Marxism
and Method
Daniel Little
University of
Michigan-Dearborn
This
essay is concerned with Marxist method in the twentieth century. Before proceeding far, however, we have
to ask the question—what sort of method are we considering? It is a fact that Marxist thought has
inspired research frameworks in many fields—art history, literature,
culture studies, philosophy, historiography, and the social sciences. And these influences have proceeded
through many different tropes within Marx’s thought—the theory of
alienation, the concept of mystification, the labor theory of value, the
theories of class conflict and exploitation, the theory of the forces and
relations of production, or the theory of the mode of production. So the question of Marxist method is
complicated in a many-many way: there are many areas where Marxist methods have
been employed, and there are many strands within Marx’s thought that have given
rise to these various approaches.
My
focus will be on methodology for the social sciences (within which I include
much of historical inquiry). This
choice sets two basic parameters to our study. We will be concerned with the ways in which Marxist methods
have in the past century helped to shape our understanding of the social world.
And we will be concerned with
these influences within the domain of empirical research (as opposed to
literary, philosophical, or ethical investigations).
Marx
is one of the unmistakable founders of modern social science. Throughout a lifetime of research and
writing he aimed to arrive at a scientific analysis of modern economic
life. Throughout most of his life
he emphasized the importance of engaging in a scientific analysis of capitalism
as a system. And he consistently
adhered to a rigorous commitment to honest empirical investigation of the
facts. Marx’s own goals were thus
undoubtedly framed by his aspiration to construct a scientific analysis of the
capitalist mode of production. And
social science research and theory today is certainly strongly influenced by
many of Marx’s contributions—especially in the areas of social history,
sociology, and political economy.
Here I will survey some of the important avenues through which Marxist
approaches to the social sciences have developed in the twentieth century. And I will attempt to provide
perspective on the enduring contributions that Marxist social science has made
for the conduct of social research.
The
influence of Marx’s thought in the social sciences in the twentieth century is
ubiquitous: social history and the history of working people (Jones
1971); institutions within capitalism (Giddens
1973); political history of revolution and class (Soboul
1989); the lived experience of the working class (Sennett
and Cobb 1972); alienation and mystification as social categories and real social
phenomena (manufacturing and its culture) (Szymanski
1978), (Mészáros 1972); political economy (Mandel
1969, 1975), sociology of education (Bowles
and Gintis 1976); the state within capitalist societies (Miliband
1969, 1982), (Poulantzas 1973). Marx’s writings have
contributed enormously to how we analyze, conceptualize, and explain social
processes and social history.
However,
there is no single answer to the question, “What is the Marxist methodology of
social science?” Rather, Marxist
social inquiry in the twentieth century represents a chorus of many voices and
insights, many of which are inconsistent with others. Rather than representing a coherent research community in
possession of a central paradigm and commitment to specific methodological and
theoretical premises, Marxist social science in the twentieth century has had a
great deal of variety and diversity of emphases. Think of the range of thinkers whose work falls within the
general category of Marxian social science: E. P. Thompson, Louis Althusser,
Jürgen Habermas, Gerald Cohen, Robert Brenner, Nicos Poulantzas, Ralph
Miliband, Nikolai Bukharin, Georg Lukàcs, or Michel Foucault. All these authors have made a
contribution to Marxist social science; but in no way do these contributions add
up to a single, coherent and focused methodology for the social sciences. There is no canonical body of findings
that constitute a paradigm.
Instead, there are numerous signal instances of substantive and methodological
writings, from a variety of traditions, that have provided moments of insight
and locations for possible future research. And so the graduate student of the
social sciences who aims to acquire expertise in “Marxist theory” will find her
course of study to more closely resemble that of a literature student than a
student of molecular biology with an open-ended set of encounters with great
works than a coherent and orderly research discipline.
