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"content": "Not all bourgeois economists are optimistic about the outlook for economy as a whole as the official prognosticators in Washington. For example, an article in the New York Times under date of January 27, 1955 is headlined, Economists Wary of Business in ’55. The sub-headline is even more to the point: Their Testimony Casts Doubt on Eisenhower Optimism. There were eight private economists who testified before the Joint Congressional Committee on the Economic Report and not all of them represented the trade-union movement. They all appeared to be worried by what in some quarters is loosely referred to as automation which is simply a high-sounding public relations word for a process which has been going on for many years – even if it is accelerating now in certain industries and results in an increasingly high organic composition of capital. This is inherent in the nature of capitalism and should not cause surprise to those who presumably understand, more or less, how the capitalist system operates. It means that in a situation where business as a whole is good, where the bourgeoisie is making very high profits, there could be mass unemployment amounting very easily to a figure of 5,000,000 at the end of 1955. This gives rise not only to much uneasiness within the labor movement and pressures on the labor bureaucracy to do something about it, so that they in turn begin to exert pressure on Washington, but it also gives rise to such phenomena which are appropriate for this period in the form of renewed promises to investigate the “new trend toward monopoly and the concentration of economic power.” There will be, without question, many types of Congressional investigations this field. Whether any of them will add materially to the work of the temporary National Economic Committee remains to be seen, but the New York Times of January 24 reports that the sub-committee of the Committee of the Judiciary, in a report submitted by its majority, Senators Langer, Kefauver and Kilgore, stated that their hearings had lead them to two conclusions:“(1) That there is a two-pronged drive by private monopoly to destroy public competition in the power business, and that the Dixon-Yates contract is a part of that drive. (2) The Wall Street domination of the power industry has revived many of the monopolistic holding company evils which Congress sought by legislation to suppress, particularly the extension of monopoly control over very wide regions.”Here we have the makings of a great debate which may very well play an important role in the elections of 1956.Mr. Berle, however, would answer to all of this that while the large corporation must adopt a conscience comparable to that of the king in feudal days, it is the engine of progress not only in domestic affairs but in international affairs. It is at this point that Mr. Berle, trying to pursue a pre-conceived thesis, becomes a simple apologist for state monopoly capitalism in its most rapacious form, with its justification of the oil cartels and similar international agreements.He still, however, manages to flirt with important thoughts when he virtually concludes his essay by stating:“Corporations still have, perhaps, some range of choice: they can either take an extended view of their responsibility, or a limited one. Yet the choice is probably less free than would appear. Power has laws of its own. One of them is that when one group having power declines or abdicates it, some other directing group immediately picks it up; and this appears constant throughout history. The choice of corporate management is not whether so great a power shall cease to exist; they can merely determine whether they will serve as the nuclei of its organization or pass it over to someone else, probably the modern state.”Since the power of the state should be kept to a minimum, according to Berle and the traditional liberal philosophy, it is obvious that corporate power must be built up and maintained, but the corporate managers should please have a social conscience to that it would really be true for the former president of General Motors to say that “What is good for General Motors is good for the country.”Sermons are interesting to those who like them but only in their proper place, and an essay on the twentieth-century capitalist revolution is hardly the place for Berle’s type of propagandistic sermon. His critics, however, have sufficiently well disposed of him so that we can merely state that there has been a type of revolution in the twentieth century but Berle doesn’t understand its nature, its causes or its probable results.The constant decline in factory employment focuses attention on one of the major problems of American capitalism – and one for which there is no solution in sight. PWE (permanent war economy) or WPA (work relief projects) have actually been the only two solutions that capitalism has had to offer for the last 25 years. An entire generation has grown up and come to maturity which can only know from reading, but never from experience, what the old capitalism was like. This does not make the new capitalism less capitalist, but it does mean that some of its laws of motion and methods of operation are different and require analysis and understanding – especially by socialists.Symptomatic of danger ahead for the economy, is a most interesting article that was published in the New York Times of September 20, 1954. The heading was Per Capita Output Only 1 per cent Above ’47. This is an article by one of the New York Times’ economic reporters, Burton Crane, and one which is highly recommended to Mr. Berle and to all students of the economy. It is worth quoting from fairly extensively:Per capita industrial production in this country has dropped so sharply in the last year that it is only 1 per cent above the average rate for 1947 ..."
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"content": "The question facing the economy is whether industrial production and gross national product can be allowed to fall farther below the normal trend. Our economy, as observers of all shades of political thought have pointed out, works best when it is expanding. Signs that the dynamism had disappeared might discourage investors from risking their capital and dissuade industrialists from expanding their enterprises.There are warnings that such attitudes may be in prospect. Expenditures for new plant and equipment, expressed in constant dollars and weighted for population changes, in the first half of 1954 were at 113 per cent of the 1947 level. In the two preceding years they had been at 116 and 123 per cent.What is the normal upward trend in our economy due to growing mechanization and efficiency? Some economists have set it as high as 3.5 per cent for manufacturing production. At that annual improvement factor, per capita industrial production in 1954 should be at 127.2 per cent of 1947 output. It is at 101 per cent. (Italics mine – T.N.V.)The twentieth-century capitalist revolution is thus not so earth-shaking as would appear from Mr. Berle’s panegyric. It has not solved the problem of unemployment. Here is one of the essential contradictions of capitalism under the Permanent War Economy only where, with attrition setting in, some of the basic laws of capitalism begin to reassert themselves. The economy must constantly grow and expand, at least to the point where it can support the 600,000 to 700,000 new entrants into the labor force each year. This it is obviously failing to do. Moreover, the two prime sources of economic infection, the agricultural crisis and the crisis in consumer durable goods (centering in the automobile industry), clearly remain – with no alleviation in sight. Many factors have been responsible for the rapid increase in population, and it is clear that the Permanent War Economy is intimately connected with this sociological phenomenon. The increase in population in turn, however, gives rise to the very correct analysis of Mr. Crane, quoted above, that only a per capita approach becomes meaningful in appraising the economy, its performance and its outlook. The American economy is simply not suited, nor large enough (on a capitalist basis) to provide the constantly expanding market that is required to sustain an expanding capitalism.We are, therefore, back where we started and Mr. Berle is at least partially aware of this central problem when he speaks of “A modern corporation thus has become an international as well as a national instrument.” And when he observes that, “The present political framework of foreign affairs is nationalist. The present economic base is not. The classic nation-state is no longer capable, by itself alone, either to feed and clothe its people, or to defend its own borders.” (Italics mine – T.N.V.)Here, then, is the central fact of the modern capitalist “revolution.” Capitalism has visibly, before our very eyes, outgrown its national framework and must burst this integument asunder in one form or another. The only question that history must still answer is the form in which the capitalist national state will be destroyed and the nature of the political organization that will succeed it.T.N. Vance Footnote1. The 20th Century Capitalist Revolution, by A.A. Berle, Jr., Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York City, 1951, 192 pp. $3.00.Top of pageVance Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main PageLast updated: 15 August 2019"
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"content": "Vance Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main PageFrank DembyNew Price Bill Fails to Solve the Problemof the Rising Cost of Living(December 1941)From Labor Action, Vol. 5 No. 49, 8 December 1941, p. 2.Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).Faced with the dilemma of serious price inflation or taking “steps in the direction of establishing totalitarian controls, the House of Representatives passed a weak-kneed compromise last Friday by, a vote of 224 to 161. After some fancy political maneuvering, the question of price control raised as long ago as last July, has now been referred to the Senate where, it is expected, a “real” price control bill will be passed.The House bill declares that in the interests of “national defense” it is necessary to prevent price and credit inflation. Its provisions, however, cannot possibly achieve this objective. In fact, if the House bill becomes law it will definitely result in further substantial increases in prices. As always, the working people will suffer. Farm Bloc BlackmailThe congressional farm bloc, operating in the interests of the rich commercial farmers, has put into the bill a provision concerning, the prices of farm products that constitutes one of the best illustrations of congressional blackmail in a long, long time. A ceiling is to be established on farm prices, but this upper limit cannot be lower than the highest of the following three levels:A price equal to 110 per cent of parity;The market price prevailing on October 1, 1941;The average price for the period 1919–1929.The original draft of the price control bill called for a ceiling on farm prices to be based on the price as of July 28, 1941, or 100 per cent of parity, whichever was higher. Parity, as I have previously explained, was the slogan of the Farm Bureau, to give the commercial farmers the same purchasing power as they possessed in the period from 1909–1914, which is the highest on record for the 20th century.This meant, in many cases, price increases above those existing on July 28 running from 10 to 30 per cent. And, of course, prices on July 28 already reflected a substantial wartime inflation. While the House Banking and Currency Committee deliberately stalled for several months, under the pretext of a “thorough” consideration of the matter of price control, prices rose substantially. This prompted the farm bloc to demand that the prevailing price level be changed from July 28 to October 1. Not satisfied with this, and being in the position to hold up indefinitely any legislation at all unless its demands were granted, the farm bloc then raised the ante on the alternative parity ceiling from 100 per cent of parity to 110 per cent.This means an additional 10 per cent increase for many basic farm prices. The Third WrinkleIntoxicated with their easy success, the farm bloc introduced a third wrinkle. For some farm products, the average price from 1919 to 1929 was much higher than either 110 per pent of parity or the price on October 1. This is particularly true in the case of cotton. Where a ceiling based on the 1919–1929 average would mean an additional increase of some 30 per cent. The representatives from the cotton states demanded that this be included as a third alternative and the demand was granted.As a result, the provision of the House Price Control Bill in regard to farm prices, far from preventing prices rises, actually guarantees tremendous price increases, amounting to a wage cut for the workers of at least 20 per cent.As for prices of industrial products, the price administrator (it is assumed by everyone that Roosevelt will appoint Leon Henderson to this position) is permitted to set a ceiling, or a top price, on any commodity threatening to reach the “inflation point.” The effectiveness of this measure, in preventing inflation is exceedingly dubious. First of all an awful lot will depend on the judgment of one man, Leon Henderson. Even if he should be motivated by a sincere desire to prevent inflation, he still has virtually no power to do this, for the House bill establishes a five man board of review with broad power to overrule decisions by the price administrator. Moreover, a manufacturer or profiteer can appeal any case to the courts, where it could undoubtedly be dragged out for months or years. The provision giving the price administrator power to license business men and to revoke their licenses if they violated the price ceilings was defeated by the House. Thus, there is no effective means of enforcing any of these maximum prices. Another Administration DefeatThe Administration suffered another, defeat on the proposal to give the government power to buy and sell any product in any market for the purpose of stabilizing its price. This provision was changed so that the government only has the power to buy and sell in the DOMESTIC market to stimulate production of HIGH-COST producers. This power cannot thus be used to lower prices. If used, it will only raise prices further.A final provision of the bill permits the establishment of ceilings on rents in defense areas and gives such tenants the right of appeal if they think their rents are too high. This in no way will stop the rent gouge now going on in defense areas in view of the fact that the rents are already sky high. Nor will it help prevent a general rise in rents throughout the country, which is clearly indicated as a next step in the developing inflationary process.About all that can be said in favor of the action of the House of Representatives is that the House recognizes the danger of inflation and is on record as being in favor, presumably, of doing something to prevent it. Politics Behind the Bill"
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"content": "As important as the Price Control Bill itself is the politics which surrounded its passage by the House. It is clear that the question of inflation, which, of course, means the living standards of the masses, is to be the political football in the 1941 congressional elections. The Republicans hope to make a political comeback by accusing the Administration of being responsible for the failure to prevent inflation. They expect to escape the counter-charge that they sabotaged the Price Control Bill by claiming that they were for a “real” price control bill as introduced by Representative Gore. Gore’s bill, following the ideas of Bernard Baruch, called for an overall price ceiling on everything, including wages. This would be an exceptionally reactionary measure. The House had, at least, the political sense to defeat this proposal, for they knew how opposed the workers are to any attempt to control wages. Now Before SenateThe Senate now become the next stage where the battle of inflation is to be fought. The workers, particularly the organized workers, must pay very close attention to the deliberations of the Senate. The representatives of the bosses will make every attempt to unload the tremendous cost of the war onto the workers. It is the desire of the bosses to maintain and increase profits that is the main driving force in bringing about rising prices and inflation. Every worker must see to it that his union takes action on this question.The first demand of the unions must be for a 100 per cent excess profits tax. The second demand must be to limit all profits to a maximum of 6 per cent. The third demand must be for the establishment of workers’ control of prices!Unless the workers take action along these lines, the fight to maintain living standards through wage increases will become a steadily losing fight. Top of pageVance Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main PageLast updated: 24.2.2013"
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"content": "Vance Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main PageFrank DembyGloom in Wall Street(August 1941)From The New International, Vol. VII No. 7 (Whole No. 56), August 1941, pp. 174–5.Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).WALL STREET EXPERIENCES several million share days. Does this mean a revival, which will parallel the tremendous rise in the stock market that occurred during World War I? One of the mysteries of World War II has been the continuance of the stock market in a state of unprecedented lethargy. The stock market, where the capitalists trade in certificates of ownership, claims to dividends and interest that the manufacturing bosses extract from the toil and sweat of their workers, is supposed to be a barometer of business conditions. Business has been booming; production has reached all-time highs due to the developing war economy; profits in many cases exceed the 1929 highs – and yet Wall Street has been in the doldrums. Prices are very low; business has been so poor that the brokers cannot, in many cases, even cover overhead expenses, resulting in forced mergers and consolidations. The best index of Wall Street depression in the midst of a business boom has been the decline in the price o£ seats on the Stock Exchange – the exclusive country club of the big financiers and speculators. Seats, which not so long ago used to sell for well over $100,000, are now in the twenty thousand dollar levels. Almost anyone – that is, for a small fee – con now buy the privilege of trading in stocks and bonds.Interest is running very high among the capitalists concerning whether a real revival in the stock market is actually under way at last. While the workers don’t own any stocks and bonds, the advanced workers will follow this development with almost as much interest as the capitalists, for it is always important to know what the class enemy is thinking and doing. Moreover, a stock market boom, if it follows previous experience, always ends in a crash which makes the ensuing depression that much worse. The after-effects of the boom during World War I were not felt until late 1920 and culminated in the 1921 crash, which was resumed after the temporary prosperity of the 1920s in 1929.Opinion in Wall Street is divided on the question of why the sudden increase in business, and whether a revival is really under way. Some claim that the continued resistance of the Russian armies is chiefly responsible for the rise in Wall Street. They interpret this as meaning a more favorable military outlook for the Allies (that is, for American imperialism) , which it surely is if Hitler is really bogged down on two fronts. American capitalist property and investments are in a sounder position – worth more – hence the rise in Wall Street and the increased volume of business.Others say that some of the increased purchasing power being pumped into the hands of the public by increased government expenditures is finally finding its natural outlet – the stock market. In support of this contention, they cite the recent report of the Department of Commerce to the effect that income payments to individuals in the month of May reached a rate of $86 billion annually. This is the highest on record and compares with an estimated national income of some $75 billion in 1940 and the previous high in 1929 of some $82 billion. Increasing public confidence – that is, surplus incomes in the hands of the big capitalists and the upper middle class – means increasing support of the stock market.Still others base their optimistic forecasts on the increasingly high profits being made by practically all sections of American business and the “realistic” tax proposals now being considered by the House Ways and Means Committee. They find especially heartening the apparent tendency of Congress to keep the excess profits tax at ridiculously low levels. Altogether, they find no tendency on the part of Congress to pass taxes which will discourage private initiative! Hence, Wall Street should reflect these increasing profits and the market should go up.Undoubtedly there is some truth in all of the contentions. However, in estimating the prospects of capital’s colossal legalized gambling institution, known as the New York Stock Exchange and allied exchanges throughout the country, it is first necessary to understand why the stock market has not paralleled the rise in business during the past two years. Only then are we in a position to estimate whether the new forces, mentioned above, appear to be sufficiently powerful to offset the old forces that have kept Wall Street in a state of continued depression.Here we are confronted with a powerful tendency, which appears to mark an entirely new technical stage in the process of accumulating capital. Hitherto, the chief legitimate function of the stock market in the capitalist economic system has been as a means of raising capital for corporations either for the purpose of floating new enterprises or adding capital to existing corporations, or replacing capital that has been used up by existing corporations. This function, beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century with the financing of the railroads, was made necessary by the increasing size of capital accumulations required to launch a capitalist enterprise. More capital was needed than could possibly be furnished by one man, or by small groups (partnerships). Through the device of the stock market, capital could easily and quickly be raised from all sections of the capitalist class and concentrated in the hands of a few finance capitalists, or their agents, who would direct it where it would do them the most good – that is, earn the highest rate of profit."
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"content": "For some time, and with increasing frequency in the past few years, there has appeared a tendency for existing corporations to raise all the additional capital they have required, either to take care of depreciation or expansion or both through their own accumulated reserves of surplus capital and undivided profits. This is particularly true of the very large corporations. The very statistics of the Department of Commerce, referred to above, bear this out. Dividend payments have risen 5 per cent over last year, but entrepreneurial returns are up 9 per cent. Putting the matter very simply, almost one-half of the profits of corporations are not being paid out in the form of dividends to the stockholders but are being put aside in surplus and undivided profits accounts. These, can be used at the discretion of the management and board of directors for whatever purpose they wish. Most managements explain these steps by the necessity of piling up reserves for a “rainy day” in these uncertain times. But time and again, the large corporations use these reserves for routine capital financing.This is having a noticeable effect on the structure of the capitalist class. It means the further concentration of control of huge enterprises in fewer and fewer hands – particularly in the hands of the management. The officers and directors of the large corporations become increasingly conservative as they rely more and more on these new methods of self-financing. The expansion of existing enterprises and, above all, the building of new enterprises, is resisted more and more by this newly-elevated capitalist bureaucracy. It becomes the most conservative section of society and acts, in the struggle for its increasing independence and enhancement and preservation of its own power, as a complete brake on the development of the productive forces. Even the imperialist war economy suffers as a result of this innate conservatism of the capitalist managers. The full implications of this trend are only in the process of being observed. They will require a separate theoretical analysis.Meanwhile, Wall Street and those capitalists who operate on the exchanges have been suffering. I£ a number of big corporations can finance themselves completely or partially through their own accumulated reserves of surplus capital, this means less business for Wall Street. If less dividends are being paid out, there is less reason for the public, that is, the small capitalists, who had their fingers burnt badly in the 1929 crash, to invest their small, individual savings in the stock market. This factor has been the main one in explaining the depressed state of Wall Street. Wall Street has been further undermined by the liquidation of a large portion of British-held American securities through private deals, without benefit of the stock exchange mechanism. In addition, of course, the war has not been going too favorably for American imperialism. Also, many capitalists are genuinely frightened by the increasing tendency toward government control of industry that is an inevitable part of the process of developing a total war economy.Wall Street, in one of the most widely-advertised publicity campaigns that it has ever put on, has tried to offset these unfavorable factors, as well as the strongly developed public trait of blaming all economic ills on Wall Street, by electing as its new president of the New York Stock Exchange Mr. Emil Schram, head of the RFC. Mr. Schram’s duties will be those of a public relations counselor. It will be his task to establish “better relations” with the government and to increase public confidence in Wall Street, to the end that more suckers can be induced to part with their savings.It is always difficult to estimate the immediate prospects of Wall Street. But its long-term prospects are indeed gloomy. The tendency for corporations to depend increasingly on self-financing and thus cut themselves loose from Wall Street will mean that Wall Street’s main function will be more and more limited to the financing of new enterprises – and there cannot be too many of these in the general period of capitalist decline. The government will be forced to siphon more and more of the excess savings of the middle class into government channels through increased taxation and, eventually, compulsory savings for the purpose of maintaining government borrowing of a non-inflationary character. Moreover, the defeat of German imperialism looms as an increasingly long and costly undertaking.These unhappy prospects for Wall Street over a long period of time seem to find reinforcement in the announcement of a sharp increase in the “short” position in Wall Street. The shorts are the speculators who operate in the hope that prices will go down. Wall Street rarely permits sentiment to interfere with its cold-blooded business calculations. In spite of all the ballyhoo, then, there is increasing opinion within Wall Street that there will be no immediate boom in the stock market. In any case, it appears quite safe to predict that this time there will be no run-away boom on the 1916-1920 or 1926-1929 models. Any rise that does take place will be of a temporary and limited character, depending largely on temporary conjunctural factors.All of which helps to point to the inescapable conclusion that capitalism is getting old – in fact, old to the point of senility. No rational economic order requires such an archaic and bloodthirsty institution as the stock market. The financing of new enterprises, as well as the expansion and maintenance of old ones, today requires the establishment of a planned economy. The trend toward the establishment of planned economy is an irresistible one; moreover, it appears on a world scale. The question is merely whether it will be the totalitarian, bureaucratic and reactionary planning of the capitalist or Stalinist variety, or whether it will be the democratic and progressive planning of socialism. In the last analysis, it is the workers, particularly the American workers, who will have the final say on this historically decisive question. Top of pageVance Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main PageLast updated: 25 October 2014"
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"content": "Vance Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main PageFrank DembyDoes Inflation Threaten?There’s More Than One Way of Cutting Wages;Sometimes It’s Done By Inflating the Currency(September 1940)From Labor Action, Vol. 4 No. 25, 30 September 1940, p. 4.Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).The recent sudden rise in food prices, particularly meat prices, raises for every worker the question of whether the United States stands on the threshold of an inflationary period. The sharp price rise that occurred after the outbreak of the war in Europe in September 1939 gave way at the beginning of 1940 to a steady decline, which lasted until this summer. Since that time the trend has been in the direction of rising prices. All wholesale prices, for example have risen more than four points during the last month. Retail prices, of course, have gone up even more sharply.So pronounced has the rise in some food prices been that Miss Harriet Elliott, consumer adviser to the National Defense Commission, has acknowledged a steady increase in complaints since the beginning of September. A similar situation is reported by the Bureau of Consumer Service of New York City’s Department of Markets. Prices of steaks have gone up five to eight cents a pound. Beef, pork and lamb are also special objects of complaint. Even the butchers are complaining as the price rise is depriving them of customers. Various government bureaus are now investigating the situation. So, don’tA spokesman for the packing industry in Chicago, who refused to allow his name to be used, stated to the press that “the situation was partly seasonal, partly due to higher payrolls and partly attributable to the fact that the old livestock crop year was ending and the new crop year about to begin.” More Than One Way of Cutting WagesIf the factors that have caused this price rise are merely temporary and accidental, then we don’t have to worry about inflation. But if they are more or less a permanent part of our general economic situation, then every worker and every trade unionist must give the problem his closest attention. For there is more than one way of cutting wages, as has been demonstrated time and again during the tortured history of capitalism. Every worker knows and understands the simple and direct method of cutting wages. The boss simply reduces the wage. Even such indirect methods of wage-cutting as lengthening working hours or the use of the speed-up are familiar enough to the average worker. Fighting against these things are part of his daily struggle for existence.The cleverest method of cutting wages, because the worker doesn’t experience it on his job, is the inflationary method. A period of generally and rapidly rising prices is considered inflationary. The worker might even receive an increase in the amount of money he receives every week. But before he knows it, he and his wife discover that his wage buys less food and other necessities than before. What has happened, of course, is that prices of things the worker and his family must buy have gone up much more than any possible raise in his wages. The economist sums this process up by saying that purchasing power has decreased. In a period of inflation, the decline in ability to buy and the rise in prices is most marked.It would be interesting to ask the representative of the meat packers just exactly what he means by saying that higher payrolls are part of the explanation of the recent rise in meat prices. He would probably answer that wage costs in the meat packing industry have gone up. Consequently, in order to maintain profits, prices have to be raised. But we have the faint suspicion that the workers in the packing houses would have something to say about that. It is also not impossible that the real meaning is that there has been a certain amount of re-employment in some communities due to the “defense” program. This increase in payrolls provides the meat packers with an opportunity to raise their prices and make greater profits. The workers, they figure, can “afford” to pay higher prices. Various Indications of InflationIt is still too early to state definitely whether the country is entering a period of inflation, but there are already unmistakeable signs pointing in that direction in the not-too-distant future. One indication is the fact that the total money in circulation is now well over 8 billion dollars. This is the highest figure in American history. Much of this may be attributed to hoarding, especially by foreigners. Nevertheless, a large amount of money in circulation is always one of the characteristics of inflation. If not at present, then some time in the future, this can easily help along an inflationary process.Another indication is the fact that bank deposits are also at record highs. The Federal Reserve Board’s most recent figures show the total of bank deposits and money in the hands of the public at a record high of $67,000,000,000. This fact must be coupled with another very important fact – namely, that excess reserves of the Federal Reserve System are now over 6½ billion dollars, almost the all-time peak. This means that the banks have this huge sum around just lying idle. The way the banking system operates, this money can be used to lend anywheres from 30 to 60 billion dollars. Both facts taken together mean that the base for a most colossal credit inflation has already been laid. Because of the War Trend Is World-Wide"
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"content": "Still, something is required to set off the inflationary process, if it is to occur in the near future. Historically, that something has usually been war. This war is proving no exception. In England, for example, the country whose economy most closely resembles that of the U.S., all wholesale prices increased an average of 37.2 per cent from June 1939 to June 1940. The cost of living advanced 16 per cent during this period. In Russia, which experienced just a minor war with Finland so far, Mr. Gedye of the New York Times, stated that there has been a particularly sharp rise in prices (between January and April of this year, butter increased in price by 45 per cent, cheese by 20 per cent, sausages, bacon and ham by 25 per cent; gas, water and electricity from 50 to 100 per cent) while incomes have remained stationary and hours of work have been lengthened.Even in Germany, the country with the most rigidly controlled price system in the world, while wages have remained absolutely fixed and hours of work have lengthened to from 10 to 14 hours per day, there have been some very pronounced price rises (from 10 to 40 per cent in many cases) especially in such staple items of the German diet as potatoes and sausages. The same experience is to be noted in Japan and Italy. What is taking place is clearly a world-wide inflationary trend. It is just a faint indication of how the entire world situation is loaded with dynamite. A Question for the Union AgendaEven should the U.S. not enter the war in the near future, the cost of the “defense” program threatens a runaway inflation. This is clearly recognized in a study just completed by the National Industrial Conference Board. The huge cost of this program all of which is just so much waste so far as the satisfaction of human wants is concerned, indicates that only a small portion will be covered through increased taxation. The capitalists are certainly going to oppose any increased taxation on the rich and there is a limit to the burden of taxation that can be placed on the workers without producing unrest and rebellion. The most “painless” method of meeting the huge cost of this program is, therefore, largely through increased Government borrowing. No matter what price controls are introduced – and there will be many – a rapidly rising Federal Debt is bound to give a strong impulse to the inflationary process.In summary, therefore: The bases for a vast inflation already exist in the United States. The next months should witness further advances in prices. Every trade unionist, as a matter of self-protection, must immediately demand that this question. along with the worker’s natural answer to the problem – a rising scale of wages – be placed on the agenda of his next union meeting. Top of pageVance Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main PageLast updated: 6.10.2012"
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"content": "Vance Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main PageFrank DembyMr. Willkie Pulls a “Boner”All of This Goes to Prove That, as Between Tweedledee and Tweedledum,the Bosses May Have a Choice, But We Have None at All(September 1940)From Labor Action, Vol. 4 No. 23, 16 September 1940. p. 4.Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).When Wall Street’s white hope, Republican presidential nominee Wendell L. Willkie, rushed into print a few weeks ago to denounce the Overton-Russell amendment to the conscription bill, which provides for the conscription of industry, betting commissioners in Wall Street announced that the odds favoring Roosevelt’s re-election had shifted from 6 to 5 to 9 to 5. Soon thereafter, Mr. Luce, boss of Time and Fortune magazines, (personal friend of J.P. Morgan), whose publications started the original Willkie boom, began to wonder whether Willkie wasn’t another “Fat Alf”. Even Walter Lippman has questioned the advisability of Willkie’s candidacy. Truly, politics is an unkind game, as Mr. Willkie is fast learning.Since we were confident a long time ago that Mr. Roosevelt was the best man for the job of preserving American capitalism and preparing American imperialism for war, we cannot register any surprise now that his re-election for a third term seems more or less certain. But two questions continue to puzzle us. The first is: Why are Willkie’s backers greasing the skids for his downfall, thus facilitating Roosevelt’s victory? And the second, and by far the more important question is: What is the real meaning and significance of the Overton-Russell amendment? It Takes a Really Skilled HandA superficial answer to the first question is easy. Conscription of manpower is none too popular with the American masses. Conscription of men without conscription of industry smacks too much of rank class discrimination. Not even Willkie’s subsequent “clarification” of his position to the effect that he is not against conscription of. industry on principle, but only wanted “adequate safeguards.” following the lead of a New York Times editorial to that effect, can remedy the effects of that rash moment when Willkie allowed his real sentiments and attachment for property interests to push him into one of the most colossal boners any presidential aspirant has ever made. Willkie is, therefore, a losing proposition. His backers, you may say, don’t want to back a loser. Hence, they are withdrawing their support while there is still time to withdraw. Simple? A little too simple.Our own speculations run along the following lines. Both Willkie and Roosevelt, as we shall have occasion to prove in detail later on, are candidates of the House of Morgan in a most direct way. The knifing of Willkie is merely evidence of the fact that the Morgan interests prefer the victory of Roosevelt. This decision, in turn, is based on the strengthening of England’s resistance to Hitler. Prolonged British resistance, say into the spring of 1941, increases the probability of immediate American entry into the war. To facilitate this delicate job requires the touch and guidance of a master hand in fooling the workers. Who can do this job better, or as well as, Roosevelt? Wall Street may be for Willkie. But a very important section of the American ruling class is working in such a way as to increase the prospects of a Roosevelt victory. A Very Clever ManeuverWhen Willkie denounced the Overton-Russell amendment as “socialistic,” and threatening to “sovietize American industry,” he also denounced those who favored the amendment as sponsors of “a cheap political trick.” There is good reason for believing that the timing of the Overton-Russell amendment was a very clever political maneuver. Indeed, Mr. Arthur Krock, of the New York Times, claims that it was designed as a political trap to catch Willkie and the Republican senators. Be that as it may, Willkie was certainly caught, but a majority of the GOP senators voted for it! The question is clearly not a party issue. If there were any doubts about this, the overwhelming vote in the House for the Smith amendment (which corresponds to the Senate’s Overton-Russell amendment) should have dispelled them. Since all the members of the House are up for re-election this year, we can safely conclude that all but 31 members of the House want to be re-elected and don’t come from blue-stocking districts.It is well to point out that the Smith amendment is more precise and not so sweeping as the Overton-Russell amendment although both are substantially the same – they both give the President the power to commandeer plants if the employer proves recalcitrant; that is, should the Secretary of War or of the Navy be unable to arrive at an agreement. In particular, it does not authorize permanent possession by the government, but merely the leasing of the plant by the Government during the period of emergency.Obviously, the conscription of industry (as proposed in either amendment or in whatever compromise is finally adopted) will not sovietize American industry. So far as this aspect of the question is concerned, the measure is simply another step – and a long one, at that – towards the establishment of a totalitarian state in this country. Far from meaning any tendency towards socialism it will mean the exact opposite – a step towards capitalist totalitarianism. Part and Parcel of the War DriveWhy, one is required to ask, is this amendment tacked on to the Burke-Wadsworth conscription bill? Here, the obvious answer is the only one. It makes a good political appeal (especially for votes) to point out to the workers that only only are they being conscripted but so is industry. As such, it is clearly “fairer.” And we are certainly in favor of drafting wealth. The workers, however, must understand that the entire conscription bill, including the amendment to conscript industry, is part of the general drive towards war and the establishment of a totalitarian regime in this country."
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"content": "Moreover, it gives Roosevelt a chance to pose as the champion of the masses by favoring the conscription of wealth. To be sure, Roosevelt has so far allowed Wallace to do his talking for him. Nevertheless, the whole business, greatly aided by Willkie’s boner has strengthened the Roosevelt Administration. It should be obvious to everyone that Roosevelt’s fundamental ideas on property are basically the same as Willkie’s. Both are wedded to capitalism and the preservation of property rights.The idea that industry is being conscripted is a pure fake. If that were the case, it would hardly be necessary to spend so much time discussing the excess profits bill. Industry which is conscripted, wealth which is drafted, won’t have to haggle about profit. IT WILL BE OWNED AND OPERATED BY THE GOVERNMENT. THAT IS REAL CONSCRIPTION OF INDUSTRY. To be effective, however, it must be under the control of the workers. As long as the capitalists own the means of production, and J.P. Morgan can make and unmake Presidents, any conscription of industry will safeguard property rights. Top of pageVance Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main PageLast updated: 6.10.2012"
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"content": "Vance Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main PageFrank DembyWar Taxes Mount(August 1941)From Labor Action, Vol. 5 No. 32, 11 August 1941, p. 2.Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).After three months of consideration the House Ways and Means Committee brought in a proposal to raise $3,529,200,000 in new taxes. It is expected that the federal government will raise between nine and ten billion dollars from existing taxes. The additional revenue, provided there is no increase in expenditures, will be covered by taxes. The remainder will be raised through borrowing. It also means that this is the largest tax bill in the history of the country. Just a reminder that war costs money.The bill is really a case of the mountain laboring and bringing forth a mouse. None of the basic issues are tackled. Recognizing that this is decidedly a compromise measure. Representative Doughton, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, following the lead of President Roosevelt, announced, in pleading for a “gag” rule to speed the debate, that the committee would have to consider a new tax bill for next year which would probably broaden the income tax base and levy a federal sales tax. These have been the basic demands of the bosses, who, as usual, try to throw the main burden of taxation onto the backs of the masses. On the other hand, the bill sidesteps the issue of imposing a genuine excess profits tax by merely increasing the excess profits rates a piddling 10 per cent. Joint ReturnsThe most highly publicized feature of the new tax bill – the only part of the bill open to debate in the House of Representatives – is the proposal to compel married couples to file a joint tax return. A storm of protest has risen from press and pulpit against this measure on the ground that it penalizes marriage, will encourage divorce and immorality, and breaks down the sanctity of the home. At this writing it appears that the joint return, designed to raise more than $300 million, will be eliminated.However, the joint return doesn’t mean higher taxes for the wealthy, for the wives of the rich don’t work. It is true that they may have separate incomes in the form of inheritance or property gifts from their husbands; but the main burden of the joint return would fall on those middle class and working class families where both husband and wife work, with combined incomes ranging from $4,000 to $10,000. Since the greatest number of working women come from the ranks of the working class, a broadening of the income tax base and a lowering of exemptions – as is proposed for next year – would result in the joint return affecting the upper strata of the workers more than any other group. This is one of the main dangers inherent in the proposal. On this practical ground alone, leaving aside the fundamental questions of the family and the institution of marriage, the joint return should be opposed.The bulk of the new tax revenue is to be raised from corporate and individual taxpayers – nearly two and a half billion dollars. In comparing the additional amounts to be raised from corporations and individuals, we see the manner in which the refusal to levy a 100 per cent excess profits tax and substantially higher corporation taxes, is allowing the big bosses to escape at the expense of the middle and working classes. New taxes from corporations are expected to raise $935,000,000. New taxes from individuals will raise an expected $1,521,000,000 (the big increase in the surtax rates falling on those making from $2,000 net income to $10,000 net income). This means an increase of 72.7 per cent in the taxes paid by individuals as against an increase of only 35.8 per cent in the taxes paid by corporations. In the words of Godfrey N. Nelson, tax expert of the New York Times: “Charging themselves with the duty of raising an enormous additional amount of revenue, the Congress has made the burden of such load to fall disproportionately upon the individual taxpayer. It has been said that we shall pay the additional taxes even if we have to borrow on do so.” To enable the middle class to pay these new taxes, the Treasury is obligingly selling “tax anticipation” notes. Power to Destroy”The power to tax,”’ goes the well known saying, “is the power to destroy.” In this case, what is involved is the beginning of the destruction of the middle class, the traditional bulwark of American capitalism. The far-reaching social implication of burden of the middle class will only be seen in the years to come, but in its own way it is already an indication of the approaching revolutionary crisis in the United States. One of the most penetrating predictions of Marx was that in which he predicted the gradual disappearance of the middle class as capitalism matured and began to decay. This prediction has often been attacked as incorrect, and the United States, with its vast middle class, cited as proof of Marx’s error. But, even if somewhat belated, the middle class IS being wiped out (by the big capitalists). The process, which began with the onset of the great depression of 1929, – particularly on the tax front."
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"content": "The impression has been carefully cultivated by the boss press that the workers have escaped “paying their share of the new taxes.” The Republican minority of the Ways and Means Committee, while it couldn’t agree on any specific measures, submitted a minority report attacking the New Deal spending and calling virtually for the elimination of WPA, NYA and CCC appropriations. To them, of course, the existence of 5,000,000 and more unemployed is of no importance. But the workers have not escaped. They will not be taxed directly, rather they will be made to suffer the most vicious forms of taxation – excise or indirect taxes. An additional $900,000,000 is to be raised in excise taxes. These taxes on various commodities and services (mostly necessities) are, of course, passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices. It means that those who can least afford to pay them will bear the overwhelming burden of these new taxes. It also means that at the same time that the government is supposed to be taking action to prevent rising prices, it introduces a tax bill which must result in higher prices! However, we should not expect logic from capitalist politicians.Some of the increases in existing excise taxes as well as some of the new excise taxes are as follows: distilled spirits, an increase of $1.00 a gallon to yield $122,300,000; wines, increased rates to yield $5,000,000; automobiles, tax increased from 3½ to 7 per cent, to yield $74,900,000; tires and tubes, increased rates to yield $44,600,000; matches, a tax of 2 cents per 1,000, to yield $21,000,000; playing cards, rate increased from 11 to 13 cents, to yield $1,000,000; radios and receiving sets, rate increased from 5½ to 10 per cent, to yield $9,400,000; telephone bills, a tax of 5 per cent, to yield $43,600.000; transportation of persons, which excludes tickets for 30 days or less, a tax of 5 per cent, to yield $36,500,000; a “use” tax on automobiles, yachts and airplanes of $5.00 each per year, to yield $180,200,000 (imagine placing yachts and airplanes in the same class as second-hand automobiles!); bowling alley, pool or billiard table tax, $15 each, to yield $3,400.000; soft drinks, a tax of one-sixth cent per bottle or its equivalent, to yield $22,600,000; also a 10 per cent tax on the following items: phonographs and records, musical instruments, sporting goods, luggage, electrical appliances, photographic apparatus, electric signs, business and store machines, rubber articles, washing machines for commercial laundries, jewelry, furs and toilet preparations.For those making under $2,000 a year – that is, 70 per cent of the nation – these excise taxes alone (not counting the state taxes and “voluntary” contributions of various types) will mean a greater increase in their already high taxes than is the case with the wealthy. The writing of a real tax bill – one which would raise the money from those who can afford it by a capital levy on all those with incomes over $10,000 a year – that, of course, is too much to expect from those docile representatives of big business in Congress. But we should at least expect the honorable congressmen to read their own tax bill – even if they don’t debate it. That is most unlikely since only three days have been allowed to consider a bill which is 95 pages in length!Thus does the Congress, by its very actions, reveal the fakery and hypocrisy which is involved in every tax bill. Top of pageVance Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main PageLast updated: 13.1.2013"
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"content": "Vance Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main PageFrank DembyAfter the War, What?(September 1941)From Labor Action, Vol. 5 No. 35, 1 September 1941, p. 2.Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).One of the most significant of recent developments is the publication by the National Resources Planning Board of a pamphlet entitled After Defense, What? Its contents are summarized in the New York Times of August 13.The board, in outlining its post-war economic program, based itself on the assumption that World War II will end in 1944, at which time it estimated that the U.S. will be using 23,000,000 workers in war industries, plus 3,500,000 men in the armed services. As an indication of what is in store for us for the next three years, the report is very interesting. Its real value lies, however, in two extremely important things:First, there is the recognition on the part of a semi-official government agency that we must plan NOW to prepare for the “colossal undertaking” of transferring these millions of men to peacetime activities, if complete economic breakdown and utter chaos are to be avoided. Second, and most important, is the complete inadequacy of the program proposed by the National Resources Planning Board to accomplish this aim. It reveals, as clearly as anything can, the bankruptcy of capitalism.It does not require much imagination to picture what will happen if the usual post-war depression is allowed to develop. Whether it be in 1944 or later, the questions asked by the board are of fundamental importance and are in the mind of every thinking person today: “What happens to the demobilized workers and veterans and their families? Will they be without work? Will they stop producing? Will the national income drop fifteen billion dollars or so as soon as the pent-Up demands are met? Will the succeeding drop in consumption throw others out of work and reduce national production and income another ten to twenty billion dollars?”“If so,” says the board, “we shall be back again in the valley of the depression and a terrific new strain will be thrown on our whole system of political, social and economic life. The American people will never stand for this. Sooner or later they will step in and refuse to let matters work themselves out.”In plain English, then, these learned intellects are telling the bosses: “If you don’t want a revolution after the war, you’ve got to take steps to prevent it now; continuing your usual policy of doing nothing will prove fatal.”Let me put the matter another way. The era of free, competitive capitalism is over. It is not merely dying. It is dead. It cannot be resurrected, no matter how many pious declarations Messrs. Roosevelt and Churchill issue. The National Resources Planning Board – let credit be given where credit is due – at least recognizes this incontestable fact. But the real problem is HOW TO PLAN for maintaining maximum production, full employment and rising standards of living in peacetime. Here the capitalist statesmen and economists, when they don’t show annoyance at the posing of such far-off problems (peace aims), are hopelessly confused and bewildered. And no wonder! They sense only too well the terrible longing of the masses for peace, security and freedom. But all they can offer the people under an outworn capitalist system is the peace of the graveyard, the security of regimentation and the freedom of the concentration camp. The difficulty lies in the fact that the only type of planning possible under capitalism is the fascist type, which inevitably means more wars and widespread misery and starvation.How to plan the abolition of poverty in the midst of plenty – that is the question. The National Resources Planning Board would have government, business, workers and farmers cooperate now in the establishment of a planned transition to peacetime activity. Among their suggested plans are: a dismissal allowance for all demobilized men; gradual liquidation of government contracts, priorities and price controls; public works projects, particularly transportation and housing; research to develop new industrial products; plans to expand the service industries – more medical care, education and entertainment; new forms of social security and work relief; new financial plans for covering the costs of these projects; and lease-lend aid for the peoples of Europe until they can get on their feet.Let us grant that all of these are worthwhile aims. Can they be achieved under capitalism? Not in any genuine manner, such as will guarantee full employment and a rising standard of living. Why haven’t we had genuine slum-clearance and low-cost housing projects prior to the war? Why, in spite of all the New Deal reforms, does one-third of the nation remain ill-fed, ill-housed and ill-clothed? As soon as the government tries to respond to the pressure exerted by masses of discontented people by instituting a few reforms, what happens? Big business, through its control of all the avenues of propaganda, turns loose its high-paid publicists, who unleash clever campaigns to show that such reforms are too costly and will bankrupt the government, or that they are illegal and unconstitutional, or that they undermine the system of free, private enterprise.If the government sells electricity at cost, which can easily be done, as demonstrated by the TVA, this is government competition with private business. Private business must operate at a profit. To get its profits it must sell things at two or three times the rates charged by government-owned enterprise. Further, monopolies have arisen in every industry for the simple reason that, through monopolies, production can be restricted, prices can be raised, wages can be lowered – and thus profits can be maintained at a high level."
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"content": "Unfortunately for the National Resources Planning Board, the problem begins where they end. The wheels of industry will not turn, under capitalism, unless the manufacturers, bankers and landlords can get their profits. Is there any reason why manufacturers who refused to manufacture war materials under the “defense” program until their profits were guaranteed by the government, should suddenly manufacture the necessities of life once the war is over – unless they can likewise get their profits? Countless inventions have long been suppressed by big corporations because releasing them would interfere with their profits on existing investments. Why should they now develop new industries on a large scale so as to give employment to everyone?There was a time when the capitalists, in their pursuit of profits, did bring about a general improvement in living conditions – although millions still lived in poverty. But, as the saying goes, “Them days are gone forever.” Profits can be maintained today only by having the masses suffer a steadily declining standard of living. This soon makers all reforms a luxury and an expense that the capitalists cannot afford. Once the monopoly capitalists are confronted with such a situation, they finance the fascist gangsters to power. The recent history of Europe leaves no doubt on this score.But even if a schoolchild could propose more concrete and realistic plans than those of the National Resources Planning Board, this does not mean that the workers must give up all hope of a decent life. The Brookings Institute, a very conservative institution, long ago estimated that the U.S., with its abundant resources and technical skills, can give everyone the equivalent of a $5,000 a year income.The trade unions must take up the problem and the suggestions of the National Resources Planning Board. They must establish their own planning boards. They must bombard Washington with concrete, realistic plans for producing enough food, clothing, shelter and other things for everyone. They must educate the country so that the masses understand how the good things of life can be distributed to everybody. And if profits have to be sacrificed (AS THEY MUST) in order to achieve a decent, rational and democratic existence – well, then let profits be sacrificed. Why should the selfish interests and privileges of a mere handful of people condemn the overwhelming majority of the population to perpetual hunger and misery?And we are confident that once the workers start thinking about these problems – which are immediate and practical problems – they will find that only a workers’ government, democratically organized and controlled, producing for the use and needs of the population, can solve the manifold problems that confront us today. Top of pageVance Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main PageLast updated: 27.1.2013"
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"content": "Vance Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main PageFrank DembyTreasury Plans War Cut in Wages!Wants Labor To Pay for Boss War by ‘Savings’(November 1941)From Labor Action, Vol. 5 No. 45, 10 November 1941, pp. 1 & 4.Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).The Treasury Department has announced that before the end of the year a comprehensive plan will be introduced into Congress for cutting down the “excess” purchasing power of the American masses. The central feature of this “anti-inflationary” program will be a tremendous increase in social security payroll taxes. The figure of 5 per cent has been publicly mentioned.At present, employee members of the old age pension system automatically have 1 per cent of their wage deducted from their pay envelopes. This sum, together with the employer’s contribution an equal sum for each worker, goes toward the creation of a survivor’s insurance fund. When a worker reaches the age of 65 he is then entitled to certain benefit payments for the rest of his life.This system, known as social security, was originally designed to solve the problem of old age insecurity. It is not to be confused with another aspect of the same law – unemployment insurance – which operates through the states. In spite of numerous flaws and injustices, social security was generally accepted as a step in the right direction. Now, however, under the pressure of tremendous war expenditures, this system is to be perverted into a means for making the masses pay for the boss war, lowering the standard of living of the average worker and, ultimately, destroying the old age pension system.Just exactly what changes are being discussed by those entrusted with the safeguarding of our money is difficult to say, as it doesn’t seem to occur to Mr. Morgenthau and Mr. Roosevelt that the workers ARE interested in the fate of their own pension system, and would like to have a public discussion of any proposals that are being made. It has been rumored, for example, that the social security system is to be broadened to include many not now covered, as farmers and government employees. If the “contribution” of the worker is to be increased to 5 per cent (and this apparently is the smallest figure under consideration), will the contribution of the employer also be increased to 5 per cent? Absolute silence from Treasury officials! If the workers contribute five times as much as previously, will their benefits increase by five times? No answer! Will the benefits increase at all? Still no answer, but one detects an embarrassed silence such as is usually present when you apprehend a person in the act of doing something wrong.Above all, what relevance has it to the needs of the working class? There are now millions upon millions of dollars in the social security fund, of which about 90 per cent has been “borrowed” by the government for war purposes. The new proposal is therefore obviously designed not to safeguard the security of the worker but to get more money for the bosses’ war!The bosses undoubtedly figure that this subject is too “complicated” for the average worker to understand. It involves such matters as inflation, taxation and finance. The worker, in the mind of the boss, is too dumb to discuss these matters; he should merely concern himself with sweating, toiling and bleeding so that the bosses can make more profits, and he should leave these mysterious matters to the representatives of the bosses, like Mr. Morgenthau, who will take care of everything.Suppose, however, that somebody proposed that you take a 5 per cent wage cut. You would want to discuss it, wouldn’t you, especially with the wife complaining that the cost of everything is going sky-high? And even if you were told that by taking a 5 per cent wage cut, you would be stopping prices from going up, we are absolutely confident that the workers would want to discuss such a proposal. And yet, this, in reality, is what is being proposed. Of course, the bosses don’t say that this is a wage cut. They will tell you that you will be saving your money and that you will get it back when the “emergency” is over, when you’ll need it. The Keynes PlanThis is the line that the bosses of England are handing out to the British workers. There, a famous economist by the name of John Maynard Keynes, who is concerned with the problem of making capitalism work, proposed at the beginning of the war his “deferred savings” plan. The trouble, says Mr. Keynes, is that under a war economy less and less of the necessities of life are produced. The war needs the factories and the machines, the raw materials and the labor. So we are forced to cut down on production of consumer goods. At the same time, more workers are being employed in the war industries. This means more money in the hands of the workers. In other words, the demand for consumer goods is, increasing at the same time that the supply is being reduced. Such a situation must result in rising prices – that is, in inflation.This is bad, so the only solution, according to Mr. Keynes, is to reduce the demand of the workers for the necessities of life. Let 5 per cent of the worker’s wage be deducted from his payroll. This will be a sort of forced savings. The government can use this money to finance the cost of the war. Then, when the war is over, the money which the worker loaned the government will be returned to him, and there will be a big demand so that manufacturers will find it profitable to produce consumer goods once again. England has adopted the Keynes “deferred savings” plan. As a reward, Mr. Keynes was just elected as one of the directors of the Bank of England."
