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Chapter Two - Into the Field with Marx: Some Observations on Researching Class
- Edited by Alessandra Mezzadri
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- Book:
- Marx in the Field
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- Anthem Press
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- 25 February 2022
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- 15 February 2021, pp 17-30
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Summary
Abstract
The way in which this chapter attempts to bring ‘Marx in the Field’ is through the exploration of how some key questions, central to all empirical research, can be addressed in ways informed by Marxian categories, methods and approaches. These key questions are what do we want to know? Why? How can we find out? In engaging with these questions, the chapter will address the tasks of ‘problematisation’ and the purpose of empirical investigation, that is, to generate new knowledge (versus ‘verification’). In this process there are necessary protocols of what constitutes empirical evidence and assessing the quality/validity of evidence. Research inspired by Marx's ideas has to be disciplined by such protocols. The chapter will also explore the particular challenges posed by Marx's notion of what is ‘visible’ (observable, hence empirically researchable) and what is necessarily ‘invisible’ in capitalism (e.g. surplus value – or value more generally) – issues of essence and appearance. Notably, ‘appearance’ is no less ‘real’ than essence, and they are fundamentally connected as in Marx's conception of commodity fetishism; still their distinction should be acknowledged in empirical investigations. Finally, the chapter will conclude with observations on researching class, which is to say the ensembles of objective and subjective conditions encapsulated (and differentiated) as class (1) relations, (2) dynamics, (3) experiences, (4) beliefs and (5) practices. This follows Balibar's thesis that in a capitalist world, class relations are ‘one determining structure, covering all social practices, without being the only one’.
Introduction
There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits. (Marx 1976: 104) Where things and their mutual relations are conceived not as fixed but rather as changing, their mental images, too, i.e. concepts, are also subject to change and reformulation; that they are not be encapsulated in rigid definitions, but rather developed in their process of historical or logical formation. (Engels, ‘Preface’ to Capital, Volume III, in Marx [1894] 1981: 103) [For Marx] The concrete results of an investigation could not be predicted with a set of abstractions […]
Property and Political Order in Africa. Land Rights and the Structure of Politics by Catherine Boone Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Pp. xvi + 416. £21·99 (pbk)
- HENRY BERNSTEIN
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- Journal:
- The Journal of Modern African Studies / Volume 53 / Issue 1 / March 2015
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 12 February 2015, pp. 128-129
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- March 2015
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Contributors
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- By Masoud Azodi, Patricia Baetens, Steven Bayer, Joel Bernstein, Jonathan D. Black, Christophe Blockeel, Carolien M. Boomsma, Birgit Borgström, Mark Bowman, Nicholas Brook, Elisabeth Carlsen, Peter Carne, Ying Cheong, Jen-Ruei Chen, Erin Clark, S. Alberto Dávila Garza, Sunita De Sousa, Michel De Vos, Leo Doherty, Patricio Donoso, Cindy M. P. Duke, Human M. Fatemi, Alison Fernbach, Juan A. Garcia-Velasco, Elizabeth S. Ginsburg, Dorothy A. Greenfeld, William M. Hague, Daniel Hajioff, Tristan Hardy, Catherine Henry, Outi Hovatta, John Hutton, Gordana Ivanovic, Sameer Jatkar, Shilpa Jesudason, Theo Joseph, Amanda Kallen, Sonal Karia, Bala Karunakaran, Jenneke C. Kasius, Ben Kroon, Dimitra Kyrou, Robert Lahoud, Jennifer M Levine, Inge Liebaers, Shane T. Lipskind, Derek Lok, Nick S. Macklon, Manveen (Manny) Mangat, Tom P. Manolitsas, S. McDowell, Cherise Mooy, Mark R. Morton, Andrew Murray, Robert J. Norman, Sara Ornaghi, Israel Ortega, Michael J. Paidas, Evaggelos Papanikolaou, Pasquale Patrizio, Sofie Piessens, Biljana Popovic Todorovic, Luk Rombauts, Katrina Rowan, Denny Sakkas, P. Sanhueza, Kirsten Tryde Schmidt, Mark Teoh, Hammed A. Tijani, Jelena Todorovic, Saioa Torrealday, Herman Tournaye, Geoffrey Trew, W. Verpoest, Veerle Vloeberghs, A. Yazdani
- Edited by Nick S. Macklon, University of Southampton, Human M. Fatemi, Robert J. Norman, University of Adelaide, Pasquale Patrizio
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- Case Studies in Assisted Reproduction
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- 05 February 2015
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- 22 January 2015, pp ix-xiv
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The Object of African History: A Materialist Perspective - II*
- Henry Bernstein, Jacques Depelchin
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- History in Africa / Volume 6 / 1979
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 13 May 2014, pp. 17-43
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It is now possible to apply the concept of problematic to a critique of African history, in the first place to illustrate how the constitution of its object has been the site of certain ideological confrontations. Our analysis derives from the materialist problematic and therefore lays no claim to any spurious neutrality. On the other hand, neither is it ‘ideological’ in the sense of expressing personal or subjective preferences. The ability of historical materialism to produce objective knowledge does not derive from, nor is it guaranteed by, its political purposes, the overthrow of capitalism and the eventual construction of communism, but the achievement of these purposes has as one of its conditions the continuous development of materialist theory and analysis. The following critique is grounded in the concepts and methodology of historical materialism and not in any subjectively rooted ideological ‘choice.’