Why
do we need a methodology for the social sciences? Because the social world is indefinitely complex and
multi-stranded—thus eluding explanation through simple observation. And because the social world as a
domain of phenomena is fundamentally different from the natural world, in the
respect of its degree of “law-governedness” (Little
1993). So neither the methods
of ordinary commonsense nor the methods of the natural sciences will suffice to
lead us to an ability to recognize the systems, structures, and causal
processes that are embodied in the social world. The social world proceeds through the activities of billions
of men and women. It embodies
institutions, organizations, and structures that propel and constrain
individual action, and these social entities give rist to processes that are
neither law-governed nor random.
The social world gives rise to relations of power, domination,
exploitation, and resistance. It
produces outcomes that advantage some and disadvantage others. It is the result of complex exchanges
between agents and structures, and each pole of this conjunction influences the
other. The social world, in short,
is complex. The challenge of
understanding social phenomena is both important and difficult. This is true in 2000; but it was not
less true in 1830, when Engels took up residence in Birmingham and undertook to
describe and comprehend the confusion of factories, slums, mansions, hunger,
and turmoil that Birmingham represented.
The Conditions of the Working Class in England is his result (Engels
1958); and Capital is Marx’s (Marx
1977).
What
is involved in having a “philosophy and methodology for social science”? It is to have answers to several
different domains of questions—
·
inquiry—how to
make use of a variety of tools of research to arrive at hypotheses and theories
about a domain of empirical phenomena;
·
epistemology—how
to employ empirical and theoretical considerations to provide justification for
the hypotheses and theories that we put forward;
·
metaphysics—an
account of the types of entities and processes of which the domain of phenomena
are composed; and
·
a theory of the
structure of social science knowledge—a conception of the purpose of
social science inquiry and a schematic notion of what social science results
ought to look like. (Theories? Bodies of empirical findings? Statistical laws? Narrative interpretations of important
social processes? Groups of causal
hypotheses?)
Marx’s
methodological thinking, and that of many Marxist social scientists who
followed, provide tentative answers to each of these questions. And, as we should expect, these answers
add up to something less than a finished and consistent methodology (any more
than Weber’s work constitutes a tidy theory of social science knowledge and
inquiry; (Ringer 1997)).
Let
us begin with Marx’s social science contributions themselves. It is fruitful to ask the question,
what are Marx’s central aims as a social scientist? And in what does his central contribution consist? Does his work, and the work that
followed from it, provide a theory of capitalism and history? Are there specific empirical hypotheses
that are subject to empirical investigation in his work? Does it provide a paradigm or research
programme, along the lines articulated by Kuhn and Lakatos (Lakatos
1970; Lakatos and Musgrave 1974; Kuhn 1970)? Does Marx adhere to a
coherent conception of social inquiry and social explanation? And does Marx have a distinctive
conception of social science inquiry—a theory of dialectical reasoning,
for example?[1]
Marx’s
central scientific goals include at least these: to provide an empirically
well-founded description of the central institutional features of a
market-based property holding economic system; to derive the social
implications of these institutional arrangements; and to illuminate the
historical process through which these institutional features came to exist in
the several capitalist social economies.
His central social scientific contribution is Capital (Marx
1977),
and this work is a dense mélange of historical description, micro-sociological
detail, reasoning about institutions and their implications, and mathematical
political economy. (These points
are more fully developed in (Little 1986).) Marx believed that the institutions of
capitalism constituted a mode of production, and that this mode of production
has a distinctive historical logic.
Ordinary men and women, pursuing their lives within the institutional
context of capitalism, make choices in private life, work life, and a variety
of organizations (firms, unions, parties), that lead collectively to
large-scale patterns of change.
Processes of accumulation of capital, acceleration of technological
change, and clarification of classes (proletariat, bourgeoisie) are the
predictable consequence of the defining institutional setting of capitalist
development. Socially constructed
individuals within specific institutions behave in predictable
ways—leading to a process of social change that can be delineated and
explained. There is hence an institutional logic defined by private ownership
in the means of production and wage labor, and working out some of the
consequences of this logic is one of Marx’s central goals. So Marx’s social science writings are
best understood as constituting a diverse set of lines of thought, explanatory
models, and historical interpretations falling loosely under a guiding
perspective on historical and social change.
