scientific and utopian socialism

7/27/2019 Scientific and Utopian Socialism

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Frederick Engels

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific

I

[The Development of Utopian Socialism]

Modern Socialism is, in its essence, the direct product of the recognition, on the one hand, of the class antagonisms

existing in the society of today between proprietors and non-proprietors, between capitalists and wage-workers; on

the other hand, of the anarchy existing in production. But, in its theoretical form, modern Socialism originally

appears ostensibly as a more logical extension of the principles laid down by the great French philosophers of the

!th century. "ike e#ery new theory, modern Socialism had, at first, to connect itself with the intellectual stock-in-

trade ready to its hand, howe#er deeply its roots lay in material economic facts.

$he great men, who in France prepared men%s minds for the coming re#olution, were themsel#es extreme

re#olutionists. $hey recogni&ed no external authority of any kind whate#er. 'eligion, natural science, society,

political institutions ( e#erything was sub)ected to the most unsparing criticism* e#erything must )ustify its

existence before the )udgment-seat of reason or gi#e up existence. 'eason became the sole measure of e#erything.

+t was the time when, as egel says, the world stood upon its head ; first in the sense that the human head, and

the principles arri#ed at by its thought, claimed to be the basis of all human action and association; but by and by,

also, in the wider sense that the reality which was in contradiction to these principles had, in fact, to be turned

upside down. /#ery form of society and go#ernment then existing, e#ery old traditional notion, was flung into the

lumber-room as irrational; the world had hitherto allowed itself to be led solely by pre)udices; e#erything in the

past deser#ed only pity and contempt. 0ow, for the first time, appeared the light of day, the kingdom of reason;

henceforth superstition, in)ustice, pri#ilege, oppression, were to be superseded by eternal truth, eternal 'ight,

e1uality based on 0ature and the inalienable rights of man.

2e know today that this kingdom of reason was nothing more than the ideali&ed kingdom of the bourgeoisie; that

this eternal 'ight found its reali&ation in bourgeois )ustice; that this e1uality reduced itself to bourgeois e1uality

before the law; that bourgeois property was proclaimed as one of the essential rights of man; and that the

go#ernment of reason, the Contrat Socialof 'ousseau, came into being, and only could come into being, as a

democratic bourgeois republic. $he great thinkers of the !th century could, no more than their predecessors, go

beyond the limits imposed upon them by their epoch.

But, side by side with the antagonisms of the feudal nobility and the burghers, who claimed to represent all the rest

of society, was the general antagonism of exploiters and exploited, of rich idlers and poor workers. +t was this #ery

circumstance that made it possible for the representati#es of the bourgeoisie to put themsel#es forward as

representing not one special class, but the whole of suffering humanity. Still further. From its origin the

bourgeoisie was saddled with its antithesis* capitalists cannot exist without wage-workers, and, in the sameproportion as the mediae#al burgher of the guild de#eloped into the modern bourgeois, the guild )ourneyman and

the day-laborer, outside the guilds, de#eloped into the proletarian. 3nd although, upon the whole, the bourgeoisie,

in their struggle with the nobility, could claim to represent at the same time the interests of the different working-

classes of that period, yet in e#ery great bourgeois mo#ement there were independent outbursts of that class which

was the forerunner, more or less de#eloped, of the modern proletariat. For example, at the time of the 4erman

'eformation and the 5easants% 2ar, the 3nabaptists and$homas M6n&er; in the great /nglish 'e#olution,

the "e#ellers; in the great French 'e#olution, Babeuf.
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$hese were theoretical enunciations, corresponding with these re#olutionary uprisings of a class not yet de#eloped;

in the 7th and 8th centuries, 9topian pictures of ideal social conditions; in the !th century, actual communistic

theories :Morelly and Mably[2]. $he demand for e1uality was no longer limited to political rights; it was extended

also to the social conditions of indi#iduals. +t was not simply class pri#ileges that were to be abolished, but class

distinctions themsel#es. 3 ?? years earlier, and might then ha#e spared humanity >?? years of error, strife,

and suffering.

2e saw how the French philosophers of the !th century, the forerunners of the 'e#olution, appealed to reason as

the sole )udge of all that is. 3 rational go#ernment, rational society, were to be founded; e#erything that ran

counter to eternal reason was to be remorselessly done away with. 2e saw also that this eternal reason was in

reality nothing but the ideali&ed understanding of the !th century citi&en, )ust then e#ol#ing into the bourgeois.

$he French 'e#olution had reali&ed this rational society and go#ernment.

But the new order of things, rational enough as compared with earlier conditions, turned out to be by no means

absolutely rational. $he state based upon reason completely collapsed. 'ousseau%s Contrat Socialhad found its

reali&ation in the 'eign of $error, from which the bourgeoisie, who had lost confidence in their own political

capacity, had taken refuge first in the corruption of the @irectorate, and, finally, under the wing of the 0apoleonic

despotism. $he promised eternal peace was turned into an endless war of con1uest. $he society based upon reason

had fared no better. $he antagonism between rich and poor, instead of dissol#ing into general prosperity, had

become intensified by the remo#al of the guild and other pri#ileges, which had to some extent bridged it o#er, and

by the remo#al of the charitable institutions of the


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eradicated, they were now at any rate thrust into the background. +n their stead, the bourgeois #ices, hitherto

practiced in secret, began to blossom all the more luxuriantly. $rade became to a greater and greater extent

cheating. $he Afraternity of the re#olutionary motto was reali&ed in the chicanery and ri#alries of the battle of

competition. =ppression by force was replaced by corruption; the sword, as the first social le#er, by gold. $he right

of the first night was transferred from the feudal lords to the bourgeois manufacturers. 5rostitution increased to an

extent ne#er heard of. Marriage itself remained, as before, the legally recogni&ed form, the official cloak of

prostitution, and, moreo#er, was supplemented by rich crops of adultery.

