p As we have seen, it is impossible for us to be mistaken as to the meaning in which Mr. P. Struve uses the words the economy, as he himself has tried to give a rigorous definition of that meaning. Nevertheless, let us imagine that we have failed to understand him correctly and that our critic uses the word, not to indicate some economic order or other “(for example, the capitalist”), and not the production (property) relations peculiar to a given society, but that economic element in social phenomena the notion of which, as he himself has very correctly noted, is not completely defined by the concept of the economy. But where will that supposition lead us to? [488•*
p Once we accept that, we must naturally also accept another interpretation of Mr. P. Struve’s words, to the effect that everything in the Marxist theory revolves about the contradiction 489 between the economy and law. We are now obliged to assume that he regards as underlying that theory the doctrine of the contradiction (relation) between the economic phenomena that take place in a given society, and the laws inherent in that society. It is that contradiction that must now be recognised as the hub about which "everything revolves" in Marxist theory.
p Let us consider capitalist society and see in what degree and in which conditions the contradiction between the economic phenomena proceeding in it and its legal system can be a cause impelling its development forward.
p Let us suppose that what is known as the permits system for the establishment of joint stock companies^^255^^ exists in our capitalist society. It is common knowledge that such a system is marked by many disadvantages hampering the development of jointstock companies and therefore of large-scale production, which now stands in such need of the association of capital belonging to individuals. That is why a contradiction will sooner or later arise in our society between an economic phenomenon—the growth of large-scale production that stands in need of the development of joint-stock companies—and law—inexpedient legislation, which regulates the establishment of such companies. That contradiction can be eliminated only in one way; the destruction of the permits system and its replacement by the so-called fait accompli system, which is far more convenient. Of course, the latter system, as one that is incomparably more expedient, will sooner or later become enacted. In that case, the accommodation of a legal norm to an economic phenomenon will, it may be said, take place of itself and, as the French have it, one has to be fou a lier to start speaking of social revolution in circumstances in which the development of social life has brought forward only contradictions of this kind.
p But what are contradictions of this kind marked by? They are marked by the fact of the economic phenomena that contradict bourgeois law in no way contradicting the economic foundation of that law, i.e., the property relations of capitalist society.
p The question that now arises is: did Marx himself or any of his “orthodox” followers ever say that the social revolution is caused by contradictions of that kind? No, neither Marx nor his pupils ever said that. According to Marx (we have pointed that out many times, and are now obliged to repeat it), social revolutions are prepared and become inevitable as a result of the contradiction between society’s productive forces and those of its property relations on which the laws peculiar to that society are based. That contradiction is of a quite different (and infinitely more dangerous) kind; with the appearance of that contradiction, a revolutionary epoch sets in. To swaddle it in vague and 490 therefore empty verbiage on the contradiction between economic phenomena and legal institutions, and on the adaptation of law to the economy means, not throwing light on the question but muddling and obscuring it to the uttermost degree. In truth, what is needed here is Mr. P. Struve’s "kritischer Geist”,"taken in its entirety”, to create even a momentary impression that such muddling and obscuring of the question is equivalent to a further advance of the “realistic” thinking that underlies Marxism as an historical theory. Far from being any forward movement, this is not even any movement of thought (as the late A. S. Khomyakov used to say); it is simply some untidy and empty—and therefore quite useless and barren—theoretical fussing over nothingness. That kind of fuss can give the greatest pleasure to those of whom Cuno Fischer has spoken in the words we have used in the epigraph, but to science such fuss is worse than nothing, for it marks a vast backward step, a negative phenomenon.
p Marx himself has emphatically said that law, as inherent in a given society, develops on the basis of the latter’s economic structure (its property relations). [490•* This can be borne out by a number of most indisputable examples. Who does not know today that the property relations of savage tribes of hunters are imbued with communism, and that an appropriate common law arises on the foundation of those communist relations? Who is unaware that, on the foundation of feudal property relations (the foundation of the "feudal organisation of agriculture and industry”), there arose an entire system of legal institutions which were nurtured by that system and disappeared together with it? Who has not heard that present-day bourgeois law—for example, the Civil Code we have mentioned above—evolved on the basis of bourgeois property relations? Mr. P. Struve himself, in his comment on Marx (see above; the footnote on page 488) designates as a superstructure the legal and political relations that have arisen on the basis of a given economic structure or particular property relations. Besides, Mr. P. Struve has himself admitted that the fundamental contradiction pointed out by the Marxist theory of social development is one between society’s productive forces and its property relations. Why then does he immediately lose sight of this fundamental contradiction, for which he substitutes a secondary contradiction between the economic phenomena within a given economic structure, and the laws for which that structure, as Marx has put it, serves as a real foundation? How can he justify that kind of substitution?
