Historical materialism and the economics of Karl Marx Part 2

In the main, this is recognised by Professor Stammler himself when he gives an admirable explanation of the current meaning of the expressions: _economic facts_ and _political facts_, revolutions _more political than economic_ and vice versa. Such distinctions, he says, can only be understood in the concrete, in reference to the aims pursued by the different sections of society, and to the special problems of social life. According to him, however, Marx's work does not deal with such _trifling matters_: as, for instance, that so-called economic life influences ideas, science, art and so on: old lumber of little consequence. Just as philosophical materialism does not consist in the a.s.sertion that bodily facts have an influence over spiritual, but rather in the making of these latter a mere appearance, without reality, of the former: so historical materialism must consist in a.s.serting that economics is the true _reality_ and that law is a fallacious _appearance_.

But, with all deference to Professor Stammler, we believe that these _trifling matters_, to which he contemptuously refers, are precisely what are dealt with in Marx's propositions; and, moreover, we think them neither so trifling nor of such little consequence. Hence Professor Stammler's book does not appear to us a criticism of the most vital part of historical materialism, viz., of a movement or school of historians. The criticism of history is made by history; and historical materialism is history made or _in the making_.

Nor does it provide the starting point for a criticism of _socialism_, as the programme of a definite social movement. Stammler deceives himself when he thinks that socialism is based on the materialistic philosophy of history as he expounds it: on which philosophy are based, on the contrary, the illusions and caprices of some or of many socialists. Socialism cannot depend on an abstract sociological theory, since the basis would be inadequate precisely because it was abstract; nor can it depend on a philosophy of history as rhythmical or of little stability, because the basis would be transitory. On the contrary, it is a complex fact and results from different elements; and, so far as concerns history, socialism does not presuppose a _philosophy of history_, but _an historical conception determined by the existing conditions of society and the manner in which this has come about_. If we put on one side the doctrines superimposed subsequently, and read again Marx's pages without prejudice, we shall then see that he had, at bottom, no other meaning when he referred to history as one of the factors justifying socialism.

'The necessity for the socialisation of the means of production is not proved scientifically.' Stammler means that the concept of _necessity_ as employed by many Marxians, is erroneous; that the denial of teleology is absurd, and that hence the a.s.sertion of the socialisation of the means of production as the social programme is not logically accounted for. This does not hinder this a.s.sertion from being possibly quite true. Either because, in addition to logical demonstrations there are fortunate intuitions, or because a conclusion can be true although derived from a false premiss: it suffices, obviously, that there should be two errors which cancel one another. And this would be so in our case. The denial of teleology; the tacit acceptance of this same teleology: here is a method scientifically incorrect with a conclusion that may be valid. It remains to examine the whole tissue of experiences, deductions, aspirations and forecasts in which socialism really consists; and over which Stammler pa.s.ses indifferently, content to have brought to light an error in the philosophical statement of a remote postulate, an error which some, or it may be many, of the supporters and politicians of socialism commit.

All these reservations are needed in order to fix the scope of Stammler's investigation; but it would be a mistake to infer from them that we reject the starting point of the inquiry itself. Historical materialism--says Professor Stammler--has proved unable to give us a valid _science of society_: we, however, believe that this was not its main or original object. The two statements come practically to the same thing: the science of society is not contained in the literature of the materialistic theory. Professor Stammler adds that although historical materialism does not offer an acceptable social theory, it nevertheless gives a _stimulus of the utmost intensity_ towards the formation of such a theory. This seems to us a matter of merely individual psychology: suggestions and stimuli, as everyone knows, differ according to the mind that receives them. The literature of historical materialism has always aroused in us a desire to study history in the concrete, _i.e._, to reconstruct the actual historical process. In Professor Stammler, on the contrary, it arouses a desire to throw aside this meagre empirical history, and to work with abstractions in order to establish concepts and general points of view. The problems which he sets before himself, might be arrived at psychologically by many other paths.

There is a tendency, at present, to enlarge unduly the boundaries of social studies. But Stammler rightly claims a definite and special subject for what ought to be called _social science_; that is _definite social data_. Social science must include nothing which has not _sociability_ as its determining cause. How can ethics ever be social science, since it is based on cases of conscience which evade all social rules? _Custom_ is the social fact, not _morality_. How can _pure economics_ or _technology_ ever be social science, since those concepts are equally applicable to the isolated individual and to societies? Thus in studying _social data_ we shall see that, considered in general, they give rise to two distinct theories. The first theory regards the concept _society_ from the _causal_ standpoint; the second regards it from the _teleological_ standpoint.