+n a word, compared with the splendid promises of the philosophers, the social and political institutions born of the

Atriumph of reason were bitterly disappointing caricatures. 3ll that was wanting was the men to formulate this

disappointment, and they came with the turn of the century. +n !?E, Saint-Simon%s 4ene#a letters appeared; in

!?! appeared Fourier%s first work, although the groundwork of his theory dated from 8; on Ganuary , !??,

'obert =wen undertook the direction of 0ew "anark.

3t this time, howe#er, the capitalist mode of production, and with it the antagonism between the bourgeoisie and

the proletariat, was still #ery incompletely de#eloped. Modern +ndustry, which had )ust arisen in /ngland, was still

unknown in France. But Modern +ndustry de#elops, on the one hand, the conflicts which make absolutely

necessary a re#olution in the mode of production, and the doing away with its capitalistic character ( conflicts not

only between the classes begotten of it, but also between the #ery producti#e forces and the forms of exchange

created by it. 3nd, on the other hand, it de#elops, in these #ery gigantic producti#e forces, the means of ending

these conflicts. +f, therefore, about the year !??, the conflicts arising from the new social order were only )ust

beginning to take shape, this holds still more fully as to the means of ending them. $he Aha#e-nothing masses of

5aris, during the 'eign of $error, were able for a moment to gain the mastery, and thus to lead the bourgeois

re#olution to #ictory in spite of the bourgeoisie themsel#es. But, in doing so, they only pro#ed how impossible it

was for their domination to last under the conditions then obtaining. $he proletariat, which then for the first time

e#ol#ed itself from these Aha#e-nothing masses as the nucleus of a new class, as yet 1uite incapable of

independent political action, appeared as an oppressed, suffering order, to whom, in its incapacity to help itself,

help could, at best, be brought in from without or down from abo#e.

$his historical situation also dominated the founders of Socialism. $o the crude conditions of capitalistic

production and the crude class conditions correspond crude theories. $he solution of the social problems, which as

yet lay hidden in unde#eloped economic conditions, the 9topians attempted to e#ol#e out of the human brain.

Society presented nothing but wrongs; to remo#e these was the task of reason. +t was necessary, then, to disco#er a

new and more perfect system of social order and to impose this upon society from without by propaganda, and,

where#er it was possible, by the example of model experiments. $hese new social systems were foredoomed as

9topian; the more completely they were worked out in detail, the more they could not a#oid drifting off into pure

phantasies.

$hese facts once established, we need not dwell a moment longer upon this side of the 1uestion, now wholly

belonging to the past. 2e can lea#e it to the literary small fry to solemnly 1uibble o#er these phantasies, which

today only make us smile, and to crow o#er the superiority of their own bald reasoning, as compared with such

Ainsanity. For oursel#es, we delight in the stupendously grand thoughts and germs of thought that e#erywhere

break out through their phantastic co#ering, and to which these 5hilistines are blind.


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Saint-Simon shows the same superiority o#er his contemporaries, when in !C, immediately after the entry of the

allies into 5aris, and again in !>, during the undred @ays% 2ar, he proclaims the alliance of France and

/ngland, and then of both of these countries, with 4ermany, as the only guarantee for the prosperous de#elopment

and peace of /urope. $o preach to the French in !> an alliance with the #ictors of 2aterloo re1uired as much

courage as historical foresight.

+f in Saint-Simon we find a comprehensi#e breadth of #iew, by

#irtue of which almost all the ideas of later Socialists that are not

strictly economic are found in him in embryo, we find in Fourier

a criticism of the existing conditions of society, genuinely

French and witty, but not upon that account any the less

thorough. Fourier takes the bourgeoisie, their inspired prophets

before the 'e#olution, and their interested eulogists after it, at

their own word. e lays bare remorselessly the material and

moral misery of the bourgeois world. e confronts it with the

earlier philosophers% da&&ling promises of a society in which

reason alone should reign, of a ci#ili&ation in which happiness

should be uni#ersal, of an illimitable human perfectibility, and

with the rose-colored phraseology of the bourgeois ideologists of

his time. e points out how e#erywhere the most pitiful reality

corresponds with the most high-sounding phrases, and he o#erwhelms this hopeless fiasco of phrases with his

mordant sarcasm.

Fourier is not only a critic, his imperturbably serene nature makes him a satirist, and assuredly one of the greatest

satirists of all time. e depicts, with e1ual power and charm, the swindling speculations that blossomed out upon

the downfall of the 'e#olution, and the shopkeeping spirit pre#alent in, and characteristic of, French commerce at

that time. Still more masterly is his criticism of the bourgeois form of the relations between sexes, and the position

of woman in bourgeois society. e was the first to declare that in any gi#en society the degree of woman%s

emancipation is the natural measure of the general emancipation.

