Christopher Rush

Far be it from me to argue with the late, great Mortimer Adler, an argument I would have little hope of winning, yet a perplexing point to me exists in the Syntopicon.  Adler lists three kinds of “material forces” as causes or factors for history, either in its inauguration or its development: “economic, physical, and geographic.”  One can readily accede to “physical” and “geographic” factors as material forces shaping and developing human history, but “economic”?  Is the economy truly a “material” force that shapes human history?  Adler soon selects a variety of “spirit of the time” selections from historians as a meaningful immaterial factor of “the politics and culture of a period,” so he has no qualms conceiving of history as more than material forces, as one would expect from Adler.  Though economics does not get its own entry in the Syntopicon, it appears throughout various categories, especially “Wealth,” wherein Adler declares wealth is more than economics, potentially material and immaterial.  Yet why is “economics,” the study of value, listed as a material factor of history?  A brief examination of sundry pecuniary-minded authors selected by Adler for this topic, notably Mill, Marx, and Weber, may help us understand why Adler considers economics commensurate with geography as a material force of history.

Mill’s selection effectively summarizes the perplexing idea of economics, what humans value, as both an immaterial drive of desire as well as a visible, material extension of that desire in the natural world and groupings of mankind itself, especially in governments.  “Let us remember, then, in the first place, that political institutions … are the work of men; owe their origin and their whole existence to human will. … In every stage of their existence they are made what they are by human voluntary agency.”  Governments, says Mill, do not spontaneously generate ex nihilo; they are the desires of mankind (their economics) shaped intentionally into tangible, material reality.  This is not a “spirit of the times” immaterial force; even if the desire is immaterial, the need for an external governmental force to enable material beings to live better is perhaps “material” enough, especially since the connection between will and action is so strong.

Mill elaborates on this strong connection between will and action: “When an institution … has the way prepared for it by the opinions, tastes, and habits of the people, they are not only more easily induced to accept it, but will more easily learn, and will be, from the beginning, better disposed, to do what is required of them both for the preservation of the institutions, and for bringing them into such action as enables them to produce their best results.”  The connection between economy and action, immaterial and material, is as natural as cause and effect for Mill.  Perhaps for Adler an economy only of the mind would be as unreal as a government of no people, by no people, for no people.  Economy must be lived in a physical world.

Marx is the most overt advocate among Adler’s selections for economy as a material force in human history, since Marx boldly declares human history and economy are tantamount: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”  From the opening statement, Marx categorizes every aspect of human history as an effect of the economic system under which mankind finds itself.  No ambiguity exists for Marx whether economy is a material force, as it is the only force, and one solely of oppression.  Even the social classes themselves must be in economic terms in relation to ownership and production.  The bourgeois class are to blame for this material oppression: “It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.”  All aspects of value, even human worth and dignity, according to Marx, have been usurped by the bourgeois exploitation of the downtrodden proletariat; worse, the bourgeoisie are responsible even for the creation of the proletariat class, simply to oppress and exploit it.

Unlike Mill, who perhaps overly optimistically saw economy effecting government for the desire of a people as a whole, Marx sees all governmental structures as a one-sided affair of oppression, material and economic to be sure, but solely for exploitation.  “Hitherto, every form of society has been based, as we have already seen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes.”  Being forever an oppressed class, the working class has never had a say in either its economic or governmental life.  Unlike Adler’s distinction between wealth and economy, Marx sees economy as the essence of wealth and the essence of existence, driven as we have already seen by class warfare of the bourgeoisie’s making: “The essential condition for the existence and sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage labor. Wage labor rests exclusively on competition between the laborers.”  Economy is an all-encompassing material force for Marx because economy is all-encompassing for reality itself: it is responsible for how mankind interacts with the world, it created the oppressive bourgeoisie, and they in turn created the proletariat.  Economy is every aspect of material reality, beginning, development, and ending.

On the other end of the spectrum from Marx is Weber, who sees reality not just as an eternal conflict of classes driven by ownership of material reality but as various amalgamations of persons with different avenues to the distributions of power in a community, with economic power only one of several kinds of power: “The social order and the economic order are, of course, similarly related to the ‘legal order.’ However, the social and the economic order are not identical. The economic order is for us merely the way in which economic goods and services are distributed and used. The social order is of course conditioned by the economic order to a high degree, and in its turn reacts upon it.”  Economy and society imbricate, but society is not a product of the economy for Weber as it is for Marx.

Weber also sees a distinction from Marx in the status of economy as not solely the end of existence but as potentially a means toward multiple viable ends: “Man does not strive for power only to enrich himself economically.  Power, including economic power, may be valued ‘for its own sake.’”  Money isn’t everything to Weber; to Marx it is the only thing.

Weber acknowledges the significance of a material-centric economy but recognizes that economy is not a sufficient paradigm for understanding the complexities of society: “the factor that creates ‘class’ is unambiguously economic interest, and indeed, only those interests involved in the existence of the ‘market.’ Nevertheless, the concept of ‘class-interest’ is an ambiguous one…”, an ambiguity that prevents entire classes from being homogenized even by economic similarities.  Economy shapes material forces, including social classes of people, but it does not control them outright.

Three influential minds, three differing perspectives on the complicated connection between economy and humanity, humanity’s purpose and historical development, especially.  Though they differ significantly in the implications of that connection, Mill, Marx, and Weber to various degrees agree that economy, whether we define it solely in pecuniary terms or as a measurement of more abstract values of a people, is so deeply intertwined with the physical aspects of human reality that economy effectively cannot even exist separate from material reality.  It may not be as readily scientifically measurable as the geological factors that shape a people’s development, but a people’s economy is so enmeshed with their conception of who they are, where they have been, and what they should become as a people that economy may rightly be considered, indeed, a material force of history.

Bibliography

Adler, Mortimer. Syntopicon. Vol. 1. Edited by Mortimer J. Adler and Philip W. Goetz. Second Edition. Vol. 1. Great Books of the Western World. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1990.

—. Syntopicon. Vol. 2. Edited by Mortimer J. Adler and Philip W. Goetz. Second Edition. Vol. 2. Great Books of the Western World. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1990.

Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party. Edited by Mortimer J. Adler, Philip W. Goetz, and Friedrich Engels.  Second Edition. Vol. 50. Great Books of the Western World. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1990.

Mill, John Stuart. Representative Government. Edited by Mortimer J. Adler and Philip W. Goetz. Second Edition. Vol. 40. Great Books of the Western World. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1990.

Weber, Max. “Selections for Essays in Sociology.” Social Science: Selections from Twentieth-Century Anthropology, History, and Sociology. Edited by Mortimer J. Adler and Philip W. Goetz. Second Edition. Vol. 58. Great Books of the Western World. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1990.