Historical materialism

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The term historical materialism summarizes theories for explaining society and its history , which were developed in accordance with the "materialistic conception of history" by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels :

“The materialistic view of history proceeds from the principle that production, and next to production, the exchange of its products, is the basis of all social order; that in every historically occurring society the distribution of products, and with it the social division into classes or estates , depends on what and how produced and how what is produced is exchanged. According to this, the ultimate causes of all social changes and political upheavals are to be sought not in people's heads, in their increasing insight into eternal truth and justice , but in changes in the mode of production and exchange; they are to be sought not in philosophy , but in the economy of the epoch concerned. "

- Friedrich Engels

Historical materialism sees the course of history as a development of human society that is lawfully determined by economic processes. The socio-economic contradictions that characterize the social formations on the distinguishable stages of development and the “struggle and the unity of opposites” ( dialectic in Marx and Engels ) are understood as the material driving forces of social development . The solution of the antagonistic contradictions inherent in the respective social system leads by law to social changes and the formation of a new social formation. The materialistic conception of history understands itself as a dialectical overcoming of Hegel's idealism , for which the spirit or the idea (s) and their thinking still caused the story or even made it up.

As man changes his environment through his work , he produces himself as an objective and social being. In order to reproduce his life he enters into historically determined relationships with other people; these social conditions have an effect on him, ultimately determine his historical essence or his special nature.

Historical materialism claimed not only to explain past historical developments, but also to predict future developments . Due to the different course of history, these prognoses are considered to have failed.

Different social formations

“In broad terms, Asian , ancient , feudal and modern bourgeois modes of production can be described as progressive epochs of economic social formation. The bourgeois production relations are the last antagonistic form of the social production process, antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism , but an antagonism growing out of the social living conditions of individuals, but the productive forces developing in bourgeois society at the same time create the material conditions for resolving this antagonism . With this social formation the prehistory of human society closes. "

- Karl Marx

The capitalist mode of production tends to undo its own foundation:

  • First phase of communism , socialism . Initial stage of the " classless society "
  • Higher phase of communism, developed classless society in which the state and all oppressive violence died and in which the principle applies: "each according to his abilities, each according to his needs"

In communism, as in primitive society, the alienation of man from the product of his labor and from himself does not yet exist or no longer exists, while in class societies it has a decisive influence on relations.

Tribal society

The tribal society is the most original form of human coexistence. It is characterized by a minimal division of labor , archaic techniques and low productivity. Private ownership is rare or only exists in communal form, i. h .: the means of production and the products are of Community (collective ownership collective ownership ). Marx also describes such a “classless” society as the “original form of communism ” or original communism .

With the advancing development of the productive forces, people manage, from a certain point in time, to produce more than they need for immediate survival. What is not needed for one's own survival enables the production of a multi-product . However, this also leads to the development of structures of domination and exploitation , since the surplus product could serve to feed a ruling class that was not itself involved in the immediate production process. So the surplus product was kept in special storages for times of need, which then had to be guarded, and especially when a time of need broke out, people were necessary to defend these supplies against the immediate fears of the population so that everything would not be consumed in the first emergency has been. If necessary, these people also had to decide whether others could not be fed. They had to be powerful, more powerful than the bulk of the population. The ruling class and class society was born.

Asian production method

According to Marx, the Asian mode of production is a form of society based on agriculture in which a higher authority controls the lands ( despotism ) and leaves them to the families for cultivation. The surplus product generated is distributed to the members of the community by the higher authority. This society already knows classes in their first rudiments.

The Asian production method led Karl A. Wittfogel to criticize the widespread unilinear development scheme. Engels put the latter in a nutshell:

“The general idea of ​​the 'Manifesto': that economic production and the social structure of every historical epoch that necessarily follows from it forms the basis for the political and intellectual history of this epoch; that accordingly (since the dissolution of the ancient common property of land) the whole of history has been a history of class struggles, struggles between exploited and exploiting, ruled and ruling classes at various stages of social development; that this struggle has now reached a stage where the exploited and oppressed class (the proletariat) can no longer free itself from the exploiting and oppressing class (the bourgeoisie) without at the same time the whole society forever from exploitation, oppression and class struggles to liberate - this basic idea belongs solely and exclusively to Marx. "

- Friedrich Engels

With reference to Marx's peculiar method of historical explanation, in which he warned against a philosophy of history encompassing all nations, Wittfogel switched to a multilevel view of history.

