Karl Popper's Critique of Utopia/Large Scale Planning

Karl Popper’s Critique of Utopia/Large Scale Planning A paper presented at the Philosophy Research Seminar, held at the Department of Philosophy and Political Science, University of Canterbury, New Zealand. (28th April, 2012) By Oseni Taiwo Afisi Department of Philosophy, Lagos State University, Ojo, Lagos, Nigeria. Email: [email protected] Abstract Two rounds of arguments are here examined in Popper’s critique of Marxism. First, I note that Popper used the word ‘falsifiable in his philosophy of science and also in his criticism of Marxian historicism. The term falsification in this regard was meant to disparage the claim that Marxism was scientific. Marxism is not a scientific theory, following Popper, I maintain in this paper. In agreement with Popper, I will argue that Marxism is a pseudoscience, a position that gains support from arguments developed by Ernest Van Den Haag that Marxism was never based on the scientific truth-content of its theory. Second, from his criticisms of holism and of large scale planning or utopian social engineering Popper’s philosophy of politics emerged. In place of totalitarianism, which often comes from an increase in state power because of large scale planning, he emphasized individual freedom. In place of utopian social engineering he emphasized piecemeal social engineering. Introduction A discussion on the critique of Marxian historicism is one of the fundamental themes that constitute Karl Popper’s philosophy of social science, in particular his political philosophy. Popper’s thesis is centred on the effects of historicism that Marxism portends. His critique of Marxism was to reveal the philosophical presuppositions that underpinned all forms of totalitarianism. Two essentially related charges are central to Popper’s critique of Marxism. These are his critiques of historicism and holism. Regarding historicism, Popper criticised Marxism for its scientific claim of predicting an inevitable transition of capitalism to socialism using a vision of history or “an inexorable law of history”. Regarding holism, Popper criticised Marxism for its attempts to reconstruct or reform society in ‘wholes’. The result would be utopian social engineering/large scale social planning that may lead to totalitarianism. 1 My task in this paper is to discuss the development of liberalism in Popper’s political philosophy, and show how it emerged from his critiques of Marxian historicism and holistic/utopian social engineering/large scale social planning that characterises Marxism. Two rounds of arguments are examined in Popper’s critique of Marxism. First, I note that Popper used the word ‘falsifiable in his philosophy of science and also in his criticism of Marxian historicism. The term falsification in this regard was meant to disparage the claim that Marxism was scientific. Marxism is not a scientific theory, following Popper, I maintain in this paper. In agreement with Popper, I will argue that Marxism is a pseudoscience, a position that gains support from arguments developed by Ernest Van Den Haag that Marxism was never based on the scientific truth-content of its theory (Van Den Haag 1987: 26). Second, from his criticisms of holism and of large scale planning or utopian social engineering Popper’s philosophy of politics emerged. In place of totalitarianism, which often comes from an increase in state power because of large scale planning, he emphasized individual freedom. In place of utopian social engineering he emphasized piecemeal social engineering. Consequently, the concepts of individual freedom and piecemeal social engineering became the rallying themes, among others, of Popper’ philosophy of politics. However, both liberal concepts of Popper’s philosophy of politics are not focuses of discussion in this paper. Popper on Scientific Marxism Popper’s demarcation criterion which distinguishes science from pseudoscience sharply reveals that Marx’s claim to have made socialism scientific depletes the term ‘science’. If science is considered within the context of assumptions, principles and foundations of science through tested and proven methodologies, then Marxism can only be historicism. Since Marxism only places importance on the methodological principles regarding how to understand events of social progress within the process of historical developments, then it can only be pseudoscience in Popper’s understanding of that term. In the perspectives of Marxists, historical materialism connotes a scientific interpretation of the development of human history. Marx believed that society inevitably progresses from one stage to another, and that this historical transition is scientifically determined economic laws of motion. This scientifically determined law of motion is said to reveal what Marx predicted as the coming of a classless society which would emerge out of a socialist revolution resulting in the collapse of capitalist economies (Marx 1972: 171). 2 Clearly, Marxism was an acceptable scientific theory in the mid-19th century at the same time that Darwin’s theory of evolution became influential. The defence of the Darwinian evolutionary theory as scientific would certainly replicate the same defence of Marxism as a scientific theory. Common to both doctrines is the struggle to survive through natural processes. While Darwin’s theory draws inspiration from biological evolution and natural processes of life, Marxism draws inspiration from social transformation and natural historical interpretation. This is why Frederick Engels emphasized that “just as Darwin discovered the law of development of organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history” (Engels 1978, 162). So Marxism, at the time, was accepted as a scientific theory owing to the nature of its identification of the social evolutionary process which was analogous to the biological evolutionary process that Darwin discovered. This forms the nucleus of Marx’s scientific socialism. This is the historical inevitability of the coming of socialism and communism, and the eventual total collapse of capitalism that Marxism “scientifically” predicts. The perception that Marxism is science is one that Popper attacked in extreme measure. As mentioned earlier, Popper not only criticised the scientific status of Marxism, he also roundly challenged a number of other popular theories of his day, including those of Freud and Adler, and with qualifications of historicism on Plato. For Freud, Adler and Marx, in the first instance, the argument was about the scientific status of their theories. Regarding Plato and Marx, in the second instance, it was the historicist/holist elements of their theories that he criticised. Popper viewed as pseudo-science Marx’s scientific materialist interpretation of history. What makes good science in Popper’s view is the ability of a theory to be falsifiable. Popper thus confronted Marx with the single word ‘unfalsifiable’. The critique about Marx’s theory is that it was in fact potentially logically falsifiable because it was “refuted by events that occurred during the Russian Revolution” (Popper 1992: 43) but it became methodologically unfalsifiable because of the way that its proponents tried to defend it. Popper developed a distinction between scientific prediction and unconditional historical prediction or historical prophecy. The former is conditional because scientists can make determinate prediction such as under what conditions water will boil up to 100 degrees. The latter is unconditional because it involves people and society who could not be experimentally controlled due to the nature of humanity. This is also due to the fact of unattended consequences that trail human actions within the society. Actions such as, under what condition would a 3 people revolt against a government policy, cannot be known for certain. Human actions and society do not change unconditionally. What the argument above presupposes is that one can seek to control the conditions of a scientific experiment; hence the outcomes are conditional upon those controls. However, one cannot so readily control the conditions of social experiments or planning. This ultimately makes human actions and social change unconditional, unsuitable and less amenable to the control of conditions determining change. Although, some changes that do occur in human society can surely be said to result from certain conditions actually applying, just not those imposed by a social experimenter. This, therefore, implies that there is no theoretical justification for a prophecy of social change because such change cannot ultimately be conditioned scientifically. So, in order to demonstrate that Marxism is no science Popper successfully made out that Marxism traded wholly in unconditional historical prophecy. Of course, Marx’s prediction of future economic and political development is self-fulfilling when one considers the hope it impresses upon the mind of oppressed proletariats. No matter the personal hope and self-fulfilment such prediction gives to the individual, such prophesy does not seem suitable to pass muster as a scientific prediction. The very essence of scientific predictions of observable future phenomena is that they are theory based, conditional, explainable and justifiable. The prediction, for instance, using Newtonian celestial gravitational mechanics of future observations of the positions of planets can be explained from a heliocentric perspective against the background of the fixed stars. Certainly, it is by making such predictions

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