Against the background of Marxist views on Law, State, Class, and Property analyse the critique of 'Religion' and 'The Family'.

Question

Against the background of Marxist views on Law, State, Class, and Property analyse the critique of ‘Religion’ and ‘The Family’.

Answer

Marxism is a social theory whose basic proposition is that social change is driven by class conflict. The class is determined by its relationship to the means of commodity production, distribution and exchange. Within a capitalist society the capitalist class control the means of production and the working class provide the means of labour from which surplus value is expropriated by the capitalist class. The surplus value so expropriated is used to develop and shape the institutions in society to serve the interests of the capitalist class and perpetuate their dominance. In this theory the state and its laws provide the primary control mechanisms for ensuring a subordinated and compliant working class. Religion provides the moral and spiritual edifice to justify the circumstances that the working class find themselves in. The institution of the family provides both a functional role in producing and socialising the labour force required by the capitalist economy.

In order to understand how, within the Marxist paradigm, the various institutions of a capitalist society can contribute to the maintenance of the capitalist system, we need to explore the key institutions of the state, law, class, property, religion and the family. Within the history of man we can see that societies have existed without a formally instituted state. This can be seen in societies such as the antipodean aborigines or the American Indians. However, the emergence of the capitalist system generated classes whose interests are in fundamental conflict. The role of the state within a capitalist society involves the necessity to hold ‘class antagonism in check’. It can be said that the ‘state’ is shaped and controlled by ‘the most powerful economic dominant class.’1

1. Engels – Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884)

Lenin summarised the ‘state’ as ‘a product and manifestation of the irreconcilability of class contradiction’. He said that the state arises where and when and to the extent that class contradiction cannot be reconciled and conversely the existence of the state proves that class contradictions are irreconcilable. In this view, the primary function of the state, its laws and agencies are not those of providing protection and stability against external and internal threats (invasion and the range of anti-social or criminal behaviour) but as a crude form of oppression of the majority by the minority.

Marxists regard the law as an ideological instrument for maintaining existing social relations. Marxists believe that the ideology that the law ‘stands above everything else in society’ is a mystification propagated by capitalists. Some argue that the law resolves class conflict by appearing to let ‘all parties have their say’. Marxists argue, to varying degrees of sophistication, that the law is formulated, implemented and enforced in a way that promotes and maintains the social relations of capitalist production. These formulations find expression in the pre-eminence of private Property (its primacy in law and its protection and legitimacy) and in the character of Industrial Relations Law (the long established emphasis on the individual basis of the employment Contract). Many analysts have noted that the introduction and recent removal of Trade Union immunity and the changing legal definition of ‘lawful picketing’ over time suggest that the relationship between the interests of the Capitalist State and its expression in law is neither simple nor linear. Marxists emphasise that this reflects both the class contradictions and the accommodations that are required to ‘contain’ and neutralise opposition to the state. However, these concessions are deemed to be precisely that and are delivered and removed as necessary to support the greater aim of perpetuating capitalism. Marxists view the capitalist State and its laws as together forming the apparatus of coercion designed to exploit and oppress the working class.

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The Marxist theory of the state, deriving from the application of the concept of dialectical materialism, concludes that there are inherent contradictions (accumulation leading to over-production leading to economic crisis) that will inevitably lead to the destruction of the capitalist class. This destruction will ultimately lead to the disintegration of capitalism leading to a transition period which can be described as a ‘socialist society’. Here the law and state would still exist as a coercive mechanism. However, the law and state would change in its fundamental purpose. Within a capitalist society the law is said to treat everyone equally and is therefore ‘fair’ and impartial system. However due to the inequalities of social, economic and political power it is formulated with the interests of the dominant class uppermost and its application cannot be regarded as fair. In a socialist society the legislation would have two main aims. Firstly, eliminating ‘class enemies’ and the second aim would be that of educating the masses. It would become more assertive and proactive.

With these fundamental principles in mind I shall now examine and give a critique of religion and the family.