On
this interpretation, Marx’s contribution to the social sciences is something
other than a coherent and simple theory of capitalism. He provides knowledge about capitalism
as a social order; but this knowledge cannot be summarized in a formal or
mathematical theory with a small number of premises. Rather, it is comprised of an irreducible variety of
sociological description, historical interpretation (now often superceded by
better knowledge about the feudal world or early capitalism), and quasi-formal
reasoning about institutions and economic relations.
Is
there at least a coherent theory of social science inquiry in Marx’s
writings? Marx certainly provides
guidance for other historical and social researchers, in terms of where to look
for hypotheses. So there is a
Marxist “style of inquiry” that has specific origins in Marx’s own
research. This style of inquiry
has a number of features. It is
materialist—that is, it focuses on the forces and relations of
production, and it postulates that technology and power are fundamental with
regard to other social formations (e.g. literature, culture, law). It is oriented to the salience of class
and class conflict within historical change. It is sensitive to the workings of ideology and false
consciousness in our understandings of the social institutions within which we
live. And it pays special
interest, and offers special concern, to the perspectives of the underclasses
at any given time in history.
What
about dialectics, and Marx’s famous assertion that he has turned Hegel’s dialectical
logic on its head? Contrary to a
number of interpreters of Marx (Ollman
1971), (Ruben 1979; Ollman 1993; Schaff 1970), I maintain that the concept of dialectics plays only a minor role in
Marx’s thinking, and no role at all in his method of inquiry (Little
1987). The role that dialectics
plays is more by way of a high-level hypothesis about institutional
change—that institutions have unforeseen and unintended consequences;
that processes of change can bring about an undermining of the foundations of
the institutions driving these processes of change; and that there are
“contradictions” in historical processes.
But this is no more mysterious than Mancur Olsen’s discovery of the
contradiction between private and collective interests (Olson
1965), Kenneth Arrow’s demonstration of the impossibility of a consistent
voting scheme (Arrow 1963), or George Akerlof’s analysis of the perverse consequences of
information asymmetry in competitive markets (Akerlof
1970). Social science research
has almost always made its more important contributions through discovery of
unintended consequences and perverse effects; and this is very much the role
that dialectics plays in Marx’s writings.
Much
of the most constructive work in Marxian social science in the past 20 years
has taken place within the framework of “rational choice Marxism”—authors
such as Elster (Elster 1982, 1985, 1986), Roemer (Roemer 1981, 1982, 1982, 1986, 1986), Brenner (Brenner 1976, 1982), and Przeworski (Przeworski 1985, 1985, 1986) who have attempted to bring together Marxian historical insights with
the methodology of rational choice theory and the new institutionalism (Powell
and DiMaggio 1996; Brinton and Nee 1998), (Knight 1992). On this approach, it is
argued that we can reach Marxian conclusions (about exploitation, class, and
the tendencies of capitalism, for example) on the basis of the assumption of
individual rationality within the specific institutional setting of
capitalism. What this demonstrates
is that the essential Marxian contribution is substantive, not methodological;
it is a set of discoveries about the social world, not an artifact of a
particular conception of inquiry.
Is
the rational choice approach compatible with Marx’s own methodology? I believe that it is. First, Marx’s use of the tools of
political economy, and his central demonstrations of the laws of capitalism,
depend on the assumption of individual rationality. Second, Marx’s approach to method is, as argued above,
eclectic. So we would not expect
him to reject an approach that promises to provide rigorous empirical and
theoretical support for his analysis.
And in fact, it is possible to discern the workings of rational choice
analysis at the core of Marx’s most favored discoveries. Marx’s argument for the falling rate of
profit, for example, hinges on a very Olson-like argument (Olson
1965) concerning the contradiction between the individual capitalist’s
interests and the interests of the class of capitalists as a whole. And this is an argument within the
theory of rational choice.
Marx’s
method of inquiry, then, is unexceptional; it is not sharply distinguished from
non-Marxist social science. Marx
emphasizes the importance of careful empirical and historical inquiry. He values explanatory hypotheses that
can be rigorously developed in such a way as to explain and predict social
outcomes. He is not antecedently
wedded to particular interpretations of history (for example, recall his
agnostic statements about Russian economic development to Vera Zasulich; (Marx
and Engels 1975 : 319-320)). And he constructs his
own inquiry around a set of high-level research hypotheses—the salience
of class, the importance of the material foundations of social institutions,
and the workings of ideology.
