Is socialism scientific? What does it matter?

Scientific socialism – a message from the grave.

Engel’s speech at Marx’s funeral insisted on Marx’s place among the scientists of his day.
‘Just as Darwin discovered the law of development or organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history:...
But that is not all. Marx also discovered the special law of motion governing the present-day capitalist mode of production, and the bourgeois society that this mode of production has created. ...
Two such discoveries would be enough for one lifetime. Happy the man to whom it is granted to make even one such discovery. But in every single field which Marx investigated -- and he investigated very many fields, none of them superficially -- in every field, even in that of mathematics, he made independent discoveries. ...
Such was the man of science. For example, he followed closely the development of the discoveries made in the field of electricity and recently those of Marcel Deprez. ...’

Among the dozen or so mourners at Marx’s grave there were two recognised scientists, the zoologist Professor Ray Lankester and the chemist Professor Schorlemmer, both members of the London Academy of Sciences (Royal Society) and both followers of Darwin.

In ‘Socialism Utopian and Scientific’ Engels went on to insist that the scientific basis of his and Marx’s socialism first derived from their analysis of human history as the history of class struggle and, secondly, the discovery of the consequences of the contradiction between the two main classes in the modern world, workers and capitalists, that simultaneously created each other and that would, inevitably, destroy each other as the capitalist system was overthrown. Engels counterposed this systemic social, economic and historical study to any radicalism that was essentially underpinned simply by moral outrage, or the natural, eternal and inherent rights of ‘man.’

To modern eyes this can seem like a muddle. Some very old ideas are mixed with new ones and the course of history has intervened appearing to undermine any ‘scientific certainty’ about the inevitable end of capitalism.  It is worth trying to look at these problems in more detail.

It was the prevailing goal of European philosophy for more than two centuries up to the 20th century, to re unite ‘natural’ philosophy, the meaning of nature, the universe etc., with the philosophy of humanity, of history, of the mind. The ancient Greeks provided the original model. For both Marx and Engels, their study of the explicable ‘evolution’ of human history and the ‘laws’ of motion of modern society were inextricably linked to Darwin’s discoveries on the evolution of the species – except that humanity could now break from simple evolution and become the subject of the its own history – a step beyond all other living things in the rest of the natural world.

While Marx and Engel’s enthusiasm for Darwin is understandable, it is more appropriate today to first, accept the weight that both sets of analyses still continue to bear in our modern society, but second, to register now a distinction between Darwin’s thesis of the evolution of the species that inevitably continues through history, albeit effected by changes in the human world, on the one hand and, on the other, Engel’s prediction of what has, in the end to be apparently both an inevitable but also a conscious act, engendered by millions, to overthrow a prevailing system of society at a point in the future. Engels wants, it seems, to claim the inevitability of the evolution of the species as a scientific parallel to his insistence that the workers will overthrow capitalism. But the connection does not stand; for while human consciousness is not an independent state of being from the material conditions of life it is not a mirror of the material world – any more than the material world, including all of those we share it with, itself provides a static image. The permanent interaction between humans and between humans and their world means that human understanding, consciousness, is also a constant ebb and flow, in a state of becoming, albeit predominantly, over time, most influenced by the forces and means of production. Capitalism, as we know to our cost, constantly breaks down. The revolution against it however is built by experience, by knowledge, by class independence, by struggle. It too ebbs and flows, like the human mind. It too breaks down. Despite the horrors, despite the famines, slavery, generations of oppression, the concentration camps, imperialist wars, nuclear bombs, despite all this, a weaker, more desperate, more rapacious capitalism still survives, still dominates the world.  The future may look back and see the inevitability of its overthrow, but the world’s current population does not have that luxury.

The evolution of science itself means now that we need no longer scratch our heads about the level of ‘science’ to be found in Marxism. That sobriquet no longer carries the weight it once had when deciding accuracy, truth and prediction. Indeed these concerns have been superceded both theoretically and in practice. In practice Marxism remains the predominant analysis of human history up to and including now. It is still the main point of departure for all those who would want to elaborate an alternative. Class constantly reasserts itself as the prime factor in human behaviour and predictor of outcomes over generations including in social and economic status. As for science, it has marched well beyond formal logic. The foundation of quantum mechanics is the study of unpredictability. In cosmology we discover that 90% of the matter in the universe is unknown. The ‘science-ness’ of these the furthest edges of scientific enquiry are based on open-ended math, on imagination and on a profoundly dialectic view and analysis of totality and permanent change.  

Meanwhile the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism has begun. In that aspect we can accept the poignancy of Marx and Engel’s prediction. The revolution’s  ‘inevitable’ victory was based on the most solid, indeed still the most prevailing ideas about human history so far developed, but in truth, we need to look beyond predictions. They are no longer the watchword of science – let alone history. Where we need to go is to recognise that the contradiction between the social character of production and private accumulation has itself evolved since the late 19th century, through titanic struggle and huge sacrifice, through revolution and its defeats, which in turn have created vast changes in the nature of social labour, and violent evolutions, including concessions, in the character of capitalism.  We looked at some of these consequences for Imperialism, for the State, and for the working class itself, in previous blogs.

Next it is possible to look at what those consequences mean for our political tactics today.