Lukács’ one influential view point: is Historical Materialism only Applicable to Capitalist Society?
April 2018
Authors, are the scholars of Shanghai Fudan University, Western Marxism Faculty.
Shu Yuanzhao, Wu Xue
Translator: Deniz Kizilcec
Abstract: Lukács believes that historical materialism is a kind of self-knowledge/Selbsterkenntnis of the capitalist society and that it will encounter fundamental difficulties to apply it to the pre-capitalist society. This view is very illuminating, raising an extremely challenging question whether historical materialism as a method is universal to all forms of human society. This view has exerted a profound influence on the academic circles at home and abroad, but has also been questioned by some scholars. Objectively speaking, this view cannot hold water because it does not accord with the consistent exposition of historical materialism by Marx and Engels, and it has violated their basic view that historical materialism can be applied to the entire history of human society. Lukács has misread The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, equating Engels’ distinction between barbarism and civilization with that between the pre-capitalist era and the capitalist era. And when he cites Marx’s A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Lukacs has confused the method of historical materialism and Marx’s method of political economics, which has led to the confusion of political economics and historical materialism.
Key words: historical materialism; scope of application; Lukács; capitalist society; pre-capitalist society
According to the traditional Marxist interpretation, historical materialism is synonymous with the materialist view of history (referred to as historical materialism), and it is a theory about the entire history of human society. Historical materialism’s object of study is the entire human social history that is different/apart from the history of the nature. This method of understanding and grasping history also applies to the entire history of the human society. However, this view has been challenged by two aspects in today’s Chinese academic circles: Some scholars try to broaden the target object area or scope of application of historical materialism and think that “historical materialism in a broad sense” is Marxist philosophy, and its object is the whole real world including nature, while historical materialism whose object is human history is only “historical materialism in a narrow sense”.
Other scholars try to narrow the scope of application of historical materialism, that it only applies to the capitalist society, and does not apply to social forms before or after the capitalist society. For them, the materialism about the history of the entire human society is the obsolete “historical materialism in a broad sense”, and the historical materialism applied to the capitalist society is the effective “historical materialism in a narrow sense”, and historical materialism has no applicability, whether it is for the society before capitalism or the society after capitalism.
This paper does not intend to analyze and evaluate the above two tendencies but tries to examine the idea of narrowing the scope of application of historical materialism by analyzing and evaluating Lukács’ point of view. Lukács was the earliest representative figure who confined the scope of application of historical materialism to the capitalist society. His point of view has great influence in the academic circles at home and abroad, and therefore deserves special discussion. This paper first introduces Lukács’ exposition that historical materialism is only applicable to capitalist society, then explains the illuminative significance of Lukács’ point of view and its wide influence on future generations, and finally makes further criticism on this point of view on the basis of existing evaluations.
1. Lukács on historical materialism only applies to the capitalist society
An elaboration on the scope of application of historical materialism was developed by Lukács in the article ” The change in the application function of historical materialism.” [1] (Tarihsel materyalizmin işlevinde Değişim)
In this article, Lukacs elaborates that, as the thought weapon of the proletariat, historical materialism only applies to the capitalist society. According to the “reason” that historical materialism and classical national economics are both truths in a certain social system, Lukacs emphasized that we can study the social scope of application of historical materialism by referring to Marx’s study of the social scope of application of classical national economics.
Lukacs argues that we can find the answer to this question in Marx, accordingly Lukacs wrote: Historical materialism in its classical form (which unfortunately has only entered the general consciousness in vulgarized form) means the self-recognition of capitalist society.”[2]
This shows that historical materialism requires the basic premise of the capitalist society in order to be applicable. Lukacs also said that historical materialism has a major assertion that the totality and the driving forces (die Totalität und die bewegenden Kräfte) of capitalism cannot be grasped by the categories of bourgeois science but can only be grasped by historical materialism. Therefore, Lukacs wrote: “Historical materialism is therefore first and foremost a theory of bourgeois society and its economic structure.”[3]
First, Lukács argues that only historical materialism can understand the totality and the driving forces of capitalism, while bourgeois science does not. Lukács believes that this stems therefrom that the theory of historical materialism adapts to the status quo of the capitalist society: One economic law governs the entire society, and the other, as a “pure natural law”, is able to assert itself without the help of extra-economic factors.
The laws of economics on the one hand dominate the whole of society, but on the other hand are able to assert themselves as “pure laws of nature” by virtue of their purely economic power, i.e. without the aid of non-economic (extra-economic) factors.
This shows that in capitalist society, the law of capitalist mode of production is increasingly carried out in a “pure form”, that is, the capitalist mode of production gradually gets rid of the residual influence of the previous economic state. Therefore, the difference between capitalist society and pre-capitalist society is manifested as the difference between capitalism that has governed the society and capitalism that struggles for its role in the society.