Finally, Marx offers what might be called a “galilean” model of social
explanation: to explain phenomena in terms of underlying causal conditions
rather than crude associations among observable variables. This perspective leads him to engage in
careful hypothesis-formation—again, a perspective that is highly
consistent with contemporary social science research standards.
Does
Marx have a distinctive epistemology for the social sciences? As suggested in this treatment of
theory and inquiry, I take the position that he does not. His epistemology is comparable to what
we might today call a realist empiricism: that scientific knowledge can arrive
at statements about unobservable structures that are approximately true, and
that the basis of evaluation of such hypotheses is through appropriate use of
empirical methods (observation, experimentation, and historical inquiry). Marx’s own writings do not support a
relativistic “sociology of knowledge,” according to which the validity of
knowledge depends on the social class perspective of the investigator; instead,
his theory of knowledge is premised on the notion that well-founded beliefs
about the social world can be arrived at on the basis of empirical methods and
theoretical reasoning.
What
about metaphysics and ontology?
Here Marx’s work is somewhat more distinctive. He presupposes a number of metaphysical assumptions about
societies and historical processes: that the social world is a causal order,
that social structures have properties and causal characteristics, that
individuals constitute social structures through their actions and choices,
that “social formations” fall under the categories of “modes of production,”
that modes of production consist of sets of forces and relations of production,
and that classes exist. Each of
these assumptions serves as a part of Marx’s social ontology. They represent assumptions about the
kinds of entities and relations that exist in the world that are, in a sense,
prior to specific empirical discoveries.
(This does not imply that they are beyond the reach of empirical
inquiry, however; the test of the ontology is the empirical success or failure
of the more specific theories that are launched within its terms.)
Marx’s
ontology includes several more specific ideas as well. The ideas of the forces and relations
of production are critical to his inquiry; these ideas capture the level of
technology and the institutional context in which the technology is utilized
that are current within a given society.
(This pair of ideas can be summarized as “technology and power.”) The concept of exploitation is also
crucial in Marx’s ontology; it describes a relation within the context of which
some individuals and groups are enabled to control the labor time of others and
to derive benefit from their labor without compensation. The labor theory of value, and the
theory of surplus value, provide an analytical framework within which to
theorize about exploitation.
Marx’s concepts of alienation, fetishism, and mystification are also
foundational in his social ontology.
Individuals have consciousness and freedom, but they find themselves
always within the context of institutions and ideas that structure their
understandings of the relations that govern them. (“Men make their own history, but not in circumstances of
their own making;” (Marx 1964).)
Let
us turn briefly to a review of some of the directions that Marxian thought has
taken in the twentieth century.
Louis
Althusser’s reading of Marx is a particularly philosophical reading (Althusser
and Balibar 1970). Althusser attributes to
Marxism a philosophical theory, an epistemology, and a series of theoretical
concepts, through which he believes that Marxism seeks to view the world. (It is perhaps significant that
Althusser generally does not attribute this theory to Marx, but to
Marxism. It illustrates
Althusser’s preference for the system over the author, the structure over the
agent, and the abstract over the concrete.) The concepts of structural determination, overdetermination,
and determination in the last instance are his central contributions, and they
provide a singularly philosophical and apriori basis for inquiry into real
historical processes.
Is
Marx’s system an effort in empirical discovery? Althusser’s answer, on the whole, is that it is not. Instead, it is an effort in
conceptualizing history in terms of abstract structures and contradictions; it
is an effort in philosophy. He is
highly critical of empiricism as a basis for social knowledge.
Althusser’s
is a structuralist theory that verges on logical idealism—the notion that
reality can be recapitulated entirely through theoretical argument. Althusser emphasizes the “reading”
rather than the real object that is read; that is, he emphasizes a reading of Capital rather than an interrogation of real, historically
given capitalism.
