DIALECTIC AND SOCIAL CRITICISM

                                  Sean Sayers
                       University of Kent at Canterbury


In this paper I will first give a brief account of Marx's method,
emphasising its roots in Hegel's philosophy; then I will discuss
a number of criticisms and problems facing it.

In the passage from the _Phenomenology of Spirit_ from which the
title of this Conference ("_Die Anstrengung des Begriffs_") is
taken, Hegel outlines the dialectical method and contrasts it
with two other approaches.  The first of these is `material
thinking' (_das materielles Denken_): `a contingent consciousness
that is absorbed only in material stuff', a form of thought which
is rooted in existing conditions and cannot see beyond them.  At
the `opposite extreme' is the transcendent critical method of
`argumentation' (_das Rsonieren_), which involves `freedom from
all content and a sense of vanity towards it'.  The dialectical
method, Hegel maintains, must `give up this freedom'.  It refuses
`to intrude into the immanent rhythm of the Notion, either
arbitrarily or with wisdom obtained from elsewhere'.  Instead, it
`sink[s] this freedom in the content, letting it move
spontaneously of its own nature ... and then ... contemplate[s]
this movement' (Hegel 1970 p. 56; Hegel 1977 pp. 35-6).

Similar ideas are at the basis of Marx's method.  He too
forswears the `freedom' to judge existing conditions by
transcendent standards.  The primary purpose of his work, he
insists, is to understand capitalist society and `the laws of
motion' governing it, rather than to criticize it according to
his own chosen values, or to put forward an ideal of how it ought
to be.  His method does not involve bringing critical standards
to bear on society from the outside.  On the contrary, he
portrays values and critical standards as social and historical
products, as inescapably historical and relative.

At the same time, however, Marx does not limit himself to social
description and explanation.  He explicitly criticizes capitalism
and advocates socialism.  For Marxism is not only a social
theory, it is also, and essentially, a political outlook in which
values and practical commitments play a fundamental role. 
Moreover, it claims to encompass these two aspects within the
unity of a single whole.

Dialectic as Immanent Critique

These ideas are often criticized as confused and contradictory
(Lukes 1985).  A social theory of the kind Marx develops, it is
argued, cannot generate a critical perspective.  If ideas and
values are simply the products of existing conditions, then they
can only reflect and endorse those conditions in the manner of
`material thinking'.  Criticism must involve appeal to
transcendent values.

Marx, like Hegel, challenges this assumption.  According to the
dialectical approach, _existing conditions themselves_ contain
the basis for a critical perspective.  For the existing social
order is not simple and static  it contains tensions and
conflicts.  It includes negative as well as positive aspects:
tendencies which oppose and negate it, as well as forces
supporting and sustaining it.  That is to say, negative and
`critical' tendencies are _in the world_.  Critical ideas do not
have to be brought from outside by a free critical consciousness,
they are already contained immanently within existing conditions. 
This is the vital insight of the dialectical approach.

According to the dialectical view, tension and conflict give rise
to change and development.  The established order is not stable
or ultimate.  It is destined eventually to perish and be
superseded.  History takes the shape of a development through
distinct stages.  In the normal course of development, according
to Marx, feudal society is succeeded by capitalism which, in
turn, will give way to socialism.  Each of these stages involves
characteristic conflicts and, through their working out,
undergoes a process of development.  As a result, the conditions
for the emergence of the next stage gradually take shape within
it.  Thus the process of historical change is not an arbitrary
succession of merely different and incommensurable forms.  Each
stage initially constitutes a _progressive_ development 
necessary and justified for its time, and relative to the
conditions which it supersedes.  Yet each stage is only a
transitory form which, in its turn, will ultimately perish and be
replaced by the `higher' and `more developed' form which emerges
out of it, and on the basis created by it.

It is in this context that Marx criticizes capitalism and
envisages socialism.  He does not condemn capitalism in absolute
terms, according to transcendent or universal standards.  Rather,
his critique is immanent in character; it is based on standards
which are historical and relative.  Relative to the feudal
conditions which precede it, capitalism constitutes a progressive
 indeed, a revolutionary  historical development.  However, as
the conditions for socialism develop and become immanent within
it, capitalism increasingly becomes a hinderance to further
development.

In this way, Capitalism can be criticized, not on the basis of
transcendent standards, but from the perspective of the `higher'
form of socialism developing within it.  According to this
approach, moreover, the `higher' stage of socialism is not simply
an ideal based on transcendent or absolute values.  Rather, it is
the real anticipated outcome of forces and tendencies at work in
present, capitalist, society.  `Communism is for us not a state
of affairs which is to be established, an _ideal_ to which
reality [will] have to adjust itself.  We call communism the
_real_ movement which abolishes the present state of things'
(Marx and Engels 1975b p. 49).

