Materialism

“ It may well be that the intransigent materialism of the 19th century is merely an episode, an aberration rather, in the history of biology—an aberration brought about by the over-rapid development of a materialistic and luxurious civilisation, in which man's material means have outrun his mental and moral growth. ”

“ Civilization, society, and morals, are like a string of beads, whose fastening is the belief in the immortality of the soul. Break the fastening, and the beads are scattered.
Materialism is the scourge of our day, the origin of all the evils of European society. Now, materialism is fiercely fought in this book, which might be entitled, "Spiritualism Demonstrated by Science." ”

“ To appreciate the true character of the materialistic movement which is stirring every layer of society, and whose action the learned and the ignorant equally feel, we must examine all the remote and proximate, latent and manifest, causes which influence the currents, the ebb and flow of materialism. ”

“ If, for instance, materialism cannot consistently escape the conclusion of a finite state, which William Thomson has traced out for it, then materialism is thereby refuted. ”

“ Finally, applying the distinction between formalism and materialism, we obtain two further series of vices; for, with two exceptions, it is possible in each economy either to exaggerate the principle of organization, and thus neglect the constituent interests which it is intended to organize; or to exaggerate the good attained, and thus neglect the wider spheres beyond. There will thus be a formalistic series of errors: asceticism, sentimentalism, anarchism, mysticism; and a materialistic series: overindulgence, sordidness, bigotry or egoism, worldliness. ”

“ Materialism, which was preached first in Germany, in the universities, and in books of philosophy, and the natural sciences, afterwards spread rapidly in France. 5 With brief delay, it came down from the level of the savans to that of the educated classes, and thence it penetrated the ranks of the people; and the people have undertaken to teach us the practical consequences of materialism. Little by little they have flung off every bond, they have discarded all respect of persons and principles; they no longer value religion or its ministers; the social hierarchy, their country, or liberty. ”

“ IX The highest point reached by intuitive materialism - that is, materialism which does not comprehend the activity of the senses as practical activity - is the point-of-view of single individuals in “bourgeois society”.
X The standpoint of the old materialism is “bourgeois” society; the standpoint of the new is human society, or socialised mankind. ”

“ Vigor, genius, diligence, and all the personal advantages which result therefrom, are the work of Nature and, to a certain extent, of the individual; society awards them the esteem which they merit: but the wages which it pays them is measured, not by their power, but by their production. Now, the product of each is limited by the right of all. ”

“ What do we say, in fact?
To determine value,—in other words, to organize within itself the production and distribution of wealth,—society proceeds exactly as the mind does in the generation of concepts. ”

“ Property necessary to life, but only producible by labour, and of which the possession is morally connected with labour, so that no person capable of doing the work necessary for its production has a right to it until he has done that work;—"he that will not work, neither should he eat." It consists of simple food, clothing, and habitation, with their seeds and materials, or instruments and machinery, and animals used for necessary draught or locomotion, etc. ”

“ The product of his labor—and no more!
191Well, then, let us begin with life’s first needs,
And give him of the earth what he can make;
As much of air and light as he can make,
As much of ocean, and sweet wind and rain,
And flowers, and grass, and fruit, as he can make.
But no, we answer this is mockery:
No man makes these things. But of human wealth
Let every man be given what he makes,
The product of his labor, and no more. ”

“ Gold, silver, precious stones, and every other article of that kind, may be, on many occasions, and in many places and circumstances, of no value or use to the owner; and they are to be considered as wealth only in such places where they will be taken in exchange for, and command, such things as the possessor stands in need of, or has an inclination for; all which are the produce of the labour of man. The possession, therefore, of those things which can obtain and command the labour of man, is to be considered as wealth. ”

“ What more unnatural than that labor -- the producer of all food, all clothing, all shelter -- should not be exchangeable for its full equivalent in food, clothing, and shelter; that while the things it produces have value, labor, the giver of all value, should seem valueless!
Here are men, having the natural wants of man, having the natural powers of man -- powers adapted and intended and more than sufficient to supply those wants. ”

“ Is there a trade or handicraft but what supplies us with something we wanted? This want certainly, before it was supplied, was an evil, which that trade or handicraft was to remedy, and without which it could never have been thought of. Is there an art or science that was not invented to mend some defect! ”

“ Shall we retain our fictitious standard of value, gold, and thus keep the productive resources of the country in bondage? or, shall we resort to the natural standard of value, labour, and thereby set our productive resources free? ”

“ This tone consisted chiefly in making the proper distinction between the laws of the Production of Wealth—which are laws of nature, dependent on the properties of objects—and the modes of its Distribution, which, subject to certain conditions, depend on human will. ”

“ The materialist conception of history starts from the principle that production, and next to production the exchange of its products, is the basis of every social system; that in every society arising in history the allotment of products, and with it the division of society into classes or ranks, depends upon what is produced, how it is produced, and how when produced it is exchanged. ”

“ Their rights, another's conveniences; their interests, wares on sale; their happiness, a household utensil; their personal inalienable ownership, a serviceable article, or a plaything, as best suits the humor of the hour; their deathless nature, science, social affections, sympathies, hopes—marketable commodities! ”

“ I will juggle into my own hands all the instruments for the production of wealth that I can lay hold of; and I will use them for myself against the producer and the consumer. I will enrich myself by 'corners' on the necessaries of life ”

