know. Thus, for example, if our ruling theory is the world according to Reagan and the Reader's Digest and we wish to explain what is happening in Central America, we do so in terms of the drive of the Evil Communist Empire toward world domination and the attempts of the United States to preserve Freedom. With this ruling theory, we can explain the entirety of world politics and we can also explain opposing views as misguided (peaceniks), wrong (liberals), or evil (communists).

The problem with the ruling theory, however, is that it tends to filter evidence in a highly selective manner. Data tend to be accepted or rejected not on the basis of their reliability, independently established, but rather on how well they fit the theory. Worse, the method of the ruling theory tends to breed intolerance and argumentativeness. If our ruling theory is right, others must be wrong. The validity of our theory must therefore be proved through its acceptance by everyone else. Those who refuse to accept our ruling theory must be, at best, perverse, and at worst, evil.

The method of the working hypothesis, sometimes presented as the scientific method, is a decided improvement. With this method, we develop a working hypothesis to explain phenomena and seek evidence which will either support or disprove our hypothesis. Thus, we may develop a hypothesis that U.S. activities in Central America are designed to prevent a Communist takeover. We they look for evidence that will allow us to either accept or reject this hypothesis.

This method has a number of advantages. It focuses our attention on the matter at hand and encourages us to gather all the relevant data before accepting or rejecting our hypothesis. The working hypothesis, therefore, is a means to seek the truth, rather than the embodiment of truth. The method of the working hypothesis, then, tends to encourage a tentative outlook and the dispassionate weighing of evidence.

The method of the working hypothesis, however, also has its disadvantages. It tends to limit the field of our vision to the pros and cons of one hypothesis in one particular area. We thus tend to ignore alternate explanations and the broader implications of the hypothesis. Further, the working hypothesis may easily become a ruling theory as a hypothesis which seems to fit one set of data is gradually extended beyond its original scope.

Chamberlain proposes the method of multiple working hypotheses as a corrective to the shortcomings of both the ruling theory and the working hypothesis. With this method, we attempt to develop all the hypotheses that can reasonably account for the phenomena in question and weigh all these hypotheses against the available data. Thus, to continue with our example, we examine simultaneously the hypotheses that U.S. involvement is to prevent a Communist takeover, that it is to protect business interests, that it is to prevent the Nicaraguans from determining their own destiny, that it is due simply to misunderstanding, and so on.

The advantages of the method of multiple working hypotheses include a broadening of the scope of inquiry and a systematic examination of alternative explanations. Further, through the use of multiple hypotheses, the risk of one evolving into a ruling theory is minimized.

An additional advantage of continual use of this method, according to Chamberlain, is that it leads to "the habit of complex thought," which

is contradistinguished from the linear order of thought which is necessarily cultivated in language and mathematics because their modes are lineal and successive. The procedure is complex and largely simultaneously complex. The mind appears to become possessed of the power of simultaneous vision from different points of view. The power of viewing phenomena analytically and synthetically at the same time appears to be gained. It is not altogether unlike the intellectual procedure in the study of a landscape. From every quarter of the broad area of the landscape there come into the mind myriads of lines of potential intelligence which are received and co-ordinated simultaneously, producing a complex impression which is recorded and studied directly in its complexity. If the landscape is to be delineated in language, in must be taken part by part in linear succession. (Chamberlain 1897:401)

Thus, looking again at the complex landscape of Central America, we must break the ruling theory of Reaganism down into its components which in turn must be analyzed through multiple working hypotheses. A central feature of Reagan's view, for example, is that the Sandinista government is totalitarian and expansionist. This view must be subjected to multiple working hypothesis. Are there indeed "totalitarian" features in Sandinista Nicaragua (and what do we mean, "totalitarian")? If so, are they the result of Russian influence, a reaction to U.S. threats, a response to contra attacks, or simply a fiction of Reagan's propaganda? Do the threats to neighboring governments come from fears of Sandinista (or Cuban, or Russian) invasion, or do these threats come from the poverty and oppression of their own people? More than this, additional lines of inquiry from other areas of the Central American landscape. What is the historic role of the U.S. in Central America? How is this related to U.S. activity in South Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia? Ultimately, we are forced to examine the nature of U.S. society itself, as well as the nature of the Soviet Union.

Chamberlain proposed the method of multiple working hypotheses as peculiarly well suited to the complex studies of the geologist, but clearly, the method is equally well suited to the complex studies of social scientists. It is also well suited to understanding the Human Adventure.

Growing up in the United States, we are likely to view our human adventures in the individualistic terms of capitalism. But if we grew up in the Soviet Union, we would be equally determined communists. If we were medieval English villagers, we see things through the theological views of Christianity, while if we were medieval Japanese villagers, we would be Buddhists.

Even within the United States, of course, there are a variety of options, ranging from the consumerism of Madison Avenue and the careerism of many business and professional schools to the evangelicalism of fundamentalist Christians or the political activism of leftists. We may treat each of these views as so many working hypotheses about how we should lead our lives and from them develop our own version of our individual human adventures.

An essential component of this process is our attempt to understand the larger Human Adventure within which our individual human adventures are embedded. Each of the blind men telling us how to lead our lives has a larger view about the nature of humanity and of the Human Adventure. Is humanity formed in the image of God, or a giant slug? Is human society a smoothly functioning organism, or simply a dung heap?

In attempting to make sense of the Human Adventure, then, we may employ the method of multiple working hypotheses and examine the different views set forth by social philosophers and social scientists as so many working hypotheses about the nature of the Human Adventure. Although each philosopher and scientist has a somewhat different view, it is possible to group these views into broad categories. When we do this, we find that there are a relatively limited number of fundamentally different views about the nature of the Human Adventure. These include the theological determinism of medieval Christianity and many contemporary Christians, the biological determinism of the Social Darwinists and contemporary sociobiologists, the secular scientism of the Enlightenment, the historical materialism of Marx, and the ideological determinism of much of contemporary social science. Our review of the history of social science, then, will focus on these views, how they developed, and how they are related to our changing modern society.

2.I.3. Scientific Paradigms and Scientific Revolutions

We generally think of the history of science as a process of growth in which scientists learn more and more and penetrate more deeply into the nature of exterior reality. While this has certainly occurred, the actual history of science is more complex. As T. S. Kuhn has pointed out, the history of science has been marked by periods of revolution as well as normal evolutionary development (1962). According to Kuhn, normal science takes place within a scientific paradigm, which may be thought of as a theoretical framework of assumptions about the nature of reality, of concepts for analyzing reality, of model solutions to problems, and of ideas about what constitutes proper scientific questions. But as scientists accumulate more and more data, anomalous facts begin to appear which do not conform to established assumptions. This begins a period of extraordinary science, when fundamental assumptions about the nature of reality are questions. This period lasts until a new paradigm, that can account for the new facts, is found and accepted by the scientific community. This is the process of scientific revolution, and the history of science, according to Kuhn, can be seen as a history of scientific revolution, with newer and better paradigms replacing old and no longer useful ones.

