The Philosophy of Marx E-Book

Giovanni Gentile

• Herausgeber: Antelope Hill Publishing LLC
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Giovanni Gentile is widely acknowledged as the foundational philosopher of Italian Fascism. He worked in academia as well as government, contributing to the formation of the Italian corporate state and education system under Benito Mussolini. Gentile continued writing and contributing to the Italian Fascist state until his assassination by the Italian Communist Party in 1944.
 
In  The Philosophy of Marx, Gentile critiques the failures of Marxist philosophy as presented by numerous thinkers including Marx himself. Gentile argues that Marx erred in his conception of historical materialism, which led to flaws in Marxist praxis, and presents his view of a more authentically Hegelian philosophy of dialectics and epistemology. According to Gentile, who promoted what he termed “actual idealism,” the dialectic was not a mystical, external force, but rather an organic element of life, and required a strong, central state, which could coordinate and fulfill otherwise competing and struggling identities and interests.
 
Antelope Hill is proud to present its original translation of Giovanni Gentile’s  The Philosophy of Marx originally published in 1899, updated in 1937. This work is fundamental to understanding the politics of the early twentieth century and will remain invaluable to future generations looking to understand the past.

Leseprobe

The Philosophy of Marx

LA FILOSOFIA DI MARX

— THE PHILOSOPHY OF MARX—

G I O V A N N I G E N T I L E

Translated by

Shandon Simpson and Caterina Vitale

A N T E L O P EH I L LP U B L I S H I N G

English translation and annotation copyright © 2022 Antelope Hill Publishing

First printing 2022.

Originally published in Italian as La filosofia di Marx by Pisa:Enrico Spoerri, 1899.

This translation is of the 1937 edition, which differs from the original 1899 edition only by the addition of a note by Gentile.

English translation by Shandon Simpson and Caterina Vitale, 2022.

Where English translations exist for cited works, those editions are given along with the wording from those translations. Otherwise, quotations from the original given in Italian have been translated into English by Simpson and Vitale with the citation matching that of the original book. Some citations were not given in the original for smaller quotations, and a portion of those remain uncited in this edition.

Cover art by Swifty.

Edited by Caterina Vitale and Margaret Bauer.

Formatted by Margaret Bauer.

Antelope Hill Publishing

www.antelopehillpublishing.com

Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-956887-08-2

EPUB ISBN-13: 978-1-956887-09-9

“It was Gentile who prepared the road for those—like me—who wished to take it.”

Benito Mussolini

As quoted in The Ideology of Fascism: The Rationale of Totalitarianism, by A. James Gregor

Contents

Preface to the Original 1899 Edition

Note from the 1937 Edition

A Critique of Historical Materialism

I. Contemporary Importance of Socialistic Studies

II. The Matter of a Materialistic Conception of History

III. Presentation of the Materialistic Conception of History

IV. Is the Materialistic Idea a Philosophy of History?

V. Critique of the New Philosophy of History

The Philosophy of Praxis

I. Philosophical Studies of Karl Marx

II. Marx’s Critique of Feuerbach

III. Sketch of the Philosophy of Praxis

IV. Realism of the Philosophy of Praxis

V. Dialectical Law of Praxis and its Consequences

VI. Criticisms and Discussions

VII. Theoretical Marxism and Practical Marxism

VIII. Recent Interpretation of the Philosophy of Praxis

IX. Critique of the Philosophy of Praxis

Preface to the Original 1899 Edition

Here I collect two critical studies on the often criticized philosophy of Karl Marx, which today is passionately discussed by followers and opponents alike without any hope of agreement on the philosophy’s special doctrines or overall strategy. Was he a materialist, or not? Which doctrine is closest to that fortunate type of historical materialism popularized around the world by Marx? Which is closest to his revolutionary idea? Is there really a relation between this historical materialism and metaphysical materialism, in the strictest sense of the word?

