Discussion On Marx And Engels’s Critique Of Economic Determinism

This paper aims to study the criticism of Marx and Engels on economic determinism, attempt to clarify the relationship between historical materialism and economic determinism, and justify historical materialism. The Second International theorists interpret the historical materialism as the economic determinism, which has aroused strong dissatisfaction of Marx and Engels in their later years. Since historical materialism is different from economic determinism, then the key issue is how did Marx and Engels criticize economic determinism. To solve this issue, the pedigree of economic determinism will be first analyzed. Namely, to reveal the meaning and essence of economic determinism through restoring analysis of the social historical context and theoretical context of economic determinism, together with combing different degrees of economic determinism trend showed by the Second International theorists. It is not only the answer to "what is economic determinism", but also constitutes the reason of Marx and Engels criticize economic determinism.Although Marx do not have any treatise specialized on the criticism of economic determinism, his criticism of economic determinism is implied in "Economics and Philosophical Manuscripts in 1844" to "Das Kapital" and manuscripts regarding critique of political economy. The specific process of the criticism is as follows: A view of social, historical and human are unified is illustrated through criticism of national economy in "Economics and Philosophical Manuscripts in 1844", thus enabled the interpretation system of historical materialism be possible;fundamental differences among classical political economy, economic determinism and historical materialism are showed through realistic criticism of capitalist private ownership in "German Ideology"; by criticizing overall on capitalist production relations in "Das Kapital" and manuscripts, reveal pathological mechanism of the capitalist system and break positivist illusion of the classical political economists.If Marx’s criticism on economic determinism is an implicit clue which is included in the critique of political economy, then Engels’ criticism of on economic determinism in the letter of his later life is undoubtedly the presentation of explicit words. Great changes have taken place in capitalism worldwide since the death of Marx, therefore, bourgeois theorists and the Second International theorists raise doubts and criticisms of historical materialism. Facing reality test and theory challenge, Engels corrected people’s misunderstanding of historical materialism in his later years by means of correspondence with the socialists. He reiterated the significance of the methodology of historical materialism and explicated dialectic thoughts of historical materialism. Through reinterpretation of relationship between economic base and superstructure, the relative independence of ideology, dialectical history of the relationship between objective laws in social and historical field and subjective initiative, Engels demonstrated the richness of historical materialism and responded harshly to economic determinism’s criticism of historical materialism.Based on theoretical analysis of the relationship between classical political economics and economic determinism and Marx’s critique of political economy, it can be concluded that there lie radical differences between historical materialism and economic determinism although both of the two "root"(or inherit) from classical political economics. Eventually, economic determinism’s misunderstanding and misreading of historical materialism get clarified and historical materialism goes beyond economic determinism be revealed.