A preliminary question concerns the extent to which African history provides an object of a critique. There is no assumption that African history is a corpus of knowledge homogeneous in its aims, its concepts, or its methods. The assumption of a unitary object (“the African past”) has been shown to lack any scientific content. The boundaries of African history are indicated in the first place by the course of its emergence as a particular field of academic specialization. In terms of its content, it is hardly surprising that the works of African history produced to date reflect various positions within the terrain of bourgeois social thought. The latter, as we suggested earlier, is not homogeneous and operates at various levels.
The Object of African History: A Materialist Perspective
- Henry Bernstein, Jacques Depelchin
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- Journal:
- History in Africa / Volume 5 / 1978
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 13 May 2014, pp. 1-19
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The establishment of a journal specifically concerned with method in African history is to be welcomed. However, the early issues of History in Africa have demonstrated that the content of the term ‘method’ is itself at stake. The great majority of contributions to date have seized on a narrow and limiting conception of method as the development of techniques of collecting and evaluating data. The necessity of such techniques is not in question, but they are subordinate to, and indeed partially determined by, a broader and more fundamental conception of method as the principles of investigation and explanation in scientific practice. There are historians who do not regard the production of historical knowledge as a scientific enterprise, hence subject to certain theoretical demands, and they would not want to. Accordingly, they need not read on, but we are confident that there are others who are interested in method in the second sense and who may also have noticed its virtual absence in the pages of this journal.
On the other hand, it would be disingenuous to imply that a common interest in method in the broader and more fundamental sense is sufficient ground for agreement. Our argument in what follows derives from an understanding of historical materialism that has nothing in common with the stereotyped views held by it bourgeois critics. Our central concern is with method as the principles of constructing scientific explanations. But what is to be explained? We attempt to show that method necessarily starts with the correct posing of questions, as well as bearing on their investigation.