Althusser
represents the “anti-humanist” Marx (Althusser
1969 : 221ff.). He rejects the notion
that the theory of human nature and alienation represent core elements of
Marxism (the central contributions of the Economic and Philosophical
Manuscripts and other early
writings), and puts it forward that it is the theory of the abstract structure
of capitalism advanced in Capital
that represents Marx’s core contribution.
Much
of Althusser’s writing on Marx falls in the category of social metaphysics:
articulating a series of concepts designed to express the nature of the
structures and relations that constitute a historical whole. His notion of “a structure in
dominance” is designed to capture the notion that the various spheres of social
life—economic, legal, political, etc.—are part of a complex whole (Althusser
1969 : 201).
Let
us ask the critical question from the point of view of this chapter: does
Althusser put forward a method for Marxist inquiry? In the sense that is before us here—a method of
inquiry designed to probe contingent historical and empirical
processes—he does not. He
rather constructs a philosopher’s method of reading and theorizing, analyzing
and extending, the thoughts expressed in a complex text. In this fashion his work is more akin
to literary theory than it is to empirical scientific inquiry. His goal is to extract the
“problematic” of a given complex text (Capital), rather than inquiring into the empirical properties
of a real system (capitalism). (Callinicos
1976)
Althusser’s
theorizing about Marx influenced several other important figures in European
Marxism, including particularly Nicos Poulantzas. Poulantzas undertook extensive analysis of politics within
the general framework of Althusser’s formulation of the mode of production (Poulantzas
1973; Poulantzas 1975). His work, however, is
based on historical investigation and research in ways that Althusser’s work
never was; as a consequence, it has the potential to make a significant
contribution to our understanding of political power within capitalism. “The object of this book is the
political, in particular the political superstructure of the state in the CMP:
that is the production of the concept of this region in this mode, and the
production of more concrete concepts dealing with politics in capitalist social
formations” (Poulantzas 1973 : 16). Poulantzas attempts to
provide an historically informed theory of the state within the framework of an
Althusserian formulation of the concept of the capitalist mode of production.
It
is fair to ask of Poulantzas whether the political formations he studies
display any form of contingency; or whether, in his view, they unfold as a
clockwork in reflex to the functioning of the mode of production as a
whole. Is there anything to be
learned from detailed factual study?
Or is it thought that all features of capitalist society are implicitly
coded in the logic of the mode of production? If the answer is “no”, then Poulantzas’ work falls in the
category of materialist philosophy; if it is “yes”, then we can have at least
some preliminary confidence that Poulantzas is open to pursuing real social
science research. Fortunately for
the standing of Poulantzas’ political inquiry, there is evidence in his work
that he recognizes the contingency of many features of the capitalist state and
capitalist politics. He emphasizes
the “relative autonomy” of the state—reflecting the notion that the
political sphere does not simply dance on the strings of the economic structure
(Poulantzas 1973 : 255ff.). He makes a serious
effort to discover the characteristics of bureaucracy and “state
apparatus”—again, a set of features that do not derive from the abstract
logic of the CMP (Poulantzas 1973 : 325ff.). And, in his treatment of
the fascist state, he make a genuine historical effort to discover the
particular contingencies through which this state form emerged within those
historical and economic circumstances (Poulantzas
1974).[2]
Gramsci’s
work can be summarized in several themes, including one significant
methodological innovation. Writing
in the early years of Italian fascism, his central topic is the question, how
was it possible for fascist parties to emerge from capitalist society? International socialists prior to World
War I predicted the rise of mass socialist parties of workers; whereas Italy
and Germany witnessed the rise of fascism, grounded in other and
“non-essential” classes. How could
this have occurred within the assumptions of Marxist political theory? In what ways are politics, political
consciousness, and political movements autonomous relative to the economic
formations of society?