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"content": "Mr. Keynes made a trip to the United States earlier this year. At that time, it was reported that he had discussed his plan with Treasury officials. Apparently, we are now to receive the fruits of this visit. For, it should be obvious that an increase of the social security tax to 5 per cent is merely a different form of carrying out the same basic idea.At the same time that Mr. Morgenthau made his announcement in Washington, a small item in the financial section of the newspapers announced that Dr. Fritz Reinhardt, assistant Finance Minister of Germany, had proposed to the German workers the development of “iron savings accounts.” These accounts cannot be touched until one year after the war is over. The amount that an individual worker can save is limited and is tax exempt. We do not know if Mr. Keynes made a trip to Berlin in order to expound his theories to the Nazis, but we do know that the Nazis have adopted and perfected his theories. We also know that if the German system is compulsory savings, as the American press was quick to point out, then Mr. Morgenthau’s proposal is also compulsory savings, in spite of his denial. Lowers Living StandardWe object to the proposal of increased social security taxes because it is unnecessary, because it will not prevent inflation and because, ultimately, it will wreck the social security system. It is unnecessary because a genuine, democratic approach to the problem of preventing inflation would start with a real 100 PER CENT EXCESS PROFITS TAX. If it is not profitable to raise prices (because the extra profits will be taken away through taxes), the biggest incentive that the bosses have to raise prices will be destroyed. Further, this American adaptation of the Keynes scheme will not prevent inflation, unless at the same time, rigid totalitarian controls are introduced. By themselves, forced savings can only mean a LOWER STANDARD OF LIVING and will throw the main burden of financing the war onto the backs of the masses.Finally, the question must be asked: where will the government get the money to pay back these forced savings, once the war is over? The answer is that it can’t unless it pays back in inflated dollars, which would mean a worthless currency. We shall return again to this question. Meanwhile let’s hear from our readers and let every worker raise the problem in his trade union! Top of pageVance Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main PageLast updated: 13.2.2013"
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"content": "Vance Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main PageFrank DembyNew Tax Proposals Hit ThoseWho Can Least Afford Them(May 1941)From Labor Action, Vol. 5 No. 18, 5 May 1941, p. 2.Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).The Treasury Department has recommended to Congress the adoption of new taxes designed to raise slightly more than three and a half billion dollars – about half of the cost of the Lease-Lend program. While it is too early to say definitely what the final bill will be, as the various big business groups are now engaged in the highly edifying American pastime of passing the buck – on to consumers and other business groups – through their powerful lobbies in Washington, all the proposals made point to the strengthening of the already reactionary tax structure of the country.While the capitalist press has headlined the scheduled increases in the income tax rates, the really significant aspect of the Treasury’s proposals are the additional $1,233,600,000 of indirect taxes. These are the taxes which are passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices. The workers, those who can least afford it, will foot the largest portion of the bill designed to make the world safe for American imperialism. The middle class (those with incomes between $2,500 and $10,000) will pay the next largest share. And, as usual, the big capitalists will pay the smallest portion of the cost of their war.Over $200,000,000 will be raised through additional tobacco taxes. This means that cigarettes will go up another two cents a pack. Almost the same sum is expected through a higher liquor tax. This means much higher prices for beer, wines, whiskey, etc. Over $842,000,000 will be obtained through excise taxes on some 25 items; some representing additional taxes on those already in existence, like another cent on each gallon of gasoline (expected to bring in $255,000,000); others representing entirely new taxes, like the proposed one cent a bottle on all soft drinks (expected to bring in $133,500,000). One and a half billion dollars is to be raised through additional income taxes by higher surtax rates on the middle income groups. For example, under the Treasury’s program a married couple with no children who have a net income of $2,500 a year would pay an income tax of $72 instead of the present $11. A single person with a net income of $1,000 who now pays an income tax of $4 would pay $29! Many of those in the middle class (around $5,000) will pay six to seven times their present income taxes.Compare these proposals witt the measly additional $400,000,000 to be collected in excess profits taxes and you have a true picture of how the capitalists are trying to unload the cost of the war onto the backs of the workers and other people who work for a living. Especially, when it is recalled that the present excess profits lax, which was supposed to bring in close to a billion dollars in 1940 is now estimated as having brought in only $100,000,000!While you are mulling over these typical illustrations of capitalist “justice,” let me spoil your appetite further with these additional items as food for thought:Representative Doughton, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which has charge of the bill, said he expected that “every conceivable tax” might be offered in the committee when it starts to “mark up” the bill within two or three weeks. Under present tax schedules, those in the lowest income groups (representing two-thirds of the population) pay 20 per cent of their incomes to the government in taxes (most of them being hidden or indirect taxes) while those in the highest income group (representing one-tenth of one per cent of the population) pay only 38 per cent of their incomes to the government in taxes. The new and increased excise taxes will have a cumulative effect in helping to bring about higher prices. Top of pageVance Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main PageLast updated: 27.12.2012"
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"content": "Vance Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main PageT.N. VanceThe Counterfeit Concept ofCountervailing Power(May 1954)From The New International, Vol. XX No. 3, May–June 1954, pp. 99–113.Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).The key to the psychology of mid-twentieth century capitalism is the fear of depression. This fear, or sense of insecurity, has been a basic fact of political and social life since the crisis of 1929. Any economist who has any claim whatsoever to being a theorist has been forced to attempt an explanation of the reasons for depressions and, above all, to reassure himself and society at large that there is no need to fear a recurrence of severe depression.John Kenneth Galbraith – currently Professor of Economics at Harvard University and author of American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power [1] – is no exception. As a matter of fact, he begins by stating:The present organization and management of the American economy are also in defiance of the rules – rules that derive their ultimate authority from men of such Newtonian stature as Bentham, Ricardo and Adam Smith. Nevertheless it works, and in the years since World War II quite brilliantly. The fact that it does so, in disregard of precept, has caused men to suppose that all must end in a terrible smash ... It is with this insecurity, in face of success, that this book, in the most general sense, is concerned. (Italics mine – T.N.V.)The reason, consequently, that Galbraith’s concept of countervailing power has created somewhat of a stir in certain academic and liberal circles is that he has written a book aimed at reassuring the bourgeoisie and its supporters that there is really nothing much to worry about, that capitalism is functioning on the whole quite well, and that this is almost if not quite the best possible of all possible worlds. The difficulty, according to Galbraith, is that all classes in society have been victims of false or outmoded economic theories. All that is necessary is to change the theory, accept the validity of countervailing power, and presto chango the fear of depression will disappear.While this represents a rather touching tribute to the power of ideas in molding men’s lives, it constitutes a real distortion of how ideas develop and how they influence the evolution of society. The entire presuppositions of Galbraith’s theory are laid bare by the following extensive quotation from the end of his first chapter:Here then is the remarkable problem of our time. We find ourselves in these strange days with an economy which, on grounds of sheer physical performance, few are inclined to criticize. Even allowing for the conformist tradition in American social thought, the agreement on the quality of the performance of American capitalism is remarkable. The absence of any plausibly enunciated alternative to the present system is equally remarkable. Yet almost no one feels secure in the present. The conservative sees an omnipotent government busy altering capitalism to some new, unspecified but wholly unpalatable design. Even allowing for the exaggeration which is the common denominator of our political comment and of conservative fears in particular, he apparently feels the danger to be real and imminent. At any given time we are but one session of Congress or one bill removed from a cold revolution. The liberal contemplates with alarm the great corporations which cannot be accommodated to his faith. And, with the conservative, he shares the belief that, whatever the quality of current performance, it is certain not to last. Yet in the present we survive. With the present, given peace, no one is intolerably unhappy.It can only be that there is something wrong with the current or accepted interpretation of American capitalism. This, indeed, is the case. Conservatives and liberals, both, are the captives of ideas which cause them to view the world with misgivings or alarm. Neither the structure of the economy nor the role of government conforms to the pattern specified, even demanded, by the ideas they hold. The American government and the American economy are both behaving in brazen defiance of their rules. If their rules were binding, they would already be suffering. The conservative, who has already had two decades of New and Fair Deals would already be dispossessed. The liberal, who has already lived his entire life in an economy of vast corporations, would already be their puppet. Little would be produced; we should all be suffering under the exploitation and struggling to pay for the inefficiency of monopoly. The fact that we have escaped so far means that the trouble lies not with the world but with the ideas by which it is interpreted. It is the ideas which are the source of the insecurity – the insecurity of illusion.Whether the average individual is as worried as Galbraith thinks he is about the possibility or imminence of depression, is difficult to ascertain. Galbraith’s worry, however, is genuine. It stems from the destruction of the economic foundations of American liberalism. Capitalist liberalism historically was a nineteenth century phenomenon. With the growth of state monopoly capitalism and of monopoly in general the base of liberalism narrowed until it has reached the point where it has virtually disappeared and genuine liberals are as scarce as hen’s teeth. Sooner or later economic theory must correspond to the facts of economic life. In other words, the superstructure, i.e., the world of ideas, flows from the foundation, i.e., the reality.Liberalism is the child of competitive capitalism, of free enterprise in the true sense of the term. As competition decreased and monopoly grew, it became increasingly difficult for liberals to maintain a theory of liberalism."
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"content": "Such a theory was badly in need once capitalism entered the stage of permanent crisis following the first world war – and once the authoritarian theories of fascism and Stalinism became fashionable. In the 1930’s the man who saved the day for the liberals was John Maynard Keynes – an English banker who became the bourgeois theorist of the depression era. For it was Keynes who provided the rationale, the justification for state intervention which was absolutely indispensable for the survival of capitalism. In the process, Keynes demolished his predecessors, the classicists and neo- classicists alike.In an interesting chapter, entitled The Depression Psychosis, Galbraith displays a rather penetrating understanding of Keynes’ rôle. He states:The ideas which interpreted the depression, and which warned that depression or inflation might be as much a part of the free-enterprise destiny as stable full employment, were those of John Maynard Keynes. A case could easily be made by those who make such cases, that his were the most influential social ideas of the first half of the century. A proper distribution of emphasis as between the role of ideas and the role of action might attribute more influence on modern economic history to Keynes than to Roosevelt. Certainly his final book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, shaped the course of events as only the books of three earlier economists – Smith’s Wealth of Nations, Ricardo’s Principles of Political Economy and Marx’s Capital – have done.The development of mass unemployment during the Great Depression of the 30’s not only demanded state intervention to preserve capitalism, but demolished the classical theories of free competition that had presumably guided the actions of the American bourgeoisie until that time. Keynes’ system permitted acknowledgment of the existence of unemployment, predicted its development, and appeared to provide a solution to the problem. To quote Galbraith:The major conclusion of Keynes’ argument – the one of greatest general importance and the one that is relevant here – is that depression and unemployment are in no sense abnormal. (Neither, although the point is made less explicitly, is inflation.) On the contrary, the economy can find its equilibrium at any level of performance. The chance that production in the United States will be at that level where all, or nearly all, willing workers can find jobs is no greater than the chance that four, six, eight or ten million workers will be unemployed. Alternatively the demand for goods may exceed what the economy can supply even when everyone is employed. Accordingly there can be, even under peacetime conditions, a persistent upward pressure on prices, i.e., more or less serious inflation.Full employment, which the classicists assumed, did not exist. It was so remote that Keynes relegated it to the status of a special and rare case in equilibrium analysis. More often than not, asserted Keynes, the economy would achieve an equilibrium below the level of full employment. This, of course, was heresy to the conventional “vulgar” economists who promptly denounced Keynes. It was, however, rather difficult to ignore the political potential of millions of unemployed. The state had to intervene to try to bolster demand by various pump-priming processes. In the course of providing theoretical justification for state intervention, Keynes had to demolish what was known as Say’s Law – an ancient shibboleth according to which each commodity produced automatically generated the purchasing power required to take that commodity off the market. Keynes discovered something that had been more accurately described by Marx and many others; namely, that a portion of the value of a finished commodity went to the owner of capital and that this value (or, more accurately surplus value in the form of profit, interest or rent) did not necessarily have to be invested in new production. The resultant increase in savings could and periodically did “result in a shortage of purchasing power for buying the volume of goods currently being produced. In that case the volume of goods would not continue to be produced. Production and prices would fall; unemployment would increase ... And this equilibrium with extensive unemployment might be quite stable.”Once Keynes had established that depressions could and did exist, and that investment did not automatically provide the necessary offsets to savings, the remedy in the form of public spending was clear. As Galbraith puts it:“Insufficient investment has become the shorthand Keynesian explanation of low production and high unemployment. The obvious remedy is more investment and, in principle, it is not important whether this be from private or public funds. But the expenditure of public funds is subject to central determination by government, as that of private funds is not, so the Keynesian remedy leads directly to public expenditure as a depression remedy.”The Great Depression has been succeeded by the Permanent War Economy. In this development is rooted the ultimate crisis of liberalism. Neither war nor a war economy is conceivable without rigorous, large-scale state intervention in the economy. The Keynesian theories, as Galbraith is at pains to point out, lose their attractiveness. That is why, in many respects, Galbraith’s American Capitalism reads like the confessions of a liberal. The old theories have been demolished twice over by remorseless reality. A new theory is needed: one that will explain what is apparently transpiring and one which justifies the status quo. Galbraith is attempting to fill the void left by the decline of Keynesianism.The first point in establishing the nature of the void is to show that the climate is, indeed, different. This is not difficult to do, of course, although Galbraith fails to draw the necessary conclusions. It is only in passing that he reveals any understanding of what has happened, when he states that: “The Great Depression of the Thirties never came to an end. It merely disappeared in the great mobilization of the Forties. For a whole generation it became the normal aspect of peacetime life in the United States – the thing to be both feared and expected.” What is this if not an unconscious reference to the Permanent War Economy?Even though depressions (and Keynes) are passé,"
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"content": "The depression psychosis not only contributed deeply to the uncertainty and insecurity of Americans in the years following World War II, it also deeply influenced economic behavior ... nearly every major business enterprise in the United States has been operated in the last five years in the expectation that sooner or later there would be a major slump. In late 1946, some 15,000 leading business executives were asked by Fortune magazine if they expected an “extended major depression with large-scale unemployment in the next ten years.” Fifty-eight per cent of those replying (in confidence) said they did. Of the remainder, only twenty-eight per cent said no. Organized labor’s preoccupation with measures to maintain employment and the farmers’ preoccupation with support prices have both reflected the search for shelter from depression. During the last fifteen years, the American radical has ceased to talk about inequality or exploitation under capitalism or even its “inherent contradictions.” He has stressed, instead, the unreliability of its performance.Keynes provided a theory of depressions and a remedy therefore. Depression, however, is no longer the real danger; in fact, depression – according to Galbraith – is virtually an impossibility.Given peace, and also freedom from the force majeure of large expenditures for armed forces, considerable confidence could be placed in the Keynesian formula. We could expect it to work [states Galbraith] because we could look forward to the kind of economy in which it is capable of working. Unhappily the prospect is not so favorable. [The PWE dominates the scene.] Although Keynes provided a plausible solution to the problem of deflation and depression, the application of his formula to the economy is not symmetrical. It does not deal equally well with the problem of inflation ... And unfortunately, inflation, not depression, is the greatest present and well may be the most persistent future tendency of the American economy.Fiscal policy (tax rate manipulation, etc.) and built-in stabilizers (social security, etc.) have done away with depressions and thereby with Keynes. This is a pity, according to Galbraith, as depressions can always be controlled, but then Keynes would still reign supreme and there would be no need for Galbraith to develop his fraudulent concept of countervailing power. Lest we be accused of doing an injustice to Galbraith on this important point, let us quote two more passages. First he states:Speaking with all the caution that broad generalization requires [sic!], the experience of these years [post-World War II] suggests that there are no problems on the side of depression or deflation with which the American economy and polity cannot, if it must, contend. (Italics mine – T.N.V.)Then, in the next breath:A reading of recent experience has suggested that the American economy is unlikely soon to find, on the side of depression and deflation, any problems with which it cannot contend and none which would require an extension of the scope of centralized decision beyond the impersonal guidance provided by the Keynesian formula. Moreover the same experience of the years between 1945 and 1950 would lead one to expect that it would be against deflation that, most probably, the Keynesian formula would have to be invoked. There are some hitherto unsuspected virtues in deflation. We know it can be countered; it provides the context in which the internal regulators work best. Thus we have a formula which insures a favorable over-all performance of the economy; that formula involves no revolutionary or even very drastic change in the economy or the relation of government thereto; the outlook is for the moderate deflationary tendencies in which both the economy and the formula can be expected to function well. (Italics mine – T.N.V.)Unfortunately, Galbraith finished his book after the Korean war had broken out. He was consequently forced to recognize thatmilitary expenditures are increasing rapidly. There has also been a considerable modification of the depression psychosis ... Accordingly, inflation must now be considered not a possibility but a probability. (Italics mine – T.N.V.)These rather lengthy quotations from Galbraith’s economic outlook have been necessary to provide the proper setting for analyzing the concept of countervailing power. First, however, it is necessary to explore what Galbraith means by the term, countervailing power.Market power has been a central feature of capitalism and competition has been the regulator of markets. These pivotal characteristics of capitalism have been recognized by all economic theories. Classical and neo-classical bourgeois theorists, in fact, centered all attention on market price, its causes, fluctuations and its impact (through the benign regulatory force of competition) on economic equilibrium and growth. The supply-demand equation governed price, and competition among sellers or among buyers (each of whom exercised no effective control over total output or market price) produced the “right” price that assured efficient allocation of resources, full employment and the best possible society. Galbraith succinctly expresses the traditional theory as follows:In all cases the incentive to socially desirable behavior was provided by the competitor. It was to the same side of the market and thus to competition that economists came to look for the self-regulatory mechanism of the economy. (Italics mine – T.N.V.)But competition was noticeably weakening throughout the twentieth century. By the time of the Great Depression, the presence of monopoly as an important, if not crucial, characteristic of the economy was most difficult to ignore. Theories were being developed on “imperfect” and “monopolistic” competition. In any event, competitive theory as an interpreter of what was happening and as a guide to action was losing adherents with each passing day. This was the climate that nourished the growth of Keynesianism. But Galbraith, from the vantage point of the Permanent War Economy (although, without beginning to realize its implications), seeks a new explanation – one that not only explains what happened in the 1930’s and 1940’s, but one that justifies the status quo of the 1950’s.The following extensive excerpt from Galbraith’s American Capitalism provides us with the author’s understanding of the background leading to, as well as his definition of, countervailing power:"
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"content": "They [economists] also came to look to competition exclusively and in formal theory still do. The notion that there might be another regulatory mechanism in the economy has been almost completely excluded from economic thought. Thus, with the widespread disappearance of competition in its classical form and its replacement by the small group of firms if not in overt, at least in conventional or tacit collusion, it was easy to suppose that since competition had disappeared, all effective restraint on private power had disappeared. Indeed this conclusion was all but inevitable if no search was made for other restraints and so complete was the preoccupation with competition that none was made.In fact, new restraints on private power did appear to replace competition. They were nurtured by the same process of concentration which impaired or destroyed competition. But they appeared not on the same side of the market but on the opposite side, not with competitors but with customers or suppliers. It will be convenient to have a name for this counterpart of competition and I shall call it countervailing power. (Italics mine – T.N.V.)Before continuing with Galbraith’s exposition of the concept of countervailing power, it is worth digressing to examine the dictionary meaning of the term. Countervail, it seems, can be traced back through old French to Latin, from which it is derived literally as “to be strong against.” The idea of compensation or balance is clearly at the heart of the meaning of countervail and the dictionary defines it as “to act against with equal force or power”; or “to act with equivalent effect against anything.” Note the stress on “equal” or “equivalent” power, as this is precisely what Galbraith has in mind.To begin with a broad and somewhat too dogmatically stated proposition, private economic power is held in check by the countervailing power of those who are subject to it. The first begets the second. The long trend toward concentration of industrial enterprise in the hands of a relatively few firms has brought into existence not only strong sellers, as economists have supposed, but also strong buyers as they have failed to see. The two develop together, not in precise step but in such manner that there can be no doubt that the one is in response to the other.The fact that a seller enjoys a measure of monopoly power, and is reaping a measure of monopoly return as a result, means that there is an inducement to those firms from whom he buys or those to whom he sells to develop the power with which they can defend themselves against exploitation. It means also that there is a reward to them, in the form of a share of the gains of their opponents’ market power, if they are able to do so. In this way the existence of market power creates an incentive to the organisation of another position of power that neutralizes it.The contention I am here making is a formidable one. It comes to this: Competition which, at least since the time of Adam Smith, has been viewed as the autonomous regulator of economic activity and as the only available regulatory mechanism apart from the state, has, in fact, been superseded. Not entirely to be sure. There are still important markets where the power of the firm as (say) a seller is checked or circumscribed by those who provide a similar or a substitute product or service. This, in the broadest sense that can be meaningful, is the meaning of competition. The role of the buyer on the other side of such markets is essentially a passive one. It consists in looking for, perhaps asking for, and responding to the best bargain. The active restraint is provided by the competitor who offers, or threatens to offer, a better bargain. By contrast, in the typical modern market of few sellers, the active restraint is provided not by competitors but from the other side of the market by strong buyers. Given the convention against price competition, it is the role of the competitor that becomes passive ... competition was regarded as a self-generating [italics in original] regulatory force. The doubt whether this was in fact so after a market had been pre-empted by a few large sellers, after entry of new firms had become difficult and after existing firms had accepted a convention against price competition, was what destroyed the faith in competition as a regulatory mechanism. Countervailing power is also a self-generating force and this is a matter of great importance ... the regulatory role of the strong buyer, in relation to the market power of the strong seller, is also self-generating. As noted, power on one side of a market creates both the need for, and prospect of reward to, the exercise of countervailing power from the other side. In the market of small numbers, the self-generating power of competition is a chimera. That of countervailing power, by contrast, is readily assimilated to the common sense of the situation and its existence, once we have learned to look for it, is readily subject to empirical verification. (Italics mine – T.N.V.)The monopolist, according to Galbraith, is held in check (and presumably no great degree of state intervention is required) not by his competing monopolist but by his monopolistic countervailing buyer or supplier. Economic (and political) balance is no longer mainly achieved by parallel competition among a great many (small) sellers or buyers but by relatively few huge supplying and buying organizations confronting each other across the supply-demand equation. Moreover, this exercise of what Galbraith describes as countervailing power is really automatic, i.e., self-generating."
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"content": "According to Galbraith, the importance of countervailing power can be empirically demonstrated in virtually every phase of economic activity where prices are a factor. In fact, he cites the labor market, agriculture and large-scale retailing organizations as the three prime examples of countervailing power. The powerful trade union, the large farmers’ cooperatives and the big chain stores and mail order houses constitute his best illustrations of countervailing power. They have arisen in response to a monopolistic position on the other side of the economic bargaining table. Labor, farmers and consumers (?) need these organizations partly as a matter of self-defense and partly to share the ill- gotten monopolistic gains of their monopolistic antagonists.The operation of countervailing power is to be seen with the greatest clarity [states Galbraith] in the labor market where it is also most fully developed. [He then cites the case of the steel industry, observing:] As late as the early Twenties, the steel industry worked a twelve-hour day and seventy-two-hour week with an incredible twenty-four-hour stint every fortnight when the shift changed.No such power is exercised today and for the reason that its earlier exercise stimulated the counteraction that brought it to an end. In the ultimate sense it was the power of the steel industry, not the organizing abilities of John L. Lewis and Philip Murray, that brought the United Steel Workers into being. The economic power that the worker faced in the sale of his labor – the competition of many sellers dealing with few buyers – made it necessary that he organize for his own protection. There were rewards to the power of the steel companies in which, when he had successfully developed countervailing power, he could share.As a general though not invariable rule there are strong unions in the United States only where markets are served by strong corporations. And it is not an accident that the large automobile, steel, electrical, rubber, farm-machinery and non-ferrous metal-mining and smelting companies all bargain with powerful CIO unions. (Italics mine – T.N.V.)It is true that capitalism has organized the industrial proletariat in large factories and the class struggle has therefore more readily lead to the development of powerful trade unions. These, however, are terms and forces of which Galbraith is totally ignorant.He is straining to make the facts of life fit his so-called theory of countervailing power. Yet he must recognize that strong unions exist in areas where powerful oligopolies are conspicuous by their absence. He is thus constrained to state:I do not advance the theory of countervailing power as a monolithic explanation of trade-union organization; in the case of bituminous-coal mining and the clothing industry, for example, the unions have emerged as a supplement to the weak market position of the operators and manufacturers. They have assumed price- and market-regulating functions that are the normal functions of management. Nevertheless, as an explanation of the incidence of trade-union strength in the American economy, the theory of countervailing power clearly fits the broad contours of experience. (Italics mine – T.N.V.)Strong unions arise in response to the need of workers to defend themselves from the monopolistic power of large corporations and to obtain a share of the gains of monopoly power for the workers. The function of countervailing power in such instances, it is clear, is a healthy one. It achieves the type of balance of which Galbraith approves. At the same time, in other industries where powerful monopolistic corporations do not exist, strong unions arise “to supplement the weak market position of the operators and manufacturers.” Since the countervailing power of strong unions, however, can only operate against the monopoly power of large corporations, the UMW and the ILGWU must perform the “market functions that normally belong to management”; i.e., they must develop monopolistic powers. It is not precisely clear, however, how a union can share the monopoly power of corporations when such power is non-existent. If Galbraith would study the history of the American labor movement, he might find other reasons for the growth of powerful unions in competitive industries and would thus not try to force his theory of countervailing power to fit facts for which it is patently not designed. It goes without saying that the history of the class struggle provides all the explanations that are necessary for the specific character and strength of the American trade-union movement.The longest effort to develop countervailing power, according to Galbraith, has been made by the farmer.In both the markets in which he sells and those in which he buys, the individual farmer’s market power in the typical case is intrinsically nil. In each case he is one among hundreds of thousands. As an individual he can withdraw from the market entirely, and there will be no effect on price – his action will, indeed, have no consequence for anyone but himself and his dependents.Those from whom the farmer buys and those to whom he sells do, characteristically, have market power. The handful of manufacturers of farm machinery, of accessible fertilizer manufacturers or mixers, of petroleum suppliers, of insurance companies all exercise measurable control over the prices at which they sell. The farmer’s market for his products – the meat-packing industry, the tobacco companies, the canneries, the fluid-milk distributors – is typically, although not universally, divided between a relatively small number of large companies.Many of the political activities of the farmers, such as the Granger movement, represent attempts to combat the monopolistic buying and selling power to which farmers are opposed in their market activities. The power of the farm bloc in Congress – it is implicit in Galbraith’s analysis flows from these antecedents. “Farmers have turned from the reduction of opposing market power,” according to Galbraith, “to the building of their own.” Here is the explanation of the rise of farm cooperatives."
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"content": "In seeking to develop countervailing power it was natural that farmers would at some stage seek to imitate the market organization and strategy of those with whom they did business. For purchase or sale as individuals, they would seek to substitute purchase and sale as a group. Livestock or milk producers would combine in the sale of their livestock or milk. The market power of large meat packers and milk distributors would be matched by the market power of a large selling organization of livestock producers and dairymen. Similarly, if purchases of fertilizer, feed and oil were pooled, the prices of these products, hitherto named by the seller to the individual farmer, would become subject to negotiation.The necessary instrument of organization was also available to the farmer in the form of the cooperative. The membership of the cooperative could include any number of farmers and it could be democratically controlled. All in all, the cooperative seemed an ideal device for exercising countervailing power ...As a device for getting economies of large-scale operations in the handling of farm products or for providing and capitalizing such facilities as elevators, grain terminals, warehouses and creameries, cooperatives have enjoyed a considerable success. For exercising market power they have fatal structural weaknesses ... It cannot control the production of its members and, in practice, it has less than absolute control over their decision to sell ... A strong bargaining position requires ability to wait – to hold some or all of the product. [The selling cooperative has thus had limited success and required the intervention of the Federal government starting in the Hoover Administration.]The farmer’s purchasing cooperative is free from the organic weaknesses of the marketing or bargaining cooperative. In the marketing cooperative the noncooperator ... gets a premium for his non-conformance. In the buying cooperative he can be denied the patronage dividends which reflect the economies of effective buying and bargaining. In the purchase of feed, chemicals for fertilizers, petroleum products and other farm supplies and insurance these cooperatives have enjoyed major success.Galbraith has provided a justification for state intervention in behalf of the farmer that takes the curse off this type of activity and makes it inevitable.The fact that the modern [farm] legislation is now of two decades’ standing, that behind it is a long history of equivalent aspiration, that there is not a developed country in the world where its counterpart does not exist, that no political party would think of attacking it are all worth pondering by those who regard such legislation as abnormal.Countervailing power is most effective, it would seem, in the case of large retailing organizations that can exercise unusually strong buying power. States Galbraith:As a regulatory device one of its [countervailing power] most important manifestations is in the relation of the large retailer to the firms from which it buys.Again, it is the monopolistic power of the large corporations supplying retailers that provided the need and opportunity for the growth of the A&P, Sears, Roebuck & Co., Woolworth’s, etc. Or, as Galbraith puts it,in precise parallel with the labor market, we find the retailer with both a protective and profit incentive to develop countervailing power whenever his supplier is in possession of market power. The practical manifestation of this, over the last half-century, has been the spectacular rise of the food chains, the variety chains, the mail-order houses (now graduated into chain stores), the departmentstore chains, and the cooperative buying organizations of the surviving independent department and food stores.It is clear that Galbraith looks with favor upon the countervailing activities of such large retailing organizations as A&P and Sears, for he feels that it was a mistake even to attempt prosecution of the A&P under the anti-trust statutes, and he clearly lauds Sears for being able to purchase automobile tires at prices from 29 to 40 per cent lower than the market. Consequently, Galbraith is opposed to the Robinson-Patman Act for it fails to distinguish between original power and countervailing power and discriminates against the effective exercise of countervailing power.When the comprehensive representation of large retailers in the various fields of consumers’ goods distribution is considered, it is reasonable to conclude – the reader is warned [by Galbraith] that this is an important generalization – that most positions of market power in the production of consumers’ goods are covered by positions of countervailing power. (Italics mine – T.N.V.)The countervailing power of the large retailing organizations, willy nilly, benefits consumers and eliminates the need of consumers organizing large-scale buying cooperatives similar to those in Scandinavia and England. Here is one of the more significant aspects of Galbraith’s concept of countervailing power, and one of the more facile justifications of the status quo.States Galbraith:The development of countervailing power requires a certain minimum opportunity and capacity for organization, corporate or otherwise. If the large retail buying organizations had not developed the countervailing power which they have used, by proxy, on behalf of the individual consumer, consumers would have been faced with the need to organize the equivalent of the retailer’s power. This would be a formidable task but it has been accomplished in Scandinavia and, in lesser measure, in England where the consumer’s cooperative, instead of the chain store, is the dominant instrument of countervailing power in consumers’ goods markets ... The fact that there are no consumer cooperatives of any importance in the United States is to be explained, not by any inherent incapacity of the American for such organization, but because the chain stores pre-empted the gains of countervailing power first. The counterpart of the Swedish Kooperative Forbundet or the British Cooperative Wholesale Societies has not appeared in the United States simply because it could not compete with the A&P and the other large food chains. The meaning of this ... is that the chain stores are approximately as efficient in the exercise of countervailing power as a cooperative would be."
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"content": "Comment on the above would be largely superfluous, particularly since Galbraith recognizes that, “While countervailing power is of decisive importance in regulating the exercise of private economic power, it is not universally effective.” And he cites the case of the residential-building industry. What Galbraith has failed to comprehend, however, is that consumers are not a class but an economic category cutting across all classes. Consumers cannot easily organize unless, as in England and Scandinavia, there is a strong political party of labor able to sustain an economic organization of consumers who are mainly workers. Here, and not in some mysterious countervailing benefits of monopolistic retail chains, lies the basic explanation of why consumers’ cooperatives have not flourished in the United States.Labor and farmers, however, represent distinct economic classes. The course of the class struggle – not a fraudulent concept of countervailing power – has led to the development of trade unions and farmers’ buying cooperatives. The dialectic of the class struggle also helps to explain why farmers have achieved considerable political power in the United States, whereas the working class, as yet, has failed to achieve political power commensurate with its economic power. Of course, the struggle between a large-scale retail organization, such as Sears, and an oligopolist manufacturer, like the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, is a form of the class struggle. Only in this case it represents a struggle between segments of the capitalist class and not between different classes. No profound social consequences are really possible in a struggle within the capitalist class, as frequently occurs when the struggle is between the capitalist class and the working class.Parenthetically, it is interesting to note that, with few exceptions, American bourgeois economics in the last two generations has been devoid of value theory. The concentration on so-called price theory, as separate and distinct from value theory, led ultimately to the enthronement of Wesley Mitchell and his followers at the National Bureau of Economic Research in the so-called Statistical School. Description – in many cases, interesting and unique descriptions – replaced theory. What exists flows from what was, but why is another question. Galbraith, too, is hardly a theorist. It does not even occur to him to question what is involved in the determination of price besides the superficial supply-demand relationships and the bargaining that occurs in the market place. The “theory” of countervailing power is as much a theory of prices and economic behavior as tides, by themselves, are an explanation of weather formation.Galbraith, however, does have a sense of reality. He is not only aware of the fact that Keynesianism no longer holds sway and that the theories of monopolistic competition possess many inadequacies, but he is constrained to develop some plausible explanation of existing economic conditions that both justifies the status quo and provides a suitable guide to public policy. Giants on either side of the supply-demand equation play the decisive role in price determination, according to the concept of countervailing power, rather than “competition” amongst monopolies operating on the same side of the market. He provides a rationale for both private control of the means of production and limited state intervention to preserve that control. “The present analysis,” he states, “also legitimatizes government support to countervailing power.”While state intervention has already been sanctioned by Keynesian theory in the need to create demand in a period of depression, Galbraith’s concept of countervailing power justifies state intervention in a somewhat negative way. The thought is rather fully developed in the following paragraph:No case for an ideal distribution and employment of resources – for maximized social efficiency – can be made when countervailing power rather than competition is accepted as the basic regulator of the economy. Countervailing power does operate in the right direction. When a powerful retail buyer forces down the prices of an industry which had previously been enjoying monopoly returns, the result is larger sales of the product, a larger and broadly speaking a more desirable use of labor, materials and plant in production. But no one can suppose that this happens with precision. Thus a theoretical case exists for government intervention in private decision. It becomes strong where it can be shown that countervailing power is not fully operative.The major argument against state intervention, in fact, becomes the old chestnut concerning the alleged impracticality and bureaucratic nature of state planning transformed into a wondrous argument about the administrative advantages of decentralized authority. Thus,Although little cited, even by conservatives, administrative considerations now provide capitalism with by far its strongest defense against detailed interference with private business decision. To put the matter bluntly, in a parliamentary democracy with a high standard of living there is no administratively acceptable alternative to the decision-making mechanism of capitalism. No method of comparable effectiveness is available to decentralize authority over final decisions.Countervailing power on Galbraith’s own testimony, however, cannot work in a period of inflation and inflation is the basic characteristic of our times. After developing his theory, he states:I come now to the major limitation on the operation of countervailing power – a matter of much importance in our time. Countervailing power is not exercised uniformly under all conditions of demand. It does not function at all as a restraint on market power when there is inflationary pressure on markets ... Countervailing power, as a restraint on market power, only (Galbraith’s emphasis) operates when there is a relative scarcity of demand. Only then is the buyer important to the seller and this is an obvious prerequisite for his bringing his power to bear on the market power of the seller. If buyers are plentiful, that is, if supply is small in relation to current demand, the seller is under no compulsion to surrender to the bargaining power of any customer. The countervailing power of the buyer, however great, disappears with an excess of demand. With it goes the regulatory or restraining role of countervailing power in general. Indeed, the best hope of the buyer, under conditions of excess demand, may be to form a coalition with the seller to bring about an agreed division of returns ..."
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"content": "When demand is limited, we have ... an essentially healthy manifestation of countervailing power. The union opposes its power as a seller of labor to that of management as a buyer: At stake is the division of the returns. An occasional strike is an indication that countervailing power is being employed in a sound context where the costs of any wage increase cannot readily be passed along to someone else. It should be an occasion for mild rejoicing in the conservative press. The Daily Worker, eagerly contemplating the downfall of capitalism, should regret this manifestation of the continued health of the system.Under conditions of strong demand, however, collective bargaining takes on a radically different form ... Thus when demand is sufficiently strong to press upon the capacity of industry generally to supply it, there is no real conflict of interest between union and employer. It is to their mutual advantage to effect a coalition and to pass the costs of their agreement along in higher prices. Other buyers along the line, who under other circumstances might have exercised their countervailing power against the price increases, are similarly inhibited. Thus under inflationary pressure of demand, the whole structure of countervailing power in the economy dissolves. (Italics mine – T.N.V.)Inflation, of course, has certain beneficiaries: “In the inflation years of the Forties, farmers and recipients of business profits did gain greatly in real income. It is not possible for any reputable American to be overtly in favor of inflation; it is a symbol of evil, like adultery, against which a stand must be taken in public however much it is enjoyed in private.” Inflation eliminates the slack in the economy and makes countervailing power virtually inoperative.Inflation, moreover, is a characteristic of the Permanent War Economy and makes controls inevitable. This will have a permanent impact on the nature of capitalism, and it is on this rather lugubrious note that Galbraith concludes his book:Given war or preparation for war – coupled with the effect of these on the public’s expectations as to prices – there is every likelihood that the scope for decentralized decision will be substantially narrowed. It is inflation, not deflation or depression, that will cause capitalism to be modified by extensive centralized decision. The position of capitalism in face of this threat is exceedingly vulnerable. This is not a matter of theory but of experience ... A few months of inflation [in 1950] accomplished what ten years of depression had not required.The concept of countervailing power, consequently, is counterfeit on two grounds. Firstly, and mainly, it takes what are simple phenomena of the class struggle and erects them into a fraudulent theory that is supposed to explain and justify the status quo. Secondly, it admittedly cannot operate in a period of inflation, which means that its functions are necessarily extremely limited, being restricted to ever-narrowing periods of deflation (at least, according to Galbraith). Countervailing power exists, yes, in so far as it is a manifestation of the class struggle; but that is the only extent to which the concept is valid. The rest is a triumph of public relations and a fraud, although an interesting one, upon an unsuspecting intelligentsia.The struggle across opposite sides of the marketplace is only one – and a minor phase at that – of the forms of the modern class struggle. As already mentioned, it is essentially a conflict within the capitalist class and, therefore, normally less intense and historically less significant than the class struggle in the factories between capital and labor. Preoccupation with mitigating all forms of the class struggle has become one of the hallmarks of American twentieth century liberalism; and, as a rule, no distinction is made among various types of class struggles. The important thing in the modern liberal lexicon is to have social peace – usually at any price.Galbraith is no exception to this characteristic liberal approach. If he did not make his position entirely clear to everyone in American Capitalism, he is unambiguous in a paper on Countervailing Power, delivered before the December 1953 annual meeting of the American Economic Association. He states:I fear I did not make as explicit as I should the welfare criteria I was employing. In partial equilibrium situations, economics has long made the maximization of consumer welfare a nearly absolute goal. Any type of economic behavior which lowered the prices of products to the consumer, quality of course being given, is good ...In our own time, ... we regularly reject the particular equilibrium test of maximized consumer well-being. We regularly accept measures which raise product prices to ameliorate the grievances or alleviate the tensions of some social group. And it is well that we do. An opulent society can afford to sacrifice material well-being for social contentment. Higher prices of coal or clothing we regard as a small price for freedom from disorder in the coal fields or destitution in the sweatshops.I doubt whether, in entering a defense of the social utility of countervailing power, I made sufficiently clear whether my standard was the welfare of the consumer or the minimization of social tension. It was natural that perceptive critics would take up the attack on the test of consumer welfare. Had I been less under the influence of this norm myself I would have invited the battle in the area of social harmonies. This, I submit, is also the critical test. American society has not recently been threatened in peacetime (or even in wartime) by a shortage of food. There have been times when the tensions of the farming community were a threat to orderly democratic process. The evolution of countervailing power in the labor market has similarly been a major solvent of tensions in the last half-century. Most would now agree, I think, that this has been worth a considerable price. (Italics mine – T.N.V.)"
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"content": "The concept of countervailing power – objectively in the view of its creator – has the dual purpose of softening the class struggle (reducing social tensions) and of creating the proper socio-economic climate for progressive economic development (dissipating the psychosis of depression and justifying state monopoly capitalism). In the course of developing his essay in social criticism, Galbraith, as we have pointed out, has had to do violence to many basic social phenomena, such as the nature of and reasons for the growth of the trade-union movement. He has also felt constrained to exhibit his ignorance of Marxism. He obviously believes he is making a telling point when he states: “In the Marxian lexicon, capitalism and competition are mutually exclusive concepts; the Marxian attack has not been on capitalism but on monopoly capitalism.” How one person can be so wrong in such a brief sentence is difficult to comprehend. Suffice it to say, that Marx always held competition to be a basic characteristic of capitalism, and the Marxian analysis of state monopoly capitalism constitutes a fundamental attack on capitalism as a social system that has outlived its historical usefulness.In the same paper before the American Economic Association, Galbraith is forced to admit that one of his major points – the reduction of consumer prices by large retail chain operations – is not really due to countervailing power, but to competition. He states:The gains from opposing mass retail buying to large-scale or oligopolistic production have, I think, been fairly generally conceded. The question has been asked, however, as to what eleemosynary instinct causes the gains that are won by the mass buyer to be passed along to the consumer. In my book I argued that it was the result of the shape of the production function in retailing. My critics have suggested that it is because retailing, the mass buyers notwithstanding, is still a competitive industry. (It is likely to remain one, for entry is almost inherently easy.) I suspect they are right. I am sure that I was more than a little reluctant, at this particular stage in my argument, to confess a reliance on competition. (Italics mine – T.N.V.)The self-generating character of countervailing power and its beneficent effects become just a series of unproved statements on the part of Galbraith – so much so, that the self-generating character of countervailing power may be labeled a self-generating fraud. This is pretty much the view of Galbraith’s professional critics. States Professor George J. Stigler (in a paper entitled, The Economist Plays With Blocs, delivered at the same session of the American Economic Association):We must regret that at the very threshold of the doctrine of countervailing power, Galbraith eschews rational explanation. It is not as if one were asking, in the tones of a stuffy formalist, for explicit development of details of a theory whose general outline is familiar or which is a plausible extension of well-explored theories. The theory of bilateral oligopoly can hardly be said to exist, and the theory of bilateral monopoly – which Galbraith disposes of in a singularly high-handed manner – offers only contradictions to his theory ... Galbraith’s notion of countervailing power is a dogma, not a theory. It lacks a rational development and must be accepted or rejected without reference to its unstated logical antecedents ... Nor is there any explanation, in Galbraith’s book or elsewhere, why bilateral oligopoly should in general eliminate, and not merely redistribute, monopoly gains.Stigler concludes his critique of Galbraith by stating:I want to close with an apology for the consistently negative attitude I have felt compelled to take with respect to Galbraith’s theory. One would like to speak well of so urbane and witty a presentation. Especially at this season one would like to avoid expressing doubts that a mysterious, benevolent being will crawl down each and every chimney and leave a large income as well as directions to the nearest cut-rate outlet. Yet even at this season, Galbraith cannot persuade us that we should turn our economic problems over to Santa.Another academic critic, John Perry Miller, in a paper at the same meeting, entitled Competition and Countervailing Power: Their Rôles in the American Economy, summarizes Galbraith’s theoretical approach by stating:Here indeed is an optimistic doctrine of the dialectic suggesting that it is the search for power and countervailing power rather than self-interest in the search for gain which promotes economic progress. [Miller does not have much faith in countervailing power and expresses his basic attitude by declaring:] The further one burrows into the concept of countervailing power the clearer it becomes that a catchy phrase is being used to cover a variety of situations. It is doubtful whether so used it is a very useful tool of analysis. I doubt, also, that it is good history. And as an instrument of policy it is at best one in a crowded kit of tools along with the traditional tools of the policy of competition.Nor were the discussants of the main papers at this session on Countervailing Power any kinder toward Galbraith than the official critics. David McCord Wright concludes his discussion with this trenchant blow: “I should judge Dr. Galbraith one of the most effective enemies of both capitalism and democracy.”"
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"content": "While Galbraith is to be commended for writing in non-technical language, and for attempting to relate economic theory to social reality (i.e., for returning to the precepts of political economy), his humor smacks of smart-aleckism and is misplaced in a serious work. The popularity that Galbraith’s book has achieved, however, is not due to its style. And it is only partly due to excellent public relations in its promotion. Countervailing power appeals to a certain segment of intellectuals who are groping for doctrines that will reassure them that their world is not crumbling. This the theory of countervailing power attempts to do. Amidst the general bankruptcy of American bourgeois political economy, Galbraith is refreshing in his candor and style, but destined to a short life as the theorist of the day, for the simple reason that his theory is a fraud and will not even be accepted by the liberal bourgeoisie for whose benefit it was concocted.* * *Footnote1. Published by Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston 1952, 217 pp. Top of pageVance Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main PageLast updated: 28 February 2020"
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"content": "Vance Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main PageFrank DembyWhat Are the Facts on the Gov’tExcess Profits Swindle?(September 1940)From Labor Action, Vol. 4 No. 22, 9 September 1940, p. 3.Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).While the final text of the proposed excess profits and amortization bill is still to be prepared, the Bill as passed in the house indicates that one of the most gigantic swindles in the history of the country is now being prepared in Washington. In order to offset the growing clamor from labor unions, some sections of the press and public sentiment, that if the workers are to be conscripted, and offered to the sacrifice, the only fair thing to do is to conscript capital as well, the ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION IS PREPARING AN EXCESS PROFITS AND AMORTIZATION BILL THAT WILL SEEMINGLY REQUIRE SACRIFICES OF CAPITAL, BUT WHICH WILL, IN REALITY, GUARANTEE THE CAPITALISTS HIGHER PROFITS THAN THEY HAVE MADE IN MANY A LONG YEAR.Manufacturers are holding up hundreds of millions of dollars worth of army, navy and air contracts because, as they say, “We don’t trust the government; we must have absolute guarantees (of our profits) before a wheel turns.” Just imagine what a hue and cry would arise from the paid propagandists of the capitalist press if the workers, after the conscription bill is passed, said, “We refuse to allow ourselves to be conscripted until we receive absolute guarantees that any war this country engages in will not be for imperialist purposes but in the interests of the working masses of this country!” Cries of “traitor,” “red,” “fifth columnists,” etc. would be hurled at the workers. But when a manufacturer refuses to sign a “defense” contract until his profits are guaranteed, that is true patriotism. Millions for the MillionairesThe President has already said “there will be no new millionaires as a result of the armaments program. However, the tax bill in preparation, gives the lie to this high-sounding phrase. Not only will there be new millionaires, but the present millionaires (according to a recently issued statement of the Treasury, 50 individuals filed income taxes for 1939 showing incomes of a million dollars and more in 1938) will make even more millions than they have in the past.What worries our patriotic manufacturers most appears to be the amortization measure. Their argument runs something like this: “These new contracts require us to erect new plants. These new factories will cost huge sums of money and they will be practically worthless once the war is over. Unless we are allowed to write-off (amortize) the cost of the new factories in a ‘reasonable’ period of time (five years or less), we will lose our shirts.” Normally, a manufacturer writes-off the cost of new plant equipment (capital investment) in a period of 20 years by setting up a sinking fund. In other words, if a five year period is decided upon, approximately 20% of the cost of new plant equipment will be added to expenses. Since in this modern day of mass production, fixed capital (machines, etc.) constitutes an ever-increasing proportion of the total capital accumulation of the modern corporation, this means that sums running into the millions and millions will be deducted from profits AND THEREFORE NOT ELIGIBLE TO THE EXCESS PROFITS TAX.In addition to this gravy which will be secured to the capitalist, there are any number of other considerations which are positively fascinating in their appeal to the manufacturer’s patriotism. Suppose, for example, the war and/or the “defense” program lasts more than five years; having already written-off the cost of the new factories, profits will be absolutely fantastic. Even should the war period end in the next five years, an airplane manufacturer, to take just one example, will certainly be able to use his new factories in peacetime pursuits.Finally, in many cases, it will undoubtedly be found that these new factories erected for “defense” purposes will not fill only government orders. Many of them will be able to fill private contracts for England. In such cases, a manufacturer may well decide to use his new plants to fill U.S. Government orders, since these may be subject to various restrictions (Walsh-Healy Bill, for example) and his old plants to fill other contracts. Truly, the prospects of coining huge profits are so good that it actually staggers the imagination. AND SINCE ROOSEVELT AND ALL CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS HAVE ALREADY STATED THEIR WILLINGNESS TO GUARANTEE THE PASSAGE OF AN AMORTIZATION MEASURE PROVIDING FOR EVERYTHING THE MANUFACTURERS WANT. WHAT IS REALLY DISTURBING OUR PATRIOTIC MANUFACTURERS? Just a Tiny Fly in the Ointment"
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"content": "It is simply the insistence of the Administration, fully aware that an election is coming up in November, in coupling the amortization measure with an excess profits tax. The politicians know that if they give the capitalists everything they want in regard to the amortization measure, mass resentment will be extremely high (and will cost votes) unless this is compensated for by placing a ceiling on profits. That is why Roosevelt has turned a deaf ear to the pleas of the New York Times to pass only an amortization bill now and spend the rest of the year studying the problem of excess profits very carefully since “it is so complicated and can’t go into effect until the 1941 income tax returns are made.” Excess profits, of course, are a “complicated” question, but not conscription. Present signs, however, indicate that an excess profits tax will be passed. But what kind? – that is another question. Without going into the technical complications, and the various alternatives, which require a Philadelphia lawyer to disentangle, the basis of the proposed bill is TO EXEMPT FROM AN EXCESS PROFITS TAX, PROFITS AMOUNTING TO A SUM EQUAL TO THE AVERAGE NET PROFIT MADE DURING 1930–1939. For most of the large corporations, this is a pretty favorable period. It has only one bad year included – 1938. It includes two fairly good years, 1936 and 1939 – and one exceptionally good year, 1937. In addition, the average earnings during this base-period will be increased by 8% of new capital invested. This means that large corporations (say General Motors or U.S. Steel, who will certainly get their .share of the contracts) will make from 8 to 10% and more profits, without having to pay an excess profits tax.There may not be many new millionaires, but a lot of the old ones are going to increase their fortunes sizeably. Moreover, should profits now run so phenomenally high, it doesn’t follow that the portion of profits which is subject to the excess profits tax will be confiscated by the government. So far, the highest excess profits tax proposed is 50%. The average rate aimed at is apparently 25%. Thus, the manufacturer will be allowed to keep a goodly portion of the excess profits. Certainly, no restraints on “private initiative” here!The sacrifices that capital will be required to make “in the interests of national defense” will, consequently, be largely on paper. They will be useful for bamboozling the workers, but they will not interfere with the patriotism of the bosses – which, as always, centers around their pocket-books.Just in case the above analysis has been a bit too difficult for you to follow in detail. THE SINGLE FACT WHICH EXPOSES THE EXCESS PROFITS SWINDLE MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE IS THAT THE ESTIMATED YIELD OF THE PROPOSED EXCESS PROFITS TAX FOR 1940 IS $300,000,000. This, of course, is mere chicken-feed. It is a drop in the bucket when compared with the billions and billions of dollars now being spent on armaments. It is even less when compared with the billions of dollars that corporations will make. It clearly shows that the Government does not expect very much help in meeting the costs of “defense” from the excess profits tax. As always, the costs of war will be borne by the masses – not by the bosses.One immediate conclusion that every worker must draw from this situation is to raise in his union the demand for NATIONALIZATION OF ALL WAR INDUSTRIES. THIS IS ONE WAY OF STOPPING THE PROPOSED EXCESS PROFITS SWINDLE. Top of pageVance Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main PageLast updated: 6.10.2012"
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"content": "Vance Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main PageT.N. VanceNotes of the MonthFear of Depression in the U.S.(December 1953)From The New International, Vol. XIX No. 6, November–December 1953, pp. 303–312.Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).“DEPRESSION IS A REAL FEAR for many of us. It has already touched the farmers. It may touch others in the months ahead.” Thus spoke Adlai E. Stevenson, leader of the “loyal opposition,” in his Philadelphia speech of December 12th. The atmosphere of anxiety appears to reach far beyond the farmers, extending from Main Street to Wall Street. Most people, including those in government, are worried about the economic outlook.That there is some basis for these fears can be seen in the most recent report of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. The report for December receives the headline in the New York Times of December 15th, November Business Activity Shows First Dip From 1952. Factory output and earnings were off. The average work-week dipped below forty hours, with the 39.9-hour average being the lowest for any November in the last four years. While there were some favorable factors, unemployment increased by 266,000.If one examines the basic national income data, as published by the Department of Commerce in the November issue of the Survey of Current Business, it becomes apparent that a mild recession started in the third quarter of 1953. Gross national product declined from a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $372.4 billion in the second quarter of 1953 to $369 billion in the third quarter. Since personal consumption expenditures and government purchases of goods and services increased, although almost imperceptibly, gross private domestic investment accounts for the decline. For all practical purposes, the entire story is told by the reduction in the change in business inventories from an annual rate of $8.8 billion in the second quarter to one of $4.5 billion in the third quarter.In some quarters, it is fashionable to attribute the present recession to a mere “inventory adjustment” – presumably of no consequence. The November 1953 Survey of Current Business has this to say about the subject:“The bulk of the advance in inventories since the strike-affected third quarter of last year has been in durable goods. Additions to durable goods inventories have reflected substantial replenishments that followed the widespread imbalances caused by the steel shortages as well as the subsequent buildup in many hard good lines, such as automobiles, which were carrying unusually low inventories in the earlier period of production controls. More recently, some backing up of stocks because of lower than expected sales also have been a contributing factor, affecting particularly third, quarter inventories in retail trade.” (Italics mine – T.N.V.)This is a most curious attempt to evade facing reality – and in a publication that is hardly read by the general public. The statement regarding inventories of automobiles is sheer fiction, as retail sales of automobiles have been declining. It has been obvious for several months that production of automobiles has been exceeding sales. The increase in inventories has nothing to do with production restrictions that existed last year or the year before. Not only have retail sales in general been lower than expected, but they are currently running five to ten per cent under last year.The decline in retail sales naturally begins to have an impact at the factory level. Factory sales of all motor vehicles, for example, reached a 1953 peak of 723,532 in April. After declines of eighty and sixty thousand vehicles in May and June, factory sales of motor vehicles still totalled 705,132 in July. In August, the figure was down to 615,382 and in September to 573,688. It is estimated that production of motor vehicles for 1953 may exceed retail sales by several hundred thousand units.New orders are, of course, one of the most sensitive barometers of business conditions. In view of the softening throughout the economy, it is not surprising that net orders declined from a peak of $25.7 billion in April 1953 to $22.4 billion in September, the latest month available. This is a decline of twelve per cent, and must be regarded as significant in any appraisal of the economy.Ninety per cent of the decline in recent months in new orders is to be found in the durable goods industries – total net new orders for all durable goods industries declining from $12.6 billion in April 1953 to $9.6 billion in September. Since the bulk of this decline occurs in transportation equipment, including motor vehicles and parts, the crisis in consumer durables, centering in the automobile industry, is evident.At the same time, there has been some increase in the number of industrial and commercial failures, although not as yet of an alarming nature. More significant has been a pronounced decline in the number of new business incorporations. From a 1953 peak of 9,659 in March, the number of new incorporations throughout the country declined to 7,433 in September – a drop of almost 25 per cent. As the hucksters on Madison Avenue put it, “The economy has become more competitive.” AN INTERESTING APPRAISAL of the economic outlook is contained in the New York Times of December 20th, in the column, The Merchant’s Point of View, by William M. Freeman:The population is just over 160,000,000 and is continuing to go up. While the baby crop is dropping, there are more toddlers and more elderly persons, which means a heavier load on the more or less static middle group. The number of marriages is decreasing. Demand for new homes is easing, a dip that is accentuated by higher prices. Materials prices also are weaker, so that prices of homes and major appliances should turn downward in due course.Sales of furniture, major appliances and a host of other items are closely linked to the housing trend. The television receiver, which increases living room usage, traffic, wear, destruction and replacement, is helping a bit in furniture volume, as is the continuing trend to outdoor living, sparked by the flight from the cities to a semi-suburban way of life."