The Copernican Revolution in astronomy is a good example. During the Middle Ages, astronomers were able to accumulate, within the geocentric Ptolemaic view of the universe, considerable data about the motion of planets and stars and were able to make fairly reliable predictions about astronomical events. But as their observations improved, certain facts appears which were hard to account for within the Ptolemaic view. The planet Mars, for example, appears to move backwards against the backdrop of the fixed stars at certain periods. Although this could be explained by postulating additional assumptions, for example, that Mars was on a sphere that was located on a larger sphere rotating about the earth, but such assumptions made the basic paradigm unduly cumbersome. Then Copernicus proposed a heliocentric view, that the sun, not the Earth, was the center of the universe, and the planets, including Earth, revolved about the sun. In this view, the apparent backward motion of the planet Mars is simply to the fact that Earth overtakes Mars in its more rapid motion about the sun. The new Copernican paradigm is thus superior from a scientific standpoint in that it accounts for the observed data in a more parsimonious manner.

The revolutionary change from one paradigm to another, however, is not accomplished smoothly, and Kuhn notes several forms of resistance to the new paradigm.

First, there is a kind of intellectual inertia. Since the old paradigm which has proved its usefulness over generations, scientists are reluctant to abandon it for an unproven paradigm.

Second, there is resistance from within the scientific community itself. Astronomers who have devoted their careers to working within the Ptolemaic paradigm, for example, are unlikely to abandon their assumptions simply because Mars moves in a strange manner every now and then. For this reason, it is not until the old generation of astronomers dies off and is replaced by a younger generation that has grown up with the new paradigm that the process of scientific revolution is completed.

Third, social forces outside the scientific community may resist the new paradigm for reasons completely external to science. The history of Western science has been a history of struggle with the established authority of the Church. One can, of course, still believe in God and Christ even without believing the Earth is the center of the universe or that God created the world in 4004 B.C.. But once the Church has lent its authority to certain views of the universe, it defends these views through extra-scientific means.

In spite of these conservative barriers, science has developed by the force of its own inner logic, and we have seen, in both the physical and biological sciences, the progressive development of paradigms with greater explanatory power. In each of the physical and biological sciences, there is a modern paradigm that is generally accepted within the scientific community.

2.I.4. The Causes of the Paradigmatic Confusion in the Social Sciences

In the social sciences, however, this is not the case. There is no overarching paradigm that commands the allegiance of all social scientists. Rather, there are a number of competing paradigms within each of the social and behavioral sciences, no one of which enjoys hegemonic status. Although some say this is because the social sciences are less developed than the physical or biological sciences, or that social phenomena are too complex to allow the development of a single paradigm, there is another explanation for the paradigmatic confusion of contemporary social science.

This explanation lies in the nature of the subject matter of social science. Quite simply, there are powerful forces in society that resist being studied in a scientific manner. As Marx points out in the "Preface" to Capital:

In the domain of Political Economy, free scientific inquiry meets not merely the same enemies as in all other domains. The peculiar nature of the material it deals with, summons as foes into the field of battle the most violent, mean and malignant passions of the human breast, the Furies of private interest. The English Established Church, e.g., will more readily pardon an attack on 38 of its 39 articles than on 1/39 of its income. Now-a-days atheism itself is culpa levis, as compared with criticism of existing property relations. (Marx 1867:10)

The confusion in social science, in short, flows from the class nature of human society. As Lenski has pointed out, throughout the history of social science there has been a dialectical interplay between two traditions, conservative and radical (1966) . Theories in the conservative tradition tend to support the status quo and see it as natural, just, and unchangeable, while theories in the radical tradition tend to attack the status quo as unjust. One may see expressions of these traditions in both the Old and the New Testament, and in Greek, Hindu, and Chinese social thought, as well as in subsequent social thinking in both Western and Eastern civilizations.

The radical and conservative traditions are not hermetically sealed from each other. There has been a continuing dialogue, or ideological class struggle, between them, so that they interpenetrate and influence each other. Individual social scientists usually embody elements of both traditions in their thinking, but usually one or the other perspective predominates.

Although Lenski does not relate these traditions to social class, it is important to so so. The conservative tradition has been carried on by members, or representatives, of the ruling classes and serves the interests of the rich and powerful in society. The radical tradition, by contrast, serves the interests of the poor and oppressed. The conservative tradition, accordingly, has been dominant and represents the mainstream in the history of social thought.

Just as the ideas that exist within society at large are largely determined by the ruling class, so the ideas used by social scientists are ruling class ideas. Generally speaking, through most of history, social theorists have been members of the ruling class or at least supported by the ruling class. For this reason, social theory has tended to reflect the interests of the ruling classes. As Marx and Engels noted,

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas; i.e. the class, which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. (Marx and Engels 1846:39)

But the relationship between a social class and its literary and theoretical representatives is not a simple one. As Marx elaborates elsewhere,

The peculiar character of Social Democracy is epitomised in the fact that democratic-republican institutions are demanded not as a means of doing away with both the extremes, capital and wage labour, but of weakening their antagonism and transforming it into harmony. However different the means proposed for the attainment of this end may be, however much it may be trimmed with more or less revolutionary notions, the content remains the same. This content is the transformation of society in a democratic way, but within the bounds of the petty bourgeoisie. Only one must not form the narrow-minded notion that the petty bourgeoisie, on principle, wishes to enforce an egoistic class interest. Rather, it believes that the special conditions of its emancipation are the general conditions under which modern society can alone be saved and the class struggle avoided. Just as little must one imagine that the democratic representatives are all shopkeepers or enthusiastic champions of shopkeepers. According to their education and their individual position they may be separated from them as widely as heaven from earth. What makes them representatives of the petty bourgeoisie is the fact that in their minds they do not go beyond the limits which the latter do not go beyond in life, that they are consequently driven theoretically to the same tasks and solutions to which material interest and social position practically drive the latter. This is in general the relationship of the political and literary representatives of a class to the class they represent. (Marx 1852a:43-44)

Thus, the relationship between class and ideology, which at one level is quite simple and direct—ideology reflects the interests of the ruling class—becomes, on closer analysis, quite complex. One must consider, first of all, of course, the general hegemony that the ruling class exerts in all aspects of life. Secondly, one must consider the class position of social scientists and intellectuals in general. Historically, social theorists have tended to be members of the ruling class, for only members of the ruling class have enjoyed the leisure to indulge in systematic social theorizing. In the modern epoch, by contrast, many social scientists earn their livings as professional scientists and are, in this sense, workers. But they are elite workers, who enjoy relatively high salaries, secure jobs, and relatively privileged benefits and pensions, all of which makes them identify with the status quo. Third, teaching jobs and the sources of research support are controlled by the ruling class. All of this means that social scientists do not go beyond the limits imposed by the ruling bourgeoisie. Consequently, their theories objectively serve the interests of the ruling class, if not directly—by providing explicit legitimation for the status quo—then indirectly, by failing to challenge bourgeois rule. For these reasons, most social theory within bourgeois society is conservative and fails to provide fundamentally critical views of society.

