Landmarks of Scientific Socialism: "Anti-Duehring"

Herr Duehring's most astonishing observation is that from the Marxian standpoint, "in the last analysis everything is identical," that therefore in the eyes of Marx, for example, capitalists and wage workers, feudal, capitalistic and social methods of production are "all one." In order to show the possibility of such sheer stupidity it only remains to point out that the mere word "dialectic" makes Herr Duehring mentally irresponsible and makes what he says and does so inaccurate and confused as to be in the last analysis "all one."

(Herr Duehring remarks, "How comical for example is the declaration based upon Hegel's confused notions that quantity becomes lost in quality and that money advanced [i.e. for productive purposes. Ed.] becomes capital when it reaches a certain limit merely through quantitative increase." To which Engels replies thus):

This seems peculiar when presented in this washed out fashion by Herr Duehring. On page 313 (2nd ed. "Capital") Marx, after an investigation of fixed and variable capital and surplus value, derives from his investigations the conclusion that "not every amount of gold or value capable of being transformed into capital is so transformed; rather a certain minimum of gold or of exchange value is presupposed to be in the possession of the individual owner of gold or goods." He thereupon gives an example, thus, in a branch of industry the worker works eight hours per day for himself, i.e. in order to produce the value of his wages, and the following four hours for the capitalist in producing surplus value to go into their pockets. One must have sufficient values to permit of the setting up of two workmen with raw material, means of labor and wages, in order to live as well as a workman. But since capitalistic production is not undertaken for mere livelihood but for increase of wealth, our individual with his two workmen would still be no capitalist. If he lives twice as well as an ordinary workman and transforms half of the surplus value produced into capital he will have to employ eight workmen and possess four times the aforementioned amount of value, and only after this and other examples for the purpose of illustrating and establishing the fact that not every small amount of value can effect a transformation of itself into capital, but that each period of industrial development and each branch of industry has its own minimum, fixed, Marx remarks "Here, as in nature, the correctness of the law of logic, as discovered by Hegel, is established – that mere quantitative changes at a certain point suddenly take on qualitative differences."

One may remark the elevated and dignified fashion in which Duehring makes Marx say the exact opposite of what he did say. Marx says "The fact that a given amount of value can only transform itself into capital as soon as it has attained a definite minimum, varying with circumstances, in each individual case, – this fact is proof of the correctness of the law of Hegel. Herr Duehring makes him say "Because, according to the law of Hegel, quantity is transformed into quality therefore 'a sum of money when it has reached a certain amount becomes capital.'" He says just the opposite.

We have seen above in the Scheme of the Universe that Herr Duehring had the misfortune to acknowledge and apply, in a weak moment, this Hegelian system of calculation, according to which at a given point quantitative changes suddenly become qualitative. We then gave one of the best known examples, that of the transformation of the form of water which at 0 °C. changes from a liquid to solid and at 100 °C. from liquid to gaseous, where thus at both these points of departure a mere quantitative change in temperature produces a qualitative change in the water.

We might have cited from nature and human society a hundred more such facts in proof of this law, thus the whole fourth section of Marx's "Capital" entitled "Production of Relative Surplus Value in the realm of co-operative industry, the Division of Labor, and Manufacture, Machinery and the Great Industry," goes to show innumerable instances in which qualitative change alters the quantity of the thing, and where also, to use Herr Duehring's exceedingly odious expression, quantity is converted and transformed into quality. So also the mere coöperation of large numbers, the melting of several diverse crafts into one united craft, to use Marx's expression, produces a new "industrial power" which is substantially different from the sum of the individual crafts.

Marx, in the interest of the entire truth, has remarked, in complete contrast to the perverted style of Herr Duehring "The molecular theory employed in modern chemistry, first scientifically developed by Laurent and Gerhardt, rests upon no other law." But what does Herr Duehring care for that? He knows that "the eminently modern constructive elements of scientific thought make just the same mistake as was made by Marx and his rival Lassalle; half-knowledge and a touch of pseudo-philosophy furnish the tools necessary for a display of learning." While with Herr Duehring "elevated notions of exact knowledge in mechanics, physics and chemistry" are, as we have seen, the foundations. But that the public may be in a position to decide we shall examine somewhat more closely the example cited by Marx in his note.

Here we have, for example, the homologous series of compounds of carbon of which many are known and each has its own algebraic formula. If we, for example, according to the practice of chemistry, represent an atom of carbon by C, an atom of hydrogen by H, an atom of oxygen by O and the number of atoms contained in each combination of carbon by n, we can express the molecular formula of each one of this series thus,

CnH 2n+2– Series of normal paraffin.

CnH 2n+2O – Series of primary alcohol.

CnH 2nO2– Series of the monobasic oleic acids.