According to Marx religion has played two significant roles in society. These can be seen as firstly supporting the established order in society by sanctifying it and secondly by suggesting that the political order of the day is ordained, somehow, by divine right. In doing this Marx believed religion consoled the oppressed. It does this by offering a better life in ‘heaven’ from the one that exists on earth. However it is possible to say that religion plays a progressive role by ‘opening the eyes’ of the oppressed. By doing so religion is showing what a better life can be. However once it is perceived that a better social order is obtainable religion becomes a distraction from establishing a ‘new’, ‘equal’ and ‘better’ society on earth by ‘turning their eyes towards heaven.2

However its approval and endorsement of the established social order, in particular, the social and economic relations and personal and moral conduct consistent with and reflective of the maintenance of that order, made it a ‘counter revolutionary force’. More formally, the Marxist analysis ultimately sees religion as a part of the ideological superstructure in much the same was as the legal system. Marx believed, because of this ideological function in maintaining capitalism, it is necessary to fight religion as it would stand in the path of social transformation.

2 A. McIntyre - Marxism and Christianity

Once social transformation has occurred there will be no need to persecute religion as it would naturally dissolve away. This would be a consequence of the changed social relations eliminating the ideological function religion has within capitalism.

Engels believed religion – Christianity – was a similar movement to that of the labour movement, in that it was a movement of the oppressed. This can be seen in the emergence and treatment of Christianity under the Roman Empire. However Engels goes on to say that socialism unlike religion puts deliverance/salvation on earth. Kautsky believed ‘liberation from poverty that Christianity declared ... was to take place on earth, not in heaven.’ Engels stressed continually that man’s feeling of powerlessness before nature originates from primitive religion. However, McIntyre states that ‘man is not only powerless before nature, but overwhelmed by society, so that the process of society appears to man as strong and terrible divinities’. Thus as McIntyre says ‘in ancient Greek religion, the power of necessity was personified (i.e. need – ananke)’. George Thomas stated ‘the gods are personifications of the powers that dominate human life.’ With this in mind, once these powers – nature – do not dominate mans life there will be no need for religion. This is how Marx hopes to do away with religion. Marxist sees religion as the explanation of the phenomena that is seen all around us that are alternative to a scientific explanation. Marx, being a materialist, inherited the belief of ‘being’ precedes consciousness and not vice versa. By ‘being’ Marx understood it to mean the essence of man – meaning all that is - which is understood as a ‘complex organisation of atoms’. Engels relates ‘matter in motion’ as the formula for this. Since everything can be explained under this formula, religious explanations of phenomena have to be excluded.

Marxists also see another side to religion not just as the ‘opiate of the masses’ or ‘a sigh of the oppressed’ but as the ‘heart of the heartless world’

Due to the fact that a completely secular world had ‘not emerged among the working class, or progressive intellectuals for that matter’ (MacIntyre), Marx viewed religion as having a reactionary role in perpetuating the existing order. However, religion is not a matter of intellect but social needs. If the objective circumstances that produce these needs were removed then religion would become obsolete. Engels thought the English working class was in the ideal state for secularization. However, the rate of progression of class-consciousness within that society had occurred at a substantially slower rate than anticipated. This can be denoted for two reasons. The first can be seen in the fact that religion had continued to hold influence over the working class. Secondly, the fact that the lack of development of ‘class consciousness’ prevented the working class from seeing the ‘big picture’ and therefore precluded their perceived need for social and political action. It has been argued that Marxism has similarities with religion in the sense that it is a systematic doctrine translating ‘mans hopes that were once expressed into the secular project of understanding societies and expression of human possibility and history as a means of liberating the present from the past, constructing a future’ (McIntyre et al).

We may now turn to examine the function and role of the family within the Marxist perspective. As we noted earlier, the institution of the family provides both a functional role in the procreation of the labour force and a role in socialising the labour force required by the capitalist economy.

The early bourgeoisie had understood that the family unit was the basic unit of social order and that it was the lowest form of social authority. Society was comprised not of individuals but of families. The emerging social and religious functions of the family led to a deepening consciousness concerning domestic life. An example of this can be seen in the emergence of personal diaries of this period.