There are powerful groups within society that do not want to be studied in a critical, scientific manner. If one wants to analyze the price of oil and the reasons for the dramatic increase in gasoline prices in the early '70s, for example, one needs to explore the hypothesis that the oil companies artificially created an oil shortage in order to drive prices up. To do this, one would have to examine the internal memoranda and account books of Exxon, Shell, Mobil Oil, and other oil companies, but even the CIA can't do this. Further, one of the largest funding sources for social scientific research, the Rockefeller Foundation, is itself controlled by the same people that run the oil companies. It is as if the sun did not want to be studied, and could prevent astronomers from even mentioning its existence. Under such conditions, a science of astronomy would be impossible. But it is under such conditions that social scientists work. Rather than wondering why there is such confusion in social science, we need to explain why social science has accomplished anything at all. How is a science of society possible?

To answer this question, we need to look at class struggle, for the emergence of social science is very largely a product of the complex class struggles of the modern epoch.

For our purposes, the complex class struggles of the modern epoch may be seen as passing through three phases. During the medieval phases of feudalism, the ruling class was the feudal nobility that owned the agricultural means of production (land) and lived by exploiting the serfs through rent and labor services. With the growth of commerce and urbanization, a new exploiting class began to emerge, the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie lived by commerce, exploiting both producers and consumers. The second phase of class struggle was characterized by struggles between the old feudal ruling class that sought to retain and extend its feudal privileges and the rising bourgeoisie, that had been an oppressed class under feudalism but was now contesting for state power. After the victory of the bourgeoisie in a series of bourgeois revolutions (the English Civil War and the American and French Revolutions), a new social order was built, capitalism, that served the interests of the new ruling class, the bourgeoisie. During the third phase, class struggles are primarily between the new ruling bourgeoisie, or capitalists, and the new oppressed class, the proletariat, or working class.

Modern social science developed within this framework of class struggle. The ruling paradigm during the feudal period was promulgated by the Church and saw the existing social order as an expression of the will of God. In its contest for state power, however, the rising bourgeoisie needed a new social science that would enable it to change society. This was found in the Enlightenment.

The ideological struggle between rulers and ruled, however, goes back to the dawn of recorded history, and can be seen clearly in both the Old and New Testaments.

2.II. The Prophets, Jesus, and Early Christianity

Perhaps the earliest clear expression of the radical tradition in social thought may be found in the prophets of the Old Testament, in writers such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, and Micah. The prophets lived during a period when Israel was torn by civil war and the common people were suffering from severe class oppression:

See how the faithful city
has become a harlot!
She once was full of justice;
righteousness used to dwell in her—
but now murderers!
Your silver has become dross,
your choice wine is diluted with water.
Your rulers are rebels,
companions of thieves;
they all love bribes
and chase after gifts.
They do not defend the cause of the fatherless;
the widow's case does not come before them.
Isaiah 1:21-23

The prophets spoke out forcefully against the injustice and oppression of the times. Underlying their critique of Hebrew society was a view of society and the universe as governed by moral law. was a view of the world as a moral universe. Men and women had been created in the image of God, and therefore deserved to be valued equally, and treated with justice. This moral imperative of justice for the poor and oppressed is the central organizing concept of the prophetic tradition. Consider the following:

Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob
and rulers of the house of Israel,
Who abhor justice
and pervert all equity,
Who build Zion with blood
and Jerusalem with wrong.
Its heads give judgment for a bribe,
its priests teach for hire,
its prophets divine for money;
yet they lean upon the Lord and say,
"Is not the Lord in the midst of us?
No evil shall come upon us."
Therefore because of you
Zion shall be plowed as a field;
Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins,
and the temple hill a wooded thicket.
Micah 3:9-12

We see here a clear statement of the operation of moral law. Because the rulers do not recognize God's moral law, Zion shall be destroyed.

Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbor's service without wages, and giveth him not for his work;
That saith, I will build me a wide house and large chambers, and cutteth him out windows; and it is cieled with cedar, and painted with vermilion.
Shalt thou reign, because thou closest thyself in cedar? did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgement and justice, and then it was well with him?
He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know me? saith the Lord.
But thine eyes and thine heart are not but for thy covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it....
I spake unto thee in thy prosperity; but thou saidst, I will not hear. This hath been thy manner from thy youth, that thou obeyest not my voice.
The wind shall eat up all thy pastors, and thy lovers shall go into captivity: surely then shalt thou be ashamed and confounded for all thy wickedness.
Jeremiah 22:13-22

Here again, the operation of moral law is the same. Since people do not listen to the word of God, they shall come to an unhappy end. Prophecy, here, is not simply a Nostradamus-like prediction that a certain thing will happen at a certain time, for example that the world will come to an end at a particular time. Prophecy instead is a statement of the operation of moral law, that there will be certain consequences for forsaking the will of God.

Jesus was heir to this prophetic tradition. He began his ministry by quoting the words of the prophet Isaiah:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has chosen me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free the oppressed
and announce the acceptable year of the Lord.
Luke 4:18-19

The only "Good News" for the poor and oppressed is that they will freed from their poverty and oppression. But what is good news for the poor will seem like bad news for the rich, for they will no longer be able to live by oppressing others.

In the view of Jesus and the early Christians, there was a fundamental opposition between wealth and justice. This is seen clearly in the response of Jesus to a rich ruler who sought eternal life:

Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.… How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God. Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. (Luke 18:22-25)

The spread of early Christianity shook the foundations of the decaying Roman Empire. But when Christianity became the state religion under the Emperor Constantine it was transformed from a radical critique of society into a mainstream defense of the status quo.

