Summary
Central to Marx and Engels’s investigation is a paradox, which was also on the minds of many of their interlocutors in the middle of the 19th century: despite the fact that human society was becoming increasingly broad, complex, and prosperous, the vast majority of people had seen scarce improvement in their freedom or fulfillment, and for many, in fact, their conditions were arguably worse (even in the “advanced” nations such as England). For those they criticize, this troubling fact could be traced back to the persistence of “backwards,” traditional, or dogmatic and irrational beliefs that held back human knowledge and prevented the full realization of the ideals of the Enlightenment.
For Marx and Engels, however, this turns out to be no real paradox at all. Because the (natural) division of labor means that people encounter their own productive activity and its products as an alien, dominating force, it follows that the broadening of their activity, and the expansion of their productive powers, only serves to enlarge that force of domination. The serf, though he was in no sense “free,” was subjected to a lord—who after all was only a man. But the worker is subjected to the entire world market. The full development of human beings’ intellectual and personal capacities will only be possible through a revolution that puts humanity as a whole in control of the massive productive powers it has collectively created, not through the kind of collective spiritual epiphany the Young Hegelians imagine.
Philosophers have spilled much ink investigating “human nature” or the “essence” of man, or of an era of history. At best, Marx and Engels claim, this approach occasionally succeeds in correctly identifying one isolated aspect of a society or its history. It is unable, however, to grasp either the relationships between historical periods or the complex interrelations of the various parts of any given society, in which the process of production, the form of government and the state, religion, law, and all the other structures and ideologies that comprise human existence are, rather than isolated elements, an organic “totality” that must be grasped as a whole.
The idea of democracy, to take one example, existed long before either the American or French revolution, and so the existence of emergence of this idea does nothing to explain how or why these revolutions occurred or, even more so, why they succeeded. Because it ignores the material conditions underlying these historical developments—the emergence of new classes that struggle for dominance, economic developments that make existing forms of government and social organization a fetter on the emerging mode of production, and so forth—idealist historians see only the history of various ideas and of the actions of “princes and States” (165). Instead of analyzing an epoch on an empirical basis, they end up simply adopting the illusions that people of that period had about their own actions. For example, taking for granted that the purpose of the American and French revolutions were driven by the “ideal” of democracy, rather than the struggle of the emergent bourgeoisie against the economic impositions of the colonial English government in the former case, and the aristocracy in the latter.
Marx’s most biting criticism, as throughout, is reserved for German intellectuals, particularly Bruno Bauer, whom he sarcastically refers to as “Saint Bruno,” and Max Stirner, who likewise receives the ironic nickname “Blessed Max Stirner.” Their historiography is particularly egregious for concerning itself solely with ideas, and only insofar as those ideas form a part of German intellectual history specifically.
Even Feuerbach, whose work Marx found some value in, as evidenced by his earlier work "Theses on Feuerbach," receives harsh treatment. Feuerbach considered himself a “materialist,” and Marx and Engels see him as an improvement over Bruno and Stirner in that he recognized human beings as an “object of the senses,” i.e., as really existing, but they argue that he still failed to grasp human existence as defined by “sensuous activity” (i.e., as a dynamic process). And though they see his emphasis on the centrality of human relations to one another as correct, he again falls short because he sees his goal, and the goal of theory, as simply to “produce a correct consciousness about an existing fact” (pp. 167-168).
If (as Feuerbach and others claim) human nature, or the “essence” of humanity, is in fact expressed by human existence, why is it that millions of people appear (rightly) dissatisfied with the miserable conditions in which they live, which in no way feel satisfying to their “essence”? It is obvious from this example that this contradiction is not a contradiction in thought, but instead in actual circumstances that can only be changed through practical action, that is, revolution. There is, for Marx and Engels, no such thing as the “existence” or “nature” of humanity separate from the particular existences and natures of real historical human beings. Nor is there any abstract relationship between “man and nature,” since that relationship is always, from the outset, conditioned by the material conditions and modes of industry that mediate between humans and the natural world.
