Read Online Why Marx Was Right by Terry Eagleton - Free Book Online Page A

Marx
himself was rarely afflicted. As we have seen, the system breeds freedom as
well as barbarism, emancipation along with enslavement. Capitalist society
generates enormous wealth, but in a way that cannot help putting it beyond the
reach of most of its citizens. Even so, that wealth can always be brought
within reach. It can be disentangled from the acquisitive, individualist forms
which bred it, invested in the community as a whole, and used to restrict
disagreeable work to the minimum. It can thus release men and women from the
chains of economic necessity into a life where they are free to realize their
creative potential. This is Marx's vision of communism.
    None of this suggests that
the rise of capitalism was an absolute good. It would have been better if human
emancipation could have been achieved with far less blood, sweat and tears. In
this sense, Marx's theory of history is not a "teleologi-cal'' one. A
teleological theory holds that each phase of history arises inexorably from
what went before. Each stage of the process is necessary in itself, and along
with all the other stages is indispensable for attaining a certain goal. That
goal is itself inevitable, and acts as the hidden dynamic of the whole process.
Nothing in this narrative can be left out, and everything, however apparently
noxious or negative, contributes to the good of the whole.
    This is not what Marxism
teaches. To say that capitalism can be drawn on for an improved future is not
to imply that it exists for that reason. Nor does socialism follow necessarily
from it. It is not to suggest that the crimes of capitalism are justified by the
advent of socialism. Nor is it to clam that capitalism was bound to emerge.
Modes of production do not arise necessarily. It is not as though they are
linked to all previous stages by some inner logic. No stage of the process
exists for the sake of the others. It is possible to leap stages, as with the
Bolsheviks. And the end is by no means guaranteed. History for Marx is not
moving in any particular direction. Capitalism can be used to build socialism,
but there is no sense in which the whole historical process is secretly
labouring towards this goal.
    The modern capitalist age,
then, brings its undoubted benefits. It has a great many features, from
anaesthetics and penal reform to efficient sanitation and freedom of
expression, which are precious in themselves, not simply because a socialist
future might find some way to make use of them. But this does not necessarily
mean that the system is finally vindicated. It is possible to argue that even
if class-society happens to lead in the end to socialism, the price humanity
has been forced to pay for this felicitous outcome is simply too high. How long
would a socialist world have to survive, and how vigorously would it need to
flourish, to justify in retrospect the sufferings of class-history? Could it
ever do so, any more than one could justify Auschwitz? The Marxist philosopher
Max Horkheimer comments that ''history's route lies across the sorrow and
misery of individuals. There is a series of explanatory connections between
these two facts, but no justificatory meaning.'' 13
    Marxism is not generally
seen as a tragic vision of the world. Its final Act—communism—appears too
upbeat for that. But not to appreciate its tragic strain is to miss much of its
complex depth. The Marxist narrative is not tragic in the sense of ending
badly. But a narrative does not have to end badly to be tragic. Even if men and
women find some fulfillment in the end, it is tragic that their ancestors had
to be hauled through hell in order for them to do so. And there will be many
who fall by the wayside, unfulfilled and unremem-bered. Short of some literal
resurrection, we can never make recompense to these vanquished millions. Marx's
theory of history is tragic in just this respect.
    It is a quality well
captured by Aijaz Ahmad. He is speaking of Marx on the destruction of