2.III. The Rise of Social Science

Modern social science is a product of the Enlightenment of the 18th Century, a period of struggle against Church dogma and popular superstition. The new scientific attitude which had developed during the scientific revolution of the 17th century was perhaps the major weapon in this struggle. This earlier revolution, led by such men as Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Roger Bacon, Rene Descartes, and Galileo Galilei, involved a "radical change in educated common sense about the world", a change "from the notion of a living cosmos of earlier times to that of a dead universe:"

The main target of attack by the revolutionaries was the traditional higher education that was called Scholastic. Scholasticism assumed a living world, created and guided by God quite simply for man's benefit, and its study was largely accomplished by citing authorities, either philosophical or scriptural. The function of this knowledge was to rationalize sense experience in harmony with revealed religion. . . . Thus, in 1600 an educated man knew that the Earth was in the center of the cosmos, the seat of change, decay, and Christian redemption, while above it circled the planets and stars, themselves pure and unchanging but moved by some sort of intelligent or divine spirits and also signalling and influencing human events by their locations and aspects. One hundred years later, his equally Christian descendant knew (unless he lived in a church-controlled Catholic country) that the Earth was but one of the planets moving through unimaginable distances in empty space and that God could still operate. Similarly, the earlier man, as a reasonable person, would accept the overwhelming evidence for the working of enchantments and the prevalence of witches; while the latter one, with equal certainty, would dismiss all these stories as the effects of charlatanry, in the one case, and torture, in the other....
In spite of their difference in style and contribution, these three prophets shared a common commitment about the natural world and its study. Nature itself was seen by them as devoid of spiritual and human properties. There could be no dialogue with it, whether using mystical illumination or inspired authority. Rather, it had to be investigated soberly and impersonally, using sense experience and reason. Strange and prodigious phenomena, such as earthquakes, wonder cures, and monstrous births, which had been important subjects of speculation over the ages, were seen to be of less significance than regular, repeatable observations. Care and self-discipline were necessary in observation as well as theorizing, and cooperative work was important for the steady accumulation and testing of results.
The goals of inquiry still retained an influence from magic in that the traditional philosopher's ideal of contemplative wisdom was replaced by that of domination over nature for human benefit. But the loss of belief in magical powers entailed changes in methods and also in responsibilities. In the absence of potent enchantments and elixirs, knowledge of nature was either beneficial when applied to marginal improvements of industry and medicine or was innocent. The moral optimism of modern European science was thus built into its foundations and became unquestioned common sense, until the hour when atomic bombs were dropped on the civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Ravetz 1983:369-370)

The culmination of this revolution was found in the work of Isaac Newton, which in turn inspired philosophers such as Voltaire to apply the new scientific attitude to human society.

The central organizing idea of the Enlightenment was progress: human society was capable of improvement. Subsumed in the idea of progress were the ideas that human society was a product of human activity rather than God's will, that there were natural laws of society, just as of nature, that these laws were discoverable by scientific inquiry, and that by understanding these laws, men could build a better society, more accord with reason rather than superstition and dogma. Humanity, in short, had progressed in the past and would continue to do so in the future, provided men were free to apply their reason to human affairs.

Another important Enlightenment idea was an egalitarian conception similar to the modern culture concept. People come into the world, to use John Locke's formulation, as "blank slates" upon which experience writes its messages.

Reason thus became the yardstick by which existing society was measured, and found wanting. The arbitrary authority of kings, the privileges of the nobility, and the superstitions spread by the priests were subjected to critical scrutiny and found unsuitable for a society of free men who wished to live according to the dictates of reason and natural law. The social science of the Enlightenment, in short, served as an ideological weapon of the rising bourgeoisie which desired to be free from the restrictions of feudalism.

The Enlightenment thus provided a legitimizing ideology for both the American Revolution of 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789. The American Declaration of Independence clearly shows the influence of the Enlightenment:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its power in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. (as quoted in Garraty 1979:805)

Similarly, the French Revolution was carried out under the proud slogan of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." In both cases the result was similar: the destruction of feudalism and the establishment of a new order more suited to the bourgeoisie in which the only inequalities were the inequalities of wealth.

The social theory of the Enlightenment saw society as a product of human activity, and therefore changeable by human activity, and saw history in terms of progress. All of this legitimated the efforts of the bourgeoisie to build a new society according to its own interests, which were seen as the interests of humanity in general.

Through the scientific revolution of the 17th century, the bourgeoisie gained dominion over nature. Through the social theory of the Enlightenment and the political revolutions of the 18th century, the bourgeoisie gained dominion over humanity. The society built by the bourgeoisie was modern bourgeois society, capitalism.

The Enlightenment, then, was based on the ideas that society is a product of human activity and people are products of society, and on the positive values of equality, human rights, progress, and reason. Such ideas were profoundly corrosive of the social order of feudalism. They were also corrosive of the inequalities and irrationalities of capitalism. For this reason, the social thought of the Enlightenment had to be replaced with something more supportive of capitalism. This something was found in Social Darwinism and Racial Determinism.

2.IV. Social Darwinism and Racial Determinism

Once the bourgeoisie attained state power, it no longer needed a critical, materialist social science, and bourgeois social theory became conservative. The two dominant bourgeois social theories after the French Revolution were racial determinism and Social Darwinism, both of which legitimated the new status quo, but in different ways.

In contrast to the 18th century belief in human equality, the 19th century developed the idea of human inequality. Differences between peoples and between individuals were not simply the result of education, as the 18th century had assumed, but reflected innate, biological differences. With the exception of Marxism, social theory in the 19th century approved of inequality and saw it as rooted in nature as well as culture. The most important theories of inequality were Social Darwinism and racial determinism.

The impact of Darwin on the social science of the 19th and 20th centuries was comparable to that of Newton on the social science of the 18th century. Darwin's idea that species evolved through a "struggle for survival" in which the "fittest" survived and developed the race seemed to justify economic competition of capitalism. The most influential proponent of Social Darwinism was Herbert Spencer. As Harris notes, Spencer was

overtly dedicated to the defense of private property and free enterprise, warning of the biocultural disasters that will befall mankind if government is permitted to intercede on behalf of the poor.… He was opposed to free public schools, libraries, and hospitals, compulsory sanitation; the licensing of doctors and nurses; compulsory smallpox vaccination; "poor laws" and public welfare system of all sorts. He deemed such manifestations of state planning to be against the laws of nature and predicted that they would increase the suffering of the weak and the underprivileged. (Harris 1968:125-126)

It should be noted that Spencer and Social Darwinism actually predates Darwin, and that Darwin himself drew upon social scientific models, especially the Malthusian theory of population, in developing the theory of natural selection. Harris goes so far as to suggest that Darwin's evolutionary theory should properly be called "Biological Spencerism" (Harris 1968:122-129).