But Fourier is at his greatest in his conception of the history of society. e di#ides its whole course, thus far, into

four stages of e#olution ( sa#agery, barbarism, the patriarchate, ci#ili&ation. $his last is identical with the so-called

ci#il, or bourgeois, society of today ( i.e., with the social order that came in with the 7th century. e pro#es Athat

the ci#ili&ed stage raises e#ery #ice practiced by barbarism in a simple fashion into a form of existence, complex,

ambiguous, e1ui#ocal, hypocritical ( that ci#ili&ation mo#es Ain a #icious circle, in contradictions which it

constantly reproduces without being able to sol#e them; hence it constantly arri#es at the #ery opposite to that

which it wants to attain, or pretends to want to attain, so that, e.g., Aunder ci#ili&ation po#erty is born of

superabundance itself. !horie de lunite universelle, Fourier, !CD andLe nouveau monde industriel et

socitaire" ou invention du procd d#industrie attra$ante et enaturelle distribue en sries passionnes, Fourier,

!C>

Fourier, as we see, uses the dialectic method in the same masterly way as his contemporary, egel. 9sing these

same dialectics, he argues against talk about illimitable human perfectibility, that e#ery historical phase has its

period of ascent and also its period of descent, and he applies this obser#ation to the future of the whole human

race. 3s Jant introduced into natural science the idea of the ultimate destruction of the /arth, Fourier introduced

into historical science that of the ultimate destruction of the human race.


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2hilst in France the hurricane of the 'e#olution swept o#er the land, in /ngland a 1uieter, but not on that account

less tremendous, re#olution was going on. Steam and the new tool-making machinery were transforming

manufacture into modern industry, and thus re#olutioni&ing the whole foundation of bourgeois society. $he

sluggish march of de#elopment of the manufacturing period changed into a #eritable storm and stress period of

production. 2ith constantly increasing swiftness the splitting-up into large capitalists and non-possessing

proletarians went on. Between these, instead of the former stable middle-class, an unstable mass of artisans and

small shopkeepers, the most fluctuating portion of the population, now led a precarious existence.

$he new mode of production was, as yet, only at the beginning of its period of ascent; as yet it was the normal,

regular method of production ( the only one possible under existing conditions. 0e#ertheless, e#en then it was

producing crying social abuses ( the herding together of a homeless population in the worst 1uarters of the large

towns; the loosening of all traditional moral bonds, of patriarchal subordination, of family relations; o#erwork,

especially of women and children, to a frightful extent; complete demorali&ation of the working-class, suddenly

flung into altogether new conditions, from the country into the town, from agriculture into modern industry, from

stable conditions of existence into insecure ones that change

from day to day.

3t this )uncture, there came forward as a reformer a

manufacturer E-years-old ( a man of almost sublime, childlike

simplicity of character, and at the same time one of the few born

leaders of men. 'obert =wen had adopted the teaching of the

materialistic philosophers* that man%s character is the product, on

the one hand, of heredity; on the other, of the en#ironment of the

indi#idual during his lifetime, and especially during his period of

de#elopment. +n the industrial re#olution most of his class saw

only chaos and confusion, and the opportunity of fishing in these

troubled waters and making large fortunes 1uickly. e saw in it

the opportunity of putting into practice his fa#orite theory, and so

of bringing order out of chaos. e had already tried it with

success, as superintendent of more than >?? men in a Manchester

factory. From !?? to !E, he directed the great cotton mill at

0ew "anark, in Scotland, as managing partner, along the same lines, but with greater freedom of action and with a

success that made him a /uropean reputation. 3 population, originally consisting of the most di#erse and, for the

most part, #ery demorali&ed elements, a population that gradually grew to E,>??, he turned into a model colony, in

which drunkenness, police, magistrates, lawsuits, poor laws, charity, were unknown. 3nd all this simply by placing

the people in conditions worthy of human beings, and especially by carefully bringing up the rising generation. e

was the founder of infant schools, and introduced them first at 0ew "anark. 3t the age of two, the children came to

school, where they en)oyed themsel#es so much that they could scarely be got home again. 2hilst his competitors

worked their people D or C hours a day, in 0ew "anark the working-day was only ? and a half hours. 2hen a

crisis in cotton stopped work for four months, his workers recei#ed their full wages all the time. 3nd with all this

the business more than doubled in #alue, and to the last yielded large profits to its proprietors.

+n spite of all this, =wen was not content. $he existence which he secured for his workers was, in his eyes, still far

from being worthy of human beings. K$he people were sla#es at my mercy.K $he relati#ely fa#orable conditions in

which he had placed them were still far from allowing a rational de#elopment of the character and of the intellect

in all directions, much less of the free exercise of all their faculties.


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$he 9topians% mode of thought has for a long time go#erned the Socialist ideas of the th century, and still

go#erns some of them. 9ntil #ery recently, all French and /nglish Socialists did homage to it. $he earlier 4erman


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+ts greatest merit was the taking up again of dialectics as the highest form of reasoning. $he old 4reek

philosophers were all born natural dialecticians, and 3ristotle, the most encyclopaedic of them, had already

analy&ed the most essential forms of dialectic thought. $he newer philosophy, on the other hand, although in it also

dialectics had brilliant exponents :e.g. @escartes and Spino&a, had, especially through /nglish influence, become

more and more rigidly fixed in the so-called metaphysical mode of reasoning, by which also the French of the !th

century were almost wholly dominated, at all e#ents in their special philosophical work. =utside philosophy in the

restricted sense, the French ne#ertheless produced masterpieces of dialectic. 2e need only call to mind

@iderotOsLe (eveu de &ameau, and 'ousseauOs%iscours sur l#origine et les fondements de l#inegalite parmi less

hommes. 2e gi#e here, in brief, the essential character of these two modes of thought.