Let us take, for example, the last of this series and set one after the other n = 1, n = 2, etc., we get the following results omitting the compounds.

CH2O2– Formic Acid – boiling point 100° – melting point 1°.

C2H4O2– Acetic Acid – boiling point 118° – melting point 17°.

C3H6O2– Propionic Acid – boiling point 140° – melting point – .

C4H8O2– Butyric Acid – boiling point 162° – melting point – .

C5H10O2– Valerianic Acid – boiling point 175° – melting point – .

And so on to C30H60O2, Melissic Acid, which melts first at 180°, and which has no boiling point, because it does not evaporate without splitting up.

Here we see therefore a whole series of qualitatively different bodies, produced by single quantitative additions of the elements and always in the same proportions. This occurs absolutely where all elements of the combinations change their quantity in the same proportions, so with normal paraffin, CnH2n+2: the lowest is CH4 a gas, the highest known is C16H34, a body forming a hard colorless crystal which melts at 21° and boils at 278°. In both the series each new step is reached through the introduction of CH2, an atom of carbon and two atoms of hydrogen, to the molecular form of the preceding step, and this quantitative change in the molecular form brings about a qualitatively different body.

These series are merely obvious examples. Almost universally in chemistry, particularly in the different oxides of nitrogen, in the oxi-acids of phosphorus or sulphur, one can see how "quantity suddenly changes into quality" and how this so called "confused Hegelianism" is, so to speak, inherent in things and events, and no one is ever confused or beclouded by it, except Herr Duehring. If Marx is the first to observe this, and if Herr Duehring points this out, without understanding it (since he could not let so unheard of a crime pass), he should explain which of the two, Marx or Duehring, is without elementary conceptions of natural science and the established principles of chemistry, and do it without boasting about his own ideas on natural philosophy.

In conclusion, let us call attention to a witness on the change of quantity into quality, namely Napoleon. He describes the conflicts between the French cavalry, bad riders but disciplined, with the Mamelukes who, as regards single combat were better horsemen but undisciplined, as follows – "Two Mamelukes were a match for three Frenchmen, one hundred Mamelukes were equal to one hundred Frenchmen, three hundred Frenchmen could beat three hundred Mamelukes and a thousand Frenchmen invariably defeated fifteen hundred Mamelukes." Just as in the statement of Marx, that a certain amount of money, variable in amount, is necessary as a minimum, to make its transformation into capital possible, so, according to Napoleon, a certain minimum number of cavalrymen is required to bring into being the force of discipline inherent in military organisation, to make them evidently superior to greater numbers of individually better riders and fighters, cavalry at least as brave, though irregular. But what effect has this argument on Herr Duehring? Was not Napoleon utterly defeated in his conflict with Europe? Did he not suffer defeat after defeat? And why? Simply as a result of his introduction of confused Hegelian ideas into cavalry tactics.

Negation of the Negation

"The historical sketch (of the so called original accumulation of capital in England) is comparatively the best part of Marx's book and it would be even better if it had been developed scientifically and not by means of the Dialectic. The Hegelian negation of the negation is called upon to serve here as a midwife, in default of anything better and clearer, and by means of it the future is brought into existence from the present. The abolition of private property which is shown to have been going on since the sixteenth century is the first negation. Another negation must follow which is characterised as the negation of the negation and therefore the restoration of individual private property, but in a higher form, founded on the common ownership of land and instruments of labor. If this new 'individual private property' is called also 'social property' by Herr Marx, the higher Hegelian unity is here manifested in which the contradiction will be destroyed, that is, in accordance with this juggling of words, be destroyed and preserved… The dispossession of the dispossessor is, as it were, in this case the automatic product of historical reality in its material external form… It would be difficult for a cautious man to convince himself of the necessity of communism in land and property on the credit of Hegel's shiftiness, of which the negation of the negation is an example… The confusion of the Marxian philosophic notions will not be strange to him who knows what can be done by means of the Hegelian dialectic or rather what cannot be done. For those who do not know the trick, it must be noted that the first negation of Hegel is the teaching of the catechism with respect to the Fall, and the second is a higher unity leading to the Redemption. On these analogies, which pertain to religion no logic of facts can be established… Herr Marx consoles himself in the midst of his simultaneously individual and social property and leaves his disciples to solve his profound dialectic puzzle." (Thus far Herr Duehring is quoted.)

So Marx cannot prove the necessity of the social revolution, the restoration of a common property in land and the means of production, except by a reliance upon Hegel's negation of the negation. And, since he founds his socialistic theories upon analogies pertaining to religion, he comes to the conclusion that in future society a simultaneously individual and social property will prevail, as the Hegelian higher unity of the contradiction destroyed.