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"content": "Employment is dipping steadily, with business activity showing its first minus signs for the year in November. Some 1,428,000 persons were jobless in November, 2.3 per cent of the labor force; this was the sharpest rise recorded in the year.All of these factors add up to a downward readjustment, now accelerating. with industrial production off 6 per cent from the peak in March. The Federal Reserve Board’s index stood at the close of November at 228, based on the 1935–39 average taken as 100, against the March figure of 243.Inventories are heavy in most lines. Retail sales are trailing 1952 volume, but the year as a whole, with attractive prices on desired items rather than on ‘lemons,’ aided by special promotions backed by heavy advertising, should finish between 1 and 2 per cent ahead of last year ...In a word, there is a marked softening evident throughout most of the economy. In almost every market, supply now exceeds demand. The term, “buyers’ market,” is used more and more frequently, and is an apt description of the situation in the economy as a whole. While there is reason to fear depression, there is no reason for panic to prevail. Many new products, and improvements in old products, are being put on the market. Business volume is still at a very high level. Freeman concludes his column, quoted above, as follows:It is factors such as this, the product of the engineer, the artist, the production man and the planner, that distort computations. There is no question of a readjustment coming up, aside from anything we scare ourselves into, as a result of the rapid post-Korea expansion and the existence of surpluses in many lines that must be worked off before production rates can be resumed.The outlook, therefore, is for sharply intensified competition, with a marked increase in competitive selling in every aspect of the economy. But, and here’s something that’s been ignored: The slide-off, in the works since mid-year, is from record levels. It seems very likely, therefore, that the year ahead will come close to the 1952 figure, which was very near the record. And the country’s inventive genius can effect this outlook only one way – upward.Ignoring the propaganda content in the phrase, “inventive genius,” there has been as we pointed out in The Permanent War Economy Under Eisenhower (cf. March–April 1953 issue of The New International, p. 97) an enormous amount of capital accumulation since the end of World War II. Productive capacity, therefore, is still increasing at a goodly rate and there is, as yet, no sign of any significant downturn in the accumulation of capital, as can be seen from the following tabulation covering the last seven quarters.NET PRIVATE CAPITAL FORMATION, 1952–1953, by Quarters(Billions of Dollars, Seasonally Adjusted at Annual Rates)Year andQuarterGrossInvestmentCapitalConsumptionAllowancesNetInvestment1952, I Quarter$50.4 $25.7 $24.7 1952, II Quarter49.626.922.71952, III Quarter52.327.025.31952, IV Quarter57.928.229.71953, I Quarter54.028.225.81953, II Quarter61.029.231.81953, III Quarter56.529.626.9Source: Survey of Current Business, November 1953.It is true that the second quarter of 1953 represents the peak in capital accumulation, both gross and net. It is much too early, however, to draw conclusions as to whether the downturn in the third quarter will turn out to be mainly an inventory adjustment, or whether it presages a characteristic decline in the traditional cycle of capital accumulation. At the moment, of course, the figures for gross private investment in producers’ durable equipment (new plant and equipment) do not show any recession characteristics. At seasonally adjusted annual rates, the estimates for producers’ durable equipment for the last seven quarters are:Year andQuarter BillionsDollars1952, I Quarter$25.6 1952, II Quarter25.61952, III Quarter24.91952, IV Quarter25.51953, I Quarter26.21953, II Quarter26.91953, III Quarter27.1Obviously, a sizable portion of the gross investment in plant and equipment represents a net increase in productive capacity. Contained in these figures are the seeds of a typical capitalist crisis of overproduction. But the seeds have not yet germinated. For the time being, the accumulation of real capital keeps pace with the increase in total output. Any drastic curtailment in capital formation would herald the approach of deep-seated capitalist crisis. Under the Permanent War Economy, however, such a development is virtually excluded.And yet, the signs of atrophy, alluded to in The Permanent War Economy Under Eisenhower, multiply. The investment figures cited above are not without interest. They show that capital is apparently being consumed at a faster rate than gross investment increases. Consequently, the increase in net investment is not keeping pace with the increase in gross investment. What seems to be happening is that the increasingly high organic composition of capital results in a larger proportion of output going toward the replacement of constant capital. As we pointed out in the original series of articles, such a trend must necessarily have an adverse impact on the rate of surplus value, and therefore ultimately on the rate of profit. All the evidence points to a reduced rate of profit in 1954. From this, it does not follow, however, that a capitalist crisis is at hand.Parenthetically, it should be observed that as the figures for capital consumption allowances rise, the use of gross national product data is fraught with increasing danger and a larger margin of error. Increasing rates of depreciation and obsolescence may well be symptomatic of rising rates of productivity. They can also give rise to new types of capitalist contradictions and new problems which capitalist state intervention, far from solving, actually accentuates. When estimates of capital consumption reach eight per cent of gross output, as they currently do, it is no longer a problem solely for accountants. Such figures have an economic and political impact. Once five-year amortization of “defense” plants and the excess profits tax are eliminated, it remains to be seen whether “normal” capitalist incentives will be sufficient to maintain the required high rate of investment that a high level equilibrium in the economy apparently requires."
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"content": "Again, it is too early to tell, but the fact remains that between the second and third quarter of 1953 personal savings, as estimated by the Department of Commerce, increased from an annual rate of $17.2 billion to an annual rate of $18.8 billion. An increase of nine per cent in the amount of personal savings would appear to be a very sizable figure, but in view of the dubious residual method by which Commerce derives these estimates too much importance should not be attached to this change. Much larger quarterly changes have been recorded in the recent past, without any undue economic significance. But it is possible that the apparent increase in the amount of personal savings could reflect growing caution on the part of the average consumer as the fear of depression grows.The major factor in tempering any unduly pessimistic forecast of the economic outlook necessarily remains the size, composition and trend of war outlays. In analyzing these data, it will be helpful to have the quarterly figures as presented in the following tabulation.WAR OUTLAYS, 1952–1953, by QuartersAND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO TOTAL OUTPUT(Dollar Figures in Billions, Seasonally Adjusted at Annual Rates)Year andQuarter NetNationalProduct(1)WAR OUTLAYSCol. (4)as % ofCol. (1)(5)Direct(2)Indirect(3)Total(4)1952, I Quarter$314.7 $43.9 $8.8 $52.7 16.7%1952, II Quarter316.447.19.356.417.81952, III Quarter319.746.49.255.617.41952, IV Quarter331.348.68.056.617.11953, I Quarter336.949.48.658.017.21953, II Quarter341.551.39.060.317.71953, III Quarter339.050.47.958.317.2The net national product figures are derived from Commerce estimates of gross national product and national income. The concepts of war outlays, direct and indirect, remain as heretofore, with the derivation of the figures following the explanation on pages 94–95 of the March–April 1953 issue of The New International. The margin of error in these quarterly estimates cannot be significantly greater than in the annual figures presented in prior articles.The ratio of war outlays to total output, the prime mover in this period of capitalism, has reached a fairly even plateau. During the entire period under review, the extreme variation is to be found between the 16,7 per cent of the first quarter of 1952 and the 17.8 per cent of the second quarter of the same year. This represents a variation of but six per cent at the peak, which is well within the margin of error in the underlying data. A war outlays ratio of 17 per cent is significant, but as it continues at the same level over a period of months, and then of years, it begins to lose some of its impact. The same ratio can no longer sustain the same high level of employment, production and profits.Of course, changes of one-half of one per cent in the ratio, in either direction, may well have a noticeable impact on the equilibrium level, but in their totality such changes are more than offset by the atrophy that begins to set in. The weakening of the impact of war outlays tends to create all sorts of illusions. At one extreme is the notion that war outlays never had anything to do with the high level of activity; hence, it makes little difference if they do decline in the future, as there will be many offsets and “prosperity” will continue. At the other extreme is the fear that the bottom will drop out of the economy, as if Washington had a completely free hand in determining the level and ratio of war outlays; this point of view, of course, fails to realize that American imperialism had and still has valid political, as well as economic, motives for the adoption of the Permanent War Economy.What has happened, of course, aside from the stretch-out in the “Defense” program begun under Truman, and the truce in the Korean war, is that direct war outlays have kept pace with, and been responsible in large measure for, the rise in total output. Indirect war outlays, however, have leveled off and now tend to decline. The reduction in foreign economic aid, a notable difference in Republican policy as contrasted with that of the Democrats, is chiefly responsible for the falling off in indirect war outlays. If, on top of this, direct war outlays are reduced by $5 billion, as the Republicans now threaten, the consequences could be serious. How much the Eisenhower Administration will reduce direct war outlays, remains to be seen.They may find that it is easier to eliminate agricultural price supports and such “un-American” controls than to reduce the manpower of the armed forces and to convince the American bourgeoisie as a whole that military reliance can be placed on atomic weapons to achieve the necessary degree of safety, as well as to provide the necessary implementation for foreign policy. To be sure, if the plan is to abandon Western Europe to Stalinism, then temporarily a sharp reduction in direct military outlays may be achieved. Granted that the bulk of isolationist tendencies are concentrated within Republican ranks, it is still inconceivable that the Eisenhower Administration is planning to abandon Europe to the tender mercies of Stalinist imperialism. Without such a major change in policy, or the working out of a basic agreement with Stalinist imperialism, the political basis for any sharp reduction in war outlays remains absent. And as long as war outlays remain at 17 per cent of total output, there cannot be a serious depression. ONE OF THE OUTSTANDING EXPONENTS of the view that war outlays have had nothing to do with sustaining a high level of economic activity is W. Woytinsky. Writing in the New Leader of December 7, 1953, Woytinsky states:“My forecast here is based on the belief that the prosperity enjoyed by this country in recent years has not been a Korean War prosperity. It has been rather a period of healthy growth of a vigorous and dynamic economic system, with the benefits of growth widely though unevenly distributed among broad groups of the population.”To label the post-World War II expansion of American capitalism “a period of healthy growth” betrays a singularly acute lack of understanding of the world in which we live.The main prop in Woytinsky’s unique approach to the economic outlook is contained in a paragraph from his prognosis of a year ago (cf. the New Leader, December 8, 1952):"
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"content": "“The liquidation of the defense program would mean reorientation of economic activities and a brief spell of hesitation, but by no means a contraction in the total volume of employment and production. The problem will be of the same nature as the demobilization after World War II, but on a much smaller scale. The last demobilization – in the sense of complete reorientation of our economy and readjustment of men released from the armed forces – took two years, and at no time did unemployment rise to 3 million in the period of readjustment.The liquidation of the present defense and rearmament program would take much less time and cause much less frictional unemployment.” (Italics mine – T.N.V.)Of course, there will be no liquidation of the defense program, although some slight reduction in the magnitude of war outlays is not excluded. The adjustment problem, however, in the event of a reduction in war outlays is not only not the same. It is entirely different. At the end of World War II, the ratio of war outlays to total output exceeded 40 per cent. A swift decline took place to the ten per cent level, but the reduction in the production of means of production and consumption during the war meant that there was room for increase in these traditional goals of economic output once the sharp decline began in the production of means of destruction. Hence, there could be no serious depression immediately following the end of World War II. It is obvious that the present situation differs markedly from that which prevailed eight years ago. The current increase (from 1950–1953) in the output of means of destruction has not only riot been accompanied by a decrease in the output of means of production and means of consumption, but has actually witnessed an increase in the production of both capital and consumers’ goods.Woytinsky possesses a remarkably simplistic and mechanical view of the economy, where a drop in one sector must be offset by increases in other sectors. In his 1952 article, quoted above, he asserts:“Whatever goes to the military sector is taken from civilian consumption and capital formation. Whatever is released from the military sector returns to the civilian.”Here we have a modern version of Adam Smith’s “unseen hand” that automatically takes care of the economy and all supporters of capitalism, but somehow fails to eliminate the “unemployment” sector.An effective reply to Woytinsky was given by Seymour E. Harris in the New Leader of December 22, 1952, when he wrote:“I find serious gaps in Dr. Woytinsky’s crystal-gazing. He says not a word about the tremendous investment since 1945. Our capital plant has expanded by 50–60 per cent (in real terms) since 1945. These gains are far beyond what prevailed in the inflationary Twenties. Yet Dr. Woytinsky writes as though, when the Government cuts its spending on armament by 20 billion dollars or so, part of the slack will be taken up by business. A more realistic view would be that the decline of Government spending would aggravate a decline in investment.”Harris has put his finger on one of the central problems when he focuses on investment. He would also appear to be more realistic than Woytinsky in appraising the possibilities of government investments as offsets to declining war outlays. He states:“It is this failure to suggest the alternatives that leaves me cool to Dr. Woytinsky’s astrology. His assumption of gains in investment seems unrealistic. His suggestion that Government will substitute investments of various kinds for military outlays also is unsupportable. A Democratic regime, supported by an ideology favorable to deficit financing, was not prepared after twenty years of rule to present a catalogue of investment adequate to do this job; and even if it had, it was confronted with strong opposition. Does Dr. Woytinsky mean to imply that the Republican Administration will be more disposed to plan for Government intervention when military expenditures fall and thus to fill the gap? It is possible, but certainly not likely.”After pointing out that tax reduction is the more likely response to a cut in military outlays, and that tax reduction can have only a limited stimulus on demand. Harris concludes his refutation of Woytinsky:“In summary, the signs point to a business recession in 1953 or 1954 – unless the war is extended. Dr. Woytinsky does not seem concerned over the possibility of adequate demand even if the whole military program is scrapped. He seems to believe that tax reduction and pent-up demand (compared by Dr. Woytinsky with the 1946 situation, and wrongly so) will solve our problem.”Woytinsky returns to the economic hustings in his Economic Forecast for 1954, the title of his current article, quoted above, with a modification of his “changing sector” theory of the previous year. This might be called the “excess fat” theory, for he states:“Our economy has accumulated such an amount of fat and muscle that it is hard to visualize its temporary contraction to a level that would spell out a ‘mild recession’ such as contemplated a year ago. This is said even while giving full weight to at least four problems which have often been mentioned as presaging a downturn. These are the position of the farmer, possible cuts in defense expenditures, a new economic philosophy in Washington, and possible reorientation of foreign-trade policy.”Apparently, Woytinsky is not up on the latest dietary theories, for the “excess fat” represents as much of a danger as it does a cushion. Moreover, the extra weight would seem to consist mainly of “fat” rather than of “muscle.” Unemployment caused by declines in production from peak levels is just as real to those who are placed in the category of surplus labor as unemployment that develops from a lower production base. An increase of unemployment from one million to five million may not be as catastrophic in its impact as an increase from five million to nine million, but it is still serious and would certainly constitute at least a “mild” recession."
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"content": "“The cut in defense expenditures as a source of contraction of purchasing power is, to a large extent,” according to Woytinsky, “a bogey man in the modern folklore of business forecasting. The cut of $5 billion in the requested appropriation does not imply that Government purchases in 1954 will be substantially reduced in comparison with 1953. The real volume of purchases will depend partly on changes in prices, partly on political developments which may call for new appropriations. As things look now, total Government expenditures may decline by $2 billion or $3 billion or increase by a similar or larger amount.”In other words, Woytinsky is not especially concerned with a projected cut in war outlays – not because “prosperity is independent of the level of war outlays” as was his position a year ago, but because there won’t be a real cut in 1954. Besides, if there is a real cut, there is plenty of fat, so it won’t be serious. And, if the “excess fat” theory doesn’t work, then there may be “political developments which may call for new appropriations.” If war expenditures are not present in sufficient volume to prevent a recession, then there will be other types of government expenditures. Woytinsky is convinced that the economy will continue to expand in 1954, and he will find a theory to support that point of view, even if he has to alter or repudiate his earlier theories. MEANWHILE, THE EISENHOWER ADMINISTRATION is displaying signs of worry about the economic outlook. Some months ago, apparently fearful that official indexes would be too slow in heralding a downswing, it was announced that economic “watchdogs” were being appointed in various areas. Apparently, certain officials in large corporations, and perhaps even in trade unions, were to be deputized with titles which gave them the responsibility of notifying Washington immediately upon learning that a factory planned to curtail or cease production, or that overtime was being reduced. What, if anything, has been done to implement this rather novel idea is not known to us, but the new line of the Administration is presumably authoritatively revealed in a front-page article in the New York Times of December 21, 1953. Under the headline, U.S. Acting to Meet Any Slide in Business, Washington reporter Joseph A. Loftus writes:The Administration is facing up to the possibility of a 1954 slide in business and employment. At the same time, Administration sources express confidence that the outlook now is good.A realistic view of economic conditions, and some of the available remedies, if any are needed, will be discussed in the annual report of the Council of Economic Advisers and in the President’s Economic Message to Congress next month.While these reports are expected to deal candidly with the situation, they are not expected to blueprint anti-recession plans. The reason no firm, plans can be laid, according to informed official opinion, is that nobody can say in advance what the economic ailment, if any, will be, and therefore none of the economic doctors can prescribe a specific medicine. [Sic!]Rather, a line of thinking will be offered, and the standbys that are available, or should be made available, to counter a recession will be discussed.Stimulation of private capital will be accented, it is understood. One form of business encouragement would be the enactment of lease-purchase legislation under which local money would be used to build needed Federal buildings throughout the country. The Federal Government would pay for the buildings in rent over fifteen to twenty-five year periods and become the eventual owner.A $15,000,000,000 Federal public works list, some of it blueprinted, also is available as a business stimulant, if necessary.Another great source of potential economic activity is state and local works programs. Many state and local projects have been long deferred, although this type of construction has shown a substantial rise lately.Consideration of anti-recession plans is dictated by prudence and a recognition that some business men, although perhaps a minority, and some of our Allies, are a bit jittery about business prospects.Officials say there is evidence that the country is gong through an economic adjustment, possibly because of a reduction being made in business inventories, as in 1949.None of the economic indicators shows a severe readjustment now, or foreshadows one in the coming year, except as psychological behavior might make it so, it is held. The factors militating against a serious slide in business are said to include these: Government spending will continue high ... spending for new plant and equipment in the first quarter of 1954 reveals a total almost as high as in the current quarter ... Employment and personal income are extraordinarily high; so are personal savings ...Dr. Arthur F. Burns, chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, told the American Conference on Economic Security, Nov. 7, that the council already had gone ‘some distance’ in preparing recommendations to cushion an economic decline.He said that the standbys under study included measures to ease home building and repairs, further changes in the tax program, revisions in the unemployment insurance system and, if necessary, large scale public works. (Italics mine – T.N.V.)There then follows a list of construction projects that could be taken off the shelf. It is impossible, however, to escape the conclusion that the mountain has labored and brought forth a mouse. The “anti-recession” plans of the Eisenhower Administration are reminiscent of those of the Hoover Administration. They consist chiefly of issuing optimistic statements, reinforced by those of their big business partners, that everything is fine and will so remain in this best of all possible worlds.As Stevenson put it in his December 12th speech:“... I don’t know for certain whether we can talk our way into a business recession. But I do know that talk alone won’t prevent a depression or cure it either. The Republicans cleared up that question for us some twenty years ago.” "
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"content": "THE FEAR OF DEPRESSION IS REAL and tangible. It is not borne solely out of long memories or out of political malice. It has its roots in the softening that is clearly taking place throughout the major sectors of the economy. Expectations, especially those of business men, are grounded in such material things as current and future prospects for sales and profits. Psychological behavior cannot create a depression, although if it becomes evident that Washington is not prepared to do more than talk about “anti-recession plans,” existing deflationary forces will undoubtedly be strengthened.The rather disconcerting economic outlook is producing a sharp conflict within Republican ranks. The business men seem to be primarily concerned with looting the public treasury and presumably are not averse to a mild recession and a few millions of unemployment. The politicians, on other hand, have to worry about getting re-elected and maintaining their rather tenuous hold on Congress. The latter group must press for increasing state intervention, even if that runs counter to announced Republican policy.Just as Republican policy toward the farmers had to be radically reversed, with all major campaign pledges to eliminate price supports, etc., repudiated, we may well find that the politicians will prevail and the state will do its best to prevent unemployment from developing on the eve of an election. Eisenhower’s balanced budget could well go the way of its eminent predecessor, the Roosevelt balanced budget. Under such conditions, and with a major assist from the new rulers of the Kremlin, the basic economic and political motivations for the existence of the Permanent War Economy continue to operate. So long as the fear of Stalinism and war continue to dominate the political scene, the fear of depression cannot dominate the economic outlook, although it is a factor that politicians will ignore at their peril.December 1953Top of pageVance Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main PageLast updated: 27 February 2019"
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"content": "Ernst Mach (1886, revised to 1905)The Analysis of Sensationsand the Relation of the Physical to the PsychicalSource: The Analysis of Sensations (1897). Dover Edition, 1959; Translation: by C M Williams and Sydney Waterlow;First Chapter reproduced here.I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS:ANTI METAPHYSICAL.1.THE great results achieved by physical science in modern times- results not restricted to its own sphere but embracing thatof other sciences which employ its help - have brought it aboutthat physical ways of thinking and physical modes of procedureenjoy on all hands unwonted prominence, and that the greatestexpectations are associated with their application. In keepingwith this drift of modern inquiry, the physiology of the senses,gradually abandoning the method of investigating sensations inthemselves followed by men like Goethe, Schopenhauer, and others,but with greatest success by Johannes Muller, has also assumedan almost exclusively physical character. This tendency must appearto us as not altogether appropriate, when we reflect that physics,despite its considerable development, nevertheless constitutesbut a portion of a larger collective body of knowledge,and that it is unable, with its limited intellectual implements,created for limited and special purposes, to exhaust all the subject-matterin question. Without renouncing the support of physics, it ispossible for the physiology of the senses, not only to pursueits own course of development, but also to afford to physicalscience itself powerful assistance. The following simple considerationswill serve to illustrate this relation between the two.2.Colours, sounds, temperatures, pressures, spaces, times, and soforth, are connected with one another in manifold ways; and withthem are associated dispositions of mind, feelings, and volitions.Out of this fabric, that which is relatively more fixed and permanentstands prominently forth, engraves itself on the memory, and expressesitself in language. Relatively greater permanency is exhibited,first, by certain complexes of colours, sounds, pressures, andso forth, functionally connected in time and space, which thereforereceive special names, and are called bodies. Absolutely permanentsuch complexes are not.My table is now brightly, now dimly lighted. Its temperature varies.It may receive an ink stain. One of its legs may be broken. Itmay be repaired, polished, and replaced part by part. But, forme, it remains the table at which I daily write.My friend may put on a different coat. His countenance may assumea serious or a cheerful expression. His complexion, under theeffects of light or emotion, may change. His shape may be alteredby motion, or be definitely changed. Yet the number of the permanentfeatures presented, compared with the number of the gradual alterations,is always so great, that the latter may be overlooked. It is thesame friend with whom I take my daily walk.My coat may receive a stain, a tear. My very manner of expressingthis shows that we are concerned here with a sum-total of permanency,to which the new element is added and from which that which islacking is subsequently taken away.Our greater intimacy with this sum-total of permanency, and thepreponderance of its importance for me as contrasted with thechangeable element, impel us to the partly instinctive, partlyvoluntary and conscious economy of mental presentation and designation,as expressed in ordinary thought and speech. That which is presentedin a single image receives a single designation, a single name.Further, that complex of memories, moods, and feelings, joinedto a particular body (the human body), which is called the\"I\" or \"Ego,\" manifests itself as relatively permanent.I may be engaged upon this or that subject, I may be quiet andcheerful, excited and ill-humoured. Yet, pathological casesapart, enough durable features remain to identify the ego. Ofcourse, the ego also is only of relative permanency.The apparent permanency of the ego consists chiefly in the singlefact of its continuity, in the slowness of its changes. The manythoughts and plans of yesterday that are continued today, andof which our environment in waking hours incessantly reminds us(whence in dreams the ego can be very indistinct, doubled, orentirely wanting), and the little habits that are unconsciouslyand involuntarily kept up for long periods of time, constitutethe groundwork of the ego. There can hardly be greater differencesin the egos of different people, than occur in the course of yearsin one person. When I recall today my early youth, I should takethe boy that I then was, with the exception of a few individualfeatures, for a different person, were it not for the existenceof the chain of memories. Many an article that I myself pennedtwenty years ago impresses me now as something quite foreign tomyself. The very gradual character of the changes of the bodyalso contributes to the stability of the ego, but in a much lessdegree than people imagine. Such things are much less analysedand noticed than the intellectual and the moral ego. Personally,people know themselves very poorly. When I wrote these lines in1886, Ribot's admirable little book, The Diseases of Personality(second edition, Paris, 1888, Chicago, 1895), was unknown to me.Ribot ascribes the principal role in preserving the continuityof the ego to the general sensibility. Generally, I am in perfectaccord with his views.The ego is as little absolutely permanent as are bodies. Thatwhich we so much dread in death, the annihilation of our permanency,actually occurs in life in abundant measure. That which is mostvalued by us, remains preserved in countless copies, or, in casesof exceptional excellence, is even preserved of itself. In thebest human being, however, there are individual traits, the lossof which neither he himself nor others need regret. Indeed, attimes, death, viewed as a liberation from individuality, may evenbecome a pleasant thought. Such reflections of course do not makephysiological death any the easier to bear.After a first survey has been obtained, by the formation of thesubstance-concepts \" body \" and \" ego \" (matterand soul), the will is impelled to a more exact examination ofthe changes that take place in these relatively permanent existences.The element of change in bodies and the ego, is in fact, exactlywhat moves the will I to this examination. Here the componentparts of the complex are first exhibited as its properties. Afruit is sweet; but it can also be bitter. Also, other fruitsmay be sweet. The red colour we are seeking is found in many bodies.The neighbourhood of some bodies is pleasant; that of others,unpleasant. Thus, gradually, different complexes are found tobe made up of common elements. The visible, the audible, the tangible,"
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"content": "are separated from bodies. The visible is analysed into coloursand into form. In the manifoldness of the colours, again, thoughhere fewer in number, other component parts are discerned - suchas the primary colours, and so forth. The complexes are disintegratedinto elements, that is to say, into their ultimate component parts,which hitherto we have been unable to subdivide any further. Thenature of these elements need not be discussed at present; itis possible that future investigations may throw light on it.We need not here be disturbed by the fact that it is easier forthe scientist to study relations of relations of these elementsthan the direct relations between them.3.The useful habit of designating such relatively permanent compoundsby single names, and of apprehending them by single thoughts,without going to the trouble each time of an analysis of theircomponent parts, is apt to come into strange conflict with thetendency to isolate the component parts. The vague image whichwe have of a given permanent complex, being an image which doesnot perceptibly change when one or another of the component partsis taken away, seems to be something which exists in itself. Inasmuchas it is possible to take away singly every constituent part withoutdestroying the capacity of the image to stand for the totalityand to be recognised again, it is imagined that it is possibleto subtract all the parts and to have something still remaining.Thus naturally arises the philosophical notion, at first impressive,but subsequently recognised as monstrous, of a \" thing-in-itself,\"different from its \"appearance,\" and unknowable.Thing, body, matter, are nothing apart from the combinations ofthe elements, - the colours, sounds, and so forth - nothing apartfrom their so-called attributes. That protean pseudo-philosophicalproblem of the single thing with its many attributes, arises whollyfrom a misinterpretation of the fact, that summary comprehensionand precise analysis, although both are provisionally justifiableand for many purposes profitable, cannot be carried on simultaneously.A body is one and unchangeable only so long as it is unnecessaryto consider its details. Thus both the earth and a billiard-ballare spheres, if we are willing to neglect all deviations fromthe spherical form, and if greater precision is not necessary.But when we are obliged to carry on investigations in orographyor microscopy, both bodies cease to be spheres.4.Man is pre-eminently endowed with the power of voluntarily andconsciously determining his own point of view. He can at one timedisregard the most salient features of an object, and immediatelythereafter give attention to its smallest details; now considera stationary current, without a thought of its contents (whetherheat, electricity or fluidity), and then measure the width ofa Fraunhofer line in the spectrum; he can rise at will to themost general abstractions or bury himself in the minutest particulars.Animals possess this capacity in a far less degree. They do notassume a point of view, but are usually forced to it by theirsense-impressions. The baby that does not know its father withhis hat on, the dog that is perplexed at the new coat of its master,have both succumbed in this conflict of points of view. Who hasnot been worsted in similar plights ? Even the man of philosophyat times succumbs, as the grotesque problem, above referred to,shows.In this last case, the circumstances appear to furnish a realground of justification. Colours, sounds, and the odours of bodiesare evanescent. But their tangibility, as a sort of constant nucleus,not readily susceptible of annihilation, remains behind; appearingas the vehicle of the more fugitive properties attached to it.Habit, thus, keeps our thought firmly attached to this centralnucleus, even when we have begun to recognise that seeing hearing,smelling, and touching are intimately akin in character. A furtherconsideration is, that owing to the singularly extensive developmentof mechanical physics a kind of higher reality is ascribed tothe spatial and to the temporal than to colours, sounds, and odours;agreeably to which, the temporal and spatial links of colours,sounds, and odours appear to be more real than the colours, soundsand odours themselves. The physiology of the senses, however,demonstrates, that spaces and times may just as appropriatelybe called sensations as colours and sounds. But of this later.5.Not only the relation of bodies to the ego, but the ego itselfalso, gives rise to similar pseudo - problems, the character ofwhich may be briefly indicated as follows:Let us denote the above-mentioned elements by the letters A BC . . ., X L M . . ., a, b, c . . . Let those complexes of colours,sounds, and so forth, commonly called bodies, be denoted, forthe sake of clearness, by A B C . .; the complex, known as ourown body, which is a part of the former complexes distinguishedby certain peculiarities, may be called K L M . . .; the complexcomposed of volitions, memory-images, and the rest, we shall representby a b c . . . Usually, now, the complex a , c . . . K L M. .., as making up the ego, is opposed to the complex A B C . . .,as making up the world of physical objects; sometimes also, ab c . . . is viewed as ego, and K L M . . . A B C . . . as worldof physical objects. Now, at first blush, A B C . . . appearsindependent of the ego, and opposed to it as a separate existence.But this independence is only relative, and gives way upon closerinspection. Much, it is true, may change in the complex a b c. . . without much perceptible change being induced in A B C .. .; and vice versa. But many changes in a b c . . . dopass, by way of changes in K L M . . ., to A B C . . .; and viceversa. (As, for example, when powerful ideas burst forth intoacts, or when our environment induces noticeable changes in ourbody.) At the same time the group K L M . . . appears to be moreintimately connected with a b c . . . and with A B C . . ., thanthe latter with one another; and their relations find their expressionin common thought and speech.Precisely viewed, however, it appears that the group A B C . ."
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"content": ". is always codetermined by K L M. A cube when seen close at hand,looks large; when seen at a distance, small; its appearance tothe right eye differs from its appearance to the left; sometimesit appears double; with closed eyes it is invisible. The propertiesof one and the same body, therefore, appear modified by our ownbody; they appear conditioned by it. But where, now, is that samebody, which appears so different? All that can be saidis, that with different K L M different A B C . . . are associated.A common and popular way of thinking and speaking is to contrast\" appearance \" with \" reality.\" A pencil heldin front of us in the air is seen by us as straight; dip it intothe water, and we see it crooked. In the latter case we say thatthe pencil appears crooked, but is in reality straight.But what justifies us in declaring one fact rather than anotherto be the reality, and degrading the other to the level of appearance? In both cases we have to do with facts which present us withdifferent combinations of the elements, combinations which inthe two cases are differently conditioned. Precisely because ofits environment the pencil dipped in water is optically crooked;but it is tactually and metrically straight. An image in a concaveor flat mirror is only visible, whereas under other andordinary circumstances a tangible body as well corresponds tothe visible image. A bright surface is brighter beside a darksurface than beside one brighter than itself. To be sure, ourexpectation is deceived when, not paying sufficient attentionto the conditions, and substituting for one another differentcases of the combination, we fall into the natural error of expectingwhat we are accustomed to, although the case may be an unusualone. The facts are not to blame for that. In these cases, to speakof \" appearance \" may have a practical meaning, butcannot have a scientific meaning. Similarly, the question whichis often asked, whether the world is real or whether we merelydream it, is devoid of all scientific meaning. Even the wildestdream is a fact as much as any other. If our dreams were moreregular, more connected, more stable, they would also have morepractical importance for us. In our waking hours the relationsof the elements to one another are immensely amplified in comparisonwith what they were in our dreams. We recognise the dream forwhat it is. When the process is reversed, the field of psychicvision is narrowed; the contrast is almost entirely lacking. Wherethere is no contrast, the distinction between dream and waking,between appearance and reality, is quite otiose and worthless.The popular notion of an antithesis between appearance and realityhas exercised a very powerful influence on scientific and philosophicalthought. We see this, for example, in Plato's pregnant and poeticalfiction of the Cave, in which, with our backs turned towards thefire, we observe merely the shadows of what passes (Republic,vii. 1). But this conception was not thought out to its finalconsequences, with the result that it has had an unfortunate influenceon our ideas about the universe. The universe, of which neverthelesswe are a part, became completely separated from us, and was removedan infinite distance away. Similarly, many a young man, hearingfor the first time of the refraction of stellar light, has thoughtthat doubt was cast on the whole of astronomy, whereas nothingis required but an easily effected and unimportant correctionto put everything right again.6.We see an object having a point S. If we touch S, that is, bringit into connexion with our body, we receive a prick. We can seeS, without feeling the prick. But as soon as we feel the prickwe find S on the skin. The visible point, therefore, is a permanentnucleus, to which the prick is annexed, according to circumstances,as something accidental. From the frequency of analogous occurrenceswe ultimately accustom ourselves to regard all properties of bodiesas \" effects \" proceeding from permanent nuclei andconveyed to the ego through the medium of the body; which effectswe call sensations. By this operation, however, these nuclei aredeprived of their entire sensory content, and converted into meremental symbols. The assertion, then, is correct that the worldconsists only of our sensations. In which case we have knowledgeonly of sensations, and the assumption of the nuclei referredto, or of a reciprocal action between them, from which sensationsproceed, turns out to be quite idle and superfluous. Such a viewcan only suit with a half-hearted realism or a half-hearted philosophicalcriticism.7.Ordinarily the complex a b c . . . K L M . . . is contrasted asego with the complex A B C . . . At first only those elementsof A B C ... that more strongly alter a b c .... as a prick, apain, are wont to be thought of as comprised in the ego. Afterwards,however, through observations of the kind just referred to, itappears that the right to annex A B C . . . to the ego nowhereceases. In conformity with this view the ego can be so extendedas ultimately to embrace the entire world. The ego is not sharplymarked off, its limits are very indefinite and arbitrarily displaceableOnly by failing to observe this fact, and by unconsciously narrowingthose limits, while at the same time we enlarge them, arise, inthe conflict of points of view, the metaphysical difficultiesmet with in this connexion.As soon as we have perceived that the supposed unities \"body \" and \" ego \" are only makeshifts, designedfor provisional orientation and for definite practical ends (sothat we may take hold of bodies, protect ourselves against pain,and so forth), we find ourselves obliged, in many more advancedscientific investigations, to abandon them as insufficient andinappropriate. The antithesis between ego and world, between sensation(appearance) and thing, then vanishes, and we have simply to dealwith the connexion of the elements a b c . . . A B C . . . K LM . . ., of which this antithesis was only a partially appropriateand imperfect expression. This connexion is nothing more or lessthan the combination of the above-mentioned elements with othersimilar elements (time and space). Science has simply to acceptthis connexion, and to get its bearings in it, without at once"
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"content": "wanting to explain its existence.On a superficial examination the complex a b c . . . appears tobe made up of much more evanescent elements than A B C . . . andK L M . . ., in which last the elements seem to be connected withgreater stability and in a more permanent manner (being joinedto solid nuclei as it were). Although on closer inspection theelements of all complexes prove to be homogeneous, yet even whenthis has been recognised, the earlier notion of an antithesisof body and spirit easily slips in again. The philosophical spiritualistis often sensible of the difficulty of imparting the needed solidityto his mind-created world of bodies; the materialist is at a losswhen required to endow the world of matter with sensation. Themonistic point of view, which reflexion has evolved, is easilyclouded by our older and more powerful instinctive notions.8.The difficulty referred to is particularly felt when we considerthe following case. In the complex A B C . . .. which we havecalled the world of matter, we find as parts, not only our ownbody K L M . . ., but also the bodies of other persons (or animals)K' L' M' . . , K\" L\" M\" . . .. to which, by analogy,we imagine other a' b' c'..., a\" b\" c\", annexed,similar to a b c . . . So long as we deal with K' L' M' . . .,we find ourselves in a thoroughly familiar province which is atevery point accessible to our senses. When, however, we inquireafter the sensations or feelings belonging to the body K' L' M'. . ., we no longer find these in the province of sense: we addthem in thought. Not only is the domain which we now enter farless familiar to us, but the transition into it is also relativelyunsafe. We have the feeling as if we were plunging into an abyss.Persons who adopt this way of thinking only, will never thoroughlyrid themselves of that sense of insecurity, which is a very fertilesource of illusory problems.But we are not restricted to this course. Let us consider, first,the reciprocal relations of the elements of the complex A B C. . ., without regarding K L M . . . (our body). All physicalinvestigations are of this sort. A white ball falls upon a bell;a sound is heard. The ball turns yellow before a sodium lamp,red before a lithium lamp. Here the elements (A B C . . . ) appearto be connected only with one another and to be independent ofour body (K L M . . . ). But if we take santonin, the ball againturns yellow. If we press one eye to the side, we see two balls.If we close our eyes entirely, there is no ball there at all.If we sever the auditory nerve, no sound is heard. The elements=4 B C . . ., therefore, are not only connected with one another,but also with K L M; To this extent, and to this extent only,do we call A B C . . . sensations, and regard A B C as belongingto the ego. In what follows, wherever the reader finds the terms\" Sensation,\" \" Sensation-complex,\" used alongsideof or instead of the expressions \" element,\" \"complex of elements,\" it must be borne in mind that it isonly in the connexion and relation in question, only in theirfunctional dependence, that the elements are sensations. In anotherfunctional relation they are at the same time physical objects.We only use the additional term \" sensations\" to describethe elements, because most people are much more familiar withthe elements in question as sensations (colours, sounds, pressures,spaces, times, etc.), while according to the popular conceptionit is particles of mass that are considered as physical elements,to which the elements, in the sense here used, are attached as\" properties \" or \" effects.\".In this way, accordingly, we do not find the gap between bodiesand sensations above described, between what is without and whatis within, between the material world and the spiritual world.All elements A B C . . ., K L M. . .. constitute a singlecoherent mass only, in which, when any one element is disturbed,all is put in motion; except that a disturbance in K, LM, . . . has a more extensive and profound action than one inA B C . . . A magnet in our neighbourhood disturbs the particlesof iron near it; a falling boulder shakes the earth; but the severingof a nerve sets in motion the whole system of elements.Quite involuntarily does this relation of things suggest the pictureof a viscous mass, at certain places (as in the ego) more firmlycoherent than in others. I have often made use of this image inlectures.9.Thus the great gulf between physical and psychological researchpersists only when we acquiesce in our habitual stereotyped conceptions.A colour is a physical object as soon as we consider its dependence,for instance, upon its luminous source, upon other colours, upontemperatures, upon spaces, and so forth. When we consider, however,its dependence upon the retina (the elements K L M. . .), it isa psychological object, a sensation. Not the subject matter, butthe direction of our investigation, is different in the two domains.(Cp. also Chapter II., pp. 43, 44.)Both in reasoning from the observation of the bodies of othermen or animals, to the sensations which they possess, as wellas in investigating the influence of our own body upon our ownsensations, we have to complete observed facts by analogy. Thisis accomplished with much greater ease and certainty, when itrelates, say, only to nervous processes, which cannot be fullyobserved in our own bodies - that is, when it is carried out inthe more familiar physical domain - than when it is extendedto the psychical domain, to the sensations and thoughts of otherpeople. Otherwise there is no essential difference.10.The considerations just advanced, expressed as they have beenin an abstract form, will gain in strength and vividness if weconsider the concrete facts from which they flow. Thus, I lieupon my sofa. If I close my right eye, the picture representedin the accompanying cut is presented to my left eye In a frame"
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"content": "formed by the ridge of my eyebrow, by my nose, and by my moustache,appears a part of my body, so far as visible, with its environment.My body differs from other human bodies - beyond the fact thatevery intense motor idea is immediately expressed by a movementof it, and that, if it is touched, more striking changes are determinedthan if other bodies are touched - by the circumstance, that itis only seen piecemeal, and, especially, is seen without a head.If I observe an element A within my field of vision, and investigateits connexion with another element B within the same field, Istep out of the domain of physics into that of physiology or psychology,provided B, to use the apposite expression of a friend of minemade upon seeing this drawing, passes through my skin. Reflexionslike that for the field of vision may be made with regard to theprovince of touch and the perceptual domains of the other senses.11.Reference has already been made to the different character ofthe groups of elements denoted by A B C . . . and a b c . . .As a matter of fact, when we see a green tree before us, or remembera green tree, that is, represent a green tree to ourselves, weare perfectly aware of the difference of the two cases. The representedtree has a much less determinate, a much more changeable form;its green is much paler and more evanescent; and, what is of especialnote, it plainly appears in a different domain. A movement thatwe will to execute is never more than a represented movement,and appears in a different domain from that of the executed movement,which always takes place when the image is vivid enough. Now thestatement that the elements A and a appear in different domains,means, if we go to the bottom of it, simply this, that these elementsare united with different other elements. Thus far, therefore,the fundamental constituents of A B C . . .. a b c . . . wouldseem to be the same (colours, sounds, spaces, times, motorsensations . . .), and only the character of their connexion different.Ordinarily pleasure and pain are regarded as different from sensations.Yet not only tactual sensations, but all other kinds of sensations,may pass gradually into pleasure and pain. Pleasure and pain alsomay be justly termed sensations. Only they are not so well analysedand so familiar, nor, perhaps, limited to so few organs as thecommon sensations. In fact, sensations of pleasure and pain, howeverfaint they may be, really constitute an essential part of thecontent of all so-called emotions. Any additional element thatemerges into consciousness when we are under the- influence ofemotions may be described as more or less diffused and not sharplylocalised sensations. William James, and after him Theodule Ribot,have investigated the physiological mechanism of the emotions:they hold that what is essential is purposive tendencies of thebody to action - tendencies which correspond to circumstancesand are expressed in the organism. Only a part of these emergesinto consciousness. We are sad because we shed tears, and notvice versa, says James. And Ribot justly observes thata cause of the backward state of our knowledge of the emotionsis that we have always confined our observation to so much ofthese physiological processes as emerges into consciousness. Atthe same time he goes too far when he maintains that everythingpsychical is merely \"surajoute\" to the physical,and that it is only the physical that produces effects. For usthis distinction is non-existent.Thus, perceptions, presentations, volitions, and emotions, inshort the whole inner and outer world, are put together, in combinationsof varying evanescence and permanence, out of a small number ofhomogeneous elements. Usually, these elements are called sensations.But as vestiges of a one-sided theory inhere in that term, weprefer to speak simply of elements, as we have already done. Theaim of all research is to ascertain the mode of connexion of theseelements. If it proves impossible to solve the problem by assumingone set of such elements, then more than one will haveto be assumed. But for the questions under discussion it wouldbe improper to begin by making complicated assumptions in advance.12.That in this complex of elements, which fundamentally is onlyone, the boundaries of bodies and of the ego do not admit of beingestablished in a manner definite and sufficient for all cases,has already been remarked. To bring together elements that aremost intimately connected with pleasure and pain into one idealmental-economical unity, the ego; this is a task of the highestimportance for the intellect working in the service of the pain-avoiding,pleasure-seeking will. The delimitation of the ego, therefore,is instinctively effected, is rendered familiar, and possiblybecomes fixed through heredity. Owing to their high practicalimportance, not only for the individual, but for the entire species,the composites \" ego \" and \" body \" instinctivelymake good their claims, and assert themselves with elementaryforce. In special cases, however, in which practical ends arenot concerned, but where knowledge is an end in itself, the delimitationin question may prove to be insufficient, obstructive, and untenable.Similarly, class-consciousness, class-prejudice, the feeling ofnationality, and even the narrowest-minded local patriotism mayhave a high importance, for certain purposes. But such attitudeswill not be shared by the broad-minded investigator, at leastnot in moments of research. All such egoistic views are adequateonly for practical purposes. Of course, even the investigatormay succumb to habit. Trifling pedantries and nonsensical discussions;the cunning appropriation of others' thoughts, with perfidioussilence as to the sources; when the word of recognition must begiven, the difficulty of swallowing one's defeat, and the toocommon eagerness at the same time to set the opponent's achievementin a false light: all this abundantly shows that the scientistand scholar have also the battle of existence to fight, that theways even of science still lead to the mouth, and that the pureimpulse towards knowledge is still an ideal in our present socialconditions.The primary fact is not the ego, but the elements (sensations).What was said on p. 21 as to the term \" sensation \"must be borne in mind. The elements constitute the I. s have thesensation green, signifies that the element green occurs in agiven complex of other elements (sensations, memories). When Icease to have the sensation green, when I die, then the"
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"content": "elements no longer occur in the ordinary, familiar association.That is all. Only an ideal mental-economical unity, not a realunity, has ceased to exist. The ego is not a definite, unalterable,sharply bounded unity. None of these attributes are important;for all vary even within the sphere of individual life; in facttheir alteration is even sought after by the individual. Continuityalone is important. This view accords admirably with the positionwhich Weismann has reached by biological investigations. (\"ZurFrage der Unsterblichkeit der Einzelligen,\" BiologCentralbl., Vol. IV., Nos. 21, 22; compare especially pages654 and 655, where the scission of the individual into two equalhalves is spoken of.) But continuity is only a means of preparingand conserving what is contained in the ego. This content, andnot the ego, is the principal thing. This content, however, isnot confined to the individual. With the exception of some insignificantand valueless personal memories, it remains presented in otherseven after the death of the individual. The elements that makeup the consciousness of a given individual are firmly connectedwith one another, but with those of another individual they areonly feebly connected, and the connexion is only casually apparent.Contents of consciousness, however, that are of universal significance,break through these limits of the individual, and, attached ofcourse to individuals again, can enjoy a continued existence ofan impersonal, superpersonal kind, independently of the personalityby means of which they were developed. To contribute to this isthe greatest happiness of the artist, the scientist, the inventor,the social reformer, etc.The ego must be given up. It is partly the perception of thisfact, partly the fear of it, that has given rise to the many extravagancesof pessimism and optimism, and to numerous religious, ascetic,and philosophical absurdities. In the long run we shall not beable to close our eyes to this simple truth, which is the immediateoutcome of psychological analysis. We shall then no longer placeso high a value upon the ego, which even during the individuallife greatly changes, and which, in sleep or during absorptionin some idea, just in our very happiest moments, may be partiallyor wholly absent. We shall then be willing to renounce individualimmortality,' and not place more value upon the subsidiary elementsthan upon the principal ones. In this way we shall arrive at afreer and more enlightened view of life, which will preclude thedisregard of other egos and the overestimation of our own. Theethical ideal founded on this view of life will be equally farremoved from the ideal of the ascetic, which is not biologicallytenable for whoever practises it, and vanishes at once with hisdisappearance, and from the ideal of an overweening Nietzschean\"superman,\" who cannot, and I hope will not be toleratedby his fellow-men.If a knowledge of the connexion of the elements (sensations) doesnot suffice us, and we ask, Who possesses this connexionof sensations, Who experiences it ? then we have succumbedto the old habit of subsuming every element (every sensation)under some unanalysed complex, and we are falling back imperceptiblyupon an older, lower, and more limited point of view. It is oftenpointed out, that a psychical experience which is not the experienceof a determinate subject is unthinkable, and it is held that inthis way the essential part played by the unity of consciousnesshas been demonstrated. But the Ego-consciousness can be of manydifferent degrees and composed of a multiplicity of chance memories.One might just as well say that a physical process which doesnot take place in some environment or other, or at least somewherein the universe, is unthinkable. In both cases, in order to makea beginning with our investigation, we must be allowed to abstractfrom the environment, which, as regards its influence, may bevery different in different cases, and in special cases may shrinkto a minimum. Consider the sensations of the lower animals, towhich a subject with definite features can hardly be ascribed.It is out of sensations that the subject is built up, and, oncebuilt up, no doubt the subject reacts in turn on the sensations.The habit of treating the unanalysed ego complex as an indiscerptibleunity frequently assumes in science remarkable forms. First, thenervous system is separated from the body as the seat of the sensations.In the nervous system again, the brain is selected as the organbest fitted for this end, and finally, to save the supposed psychicalunity, a point is sought in the brain as the seat of thesoul. But such crude conceptions are hardly fit even to foreshadowthe roughest outlines of what future research will do for theconnexion of the physical and the psychical. The fact that thedifferent organs and parts of the nervous system are physicallyconnected with, and can be readily excited by, one another, isprobably at the bottom of the notion of \"psychical unity.\"I once heard the question seriously discussed, \"How the perceptionof a large tree could find room in the little head of a man?)'Now, although this \"problem \" is no problem, yet itrenders us vividly sensible of the absurdity that can be committedby thinking sensations spatially into the brain. When I speakof the sensations of another person, those sensations are, ofcourse, not exhibited in my optical or physical space; they arementally added, and I conceive them causally, not spatially, attachedto the brain observed, or rather, functionally presented. WhenI speak of my own sensations, these sensations do not exist spatiallyin my head, but rather my \"head\" shares with them thesame spatial field, as was explained above. (Compare the remarkson Fig. I on pp. I7-I9 above.).The unity of consciousness is not an argument in point. Sincethe apparent antithesis between the real world and the world giventhrough the senses lies entirely in our mode of view, and no actualgulf exists between them, a complicated and variously interconnectedcontent of consciousness is no more difficult to understand thanis the complicated interconnection of the world.If we regard the ego as a real unity, we become involved in thefollowing dilemma: either we must set over against the ego a worldof unknowable entities (which would be quite idle and purposeless),or we must regard the whole world, the egos of other people included,as comprised in our own ego (a proposition to which it is difficultto yield serious assent).But if we take the ego simply as a practical unity, put together"