Second, Lukács pointed out that from the economic structure of capitalist society, the following situation will occur: different aspects of the social structure will necessarily be independent of each other, and even can have a necessary consciousness of this. Lukács mentioned that in the capitalist society, the economy, the state, and the law are generally manifested as closed systems. These systems have perfect powers, and they control the entire society with inherent laws. The British classical economics born in the late 18th century and the German classical philosophy in the early nineteenth century indicated that these partial systems have independent consciousness. But the original contribution of historical materialism lies in that it cannot only see the seeming independence of each partial system in the capitalist society, but also know that they are essentially interrelated and constitute a comprehensive whole, which goes far beyond bourgeois science. The seeming independence of the bourgeois science is the manifestation of the capitalist social structure in thoughts and categories, while historical materialism is the critique of such independence, which means the supersession of the capitalist society with “promoting power of thought”. In the capitalist society, all the factors of social structure are seemingly independent of each other, but in fact they are in a dialectical interaction. Therefore, the appearance of historical materialism is the reflection of the reality of such seeming independence and factual interaction of the structural factors of the capitalist society; it is not an accident that historical materialism, as a scientific method, was established in the mid-19th century.
Third, Lukács focused on the proposition and tried to argue that the application of historical materialism to the pre-capitalist society would encounter theoretical difficulties. Does historical materialism also apply to the social forms before capitalism just as it applies to the capitalist society? Lukács believes that if we take it as a scientific method, it can naturally be applied to the pre-capitalist era, and some people have partially succeeded in doing so. But Lukács also pointed out that if we do this, we are bound to encounter methodological difficulties, because there are fundamental differences between capitalist society and pre-capitalist society. Lukács said that not only did Marx express this difficulty countless times in his writings, but Engels also pointed out this difficulty clearly: “It exists in the structural differences between the civilization and the previous eras.”[4].
Lukács quoted Engels’ exposition to show that in the pre-capitalist society, production hardly exceeds workers’ scope control and would not cause ghostly and alien changes to them; however, in the capitalist society, workers lost their control over all production in their own field of life, and products and production were subject to contingency.
“Do not grow over the producer’s head, do not create ghostly, alien powers over him…” For there “the producers have lost control over the overall production of their circles of life… Products and production fall to chance (contingency).
In A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx once put forward the following conclusion: “In all forms in which land ownership prevails, the relationship to nature still predominates. In those where capital prevails, there is the the socially, historically created element.”[5] (In denen, wo das Kapital herrscht, das gesellschaftlich, historisch geschaffne Element)
Lukács regards this conclusion of Marx as his important argument basis. In his view, in the pre-capitalist society in which natural connection prevails, natural connection must dominate human “social being”, therefore, it must also dominate the forms in which such existence is expressed in thoughts and feelings, such as religion, art, and philosophy.
In the capitalist society in which capital dominates, the mode of production has broken away from natural and consanguineous ties. Therefore, Lukacs regards the capitalist mode of production as “the natural law of society”—this law is the purest and even the sole form of the dominatedness of the society. During the long period of transition from the pre-capitalist society to the capitalist society, it seems that a phenomenon of ” retreat of the nature barrier” has appeared in all fields. (Zurückweichen der Naturschranke)
Such Natural barrier existed in the social forms before capitalism, and even had a decisive impact on man’s social mode of manifestation.
Lukács further examined this “retreat of the nature barrier” from the perspective of social ideology. (Zurückweichen der Naturschranke)
Lukacs believes that there is a more obvious “structural difference” in social ideology between pre-capitalist society and capitalist society: in the pre-capitalist society, art, religion, philosophy and other ideologies are only man’s explanations of nature (including external nature and human’s own nature), while in the capitalist society, these ideologies are more reflective of man’s social relations and social being.
Lukács also pointed out that when Hegel put forward his own speculative philosophy, “the retreat of nature” has begun to make everything reach the purely social level, that is, reach the level of reified relations of capitalism, but there is still a lack of clear understanding of these relations.
For the stage of cognitive development at that time, it was impossible to see the social unity behind the two concepts of nature produced by the development of capitalist economy (One is about the nature as the epitome of natural laws. The other about the nature as the example of the men corrupted by the society) and to see the capitalist society as well as the role it played in the collapse of purely natural connections. It is with the true socialization of all relations in the capitalist society that the true and concrete self-knowledge of human beings as social beings becomes possible. In addition, Lukacs claims that in societies before capitalism, there is no independence, self-closure, arbitrariness and the internality of economic life that were later achieved in the capitalist society, as well as the setting of his own purpose by himself.
Lukacs finally came to the following conclusion: “Historical materialism cannot be applied to pre-capitalist social formations in quite the same way as to those of capitalist development stage.”[6].
Lukács pointed out that it was possible to apply the classical form of historical materialism to the history of the 19th century invariably and unconditionally, because here all the forces that played a role in society were only effective as manifestation form of the “objective spirit”. Therefore, Lukacs asserted that only through historical materialism could the 19th century society acquire its self-knowledge. But according to Lukacs it would be much more complicated to apply historical materialism to ancient society. Because we should not only specify the role of pure economic forces in promoting social development, but also prove how these economic forces affect other social forms.
Lukacs wrote: The role played by purely economic forces, insofar as such forces existed in the strict sense of “purity” at that time, among the forces moving society, on the other hand to demonstrate how these economic forces affected the other structures of society.
In short, although Lukács admits that some researchers have tried to study the societies before capitalism with historical materialism and have achieved some success, but since the societies before capitalism have a structural difference with the capitalist society, its application on societies before capitalism will encounter decisive difficulties. Historical materialism is only the self-knowledge of the capitalist society. In other words, historical materialism is the doctrine of bourgeois society and bourgeois economic structure.
Please Download for Full Text