THE DEVIL THEORY OF THE DIALECTIC
83
fated as a whole to be outdated by cultural change and discovery? Or,
on the basis of what remains permanently valid in it, can Marxism be
constantly recreated to serve the theoretical and political needs of the
present? Failing to recognize this problem, Mr. Wilson is neither able
to refute Marxism, nor to explain its persistence. And not only does he
ignore the empirical work of Marx in politics and economics, but he
sets up his own mythology in order to explain the "mysticism" of
Marx and Engels.
·
Before going into Mr. Wilson's theoretical difficulties, however,
let us first consider his specific charges against Marxism.
1) Until some defense more convincing than any I am aware of
is
made of the laws of the Dialectic, I believe Mr. Wilson is quite jus–
tified in his criticism of the magical properties that have been attrib–
uted to it. Nor can we place any stock in the pathetic efforts of other–
wise
reputable scientists to relate their dialectical urges to their labora–
tory firidings. Certainly, it is difficult to see how any rational person
who has read Sidney Hook's writings on the subject can still cling to
an
idea that has no determinable meaning today and whose value for
science is admittedly revelatory rather than methodological.
But what has been important in Marxism is not its philosophy of
science but its philosophy of history, and here the Dialectic has played
a somewhat different role. When Marx claimed that all social change
since primitive society followed the pattern of the Dialectic, he meant
to describe the process of development from the slave system of Greece
and
Rome, through feudalism, into capitalism, and, finally, socialism.
In each case, Marx pointed out, the economic contradictions which
fettered production were resolved by the coming to power of a new
cla.ss,
introducing new and radically different social relations. The
force for transformation in society, unlike nature, was supplied by
man's
consciousness
of his class needs. Ignoring
this
distinction as well
as
the wealth of empirical evidence which Marx cited to prove his
theory, Wilson simply attaches all the odium of the
Naturdialectic
to
Marx's laws of history. Yet the actual conclusions of Marx and Engels
about the direction of history were not deduced from the Dialectic, but
were arrived at inductively through a study of political and economic
facts.
Surely, Mr. Wilson cannot hope to bury all this scientific work
in
the grave of the Dialectic.
2) Mr. Wilson's charge that Marx was a metaphysician of des–
tiny,
preaching a doctrine of patience, until history and its two as–
listants,
Dialectic and Will, brought socialism to the world, ignores the
fact
that Marx was primarily a revolutionist, theoretically and organi–
zationally. Marx's confidence in the working class as a revolutionary
