Sunday, 11 August 2019

'As individuals express their life, so they are.'

Marx & Engels | Materialist Conception of History 

In continuation of our discussion on ideology, we shall pitstop next on the immensely popular book, The German Ideology, authored jointly by Marx and his intellectual friend Engels!


Well, in this book Marx and his intellectual companion of more than four decades – Engels, postulate a ‘new world-view,’ which according to them would be the ‘materialist conception of history’!

Why-o-why do they suggest a new world-view that focuses on the materialist conception of history?

Yes! A materialist conception of history chiefly because, both of them strongly felt the need for people to be liberated from the material conditions in which they live!

And this is exactly the point of contention between the duo and the Young Hegelians! While the Young Hegelians believed that the lives of people can be changed for the better by impacting a change in their thoughts and ideas, the duo beg to differ!

The duo strongly believe that, since it is the material conditions in which people live that shapes every aspect of their lives, change was needed first and foremost in the material conditions in which they lived!

As they themselves put it,

In direct contrast to German philosophy which descends from heaven to earth, here we ascend from earth to heaven. That is to say, we do not set out from what men say, imagine, conceive, nor from men as narrated, thought of, imagined, conceived, in order to arrive at men in the flesh. We set out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life-process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-process.

Then they proceed to outline the first premises of the Materialist Method!

The first premise of all human history is of course, the existence of living human individuals. As individuals express their life, so they are. What they are therefore, coincides with their production, both with what they produce and with how they produce! The nature of individuals thus depends on the material conditions determining their production.

Distribution of Labour, according to Marx and Engels has a debilitating effect on the human being!

In their own words,

For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood.

On the contrary, Marx and Engels feel that,

in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.

Commenting then on language and Consciousness, the duo observe that,

Language is as old as consciousness, language is practical consciousness that exists also for other men, and for that reason alone it really exists for me personally as well; language, like consciousness, only arises from the need, the necessity, of intercourse with other men. Where there exists a relationship, it exists for me: the animal does not enter into "relations" with anything, it does not enter into any relation at all. For the animal, its relation to others does not exist as a relation.

To the duo, then, Consciousness is a social product! They observe,

Consciousness is, therefore, from the very beginning a social product, and remains so as long as men exist at all. Consciousness is at first, of course, merely consciousness concerning the immediate sensuous environment and consciousness of the limited connection with other persons and things outside the individual who is growing self-conscious.

This line that comes next is the icing on the cake!

This demand to change consciousness amounts to a demand to interpret reality in another way, i.e. to recognise it by means of another interpretation!

Now let’s get back to the first premises outlined by Marx and Engels –

To Marx and to Engels, then, the first and foremost attribute of human life is not ideas, like ideas of ethics, morality, good, bad, God, man, etc! Rather it is the forces of production into which humans enter in order to maintain and develop their material lives!

The materialists strongly attack any form of idealistic thought! They feel that all forms of idealistic thoughts like the soul, the heart, dignity, rights, humanity etc are cunning and exploitative myths!

To the materialists, then, human nature has no inherent value system which would remain the same if they had lived in an altogether different material condition or circumstance!

So it is a person’s place in the system that determines their life and their values in every aspect, they observe!

Hence the reason why Marx and Engels emphasise again and again on the materialist conception of history!

Let’s fast forward to yet another book by Marx, titled, A Critique of Political Economy. In the Preface to this book, Marx elaborates – still again – on this ‘materialist conception of history’ in a simple way! To him, ‘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'!!!

In this materialist conception of history, then, the sum total of the forces and relations of production constitute its ‘base’ or ‘infrastructure’, and out of this economic base develops a ‘superstructure’, that determines every other aspect of life of that society.


The superstructure then, comprises the political and legal establishments around which the society is structured. In addition, the superstructure also consists of all the forms of consciousness through which the subjects of the society understand, represent and communicate to each other! These forms of consciousness include theories of politics, philosophy, art, literature, religion, and every other form of cultural production, in today’s parlance, the Media, the Social networking sites et al!

According to Marx, then, all these forms of consciousness make up ‘ideology’!!!

Now I guess, we would be in a position to understand why Marx says that, all forms of the superstructure, like political theories, art, literature, philosophy, religion, media et al cannot exist all by themselves! On the contrary, they are all [the superstructure] conditioned, shaped and determined by the economic base or the forces of production that ‘condition’ that particular society!

Hence, through The German Ideology, Marx and Engels emphasise their strong views that, only a materialist conception of history would help in studying the literary works and cultural works of a particular epoch vis-a-vis their economic base that helps in producing them all!

To sum it up in this blogger’s own words, ;-)

via Marx and Engels, 

Humanity Lost = Capitalism
Humanity Regained = Communism

To be continued…

Images: amazondotcom, slidesharedotnet/christopherrice

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