Let us leave the negation of the negation for a little and look at "the coexistent individual and social property." This will be called by Herr Duehring a "cloud realm," and, strange to say he is really right in this regard. But sad to say it is not Marx who is found to be in the cloud realm but on the contrary Herr Duehring himself. Since by virtue of his wonderful versatility in the vagaries of Hegel he does not experience any difficulty in telling us the necessary contents of the as yet unpublished volume of "Capital," so, after setting Hegel right, he is able to correct Marx without any trouble in that he ascribes to him a higher unity of a private property of which Marx has not said a word.

Marx says "It is the negation of the negation. This reestablishes private property but on the basis of the acquisitions of the capitalistic era, of the cooperation of free laborers and their common ownership of the land and the means of production. The transformation of the private property of individuals, depending upon the labor of individuals, into capitalistic property is naturally a process much more tedious, hard and difficult than the transformation of capitalistic private property, as it now exists, resting upon social production, into social property." That is all. The condition attained by the dispossession of the dispossessor is here shown as the restoration of individual private property resting however on a basis of social property in the land and means of production. For people who can understand English, the meaning of this is that social property extends to the land and means of production, and private property to the products, therefore to consumption. And that the matter should be evident even to infants Marx shows on page 56. "A society of free men who labor with social means of production, and consciously expend their individual labor power as social labor power," therefore a socialistically organised society, and he says further "The total product of the society is a social product. A portion of this product serves again as a means of production. It remains social. But another portion is consumed by the members of the society. It must therefore be distributed among them." And that ought to be clear, even to Herr Duehring, in spite of his having Hegel on the brain. The coexistent individual and social property, this confused and indefinite thing, this nonsense proceeding from the Hegelian dialectic, this misty world, this deep dialectic puzzle which Marx leaves his pupils to solve is merely a creation of Herr Duehring's imagination. Marx, as a so-called Hegelian, is obliged, as a result of the negation of the negation, to furnish a correct higher unity, and since he does not do this in accordance with the taste of Herr Duehring, the latter has to take a lofty stand and to smite Marx in the interests of the full truth of things upon which Herr Duehring holds a patent.

What attitude did Marx take to the negation of the negation? On page 761 and following he states the conclusion with respect to his economic and historical investigations into the so-called accumulation of original capital, extending over the fifty preceding pages. Before the capitalistic era in England, at least, small production existed, based upon the private property of the worker in his tools. The so-called accumulation of capital consists in the expropriation of these immediate producers, that is in the abolition of private property resting on the labor of individuals. This was possible because the aforesaid small production is only compatible with a narrow and primitive stage of production and of society and at a certain grade of development furnishes the means of its own suicide. This suicide, the transformation of individual and divided modes of production into social production, constitutes the early history of capitalism. As soon as the workers are transformed into proletarians and their means of labor into capital, as soon as the capitalistic methods of production are firmly established, the growing association of labor and the further transformation of the land and other means of production and hence the further expropriation of the owners of private property takes on a new form, "there is no longer the self-employing worker to expropriate, but the capitalist who expropriates many workers. This expropriation fulfils itself through the play of laws immanent in capitalistic production itself, through the concentration of capital. One capitalist kills many. Hand in hand with this concentration, or the expropriation of many capitalists by a few, there develop continually the conscious technical application of science, the deliberate organised exploitation of the soil, the transformation of the instruments of labor into instruments of labor which can only be employed collectively, and the economising of all means of production through their employment as the common means of production of combined social labor. With the constantly diminishing numbers of capitalist magnates who usurp and monopolise all the advantages of this process of transformation, grows the mass of misery, pressure, slavery, degradation and robbery but there grows also revolt and the constant progress in union and organisation of the working class brought about through the mechanism of the capitalistic process of production. Capitalism becomes an impediment to the methods of production developed with and under it. The concentration of the means of production and the organisation of labor reach a point where it comes into collision with its capitalistic covering. It is broken. The hour of capitalistic private property strikes. The expropriators are expropriated."

And now I ask the reader, where are the dialectic twists and twirls, the intellectual arabesques, where the confused thought the result of which is the identity of everything, where the dialectic mystery for the faithful, where the dialectic hocus pocus, and the Hegelian intricacies, without which, Marx, according to Herr Duehring, cannot develop his own ideas? Marx simply pointed to history and showed briefly that just as the small industry necessarily produced the conditions of its own downfall, by its own development, that is to say by the expropriation of the small holders of private property so now the capitalistic method of production has itself developed likewise the material circumstances which must cause its downfall. The process is a historical one and, if it is at the same time dialectic, it is not to the discredit of Marx, that it happens to be so fatal to Herr Duehring.

In the first place, since Marx is ready with his historical economic proof, he proceeds "The capitalistic method of production and method of appropriation, that is to say capitalistic private property is the first negation of individual private property founded on labor of individuals, the negation of capitalistic production will be self-produced with the necessity of a natural process, etc." (as quoted above).