2hen we consider and reflect upon 0ature at large, or the history of mankind, or our own intellectual acti#ity, at

first we see the picture of an endless entanglement of relations and reactions, permutations and combinations, in

which nothing remains what, where and as it was, but e#erything mo#es, changes, comes into being and passes

away. 2e see, therefore, at first the picture as a whole, with its indi#idual parts still more or less kept in the

background; we obser#e the mo#ements, transitions, connections, rather than the things that mo#e, combine, and

are connected. $his primiti#e, nai#e but intrinsically correct conception of the world is that of ancient 4reek

philosophy, and was first clearly formulated by eraclitus* e#erything is and is not, for e#erything is fluid, is

constantly changing, constantly coming into being and passing away.[A]

But this conception, correctly as it expresses the general character of the picture of appearances as a whole, does

not suffice to explain the details of which this picture is made up, and so long as we do not understand these, we

ha#e not a clear idea of the whole picture. +n order to understand these details, we must detach them from their

natural, special causes, effects, etc. $his is, primarily, the task of natural science and historical research* branches

of science which the 4reek of classical times, on #ery good grounds, relegated to a subordinate position, because

they had first of all to collect materials for these sciences to work upon. 3 certain amount of natural and historical

material must be collected before there can be any critical analysis, comparison, and arrangement in classes,

orders, and species. $he foundations of the exact natural sciences were, therefore, first worked out by the 4reeks

of the 3lexandrian period [B], and later on, in the Middle 3ges, by the 3rabs. 'eal natural science dates from the

second half of the >th century, and thence onward it had ad#anced with constantly increasing rapidity. $he

analysis of 0ature into its indi#idual parts, the grouping of the different natural processes and ob)ects in definite

classes, the study of the internal anatomy of organi&ed bodies in their manifold forms P these were the

fundamental conditions of the gigantic strides in our knowledge of 0ature that ha#e been made during the last C??

years. But this method of work has also left us as legacy the habit of obser#ing natural ob)ects and processes inisolation, apart from their connection with the #ast whole; of obser#ing them in repose, not in motion; as

constraints, not as essentially #ariables; in their death, not in their life. 3nd when this way of looking at things was

transferred by Bacon and "ocke from natural science to philosophy, it begot the narrow, metaphysical mode of

thought peculiar to the last century.

$o the metaphysician, things and their mental reflexes, ideas, are isolated, are to be considered one after the other

and apart from each other, are ob)ects of in#estigation fixed, rigid, gi#en once for all. e thinks in absolutely

irreconcilable antitheses. is communication is Oyea, yea; nay, nayO; for whatsoe#er is more than these cometh of
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the products of a process of e#olution going on through millions of years. But, the naturalists, who ha#e learned to

think dialectically, are few and far between, and this conflict of the results of disco#ery with preconcei#ed modes

of thinking, explains the endless confusion now reigning in theoretical natural science, the despair of teachers as

well as learners, of authors and readers alike.

3n exact representation of the uni#erse, of its e#olution, of the de#elopment of mankind, and of the reflection of

this e#olution in the minds of men, can therefore only be obtained by the methods of dialectics with its constant

regard to the innumerable actions and reactions of life and death, of progressi#e or retrogressi#e changes. 3nd in

this spirit, the new 4erman philosophy has worked. Jant began his career by resol#ing the stable Solar system of

0ewton and its eternal duration, after the famous initial impulse had once been gi#en, into the result of a historical

process, the formation of the Sun and all the planets out of a rotating, nebulous mass. From this, he at the same

time drew the conclusion that, gi#en this origin of the Solar system, its future death followed of necessity. is

theory, half a century later, was established mathematically by "aplace, and half a century after that, the

spectroscope pro#ed the existence in space of such incandescent masses of gas

in #arious stages of condensation.

$his new 4erman philosophy culminated in the egelian system. +n this system

P and herein is its great merit P for the first time the whole world, natural,

historical, intellectual, is represented as a process P i.e., as in constant motion,

change, transformation, de#elopment; and the attempt is made to trace out the

internal connection that makes a continuous whole of all this mo#ement and

de#elopment. From this point of #iew, the history of mankind no longer

appeared as a wild whirl of senseless deeds of #iolence, all e1ually

condemnable at the )udgment seat of mature philosophic reason and which are

best forgotten as 1uickly as possible, but as the process of e#olution of man

himself. +t was now the task of the intellect to follow the gradual march of this

process through all its de#ious ways, and to trace out the inner law running through all its apparently accidental

phenomena.

$hat the egelian system did not sol#e the problem it propounded is here immaterial. +ts epoch-making merit was

that it propounded the problem. $his problem is one that no single indi#idual will e#er be able to sol#e. 3lthough

egel was P with Saint-Simon P the most encyclopaedic mind of his time, yet he was limited, first, by the

necessary limited extent of his own knowledge and, second, by the limited extent and depth of the knowledge andconceptions of his age. $o these limits, a third must be added; egel was an idealist. $o him, the thoughts within

his brain were not the more or less abstract pictures of actual things and processes, but, con#ersely, things and their

e#olution were only the reali&ed pictures of the K+deaK, existing somewhere from eternity before the world was.

$his way of thinking turned e#erything upside down, and completely re#ersed the actual connection of things in

the world.


