The capitalist system

CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK

Hegel regards each stage reached by the Idea in its dialectic procession to absolute self-realisation as a THESIS. But since such a stage falls short of the absolute, that is of perfection, the dialectic, of its own volition, calls into being a movement designed to remove the prevailing imperfection.

This counter-movement Hegel calls the ANTITHESIS. With the emergence of the antithesis, a war attrition between the thesis and the antithesis begins. At first the waging of this war is imperceptible; then, it becomes fairly obvious that such a war is in progress; and then, in the end, a sudden explosion occurs in which both the thesis and antithesis, in their original forms, disappear, and the SYNTHESIS appears which embodies the best in both, but with the best in the antithesis being the dominant feature of the synthesis.

For a while the dialectic process comes to a temporary halt; ‘the antithesis is in abeyance.’ But in the course of time, the dialectic procession resumes its forward march, because perfection is not yet reached.

At the commencement of this renewed march, the synthesis becomes the thesis which in turn calls forth its own antithesis, and so on and so forth, until perfection is reached.

It will be seen that every stage in world history and development which is short of perfection contains in it the germ of its own radical and revolutionary reformation. Because of the never-ceasing and ever-progressive impetus of the Idea, each imperfect stage calls forth its own reformer and revolutionary, or what Hegel calls ‘the Hero’, ‘the world-historical individual’, or ‘the man of action’ matched, companion, and supported by appropriate events of nature to make the antithesis effective.

In other words, all the events of nature and history are the progressive objectification of God’s plan through the Idea and by means of the dialectic procession which we have described.

Marx, himself, a Hegelian of the left, disagrees with the Hegelian dialectic which makes the Idea the embodiment of truth, freedom, justice, equality, and other forms of social ideals and moralities, and the sole inspirer and motivator of human actions.

Says Marx, ‘my dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. Hegel thinks that the real world is only the external phenomenal form of the Idea, whereas my own view is that the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind and translated into forms of thought.

Nevertheless, with respect to dialectic, Hegel is the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. The only trouble is that with Hegel, dialectic is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again.

It will be seen from this excerpt that the whilst Marx accepts Hegel’s dialectic cycle of THESlS-ANTITHESIS-SYNTHESIS-THESIS, he rejects the Hegelian propositions that the events of nature and of history, and the ideals of freedom, justice, religion, etc., which man cherishes are the progressive objectification of the Idea.

In Marx’s view, all these are nothing but the rationalisation of the position which each class of people occupy in relation to the material forces of Nature, and to production. Two reasons can be assigned for Marx’s opposition to Hegel.

First, Marx as an historical objectivist and materialist believes only the Realistic Theory of Knowledge as opposed to the Subjective Theory.

Second, he believes, as a result of elaborate and rigorous empiricism, that the mode of production in material life conditions the general character of the social, political, and spiritual processes oflife.

In the words of Engels: ‘Production and, with production, the exchange of its products, is the basis of every social order. In every society which has appeared in history, the distribution of the products, and with it the division of society into classes or estates is determined by what is produced, and how it is produced, and how the product is exchanged.’

In other words, the mode of production in any particular period, independently of the will and consciousness of individual men, conditions the structure of society or social order for that epoch, and constitutes the foundation for the political, intellectual, and religious outlook of that epoch.

For these reasons, the Idea, which is God’s will concerning social and religious moralities, is rejected by Marx, who regards ideals as nothing else than the conflicts in the material world of production, distribution, and exchange, as reflected in the human mind and translated into forms of thought.

When Marx’s disagreement with Hegel and the reasons for it have been noted, the facts remain that they share an identical view, though from opposite stand-points, that the social order at any given time or epoch is nothing but the thesis which, because it lacks perfection, of itself brings into being its own antithesis which wrestles with the thesis slowly but surely until suddenly there is an explosion in which both the thesis and the antithesis disappear giving birth to a synthesis which combines the best in the thesis and antithesis, but with the best of the latter in quantitative and qualitative dominance.

This synthesis becomes the thesis which again brings into being its own antithesis.

CONTINUES NEXT WEEK

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