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Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism

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Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism Historical Materialism 19.4 (2011) 229–237 brill.nl/hima Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism Social Formation From a genetic [ genetisch] perspective, the development of ‘social formations’ refers, in A: at-tasakkul̇ al-igtimā̌ ʿī. – F: formation sociale. the first place, to progressive formation through G: Gesellschaftsformation. – R: obshestvennaya continuing attempts to secure basic needs formatsia. S: formación social. – C: shehui of existence (MECW 29, 264). Second, in xingtai 社会形态. association with the theory of succession of formations – wherein capitalism is eventually In historical materialism, ‘social formation’ is overthrown as the highest antagonistic form – a central category of the structure and devel- it refers to the societal emancipation of the opment of human societies. It serves to proletariat under communism (MECW 5, 81 ‘explain [. .] why and how societies change et sqq.). At the same time, social formation and transform themselves’ by bringing is the object of study of an historical science, together the ‘existence of social structure and as opposed to speculative historical philoso- its historicity, or in other words its internal phy. In historical studies, the term has, in dynamic of change’ (Hobsbawm 1998, 149). the sense of formative process, a subject and Yet Marx and Engels did not systematically operation-oriented relation ( Jaeck 1988, 27 develop the concept of social formation, either et sqq.). as a fundamental historical concept, or as a societal model. The various definitions found 1. The emergence of the Marxian concept throughout their works have evoked contra- of social formation was shaped by the conse- dictory interpretations in the Western-Marxist quences of the French Revolution and the and Marxist-Leninist traditions. emergence of industrial capitalism – in other The concept is used byMarx in order to words, the bourgeois-industrial ‘double revo- indicate the articulation [Gliederung] of the lution’ (Kossok 1989, 14). The development process of material reproduction of human of bourgeois society and the emergence of society (MECW 29, 264). In doing so, an new social demands of capital and labour analogy in terms of content and – in the total changed social and historical perspectives social and historical concretisation – also a (Bock/Plöse 1994, 13ff.). Society, culture and tension is established with regards to the con- history, in their complex interrelations, were cept of mode of production. It covers that problematised from contradictory perspectives. which is occasionally referred to as ‘historical Attempts to explain the structure and devel- formations’ (MECW 24, 351). Without fur- opment of society were articulated within ther specification, ‘social formation’ is used classical German philosophy (most notably in synonymously with ‘social form’ (MECW 28, Hegel), English political economy and French 42, 196), on the one hand, and ‘totality’ revolutionary history (Förster 1982; Förster (MECW 28, 37) on the other. Additionally, it 1983), and in those notions of progress of the refers to concrete social systems of distinct early socialists and communists that surpassed spatio-temporal extension. Finally, particu- the framework of bourgeois society (Grand- larly in the work of Engels, the term stands in jonc 1989). The origins of positivism in close relation to the base-superstructure dia- Auguste Comte testify of attempts towards an lectic (MEW 37, 489 et sqq.). intra-bourgeois [innerbürgerlich] justification © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011 DOI: 10.1163/156920611X606421 230 W. Küttler / Historical Materialism 19.4 (2011) 229–237 of ideas of development [Entwicklungsvorstel- In Wage Labour, he goes one step further: The lungen] with a scientistic social analysis. ‘social relations of production [. .] are trans- Marx opposed previous models of social formed with the change and development of the structure and development by taking as his material means of production, the productive point of departure, with reference to the forces. The relations of production in their total- former, the practice of material production, ity constitute what are called the social relations, human labour, and with reference to the latter, society, and, specifically, a society at a definite the goal of overcoming bourgeois society. Not stage of historical development [. .] with a pecu- bourgeois society, but ‘human society, or social liar, distinctive character’ (MECW 9, 213). humanity’, ought to be the vantage-point of a In the preparatory works for Capital and in science aimed at practical intervention (Theses Capital Volume I, ‘social formation’ maintains on Feuerbach, MECW 5, 6). From the mid- its methodological position in the economic 1840s onwards, Marx, together with Engels, theory of capitalism as well as in the analysis posits the question of social perspectives as a of its genesis and preceding social forms. This problem of the contradictions of the capitalist helps to clarify the heuristic function of the economy and its revolutionary overthrowing term: Marx’s primary concern was with the by the proletariat. spatio-temporal preconditions from which The general hypothesis supporting this aim capitalism emerged as a modern bourgeois was formed by the concept – coherently devel- mode of production; his second concern was oped for the first time in The German Ideology critically establishing its character as the last – that the foundations of human history were antagonistic formation which was bound to to be found in the individual activity [Tätig- be followed by total social emancipation keit] of production and reproduction of the (MECW 13, 264). material conditions of existence and society Through the examination of capitalist (MECW 5, 32). This point of departure relates development in Russia, the USA and the both to the active process of formation of soci- European continent (in particular, Germany), ety by humans, as well as to the pre-existing as well as of the global colonial expansion social forms that constituted its preconditions. from the 1860s onwards, Marx and Engels Both of these senses are implicit in the con- expanded the empirical foundation for their cept of ‘formation’ that was common in theories of social formation. One of the rea- French. Thus, the sketch can be regarded as a sons for this was that a one-sided, economi- ‘theory of the historical process of formation cally oriented theory of social formation could [Formierung] of society’ ( Jaeck 1978, 72). not meet the demand of the growing workers’ movement for practical-theoretical orienta- 2. Particularly in The German Ideology, tion. These two ‘moments’ provoked research efforts to conceptualise ‘social formation’ into the reciprocal efficacy [Wechselwirkung] repeatedly employ the term ‘forms of inter- of base and superstructure (MEW 37, 463, course’ (MECW 5, 51, 81 et sqq.; cf. MECW 489 et sqq.; MEW 39, 96 et sqq.). 31, 66). Shortly after, Marx wrote that man From the mid-1870s onwards, the ethno- does not freely ‘choose his productive forces – logical and pre-historical studies of Johann J. upon which his whole history is based’, but is Bachofen, Georg L. von Maurer, Maxim M. rather ‘circumscribed by the conditions [. .] Kowalewski and especially Lewis H. Morgan, already acquired by the form of society which as well as Marx’s and Engels’s own studies of exists before him’ (letter to Annenkov, the British and Dutch colonies, provided a 28.12.1846; MECW 38, 97). In order ‘not to new foundation for their views on ancient be deprived of the results obtained or to forfeit communal life [ursprüngliches Gemeinwesen]. the fruits of civilization, man is compelled to Ancient society [Urgesellschaft] is taken to be change all his traditional social forms as soon an autonomous stage of formation; the ancient as the mode of intercourse ceases to corre- social forms of communal life [Gemeinwesen] spond to the productive forces acquired’ (98). were now considered to be the strata of a later .
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