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always the products of the modes of production and of exchange P in a word, of the economicconditions of their

time; that the economic structure of society always furnishes the real basis, starting from which we can alone work

out the ultimate explanation of the whole superstructure of )uridical and political institutions as well as of the

religious, philosophical, and other ideas of a gi#en historical period. egel has freed history from metaphysics P

he made it dialectic; but his conception of history was essentially idealistic. But now idealism was dri#en from its

last refuge, the philosophy of history; now a materialistic treatment of history was propounded, and a method

found of explaining manOs KknowingK by his KbeingK, instead of, as heretofore, his KbeingK by his KknowingK.

From that time forward, Socialism was no longer an accidental disco#ery of this or that ingenious brain, but the

necessary outcome of the struggle between two historically de#eloped classes P the proletariat and the

bourgeoisie. +ts task was no longer to manufacture a system of society as perfect as possible, but to examine the

historico-economic succession of e#ents from which these classes and their antagonism had of necessity sprung,

and to disco#er in the economic conditions thus created the means of ending the conflict. But the Socialism of

earlier days was as incompatible with this materialist conception as the conception of 0ature of the French

materialists was with dialectics and modern natural science. $he Socialism of earlier days certainly critici&ed the

existing capitalistic mode of production and its conse1uences. But it could not explain them, and, therefore, could

not get the mastery of them. +t could only simply re)ect them as bad. $he more strongly this earlier Socialism

denounced the exploitations of the working-class, ine#itable under


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[B]$he 3lexandrian period of the de#elopment of science comprises the period extending from the Drd century

B.


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ob)ecti#ely, outside us, independently of the will and actions e#en of the men that ha#e brought it on. Modern

Socialism is nothing but the reflex, in thought, of this conflict in fact; its ideal reflection in the minds, first, of the

class directly suffering under it, the working class.

0ow, in what does this conflict consistH

Before capitalist production P i.e., in the Middle 3ges P the system of petty industry obtained generally, based

upon the pri#ate property of the laborers in their means of production; in the country, the agriculture of the small

peasant, freeman, or serf; in the towns, the handicrafts organi&ed in guilds. $he instruments of labor P land,

agricultural implements, the workshop, the tool P were the instruments of labor of single indi#iduals, adapted for

the use of one worker, and, therefore, of necessity, small, dwarfish, circumscribed. But, for this #ery reason, they

belonged as a rule to the producer himself. $o concentrate these scattered, limited means of production, to enlarge

them, to turn them into the powerful le#ers of production of the present day P this was precisely the historic role

of capitalist production and of its upholder, the bourgeoisie. +n the fourth section of Capital, Marx has explained in

detail how since the >th century this has been historically worked out through the three phases of simple co-

operation, manufacture, and modern industry. But the bourgeoisie, as is shown there, could not transform these

puny means of production into mighty producti#e forces without transforming them, at the same time, from means

of production of the indi#idual intosocialmeans of production only workable by a collecti#ity of men. $he

spinning wheel, the handloom, the blacksmithOs hammer, were replaced by the spinning-machine, the power-loom,

the steam-hammer; the indi#idual workshop, by the factory implying the co-operation of hundreds and thousands

of workmen. +n like manner, production itself changed from a series of indi#idual into a series of social acts, and

the production from indi#idual to social products. $he yarn, the cloth, the metal articles that now come out of the

factory were the )oint product of many workers, through whose hands they had successi#ely to pass before they

were ready. 0o one person could say of them* K+ made that; this is m$product.K

But where, in a gi#en society, the fundamental form of production is that spontaneous di#ision of labor which

creeps in gradually and not upon any preconcei#ed plan, there the products take on the form of commodities,

whose mutual exchange, buying and selling, enable the indi#idual producers to satisfy their manifold wants. 3nd

this was the case in the Middle 3ges. $he peasant, e.g., sold to the artisan agricultural products and bought from

him the products of handicraft. +nto this society of indi#idual producers, of commodity producers, the new mode of

production thrust itself. +n the midst of the old di#ision of labor, grown up spontaneously and upon no definite

plan, which had go#erned the whole of society, now arose di#ision of labor upon a definite plan, as organi&ed in

the factory; side by side with individualproduction appearedsocialproduction. $he products of both were sold inthe same market, and, therefore, at prices at least approximately e1ual. But organi&ation upon a definite plan was

stronger than spontaneous di#ision of labor. $he factories working with the combined social forces of a collecti#ity

of indi#iduals produced their commodities far more cheaply than the indi#idual small producers. +ndi#idual

producers succumbed in one department after another. Sociali&ed production re#olutioni&ed all the old methods of

production. But its re#olutionary character was, at the same time, so little recogni&ed that it was, on the contrary,

introduced as a means of increasing and de#eloping the production of commodities. 2hen it arose, it found ready-

made, and made liberal use of, certain machinery for the production and exchange of commodities* merchantsO

capital, handicraft, wage-labor. Sociali&ed production thus introducing itself as a new form of the production of


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$he number of these permanent was further enormously increased by the breaking-up of the feudal system that

occurred at the same time, by the disbanding of the retainers of the feudal lords, the e#iction of the peasants from

their homesteads, etc. $he separation was made complete between the means of production concentrated in the

hands of the capitalists, on the one side, and the producers, possessing nothing but their labor-power, on the

other. !he contradiction between sociali)ed production and capitalistic appropriation manifested itself as the

antagonism of proletariat and bourgeoisie*

2e ha#e seen that the capitalistic mode of production thrust its way into a society of commodity-producers, of

indi#idual producers, whose social bond was the exchange of their products. But e#ery society based upon the

production of commodities has this peculiarity* that the producers ha#e lost control o#er their own social inter-

relations. /ach man produces for himself with such means of production as he may happen to ha#e, and for such

exchange as he may re1uire to satisfy his remaining wants. 0o one knows how much of his particular article is

coming on the market, nor how much of it will be wanted. 0o one knows whether his indi#idual product will meet

an actual demand, whether he will be able to make good his costs of production or e#en to sell his commodity at

all. 3narchy reigns in sociali&ed production.