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"content": "for purposes of provisional survey, or as a more strongly coheringgroup of elements, less strongly connected with other groups ofthis kind, questions like those above discussed will not arise,and research will have an unobstructed future.In his philosophical notes Lichtenberg says: \" We becomeconscious of certain presentations that are not dependent uponus; of others that we at least think are dependent upon us. Whereis the border-line? We know only the existence of our sensations,presentations, and thoughts. We should say, It thinks,just as we say, It lightens. It is going too far to saycogito, if we translate cogito by I think.The assumption, or postulation, of the ego is a mere practicalnecessity.\" Though the method by which Lichtenberg arrivedat this result is somewhat different from ours, we must neverthelessgive our full assent to his conclusion.13.Bodies do not produce sensations, but complexes of elements (complexesof sensations) make up bodies. If, to the physicist, bodies appearthe real, abiding existences, whilst the \" elements \"are regarded merely as their evanescent, transitory appearance,the physicist forgets, in the assumption of such a view, thatall bodies are but thought-symbols for complexes of elements (complexesof sensations). Here, too, the elements in question form the real,immediate, and ultimate foundation, which it is the task of physiologico-physicalresearch to investigate. By the recognition of this fact, manypoints of physiology and physics assume more distinct and moreeconomical forms, and many spurious problems are disposed of.For us, therefore, the world does not consist of mysterious entities,which by their interaction with another, equally mysterious entity,the ego, produce sensations, which alone are accessible. For us,colours, sounds, spaces, times, . . . are provisionally the ultimateelements, whose given connexion it is our business to investigate.[I have always felt it as a stroke of special good fortune, thatearly in life, at about the age of fifteen, I lighted, in thelibrary of my father, on a copy of Kant's Prolegomena to anyFuture Metaphysics. The book made at the time a powerful andineffaceable impression upon me, the like of which I never afterwardsexperienced in any of my philosophical reading. Some two or threeyears later the superfluity of the role played by \"the thingin itself\" abruptly dawned upon me. On a bright summer dayin the open air, the world with my ego suddenly appeared to meas one coherent mass of sensations, only more stronglycoherent in the ego. Although the actual working out of this thoughtdid not occur until a later period, yet this moment was decisivefor my whole view. I had still to struggle long and hard beforeI was able to retain the new conception in my special subject.With the valuable parts of physical theories we necessarily absorba good dose of false metaphysics, which it is very difficult tosift out from what deserves to be preserved, especially when thosetheories have become very familiar to us. At times, too, the traditional,instinctive views would arise with great power and place impedimentsin my way. Only by alternate studies in physics and in the physiologyof the senses, and by historico-physical investigations (sinceabout 1863), and after having endeavoured in vain to settle theconflict by a physico-psychological monadology (in my lectureson psycho-physics, in the Zeitschrift fur praktische Heilkunde,Vienna, 1863, p. 364), have I attained to any considerable stabilityin my views. I make no pretensions to the title of philosopher.I only seek to adopt in physics a point of view that need notbe changed the moment our glance is carried over into the domainof another science; for, ultimately, all must form one whole.The molecular physics of today certainly does not meet this requirement.What I say I have probably not been the first to say. I also donot wish to offer this exposition of mine as a special achievement.It is rather my belief that every one will be led to a similarview, who makes a careful survey of any extensive body of knowledge.Avenarius, with whose works I became acquainted in 1883, approachesmy point of view (Philosophie als Denken des Welt nach demPrincip des kleinsten Kraftmasses, 1876). Also Hering, inhis paper on Memory (Almanach der Wiener Akademie, 1870,p. 258; English translation, O. C. Pub. Co., Chicago, 4th edition,enlarged, 1913), and J. Popper in his beautiful book, Das Rechtezu leben und die Pflicht zu sterben (Leipzig, 1878, p. 62),have advanced allied thoughts. Compare also my paper Ueberdie okonomische Natur der physikalis der Forschung (Almanachder WienerAkadernie, 1882, p. 179, note; English translationin my Popular Scientific Lectures, Chicago, 1894). Finallylet me also refer here to the introduction to W. Preyer's ReineEmpfindungslehres to Riehl's Freibrurger Antrittsrede,p. 40, and to R. Wahle's Gehirn und Bewusstsein, 1884.My views were indicated briefly in 1872 and 1875, and not expoundedat length until 1882 and 1883. I should probably have much additionalmatter to cite as more or less allied to this line of thought,if my knowledge of the literature were more extensive.]It is precisely in this that the exploration of reality consists.In this investigation we must not allow ourselves to be impededby such abridgments and delimitations as body, ego, matter, spirit,etc., which have been formed for special, practical purposes andwith wholly provisional and limited ends in view. On the contrary,the fittest forms of thought must be created in and by that researchitself, just as is done in every special science. In place ofthe traditional, instinctive ways of thought, a freer, fresherview, conforming to developed experience, and reaching out beyondthe requirements of practical life, must be substituted throughout.14.Science always has its origin in the adaptation of thought tosome definite field of experience. The results of the adaptationare thought-elements, which are able to represent the whole field.The outcome, of course, is different, according to the characterand extent of the field. If the field of experience is enlarged,or if several fields heretofore disconnected are united, the traditional,familiar thought-elements no longer suffice for the extended field.In the struggle of acquired habit with the effort after adaptation,problems arise, which disappear when the adaptation is perfected,to make room for others which have arisen meanwhile. To the physicist, qua physicist, the idea of \"body\"is productive of a real facilitation of view, and is not the causeof disturbance. So, also, the person with purely practical aims,is materially supported by the idea of the I or ego. For,"
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"content": "unquestionably, every form of thought that has been designedlyor undesignedly constructed for a given purpose, possesses forthat purpose a permanent value. When, however, physicsand psychology meet, the ideas held in the one domain prove tobe untenable in the other. From the attempt at mutual adaptationarise the various atomic and monadistic theories - which, however,never attain their end. If we regard sensations, in the senseabove defined (p. 13), as the elements of the world, the problemsreferred to appear to be disposed of in all essentials, and thefirst and most important adaptation to be consequently effected.This fundamental view (without any pretension to being a philosophyfor all eternity) can at present be adhered to in all fields ofexperience; it is consequently the one that accommodates itselfwith the least expenditure of energy, that is, more economicallythan any other, to the present temporary collective state of knowledgeFurthermore, in the consciousness of its purely economical function,this fundamental view is eminently tolerant. It does not obtrudeitself into fields in which the current conceptions are stilladequate. It is also ever ready, upon subsequent extensions ofthe field of experience, to give way before a better conception.The presentations and conceptions of the average man of the worldare formed and dominated, not by the full and pure desire forknowledge as an end in itself, but by the struggle to adapt himselffavourably to the conditions of life. Consequently they are lessexact, but at the same time also they are preserved from the monstrositieswhich easily result from a one-sided and impassioned pursuit ofa scientific or philosophical point of view. The unprejudicedman of normal psychological development takes the elements whichwe have called A B C . . . to be spatially contiguous and externalto the elements K L M. . .. and he holds this view immediately,and not by any process of psychological projection or logicalinference or construction; even were such a process to exist,he would certainly not be conscious of it. He sees, then, an \"external world \" A B C . . . different from his body K LM . and existing outside it. As he does not observe at first thedependence of the A B C's . . . on the K L M's . . . (which arealways repeating themselves in the same way and consequently receivelittle attention), but is always dwelling upon the fixed connexionof the A B C's . . . with one another, there appears to him aworld of things independent of his Ego. This Ego is formed bythe observation of the special properties of the particular thingK L M . . . with which pain, pleasure, feeling, will, etc., areintimately connected. Further, he notices things K' L' M', K\"L\" M\", which behave in a manner perfectly analogousto K L M, and whose behaviour he thoroughly understands as soonas he has thought of analogous feelings, sensations, etc., asattached to them in the same way as he observed these feelings,sensations, etc., to be attached to himself. The analogy impellinghim to this result is the same as determines him, when he hasobserved that a wire possesses all the properties of aconductor charged with an electric current, except one which hasnot yet been directly demonstrated, to conclude that the wirepossesses this one property as well. Thus, since he does not perceivethe sensations of his fellowmen or of animals but only suppliesthem by analogy, while he infers from the behaviour of his fellow-menthat they are in the same position over against himself, he isled to ascribe to the sensations, memories, etc., a particularA B C . . . K L M . . . of a different nature, always differentlyconceived according to the degree of civilisation he has reached;but this process, as was shown above, is unnecessary, and in scienceleads into a maze of error, although the falsification is of smallsignificance for practical life.These factors, determining as they do the intellectual outlookof the plain man, make their appearance alternately in him accordingto the requirements of practical life for the time being, andpersist in a state of nearly stable equilibrium. The scientificconception of the world, however, puts the emphasis now upon one,now upon the other factor, makes sometimes one and sometimes theother its starting-point, and, in its struggle for greater precision,unity and consistency, tries, so far as seems possible, to thrustinto the background all but the most indispensable conceptions.In this way dualistic and monistic systems arise.The plain man is familiar with blindness and deafness, and knowsfrom his everyday experience that the look of things is influencedby his senses; but it never occurs to him to regard the wholeworld as the creation of his senses. He would find an idealisticsystem, or such a monstrosity as solipsism, intolerable in practice.It may easily become a disturbing element in unprejudiced scientifictheorising when a conception which is adapted to a particularand strictly limited purpose is promoted in advance to be thefoundation of all investigation. This happens, for example,when all experiences are regarded as \" effects \" ofan external world extending into consciousness. This conceptiongives us a tangle of metaphysical difficulties which it seemsimpossible to unravel. But the spectre vanishes at once when welook at the matter as it were in a mathematical light, and makeit clear to ourselves that all that is valuable to us is the discoveryof functional relations, and that what we want to knowis merely the dependence of experiences or one another. It thenbecomes obvious that the reference to unknown fundamental variableswhich are not given (things-in-themselves) is purely fictitiousand superfluous. But even when we allow this fiction, uneconomicalthough it be, to stand at first, we can still easily distinguishdifferent classes of the mutual dependence of the elements of\" the facts of consciousness \"; and this alone is importantfor us.A B C . . . K L M a b c . . . K' L' M' ... a' b' c' .. K\" L\" M\"... a\" B\" C\"The system of the elements is indicated in the above scheme. Withinthe space surrounded by a single line lie the elements which belongto the sensible world, - the elements whose regular connexionand peculiar dependence on one another represent both physical(lifeless) bodies and the bodies of men, animals and plants. All"
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"content": "these elements, again, stand in a relation of quite peculiar dependenceto certain of the elements K L M - the nerves of our body, namely- by which the facts of sense-physiology are expressed. The spacesurrounded by a double line contains the elements belonging tothe higher psychic life, memory-images and presentations, includingthose which we form of the psychic life of our fellow-men. Thesemay be distinguished by accents. These presentations, again, areconnected with one another in a different way (association, fancy)from the sensational elements A B C . . . K L M; but it cannotbe doubted that they are very closely allied to the latter, andthat in the last resort their behaviour is determined by A B C. . . K L M (the totality of the physical world), and especiallyby our body and nervous system. The presentations a' b' c' ofthe contents of the consciousness of our fellow-men play for usthe part of intermediate substitutions, by means of which thebehaviour of our fellow-men, - the functional relation of K' L'M' to A B C - becomes intelligible, in so far as in and for itself(physically) it would remain unexplained.It is therefore important for us to recognise that in all questionsin this connexion, which can be intelligibly asked and which caninterest us, everything turns on taking into consideration differentultimate variables and different relations of dependence.That is the main point. Nothing will be changed in the actualfacts or in the functional relations, whether we regard all thedata as contents of consciousness, or as partially so, or as completelyphysical.The biological task of science is to provide the fully developedhuman individual with as perfect a means of orientating himselfas possible. No other scientific ideal can be realised, and anyother must be meaningless.The philosophical point of view of the average man - if that termmay be applied to his naive realism - has a claim to the highestconsideration. It has arisen in the process of immeasurable timewithout the intentional assistance of man. It is a product ofnature, and is preserved by nature. Everything that philosophyhas accomplished - though we may admit the biological justificationof every advance, nay, of every error - is, as compared with it,but an insignificant and ephemeral product of art. The fact is,every thinker, every philosopher, the moment he is forced to abandonhis one-sided intellectual occupation by practical necessity,immediately returns to the general point of view of mankind. ProfessorX., who theoretically believes himself to be a solipsist, is certainlynot one in practice when he has to thank a Minister of State fora decoration conferred upon him, or when he lectures to an audience.The Pyrrhonist who is cudgelled in Moliere's Le Mariage force,does not go on saying \" Il me semble que vous me battez,\"but takes his beating as really received.Nor is it the purpose of these \" introductory remarks \"to discredit the standpoint of the plain man. The task which wehave set ourselves is simply to show why and for what purposewe hold that standpoint during most of our lives, and why andfor what purpose we are provisionally obliged to abandon it. Nopoint of view has absolute, permanent validity. Each has importanceonly for some given end....Further Reading:PoincareHelmholtzBiographyPhilosophy Archive @ marxists.org"
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"content": "Hermann Helmholtz (1878)The Facts of PerceptionSource: The Facts of Perception (1878) from Selected Writings of Hermann Helmholtz, Wesleyan University Press. The Whole speech, barring inrtoductory paragraphs and appendices are repoduced here.The problems which that earlier period considered fundamentalto all science were those of the theory of knowledge: Whatis true in our sense perceptions and thought? and In what waydo our ideas correspond to reality? Philosophy and the naturalsciences attack these questions from opposite directions, butthey are the common problems of both. Philosophy, which is concernedwith the mental aspect, endeavours to separate out whatever inour knowledge and ideas is due to the effects of the materialworld, in order to determine the nature of pure mental activity. The natural sciences, on the other hand, seek to separate outdefinitions, systems of symbols, patterns of representation, andhypotheses, in order to study the remainder, which pertains tothe world of reality whose laws they seek, in a pure form. Bothtry to achieve the same separation, though each is interestedin a different part of the divided field.The natural scientist no more than the philosopher can ignoreepistemological questions when he is dealing with sense perceptionor when he is concerned with the fundamental principles of geometry,mechanics, or physics. Since my work has entered many times intoboth the region of science and the region of philosophy, I shouldlike to attempt to survey what has been done from the side ofthe natural sciences to answer the questions which have just beenstated. The laws of thought, after all, are the same for thescientist as for the philosopher.In all cases where the facts of daily experience, which are alreadyvery copious, afford a clear-sighted thinker with a disinterestedsense of the truth sufficient information for making correct judgments,the scientist must be satisfied to recognise that a methodologicallycomplete collection of the facts of experience will simply confirmthose judgments, though there are occasionally, of course, someconflicting cases. This is my excuse (if it must be excused)for the fact that in general, in the following paper, no completelynew answers - on the contrary, only rather old answers, long sincegiven to the questions to be dealt with - will be presented to you. Often enough, of course, even old concepts gain new illuminationand new meaning from newly ascertained facts.Shortly before the beginning of the present century, Kant expoundeda theory of that which, in cognition, is prior or antecedent toall experience; that is, he developed a theory of what he calledthe transcendental forms of intuition and thought. Theseare forms into which the content of our sensory experience mustnecessarily be fitted if it is to be transformed into ideas. As to the qualities of sensations themselves, Locke had earlierpointed out the role which our bodily and mental structure ororganisation plays in determining the way things appear to us. Along this latter line, investigations of the physiology of thesenses, in particular those which Johannes Müller carriedout and formulated in the law of the specific energies of thesenses, have brought (one can almost say, to a completely unanticipateddegree) the fullest confirmation. Further, these investigationshave established the nature of - and in a very decisive manner haveclarified the significance of - the antecedently given subjectiveforms of intuition. This subject has already been discussed ratherfrequently, so I can begin with it at once today.Among the various kinds of sensations, two quite different distinctionsmust be noted. The most fundamental is that among sensationswhich belong to different senses, such as the differences amongblue, warm, sweet, and high-pitched. In an earlier work I referredto these as differences in the modality of the sensations. They are so fundamental as to exclude any possible transitionfrom one to another and any relationship of greater or less similarity. For example, one cannot ask whether sweet is more like red ormore like blue.The second distinction, which is less fundamental, is that amongthe various sensations of the same sense. I have referred tothese as differences in quality. Fichte thought of allthe qualities of a single sense as constituting a circle ofquality; what I have called differences of modality, he designateddifferences between circles of quality. Transitions and comparisonsare possible only within each circle; we can cross over from bluethrough violet and carmine to scarlet, for example, and we cansay that yellow is more like orange than like blue.Physiological studies now teach that. the more fundamental differencesare completely independent of the kind of external agent by whichthe sensations are excited. They are determined solely and exclusivelyby the nerves of sense which receive the excitations. Excitationsof the optic nerves produce only sensations of light, whetherthe nerves are excited by objective light (that is, by the vibrationsin the ether), by electric currents conducted through the eye,by a blow on the eyeball, or by a strain in the nerve trunk duringthe eyes' rapid movements in vision. The sensations which resultfrom the latter processes are so similar to those caused by objectivelight that for a long time men believed it was possible to producelight in the eye itself. It was Johannes Müller who showedthat internal production of light does not take place and thatthe sensation of light exists only when the optic nerve is excited.Every sensory nerve, then, when excited by even the most variedstimuli, produces a sensation only within its own specific circleof quality. The same external stimulus, therefore, if it strikesdifferent nerves, produces diverse sensations, which are alwayswithin the circles of quality of the nerves excited. The samevibrations of the ether which the eye experiences as light, theskin feels as heat. The same vibrations of the air which theskin feels as a flutter, the ear hears as sound. In the formercase the differences between the sensations are so great thatphysicists once felt justified in postulating two agents, analogousand in part, equivalent to each other, one of which appears tous as light and the other as radiant heat. Only later, aftercareful, exhaustive experimental investigations, was the completesimilarity of the physical characteristics of these two agentsestablished.Within the circle of quality of each individual sense, where thenature of the stimulating object determines at least in part thequality of the resulting sensation, the most unexpected incongruitieshave also been found. In this connection a comparison of sight"
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"content": "and hearing is instructive, for the objects of both - light andsound - are vibrational movements which, depending upon the frequencyof the vibrations, produce sensations of different colours invision and differences of pitch in hearing. If, for greater clarity,we refer to the relationships among the vibrations of lightin terms of the musical intervals formed by sound vibrations,the following points are evident: The ear is sensitive to aboutten octaves of different tones, while the eye is sensitive toonly a musical sixth. With both sound and light, however, vibrationsexist outside of these ranges, and their physical existence canbe demonstrated.In its short scale the eye has only three independent, fundamentalsensations - red, green, and blue-violet - out of which all of theother colours are formed by various combinations. These threesensations are combined in vision without being altered or disturbed. The ear, on the other hand, distinguishes an enormous numberof tones of different pitch, and no one chord sounds exactly likeanother made up of different tones. In vision, the same sensationof white can be produced by combining the red and the green-blueof the spectrum; or green, red, and violet; or yellow and ultramarineblue; or green-yellow and violet; or any two, or three, or indeedall of these combinations together. If the same thing occurredin hearing, the simultaneous striking of c and f with dand g, or with e and a, or with c, d, e, f, g, a, andso on, would all produce the same sound. Thus it should be emphasised,with reference to the objective significance of colours, thatexcept for the effect on the eye there is no single objectivecombination of colours which can be related invariantly to anyone sensation of colour.Finally, consonance and dissonance in music are due entirely tothe phenomenon of beats. These in turn are due to the rapid variationsin the intensity of sound which result when two tones of almostequal pitch are alternatively in and out of phase, thus causingfirst strong and then weak vibrations in any body oscillatingharmonically with them. As a physical phenomenon, beats can beproduced just as readily by the interaction of two trains of lightwaves as by the interaction of two trains of sound waves. Inorder to be aware of them, however, the nerves would have to beaffected by both wave trains, and the alternations between strongand weak intensities would have to follow each other at just theright intervals. In this respect the auditory nerves are greatlysuperior to the optic nerves.Each fibre among the auditory nerves is sensitive to only a singletone from a narrow interval of the scale, so that in general onlytones lying close together can interact with one another, whilethose at a distance cannot. If the latter do interact, they producenot beats but an overtone or some combination tone. It is inconnection with these, as you know, that the difference betweenharmonic and non-harmonic intervals, that is, between consonanceand dissonance, makes its appearance. In contrast again, everyoptic nerve fibre is sensitive to the entire spectrum, although,to be sure, they are sensitive in different degrees to differentparts of the spectrum. If it were possible to detect by meansof the optic nerves the enormously rapid beats resulting fromthe interaction of different vibrations of light, every mixedcolour would appear as a dissonance.It is apparent that all these differences among the effects oflight and sound are determined by the way in which the nervesof sense react. Our sensations are simply effects which are producedin our organs by objective causes; precisely how these effectsmanifest themselves depends principally and in essence upon thetype of apparatus that reacts to the objective causes. What information,then, can the qualities of such sensations give us about the characteristicsof the external causes and influences which produce them? Onlythis: our sensations are signs, not images, of such characteristics. One expects an image to be similar in some respect to the objectof which it is an image; in a statue one expects similarity ofform, in a drawing similarity of perspective, in a painting similarityof colour. A sign, however, need not be similar in any way tothat of which it is a sign. The sole relationship between themis that the same object, appearing under the same conditions,must evoke the same sign; thus different signs always signifydifferent causes or influences.To popular opinion, which accepts on faith and trust the completeveridicality of the images which our senses apparently furnishof external objects, this relationship may seem very insignificant. In truth it is not, for with it something of the greatest importancecan be accomplished: we can discover the lawful regularities inthe processes of the external world. And natural laws assert thatfrom initial conditions which are the same in some specific way,there always follow consequences which are the same in some otherspecific way. If the same kinds of things in the world of experienceare indicated by the same signs, then the lawful succession ofequal effects from equal causes will be related to a similar regularsuccession in the realm of our sensations. If, for example, somekind of berry in ripening forms a red pigment and sugar at thesame time, we shall always find a red colour and a sweet tastetogether in our sensations of berries of this kind.Thus, even if in their qualities our sensations are only signswhose specific nature depends completely upon our make-up or organisation,they are not to be discarded as empty appearances. They are stillsigns of something - something existing or something taking place - andgiven them we can determine the laws of these objects or theseevents. And that is something of the greatest importance!Thus, our physiological make-up incorporates a pure form of intuition,insofar as the qualities of sensation are concerned. Kant, however,went further. He claimed that, not only the qualities of senseexperience, but also space and time are determined by the natureof our faculty of intuition, since we cannot perceive anythingin the external world which does not occur at some time and insome place and since temporal location is also a characteristicof all subjective experience. Kant therefore called time thea priori and necessary transcendental form of the inner, and spacethe corresponding form of the outer, intuition. Further, Kantconsidered that spatial characteristics belong no more to the"
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"content": "world of reality (the dinge an sich) than the colours wesee belong to external objects. On the contrary, according tohim, space is carried to objects by our eyes.Even in this claim, scientific opinion can go along with Kantup to a certain point. Let us consider whether any sensible marksare present in ordinary, immediate experience to which all perceptionof objects in space can be related. Indeed, we find such marksin connection with the fact that our body's movement sets us invarying spatial relations to the objects we perceive, so thatthe impressions which these objects make upon us change as wemove. The impulse to move, which we initiate through the innervationof our motor nerves, is immediately perceptible. We feel thatwe are doing something when we initiate such an impulse. We donot know directly, of course, all that occurs; it is only throughthe science of physiology that we learn how we set the motor nervesin an excited condition, how these excitations are conducted tothe muscles, and how the muscles in turn contract and move thelimbs. We are aware, however, without any scientific study, ofthe perceptible effects which follow each of the various innervationswe initiate.The fact that we become aware of these effects through frequentlyrepeated trials and observations can be demonstrated in many,many ways. Even as adults we can still learn the innervationsnecessary to pronounce the words of a foreign language, or insinging to produce some special kind of voice formation. We canlearn the innervations necessary to move our ears, to turn oureyes inward or outward, to focus them upward or downward, andso on. The only difficulty in learning to do these things is thatwe must try to do them by using innervations which are unknown,innervations which have not been necessary in movement previouslyexecuted. We know these innervations in no form and by no definablecharacteristics other than the fact that they produce the observableeffects intended. This alone distinguishes the various innervationsfrom one another.If we initiate an impulse to move - if we shift our gaze, say, ormove our hands, or walk back and forth - the sensations belongingto some circles of quality (namely, those sensations due to objectsin space) may be altered. Other Psychical states and conditionsthat we are aware of in ourselves, however, such as recollections,intentions, desires, and moods, remain unchanged. In this waya thoroughgoing distinction may be established in our immediateexperience between the former and the latter. If we use the termspatial to designate those relations which we can alterdirectly by our volition but whose nature may still remain conceptuallyunknown to us, an awareness of mental states or conditions doesnot enter into spatial relations at all.All sensations of external senses, however, must be preceded bysome kind of innervation, that is, they must be spatially determined. Thus space, charged with the qualities of our sensations of movement,will appear to us as that through which we move or that about whichwe gaze. In this sense spatial intuition is a subjective formof intuition, just as the qualities of sensation (red, sweet,cold) are. Naturally, this does not mean that the determinationof the position of a specific object is only an illusion, anymore than the qualities of sensation are.From this point of view, space is the necessary form of outerintuition, since we consider only what we perceive as spatiallydetermined to constitute the external world. Those things whichare not perceived in any spatial relation we think of as belongingto the world of inner intuition, the world of self-consciousness.Space is an a priori form of intuition, necessarily prior to allexperience, insofar as the perception of it is related to thepossibility of motor volitions, the mental and physical capacityfor which must be provided by our physiological make-up beforewe can have intuitions of space.There can be no doubt about the relationship between the sensiblesigns or marks mentioned above and the changes in our perceptionof objects in space which result from our movements. We stillmust consider the question, however, whether it is only fromthis source that all the specific characteristics of our intuitionof space originate. To this end we must reflect further uponsome of the conclusions concerning perception at which we havejust arrived.Let us try to set ourselves back to the state or condition ofa man without any experience at all. In order to begin withoutany intuition of space, we must assume that such an individualno longer recognises the effects of his own innervations, exceptto the extent that he has now learned how, by means of his memoryof a first innervation or by the execution of a second one contraryto the first, to return to the state out of which he originallymoved. Since this mutual self-annulment of different innervationsis completely independent of what is actually perceived, the individualcan discover how to initiate innervations without any prior knowledgeof the external world.Let us assume that the man at first finds himself to be just oneobject in a region of stationary objects. As long as he initiatesno motor impulses, his sensations will remain unchanged. However,if he makes some movement (if he moves his eyes or his hands,for example, or moves forward), his sensations will change. Andif he returns (in memory or by another movement) to his initialstate, all his sensations will again be the same as they wereearlier.If we call the entire group of sensation aggregates which canpotentially be brought to consciousness during a certain periodof time by a specific, limited group of volitions the temporarypresentabilia in contrast to the present, that is,the sensation aggregate within this group which is the objectof immediate awareness - then our hypothetical individual is limitedat any one time to a specific circle of presentabilia, outof which, however, he can make any aggregate present at any givenmoment by executing the proper movement. Every individual memberof this group of presentabilia, therefore, appears to himto exist at every moment of the period of time, regardless ofhis immediate present, for he has been able to observe any ofthem at any moment he wished to do so. This conclusion - that hecould have observed them at any other moment of the period ifhe had wished - should be regarded as a kind of inductive inference,since from any moment a successful inference can easily be made"
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"content": "to any other moment of the given period of time.In this way the idea of the simultaneous and continuous existenceof a group of different but adjacent objects may be attained. Adjacent is a term with spatial connotations, but it islegitimate to use it here, since we have used spatial todefine those relations which can be changed by volition. Moreover,we need not restrict the term adjacent so that it refersonly to material objects. For example, it can legitimately besaid that \"to the right it is bright, to the left dark,\"and \"forward there is opposition, behind there is nothing,\"in the case where \"right\" and \"left\" are onlynames for specific movements of the eyes and \"forward\"and \"behind\" for specific movements of the hands.At other times the circles of presentabilia related tothis same group of volitions are different. In this way circlesof presentabilia, along with their individual members,come to be something given to us, that is, they come to be objects. Those changes which we are able to bring about or put anend to by familiar acts of volition come to be separated fromthose which do not result from and cannot be set aside by suchacts. This last statement is negative: in Fichte's quite appropriateterminology, the Non-Ego forces the recognition that it is distinctfrom the Ego.When we inquire into the empirical conditions under which ourintuition of space is formed, we must concentrate in particularupon the sense of touch, for the blind can form complete intuitionsof space without the aid of vision. Even if space turns out tobe less rich in objects for them than for people with vision,it seems highly improbable that the foundation of the intuitionof space is completely different for the two classes of people. If, in the dark or with our eyes closed, we try to perceive onlyby touch, we are definitely able to feel the shapes of the objectslying around us, and we can determine them with accuracy and certainty. Moreover, we are able to do this with just one finger or evenwith a pencil held in the hand the way a surgeon holds a probe. Ordinarily, of course, if we want to find our way about in thedark we touch large objects with five or ten fingertips simultaneously. In this way we get from five to ten times as much informationin a given period of time as we do with one finger. We also usethe fingers to measure the sizes of objects, just as we measurewith the tips of an open pair of compasses.It should be emphasised that with the sense of touch, the factthat we have an extended skin surface with many sensitive pointson it is of secondary importance. What we are able to findout, for example, about the impression on a medal by the sensationsin the skin when our hand is stationary is very slight and crudein comparison with what we can discover even with the tip of apencil when we move our hand. With the sense of sight, perceptionis more complicated due to the fact that besides the most sensitivespot on the retina, the fovea central, or pit, which invision rushes as it were about the visual field, there are alsoa great many other sensitive points acting at the same time andin a much richer way than is the case with the sense of touch.It is easy to see that by moving our fingers over an object, wecan learn the sequences in which impressions of it present themselvesand that these sequences are unchanging, regardless which fingerwe use. Further, these are not single-valued or fixed sequences,whose elements must always be covered, either forward or backward,in the same order. They are not linear sequences; on the contrary,they form a plane coextension or, using Riemann's terminology,a manifold of the second order. The fingers are moved over asurface by means of motor impulses which differ from those necessaryto carry them from one point on the surface to another, and differentsurfaces require different movements for the fingers to glideover them. Consequently, the space in which the fingers moverequires a manifold of a higher order than that of a surface;the third dimension must be introduced.Three dimensions are sufficient, however, for all our experience,since a closed surface completely divides space as we know it. Moreover, substances in a gaseous or fluid state, which are notdependent at all on the nature of man's mental faculties, cannotescape from a completely closed surface. And, just as a continuousline can enclose only a surface and not a space - that is, a spatialform of two and not of three dimensions - so a surface can encloseonly a space of three and not of four dimensions.It is thus that our knowledge of the spatial arrangement of objectsis attained. Judgments concerning their size result from observationsof the congruence of our hand with parts or points of an object'ssurface, or from the congruence of the retina with parts or pointsof the retinal image.A strange consequences characteristic of the ideas in the mindsof individuals with at least some experience - follows from thefact that the perceived spatial ordering of things originatesin the sequences in which the qualities of sensations are presentedby our moving sense organs: the objects in the space around usappear to possess the qualities of our sensations. They appearto be red or green, cold or warm, to have an odour or a taste,and so on. Yet these qualities of sensations belong only to ournervous system and do not extend at all into the space aroundus. Even when we know this, however, the illusion does not cease,for it is the primary and fundamental truth. The illusionis quite simply the sensations which are given to us in spatialorder to begin with.You can see how the most fundamental properties of our spatialintuition can be obtained in this way. Commonly, however, anintuition is taken to be something which is simply given, somethingwhich occurs without reflection or effort, something which aboveall cannot be reduced to other mental processes. This popularinterpretation, at least insofar as the intuition of space isconcerned, is due in part to certain theorists in physiologicaloptics and in part to a strict adherence to the philosophy of"
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"content": "Kant. As is well known, Kant taught, not only that the generalform of the intuition of space is given transcendentally, butalso that this form possesses, originally and prior to a possibleexperience, certain more specific characteristics which are commonlygiven expression in the axioms of geometry. These axioms maybe reduced to the following propositions:1. Between two points there is only one possible shortest line. We call such a line straight.2. A plane is determined by three points. A plane is a surfacewhich contains completely any straight line between any two ofits points.3. Through any point there is only one possible line parallelto a given straight line. Two straight lines are parallel ifthey lie in the same plane and do not intersect upon any finiteextension.Kant used the alleged fact that these propositions of geometryappear to us necessarily true, along with the fact that we cannotimagine or represent to ourselves any irregularities in spatialrelations, as direct proof that the axioms must be given priorto all experience. It follows that the conception of space containedin them or implied by them must also constitute a transcendentalform of intuition independent of all experience.I would like to emphasise here, in connection with the controversieswhich have sprung up during the past few years as to whether theaxioms of geometry are transcendental or empirical propositions,that this question is absolutely different from the one mentionedearlier, namely, whether space in general is a transcendentalform of intuition or not.Our eyes see everything in the field of vision as a number ofcolored plane surfaces. That is their form of intuition. However,the particular colours that appear at any one time, the relationshipsamong them, and the order in which they appear are the effectsof external causes and are not determined by any law of our organisation. Equally, the fact that space is a form of intuition implies justas little concerning the facts which are expressed by the axioms. If these axioms are not empirical propositions but rather pertainto a necessary form of intuition, this is a further and quitespecific characteristic of the general form, and the same reasoningwhich was used to establish that the general form of intuitionof space is transcendental is not necessarily sufficient to establishthat the axioms also have a transcendental origin.In his assertion that it is impossible to conceive of spatialrelations which contradict the axioms of geometry, as well asin his general interpretation of intuition as a simple, irreduciblemental process, Kant was influenced by the mathematics and thephysiology of the senses of his time.In order to try to conceive of something which has never beenseen before, it is necessary to know how to imagine in detailthe series of sense impressions which, in accordance with well-knownlaws, would be experienced if the thing in question - and any changesin it - were actually perceived by any of the sense organs fromall possible positions. Further, these impressions must be suchthat all possible interpretations of them except one can be eliminated. If these series of sense impressions can be specified completelyand uniquely in this way, then in my opinion one must admit thatthe object clearly is conceivable.Since by hypothesis the object has never been observed before,no previous experience can come to our aid and guide our imaginationto the required series of impressions. Such guidance can be providedonly by the concepts of the objects and relationships to be represented. Such concepts are first developed analytically as much as isnecessary for the investigation at hand. Indeed, the conceptsof spatial forms to which nothing in ordinary experience correspondscan be developed with certainty only by the use of analytic geometry. It was Gauss who, in 1828 in his treatise on the curvature ofsurfaces, first presented the analytical tools necessary for thesolution of the present problem, the tools which Riemann laterused to establish the logical possibility of his system of geometry. These investigations have been called, not improperly, meta-mathematical.Furthermore, in 1829 and in 1840 Lobachevsky, using the ordinary,intuitive, synthetic method, developed a geometry without theaxiom of parallels which is in complete agreement with the correspondingparts of the new analytical investigations. Beltrami has givenus a method for representing meta-mathematical spaces in partsof Euclidean space, a method by which it is possible to imaginethe appearance of such spaces in perspective vision with relativeease. Finally, Lipschitz has pointed out how the general principlesof mechanics can be transferred to such spaces, so that the seriesof sense impressions which would occur in them can be specifiedcompletely. Thus, in my opinion, the conceivability of such spacesin the sense just indicated has been established.There is considerable disagreement, however, on this issue. Fora demonstration of conceivability I require only that, for everymeans of observation, the corresponding sense impressions be sketchedout clearly and unambiguously, if necessary with the aid of scientificknowledge of the laws of these methods of observation. To anyonewho knows these laws, the objects or relationships to be representedseem almost real. Indeed, the task of representing the variousspatial relationships of meta-mathematical spaces requires trainingin the understanding of analytical methods, perspective constructions,and optical phenomena.This, however, goes counter to the older conception of intuition,according to which only those things whose ideas come instantly - thatis, without reflection and effort - to consciousness along withthe sense impressions are to be regarded as given through intuition. It is true that our attempts to represent meta-mathematical spacesdo not have the effortlessness, speed, or immediate clarity ofour perceptions of, say, the shape of a room which we enter forthe first time or of the arrangement and shape of the objectsin it, the materials out of which they are made, and many otherthings. If this kind of immediate evidence is really a fundamental,necessary characteristic of an intuition, we cannot rightly claimthe conceivability of meta-mathematical spaces.But upon further consideration we find that there are a largenumber of experiences which show that we can develop speed andcertainty in forming specific ideas after receiving specific senseimpressions, even in cases where there are no natural connectionsbetween the ideas and the impressions. One of the most strikingexamples of this is learning a native language. Words are arbitrarilyor accidentally selected signs, and in every language they aredifferent. Knowledge of these signs is not inherited; to a German"
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"content": "child who has been raised among French-speaking people and whohas never heard German spoken, it is a foreign language. A childlearns the meanings of words and sentences only by examples oftheir use; and before he understands the language, it is impossibleto make intelligible to him the fact that the sounds he hearsare signs which have meaning. Finally, however, after he hasgrown up, he understands these words and sentences without reflection,without effort, and without knowing when, where, or through whatexamples he learned them. He understands the most subtle shiftsin their meaning, shifts which are often so subtle that any attemptto define them logically could be carried out only with difficulty.It is not necessary for me to add further examples; our dailylife is more than rich enough in them. Art, most clearly poetryand the plastic arts, is based directly upon such experiences. The highest kind of perception, that which we find in the artist'svision, is an example of this same basic kind of understanding,in this case the understanding of new aspects of man and nature. Among the traces which frequently repeated perceptions leavebehind in the memory, the ones conforming to law and repeatedwith the greatest regularity are strengthened, while those whichvary accidentally are obliterated. In a receptive, attentiveobserver, intuitive images of the characteristic aspects of thethings that interest him come to exist; afterward he knows nomore about how these images arose than a child knows about theexamples from which he learned the meanings of words. That anartist has beheld the truth follows from the fact that we tooare seized with the conviction of truth when he leads us awayfrom currents of accidentally related qualities. An artist issuperior to us in that he knows how to find the truth amid allthe confusion and chance events of daily experience.So much to remind ourselves how effective these mental processesare, from the lowest to the highest reaches of our intellectuallife. In some of my earlier works I called the connections ofideas which take place in these processes unconscious inferences. These inferences are unconscious insofar as their major premiseis not necessarily expressed in the form of a proposition; itis formed from a series of experiences whose individual membershave entered consciousness only in the form of sense impressionswhich have long since disappeared from memory. Some fresh senseimpression forms the minor premise, to which the rule impressedupon us by previous observations is applied. Recently I haverefrained from using the phrase unconscious inference inorder to avoid confusion with what seems to me a completely obscureand unjustified idea which Schopenhauer and his followers havedesignated by the same name. Obviously we are concerned herewith the elementary processes which are the real basis of allthought, even though they lack the critical certainty and refinementto be found in the scientific formation of concepts and in theindividual steps of scientific inferences.Returning now to the question of the origin of the axioms of geometry,our lack of facility in developing ideas of meta-mathematicalspatial relations because of insufficient experience cannot beused validly as an argument against their conceivability. Onthe contrary, these spatial relations are completely conceivable. Kant's proof of the transcendental nature of the geometricalaxioms is therefore untenable. Indeed, investigation of the factsof experience shows that the axioms of geometry, taken in theonly sense in which they can be applied to the external world,are subject to proof or disproof by experience.The memory traces of previous experience play an even more extensiveand influential role in our visual observations. An observerwho is not completely inexperienced receives without moving hiseyes (this condition can be realised experimentally by using themomentary illumination of an electric discharge or by carefullyand deliberately staring) images of the objects in front of himwhich are quite rich in content. We can easily confirm with ourown eyes, however, that these images are much richer and especiallymuch more precise if the gaze is allowed to move about the fieldof vision, in this way making use of the kind of spatial observationswhich I have previously described as the most fundamental. Indeed,we are so used to letting our eyes wander over the objects weare looking at that considerable practice is required before wesucceed in making them - for purposes of research in physiologicaloptics - fix on a point without wandering.In my work on physiological optics I have tried to explain howour knowledge of the field open to vision is gained fromvisual images experienced as we move our eyes, given that thereare some perceptible differences of location on the retina amongotherwise qualitatively similar sensations. Following Lotze'sterminology, these spatially different retinal sensations werecalled local signs. It is not necessary to know priorto visual experience that these signs are local signs, that is,that they are related to various objective differences in place. The fact that people blind from birth who afterward gain theirsight by an operation cannot, before they have touched them, distinguishbetween such simple forms as a circle and a square by the useof their eyes has been confirmed even more fully by recent studies.Investigations in physiology show that with the eyes alone wecan achieve rather precise and reliable comparisons of variouslines and angles in the field of vision, provided that throughthe eyes' normal movements the images of these figures can beformed quickly one after another on the retina. We can even estimatethe actual size and distance of objects which are not too faraway from us with considerable accuracy by means of changing perspectivesin our visual field, although making such judgments in the threedimensions of space is much more complicated than it is in thecase of a plane image. As is well known, one of the greatestdifficulties in drawing is being able to free oneself from theinfluence which the idea of the true size of a perceived objectinvoluntarily has upon us. These are all facts which we wouldexpect if we obtain our knowledge of local signs through experience. We can learn the changing sensory signs of something which remainsobjectively constant much more easily and reliably than we canthe signs of something which changes with every movement of thebody, as perspective images do.To a great many physiologists, however, whose point of view weshall call nativistic, in contrast to the empirical position which"
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"content": "I have sought to defend, the idea that knowledge of the fieldof vision is acquired is unacceptable. It is unacceptable tothem because they have not made clear to themselves what eventhe example of learning a language shows so clearly, namely, howmuch can be explained in terms of the accumulation of memory impressions. Because of this lack of appreciation of the power of memory,a number of different attempts have been made to account for atleast part of visual perception through innate mechanisms by meansof which specific sensory impressions supposedly induce specificinnate spatial ideas. In an earlier work I tried to show thatall hypotheses of this kind which had been formulated were insufficient,since cases were always being discovered in which our visual perceptionsare more precisely in agreement with reality than is stated inthese hypotheses. With each of them we are forced to the additionalassumption that ultimately experience acquired during movementmay very well prevail over the hypothetical inborn intuition andthus accomplish in opposition to it what, according to the empiricalhypothesis, it would have accomplished without such a hindrance.Thus nativistic hypotheses concerning knowledge of the field ofvision explain nothing. In the first place, they only acknowledgethe existence of the facts to be explained, while refusing torefer these facts to well-confirmed mental processes which eventhey must rely on in certain cases. In the second place, theassumption common to all nativistic theories - that ready-made ideasof objects can be produced by means of organic mechanisms - appearsmuch more rash and questionable than the assumption of the empiricaltheory that the non-cognitive materials of experience exist asa result of external influences and that all ideas are formedout of these materials according to the laws of thought.In the third place, the nativistic assumptions are unnecessary. The single objection that can be raised against the empiricaltheory concerns the sureness of the movements of many newbornor newly hatched animals. The smaller the mental endowment ofthese animals, the sooner they learn how to do all that they arecapable of doing. The narrower the path on which their thoughtsmust travel, the easier they find their way. The newborn humanchild, on the other hand, is at first awkward in vision; it requiresseveral days to learn to judge by its visual images the directionin which to turn its head in order to reach its mother's breast.The behaviour of young animals is, in general, quite independentof individual experience. Whatever these instincts are whichguide them - whether they are the direct hereditary transmissionof their parents' ideas, whether they have to do only with pleasureand pain, or whether they are motor impulses related to certainaggregates of experience - we do not know. In the case of humanbeings the last phenomenon is becoming increasingly well understood. Careful and critically employed investigations are most urgentlyneeded on this whole subject.Arrangements such as those which the nativistic hypotheses assumecan at best have only a certain pedagogical value; that is, theymay facilitate the initial understanding of uniform, lawful relations. And the empirical position is, to be sure, in agreement withthe nativistic on a number of points - for example, that local signsof adjacent places on the retina are more similar than those fartherapart and that the corresponding points on the two retina aremore similar than those that do not correspond. For our presentpurposes, however, it is sufficient to know that complete spatialintuition can be achieved by the blind and that for people withvision, even if the nativistic hypotheses should prove partiallycorrect, the final and most exact determinations of spatial relationsare obtained through observations made while moving in variousways.I should like, now, to return to the discussion of the most fundamentalfacts of perception. As we have seen, we not only have changingsense impressions which come to us without our doing anything;we also perceive while we are being active or moving about. Inthis way we acquire knowledge of the uniform relations betweenour innervations and the various aggregates of impressions includedin the circles of presentabilia. Each movement we makeby which we alter the appearance of objects should be thoughtof as an experiment designed to test whether we have understoodcorrectly the invariant relations of the phenomena before us,that is, their existence in definite spatial relations.The persuasive force of these experiments is much greater thanthe conviction we feel when observations are carried out withoutany action on our part, for with these experiments the chainsof causes run through our consciousness. One factor in thesecauses is our volitions, which are known to us by an inner intuition;we know, moreover, from what motives they arise. In these volitionsoriginates the chain of physical causes which results in the finaleffect of the experiment, so we are dealing with a process passingfrom a known beginning to a known result. The two essential conditionsnecessary for the highest degree of conviction are (1) that ourvolitions not be determined by the physical causes which simultaneouslydetermine the physical processes and (2) that our volitions notinfluence psychically the resulting perceptions.These last points should be considered more fully. The volitionfor a specific movement is a psychic act, and the perceptiblechange in sensation which results from it is also a psychic event.is it possible for the first to bring about the second by somepurely mental process? It is certainly not absolutely impossible. Whenever we dream, something similar to this takes place.While dreaming we believe that we are executing some movement,and then we dream further that the natural results of this movementoccur. We dream that we climb into a boat, shove it off fromshore, guide it over the water, watch the surrounding objectsshift position, and so on. In cases like this it seems to thedreamer that he sees the consequences of his actions and thatthe perceptions in the dream are brought about by means of purelyPsychical processes. Who can say how long and how finely spun,how richly elaborated, such dreams may be! If everything in dreamswere to occur in ultimate accordance with the laws of nature,there would be no distinction between dreaming and waking, exceptthat the person who is awake may break off the series of impressionshe is experiencing.I do not see how a system of even the most extreme subjectiveidealism, even one which treats life as a dream, can be refuted."