Contributors
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- By Rose Teteki Abbey, K. C. Abraham, David Tuesday Adamo, LeRoy H. Aden, Efrain Agosto, Victor Aguilan, Gillian T. W. Ahlgren, Charanjit Kaur AjitSingh, Dorothy B E A Akoto, Giuseppe Alberigo, Daniel E. Albrecht, Ruth Albrecht, Daniel O. Aleshire, Urs Altermatt, Anand Amaladass, Michael Amaladoss, James N. Amanze, Lesley G. Anderson, Thomas C. Anderson, Victor Anderson, Hope S. Antone, María Pilar Aquino, Paula Arai, Victorio Araya Guillén, S. Wesley Ariarajah, Ellen T. Armour, Brett Gregory Armstrong, Atsuhiro Asano, Naim Stifan Ateek, Mahmoud Ayoub, John Alembillah Azumah, Mercedes L. García Bachmann, Irena Backus, J. Wayne Baker, Mieke Bal, Lewis V. Baldwin, William Barbieri, António Barbosa da Silva, David Basinger, Bolaji Olukemi Bateye, Oswald Bayer, Daniel H. Bays, Rosalie Beck, Nancy Elizabeth Bedford, Guy-Thomas Bedouelle, Chorbishop Seely Beggiani, Wolfgang Behringer, Christopher M. Bellitto, Byard Bennett, Harold V. Bennett, Teresa Berger, Miguel A. Bernad, Henley Bernard, Alan E. Bernstein, Jon L. Berquist, Johannes Beutler, Ana María Bidegain, Matthew P. Binkewicz, Jennifer Bird, Joseph Blenkinsopp, Dmytro Bondarenko, Paulo Bonfatti, Riet en Pim Bons-Storm, Jessica A. Boon, Marcus J. Borg, Mark Bosco, Peter C. Bouteneff, François Bovon, William D. Bowman, Paul S. Boyer, David Brakke, Richard E. Brantley, Marcus Braybrooke, Ian Breward, Ênio José da Costa Brito, Jewel Spears Brooker, Johannes Brosseder, Nicholas Canfield Read Brown, Robert F. Brown, Pamela K. Brubaker, Walter Brueggemann, Bishop Colin O. Buchanan, Stanley M. Burgess, Amy Nelson Burnett, J. Patout Burns, David B. Burrell, David Buttrick, James P. Byrd, Lavinia Byrne, Gerado Caetano, Marcos Caldas, Alkiviadis Calivas, William J. Callahan, Salvatore Calomino, Euan K. Cameron, William S. Campbell, Marcelo Ayres Camurça, Daniel F. Caner, Paul E. Capetz, Carlos F. Cardoza-Orlandi, Patrick W. Carey, Barbara Carvill, Hal Cauthron, Subhadra Mitra Channa, Mark D. Chapman, James H. Charlesworth, Kenneth R. Chase, Chen Zemin, Luciano Chianeque, Philip Chia Phin Yin, Francisca H. Chimhanda, Daniel Chiquete, John T. Chirban, Soobin Choi, Robert Choquette, Mita Choudhury, Gerald Christianson, John Chryssavgis, Sejong Chun, Esther Chung-Kim, Charles M. A. Clark, Elizabeth A. Clark, Sathianathan Clarke, Fred Cloud, John B. Cobb, W. Owen Cole, John A Coleman, John J. Collins, Sylvia Collins-Mayo, Paul K. Conkin, Beth A. Conklin, Sean Connolly, Demetrios J. Constantelos, Michael A. Conway, Paula M. Cooey, Austin Cooper, Michael L. Cooper-White, Pamela Cooper-White, L. William Countryman, Sérgio Coutinho, Pamela Couture, Shannon Craigo-Snell, James L. Crenshaw, David Crowner, Humberto Horacio Cucchetti, Lawrence S. Cunningham, Elizabeth Mason Currier, Emmanuel Cutrone, Mary L. Daniel, David D. Daniels, Robert Darden, Rolf Darge, Isaiah Dau, Jeffry C. Davis, Jane Dawson, Valentin Dedji, John W. de Gruchy, Paul DeHart, Wendy J. Deichmann Edwards, Miguel A. De La Torre, George E. Demacopoulos, Thomas de Mayo, Leah DeVun, Beatriz de Vasconcellos Dias, Dennis C. Dickerson, John M. Dillon, Luis Miguel Donatello, Igor Dorfmann-Lazarev, Susanna Drake, Jonathan A. Draper, N. Dreher Martin, Otto Dreydoppel, Angelyn Dries, A. J. Droge, Francis X. D'Sa, Marilyn Dunn, Nicole Wilkinson Duran, Rifaat Ebied, Mark J. Edwards, William H. Edwards, Leonard H. Ehrlich, Nancy L. Eiesland, Martin Elbel, J. Harold Ellens, Stephen Ellingson, Marvin M. Ellison, Robert Ellsberg, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Eldon Jay Epp, Peter C. Erb, Tassilo Erhardt, Maria Erling, Noel Leo