The Concept of Progress

These are the terms in which Marx criticizes capitalism and
pictures socialism.  As with Hegel's philosophy, Marx's approach
relies crucially on the concept of progress.  This concept has
been the focus of much criticism (Nielsen 1989; Sayers 1989a). 
According to many writers, it merely disguises the problems
inherent in the dialectical method without resolving them.  If
the term `progress' is used purely descriptively to mean
`whatever will come next', then this approach reduces to a form
of `material thinking' which provides no basis for the value that
is put on progress.  Alternatively, the concept of progress
tacitly embodies values.  In that case, these values must be
justified; and this cannot be done simply on the basis of a
theory of history.  For such value judgements cannot be deduced
from any purely factual account of history.  Marx is thus accused
of confusing facts and values and committing the `naturalistic
fallacy' (Popper 1966 vol. 2 ch. 22).

Marxism is, indeed, a form of naturalism; but it is not thereby
fallacious.  More specifically, it is a form of historicism,
which rejects the dualistic distinction of facts and values which
this criticism presupposes.  For Marxism is not a purely
descriptive and explanatory theory on the model of physics or
chemistry.  It is also a form of socialism: practical ends are
integral to it.  In this respect, a more useful comparison is
with medicine.  Medicine has a practical end: the promotion of
health.  The end of health is not an arbitrary one in medicine;
it is not freely chosen by doctors.  On the contrary, it is an
objective end which is given by the object of medicine  by the
human body  as _its_ end.  Similarly, if Marx is correct in his
analysis of capitalism, socialism is not merely a subjective
preference of socialists; it is the objective tendency and end of
history itself.

Thus the concept of progress in Marx has _both_ a descriptive and
an evaluative meaning.  Capitalism is not only the stage after
feudalism, it is also a `higher' and `more developed' stage than
feudalism.  `Higher' in what sense?  For Marx, historical
development is measured primarily in terms of technological
development.  It is the fettering of the productive forces by the
relations of production  relations which the productive forces
have themselves created  which leads ultimately to revolutionary
social change.  The new social relations established as a result
of such change are progressive in the sense that they permit the
continued expansion of the productive forces.

However, even if this picture of historical development is
accepted, it is still not clear why economic development should
be valued and regarded as `progressive'.  One possible answer is
that economic development results in a greater supply of goods to
satisfy human needs; and this, it may be argued, is sufficient to
show that economic growth is desirable and hence progressive in
an evaluative sense (Cohen 1978).  However, it is doubtful
whether Marx adopts such a simple utilitarian picture, or whether
it is satisfactory.  For this picture presupposes that there is a
given set of needs  a fixed human nature  which can provide a
universal standard of evaluation.  Whereas Marx maintains that
economic growth leads to the development of new needs and the
transformation of human nature.  Human nature is socially and
historically created.

There are different ways of responding to this.  Some, like
Rousseau, regard the growth of needs in a purely negative light. 
The greater our needs, he argues, the more dependent and unfree
we become.  Hegel and Marx take a different view.  They regard
the development of needs as an essential part of human
development and as an aspect of the growth of freedom.  Thus
Hegel responds to Rousseau's position by arguing that the simple
and primitive life is the very opposite of genuine freedom. 
Rather, it is an animal-like and _merely_ natural condition.  `To
be confined to mere physical needs as such and their direct
satisfaction would simply be the condition in which the mental is
plunged in the natural and so would be one of savagery and
unfreedom' (Hegel 1942 194, p. 128).

For Marx, likewise, needs are not a purely negative feature of
human life.  The growth of human needs and the development of
human productive powers are necessarily connected.  As human
powers develop new needs emerge; and, in turn, the growth of
needs is the spur to the development of new powers (Sayers
1989b).  The growth of needs thus constitutes an enlargement, a
positive development, of human nature; and socialism, as Marx
envisages it, will be a society based upon `the universality of
individual needs, capacities, pleasures, productive forces etc.,
created through universal exchange' (Marx 1973 p. 488).

Moreover, the human development brought about by economic growth
is not confined to the sphere of material needs.  Economic
development leads to the extension of social relations, and to
the growth of human consciousness, reason and freedom.  In this
way, the value of progress is not only  or even primarily 
utilitarian and economic, it is also moral and social.  It lies
in the development of social relations and of human nature in all
its aspects.

Problems of Relativism

Even given that progress is to be valued because it leads to the
development of human nature, problems remain.  This account, it
will be argued, must treat human development as a transcendent
value if it is to be regarded as a criterion of progress.  This
criticism is justified if progress is measured by the standards
of a universal and fixed human nature.  It is important to
reiterate, therefore, that Marx portrays human nature as
historical and changing.  The standard of progress it provides is
historical and relative.  The existing order is criticized in
terms of standards which have been produced by that order itself. 
The needs and potentialities which capitalism can be criticized
for denying are not universal and eternal ones.  In part at
least, they are needs and potentialities which have been created
by capitalism itself.

