As a contribution to the discussion on progress, I have put
together a
little compilation of passages from a relevant essay by George Novack
(1905-1992) entitled "Progress: Reality or Illusion?" that outlines
the
classical Marxist view of progress. This essay can be found in
Novack's
1972 book _Humanism and Socialism_, still in print.
People may be interested to observe how several of the excellent
points
brought up by David, Martin and others appear in one form or
another in
this essay. People may also be interested to observe how many of
the ideas
Novack espouses can be found explicitly and implicitly in Vygotsky's
writings, including The Socialist Alteration of Man (1931).
George Novack, 1972
selected passages
Progress: Reality or Illusion?
Has humanity augmented its powers, improved its conditions,
enlarged its
freedoms, chances of happiness, and possibilities of development
over the
ages? That is to ask, is social progress a fact? Historical
materialists
have no hesitation in answering this question affirmatively. The
human
species has made immense advances since it left the animal state
and is
capable of making incomparably more ...
The essence of the idea of progress is that humanity has climbed
from a
lowly state to higher stages and benefited thereby ...
There have been three stages of thought about progress, that of the
ancient Greeks and Romans, that of the Enlightenment, and that of
Marxism
...
... the pictures of progress presented by thinkers from Xenophanes to
Lucretius were crude and narrow and not central to the outlook of the
ancient Greeks and Romans. While some recognized the rise of
humanity from
primitive conditions, they did not extend the process far into the
future.
Their attention was directed backward more than forward.
The first comprehensive and systematic expositions of the idea that
history has moved upward and onward and that this process could be
indefinitely extended belong to the eighteenth century, as J. B.
Bury has
shown in his classic work on germination and growth: _The Idea of
Progress_
...
[The views of these 18th century thinkers were -sg] ... a logical
inference from the vast changes in the Western world brought about
through
the prodigious expansion of the productive forces and wealth
created by
capitalist trade and manufacture ...
['m skipping over lot now, including discussions of Vico, Kant,
Condorcet,
Hegel, Marx ... sg]
... [the] bourgeois-based optimism of progress reached its crest
during
the capitalist expansion and imperialist aggrandizement from 1870
to 1914.
It was the cornerstone of the credos of liberalism and reformism ...
A reversal of the attitude toward progress set in after the shocks
of the
First World War and the Russian Revolution ...
[skipping more pages ... sg]
... it is understandable that the terrible events of the past half
century
[writing in 1972 -sg] have raised questions about the prospects of
social
progress and even its past validity ...
... it has been securely established that the evolutionary process
as a
whole has passed through three main stages, the cosmological, the
biological, and the social ...
... Adam Ferguson and other Englightenment figures ... divided the
historical process into three main epochs: savagery, barbarism, and
civilization ...
The productivity of labor is the fundamental test for measuring the
advancement of humanity because this is the basis and precondition
for all
other forms of social and cultural advancement ...
[skipping pages ... sg]
Historical materialism identifies the epochs of humanity's progress
according to the economic structure of society as shaped by its
relations
of production. One socioeconomic formation is more advanced and
progressive than another by virtue of the greater scope provided
for the
development of the productive forces. Marxism distinguishes six
main types
of labor organization that have contributed to the progress of the
economic
formation of society. These are primitive communism, the Asiatic
mode of
production, slavery, feudalism, capitalism, and nascent socialism ...
[skipping over passages about technological progress ... sg]
How much progress has really been made ... in such values as
equality,
liberty, goodness, happiness, and culture?
This question raises for consideration the contradictory character of
historical development. The ascent of humanity has been far from
steady,
harmonious, and uninterruptedly upward; it has been extremely
uneven and
intermittent. Social progress has not followed a straight line but a
complicated path with many relapses and detours. Regress has been
mingled
with progress, and a certain price, sometimes a high one, has been
exacted
for every advance. For example, whatever benefits the two hundred
million
inhabitants of the United States now enjoy were achieved at the
expense of
the destruction of the Native Americans and their culture and by
forfeiting
the hospitality, equality, and closeness to the natural wilderness
characteristic of the collectivist tribal hunters of the Stone Age.
Rouseau wrote that "iron and wheat have civilized man -- and ruined
him."
His paradoxical assertion focused attention upon all the advances
history
has recorded. These endowed humanity with new powers, which could
be --
and were -- used both for good and evil ...
The agonies of history can find their justification only in the
realized
freedom and happiness they will ultimately make possible for
humanity ...
Every step forward in production is at the same time a step
backwards in
the position of the oppressed class ...
Humanity climbed out of savagery by savage methods and out of
barbarism by
barbaric methods -- and now has to cast off the shackles of private
ownership by class struggle methods ...
The view of progress held by the rationalists of the Enlightenment
had
three serious methodological defects: (1) They mechanically construed
progress as a natural law similar to the law of gravitation; (2)
the source
of progress or stagnation was to be sought in invariant
characteristics of
human nature; (3) the progress of society in the last analysis
depended
upon the progress of ideas, which in turn was determined by the
accumulation of knowledge ...
Progress is not a property of nature but exclusively a feature of
social
life ...
There is no such thing as an unchangeable human nature ...
[The] prime motive force [of history -sg] ... [has been -sg] ... the
struggle against nature and between classes on the basis of
historically
developed productive forces ...
The primordial criterion of progress has to do with humanity's
relation to
nature expressed in technology.
The second criterion [of progress -sg] is the degree of collective
control
that humanity has over its own development in its liberation from
the class
oppression that has been the mark of civilized formations since the
disintegration of primitive communism ...
[Novack expresses his views of the class basis for the optimism of
the
Marxist movement, and ends with this quote: -sg]
"Marxism sets out from the development of technique as the
fundamental
spring of progress, and constructs the communist program upon the
dynamism
of the productive forces," wrote Leon Trotsky. "If you conceive
that some
cosmic catastrophe is going to destroy our planet in the fairly near
future, then you must, of course, reject the communist perspective
along
with much else. Except for this as yet problematic danger,
however, there
is not the slightest scientific ground for setting any limit in
advance to
our technical productive and cultural possibilities. Marxism is
saturated
with the optimism of progress, and that alone, by the way, makes it
irreconcilably opposed to religion."
[Note: The Trotsky quote is from Revolution Betrayed, originally
written
1936. -sg]
<end>
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