Erskine, Gillian R. Evans, Virginia Fabella, Michael A. Fahey, Edward Farley, Margaret A. Farley, Wendy Farley, Robert Fastiggi, Seena Fazel, Duncan S. Ferguson, Helwar Figueroa, Paul Corby Finney, Kyriaki Karidoyanes FitzGerald, Thomas E. FitzGerald, John R. Fitzmier, Marie Therese Flanagan, Sabina Flanagan, Claude Flipo, Ronald B. Flowers, Carole Fontaine, David Ford, Mary Ford, Stephanie A. Ford, Jim Forest, William Franke, Robert M. Franklin, Ruth Franzén, Edward H. Friedman, Samuel Frouisou, Lorelei F. Fuchs, Jojo M. Fung, Inger Furseth, Richard R. Gaillardetz, Brandon Gallaher, China Galland, Mark Galli, Ismael García, Tharscisse Gatwa, Jean-Marie Gaudeul, Luis María Gavilanes del Castillo, Pavel L. Gavrilyuk, Volney P. Gay, Metropolitan Athanasios Geevargis, Kondothra M. George, Mary Gerhart, Simon Gikandi, Maurice Gilbert, Michael J. Gillgannon, Verónica Giménez Beliveau, Terryl Givens, Beth Glazier-McDonald, Philip Gleason, Menghun Goh, Brian Golding, Bishop Hilario M. Gomez, Michelle A. Gonzalez, Donald K. Gorrell, Roy Gottfried, Tamara Grdzelidze, Joel B. Green, Niels Henrik Gregersen, Cristina Grenholm, Herbert Griffiths, Eric W. Gritsch, Erich S. Gruen, Christoffer H. Grundmann, Paul H. Gundani, Jon P. Gunnemann, Petre Guran, Vidar L. Haanes, Jeremiah M. Hackett, Getatchew Haile, Douglas John Hall, Nicholas Hammond, Daphne Hampson, Jehu J. Hanciles, Barry Hankins, Jennifer Haraguchi, Stanley S. Harakas, Anthony John Harding, Conrad L. Harkins, J. William Harmless, Marjory Harper, Amir Harrak, Joel F. Harrington, Mark W. Harris, Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Van A. Harvey, R. Chris Hassel, Jione Havea, Daniel Hawk, Diana L. Hayes, Leslie Hayes, Priscilla Hayner, S. Mark Heim, Simo Heininen, Richard P. Heitzenrater, Eila Helander, David Hempton, Scott H. Hendrix, Jan-Olav Henriksen, Gina Hens-Piazza, Carter Heyward, Nicholas J. Higham, David Hilliard, Norman A. Hjelm, Peter C. Hodgson, Arthur Holder, M. Jan Holton, Dwight N. Hopkins, Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, Po-Ho Huang, James Hudnut-Beumler, Jennifer S. Hughes, Leonard M. Hummel, Mary E. Hunt, Laennec Hurbon, Mark Hutchinson, Susan E. Hylen, Mary Beth Ingham, H. Larry Ingle, Dale T. Irvin, Jon Isaak, Paul John Isaak, Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Hans Raun Iversen, Margaret C. Jacob, Arthur James, Maria Jansdotter-Samuelsson, David Jasper, Werner G. Jeanrond, Renée Jeffery, David Lyle Jeffrey, Theodore W. Jennings, David H. Jensen, Robin Margaret Jensen, David Jobling, Dale A. Johnson, Elizabeth A. Johnson, Maxwell E. Johnson, Sarah Johnson, Mark D. Johnston, F. Stanley Jones, James William Jones, John R. Jones, Alissa Jones Nelson, Inge Jonsson, Jan Joosten, Elizabeth Judd, Mulambya Peggy Kabonde, Robert Kaggwa, Sylvester Kahakwa, Isaac Kalimi, Ogbu U. Kalu, Eunice Kamaara, Wayne C. Kannaday, Musimbi Kanyoro, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Frank Kaufmann, Léon Nguapitshi Kayongo, Richard Kearney, Alice A. Keefe, Ralph Keen, Catherine Keller, Anthony J. Kelly, Karen Kennelly, Kathi Lynn Kern, Fergus Kerr, Edward Kessler, George Kilcourse, Heup Young Kim, Kim Sung-Hae, Kim Yong-Bock, Kim Yung Suk, Richard King, Thomas M. King, Robert M. Kingdon, Ross Kinsler, Hans G. Kippenberg, Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, Clifton Kirkpatrick, Leonid Kishkovsky, Nadieszda Kizenko, Jeffrey Klaiber, Hans-Josef Klauck, Sidney Knight, Samuel Kobia, Robert Kolb, Karla Ann Koll, Heikki Kotila, Donald Kraybill, Philip D. W. Krey, Yves Krumenacker, Jeffrey Kah-Jin Kuan, Simanga R. Kumalo, Peter Kuzmic, Simon Shui-Man Kwan, Kwok Pui-lan, André LaCocque, Stephen