Germanic society

The Germanic society is a rural culture, with small, widely scattered possessions in the hands of certain families. Community property still partly exists ( commons ). Social hierarchies are formed between families.

Slavery society

Slavery society refers to the ancient societies based on their mode of production , which produced wealth through the creation and accumulation of surplus value through slave labor .

Ancient city society

In ancient urban societies (e.g. Roman and Greek cities ) power and wealth are concentrated in the cities and military organizations are created to secure them (e.g. Greek polis ). Most of the land is still jointly owned, but private ownership is slowly but surely developing at the same time. Those members of the ancient city who take part in the active life of the city (polis citizens) benefit from communal ownership. The first social classes also arise: slaves and slave owners.

This form of society is characterized by numerous slave revolts (e.g. Spartacus revolt). This phase of socio-economic development turns into the early Middle Ages (Marxist terminology: early feudalism) in a lengthy and complicated process. Late Roman colonies (small land tenants) form a transition link in a chain of development leading to the subservient peasants of feudalism.

Feudal society

The feudal society is both hierarchical and urban and rural and highly corporatist established. The big landowners and feudal lords rule the land , their lands are worked by serfs . In the cities, on the other hand, the hierarchy is based on the guilds and guilds .

Feudal society paves the way for the emergence of capitalism through the protection of handicraft property and capital.

Capitalist society

The capitalist- bourgeois society is characterized on the one hand by a high level of technical development and on the other hand by a pronounced division of labor . The social classes are sharply demarcated from one another, and with the development of trade and industrialization a new class emerges: the bourgeoisie or "bourgeoisie" that emerged from urban handicrafts .

New markets, the emergence of manufactories , the original accumulation of capital and, above all, industrialization lead to a massive increase in productivity . According to Marx, the rise of the bourgeoisie occurs at the expense of the working class, which itself has no means of production. Rural exodus, poverty, disease and a feeling of alienation characterize the members of the proletariat .

Capitalism is initially of a commercial nature: The bourgeoisie enriches itself, develops new products, opens up new markets and multiplies its resources. This type of capitalism is being replaced more and more by industrial capitalism - productivity increases and urbanization are the consequences.

Base and superstructure

“In the social production of their life, people enter into certain, necessary relations independent of their will, production relations which correspond to a certain stage of development of their material productive forces. The totality of these relations of production forms the economic structure of society, the real basis on which a legal and political superstructure rises and to which certain forms of social consciousness correspond. The mode of production of material life determines the social, political and spiritual life process in general. It is not people's consciousness that determines their being, but, conversely, their social being that determines their consciousness. "

- Karl Marx

The economic structure of society at any given time forms the real basis from which the entire superstructure of the legal and political institutions as well as the religious , philosophical and other modes of representation of each historical period can be explained in the last instance.

An epoch of social upheaval in particular cannot be judged by the consciousness or ideology that it has of itself; rather, social theory has to explain this consciousness from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between social productive forces and production relations.

Being determines consciousness. Accordingly, the model of base and superstructure is decisive for the structural description and for determining the range of historically possible developments ("tendencies") of society. This does not necessarily rule out that ideas do not also have an effect on the basis, as Max Weber tried to prove for business ethical concepts widespread in society (see Protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism ), or that on individual questions or for others Other explanations can be used.

The basic superstructure theory is not meant as a complete and one-dimensional determination of culture by the economy, as this theory was received, especially in Marxism-Leninism (often criticized as "vulgar Marxism " and " economism "). With all dialectical interactions between “ideas” and “material interests”, however, according to Marx, it is usually the ideas that “embarrassed themselves”.

Economic law of movement, class struggle and revolution

Historical materialism understands "the development of the economic social formation as a natural-historical process", analogous to the experimental method of natural science . We are looking for natural laws , specifically those of social history, especially the laws of capitalism, which, depending on historical circumstances, are more or less pure (according to the ideal theoretical form), as in its time in England as the most advanced society, or only as a theoretical one show a definable tendency that is bothered by other tendencies or side effects.