One
of Gramsci’s most fundamental contributions is his concept of hegemony (Gramsci
1957). He accords a significant
degree of autonomy to the social processes of consciousness formation. There are concrete cultural
institutions through which individuals’ social consciousness (their “ideology”)
is shaped, and these institutions are objects of struggle among powerful agents
within society. According to a
mechanistic theory of ideology, the consciousness of the dominant class
determines the consciousness of subordinate classes as well. Gramsci’s innovation is to recognize
that there is an active struggle over the terms of social consciousness, and
that specific institutions—newspapers, universities, labor unions,
chambers of commerce, factories, political rallies—have active influence
on the frameworks of thought and interpretation through which various groups
view the world. These institutions
are therefore the object of active struggle among contending groups, and the
outcome of these struggles is not pre-ordained. Groups can exercise “hegemony” by establishing the
prominence of their guiding assumptions within the core of these institutions
of consciousness.
What
is the methodological significance of this insight? It is to strike an important blow for relaxing a common
Marxist assumption of a relation of determination between the economic
structure and the elements of the “superstructure.” Gramsci is one of the prominent voices of the twentieth
century who sought to reduce the economic determinism of the theory and to
leave room for relative autonomy in the spheres of the political, cultural, and
mobilizational. His approach gives
expression to the role of agency within class politics, and therefore to some
extent reduces the primacy of the structural (the economic structure, the mode
of production).
It
is also pertinent to ask, what is the epistemic basis of Gramsci’s
theories? He was not a scholarly
researcher; instead, he was a thoughtful
observer-participant-theoretician.
The most compelling aspects of his theories derive from his reflections
on the political processes in Italy between the wars in which he was directly
involved—the working-class politics of Turin, the socialist and communist
movements of inter-war Italy, and his observations of the rise of the fascist
movement in Italy.[3] His laboratory was inter-war Italy, and
his instruments were his own participation and his powers of observation and
diagnosis.
Among
the most important theorists of Marxism in the twentieth century fell in the
category of the school of “critical theory”, including Adorno, Horkheimer, and
Marcuse. This school of thought emphasized the concepts of alienation,
fetishism, and critique, and cast strong doubt on the “scientism” of vulgar
Marxism. This group of thinkers
has not made a substantial contribution to positive thinking about social
science methodology, however; their contributions have tended to move Marxism
in the direction of philosophy and literature rather than empirical and
historical research. A partial
exception to this statement is Jurgen Habermas. Habermas succeeds in bringing together a deep philosophical
perspective on problems of politics, rationality, and history with a respect
for empirical and theoretical approach to social science research. However, his work too falls at a level
of generality that permits it to have little real influence on social science
inquiry.
E.
P. Thompson is one of the great historians of the twentieth century. And he has made a profound contribution
to Marxist historiography. His
most important book, The Making of the English Working Class (Thompson 1966), provides what is perhaps the single most sustained, historically
grounded, and illuminating accounts of class formation to be found in the
literature. His own relationship
to a Marxist political movement was complex (Thompson
1995), and his break with Stalinist politics was unambiguous. The genius of his historical writing,
and his outstanding contribution to Marxist method in the twentieth century, is
his open interrogation of the historical steps through which a particular class
formation, the English working class, came to be. There is no dogmatism in his account, and no simple “orrery”
of theory (Thompson 1995). Instead, there is a
highly rigorous and detailed study of the elements of class formation in the
circumstances of English history.
He provides great insight and detail into the organizations, churches,
and associations through which the English working class came to constitute itself
as such. And Thompson makes it
clear that there is nothing mechanical about the formation of class
consciousness—no automatic transition from “class in itself” to “class
for itself.” Instead, the
formation of class consciousness is the result of particular institutions and
choices at particular junctures in history. Thus Thompson emphasizes the “subjective” and historically
specific evolution of class consciousness. And this approach implies that different circumstances can
give rise to different configurations of class.
Other
Marxist historians of the twentieth century have shown similar historiographic
rigor. Perry Anderson, Albert
Soboul, and Marc Bloch, each in his own way, has begun with a broad Marxist
perspective, and has then conducted historical research with an open mind and
without ideological fixed points.
