Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 12:50:27 +0700
From: djones-AT-uclink.berkeley.edu (donna jones)
Subject: materialism, method


Here is a description of the method of historical materialism which is at
the same  a rejection of any transhistorical science of socity. In a way,
it is a response to Herron, a professor of anthropology.  Instead of
bringing out the philosophical dimensions of historical materialism, I
thought it would be good to emphasize the historical and anthropological
components. From Vernon Venable's Human Nature: A Marxian View, 1946:

All that historical materialism will "pronounce" about history at the level
of the anatomy of production--all that it will assert prior to concrete
study in respect to the structure of the mode of production undrelying any
given social formation, is that is will be found on examiniation to
integrate in its own particular way, purposive labor, its social
organizatin, its instruments, and its natural object.  Which of these will
be dominant is a matter for investigation, not generalization. (90)

Several pages later (after describing in detail those four lines of the
field of society):" All that is known is that labour, society, tools, and
nature, acting through particular productive configurations, are the chief
agents in the modification of men; their relative importance in these
particular configurations, and therefore the relative importance of their
respective actions on men, is not deducible from the Marxian theory of
production.  This, it is maintained, can only be discovered by a concrete
and exhaustive diagnosis of hte productive organism in question.  If the
social scientist wishes to understand the behavior, and hence the nature,
of the humans of Pongo-Pongo, he must explore the local determinism,
obtaining within their mode of prodution; this is a chore which historical
materialism will not spare him; nor will it even assure that that what he
finds dominant in the Pongo-Pongo system will hold for that of the
Bushwhacks [a very unfortunate proper name--I'm sure not how the people
refer to themselves]--even though both peoles be stone-users, totemites,
geographical neighbors and ethnic kin. [In that this approach clearly
rejects the reduction of the so called other to an amorphous primitive, I
don't find this racist; moreover, remember who Marx really called
totemites--in the age of commodity fetishism]. 

" And yet for all its latitude in the theory of production, historical
materialism is no mere causal eclecticism.The Marxian-guided researcher
into the ultimate whys of the humans of Pongo-Pongo knows in advance where
and where not to look for causes.  Rightly or wrongly, he will explore the
roots of production and waste no time, if time be valuable, on its cultural
accountrements and byproducts; these may be highly interesting, for the
descriptive ethnologist they may be indispensible, but for the historical
materialist they help rather on what the behavior pattern is than on why it
is thus." 

>From this analysis, historical materialism emerges as  (a) a primarily
anthropological and historical method for the scientific study of society
and (b) a rejection of transhistorical laws and monism, as well.  For an
elaboration of these themes, see Paul Mattick, Jr.'s 1986 book Social
Knowledge. Mattick, Jr. questions prevalent interpretations about the
relation  between the superstructural culture and materialist base (phrases
he does not use). His interpretation of the relation is quite dialectical. 
I suppose, an example would be that the (materialist) system of wage labor
could not to operate unless workers actually believe that the wage
compensates them (more or less) for labor performed--instead of for the
reproduction of labor power. 

 Again Daniel Little's 1986 Scientific Marx contains a very important
discussion of the relationship between historical materialism as a general
theory (taking up several philosophical questions) and the more
historically specific critique of political economy in Capital. I've just
picked up Derek Sayer's Marx's Method which seems be a very sophisticated
discussion of many of the above themes.

Again, sorry for citations, instead of argument; but it's the level at
which I am at.   
d jones



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