E. Lahey, John Tsz Pang Lai, Emiel Lamberts, Armando Lampe, Craig Lampe, Beverly J. Lanzetta, Eve LaPlante, Lizette Larson-Miller, Ariel Bybee Laughton, Leonard Lawlor, Bentley Layton, Robin A. Leaver, Karen Lebacqz, Archie Chi Chung Lee, Marilyn J. Legge, Hervé LeGrand, D. L. LeMahieu, Raymond Lemieux, Bill J. Leonard, Ellen M. Leonard, Outi Leppä, Jean Lesaulnier, Nantawan Boonprasat Lewis, Henrietta Leyser, Alexei Lidov, Bernard Lightman, Paul Chang-Ha Lim, Carter Lindberg, Mark R. Lindsay, James R. Linville, James C. Livingston, Ann Loades, David Loades, Jean-Claude Loba-Mkole, Lo Lung Kwong, Wati Longchar, Eleazar López, David W. 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Phan, Isabel Apawo Phiri, William S. F. Pickering, Derrick G. Pitard, William Elvis Plata, Zlatko Plese, John Plummer, James Newton Poling, Ronald Popivchak, Andrew Porter, Ute Possekel, James M. Powell, Enos Das Pradhan, Devadasan Premnath, Jaime Adrían Prieto Valladares, Anne Primavesi, Randall Prior, María Alicia Puente Lutteroth, Eduardo Guzmão Quadros, Albert Rabil, Laurent William Ramambason, Apolonio M. Ranche, Vololona Randriamanantena Andriamitandrina, Lawrence R. Rast, Paul L. Redditt, Adele Reinhartz, Rolf Rendtorff, Pål Repstad, James N. Rhodes, John K. Riches, Joerg Rieger, Sharon H. Ringe, Sandra Rios, Tyler Roberts, David M. Robinson, James M. Robinson, Joanne Maguire Robinson, Richard A. H. Robinson, Roy R. Robson, Jack B. Rogers, Maria Roginska, Sidney Rooy, Rev. Garnett Roper, Maria José Fontelas Rosado-Nunes, Andrew C. Ross, Stefan Rossbach, François Rossier, John D. Roth, John K. Roth, Phillip Rothwell, Richard E. 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Yee, Viktor Yelensky, Yeo Khiok-Khng, Gustav K. K. Yeung, Angela Yiu, Amos Yong, Yong Ting Jin, You Bin, Youhanna Nessim Youssef, Eliana Yunes, Robert Michael Zaller, Valarie H. Ziegler, Barbara Brown Zikmund, Joyce Ann Zimmerman, Aurora Zlotnik, Zhuo Xinping
- Edited by Daniel Patte, Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
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- The Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity
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- 05 August 2012
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- 20 September 2010, pp xi-xliv
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Introduction
- Eduard Bernstein
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- Bernstein: The Preconditions of Socialism
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- 29 July 1993, pp xv-xxxvi
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Summary
When, in the spring of 1899, Bernstein's Preconditions of Socialism appeared, it caused a sensation. In effect, the book was a restatement and elaboration of the reformist standpoint Bernstein had been developing in a series of articles published during the previous two years. The controversy which these articles provoked had culminated in the rejection of Bernstein's position at the Stuttgart Conference of the German Social Democratic Party in October 1898. However, many felt that the issue had not yet been laid to rest. Karl Kautsky in particular was profoundly dissatisfied and he therefore urged that Bernstein produce ‘a systematic, comprehensive, and carefully reasoned exposition of his basic conceptions, insofar as they transcend the framework of principles hitherto accepted in our party’. Bernstein agreed, and the result was The Preconditions of Socialism and the Tasks of Social Democracy. Hastily written and flawed as it was, it was to become the classic statement of democratic, non-revolutionary socialism.