Causality and teleology cannot be subst.i.tuted the one for the other; but one forms the complement of the other.

If, then, we pa.s.s from the general and abstract to the concrete, we have society as existing in history. The study of the facts which develop in concrete society Stammler consigns to a science which he calls _social (or political, or national) economics_. From such facts may still be abstracted the mere form, _i.e._, the collection of rules supplied by history by which they are governed; and this may be studied independently of the matter. Thus we get _jurisprudence_, or the technical science of law; which is always bound up inseparably with a given actual historical material, which it works up by scientific method, endeavouring to give it unity and coherence.

Finally, amongst social studies are also included those investigations which aim at judging and determining whether a given social order is as it ought to be; and whether attempts to preserve or change it are objectively justified. This section may be called that of practical social problems. By such definitions and divisions Professor Stammler exhausts every possible form of social study. Thus we should have the following scheme:

{ General Study { Causal.

{ of Society. { Teleological.

{ { of the form { { (technical science { { of law).

{ { SOCIAL SCIENCE. { { { Study of Concrete { of the matter { Society. { (social economics).

{ { of the possible, { { (practical problems).

We believe that this table correctly represents his views, although given in our own way, and in words somewhat different from those used by him. A new treatment of the social sciences, the work of serious and keen ability, such as Stammler seems to possess, cannot fail to receive the earnest attention of all students of a subject which is still so vague and controversial. Let us examine it then section by section.

The first investigation relating to society, that concerned with causality, would be directed to solving the problem of the _nature_ of society. Many definitions have been given of this up to the present: and none of them can be said to be generally accepted, or even to claim wide support. Stammler indeed, rejects, after criticism, the definitions of Spencer or Rumelin, which appear to him to be the most important and to be representative of all the others. Society is not an _organism_ (Spencer), nor is it merely something opposed to _legalised society_ (Rumelin): Society, says Stammler, is '_life lived by men in common, subject to rules which are externally binding_.'

These rules must be understood in a very wide sense, as all those which bind men living together to something which is satisfied by outward performance. They are divided, however, into two large cla.s.ses: rules properly speaking _legal_, and rules of _convention_.

The second cla.s.s includes the precepts of propriety and of custom, the code of knightly honour, and so on. The distinctive test lies in the fact that the latter cla.s.s are merely _hypothetical_, while the former are imposed without being desired by those subjected to them.

The whole a.s.semblage of rules, legal and conventional, Stammler calls social _form_. Under these rules, obeying them, limiting them and even breaking them men act in order to satisfy their desires; in this, and in this alone, human life consists. The a.s.semblage of concrete facts which men produce when working together in society, _i.e._, under the a.s.sumption of social rules, Stammler calls _social matter_, or _social economics_. Rules, and actions under rules; these are the two elements of which every social datum consists. If the rules were lacking, we should be outside society; we should be animals or G.o.ds, as says the old proverb: if the actions were lacking there would remain only an empty form, built up hypothetically by thought, and no portion of which was actually real. Thus social life appears as a single fact: to separate its two const.i.tuent factors means either to destroy it, or to reduce it to empty form. The law governing changes within society cannot be found in something which is extra social; not in technique and discovery, nor in the workings of supposed natural laws, nor in the influence of great men, of mysterious racial and national spirit; but it must be sought in the very centre of the social fact itself.

Hence it is wrong to speak of a causal bond between law and economics or vice versa: the relation between law and economics is that between the rule and the things ruled, not one of cause and effect. The determining cause of social movements and changes is then ultimately to be found in the actual working out of social rules, which precede such changes. This concrete working out, these actions accomplished under rules, may produce (1) social mutations which are entirely _quant.i.tative_ (in the number of social facts of one or another kind); (2) mutations which are also _qualitative_ consisting that is in changes in the rules themselves. Hence the _circle of social life_: rules, social facts arising under them; ideas, opinions, desires, efforts resulting from the facts; changes in the rules. When and how this circle originated, that is to say when and how social life arose on the earth, is a question for history, which does not concern the theorist. Between social life and non-social life there are no gradations, theoretically there is a gulf. But as long as social life exists, there is no escape from the circle described above.