“A nation should and can learn from the other. Even if a society has tracked down the natural law of its movement - and the ultimate end goal of this work is to reveal the economic law of movement of modern society - it can neither skip over nor decree away natural development phases. But it can shorten and alleviate labor pains. "

- Karl Marx

With the exception of the original conditions, all previous history has been the history of class struggles . The warring classes of society arise from the respective production and traffic relations, i. H. the economic conditions of their respective epoch. The class struggle more or less consciously determines the relationships between the classes and drives social development forward.

“At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come into contradiction with the existing relations of production or, which is only a legal expression for this, with the property relations within which they had previously moved. From the forms of development of the productive forces, these relationships turn into fetters. Then comes an epoch of social revolution . With the change in the economic basis, the whole enormous superstructure is turning more slowly or more quickly. "

The relations of production initially promote the development of the productive forces , but are then increasingly shackles of economic and social development. The impoverishment of the lower classes leads to an intensification of social contradictions and to social conflicts. On the other hand, the possibilities of production which the created productive forces provide are not used because the given property relations oppose this. The productive classes then try to change the relations of production according to their interests. Since the previously ruling class uses means of counter-resistance, whereby it intensifies the oppression, the class struggle can then enter a short, violent "revolutionary" phase. In a political revolution , the previously oppressed class seizes power and the property and control relationships over the means of production are legally regulated anew. With this new relations of production with new ruling classes emerge, and the class struggle begins on a new level, in a different social formation.

“A social formation never perishes before all productive forces for which it is sufficiently developed have been developed, and new, higher relations of production never take their place before the material conditions of existence of the same have been hatched in the womb of the old society itself. Therefore, humanity only ever sets itself tasks that it can solve, because if you look more closely you will always find that the task itself only arises where the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least are in the process of becoming. "

Prophecy and Predictions

“Without prophecies, politics cannot work. Only those who prophesy that everything will stay the same for a long time do not have the feeling that they are prophesying. "

- Karl Kautsky

Under the heading The Prophecy of the Revolution , Karl Kautsky dealt extensively with the polemics in the press, in the Reichstag and at the party congresses, with which the allegedly flawed predictions or misjudgments of political developments (such as the outbreak of crises or wars or the revolutionary process in Concerning Russia) were attacked as "prophecy". Every forward-looking politician must be based on scenarios of possible futures.

The dialectic of theory and practice has been based, at least since Kant and Hegel's phenomenology of mind, on the transcendence of theoretical thinking or the general term: the human mind is fundamentally built in such a way that it always goes beyond the specific individual case. Man cannot avoid thinking and acting, i. that is, he is always compelled to generalize and to interpret society and history in a general way; i.e., to give meaning. To want to rely solely on what is positively secured by evidence would be unrealistic.

Of course, the dialectic used by Hegel and Marx is fundamentally limited in that this method goes back from a considered totality to its "anatomy"; H. their conceptual and historical requirements. A “ futurology ”, on the other hand, presupposed the opposite direction of time, for which Hegel and Marx (apart from his political program) showed little inclination. It is therefore hardly surprising that as late as 1912 Karl Korsch complained that merely “ socialization of the means of production” was the only rarely poor formula given by Marxism for the future society.

According to an essay by Siegfried Landshut from 1956, the laws of development discovered by Marx have been confirmed insofar as, with the exception of a violent revolutionary change, all statements about a new order for Western societies are true, while the characteristic features of a capitalist society are precisely in the socialist societies such as B. found the Soviet Union.

Iring Fetscher, on the other hand, lists several prognoses of historical materialism in 1972 which have not been fulfilled, including the disappearance of the middle classes between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the impoverishment thesis and the uncontrollability of overproduction crises, as a result of which Marx expected the world revolution . Even the law of the tendency for the rate of profit to fall is now considered falsified in non-Marxist economics , as is the collapse of capitalism, which Marx predicted as imminent at the end of the first volume of Das Kapital . According to the historian Arnd Hoffmann, the failure of the predictions of historical materialism contributed to today's widespread skepticism about predictions as a whole.

