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Journal of Economic Issues
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J eI JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ISSUES
Vol. XII No. 4 December 1978
Michael Perelman
859
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860 Michael Perelman
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Marx's Theory of Science 861
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862 Michael Perelman
The economies of the ancient world languished even though they had
access to the two major components of the Industrial Revolution-the
mill and the clock [Marx and Engels 1942, p. 142; Marx 1906, p. 382].
Even though the feudal epoch saw the introduction of many new inven-
tions, machinery continued to be used sporadically [Marx 1906, p. 382].
In part, the high value put on social stability explains the slow develop-
ment of new methods of production [see George 1972, chapter 2]. Legal
prohibitions, as well as the threat of outright violence, added further
inhibitions to the application of machinery [Marx 1906, chapter 51,
section 5].
The more extensive harnessing of the potential of science could only
commence after capitalism emerged from feudal society. Once this new
social formation was complete, capitalism could look back to technical
victories such as "machinery, application of chemistry to industry and
agriculture, steam-navigation, clearing of whole continents for cultiva-
tion, [and] canalization of rivers" [Marx and Engels 1848, p. 40]. In
short, science and industry combined to realize the great historic destiny
of capital, the creation of surplus value [Marx 1974, p. 325].
The enormous development of productive capacity under capitalism
was not just the simple application of scientific principles. As Marx
cautioned us, "one can only speak of the productivity of capital if one
regards it as the embodiment of definite social relations of production"
[Marx 1968 and 1971, Part 3, p. 265]. If we accept this point of view,
Marx adds, "the historically transitory character of ... [capitalist pro-
ductivity] becomes at once evident" [ibid.].
Not only must productivity be grasped in terms of social relations,
but also science must be seen in such a light. In Marx's view, science
"becomes a force distinct from labour and press[ed] into the service of
capital" [Marx 1906, p. 397; and Marx 1969, p. 81]. Under capitalism,
"invention then becomes a business, and its application to science be-
comes a prospect which determines and solicits it" [Marx 1974, p. 704;
see also Smith 1937, p. 10].
Marx went so far as to say that "from 1825 onwards, almost all new
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Marx's Theory of Science 863
inventions were the results of collisions between the worker and the
employer who sought at all cost to depreciate the worker's specialized
ability. After each new strike of importance, there appeared a new
machine" [Marx 1963, p. 140; Marx and Engels 1942, p. 10; and simi-
larly Marx 1906, p. 476].
As long as science remains dominated by capital, "intellectual and
material activity" remain separated as "thoughtless activity and inactive
thought" [Marx and Engels 1845-1846, p. 423]. Although workers'
intellectual facilities atrophy in the factories [Marx 1906, pp. 395-404;
and Marx 1964, p. 149], the same factories teach the workers political
skills and discipline. Factory trained workers eventually develop the
ability to cooperate with each other while resisting the authority of
capital [Marx 1906, p. 383; and Marx 1967, vol. 3, p. 383]. Their class
consciousness is finally awakened.
A very different view of Marx's theory of science has been proposed
in a pair of articles by Nathan Rosenberg [1974; 1976], who argues that
science basically develops as a response to economic demands. Because
Rosenberg glosses over the class interests underlying the development
and application of science, he seriously misrepresents Marx's views on
the subject. Whereas Marx writes that technology can increase the pro-
ductivity of labor, Rosenberg's Marx believes that science responds to
"man's changing needs" or "the economic needs of society" [Rosenberg
1974, pp. 715 and 728].
Rosenberg's Marx ignores the social consequences of mechanization.
Instead, he generally writes as if economic development were a purely
technical matter. For example, Rosenberg describes Marx's interpreta-
tion of the shift from the hand-operated to the machine-operated process
as "momentous" [ibid., p. 721], but what Rosenberg sees as "momen-
tous" is only the potential for technical improvement; what Marx
described in the passage also included the destruction of the inde-
pendence of the worker during industrialization [Marx 1974, p. 702].
For Rosenberg's Marx, technology overcomes human frailties [Rosen-
berg 1974, p. 719]; for Marx it is used to overcome the economic
strength of workers.9
While Marx described the countless material sufferings of the workers,
Rosenberg, who is elsewhere so materialistic in his interpretation of
Marx, also cites the psychological damage suffered by them [ibid.].
Rosenberg even fails to differentiate between existence as machinery
and existence as capital when he discusses new technology [see Marx
1974, p. 699]. As a result, Marx's description of the new bourgeois
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864 Michael Perelman
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Marx's Theory of Science 865
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866 Michael Perelman
ticular job skill, but rather "general scientific labour" or "the free de-
velopment of individualities, and hence not the reduction of necessary
labour time so as to deposit surplus labour, but rather the general re-
duction of the necessary labour of society to a minimum, which then
corresponds to the artistic, scientific, etc., development of individuals
in the time set free" [ibid., p. 706].
Capitalism sets the stage for these possibilities by minimizing the
labor time used for production. "It presses to reduce labour time to a
minimum while it posits labour time, on the other side as sole measure
and source of wealth" [ibid.]. As a result, "capital itself is the moving
contradiction," since "it diminishes labour time in the necessary form
so as to increase it in the superfluous form; hence it posits the superfluous
in growing measure as a condition-question of life or death for the
necessary" [ibid.]. In short, capitalism is incapable of realizing the possi-
bilities of the scientific progress it fosters. Thus, Marx concludes, capi-
talism "works towards its own dissolution as the form dominating
production" [ibid., p. 700]. In Marx's words, not only is labor rendered
"superfluous," but also the positions of the capitalists become "super-
fluous" as they live off their "outdated and inappropriate privileges"
[Marx 1976, vol. 3, p. 314; see also Marx 1974, pp. 651 and 749]. Marx
looks to the development of the full potential of labor as much more than
a technical requirement of industry; it is the actual purpose of human
activity [Marx 1968 and 1971, Part 2, p. 117].
Marx not only looked to science to improve society, but also called
for a social improvement of science.'0 This point should be understood
in light of Marx's notion that science is developed within a particular
mode of production. Only with the decline of superstition which ema-
nated from precapitalist modes of production could a man such as
Descartes see animals as machines. Later, with the advance of capi-
talism, human beings also came to be seen as machines [Engels 1888,
p. 349]. Any science grounded on such a limited vision of human facul-
ties must remain a limited science. Similarly, industries based on such a
science must be seen as an expression of a limited vision of human
faculties.
Once the blinders of capitalism are removed, "natural science will lose
its abstractly material-or rather, its idealistic-tendency and will be-
come the emphasis of human science, as it has already become the basis
of actual life" [Marx 1964, pp. 142-43; see also commentaries on this
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Marx's Theory of Science 867
Notes
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868 Michael Perelman
References
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Marx's Theory of Science 869
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870 Michael Perelman
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