Karl August Wittfogel's Natural Factors in Economic History

An excerpt translation of Karl August Wittfogel's 1932 text "Natural Factors in Economic History"

Source

[Karl Wittfogel, “Die natürlichen Ursachen der Wirtschaftsgeschichte,” in: Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, 67 (1932), 466–492; 597-609; 711-731.]

2. Nature and Society in the Marxian SystemS. 472-481.

Marx’s analysis of history does not, as SombartW. Sombart, Die drei Nationalökonomien. München-Leipzig 1930, S. 224. recently charged, begin with the assumption of free will. Free will is a theological postulate. A scientific conception of the social world is not possible with such presuppositions.Auch Sombart kann nicht umhin, dies zu sehen. Er führt daher später selbst als eine Gleichförmigkeit der Willensbildung bewirkende Motivationsgrundlage an: »Charakter«, »Geist und Blut«, sowie »endlich« auch »äußere Umstände«, unter denen »ferner« auch (!) die »natürlichen Verhältnisse des Bodens und des Klimas« genannt werden (a. a. O. S. 265, 268, 270). Sombarts Zurückgreifen auf einen barbarischen geographischen Materialismus wollen wir, ohne das Prinzip hier zu diskutieren, nur kenntlich machen. Es ist ganz offenbar ein Produkt der Geringschätzung, die Sombart diesem Problemkreis entgegenbringt. Bezeichnend ist an Sombarts Verhalten immerhin dies, daß auch er dort, wo er sich der konkreten wissenschaftlichen Analyse nähert, sein theologisches Postulat faktisch fallen lassen muß. Willful intentionality [Willensrichtung] and activity of socially productive man [Menschen] is determined, except in the most general way, by the physical constitution of the human being—this is in distinction to other animalsMarx und Engels, Die deutsche Ideologie. Bruchstück, unter dem Titel »Marx und Engels über Feuerbach« veröffentlicht im Marx-Engels-Archiv I, Frankfurt a. M., v. J. (1926), S. 237.—and, indeed, in a way which is modified at every moment by the stage of development that has been reached, by the objective substrate of this activity. Though within the labor process man may place a potentially gigantic apparatus of means of labor between himself and the object of his labor, the object of labor always remains nature itself. “Man and his labor on one side, nature and its materials on the other;” that is the most universal fundamental relation [Grundbeziehung] in the process of social labor, like this itself “an eternal natural condition of human life independent of every form of this life, but rather common to all social forms.”Marx, Das Kapital, 8. Aufl., Hamburg 1919, S. 146. However, this means, just as Hegel already declared, that man, despite all the “power” over external nature that tools lend him, is “subjugated” by nature in the determination of his aims.Hegel, Wissenschaft der Logik, Ausg. Lasson, Leipzig 1923, II, S. 398. Lenin expressed this in his materialist commentary on Hegel’s Logic thusly: “The laws of the external world, of nature, which are divided into mechanical and chemical (this is very important) are the bases of man’s purposive activity. In his practical activity, man is confronted with the objective world, is dependent on it, and determines his activity by it.”W. Adoratski, Lenin über die Hegelsche Logik und Dialektik. Unter dem Banner des Marxismus, Jahrg. III, Nr. 5, S. 656. Hervorhebung von uns.

a. Natural and Social Productive Forces

The development of the social labor process, as the foundation of total social development, is the development of the productive forces that determine the character and efficacy of the labor process. Although [they are] historically conditioned as a collective, the productive forces do not all carry a social character in a strict sense. Two groups of productives forces function together in the labor process: produced and not produced, socially conditioned and naturally conditioned.Zum weiterhin folgenden vgl.: Wittfogel, Geopolitik, geographischer Materialismus und Marxismus. Unter dem Banner des Marxismus, deutsche Ausgabe, Jahrg. III, Heft 1 (S. 17—51), Heft 4 (S. 485—522), Heft 5 (S. 698—735); russische Ausgabe, Jahrg. 1929, Heft 2/3, 6, 7/8. All naturally conditioned (natural) productive forces have a historical character [Beschaffenheit]; only under certain historical circumstances do they become active [wirksam]. All social productive forces are, for their part, determined by the character of the corresponding active naturally conditioned productive forces.

