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122 UN SIÈCLE DE MARXISME MARXISME ET CHRISTIANISME (extraits de Christian Left Study Circle) NATURAL AND HISTORICAL LAWS Marx described the economic process as a process between 1) Man and Nature, and 2) Man and Man. The first is a timeless phenomenon ; it is present wherever labour and nature interact in order to meet human needs ; the latter is a historical phenomenon reflecting the concrete organization of society that determines the actual relationship of human beings partaking in production. Accordingly, the natural elements of economics are labour, raw materials, tools, human needs and so on. In our present society these take on the historical (i.e. transitional) form of wage labour, capital, demand, purchasing power and so on. While in a socialist economy the natural elements would still be present these would be divested of the capitalist form and would appear in their true shape appertaining to man and nature. Thus man would rid himself of the pseudo-realities which link life at present and would enter a state of freedom under which his relationship to his fellows is no longer falsified by illusionary elements. WHY CAN THE MARXIAN ANALYSIS OF SOCIETY BE ACCEPTED BY THE CHRISTIAN ? The Marxian concept of Socialism is that of a human relationship (R. The theses on Feuerbach : « Eine Menschliche Gesellschaft » as the definition of a Socialist society.) The Marxian concept of Society is that of a relationship of human beings (R. Das Kapital)1 By regarding society in this manner, Marxism is making use of a method that is peculiar to it. Not the state, the political or economic institutions, make up here the reality of the social sphere, but the individual relationships which underlie these institutions. « Beziehungen Von Menschen », i.e. relations of human beings, are the ultimate reality behind the pseudo-realities of a society in which the condition of man is that of permanent self-estrangement2 . In religious terms, the Marxian position can be expressed thus : The reality of society lies in community of persons, class-society is a denial of this community ; whenever the technological conditions allow of such a change in the organization of MARXISME ET CHRISTIANISME 123 society that would make for a more complete fulfillment of community, the true nature of man asserts itself. A revolution becomes inevitable3 . THE LIMITATIONS OF MARXISM AS A PHILOSOPHY The reference of Marxian philosophy is to society. It regards community as the reality of society but at the same time it limits the significance of community by restricting it to society. The personal field is essentially un-social. Human community is both immanent in, and transcendent of, society. Society, as such, is irrelevant to the Christian. Communion with God is communion with persons, but that which we share with others is not necessarily dependent upon social organization. The content of personal life is unlimited ; art, nature, life, action and contemplation in known and unknown forms belong to its still unfathomed depth. Only in the interval of ages does personal community become linked with the organization of society as a whole. When this happens, prophets arise to announce the fullness of time. It is with this exceptional phase that the Marxian theory of revolution is concerned. From the religious point of view it is an effort to define the link between historical time and eternal « time ». Its limitation lies in the fact that it knows of no other sphere of the realization of community than the social and historical. Although « true human history begins with Socialism », there is nothing in Marxian philosophy to guide humanity onward once this stage of true history is reached. MARXIAN ECONOMICS AND THE LABOUR THEORY OF VALUE Marx started from an anthropological concept of the nature of man. Both his philosophy of history and his philosophy of society are constituent parts of this anthropology. This approach was incompatible with the acceptance of sociology as an independent science. What with Marx appears as sociology, is but the application of this anthropological principle to the field of society. His main theory in this sphere of knowledge is the so-called materialistic interpretation of history (so-called because it is not materialistic in the philosophic sense, merely in the sense of allowing full weight to the factors of production in the compass of the social phenomena). Marx’s theory of capitalism was an instance of the application of the materialistic interpretation of history. What he aimed at discovering was not the theory of an economic system, but the key...

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