But the production of commodities, like e#ery other form of production, has it peculiar, inherent laws inseparable

from it; and these laws work, despite anarchy, in and through anarchy. $hey re#eal themsel#es in the only

persistent form of social inter-relations P i.e., in exchange P and here they affect the indi#idual producers as

compulsory laws of competition. $hey are, at first, unknown to these producers themsel#es, and ha#e to be

disco#ered by them gradually and as the result of experience. $hey work themsel#es out, therefore, independently

of the producers, and in antagonism to them, as inexorable natural laws of their particular form of production. $he

product go#erns the producers.

+n mediae#al society, especially in the earlier centuries, production was essentially directed toward satisfying the

wants of the indi#idual. +t satisfied, in the main, only the wants of the producer and his family. 2here relations of

personal dependence existed, as in the country, it also helped to satisfy the wants of the feudal lord. +n all this there

was, therefore, no exchange; the products, conse1uently, did not assume the character of commodities. $he family

of the peasant produced almost e#erything they wanted* clothes and furniture, as well as the means of subsistence.

=nly when it began to produce more than was sufficient to supply its own wants and the payments in kind to the

feudal lords, only then did it also produce commodities. $his surplus, thrown into sociali&ed exchange and offered

for sale, became commodities.

$he artisan in the towns, it is true, had from the first to produce for exchange. But they, also, themsel#es supplied

the greatest part of their indi#idual wants. $hey had gardens and plots of land. $hey turned their cattle out into the

communal forest, which, also, yielded them timber and firing. $he women spun flax, wool, and so forth.

5roduction for the purpose of exchange, production of commodities, was only in its infancy. ence, exchange was

restricted, the market narrow, the methods of production stable; there was local exclusi#eness without, local unity

within; the mark in the country; in the town, the guild.


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But with the extension of the production of commodities, and especially with the introduction of the capitalist

mode of production, the laws of commodity-production, hitherto latent, came into action more openly and with

greater force. $he old bonds were loosened, the old exclusi#e limits broken through, the producers were more and

more turned into independent, isolated producers of commodities. +t became apparent that the production of

society at large was ruled by absence of plan, by accident, by anarchy; and this anarchy grew to greater and greater

height. But the chief means by aid of which the capitalist mode of production intensified this anarchy of sociali&ed

production was the exact opposite of anarchy. +t was the increasing organi&ation of production, upon a social basis,

in e#ery indi#idual producti#e establishment. By this, the old, peaceful, stable condition of things was ended.

2here#er this organi&ation of production was introduced into a branch of industry, it brooked no other method of

production by its side. $he field of labor became a battle-ground. $he great geographical disco#eries, and the

coloni&ation following them, multiplied markets and 1uickened the transformation of handicraft into manufacture.

$he war did not simply break out between the indi#idual producers of particular localities. $he local struggles

begat, in their turn, national conflicts, the commercial wars of the 8th and !th centuries.

Finally, modern industry and the opening of the world-market made the struggle uni#ersal, and at the same time

ga#e it an unheard-of #irulence. 3d#antages in natural or artificial conditions of production now decide the

existence or non-existence of indi#idual capitalists, as well as of whole industries and countries. e that falls is

remorselessly cast aside. +t is the @arwinian struggle of the indi#idual for existence transferred from 0ature to

society with intensified #iolence. $he conditions of existence natural to the animal appear as the final term of

human de#elopment. $he contradiction between sociali&ed production and capitalistic appropriation now presents

itself as an antagonism between the organi)ation of production in the individual workshop and the anarch$ of

production in societ$ generall$*

$he capitalistic mode of production mo#es in these two forms of the antagonism immanent to it from its #ery

origin. +t is ne#er able to get out of that K#icious circleK which Fourier had already disco#ered. 2hat Fourier could

not, indeed, see in his time is that this circle is gradually narrowing; that the mo#ement becomes more and more a

spiral, and must come to an end, like the mo#ement of planets, by collision with the centre. +t is the compelling

force of anarchy in the production of society at large that more and more completely turns the great ma)ority of

men into proletarians; and it is the masses of the proletariat again who will finally put an end to anarchy in

production. +t is the compelling force of anarchy in social production that turns the limitless perfectibility of

machinery under modern industry into a compulsory law by which e#ery indi#idual industrial capitalist must

perfect his machinery more and more, under penalty of ruin.

But the perfecting of machinery is making human labor superfluous. +f the introduction and increase of machinery

means the displacement of millions of manual by a few machine-workers, impro#ement in machinery means the

displacement of more and more of the machine-workers themsel#es. +t means, in the last instance, the production

of a number of a#ailable wage workers in excess of the a#erage needs of capital, the formation of a complete

industrial reser#e army, as + called it in !C> [3],a#ailable at the times when industry is working at high pressure, to

be cast out upon the street when the ine#itable crash comes, a constant dead weight upon the limbs of the working-

class in its struggle for existence with capital, a regulator for keeping of wages down to the low le#el that suits the

interests of capital.
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$his solution can only consist in the practical recognition of the social nature of the modern forces of production,

and therefore in the harmoni&ing with the sociali&ed character of the means of production. 3nd this can only come

about by society openly and directly taking possession of the producti#e forces which ha#e outgrown all control,

except that of society as a whole. $he social character of the means of production and of the products today reacts

against the producers, periodically disrupts all production and exchange, acts only like a law of 0ature working

blindly, forcibly, destructi#ely. But,with the taking o#er by society of the producti#e forces, the social character of

the means of production and of the products will be utili&ed by the producers with a perfect understanding of its

nature, and instead of being a source of disturbance and periodical collapse, will become the most powerful le#er

of production itself.