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"content": " One can show it to be as improbable, as unsatisfactory as possible(in this connection I concur with the severest expressions ofcondemnation), but it can be developed in a logically consistentmanner, and it seems to me important to keep this in mind. Howingeniously Calderon carried out this theme in Life Is a Dreamis well known.Fichte also believed and taught that the Ego constructs the Non-Ego,that is, the world of phenomena, which it requires for the developmentof its Psychical activities. His idealism is to be distinguishedfrom the one mentioned above, however, by the fact that he consideredother individuals not to be dream images but, on the basis ofmoral laws, to be other Egos with equal reality. Since the imagesby which all these Egos represent the Non-Ego must be in agreement,he considered all the individual Egos to be part of or emanationsfrom an Absolute Ego. The world in which they find themselvesis the conceptual world which the World Spirit constructs. Fromthis a conception of reality results similar to that of Hegel.The realistic hypothesis, on the other hand, accepts the evidenceof ordinary personal experience, according to which the changesin perception which result from an act have more than a mere psychicalconnection with the antecedent volition. It accepts what seemsto be established by our daily perception, that is, that the materialworld about us exists independently of our ideas. Undoubtedlythe realistic hypothesis is the simplest that can be formulated. It is based upon and confirmed by an extraordinarily large numberof cases. It is sharply defined in all specific instances andis therefore unusually useful and fruitful as a foundation forbehaviour.Even if we take the idealistic position, we can hardly talk aboutthe lawful regularity of our sensations other than by saying:\"Perceptions occur as if the things of the material worldreferred to in the realistic hypothesis actually did exist.\"We cannot eliminate the \"as if\" construction completely,however, for we cannot consider the realistic interpretation tobe more than an exceedingly useful and practical hypothesis. We cannot assert that it is necessarily true, for opposed to itthere is always the possibility of other irrefutable idealistichypotheses.It is always well to keep this in mind in order not to infer fromthe facts more than can rightly be inferred from them. The variousidealistic and realistic interpretations are metaphysical hypotheseswhich, as long as they are recognised as such, are scientificallycompletely justified. They may become dangerous, however, ifthey are presented as dogmas or as alleged necessities of thought. Science must consider thoroughly all admissible hypotheses inorder to obtain a complete picture of all possible modes of explanation. Furthermore, hypotheses are necessary to someone doing research,for one cannot always wait until a reliable scientific conclusionhas been reached; one must sometimes make judgments accordingto either probability or aesthetic or moral feelings. Metaphysicalhypotheses are not to be objected to here either. A thinker isunworthy of science, however, if he forgets the hypothetical originof his assertions. The arrogance and vehemence with which suchhidden hypotheses are sometimes defended are usually the resultof a lack of confidence which their advocates feel in the hiddendepths of their minds about the qualifications of their claims.What we unquestionably can find as a fact, without any hypotheticalelement whatsoever, is the lawful regularity of phenomena. Fromthe very first, in the case where we perceive stationary objectsdistributed before us in space, this perception involves the recognitionof a uniform or law-like connection between our movements andthe sensations which result from them. Thus even the most elementaryideas contain a mental element and occur in accordance with thelaws of thought. everything that is added in intuition to theraw materials of sensation may be considered mental, providedof course that we accept the extended meaning of mental discussedearlier.If \"to conceive\" means \"to form concepts,\"and if it is true that in a concept we gather together a classof objects which possess some common characteristic, then it followsby analogy that the concept of some phenomenon which changes intime must encompass that which remains the same during that periodof time. As Schiller said, the wise manSeeks for the familiar law amidst the awesome multiplicity ofaccidental occurrences,Seeks for the eternal Pole Star amidst the constant flight ofappearances.That which, independently of any and everything else, remainsthe same during all temporal changes, we call a substance;the invariant relation between variable but related quantitieswe call a law. We perceive only the latter directly. Knowledge of substances can be attained only through extensiveinvestigation, and as further investigation is always possible,such knowledge remains open to question. At an earlier time bothlight and heat were thought to be substances; later it turnedout that both were only transitory forms of motion. We must thereforealways be prepared for some new analysis of what are now knownas the chemical elements.The first product of the rational conception of phenomena is itslawfulness or regularity. If we have fully investigated someregularity, have established its conditions completely and withcertainty and, at the same time, with complete generality, sothat for all possible subsequent cases the effect is unequivocallydetermined - and if we have therefore arrived at the convictionthat the law is true and will continue to hold true at all timesand in all cases - then we recognise it as something existing independentlyof our ideas, and we label it a cause, or that which underliesor hes behind the changes taking place. (Note that the meaningI give to the word cause and its application are both exactlyspecified, although in ordinary language the word is also variouslyused to mean antecedent or motive.)Insofar as we recognise a law as a power analogous to our will,that is, as something giving rise to our perceptions as well asdetermining the course of natural processes, we call it a force. The idea of a force acting in opposition to us arises directlyout of the nature of our simplest perceptions and the way in whichthey occur. From the beginning of our lives, the changes whichwe cause ourselves by the acts of our will are distinguished fromthose which are neither made nor can be set aside by our will. Pain, in particular, gives us the most compelling awareness ofthe power or force of reality. The emphasis falls here on theobservable fact that the perceived circle of presentabilia"
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"content": "is not created by a conscious act of our mind or will. Fichte'sNon-Ego is an apt and precise expression for this. Indreaming, too, that which a person believes he sees and feelsdoes not appear to be called forth by his will or by the knownrelations of his ideas, for these also may often be unconscious. They constitute a Non-Ego for the dreamer too. It is the samefor the idealists who see the Non-Ego as the world of ideas ofthe World Spirit.We have in the German language a most appropriate word for thatwhich stands behind the changes of phenomena and acts, namely,\"the real\". This word implies only action; it lacksthe collateral meaning of existing as substance, which the conceptof \"the actual\" or \"the essential\" includes. In the concept of \"the objective\", on the otherhand, the notion of the complete form of objects is introduced,something that does not correspond to anything in our most basicperceptions. In the case of the logically consistent dreamer,it should be noted, we must use the words \"effective\"and \"real\" to characterise those Psychical conditionsor motives whose sensations correspond uniformly to, and whichare experienced as the momentary states of, his dreamed world.In general, it is clear that a distinction between thought andreality is possible only when we know how to make the distinctionbetween that which the ego can and that which it cannot change. This, however, is possible only when we know the uniform consequenceswhich volitions have in time. From this fact it can be seen thatconformity to law is the essential condition which something mustsatisfy in order to be considered real.I need not go into the fact that it is a contradictio in abjectoto try to present the actual or Kant's ding an sich inpositive statements without comprehending it within our formsof representation. This fact has been pointed out often enoughalready. What we can attain, however, is knowledge of the lawfulorder in the realm of reality, since this can actually be presentedin the sign system of our sense impressions.All things transitoryBut as symbols are sent. [Faust]I take it to be a propitious sign that we find Goethe with ushere, as well as further along on this same path. Whenever weare dealing with a question requiring a broad outlook, we cantrust completely his clear, impartial view as to where the truthlies. He demanded of science that it be only an artistic arrangementof facts and that it form no abstract concepts concerning them,for he considered abstract concepts to be empty names which onlyhide the facts. In somewhat the same sense, Gustav Kirchhoffhas recently stated that the task of the most abstract of thenatural sciences, mechanics, is to describe completely and inthe simplest possible way the kinds of motion appearing in nature.As to the question whether abstract concepts hide the facts ornot, this indeed happens if we remain in the realm of abstractconcepts and do not examine their factual content, that is, ifwe do not try to make clear what new and observable invariantrelations follow from them. A correctly formulated hypothesis,as we observed a moment ago, has its empirical content expressedin the form of a general law of nature. The hypothesis itselfis an attempt to rise to more general and more comprehensive uniformitiesor regularities. Anything new, however, that an hypothesis assertsabout facts must be established or confirmed by observation andexperiment. Hypotheses which do not have such factual referenceor which do not lead to trustworthy, unequivocal statements concerningthe facts falling under them should be considered only worthlessphrases.Every reduction of some phenomenon to underlying substances andforces indicates that something unchangeable and final has beenfound. We are never justified, of course, in making an unconditionalassertion of such a reduction. Such a claim is not permissiblebecause of the incompleteness of our knowledge and because ofthe nature of the inductive inferences upon which our perceptionof reality depends.Every inductive inference is based upon the belief that some givenrelation, previously observed to be regular or uniform, will continueto hold in all cases which may be observed. In effect, everyinductive inference is based upon a belief in the lawful regularityof everything that happens. This uniformity or lawful regularity,however, is also the condition of conceptual understanding. Thusbelief in uniformity or lawful regularity is at the same timebelief in the possibility of understanding natural phenomena conceptually. If we assume that this comprehension or understanding of naturalphenomena can be achieved - that is, if we believe that we shallbe able to discern something fundamental and unchanging whichis the cause of the changes we observe - then we accept a regulativeprinciple in our thinking. It is called the law of causality,and it expresses our belief in the complete comprehensibilityof the world.Conceptual understanding, in the sense in which I have just describedit, is the method by which the world is submitted to our thoughts,facts are ordered, and the future predicted. It is our rightand duty to extend the application of this method to all occurrences,and significant results have already been achieved in this way. We have no justification other than its results, however, forthe application of the law of causality. We might have livedin a world in which every atom was different from every otherone and where nothing was stable. In such a world there wouldbe no regularity whatsoever, and our conscious activities wouldcease.The law of causality is in reality a transcendental law, a lawwhich is given a priori. It is impossible to prove it by experience,for, as we have seen, even the most elementary levels of experienceare impossible without inductive inferences, that is, withoutthe law of causality. And even if the most complete experienceshould teach us that everything previously observed has occurreduniformly - a point concerning which we are not yet certain - we couldconclude only by inductive inferences, that is, by presupposingthe law of causality, that the law of causality will also be validin the future. We can do no more than accept the proverb, \"Havefaith and keep on!\"The earth's inadequaciesWill then prove fruitful. [Faust]That is the answer we must give to the question: what is truein our ideas? In giving this answer we find ourselves at thefoundation of Kant's system and in agreement with what has always"
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"content": "seemed to me the most fundamental advance in his philosophy.I have frequently noted in my previous works the agreement betweenthe more recent physiology of the senses and Kant's teachings. I have not meant, of course, that I would swear in verbs magistrito all his more minor points. I believe that the most fundamentaladvance of recent times must be judged to be the analysis of theconcept of intuition into the elementary processes of thought. Kant failed to carry out this analysis or resolution; this isone reason why he considered the axioms of geometry to be transcendentalpropositions. It has been the physiological investigations ofsense perception which haveled us to recognise the most basic or elementary kinds of judgment,to inferences which are not expressible in words. These judgmentsor inferences will, of course, remain unknown and inaccessibleto philosophers as long as they inquire only into knowledge expressedin language.Some philosophers who retain an inclination toward metaphysicalspeculation consider what we have treated as a defect in Kant'ssystem, resulting from the lack of progress of the special sciencesin his time, to be the most fundamental part of his philosophy. Indeed, Kant's proof of the possibility of metaphysics, the allegedscience he did nothing further to develop, rests completely uponthe belief that the axioms of geometry and the related principlesof mechanics are transcendental propositions, given a priori. As a matter of fact, however, Kant's entire system really conflictswith the possibility of metaphysics, and the more obscure pointsin his theory of knowledge, over which so much has been argued,stem from this conflict.Be that as it may, the natural sciences have a secure, well-establishedfoundation from which they can search for the laws of reality,a wonderfully rich and fertile field of endeavour. As long asthey restrict themselves to this search, they need not be troubledwith any idealistic doubts. Such work will, of course, alwaysseem modest to some people when compared to the high-flown designsof the metaphysicians.For with Gods mustNever a mortalMeasure himself.If he mounts upwards,Till his headTouch the star-spangled heavens,His unstable feetFeel no ground beneath them;Winds and wild storm-cloudsMake him their plaything;-Or if, with sturdy,Firm-jointed bones, heTreads the solid, unwaveringFloor of the earth; yetReaches he notCommonest oaks, norE'en with the vine mayMeasure his greatness. [Goethe, The Limits of Man]The author of this poem has provided us with a model of a manwho still retains clear eyes for the truth and for reality, evenwhen he touches the stars with the crown of his head. The truescientist must always have something of the vision of an artist,something of the vision which led Goethe and Leonardo da Vincito great scientific thoughts. Both artists and scientists strive,even if in different ways, toward the goal of discovering newuniformities or lawful regularities. But one must never produceidle swarms and mad fantasies in place of artistic vision. Thetrue artist and the true scientist both know how to work steadilyand how to give their work a convincing, truthful form.Moreover, reality has always unveiled the truth of its laws tothe sciences in a much richer, more sublime fashion than she haspainted it for even the most consummate efforts of mystical fantasyand metaphysical speculation. What have all the monstrous offspringof indiscreet fancy, heapings of gigantic dimensions and numbers,to say of the reality of the universe, of the period of time duringwhich the sun and earth were formed, or of the geological agesduring which life evolved, adapting itself always in the mostthoroughgoing way to the increasingly more moderate physical conditionsof our planet?What metaphysics has concepts in readiness to explain the effectsof magnetic and induced electrical forces upon each other - effectswhich physics is now struggling to reduce to well-establishedelementary forces, without having reached any clear solution? Already, however, in physics light appears to be nothing morethan another form of movement of these two agents, and the ether(the electrical and magnetic medium which pervades all space)has come to have completely new characteristics or properties.And in what schema of scholastic concepts shall we put the storeof energy capable of doing work, whose constancy is stated inthe law of the conservation of energy and which, indestructibleand incapable of increase like a substance, is acting as the motivepower in every movement of inanimate as well as animate materialsstore of energy which is neither mind nor matter, yet is likea Proteus, clothing itself always in new forms; capable of actingthroughout infinite space, yet not infinitely divisible like space;the effective cause of every effect, the mover in every movement? Did the poet have a notion of it?In the tides of Life, in Action's storm, A fluctuant wave,A shuttle free,Birth and the Grave, An eternal sea,A weaving, flowingLife, all-glowing,Thus at Time's humming loom't is my hand preparesThe garment of Life which the Deity wears ! [Faust]We are particles of dust on the surface of our planet, which isitself scarcely a grain of sand in the infinite space of the universe. We are the youngest species among the living things of the earth,hardly out of the cradle according to the time reckoning of geology,still in the learning stage, hardly half-grown, said to be matureonly through mutual agreement. Nevertheless, because of the mightystimulus of the law of causality, we have already grown beyondour fellow creatures and are overcoming them in the struggle forexistence. We truly have reason to be proud that it has beengiven to us to understand, slowly and through hard work, the incomprehensiblygreat scheme of things. Surely we need not feel in the leastashamed if we have not achieved this understanding upon the firstflight of an Icarus.Further Reading:Biography |Kant |Fichte |Schelling |Schopenhauer |Wundt |Brentano |Pavlov |Freud |Poincaré |Mach |Schlick |EinsteinPhilosophy Archive @ marxists.org"
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"content": "Albert Einstein (1949)Einstein's Reply to CriticismsSource: From Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist (1949), from The Library of Living Philosophers Series;Published: by Cambridge University Press, 1949. Including Neils Bohr's report of conversations with Einstein and Einstein's, reply reproduced here.BY WAY of introduction I must remark that it was not easy forme to do justice to the task of expressing myself concerning theessays contained in this volume. The reason lies in the fact thatthe essays refer to entirely too many subjects, which, at thepresent state of our knowledge, are only loosely connected witheach other. I first attempted to discuss the essays individually.However, I abandoned this procedure because nothing even approximatelyhomogeneous resulted, so that the reading of it could hardly havebeen either useful or enjoyable. I finally decided, therefore,to order these remarks, as far as possible, according to topicalconsiderations.Furthermore, after some vain efforts, I discovered that the mentalitywhich underlies a few of the essays differs so radically frommy own, that I am incapable of saying anything useful about them.This is not to be interpreted that I regard those essays - insofaras their content is at all meaningful to me - less highly thanI do those which lie closer to my own ways of thinking, to which[latter] I dedicate the following remarks.To begin with I refer to the essays of Wolfgang Pauli and MaxBorn. They describe the content of my work concerning quanta andstatistics in general in their inner consistency and in theirparticipation in the evolution of physics during the last halfcentury. It is meritorious that they have done this: For onlythose who have successfully wrestled with the problematic situationsof their own age can have a deep insight into those situations;unlike the later historian, who finds it difficult to make abstractionsfrom those concepts and views which appear to his generation asestablished, or even as self-evident. Both authors deprecate thefact that I reject the basic idea of contemporary statisticalquantum theory, insofar as I do not believe that this fundamentalconcept will provide a useful basis for the whole of physics.More of this later.I now come to what is probably the most interesting subject whichabsolutely must be discussed in connection with the detailed argumentsof my highly esteemed colleagues Born, Pauli, Heitler, Bohr, andMargenau. They are all firmly convinced that the riddle of thedouble nature of all corpuscles (corpuscular and undulatory character)has in essence found its final solution in the statistical quantumtheory. On the strength of the successes of this theory they considerit proved that a theoretically complete description of a systemcan, in essence, involve only statistical assertions concerningthe measurable quantities of this system. They are apparentlyall of the opinion that Heisenberg's indeterminacy-relation (thecorrectness of which is, from my own point of view, rightfullyregarded as finally demonstrated) is essentially prejudicial infavour of the character of all thinkable reasonable physical theoriesin the mentioned sense. In what follows I wish to adduce reasonswhich keep me from falling in line with the opinion of almostall contemporary theoretical physicists. I am, in fact, firmlyconvinced that the essentially statistical character of contemporaryquantum theory is solely to be ascribed to the fact that this[theory] operates with an incomplete description of physical systems.Above all, however, the reader should be convinced that I fullyrecognise the very important progress which the statistical quantumtheory has brought to theoretical physics. In the field of mechanicalproblems - i.e., wherever it is possible to consider the interactionof structures and of their parts with sufficient accuracy by postulatinga potential energy between material points - [this theory] evennow presents a system which, in its closed character, correctlydescribes the empirical relations between statable phenomena asthey were theoretically to be expected. This theory is until nowthe only one which unites the corpuscular and undulatory dualcharacter of matter in a logically satisfactory fashion; and the(testable) relations, which are contained in it, are, within thenatural limits fixed by the indeterminacy-relation, complete.The formal relations which are given in this theory - i.e., itsentire mathematical formalism - will probably have to be contained,in the form of logical inferences, in every useful future theory.What does not satisfy me in that theory, from the standpoint ofprinciple, is its attitude towards that which appears to me tobe the programmatic aim of all physics: the complete descriptionof any (individual) real situation (as it supposedly exists irrespectiveof any act of observation or substantiation). Whenever the positivisticallyinclined modern physicist hears such a formulation his reactionis that of a pitying smile. He says to himself: \"there wehave the naked formulation of a metaphysical prejudice, emptyof content, a prejudice, moreover, the conquest of which constitutesthe major epistemological achievement of physicists within thelast quarter-century. Has any man ever perceived a 'real physicalsituation'? How is it possible that a reasonable person couldtoday still believe that he can refute our essential knowledgeand understanding by drawing up such a bloodless ghost?\"Patience! The above laconic characterisation was not meant toconvince anyone; it was merely to indicate the point of view aroundwhich the following elementary considerations freely group themselves.In doing this I shall proceed as follows: I shall first of allshow in simple special cases what seems essential to me, and thenI shall make a few remarks about some more general ideas whichare involved.We consider as a physical system, in the first instance, a radioactiveatom of definite average decay time, which is practically exactlylocalised at a point of the coordinate system. The radioactiveprocess consists in the emission of a (comparatively light) particle.For the sake of simplicity we neglect the motion of the residualatom after the disintegration process. Then it is possible forus, following Gamow, to replace the rest of the atom by a spaceof atomic order of magnitude, surrounded by a closed potentialenergy barrier which, at a time t = 0, encloses the particle tobe emitted. The radioactive process thus schematised is then,as is well known, to be described - in the sense of elementaryquantum mechanics - by a Psi-function in three dimensions, whichat the time t= 0 is different from zero only inside of the barrier,but which, for positive times, expands into the outer space. ThisPsi-function yields the probability that the particle, at somechosen instant, is actually in a chosen part of space (i.e., isactually found there by a measurement of position). On the other"
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"content": "hand, the Psi-function does not imply any assertion concerningthe time instant of the disintegration of the radioactiveatom.Now we raise the question: Can this theoretical description betaken as the complete description of the disintegration of a singleindividual atom? The immediately plausible answer is: No. Forone is, first of all, inclined to assume that the individual atomdecays at a definite time; however, such a definite time-valueis not implied in the description by the Psi-function. If, therefore,the individual atom has a definite disintegration time, then asregards the individual atom its description by means of the Psi-functionmust be interpreted as an incomplete description. In this casethe Psi-function is to be taken as the description, not of a singularsystem, but of an ideal ensemble of systems. In this case oneis driven to the conviction that a complete description of a singlesystem should, after all, be possible, but for such complete descriptionthere is no room in the conceptual world of statistical quantumtheory.To this the quantum theorist will reply: This consideration standsand falls with the assertion that there actually is such a thingas a definite time of disintegration of the individual atom (aninstant of time existing independently of any observation). Butthis assertion is, from my point of view, not merely arbitrarybut actually meaningless. The assertion of the existence of adefinite time-instant for the disintegration makes sense onlyif I can in principle determine this time-instant empirically.Such an assertion, however, (which, finally, leads to the attemptto prove the existence of the particle outside of the force barrier),involves a definite disturbance of the system in which we areinterested, so that the result of the determination does not permita conclusion concerning the status of the undisturbed system.The supposition, therefore, that a radioactive atom has a definitedisintegration-time is not justified by anything whatsoever; itis, therefore, not demonstrated either that the Psi-function cannot be conceived as a complete description of the individual system.The entire alleged difficulty proceeds from the fact that onepostulates something not observable as \"real.\" (Thisthe answer of the quantum theorist.)What I dislike in this kind of argumentation is the basic positivisticattitude, which from my point of view is untenable, and whichseems to me to come to the same thing as Berkeley's principle,esse est percipi. \"Being\" is always somethingwhich is mentally constructed by us, that is, something whichwe freely posit (in the logical sense). The justification of suchconstructs does not lie in their derivation from what is givenby the senses. Such a type of derivation (in the sense of logicaldeducibility) is nowhere to be had, not even in the domain ofpre-scientific thinking. The justification of the constructs,which represent \"reality\" for us, lies alone in theirquality of making intelligible what is sensorily given (the vaguecharacter of this expression is here forced upon me by my strivingfor brevity). Applied to the specifically chosen example thisconsideration tells us the following:One may not merely ask: \"Does a definite time instant forthe transformation of a single atom exist?\" but rather: \"Isit, within the framework of our theoretical total construction,reasonable to posit the existence of a definite point of timefor the transformation of a single atom?\" One may not evenask what this assertion means. One can only ask whethersuch a proposition, within the framework of the chosen conceptualsystem - with a view to its ability to grasp theoretically whatis empirically given - is reasonable or not.Insofar, then, as a quantum-theoretician takes the position thatthe description by means of a Psi-function refers only to an idealsystematic totality but in no wise to the individual system, hemay calmly assume a definite point of time for the transformation.But, if he represents the assumption that his description by wayof the Psi-function is to be taken as the complete description ofthe individual system, then he must reject the postulation ofa specific decay-time. He can justifiably point to the fact thata determination of the instant of disintegration is not possibleon an isolated system, but would require disturbances of sucha character that they must not be neglected in the critical examinationof the situation. It would, for example, not be possible to concludefrom the empirical statement that the transformation has alreadytaken place, that this would have been the case if the disturbancesof the system had not taken place.As far as I know, it was E. Schrödinger who first calledattention to a modification of this consideration, which showsan interpretation of this type to be impracticable. Rather thanconsidering a system which comprises only a radioactive atom (andits process of transformation), one considers a system which includesalso the means for ascertaining the radioactive transformation- for example, a Geiger-counter with automatic registration-mechanism.Let this latter include a registration-strip, moved by a clockwork,upon which a mark is made by tripping the counter. True, fromthe point of view of quantum mechanics this total system is verycomplex and its configuration space is of very high dimension.But there is in principle no objection to treating this entiresystem from the standpoint of quantum mechanics. Here too thetheory determines the probability of each configuration of allits co-ordinates for every time instant. If one considers allconfigurations of the coordinates, for a time large compared withthe average decay time of the radioactive atom, there will be(at most) one such registration-mark on the paper strip.To each coordinate configuration corresponds a definite positionof the mark on the paper strip. But, inasmuch as the theory yieldsonly the relative probability of the thinkable co-ordinate-configurations,it also offers only relative probabilities for the positions ofthe mark on the paper strip, but no definite location for thismark.In this consideration the location of the mark on the strip playsthe role played in the original consideration by the time of thedisintegration. The reason for the introduction of the systemsupplemented by the registration-mechanism lies in the following.The location of the mark on the registration-strip is a fact whichbelongs entirely within the sphere of macroscopic concepts, incontradistinction to the instant of disintegration of a singleatom. If we attempt [to work with] the interpretation that thequantum-theoretical description is to be understood as a completedescription of the individual system, we are forced to the interpretationthat the location of the mark on the strip is nothing which belongsto the system per se, but that the existence of that location"
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"content": "is essentially dependent upon the carrying out of an observationmade on the registration-strip. Such an interpretation is certainlyby no means absurd from a purely logical standpoint, yet thereis hardly likely to be anyone who would be inclined to considerit seriously. For, in the macroscopic sphere it simply is consideredcertain that one must adhere to the program of a realistic descriptionin space and time; whereas in the sphere of microscopic situationsone is more readily inclined to give up, or at least to modify,this program.This discussion was only to bring out the following. One arrivesat very implausible theoretical conceptions, if one attempts tomaintain the thesis that the statistical quantum theory is inprinciple capable of producing a complete description of an individualphysical system. On the other hand, those difficulties of theoreticalinterpretation disappear, if one views the quantum-mechanicaldescription as the description of ensembles of systems.I reached this conclusion as the result of quite different typesof considerations. I am convinced that everyone who will takethe trouble to carry through such reflections conscientiouslywill find himself finally driven to this interpretation of quantum-theoreticaldescription (the Psi-function is to be understood as the descriptionnot of a single system but of an ensemble of systems).Roughly stated the conclusion is this: Within the framework ofstatistical quantum theory there is no such thing as a completedescription of the individual system. More cautiously it mightbe put as follows: The attempt to conceive the quantum-theoreticaldescription as the complete description of the individual systemsleads to unnatural theoretical interpretations, which become immediatelyunnecessary if one accepts the interpretation that the descriptionrefers to ensembles of systems and not to individual systems.In that case the whole \"egg-walking\" performed in orderto avoid the \"physically real\" becomes superfluous.There exists, however, a simple psychological reason for the factthat this most nearly obvious interpretation is being shunned.For if the statistical quantum theory does not pretend to describethe individual system (and its development in time) completely,it appears unavoidable to look elsewhere for a complete descriptionof the individual system; in doing so it would be clear from thevery beginning that the elements of such a description are notcontained within the conceptual scheme of the statistical quantumtheory. With this one would admit that, in principle, this schemecould not serve as the basis of theoretical physics. Assumingthe success of efforts to accomplish a complete physical description,the statistical quantum theory would, within the framework offuture physics, take an approximately analogous position to thestatistical mechanics within the framework of classical mechanics.I am rather firmly convinced that the development of theoreticalphysics will be of this type; but the path will be lengthy anddifficult.I now imagine a quantum theoretician who may even admit that thequantum-theoretical description refers to ensembles of systemsand not to individual systems, but who, nevertheless, clings tothe idea that the type of description of the statistical quantumtheory will, in its essential features, be retained in the future.He may argue as follows: True, I admit that the quantum-theoreticaldescription is an incomplete description of the individual system.I even admit that a complete theoretical description is, in principle,thinkable. But I consider it proven that the search for such acomplete description would be aimless. For the lawfulness of natureis thus constituted that the laws can be completely and suitablyformulated within the framework of our incomplete description.To this I can only reply as follows: Your point of view - takenas theoretical possibility - is incontestable. For me, however,the expectation that the adequate formulation of the universallaws involves the use of all conceptual elements whichare necessary for a complete description, is more natural. Itis furthermore not at all surprising that, by using an incompletedescription, (in the main) only statistical statements can beobtained out of such description. If it should be possible tomove forward to a complete description, it is likely that thelaws would represent relations among all the conceptual elementsof this description which, per se, have nothing to do withstatistics.A few more remarks of a general nature concerning concepts and[also] concerning the insinuation that a concept - for examplethat of the real - is something metaphysical (and therefore tobe rejected). A basic conceptual distinction, which is a necessaryprerequisite of scientific and pre-scientific thinking, is thedistinction between \"sense-impressions\" (and the recollectionof such) on the one hand and mere ideas on the other. There isno such thing as a conceptual definition of this distinction (asidefrom, circular definitions, i.e., of such as make a hidden useof the object to be defined). Nor can it be maintained that atthe base of this distinction there is a type of evidence, suchas underlies, for example, the distinction between red and blue.Yet, one needs this distinction in order to be able to overcomesolipsism. Solution: we shall make use of this distinction unconcernedwith the reproach that, in doing so, we are guilty of the metaphysical\"original sin.\" We regard the distinction as a categorywhich we use in order that we might the better find our way inthe world of immediate sensations. The \"sense\" and thejustification of this distinction lies simply in this achievement.But this is only a first step. We represent the sense-impressionsas conditioned by an \"objective\" and by a \"subjective\"factor. For this conceptual distinction there also is no logical-philosophicaljustification. But if we reject it, we cannot escape solipsism.It is also the presupposition of every kind of physical thinking.Here too, the only justification lies in its usefulness. We arehere concerned with \"categories\" or schemes of thought,the selection of which is, in principle, entirely open to us andwhose qualification can only be judged by the degree to whichits use contributes to making the totality of the contents ofconsciousness \"intelligible.\" The above mentioned \"objectivefactor\" is the totality of such concepts and conceptual relationsas are thought of as independent of experience, viz., of perceptions.So long as we move within the thus programmatically fixed sphereof thought we are thinking physically. Insofar as physical thinkingjustifies itself, in the more than once indicated sense, by itsability to grasp experiences intellectually, we regard it as \"knowledgeof the real.\"After what has been said, the \"real\" in physics is tobe taken as a type of program, to which we are, however, not forcedto cling a priori. No one is likely to be inclined to attempt"
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"content": "to give up this program within the realm of the \"macroscopic\"(location of the mark on the paper strip \"real\"). Butthe \"macroscopic\" and the \"microscopic\" areso inter-related that it appears impracticable to give up thisprogram in the \"microscopic\" alone. Nor can I see anyoccasion anywhere within the observable facts of the quantum-fieldfor doing so, unless, indeed, one clings a priori to thethesis that the description of nature by the statistical schemeof quantum-mechanics is final.The theoretical attitude here advocated is distinct from thatof Kant only by the fact that we do not conceive of the \"categories\"as unalterable (conditioned by the nature of the understanding)but as (in the logical sense) free conventions. They appear tobe a priori only insofar as thinking without the positingof categories and of concepts in general would be as impossibleas is breathing in a vacuum.From these meagre remarks one will see that to me it must seema mistake to permit theoretical description to be directly dependentupon acts of empirical assertions, as it seems to me to be intended[for example] in Bohr's principle of complementarity, the sharpformulation of which, moreover, I have been unable to achievedespite much effort which I have expended on it. From my pointof view [such] statements or measurements can occur only as specialinstances, viz., parts, of physical description, to which I cannotascribe any exceptional position above the rest.The above mentioned essays by Bohr and Pauli contain a historicalappreciation of my efforts in the area of physical statisticsand quanta and, in addition, an accusation which is brought forwardin the friendliest of fashion. In briefest formulation this latterruns as follows: \"Rigid adherence to classical theory.\"This accusation demands either a defence or the confession ofguilt. The one or the other is, however, being rendered much moredifficult because it is by no means immediately clear what ismeant by \"classical theory.\" Newton's theory deservesthe name of a classical theory. It has nevertheless been abandonedsince Maxwell and Hertz have shown that the idea of forces ata distance has to be relinquished and that one cannot manage withoutthe idea of continuous \"fields.\" The opinion that continuousfields are to be viewed as the only acceptable basic concepts,which must also be assumed to underlie the theory of the materialparticles, soon won out. Now this conception became, so to speak,\"classical;\" but a proper, and in principle complete,theory has not grown out of it. Maxwell's theory of theelectric field remained a torso, because it was unable to setup laws for the behaviour of electric density, without which therecan, of course, be no such thing as an electro-magnetic field.Analogously the general theory of relativity furnished then afield theory of gravitation, but no theory of the field-creatingmasses. (These remarks presuppose it as self-evident that a field-theorymay not contain any singularities, i.e., any positions or partsin space in which the field laws are not valid.)Consequently there is, strictly speaking, today no such thingas a classical field-theory; one can, therefore, also not rigidlyadhere to it. Nevertheless, field-theory does exist as a program:\"Continuous functions in the four-dimensional [continuum]as basic concepts of the theory.\" Rigid adherence to thisprogram can rightfully be asserted of me. The deeper ground forthis lies in the following: The theory of gravitation showed methat the non-linearity of these equations results in the factthat this theory yields interactions among structures (localisedthings) at all. But the theoretical search for non-linear equationsis hopeless (because of too great variety of possibilities), ifone does not use the general principle of relativity (invarianceunder general continuous co-ordinate-transformations). In themeantime, however, it does not seem possible to formulate thisprinciple, if one seeks to deviate from the above program. Hereinlies a coercion which I cannot evade. This for my justification.Nevertheless I am forced to weaken this justification by a confession.If one disregards quantum structure, one can justify the introductionof the gik \"operationally\" by pointing to the fact thatone can hardly doubt the physical reality of the elementary lightcone which belongs to a point. In doing so one implicitly makesuse of the existence of an arbitrarily sharp optical signal. Sucha signal, however, as regards the quantum facts, involves infinitelyhigh frequencies and energies, and therefore a complete destructionof the field to be determined. That kind of a physical justificationfor the introduction of the gik falls by the wayside, unless onelimits himself to the \"macroscopic.\" The applicationof the formal basis of the general theory of relativity to the\"microscopic\" can, therefore, be based only upon thefact that that tensor is the formally simplest covariant structurewhich can come under consideration. Such argumentation, however,carries no weight with anyone who doubts that we have to adhereto the continuum at all. All honour to his doubt - but where elseis there a passable road?Now I come to the theme of the relation of the theory of relativityto philosophy. Here it is Reichenbach's piece of work which, bythe precision of deductions and by the sharpness of his assertions,irresistibly invites a brief commentary. Robertson's lucid discussionalso is interesting mainly from the standpoint of general epistemology,although it limits itself to the narrower theme of \"the theoryof relativity and geometry.\" To the question: Do you considertrue what Reichenbach has here asserted, I can answer only withPilate's famous question: \"What is truth?\"Let us first take a good look at the question: Is a geometry -looked at from the physical point of view - verifiable (viz.,falsifiable) or not? Reichenbach, together with Helmholtz, says:Yes, provided that the empirically given solid body realises theconcept of \"distance.\" Poincare says no and consequentlyis condemned by Reichenbach. Now the following short conversationtakes place:Poincare: The empirically given bodies are not rigid,and consequently can not be used for the embodiment of geometricintervals. Therefore, the theorems of geometry are not verifiable.Reichenbach: I admit that there are no bodies whichcan be immediately adduced for the \"real definition\"of the interval. Nevertheless, this real definition can be achievedby taking the thermal volume-dependence, elasticity, electro-and magnetostriction, etc., into consideration. That this is really[and] without contradiction possible, classical physics has surelydemonstrated.Poincare: In gaining the real definition improvedby yourself you have made use of physical laws, the formulationof which presupposes (in this case) Euclidean geometry. The verification,of which you have spoken, refers, therefore, not merely to geometrybut to the entire system of physical laws which constitute its"
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"content": "foundation. An examination of geometry by itself is consequentlynot thinkable. - Why should it consequently not be entirely upto me to choose geometry according to my own convenience (i.e.,Euclidean) and to fit the remaining (in the usual sense \"physical\")laws to this choice in such manner that there can arise no contradictionof the whole with experience?(The conversation cannot be continued in this fashion becausethe respect of the [present] writer for Poincare's superiorityas thinker and author does not permit it; in what follows therefore,an anonymous non-positivist is substituted for Poincare. - )Reichenbach: There is something quite attractivein this conception. But, on the other hand, it is noteworthy thatthe adherence to the objective meaning of length and to the interpretationof the differences of co-ordinates as distances (in pre-relativisticphysics) has not led to complications. Should we not, on the basisof this astounding fact, be justified in operating further atleast tentatively with the concept of the measurable length, asif there were such things as rigid measuring-rods. In any caseit would have been impossible for Einstein de facto (even if nottheoretically) to set up the theory of general relativity, ifhe had not adhered to the objective meaning of length.Against Poincare's suggestion it is to be pointed out that whatreally matters is not merely the greatest possible simplicityof the geometry alone, but rather the greatest possible simplicityof all of physics (inclusive of geometry). This is what is, inthe first instance, involved in the fact that today we must declineas unsuitable the suggestion to adhere to Euclidean geometry.Non-Positivist: If, under the stated circumstances,you hold distance to be a legitimate concept, how then is it withyour basic principle (meaning = verifiability) ? Do you not haveto reach the point where you must deny the meaning of geometricalconcepts and theorems and to acknowledge meaning only within thecompletely developed theory of relativity (which, however, doesnot yet exist at all as a finished product)? Do you not have toadmit that, in your sense of the word, no \"meaning\"can be attributed to the individual concepts and assertions ofa physical theory at all, and to the entire system only insofaras it makes what is given in experience \"intelligible?\"Why do the individual concepts which occur in a theory requireany specific Justification anyway, if they are only indispensablewithin the framework of the logical structure of the theory, andthe theory only in its entirety validates itself?It seems to me, moreover, that you have not at all done justiceto the really significant philosophical achievement of Kant. FromHume Kant had learned that there are concepts (as, for example,that of causal connection), which play a dominating role in ourthinking, and which, nevertheless, can not be deduced by meansof a logical process from the empirically given (a fact whichseveral empiricists recognise, it is true, but seem always againto forget). What justifies the use of such concepts? Suppose hehad replied in this sense: Thinking is necessary in order to understandthe empirically given, and concepts and \"categories\"are necessary as indispensable elements of thinking. If hehad remained satisfied with this type of an answer, he would haveavoided scepticism and you would not have been able to find faultwith him. He, however, was misled by the erroneous opinion, difficultto avoid in his time - that Euclidean geometry is necessary tothinking and offers assured (i.e., not dependent upon sensoryexperience) knowledge concerning the objects of \"external\"perception. From this easily understandable error he concludedthe existence of synthetic judgments a priori, which areproduced by the reason alone, and which, consequently, can layclaim to absolute validity. I think your censure is directed lessagainst Kant himself than against those who today still adhereto the errors of \"synthetic judgments a priori.\"I can hardly think of anything more stimulating as the basis fordiscussion in an epistemological seminar than this brief essayby Reichenbach (best taken together with Robertson's essay).What has been discussed thus far is closely related to Bridgman'sessay, so that it will be possible for me to express myself quitebriefly without having to harbour too much fear that I shall bemisunderstood. In order to be able to consider a logical systemas physical theory it is not necessary to demand that all of itsassertions can be independently interpreted and \"tested\"\"operationally;\" de facto this has never yetbeen achieved by any theory and can not at all be achieved. Inorder to be able to consider a theory as a physical theoryit is only necessary that it implies empirically testable assertionsin general.This formulation is insofar entirely unprecise as \"testability\"is a quality which refers not merely to the assertion itself butalso to the co-ordination of concepts, contained in it, with experience.But it is probably hardly necessary for me to enter upon a discussionof this ticklish problem, inasmuch as it is not likely that thereexist any essential differences of opinion at this point. - Margenau;. This essay contains several originalspecific remarks, which I must consider separately:To his Sec. I: \"Einstein's position . . . contains featuresof rationalism and extreme empiricism....\" This remark isentirely correct. From whence comes this fluctuation? A logicalconceptual system is physics insofar as its concepts and assertionsare necessarily brought into relationship with the world of experiences.Whoever desires to set up such a system will find a dangerousobstacle in arbitrary choice (embarras de richesse). Thisis why he seeks to connect his concepts as directly and necessarilyas possible with the world of experience. In this case his attitudeis empirical. This path is often fruitful, but it is always opento doubt, because the specific concept and the individual assertioncan, after all, assert something confronted by the empiricallygiven only in connection with the entire system. He then recognisesthat there exists no logical path from the empirically given tothat conceptual world. His attitude becomes then more nearly rationalistic,because he recognises the logical independence of the system.The danger in this attitude lies in the fact that in the searchfor the system one can lose every contact with the world of experience.A wavering between these extremes appears to me unavoidable.To his Sec. 2: I did not grow up in the Kantian tradition, butcame to understand the truly valuable which is to be found inhis doctrine, alongside of errors which today are quite obvious,only quite late. It is contained in the sentence: \"The real"
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"content": "is not given to us, but put to us (aufgegeben) (by wayof a riddle).\" This obviously means: There is such a thingas a conceptual construction for the grasping of the inter-personal,the authority of which lies purely in its validation. This conceptualconstruction refers precisely to the \"real\" (by definition),and every further question concerning the \"nature of thereal\" appears empty.To his Sec. 4: This discussion has not convinced me at all. Forit is clear per se that every magnitude and every assertionof a theory lays claim to \"objective meaning\" (withinthe framework of the theory). A problem arises only when we ascribegroup-characteristics to a theory, i.e., if we assume or postulatethat the same physical situation admits of several ways of description,each of which is to be viewed as equally justified. For in thiscase we obviously cannot ascribe complete objective meaning (forexample the x-component of the velocity of a particle or its x-coordinates)to the individual (not eliminable) magnitudes. In this case, whichhas always existed in physics, we have to limit ourselves to ascribingobjective meaning to the general laws of the theory, i.e., wehave to demand that these laws are valid for every descriptionof the system which is recognised as justified by the group. Itis, therefore, not true that \"objectivity\" presupposesa group-characteristic, but that the group-characteristic forcesa refinement of the concept of objectivity. The positing of groupcharacteristics is heuristically so important for theory, becausethis characteristic always considerably limits the variety ofthe mathematically meaningful laws.Now there follows a claim that the group-characteristics determinethat the laws must have the form of differential equations; Ican not at all see this. Then Margenau insists that the laws expressedby way of the differential equations (especially the partial ones)are \"least specific.\" Upon what does he base this contention?If they could be proved to be correct, it is true that the attemptto ground physics upon differential equations would then turnout to be hopeless. We are, however, far from being able to judgewhether differential laws of the type to be considered have anysolutions at all which are everywhere singularity-free; and, ifso, whether there are too many such solutions.And now just a remark concerning the discussions about the Einstein-Podolski-RosenParadox. I do not think that Margenau's defence of the \"orthodox\"(\"orthodox\" refers to the thesis that the t-functioncharacterises the individual system exhaustively) quantumposition hits the essential [aspects]. Of the \"orthodox\"quantum theoreticians whose position I know, Niels Bohr's seemsto me to come nearest to doing justice to the problem. Translatedinto my own way of putting it, he argues as follows:If the partial systems A and B form a total system which is describedby its Psi-function Psi/(AB), there is no reason why anymutually independent existence (state of reality) should be ascribedto the partial systems A and B viewed separately,not even if the partial systems are spatially separatedfrom each other at the particular time under consideration.The assertion that, in this latter case, the real situation ofB could not be (directly) influenced by any measurementtaken on A is, therefore, within the framework of quantumtheory, unfounded and (as the paradox shows) unacceptable.By this way of looking at the matter it becomes evident that theparadox forces us to relinquish one of the following two assertions:(1) the description by means of the Psi-function is complete(2) the real states of spatially separated objects are independentof each other.On the other hand, it is possible to adhere to (2), if one regardsthe Psi-function as the description of a (statistical) ensembleof systems (and therefore relinquishes (1) ) . However, thisview blasts the framework of the \"orthodox quantum theory.\"One more remark to Margenau's Sec. 7. In the characterisationof quantum mechanics the brief little sentence will be found:\"on the classical level it corresponds to ordinary dynamics.\"This is entirely correct - cum grano salis; and it is preciselythis granum salis which is significant for the question of interpretation.If our concern is with macroscopic masses (billiard balls or stars),we are operating with very short de Broglie-waves, which are determinativefor the behaviour of the center of gravity of such masses. Thisis the reason why it is possible to arrange the quantum-theoreticaldescription for a reasonable time in such a manner that for themacroscopic way of viewing things, it becomes sufficiently precisein position as well as in momentum. It is true also that thissharpness remains for a long time and that the quasi-points thusrepresented behave just like the mass-points of classical mechanics.However, the theory shows also that, after a sufficiently longtime, the point-like character of the Psi-function is completelylost to the center of gravity-co-ordinates, so that one can nolonger speak of any quasi-localisation of the centers of gravity.The picture then becomes, for example in the case of a singlemacro-mass-point, quite similar to that involved in a single freeelectron.If now, in accordance with the orthodox position, I view the Psi-functionas the complete description of a real matter of fact for the individualcase, I cannot but consider the essentially unlimited lack ofsharpness of the position of the (macroscopic) body as real.On the other hand, however, we know that, by illuminating thebody by means of a lantern at rest against the system of co-ordinates,we get a (macroscopically judged) sharp determination of position.In order to comprehend this I must assume that that sharply definedposition is determined not merely by the real situation of theobserved body, but also by the act of illumination. This is againa paradox (similar to the mark on the paper strip in the abovementioned example). The spook disappears only if one relinquishesthe orthodox standpoint, according to which the Psi-function isaccepted as a complete description of the single system.It may appear as if all such considerations were just superfluouslearned hairsplitting, which have nothing to do with physics proper.However, it depends precisely upon such considerations in whichdirection one believes one must look for the future conceptualbasis of physics.I close these expositions, which have grown rather lengthy, concerningthe interpretation of quantum theory with the reproduction ofa brief conversation which I had with an important theoreticalphysicist. He: \"I am inclined to believe in telepathy.\"I: \"This has probably more to do with physics than with psychology.\"He: \"Yes.\"The essays by Lenzen and Northrop both aim to treat my occasionalutterances of epistemological content systematically. From thoseutterances Lenzen constructs a synoptic total picture, in which"
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"content": "what is missing in the utterances is carefully and with delicacyof feeling supplied. Everything said therein appears to me convincingand correct. Northrop uses these utterances as point of departurefor a comparative critique of the major epistemological systems.I see in this critique a masterpiece of unbiased thinking andconcise discussion, which nowhere permits itself to be divertedfrom the essential.The reciprocal relationship of epistemology and science is ofnoteworthy kind. They are dependent upon each other. Epistemologywithout contact with science becomes an empty scheme. Sciencewithout epistemology is - insofar as it is thinkable at all -primitive and muddled. However, no sooner has the epistemologist,who is seeking a clear system, fought his way through to sucha system, than he is inclined to interpret the thought-contentof science in the sense of his system and to reject whatever doesnot fit into his system. The scientist, however, cannot affordto carry his striving for epistemological systematic that far.He accepts gratefully the epistemological conceptual analysis;but the external conditions, which are set for him by the factsof experience, do not permit him to let himself be too much restrictedin the construction of his conceptual world by the adherence toan epistemological system. He therefore must appear to the systematicepistemologist as a type of unscrupulous opportunist: he appearsas realist insofar as he seeks to describe a worldindependent of the acts of perception; as idealistinsofar as he looks upon the concepts and theories as the freeinventions of the human spirit (not logically derivable from whatis empirically given); as positivist insofar ashe considers his concepts and theories justified only to the extentto which they furnish a logical representation of relations amongsensory experiences. He may even appear as Platonistor Pythagorean insofar as he considers the viewpointof logical simplicity as an indispensable and effective tool ofhis research.All of this is splendidly elucidated in Lenzen's and Northrop'sessays.And now a few remarks concerning the essays by E. A. Milne, G.Lemaitre, and L. Infeld as concerns the cosmological problem:Concerning Milne's ingenious reflections I can only say that Ifind their theoretical basis too narrow. From my point of viewone cannot arrive, by way of theory, at any at least somewhatreliable results in the field of cosmology, if one makes no useof the principle of general relativity.As concerns Lemaître's arguments in favour of the so-called\"cosmological constant\" in the equations of gravitation,I must admit that these arguments do not appear to me as sufficientlyconvincing in view of the present state of our knowledge.The introduction of such a constant implies a considerable renunciationof the logical simplicity of theory, a renunciation which appearedto me unavoidable only so long as one had no reason to doubt theessentially static nature of space. After Hubble's discovery ofthe \"expansion\" of the stellar system, and since Friedmann'sdiscovery that the unsupplemented equations involve the possibilityof the existence of an average (positive) density of matter inan expanding universe, the introduction of such a constant appearsto me, from the theoretical standpoint, at present unjustified.The situation becomes complicated by the fact that the entireduration of the expansion of space to the present, based on theequations in their simplest form, turns out smaller than appearscredible in view of the reliably known age of terrestrial minerals.But the introduction of the \"cosmological constant\"offers absolutely no natural escape from the difficulty. Thislatter difficulty is given by way of the numerical value of Hubble'sexpansion-constant and the age-measurement of minerals, completelyindependent of any cosmological theory, provided that one interpretsthe Hubble-effect as Doppler effect.Everything finally depends upon the question: Can a spectral linebe considered as a measure of a \"proper time\" (Eigen-Zeit) ds(ds2 = gikdxidxk), (if one takes into consideration regions ofcosmic dimensions)? Is there such a thing as a natural objectwhich incorporates the \"natural-measuring-stick\" independentlyof its position in four-dimensional space? The affirmation ofthis question made the invention of the general theory of relativitypsychologically possible; however this supposition is logicallynot necessary. For the construction of the present theory of relativitythe following is essential:(1) Physical things are described by continuous functions, field-variablesof four co-ordinates. As long as the topological connection ispreserved, these latter can be freely chosen.(2) The field-variables are tensor-components; among the tensorsis a symmetrical tensor gik for the description of the gravitationalfield.(3) There are physical objects, which (in the macroscopic field)measure the invariant ds.If (1) and (2) are accepted, (3) is plausible, but not necessary.The construction of mathematical theory rests exclusively upon(1) and (2).A complete theory of physics as a totality, in accordance with(1) and (2) does not yet exist. If it did exist, there would beno room for the supposition (3). For the objects used as toolsfor measurement do not lead an independent existence alongsideof the objects implicated by the field-equations. - - It is notnecessary that one should permit one's cosmological considerationsto be restrained by such a sceptical attitude; but neither shouldone close one's mind towards them from the very beginning.These reflections bring me to Karl Menger's essay. For the quantum-factssuggest the suspicion that doubt may also be raised concerningthe ultimate usefulness of the program characterised in (1) and(2). There exists the possibility of doubting only (2) and, indoing so, to question the possibility of being able adequatelyto formulate the laws by means of differential equations, withoutdropping (1). The more radical effort of surrendering (1) with(2) appears to me - and I believe to Dr. Menger also - to liemore closely at hand. So long as no one has new concepts, whichappear to have sufficient constructive power, mere doubt remains;this is, unfortunately, my own situation. Adhering to the continuumoriginates with me not in a prejudice, but arises out of the factthat I have been unable to think up anything organic to take itsplace. How is one to conserve four-dimensionality in essence (orin near approximation) and [at the same time] surrender the continuum?L. Infeld's essay is an independently understandable, excellentintroduction into the so-called \"cosmological problem\"of the theory of relativity, which critically examines all essentialpoints.Max von Laue: An historical investigation of the development ofthe conservation postulates, which, in my opinion, is of lastingvalue. I think it would be worth while to make this essay easilyaccessible to students by way of independent publication.In spite of serious efforts I have not succeeded in quite understanding"
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"content": "H. Dingle's essay, not even as concerns its aim. Is the idea ofthe special theory of relativity to be expanded in the sense thatnew group-characteristics, which are not implied by the Lorentz-invariance,are to be postulated? Are these postulates empirically foundedor only by way of a trial \"posited\"? Upon what doesthe confidence in the existence of such group-characteristicsrest?Kurt Gödel's essay constitutes, in my opinion, an importantcontribution to the general theory of relativity, especially tothe analysis of the concept of time. The problem here involveddisturbed me already at the time of the building up of the generaltheory of relativity, without my having succeeded in clarifyingit. Entirely aside from the relation of the theory of relativityto idealistic philosophy or to any philosophical formulation ofquestions, the problem presents itself as follows:If P is a world-point, a \"light-cone\" (ds2= 0)belongs to it. We draw a \"time-like\" world-line throughP and on this line observe the close world-points B andA, separated by P. Does it make any sense to providethe world-line with an arrow, and to assert that B is beforeP, A after P? Is what remains of temporalconnection between world-points in the theory of relativity anasymmetrical relation, or would one be just as much justified,from the physical point of view, to indicate the arrow in theopposite direction and to assert that A is before P,B after P?In the first instance the alternative is decided in the negative,if we are justified in saying: If it is possible to send (to telegraph)a signal (also passing by in the close proximity of P)from B to A, but not from A to B,then the one-sided (asymmetrical) character of time is secured,i.e., there exists no free choice for the direction of the arrow.What is essential in this is the fact that the sending of a signalis, in the sense of thermodynamics, an irreversible process, aprocess which is connected with the growth of entropy (whereas,according to our present knowledge, all elementary processesare reversible).If, therefore, B and A are two, sufficiently neighbouring,world-points, which can be connected by a time-like line, thenthe assertion: \"B is before A,\" makesphysical sense. But does this assertion still make sense, if thepoints, which are connectable by the time-like line, are arbitrarilyfar separated from each other? Certainly not, if there exist point-seriesconnectable by time-like lines in such a way that each point precedestemporally the preceding one, and if the series is closed initself. In that case the distinction \"earlier-later\"is abandoned for world-points which lie far apart in a cosmologicalsense, and those paradoxes, regarding the direction ofthe causal connection, arise, of which Mr. Gödel has spoken.Such cosmological solutions of the gravitation-equations (withnot vanishing A-constant) have been found by Mr. Gödel. Itwill be interesting to weigh whether these are not to be excludedon physical grounds.I have the distressing feeling that I have expressed myself, inthis reply, not merely somewhat longwindedly but also rather sharply.This observation may serve as my excuse: one can really quarrelonly with his brothers or close friends; others are too alien[for that].P.S. The preceding remarks refer to essays which were in my handsat the end of January 1949. Inasmuch as the volume was to haveappeared in March, it was high time to write down these reflections.After they had been concluded I learned that the publication ofthe volume would experience a further delay and that some additionalimportant essays had come in. I decided, nevertheless, not toexpand my remarks further, which had already become too long,and to desist from taking any position with reference to thoseessays which came into my hands after the conclusion of my remarks.Further Reading:Biography |Einstein Archive |Bridgman |BohrPhilosophy Archive @ marxists.org"
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"content": "Charles Peirce (1878)How to Make our Ideas ClearSource: How to make our Ideas Clear (1878), from Writings of Charles S Peirce, Volume 3, Indiana University Press. 3 of 4 parts, excluding Part I reproduced here.See also What Is a Sign?, Three Trichotomies of Signs, On Hegel.IIThe principles set forth in the first of these papers lead, atonce, to a method of reaching a clearness of thought of a farhigher grade than the \"distinctness\" of the logicians.We have there found that the action of thought is excited by theirritation of doubt, and ceases when belief is attained; so thatthe production of belief is the sole function of thought. Allthese words, however, are too strong for my purpose. It is asif I had described the phenomena as they appear under a mentalmicroscope. Doubt and Belief, as the words are commonly employed,relate to religious or other grave discussions. But here I usethem to designate the starting of any question, no matter howsmall or how great, and the resolution of it. If, for instance,in a horse-car, I pull out my purse and find a five-cent nickeland five coppers, I decide, while my hand is going to the purse,in which way I will pay my fare. To call such a question Doubt,and my decision Belief, is certainly to use words very disproportionateto the occasion. To speak of such a doubt as causing an irritationwhich needs to be appeased, suggests a temper which is uncomfortableto the verge of insanity. Yet, looking at the matter minutely,it must be admitted that, if there is the least hesitation asto whether I shall pay the five coppers or the nickel (as therewill be sure to be, unless I act from some previously contractedhabit in the matter), though irritation is too strong a word,yet I am excited to such small mental activity as may be necessaryto deciding how I shall act. Most frequently doubts arise fromsome indecision, however momentary, in our action. Sometimes itis not so. I have, for example, to wait in a railway-station,and to pass the time I read the advertisements on the walls, Icompare the advantages of different trains and different routeswhich I never expect to take, merely fancying myself to be ina state of hesitancy, because I am bored with having nothing totrouble me. Feigned hesitancy, whether feigned for mere amusementor with a lofty purpose, plays a great part in the productionof scientific inquiry. However the doubt may originate, it stimulatesthe mind to an activity which may be slight or energetic, calmor turbulent. Images pass rapidly through consciousness, one incessantlymelting into another, until at last, when all is over - it may bein a fraction of a second, in an hour, or after long years - wefind ourselves decided as to how we should act under such circumstancesas those which occasioned our hesitation. In other words, we haveattained belief.In this process we observe two sorts of elements of consciousness,the distinction between which may best be made clear by meansof an illustration. In a piece of music there are the separatenotes, and there is the air. A single tone may be prolonged foran hour or a day, and it exists as perfectly in each second ofthat time as in the whole taken together; so that, as long asit is sounding, it might be present to a sense from which everythingin the past was as completely absent as the future itself. Butit is different with the air, the performance of which occupiesa certain time, during the portions of which only portions ofit are played. It consists in an orderliness in the successionof sounds which strike the ear at different times; and to perceiveit there must be some continuity of consciousness which makesthe events of a lapse of time present to us. We certainly onlyperceive the air by hearing the separate notes; yet we cannotbe said to directly hear it, for we hear only what is presentat the instant, and an orderliness of succession cannot existin an instant. These two sorts of objects, what we are immediatelyconscious of and what we are mediately conscious of, arefound in all consciousness. Some elements (the sensations) arecompletely present at every instant so long as they last, whileothers (like thought) are actions having beginning, middle, andend, and consist in a congruence in the succession of sensationswhich flow through the mind. They cannot be immediately presentto us, but must cover some portion of the past or future. Thoughtis a thread of melody running through the succession of our sensations.We may add that just as a piece of music may be written in parts,each part having its own air, so various systems of relationshipof succession subsist together between the same sensations. Thesedifferent systems are distinguished by having different motives,ideas, or functions. Thought is only one such system, for itssole motive, idea, and function, is to produce belief, and whateverdoes not concern that purpose belongs to some other system ofrelations. The action of thinking may incidentally have otherresults; it may serve to amuse us, for example, and among dilettantiit is not rare to find those who have so perverted thought tothe purposes of pleasure that it seems to vex them to think thatthe questions upon which they delight to exercise it may everget finally settled; and a positive discovery which takes a favoritesubject out of the arena of literary debate is met with ill-concealeddislike. This disposition is the very debauchery of thought. Butthe soul and meaning of thought, abstracted from the other elementswhich accompany it, though it may be voluntarily thwarted, cannever be made to direct itself toward anything but the productionof belief. Thought in action has for its only possible motivethe attainment of thought at rest; and whatever does not referto belief is no part of the thought itself.And what, then, is belief? It is the demi-cadence which closesa musical phrase in the symphony of our intellectual life. Wehave seen that it has just three properties: First, it is somethingthat we are aware of; second, it appeases the irritation of doubt;and, third, it involves the establishment in our nature of a ruleof action, or, say for short, a habit. As it appeases"
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"content": "the irritation of doubt, which is the motive for thinking, thoughtrelaxes, and comes to rest for a moment when belief is reached.But, since belief is a rule for action, the application of whichinvolves further doubt and further thought, at the same time thatit is a stopping-place, it is also a new starting-place for thought.That is why I have permitted myself to call it thought at rest,although thought is essentially an action. The finalupshot of thinking is the exercise of volition, and of this thoughtno longer forms a part; but belief is only a stadium of mentalaction, an effect upon our nature due to thought, which will influencefuture thinking. The essence of belief is the establishment of a habit, and differentbeliefs are distinguished by the different modes of action towhich they give rise. If beliefs do not differ in this respect,if they appease the same doubt by producing the same rule of action,then no mere differences in the manner of consciousness of themcan make them different beliefs, any more than playing a tunein different keys is playing different tunes. Imaginary distinctionsare often drawn between beliefs which differ only in their modeof expression; - the wrangling which ensues is real enough, however.To believe that any objects are arranged as in Fig. 1, and tobelieve that they are arranged in Fig. 2, are one and the samebelief; yet it is conceivable that a man should assert one propositionand deny the other. Such false distinctions do as much harm asthe confusion of beliefs really different, and are among the pitfallsof which we ought constantly to beware, especially when we areupon metaphysical ground. One singular deception of this sort,which often occurs, is to mistake the sensation produced by ourown unclearness of thought for a character of the object we arethinking. Instead of perceiving that the obscurity is purely subjective,we fancy that we contemplate a quality of the object which isessentially mysterious; and if our conception be afterward presentedto us in a clear form we do not recognise it as the same, owingto the absence of the feeling of unintelligibility. So long asthis deception lasts, it obviously puts an impassable barrierin the way of perspicuous thinking; so that it equally intereststhe opponents of rational thought to perpetuate it, and its adherentsto guard against it.Another such deception is to mistake a mere difference in thegrammatical construction of two words for a distinction betweenthe ideas they express. In this pedantic age, when the generalmob of writers attend so much more to words than to things, thiserror is common enough. When I just said that thought is an action,and that it consists in a relation, although a personperforms an action but not a relation, which can only be the resultof an action, yet there was no inconsistency in what I said, butonly a grammatical vagueness.From all these sophisms we shall be perfectly safe so long aswe reflect that the whole function of thought is to produce habitsof action; and that whatever there is connected with a thought,but irrelevant to its purpose, is an accretion to it, but no partof it. If there be a unity among our sensations which has no referenceto how we shall act on a given occasion, as when we listen toa piece of music, why we do not call that thinking. To developits meaning, we have, therefore, simply to determine what habitsit produces, for what a thing means is simply what habits it involves.Now, the identity of a habit depends on how it might lead us toact, not merely under such circumstances as are likely to arise,but under such as might possibly occur, no matter how improbablethey may be. What the habit is depends on when andhow it causes us to act. As for the when,every stimulus to action is derived from perception; as for thehow, every purpose of action is to produce somesensible result. Thus, we come down to what is tangible and practical,as the root of every real distinction of thought, no matter howsubtle it may be; and there is no distinction of meaning so fineas to consist in anything but a possible difference of practice.To see what this principle leads to, consider in the light ofit such a doctrine as that of transubstantiation. The Protestantchurches generally hold that the elements of the sacrament areflesh and blood only in a tropical sense; they nourish our soulsas meat and the juice of it would our bodies. But the Catholicsmaintain that they are literally just that; although they possessall the sensible qualities of wafer-cakes and diluted wine. Butwe can have no conception of wine except what may enter into abelief, either:That this, that, or the other, is wine; or,That wine possesses certain properties.Such beliefs are nothing but self-notifications that we should,upon occasion, act in regard to such things as we believe to bewine according to the qualities which we believe wine to possess.The occasion of such action would be some sensible perception,the motive of it to produce some sensible result. Thus our actionhas exclusive reference to what affects the senses, our habithas the same bearing as our action, our belief the same as ourhabit, our conception the same as our belief; and we can consequentlymean nothing by wine but what has certain effects, direct or indirect,upon our senses; and to talk of something as having all the sensiblecharacters of wine, yet being in reality blood, is senseless jargon.Now, it is not my object to pursue the theological question; andhaving used it as a logical example I drop it, without caringto anticipate the theologian's reply. I only desire to point outhow impossible it is that we should have an idea in our mindswhich relates to anything but conceived sensible effects of things.Our idea of anything is our idea of its sensibleeffects; and if we fancy that we have any other we deceive ourselves,and mistake a mere sensation accompanying the thought for a partof the thought itself. It is absurd to say that thought has anymeaning unrelated to its only function. It is foolish for Catholicsand Protestants to fancy themselves in disagreement about theelements of the sacrament, if they agree in regard to all theirsensible effects, here or hereafter."