The form and matter of social life thus come into conflict, and from this conflict arises change. By what test can the issue of the conflict be decided? To appeal to facts, to invent a causal necessity which may agree with some ideal necessity is absurd. In addition to the law of social _causality_, which has been expounded, there must be a law of ends and ideals, _i.e._, a _social teleology_. According to Stammler, historical materialism identifies, nor would it be the only theory to attempt such an identification, _causality_ and _teleology_; but it, too, cannot escape from the logical contradictions which such a.s.sertions contain. Much praise has been given to that section of Professor Stammler's book in which he shows how teleological a.s.sumptions are constantly implied by historical materialism in all its a.s.sertions of a practical nature. But we confess that the discovery seems to us exceedingly easy, not to be compared to that of Columbus about the egg. Here again we must point out that the _pivot_ of the Marxian doctrine lies in the _practical problem_ and not in the _abstract theory_. The denial of finality is, at bottom, the denial of a merely subjective and peculiar finality. And here, too, although the criticism as applied to historical materialism seems to us hardly accurate, we agree with Stammler's conclusion, _i.e._, that it is necessary to construct, or better to reconstruct, with fresh material, a theory of social teleology.

Let us omit, for the present, an examination of Stammler's construction of teleology, which includes some very fine pa.s.sages (_e.g._ the criticism of the anarchist doctrine) and ask instead: What is this social science of Stammler, of which we have stated the striking and characteristic features? The reader will have little difficulty in discovering that the second investigation, that concerning social teleology, is nothing but a modernised _philosophy of law_. And the first? Is it that long desired and hitherto vainly sought _general sociology_? Does it give us a new and acceptable concept of society? To us it appears evident that the first investigation is nothing but a _formal science of law_. In it Professor Stammler studies _law as a fact_, and hence he cannot find it except in _society subjected to rules imposed from without_. In the second, he studies law as an _ideal_ and constructs the philosophy (imperative) of law. We are not here questioning the _value_ of the investigation, but its _nature_. The present writer is convinced that social data leave no place for an abstract independent science.

Society is a _living together_; the kind of phenomena which appear in this life together is the concern of descriptive history. But it is perfectly possible to study this life together from a given point of view, _e.g._, from the legal point of view, or, in general, from that of the legal and non-legal rules to which it can be subjected; and this Stammler has done. And, in so doing, he has examined the nature of law, separating the concrete individual laws and the ideal type of law; which he has then studied apart. This is the reason why Stammler's investigation seems to us a truly scientific investigation and very well carried out, but not an abstract and general science _of society_. Such a science is for us inconceivable, just as a formal science of law is, on the contrary, perfectly conceivable.

As to the second investigation, that concerning teleology, there would be some difficulty in including it in the number of sciences if it be admitted that ideals are not subjects for science. But here Professor Stammler himself comes to our a.s.sistance by a.s.signing the foundation of social teleology to philosophy, which he defines as the science of the True and of the Good, the science of the Absolute, and understands in a non-formal sense.

Professor Stammler speaks readily of a _monism_ of the social life, and accepts as suitable and accurate the name _materialism_ as applied to Marx's conception of history, and connects this _materialism_ with metaphysical materialism, applying to it also Lange's statement, viz., that 'materialism may be the first and lowest step of philosophy, but it is also the most substantial and solid.' For him historical materialism offers truth, but not the whole truth, since it regards as real the _matter_ only and not the _form_ of social life; hence the necessity of completing it by restoring the _form_ to its place, and fixing the relation between _form_ and _matter_, combining the two in the unity of _social life_. We doubt whether Engels and his followers ever understood the phrase _social materialism_ in the sense which Stammler a.s.signs to it. The parallel drawn between it and metaphysical materialism seems to us somewhat arbitrary.

We come to the group of concrete sciences, _i.e._, those which have for their subject society as given in history. No one who has had occasion to consider the problem of the cla.s.sification of the sciences, will be inclined to give the character of independent and autonomous sciences to studies of the practical problems of this or that society, and to jurisprudence, and the technical study of law.

This latter is only an interpretation or explanation of a given existing legal system, made either for practical reasons, or as simple historical knowledge. But what we think merits attention more than these questions of terminology and cla.s.sification, is the conception of _social economics_, advanced by Stammler; of the second, that is, of the concrete social sciences, enumerated above. The difficulties arising out of this conception are more serious, and centre on the following points; whether it is a new and valid conception, or whether it should be reduced to something already known; or finally whether it is not actually erroneous.

