'MARXIST THEORY OF CRISIS’

Evening Star, Issue 22380, 2 July 1936, Page 1

'MARXIST THEORY OF CRISIS ’

Another of liis scries of lectures on ‘ The Marxist Theory of Crisis ’ was presented by Dr Soutcr to the W.E.A. last evening. .■ __ Tn liis> previous lecture the speaker had outlined the Marxist theory of the crisis with special reference to the summarisation of this theory as_ presented in the 1 Communist Manifesto ’ of Marx an,d Engels. He had pointed out that Marx had been inspired to advocate the dialectic or logic of development through clash and transcendence of “ opposites,” each “ synthesis ” inevitably breeding a new “ opposite ” out of its own inherent inadequacy. In combining the dialectic of Hegelian Idealism with philosophical materialism, Marx had produced his “ Materialistic ” or economic interpretation of history in general, and, more specifically, his theory of the class struggle as the dynamic of human history. He had documented and supported these theories with great historical learning and profound insight. In particular, he had shown how feudalism produced its own enemy, the bourgeoisie, which had ultimately overthrown it. _ Further, Marx had claimed -that a similar fate was now overtaking bourgeois capitalism, which, based on property rights, was producing its own opposite, a propertyless proletariat. In tracing the development of the latter he had predicted that bourgeois capitalism would be destroyed by its inability to provide that proletariat with rising living conditions. Capitalism, Marx had maintained, had progressively debased the proletariat by gradually reducing its “ cost of production ” as an economic commodity and by periodically plunging it into want through the commercial crisis. This crisis, Marx had predicted, would progressively increase in severity till capitalism collapsed. With regard to the first contention—namely, the debasement of the proletariat—subsequent history had'proved Marx to be wrong. In the second contention, the plunging of the proletariat into want, it was not certain that he had been wrong, although his analysis of the crisis might be defective. It was based on, or systematically connected with, the Labour theory of value and the exploitation theory of interest and profits, and so was related to modern theories of “ insufficient consumer purchasing power.” Marx, continued Dr Souter, had also predicted the collapse of capitalism through the rivalry of economic imperialism leading to war. Tin’s prediction closely connected with his theory of the crisis, since he had held that the desperate struggle Tor foreign markets and sources oh raw material arose out of the defect of distribution referred to. There was also a close relation between his theory of tho progressive debasement of tho proletariat and his theory of crisis resulting from the flow in destribution. It was, nevertheless, evident that the hitter doctrine did not, as an alleged Tact, fall completely, with the former, because the modern variants of it were still existent and because the cycle was still with us and was increasing in its seriousness as a social peril.

Therefore, said the speaker, they had still to face, if not Marx’s precise theorv of the crisis, at any rate tho possibility that the crisis might be inherent in capitalism and one of the elements leading to its inevitable supersession. Marx’s theory of the crisis being part and parcel of Jus general theory of social evolution, it was uccessarv "first to examine his theory of social evolution through tho class struggle, and then, even if much of the analysis on which it was based were rejected, still to face the possibility that some more adequate application of the Hegelian Dialectic to history might bo sound, and might spejl the death or far-reaching transformation of capitalism. There were many points admitting of difference of opinion—whether farreaching transformation was ultimately necessary, the nature of such transformation, tho stage to-day reached in this transformation, whether it must necessarily involve violence, and fin,niu. whether Marx’s analysis of the way in which capitalism was producing means of its own transformation, was distorted, sound as far as it went, or adequate. In conclusion, the speaker remarked that it would he worth while tq spend more time on Marx’s general notion of the decay of bourgeois culture m terms of his doctrine that culture was relative to productive organisation, and tliat tho two stand or fall together. His theory of the classless society of Communism in relation to the problem regarding the ideal of security could be valuably discussed.