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"content": "It appears, then, that the rule for attaining the third gradeof clearness of apprehension is as follows: Consider what effects,which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive theobject of our conception to have. Then, our conception of theseeffects is the whole of our conception of the object.IIILet us illustrate this rule by some examples; and, to begin withthe simplest one possible, let us ask what we mean by callinga thing hard. Evidently that it will not be scratched bymany other substances. The whole conception of this quality, asof every other, lies in its conceived effects. There is absolutelyno difference between a hard thing and a soft thing so long asthey are not brought to the test. Suppose, then, that a diamondcould be crystallised in the midst of a cushion of soft cotton,and should remain there until it was finally burned up. Wouldit be false to say that that diamond was soft? This seems a foolishquestion, and would be so, in fact, except in the realm of logic.There such questions are often of the greatest utility as servingto bring logical principles into sharper relief than real discussionsever could. In studying logic we must not put them aside withhasty answers, but must consider them with attentive care, inorder to make out the principles involved. We may, in the presentcase, modify our question, and ask what prevents us from sayingthat all hard bodies remain perfectly soft until they are touched,when their hardness increases with the pressure until they arescratched. Reflection will show that the reply is this: therewould be no falsity in such modes of speech. Theywould involve a modification of our present usage of speech withregard to the words hard and soft, but not of their meanings.For they represent no fact to be different from what it is; onlythey involve arrangements of facts which would be exceedinglymaladroit. This leads us to remark that the question of what wouldoccur under circumstances which do not actually arise is not aquestion of fact, but only of the most perspicuous arrangementof them. For example, the question of free-will and fate in itssimplest form, stripped of verbiage, is something like this: Ihave done something of which I am ashamed; could I, by an effortof the will, have resisted the temptation, and done otherwise?The philosophical reply is, that this is not a question of fact,but only of the arrangement of facts. Arranging them so as toexhibit what is particularly pertinent to my question - namely,that I ought to blame myself for having done wrong - it is perfectlytrue to say that, if I had willed to do otherwise than I did,I should have done otherwise. On the other hand, arranging thefacts so as to exhibit another important consideration, it isequally true that, when a temptation has once been allowed towork, it will, if it has a certain force, produce its effect,let me struggle how I may. There is no objection to a contradictionin what would result from a false supposition. The reductioad absurdum consists in showing that contradictory resultswould follow from a hypothesis which is consequently judged tobe false. Many questions are involved in the free-will discussion,and I am far from desiring to say that both sides are equallyright. On the contrary, I am of opinion that one side denies importantfacts, and that the other does not. But what I do say is, thatthe above single question was the origin of the whole doubt; that,had it not been for this question, the controversy would neverhave arisen; and that this question is perfectly solved in themanner which I have indicated.Let us next seek a clear idea of Weight. This is another veryeasy case. To say that a body is heavy means simply that, in theabsence of opposing force, it will fall. This (neglecting certainspecifications of how it will fall, etc., which exist in the mindof the physicist who uses the word) is evidently the whole conceptionof weight. It is a fair question whether some particular factsmay not account for gravity; but what we mean by the forceitself is completely involved in its effects.This leads us to undertake an account of the idea of Force ingeneral. This is the great conception which, developed in theearly part of the seventeenth century from the rude idea of acause, and constantly improved upon since, has shown us how toexplain all the changes of motion which bodies experience, andhow to think about all physical phenomena; which has given birthto modern science, and changed the face of the globe; and which,aside from its more special uses, has played a principal partin directing the course of modern thought, and in furthering modernsocial development. It is, therefore, worth some pains to comprehendit. According to our rule, we must begin by asking what is theimmediate use of thinking about force; and the answer is, thatwe thus account for changes of motion. If bodies were left tothemselves, without the intervention of forces, every motion wouldcontinue unchanged both in velocity and in direction. Furthermore,change of motion never takes place abruptly; if its directionis changed, it is always through a curve without angles; if itsvelocity alters, it is by degrees. The gradual changes which areconstantly taking place are conceived by geometers to be compoundedtogether according to the rules of the parallelogram of forces.If the reader does not already know what this is, he will findit, I hope, to his advantage to endeavour to follow the followingexplanation; but if mathematics are insupportable to him, praylet him skip three paragraphs rather than that we should partcompany here.A path is a line whose beginning and end are distinguished.Two paths are considered to be equivalent, which, beginning atthe same point, lead to the same point. Thus the two paths, ABCDEand AFGHE, are equivalent. Paths which do not beginat the same point are considered to be equivalent, provided that,on moving either of them without turning it, but keeping it alwaysparallel to its original position, when its beginning coincideswith that of the other path, the ends also coincide. Paths areconsidered as geometrically added together, when one begins wherethe other ends; thus the path AE is conceived to be a sum of AB,"
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"content": "BC, CD, and DE. In the parallelogram of Fig. 4 the diagonal ACis the sum of AB and BC; or, since AD is geometrically equivalentto BC, AC is the geometrical sum of AB and AD.All this is purely conventional. It simply amounts to this: thatwe choose to call paths having the relations I have describedequal or added. But, though it is a convention, it is a conventionwith a good reason. The rule for geometrical addition may be appliednot only to paths, but to any other things which can be representedby paths. Now, as a path is determined by the varying directionand distance of the point which moves over it from the starting-point,it follows that anything which from its beginning to its end isdetermined by a varying direction and a varying magnitude is capableof being represented by a line. Accordingly, velocitiesmay be represented by lines, for they have only directions andrates. The same thing is true of accelerations,or changes of velocities. This is evident enough in the case ofvelocities; and it becomes evident for accelerations if we considerthat precisely what velocities are to positions - namely, statesof change of them - that accelerations are to velocities.The so-called \"parallelogram of forces\" is simply arule for compounding accelerations. The rule is, to representthe accelerations by paths, and then to geometrically add thepaths. The geometers, however, not only use the \"parallelogramof forces\" to compound different accelerations, but alsoto resolve one acceleration into a sum of several. Let AB (Fig.5) be the path which represents a certain acceleration - say, sucha change in the motion of a body that at the end of one secondthe body will, under the influence of that change, be in a positiondifferent from what it would have had if its motion had continuedunchanged such that a path equivalent to AB would lead from thelatter position to the former. This acceleration may be consideredas the sum of the accelerations represented by AC and CB. It mayalso be considered as the sum of the very different accelerationsrepresented by AD and DB, where AD is almost the opposite of AC.And it is clear that there is an immense variety of ways in whichAB might be resolved into the sum of two accelerations.After this tedious explanation, which I hope, in view of the extraordinaryinterest of the conception of force, may not have exhausted thereader's patience, we are prepared at last to state the grandfact which this conception embodies. This fact is that if theactual changes of motion which the different particles of bodiesexperience are each resolved in its appropriate way, each componentacceleration is precisely such as is prescribed by a certain lawof Nature, according to which bodies in the relative positionswhich the bodies in question actually have at the moment, alwaysreceive certain accelerations, which, being compounded by geometricaladdition, give the acceleration which the body actually experiences.This is the only fact which the idea of force represents, andwhoever will take the trouble clearly to apprehend what this factis, perfectly comprehends what force is. Whether we ought to saythat a force is an acceleration, or that it causes an acceleration,is a mere question of propriety of language, which has no moreto do with our real meaning than the difference between the Frenchidiom \"Il fait froid\" and its English equivalent\"It is cold.\" Yet it is surprising to see howthis simple affair has muddled men's minds. In how many profoundtreatises is not force spoken of as a \"mysterious entity,\"which seems to be only a way of confessing that the author despairsof ever getting a clear notion of what the word means! In a recentadmired work on \"Analytic Mechanics\" it is stated thatwe understand precisely the effect of force, but what force itselfis we do not understand! This is simply a self-contradiction.The idea which the word force excites in our minds has no otherfunction than to affect our actions, and these actions can haveno reference to force otherwise than through its effects. Consequently,if we know what the effects of force are, we are acquainted withevery fact which is implied in saying that a force exists, andthere is nothing more to know. The truth is, there is some vaguenotion afloat that a question may mean something which the mindcannot conceive; and when some hair-splitting philosophers havebeen confronted with the absurdity of such a view, they have inventedan empty distinction between positive and negative conceptions,in the attempt to give their non-idea a form not obviously nonsensical.The nullity of it is sufficiently plain from the considerationsgiven a few pages back; and, apart from those considerations,the quibbling character of the distinction must have struck everymind accustomed to real thinking.IVLet us now approach the subject of logic, and consider a conceptionwhich particularly concerns it, that of reality.Taking clearness in the sense of familiarity, no idea could beclearer than this. Every child uses it with perfect confidence,never dreaming that he does not understand it. As for clearnessin its second grade, however, it would probably puzzle most men,even among those of a reflective turn of mind, to give an abstractdefinition of the real. Yet such a definition may perhaps be reachedby considering the points of difference between reality and itsopposite, fiction. A figment is a product of somebody's imagination;it has such characters as his thought impresses upon it. Thatwhose characters are independent of how you or I think is an externalreality. There are, however, phenomena within our own minds, dependentupon our thought, which are at the same time real in the sensethat we really think them. But though their characters dependon how we think, they do not depend on what we think those charactersto be. Thus, a dream has a real existence as a mental phenomenon,if somebody has really dreamt it; that he dreamt so and so, doesnot depend on what anybody thinks was dreamt, but is completelyindependent of all opinion on the subject. On the other hand,considering, not the fact of dreaming, but the thing dreamt, itretains its peculiarities by virtue of no other fact than thatit was dreamt to possess them. Thus we may define the real asthat whose characters are independent of what anybody may thinkthem to be."
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"content": "But, however satisfactory such a definition may be found, it wouldbe a great mistake to suppose that it makes the idea of realityperfectly clear. Here, then, let us apply our rules. Accordingto them, reality, like every other quality, consists in the peculiarsensible effects which things partaking of it produce. The onlyeffect which real things have is to cause belief, for all thesensations which they excite emerge into consciousness in theform of beliefs. The question therefore is, how is true belief(or belief in the real) distinguished from false belief (or beliefin fiction). Now, as we have seen in the former paper, the ideasof truth and falsehood, in their full development, appertain exclusivelyto the scientific method of settling opinion. A person who arbitrarilychooses the propositions which he will adopt can use the wordtruth only to emphasise the expression of his determination tohold on to his choice. Of course, the method of tenacity neverprevailed exclusively; reason is too natural to men for that.But in the literature of the dark ages we find some fine examplesof it. When Scotus Erigena is commenting upon a poetical passagein which hellebore is spoken of as having caused the death ofSocrates, he does not hesitate to inform the inquiring readerthat Helleborus and Socrates were two eminent Greek philosophers,and that the latter having been overcome in argument by the formertook the matter to heart and died of it! What sort of an ideaof truth could a man have who could adopt and teach, without thequalification of a perhaps, an opinion taken so entirely at random?The real spirit of Socrates, who I hope would have been delightedto have been \"overcome in argument,\" because he wouldhave learned something by it, is in curious contrast with thenaive idea of the glossist, for whom discussion would seem tohave been simply a struggle. When philosophy began to awake fromits long slumber, and before theology completely dominated it,the practice seems to have been for each professor to seize uponany philosophical position he found unoccupied and which seemeda strong one, to intrench himself in it, and to sally forth fromtime to time to give battle to the others. Thus, even the scantyrecords we possess of those disputes enable us to make out a dozenor more opinions held by different teachers at one time concerningthe question of nominalism and realism. Read the opening partof the \"Historia Calamitatum\" of Abelard, whowas certainly as philosophical as any of his contemporaries, andsee the spirit of combat which it breathes. For him, the truthis simply his particular stronghold. When the method of authorityprevailed, the truth meant little more than the Catholic faith.All the efforts of the scholastic doctors are directed towardharmonising their faith in Aristotle and their faith in the Church,and one may search their ponderous folios through without findingan argument which goes any further. It is noticeable that wheredifferent faiths flourish side by side, renegades are looked uponwith contempt even by the party whose belief they adopt; so completelyhas the idea of loyalty replaced that of truth-seeking. Sincethe time of Descartes, the defect in the conception of truth hasbeen less apparent. Still, it will sometimes strike a scientificman that the philosophers have been less intent on finding outwhat the facts are, than on inquiring what belief is most in harmonywith their system. It is hard to convince a follower of the apriori method by adducing facts; but show him that an opinionhe is defending is inconsistent with what he has laid down elsewhere,and he will be very apt to retract it. These minds do not seemto believe that disputation is ever to cease; they seem to thinkthat the opinion which is natural for one man is not so for another,and that belief will, consequently, never be settled. In contentingthemselves with fixing their own opinions by a method which wouldlead another man to a different result, they betray their feeblehold of the conception of what truth is.On the other hand, all the followers of science are fully persuadedthat the processes of investigation, if only pushed far enough,will give one certain solution to every question to which theycan be applied. One man may investigate the velocity of lightby studying the transits of Venus and the aberration of the stars;another by the oppositions of Mars and the eclipses of Jupiter'ssatellites; a third by the method of Fizeau; a fourth by thatof Foucault; a fifth by the motions of the curves of Lissajous;a sixth, a seventh, an eighth, and a ninth, may follow the differentmethods of comparing the measures of statical and dynamical electricity.They may at first obtain different results, but, as each perfectshis method and his processes, the results will move steadily togethertoward a destined centre. So with all scientific research. Differentminds may set out with the most antagonistic views, but the progressof investigation carries them by a force outside of themselvesto one and the same conclusion. This activity of thought by whichwe are carried, not where we wish, but to a foreordained goal,is like the operation of destiny. No modification of the pointof view taken, no selection of other facts for study, no naturalbent of mind even, can enable a man to escape the predestinateopinion. This great law is embodied in the conception of truthand reality. The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreedto by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and theobject represented in this opinion is the real. That is the wayI would explain reality. But it may be said that this view isdirectly opposed to the abstract definition which we have givenof reality, inasmuch as it makes the characters of the real todepend on what is ultimately thought about them. But the answerto this is that, on the one hand, reality is independent, notnecessarily of thought in general, but only of what you or I orany finite number of men may think about it; and that, on theother hand, though the object of the final opinion depends onwhat that opinion is, yet what that opinion is does not dependon what you or I or any man thinks. Our perversity and that ofothers may indefinitely postpone the settlement of opinion; it"
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"content": "might even conceivably cause an arbitrary proposition to be universallyaccepted as long as the human race should last. Yet even thatwould not change the nature of the belief, which alone could bethe result of investigation carried sufficiently far; and if,after the extinction of our race, another should arise with facultiesand disposition for investigation, that true opinion must be theone which they would ultimately come to. \"Truth crushed toearth shall rise again,\" and the opinion which would finallyresult from investigation does not depend on how anybody may actuallythink. But the reality of that which is real does depend on thereal fact that investigation is destined to lead, at last, ifcontinued long enough, to a belief in it.But I may be asked what I have to say to all the minute factsof history, forgotten never to be recovered, to the lost booksof the ancients, to the buried secrets.Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear;Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.Do these things not really exist because they are hopelessly beyondthe reach of our knowledge? And then, after the universe is dead(according to the prediction of some scientists), and all lifehas ceased forever, will not the shock of atoms continue thoughthere will be no mind to know it? To this I reply that, thoughin no possible state of knowledge can any number be great enoughto express the relation between the amount of what rests unknownto the amount of the known, yet it is unphilosophical to supposethat, with regard to any given question (which has any clear meaning),investigation would not bring forth a solution of it, if it werecarried far enough. Who would have said, a few years ago, thatwe could ever know of what substances stars are made whose lightmay have been longer in reaching us than the human race has existed?Who can be sure of what we shall not know in a few hundred years?Who can guess what would be the result of continuing the pursuitof science for ten thousand years, with the activity of the lasthundred? And if it were to go on for a million, or a billion,or any number of years you please, how is it possible to say thatthere is any question which might not ultimately be solved?But it may be objected, \"Why make so much of these remoteconsiderations, especially when it is your principle that onlypractical distinctions have a meaning?\" Well, I must confessthat it makes very little difference whether we say that a stoneon the bottom of the ocean, in complete darkness, is brilliantor not - that is to say, that it probably makes nodifference, remembering always that that stone may be fished uptomorrow. But that there are gems at the bottom of the sea, flowersin the untravelled desert, etc., are propositions which, likethat about a diamond being hard when it is not pressed, concernmuch more the arrangement of our language than they do the meaningof our ideas.It seems to me, however, that we have, by the application of ourrule, reached so clear an apprehension of what we mean by reality,and of the fact which the idea rests on, that we should not, perhaps,be making a pretension so presumptuous as it would be singular,if we were to offer a metaphysical theory of existence for universalacceptance among those who employ the scientific method of fixingbelief. However, as metaphysics is a subject much more curiousthan useful, the knowledge of which, like that of a sunken reef,serves chiefly to enable us to keep clear of it, I will not troublethe reader with any more Ontology at this moment. I have alreadybeen led much further into that path than I should have desired;and I have given the reader such a dose of mathematics, psychology,and all that is most abstruse, that I fear he may already haveleft me, and that what I am now writing is for the compositorand proofreader exclusively. I trusted to the importance of thesubject. There is no royal road to logic, and really valuableideas can only be had at the price of close attention. But I knowthat in the matter of ideas the public prefer the cheap and nasty;and in my next paper I am going to return to the easily intelligible,and not wander from it again. The reader who has been at the painsof wading through this month's paper, shall be rewarded in thenext one by seeing how beautifully what has been developed inthis tedious way can be applied to the ascertainment of the rulesof scientific reasoning.We have, hitherto, not crossed the threshold of scientific logic.It is certainly important to know how to make our ideas clear,but they may be ever so clear without being true. How to makethem so, we have next to study. How to give birth to those vitaland procreative ideas which multiply into a thousand forms anddiffuse themselves everywhere, advancing civilisation and makingthe dignity of man, is an art not yet reduced to rules, but ofthe secret of which the history of science affords some hints.Further Reading:Biography |Three trichotomies of Signs |What is a Sign?William James |Percy Bridgman |John Dewey |Richard Rorty |Willard Quine |Durkheim on Pragmatism |Mach |EinsteinPhilosophy Archive @ marxists.org"
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"content": "Abram LeonThe Jewish Question SEVENThe decay of capitalism and the tragedy of the Jews in the 20th centuryThe primary merit of the capitalist regime lay in its tremendous expansion of the productive forces, its creation of a world economy, its permitting an unprecedented development of technology and science. As against the stagnation of the feudal world, capitalism presented an unparalleled dynamism. Hundreds of millions of people, immobilized up to then in a routinized, horizonless existence, suddenly found themselves drawn into the current of a feverish and intensive life.The Jews lived within the pores of feudal society. When the feudal structure started to crumble, it began expelling elements which were, at one and the same time, foreign to it and indispensable to it. Even before the peasant had left the village for the industrial center, the Jew had abandoned the small medieval town in order to emigrate to the great cities of the world. The destruction of the secular function of Judaism within feudal society is accompanied by its passive penetration into capitalist society.But if capitalism has given humanity certain tremendous conquests, only its disappearance can allow humanity to enjoy them. Only socialism will be able to lift humanity to the level of the material bases of civilization. But capitalism survives and all the enormous acquisitions turn more and more against the most elementary interests of humanity.The progress of technology and science has become the progress of the science of death and its technology. The development of the means of production is nothing but the growth of the means of destruction. The world, become too small for the productive apparatus built up by capitalism, is constricted even further by the desperate efforts of each imperialism to extend its sphere of influence. While unbridled export constitutes an inseparable phenomenon of the capitalist mode of production, decaying capitalism tries to get along without it, that is to say, it adds to its disorders the disorder of its own suppression.Powerful barriers impede the free circulation of merchandise and men. Insurmountable obstacles arise before the masses deprived of work and bread following the breakdown of the traditional feudal world. The decay of capitalism has not only accelerated the decomposition of feudal society but has multiplied a hundredfold the sufferings which resulted from it. The bearers of civilization, in a blind alley, bar the road to those who wish to become civilized. Unable to attain civilization, the latter are still less able to remain in the stage of barbarism. To the peoples whose traditional bases of existence it has destroyed, capitalism bars the road of the future after having closed the road of the past.It is with these general phenomena that the Jewish tragedy of the twentieth century is tied up. The highly tragic situation of Judaism in our epoch is explained by the extreme precariousness of its social and economic position. The first to be eliminated by decaying feudalism, the Jews were also the first to be rejected by the convulsions of dying capitalism. The Jewish masses find themselves wedged between the anvil of decaying feudalism and the hammer of rotting capitalism. A. The Jews in Eastern EuropeThe entire situation of Judaism in Eastern Europe is explained by the combination of the decline of the old feudal forms and of the degeneration of capitalism. The social differentiation which took place in the village as a result of capitalist penetration brought about an influx into the cities of enriched as well as proletarianized peasants; the former wanted to invest their capital; the latter to offer their labor. But the openings for the placement of capital were as slight as those for work. Hardly born, the capitalist system already showed all the symptoms of senility. The general decay of capitalism manifested itself in crises and unemployment within the countries of Eastern Europe; by the closing of all the outlets for emigration outside their frontiers. Seven to eight million peasants were landless and almost without work in “independent” Poland. Placed between two fires, the Jews were exposed to the hostility of the petty bourgeoisie and the peasantry; who sought to find a place for themselves at the expense of the Jews. “Jewish positions are particularly threatened by the urban Polish bourgeoisie and by the rich peasants who seek a solution for their difficulties through a fierce economic nationalism, whereas the Polish working class suffering from permanent unemployment, seeks a remedy for its poverty through social liberation and puts its reliance upon economic and political solidarity rather than upon a sterile and murderous competition ....” [1]It is precisely in the regions which capitalism had most developed that a non-Jewish commercial class formed most rapidly. It is there that the anti-Semitic struggle was fiercest. “The decrease in the number of Jewish shops has been greatest in the central provinces, that is to say, in a region where the population is purely Polish, where the peasants have attained a higher standard of living, where industry is more developed, which is very important for the material and intellectual situation of the village.” [2]Whereas in 1914, 72 percent of the stores in the villages were Jewish, this fell to 34 percent in 1935, that is to say, by more than one-half. The situation was better for the Jews in territories less developed economically. “The participation of Jews in commerce is more important in the most backward provinces,” maintains Lipovski. “The eastern sections belonging to White Russians are, in all their relations – economic, intellectual, and political – the most backward part of Poland. In these regions, the absolute majority of Jewish businessmen has increased by a third.” [3] In 1938, 82.6 percent of the shops in the backward regions of Poland were in the hands of Jews. [4]"
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"content": "All of these facts are further proof that the destruction of feudalism is at the bottom of the Jewish question in Eastern Europe. The more backward a region is, the more easily are the Jews able to preserve their secular positions. But it is the general decay of capitalism which renders the Jewish question impossible of solution. The crisis and chronic unemployment make it impossible for the Jews to go into other professions, producing a frightful crowding in the professions which they follow and unceasingly augmenting anti-Semitic violence. The governments of the provincial nobles and large capitalists naturally endeavored to organize the anti-Jewish current and thereby divert the masses from their real enemy. “Resolve the Jewish question” became for them a synonym for the solution of the social question. In order to make place for the “national forces,” the state organized a systematic struggle for “dejudifying” all the professions. The methods of “Polanizing” business in Poland proceeded from simple boycotting of Jewish stores by means of propaganda, right up to pogroms and incendiarism. Here, by way of example, is a “victory bulletin” published June 14, 1936, in the governmental paper Illustrowany Kurjer codztienny: “One hundred and sixty Polish business positions were conquered during the first months of this year in the Madom district. At Przktyk alone – a notorious pogrom city – 50 business licenses were purchased by Poles. All in all, 2,500 Polish business positions were conquered in the various districts.” [5]Jewish craftsmanship was no more tenderly handled by the Polish governments. Boycott, exorbitant taxes, Polish examinations (thousands of Jewish craftsmen did not know this language), contributed to grinding down the Jewish artisans. Deprived of unemployment relief, the craft proletariat was one of the most disinherited. The wages of Jewish workers were very low and their living conditions frightful (workday up to eighteen hours).The universities constituted the favorite arena for the anti-Semitic struggle. The Polish bourgeoisie exerted all its efforts to prevent Jews from entering the intellectual professions. The Polish universities became places of veritable pogroms, throwing people out of windows, etc. Well before Hitler’s stars of David, the Polish bourgeoisie initiated ghetto benches in the umversities. “Legal” measures, more circumspect but no less effective, rendered entry into the universities almost impossible for the Jewish youth, whose ancestral heritage had strongly developed their intellectual faculties. The percentage of Jewish students in Poland declined from 24.5 percent in 1923–33 to 13.2 percent in 1933–36. [6]The same policy of excluding Jewish students was followed in Lithuania and Hungary. The percentage of Jewish students in Lithuania declined from 15.7 percent in 1920 to 8.5 percent in 1931; in Hungary, from 31.7 percent in 1918 to 10.5 percent in 1931. In general the situation of the Jews in Hungary had for centuries resembled in every way that of Poland.In the country of great feudal magnates, the Jews for a long time played the role of an intermediary class between the lords and the peasants.“One of our correspondents reminds us that at the end of the nineteenth century; a certain Count de Palugyay had great trouble in avoiding expulsion from the National Club of the Hungarian nobility at Budapest, because he wanted to take charge personally of the industrial transformation of his agricultural products, particularly the distillation of alcohol and whiskey from potatoes; he had even gone so far as to take charge of their sale!“The liberal professions were likewise not unaffected by this prejudice, which was as widespread among the high aristocracy as among the petty nobility. Shortly before the fall of the dual monarchy, a Hungarian magnate expressed his disgust of noblemen, who ‘for money, examined the throats of individuals whom they did not know.’ A natural consequence of this attitude was that the Jews formed the intermediary class between the peasantry and the nobility, particularly in the towns ... Trade, and especially petty trade, was a Jewish matter in the eyes of the people.“Even today, in the minds of the masses of the Magyar population, the shop, and in a general way everything connected with the exploitation of the shop, are thought of as Jewish, even if this shop has become an instrument of economic struggle against the Jews.“Here is a story which strikingly illustrates this state of mind: A peasant woman sent her son on some purchasing errands. She wanted them taken care of at the semistateized Hangya cooperative and not at a Jewish shop, so she said to him: ‘Pista, go to the Jew; not to the Jew who is a Jew, but to the new shop.’ ” [7]The process of elimination of the Jews from their economic positions took place in all of Eastern Europe. The situation of the Jewish masses became hopeless. A declassed youth, having no possibility of integrating itself into economic life, lived in black despair. Prior to the second war, 40 percent of the Jewish population of Poland had to resort to philanthropic institutions. Tuberculosis raged."
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"content": "“Let us give the floor to correspondents of the Economic and Statistical Section of the Jewish Scientific Institute residing in regions where despair and the complete absence of a better future were stifling the Jewish youth. Here is what one wrote of Miedzyrzecze, province of Volhynia: ‘The condition of the Jewish youth is very difficult, notably that of the sons and daughters of tradesmen who are without work because their parents do not require assistance. It is impossible to open new businesses. Seventy-five boys and 120 young girls, aged 15 to 28 years, have no hope whatever of integrating themselves into the economic life of the country.’ Of Sulejow (province of Lodz) we are in possession of a more detailed picture, which is characteristic of the small towns of Poland: ‘Almost 50 percent of the children of Jewish businesspeople work with their parents, but solely because they are unable to find another job. Twenty-five percent are learning some sort of trade and 25 percent are completely idle. Seventy percent of the children of artisans remain in the workshops of their parents even though the latter are almost without work and can very well get along without assistants. Ten percent are learning new trades ... twenty percent have nothing to do. The sons of rabbis and of employees of Jewish communities are trying to attain a livelihood by learning a trade. The entire youth desires to emigrate, 90 percent to Palestine, but because of the limited number of emigration visas, their chances are slim. And yet they are ready to go to the North Pole or the South Pole, just so long as they can tear themselves out of this stagnation. More and more the youth is turning towards the crafts and the number of young people in business is on the decline.’ ” [8] B. The Jews in Western EuropeThe condition of Judaism, rendered hopeless in Eastern Europe by the combined decay of feudalism and capitalism – which created a stifling atmosphere filled with insane antagonisms – had repercussions of a certain worldwide character. Western and Central Europe became the theater of a frightful rise of anti-Semitism. Whereas the reduction in Jewish emigration, whose average annual rate declined from 155,000 between 1901 and 1914 to 43,657 between 1926 and 1935, greatly aggravated the situation of the Jews in Eastern Europe, the general crisis of capitalism made even this reduced emigration an intolerable burden to the Western countries. [9]The Jewish question reached unprecedented sharpness not only in the countries of emigration but in the countries of immigration as well. Even before the first imperialist war, the mass arrival of Jewish immigrants created a strong anti-Semitic movement among the middle classes of several Central and Western European countries. We need only recall the great successes of the anti-Semitic Social Christian Party at Vienna and of its leader, Lueger; the sweeping rise of anti-Semitism in Germany (Treitschke), and the Dreyfus Affair. Anti-Semitism showed its roots most clearly in Vienna, one of the great centers of Jewish immigration before the first imperialist war. The petty bourgeoisie, ruined by the development of monopoly capitalism and headed for proletarianization, was exasperated by the mass arrival of the Jewish element, traditionally petty-bourgeois and artisan.After the first imperialist war, the countries of Western and Central Europe: Germany, Austria, France, and Belgium, saw tens of thousands of Jewish immigrants, in tatters, lacking all resources, pour in from Eastern Europe. The seeming postwar prosperity permitted these elements to penetrate into all branches of business and artisanry. But even the Jewish immigrants who had penetrated into the plants did not remain there for long.The long commercial past of the Jews weighed heavily on their descendants and the favorable postwar economic conditions brought about a perceptible process of deproletarianization in Western Europe as well as in the United States. The Jewish workers retained their artisan position in the countries of immigration. In Paris in 1936 out of 21,083 Jewish workers belonging to trade unions, 9,253 worked at home.The economic catastrophe of 1929 threw the petty-bourgeois masses into a hopeless situation. The overcrowding in small business, artisanry and the intellectual professions took on unheard of proportions. The petty bourgeois regarded his Jewish competitor with growing hostility; for the latter’s professional cleverness, the result of centuries of practice, often enabled him to survive hard times more easily. Anti-Semitism even gained the ear of wide layers of worker-artisans, who traditionally had been under petty-bourgeois influence.It is consequently incorrect to accuse big business of having brought about anti-Semitism. Big business only proceeded to make use of the elementary anti-Semitism of the petty-bourgeois masses. It fashioned it into a major component of fascist ideology. By the myth of “Jewish capitalism,” big business endeavored to divert and control the anticapitalist hatred of the masses for its own exclusive profit. The real possibility of an agitation against Jewish capitalists lay in the antagonism between monopoly capital and speculative-commercial capital, which Jewish capital was in the main. The relatively greater permeability of speculative capital (stock exchange scandal) allowed monopoly capital to channel the hatred of the petty-bourgeois masses and even of a part of the workers against “Jewish capitalism.” C. Racism“Ideology is a process accomplished by the so-called thinker consciously, indeed, but with a false consciousness. The real motives impelling him remain unknown to him, otherwise it would not be an ideological process at all. Hence he imagines false or apparent motive forces.” [10]"
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"content": "Up to now we have tried to understand the real bases of anti-Semitism in our time. But it is sufficient to consider the role played in the development of anti-Semitism by the wretched document fabricated by the Tsarist Okhrana, The Protocols of Zion, to become aware of the importance of the “false or apparent motive forces” of anti-Semitism. In Hitlerite propaganda today, the real motivation of anti-Semitism in Western Europe – the economic competition of the petty bourgeoisie – no longer plays any role. On the contrary; the most fantastic allegations of The Protocols of Zion – the plans of universal domination by international Judaism – reappear in every speech and manifesto of Hitler. We must therefore analyze this mythical ideological element of anti-Semitism.Religion constitutes the most characteristic example of an ideology. Its true motive forces must be sought in the very prosaic domain of the material interests of a class, but it is in the most ethereal spheres that its apparent motive forces are found. Nevertheless, the God who launched the Puritan fanatics of Cromwell against the English aristocracy and Charles I was nothing but the reflection or symbol of the interests of the English peasantry and bourgeoisie. Every religious revolution is in reality a social revolution.It is the unbridled development of the productive forces colliding against the narrow limits of consumption which constitute the true motive force of imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism. But it is the “race” which seems to be its most characteristic apparent force. Racism is therefore in the first place the ideological disguise of modern imperialism. The “race struggling for its living space” is nothing but the reflection of the permanent necessity for expansion which characterizes finance or monopoly capitalism.While the fundamental contradiction of capitalism, the contradiction between production and consumption, involves for the big bourgeoisie the necessity to struggle for the conquest of foreign markets, it compels the petty bourgeoisie to struggle for the expansion of the domestic market. The lack of foreign markets for the big capitalists proceeds hand in hand with the lack of domestic markets for the small capitalists. Whereas the big bourgeoisie struggles furiously against its competitors on the foreign market, the petty bourgeoisie combats its competitors on the domestic market not a whit less fiercely. “Racism” abroad is consequently accompanied by “racism” at home. The unprecedented aggravation of capitalist contradictions in the twentieth century brings with it a growing exacerbation of “racism” abroad as well as “racism” at home.The primarily commercial and artisan character of Judaism, heritage of a long historical past, makes it Enemy Number One of the petty bourgeoisie on the domestic market. It is therefore the petty-bourgeois character of Judaism which makes it so odious to the petty bourgeoisie. But while the historical past of Judaism exercises a determining influence on its present social composition, it has effects no less important on the representation of the Jews in the consciousness of the popular masses. For the latter, the Jew remains the traditional representative of the “money power.”This fact is of great importance because the petty bourgeoisie is not only a “capitalist” class, that is to say, a repository “in miniature” of all capitalist tendencies; it is also “anticapitalist.” It has a strong, though vague, consciousness of being ruined and despoiled by big business. But its hybrid character, its interclass position, does not permit it to understand the true structure of society nor the real character of big business. It is incapable of understanding the true tendencies of social evolution, for it has a presentiment that this evolution cannot help but be fatal for it. It wants to be anticapitalist without ceasing to be capitalist. It wants to destroy the “bad” character of capitalism, that is to say, the tendencies which are ruining it, while preserving the “good” character of capitalism which permits it to live and get rich. But since there does not exist a capitalism which has the “good” tendencies without also possessing the “bad,” the petty bourgeoisie is forced to dream it up. It is no accident that the petty bourgeoisie has invented “supercapitalism,” the “bad” deviation of capitalism, its evil spirit. It is no accident that its theoreticians have struggled mightily for over a century (Proudhon) against “bad speculative capitalism” and defended “useful productive capitalism.” [11] The attempt of Nazi theoreticians to distinguish between “national productive capital” and “Jewish parasitic capital” is probably the last attempt of this kind. “Jewish capitalism” can best represent the myth of “bad capitalism.” The concept of “Jewish wealth” is in truth solidly entrenched in the consciousness of the popular masses. It is only a question of reawakening and giving “presence,” by means of a well-orchestrated propaganda, to the image of the “usurious” Jew, against whom peasant, petty bourgeois, and lord had struggled over a long period. The petty bourgeoisie and a layer of workers remaining under its sway are easily influenced by such propaganda and fall into this trap of “Jewish capitalism.”Historically, the success of racism means that capitalism has managed to channel the anticapitalist consciousness of the masses into a form that antedates capitalism and which no longer exists except in a vestigial state; this vestige is nevertheless still sufficiently great to give a certain appearance of reality to the myth.We see that racism is made up of rather strange elements. It reflects the expansionist will of big capital. It expresses the hatred of the petty bourgeoisie for “foreign” elements within the domestic market as well as its anticapitalist tendencies.It is in its aspect as a capitalist element that the petty bourgeoisie fights its Jewish competitor, and in its capitalist aspect that it struggles against “Jewish capital.” Racism finally diverts the anticapitalist struggle of the masses into a form that antedates capitalism, persisting only in a vestigial state."
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"content": "But while scientific analysis permits us to reveal its component parts, racist ideology must appear as an absolutely homogeneous “doctrine.” Racism serves precisely to cast all classes into the crucible of a “racial community” opposed to other races. The racist myth strives to appear as a whole, having only vague connections with its origins which are often very different. It endeavors to fuse its different elements together in perfect fashion.Thus, for example, “foreign” racism, the ideological disguise of imperialism, is not compelled, in and of itself, to adopt a strong anti-Semitic coloration. But from the necessity of synchronization, it generally does take on this character. The anticapitalism of the masses, first channeled in the direction of Judaism, is then carried over against the “foreign enemy,” which is identified with Judaism. The “Germanic race” will find itself faced with the duty of fighting the “Jew,” its principal enemy, in all his disguises: that of domestic Bolshevism and liberalism, of Anglo-Saxon plutocracy and of foreign Bolshevism. Hitler states in Mein Kampf that it is indispensable to present the various enemies under a common aspect, otherwise there is a danger that the masses will start thinking too much about the differences which exist among those enemies. That is why racism is a myth and not a doctrine. It demands faith, and fears reason like the plague. Anti-Semitism contributes most to cementing the different elements of racism.Just as it is necessary to cast the different classes into one single race, so is it also necessary that this “race” have only a single enemy: “the international Jew.” The myth of race is necessarily accompanied by its “negative” – the antirace, the Jew. The racial “community” is built on hatred of the Jews, a hatred of which the most solid “racial” foundation is buried in history in a period when the Jew was in effect a foreign body and hostile to all classes. The irony of history wills that the most radical anti-Semitic ideology in all history should triumph precisely in the period when Judaism is on the road of economic and social assimilation. But like all “ironies of history” this seeming paradox is very understandable. At the time when the Jew was unassimilable, at a time when he really represented “capital,” he was indispensable to society. There could be no question of destroying him. At the present time, capitalist society, on the edge of the abyss, tries to save itself by resurrecting the Jew and the hatred of the Jews. But it is precisely because the Jews do not play the role which is attributed to them that anti-Semitic persecution can take on such an amplitude. Jewish capitalism is a myth; that is why it is so easily vanquished. But in vanquishing its “negative,” racism at the same time destroys the foundations for its own existence. In the measure that the phantom of “Jewish capitalism” disappears, capitalist reality appears in all its ugliness. The social contradictions, banished for a moment by the fumes of “racial” intoxication, reappear in all their sharpness. In the long run, the myth proves powerless against reality.Despite its apparent homogeneity, the very evolution of racism allows to be clearly discerned the economic, social, and political transformations that it strives to conceal. At the beginning, in order to arm itself for the struggle for its “living space,” for imperialist war, big business must beat down its domestic enemy, the proletariat. It is the petty bourgeoisie and declassed proletarian elements that furnish it with its shock troops, capable of smashing the economic and political organizations of the proletariat. Racism, at the beginning, appears therefore as an ideology of the petty bourgeoisie. Its program reflects the interests and illusions of this class. It promises struggle against “supercapitalism,” against the trusts, stock exchange, big department stores, etc. But as soon as big business has succeeded in smashing the proletariat, thanks to the support of the petty bourgeoisie, the latter becomes an unbearable burden to it. The program of preparation for war implies precisely the ruthless elimination of small business, a prodigious development of the trusts, an intensive proletarianization. This same military preparation necessitates the support or at least a kind of neutrality from the proletariat, the most important factor in production. Thus big business does not hesitate for a moment to violate its most solemn promises in the most cynical way and to strangle the petty bourgeoisie in the most brutal fashion. Racism now devotes itself to flattering the proletariat, to appearing as a radically “socialist” movement. It is here that the Judaist-capitalist identification plays its most important role. The radical expropriation of Jewish capitalists has to fulfill the role of “collateral,” of “endorser” of racism’s anticapitalist will to struggle. The anonymous character of the capitalism of the monopolies, in contrast to the generally personal (and often speculative commercial) character of Jewish businesses, facilitates this operation of spiritual swindling. The common man more readily sees the “real” capitalist, the businessman, the manufacturer, the speculator, than the “respectable” director of a corporation who is made to pass as an “indispensable” factor in production. It is in this way that racist ideology reaches the following identifications: Judaism = capitalism; racism = socialism; a regulated war economy = a planned socialist economy.It is undeniable that large layers of workers, deprived of their organizations, blinded by the foreign political successes of Hitler, have allowed themselves to be taken in by racist mythology, just as was the case previously with the petty bourgeoisie. For the time being the bourgeoisie appears to have attained its objective. The furious anti-Jewish persecution extending throughout Europe serves to indicate the “definitive” victory of racism, the final defeat of “international Judaism.” D. The Jewish Race"
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"content": "The racial “theory” now dominant is nothing but an attempt to establish racism “on a scientific basis.” It is devoid of any scientific value. It is enough to observe the pitiful acrobatics which the racist theoreticians perform to demonstrate the relationship of the “Germans and the Nipponese” or the irrevocable antagonism between “the heroic German spirit” and the “commercial Anglo-Saxon spirit” in order to be completely convinced of this. The ramblings of a Montadon on “deprostituting” the Jewish “ethnic entity” by ... compelling the Jews to wear stars of David, are certainly not worth much. The real prostitution of certain “scholars” to racism presents an unusual spectacle of the decline of human dignity. But we see there only an end product of the complete decay of bourgeois science which had already, under democracy, lost its objectivity.Racist stupidities must not however deter us from examining the extent to which it is necessary to speak of a Jewish race. The most superficial examination of the question leads us to the conclusion that the Jews constitute in reality a mixture of the most diverse races. It is evidently the Diaspora character of Judaism which is the fundamental cause of this fact. But even in Palestine, the Jews were far from constituting a “pure race.” Leaving aside the fact that, according to the Bible, the Israelites brought a mass of Egyptians with them when they left Egypt and that Strabo considered them as descendants of Egyptians, it is enough to recall the numerous races which had established themselves in Palestine: Hittites, Canaanites, Philistines (“Aryans”), Egyptians, Phoenicians, Greeks, and Arabs. According to Strabo, Judea was inhabited by Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Arabs. The development of Jewish proselytism during the Greek and Roman era strongly accentuated the mixed character of Judaism. As early as 139 B.C., the Jews were driven out of Rome for having made proselytes there. The community of Antioch was composed in large part of proselytes. Proselytism continued even during subsequent eras. The compulsory conversion of slaves to Judaism, the conversion of the Khazars as well as of other races and tribes in the course of the long Diaspora, have been so many factors which have made a characteristic conglomeration of races out of Judaism.At the present time there is absolutely no racial homogeneity between the Yemenite Jews, for example, and the Jews of Dagestan. The first are Oriental in type while the second belong to the Mongol race. There are black Jews in India, Ethiopian Jews (Falasha), “Troglodyte” Jews in Africa. However, this fundamental difference which exists, for example, between the Jews of Dagestan and the Yemenite Jews, does not exhaust the question. Actually nine-tenths of today’s Jews are inhabitants of Eastern Europe or descendants of Jews from this area.Is there a European-Oriental Jewish race? Here is how the anti-Semitic theoretician, Hans Gunther, answers this question: “Eastern Judaism, which comprised close to nine-tenths of the Jews, consisting today of the Jews of Russia, Poland, Galicia, Hungary Austria, and Germany, as well as the largest part of the Jews in North America and a large part of Western European Jewry constitutes a racial mixture which we may designate as Western Asiatic-Oriental-East Baltic-Eastern-Central Asiatic-Nordic-Hamitic-Negroid.” [12]According to research undertaken in NewYork of 4,235 Jews there were: JEWS(PERCENT) JEWESSES(PERCENT)BRUNET TYPES52.6256.94BLOND TYPES10.4210.27MIXED TYPES36.9632.7914.25 percent of Jews and 12.7 percent of Jewesses had what is called the Jewish nose, which is nothing else but the nose common to the peoples of Asia Minor, especially widespread among the Armenians. This nose is also common among the Mediterranean peoples as well as among the Bavarians (Dinaric race). These few observations permit us to see how stupid the concept of the “Jewish race” is. The Jewish race is a myth. On the other hand, it is correct to say that the Jews constitute a racial mixture that is different from the racial mixtures of most of the European peoples, especially the Slavs and Germans.However, it is not so much the anthropological characteristics of the Jews which distinguish them from other peoples as their physiological, pathological, and, above all, psychological characteristics.It is primarily the economic and social function of Judaism throughout history which explains this phenomenon. For centuries the Jews were the inhabitants of cities, occupied in trade. The Jewish type is far more the result of this secular function than a racial characteristic. The Jews have absorbed a mass of heterogeneous racial elements but all these elements have been subjected to the influence of the special conditions in which the Jews lived, which, in the long run, ended up with the creation of the so-called “Jewish type.” This is the result of a long selection, not racial but economic and social. The physical weakness, the frequency of certain illnesses like diabetes, nervous disorders, a specific body posture, etc., are not racial characteristics but are the result of a specific social position. Nothing is more ridiculous than to explain, for example, the Jews’ penchant for trade or their tendency to abstract thinking on the basis of their race. Wherever the Jews are assimilated economically, wherever they cease to form a class, they rapidly lose all these characteristics. And so it happens that where the racist theoreticians thought they were face to face with a “genuine race,” they were in reality only viewing a human community, whose specific characteristics are above all the result of the social conditions in which it lived for many centuries. A change in these social conditions must naturally bring with it the disappearance of the “racial characteristics” of Judaism. E. ZionismZionism was born in the light of the incendiary fires of the Russian pogroms of 1882 and in the tumult of the Dreyfus Affair – two events which expressed the sharpness that the Jewish problem began to assume at the end of the nineteenth century."
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"content": "The rapid capitalist development of Russian economy after the reform of 1863 made the situation of the Jewish masses in the small towns untenable. In the West, the middle classes, shattered by capitalist concentration, began to turn against the Jewish element whose competition aggravated their situation. In Russia, the association of the “Lovers of Zion” was founded. Leo Pinsker wrote Auto-emancipation, in which he called for a return to Palestine as the sole possible solution of the Jewish question. In Paris, Baron Rothschild, who like all the Jewish magnates viewed with very little favor the mass arrival of Jewish immigrants in the Western countries, became interested in Jewish colonization in Palestine. To help “their unfortunate brothers” to return to the land of their “ancestors,” that is to say, to go as far away as possible, contained nothing displeasing to the Jewish bourgeoisie of the West, who with reason feared the rise of anti-Semitism. A short while after the publication of Leo Pinsker’s book, a Jewish journalist of Budapest, Theodor Herzl, saw anti-Semitic demonstrations at Paris provoked by the Dreyfus Affair. Soon he wrote The Jewish State, which to this day remains the bible of the Zionist movement. From its inception, Zionism appeared as a reaction of the Jewish petty bourgeoisie (which still forms the core of Judaism), hard hit by the mounting anti-Semitic wave, kicked from one country to another, and striving to attain the Promised Land where it might find shelter from the tempests sweeping the modern world.Zionism is thus a very young movement; it is the youngest of the European national movements. That does not prevent it from pretending, even more than all other nationalism, that it draws its substance from a far distant past. Whereas Zionism is in fact the product of the last phase of capitalism, of capitalism beginning to decay, it pretends to draw its origin from a past more than two thousand years old. Whereas Zionism is essentially a reaction against the situation created for Judaism by the combination of the destruction of feudalism and the decay of capitalism, it affirms that it constitutes a reaction against the state of things existing since the fall of Jerusalem in the year 70 of the Christian era. Its recent birth is naturally the best reply to these pretensions. As a matter of fact, how can one believe that the remedy for an evil existing for two thousand years was discovered only at the end of the nineteenth century? But like all nationalisms – and even more intensely – Zionism views the historic past in the light of the present. In this way, too, it distorts the present-day picture. Just as France is represented to French children as existing since the Gaul of Vercingetorix, just as the children of Provence are told that the victories that the kings of Ile de France won over their ancestors were their own successes, in the same way Zionism tries to create the myth of an eternal Judaism, eternally the prey of the same persecutions. Zionism sees in the fall of Jerusalem the cause of the dispersion, and consequently, the fountainhead of all Jewish misfortunes of the past, present, and future. “The source of all the misfortunes of the Jewish people is the loss of its historic country and its dispersion in all countries,” declares the Marxist delegation of the Poale-Zion to the Dutch-Scandinavian committee. After the violent dispersion of the Jews by the Romans, their tragic history continues. Driven out of their country, the Jews did not wish (oh beauty of free will!) to assimilate. Imbued with their “national cohesiveness,” “with a superior ethical feeling,” and with “an indestructible belief in a single God” (see the article of Ben-Adir on Anti-Semitism in the General Encyclopedia), they have resisted all attempts at assimilation. Their sole hope during these somber days which lasted two thousand years has been the vision of a return to their ancient country.Zionism has never seriously posed this question: Why, during these two thousand years, have not the Jews really tried to return to this country? Why was it necessary to wait until the end of the nineteenth century for a Herzl to succeed in convincing them of this necessity? Why were all the predecessors of Herzl, like the famous Sabbatai Zebi, treated as false Messiahs? Why were the adherents of Sabbatai Zebi fiercely persecuted by orthodox Judaism?Naturally, in replying to these interesting questions, refuge is sought behind religion. “As long as the masses believed that they had to remain in the Diaspora until the advent of the Messiah, they had to suffer in silence,” states Zitlovski [13], whose Zionism is moreover quite conditional. Nevertheless this explanation tells us nothing. What is required is precisely an answer to the question of why the Jewish masses believed that they had to await the Messiah in order to be able to “return to their country.” Religion being an ideological reflection of social interests, it must perforce correspond to them. Today religion does not at all constitute an obstacle to Zionism. [14]In reality just so long as Judaism was incorporated in the feudal system, the “dream of Zion” was nothing but a dream and did not correspond to any real interest of Judaism. The Jewish tavern owner or “farmer” of sixteenth-century Poland thought as little of “returning” to Palestine as does the Jewish millionaire in America today. Jewish religious Messianism was no whit different from the Messianism belonging to other religions. Jewish pilgrims who went to Palestine met Catholic, Orthodox, and Moslem pilgrims. Besides it was not so much the “return to Palestine” which constituted the foundation of this Messianism as the belief in the rebuilding of the temple of Jerusalem."
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"content": "All of these idealist conceptions of Zionism are naturally inseparable from the dogma of eternal anti-Semitism. “As long as the Jews will live in the Diaspora, they will be hated by the natives.” This essential point of view for Zionism, its spinal column so to speak, is naturally given different nuances by its various currents. Zionism transposes modern anti-Semitism to all of history; it saves itself the trouble of studying the various forms of anti-Semitism and their evolution. However, we have seen that in different historical periods, Judaism made up part of the possessing classes and was treated as such. To sum up [the idealist conception], the sources of Zionism must be sought in the impossibility of assimilation because of “eternal anti-Semitism” and of the will to safeguard the “treasures of Judaism.” [15]In reality, Zionist ideology, like all ideologies, is only the distorted reflection of the interests of a class. It is the ideology of the Jewish petty bourgeoisie, suffocating between feudalism in ruins and capitalism in decay. The refutation of the ideological fantasies of Zionism does not naturally refute the real needs which brought them into being. It is modern anti-Semitism, and not mythical “eternal” anti-Semitism, which is the best agitator in favor of Zionism. Similarly, the basic question to determine is: To what extent is Zionism capable of resolving not the “eternal” Jewish problem but the Jewish question in the period of capitalist decay?Zionist theoreticians like to compare Zionism with all other national movements. But in reality, the foundations of the national movements and that of Zionism are altogether different. The national movement of the European bourgeoisie is the consequence of capitalist development; it reflects the will of the bourgeoisie to create the national bases for production, to abolish feudal remnants. The national movement of the European bourgeoisie is closely linked with the ascending phase of capitalism. But in the nineteenth century, in the period of the flowering of nationalisms, far from being “Zionist,” the Jewish bourgeoisie was profoundly assimilationist. The economic process from which the modern nations issued laid the foundations for integration of the Jewish bourgeoisie into the bourgeois nation.It is only when the process of the formation of nations approaches its end, when the productive forces have for a long time found themselves constricted within national boundaries, that the process of expulsion of Jews from capitalist society begins to manifest itself, that modern anti-Semitism begins to develop. The elimination of Judaism accompanies the decline of capitalism. Far from being a product of the development of the productive forces, Zionism is precisely the consequence of the complete halt of this development, the result of the petrifaction of capitalism. Whereas the national movement is the product of the ascending period of capitalism, Zionism is the product of the imperialist era. The Jewish tragedy of the twentieth century is a direct consequence of the decline of capitalism.Therein lies the principal obstacle to the realization of Zionism. Capitalist decay – basis for the growth of Zionism – is also the cause of the impossibility of its realization. The Jewish bourgeoisie is compelled to create a national state, to assure itself of the objective framework for the development of its productive forces, precisely in the period when the conditions for such a development have long since disappeared. The conditions of the decline of capitalism which have posed so sharply the Jewish question make its solution equally impossible along the Zionist road. And there is nothing astonishing in that. An evil cannot be suppressed without destroying its causes. But Zionism wishes to resolve the Jewish question without destroying capitalism, which is the principal source of the suffering of the Jews.At the end of the nineteenth century in the period when the Jewish problem was just beginning to be posed in all its sharpness, 150,000 Jews each year left their countries of origin. Between 1881 and 1925, nearly four million Jews emigrated. Despite these enormous figures, the Jewish population of Eastern Europe rose from six to eight million.Thus, even when capitalism was still developing, even when the countries across the ocean were still receiving immigrants, the Jewish question could not even begin to be resolved (in the Zionist sense); far from diminishing, the Jewish population showed a bad penchant of wanting to grow. In order to begin to resolve the Jewish question, that is to say, in order to begin really to transplant the Jewish masses, it would be necessary for the countries of immigration to absorb at least a little more than the natural growth of Jews in the Diaspora, that is at least three hundred thousand Jews per year. And if such a figure could not be reached before the first imperialist war, when all the conditions were still favorable for emigration, when all developed countries such as the United States were permitting the mass entry of immigrants, then how can we think that it is possible in the period of the continuous crisis of capitalism, in the period of almost incessant wars?"