3cti#e social forces work exactly like natural forces* blindly, forcibly, destructi#ely, so long as we do not

understand, and reckon with, them. But, when once we understand them, when once we grasp their action, their

direction, their effects, it depends only upon oursel#es to sub)ect them more and more to our own will, and, by

means of them, to reach our own ends. 3nd this holds 1uite especially of the mighty producti#e forces of today. 3s

long as we obstinately refuse to understand the nature and the character of these social means of action P and this

understanding goes against the grain of the capitalist mode of production, and its defenders P so long these forces

are at work in spite of us, in opposition to us, so long they master us, as we ha#e shown abo#e in detail.

But when once their nature is understood, they can, in the hand working together, be transformed from master

demons into willing ser#ants. $he difference is as that between the destructi#e force of electricity in the lightning

in the storm, and electricity under command in the telegraph and the #oltaic arc; the difference between a

conflagration, and fire working in the ser#ice of man. 2ith this recognition, at last, of the real nature of the

producti#e forces of today, the social anarchy of production gi#es place to a social regulation of production upon a

definite plan, according to the needs of the community and of each indi#idual. $hen the capitalist mode of

appropriation, in which the product ensla#es first the producer, and then the appropriator, is replaced by the mode

of appropriation of the products that is based upon the nature of the modern means of production; upon the one

hand, direct social appropriation, as means to the maintenance and extension of production P on the other, direct

indi#idual appropriation, as means of subsistence and of en)oyment.

2hilst the capitalist mode of production more and more completely transforms the great ma)ority of the population

into proletarians, it creates the power which, under penalty of its own destruction, is forced to accomplish this

re#olution. 2hilst it forces on more and more of the transformation of the #ast means of production, already

sociali&ed, into State property, it shows itself the way to accomplishing this re#olution. !he proletariat sei)espolitical power and turns the means of production into State propert$*

But, in doing this, it abolishes itself as proletariat, abolishes all class distinction and class antagonisms, abolishes

also the State as State. Society, thus far, based upon class antagonisms, had need of the State. $hat is, of an

organi&ation of the particular class which was, pro tempore, the exploiting class, an organi&ation for the purpose of

pre#enting any interference from without with the existing conditions of production, and, therefore, especially, for

the purpose of forcibly keeping the exploited classes in the condition of oppression corresponding with the gi#en

mode of production :sla#ery, serfdom, wage-labor. $he State was the official representati#e of society as a whole;


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the gathering of it together into a #isible embodiment. But, it was this only in so far as it was the State of that class

which itself represented, for the time being, society as a whole*

in ancient times, the State of sla#eowning citi&ens;

in the Middle 3ges, the feudal lords;

in our own times, the bourgeoisie.

2hen, at last, it becomes the real representati#e of the whole of society, it renders itself unnecessary. 3s soon as

there is no longer any social class to be held in sub)ection; as soon as class rule, and the indi#idual struggle for

existence based upon our present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from these, are

remo#ed, nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special repressi#e force, a State, is no longer necessary. $he

first act by #irtue of which the State really constitutes itself the representati#e of the whole of society P the taking

possession of the means of production in the name of society P this is, at the same time, its last independent act as

a State. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out

of itself; the go#ernment of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of

production. $he State is not KabolishedK.,t dies out*$his gi#es the measure of the #alue of the phrase* Ka free

StateK, both as to its )ustifiable use at times by agitators, and as to its ultimate scientific inefficiency; and also of

the demands of the so-called anarchists for the abolition of the State out of hand.

Since the historical appearance of the capitalist mode of production, the appropriation by society of all the means

of production has often been dreamed of, more or less #aguely, by indi#iduals, as well as by sects, as the ideal of

the future. But it could become possible, could become a historical necessity, only when the actual conditions for

its reali&ation were there. "ike e#ery other social ad#ance, it becomes practicable, not by men understanding that

the existence of classes is in contradiction to )ustice, e1uality, etc., not by the mere willingness to abolish these

classes, but by #irtue of certain new economic conditions. $he separation of society into an exploiting and an

exploited class, a ruling and an oppressed class, was the necessary conse1uences of the deficient and restricted

de#elopment of production in former times. So long as the total social labor only yields a produce which but

slightly exceeds that barely necessary for the existence of all; so long, therefore, as labor engages all or almost all

the time of the great ma)ority of the members of society P so long, of necessity, this society is di#ided into

classes. Side by side with the great ma)ority, exclusi#ely bond sla#es to labor, arises a class freed from directly

producti#e labor, which looks after the general affairs of society* the direction of labor, State business, law,

science, art, etc. +t is, therefore, the law of di#ision of labor that lies at the basis of the di#ision into classes. But

this does not pre#ent this di#ision into classes from being carried out by means of #iolence and robbery, trickeryand fraud. it does not pre#ent the ruling class, once ha#ing the upper hand, from consolidating its power at the

expense of the working-class, from turning its social leadership into an intensified exploitation of the masses.

