Lecture 7 Sociology 621 September 28, 2011 CRITIQUES & RECONSTRUCTIONS OF CLASSICAL HISTORICAL MATERIALISM Many criticisms have been raised against historical materialism, both from outside of the Marxist tradition and from within. Some of these I engage in the sections from my book Reconstructing Marxism assigned for this session. What I will do here is briefly list five criticisms. Some of these can be countered fairly effectively, others are more serious. I will not discuss all of these in detail, but focus on a few of these which are a little more complex. 1) The development thesis: the forces of production do not have a systematic tendency to develop over time. 2) Fettering: There is no general reason why class relations inevitably fetter of forces of production. A good argument may be possible for why a particular kind of class relations have this property, but there is no general argument for why all forms of class relations ultimately do this. 3) Economic reductionism: HM is a form of economic reductionism, especially in the explanation of superstructures, and this is illegitimate. 4) Transformation: Even if relations do fetter the forces of production, there is no reason to suppose that there will always emerge any historical agents capable of transforming those relations. There is no inherent tendency for Class Capacities sufficient to challenge ruling classes to be generated in conjunction with fettering. Permanent stagnation is possible. 5) functional explanations: Functional explanations in social science are not legitimate forms of explanation, both as they apply to the relations of production and to the superstructure. In light of these criticisms I will offer a less deterministic theoretical goal of historical materialism that retains a general sense of history having an overall, systematic pattern to it, but rejects the strong claims to determinacy implied by classical historical materialism. 1. Critique of the Development Thesis (skip) Joshua Cohen criticizes G.A. Cohen for claiming that there is any inherent tendency for the forces of production to develop. Above all Joshua Cohen emphasizes that while the premises about individual motivations and circumstances adopted by G.A. Cohen may be sound -- that individuals are, among other things, motivated to improve their material situation under conditions of scarcity -- there is no reason to imagine that this individual motivation is universally translated into an interest in the development of the forces of production. There are many other ways of enhancing material welfare: conquest, increasing exploitation, etc. “Blockages” of the development of the forces of production, therefore, will not be pathologicaland the systematic development of the forces of production will be much more contingent upon specific institutional arrangements. Response: In order to respond to J. Cohen’s arguments, a weaker version of the development thesis needs to be adopted. Rather than positing an inherent drive for the forces of production to advance, a softer claim can be made: the probability of development of the forces of production is greater than the probability of their regression. Note that this does not imply that for some given period of time the probability of development is greater than the probability of stagnation. Suppose 10,000 years ago that in a 100-year period the probability of a significant development of the forces of production -- a development which significantly affect productivity -- is .1 and the probability of stagnation .9 (forgetting for the moment the probability of regression). This means in two successive 100 year periods the probability of stagnation is .81, in four successive centuries .35, in 1000 years .01, in 4000 years. So, the probabilities are extremely high that at least once in every 4000 years there will be some significant advance in the forces of production even if in any given century the probability is only .1. So long as the probability of development is greater than the probability of regression (so this will not have an equal or greater chance of being undone), there will be a sticky downward tendency for the forces of production to develop. This sticky downward quality, I think, is all that is needed for the forces of production to have a directionality to them. 2. Inevitability of fettering of forces of production The pivotal argument in HM is that in all modes of production based on class relations, eventually the relations of production fetter the forces of production. But why should we believe this as a general, law-like proposition? This may be true for a particular type of relations of production like feuedalism, but why should we believe this is always true? Neither Marx nor Cohen offer a generic argument for this. The most one can say is this: In class societies the relations of production create powerful classes with interests in the status quo. They defend superstructures which preserve those relations of production and thus create a certain kind of social rigidity. This rigidity itself may tend to become a fetter, since the relations of production are unlikely to adjust flexibly to new conditions. But is this credible? In fact this is precisely what capitalism has accomplished: incredible flexibility in its own institutional transformations. Cohen’s proposal of use-fettering is a reasonable response: the plausibility of alternatives to capitalism comes not from the an absolute fettering of development of the PF which might make capitalism unsustainable but from its deepening irrationality, The core idea here is this: capitalism creates a world of unbelievable productivity, yet perpetuates toil and poverty on a massive scale. The gap between the kinds of lives we could live because of our productiveness and the lives we do live because of the capitalist organization of this productivity is thefundamental irrationality of the system: eliminanable human suffering and alienation in a world capable of sustaining human emancipation. But irrationality – unfortunately -- generates much weaker predictions about the future: at most we may have a theory of capitalisms futures. 3. Economic Reductionism: critique of the theory of the superstructure Probably the most common critique of historical materialism is that it is an example of economic reductionism or economic determinism (or class reductionism or technological reductionism depending upon