By way of an introduction

Part 3: Engels and Marx’s method

By Anthony Boynton

Marx and Engels own efforts almost always developed in the form of a critique of petty bourgeois or bourgeois social science and philosophy. They began with a critique of Hegel and the Young Hegelians, continued this critique in their battle with Bakunin, turned their critique increasingly on 19th century political economy and expanded their critique to other utopian socialists.

When Marx and Engels criticized the work of other thinkers their method was not simply to make debating points, although they were good at this. Their aim was to examine the contradictions within the hypotheses and conclusions of others, and to draw logical conclusions not yet reached by the author being studied, and – even if the views they were polemnicizing against had little merit of their own – to use their polemic to develop their own independent analysis.

Marx and Engels tried to identify the truths which these other authors might have uncovered, while refuting any mistaken or false analyses surrounding those truths. Having done this, they attempted to analyze again the material they had subjected to criticism, and arrive at a truer analysis of their own.

Capital is the best and most complete example of this method of work.

Marx and Engels did not engage in collecting and measuring observations, instead they relied on the work of bourgeois social science to supply them with the raw material for their own analyses. Given that they had next to no resources, while bourgeois social science had relatively vast resources with which to gather and analyze data, their method was absolutely correct.

(And, unlike virtually all academic social science, Marx and Engels engaged in as much “experimental social science” as possible: they actively participated in the revolutionary movements of their time and place.)

The critical method of Marx and Engels, necessitated by a lack of resources to do the original research needed to measure and analyze changes inhuman society, was adapted by later Marxists, including most famously by Lenin.

His little pamphlet on imperialism is a good example. (Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: A Popular Outline)

Given the fact that Mat and I have absolutely zero resources to launch any independent collection of data on social relations and dynamics of 21st century society, we are going to rely heavily on the method of critique in this blog.

Next: The Defeat of 20th Century Marxism: Social Democracy, Stalinism, and Trotskyism