Now the subjective-personal element (labor qualification and organization) develops within the totality of social productive forces always in connection with and dependency upon the material [sachlichen] conditions of production.Vgl. hierzu den nächstfolgenden Abschnitt. The material [sachliche] conditions of production—so-called technology—are, however, determined “by external conditions (the laws of nature).” Thusly did Lenin recently render again and with greater precision the corresponding thoughts of Hegel, Marx, and Engels. In the configuration of the “leading” means of his labor as well as in the realized social labor-activity that accompanies it, man depends on the “external world, nature” and “lets his activity be determined by it.” The laws of this external, natural world form “the foundation of purposive human activity.”Adoratski, Lenin über die Hegelsche Logik, S. 656. Marxistically [speaking], such a determinacy [Bestimmtheit] can only mean the determinacy of the path of development [Entwicklungsganges]. The course [Werden] of the social productive forces, centrally that of its material core, i.e. technology, is determined by the structure of the present moment in nature.

In this sense Plekhanov explains—although admittedly with less precision than Marx and Lenin, since he, like most Marxists, did not adopt the concept of natural productives forces from Marx—that “the development of the productive forces, which in the last instance determine the development of all social relations, are themselves determined by the character of the geographical natural conditions.”G. Plechanow, Die Grundprobleme des Marxismus, deutsch, Ausgabe Rjazanov, Wien-Berlin 1929, S. 46.

We follow Marx’s distinction, which among Marxists Lenin was almost alone in accepting.Gratisnaturproduktivkräfte der Arbeit existieren sowohl in der Landwirtschaft wie in der Industrie. (W. I. Lenin, Die Agrarfrage und die »Marx-Kritiker«, Werke, deutsch, IV, I, Wien-Berlin 1928, S. 229 ff. By differentiating the thought put forward by Plekhanov, by tracing this thought back to Marx’s own conception, we can say that nature and society, the natural and social productive forces, “execute fundamentally different functions. Man and his social labor-activity represent the principle of unrest, of movement; nature (original or modified), the objective substratum which directs (or fails to direct) this activity in a definite direction through its material structure. Although man has an active relation to nature through the social labor process, at any given stage of the social forces of production he can only organize his activity in accordance with the natural means of labor and natural objects of labor he has plucked from the earth. Which naturally conditioned elements are “tapped” by socially-laboring man is above all determined by the totality of the socially developed forces of production (labor skills, science and its technological applicability, the organization of labor, the volume and efficacy of produced means of production). But the direction of the change in the social form of the process of labor (and whether there is a change at all) is not dependent on the arbitrary will of productive man but on the type, wealth and combination of the naturally conditioned forces of production socially “available” at any given time.”Wittfogel, Geopolitik, geographischer Materialismus und Marxismus, a. a. O. S. 723.

“Motive [bewegend] activity and passive determination of direction;”Ebendort S. 724. these are the two essentially different functions that are performed by the two fundamental elements of the social labor process within every social formation. It follows that every analysis of economic development which exclusively concerns itself with the social side [of things] is incomplete, mutilated, and false. According to Marx and Engels, [one must] begin with “the real process of production,”Marx und Engels über Feuerbach, a. a. O. S. 259. with metabolism [Stoffwechsel] of socially laboring man with nature. “In the whole conception of history up to the present this real basis of history has either been totally disregarded or else considered as a minor matter […] With this the relation of man to nature is excluded from history and hence the antithesis of nature and history is created.”Ebendort S. 260. Hervorhebungen von us.
We will furnish evidence that not only the majority of essentially non-Marxist economic histories, but also nearly all adherents of Marxism-derived economic- and social-historical works, have not satisfied the requirements put forward by Marx.