Bloch, for example, begins with a generally materialist view of the
influence of technology and property on other dimensions of social development. But he then inquires with historical
precision into such topics as the diffusion of the wheeled plow, the property
relations that facilitated the adoption of this technology, and the
village-level politics that were most well-adapted to these property relations (Bloch
1966). Soboul begins with the general
perspective that class conflict is the key to understanding the French
Revolution; he then undertakes the detailed historical research that is needed
to track the movements and impulses that led to the stages of the French
Revolution. Perry Anderson focuses
on the property system and political structure of the “second feudalism” and
attempts to explain the course that Eastern Europe took (Anderson
1974).
In
each instance the historian takes his craft with great seriousness. The tools of historical research, and
the values of truthful inquiry, drive the historical project; and the authors
are prepared to discover connections, contingencies, and anomalies (relative to
the theory of historical materialism).
Specifically, each author leaves dogma at the door, and expends great
effort and openness of mind to discern the institutions and processes that
transpire within the historical domain under investigation.[4] At the same time, however, these
historians have been guided by the style of inquiry formulated by Marx and
extended by others.
The
1980s saw a lively expansion of interest in Marxist theory among analytic
philosophers and social scientists.
These debates led to a fairly convincing set of answers to questions
about a number of important topics: Marx’s critique of justice, his theory of
exploitation, his ideas about social science method, his economic theories, and
his theory of historical materialism.
The topics that structured debates throughout the decade largely focused
on Marx's theory of history and his economic philosophy. And significantly, these debates drew
largely on Marx's later writings, extending from the German Ideology, through the Grundrisse and Capital. Marx is regarded as a social scientist,
with a scientific treatment of capitalism as the basis of his critique of
modern society and an organized theory of history as context for his theory of
historical change and revolution.
And much of the work that has emerged from these debates has been as
much oriented toward construction of a more adequate social science as it has
to formulating a social philosophy.
In other words: analytical Marxism has made more of a contribution to
the foundations of the social sciences than to social philosophy.
The
general approach has been an effort to bring the tools of rational choice
theory, neo-classical economics, and contemporary political science models to
bear on classic Marxian problems: exploitation, domination, historical change,
the workings of a social property system, and the ways in which interests
inflect political choices.
Let
us return now to the “style of research” that is embodied in Marxian social
science. These points will serve
to capture Marx’s main contributions to social science inquiry (from at least
my perspective). Marx’s writings
constitute a “style of research” for subsequent researchers that consists of a
related family of assumptions and perspectives. Let us now attempt to identify some of the most important
contributions of Marx’s work for the social sciences in the twentieth
century. Seen in broad strokes,
important themes would include:
·
Emphasis on the
significance of class—for people and for social change
·
Focus on institutions of
production, technology, property (modes of production, forces and relations of
production)
·
Concept of alienation
·
Theory of value and
surplus value
·
Formulation of an
economic theory of capitalism
·
Theory of exploitation
·
Framework for
understanding the pre-capitalist history of Europe and sketches of Asia
·
Sketches of alternatives
to capitalism—socialist institutions
These
points can be transformed into a series of substantive methodological maxims
for social research; as such, they have wielded enormous influence on social
scientific and historical research throughout the twentieth century:
·
Seek out the “material”
institutions—property, technology, labor
·
Examine non-material
institutions from the point of view of their role within a social system of
production and control. Ideology,
state, culture.
·
Examine the nature of
inter-group exploitation; the schemes of domination that these require; and the
forms of struggle that result
·
Pay attention to the
lived experience of persons within social institutions
·
Examine the centrality
of class structures—lived experience, exploitation, behavior and
incentive, social change
·
Identify enduring
structures—economic, political, cultural—through which the
activities of individuals within society are channeled
On
this approach, Marx does not offer a distinctive method of social science
inquiry; rather, he provides an eclectic and empirically informed effort to
describe and explain the phenomena of capitalism. Marx provides a “style of inquiry” based on a family of
hypotheses, hunches, and ontological commitments. Through this inquiry he provides a substantive contribution
to social science, in the form of a series of descriptive and theoretical
insights; particularly about the institutional anatomy and dynamics of
capitalism and social behavior.
Dialectical thinking is not a part of Marx’s method of social inquiry;
at most, a source of hypotheses about “finding contradictions”. Finally, the tools of rational choice
theory and neo-classical economics are highly consonant with Marxist thinking.