In the first of the two studies,1 I analyze and criticize historical materialism (or at least what Marx meant by historical materialism) as a theory of history—I did not attempt to search for which philosophy was inherent to the theory. On the contrary, I wrote that Marx’s “historical materialism is no place to pose questions concerning spiritualism and materialism.” Additionally, I agreed with Croce’s position that the self-supplied influences of historical materialism should be considered unreliable. I also refrained from denying that Marx and Engels were materialists, regardless of whether their theory of history could be described as such. I instead concluded that they, as materialists and followers of the “philosophical movement, meant as a reaction to idealism, started by the Hegelian Left and continued by Moleschott, Vogt, and Büchner,” could have thought of their reaction to Hegel’s philosophy as materialistic by simple analogy! In my second study, I examine and analyze the philosophy of Marx as metaphysical materialism. Have I therefore changed my opinion?

Truly, no. It will be helpful to explain how and why my second study has not obliged me to change the thoughts expressed in the first study in the slightest, and which I will now repeat here with only faint stylistic revisions.

Yes, there is a metaphysical materialism in Marx that defines itself as historical materialism. But was his theory of history born from the depths of metaphysics? Or was the metaphysics devised to provide a philosophical justification for his theory? My analysis of Marx’s metaphysical materialism confirms to me that his theory didn’t naturally develop from his philosophy, but that the philosophy was artificially concocted to allow Marx (and Engels as well) to take a philosophical position after developing his revolutionary doctrine in Brussels in 1845. His revolutionary economic and historical ideas, published in the French-German Annals in Paris in 1844 in collaboration with Arnold Ruge, had already started to develop when he and Engels began pivoting to philosophy. In fact, in the June 28th, 1883 preface to The Communist Manifesto, Engels clearly states that:

The basic idea of this manifesto: that economic production, and its determinant effect on the structure of society in every historical period, is the basis for the political history of that period; that accordingly (since the end of prehistoric communal ownership of land), the entirety of history has been about class struggle, about exploited and exploiting classes, and about dominated and dominating classes at various degrees of social development; that this struggle has now reached a stage where the oppressed and exploited class (the proletariat) cannot free itself from the oppressive and exploiting class (the bourgeoisie) without simultaneously permanently freeing the entirety of society from oppression and exploitation—this basic idea [which is the theory of history that I criticize in my first study] belongs entirely and exclusively to Marx.2

He also adds in a footnote:

This concept—which, in my opinion, is certain to cause within the discipline of history a shift equal to that which Darwin’s theories effected in the natural sciences—is something that both Marx and I had been independently developing for several years prior to 1845. This is demonstrated well enough in my book, The Condition of the Working Class in England. But when I met Marx in Brussels in 1845, he had already developed it and expressed it to me just as clearly as I express it here now.3

Since historical materialism wasn’t developed as a metaphysical system until 1845–46,4 then clearly the revolutionary theory of history had been created before, and independent of, the metaphysical system of critical communism. The critique that this metaphysical system will be subject to in my second study will easily show the efforts taken to justify the claim that the socialistic doctrine was founded on materialist philosophy, which in itself is truly a contradiction of terms.

Thus, historical materialism can be contemplated in two ways: as a theory of history, whose principles can be summarized by Engels’ abovementioned description of the basic idea of the Manifesto—and as such represents an insight into Marx’s thinking;and as a metaphysics or worldview, based on the contrived construction that Marx designed in 1845–46 and applied so as to take a philosophical stance—in essence this represents an additional development of Marx’s thinking to a degree on which Marx himself didn’t insist. It was, in fact, a grotesque overdevelopment of his thinking. In any case, these two elements of Marxist theory are separately studied in the two following parts of this work. The second part demonstrates something that is fleetingly implied in a note in the first part: that a false analogy made by Marx (and Engels) led him to believe that his economic understanding of history was in some way connected to materialism.