b. The Meaning of the Concept of the Mode of Production

It [is a matter of concern for us], that the role and meaning of that which Marx called the “mode of production,” “material mode of production,” or “mode of production of material life”Marx, Das Elend der Philosophie, deutsch, 7. Aufl., Stuttgart 1919, S. 91. Das Kapital, 8. Aufl., Hamburg 1919, I, S. 449 Anm. Vorwort zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, 8. Aufl., Stuttgart 1921, S. LV. has almost never been received in the sense intended by Marx. Either Marx’s core thought disappears in analysis of the concept centered around determining what is covered by it, and in polemics against a legitimately incorrect technicist view—with corresponding neglect of the concept in concrete social investigation (Cunow)H. Cunow, Die Marxsche Geschichts-, Gesellschafts- und Staatstheorie, Berlin 1921. Vor allem II, S. 148 ff. In seinen ethnologischen Schriften arbeitet Cunow nicht mit dem Begriff der Produktionsweise. Vgl. etwa: Die Verwandtschaftsorganisation der Australneger, Stuttgart 1894. Die soziale Verfassung des Inkareichs. Stuttgart 1896. (Hier wird zwar die agrikole Produktionsweise der Inkagesellschaft beschrieben, aber erst im 5. Kapitel, S. 72 ff. und ohne den Versuch einer Ableitung der gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisse aus der Produktionsweise.) Ähnlich auch: Ursprung der Religion und des Gottesglaubens, Berlin 1913. Von der Produktionsweise der Gruppen und Stämme, die Cunow auf ihre religiösen Vorstellungen hin untersucht, ist stets nur nebenbei, wenn überhaupt die Rede. Sehr viel stärker hebt Cunow die Naturbeziehungen als Grundlage wirtschaftlicher Entwicklung hervor in seiner Allgemeinen Wirtschaftsgeschichte. I—III, Berlin 1926 ff.; freilich nur für das Wirtschaftsleben der Primitiven. Auch hier folgt er jedoch nicht den Marxschen Kategorien, was zur Folge hat, daß selbst da, wo der das Naturmoment berücksichtigt, dies in einer chaotischen Weise geschieht, nicht viel anders, als die alten geographischen Materialisten es, soweit sie das Wirtschaftliche heranzogen, auch getan haben. So stellt Cunow die Frage nach dem Warum der Stagnation der Australneger überhaupt nicht (I, S. 77 ff.). Bei Behandlung der Jägervölker Nordamerikas sieht er nur ihren Reichtum an L e b e n s mitteln (I, S. 169 ff. und 227 ff.). Die von Marx sofort mitgestellte Frage nach den natürlichen Grundlagen der A r b e i t s mittel — hier: Steine, im Gegensatz zu Südamerika — gliedert er seiner Fragestellung nicht ein. Ganz im Sinne der alten geographischen Materialisten tritt bei Cunow bei der Untersuchung höherer Gesellschaftsformen das Problem der Naturgrundlage ihrer Entwicklung mehr und mehr zurück. Bei der Perukultur wird die Erwähnung der Naturgrundlagen der Bewässerungswirtschaft und die Schilderung dieser Wirtschaft selbst der Darstellung der sozialen Ordnung — der Mark — angehängt (I, S. 293 ff.). Bei Analyse der römischen Agrarentwicklung, einschließlich der Sklavenlandwirtschaft, bei Untersuchung der altindischen Agrarverhältnisse oder bei Beschreibung der industriellen Entwicklung Englands ist von den Naturgrundlagen so gut wie gar nicht mehr die Rede (II, S. 56, 27 ff., 32; III, S. 449, 472, 479). Im Falle England führt dieses sein Verfahren Cunow zu handgreiflichen Ungenauigkeiten, im Falle Indien zu einer völligen Fehlanalyse.; or the concept, within which they declare the social side to be the “dominant” one, is put in a subordinate place in the overall system of presentation, such that its connection with the concept of productive forces and the connection with [the concept of] the relations of production is not clearly registered (Kautsky).K. Kautsky, Die materialistische Geschichtsauffassung, Berlin 1927, I, S. 737 ff. Nachdem Kautsky über »Die Anpassung an die Natur« gesprochen, nachdem er einen ganzen Abschnitt von 16 Kapiteln der Technik gewidmet hat, beschäftigt er sich im Abschnitt »Die Ökonomie« in einem vier Seiten langen Kapitel mit der Frage der Produktionsweise. Or the concept of the mode of production is simply lumped together with that of the relations of production (recently: Thalheimer and Mannheim).A. Thalheimer, Einführung in den dialektischen Materialismus, Wien-Berlin 1928, S. 134. K. Mannheim, Ideologie und Utopie, Bonn 1929, S. 92 ff. Against this it is indicated that mode of production and relations of production are unconditionally two separate categories in Marx (which does not eliminate their intimate dialectical connection [Zusammengehörigkeit]) and that according to the materialist conception of history, the mode of production is the determinant moment, from which the character [Art] and changes in the relations of production are derived [ableitet].Die Stellung Bucharins unterscheidet sich von derjenigen der Vorgenannten in einer Reihe von Punkten. (Siehe Wittfogel, Geopolitik usw., S. 733 Ann.) Doch hat gerade auch er über seiner Untersuchung der einzelnen Elemente des Produktionsprozesses die Präzisierung des Begriffes der Produktionsweise vernachlässigt (Theorie des historischen Materialismus, deutsch, Hahnburg 1921, vor allem S. 121 ff.).