“ Banking, usury, commerce, industry, agriculture, and labour are empirically distinguished, yet are all economic facts. Courage, prudence, temperance, chastity, justice, modesty are empirically distinguished, yet are all moral facts. Why not unite the two series, and recognize the unity and continuity of nature by the insertion among them of other types and terms? ”

“ In every branch of production, nature and man concur. But the portion of utility which nature contributes is always gratuitous. It is only the portion of utility which human labour contributes which forms the subject of exchange, and, consequently, of remuneration. ”

“ To understand the interlacings and the complexus in its inner connection and its outer manifestations; to descend from the surface to the foundation, and then to return from the foundation to the surface; to analyze the passions and the intentions, in their motives, from the closest to the most remote, and then to bring back the data of the passions and of the intentions and of their causes to the most remote elements of a definite economic situation; there is the difficult art which the materialistic conception must realize. ”

“ But there is not so distinct and positive a violation of usage in considering as wealth any product which is both useful and susceptible of accumulation. The skill, and the energy and perseverance, of the artisans of a country, are reckoned part of its wealth, no less than their tools and machinery. [1] According to this definition, we should regard all labour as productive which is employed in creating permanent utilities, whether embodied in human beings, or in any other animate or inanimate objects. ”

“ For, though custom has dulled us to it, it is a strange and unnatural thing that men who wish to labor, in order to satisfy their wants, cannot find the opportunity—as, since labor is that which produces wealth, the man who seeks to exchange labor for food, clothing, or any other form of wealth, is like one who proposes to give bullion for coin, or wheat for flour. ”

“ The redundant resources so abound that they can have no value, in the sense of exchangeable value, in society; even though needed as they are in more constant supply than those of the other class. The resources which are barely adequate are those which come to be objects of personal possession ”

“ And insofar as man from the beginning behaves toward nature, the primary source of all instruments and subjects of labor, as an owner, treats her as belonging to him, his labor becomes the source of use values, therefore also of wealth. ”

“ The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society—the real foundations, on which rise legal and political superstructures and which correspond to definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social, political and spiritual processes of life. ”

“ The essential principle of property being to assure to all persons what they have produced by their labor, and accumulated by their abstinence, this principle can not apply to that which is not the produce of labor, the raw material of the earth. ”

“ Always demand the best materials, and use no more of them than is necessary to dress yourselves neatly or handsomely, according to your station in society. Then have these materials made up by hand, if possible under your own supervision, paying a just price for the labour. ”

“ In various places throughout these lectures I have had to allude to the distinction between productive and unproductive labour, and between true and false wealth. I shall here endeavour, as clearly as I can, to explain the distinction I mean.
Property may be divided generally into two kinds; that which produces life, and that which produces the objects of life. That which produces or maintains life consists of food, in so far as it is nourishing; of furniture and clothing, in so far as they are protective or cherishing ”

“ For this value or wealth, produced by the activity of all, is by the very fact of its creation collective wealth, the use of which, like that of the land, may be divided, but which as property remains undivided. ”

“ Shall we not as well discern the riches of nature's warehouse, as the benefit of her shop? Is truth ever barren? Shall he not be able thereby to produce worthy effects, and to endow the life of man with infinite commodities? ”

“ Savages are content to use products in substantially the form in which Nature provides them; civilized peoples work over the products of Nature until the utility or want- satisfying power of those products has been greatly increased. Man's living improves as he progresses from indolence to hard physical labor, then from hard physical labor alone to a combination of physical and mental labor intelligently directed.
70. CAPITAL A THIRD FACTOR IN PRODUCTION.—Land to furnish raw materials, and man to make use of those materials,—what more is necessary? ”

“ Be thou combined, and produce those commodities necessary for the use and sustenance of man, and to make this earth beautiful and glorious, and prepare it for the habitation of the sanctified;" then we shall be in possession of true riches. This is true riches to me, and nothing short of it constitutes them. When I have gold and silver in my possession, which a thief may steal, or friends borrow, and never pay me back again, or which may take the wings of the morning, and I behold it no more, I only possess the negative of the true riches. ”

“ Now, the truth is that the system excites and creates labor, and this labor creates wealth, and this new wealth communicates additional ability to consume, which acts on all the objects contributing to human comfort and enjoyment. ”

“ If materialization means anything besides dollars and cents—if it has a mission to perform—it is to enlighten and educate the people upon one of the most important subjects that has ever engrossed the mind. ”

“ Like a true Platonist, he set before his countrymen, in glowing language, the beauty of the eternal Ideas or absolute Values, pleaded that there was no necessary connection between equality of production and equality of remuneration, and instituted various experiments, not all unsuccessful, in restoring the old handicrafts and the temper which inspired them. ”

“ It is the almost unlimited extent of the wants of man in the social state, and the consequent multiplicity and complexity of his means—both his wants and means proceeding from the range of his mental faculties—which have rendered it so difficult to observe and explain the laws which govern the production, distribution, and consumption of those articles of utility, essential to the subsistence and [Pg 2] comfort of the human race, which we call Wealth. ”

“ We find what that is by analyzing the constituent elements of different goods which possess exchange value. How can we compare them? Only because they contain some common element. But what is there in common between a horse and a house? You cannot say that this stick is longer than that sugar is sweet. Yet you say this house is worth ten times as much as that horse. Materials are not compared, nor stability with swiftness, nor color with color. The common element is found alone in human [179] labor. You compare labor with labor. ”