Once these abstractions are put in the context of a particular historical reality, they cease to appear as the independent drivers of historical development. Rather than the force that shapes a particular epoch, that period’s ruling or dominant ideas are simply the ideas of the class that in reality rules society. The ruling class must, in order to justify its dominance, present its own ideas as the only rational, universally valid ones, not just for their own particular moment in history, but for all of human existence thus far. In this way, all previously existing societies are given the goal of producing the currently dominant material conditions. The abolition of this illusion—that it is simply “ideas” rather than the particular ideas of a particular ruling class that govern human history and society—can only be achieved by establishing a society not organized by classes. But the overthrow of the class system itself is possible only after one recognizes that it is the ruling class, not the ruling ideas, that must be overthrown.
Analysis
The difficulty of this section lies in the fact that here Marx and Engels are often in either direct or implicit dialogue with contemporary thinkers, some of whom are now remembered almost exclusively for being the targets of Marx’s critiques. Thus, perhaps more than anywhere else in the first part of The German Ideology, there is a clear tension between their polemical and theoretical goals, since they are, to some extent, engaged in the very kind of 'battle of ideas' that they so ruthlessly attack. They are, however, careful to emphasize that the only way to actually abolish their opponents’ illusions regarding history, human nature, and consciousness it to abolish the practical circumstances that those ideas appear plausible.
Thus, the primary purpose of this section is to elaborate, and advocate for, a new definition of the purpose of theory itself, as well as to develop more fully the relationship between material conditions and consciousness and the role that consciousness, ideas, and ideology play in history. The key points Marx and Engels are making here are best expressed by their assertions that “not criticism but revolution is the driving force of history” and “circumstances make men just as much as men make circumstances” (pp 164, 165). Crucially, Marx and Engels do not contend that either ideology, or consciousness as a whole, are merely an illusory outgrowth of material practices, modes of production, and class interests. Instead, they seek to demonstrate the necessity of analyzing the production of ideas in the context of the conditions under which those ideas are produced. Rather than trivializing the importance of consciousness, this approach is meant to allow for a richer, more nuanced understanding of it.
The main issue Marx and Engels take with the idealist conception of history is not only that it is “wrong,” but that it, at best, ignores the possibility of actually changing reality, and, more often, denies that possibility by presenting things as they are as somehow natural or inevitable. They, on the other hand, see the purpose of theory, of history, and of analyzing the world as clarifying both the necessity and the possibility of transforming it. For example, in their critique of Feuerbach, Marx and Engels contrast their own aim with his, which is “merely to produce a correct consciousness about an existing fact; whereas for the real communist it is a question of overthrowing the existing state of things” (168). Clearly they don’t mean to imply that their own writings are in fact capable of creating revolution. Instead, they are opposing themselves to an understanding of theory that, by taking the simple interpretation of reality as its purpose, implicitly renders that reality static and immutable.
And though the minutiae of their extended criticisms of “Saint Bruno,” Stirner, and Feuerbach are really only of interest to specialists in 19th-century history, these critiques do illuminate some key parts of Marx and Engels’s conception of “human nature” and the conditions of possibility for the full realization of human freedom and potential. While the assertion that “circumstances make men as much as men make circumstances” may seem to deny human agency, this fact is, on the authors’ account, the only possible basis for real freedom. If human nature is simply given, such that our “existence” is necessarily an expression of what we truly are, then if one finds oneself dissatisfied with that existence “this is an unavoidable misfortune, which must be borne quietly” (168). If, however, one comprehends one’s existence as shaped by particular, contingent historical circumstances, which are subject to change, only then does freedom come to mean more than the freedom to attempt to adjust to the world as you find it.
The discussion of the dominant ideas of an epoch as the ideas of its ruling class serves a similar purpose. Not only does ignoring the real domination that underlies the dominance of particular ideas naturalize these ideas and place them beyond the reach of critique, but it also elides the internal conflicts and contradictions characteristic of every actually existing society. If you simply observe the preeminence of the ideals of freedom and equality that develop along with the rise of the bourgeoisie without further comment, you never arrive at such difficult (and important) questions as why, for example, were there slaves in a society like the U.S., whose founding document states that “all men are created equal”?
This and similar questions then lead to the observation that there are in fact classes of people whose interests are very much not identical to those of the ruling class, and are in fact in direct contradiction with them. This contradiction forms the material basis for revolutionary ideas, and, in turn, for revolution itself. And it is exactly this kind of contradiction that an abstract history of ideas necessarily suppresses.