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"content": "Naturally there are enough ships in the world to transport hundreds of thousands, even millions of Jews. But if all countries have closed their doors to immigrants, it is because there is an overproduction of labor forces just as there is an overproduction of commodities. Contrary to Malthus, who believed that there would be too many people because there would be too few goods, it is precisely the abundance of goods which is the cause of the “plethora” of human beings. By what miracle, in a period when the world markets are saturated with goods, in a period when unemployment has everywhere become a permanent fixture, by what miracle can a country, however great and rich it may be (we pass over the data relating to poor and small Palestine), develop its productive forces to the point of being able to welcome three hundred thousand immigrants each year? In reality the possibilities for Jewish emigration diminish at the same time that the need for it increases. The causes which promote the need for emigration are the same as those which prevent its realization; they all spring from the decline of capitalism.It is from this fundamental contradiction between the necessity for and the possibility of emigration that the political difficulties of Zionism flow. The period of development of the European nations was also the period of an intensive colonization in the countries across the ocean. It was at the beginning and middle of the nineteenth century in the golden age of European nationalism, that North America was colonized; it was also in this period that South America and Australia began to be developed. Vast areas of the earth were practically without a master and lent themselves marvelously to the establishment of millions of European emigrants. In that period, for reasons that we have studied, the Jews gave almost no thought to emigrating.Today the whole world is colonized, industrialized, and divided among the various imperialisms. Everywhere Jewish emigrants come into collision at one and the same time with the nationalism of the “natives” and with the ruling imperialism. In Palestine, Jewish nationalism collides with an increasingly aggressive Arab nationalism. The development of Palestine by Jewish immigration tends to increase the intensity of this Arab nationalism. The economic development of the country results in the growth of the Arab population, its social differentiation, the growth of a national capitalism. To overcome Arab resistance the Jews need English imperialism. But its “support” is as harmful as is Arab resistance. English imperialism views with a favorable eye a weak Jewish immigration to constitute a counterweight to the Arab factor, but it is intensely hostile to the establishment of a big Jewish population in Palestine, to its industrial development, to the growth of its proletariat. It merely uses the Jews as a counterweight to the Arab threat but does everything to raise difficulties for Jewish immigration. Thus, to the increasing difficulties flowing from Arab resistance, there is added the perfidious game of British imperialism.Finally, we must draw still one more conclusion from the fundamental premises which have been established. Because of its necessarily artificial character, because of the slim perspectives for a rapid and normal development of Palestinian economy in our period, the task of Zionist colonization requires considerable capital. Zionism demands incessantly increasing sacrifices from the Jewish communities of the world. But so long as the situation of the Jews is more or less bearable in the Diaspora, no Jewish class feels the necessity of making these sacrifices. To the extent that the Jewish masses feel the necessity of having a “country,” to the extent also that persecutions mount in intensity, so much the less are the Jewish masses able to contribute to Zionist construction. “A strong Jewish people in the Diaspora is necessary for Palestinian reconstruction,” states Ruppin. But so long as the Jewish people is strong in the Diaspora, it feels no need for Palestinian reconstruction. When it strongly feels this necessity, the possibility for realizing it no longer exists. It would be difficult today to ask European Jews, who have a pressing need to emigrate, to give aid for the rebuilding of Palestine. The day when they will be able to do it, it is a safe assumption that their enthusiasm for this task will have considerably cooled.A relative success for Zionism, along the lines of creating a Jewish majority in Palestine and even of the formation of a “Jewish state,” that is to say, a state placed under the complete domination of English or American imperialism, cannot, naturally, be excluded. This would in some ways be a return to the state of things which existed in Palestine before the destruction of Jerusalem and, from this point of view, there will be “reparation of a two-thousand-year-old injustice.” But this tiny “independent” Jewish state in the midst of a worldwide Diaspora will be only an apparent return to the state of things before the year 70. It will not even be the beginning of the solution of the Jewish question. The Jewish Diaspora of the Roman era was in effect based on solid economic ground; the Jews played an important economic role in the world. The existence or absence of a Palestinian mother country had for the Jews of this period only a secondary importance. Today it is not a question of giving the Jews a political or spiritual center (as Achaad Haam would have it). It is a question of saving Judaism from the annihilation which threatens it in the Diaspora. But in what way will the existence of a small Jewish state in Palestine change anything in the situation of the Polish or German Jews? Admitting even that all the Jews in the world were today Palestinian citizens, would the policy of Hitler have been any different?"
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"content": "One must be stricken with an incurable juridical cretinism to believe that the creation of a small Jewish state in Palestine can change anything at all in the situation of the Jews throughout the world, especially in the present period. The situation after the eventual creation of a Jewish state in Palestine will resemble the state of things that existed in the Roman era only in the fact that in both cases the existence of a small Jewish state in Palestine could in no way influence the situation of the Jews in the Diaspora. In the Roman era, the economic and social position of Judaism in the Diaspora was very strong, so that the disappearance of this Jewish state did not in any way compromise it. Today the situation of the Jews in the world is very bad; so the reestablishment of a Jewish state in Palestine cannot in any way restore it. In both cases the situation of the Jews does not at all depend on the existence of a state in Palestine but is a function of the general economic, social, and political situation. Even supposing that the Zionist dream is realized and the “secular injustice” is undone – and we are still very far from that – the situation of Judaism throughout the world will in no way be modified by that. The temple will perhaps be rebuilt but the faithful will continue to suffer.The history of Zionism is the best illustration of the insurmountable difficulties that it encounters, difficulties resulting, in the last analysis, from the fundamental contradiction which tears it apart: the contradiction between the growing necessity of resolving the Jewish question and the growing impossibility of resolving it under the conditions of decaying capitalism. Immediately following the first imperialist war, Jewish emigration to Palestine encountered no great obstacles in its path. Despite that, there were relatively few immigrants; the economic conditions of capitalist countries after the war made the need to emigrate less pressing. It was, moreover, because of this light emigration that the British movement did not feel obliged to set up bars to the entry of Jews into Palestine. In the years 1924, 1925, 1926, the Polish bourgeoisie opened an economic offensive against the Jewish masses. These years are also the period of a very important immigration into Palestine. But this massive immigration soon collided with insurmountable economic difficulties. The ebb was almost as great as was the flood tide. Up to 1933, the date of Hitler’s arrival to power, immigration was of little importance. After this date, tens of thousands of Jews began to arrive in Palestine. But this “conjuncture” was soon arrested by a storm of anti-Jewish demonstrations and massacres. The Arabs seriously feared becoming a minority in the country. The Arab feudal elements feared being submerged by the capitalist wave. British imperialism profited from this tension by piling up obstacles to the entry of the Jews, by working to deepen the gulf existing between the Jews and the Arabs, by proposing the partition of Palestine. Up to the second imperialist war, Zionism thus found itself in the grip of mounting difficulties. The Palestinian population lived in a state of permanent terror. Precisely when the situation of the Jews became ever more desperate, Zionism showed itself absolutely incapable of providing a remedy. “Illegal” Jewish immigrants were greeted with rifle fire by their British “protectors.”The Zionist illusion began to lose its attractiveness even in the eyes of the most uninformed. In Poland, the last elections revealed that the Jewish masses were turning completely away from Zionism. The Jewish masses began to understand that Zionism not only could not seriously improve their situation, but that it was furnishing weapons to the anti-Semites by its theories of the “objective necessity of Jewish emigration.” The imperialist war and the triumph of Hitlerism in Europe are an unprecedented disaster for Judaism. Judaism is confronted with the threat of total extinction. What can Zionism do to counteract such a disaster? Is it not obvious that the Jewish question is very little dependent upon the future destiny of Tel Aviv but very greatly upon the regime which will be set up tomorrow in Europe and in the world? The Zionists have a great deal of faith in a victory of Anglo-American imperialism. But is there a single reason for believing that the attitude of the Anglo-American imperialists will differ after their eventual victory from their prewar attitude? It is obvious that there is none. Even admitting that Anglo-American imperialism will create some kind of abortive Jewish state, we have seen that the situation of world Judaism will hardly be affected. A great Jewish immigration into Palestine after this war will confront the same difficulties as previously. Under conditions of capitalist decay, it is impossible to transplant millions of Jews. Only a worldwide socialist planned economy would be capable of such a miracle. Naturally this presupposes the proletarian revolution.But Zionism wishes precisely to resolve the Jewish question independently of the world revolution. By misconstruing the real sources of the Jewish question in our period, by lulling itself with puerile dreams and silly hopes, Zionism proves that it is an ideological excrescence and not a scientific doctrine. [16] Notes1. Congrès Juif Mondial, op. cit., pp. 246–47.2. Ibid., p. 249.3. Ibid., p. 249.4. Yiddishe Economic (September–October 1938), p. 437.5. At Warsaw in 1882, 79.3 percent of businessmen were Jews; in 1931, 51.4 percent of the businessmen were Jews. Jacob Lestschinsky, Der Wirtschaftliche Zusammenbruch der Juden in Deutschland u. Polen (Paris 1938), p. 48."
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"content": "6. In the period when Jewish and non-Jewish petty-bourgeois intellectuals represent Hitler as the sole responsible party for anti-Semitism in our time, in the period when the United Nations, among them Poland, lay claim to being defenders of the “rights of man” – recalling this fact will most certainly not be devoid of usefulness. Of course Hitler organized, in a premeditated way, the destruction of European Judaism, and personified capitalist barbarism in this sphere as in others. But the various more or less “democratic” governments which followed each other in Poland could not have learned very much from him. The disappearance of Hitler can change nothing fundamental in the situation of the Jews. A transitory improvement of their condition will in no wise alter the profound roots of twentieth-century anti-Semitism.7. Congrès Juif Mondial, op. cit., pp. 120–121.8. Ibid., p. 254.9. Yiddishe Economic (July–August 1938), p. 353.10. Engels to Mehring, Selected Correspondence of Marx and Engels (New York 1942), p. 511.11. See the Proudhon Utopia of free credit.12. Hans Günther, Rassenkunde des Jüdischen Volkes (Munich 1930), p. 191.13. Materialism and the National Question.14. There is a religious Zionist bourgeois party, Misrakhi, and a religious Zionist workers party, Poale-Misrakhi.15. Adolf Böhm, Die Zionistische Bewegung (Berlin 1935), vol. 1, chapter 3.16. In this chapter, Zionism has been treated only insofar as it is linked with the Jewish question. The role of Zionism in Palestine naturally constitutes another problem. Contents | Jews and Marxism Subject PageLast updated: 19 August 2020"
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"content": "Abram LeonThe Jewish Question EIGHTToward a solution of the Jewish questionIt is incorrect to state that a solution for the Jewish problem has been needed for two thousand years. The very fact that in the course of this long period such a solution was not found best demonstrates that it was not necessary.Judaism was an indispensable factor in precapitalist society. It was a fundamental organism within it. That is what explains the two thousand year existence of Judaism in the Diaspora. The Jew was as characteristic a personage in feudal society as the lord and the serf. It was no accident that a foreign element played the role of “capital” in feudal society. Feudal society as such could not create a capitalist element; as soon as it was able to do so, precisely then it ceased being feudal. Nor was it accidental that the Jew remained a foreigner in the midst of feudal society. The “capital” of precapitalist society existed outside of its economic system. From the moment that capital begins to emerge from the womb of this social system and takes the place of the borrowed organ, the Jew is eliminated and feudal society ceases to be feudal.It is modern capitalism that has posed the Jewish problem. Not because the Jews today number close to twenty million people (the proportion of Jews to non-Jews has declined greatly since the Roman era) but because capitalism destroyed the secular basis for the existence of Judaism. Capitalism destroyed feudal society; and with it the function of the Jewish people-class. History doomed this people-class to disappearance; and thus the Jewish problem arose. The Jewish problem is the problem of adapting Judaism to modern society, of liquidating the heritage bequeathed to humanity by feudalism.For centuries Judaism was a social organism within which social and national elements were closely intermingled. The Jews are far from constituting a race; on the contrary, they are probably one of the most typical and conspicuous examples of racial mixture. This does not mean, however, that the Asiatic element is not very noticeable in the mixture – sufficiently outstanding, in any case, to set the Jew apart in the Western nations, where he is chiefly to be found. This real national “base” is supplemented by an imaginary, poetic base, formed out of the secular tradition which attaches the present Jew to his distant “ancestors” of biblical times. On this national base, the class foundation and the mercantile psychology were subsequently grafted. The national and social elements became mixed to the point of complete intermingling. It would be difficult to distinguish in a Polish Jew the part that his “type” has inherited from his ancestors and the part acquired from the social function that he fulfilled in that country for centuries. It must be agreed that the social base long ago acquired greater importance than the national base. At any rate, if the social element came to be added to the national element, the latter could persist only thanks to the former. It is thanks to his social and economic situation that the Jew was able to “preserve” himself.Capitalism has posed the Jewish problem, that is to say, it has destroyed the social bases upon which Judaism maintained itself for centuries. But capitalism has not resolved the Jewish problem, for it has been unable to absorb the Jew liberated from his social shell. The decline of capitalism has suspended the Jews between heaven and earth. The Jewish “precapitalist” merchant has largely disappeared, but his son has found no place in modern production. The social basis of Judaism has crumbled; Judaism has become largely a declassed element. Capitalism has not only doomed the social function of the Jews; it has also doomed the Jews themselves.Petty-bourgeois ideologists are always inclined to raise a historical phenomenon into an eternal category. For them the Jewish question is a function of the Diaspora; only the concentration of the Jews in Palestine can resolve it.But it is pure childishness to reduce the Jewish question to a question of territory. The territorial solution has meaning only if it signifies the disappearance of traditional Judaism, the penetration of Jews into modern economy, the “productivization” of the Jews. By a detour, Zionism thus returns to the solution proposed by its worst enemies, the consistent “assimilationists.” For the Zionists as well as for the assimilationists it is a question of doing away with the “cursed” heritage of the past, of making workers, agriculturists, productive intellectuals, of the Jews. The illusion of Zionism does not consist in its desire to attain this result; that is a historical necessity which will cut its own path sooner or later. Its illusion consists in believing that the insurmountable difficulties which decaying capitalism puts in the way of these tasks will disappear as if by magic in Palestine. But if the Jews were unable to find a place in economic life in the Diaspora, the same causes will prevent them from doing so in Palestine. The world today is so much a unit that it is sheer folly to try to build within it a haven sheltered from its storms. That is why the failure of “assimilation” must of necessity be followed by the failure of Zionism. In this period when the Jewish problem takes on the aspect of a terrible tragedy, Palestine can be no more than a feeble palliative. Ten million Jews find themselves in a huge concentration camp. What remedy can the creation of a few Zionist colonies bring to this problem?Well then – neither assimilation nor Zionism? No solution at all? No, there is no solution to the Jewish question under capitalism, just as there is no solution to the other problems posed before humanity – without profound social upheavals. The same causes which make the emancipation of the Jews an illusion also make the realization of Zionism impossible. Unless the profound causes for the Jewish question are eliminated, the effects cannot be eliminated."
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"content": "The ghetto and the wheel [the badge that Jews sewed on their clothes in the Middle Ages] have reappeared – symbols, moreover, of the tragic destiny toward which humanity is being driven. But the very exacerbation of anti-Semitism prepares the road for its disappearance. The driving out of the Jews provides momentarily a kind of living space for the petty bourgeoisie. “Aryanization” creates jobs for some tens of thousands of unemployed intellectuals and petty bourgeois. But in attacking the apparent causes of their misfortunes, the petty bourgeoisie has merely strengthened the operation of the real causes. Fascism will accelerate the process of proletarianization of the middle classes. After the Jewish petty bourgeoisie, hundreds of thousands of shopkeepers and artisans were expropriated and proletarianized. Capitalist concentration made gigantic progress. “Improvement in the economic situation” took place only at the price of preparation for the second imperialist war, the cause of enormous destruction and slaughter.Thus the tragic fate of Judaism mirrors with singular sharpness the situation of all humanity. The decline of capitalism means for the Jews the return to the ghetto – although the basis for the ghetto disappeared long ago, along with the foundations of feudal society. Similarly, for all humanity capitalism bars the road of the past as well as the highway to the future. Only the destruction of capitalism will make it possible for humanity to benefit from the immense achievements of the industrial era.Is it astonishing that the Jewish masses, who are the first to feel – and with special sharpness – the effects of the contradictions of capitalism, should have furnished rich forces for the socialist and revolutionary struggle? “On various occasions Lenin emphasized the importance of the Jews for the revolution, not only in Russia but in other countries as well .... Lenin also expressed the thought that the flight of a part of the Jewish population ... into the interior of Russia, as a result of the occupation of the industrial regions of the West, had been a very useful thing for the revolution – just as the appearance of a large number of Jewish intellectuals in the Russian cities during the war had also been useful. They helped to smash the widespread and extremely dangerous sabotage which confronted the Bolsheviks everywhere immediately following the revolution. Thus they helped the revolution to survive a very critical stage.” [1] The high percentage of Jews in the proletarian movement is only a reflection of the tragic situation of Judaism in our time. The intellectual faculties of the Jews, fruit of the historic past of Judaism, are thus an important support for the proletarian movement.In this latter fact lies a final – and not the least important – reason for modern anti-Semitism. The ruling classes persecute with special sadism the Jewish intellectuals and workers, who have supplied a host of fighters to the revolutionary movement. To isolate the Jews completely from the sources of culture and science has become a vital necessity for the decaying system which persecutes them. The ridiculous legend of “Jewish-Marxism” is nothing but a caricature of the bonds that actually exist between socialism and the Jewish masses.Never has the situation of the Jews been so tragic. In the worst periods of the Middle Ages entire countries opened their doors to receive them. Today capitalism, which rules the whole world, makes the earth uninhabitable for them. Never has the mirage of a Promised Land so haunted the Jewish masses. But never was a Promised Land less capable of resolving the Jewish question than in our time.The very paroxysm, however, that the Jewish problem has reached today, also provides the key to its solution. The plight of the Jews has never been so tragic; but never has it been so close to ceasing to be that. In past centuries, hatred of the Jews had a real basis in the social antagonism which set them against other classes of the population. Today, the interest of the Jewish classes are closely bound up with the interests of the popular masses of the entire world. By persecuting the Jews as “capitalist,” capitalism makes them complete pariahs. The ferocious persecutions against Judaism render stark naked the stupid bestiality of anti-Semitism and destroy the remnants of prejudices that the working classes nurse against the Jews. The ghettos and the yellow badges do not prevent the workers from feeling a growing solidarity with those who suffer most from the afflictions all humanity is suffering.And the greatest social explosion the world has ever seen is finally preparing the liberation of the most persecuted pariahs of our planet. When the people of the factories and the fields have finally thrown off the yoke of the capitalists, when a future of unlimited development opens up before liberated humanity, the Jewish masses will be able to make a far from unimportant contribution towards the building of a new world.This does not mean that socialism, brought to maturity by a wave of a magic wand, will remove all the difficulties that stand as obstacles to the solution of the Jewish question. The example of the USSR shows that even after the proletarian revolution, the special structure of Judaism – a heritage of history – will give rise to a number of difficulties, particularly during the transition periods. During the time of the NEP, for instance, the Jews of Russia, utilizing their traditional business experience, furnished numerous cadres for the new bourgeois class.Moreover, the great mass of Jewish small tradesmen and petty artisans suffered greatly at the beginning of the proletarian dictatorship. It was only later, with the success of the Five Year Plan, that the Jews penetrated en masse into Soviet economic life. Despite certain difficulties, the experiment was decisive: hundreds of thousands of Jews became workers and peasants. The fact that white-collar workers and functionaries constitute a considerable percentage of wage-earning Jews must not be considered a matter for concern. Socialism is not at all interested that all Jews should take up manual occupations. On the contrary, the intellectual faculties of the Jews should be put to widest use."
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"content": "It is thus clear that, even under the relatively difficult conditions of a backward country the proletariat can solve the Jewish problem. The Jews have penetrated en masse into Russian economy. The “productivization” of the Jews has been accompanied by two parallel processes: assimilation and territorial concentration. Wherever the Jews penetrate into industry, they are rapidly assimilated. As early as 1926 there were hardly 40 percent of the Jewish miners in the Donets Basin who spoke Yiddish. Nevertheless the Jews live under a regime of national autonomy; they have special schools, a Yiddish press, autonomous courts. But the Jewish nationalists are continually deploring the abandonment of these schools and this press. Only in those places where fairly dense masses of Jews have been colonized, especially in Birobidjan, do we witness a kind of “national renaissance.” [2]Thus life itself demonstrates that the problem which so bitterly divides Judaism – assimilation or territorial concentration – is a fundamental problem only to petty-bourgeois dreamers. The Jewish masses want simply an end to their martyrdom. That, socialism alone can give them. But socialism must give the Jews, as it will to all peoples, the possibility of assimilation as well as the possibility of having a special national life.The end of Judaism? Certainly. Despite their apparently irreconcilable opposition, assimilationists and nationalists are agreed in combating Judaism as history has known it – the mercantile Judaism of the Diaspora, the people-class. The Zionists never stop repeating that it is a matter of creating a new type of Jew in Palestine, altogether different from the Jew of the Diaspora. They even reject with horror the language and culture of the Judaism of the Diaspora. In Birobidjan, in the Ukraine and the Donets Basin, even the old man discards his secular dress. The people-class, historical Judaism, has been definitively doomed by history. Despite all its traditional pretensions, Zionism will not culminate in a “national renaissance” but, at the most, in a “national birth.” The “new Jew” resembles neither his brother of the Diaspora nor his ancestor of the era of the fall of Jerusalem. The young Palestinian, proud of speaking the language of Bar Kochba, would probably not be understood by his ancestor; in reality, the Jews in the Roman era spoke Aramaic and Greek fluently but had only a vague knowledge of Hebrew. Moreover, neo-Hebrew, in the nature of things, is going further and further away from the language of the Bible. Everything will add up to estrange the Palestinian Jew from the Judaism of the Diaspora. And tomorrow, when national barriers and prejudices begin to disappear in Palestine, who can doubt that a fruitful reconciliation will take place between the Arab and the Jewish workers, the result of which will be their partial or total fusion?“Eternal” Judaism, which, moreover, has never been anything but a myth, will disappear. It is puerile to pose assimilation and the “national solution” as opposites. Even in those countries where Jewish national communities will eventually be created, we will be witnessing either the creation of a new Jewish nationality, completely different from the old, or the formation of new nations. Moreover, even in the first case, unless the people already established in the country are driven out or the rigorous prescriptions of Ezra and Nehemiah are revived, this new nationality cannot fail to come under the influence of the longtime inhabitants of the country.In the sphere of nationality, only socialism can bring the widest democracy. It must provide the Jews with the opportunity of living a national existence in every country they inhabit; it must also give them the opportunity of concentrating in one or more territories, naturally without injuring the interests of the native inhabitants. Only the widest proletarian democracy will make possible the resolution of the Jewish problem with a minimum of suffering.Clearly, the tempo of the solution of the Jewish problem depends upon the general tempo of socialist construction. The opposition between assimilation and the national solution is an entirely relative one, the latter often being nothing but the prelude to the former. Historically, all existing nations are the products of various fusions of races and peoples. It is not excluded that new nations, fanned by the fusion or even the dispersion of nations now existing, will be created. However it may be, socialism must limit itself in this sphere to “letting nature take its course.”Thus in a certain sense socialism will return to the practice of precapitalist society. It was capitalism by virtue of the fact that it provided an economic basis for the national problem, which also created insoluble national contradictions. Before the capitalist era, Slovaks, Czechs, Germans, French, lived in perfect understanding. Wars did not have a national character; they had interest only for the possessing classes. The policy of compulsory assimilation, of national persecution, was unknown to the Romans. Submission of barbarian peoples to Romanization or Hellenization was a peaceful process. Today, national-cultural and linguistic antagonisms are only manifestations of the economic antagonism created by capitalism. With the disappearance of capitalism, the national problem will lose all its acuteness. If it is premature to speak of a worldwide assimilation of peoples, it is nonetheless clear that a planned economy on a global scale will bring all the peoples of the world much closer to each other. But the hastening of this assimilation by artificial means would hardly seem to be indicated; nothing could do more harm. We still cannot foresee exactly what the “offspring” of present Judaism will be; socialism will take care that the “birth” will take place under the best possible conditions. Notes1. S. Dimanstein, Lenin on the Jewish Question in Russia (Russian) (Moscow 1924). Quoted by Otto Heller, Der Untergang des Judentums (Vienna [1931]), p. 230.2. We touch here on the Jewish problem in Russia only in passing. Contents | Jews and Marxism Subject PageLast updated: 27 August 2020"
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"content": "Abram LeonThe Jewish Question ONEThe premises for a scientific study of Jewish historyThe scientific study of Jewish history is yet to transcend the stage of idealist improvisation. Serious historians have boldly attacked the field of history as a whole in the spirit of Marx, and have in large measure conquered it for the materialist outlook. Jewish history, however, still remains the chosen land of the “god-seekers” of every variety. It is one of the few fields of history where idealist prejudices have succeeded in entrenching and maintaining themselves to so great an extent.How many oceans of ink have been spilled to celebrate the famous “miracle of the Jew!” “What a strange spectacle are these men who have, in order to preserve the sacred trust of their faith, braved persecutions and martyrdom,” exclaims Bédarride. [1]The preservation of the Jews is explained by all historians as the product of their devotion through the centuries to their religion or their nationality. Differences among these historians begin to appear only when it comes to defining the “goal” for which the Jews preserved themselves, the reason for their resistance to assimilation. Some, taking the religious point of view, speak of the “sacred trust of their faith”; others, like Dubnow, defend the theory of “attachment to the national idea.” “We must seek the causes for the historical phenomenon of the preservation of the Jewish people in their national spiritual strength, in their ethical basis, and in the monotheistic principle,” says the General Encyclopedia which contrives in this way to reconcile the various viewpoints among the idealist historians. [2]But while it is possible to reconcile these idealist theories with one another, it is hopeless to try to find some ground for reconciling these same theories with the elementary rules of historical science. The latter must categorically reject the fundamental error of all idealist schools, which consists of putting under the hallmark of free will the cardinal question of Jewish history, namely: the preservation of Judaism. Only a study of the economic role played by the Jews can contribute to elucidating the causes for the “miracle of the Jew.”To study the evolution of this question is not exclusively of academic interest. Without a thorough study of Jewish history, it is difficult to understand the Jewish question in modern times. The plight of the Jews in the twentieth century is intimately bound up with their historical past. Every social formation represents a stage in the social process. Being is only a moment in the process of becoming. In order to undertake an analysis of the Jewish question in its present phase of development, it is indispensable to know its historical roots.In the sphere of Jewish history, as in the sphere of universal history, Karl Marx’s brilliant thought points the road to follow “We will not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but we will look for the secret of the religion in the real Jew.” [3] Marx thus puts the Jewish question back on its feet. We must not start with religion in order to explain Jewish history; on the contrary; the preservation of the Jewish religion or nationality can be explained only by the “real Jew,” that is to say, by the Jew in his economic and social role. The preservation of the Jews contains nothing of the miraculous. “Judaism has survived not in spite of history, but by virtue of history.” [4]It is precisely by studying the historical function of Judaism that one is able to discover the “secret of its survival in history. The struggles between Judaism and Christian society, under their respective religious guises, were in reality social struggles. “We transmute the contradictions of the state with a specific religion, like Judaism, into the the contradiction of the state with specific secular elements.” [5]The general pattern of Jewish history is presented (with various slight nuances) somewhat as follows according to the reigning idealist school: Up to the destruction of Jerusalem, as late as the rebellion of Bar Kochba, the Jewish nation was in no wise different from other normally constituted nations, such as the Roman or the Greek. The wars between the Romans and the Jews resulted in dispersing the Jewish nation to the four corners of the world. In the dispersion, the Jews fiercely resisted national and religious assimilation. Christianity found no more rabid adversaries in its path and despite all its efforts did not succeed in converting them. The fall of the Roman empire increased the isolation of Judaism which constituted the sole heterodox element after the complete triumph of Christianity in the West.The Jews of the Diaspora, in the epoch of the barbarian invasions, did not at all constitute a homogeneous social group. On the contrary agriculture, industry, commerce were widely prevalent among them. It was the continuous religious persecutions which forced them to entrench themselves increasingly in commerce and usury. The Crusades, by reason of the religious fanaticism they engendered, violently accelerated this evolution which transformed the Jews into usurers and ended in their confinement in ghettos. Of course, the hatred against the Jews was also fanned by the latter’s economic role. But the historians attribute only a secondary importance to this factor. This condition of Judaism continued up to the French Revolution, which destroyed the barriers that religious oppression had raised against the Jews.Several important facts challenge the truth of this pattern:1. The dispersal of the Jews does not at all date from the fall of Jerusalem. Several centuries before this event, the great majority of Jews were already spread over the four corners of the world. It is certain that well before the fall of Jerusalem, more than three-fourths of the Jews no longer lived in Palestine. [6]"
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"content": "For the great masses of Jews dispersed in the Greek empire, and later in the Roman empire, the Jewish kingdom of Palestine was of completely secondary importance. The tie with the “mother country” was manifested solely in religious pilgrimages to Jerusalem, which played a role similar to that of Mecca for the Moslems. Shortly before the fall of Jerusalem, King Agrippa said to the Jews: “There is no people upon the habitable earth which have not some portion of you among them.” [7]The Diaspora was consequently not at all an accidental thing, a product of acts of violence. [8] The fundamental reason for Jewish emigration must be sought in the geographic conditions of Palestine. “The Jews in Palestine were the possessors of a mountainous country which at a certain time no longer sufficed for assuring its inhabitants as tolerable an existence as that among their neighbors. Such a people is driven to choose between brigandage and emigration. The Scots, for example, alternately engaged in each of these pursuits. The Jews, after numerous struggles with their neighbors, also took the second road ... Peoples living under such conditions do not go to foreign countries as agriculturists. They go there rather in the role of mercenaries, like the Arcadians of antiquity, the Swiss in the Middle Ages, the Albanians in our day; or in the role of merchants, like the Jews, the Scots, and the Armenians. We see here that a similar environment tends to produce similar characteristics among peoples of different races.” [9]2. The overwhelming majority of Jews of the Diaspora unquestionably engaged in trade. Palestine itself since very remote times constituted a passageway for merchandise, a bridge between the valleys of the Euphrates and the Nile. “Syria was the inevitable highway of the conquerors ... Trade and ideas followed the same route. It is easy to see that from a very early date these regions were thickly populated, and possessed great cities whose very situation lent itself to commerce.” [10]The geographic conditions of Palestine therefore explain both the Jewish emigration and its commercial character. On the other hand, among all nations, at the beginning of their development, the traders are foreigners. “The characteristic of a natural economy is that each sphere produces everything consumed by it and consumes everything it produces. There is consequently no pressure to buy goods or services from others ... Because what is produced is consumed in this economy, we find among all these peoples that the first traders are foreigners.” [11]Philo enumerates many cities where the Jews were established as traders. He states that they “inhabited countless cities in Europe, in Asia, in Libya, on the mainland and in the islands, along the coasts and in the interior.” The Jews who inhabited the Hellenic islands, as well as the mainland and further to the west, had installed themselves there with commercial objectives. [12] “As well as the Syrians, the Jews were to be found in all the cities, living in small communities; they were sailors, brokers, bankers, whose influence was as essential in the economic life of the time as was the Oriental influence which made itself felt at the same time in the art and the religious thought of the period.” [13]It is to their social position that the Jews are beholden for the wide autonomy granted them by the Roman emperors. The Jews, “and they only were allowed to form, so to speak, a community within the community and – while the other nonburgesses were ruled by the authorities of the burgess body – [they were permitted] up to a certain degree to govern themselves.” [14] Caesar advanced the interests of the Jews in Alexandria and in Rome by special favors and privileges, and protected in particular their peculiar worship against the Roman as well as against the Greek local priests. [15]3. Hatred for the Jews does not date solely from the birth of Christianity. Seneca treated the Jews as a criminal race. Juvenal believed that the Jews existed only to cause evil for other peoples. Quintilian said that the Jews were a curse for other people.The cause of ancient anti-Semitism is the same as for medieval anti-Semitism: the antagonism toward the merchant in every society based principally on the production of use values. “Medieval hostility toward merchants is not solely of Christian or pseudo-Christian inspiration. It also has a ‘real’ pagan source. The latter was strongly rooted in a class ideology; in the disdain which the leading classes of Roman society – the senatorial gentes as well as the provincial curia – felt, out of a deep peasant tradition, toward all forms of economic activity other than those deriving from agriculture.” [16]However, while anti-Semitism was already strongly developed in Roman society the condition of the Jews, as we have seen, was quite enviable there. The hostility of classes that live from the land toward trade does not eliminate their dependence upon the latter. The landowner hates and despises the merchant but he cannot get along without him. [17]"
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"content": "The triumph of Christianity did not bring any notable changes in this regard. Christianity, at first the religion of the slaves and the downtrodden, was rapidly transformed into an ideology of the ruling class of landed proprietors. It was Constantine the Great who laid the foundation for medieval serfdom. The triumphal march of Christianity across Europe was accompanied by an extension of feudal economy. The religious orders played an extremely important role in the progress of civilization, which consisted in that epoch of developing agriculture on the basis of serfdom. There is little astonishing in the fact that “born in Judaism, formed at first exclusively of Jews, Christianity nevertheless nowhere during the first four centuries found more difficulty than among them in acquiring partisans for its doctrine.” [18] As a matter of fact, Christian mentality during the first ten centuries of our era viewed everything connected with economic life from the basic standpoint “that a merchant can with difficulty do work pleasing to God” and that “all trade implies a greater or lesser amount of cheating.” [19] The life of the Jews appeared completely incomprehensible to St. Ambrose who lived in the fourth century. He despised the wealth of the Jews profoundly, and firmly believed that they would be punished for it by eternal damnation.The fierce hostility of the Jews toward Catholicism and their determination to preserve a religion which admirably expressed their social interests are therefore quite natural. It is not the loyalty of the Jews to their faith which explains their preservation as a distinct social group; on the contrary it is their preservation as a distinct social group which explains their attachment to their faith.Nevertheless, like the hostility in antiquity toward the Jews, Christian anti-Semitism in the first ten centuries of the Christian era never went to the extreme of demanding the annihilation of Judaism. Whereas official Christianity mercilessly persecuted paganism and heresies, it tolerated the Jewish religion. The condition of the Jews continued to improve during the decline of the Roman empire, after the complete triumph of Christianity and up to the twelfth century. The more economic decay deepened, all the more did the commercial role of the Jews grow in importance. In the tenth century, they constituted the sole economic link between Europe and Asia.4. It is only from the twelfth century on, parallel with the economic development of Western Europe, with the growth of cities and the formation of a native commercial and industrial class, that the condition of the Jews begins to worsen seriously, leading to their almost complete elimination from most of the Western countries. Persecutions of the Jews take on increasingly violent forms. As against this, in the backward countries of Eastern Europe, their condition continued to flourish up to a fairly recent period.From these few preliminary considerations, we can see how false is the general conception prevailing in the sphere of Jewish history. Above all the Jews constitute historically a social group with a specific economic function. They are a class, or more precisely, a people-class. [20]The concept of class does not at all contradict the concept of people. It is because the Jews have preserved themselves as a social class that they have likewise retained certain of their religious, ethnic, and linguistic traits. [21]This identification of a class with a people (or race) is far from being exceptional in precapitalist societies. Social classes were then frequently distinguished by a more or less national or racial character. “The higher and lower classes ... are in many countries the lineal representatives of the peoples conquering and the peoples conquered of an anterior epoch .... The race of the invaders ... formed a military nobility ... the invaded race ... not living by the sword but by the compulsory labor of their hands ....” [22] Kautsky speaks in the same vein: “Different classes may assume the character of different races. On the other hand, the meeting of many races, each developing an occupation of its own, may lead to their taking up various callings or social positions within the same community: race becomes class.” [23] [24]There is evidently a continuous interdependence between racial or national and class characteristics. The social position of the Jews has had a profound, determining influence on their national character.There is no contradiction in this idea of a people-class; and it is even easier to show the correspondence between class and religion. Whenever a class attains a certain degree of maturity and consciousness, its opposition to the ruling class takes on religious forms. The heresies of the Albigenses, the Lollards, the Manichaeans, the Cathari, and other innumerable sects that swarmed in medieval cities, were the initial religious manifestations of the growing opposition to the feudal order by the bourgeoisie and the people as a whole. These heresies nowhere reached the level of a dominant religion because of the relative weakness of the medieval bourgeoisie. They were savagely drowned in blood. It was only in the seventeenth century that the bourgeoisie, increasing in power, was able to bring about the triumph of Lutheranism and above all of Calvinism and its English equivalents. [25]Whereas Catholicism expresses the interests of the landed nobility and of the feudal order, while Calvinism (or Puritanism) represents those of the bourgeoisie or capitalism, Judaism mirrors the interests of a precapitalist mercantile class. [26] [27]What primarily distinguishes Jewish “capitalism” from genuine capitalism is that, by contrast with the latter, it is not the bearer of a new mode of production. “The merchant’s capital is pure, separated from the extremes, the spheres of production, between which it intervenes.” “The trading nations of the ancients existed like the gods of Epicurus in the intermediate worlds of the universe or rather like the Jews in the pores of Polish society.” “Both usury and commerce exploit the various modes of production. They do not create it, but attack it from the outside.” [28]"
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"content": "The accumulation of money in the hands of the Jews did not arise from a special mode of production, from capitalist production. Surplus value (or surplus product) came from feudal exploitation and the lords were obliged to yield part of this surplus value to the Jews. Hence the antagonism between the Jews and feudalism, but hence likewise came the indestructible bond between them.As for the lord, so too for the Jew, feudalism was mother earth. If the lord needed the Jew, the Jew also had need of the lord. It is by reason of this social position that the Jews were nowhere able to rise to the role of a ruling class. In feudal economy, the role of a merchant class could only be a clearly subordinate one. Judaism could only remain a more or less tolerated cult. [29]We have already seen that the Jews in antiquity had jurisdiction over their own community. The same was true in the Middle Ages. “In the plastic society of the Middle Ages, each class of men lived according to its own customs, and under its special jurisdiction. Outside the judicial organization of the state, the church had its ecclesiastical courts, the nobility its feudal courts, and the peasants their manorial courts. The burghers in their turn, obtained their échevins’ courts.” [30]The specific organization of the Jews was the Kehillah. Each cluster of Jews was organized into a community (Kehillah) which lived its own social life and had its own juridical organization. It was in Poland that this organization attained its highest degree of perfection. According to an ordinance issued by King Sigismund II in 1551, the Jews had the right to choose judges and rabbis whose duty it was to administer all their affairs. Only in actions between Jews and non-Jews did the Voyevoda courts intervene. Each Jewish community was free to choose a community council. The activities of this council, called Kahal, were very extensive. It collected taxes for the state, apportioned the general and special taxes, directed the elementary schools and high schools (Yeshibot). It had jurisdiction over all questions concerning trade, artisanry, charity. It took care of settling conflicts between members of the community. The power of each Kahal extended to the Jewish inhabitants of surrounding villages.With time the various councils of Jewish communities made a practice of assembling regionally at regular intervals to discuss administrative, juridical, and religious questions. These assemblies thus assumed the aspect of miniature parliaments.On the occasion of the great fair of Lublin, a sort of general parliament assembled in which the representatives of Great Poland, Little Poland, Podolia, and Volhynia participated. This parliament was called Vaad Arba Aratzoth, or the “Council of the Four Lands.”Traditional Jewish historians have not failed to discern a form of national autonomy in this organization. “In old Poland,” says Dubnow, “the Jews constituted a nation having autonomy, with its own internal administration, courts and a certain juridical independence.” [31]Clearly, it is a gross anachronism to speak of national autonomy in the sixteenth century. This epoch knew nothing of the national question. In feudal society, only the classes had their special jurisdictions. Jewish autonomy is to be explained by the specific social and economic position of the Jews and not at all by their “nationality.”Its linguistic evolution also reflects the specific social position of Judaism.Hebrew disappeared very early as a living language. The Jews everywhere adopted the languages of the peoples among whom they lived. But this linguistic adaptation generally occurred in the form of a new dialect in which we again find some Hebraic expressions. There existed at various times in history Judo-Arabic, Judo-Persian, Judo-Provençal, Judo-Portuguese, Judo-Spanish, and other dialects, including, of course, Judo-German which has become present-day Yiddish. The dialect thus expresses the two contradictory tendencies which have characterized Jewish life; the tendency to integration in the surrounding society and the tendency to isolation, deriving from the socioeconomic situation of Judaism. [32] [33]It is only where the Jews cease constituting a special social group that they become completely assimilated in the surrounding society. “Assimilation is no new phenomenon in Jewish history,” states the Zionist sociologist Ruppin. [34]In reality, while Jewish history is the history of the preservation of Judaism, it is at the same time the history of the assimilation of large sections of Judaism. “In Northern Africa, in pre-Islamic times, great numbers of Jews were engaged in agriculture, but of these, too, the vast majority have been absorbed by the local population.” [35] This assimilation is explained by the fact that the Jews by turning agriculturists ceased to constitute a separate class. “Could they at all have taken to agriculture, they could hardly have done so without scattering through the country and its numerous villages, which, in spite of the difference in religion, would probably in a few generations have resulted in complete assimilation. Engaged in commerce and concentrated in towns, they formed agglomerations and developed a social life of their own, moving and marrying within their own community.” [36]Let us also recall the numerous conversions of Jewish landed proprietors in Germany in the fourth century; the complete disappearance of the Jewish warrior tribes of Arabia; the assimilation of the Jews in South America, in Surinam, etc. [37]The law of assimilation might be formulated as follows: Wherever the Jews cease to constitute a class, they lose, more or less rapidly, their ethnical, religious, and linguistic characteristics; they become assimilated. [38]"
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"content": "It is very hard to trace Jewish history in Europe at several important periods, because the economic, social, and political conditions were so different in various countries. Whereas Poland and the Ukraine were completely feudal at the end of the eighteenth century, in Western Europe we witness an accelerated development of capitalism during this same period. It is easy to understand that the situation of the Jews in Poland bore far more resemblance to the situation of the French Jews in the Carolingian Era than to that of their coreligionists in Bordeaux or Paris. “The Portuguese Jew of Bordeaux and the German Jew of Metz are two absolutely different beings,” wrote a French Jew to Voltaire. The rich bourgeois Jews of France or Holland had virtually nothing in common with the Polish Jews who constituted a class in feudal society.Despite the marked differences in conditions and in the tempo of economic development of the various European countries inhabited by the Jews, a careful study permits the delineation of the following main stages of their history: 1. Precapitalist periodThis was also the period of the greatest prosperity of the Jews. Commercial and usurious “capital” found great possibilities for expansion in feudal society. The Jews were protected by the kings and princes, and their relations with other classes were in general good.This situation lasted up to the eleventh century in Western Europe. The Carolingian epoch, the culminating point of feudal development, was also the apex of Jewish prosperity.Feudal economy continued to dominate Eastern Europe till the end of the eighteenth century. And the center of Jewish life shifted more and more to that area. 2. Period of medieval capitalismFrom the eleventh century on, Western Europe entered a period of intensive economic development. The first stage of this evolution was characterized by the creation of a corporative industry and a native merchant bourgeoisie. The penetration of mercantile economy into the agricultural domain determined the second stage.The growth of cities and of a native merchant class brought with it the complete elimination of the Jews from commerce.They became usurers whose principal clientele consisted of the nobility and the kings. But the mercantile transformation of agricultural economy resulted in undermining these positions as well.The relative abundance of money enabled the nobility to throw off the yoke of the usurer. The Jews were driven from one country after another. Others became assimilated, being absorbed mainly by the native bourgeoisie.In certain cities, principally in Germany and in Italy, the Jews became primarily loan-makers to the popular masses, the peasants, and the artisans. In this role as petty usurers exploiting the people, they were often the victims of bloody uprisings.In general, the period of medieval capitalism was that of the most violent Jewish persecutions. Jewish “capital” came into conflict with all classes of society.But the unevenness of economic development in the Western European countries operated to alter the forms of anti-Semitic struggles.In one country, it was the nobility which directed the struggle against the Jews; in others, it was the bourgeoisie, and in Germany, it was the people who unleashed the movement.Medieval capitalism was practically unknown in Eastern Europe. There was no separation between merchants capital and usurious capital. In contrast to Western Europe where “Jew” became synonymous with “usurer,” the Jews in Eastern Europe remained mainly traders and middlemen. Whereas the Jews were progressively eliminated from the countries of the West, they constantly strengthened their position in Eastern Europe. It was only in the nineteenth century that the development of capitalism (it is no longer corporative capitalism this time, but modern capitalism, which appears on the scene) began to undermine the prosperous condition of the Russian and Polish Jews. “The poverty of the Jews in Russia dates only from the abolition of serfdom and of the feudal regime in rural property. So long as the former and the latter existed, the Jews found wide possibilities for subsisting as merchants and middlemen.” [39] 3. Period of manufacture and industrial capitalismThe capitalist period, properly speaking, began in the epoch of the Renaissance and manifested itself at first by a tremendous expansion of commerce and the growth of manufactures.To the extent that the Jews survived in Western Europe – and only a few were left there – they took part in the development of capitalism. But the theory of Sombart, who attributes a decisive activity to them in the development of capitalism, belongs to the sphere of fantasy. Precisely because the Jews represented a primitive capitalism (mercantile and usurious), the development of modern capitalism could only prove fatal to their social position.This fact does not at all exclude – far from it – the individual participation of the Jews in the creation of modern capitalism. But wherever the Jews were integrated into the capitalist class, there they were likewise assimilated. The Jew, as a great entrepreneur or shareholder of the Dutch or English India Company, was already on the threshold of baptism, a threshold, moreover, which he crossed with the greatest of ease. The progress of capitalism went hand in hand with the assimilation of the Jews in Western Europe.If Judaism did not completely disappear in the West, it was owing to the mass influx of Jews from Eastern Europe. The Jewish question, which is now posed on a world scale, therefore results primarily from the situation of Eastern Judaism. This situation is, in turn, a product of the lag in economic development of this part of the world. The special causes of Jewish emigration are thus linked with the general causes behind the emigration movement of the nineteenth century."
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"content": "The general emigration of the nineteenth century was caused in large measure by the failure of capitalist development to keep pace with the crumbling of feudal economy or manufacture economy. The ranks of the English peasants, evicted by the capitalization of rural economy, were swelled by the artisan or manufacturing workers displaced by machines. These peasant and artisan masses, eliminated by the new economic system, were driven to seek a livelihood across the ocean. But this situation was not indefinitely prolonged. Because of the rapid development of the productive forces in Western Europe, the section of the population deprived of its means of subsistence was presently able to find sufficient work in industry. That is the reason why, in Germany, for instance, emigration to America, which was very strong in the middle of the nineteenth century, dwindled almost completely toward the end of the century. The same applies to England and other countries of Western Europe. [40]While the disequilibrium between the crumbling of feudalism and the development of capitalism was disappearing in Western Europe, it was growing worse in the backward Eastern European countries. The destruction of feudal economy and primitive forms of capitalism proceeded there much more rapidly than the development of modern capitalism. Increasingly greater masses of peasants and artisans had to seek their road of salvation in emigration. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was principally the English, the Irish, the Germans, and the Scandinavians who formed the bulk of immigrants to America. The Slavic and Jewish element became dominant toward the end of the nineteenth century among the masses streaming to the New World.At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Jewish masses sought new roads of immigration. But at first it was toward the interior of Russia and Germany that they headed. The Jews succeeded in penetrating the great industrial and commercial centers where they played an important role as merchants and industrialists. Here we come upon a new and important fact: For the first time in centuries a Jewish proletariat was born. The people-class began to differentiate socially. The Jewish proletariat, however, remained concentrated mainly in the sector of consumer goods industry. It was primarily of the artisan type. In the same measure as large-scale industry expanded its field of exploitation, the artisan branches of economy declined. The workshop was superseded by the factory. And it thus turned out that the integration of Jews into capitalist economy still remained extremely precarious. It was not alone the “precapitalist” merchant who was forced to emigrate, but also the Jewish artisan worker. Jewish masses streamed in ever larger numbers from Eastern Europe to the West and to America. The solution of the Jewish question, that is to say, the complete absorption of the Jews into economic life, thus became a world problem. 4. The decline of capitalismBy socially differentiating Judaism, by integrating the latter into economic life, and by emigration, capitalism has laid the bases for the solution of the Jewish problem. But capitalism has failed to solve it. On the contrary, the fearsome crisis of the capitalist regime in the twentieth century has aggravated the plight of the Jews to an unparalleled degree. The Jews, driven from their economic positions under feudalism, could not be integrated into a capitalist economy in utter decay. In its convulsions, capitalism casts out even those Jewish elements which it has not yet completely assimilated.Everywhere is rife the savage anti-Semitism of the middle classes, who are being choked to death under the weight of capitalist contradictions. Big capital exploits this elemental anti Semitism of the petty bourgeoisie in order to mobilize the masses around the banner of racism.The Jews are being strangled between the jaws of two systems: feudalism and capitalism, each feeding the rottenness of the other.* * *Notes1. I. Bédarride, Les juifs en France, en Italie et en Espagne (Paris 1867), p. i.2. General Encyclopedia (Yiddish) (Paris 1936), vol. 3, pp. 454–55. Article of Ben-Adiron anti-Semitism.3. On the Jewish Question, Selected Essays by Karl Marx (New York 1926), p. 88.4. ibid., p. 92.5. ibid., p. 52.6. See Arthur Ruppin, The Jews in the Modern World (London 1934), p. 22.7. Flavius Josephus, Works (London 1844), p. 693.8. “In the first place we know of no hostile power which might have forced our people before the final destruction of Jerusalem to spread out through all of Asia Minor, the Mediterranean islands, Macedonia, and Greece.” Dr. L. Herzfeld, Handelsgeschichte der Juden des Alterthums (Braunschweig, 1879), pp. 202–3.9. Karl Kautsky in Neue Zeit.10. Adolphe Lods, Israel from Its Beginnings to the Middle of the Eighth Century (London 1932), p. 18.11. Lujo Brentano, Die Anfänge des Modernen Kapitalismus (Munich 1916), pp. 10, 15.12. Herzfeld, op. cit., p. 203.13. Henri Pirenne, Mohammed and Charlemagne (New York [1939]), pp. 18–19.14. Theodor Mommsen, The Provinces of the Roman Empire (New York 1887), vol. 2, p. 179.15. Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome (London 1911), vol. 4, p. 509.Sombart, in his work of such uneven value, The Jews and Modern Capitalism (London 1913), wherein the worst of absurdities are mixed with highly interesting researches, states: “I think that the Jewish religion has the same leading ideas as capitalism.” (p. 205) This affirmation is correct provided we understand by “capitalism,” – precapitalist trade and usury (As we shall see later [chapter 4], it is false to attribute a preponderant role to the Jews in the building of modern capitalism.) In support of his thesis, Sombart cites many passages from the Talmud and other Jewish religious books which reflect this close connection between the Jewish religion and the commercial spirit. Here are, for example, several of these quotations: “He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man, he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich.” Proverbs, 2 1: 17. “Thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow.” Deuteronomy, 15:6. “The righteous therefore is prosperous here, and the wicked here suffers punishment.” “Rabbi Eleazar said: The righteous love their money more than their bodies.” Sota xiia. “And Rabbi Isaac also taught that a man always have his money in circulation.” Baba Mezia, 42a."