The background
Bernstein was born in Berlin on 6 January 1850. His father was a locomotive driver and the family was Jewish though not religious. When he left school he took employment as a banker's clerk. In 1872, the year after the establishment of the German Reich and the suppression of the Paris Commune, he joined the ‘Eisenach’ wing of the German socialist movement and soon became prominent as an activist.
4 - The tasks and opportunities of Social Democracy
- Eduard Bernstein
- Edited by Henry Tudor, University of Durham
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- Bernstein: The Preconditions of Socialism
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- 29 July 1993, pp 98-188
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The political and economic prerequisites of socialism
If we asked a number of people of any class or party to give a brief definition of socialism, most of them would be in some difficulty. Those who do not simply toss off some phrase they have heard must first be clear as to whether they are characterising a state of affairs or a movement, a perception or a goal. If we consult the literature of socialism itself, we will find very different accounts of the concept depending on whether they fall into one or other of the categories indicated above. They will vary from its derivation from legal ideas (equality, justice) to its succinct characterisation as social science and its identification with the class struggle of the workers in modern society and the explanation that socialism means cooperative economics. In some cases, fundamentally different conceptions provide the basis for this variety of explanations, but for the most part they are simply the result of seeing or representing one and the same thing from different points of view.
In any case, the most precise characterisation of socialism will be the one that takes the idea of cooperation as its starting point, because this idea expresses simultaneously an economic and a legal relationship. It takes no long-winded demonstration to show that the legal side is just as important as the economic side.
Contents
- Eduard Bernstein
- Edited by Henry Tudor, University of Durham
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- Bernstein: The Preconditions of Socialism
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Biographical notes
- Eduard Bernstein
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- Bernstein: The Preconditions of Socialism
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Frontmatter
- Eduard Bernstein
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- Bernstein: The Preconditions of Socialism
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Principal events in Bernstein's life
- Eduard Bernstein
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- Bernstein: The Preconditions of Socialism
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- 29 July 1993, pp xxxvii-xxxviii
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Editor's note
- Eduard Bernstein
- Edited by Henry Tudor, University of Durham
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- Bernstein: The Preconditions of Socialism
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- 05 June 2012
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Eduard Bernstein's famous polemic, Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus, was first published in 1899. It was reprinted several times in subsequent years and then, in 1921, Bernstein produced a revised and enlarged second edition. However, it was the first edition of 1899 that was at the centre of the controversy known as the Revisionist Debate, and that is the one that I have translated. There is already an English translation done by Edith C. Harvey and published in 1909 with the title Evolutionary Socialism. It reappeared in 1961 as a Schocken paperback, and two years later it was reprinted with an introduction by the late Sidney Hook.
Harvey's translation was not intended as a scholarly work and she did not feel it necessary to supply the usual apparatus. Nor, for that matter, did she translate the whole book. Chapter 2 was omitted, as were large sections of the remaining four chapters. Indeed, something between a quarter and a third of the book was left out. Furthermore, in the parts of the book which Harvey did translate, many inaccuracies and other defects crept in. Nevertheless, her translation has served as a good first draft, and if the present translation is an improvement, then it is largely because I have been able to build on her labours.
Cambridge Texts in The History of Political Thought
- Eduard Bernstein
- Edited by Henry Tudor, University of Durham
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- Bernstein: The Preconditions of Socialism
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Bibliographical note
- Eduard Bernstein
- Edited by Henry Tudor, University of Durham
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- Bernstein: The Preconditions of Socialism
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2 - Marxism and the Hegelian dialectic
- Eduard Bernstein
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- Bernstein: The Preconditions of Socialism
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The pitfalls of the Hegelian dialectical method
In the course of lengthy debates often lasting all night, I infected him to his great injury with Hegelianism.
Karl Marx on ProudhonIn their original form, the Marxist conception of history and the socialist theory which rests upon it were worked out between 1844 and 1847, years when Western and Central Europe were in a state of great revolutionary ferment. They could be described as the most radical product of this epoch.