But if, upon this showing, di#ision into classes has a certain historical )ustification, it has this only for a gi#en

period, only under gi#en social conditions. +t was based upon the insufficiency of production. +t will be swept

away by the complete de#elopment of modern producti#e forces. 3nd, in fact, the abolition of classes in society

presupposes a degree of historical e#olution at which the existence, not simply of this or that particular ruling

class, but of any ruling class at all, and, therefore, the existence of class distinction itself, has become a obsolete


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anachronism. +t presupposes, therefore, the de#elopment of production carried out to a degree at which

appropriation of the means of production and of the products, and, with this, of political domination, of the

monopoly of culture, and of intellectual leadership by a particular class of society, has become not only

superfluous but economically, politically, intellectually, a hindrance to de#elopment.

$his point is now reached. $heir political and intellectual bankruptcy is scarcely any longer a secret to the

bourgeoisie themsel#es. $heir economic bankruptcy recurs regularly e#ery ? years. +n e#ery crisis, society is

suffocated beneath the weight of its own producti#e forces and products, which it cannot use, and stands helpless,

face-to-face with the absurd contradiction that the producers ha#e nothing to consume, because consumers are

wanting. $he expansi#e force of the means of production burst the bonds that the capitalist mode of production had

imposed upon them. $heir deli#erance from these bonds is the one precondition for an unbroken, constantly-

accelerated de#elopment of the producti#e forces, and therewith for a practically unlimited increase of production

itself. 0or is this all. $he sociali&ed appropriation of the means of production does away, not only with the present

artificial restrictions upon production, but also with the positi#e waste and de#astation of producti#e forces and

products that are at the present time the ine#itable concomitants of production, and that reach their height in the

crises. Further, it sets free for the community at large a mass of means of production and of products, by doing

away with the senseless extra#agance of the ruling classes of today, and their political representati#es. $he

possibility of securing for e#ery member of society, by means of sociali&ed production, an existence not only fully

sufficient materially, and becoming day-by-day more full, but an existence guaranteeing to all the free

de#elopment and exercise of their physical and mental faculties P this possibility is now, for the first time, here,

but it is here. []

2ith the sei&ing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and,

simultaneously, the mastery of the product o#er the producer. 3narchy in social production is replaced by

systematic, definite organi&ation. $he struggle for indi#idual existence disappears. $hen, for the first time, man, in

a certain sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal kingdom, and emerges from mere animal

conditions of existence into really human ones. $he whole sphere of the conditions of life which en#iron man, and

which ha#e hitherto ruled man, now comes under the dominion and control of man, who for the first time becomes

the real, conscious lord of nature, because he has now become master of his own social organi&ation. $he laws of

his own social action, hitherto standing face-to-face with man as laws of 0ature foreign to, and dominating him,

will then be used with full understanding, and so mastered by him. ManOs own social organi&ation, hitherto

confronting him as a necessity imposed by 0ature and history, now becomes the result of his own free action. $he

extraneous ob)ecti#e forces that ha#e, hitherto, go#erned history,pass under the control of man himself. =nly fromthat time will man himself, more and more consciously, make his own history P only from that time will the

social causes set in mo#ement by him ha#e, in the main and in a constantly growing measure, the results intended

by him. +t is the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom.

"et us briefly sum up our sketch of historical e#olution.

I. Mediaeval Society +ndi#idual production on a small scale. Means of production adapted for indi#idual use;

hence primiti#e, ungainly, petty, dwarfed in action. 5roduction for immediate consumption, either of the producer
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himself or his feudal lord. =nly where an excess of production o#er this consumption occurs is such excess offered

for sale, enters into exchange. 5roduction of commodities, therefore, only in its infancy. But already it contains

within itself, in embryo, anarchy in the production of society at large.

II. !apitalist "evol#tion transformation of industry, at first be means of simple cooperation and

manufacture.


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different classes of society thenceforth an anachronism. +n proportion as anarchy in social production #anishes, the

political authority of the State dies out. Man, at last the master of his own form of social organi&ation, becomes at

the same time the lord o#er 0ature, his own master P free.

$o accomplish this act of uni#ersal emancipation is the historical mission of the modern proletariat. $o thoroughly

comprehend the historical conditions and this the #ery nature of this act, to impart to the now oppressed proletarian

class a full knowledge of the conditions and of the meaning of the momentous act it is called upon to accomplish,

this is the task of the theoretical expression of the proletarian mo#ement, scientific Socialism.

Notes

1.Mephistopheles in 4oetheOs.aust

2.+t is hardly necessary in this connection to point out that, e#en if the form of appropriation remains the same,

the characterof the appropriation is )ust as much re#olutioni&ed as production is by the changes described abo#e.

+t is, of course, a #ery different matter whether + appropriate to myself my own product or that of another. 0ote in

passing that wage-labor, which contains the whole capitalist mode of production in embryo, is #ery ancient; in asporadic, scattered form, it existed for centuries alongside sla#e-labor. But the embryo could duly de#elop into the

capitalistic mode of production only when the necessary historical pre-conditions had been furnished.

3.K$he


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!C to L E,E??,???,???,

!7> to L 7,??,???,???,

!8> to L !,>??,???,???.

3s an instance of the s1uandering of means of production and of products during a crisis, the total loss in the

4erman iron industry alone, in the crisis of !8D-8!, was gi#en at the second 4erman +ndustrial ?,??? pounds.

scientific and utopian socialism

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