THE STRUCTURE_OF MARX'S WORLD-VIEW by JOhn M. McMurtry L. "1 ABSTRACT Book 1 The Introduction identifies a representative host of ob- jections that have been brought against Marx's theory of historical materialism, and organizes these objections into a definite, complex problematic. The rest of Book 1 provides the solution to this problematic while, more broadly, systematically disclosing a precise and integrated theoretical framework underlying Marx's labyrinthine work. (This framework is developed in eight chapters: the first six of which explain its central categories in the "ascending" order that follows, and the last two of which explain the central relation- ships (called "economic determinism" and "technological determinism") held by Marx to obtain among the referents of these categories. ) Chapter I ascertains and delineates Marx's hitherto undisclosed theory of human nature implicit in his post-1845 work. This dis- interred theory yields what has often been held as the crucial "missing factor" in the mature Marx's thought, and at the same time his defines a new foundation to the structure of world-view. historical Chapter II then explicates Marx's concept of the materialist actualization of this human-nature, and the chief causal factor in his theory, the forces of production: in such manner that Marx's notion of the latter is rendered clear and schematic, and shown free of sundry claimed flaws. In Chapter III, the most erkmatic and important category in Marx's entire corpus - the relations of production/Economic Structure, which he holds to be the "essence" of any and all historical society -- is made lucid by an original characterization induced from Marx's work. Resolution to a matrix of attendant problems to do with his concepts of "alienation", "class". "laws of motion" and so on follows. Chapter IV concerns itself with the precise nature of Marx's idea of the. legal and political superstructure: particularly its distinction from the Economic Structure and the grounds for holding it. E.uperstructural, both of which critics have judged impossible to secure. Chapter V argues from Marx's texts for a new and more rigorous concept of ideology: which it is shown enables refutation of the most influential criticisms which have been brought against Marx's theory in this connection. Chapter VI introduces to Marx's general theoretical frame- work a previously undiscerned distinct category, forms of social consciousness and delineates it. Chapter VII works out a novel explanation of the pivotal Marxian doctrine of "economic determinism" which renders the latter immune to the standard objections issued against it. And Chapter VIII provides the first systematic account of the principles of "correspondence" claimed by Marx to hold between forces and relations of production (the theoretical essence of his "technological deter- minism"): from which principles the primacy of the forces of pro- duction is explained and the basic laws of historical materialism are developed. ---------- Book 2 Having secured the precise structure of Marx's world-view in Book 1, the enterprise in Book 2 is to achieve its Aufhebung: with respect to the focus of Marx's own concern, domination and liberation. Marx's general principles of domination and liberation are ascertained, and then shown to be multiply inadequate both in the consistent range of their application to spheres of sociohis- torical intercourse, and, as such. Growing out of this analysis emerges a new and higher order theory of domination and liberation, which introduces such basic concepts as fladult/youth structure of domination", "psychological means of life", "forces of destruction", "term ownership" and, most importantly, "formal domination" in its sublating metamorphosis of the Marxian paradigm. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The whole of this essay has taken over 7 years to complete. Throughout this period, I have received'inspirational help from my wife Cynthia who has been my touchstone of value, and unstinting counsel from Jerry Cohen (University of London) who has been pains- takingly responsive to all that I have written. I simply could not have asked for more than I have received from these two. Among the others who have been unusually generous in the time they have devoted to careful engagement with the work or large sections of it are Danny Goldstick (University of Toronto) and my colleagues at University of Guelph, Toby Chapman and Nate Brett. Among the large number of students who have also helped by their involvement, I am specially grateful to John Bartkiewicz. As far as institutional support, my greatest indebtedness is to the Canada Council whose doctoral fellowship originally sup- ported me and my family for three years of full-time research into Marx's work in London, England, and to the University of London for the indispensably unlimited scope its doctoral program permitted this research. Without such initial enablements, I would simply not have been able to pretend to the task undertaken here. i TABLE OF CONTENTS Book 1 INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER I Human Nature 22 CHAPTER II Forces of Production 62 CHAPTER III Relations of Production/Economic Structure 80 CHAPTER IV Legal and Political