The mode of production is the unity of material [sachlich] and personal [persönlich] productive forces in the whole concrete process of production of a determinate epoche of society. The mode of production is the method by which socially laboring man obtains his livelihood.Marx, Elend der Philosophie, S. 91, Kapital. I, S. 48 Ann. Naturally they can only obtain their livelihood by social labor. Organization and qualification of human labor power solely depend on the “objective organs” of labor—to give up this idea is to give up Marx’s materialism on a decisive point.Marx, Theorien über den Mehrwert. 4. Aufl. Stuttgart 1921, S. 353.

The “theory of the determination of labor-organization by the means of production”Brief Marxens an Engels vom 7. Juli 1866. Briefwechsel, Ausg. Rjazanov. Gesamtausgabe, III. Abtlg., Bd. III. Berlin 1930, S. 345. Hervorhebung im Original. was upheld with the same insistence [Entschiedenheit] by both the “young” Marx and the Marx of Theories of Surplus Value and Capital.Elend der Philosophie, S. 91, 97 und 117. Für den »späten« Marx vgl. Wittfogel, Geopolitik, a. a. O. S. 121 Anm. Wanting to ignore the repercussions [Rückwirking] that transfer from the personal side to the objective side would certainly be undialectical, but it would distort the basic materialist relation if one were to—in (justified) defense against the technicist viewpoint—explain, simply and without emphasizing the primary causal connection between the different elements of production (technical and otherwise)Die »drei konstitutiven Elemente des Arbeitsprozesses« sind nach Cunow: Arbeitskraft, Natur und Technik. (Die Marxsche Geschichts-... theorie, II, S. 163.) Daß sich diese Formel nicht mit derjenigen Marxens über die einfachen Elemente des Arbeitsprozesses deckt und daß sie zugleich sachlich unrichtig ist, haben wir in unserem mehrfach erwähnten Aufsatz nachgewiesen. (Geopolitik usw. S. 507 ff.), that “they mutually condition and influence one another.”Cunow a. a. O. II, S. 165. The mode of production is “the real process of production,”Marx und Engels über Feuerbach, S. 259. i.e. the totality of the essential elements of the respective “metabolism” of man and nature, emphasizing the material side of the process, which, according to Hegel, Marx, and Lenin, is totally conditioned by external conditions, by the mechanical-chemical laws of nature.

In the concept of the mode of production—however necessary the inclusion of the social moment might be—the relation of socially laboring man to nature stands in the foreground. In the concept of the relations of production—however strongly the technical, nature-bound side must be followed—the social side of the matter stands in the foreground. The former is the determinant, the latter is the determined.

The concept of the material mode of production in the system of Marxian historical analysis occupies such a central position for this reason. In Marx’s decisive formulations, the relation of socially laboring man to nature always comes first, followed by that of men to one another. The mode of production is fixed first. The respective determinate relations of production “correspond” to it. In The German Ideology, “one aspect of human activity, the reshaping of nature by men,” is handled first. “The other aspect, the reshaping of men by men,” follows thereafter.Ebendort S. 254. Within “the real process of production,” there is “a historically created relation to nature and of individuals to one another.”Ebendort S. 259. In Capital, this means that: “…the aggregate of these relations, in which the agents of this production stand with respect to Nature and to one another, and in which they produce, is precisely society, considered from the standpoint of its economic structure”Kapital III, 2, S. 353.

Regarding the connection of the mode of production to the relations of production (in which it is to be noted that the latter can be taken in a narrower or broader sense): “…in changing their mode of production, in changing the way of earning their living, they change all their social relations.”Elend der Philosophie, S. 91. (Relations of production in the broader sense.) “The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of […] social life”Vorwort zur Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie, LV. (Ditto). “In the paper industry generally, we may advantageously study in detail not only the distinctions between modes of production based on different means of production, but also the connection between the social relations of production and those modes of production.”Kapital, I, S. 345. “By means of machinery, chemical processes and other methods, it [the bourgeoisie -K. A. W.] is continually transforming not only the technical basis of production but also the functions of the worker and the social combinations of the labour process.”Ebendort S. 452. “The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society.”Ebendort S. 452. Zitiert aus dem »Kommunistischen Manifest«. (Vgl. dieses, Ausgabe Duncker, Berlin 1923, S. 24.) (Here: relations of production in the narrower and broader sense.) “…The conditions of production of his labour, i.e. his mode of production, and the labour process itself (!), must be revolutionized.”Kapital, I, S. 278. “…The production of relative surplus-value completely revolutionizes the technical processes of labour and the groupings into which society is divided.”Ebendort S. 474. “…A difference between two social modes of production and the social arrangements corresponding to them is involved…”Kapital, III, 2, S. 134. “The bourgeois mode of production and the relations of production that correspond to it…”Theorien über den Mehrwert, III, S. 492. “With the constant upheavals in the mode of production, hence (!) in the relations of production, relations of exchange, and mode of living…”Ebendort S. 513.