All of Karl Marx’s philosophical thinking—as vague, fragmented, and lacking in any kind of scientific rigor as it was—is here exposed to an accurate analysis and a new critique, which could perhaps assist the theorists of communism to deal a little bit better with philosophy in the future.5

Giovanni Gentile

Campobasso, February 20th, 1899

Note from the 1937 Edition

In this volume,6 I’ve reprinted an early work of mine from almost forty years ago (La Filosofia di Marx, in Studi critici, Pisa: Spoerri, 1899) at the insistence of scholars who sought it—especially after they discovered that even Lenin had read my pamphlet and had regarded it as one of the most noteworthy studies done by a non-Marxist on Marx.7 I’ll also say that while I have avoided republishing it for two or three decades because of a vague memory of the essay having some faults, and while it is dated because of all of the new studies that have come to light and because of the release of new documents regarding Marx’s thinking to scholars, I’ve convinced myself to read this old, forgotten essay once again. I reread it with the nostalgic curiosity that we occasionally experience when looking through our old papers to revive faded memories and images from our distant youth. As I read I heard once again, here and there, voices that have never died out in me, recognized in myself some fundamental things, and saw other things that perhaps others more intellectual than myself would be able to recognize as the first seeds of thoughts that later matured.

Therefore I have recognized in my book, despite its dated content, a historical value that has made me find life again where I feared death had come forever.

For this reason, I approved the republication, but left the book as it was, with all of its faults, neither adding nor erasing anything. I sought to avoid creating something new that both was and was not the previous text, deprived of documentary value for matters first pondered at the end of the last century—a time in Italy when myself and others began to feel the need to help build a true kind of philosophy.

I therefore limited myself to simple adjustments of form, preserving many traces of abstruseness and juvenile uncertainty.

Giovanni Gentile

Rome, January 7th, 1937

— ACRITIQUE OF HISTORICAL MATERIALISM —

I.Contemporary Importance of Socialistic Studies

To some people, the great scientific advancements today pertain to social matters, and though such issues are indeed debated in every age and are never quite out of sight, recent developments reflect the distinct character of our times. I think it’s appropriate to show how excessive this statement is from the start; first and foremost, by making a precise and important distinction in the matter that we’re going to discuss.

It is true that a great clamor is rising everywhere, and perhaps not without reason it can be said that each day it more loudly proclaims this preeminence; affirming that the research of social problems is and must be the special task of our age, mature or approaching maturity, to finally start finding the definitive solution to a matter as old as Man’s consciousness, that is as old as the whole of Man’s history.

However, even those who study the historical moment we’re going through, are studying it with the calm critique of science, and they are not left stunned by clamorous statements. They draw aside, where the rash screaming can’t go so far as to disturb their judgment, and instead they concentrate on the actual state and reason of things, rather than on the multitude that follows this scream down a long road, as it caresses great hopes and raises infinite desires.

And actually, the supporters of that preeminence don’t give as much attention to the authority and the results of the research produced around purported social matters as they do to the great crowd of those that discuss it and converse about it on a daily basis—in newspapers and books—or to how many people are right to take interest in it (and far from being too few, there are unfortunately too many of these!). But alas, if every science had to take into account the solutions—perhaps sometimes novel ones, and nevertheless always certain!—that have been devised by the crowd that often takes part in such discussions! Surely the annals of every discipline would gain much in the extent and number of volumes that could be written; but perhaps some other parts would be lost. And think of the grave risk that would be taken if we were to really listen to the demands of anyone who offers a historical evaluation of the cultural movement we still live in, without making a distinction between what has a scientific character and what doesn’t. In so doing, we’d lose the beneficial perspective that posterity will have, falling easily into error. Genuine scholarship would get mistaken for improvised chatter, at times even for the unsettled fidgeting of political parties; all of which may be of great political significance, but it surely does not have anything to do with science.

Science certainly can and should report the real conditions of society, but it must not and indeed cannot mix them up and make them into something set apart from what their essential nature consists of. This essence is the actual product of the spirit’s formal elaboration, for which the conditions of society are destined to provide the basic matter. And, together with the practical distress, all of the endless literary production that is thrown together day by day in that field of study belongs to the content or the matter of science, even though it never brings a new concept or view. Thus, it has weight only for the conscious purpose of disclosure and propaganda: namely, it serves to demonstrate the constantly rising interest in social issues, albeit without suggesting it. In this second case too, it is a sign of a non-proper science. It’s an obvious distinction; but it never seems to have been so difficult to observe, and as important as it is today, to appreciate the range of studies that arise from contemporary socialism.