Stammler holds forth at length against economics regarded as a science in itself, which has its own laws and which has its source in an original and irreducible economic principle. It is a mistake, he says, to put forward an abstract economic science and subdivide it into economic science relating to the individual and social economic science. There is no ground of union between these two sciences, because the economics of the isolated individual offers us only concepts which are dealt with by the natural sciences and by technology, and is nothing but an a.s.semblage of simple natural observations, explained by means of physiology and individual psychology. Social economics, on the other hand, offers the peculiar and characteristic conditions of the _externally binding rules_, under which activities develop. And what can an economic principle be if not a hypothetical maxim: the man who wishes to secure this or that object of subjective satisfaction must employ these or those means, 'a maxim which is more or less generally obeyed, and sometimes violated'? The dilemma lies then between the natural and technological consideration and the social one: _there is no third thing_. '_Ein Drittes ist nicht da!_' This Stammler frequently reiterates, and always in the same words. But the dilemma (whose unfortunate inspiration he owes to Kant) does not hold, it is a case of a trilemma. Besides the concrete social facts, and besides the technological and natural knowledge, there is a third thing, viz., the economic principle, or hedonistic postulate, as it is preferred to call it. Stammler a.s.serts that this third thing is not _equal in value_ to the two first ones, that it comes as a _secondary_ consideration, and we confess that we do not clearly understand what this means. What he ought to prove is that this principle _can be reduced_ to the two former ones, viz., to the technical or to the social conditions. This he has not done, and indeed we do not know how it could be done. That economics, thus understood, is not social science, we are so much the more inclined to agree since he himself says as much in calling it _pure_ economics, _i.e._, something built up by abstraction from particular facts and hence also from the social fact. But this does not mean that it is not applicable to society, and cannot give rise to inferences in _social economics_. The social factor is then a.s.sumed as a medium through which the economic principle displays its influence and produces definite results. Granted the economic principle, and granted, for example, the legal regulation of private property in land, and the existence of land differing in quality, and granted other conditions, then the fact of rent of land arises of necessity. In this and other like examples, which could easily be brought forward, we have laws of social and political economics, _i.e._, deductions from the economic principle acting under given legal conditions. It is true that, under other legal conditions, the effects would be different; but none of the effects would occur were it not for the economic nature of man, which is a necessary postulate, and not to be identified with the postulate of technical knowledge, or with any other of the social rules. _To know_ is not to _will_; and _to will in accordance with objective rules_ is not _to will in accordance with ideals which are merely subjective and individual_ (economic).

Stammler might say that if the science of economics thus interpreted is not properly a social science, he leaves it on one side, because his object is to construct a science which may be fully ent.i.tled to the name of _social economics_. But--let us, too, construct a dilemma!--this social economics, to which he aspires, will either be just economic science applied to definite social conditions, in the sense now indicated, or it will be a form of historical knowledge. No third thing exists. _Ein Drittes ist nicht da!_

And indeed, for Stammler an _economic phenomenon_ is not any single social fact whatever, but a group of h.o.m.ogeneous facts, which offer the marks of _necessity_. The number of economic facts required to form the group and give rise to an economic phenomenon cannot be determined in general; but can be seen in each case. By the formation of these groups, he says, social economics does not degenerate into a register of data concerning fact, nor does it become purely mechanical statistics of material already given which it has merely to enumerate.

Social economics should not merely examine into the change in the actual working out of one and the same social order, but remains, now as formerly, the seat of all knowledge of actual social life. It must start from the knowledge of a given social existence, both in regard to its form and in regard to its content; and enlarge and deepen it up to the most minute peculiarity of its actual working out, with the accuracy of a technical science, the conditions and concrete objects of which are clearly indicated; and thus free the reality of social life from every obscurity. Hence it must make for itself a series of concepts, which will serve the purpose of such an explanation.

Now this account of the concept of _social economics_ is capable of two interpretations. The first is that it is intended to describe a science, which has indeed for its object (as is proper for sciences) _necessary_ connections, in the strict sense of the word. But how establish this _necessity_? How make the concepts suitable to _social economics_? Evidently by allowing ourselves to be guided by a principle, by abstracting a single side from concrete reality; and if it is to be for economics this principle can be none other than the _economic principle_, and social economics will consider only the economic side of a given social life. Profits, rent, interest, labour value, usury, wages, crises, will then appear as economic phenomena necessary under given conditions of the social order, through which the economic principle exerts its influence.

