Max Beer

“ Had the State remained autocratic, and the contradictory principle, middle-class freedom, been absent, then the life of the State would have become rigid, and the bloom of culture rendered impossible. Had Capitalism remained without its proletarian contradiction, then it would have reverted to an industrial feudalism. It is the contradiction, or the antithesis, which brings into being the whole kingdom of the potentialities and gifts of nature and of humanity. ”

“ This period of Utopian Socialism gave way before the further development of industry, the progress of machine technique, the centralisation and concentration of the means of production and exchange, which brought with it an increase in the number, strength, organisation, and class-consciousness of the working classes. It is the centralisation of the means of production and exchange, in particular, which renders it possible for the working class, by paralysing industry and power stations, to cause the whole of society to feel that living labour-power forms the soul of the economic life. ”

“ Unique as an investigator of the laws of the proletarian movement, eminent and even a great pioneer as a sociologist, Marx is, in respect of economic theory, predominantly an agitator. His system, more than any other system of Socialism or of political economy, is the revolutionary expression of proletarian thought and feeling. His doctrines of value, surplus value, the economic determination of history, the evolution from Capitalism to Socialism, the political and economic class struggle, will for long have the force of truth for the masses and will continue to move them. ”

“ If, at the time of the supremacy of feudalism, the economists, in their enthusiasm for knightly virtues, for the beautiful harmony between rights and duties, for the patriarchal life of the towns, for the flourishing home industries in the country, for the development of industry organised in corporations, companies and guilds, in a word, for everything which forms the finer side of feudalism, had set themselves the problem of eliminating everything which could throw a shadow on this picture—serfdom, privileges, anarchy—where would it all have ended? ”

“ Karl Marx belongs to the ranks of those philosophical and sociological thinkers who throw potent thought-ferment into the world, and set in motion the masses of mankind. They awaken slumbering doubts and contradictions. They proclaim new modes of thought, new social forms. Their systems may sooner or later become obsolete, and the ruthless march of time may finally overthrow their intellectual edifice; meanwhile, however, they stimulate into activity the minds of countless men, inflame countless human hearts, imprinting on them characteristics which are transmitted to coming generations. ”

“ Surplus value is thus the driving force of the history of modern capitalist society. This principle is rigidly followed out by Marx in his theoretical system, which aims at showing the rise and growth of Capitalism.
The capitalist is no scientific investigator: he is not clear himself whether profit is created by a portion of the capital, or is the result of personal productive forces, but he knows one thing—without living labour power, without the wage worker, his whole capital remains dead and does not increase ”

“ The Proletariat fulfils the judgment which private property by the creation of the Proletariat suspends over itself, just as it fulfils the judgment which wage-labour suspends over itself in creating alien riches and its own condemnation. ”

“ If the principle of identity is at best only an incomplete truth, the principles of contradiction and of the excluded middle are complete untruths. Far from making a thought nonsense, contradiction is the very thing which unfolds and develops the thought, and hence, too, the object which it expresses. It is precisely opposition, or antithesis, which sets things in motion, which is the mainspring of evolution, which calls forth and develops the latent forces and powers of being. ”

“ Prehistoric stage of human society! What significant words! The capitalist economic order is the last phase of this stage, which is written in streams of blood and tears of the dispossessed and exploited, and to which is given the task of developing the productive forces and liberating men from the material fetters, so that they may enter into a life of mental culture. The materialist conception of history, unethical and unidealist like all natural science, opens up wide and elevating prospects. ”

“ As the productive forces expand, through greater skill on the part of the worker, through discoveries of new raw material and markets, through the invention of new labour processes, tools and machines, and through the better organisation of trade and exchange, so that the material basis or the economic foundation of society is altered, then the old conditions of production cease to promote the interests of production. ”

“ Thus, according to Marx, it is solely the variable capital which creates surplus value, or, as it is commonly expressed, profit. We have seen above, in the explanation of the nature of wages, why variable capital creates more value than it is paid for by the capitalist; the worker does indeed receive the exchange value of his labour power, but the use value of the labour power functions, we have assumed, twice as many hours as are necessary for its reproduction. This surplus labour is embodied in surplus value. ”

“ That which is now to be expropriated is no longer the labourer working for himself, but the capitalist employing many labourers. This expropriation is accomplished by the action of the immanent laws of capitalist production itself, by the centralisation of capital. One capitalist always kills many. ”

“ Men whose chief means of life are wages form the working class. Men whose most important source of livelihood is the ownership of capital (land, buildings, workshops, and raw material) form the capitalist class. It is of little moment that a worker owns a savings-bankbook, and draws interest or dividends from a co-operative [80] society, or that a capitalist personally supervises his undertaking, or organises his business, so that his profits partly consist in wages of superintendence or salary. ”

“ Further, the capitalist tries from the beginning to create docile and unresisting masses of workers, and yet unites and combines them by the creation of large centres of production; the factories become centres for the organisation of the workers, and for the welding of the individual wills of the proletarians into a class will; they abolish the scattered and antagonistic interests of single sections of the workers, and consolidate them into a unified class interest. ”

“ The Trade Unions are not merely to be satisfied with the work of the present, but are to become the focus and centre of gravity of the proletarian aspirations which arise out of the social transformation process, and are to work for the abolition of Capitalism. The most effective lever for [85] the achievement of this object is the conquest of political power. With its aid the proletariat can consciously carry out the transformation of a Capitalist into a Communist society. ”

“ Feudalism, too, had its proletariat—the villeinage—which contains all the germs of the middle class. Feudal production, too, had two contradictory elements which are likewise characterised as the 'good' and 'bad' sides of feudalism without regard to the fact that it is always the 'bad' side which triumphs ultimately over the 'good' side. It is the bad side which calls into being the movement which makes history, in that it brings the struggle to a head. ”

“ The worker appears to receive wages for his work. In reality he receives wages as the equivalent for the labour power expended by him, quite in accordance with the law of value, inasmuch as he receives by way of exchange as much means of sustenance as is usual and customary to replace the labour power he has expended, just as the working horse receives as much oats and hay as are necessary to maintain it capable of work. ”