In a different way, Hegel's account of history is also vulnerable
to the charge that it involves transcendent standards.  He
portrays history in teleological terms, as the `realization of
reason', as the development of `the Idea' to self-consciousness
and freedom.  Historical development is aimed towards an end; and
that end is present throughout the process as its determining
purpose and goal.  Progress is measured by the degree to which
the process approximates to its end.

Marx's fascination with this Hegelian picture is evident
throughout his work (Elster 1985 ch. 2.4).  As he himself says,
he `coquettes' with it at times.  Nevertheless, Marx's considered
theory of history is not a teleological one.  In the first place,
he explicitly criticizes and rejects this account in a number of
places.  `_History_ does _nothing_ ... [it] is not, as it were, a
person apart, using man as a means to achieve _its own_ aims;
history is _nothing but_ the activity of man pursuing his aims'
(Marx and Engels 1975a p. 93).  Second, and more importantly,
Marx spells out a causal account of history in which teleology
plays no essential part.  According to this theory, historical
development arises out of the conflict between the forces and
relations of production.  Although history does indeed move in
the direction of increasing rationality, reason is not its motive
force.  Thus capitalism creates the forces which will eventually
produce socialism, but this is not its purpose or goal.  It is a
causal result.  Though socialism is the conscious goal of the
socialist movement, this movement is itself initially engendered
by the causal forces at work in capitalist society.

In this respect, Marx's theory of history can be compared to
Darwin's theory of evolution.  Biological evolution follows a
progressive path, but it is not a teleological process aimed at
an end.  Darwin explains evolution causally, in terms of
mutations followed by natural selection.  Evolutionary progress
is not measured by approximation to an end; its criterion is
purely relative.  That man is a more highly evolved species than
the ape implies no absolute standard of evolutionary success, for
there is no end towards which evolution is aimed.  It is a purely
relative judgement, made in terms of increasing complexity,
adaptability and differentiation of function.

The Present Situation

In recent years a more thorough-going scepticism about the idea
of progress has been very influential.  Following Nietzsche, it
is widely argued that history exhibits only an arbitrary
succession of social forms, which manifest the `will to power' of
victorious social groups (Nietzsche 1956; Foucault 1986).  There
is no space here to examine these views fully.  I will remark
only that the account of historical change they embody is highly
questionable.  Marx is surely right to argue that history cannot
be understood as a manifestation of the will.  The will as a
determining force in history arises only as a _result_, as the
outcome of a process of progressive development in which mankind
only gradually acquires the capacity to control and determine its
conditions of life, rather than being at the mercy of them.  So
far from history being the result of the will of social groups,
at first it is the unforeseen and unintended outcome of the clash
of many individual wills and of natural and social forces which
are only gradually brought within human control.  The gradually
increasing power of the will as a social force is the result not
the cause of historical development and progress.

In short, Marxism can be defended against this, and many of the
other purely philosophical criticisms which are often brought
against it.  However, by itself, these arguments are not a
sufficient response to the current scepticism about the idea of
progress.  For in recent years these philosophical issues have
been overshadowed by more substantive ones.  I will conclude by
mentioning these, without trying to resolve them.  In my view,
they pose a far more serious challenge to Marxism and the
dialectical perspective, and they set an agenda of issues to
which Marxism must respond if it is to remain a living
philosophy.  For however defensible the idea of progress may be
in purely theoretical and philosophical terms, it must ultimately
be justified as an account of the actual course of history.

For much of the present century, this was not a problem.  Marxism
appeared to be remarkably confirmed by history itself.  Marx's
prediction that capitalism is only a particular and limited
historical stage destined to be superseded, seemed justified by
the succession of revolutions which removed a large part of the
world from its grip.  Communism seemed to be a `spectre' which
was haunting not only Europe, but the whole world.

However, with the collapse of many of these communist regimes
since 1989 this picture is in serious doubt.  Some even maintain
that the hope of a post-capitalist order is illusory.  Capitalism
and liberal democracy are the highest possible stage of
development, the `end of history'.  Given the continuing crises
and contradictions in the capitalist world, that is neither a
plausible nor a tenable view.  Nevertheless, if the Marxist
account of history, and the idea of progress which I have argued
is at its centre, is to survive as a living theory, it must be
developed to comprehend and explain the turn that history has now
taken.  Either the idea of progress must be questioned and
Marxism fundamentally rethought; or it must be shown how recent
events can be reconciled with it.  In either case, a fundamental
rethinking the Marxist picture of the events of 20th century is
needed.  This I believe is the most urgent task facing the
`materialist friends of the dialectic' at present.

May 1992

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