We could continue repeating similar formulations—the first volume of Capital offers a cornucopia—for longer still. But the principle, as well as the philological side of the question, should be clear. Marx, the dialectical materialist, saw the social labor process as proceeding in dependence upon its ultimate substrate, i.e. nature. This is where it is decided whether and in what direction changes in the labor process come about. Hence, the significance [definition?] of naturally conditioned productive forces. Hence the significance of the mode of production as the unity of all the productive forces, both the active, social side and the passive, direction-giving, natural side. No free will. No arbitrary choice [Willkür] in the development of material production. It is this, his materialist intransigence, that prompted Marx to designate the great epochs of production as the great historical modes of production (and not relations of production).

The labor-technical structure [Gliederung] of an epoch, that is its material foundation. It is out of this [foundation] that the basic structure of society grows. The famous formula found in The Poverty of Philosophy (“The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill society with the industrial capitalist”Elend der Philosophie, S. 91.) may emphasize the individual means of production too strongly; the Marx of Capital, using a different starting point, may argue that it is the multiplicity of material conditions of production that is decisive, not an individual moment;Kapital, I, S. 478. but this does not mean that one moment cannot play a particularly important role. The core materialist thought is not destroyed through these and similar, later remarks, rather only refined and made firm.

“It is not what is made but how, and by what instruments of labour, that distinguishes different economic epochs.”Ebendort S. 142. This thesis stands in the center of Marx’s magnum opus, the first volume of Capital. Since Marx included natural means of labor in [the category of] unproductive means of labor, he could assert his thesis without any “clarifying” additions of the kind that Kautsky believed he had to add to the apology for his poorly understood [version of] Marx.Kautsky, Ethik und materialistische Geschichtsauffassung, 6. und 7. Tausend, Stuttgart 1910, S. 113—117. Vgl. auch die Abschwächungen, die Kautsky in seinem Alterswerk über den historischen Materialismus macht (a. a. O. I, S. 741). Einer klaren Stellungnahme zu den entscheidenden Thesen Marxens wird in beiden Fällen aus dem Wege gegangen. Daß Kautsky im Grunde der Meinung war, Marxens Auffassung sei eine technizistische, läßt sich aus dem Umstände schließen, daß er in seinem Vorwort zu Gorters Schrift über den historischen Materialismus (deutsch, Stuttgart 1919) mit keinem Worte gegen Gorters technizistische Darstellung des historischen Materialismus Verwahrung einlegt. Gegen die Gleichsetzung von Produktionsweise und Technik, wie sie sich bei Gorter findet, hat Cunow mit Recht Einspruch erhoben (a. a. O. II, S. 224). In this context [Zusammenhang], we once again recall [vergegenwärtige] Marx’s observations about the “difference between different modes of production based on different means of production” with the significant addition: “the connection between the social relations of production and those modes of production” (I, S. 345). The structure of the contemporaneously [jeweils] active productive forces as a whole determines the economic structure of a historical epoch. This structure, however, is unified [faßt sich … zusammen] in the mode of production.

An economic-historical analysis that does not undermine the power—which is always emphasized even by non-Marxists—of Marx’s scientific tools,Wir erinnern an Max Webers Hinweis auf »die eminente, ja einzigartige heuristische Bedeutung« aller »spezifisch-marxistischen Gesetze« und Entwicklungskonstruktionen, deren idealtypische Auslegung durch M. Weber hier nicht diskutiert werden soll (M. Weber, Die »Objektivität« sozialwissenschaftlicher und sozialpolitischer Erkenntnis. Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre, Tübingen 1922, S. 205). Wir erinnern an Troeltschs Annäherung an die Grundformel des historischen Materialismus (Der Historismus und seine Probleme, Tübingen 1922, etwa S. 344 ff. und 756). Wir erinnern schließlich an Sombarts Vorwort zum III. Bande seines »Modernen Kapitalismus« (München-Leipzig 1928), wo Sombart erklärt: »Mit seiner genialen Fragestellung hat er (Marx) der ökonomischen Wissenschaft für ein Jahrhundert die Wege fruchtbarer Forschung gewiesen. Alle Sozialökonomen, die sich diese Fragestellung nicht zu eigen zu machen wußten, waren zur Unfruchtbarkeit verdammt, wie wir heute schon mit Sicherheit feststellen können« (III, I, S. XIX). but rather makes full use of them, cannot be satisfied with the approach [centered around the] relations of production. The mode of production must first be laid bare. So long as this path is not taken, we lack a true Marxist procedure, and instead only have an approximation at best.

