6 - The revolutionary dialectics of capitalist society

Summary

HISTORICAL ORIGINS AND THEORETICAL MODELS

Marx's decision to devote most of his life to a systematic study of capitalism, contenting himself with occasional remarks about the structure of socialist society, can be explained by methodological considerations. As ‘Utopian’ socialism, because of its failure to grasp the nature of existing reality, also cannot come to grips with the future, so Marx's claim to understand the present gives him a clue to the ultimate trends of history operating within capitalist society. Utopianism develops ‘scientific’ theories, which exist ‘only in the head of the thinker’, because it does not have reality as its object. In the Critique of the Gotha Programme Marx refers to the same epistemological argument when saying that he does not deal with an a priori concept of communism, but with communist society ‘as it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society’.

Marx's approach to communism demonstrates his belief that the crystallization of socialist forms of society cannot be achieved through a deterministic teleology, but grows out of the causal analysis of existing social forces. If communism cannot be understood otherwise than by its emergence from capitalist society, then the study of capitalism provides the best means to comprehend the development that will ultimately bring communism about. Moreover the emergence of communism from the womb of capitalist society draws attention to the dialectical relationship between the two societies.