The belief in the superiority of the white race was an important component of Social Darwinism and nearly all 19th century social thought (with the exception of Marxism). Perhaps the most influential theory of racial determinism was that of the French aristocrat, Count Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882). Gobineau advanced the theory that races vary in their mental abilities and moral character and that the rise and fall of civilizations is to be explained in racial terms (1853). Civilizations rise when superior races, especially the Aryan (white, north European) race, conquer inferior ones; civilizations fall when racial purity is lost through race mixture and interbreeding. Gobineau's ideas reflected the 19th century stress on racial inequality and were influential both in Nazi Germany and in legislation imposing immigration quotas in the United States. Although such ideas continue to be influential in some sectors of society, they have been thoroughly discredited by the scientific research of the 20th century.

Bourgeois social thought in the 19th century, then, transformed the radical paradigm of the 18th century Enlightenment into the conservative paradigms of Social Darwinism and Racial Determinism. This was accomplished by changing certain of the fundamental assumptions made by Enlightenment thinkers. It was no longer assumed that people were equal and the differences between people are products of social conditions. Rather, people were biologically unequal: ruling classes and ruling races were biologically superior, and that was why they ruled. Only the strong were to enjoy liberty, the weak had no rights. Human solidarity was replaced by an individual struggle for survival in which only the fittest could survive and enjoy life. Distasteful though this may seem, it was the law of nature and the law of God. Social thought, in short, became apologetic for the bourgeois status quo.

2.V. Marxism

The new social orders which emerged from the historic revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however, did not live up to their promise. The demand for liberty, equality, and fraternity was realized only for the rich; for the majority of society, there was toil, poverty, ignorance, and oppression. Why was this? This was a question that engaged many thinkers of the nineteenth century. The most persuasive answer was that provided by Karl Marx.

Marx began as a philosopher, attempting to understand the ideas and ideals of the Enlightenment thinkers and, in Germany, of the philosopher Hegel. But he soon came to realize that the problems of society did not flow from philosophy but rather economics. The problem was not simply that people were thinking wrong thoughts, but rather that they were enmeshed in economic relations that condemned them to poverty, ignorance, and oppression. To free humanity from its oppression, and to enable all individuals to develop their human potentials, it was necessary to understand these economic relations, and change them. "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various way," Marx wrote, "the point, however, is to change it."

In the 1840s Marx began his study of political economy, critically examining the works of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, the utopian socialists, the Chartists in an attempt to understand the economic basis for human oppression. As a result of this study, he developed what is known as the materialist conception of history. As Marx himself describes this process,

My investigation led to the result that legal relations as well as forms of state are to be grasped neither from themselves nor from the so-called general development of the human mind, but rather have their roots in the material conditions of life, the sum total of which Hegel, following the example of the Englishmen and Frenchmen of the eighteenth century, combines under the name of "civil society," that, however, the anatomy of civil society is to be sought in political economy. The investigation of the latter, which I began in Paris, I continued in Brussels, whither I had emigrated in consequence of an expulsion order of M. Guizot. The general result at which I arrived and which, once won, served as a guiding thread for my studies, can be briefly formulated as follows: In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage in the development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. (Marx 1859:4)

Humanity has progressed from a lower to a higher existence—in this Marx agreed with the Enlightenment thinkers. But the engine of progress was not simply human reason but rather two forces: the progressive development of humanity's forces of social production and class struggle.

The forces of social production are the tools, technology, knowledge, and skills used to produce the goods necessary to satisfy human needs. These have become increasingly powerful and sophisticated, from the digging sticks, clubs, and spears of the earliest hunters and gatherers to the more sophisticated techniques of agriculture, the plow, draft animals, irrigation, architecture, wind and water power, and, in the modern period, with the application of science to industry, machines, the steam engine, railroads, and the other powerful productive instruments of the modern epoch. (Marx wrote before the invention of automobiles, airplanes, radio and TV, and computers, but these, of course, are merely extensions of this basic principle of human development, the progressive development of the forces of social production.)

This progressive development of social production led to an increase in the total wealth available to society, what is known as the social product, or the totality of goods and services produced by a particular society. But this wealth was not equally distributed. Indeed, those that actually produced the wealth through their own labor did not enjoy the fruits of their labor. This was a result of the division of society into opposing classes, rulers and ruled. The ruling class lived by appropriating the surplus product of the direct producers, over whom they ruled. Between these two classes, the rulers and the direct producers, there was a class struggle. As Marx and Engels described it in the Communist Manifesto:

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.
The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.
Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has simplified the class antagonisms: Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat. (Marx and Engels 1848:2-3)

The development of humanity, then, can be briefly described in terms of the interrelationship between these two processes, the progressive development of the forces of social production and class struggle.

It should be stressed that the Marxian conception of class, and of class struggle, is quite different from that of bourgeois social thought. According to the mainstream tradition in social science, inequality is viewed in terms of stratification: society is divided into lower, middle, and upper "classes," with only quantitative differences between them. The upper classes have more wealth, power, and prestige than the lower.

Now, this view of inequality has some merit, and does describe some aspects of inequality fairly well. We all know workers who are lazy, and have heard stories about lazy slaves. We are told how hard doctors and lawyers work. Every homeless person can tell stories about poor choices or bad luck. In our conventional thinking, which is also the view of bourgeois social science, people are placed on the structure of inequality based upon their own history of work (industrious or lazy), choice (wise or foolish), and luck (good or bad), but one person's good fortune is not related to any other persons poor fortune. In short, the class system is benign.

From a Marxist perspective, however, these bourgeois views only describe the surface of social life. Underlying these superficial aspects of human social behavior there is an objective class structure which is independent of the subjective feelings and beliefs of the people themselves. However complex systems of inequality may become, they are fundamentally two-class systems in which each class is dialectically defined in terms of the other. You cannot be a ruler unless you have other people over whom you rule. You cannot be a master unless you have slaves. If you are a slave, this means someone else is your master. You cannot be a noble unless you have peasants who labor for you. If you are a landlord, your ownership of land means nothing unless there are other people who pay you rent. If you are a capitalist, you must employ workers. You cannot have a society made up entirely of capitalists, any more than you can have a society of all nobles, and no peasants, of all masters, and no slaves, of all chiefs, and no Indians. One's class position, in short, defines a social relationship. For Marx, this social relationship was fundamentally one between those who own the means of production,and are thereby able to control the labor of others, and those who do not own the means of production, and therefore must labor for those who do. The relationship, in short, is an exploitative one.