On
this approach, Marx’s body of research does not represent a catechism; it does
not constitute an “organon” in its leather case. It is more akin to a research programme in Lakatos’s sense:
a body of large hypotheses, suggestions for fertile areas to examine, paradigm
explanations, theories, and interpretation; some bits of formal theory (e.g.,
the labor theory of value). To
work within the programme is to acquire the “tacit knowledge” that emerges from
careful study of the many examples of fertile inquiry (Thompson, Bloch,
Morishima) and then pursuing social inquiry on one’s own domain in a way that
is creatively informed by the body of work—but also by the best
non-marxist work—for example, Sabel, Work and Politics (Sabel 1982).
“Method”
implies a prescriptive body of doctrines to guide inquiry. Certainly Marx does not offer such a
body of doctrines. If anything, he
would subscribe to a fairly ordinary prescription—familiar from Mill (Mill
1950) or Whewell (Whewell and Butts 1968)— along these lines:
·
formulate theories and
hypotheses
·
engage in careful study
of existing empirical and historical data
·
discern “patterns” in
data that suggest hypotheses
·
evaluate hypotheses
through empirical and factual inquiry
The more directive parts of Marx’s
methodology—but now loose and heuristic—look more like this—
·
Examine material
institutions
·
Look at class, power,
exploitation, domination
·
Don’t be blinded to
effects that violate the materialist dicta
·
Be mindful of
“contradictions” that work themselves through historical contingencies
·
Look for underlying
causes and structures
How,
then, should we think about the professional preparation of the young social
scientist and historian? Is it
similar to that of the young biologist or physicist? No, it is not.
The social sciences differ from natural science in being inherently more
amorphous and eclectic, and this derives from the nature of social phenomena (Little
1998). There are highly specific
research strategies, lab procedures, and foundational theories in the natural
sciences. So the young molecular
biologist must master a very specific paradigm of precise theories, mechanisms,
and structures; as well as authoritative strategies of experimentation and
inquiry. But the case is quite different in the social sciences. There we will find no general theory of
society, or privileged mode of inquiry for social research. So the best advise for young
researchers in the social sciences is to be eclectic and open-minded: learn a
variety of tools, explanatory strategies, and foundational hypotheses and
powerful examples of social inquiry.
And pursue a strong understanding of some of the most imaginative social
scientists and researchers of the past generation, whatever their paradigm
(e.g. Hirschman or Skinner; Sabel, Tilly, or Scott). Then address the phenomena of interest with an open mind.
Here
we have surveyed some of Marx’s central contributions to social science
research, and some of the most important ideas that twentieth century thinkers
have brought to bear on Marxist social inquiry. Is there such a thing as “Marxist social science”? No, if the point of reference is
molecular biology as a paradigm of research. But yes, if we are thinking instead of a loose research
programme, inspired by a congeries of hypotheses, insights, and salient
powerful interpretations, which the researcher can then have in mind as she
sorts through her own research problems.
The
root cause of this eclectic nature of the best social research lies in the
nature of social phenomena themselves.
The social world is not well ordered. It is not a law-governed system of cause and effect. Instead, it is a sum of many different
and cross-cutting processes, structures and institutions, mediated by the
purposive meaningful actions of persons, within given cultural and material
institutions that bear contingent and sometimes accidental relations to each
other.
And
Marxist thinking, appropriately eclectically construed, has much to offer as we
try to make sense of that plural world.
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[1] Many of these questions are explored in detail in The
Scientific Marx (Little
1986).
[2] For powerful and effective criticisms of another
Althusserian effort at social theory, see E. P. Thompson’s critique of Hindess
and Hirst (Hindess and Hirst 1975) in The Poverty of Theory (Thompson
1995).
[3] See Carl Boggs’ treatment of the development of
Gramsci’s thought (Boggs 1976).
[4] Other good examples of materialist history include
Carr (Carr 1984), Finley (Finley 1973), Dobb (Dobb 1963), and Brenner (Brenner 1976, 1982), (Aston and Philpin 1985).