The other interpretation is that Stammler's social economics does not indeed accomplish the dissolving work of a.n.a.lysis but considers this or that social life in the concrete. In this case it could do nothing but _describe_ a given society. To _describe_ does not mean to _describe in externals and superficially_; but, more accurately, to free that group of facts from every obscurity, showing what it actually is, and describing it, as far as possible in its naked reality. But this is, in fact, historical knowledge, which may a.s.sume varied forms, or rather may define in various ways its own subject. It may study a _society_--in all its aspects during a given period of time, or at a given moment of its existence, or it may even take up one or more aspects of social life and study them as they present themselves in different societies and at different times, and so on.

It is history always, even when it avails itself of _comparison_ as an instrument of research. And such a study will not have to make _concepts_, but will take them as it needs them from those sciences, which do, in fact, elaborate concepts.

Thus it would have been to great interest to see the working out of this new _social economics_ of Stammler a little more clearly, so that we might determine exactly in which of the aforesaid two cla.s.ses it ought to be placed. Whether it is merely political economy in the ordinary sense, or whether it is the concrete study of single societies and of groups of them. In the latter case Stammler has added another name or rather two names; _science of the matter of social life_ and _social economics_, to the many phrases by which of late the old _History_ has been disguised (social history, history of civilisation, concrete sociology, comparative sociology, psychology of the populace and of the cla.s.ses, etc.). And the gain, if we may be allowed to say so, will not be great.

_September 1898._

FOOTNOTES:

[12] _Wirthschaft und Recht nach der materialistischen Geschichtsauffa.s.sung_, eine socialphilophische Untersuchung, DR RUDOLPH STAMMLER, Professor at the University of Halle, A.S., Leipzig, Veit U.C., 1896, pp. viii-668.

_CHAPTER III._ CONCERNING THE INTERPRETATION AND CRITICISM OF SOME CONCEPTS OF MARXISM

I

OF THE SCIENTIFIC PROBLEM IN MARX'S 'DAS KAPITAL'

_Das Kapital an abstract investigation: His society is not this or that society: Treats only of capitalist society: a.s.sumption of equivalence between value and labour: Varying views about meaning of this law: Is a postulate or standard of comparison: Question as to value of this standard: Is not a moral ideal: Treats of economic society in so far as is a working society: Shows special way in which problem is solved in capitalist society; Marx's deductions from it._

Notwithstanding the many expositions, criticisms, summaries and even abbreviated extracts in little works of popular propaganda, which have been made of Karl Marx's work, it is far from easy, and demands no small effort of philosophical and abstract thought, to understand the exact _nature_ of the investigation which Marx carried out. In addition to the intrinsic difficulty of the subject, it does not appear that the author himself always realised fully the peculiar character of his investigation, that is to say its theoretical distinctness from all other investigations which may be made with his economic material; and, throughout, he despised and neglected all such preliminary and exact explanations as might have made his task plain.

Then, moreover, account must be taken of the strange composition of the book, a mixture of general theory, of bitter controversy and satire, and of historical ill.u.s.trations or digressions, and so arranged that only Loria, (fortunate man!), can declare _Das Kapital_ to be the _finest and most symmetrical_ of existing books; it being, in reality, un-symmetrical, badly arranged and out of proportion, sinning against all the laws of good taste; resembling in some particulars Vico's _Scienza nuova_. Then too there is the Hegelian phraseology beloved by Marx, of which the tradition is now lost, and which, even within that tradition he adapted with a freedom that at times seems not to lack an element of mockery. Hence it is not surprising that _Das Kapital_ has been regarded, at one time or another, as an economic treatise, as a philosophy of history, as a collection of sociological laws, so-called, as a moral and political book of reference, and even, by some, as a bit of narrative history.

Nevertheless the inquirer who asks himself what is the _method_ and what the _scope_ of Marx's investigation, and puts on one side, of course, all the historical, controversial and descriptive portions (which certainly form an organic part of the book but not of the fundamental investigation), can at once reject most of the above-mentioned definitions, and decide clearly these two points:

(1) As regards _method, Das Kapital_ is without doubt an _abstract_ investigation; the capitalist society studied by Marx, is not this or that society, historically existing, in France or in England, nor the modern society of the most civilised nations, that of Western Europe and America. It is an ideal and formal society, deduced from certain hypotheses, which could indeed never have occurred as actual facts in the course of history. It is true that these hypotheses correspond to a great extent to the historical conditions of the modern civilised world; but this, although it may establish the importance and interest of Marx's investigation because the latter helps us to an understanding of the workings of the social organisms which closely concern us, does not alter its nature. Nowhere in the world will Marx's categories be met with as living and real existences, simply because they are abstract categories, which, in order to live must lose some of their qualities and acquire others.