People do not submit freely to exploitation. They resist, and must be coerced. This is the basis of class struggle. Slaves attempt to flee, and conspire to overthrow their masters. Peasants rebel. Workers go on strike for higher pay and better working conditions. This class struggle between rulers and ruled is, for Marx, the motive force of progressive social change.

The forms of class struggle, of course, are intimately tied to the level of development of the forces of production. The intertwining of these two factors accounts for the changes which are seen in historical development.

In the earliest period, that of hunting and gathering, the forces of production were weakly developed so that everyone had to work at food production tasks and society was unable to produce a surplus. This, therefore, was a classless society, primitive communism.

After the development of agriculture, the productive system became more powerful, capable of producing a surplus over and above the immediate needs of the food producers. This opened the way for the development of class society, as some people developed techniques for living off the labor of others. These people became the earliest ruling class.

The first form of class society was the slave society of ancient Greece and Rome, where the ruling class of masters lived off the product of slave labor. The contradictions of slave society led ultimately to its downfall and the revolutionary reconstitution of society on a new basis.

This new society was feudalism which was created by the new class of warriors that came to power after the collapse of the Roman Empire. The warriors became the new ruling class of nobles and landowners, while the direct producers were peasants, tied to the land, but not owning the it, and therefore forced to pay rent to the nobles.

As the economy developed with trade and commerce, a new class of merchants developed. The merchants were outsiders in feudalism, since they neither owned the land nor produced anything, but lived by buying and selling. They were oppressed by the landowning nobles, and, as their wealth and power increased, began to struggle against the restrictions of feudalism. The class struggles between the merchants, or bourgeoisie, and nobles were the underlying cause of many of the wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Ultimately, the merchants were able to overthrow feudalism in a series of bourgeois revolutions: the English Civil War of 1640-1660, the American War of Independence of 1776, and the French Revolution of 1789.

As they gained state power, the bourgeoisie built a new society to their own liking—capitalism. The bourgeoisie became capitalists who owned the means of production— the factories of industrial society. The peasants had been driven from the land became workers, who did not own any productive property and were therefore economically compelled to sell their labor power to the capitalists and work in the factories for wages.

For Marx, then, modern society, capitalism, was not a reflection of human nature but rather the latest form of class rule. It was a social order established by the capitalist class after the revolutionary overthrow of feudalism. Although Marx criticized the exploitation, oppression, and suffering of capitalism, he also regarded it as a progressive step forward in the development of humanity, since it was a necessary precursor of socialism. According to Marx and Engels,

The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces that have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature's forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalization of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground. What earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labor? (Marx and Engels 1848:10)

At the same time they were developing the engines of production, the capitalists were also creating the conditions which would lead to their own overthrow. "What the bourgeoisie produces above all, wrote Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto, are its own gravediggers, the proletariat." By tearing the direct producers, the peasants and craftsmen, free from their feudal relationships, by driving them out of what Marx called "the idiocy of rural life" and into the cities, by organizing them into ever larger productive units, the bourgeoisie were creating a new class, the proletariat. As this new class became aware of itself as a class, and organized as a class, it would overthrow the bourgeoisie just as the bourgeoisie had overthrown the feudal nobility.

Just as the bourgeoisie had created a new social order—capitalism—that served its interest, so the proletariat would create a new social order to serve its interest. This new order would be socialism. This new socialist system would be a classless society in which the means of production would be socially owned and democratically controlled to serve the needs of society, not the private profit of the capitalists.

In this way, Marx transformed the utopianism of the early socialists, who merely devised blueprints of an ideal society without specifying how this new society would be built, into scientific socialism. Through a scientific analysis of capitalism, Marx showed how the contradictions of capitalism would lead to its negation and specified the agent—the working class—which would build socialism. The entire life-work of Marx was devoted to developing the class consciousness of the working class and to providing them with a social science that would enable the working class to realize its historic mission.

It was not mere blind faith, or wishful thinking, that led Marx to attribute this role to the working class, however. It was, rather, the actual class situation of the proletariat.

If socialist writers attribute this world-historical role to the proletariat, this is by no means, as critical criticism assures us, because they regard the proletarians as gods. On the contrary. Since the fully formed proletariat represents, practically speaking, the completed abstraction from everything human, even from the appearance of being human; since all the living conditions of contemporary society have reached the acme of inhumanity in the living conditions of the proletariat; since in the proletariat man has lost himself, although at the same time he has both acquired a theoretical consciousness of this loss and has been directly forced into indignation against this inhumanity by virtue of an inexorable, utterly unembellishable, absolute imperious need, that practical expression of necessity—because of all this the proletariat itself can and must liberate itself. But it cannot liberate itself without destroying its own living conditions. It cannot do so without destroying all the inhuman living conditions of contemporary society which are concentrated in its own situation. Not in vain does it go through the harsh but hardening school of labour. It is not a matter of what this or that proletarian or even the proletariat as a whole pictures at present as its goal. It is a matter of what the proletariat is in actuality and what, in accordance with this being, it will historically be compelled to do. Its goal and its historical action are prefigured in the most clear and inecluctable way in its own life-situation as well as in the whole organization of contemporary bourgeois society. There is no need to harp on the fact that a large part of the English and French proletariat is already conscious of its historic task as is continually working to bring this consciousness to full clarity. (Marx and Engels 1845:134-135)

Unlike the bourgeoisie, which is defined by its wealth, the proletariat is defined by its oppression, by its "abstraction from all that is human." The bourgeoisie, further was a minority within feudal society. The working class, by contrast, constitutes the majority of modern society. This majority, therefore, cannot liberate itself "without destroying all the inhuman living conditions of contemporary society which are concentrated in its own situation."

Further, the nature of the industrial production of the proletariat stood in contrast to the rural agrarian production of the peasantry. An oppressed peasantry may be quite revolutionary. But a peasant revolution merely seeks the redistribution of individual property rights, as each peasant family simply desires its own land to carry own its own production without oppression. This petty agrarian production, however, carries the seeds for the re-emergence of class relations as the peasantry becomes differentiated into rich and poor peasants, and ultimately into landlords and tenants. A working class revolution, by contrast, seeks to abolish private property and create collective ownership of the means of industrial production since industrial production is necessarily social and collective. It makes no sense for workers to claim segments of an assembly line as their private property. The demand for social ownership of the means of production, therefore, flows from the nature of industrial production itself.