In Germany, this period was the epoch of mounting bourgeois liberalism. Here, as in other countries, the ideological representation of the class opposing the establishment far exceeded the practical requirements of that class. The bourgeoisie – by which I mean the broad stratum of non-feudal classes standing outside the wage relation – fought against the still semi-feudal state absolutism; its philosophical representation began with absolute rule in order to end with state rule.
The philosophical current which, in this respect, found its most radical representative in Max Stirner is known as the radical left wing of Hegelian philosophy. As Friedrich Engels remarked – like Marx, he came under its influence for a certain time; they both associated with the ‘Free’ at Hippel's wine bar in Berlin – the proponents of this tendency rejected the Hegelian system, only to fall all the more under the spell of its dialectic until first the practical struggle against positive religion (then an important aspect of the political struggle) and second the influence of Ludwig Feuerbach drove them into an unreserved acceptance of materialism.
3 - The economic development of modern society
- Eduard Bernstein
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Remarks on the meaning of Marx's theory of value
And from this, incidentally, follows the moral that at times there is a drawback to the popular demand of the workers for ‘the full proceeds of labour.’
Engels, Anti-DühringAs we have seen, surplus value is, according to Marx's theory, the pivot of a capitalist society's economy. But to understand surplus value we must first know what value is. Marx's account of the nature and course of development of capitalist society therefore begins with the analysis of value.
According to Marx, the value of commodities in modern society consists in the socially necessary labour expended upon them, measured by time. However, this measure of value necessitates a number of abstractions and reductions. To begin with, pure exchange value must be developed, that is, abstracted from the particular use value of individual commodities. Then, in forming the concept of general or abstract human labour, we must set aside the peculiarities of particular kinds of labour (reducing higher or complex labour to simple or abstract labour). Then, in order to get the socially necessary labour time as the measure of the value of labour, we must set aside differences in the diligence, ability, and equipment of individual workers; and further, when we come to convert value into market value or price, we must set aside the socially necessary labour time required for the particular commodities taken separately.
Conclusion
- Eduard Bernstein
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Kant against cant
I have, at various points in this book, already referred to the great influence tradition has on the evaluation of facts and ideas, even in Social Democracy. I say expressly ‘even in Social Democracy’, because the power of tradition is a very widespread phenomenon from which no party, no literary or artistic tendency, is free, and which has a profound influence even on most of the sciences. Moreover, it is unlikely that it will ever be completely rooted out. There is always a lapse of time before people recognise that tradition is so far distant from the actual facts that they are prepared to discard it. Until this happens, or until it can happen without damage to the case in hand, tradition is normally the most powerful means of uniting those not otherwise bound together by any strong and continuous interest or external pressure. Hence the intuitive preference which all men of action have for tradition, however revolutionary their objectives may be. ‘Never swop horses whilst crossing a stream.’ This saying of Lincoln's is rooted in the same thought as Lassalle's well-known condemnation of ‘the nagging spirit of liberalism’, the ‘disease of individual opining and wanting to know better’. While tradition is essentially preservative, criticism is almost always destructive. When, therefore, the time comes to take important action, even criticism fully justified by the facts can be wrong and therefore reprehensible.
List of abbreviations
- Eduard Bernstein
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1 - The basic tenets of Marxist socialism
- Eduard Bernstein
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The scientific elements of Marxism
With these discoveries socialism became a science. The next thing was to work out all its details and relations.
Engels, Anti-DühringToday, German Social Democracy accepts as the theoretical basis of its activity the social doctrine which Marx and Engels worked out and called scientific socialism. That is to say that, although Social Democracy, as a fighting party, represents certain interests and tendencies, although it seeks to achieve goals set by itself, it does, in the final analysis, determine these goals in accordance with knowledge capable of objective proof, that is, knowledge which refers to, and conforms with, nothing but empirical experience and logic. For what is not capable of such proof is no longer science but rests on subjective impulses, on mere desire or opinion.
In any science, we can distinguish between pure theory and applied theory. The former consists of cognitive principles which are derived from the sum total of the relevant data and which are, therefore, regarded as universally valid. They are the constant element in the theory. An applied science is based on the application of these principles to particular phenomena or to particular cases of practice. The knowledge gained from this application, and put together in propositions, provides the principles of an applied science. These constitute the variable element in the system.