A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
Introduction (1857), 4: Production, Relations of Production, State and Law
Section summary
Unfinished notes for topics to cover: war as the forerunner of economic forms, idealist versus materialist history, international relations, objections to materialism, the dialectic of productive forces and relations of production, the uneven development of art and material production, chance and necessity. The section ends with Marx’s famous reflection on why Greek art, bound to a vanished stage of society, still gives aesthetic pleasure.
1. War attains complete development before peace; how certain economic phenomena, such as wage-labor, machinery, etc., are developed at an earlier date through war and in armies than within bourgeois society. The connection between productive force and the means of communication is made especially plain in the case of the army.
2. The relation between the idealistic and realistic methods of writing history; namely, the so-called history of civilization which is all a history of religion and states.
In this connection something may be said of the different methods hitherto employed in writing history. The so-called objective [method]. The subjective. (The moral and others). The philosophic.
3. Secondary and tertiary. Conditions of production which have been taken over or transplanted; in general, those that are not original. Here [is to be treated] the effect of international relations.
4. Objections to the materialistic character of this view. Its relation to naturalistic materialism.
5. The dialectics of the conceptions productive force (means of production) and relation of production, dialectics whose limits are to be determined and which does not do away with the concrete difference.
6. The unequal relation between the development of material production and art, for instance. In general, the conception of progress is not to be taken in the sense of the usual abstraction. In the case of art, etc., it is not so important and difficult to understand this disproportion as in that of practical social relations, e. g. the relation between education in the United States and Europe. The really difficult point, however, that is to be discussed here is that of the unequal (?) development of relations of production as legal relations. As, e. g., the connection between Roman civil law (this is less true of criminal and public law) and modern production.
7. This conception of development appears to imply necessity. On the other hand, justification of accident. Varia. (Freedom and other points). (The effect of means of communication). World history does not always appear in history as the result of world history.
8. The starting point [is to be found] in certain facts of nature embodied subjectively and objectively in clans, races, etc.
+4. Produktion, Produktions-mittel und Produktionsverhältnisse. Produktionsverhältnis und Verkehrsverhältnisse. Staats- und Eigenthumsformen im Verhältnis zu den Produktions- und Verkehrsverhältnissen. Rechtsverhältnisse. Familienverhältnisse.+
‖1. Der =Krieg= ist früher ausgebildet, wie der Frieden: [Auszuführen wäre] die Art, wie durch den Krieg und in den Armeen etc. gewisse ökonomische Verhältnisse wie Lohnarbeit, Maschinerie etc. früher entwickelt [werden] als im Inneren der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft. Auch das Verhältnis von Produktivkraft und Verkehrsverhältnissen wird besonders anschaulich in der Armee.
2. Verhältnis der bisherigen idealen Geschichtsschreibung zur realen. Namentlich die sogenannte Kulturgeschichte, die alle Religions-und Staatengeschichte.
Bei der Gelegenheit kann auch etwas gesagt werden über die verschiedenen Arten der bisherigen Geschichtsschreibung. Sogenannte objektive. Subjektive. (Moralische und andere.) Philosophische.
3. =Sekundäres und Tertiäres.= Ueberhaupt =abgeleitete, übertragene,= nicht ursprüngliche Produktionsverhältnisse. Hier [ist das] Einspielen der internationalen Verhältnisse [zu behandeln].
5. Dialektik der Begriffe Produktivkraft (Produktions-mittel) und Produktionsverhältnis, eine Dialektik, deren Grenzen zu bestimmen sind und den realen Unterschied nicht aufhebt.