Finally, the tremendous productivity of industrial production has, for the first time in history, abolished the scarcity basis of class rule. Class rule itself only emerged after the development of the forces of production had reached a certain level. In the phase of hunting and gathering society, everyone had to work in order for society to survive. The productive system was incapable of supporting an unproductive class. With the development of agriculture, society was capable of producing a surplus, and the ruling class lived by appropriating this surplus. Throughout the history of civilization, society was capable of supporting some of its members in leisure and affluence. But the affluence and leisure of this minority had to be paid for by the poverty and oppression of the majority. Industrial production, for the first time in history, was capable of producing enough for everyone to live in affluence without having to exploit others. The scarcity basis of class rule is thereby abolished.

Thus, during the earliest phase of human society, that of primitive communism, equality was an equality of poverty. During the middle phases of human society, the wealth of the minority was purchased by the poverty of the majority. The future society, socialism, equality will be an equality of affluence. The communism of our descendants, thus, will be a return to the communism of our ancestors, but on a higher plane, a plane of affluence rather than of poverty.

But this new society would not emerge without struggle. Contrary to what his critics claim, Marx did not believe that a working class revolution would solve all of humanity's problems, immediately and automatically. Instead, Marx criticized those who would "substitute the catchword of revolution for revolutionary development":

While we say to the workers: You have 15, 20 or 50 years of civil wars and international conflicts to go through, not just in order to change prevailing conditions but also to change yourselves and to qualify for political control, you say, on the contrary: 'We must immediately come to power, or we can go to sleep.' (Marx 1852c:105)

For Marx, the revolution was not an event but a process occurring over a long historical period during which the proletariat would gain the political maturity to rule as a class. During this time, the organization of the proletariat would take the form of a class dictatorship:

Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. (Marx 1875:538)

This concept, the dictatorship of the proletariat, has perhaps been more systematically misunderstood than any of Marx's ideas, and many well meaning socialists have suggested that it be dropped from the Marxist lexicon. Marx himself, however, regarded it as among his most important contributions to the science of socialism:

And now as to myself, no credit is due to me for discovering the existence of classes in modern society or the struggle between them. Long before me bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this class struggle and bourgeois economists the economic anatomy of the classes. What I did that was new was to prove: 1) that the existence of classes is only bound up with particular historical phases in the development of production, 2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat, 3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society. (Marx 1852b:104)

Some words of clarification are in order. The term dictatorship of the proletariat refers to the class content of the state during the transitional period, not necessarily its form. Athenean democracy, like the later Jeffersonian democracy, was a dictatorship of the slavocracy. It was democratic for the slaveowners, not for the slaves. Similarly with our own bourgeois democracy, which is democratic in form, but protects the class interests of the capitalists in a quite dictatorial fashion. After the revolution the bourgeoisie will want to restore their class privileges by whatever means necessary. The purpose of the dictatorship of the proletariat is to prevent the restoration of capitalism and protect the emerging socialist order. Whether this is done democratically or otherwise is of course a very important question, but it must be done.

Further, although the ultimate aim of the revolution would be to abolish inequality and establish a classless society, this could not be done overnight. Inequality and injustice would continue even after the revolution. For, as Marx explains.

What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally and intellectually, still stamped with the birth marks of the old society from whose womb it emerges.…
But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.
In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labour, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labour, has vanished; after labour has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly—only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banner: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs! (Marx 1875:531)

Marx's vision, it should be stressed, was not simply theorizing, but was based on his analysis of capitalism as a social order and of the actual revolutionary development in Marx's life. Marx grew to maturity during the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1789, when revolutionary change was very much on people's minds. In 1848, the year the Communist Manifesto was published, another wave of revolutions broke out throughout Europe, and these revolutions were increasingly taking on a proletarian character. In 1871, following the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian war, the workers of Paris rose up and established the Paris Commune, the first working class government in history. The Paris Commune was crushed, after three months, by the international bourgeoisie using the French and German armies and killing some thirty thousand communists. Marx and Engels were influential in the formation, in 1864 of the International Workingmen's Association which included representatives from England, France, and other leading European nations, as well as the United States.

The International was disbanded in 1871, but soon socialist parties were organized in most of the leading European nations. In 1889, Engels took part in the founding of the Second International, an association of socialist parties that were becoming increasingly powerful and electing their members to parliaments.

By the time of their deaths in 1883 and 1895, Marx and Engels could see the correctness of their theories being confirmed in the actual struggles of the working class in the leading European nations. The working class was becoming increasingly class conscious and powerful, socialist parties were becoming more respectable and successful.

But these very successes tended to blind the followers of Marx and Engels to important changes that were occurring within the capitalist system. It began to appear as though socialism could evolve gradually, through peaceful electoral methods, rather than through a working class revolution which would necessarily involve violence. It further appeared as though the nations that had led the world into capitalism—England, France, Holland, Germany—would also lead the world into socialism. All that was necessary was for the workers to elect their representatives to parliament, and use their political and economic power to wrest ever greater reforms from the capitalists. As Engels himself noted, "We, the 'revolutionists,' the 'overthrowers'—we are thriving far better on legal methods than on illegal means and overthrow" (Engels 1895:571).

But history, which Engels said turns everything upside down, had decreed otherwise. With the outbreak of the first world war in 1914, the representatives of the leading socialist parties in Germany, France, and England voted to support the war, to support their capitalists, and to send their workers off to kill each other. Only the Italian and U.S. socialist parties opposed the war. The outcome of the war was a socialist revolution, not in the leading capitalist nations of Europe, but in backward Russia. How was this possible?

The answer was provided by Lenin.

Lenin was born in Russia, a land ripe for revolution against the oppressiveness of Tsarist rule and in fact teeming with revolutionary ideas and practices. After his older brother was executed for attempting to assassinate the Tsar, Lenin promised that "we will follow a different path." Lenin studied Marxism, helped found the Russian Social Democratic Party, and became the leader of the Bolsheviks, the majority faction of the party. In his polemics with the social-democratic Mensheviks, Lenin creatively applied Marxism to the changed conditions of the early twentieth century.

Before proceeding, it should be noted that Lenin himself never developed "Leninism" in a systematic manner; his writings are all directed toward particular theoretical, practical, tactical, and organizational struggles. Marx stated quite flatly that he was not a "Marxist." Lenin was a Marxist, but never described himself as a "Leninist." The work of providing a systematic exposition of "Leninism" was accomplished by Stalin, whose Foundations of Leninism (1924) held a hegemonic position for decades. This is still a useful work that must be read and understood, but the Party's Truth, it isn't. It is quite likely, indeed, that much of what we think of as "Leninism" is not the product of Lenin at all, but rather Stalin. This does not, of course, mean that it should be rejected, merely that we need to sort these things out.