Individuals producing in society

"Individuals producing in society - hence the socially determined production of individuals is of course the starting point."

- Karl Marx

The history of societies is made by people. But it would be premature to conclude from this that Marx's actor model is that of methodological individualism . For, like Hegel, Marx also rejects the conception of the individual in the tradition of natural law or constructed in the manner of contract theories as abstract and unhistorical. The “ensemble of social conditions” acts as man's nature.

Therefore, social development cannot be explained exclusively by the most general laws of individual behavior or technology, but rather the “social conditions” must be added as mechanisms of action and as historical preconditions for the explanation of social development.

Historical materialism can therefore by no means be pegged to one side or the other of the wrong alternative: individualism or collectivism .

“It was not until the 18th century, in 'bourgeois society', that the individual encountered the various forms of social context as a mere means for his private purposes, as an external necessity. But the epoch which produces this standpoint, that of the isolated individual, is precisely that of the most developed social (general from this standpoint) relations. Man is in the most literal sense a zôon politikon, not just a sociable animal, but an animal that can only isolate itself in society. "

Anyone who, like Schumpeter , refuses to use holistic terms for “pure economy” in principle can be countered by the fact that these already belong to the object area of ​​the social sciences as components of ideologies and must therefore find their way into its object language . A dialectical theory of society that ties in with existing empirical knowledge and seeks to transcend it through immanent criticism must begin with these dogmatic ( "reified" ) forms that can be found. This is how the sociological (or phenomenological or also ideology-critical ) function of the Hegelian expression in Marx is to be understood. The dialectic of essence and appearance starts with the “natural Platonism ” of the world of goods and shows behind the ideologically hidden “astronomy of the flow of goods” (“pure economy”!) As real beings the legally linked actions of human individuals under historical conditions that are not freely chosen .

Marx's economic determinism can be explicated as follows: There are laws that explain extra-economic developments through economic factors, whereby the mode of production is assumed to be a fully explainable system. It is therefore assumed that the system elements of social relationships are formed by macro-variables that can be closed off as a system with respect to individual behavior. If a macro-process running according to certain laws is asserted at the level of the relations of production , this does not logically exclude that it can be formulated in terms of characteristics and relations of individuals; theory decides that.

Unity of theory and practice

“Unity of theory and practice” does not mean that theory and practice are the same or that the problem of communication has already been solved once and for all. Rather: Historical materialism is the general sociological theory, which is to be seen in a dialectical tension to a political practice corresponding to the theory, which tests this practically oriented theory in political reality. Because nothing is more practical than a good theory.

The claim of “ scientific socialism ” is based on the connection between theory and practice . For him, according to tradition, the “subject of social practice” is the proletariat or the labor movement .

Criticism and counter-criticism

The German ideology as the central work of the historical materialism of Marx and Engels never existed in the published form of the Marx-Engels Works (MEW). The chapter "I Feuerbach" in particular was originally intended as a criticism of Max Stirner . Ulrich Pagel, Gerald Hubmann and Christine Weckwerth come to the following conclusion in their work on the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA) : “Instead of the formulation of a philosophy of historical materialism that was claimed in later reception (and suggested by text compilations), the manuscripts prove precisely that programmatic departure from philosophy in favor of real positive science ” . Accordingly, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels cannot be viewed as founders or as representatives of a deterministic view of history.

According to Karl Popper , Marx founded a quasi-religious philosophy of history that focuses on oracles and prophecies and is therefore largely unscientific or represents a pseudoscience that, as historicism, contains historical predictions on a grand scale.

Historical materialism is a hybrid of German idealism , French Enlightenment and English / French economics . To this day, he has not solved all the problems of his theories of origin or all of his own. Its theoretical or practical advantages can only be determined in each case in comparison to alternatives. Nowadays there are many alternatives to historical materialism that can be used for mutual criticism in the sense of a theory comparison : theories on modern society and its development and history, all of which diverge from or converge with historical materialism in different points; such as: Max Weber , Talcott Parsons , Critical Theory , Niklas Luhmann etc.