(2) As regards _scope_, Marx's investigation does not cover the whole field of economic fact, nor even that one ultimate and dominant portion, whence all economic facts have their source, like rivers flowing from a mountain. It limits itself, on the contrary, to one special economic system, that which occurs in a society with private property in capital, or, as Marx says, in the phrase peculiar to him, _capitalist_. There remained untouched, not only the other systems which have existed in history and are possible in theory, such as monopolist society, or society with collective capital, but also the series of economic phenomena common to the different societies and to individual economics. To sum up, as regards _method, Das Kapital_ is not an historical description, and as regards _scope_, it is not an economic _treatise_, much less an _encyclopedia_.

But, even when these two points are settled, the real essence of Marx's investigation is not yet explained. Were _Das Kapital_ nothing but what we have so far defined, it would be merely an _economic monograph on the laws of capitalist society_.[13] Such a monograph Marx could only have made in one way: by deciding on these laws, and explaining them by general laws, or by the fundamental concepts of economics; by reducing, in short, the complex to the simple, or pa.s.sing, by deductive reasoning, and with the addition of fresh hypotheses, from the simple to the complex. He would thus have shown, by precise exposition, how the apparently most diverse facts of the economic world are ultimately governed by one and the same law; or, what is the same thing, how this law is differently refracted as it takes effect through different organisations, without changing itself, since otherwise the means and indeed the test of the explanation would be lacking. Work of this nature had been already carried out, to a great extent, in Marx's time, and since then it has been developed yet further by economists, and has attained a high degree of perfection, as may be seen, for instance, in the economic treatises of our Italian writers, Pantaleoni and Pareto. But I much doubt whether Marx would have become an economist in order to devote himself to a species of research of almost solely theoretical, or even scholastic, interest.

His whole personality as a practical man and a revolutionist, impatient of abstract investigation which had no close connection with the interests of actual life, would have recoiled from such a course.

If _Das Kapital_ was to have been merely an economic monograph, it would be safe to wager that it would never have come into existence.

What then did Marx accomplish, and to what treatment did he subject the phenomena of capitalist society, if not to that of pure economic theory? _Marx a.s.sumed, outside the field of pure economic theory, a proposition; the famous equivalence between value and labour; i.e. the proposition that the value of the commodities produced by labour is equal to the quant.i.ty of labour socially necessary to produce them._ It is only with this a.s.sumption that his special investigation begins.

But what connection has this proposition with the laws of capitalist society? or what part does it play in the investigation? This Marx never explicitly states; and it is on this point that the greatest confusions have arisen, and that the interpreters and critics have been most at a loss.

Some of them have explained the law of labour-value as an _historical_ law, peculiar to capitalist society, all of whose manifestations it determines;[14] others rightly seeing that the manifestations of capitalist society are by no means determined by such a law, but comply with the general economic motives characteristic of the economic nature of man, have rejected the law as an absurdity at which Marx arrived by pressing to its extreme consequences an unfortunate concept of Ricardo.

Criticism was thus bewildered between entire acceptance, combined with a clearly erroneous interpretation, and entire and summary rejection of Marx's treatment; until, in recent years, and especially after the appearance of the third and posthumous volume of _Das Kapital_, it began to seek out and follow a better path. In truth, despite its eager defenders, the Marxian doctrine has always remained obscure; and, despite contemptuous and summary condemnation, it has always displayed also an obstinate vitality not usually possessed by nonsense and sophistry. For this reason it is to the credit of Professor Werner Sombart, of Breslau University, that he has declared, in one of his lucid writings, that Marx's practical conclusions may be refuted from a political standpoint, but that, scientifically, it is above all important to _understand_ his ideas.[15]

Sombart, then, breaking openly with the interpretation of Marx's law of value as a _real_ law of economic phenomena, and giving a fuller, and I may say, a bolder expression to the timid opinions already stated by another (C. Schmidt), says, that _Marx's law of value_ is not _an empirical but a conceptual fact_ (Keine empirische, sondern eine gedankliche Thatsache); that Marx's value is a _logical fact_ (eine logische Thatsache), which aids our thought in understanding the actual realities of economic life.[16]

This interpretation, in its general sense, was accepted by Engels, in an article written some months before his death and published posthumously. To Engels it appeared that 'it could not be condemned as inaccurate, but that, nevertheless, it was too vague and might be expressed with greater precision.'[17]