The first of Lenin's contributions was his defense of the teachings of Marx and Engels on the class nature of the state and the need for working class revolution against the revisionists who argued that a peaceful, democratic transition to socialism was possible. In State and Revolution, written in 1917 during the period between the February and October Revolutions in Russia, Lenin re-examined the writings of Marx and Engels to demonstrate that the state in capitalist society, however democratic it may appear, was in fact a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, that the workers could not simply "take over" the machinery of bourgeois rule but would rather have to forcefully transform it into an instrument for proletarian rule, and that this "dictatorship of the proletariat" was the essential mechanism for building socialism (Lenin 1917).

The second contribution of Lenin is his theory of imperialism, which accounts for the changes in capitalism that had occurred since Marx's time (Lenin 1916). When Marx was writing Capital, he based his analysis on England, which was the leading capitalist nation, and his analysis focused on competitive capitalism, which was dominant at that time. By Lenin's time, capitalism had matured into monopoly capitalism, dominated by large corporations and finance capital. In addition to exporting commodities, the leading capitalist nations were also exporting capital to their colonies. This export of capital gave them control over the resources and labor of the colonies. Thus capitalism had become transformed into an international system covering the entire world. Within this world imperialist system, there were kinds of nations, the imperialist nations and the oppressed nations. The capitalists of the imperialist nations of England, France, and later, Germany, were able to thereby exploit not only their own workers, but also the workers and peasants of the oppressed nations in the colonial world.

This transformation in the nature of capitalism necessarily led to a transformation in the revolutionary activity. It was no longer practical to talk of revolution occurring within each capitalist nation according to the degree of development of capitalism within that nation, as did the revisionists of the Second International. Rather, one had to work for an international revolution in which the entire imperialist system would undergo a revolutionary transformation into socialism. This revolution would not necessarily break out first in the imperialist nations where the capitalists were strongest, but in the oppressed nations, where the chain of world imperialism was weakest. And, in fact, the tide of revolutionary activity had shifted in the twentieth century to the oppressed nations: the Russian Revolution of 1905, the Mexican Revolution of 1910, the Chinese Revolution of 1911, the Persian Revolution of 1905-11 (Manfred 1974:I, 541-569). This was the changed reality which Lenin had to explain and to which Leninism had to adapt.

The third of Lenin's contributions was his development of the vanguard party. The shift in the locus of revolution necessitated a shift in revolutionary tactics. In the oppressed nations the working class was not the majority of the population. For this reason, the working class had to ally itself with other oppressed classes, specifically the peasants who formed the majority of the population in the oppressed nations. This worker-peasant alliance, symbolized by the hammer and sickle, became the basis for revolutionary activity in the oppressed nations.

Further, the oppressed nations lacked the institutions of parliamentary democracy and political freedoms which had emerged from the class struggles in the imperialist nations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This necessitated a different from of struggle than had developed within the imperialist nations themselves. In order to conduct class struggle under these conditions, the proletariat needed a vanguard party, of professional revolutionaries recruited from the most class conscious members of the working class and organized around the principle of democratic centralism (Lenin 1902). Within the party, decisions would be reached by open debate and democratic processes. Once these decisions were reached, however, they would be binding on all members. Strict discipline, and even secrecy, was necessary under the oppressive conditions of Tsarist rule. The vanguard party is thus the instrument through which the working class struggles against imperialism. It is not separate from the working class but rather is an organic part of the proletariat, organically tied to it and to the other organizations of working class struggles, such as the trade unions.

In the imperialist nations, by contrast the struggle of the working class becomes deflected by the development of an aristocracy of labor. The imperialists are able to use the superprofits gained by the oppression of their colonies to bribe a sector of the working class. This imperialist bribe becomes the material basis for the opportunism displayed by the social democratic parties of the Second International which are committed to reform rather than revolution. This is the source of the strength of the bourgeoisie within the imperialist nations.

Thus, Leninism sees capitalism, revolution, and socialism in global terms. The change from capitalism to socialism involves a global transition, not simply individual nations choosing capitalism or socialism. Two further concepts are essential in thinking about this global transition: the global crisis of capitalism and the world revolutionary process.

The global crisis of capitalism is manifest in inter-imperialist rivalries, the two World Wars, the Great Depression, and the rise of socialism. The world revolutionary process is unfolding along three lines: the emergence of socialism in the formerly oppressed nations such as the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba; continuing struggles for national liberation in the oppressed nations; and continuing working class struggles in the imperialist nations themselves.

With the victory of the Russian Revolution in 1917, Leninism became an international movement, and posed a real threat to imperialism. The international bourgeoisie countered this threat economically, politically, militarily, and ideologically. We shall discuss the economic, political, and military aspects of the struggle between capitalism and socialism in a later chapter. What needs to be considered at this point is the ideological class struggle, particularly the manner in which this was waged within social science.

2.VI. The Counterrevolution in Social Science

Within social science, the bourgeoisie countered the ideological threat of Marxism and Leninism in three ways. First, Marx was consistently misunderstood, in ways that can only be intentional. Second, social science was divided into separate disciplines (Economics, Political Science, Sociology, Psychology, Anthropology) each of which dealt only with a part of social reality and could therefore ignore crucial aspects of class struggle. Third, the anti-Marxist theoretical frameworks of bourgeois eclecticism were promulgated. These enabled social scientists to study social while ignoring the reality of class rule and class struggle. We shall examine each of these aspects of the bourgeois counterrevolution in social science.

2.VI.1. Intentional Misunderstandings of Marxism

Most scholars do not want to accept Marxism, for if they do so, they cannot in good conscience support the bourgeois status quo. Reasons must be found, therefore, for rejecting Marxism. This is the social psychological source of what Miranda has called "intentional misunderstandings"—misreadings of Marx whose purpose is to discredit his critique of capitalism. This procedure, in which excuses are sought to justify a position which has been arrived at for extra-scientific reasons, is diametrically opposed to that of science, but nevertheless has dominated scholarly discussions of Marx.

The mental processes underlying these intentional misunderstandings, of course, need not be conscious to operate effectively. Indeed, they may operate all the more effectively for being unconscious. For this reason, it is essential to deal with them openly and explicitly.

If one's purpose, then, is to reject Marxism, one may find ample criticisms by bourgeois scholars to justify such rejection. That such criticisms are based on misinterpretations of Marx's thought is, given this purpose, beside the point. But for those who seek the truth, it is very much to the point. It is important, therefore, to examine, however briefly, some of the major distortions of Marx's thought.

Thus, Marx is criticized as an economic determinist, and rejected as overly simplistic.