Frequently - but not always or only by representatives of historical materialism - in historical development a simple straightness in history or a convergence towards a dominant development model is assumed or explicitly asserted; often in the form that a certain society (such as the USA) is used as a model for others. These theses are subjected to criticism in the more recent studies of the path dependence of social change. The question of the influence of human decisions on a system change is also raised anew.

Marx's “economic determinism” denies the important role of ideas in the history of societies. Sometimes Max Weber's explanatory perspective is seen either as an alternative or at least as a necessary addition to historical materialism. In a criticism of "Rudolf Stammler's 'overcoming' the materialistic conception of history", Weber leaves open whether Stammler interpreted the latter correctly; Above all, he criticizes the attempt to make historical materialism worse by means of a scholastic apriorism .

It is often positively noted that historical materialism provides an interdisciplinary approach or an overall vision to explain the functioning of human societies. Nevertheless, only the subject-specific references (economics, sociology, philosophy, politics, ...) are brought into focus and the other aspects are pushed off as scientifically irrelevant. Typical of this is the approach of Joan Robinson , who only fits the 3rd volume of Capital into her economic perspective, and who only appears to the labor theory of the 1st volume as "Hegelian stuff and nonsense".

With regard to the “unity of theory and practice”, Hans Albert defends the cognitive goal of science as autonomous with the demand for value freedom. When developing theories, science can neither foresee nor predict who will later use them for what purposes. For this reason alone, it is inexpedient to mix science and political programming; an attempt to derive science from knowledge interests misjudges the position and function of science in society. To be sure, the demand for the autonomy of science is a political demand; it cannot be justified by empirical science, as Albert himself says; the question can therefore only be resolved theoretically and practically resolved on a political level.

See also

literature

Primary literature

  • Karl Marx : The eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte . First published in the newspaper Die Revolution, New York 1852.
  • Karl Marx / Friedrich Engels : Manifesto of the Communist Party . [Marx / Engels: Manifesto of the Communist Party, p. 1. Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 2573 (cf. MEW Vol. 4, p. 1)]
  • Friedrich Engels: The situation of the working class in England . According to your own view and authentic sources. [Engels: The situation of the working class in England, p. 1. Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 10258 (cf. MEW Vol. 2, p. 225)]
  • Friedrich Engels: The German Peasants' War. [Engels: The German Peasants' War, p. 1. Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 8964 (cf. MEW Vol. 7, p. 531)]
  • Friedrich Engels: The origin of the family, private property and the state . Following Lewis H. Morgan's research [Engels: Der Ursprung der Familie, p. 1. Digital Library, Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 9347 (cf. MEW Vol. 21, p. 25)]
  • Karl Marx: The class struggles in France. [Marx: The class struggles in France 1848 to 1850, p. 1. Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 11006 (cf. MEW Vol. 7, p. 9)]
  • Friedrich Engels: The role of violence in history. [Engels: The role of violence in history, p. 1. Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 13347 (cf. MEW Vol. 21, p. 405)]
  • Friedrich Engels. Letters on historical materialism (1890–1895) . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1979.
  • The materialistic conception of history presented by Karl Kautsky . 2 volumes. JHW Dietz, Berlin 1927. (2nd edition 1929)
  • Antonio Labriola : On Historical Materialism. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1974.
  • Karl A. Wittfogel : The oriental despotism. Frankfurt / M., Berlin, Vienna: Ullstein, 1977, unabridged edition.