6. Das unegale Verhältnis der Entwicklung der materiellen Produktion zum Beispiel zur künstlerischen. Ueberhaupt ist der Begriff des Fortschritts nicht in der gewöhnlichen Abstraktion zu fassen. Bei der Kunst etc. ist diese Disproportion noch nicht so wichtig und schwierig zu fassen als innerhalb praktisch-sozialer Verhältnisse selbst, zum Beispiel das Bildungsverhältnis der Vereinigten Staaten zu Europa. Der eigentlich schwierige Punkt, der hier zu erörtern ist aber der, wie die Produktionsverhältnisse als Rechtsverhältnisse in ungleiche (?) Entwicklung treten. Also zum Beispiel das Verhältnis des römischen Privatrechts (im Kriminalrecht und öffentlichen ist das wenige der Fall) zur modernen Produktion.
7. Diese Auffassung erscheint als nothwendige Entwicklung. Aber Berechtigung des Zufalls. Varia. (Die Freiheit und anderes noch.) (Einwirkung der Kommunikationsmittel.) Weltgeschichte eigentlich nicht immer in der Geschichte als weltgeschicht[liches] Resultat.
8. Der Ausgangspunkt [ist] natürlich von der Naturbestimmtheit [zu nehmen]; subjektiv und objektiv, Stämme, Rassen etc.‖
It is well known that certain periods of highest development of art stand in no direct connection with the general development of society, nor with the material basis and the skeleton structure of its organization. Witness the example of the Greeks as compared with the modern nations or even Shakespeare. As regards certain forms of art, as e. g. the epos, it is admitted that they can never be produced in the world-epoch making form as soon as art as such comes into existence; in other words, that in the domain of art certain important forms of it are possible only at a low stage of its development. If that be true of the mutual relations of different forms of art within the domain of art itself, it is far less surprising that the same is true of the relation of art as a whole to the general development of society. The difficulty lies only in the general formulation of these contradictions. No sooner are they specified than they are explained. Let us take for instance the relation of Greek art and of that of Shakespeare’s time to our own. It is a well known fact that Greek mythology was not only the arsenal of Greek art, but also the very ground from which it had sprung. Is the view of nature and of social relations which shaped Greek imagination and Greek [art] possible in the age of automatic machinery, and railways, and locomotives, and electric telegraphs? Where does Vulcan come in as against Roberts & Co.; Jupiter, as against the lightning rod; and Hermes, as against the Credit Mobilier? All mythology masters and dominates and shapes the forces of nature in and through the imagination; hence it disappears as soon as man gains mastery over the forces of nature. What becomes of the Goddess Fame side by side with Printing House Square? Greek art presupposes the existence of Greek mythology, i. e. that nature and even the form of society are wrought up in popular fancy in an unconsciously artistic fashion. That is its material. Not, however, any mythology taken at random, nor any accidental unconsciously artistic elaboration of nature (including under the latter all objects, hence [also] society). Egyptian mythology could never be the soil or womb which would give birth to Greek art. But in any event [there had to be] a mythology. In no event [could Greek art originate] in a society which excludes any mythological explanation of nature, any mythological attitude towards it and which requires from the artist an imagination free from mythology.
Looking at it from another side: is Achilles possible side by side with powder and lead? Or is the Iliad at all compatible with the printing press and steam press? Does not singing and reciting and the muses necessarily go out of existence with the appearance of the printer’s bar, and do not, therefore, disappear the prerequisites of epic poetry?
But the difficulty is not in grasping the idea that Greek art and epos are bound up with certain forms of social development. It rather lies in understanding why they still constitute with us a source of aesthetic enjoyment and in certain respects prevail as the standard and model beyond attainment.
A man can not become a child again unless he becomes childish. But does he not enjoy the artless ways of the child and must he not strive to reproduce its truth on a higher plane? Is not the character of every epoch revived perfectly true to nature in child nature? Why should the social childhood of mankind, where it had obtained its most beautiful development, not exert an eternal charm as an age that will never return? There are ill-bred children and precocious children. Many of the ancient nations belong to the latter class. The Greeks were normal children. The charm their art has for us does not conflict with the primitive character of the social order from which it had sprung. It is rather the product of the latter, and is rather due to the fact that the unripe social conditions under which the art arose and under which alone it could appear can never return.