Landmarks of Scientific Socialism: "Anti-Duehring"Engels, Friedrich
Philosophy
Landmarks of Scientific Socialism: "Anti-Duehring"
Engels, Friedrich
Dialectical materialism; Dühring, E. (Eugen), 1833-1921; Economics; Philosophy; Socialism
Let us look at this omnipotent "force" of Herr Duehring a little more
closely. Robinson enslaved Friday "sword in hand." How did he get the
sword? Robinson's imaginary island never grew swords on trees and some
answer to this question is due from Herr Duehring. We might just as
well assume that as Robinson became possessed of a sword so, one fine
morning, Friday appeared with a loaded revolver in his hand. Thereupon
the "force" is entirely reversed. Friday takes command and Robinson
must submit. We beg pardon of the reader for returning to the story of
Robinson Crusoe, which is more appropriate to the nursery than to an
economic discussion, but what can we do about it? We are compelled to
pursue Herr Duehring's axiomatic scientific methods and it is not our
fault if we always find ourselves in the realms of childishness. The
revolver then triumphs over the sword and it should be apparent even
to the maker of childish axioms that superior force is no mere act of
the will but requires very real preliminary conditions for the
carrying out of its purposes, especially mechanical instruments, the
more highly developed of which have the superiority over the less
highly developed. Furthermore these tools must be produced, whence it
appears that the producer of the more highly developed tool of force,
commonly called weapon, triumphs over the producer of the less highly
developed tool. In a word, the triumph of force depends upon the
production of weapons, therefore upon economic power, on economic
conditions, on the ability to organize actual material instruments.
Force at the present day implies the army and the navy, and the two of
them cost, to our sorrow, a heap of money. But force cannot make
money, on the contrary it gets away very fast with what is made, and
it does not make good use of it as we have just discovered painfully
with respect to the French indemnity. Money must therefore finally be
provided by means of economic production, force is thus again limited
by the economic conditions which shape the means of making and
maintaining the instruments of production. But that is not all by any
means. Nothing is more dependent upon economic conditions than armies
and fleets. Arming, concentration, organization, tactics, strategy,
depend before anything else upon the degree of development in
production and transportation. In the trade of war the free
inventiveness of liberal-minded generals has never worked a
revolution, but the discovery of better weapons and the change in
military equipment have never failed to do so. The inventiveness of
the general under the most favorable conditions finds its limitations
in the adaptation of methods of warfare to the new weapons and the new
soldiers.
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