491Take crises, which the Manifesto of the Communist Party points to as a phenomenon that most vividly confirms the idea that bourgeois society’s productive forces have outgrown the property relations, or the economic structure, peculiar to it, and tell us, dear reader, whether that economic phenomenon contradicts law which has developed on the basis of bourgeois property relations, for instance the French legal code of 1804? What a naive and ridiculous question! Crises contradict bourgeois society’s civil law just as little as the rates of bills of exchange contradict its criminal law. It is not crises that contradict the Civil Code, but the productive forces that contradict the economic structure “(property relations”) that underlie that code. What is meant by the words: bourgeois society’s productive forces contradict its economic structure, its property relations? They mean that such relations hamper the use of those forces in their full volume and that, when those forces are given extensive play, they impair the proper course of the economy. It consequently follows that 1he more society’s productive forces are developed, the more dangerous their full play becomes to it. This is a contradiction that cannot be removed while bourgeois property relations continue to exist. [491•* What is necessary for its elimination is a social 492 revolution that will destroy bourgeois property relations and replace them with socialist property relations, which are of a totally different nature. Such is the meaning of Marx and Engels’s remark. The economic phenomenon they have cited as an example is indicative of narrow confines (the property relations) limiting bourgeois society’s economic life and underlying bourgeois law. Their “critic” passes over in silence (or, more precisely, has completely forgotten, after a single mention) that very contradiction which they have considered the fundamental cause of social revolutions, and then naively remarks that Marx’s own theory, if correctly understood, leaves no room for the social revolution, but presupposes the "constant adaptability of law to the economy as a normal form of their coexistence”. This kind of criticism involuntarily leads one to recall the words of the Russian fabulist Krylov: you have failed to notice the elephant.^^257^^
Notes
[488•*] We have made that supposition on the basis of the following words of Mr. P. Struve: "Jedenfalls aber ist fur die Marxsche Theorie die Annahme einer Steigerung der Wiederspriiche zwischen den okonomischen Phenomenon und Rechtsnormen charakteristischl" (ibid., S. 671, III.) [In any case, Marxist theory is marked by the assumption of the mounting contradiction between economic phenomena and legal works.] Consequently, the focus of the Marxist theory here is the contradiction between "legal norms”, and "economic phenomena”, the notion of which is not fully denned by the notion of the economy.
[490•*] "The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure—" (Zur Kritik, etc., Vorwort.^^256^^); (italics are ours.)
[491•*] A reservation is in place here! Of late, many “critics” (including Mr. Tugan-Baranovsky) have pointed out that crises have shed the acute form they formerly had, and that consequently they no longer play that part in the development of social life which Marx with good reason ascribed to them. To that we shall reply as follows: whatever the current form of the phenomenon indicated by Marx, its essence has remained unchanged. The phenomenon is caused by the contradiction between society’s productive forces and its property relations. What the British call "trade depressions" [these two words are in English in the original] bear very little resemblance in form to crises in the proper sense of the word, but they have quite the same significance in essence. To realise that, one has only to read, for instance, the conclusions arrived at by the British Royal Commission set up to study the causes of the depression in trade and industry. "During the past forty years,” we read in a note drawn up by several dissenting members’ of the Commission, "a great change has been wrought in the circumstances of all civilised communities by the application of mechanical and scientific aids to the production and transport of commodities, the world over—The great difficulty consists no longer, as of old, in the scarcity and dearness of the necessaries and conveniences of life, but in the struggle for an adequate share of that employment which affords to the great bulk of the population their only means of obtaining a title to a sufficiency of those necessaries and conveniences, however plentiful and cheap they may be__ The growing difficulty (the struggle for an adequate share of employment in presence of the abundance and cheapness of commodities) finds its expression in the system of tariffs, export bounties and other commercial restrictions, adopted and maintained by all civilised nations except our own" (Final Report of the Royal Commission etc., p. LV; cf. also p. LXIV). [This passage is cited by Plekhanov in English.] The productive forces of civilised societies have reached such a degree of development that those who have no other commodity to sell except their labour power are finding it very hard to find themselves occupations, i.e., to sell that labour power and thereby acquire the wherewithal to buy the cheap products now prepared in abundance. Hardship is born of plenty; poverty, of wealth. This is the very same contradiction pointed out by Marx and Engels with reference to crises. The only difference is that, in the opinion of the authors of the Report we have quoted from above, this contradiction has arisen during the past forty years, while the authors of the Manifesto think that it appeared earlier. Do not think that the majority of the Royal Commission deny the existence of that contradiction. No, the majority have expressed the same view as the minority, only their wording is different: "The world’s capacity of production,” they say, "will naturally be in excess of its ordinary requirements" (I.e., p. XVII). [This sentence is in English in the original.] This is quite equivalent to the idea that trade depressions [these two words are in English in the original] are caused, like crises, by the absence of correspondence between the market’s consuming capacity and the present-day productive forces. But that market capacity is restricted by present-day society’s property relations. Thus we again come up against the fundamental contradiction in that society—the contradiction between its property relations, on the one hand, and its productive forces, on the other.
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