First of all, the mode of production! Within it, however, the naturally conditioned element of the productive forces must be fully illuminated. “All historical writing must set out from these natural bases and their modification in the course of history through the action of men.”Marx und Engels über Feuerbach, S. 237 ff. Will shall see what this means for the concrete construction of an economic-social history of man.

3. Stagnation and Development in Humanity’s Material Production S. 481-486.

The present state of the study of races [Rassenforschung] requires us to desist from any analysis of the economic effects of that which Marx dubbed subjective natural determinacyEinleitung zu einer Kritik der politischen Ökonomie. (Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, S. XLVII.) Für weitere Äußerungen von Marx und Engels über die Frage siehe: Wittfogel, Geopolitik usw., S. 509 ff. [subjektive Naturbestimmtheit]. Concrete economic-historical investigation shows that the significance of this moment—which is in no way fixed and unmodifiable—is thoroughly undercut by the effects of objective natural conditions, so an approach that (by necessity) has to disregard the former moment can proceed without leaving open major sources of error.Vgl. Wittfogel, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Chinas., Bd. I., Leipzig 1931. »Die anthropologischen Grundlagen«, S. 8—21; ferner: »Die Qualifikation der chinesischen Arbeitskraft«, S. 132—152.

So much more pressing is the question concerning the ‘whether’ and ‘why’ of the changes in objective nature during the course of history. Kautsky claims in his late work that “the meaning of technology and economy for the historical process is more decisive than that of nature.” Those moments would therefore be “more important for humanity … than these [i.e. nature],” because “those that form the variable element in the human environment, whereas nature, in contrast to human society, represented a relatively constant, unalterable element.”Kautsky, Die materialistische Geschichtsauffassung, I, S. 866 ff. Ähnlich argumentiert auch Bucharin, wenn er erklärt: »Jene Elemente, die an sich in der Natur vorkommen, sind hier mehr oder weniger beständig da. Sie können daher die Veränderungen nicht erklären« (Theorie des historischen Materialismus, S. 133). It is this fixed conception of the relation between man and nature that either leads to a mechanical naturalism»Die naturalistische Auffassung der Geschichte, wie z. B. mehr oder weniger bei Draper und anderen Naturforschern, als ob die Natur ausschließlich auf den Menschen wirke, die Naturbedingungen überall seine geschichtliche Entwicklung ausschließlich bedingten, ist daher einseitig und vergißt, daß der Mensch auch auf die Natur zurückwirkt, sie verändert, sich neue Existenzbedingungen schafft« (F. Engels, Dialektik und Natur, Marx-Engels-Archiv, II, Frankfurt 1927, S. 165). or, in a false reaction to a false presupposition, to a backslide into an idealistic postulation of free will.Der Technizismus führt, falls nicht die Naturseite im Sinne der oben wiedergegebenen Gedanken Hegels und Lenins doch als das letztlich Bestimmende erkannt wird, seine Anhänger in eine Position, deren notwendige Konsequenz die Annahme der Willensfreiheit ist. Bucharin fühlt das sehr wohl. Nachdem er gesagt hat: »Verändert wird die gesellschaftliche Technik«, fügt er im Nebensatz an: »die sich natürlich an das anpaßt, was in der Natur vorhanden ist« (a. a. O. S. 133). Nebensätze solcher Art sind nun gewiß sehr bezeichnend dafür, daß ein Theoretiker die Unrichtigkeit seiner Position fühlt, doch genügen sie natürlich nicht, die in den Hauptsätzen aufgestellte, den ganzen Gedankengang tragende falsche technizistische These aufzuheben. The dialectical emphasis on the activity of laboring man as well as the reference to the repercussions [Rückwirkung] of this activity on the natural substrate eliminate the apparent weakness. The historically relevant nature in question, which scarcely changes in the course of human history without human intervention, nevertheless does not simply become, as Kautsky says, ever more manipulable by more developed technology.Kautsky a. a. O. S. 869. [Rather,] nature itself changes in the process of [its] interplay with socially laboring man. And so Feuerbach, according to Marx and Engels’ polemic that just as easily could have been directed at Kautsky, “[did] not see that the sensuous world around him is not a thing given direct from all eternity, remaining ever the same, but the product of industry and of the state of society.”Marx und Engels über Feuerbach, Marx-Engels-Archiv, I, S. 242.