Because if, for the second half of the century, the branch of social sciences gathered under the title of sociology has represented the need to build a historical reality in a logical and scientifically intelligible system (although in an inadequate and philosophically incorrect form), towards which the greatest interest of the mindset of idealistic speculation in the first decades of this century has oriented itself; then it wouldn’t be easy to point out the construct of political and social doctrines that have proliferated around socialist movements, and those that tend to philosophize, in the history of the scientific or speculative spirit. Great faith, great dogmatism, scarce critique and arbitrary methods. Bold perspectives about the future, built upon faltering fundamentals of a history that has been fabricated more than it has been studied, examined and understood. Piddling and debatable slapdash observations on economy, and a casual mix of general concepts taken here and there from current philosophies: all of it blended in a rudely pretentious doctrine, baptized with the German taste for coining pretentious scientific-sounding names. This is the substance of socialistic literature, over which professional scholars waver between disdainful odi profanum vulgus and the particular embarrassment of those who have not done their homework.

However, when we talk about socialistic studies in particular, as we attempt to, or as we think we are able to, speculatively reconnect their origin with the idealistic transformation that made the cult of history flourish again, then we see that they haven’t brought forward a great deal of achievements or even any genuine scientific findings. Indeed, it is not right to consider their theories about the future as though they were the Reason of tomorrow, while disagreement lingers sub judice regarding their assertions about the past. What is asserted about the past with the intent and pretension of a scientific theory surely wouldn’t be insignificant, if it were based on unconditional principles and proceeded with a truly critical method; but the copious socialist literature is supported by neither a firmness of principles, nor an awareness of the demands of a sane scientific method.

It is necessary, then, to apply unicuique suum and to avoid the exaggeration of the reach of these studies. We must not give them a greater value that what they actually possess, and which many of us still refuse to recognize in them. Certainly in Germany, France and England, philosophy has for some time been seriously concerned with these matters, which we here have left to sectarian discussions or to the superficial judgement of the philosophers of particular sciences. They have been casually debated by the best philosophers, but, most often, they’ve been dragged out by newspapers and pulp fictions aimed at the easy approval of the most willingly pleased public. The consequence of this general neglect from the only people who would be able to measure the theoretical value of certain doctrines (which, blindly taken, manage to create in the most stable beliefs and the strongest resolution) could be easily imagined, if only it weren’t being demonstrated all around us every day.

Such a sweeping change of the whole social structure in which we now live is a consequence of a gradual shift; that has never been interrupted since we started living as a society, that is to say for as long as we could be called mankind. And since, as proven by sociology and expressed by philosophy, there aren’t and there cannot be people without ethical bonds, lacking family and estate—such a structure cannot support itself for long, without being sustained by a radical new revelation on life and history; that is, without it taking inspiration from a new philosophy. It’s a fact proven by the history of socialism that generally the ideal settlement of any utopian society relates to itself (either conspicuously or not) via a special philosophical route or system; so that it would be the same to remove the philosophical fundamentals from which the utopia is born, as to unmask the selfsame utopia; so we must expect that it could find its anchorage in philosophy, stating it, fully maturing its own relations with the philosophical ideas cited, to accurately examine the titles that it has presented to be received into the fair field of science.

Now it looks as though the most recent socialistic form—which occupies the field undisputed, and which received an early boost from the thoughts and actions of Karl Marx and is therefore tied to his name and is properly called critical communism—has definitively formulated its theoretical doctrine. This theoretical doctrine is such that, were it to be demonstrated with evidence, it would make any debate on the many matters argued regarding socialism useless.

This doctrine consists in the so-called materialist conception of history; through which, with a firm critique, one could determine a stable and necessary trend over the course of human events, so as to allow the further development of social forms.

II.The Matter of a Materialistic Conception of History

Among the many issues, constantly raised and rekindled in social literature by the theoretical premises of socialism in recent years, there may be one that is the most debated and undefined, upon which not even the most scholarly and influential socialists have been able to reach agreement. People are investigating whether this concept accords the new doctrine a place in the history of philosophy, in the strictest sense of the word. And if it does, what relation does it have with the philosophical systems from which it was born or to which it gives rise?

