WHY is the production and exchange of commodities the basis of all social structure?

[Wyboth]

In Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Engels says:


The materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the production of the means to support human life and, next to production, the exchange of things produced, is the basis of all social structure; that in every society that has appeared in history, the manner in which wealth is distributed and society divided into classes or orders is dependent upon what is produced, how it is produced, and how the products are exchanged.

I have heard Marx and Engels say this several times, but I have yet to see an explanation for why this is true (or perhaps I missed it). I can think of one situation where this would be true. Consider a family subsistence farm - I can see in that situation how people's relations to each other would depend upon their labour, since they have to tend to the farm every day in order to continue living.

But it seems to be a bit of a stretch to say that all social structure sources back to production. Help me understand this better. Give me an example. If I'm thinking about this in entirely the wrong way, show me the right way to think about it.

[ComradeAllende]

Basically what Engels (and Marx) are talking about is that the economy (i.e. industry, agriculture, etc.) forms the foundation of human society upon which all other aspects of society (scientific theories, religions, culture, entertainment, morals, political ideologies, etc.) are based on.

For example, let's assume that there's a society whose dominant factor of production is industry. The morals and political philosophies that arise in such a society are directly influenced by the industrial (capitalist) mode of production: socialism, fascism, libertarianism, cosmopolitan liberalism, trade unions, diversity, anti-racism, etc. All these are related to the fact that workers have to engage with each other on the shop floor to produce goods for sale. Trade unions, for instance, could never exist in a feudal society because there was no centralized point of production from which they could gather support; agricultural production was decentralized on the basis on tenant farms (and the occasional free peasant) working on a lord's estate. The closest thing they had to trade unions were guilds, where craftsmen (who did not engage in the main factor of production) were aggregated so they could pool resources and establish a base of power to influence society (in their case, fix prices for their handicrafts).

[RedMaterialist]

In Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Engels says:



I have heard Marx and Engels say this several times, but I have yet to see an explanation for why this is true (or perhaps I missed it). I can think of one situation where this would be true. Consider a family subsistence farm - I can see in that situation how people's relations to each other would depend upon their labour, since they have to tend to the farm every day in order to continue living.

But it seems to be a bit of a stretch to say that all social structure sources back to production. Help me understand this better. Give me an example. If I'm thinking about this in entirely the wrong way, show me the right way to think about it.

A family subsistence farm is one of the bases of patriarchal society. The father is the master of the family because he protects it from intruders and provides the direction of the work. The family peasant farm is a kind of little dictatorship.

But once the kids reach 18 or so they usually leave the farm for the city, and, believe me, they never go back. The kids can get a good education and very good jobs, but amazingly, they never give up the social thinking of the small family farm, even though they themselves are creating the complex urban society of modern capitalism.

Marx said in The Poverty of Philosophy that the water mill gives you feudal society and the steam engine gives you capitalist society. The water mill is owned by a feudal lord and everyone on the estate is dependent on the mill. The steam engine makes gigantic industry possible, and the capitalist owns the steam engine. Aren't both of these examples of the means of production being the basis of the two societies?

[Wyboth]

Thanks to both of you. I think I understand it better now.

[Luís Henrique]

In Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Engels says:


The materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the production of the means to support human life and, next to production, the exchange of things produced, is the basis of all social structure; that in every society that has appeared in history, the manner in which wealth is distributed and society divided into classes or orders is dependent upon what is produced, how it is produced, and how the products are exchanged.

Notice that this is very different from the way you frame the question, namely,


WHY is the production and exchange of commodities the basis of all social structure?

However, "means to support human life" and "commodities" are synonimous only in capitalist societies.


I have heard Marx and Engels say this several times, but I have yet to see an explanation for why this is true (or perhaps I missed it). I can think of one situation where this would be true. Consider a family subsistence farm - I can see in that situation how people's relations to each other would depend upon their labour, since they have to tend to the farm every day in order to continue living.

People who do not produce means to support human life must rely on others producing the means to support their lives. A priest cannot eat his prayers, nor a bourgeois economist can dress his "theories". Someone else has to build their houses, bake their bread, and seam their tunics.


But it seems to be a bit of a stretch to say that all social structure sources back to production. Help me understand this better. Give me an example. If I'm thinking about this in entirely the wrong way, show me the right way to think about it.

Evidently, what I stated above doesn't mean that non-directly productive activities are unnecessary or illegitimate. A building stands on its foundations, but without walls and a roof it is hardly a building. So the priest or the bourgeois economist may be quite necessary for a feudal or capitalist society to make - but their usefulness is dependent on a) the production of "means to support human life" by others; b) a social structure that liberates them from producing "means to support human life" so that they can do hocus-pocus with sacred texts or mathemathical formulae; and c) the specific form of the society they live in (the "utility" of priests having starkly declined since the demise of feudalism, the "utility" of "economists" having not yet been discovered before the rise of capitalism).

It doesn't mean, either, that the priest or the economist directly act in order to uphold the system that allows their existence. Indeed, ideally, such relation is transparent to them, and they could easily (and honestly) say of themselves to "have no ideology" or to "be independent" from the economic or politic structure of society.

Luís Henrique

[mutualaid]

Basically what Engels (and Marx) are talking about is that the economy (i.e. industry, agriculture, etc.) forms the foundation of human society upon which all other aspects of society (scientific theories, religions, culture, entertainment, morals, political ideologies, etc.) are based on.

For example, let's assume that there's a society whose dominant factor of production is industry. The morals and political philosophies that arise in such a society are directly influenced by the industrial (capitalist) mode of production: socialism, fascism, libertarianism, cosmopolitan liberalism, trade unions, diversity, anti-racism, etc. All these are related to the fact that workers have to engage with each other on the shop floor to produce goods for sale. Trade unions, for instance, could never exist in a feudal society because there was no centralized point of production from which they could gather support; agricultural production was decentralized on the basis on tenant farms (and the occasional free peasant) working on a lord's estate. The closest thing they had to trade unions were guilds, where craftsmen (who did not engage in the main factor of production) were aggregated so they could pool resources and establish a base of power to influence society (in their case, fix prices for their handicrafts).

Though we couldn't call it trade unionism, I think medieval peasants, in some cases, must have had highly sophisticated forms of labor organization; for example, the peasants rebellion of 1381 was coordinated, strategic, and swept across the english countryside. For obvious reasons, such organizations have little if any witness in the historical record.

[ComradeAllende]

Though we couldn't call it trade unionism, I think medieval peasants, in some cases, must have had highly sophisticated forms of labor organization; for example, the peasants rebellion of 1381 was coordinated, strategic, and swept across the english countryside. For obvious reasons, such organizations have little if any witness in the historical record.

Technically speaking, yes; the peasants, when significantly aroused by the abuses of the landed class and/or the king, could create an ad hoc "labor movement" that engaged in militant action. Yet a more apt parallel would be a populist movement (violent or otherwise) that seeks to alter the existing political arrangement, rather than trade unionism (even of the radical militant sort). Trade unionism can only operate in capitalism when the political sphere has been separated from the economic sphere, and a trade union's primary duties lie in the economic sphere (guaranteeing better wages, hours, etc.).

A trade union can (and usually does) engage in political activities, but it must act through a political party in order to penetrate the political sphere. This usually takes the form of a massed-based leftist party, although here in the states the unions content themselves with political donations (and opens them to judicial attack for using members' dues for political actions). Populist movements can operate in any social system and often rail against the "collusion" of political and economic elites, whether it be politicians and bourgeois lobbyists or the monarchy and the landed classes.