Secondary literature

  • Helmut Fleischer : Marxism and History. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1969 (6th edition 1977). Translations into Spanish, Italian, English, Portuguese, ISBN 0-7139-0347-3 .
  • Andrzej Malewski: The empirical content of the theory of historical materialism. Cologne journal for sociology and social psychology, 11, 1959, pp. 281–305.
  • Michael Burawoy: Marxism as Science. Historical Challenges and Theoretical Growth, American Sociological Review, 55, 6, 1990, pp. 775-793.
  • Wolf Wagner : Theory of impoverishment - the helpless criticism of capitalism. Frankfurt 1976.
  • Robert Michels : The impoverishment theory. Studies and investigations on the international dogma history of economics. Leipzig 1928.
  • Hans Joas : Globalization and Value Creation - or: Why Marx and Engels were not right after all. Berliner Journal für Soziologie 8, 3, 1998, p. 329.
  • Joseph A. Schumpeter : Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy . Tübingen 6th edition 1987 (first: 1942)
  • Laird Addis: The Individual and the Marxist Philosophy of History, pp. 328, in: May Brodbeck: Readings in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences, New York London 1968.
  • Jon Elster: Making Sense of Marx. Cambridge 1985.
  • Paul Kaegi: Genesis of historical materialism. Vienna-Frankfurt-Zurich 1965.
  • Wolfgang Eßbach : The importance of Max Stirner for the genesis of historical materialism (Diss. 1978). New ed. udT countermeasures . Frankfurt / M .: Materialis, 1982, ISBN 3-88535-068-8 .
  • Karl R. Popper : The open society and its enemies, Vol. 2: Falsche Propheten - Hegel, Marx and the consequences , Tübingen 7th edition 1992 (first: 1944)
  • Ekkehard Martens: 'The Realm of Necessity' and 'The Realm of Freedom'. An Aristotelian lesson from Marx. Journal for philosophical research, 28, 1, 1974, pp. 114-119.
  • Gustav A. Wetter : Dialectical Materialism , 1960.
  • Dieter Wolf : Unity of natural and social sciences. A modern interdisciplinary project by Marx and Engels. (PDF file; 219 kB) In: Contributions to Marx-Engels research. New series 2006, ISBN 3-88619-666-6 , pp. 92-133.
  • Ellen Meiksins Wood : Democracy versus Capitalism. Contributions to the renewal of historical materialism. Neuer ISP-Verlag, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-89900-123-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Engels: Mr. Eugen Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft, p. 487. Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 8118 (cf. MEW Vol. 20, pp. 248–249)
  2. ↑ On the term cf. Engels: About historical materialism. P. 19. Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 8934 (cf. MEW Vol. 22, p. 298)
  3. ^ Gerhard Hauck : From the classless to the class society . Pahl-Rugenstein-Verlag Cologne 1979, ISBN 3-7609-5009-4 . Habilitation thesis University of Heidelberg. P. 13
  4. ↑ Marx: On the Critique of Political Economy , p. 6f. Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 2898f (see MEW Vol. 13, p. 9f.)
  5. ^ Marx: Critique of the Gotha Program . P. 19. Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, P. 13180 (see MEW Vol. 19, P. 21)
  6. ↑ Engels: Foreword to the German edition of 1883. To: The Communist Manifesto. Karl Marx / Friedrich Engels, works, vol. 21, p. 3f.
  7. ^ Karl A. Wittfogel: A new introduction to the history of civil society . (New York, November 1976). In: Karl A. Wittfogel: History of the civil society. From its beginnings to the threshold of the great revolution . SOAK-Verlag Hannover 1977, ISBN 3-88209-003-0 . (Reprint of the edition published by Malik Verlag Vienna in 1924). Pp. VIII-IX
  8. ↑ Marx: On the Critique of Political Economy. P. 4f. Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 2896f (see MEW Vol. 13, p. 8f)
  9. ↑ See Engels: Mr. Eugen Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft, p. 39.Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 7670 (cf. MEW Vol. 20, p. 25)
  10. ↑ Cf. Marx: On the Critique of Political Economy. P. 6. Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, P. 2898 (cf. MEW Vol. 13, P. 9)
  11. ↑ Weber also differentiates in his “socio-economic approach” between two perspectives: “economically relevant” and “economically conditioned” phenomena. Cf. Max Weber : The "objectivity" of sociological and sociopolitical knowledge. in: Collected essays on science. Tübingen, 7th edition, 1988 UTB, p. 162.
  12. ↑ "The 'idea' was always embarrassed insofar as it was different from the" interest "." (Marx / Engels: Die heilige Familie . MEW 2: 85)