Although Marx therefore shows the occurrence of this event as negation of the negation, he has no intention of proving by this means that it is a historical necessity. On the contrary "After he has shown that the actual fact has partially declared itself, and has, as yet partially to declare itself, he shows it also as a fact which fulfils itself in accordance with a certain dialectic law." That is all. It is therefore again merely supposition on Herr Duehring's part to assert that the negation of the negation must act as a midwife by whose means the future is brought out of the womb of the present, or that Marx wants to convince anyone of the necessity of social ownership of land and capital upon the credit of the negation of the negation.

It shows a complete lack of comprehension of the nature of the dialectic to regard it as Herr Duehring does, as an instrument of mere proof, just as one can after a limited fashion employ formal logic or elementary mathematics. Formal logic is itself more than anything else a method for the discovery of new results, for advancing from the known to the unknown, and so, but in a much more distinguished sense, is the dialectic, which, since it transcends the narrow limits of formal logic, attains a more comprehensive philosophical position. It is the same with mathematics. Elementary mathematics, the mathematics of constant quantities, proceeds within the limits of formal logic, at least as a rule: the mathematics of variable quantities which is peculiarly concerned with calculations running to the infinite, is substantially nothing but the application of the dialectic in mathematics. Mere proof becomes secondary before the manifold application of the method to new fields of investigation. But nearly all the proofs of higher mathematics from the first of the differential calculus, are, strictly speaking, false from the standpoint of elementary mathematics. This cannot be otherwise, if one, as is here the case, wishes to establish results won in the realm of dialectics by means of formal logic. For a crass metaphysician like Herr Duehring to want to prove anything by means of the dialectic would be the same wasted labor as Leibnitz and his pupils went through when they tried to establish the thesis of calculation to infinity by means of the mathematics of their time. The differential gave them the same spasms as the negation of the negation gives Herr Duehring and it played a role in it as we shall see. They admitted it at last, at least as many as did not die first, not because they were convinced but because it always worked out right. Herr Duehring, is, as he says, just in his forties, and if he attains old age, as we hope he will, he may also experience the same.

But what is this dreadful negation of the negation which makes life so bitter to Herr Duehring and which is to him what the unpardonable sin, the sin against the Holy Ghost, is to Christianity? It is a very simple process, and one, moreover, which fulfils itself every day, which any child can understand when it is deprived of mystery, under which the old idealistic philosophy found a refuge, and beneath which it will pay unprotected metaphysicians to take refuge from the stroke of Herr Duehring. Let us take a grain of barley. Millions of such grains of barley will be ground, cooked and brewed and then consumed. But let such a grain of barley fall on suitable soil under normal conditions; a complete individual change at once takes place in it under the influence of heat and moisture, it germinates. The grain, as such disappears, is negated, in its place arises the plant, the negation of the grain. But what is the normal course of life of this plant? It grows, blossoms, bears fruit and finally produces other grains of barley and as soon as these are ripe the stalk dies, and becomes negated in its turn. As the result of this negation of the negation, we have the original grains of barley again, not singly, however, but ten, twenty or thirty fold. Forms of grain change very slowly and so the grain of barley remains practically the same as a hundred years ago. But let us take a cultivated ornamental plant, like the dahlia or orchid. Let us consider the seed and the plants developed from it by the skill of the gardener, and we have in testimony of this negation of the negation, no longer the same seeds but qualitatively improved seed which produces more beautiful flowers, and every repetition of this process, every new negation of the negation, increases the tendency to perfection. Similarly this process is gone through by most insects, butterflies, for example. They come out of the egg by a negation of the egg, they go through certain transformations till they reach sex maturity, they copulate and are again negated, since they die as soon as the process of copulation is completed, and the female has laid her innumerable eggs. That the matter is not so plainly obvious in the case of other plants and animals, seeing that they produce seeds, plants, and animals not once but oftener, does not affect us in this case, we are now only concerned in showing that the negation of the negation actually does occur in both kingdoms of the organic world. Besides, all geology is a series of negated negations, one layer after another following the destruction of old and the establishment of new rock foundations. First, the original crust of the earth, through the cooling of the fluid mass, and through oceanic, meteorological, and chemical atmospheric action, being broken up into small parts, these broken masses form layers in the seas. Local elevations of the seas, through the ebb and flow of the waters, bring portions of these layers afresh under the influence of rain, the warmth of the seasons, and the oxygen and carbon in the atmosphere: melted and almost cooled masses of rock from the interior of the earth underlie these and break through the layers. Through millions of centuries new layers are continually being formed, always to a large extent destroyed and serving again as building materials for new layers. But the result of the process is always positive, the restoration of a piece of ground made up of exceedingly diverse chemical elements to a condition of mechanical pulverisation, which is the cause of a most abundant and diverse vegetation.