Industry and the state of society “produce” the natural environment in a twofold manner, firstly through transformation, secondly through the actualization [Aktualisierung] of essential aspects of nature.Über die Stellung von Marx und Engels zu diesem Problem werden wir an anderer Stelle eingehender sprechen. Man vergleiche zunächst außer den in den vorhergehenden Anmerkungen namhaft gemachten Ausspruchen die wichtigen prinzipiellen Äußerungen Markens in seinem Brief an Engels vom 3. Oktober 1866 (Briefwechsel, Ausgabe Rjazanov, III, S. 361). Hier wird speziell auch das Moment der Aktualisierung hervorgehoben. Die Termini »Transformierung« und »Aktualisierung« zur Kennzeichnung der beiden wesentlichen Formen der Änderung der Natur im Geschichtsverlauf stammen von uns. There is a distinction between the two forms of change, a distinction that does not eliminate the frequent (but not necessary) connection between them. Transformation of nature is the immediate result of the labor-activity of productive man: creation of an artificial steppe, artificial swamps (irrigation), cultivation of specific types of animals and plants (and the extermination of others), creation of new waterways, depletion of farmland or natural resources, fabrication of an artificial climate, etc., etc. Actualization (or de-actualization) of specific parts or properties of nature includes moments that take on relevance to man as a result of a change of standpoint [Standpunkänderung] occurring in the labor process, or which cease to be important for the process of production on these grounds. Accordingly, there can be no talk of those moments in nature that are essential for the human labor process remaining ever the same. In [certain] periods of history, nature (the cosmos) may undergo relatively little change in its total structure. In relation to socially laboring man, [nature] changes in a radical way [only] insofar as development occurs.

Insofar as development occurs. Indeed, there is no actualization of new naturally conditioned productive forces without a preceding transformation of elements of nature. The reverse does not hold true. Not every transformation leads to actualization of new moments of nature. The great problem of stationary economic orders emerges here. Australia, Africa, the East Indies, the great oriental cultural zone—all these historical complexes show us organisms of production, which, after a [period] of more or less prosperous development and with certain exceptions got into a position in which they still transformed [nature], but actualized no or almost no essentially new elements of nature. A universal economic history of humanity will have to assert that the greater part of the earth’s population belongs to a stationary sphere of life [Lebenskreis] (or belonged to one, in any case). These stagnating organisms of production were first propelled into new development by the only place where a breakthrough into industrial capitalism took place, Europe. Thus, it falls to economic history to explain not merely the development of different economic complexes, but also the incidents of halted development, of stagnation, which are no less important for the full historical picture.

Not every transformation of natural matter into human use-value leads to the exploitation of new natural forces or makes new aspects of nature relevant [aktuell] for the labor process. Without the social process of production, whatever stage it may achieve, there is no actualization. Labor alone, however, is not sufficient. Labor must contain the possibility of a corresponding novel kind of activity [Betätigung]. Where this does not obtain, the process of production remains in the same spot. [In this case, then,] there is no development, merely repetition. Historically seen, there is stagnation.

A unit of social life [gesellschaftliche Lebenseinheit] reaches a determinate stage of production: that of hunting and gathering, animal husbandry, agriculture. The beginning of activity in a new mode of production obviously cannot be one of complete utilization; a period of maturation follows. Either this maturation is realized in such a way that it merely advances to the exploitation of qualitatively similar elements and thus the quantitative advance does not reach the threshold of a novel quale [Quale]. This is the process that Müller-Lyer has given the name “lateral development.”F. Müller-Lyer, Die Zähmung der Normen, I, München 1918, S. 224 ff. Das Problem des Zusammenhanges — oder eines eventuellen Nichtzusammenhangs — zwischen Transformierung und Aktualisierung in dem von uns behandelten Sinne hat Müller-Lyer jedoch nicht gesehen, jedenfalls nicht in begrifflich klarer und seine Analyse leitender Weise Or, the [process of] maturation makes the transition to essentially new elements possible. We could call this “vertical development,” a [kind of] development in the strict and genuine sense. In the second case, it succeeds in putting new natural forces in the service of production, be it the ability to produce animals and plants or mechanical or chemical properties of industrially useful materials. But, when is this not possible?