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"content": "It is naturally difficult to get a complete picture from a confused welter of texts, written and supplied with commentaries at different epochs and in different countries. The imprint of the commercial spirit is nevertheless clearly discernible in most of these writings. The work of Sombart is in this sense only an illustration of the Marxist thesis that religion is an ideological reflection of a social class. But by maintaining that it is religion which must have been the primary factor, Sombart, like other bourgeois scholars, strives to invert the causal relation.16. Henri Laurent, Religion et affaires, Cahiers du libre examen.Aristotle says in his Politics (Jowett translation, Oxford, 1885, vol. 1, p. 19): “The most hated sort [of moneymaking], and with the greatest reason, is usury which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural use of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term, usury which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of all modes of making money this is the most unnatural.” Further (p. 221), “citizens ... must not lead the life of mechanics or tradesmen, for such a life is ignoble and inimical to virtue.”17. Contrary to the opinion of some historians, ancient economy was, despite a fairly important development of commercial transactions, based essentially on the production of use values. “This system [of home or family economy] prevails not only in primitive societies but even in those of Antiquity .... Under this system ... each group suffices unto itself, consuming hardly anything but what it has itself produced, and producing almost nothing beyond what it will consume.” Charles Gide, Principles of Political Economy (Boston 1905), p. 132.18. Jean Juster, Les Juifs dans l’empire Romain (Paris 1914), vol. 1, p. 102.19. Laurent, op. cit..20. “The peasant and the lord during the Middle Ages are not producers of merchandise ... It is true that they exchange their surpluses on occasion, but exchange is for them something fundamentally alien, an exception. Thus, neither the lord nor peasant generally possesses large sums of money. The greatest part of their wealth consists of use values, of wheat, cattle, etc. ... Circulation of merchandise, circulation of money-capital, and money economy in general are fundamentally alien to this form of society. Capital lives, according to the clear expression of Marx, in the pores of this society. It is into these pores that the Jew penetrated.” Otto Bauer, Die Nationalitätenfrage und die Sozialdemokratie (Vienna, 1907), p. 367.21. Pirenne explains the preservation of the national character by the Germans in the Slav countries as follows: “The principal explanation [of this preservation] is the fact that among the Slays they were the initiators and for long centuries par excellence the representatives of the urban life. The Germans introduced the bourgeoisie into the midst of these agricultural populations, and the contrast between them was, perhaps, from the very first, that of social classes rather than national groups.” Henri Pirenne, A History of Europe (London 1939), p. 328.22. Augustin Thierry, History of the Conquest of England by the Normans (London 1856), vol. 1, pp. xix–xx.23. Karl Kautsky, Are the Jews a Race? (New York 1926), p. 58. My emphasis. Inasmuch as the divisions between the various classes in precapitalist times are airtight, it often happens that national differences persist for a very long time. They manifest themselves particularly in language differences. The language of a conquered people used to be demoted to the role of a despised popular tongue, while the language of the conquerors became the language of “high society”. In England, the Norman aristocracy continued for many centuries to use French while the people spoke Saxon. It is from the fusion of these two languages that modern English was formed. In the long run, the language differences faded away. The Burgundians, the Franks, and other barbarians quickly started speaking the language of their subjects. On the other hand, the Arab conquerors imposed their own language on conquered peoples. These language differences between classes disappeared completely only with the advent of the bourgeoisie to power.24. “Some classes, the ruling, the peasant and the merchant classes, for instance, arose from the union of different ethnological elements ... their characteristic differences are original. Such classes antedate the state and are the more easily maintained in it because their differences are both anthropological and moral.” Ludwig Gumplowicz, The Outline of Sociology (Philadelphia 1899), p. 134.25. This scientific view has been perforce accepted for a long time by all serious historians.26. “... Jewish capitalism was speculative pariah-capitalism, while Puritan capitalism consisted in the organization of citizen labor.” Max Weber, General Economic History (New York 1927), p. 381.27. The correspondence between class and religion is, naturally, not absolute. All of the gentry were not Catholics, nor were all adherents of Calvinism bourgeois. But the classes do leave their imprint on religion. Thus, “revocation of the Edict of Nantes at the end of the seventeenth century exiled about 100,000 Protestants, almost all inhabitants of the cities and belonging to the industrial and commercial classes; for the Huguenot peasants, converted only in name, hardly left the kingdom.” Henri Sée, Economic and Social Conditions in France during the Eighteenth Century (New York 1927), p. 9.28. Karl Marx, Capital, Kerr Edition, vol. 3, p. 716.29. The sole known exception was a Mongol tribe, the Khazars, on the shores of the Caspian Sea, who adopted Judaism in the eighth century. Was there perchance a relation between the commercial function of this tribe and its conversion to Judaism?30. Henri Pirenne, Belgian Democracy (London 1915), p. 46.31. Lecture by Dubnow at a meeting of the Ethnographic Historical Society of St. Petersburg. [See also S.M. Dubnow, History of the Jews in Russia and Poland (Philadelphia 1916), vol. 1, p. 103. – Tr.]"
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"content": "32. As early as the fifth century before Christ, the Jews of the Diaspora spoke Aramaic. Later, they mainly used Greek. “The inscriptions [in the Jewish cemeteries in Rome] are mainly in Greek, some written in an almost unintelligible jargon; some are in Latin, none in Hebrew.” Ludwig Friedlander, Roman Life and Manners under the Early Empire (London 1910), vol. 3, p. 178.33. It would be interesting to investigate why the Jews in the Slavic countries kept the German dialect (Yiddish) for so long a time.34. Ruppin, op. cit., p. 271.35. Ruppin, op. cit., p. 132.36. Ruppin, op. cit., p. 132.37. In the epoch of the development of capitalism, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, assimilation in Western Europe generally meant penetration into the Christian capitalist class. The penetration of the Jews into the capitalist class may be compared to the “capitalization” of feudal properties. In the latter case, too, the struggle of the bourgeoisie against feudalism terminated in some cases with the total expropriation of the feudal class (as in France), and in other cases with the penetration of feudal elements into the capitalist class (as in England and Belgium). Capitalist development has had a similar effect upon the Jews. In some cases they were assimilated; in others they were eliminated.38. As a general rule the persecutions of the Jews were social in character. But the lag of ideology behind the social superstructure can account for certain purely religious persecutions. In some regions, the Jews were able to preserve their special religion for a fairly long time despite their transformation into agriculturists. In such cases, the persecutions were designed to hasten their conversion. What distinguishes religious persecutions from social persecutions (under a religious guise) is their less violent character and the feeble resistance of the Jews. Thus, it appears that in Visigoth Spain the Jews were in part agriculturists. Consequently, the Visigoth kings never thought of expelling them, as Ferdinand and Isabella did later. On the whole, purely religious persecutions must be considered as exceptional.39. Werner Sombart, L’Apogée du Capitalisme (Paris 1932), vol. 1, p. 430.40. “The economic progress of the principal European countries in the last quarter of the nineteenth century arrested the flow of emigration, but there soon began a second wave, comprising for the most part emigrants from the agrarian countries of Europe.” Vladimil Voitinski, Tatsachen und Zahlen Europas (Vienna 1930), p. 60. Contents | Jews and Marxism Subject PageLast updated: 29 June 2020"
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"content": "Abram LeonThe Jewish Question BibliographyAlbertini, Eugene. L’empire Romain. Paris, 1929.Ansiaux, Maurice. Traité d’Économie Politique. Paris, 1920-26.Aristotle. Politics. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. Oxford, 1885.Autran, Charles. Les Phénici ens. Paris, 1920.Avenel, Georges d’. Histoire Économique de la Propriété, etc. Paris, 1894.Ballester y Castell, Rafael. Histoire de l’Espagne. Paris, 1928.Bauer, Otto. Die Nationalitätenfrage und die Sozialdemokratie. Vienna, 1907.Bédarride, I. Les Juifs en France, en Italie et en Espagne. Paris, 1867.Beloch, K.J. Griechische Geschichte. Berlin, 1914-27.Ben-Adir. Anti-Semitism. In General Encyclopedia (Yiddish). Paris, 1936.Böhm, Adolf. Die Zionistische Bewegung. Berlin, [1935-37].Brentano, Lujo. Die Anfänge des Modernen Kapitalismus. Munich, 1916.——— Eine Geschichte der Wirtschafthichen Entwicklung Englands. Jena, 1927-29.——— Das Wirtschaftsleben der Antiken Welt. Jena, 1929.Brutzkus, Dr. Julius. History of the Jewish Mountaineers in Daghestan (Caucasia). In Yivo Studies in History, vol.2.(Yiddish). Wilno, 1937.——— Trade Relations of the West European Jews with Medieval Kiev. In Writings on Economics and Statistics (Yiddish). Edited by J. Lestschinsky Berlin, 1928.Bühl, F. Die Sozialen Verhältnisse der Israeliten. Berlin, 1899.Caro, Georg. Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte der Juden im Mittelalter und der Neuzeit. Frankfort, 1924.Causse, Antonin. Les Dispersés d’Israël. Paris, 1929.Clerc, Michel. Les Métèques Atheniens. Paris, 1893.Cunow, Heinrich. Allgemeine Wirtschaftsgeschichte. Berlin, 1926-31.Depping, G.B. Histoire du Commerce entre le Levant et l’Europe. Paris, 1830.——— Les Juifs dans le Moyen Age. Paris, 1845.Dubnow, S.M. History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Philadelphia, 1916.——— Die Neueste Geschichte des Jüdischen Volkes. Berlin, 1920-24.Dubnow, W. On the Economic History of the Jews in Russia, In Writings on Economics and Statistics (Yiddish). Edited by J. Lestschinsky Berlin, 1928.Francotte, Henri. L’Industrie dans la Grèce Ancienne. Brussels, 1900-1901.Frank, Tenney. An Economic History of Rome to the End of the Republic. Baltimore, 1920.Friedländer, Ludwig. Roman Life and Manners under the Early empire. London, 1910.Furtenbach, Friedrich von. Krieg gegen Russland und Russische Gefangenschaft. Nuremberg, 1912.Fustel de Coulanges, N.D. The Ancient City. Boston, 1874.——— Histoire des Institutions Politiques de l’Ancienne France. Paris, 1888-92.General Encyclopedia (Yiddish). Paris, 1936.Gibbon, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman empire. New York: Heritage Press, 1946.Gide, Charles. Principles of Political Economy. Boston, 1905.Graetz, Heinrich Hirsch. Popular History of the Jews. New York, 1919.Gumplowicz, Ludwig. The Outlines of Sociology. Philadelphia, 1899.Günther, Hans. Rassenkunde des Jüdischen Volkes. Munich, 1930.Hasebroek, Johannes. Staat und Handel im Alten Griechenland. Tübingen, 1928.Hatzfeld, Jean. Les Trafiquants Italiens dans l’Orient Hellénistique. Paris, 1919.Heller, Otto. Der Untergang des Judentums. Vienna, [1931].Herzfeld, Dr. L. Handelsgeschichte der Juden des Alterthums. Braunschweig, 1879.Holleaux, Maurice. Rome, la Grèce et les Monarchies Hellénistiques au IIIe Siècle avant J.C. Paris, 1921.Hölscher, Gustav. Urgemeinde und Spätjudentum. Oslo, 1928.The Holy Bible. Thomas Nelson & Sons, New York, [1901].Jannet, Claudio. Les Grandes Époques de l’Histoire Économique. Paris, 1896.Josephus, Flavius. Works. London, 1844.Jüdisches Lexikon. Berlin, 1927-30.Juster, Jean. Les juifs dans l’empire romain. Paris, 1914.Kautsky Karl. Are the Jews a Race? New York, 1926.——— Foundations of Christianity. New York, [1925].Klatzkin, Jacob. Probleme des Modernen Judentum. Berlin, 1918.Köhler, Dr. Max. Beiträge zur Neueren Jüdischen Wirtschaftsgeschichte; die Juden in Halberstadt und Umgebung his zur emanzipation. Berlin, 1927.Krauss, Dr. Samuel. Studien zur Byzantisch-Jüdischen Geschichte. Leipzig, 1914.Kriegk, Georg Ludwig, Frankfurter Bürgerzwiste und Zustände im Mittelalter. Frankfort, 1862.Laurent, Henri. Religion et Affaires. In Cahiers du Libre Examen.Lavisse, Ernest. Histoire Générale du IVe Siècle à Nos Jours. Paris, 1893-1904.Legaret, Gustave. Histoire du Développement du Commerce. Paris, 1927.Lenin, V.I. The Development of Capitalism in Russia. Selected Works.Lestschinsky, Jacob. The Development of the Jewish People in the Last 100 Years. (Yiddish). Berlin, 1928.——— Der Wirtschaflliche Zusammenbruch der Juden in Deutschland u. Polen. Paris, 1936.Lestschinsky, J., editor. Writings on Economics and Statistics (Yiddish). Berlin, 1928.Lods, Adolphe. Israel from Its Beginnings to the Middle of the Eighth Century. London, 1932.Lucas, Dr. Leopold. Zur Geschichte der Juden im Vierten Jahrhundert. Berlin, 1910.Marx, Karl. Capital. Kerr Edition.——— Selected Essays. New York, 1926.Marx and Engels . Selected Correspondence of Marx and Engels. New York, 1942.Menes, A. Craft Industry among the Jews in Biblical and Talmudic Times. In Writings on Economics and Statistics (Yiddish). Edited by J. Lestschinsky. Berlin, 1928.Meyer, Eduard. Blüte und Niedergang des Hellenismus in Asien. Berlin, 1925.Mommsen,Theodor. The History of Rome. London, 1911.——— The Provinces of the Roman empire. New York, 1887.Montesquieu. Spirit of the Law. Cincinnati, 1873.Movers, F.C. Die Phönizier. Berlin, 1856.Philippson, Martin. Neueste Geschichte des Jüdischen Volkes. Leipzig, 1907.Piganiol, André. La Conquéte Romaine. Paris, 1927.Pirenne, Henri. Belgian Democracy: Its Early History. London, 1915.——— Histoire de Belgique. Brussels, 1902-32.——— A History of Europe from the Invasions to the 16th Century. London, 1939.——— Mohammed and Charlemagne. New York, 1939.——— Les Villes au Moyen Age. Brussels, 1927.Roscher, W. The Status of the Jews in the Middle Ages. In Historia Judaica, vol.6.Rostovtzev, M. The Social and Economic History of the Roman empire. Oxford, 1926.Roussel, Pierre. La Grèce et l’Orient. Paris, 1928.Ruppin, Arthur. The Jews in the Modern World. London, 1934.Salvian. On the Government of God. New York, 1930.Salvioli, Giuseppe. Der Kapitalismus im Altertum. Stuttgart, 1922.Sayous, André. Les Juifs. In Revue Économique Internationale, March 1932.Schipper, Ignaz. Anfänge des Kapitalismus bei den Abendländischen Juden in Früheren Mittelalter. Vienna, 1907.——— Jewish History (Yiddish). Warsaw, 1930.Schubart,Wilhelm. Aegypten von Alexander dem Grossen bis auf Mohammed. Berlin, 1922.Schulte Aloys. Geschichte des Mittelalterlichen Handels und Verkehrs zwischen Westdeutschland und Italien. Leipzig, 1900.Sée, Henri. Economic and Social Conditions in France during the 18th Century. New York, 1927.——— Esquisse d’une Histoire Économique et Sociale de la France. Paris, 1929.Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations. New York: Modern Library, 1937.Sombart,Werner. L’Apogée du Capitalisme. Paris, 1932.——— The Jews and Modern Capitalism. London, 1913.Strabo. The Geography of Strabo. London, 1854-57.Thierry, Augustin. History of the Conquest of England by the Normans. London, 1856.Toutain, J.F. The Economic Life of the Ancient World. New York, 1930.Ullmann, Dr. Salomon. Histoire des Juifs en Belgique jusqu’au 18e Siècle. Antwerp, 192?.Vandervelde, emile. L’Exode Rural et le Retour aux Champs. Paris, 1903.Voitinski, Vladimir. Tatsachen und Zahlen Europas. Vienna, 1930.Weber, Max. General Economic History. New York, 1927.Weinryb, S.B. Neueste Wirtschaftsgeschichte der Juden in Russland und Polen. Breslau, 1934.Wodd Jewish Congress (Economic Bureau). La Situation Économique des Juifs dans le Monde. Paris, 1938.Yiddishe Economic (Yiddish). Wilno.Yivo Studies in History. Wilno, 1937.Zeiller, Jacques. L’empire Romain et l’Église. Paris, 1928. Contents | Jews and Marxism Subject Page"
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"content": "Abram LeonThe Jewish Question FOURThe Jews in Europe after the Renaissance A. The Jews in Western Europe after the RenaissanceThe Thesis of Sombart.The discovery of the new world and the tremendous current of exchange that followed upon it sounded the death knell of the old corporative feudal world. Mercantile economy reached a higher stage, smashing the remnants of previous periods and preparing, by the development of manufacture and rural industry the bases of industrial capitalism. The place of the old centers of corporative industry and medieval trade, fallen into decay, was taken over by Antwerp, which became the commercial center of the world for a certain period.Everywhere, although at different times and in different forms, the decline of the economy producing use values was accompanied by the decay of the economic and social function of the Jews. An important number of the Jews was compelled to leave the countries of Western Europe in order to seek refuge in the countries where capitalism had not yet penetrated, principally in Eastern Europe and in Turkey. Others became assimilated, fused with the Christian population. This assimilation was not always easy. Religious traditions long survived the social situation which had been their foundation. For centuries the Inquisition struggled mercilessly and barbarously against Jewish traditions which persisted among the mass of converts.The Jews who penetrated into the merchant class acquired a certain notoriety under the name of “new Christians,” principally in America and also at Bordeaux and Antwerp. In the first half of the seventeenth century, all the great sugar plantations in Brazil were in the hands of Jews. By the decree of March 2, 1768, all registers concerning new Christians were destroyed; by the law of March 24, 1773, “new Christians” were made equal before the law with “old Christians.”In 1730, Jews possessed 115 plantations out of 344 at Surinam. But contrary to previous epochs, the activity of the Jews in America no longer had a special economic character; it was in no ways distinguished from the activity of Christians. The “new Christian” merchant was little different from the “old Christian” merchant. The same was true of the Jewish plantation owner. And this is also the reason why juridical, religious, and political distinctions rapidly disappeared.In the nineteenth century, the Jews in South America no longer constituted more than a handful. [1] Assimilation of the Jews proceeded just as rapidly in France and in England. The rich merchant Jews of Bordeaux, of whom it was said that they “possessed entire streets and had large trade,” felt themselves completely integrated into the Christian population. “Those who are acquainted with the Portuguese Jews of France, Holland, England, know that they are far from having an unconquerable hatred for all the peoples who surround them, as Mr. Voltaire says, but on the contrary they believe themselves so identified with these peoples that they consider themselves a part of them. Their Portuguese or Spanish origin has become a pure ecclesiastical discipline.” [2] The assimilated Jews of the West acknowledged no relationship with the Jews still living under the conditions of feudal life. “A Jew of London as little resembles a Jew of Constantinople as the latter does a Chinese Mandarin. A Portuguese Jew of Bordeaux and a German Jew of Metz have nothing in common.” “Mr. Voltaire cannot ignore the delicate scruples of the Portuguese and Spanish Jews in not mixing with the Jews of other nations, either by marriage or otherwise.” [3]Alongside the Spanish, French, Dutch, and English Jews, whose complete assimilation is proceeding slowly and surely, we still find Jews in Western Europe, primarily in Italy and in Germany, who inhabit ghettos and are mostly petty usurers and peddlers. This is a sorry remnant of the former Jewish merchant class. They are reviled, persecuted, subject to innumerable restrictions.It was on the special basis of the rather important economic role played by the first category of Jews that Sombart presented his famous thesis on “The Jews and Economic Life.” [4] He has himself summarized it in these terms: “The Jews promote the economic flowering of countries and cities in which they settle; they lead the countries and cities which they abandon to economic decay.” “They are the founders of modern capitalism.” “There would be no modern capitalism, no modern culture without the dispersion of the Jews in the countries of the North.” “Israel passes over Europe like the sun: at its coming new life bursts forth; at its going all falls into decay.”This is the way, in rather poetic fashion as we can see, that Sombart presents his thesis. And here are the proofs adduced in its support: “The first event to be recalled, an event of world-wide import, is the expulsion of the Jews from Spain (1492) and from Portugal (1495 and 1497). It should never be forgotten that on the day before Columbus set sail from Palos to discover America (August 3, 1492) 300,000 Jews are said to have emigrated from Spain ....” In the fifteenth century; the Jews were expelled from the most important commercial cities of Germany: Cologne (1424–25), Augsburg (1439–40), Strasbourg (1438), Erfurt (1458), Nuremberg (1498–99), Ulm (1499), Regensburg (1519). In the sixteenth century; the same fate befell them in a number of Italian cities; they were driven out of Sicily in 1492, from Naples in 1540–41, from Genoa and Venice in 1550. Here as well the decline of these cities coincides with the departure of the Jews. The economic development of Holland at the end of the sixteenth century is marked by a great rise of capitalism. The first Portuguese Marranos settled at Amsterdam in 1593. The brief flowering of Antwerp as the center of world trade and as a world exchange coincides exactly with the arrival and departure of Marranos.These arguments, essential to the Sombart thesis, are very easily refuted:"
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"content": "1. It is absurd to see in the simultaneity of the departure of Christopher Columbus “to discover America” and the expulsion of the Spanish Jews a proof of the decline of the countries which they left. “Not only did Spain and Portugal not fall into decline in the sixteenth century; under Charles V and Emanuel, but on the contrary they reached their historical apogee at that time. Even at the beginning of the reign of Philip II, Spain is still the foremost power in Europe and the wealth of Mexico and Peru which flowed to it was immeasurable.” [5]This first Sombartist proof is based on a crying falsehood.2. The very figures which he supplies on the redistribution of the Jewish refugees coming from Spain aids in demolishing his thesis. According to him, out of 165,000 exiles, 122,000 or 72 percent emigrated to Turkey and into Moslem countries. Consequently it is there that the “capitalist spirit” of the Jews should have produced the most important effects. Is it necessary to add then, that while we can speak of a certain economic rise in the Turkish empire under Suleiman the Magnificent, that country remained the least accessible to capitalism up to a very recent period, so that the rays of the sun there proved to be ... very cold? It is true that a rather important number of Jews (25,000) settled in Holland, at Hamburg, and in England, but can we concede that the same cause produced diametrically opposite effects?3. The coincidence which Sombart perceives in the decline of the German cities is easily explained by reversing the causal relation. The ruin of these cities was not provoked by the measures taken against the Jews; these measures were on the contrary the effect of the decline of these cities. On the other hand, the prosperity of other cities was not the result of Jewish immigration but it was the latter which naturally directed itself toward prosperous cities. “It is obvious that the relation of cause and effect is contrary to that presented by Sombart.” [6]A study of the economic role of the Jews in Italy and Germany at the end of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries fully confirms this viewpoint. It is clear that the pawnshops, the business of Jewish usurers, were endurable so long as the economic situation of these cities was relatively good. Every worsening of the situation rendered the burden of usury more intolerable and the anger of the population vented itself first of all against the Jews.4. The example of Holland does not, it is true, weaken the thesis of Sombart but neither does it reinforce it. Even if we admit that its prosperity was favored by the arrival of the Marranos, we are not thereby authorized to make it its cause. And how can we explain, if we base ourselves on this criterion, the decline of Holland in the eighteenth century? It appears, moreover, that the economic role of the Jews in Holland is exaggerated. Sayous says, in connection with the Dutch East India Company, whose importance to the prosperity of Holland was decisive: “The Jews have in any case no role whatsoever in the formation of the first genuinely modern stock corporation, the Dutch East India Company; they subscribed barely 0.1 percent of its capital and played no important role in its activity during the ensuing years.” [7]Is it necessary to continue? Must it be shown that the important economic development of England took place precisely after the expulsion of the Jews? “If the causal relation established by Sombart were true, how explain that in Russia and in Poland, where the southern people from the ‘desert’ have been most numerous for centuries, their influence on the northern peoples produced no economic flowering whatever?” [8]The theory of Sombart is consequently completely false. [9] Sombart claims that he is portraying the economic role of the Jews, but he does so in a completely impressionistic way, rearranging history to suit his theory. Sombart presents a thesis on the Jews and economic life in general, but deals solely with a very limited part of their history. Sombart builds a theory on the Jews in general and on economic life, but he limits himself to a minority of Western Jews, of Jews on the road to complete assimilation.In reality, even if the role of the Western Jews had been such as Sombart presents, he would still have had to make an abstraction from it in order to understand the Jewish question in the present period. Without the influx of Eastern Jews into Western Europe in the nineteenth century, the Western Jews would long ago have been absorbed in the surrounding milieu. [10] One more observation regarding the theory of Sombart: If the Jews constituted such an economic boon; if their departure provoked the economic decay of cities and countries, how explain their continuous persecution in the late Middle Ages? Can this be explained by religion? But then, why was the position of the Jews so solid in Western Europe in the early Middle Ages and in Eastern Europe up to the nineteenth century? How explain the prosperity of the Jews for long centuries in the most backward countries of Europe, in Poland, in Lithuania; the powerful protection accorded them by the kings? Can the difference in the situation of the Jews be explained by the difference in the intensity of religious fanaticism? But then how can we concede that religious fanaticism should be most intense precisely in the most developed countries? How can we explain that it was precisely in the nineteenth century that anti-Semitism developed most strongly in Poland?The question then is to seek the causes for the existence of differences in the intensity of religious fanaticism. And thus we are brought back to the duty of studying economic phenomena. Religion explains anti-Jewish persecutions like a soporific explains sleep. If the Jews had really played the role that Sombart attributes to them, it would be very difficult to understand why the development of capitalism was such a mortal blow to them. [11]"
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"content": "It is consequently inaccurate to regard the Jews as founders of modern capitalism. The Jews certainly contributed to the development of exchange economy in Europe but their specific economic role ends precisely where modern capitalism starts. B. The Jews in Eastern Europe up to the nineteenth centuryAt the dawn of the development of industrial capitalism, Western Judaism was on the road to disappearance. The French Revolution, by destroying the last juridical obstacles which stood in the way of assimilation of the Jews, only gave sanction to an already existing situation.But it is certainly not by chance that at the same time that the Jewish question was being extinguished in the West, it rebounded with redoubled violence in Eastern Europe. In the period when the Jews in Western Europe were being massacred and burned, a large number of Jews had sought refuge in the countries where capitalism had still not penetrated. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the immense majority of Jews inhabited the east of Europe, principally the former territory of the monarchist republic of Poland. In this paradise of a carefree Shlachta (petty nobility), the Jewish commercial class had found a large field of activity. For long centuries, the Jew was a merchant, usurer, publican, steward to the noble, an agent for everything. The small Jewish cities, submerged in a sea of peasant villages, often themselves adjoining the chateaux of the Polish feudal lords, represented exchange economy within a purely feudal society. The Jews were situated, as Marx states, in the pores of Polish society. This situation lasted as long as the social and political organization of Poland remained static. In the eighteenth century, following upon political confusion and economic decay, Polish feudalism found itself fatally stricken. Along with it the secular position of the Jews in Eastern Europe was shaken to its foundations. The Jewish problem, close to vanishing in the West, flared up violently in Eastern Europe. The flame, close to extinction in the West, received renewed vitality from the conflagration which arose in the East. The destruction of the economic position of the Jews in Eastern Europe will have as a consequence a massive emigration of Jews into the world. And everywhere, although in different forms and under different guises, the flood of Jewish immigrants coming from Eastern Europe will revitalize the Jewish problem. It is in this respect that the history of the Jews of Eastern Europe has certainly been the decisive factor in the Jewish question in our epoch.The commercial relations of the Jews of Eastern Europe, of Bohemia, Poland, and Little Russia, date from the Carolingian era. The trading circuit that the Jews had established during the early Middle Ages between Asia and Europe became extended in this way across the fields of Poland and the plains of the Ukraine. Like their coreligionists, the Radamites, the Eastern Jews exchanged the precious products of Asia, spices and silks, for the raw materials of Europe. They constituted the sole commercial element in a purely agricultural society. In the Carolingian era, the economic regime of all Europe being practically the same, the role of Eastern Judaism was similar to that of Western Judaism. It is only later that their history will enter upon completely different paths.Accounts of the travels of Ibrahim Ibn Jakob (965) testify to the considerable development of Jewish trade at Prague in the tenth century. The Jews came there from the Far East and from Byzantium, bringing different kinds of precious merchandise and Byzantine money, and there bought wheat, tin, and furs. In a document of 1090, the Jews of Prague are depicted as traders and money changers, possessing large sums of silver and gold; they are depicted as the richest merchants among all peoples. Jewish slave merchants, as well as other Jewish traders coming from the Far East and traversing the frontier in caravans, are also mentioned in documents of 1124 and 1226. The interest rate among the Jewish bankers of Prague, whose operations were very extensive, fluctuated between 108 and 180 percent. [12] The chronicler Gallus states that in 1085, Judith, the wife of Prince Ladislag Herman of Poland, strove to buy back some Christian slaves from Jewish merchants. Excavations undertaken in the past century have helped bring to light the great economic importance of the Jews in Poland in this period. Polish money has been discovered bearing Hebraic characters and dating from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This fact in itself proves that Polish trade was in the hands of the Jews. The Tartar invasions of the thirteenth century must certainly have had some influence on the Russian and Polish Jews, but as early as 1327, there is a privilege conferred by the Polish king, Vladislav Lokietek, involving Hungarian Jewish merchants coming to Kraków. Far from diminishing, Jewish trade in Poland only takes on greater extension in the course of succeeding centuries.Just as in Western Europe, development of trade went together with an expansion of usury. Here also, the nobility, principal client of the Jewish usurers, strove to obtain restrictions on Jewish usury as against the kings who favored it “for the Jews, in their capacity as slaves of the treasury must always have money ready for our service.” In the sejm of 1347, the nobility, desiring to limit the interest rate which had reached 108 percent, collided with the firm resistance of royalty.In 1456, King Casimir Jagiello proclaims that in protecting the Jews he is inspired by the principle of tolerance which is imposed upon him by divine law. In 1504, the Polish king, Alexander, declares that he acts towards the Jews as befits “kings and the powerful who distinguish themselves not only by tolerance towards worshippers of the Christian religion but also towards the adherents of other religions.”"
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"content": "Under such auspices, the affairs of Jews could not help but prosper. In the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, Jewish usurers succeeded in taking possession of a portion of the lands belonging to the nobles. In 1389, the Jew Sabetai becomes proprietor of a section of the Cawilowo domain. In 1390, the Kraków Jew Iosman receives the property of Prince Diewiez of Pszeslawic as security. In 1393, the Posen Jew Moschko takes possession of the Ponicz manor. In 1397, the lands of the Abiejesz manor are pledged with the Posen Jew Abraham. These lands of the nobles are allotted to the Jews with complete property rights. Thus, in the last cited example, the noble having attacked the possessions transmitted to Abraham, the tribunal confirms the right of possession of the Jew and punishes the aggressor with a heavy fine. In 1404, the verdict of a tribunal declares that three villages pledged with the Jew Schmerlin of Kraków, are transmitted to him with complete property rights and forever (cum omnibus juribus utilitatibus dominio, etc. in perpetuum).The most important “bankers” lived in Kraków, residence of the kings. Their principal debtors were in effect the kings, the princes, the voyevode (governors), and the archbishops. Thus Casimir the Great borrowed the enormous sum of 15,000 marks from Jewish bankers. King Louis of Hungary owed the usurer Levko of Kraków 30,000 gulden at one time, 3,000 gulden at another. King Vladislav Jagiello and the queen, Jadwiga, also owed him substantial sums.Levko was not only a great banker; he was also a wholesale farmer for the kingdom. He leased the mint and coined its money; and the salt mines of Wieliczka and of Bochnia were also farmed out to him. He owned houses at Kraków, as well as a brewery. Just like the great patricians, he was honored with the title of “vir discretus.”The usury of the great Jewish bankers such as Miesko, Jordan of Posen, and Aron, who succeeded in amassing immense properties and took possession of villages and lands, raised a storm of protest among the nobility. The Statute of Warta (1423) greatly restricted Jewish usury. Thus, in 1432, the Jew Alexander, with whom the villages Dombrowka and Sokolow and a part of their living inventory had been pledged, was forced to return these properties to his debtor by decision of the tribunal, the Statute of Warta having proscribed loans on real property.The Jews and the kings did not readily resign themselves to this situation. A fierce struggle enabled them to abolish the Statute of Warta. The bankers were able to expand their sphere of operation. Thus, in 1444, the King pledged his palace at Lemberg to the banker Schina.This usurer also had among his clients Prince Szwidrigiella, the voyevoda Chriczka, who had pledged the village of Winiki with him, etc.But neither did the nobility accept defeat. It returned continuously to the charge and succeeded in forcing the king to promulgate the Statute of Nieszawa in 1454, with harsher provisions than the Statute of Warta. Nevertheless, and this fact is sufficient to show the fundamental difference which existed in this sphere between Poland and Western Europe, the most Draconian laws were not able to end Jewish usury. Starting with 1455, we even witness a rebirth of the banking trade mainly as a result of the immigration of Jews from Moravia and Silesia, as well as from other countries. From 1460 on, the records of Kraków testify to such an extensive revival of usurious transactions that this period is reminiscent of the epoch of Levko and of Schmerlin. The richest banker is a certain Fischel who had married the female banker Raschka of Prague and who furnished funds to the Polish king, Casimir Jagiello, as well as to his sons, the future kings Albrecht and Alexander. Whereas the nobility of Western Europe, thanks to the penetration of exchange economy and to an abundance of money, succeeded in ridding itself everywhere of Jewish usury the persistence of feudal economy in Eastern Europe made the nobility powerless on this terrain. Jewish banking survived all proscriptions.The backward state of the country also fettered the evolution which we have observed in the countries of Western Europe: the eviction of Jews from commerce and their confinement within usury. The bourgeois class and the cities were only beginning to develop. The struggle of the bourgeoisie against the Jews remained in an embryonic state and did not achieve any decisive results. The artisans, oppressed by Jewish usury, joined ranks with the traders. Here also, the sooner a province developed, the sooner arose conflicts with the Jews. In 1403, at Kraków, and in 1445 at Bochnia, artisans incite massacres of Jews. But the struggles were only episodic and nowhere ended with the elimination of the Jewish element. On the contrary, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, their situation is only strengthened and Jewish commerce continues to flourish.In the second half of the fourteenth century, we hear of a “syndicate” of three Lemberg Jews, Schlomo, Czewja, and Jacob, formed with a view to furnishing Italian merchandise to the city council of Lemberg. At the beginning of the fifteenth century Jews are provisioners of the royal court. In 1456, the starosta of Kamieniec Podolsky confiscates Oriental merchandise worth six hundred marks from Jewish merchants coming to Poland from the commercial centers of the Black Sea. The Byzantine and Italian Jews of Capha made numerous trips to Poland. The Jew Caleph Judaeus of Capha passed great quantities of Oriental goods through the customhouse of Lemberg. Even after the destruction of the Italian colonies in the Black Sea (1475) the Jews continued to maintain relations with the Orient. From 1467 on, the Jew David of Constantinople regularly supplied Lemberg with Oriental goods. There is even mention of a renewal of the slave trade in Little Russia from 1440 to 1450. Russian law books recount an interesting fact in 1449: A slave belonging to a Jew Mordecai of Galicia having fled, his owner sues in the courts for his return."
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"content": "The Jewish merchants of Capha and Constantinople came only to the great fairs of Lemberg and Lublin. To these also came the Jews dispersed throughout the Russian and Polish cities and market towns in order to purchase Oriental goods and spread them throughout the districts which they inhabited. These Jewish merchants traveled the roads running from Lemberg and Lublin through Little and Greater Poland up to the Silesian frontier.The Jews also crossed this frontier and conducted a very lively trade with Bohemia and Germany. Letters from 1588 inform us that hides and furs were brought from Kraków to Prague and that money was loaned at interest and against pledges.The fair of Lublin served as the commercial meeting place between the Jewish merchants of Poland and of Lithuania. The Jewish merchants exported hides, furs, timber, honey from Lithuania, and at the Lublin fair they bought spices coming from Turkey and manufactured goods originating in Western Europe. Records of the city of Danzig mention Jewish merchants from Lithuania who exported timber, wax, fins, hides, etc., during the period 1423 to 1436.The position of Lithuanian Judaism was still more favorable than that of the Polish Jews. Until the Union of Lublin (Union of Poland and Lithuania), the Lithuanian Jews enjoyed the same rights as the entire free population. In their hands lay big business, banking, the customhouses, etc. The farming of taxes and customs brought them great wealth. Their clothes glittered with gold and they wore swords just like the gentry.Records of the Lithuanian chancellery show that in the period from 1463 to 1494 the Jews had leased almost all the customs offices of the Duchy of Lithuania: Bielek, Bryansk, Brchiczin, Grodno, Kiev, Minsk, Novgorod, Zhitomin. Some documents from the years 1488 and 1489 mention certain Jews of Trock and of Kiev as exploiting the Grand Duke’s salt mines. In the same period, we begin to meet Jews in the role of publicans, a profession which in the Polish and Little Russian village goes hand in hand with the trade of usury.The strengthening of the anarchy of the nobles in Poland necessarily affected the situation of the Jews. In the sixteenth century, their position remains very solid but they pass more and more from royal control to that of the large and small feudal lords. The decline of the royal power makes its protection less effective and the Jews themselves seek less brilliant but surer protectors. King Sigismund complains to the sejm of 1539: “The aristocracy of our kingdom wants to monopolize all the profits of the Jews inhabiting the market towns, villages, and manors. It demands the right to judge them. To that we reply: If the Jews themselves resign the privileges of an autonomous jurisdiction which the kings our forefathers granted them and which have also been confirmed by us, they do in fact abandon our protection, and no longer drawing profit from them, we have no reason whatever to impose our kindnesses on them by force.”It is obvious that if the Jews now declined these “kindnesses,” it was because royalty no longer had any degree of real power in this country dominated by the nobles.In the sixteenth century the situation of the Jews became stronger. They received anew all the rights against which attempts had been made in the preceding century. Their economic position improved. The growing power of the nobility (Poland became an electoral kingdom in 1569) deprived them of the protection of the kings, but the feudal lords did everything to stimulate their economic activity. The traders, lenders at interest, stewards of the noble manors, with their inns and breweries, were extremely useful to the feudal lords who passed their time abroad in luxury and idleness. “The small towns located on the estates of the nobility were full of shops, of inns, of eating and drinking places, as well as of artisans. The Jew enjoyed absolute freedom if he only succeeded in ingratiating himself into the favor of his lord or ‘Poritz’.” [13]The economic situation of the Jews was in general very good but their subordinate position to the nobility sapped the basis of the highly developed Jewish autonomy which had existed in Poland. “Circumstances were such at that time that the Jews of Poland could form a state within a state.” [14]With their special religious, administrative, and juridical institutions, the Jews constituted a special class there enjoying a special internal autonomy.A decree of Sigismund August (1551) established the following bases for the autonomy of the Jews of Great Poland: The Jews had the right to choose, upon general agreement among themselves, rabbis and judges who were to administer them. The coercive power of the State could be put at their disposal.Each Jewish city or market town had a community council. In large centers, the community council consisted of forty members; in small ones, of ten members. The members of this council were elected by a system of double voting.The activity of the council was very extensive. It had to raise taxes, administer the schools, institutions, decide economic questions, engage in administering justice. The power of each council, called a Kahal, extended to the Jews of the surrounding villages. The councils of the large cities had authority over the small communities. In this way community unions were created, the Galil.We have already spoken of the Vaad Arba Aratzoth which was the General Assembly of the Jewish councils of Poland (of four countries, Great Poland, Little Poland [Kraków], Podolia [Galicia-Lemberg], and Volhynia), which met at regular intervals and constituted a veritable parliament."
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"content": "In the seventeenth century the foundations of Jewish autonomy began to rock. This coincided with the worsening of the situation of Polish Judaism as it began to feel the disagreeable effects of the anarchy that Polish feudal society was passing through. The partial change in the situation of the Jews, arising from the lessening of royal authority, had as result the placing of the Jews in greater contact than previously with the great mass of the bonded population. The Jew, becoming the steward of the noble or a publican, was hated by the peasants equally with or even more than the lords, because he was the one who became the principal instrument for their exploitation. This situation soon led to terrible social explosions, above all in the Ukraine, where the authority of the Polish nobility was weaker than in Poland. The existence of vast steppes permitted the formation of Cossack military colonies where fleeing peasants could prepare their hour of vengeance.“The Jewish steward strove to draw as much as possible from the manors and to exploit the peasant as much as possible. The Little Russian peasant bore a deep hatred for the Polish landed proprietor, in his double role as foreigner and noble. But he hated even more, perhaps, the Jewish steward with whom he was in continuous contact and in whom he saw at one and the same time the detestable representative of the lord and a ‘non-Christian’ who was foreign to him both by his religion and his way of life.” [15]The tremendous Cossack revolt of Chmielnicki in 1648 results in completely erasing seven hundred Jewish communities from the face of the earth. At the same time the revolt demonstrates the extreme feebleness of the anarchic Polish kingdom and prepares its dismemberment. From 1648 on, Poland never ceases to be the prey to invasions and domestic troubles.With the end of the old feudal state of things in Poland the privileged position of Judaism is likewise finished. Massacres decimate it; the anarchy which rules the country makes any normal economic activity impossible.The worsening of the situation of the Jews weakens the old ideological bases of Judaism. Poverty and persecution create a propitious terrain for the development of mysticism. Study of the Kabbala begins to replace that of the Talmud. Messianic movements like that of Sabbatai Zebi take on a certain dimension.It is also interesting to recall the conversion of Frank and his adherents to Christianity. “The Frankists demanded that they be given a special territory because they did not want to exploit the peasants and live from usury and the exploitation of taverns. They preferred to work the land.” [16]These movements did not take on very great dimensions because the position of Judaism was not as yet definitely compromised. It is only toward the close of the eighteenth century that Polish feudal society really begins to cave in under the combined blows of internal anarchy, economic decay, and foreign intervention. It is then that the problems of emigration and of passing over to other professions (“productivization”) begin to be posed for Judaism. Notes1. In the nineteenth century “there were hundreds of Jewish merchants, landed proprietors, and even soldiers scattered throughout the vast republics of what once was Spanish South America, but they now knew hardly anything of the religion of their fathers.” Martin Philippson, Neueste Geschichte des Jüdischen Volkes (Leipzig 1907), p. 226.2. In England “certain Spanish Jews converted to Christianity ... Some families which later became famous throughout the world thus abandoned Judaism: the Disraelis, Ricardos, Aguilars. Other Sephardic families were slowly assimilated by English society.” Heinrich Hirsch Graetz, Histoire Juive, vol. 6, p. 344.3. Lettres de Quelques Juifs, 5th edition, 1781. Quoted by Sombart, Jews and Modern Capitalism, op. cit., p. 348.4. See Sombart, Jews and Modern Capitalism, op. cit., chapter 2.5. Brentano, Die Anfänge des Modernen Kapitalismus, op. cit., p. 163.6. Brentano, Ibid., p. 165.7. André Sayous, Les Juifs, Revue Économique Internationale, March 1932, p. 526.8. Brentano, Die Anfänge des Modernen Kapitalismus, op. cit., pp. 165–66.9. “Mr. Sombart’s book on the Jews suffers from an endless sequence of serious errors; one might call it the rigorous development of a paradox by a man having the genius for portraying things with a great sweep. Like every paradox, it does not consist solely of false ideas; its part relating to the present period deserves to be read, although it very often deforms the characteristics of the Semitic people. Its historical portion in every case is almost ridiculous ... Modern capitalism was born and first developed at the moment when the Jews, rejected almost everywhere, were in no condition to become its precursors.” Sayous, op. cit., p. 533.10. See Chapter 6.11. In history, “the position of the Jews during the Middle Ages may be compared sociologically with that of an Indian caste in a world otherwise free from castes ... Hardly a Jew is found among the creators of the modern economic situation .... This type was Christian and only conceivable in the field of Christianity. The Jewish manufacturer, on the contrary is a modern phenomenon.” Weber, op. cit., pp. 358–60.12. Schipper, Jewish History, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 77–81.13. Graetz, Popular History of the Jews (New York 1919), vol. 5, p. 10.14. Ibid., vol. 5, p. 28.15. Graetz.16. Graetz. Contents | Jews and Marxism Subject PageLast updated: 2 August 2020"
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"content": "Abram LeonThe Jewish Question Translator’s forewordWriting in the shadow of Nazi occupation, the possibility of conforming his work on the Jewish question to certain formal standards of scholarship simply did not exist for the author. In making the English translation of his work, considerable time and effort were devoted to locating and identifying Leon’s source material and quotations, so as to eliminate, insofar as possible, this purely technical shortcoming. We were not always successful in this research project, and it has considerably delayed the appearance of the work in English, but it is hoped that even this limited success will prove helpful to serious students of Jewish history and the Jewish question.One further word as regards quoted material: English sources have in all cases been used as they appear in English editions – they are not retranslations from the French text. In all other cases, we have utilized standard English translations of foreign works, where they exist; and where the sources remain untranslated we have checked Leon’s text against the original French, German, or Yiddish editions.Mexico City, 1950 Contents | Jews and Marxism Subject PageLast updated: 27 August 2020"
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"content": "Abram LeonThe Jewish Question FIVEEvolution of the Jewish problem in the nineteenth centuryAt the beginning of the nineteenth century the immense majority of Jews was concentrated in the backward countries of Eastern Europe. In Poland at the time of the partition of the country there were over a million Jews. According to the Russian census of 1818, the social composition of Eastern Judaism was the following: BUSINESSMENARTISANSFARMERSUkrainia86.5%12.1%1.4%Lithuaniaand White Russia86.6%10.8%2.6%Together86.5%11.6%1.9%The percentage of artisans and farmers indicates the beginning of the social differentiation of Judaism. But in a general way, the structure of Eastern Judaism had not yet undergone any important changes; it remained what it had been for many centuries. Certain travelers’ stories by soldiers who participated in the Russian campaign of Napoleon constitute invaluable testimony relative to the life of the Jews at the beginning of the nineteenth century. “Many of them,” says von Furtenbach, “farm out and manage seignorial manors and exploit taverns. Everything is in their hands. They lend money to lords and peasants and they go to purchase merchandise at Leipzig.” [1] Another soldier, the Frenchman Puybusque, in his Lettres sur la guerre en Russie (Paris 1818), supplies interesting information on the role of the Jews in the economic life of the country: “They were the intermediaries between the peasants and the lords. The lords farmed out the taverns to them and compelled them to sell only drinks made in their manors. On the occasion of festivals, baptisms, burials, marriages, the peasants were compelled to buy at least a bucket of whiskey. The Jews sold them on credit but exacted heavy interest. They intervened in all the commercial operations of the country. They were also bankers.” The author relates that constant business relations linked the Polish Jews to their brothers in Germany. They had their own postal service and were informed about stock exchange quotations everywhere in Europe. [2]The author of Journey of the Moscovite Officer V. Bronevsky from Trieste to Constantinople in 1810 states: “Poland should in all justice be called a Jewish kingdom ... The cities and towns are primarily inhabited by them. Rarely will you find a village without Jews. Jewish taverns mark out all the main roads ... Apart from some rare manors which are administered by the lords themselves, all the others are farmed out or pledged to the Jews. They possess enormous capitals and no one can get along without their help. Only some few very rich lords are not plunged up to the neck in debt with the Jews.” [3] “The Jews in the villages,” writes Kamanine in L’archive de la russie méridionale et occidentale, “restrict themselves to farming [leasing] mills, liquor shops and taverns. There is hardly a village without its Jewish ‘farmer:’ Such is the extent of this that the census often confines the idea of farmer with that of Jew and links the profession to the nationality or to the religion. Instead of writing ‘there is no Jew in the village,’ they write: ‘there is no “farmer” in the village.’ ” [4]Nevertheless, while believing that they were describing the present, these various authors were no longer painting anything but the past. The secular situation of Judaism in Eastern Europe was, very slowly it is true, being swept away in the current of capitalist economy. Even before substituting itself for the old, the new regime was breaking it. The decay of feudalism preceded its replacement by new capitalist forms. “The numerical growth of the Jews demanded new and greater means of subsistence while the old economic positions were vanishing ... The Jews, adapted for centuries to a natural economy, felt the ground slipping beneath their feet ... In that earlier undeveloped economy they had been the middlemen and had held a virtual monopoly of trade ... The process of capitalization in Russia and in Poland now led the landed proprietors to attend personally to various branches of production and to drive the Jews out of them. Only a small section of rich Jews could find a favorable field of action in this new situation.” [5]On the other hand, the immense majority of Jews, consisting of petty merchants, publicans, and peddlers, suffered greatly from this new state of things. The old trade centers of the feudal epoch declined. New industrial and commercial cities supplanted the small towns and fairs. A native bourgeoisie began to develop.“The economic situation of the Jewish masses had become so critical, even before the partition of Poland, that questions of the transformation of the social structure of the Jews and of their emigration became posed automatically.” [6] Emigration was possible in this period only within the boundaries of the states into which Poland had been divided. The Jewish masses strove to leave the decadent and backward regions of the former aristocratic kingdom with the continually declining possibilities for subsistence, in order to seek new occupations in the more developed sections of the empires which had inherited Poland. As early as 1776 and 1778 several Polish Jewish communities ask the Russian government for permission to emigrate to Russia. “At the beginning of the nineteenth century a large stream of emigration is going from former Poland towards Russia.” [7] The same was true of the regions annexed by Prussia and Austria. The Jews headed for Berlin, for Vienna, for all the centers in which the pulse of a new economic life was beating, where commerce and industry offered them vast openings. “Jewish emigration from Podolia, Volhynia, White Russia and Lithuania, towards Russia, that of Posnan and Polish Jews to England and even to America, all prove that the Jews of Eastern Europe were looking for countries of immigration as early as the first half of the nineteenth century.” [8]"
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{
"content": "This desire for expatriation went hand in hand with attempts to make the Jews into “useful citizens,” to adapt them to the new situation by making them artisans and farmers. The Polish “Great Sejm” of 1784-88, already had the problem of the “productivization” of the Jews on its agenda. [9] All the governments which had inherited a section of Polish Judaism considered its social structure as an anomaly. Attempts were made to transform the Jews into factory workers. Premiums were granted both to artisans who hired Jewish apprentices and to the Jews who became apprentices. [10]Thousands of Jews were also colonized in certain regions of Russia. Tsar Alexander I encouraged this colonization. Despite great difficulties at the start, these villages succeeded in becoming acclimated in the long run.“Two processes characterize the development of the Jewish people in the course of the last century: the process of emigration and the process of social differentiation ... The decay of the feudal system and of feudal property and the rapid growth of capitalism in Central and Eastern Europe created new sources for subsistence, but in a far greater measure they destroyed their positions as intermediaries, by which the greatest part of the Jewish people lived. These processes forced the Jewish masses to change their living places as well as their social appearance; forced them to seek a new place in the world and a new occupation in society.” [11]At the beginning of the nineteenth century the process of “productivization” is still only in its opening phase. On the one hand, the decline of feudal economy is proceeding rather slowly and the Jews are still able to hang on to their old positions for a long time; on the other hand, the development of capitalism is still clothed in quite primitive forms and a great number of Jews find a vast field for occupations in trade and in artisanry. [12] They played a role as very active commercial agents for young capitalist industry and contributed to the capitalization of agriculture.In general we may consider that Jewish penetration into capitalist society took place up to the end of the nineteenth century. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, however, substantial masses of Jews were compelled to leave Eastern Europe.The annual average of Jewish emigration was:1830 to 1870 4,000 to 5,0001871 to 18808,000 to 10,0001881 to 190050,000 to 60,0001901 to 1914150,000 to 160,000During the first period, which extends up to 1870, we witness primarily an internal migration directed towards the great cities. From 1830 to 1870, when annual emigration did not exceed 7,000, the Jewish people increased from 3,281,000 to 7,763,000. Consequently, this substantial natural increase was in the main absorbed within the countries inhabited by the Jews. But what an extraordinary change takes place, beginning with 1881 and even more so after 1901, when Jewish emigration reaches the truly impressive figure of 150,000 to 160,000 per annum! What were the causes for this change?The process of capitalization of Russian economy was accelerated by the reform of 1863. Agriculture began to produce increasingly for the market. The bonds of serfdom and of feudal restrictions became looser; social differentiation progressed rapidly in the village. A section of peasants became transformed into well-to-do farmers; another section became proletarianized. Capitalization of agriculture had as effect the opening of an important domestic market for means of production (machines, etc.) and for articles of consumption.Capitalist production in agriculture means in effect the following: (1) division of labor within agriculture due to the specialization of its branches; (2) a growing demand for manufactured products by the enriched peasants and by the proletarianized mass, which has only its labor power to sell and must purchase its subsistence; (3) agricultural production for the market necessitates a more and more extensive use of machines, and this develops industry in the means of production; (4) growth in production of the means of production brings with it a continuous increase of the proletarian mass in the cities, and this contributes also to enlarging the market for means of consumption.These vast possibilities within the domestic market gave the Jewish masses, crowded out of their former economic positions, the opportunity to integrate themselves into capitalist economy. Workshops and small industries experienced a great expansion.Whereas the non-Jewish blacksmith or peasant found his way into the factory or the mine, the Jewish proletarianized masses flowed into small industries producing consumers goods. [13]But there is a fundamental difference between the transformation of the peasant or blacksmith into a steelworker and the transformation of a Jewish merchant into an artisan or garment worker. Capitalist development of the branches of heavy industry is accompanied by a change in the material conditions of production. Not only do the means of production change their destination but they also change their form. The primitive tool becomes the perfected modern machine. The same is not true of the means of consumption. Clothing, whether it be produced for the maker’s own use or for the local or world market, does not change its appearance. The same is not true of the tool which is transformed into the ever increasingly perfected machine and which requires the investment of increasingly greater capital.In order to undertake the manufacture of machines, it is necessary, from the very beginning, to have a large capital. This is explained, especially in the beginning, by the length of the working period, the “number of consecutive working days required in a branch of production for the completion of the finished product.” [14] “According to the working period required by the specific nature of the product, or by the useful effect aimed at, is short or long, a continuous investment of additional circulating capital (wages, raw and auxiliary materials) is required ...” [15]It is for this reason that from its very beginning production of the means of production has taken place in the capitalist form of large factories, whereas the production of means of consumption can continue to be carried out in the same artisan workshops as before."
}
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