Engels & Marx as Epigones of Adam Smith the Historical-Materialist Stage Theorist

Some thoughts about historical-materialist stage theories of human history—& I let web-enabled Chat-GPT4 chime in...

Marx and Engels—or, perhaps, Engels and Marx, to the extent that the heart of Marxism is not Capital but rather a combination of Socialism: Utopian & Scientific and The Communist Manifesto—are perhaps seen as people extending Book III of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, in which Smith analyzes the factors that led to the transition from agrarian-feudal to commercial-parliamentary society, and then characterizes commercial-parliamentary society:

Paul Raekstad: Christopher J Berry: The Idea of Commercial Society in the Scottish Enlightenment: ‘Scottish Enlightenment thinkers developed a conception of emerging commercial or capitalist society as a qualitatively new social formation, distinct from all previous ones, with new potentials for human enrichment and liberation, but also with its own troubles and concerns…. the famous ‘four stages’ theory… is best interpreted as a kind of natural history…. What the Scots brought to the table was identifying a distinct age of commerce, of capitalism… [with] worries that Scottish Enlightenment thinkers had about this last stage of society with regard to… the decline of military virtues and political participation… harmful effects of an ever-more extreme division of labour… and… public credit…. Far from taking for granted a form of market-like atomistic individualism and an inherent tendency towards inter-individual competition… the Scottish enlightenment had a keen awareness of the novelty of the capitalism they saw emerging….

For many Scottish enlightenment thinkers there was a close connection between a theory of history, a certain base-superstructure approach to understanding social institutions, and a kind of realism in prescriptive political theory. Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations… is an excellent example[:]… Four basic ‘stages’ of society defined by their modes of subsistence…. A change in one base mode of subsistence ultimately generates changes in government or polity, as well as changes in customs, law, and much more…. The state does not properly exist in hunter-gatherer societies… Property law only begins… in herding… and greatly expands as societies move through stages…. The appropriate virtues are not the same in a violent herding society and a peaceful commercial one; the best property legislation will look very different for structurally different societies…. The conjunction and reciprocal determination of these three components—i.e., a theory of history, a way of understanding the development of social institutions, and a realist approach to prescriptive political theory—could, I think, offer interesting comparisons with Marxist and certain strands of anarchist thought…

Engels and Marx can then be seen as:

1. analyzing the factors that led to the transition from commercial-parliamentary to steampower-socialist society, and then

2. characterizing what that steampower-socialist society would be.

Of course, they jumped the gun.

And, curiously, if I ask web-enabled Chat-GPT to tell me about Friedrich Engels’s conception of steampower-socialist society, it gives him some of the foresight of Red Rosa Luxemburg and Max Weber:

According to Friedrich Engels, the transformation from commercial to steampower society was a historical process that marked the transition from capitalism to socialism. In his work Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Engels explained how the development of science and technology, especially the invention of the steam engine, revolutionized the mode of production and created the material conditions for a socialist society.

Engels argued that the steampower society shaped society and both enlarged and limited possibilities for human happiness and betterment in several ways:

First, it increased the productive forces and the socialization of labor to an unprecedented level. This enabled the creation of more wealth and goods for human consumption and satisfaction. However, it also created a contradiction between the social character of production and the private ownership of the means of production. This resulted in a crisis of overproduction, exploitation, and class struggle that threatened to destroy the capitalist system.

Second, it stimulated the development of scientific knowledge and rational thinking among the working class. This enabled them to understand the laws of nature and society and to challenge the ideological domination of the ruling class. However, it also created a gap between the intellectual and manual workers, who were separated by the division of labor and education. This resulted in a lack of solidarity and cooperation among the workers and a difficulty in organizing a unified socialist movement1.

Third, it created the possibility of a democratic and internationalist society based on cooperation and equality. This enabled the workers to overthrow the capitalist state and establish a workers’ state that would gradually abolish class distinctions and private property. However, it also created a risk of a violent and bloody revolution that would require a dictatorship of the proletariat to suppress the resistance of the bourgeoisie. This resulted in a danger of corruption, bureaucracy, and authoritarianism that could undermine the socialist ideals.

Therefore, Engels suggested that the steampower society was not necessarily a progressive or beneficial stage in human history. Instead, it was a transitional stage that brought both opportunities and challenges for human society and well-being…

No. I did not tweak the prompt. Clever Hans is being pretty clever here!

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References:

• Berry, Christopher J. 2013. The Idea of Commercial Society in the Scottish Enlightenment. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.<https://academic.oup.com/edinburgh-scholarship-online/book/28932>

• Engels, Frederick. 1892. Socialism Utopian and Scientific. Translated by Edward Aveling. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Company. <https://archive.org/details/engels-friedrich-socialism-utopian-and-scientific>.

• Marx, Karl, & Friedrich Engels. 1848. The Communist Manifesto. London: Reeves & Turner. <https://archive.org/details/commie-book>

• Raekstad, Paul. 2014. “Review of Berry, The Idea of Commercial Society in the Scottish Enlightenment.” Marx and Philosophy Review of Books July 8. <https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/7969_the-idea-of-commercial-society-in-the-scottish-enlightenment-review-by-paul-raekstad/>

• Smith, Adam. 1776. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell. <https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.76521>