I was away again this last weekend at the Washington Demo and am still
therefore catching up. I haven't gotten around yet to rereading the
earlier posts in this thread (including my own) but will try to in the
next week. GI is a fascinating work which I ought to reread, but there
is also some reason to regret that the mice did not do a better job of
criticism. :-) It is dangerous to use it without putting it through the
filter of his later work, particularly POP, Grundrisse, & Capital I. And
it seems to me that one of the most pervasive forms of "unintended"
idealism is mistaking the _name_ of the problem for an _explanation_ --
an error which can further degenerate into pure (vacuous) tautology:
e.g., Racism causes discrimination. But _racism_ is precisely what needs
to be explained, and is not an explanation in itself of anything. Marx's
brief discussion of "Providence" is, I think, a superb place to begin in
grasping this kind of error. Of more crucial _immediate_ importance is
analyzing _imperialism_; it is possible loosely to say that "Imperialism
causes this or that terrible result." But "imperialism" is merely the
_name_ which we give to a huge complex of social relations: it names
what is to be explained without explaining anything. (I think, but I'm
no Lukacs scholar, that this is what Lukacs meant by reification.)

Carrol

David Griffin wrote:
>
> Carrol,
>
> Sorry-- I know where "Poverty of Philosophy" is. But, in particular, I was
> wondering if you could refer me to the specific quotation you were mentioning
> in your last email.
>
> -- David

The passage I have specifically in mind comes at the end of Ch. II,
Section 1 (The Method), Sixth Observation. Here it is:

*****
Henceforth, the good side of an economic relation is that which affirms
equality; the bad side, that which negates it and affirms inequality.
Every new category is a hypothesis of the social genius to eliminate the
inequality engendered by the preceding hypothesis. In short, equality is
the primordial intention, the mystical tendency, the providential aim
that the social genius has constantly before its eyes as it whirls in
the circle of economic contradictions. Thus, Providence is the
locomotive which makes the whole of M. Proudhon's economic baggage move
better than his pure and volatized reason. He has devoted to Providence
a whole chapter, which follows the one on taxes.

Providence, providential aim, this is the great word used today to
explain the movement of history. In fact, this word explains nothing. It
is at most a rhetorical form, one of the various ways of paraphrasing
facts.

It is a fact that in Scotland landed property acquired a new value by
the development of English industry. This industry opened up new outlets
for wool. In order to produce wool on a large scale, arable land had to
be transformed into pasturage. To effect this transformation, the
estates had to be concentrated. To concentrate the estates, small
holdings had first to be abolished, thousands of tenants had to be
driven from their native soil and a few shepherds in charge of millions
of sheep to be installed in their place. Thus, by successive
transformations, landed property in Scotland has resulted in the driving
out of men by sheep. Now say that the providential aim of the
institution of landed property in Scotland was to have men driven out by
sheep, and you will have made providential history.

Of course, the tendency towards equality belongs to our century. To say
now that all former centuries, with entirely different needs, means of
production, etc., worked providentially for the realization of equality
is, firstly, to substitute the means and the men of our century for the
men and the means of earlier centuries and to misunderstand the
historical movement by which the successive generations transformed the
results acquired by the generations that preceded them. Economists know
very well that the very thing that was for the one a finished product
was for the other but the raw material for new production.

Suppose, as M. Proudhon does, that social genius produced, or rather
improvised, the feudal lords with the providential aim of transforming
the settlers into responsible and equally-placed workers: and you will
have effected a substitution of aims and of persons worthy of the
Providence that instituted landed property in Scotland, in order to give
itself the malicious pleasure of driving out men by sheep.

But since M. Proudhon takes such a tender interest in Providence, we
refer him to the Histoire de l'economie politique of M. de
Villeneuve-Bargemont, who likewise goes in pursuit of a providential
aim. This aim, however, is not equality, but catholicism. ****

In my copy of POP (Progress Pub., 1955 [1973]) it appears on pp. 104-105