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it seems to him, "that, were realistic Marxists prepared to submit their
methods of achieving
derrwcratic
socialism to serious scientific criticism,
and were Dewey prepared to work out a more detailed program of political
action ... their positions would converge on a set of common hypotheses
leading to common activities." (Ibid., p. 174.) What sort of "serious
scientific criticism" does Hook want Marxists to accept, and what sort of
program can he expect Dewey to present? He has frequently urged the
incompatibility of Marxism with
any
form of liberalism. (See, for instance,
his
Meaning of Marx,
p. 131.) Although he evidently does not continue to
believe this, he is certainly unclear as to what Dewey and Marxists must
do to converge politically. Despite his harping on the fact that Dewey is
not a pacifist, Dewey still regards intelligent action and force as mutually
exclusive.
If
we recall that scientific method for Dewey is the method of
intelligence, we know what Dewey will expect of Marxists. He will demand
a surrender of the thesis that capitalism requires overthrow by force. Now
Dewey's method of demanding this surrender is questionable. It begins by
assigning to Marx a belief in the "dialectic inevitability of violence," and
concludes with the obvious point that no empirical proposition is necessary.
Prof. Hook, who has so arduously defended Marx against metaphysi·
cal distortions, is, of course, extremely sensitive to unfair attacks upon
him. And so he expresses Dewey's point differently. On his interpretation,
Dewey entertains the Marxist hypothesis as an empirical prediction. Dewey
realizes, he says, that it is a prediction to which Marxists themselves assign
only a high probability, but goes on to disagree about the probabilities.
That is, Dewey thinks it is highly probable that democratic socialism will
be achieved by working within the present political framework, whereas
Marxists believe Dewey's prediction has a low probability. In this way,
Hook transfers the whole discussion into a scientific setting, in which
nobody creates and later destroys straw necessitarians. But even
if
Dewey
did
carry on his argument in this manner, wouldn't the disagreement about
empirical probabilities be enough to prevent the sort of partnership Hook
suggests? How else do people who understand each other differ,
if
not on
empirical grounds? Hook seems to take factual disagreements as unim·
portant in political theory, while on Dewey's view they are precisely what
determine different courses of action. Exactly these empirical differences
create the gulf between Marxism and liberalism which Hook has stressed
so vigorously in other places.
If
we turn to
Freedom and Culture,
one of Dewey's latest hooks, we
see that he refuses to take part in common activity with Marxists, but that
his rejection of Marxism is not made after a thorough examination of the
weight of evidence. In a chapter entitled "Totalitarian Economics and
Democracy," he presents his latest reflections on Marxism. The word
"Marxism," of course, is ambiguous. It may refer to the theory and prac·
tice of Marx and Engels, or to that of their professed followers. No one
has been more meticulous than Prof. Hook about this type of distinction.
Indeed he has been vehement about the inadequacy of defining a com·