  13. ↑ Marx: Capital . Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 3318 (see MEW Vol. 23, p. 16)
  14. ↑ Marx: Capital. P. 5f. Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 3314f (see MEW Vol. 23, p. 12f)
  15. ↑ Marx: Capital. P. 8f. Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 3317f (see MEW Vol. 23, p. 15f)
  16. ↑ Marx: On the Critique of Political Economy. S. 5. Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 2897 (see MEW Vol. 13, p. 9)
  17. ↑ Marx: On the Critique of Political Economy. P. 6. Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, P. 2898 (cf. MEW Vol. 13, P. 9)
  18. ^ Karl Kautsky : The way to power. Appendix: Kautsky's controversy with the party executive . Edited and introduced by Georg Fülberth. European Publishing House Frankfurt am Main 1972, p. 31 ISBN 3-434-45012-2
  19. ↑ “An epitome of practical rules is called theory when these rules, as principles, are thought of in a certain generality, and are thereby abstracted from a multitude of conditions which nevertheless necessarily influence their exercise. Conversely, not every handling, but only the achievement of a purpose means practice , which is thought of as following certain generally presented principles of the procedure. ”(Immanuel Kant: About the common saying: That may be correct in theory, but is not suitable for them Praxis. Kant, Werke , Vol. XI, Suhrkamp stw 192, p. 127)
  20. ↑ Karl Korsch (edited and incorporated by Erich Gerlach, Jürgen Seifert): Political texts. Räteverlag Wiener Neustadt, p. 17.
  21. ^ Siegfried Landshut: The present in the light of Marx's teaching . In: Hamburg Yearbook for Economic and Social Policy 1 (1956), pp. 42–55; CEL: Karl Marx would be amazed . In: Die Zeit , February 17, 1955
  22. ^ Iring Fetscher: From Marx to the Soviet ideology. Presentation, criticism and documentation of Soviet, Yugoslav and Chinese Marxism . Diesterweg, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin / Munich 1972, p. 39 ff.
  23. ↑ Claus Dieter Kernig (ed.): Soviet system and democratic society vol. 5: personality cult and social psychology , sv profit rate . Herder, Freiburg 1972, p. 338; Nicholas Gregory Mankiw: Macroeconomics . Gabler, Wiesbaden 1993, p. 138; Thomas Petersen, Malte Faber: Karl Marx and the philosophy of the economy. Inventory - review - reassessment. Karl Alber Verlag, Freiburg 2016, p. 118.
  24. ↑ Arnd Hoffmann: Predictions . In: Stefan Jordan (Hrsg.): Lexikon Geschichtswwissenschaft. A hundred basic terms. Reclam, Stuttgart 2002, p. 315.
  25. ↑ Marx: Introduction [to the critique of political economy]. P. 2. Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 2759 (see MEW Vol. 13, p. 615)
  26. ↑ “Doesn't the educational history of the productive organs of social man, the material basis of every particular social organization, deserve equal attention? And wouldn't it be easier to deliver since, as Vico says, human history differs from natural history in that we made one and didn't make the other? Technology reveals man's active behavior towards nature, the immediate production process of his life, and thus also his social living conditions and the spiritual ideas that spring from them. Even all religious history that abstracts from this material basis is - uncritical. "[Marx: Das Kapital, p. 1362. Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 4671 (cf. MEW Vol. 23, p. 0) ]
  27. ↑ Joachim Israel : The Principle of Methodological Individualism and Marxian Epistemology. Acta Sociologica, 14, p. 147 ff.
  28. ^ Herbert Marcuse : Reason and Revolution. Writings 4. suhrkamp Frankfurt am Main 1989, first 1941, p. 63
  29. ↑ as in the exchange theory going back to George C. Homans , Peter M. Blau: Exchange and Power in Social Life. New York London Sydney 2nd edition 1967
  30. ↑ To present social laws as technical regularity (technological determinism), as is customary in bourgeois economy, is an ideology of practical constraint: “Production should rather - see e.g. B. Mill - in contrast to distribution, etc., are represented as enclosed in eternal natural laws independent of history, on which occasion bourgeois relations are then completely subordinated to society as irrefutable natural laws in abstracto. This is the more or less conscious purpose of the whole process. ”(Marx: Introduction [to the criticism of political economy] , p. 9. Digital library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 2766 (cf. MEW Vol. 13, p . 618–619))