As capitalism developed, two contradictions started to appear within the family. The first contradiction was the family’s subordination to the social relations determined by the movement of production from the family to the ‘factory’. Secondly, the emerging confinement of women to roles within the family. Economic opportunities for women during this period had declined. Previously women had the same opportunities, and many had equal roles within the guilds, as the men. The issue of women’s equality only arose with the destruction of the family as an independent productive unit. The bourgeois ideal of private property established the family as an independent unit. Private property was understood in two ways by the bourgeois. Firstly it meant man’s labour and secondly the land or tools employed in labour. As capitalism developed, the bourgeois understanding of private property and the family became divided.

The division of private and social labour (labour within the family and that within the industrial environ) dictated work patterns that had previously been dictated within the family unit. The capitalist class required workers to develop methodical habits and comply with the operating needs of industry and the factory system. The family unit was no longer supervised by the head of the family as in previous times, but was controlled by the owners of the factories through the obligations of workers to comply with instructions and fulfil contractual duties. With this in mind the ‘religion’ of the day became Methodism. This preached a strict discipline and social subordination of daily life. The jobs that exist within the family arena such as food preparation, cleaning constitute a constant of labour, are the basic needed to maintain life in a capitalist world. Therefore, the family is a main part of the economy under capitalism, Marxist believed. ‘The organisations of production, in capitalist societies, are predicated upon the existence of a certain form of family life.’(Eli Zoretsky).

A new ideology of the family emerged through the changes in organisation to production. It was contrasted to society, administration and the system of social production. The introduction of machinery was the culmination of this process, requiring human beings to ‘identify themselves with the unvarying regularity of the complex automation’ (Andrew Ure).

Rousseau had identified the family with ‘nature’. He based the family, much like the early bourgeoisie, on the ideal of ‘private property’. He stated that it was society that induced inequality, and that nature was ‘inherently egalitarian’. Rousseau believed that society constricted the human understanding within the confines of rationality and called this ‘philosophy’. He stated ‘it is philosophy that isolates man … on seeing a man suffer: die if you will, I am safe.’ In the family the natural sense of human solidarity could still be found. While in society it has been destroyed by the ‘egotism of the bourgeois’. The 19th century saw a totally different ideal of the family. The family became an enclosed and separate unit excluded from the social relations of industrial society.

According to Marxism the early ideals of family life (love and personal commitment and growth) could not be realised as long as society was arranged around ‘private property’. The family under capitalism – ‘ostensibly private’ – was continuously developed by the needs of the dominant class. Specific to the capitalist society is the understanding of the family and the economy as separate realms. The economy can be understood as meaning the ‘sphere in which commodity production and exchange takes place, the production of goods and services to be sold, and their sale and purchase’ (Mitchell et al). This understanding of the ‘economic’ within capitalism excludes activity within the family, and especially woman. Marx defined the ‘economic structure’ as the real foundation of society. He stated the economic structure was ‘the total ensemble of social relations entered into in the social production of existence.’

It is understood that this concept would include the family especially in pre-capitalist societies. In these societies the family took part in such tasks as reproduction, care of the elderly and sick, as well as basic necessities to maintain life. Marx believed that under capitalism production within the family has been separated from production organised as wage labour so that the ‘economic’ functions of the family are obscured. Material production was understood as to be natural prior to capitalism, however economic production under capitalism is understood to be as a ‘human’ realm outside nature (Mitchell et al). As industrial capitalism developed there was transference of the economic production from the family unit to the large-scale corporate unit.

In conclusion we can see that capitalism has inherited the authoritarian family. Capitalism draws from ‘the past’ and uses the family to ‘support its main mechanisms of social control.’ But religion is significantly different; both in character and function from Marxism, and this can be said of the authoritarian family. The family and religion do not stand already completed, somehow outside capitalism. They exist as interacting dimensions of capitalist life, helping to shape the same mode of production, which in the last analysis determines their particular forms and functions. Marxist views on the institutions of society derive from, and are the consequences of class conflict. Each social formation will have a dominant class. Under capitalism the capitalist exercise hegemony. However they have inherited social institutions, Law, State, Family and Religion and these will be shaped to form the ideological and real components of social and personal life. This shaping is an expression of the interest of the dominant class as these evolve over time. We have seen how the state and its laws have developed to strengthen the social relations of production that are required to sustain the capitalist mode of production.