From: Jurriaan Bendien
In reply to Joseph Green, whose comments you send me: I think he should
try learning to read a book, and not judge it by its cover.
My basic point is that when Engels wrote the text of anti-Duhring, he
was doing so in an environment in which there were many people who
thought of themselves as "scientific socialists".
In fairness and in the interests of informed exchange I felt we should have had Joseph Green's comments though perhaps someone other than Jurriann needed to forward them.
Joseph Green has kindly sent them to me and I am taking the liberty of copying the core of them here. Although there were also a few somewhat impatient remarks in the context of originally private correspondence as well, the comments below do not seem to me to be particularly dogmatic. The essence of the matter is an interpretation of the context and the meaning of "scientific socialism" 125 years ago.
I would have to look seriously again at Anti-Duehring, but my impression from the preface and from the earlier article that I unearthed by Dietzgen, is that the "orthodox" marxist interpretation from that period is quite defensible.
What is creative in Jurriann picking up my use of the term today, is its significance in the present context. My view is that many developments in modern science are quite compatible with "scientific socialism" although you do not have to be a card-carrying marxist to be interested in them, and there is no one monolithic science. I wish Jurriann would subscribe directly to this list, then. like the rest of us, he could defend his insights, pose challenging questions, or debate in a situation where none of us knows the definitive answers. It would also be possible to avoid subjective irritation, if there is not confusion about which arguments expressed in private correspondence are best shared publicly.
Anyway the comments by Joseph Green are as follows:
The whole point
of the title "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific" is to contrast utopianism
to scientific socialism. The whole point of the book Anti-Duhring is to do
so. What more could Engels have done to make the point clear?
"But, since it has to be argued again anyway, note that, for
example, in "Anti-Duhring" (from which "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific"
was extracted), in Chapter I, Engels writes:
"`These two great discoveries, the materialist conception of history
and the revelation of the secret of capitalist production by means of
surplus value, we owe to *Marx*. With these discoveries socialism became a
science, which had in the first place to be developed in all its details
and relations.'
"Marx and Engels spoke very highly of the contributions of the great
earlier utopians, such as Owen, Fourier and St. Simon, but they also
regarded it as essential that the working class movement overcome the
standpoint of utopianism. And, if I recall right, they pointed out that the
later movements built up to follow the early great utopians, all ended up
as backward movements that opposed the actual movement of the proletariat
and opposed the class struggle.
"It is true, but irrelevant, that Engels didn't use the term
`Marxism'.
"It is true that various charlatans draped themselves in the mantel
of `science', but
Engels refuted them, not in order to refute science, but to refute the
unscientific character of the theories they propagated under the banner of
science. Engels wasn't a postmodernist, and he didn't regard the fact that
someone could falsely speak in the name of science as proof that all
science was a mere social construction. When someone opposes the religious
nuts who pose as "creation scientists" today, does that mean they don't
believe that evolutionary biology really is a science?
Joseph Green added
I would also note that, on these matters, I was dealing with the
discussion over what Marx and Engels believed. Naturally, just because Marx
and Engels say something doesn't prove its true. But if one is discussing
what they believe, one should pay serious attention to what they actually
were advocating.
I suspect the really difficult debate is about whether there is a single scientific socialism now, and what it is in today's context. Or whether marxism is a method of science, rather than a definitive body of science.
Chris Burford
London