  31. ↑ “But there are circumstances which determine both the actions of private individuals and the individual authorities and are as independent of them as the method of breathing. If you take this factual standpoint from the start, you will not assume either good or bad will on either side, but will see conditions at work where at first glance only people seem to be at work. ”(MEW 1: 188).
  32. ↑ The "methodological individualism" is introduced by Joseph Schumpeter : The essence and main content of theoretical economics. Berlin 2nd edition 1970 (first: 1908). VI. Cape. to delimit the "pure economy" from selfishly motivated action and political liberalism
  33. ↑ Marx: Introduction [on the critique of political economy] .. , p. 3. Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 2760 (cf. MEW Vol. 13, p. 616) This insight comes back to David Riesman: The lonely crowd. rde 72/73
  34. ↑ Kurt Lenk : Marx in the sociology of knowledge. Studies on the reception of Marx's criticism of ideology. Neuwied Berlin 1972, p. 141
  35. ↑ "So when we talk about production, we always talk about production at a certain level of social development - about the production of social individuals." (Marx: Introduction [on the critique of political economy]. P. 5. Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 2762 (see MEW Vol. 13, p. 616))
  36. ^ Laird Addis: The Individual and the Marxist Philosophy of History. in: May Brodbeck: Readings in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences. New York London 1968, p. 333.
  37. ^ Laird Addis: The Individual and the Marxist Philosophy of History. in: May Brodbeck: Readings in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences. New York London 1968, p. 328.
  38. ↑ This gross misunderstanding apparently undermines Helmut F. Spinner: Pluralism as a cognitive model. Frankfurt 1974, p. 15.
  39. ↑ Erich Hahn : Historical Materialism and Marxist Sociology. Studies on the methodological and epistemological foundations of sociological research. Berlin 1968
  40. ↑ Immanuel Kant: About the common saying: That may be correct in theory, but is not suitable for practice . Kant, Werke, vol. XI, suhrkamp stw 192, p. 127 ff.
  41. ↑ I / 5 M / E: Works · Articles · Drafts. German ideology. Manuscripts and prints. 2017. XII, 1894 p. 52, ISBN 978-3-11-048577-6 , Marx-Engels complete edition. Retrieved November 19, 2019 .
  42. ↑ Popper may have got the expression from the Anti-Dühring : “Freedom of science means that one writes about everything that one has not learned and that this is the only strictly scientific method. Herr Dühring, however, is one of the most characteristic types of this cheeky pseudoscience, which is now in the foreground everywhere in Germany and drowns out everything with its roaring - higher brass. "[Engels: Herr Eugen Dühring's Umwälzung der Wissenschaft , p. 5. Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 7636 (cf. MEW vol. 20, p. 6)]
  43. ↑ Karl R. Popper: The open society and their enemies, Vol. 2: Falsche Propheten - Hegel, Marx and the consequences, Tübingen 7th edition 1992 (first: 1944)
  44. ↑ “This is all that is needed: as soon as we have competing theories, there is plenty of scope for critical, or rational, discussion: we explore the consequences of the theories, and we try, especially, to discover their weak points - that is, consequences which we think may be mistaken. This kind of critical or rational discussion may sometimes lead to a clear defeat of one of the theories; more often it only helps to bring out the weaknesses of both, and thus challenges us to produce some further theory. " (Karl R. Popper: Objective Knowledge. An Evolutionary Approach. Oxford 1973, first: 1972, p. 35)
  45. ↑ Hartmut Kaelble , Jürgen Schriewer, (Ed.): Discourses and development paths. The comparison of societies in the history and social sciences. Frankfurt New York 1999
  46. ^ Karl Popper: What is dialectic? (PDF; 325 kB), p. 24
  47. ↑ Max Weber: R. Stammler's 'Overcoming' the materialistic conception of history. in: Collected essays on science. Tübingen 7th edition 1988. UTB 1492. Weber refers to the meaning of "materialistic": Max Adler: Causality and Teleology in the Controversy about Science. Marx Studies, Vol. I.
  48. ↑ Joseph A. Schumpeter: Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Tübingen 6th edition 1987 (first: 1942)
  49. ^ Joan Robinson: On Re-Reading Marx. (Cambridge, Students Bookshops LTD., 1953).
  50. ^ Hans Albert: Treatise on rational practice. Tuebingen 1979
  51. ↑ Jürgen Habermas: Knowledge and Interest. With a new epilogue, Frankfurt 3rd edition 1975