By claiming to be a disciple of Georg Hegel, Karl Marx, author of this doctrine, has thereby admitted that he is pleased to flirt (kokettieren) with the dangerous terminology of his master. But, was it just about words? His friend and colleague Friedrich Engels, in a characteristic paper exploring the dependence of historical materialism (the soul and core of critical communism) on that system from which it appears and is said to be most directly related, admitted the existence of a strong connection to the degenerated Left Hegelians, particularly with Feuerbach’s Hegelianism, the farthest from the master’s spirit and principles.8

So was the matter exhausted, such that there would be nothing left to say about it? On the contrary, as if invited by Marx’s declarations, there has been no shortage of people striving in every way to connect historical materialism with the philosophy of Hegel, principally attempting to clarify the relation between the antithetical content and the analogous form, as has been demonstrated by the author in Das Kapital (Capital); and there have been people who have judged Marxism to be a true implementation of Hegelianism, and people who have resolutely criticized any mutual relevance, by only recognizing a mere shared vocabulary that needn’t be overly scrutinized. Meanwhile, while conversing on the nature and the form of the doctrine to establish its historical genesis, everyone has wandered around the subject so much that at this point the burdened problem is now more undefined than ever; and one also finds the very appellation of “historical materialism” to be incorrect, as it is by all means unjustified and a producer of misunderstandings. Hence the debate is still lively; the scholar of the history of philosophy cannot lose interest in it.

And among our people, professor Alessandro Chiappelli, one of the most diligent enthusiasts of the history of philosophy and a vigilant examiner of movements in modern thought, has engaged in it for some time with his usual breadth of information, through a series of articles.9 Recently, he debated the matter in a long essay printed among the proceedings of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, Naples—since he belongs to the Spaventa family—to present research of a speculative nature.10 I must mention also Benedetto Croce, who has made many ingenious and suitable observations around historical materialism. In a brief but rich essay, read in May 1896 at the Accademia Pontaniana, he delicately remarked that perhaps it would be appropriate to consider again, once and for all, these self-professed relations between scientific socialism and Hegelianism, with precision and critique.

The expository literature of historical materialism is also plentiful, if we consider how it has only been distinctly formulated and connected to the contemporary socialist movement in recent times.

It’s a new visual angle from which to look at history. A new method and a new system, from which is announced that we will have to start all over again to explain the human facts; a new understanding of life, and, in a word, a new philosophy. It is not yet intended to set up, gradually and as a result of progressive transformation of the content and character of the national or generational culture, new modes of civilization and of daily life. Nevertheless it is already a tool and a theoretical interpretation concurrent with a social revolution, not platonically referring to a possible or probable condition to take place, but now resolutely underway with enthusiasm and faith. This is what the new doctrine demands to be. It’s no surprise that it has drawn the attention of many, advocates and opponents alike, who seek to build up and direct the fundamental ideas of the early authors, in order to reduce the new thinking to a consistent unity. And just as in the intertwining of social movements, the one spearheaded by Marx has gradually taken over any other form of socialism, and it has gathered almost every effort of the social class that arises against the present set of rules and summed them up within itself, just as new life-giving blows to the theoretical dissertation of the doctrine have come from the same practical foundation.

Fervet opus in Germany; but in Italy so far we have had two important displays and dissertations on the materialistic theory of history thanks to professors Achille Loria and Antonio Labriola. Notwithstanding, the former (who isn’t a socialist) is not strictly speaking an interpreter of Marx’s thinking, and, while trying to elaborate the concept of the economical foundations of the social establishment on his own, he has moved away from Marxism and has exposed himself to severe but fair criticism from those willing to recognize the gravity of Marx’s concepts.11 On the contrary, professor Labriola is undoubtedly the most competent one among those who have embraced this faith and this social science in Italy, and he has dedicated assiduous studies for many years to illustrate the doctrine of historical materialism in his most genuine and accomplished style.12 That is to say, within the ideal proposed by Marx and which can be logically developed, according to the general views and the intention and the particular applications of the master, with respect to the different problems of philosophy, law and politics. For now, it has given rise to two essays, firstly to expose the genetic development of the new historical doctrine and the rationale for it as expressed within the classical document of Marxist socialism that is the Manifesto, published by Marx and Engels in London in February 1848, at the eve of the revolutions in Europe. Secondly, to disentangle from its various aspects and define this doctrine with scientific prudence, examining and establishing the original meaning, determining its range, and especially getting himself to trim down every error of interpretation and of exaggeration, whence the inexperienced have overdone it. Yet we believe it appropriate to portray, from these very recent books of this talented professor from Rome, the key elements of the new historical conception, which we intend to evaluate in relation to philosophy.