Superstructure 109 CHAPTER V Ideology 136 CHAPTER VI Forms of Social Consciousness 160 CHAPTER VII Economic Determinism 174 CHAPTER VIII Technological Determinism 199 Book 2 Domination and Liberation: Beyond the Marxian Paradigm 246 Speculative Postscript 373 ii KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS YM: Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society, ed. L. D. Easton and K. H. Guddat: Doubleday, New York, 1967. EPM: Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, Karl Marx: Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1961. GID.: The German Ideology, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Progress ishers, Moscow, 1964. RZ: Articles from the Nene Rheinische Zeit Marx and Engels: Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972. P of P: The Poverty of Philosophy, Karl Marx: Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1966. WL & C: Wage Labour and Capital, Karl Marx: Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow. CM: Manifesto of the Communist Party, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1959. CPE: A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Karl Ma : Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1 70. Pre-C: Karl Marx/Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations, trans. Jack Cohen, ed. E. J. Hobsbawn: Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1964. 18thB: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Karl Marx: Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1967. G: Karl Marx/Grundrisse, trans. M. Nicolaus: Penguin Books, Baltimore, 1973. CI: Capital (Volume I), Karl Marx: Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965. CII: Capital (Volume II), Karl Marx: Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1967. CIII: Capital (Volume III), Karl Marx: 'Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1954. iii S-VI: Theories of Surplus-Value (Part I), Karl Marx': Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1954. S-VIII: Theories of Surplus-Value (Part III), Karl Marx: Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1971. CW: The Civil War in France, Karl Marx: Martin Lawrence Ltd., London, 1933. GP: Critique of the Gotha Program, Karl Marx: Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1966. OB: On Britain, Karl Marx'and Friedrich Engels: Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1962. SC: Selected Correspondence, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1953. Bott: Karl Marx: Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Fh--ilosophy, ed. T. B. Bottomore and M. Rubel: Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1961. Note: Unless otherwise stated, italics within excerpts from the above volumes are my own. iv BOOK 1 INTRODUCTION 1 Karl Marx's philosophy of human history is perhaps as cel- ebrated for the charges made against it as for the claims it advances. Four generations of Western economists, philosophers, historians, sociologists and political scientists -- to name but a few -- have questioned, criticized or vilified its formulations. But perhaps it the most persistent formal reproof issued against -- a reproof which must specially interest the student of philosophy -- is that it is conceptually confused. Marx, it is held, articulated his doc- trine ambiguously and loosely, if not incoherently. Thus the well- known commentator, H. B. Acton, concludes his book The Illusion of the Epoch with the somewhat ungenerous decision that Marx's theory 1 is, simply, "a philosophical farrago". In much the same vein, Professor Sidney Hook, who now challenges Marx's doctrine as ardently as he once defended it, advises that: "Rigorous examination is one thing Marx's ideas will not stand because they were not rigorously -Even C. Wright Mills laments formulated" .2 the very sympathetic that Marx's theory is "full of genuine murk" and "contains much that lH. B. Acton, The Illusion of the Epoch (London, 1955) p. 271. 2Sidney Hook, Marx and the Marxists (N. Y., 1955) p. 35. 1 2 3 is ... ambiguous or inadequate". The above writers are by no means the only scholars who censure Marx for fuzziness and muddle. The explicit charge of "ambiguity", for example, ýis laid against Marx's conceptual scaf- folding by such various figures as Raymond Aron in his,. Eighteen Lectures on Industrial Societv4, Bertram D. Wolfe in his One Hundred Years-in the Life of a Doctrine5, Peter Sorokin'in his Contemporary Sociological'Theories6, and any number of other academic commentators. Economist M. M. Bober. utters much the-same objection when, he, holds that Marx's work is "obscure, careless'in expression an&contradictory'17; while the historian Karl-Federn voices his criticism more forcefully still: "the vagueness and'indistinctness of Marxian terminology", he remarks, is "deplorable'v8. In short, there exists a very broadly established opinion that ý14rx's theoretical--framework ruinously wants 3C. Wright Mills, The Marxists (N. Y.,. 1962) p. 102 and 136 respectively. 4Raymond ýtran's'. Aron,, Eighteen Lectures on Industrial Society T. B. Bottomore (London, 1967) p. 48. 5Bertram D. Wolfe, One Hundred Years in the Life of a Doctrine (London, 1967) p. XXIII. 6p"bm Sorokin, Contemporary Sociological Theories (N. Y., 1928) p. 39. 7M. M.