III.Presentation of the Materialistic Conception of History

It has been said that the doctrine of historical materialism was first enunciated, with clear and sharp awareness, in the Manifesto of 1848, thrown to the workmen and all the proletarians of the world by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. But the true author of it, certified by Engels himself, is Marx, who had formerly matured the generating concept, and then developed it more deeply.

In the preface of a book that is rightly said to be the prelude to Capital, entitled A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx summarizes his reflections on the pace of history, in a passage that by now is widely cited and which is still useful to report:

In the social production which men carry on they enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material powers of production. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society—the real foundation, on which rise legal and political superstructures and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social, political and spiritual processes of life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of their development, the material forces of production in society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or—what is but a legal expression for the same thing—with the property relations within which they had been at work before. From forms of development of the forces of production these relations turn into their fetters. Then comes the period of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations the distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic—in short ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself, so can we not judge of such a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary, this consciousness must rather be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between the social forces of production and the relations of production. No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces, for which there is room in it, have been developed; and new higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society. Therefore, mankind always takes up only such problems as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, we will always find that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation. In broad outlines we can designate the Asiatic, the ancient, the feudal, and the modern bourgeois methods of production as so many epochs in the progress of the economic formation of society. The bourgeois relations of production are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production—antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism, but of one arising from conditions surrounding the life of individuals in society; at the same time the productive forces developing in the womb of bourgeois society create the material conditions for the solution of that antagonism. This social formation constitutes, therefore, the closing chapter of the prehistoric stage of human society.13

Here is all of Marx’s thinking and work; here, in its native form, in a short formula and like a seed, is every part of the materialistic theory of history and the authentic source of any determination that the best interpreters give.

Now, in the quoted passage there’s a sentence which is particularly remarkable and full of meaning, and which actually contains the philosophical concept of everything else: “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness.” Where man is not to be interpreted as the human being in his natural state, as the French philosophers of the eighteenth century understood it; but as the social man, the historical man, already equipped with all of the ideologies; and social being is to be explained as the conditions among which and for which life must perform in a given society; the conditions are neither political, religious, moral, scientific nor artistic, they are simply and solely economical; since these are the creators of all of the other particular forms.

The political, religious, moral, scientific, and artistic conditions or formations are further structures of the man that has already entered society, meaning when he’s definitively emerged from prehistory; and this logical and chronological priority, which happens in the early development of human coexistence, repeats itself regularly any time the social order renews itself, due to some internal revolution.

Therefore, such conditions or structures appear when man has already established his material amenities in a certain way with other individuals of society; and in the new creations derived from the application of his activities to the needs of life in which he gradually gets satisfaction, he naturally can neither avoid the influence of this first foundation, nor he can act or move outside of the artificial field, as Labriola calls it, in which he has found himself as he came out of prehistory. Hence, he can neither freely give himself a political model, nor a religion, morals, produce any science, any art. He must accept them, or even better, he must produce them just if they are appropriate, and they can only be appropriate in that first form, which is like second nature, and which has necessarily had to accommodate or, more precisely, to produce to solve the first natural needs of its existence. The building of its history cannot be elevated but on the foundation that he’s found himself laying. This higher building, this whole of additional historical forms of social life, makes up the complex or the organism of ideologies for communism; where the foundations (in which it is the first condition of society) would be its economic structure, the natural basis of all of history.