I. The process of maturation stays stuck—and this goes for any stage [of development]—in lateral development because new naturally conditioned productive forces, on the basis of which the social productive forces could develop, are not available.

II. Alternatively, new natural forces are available, but they were ‘tapped’ [erschlossen] under different circumstances [and under] another mode of production. [This] shows that they [the natural forces] cannot be actualized due to [the] totally determined structure of the productive forces of the achieved mode of production. This may (A) be grounded in the structure of the heretofore dominant kind of production [Produktionsart] itself (e.g. in the particularities of the slave-driven agricultural economy of late antiquity) or it may (B) have its cause in the specific antagonistic relations between the heretofore dominant and emerging spheres of production (a problem in the development of industrial capitalism in the womb of the great agrarian societies of Asia). Concrete historical research will have to determine which of these cases (I or II; A or B) it is dealing with.

The metabolic process of historically determined social labor leads, in its transformation of nature, to the exploitation of new sides (properties) of nature, and if the qualitatively novel [element] is, firstly, essential for the modification of the labor process, and if it is, secondly, available not only haphazardly, but rather in general extent, then a new view of nature results for man, who is stimulated to new needs and sees new possibilities for production and consumption. Nature shows itself to man “from a new side.” After primitive groups took hold of fire, whether this was the result of a lightning strike, flowing lava, or, less possibly, an unforeseen side effect of drilling activityK. Weule, Die Kultur der Kulturlosen, 15. Aufl., Stuttgart 1921, S. 56 ff. H. Klaatsch, Der Werdegang der Menschheit und die Entstehung der Kultur, 2. Aufl., Berlin usw. 1922, S. 96 ff. K. von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvölkern Zentralbrasiliens, 2. Aufl., Berlin 1897, S. 212 ff. Auch wenn die Zähnung des Feuers nicht unmittelbar aus dem Produktionsprozeß hervorgewachsen sein sollte, wie das die Kuhnsche Theorie annahm, bleibt die Tatsache bestehen, daß das Feuer erst auf einer ganz bestimmten Stufe der gesellschaftlichen Produktion für den Menschen aktuell geworden ist. Die Einbeziehung des Feuers ist unbedingt als Akt der Ausreifung der vorher erreichten Produktionsweise anzusehen. [e.g. with a bow drill -J.E.M.], wholly new aspects of nature—wood as fuel, certain constellations of terrain protecting fires—became relevant [aktuell].

After certain activities of a maturing hunter-gatherer economy [Sammelwirtschaft]—stockpiling, for example—led to understanding the possibility of conscious reproduction of useful plants, moments which were heretofore more or less irrelevant to man [working in the] new style of production (soil quality, the cultivability of certain plants) came to the foreground of his interests, his transformative social labor. The same procedure is repeated in the transition to animal husbandry, to artificial irrigation. Primitive tillage grows into use of the water supply. Success stabilizes need. From this point in time onwards, the structure of nature is revolutionized (not “in itself,” but for the [purposes] of laboring man at this stage). Rain, waterways, wind systems, and groundwater now take on a startlingly new utility for the sphere of life [Lebenskreis] of agricultural producers. A stream, which was previously taken as something neutral if not hostile, is now sought after, carefully observed, and taken into service. The actualization of rivers and seas for water transportation is one of the few significant examples in economic and cultural geography to emerge from the “sphere of commerce.” The maturation of textile work up to the point of wool spinning and weaving did not only depend on certain species of animals, but also on the land appropriate for their reproduction. The history of England and Spain shows what this actualization of arable land as sheep-runs could mean economically. The industrial history of the last century is the history of the general actualization of coal and a partial de- and re-actualization of iron (England) in connection with the decline of wood smelting and transition to coal-based ironworking. The maturation of mechanical-electrical energy production has made moving water relevant (watermills), irrelevant (steam engines), and relevant once again ([hydroelectric] turbines). Thus nothing is more false than the claim that nature stays ever the same, a constant factor, in the course of economic history. It changes, at least in simple ways, and even in multifaceted ways as development occurs. The fundamental relation is newly shaped by these changes stemming from the activity of laboring man, but is never abolished. No free will, not even for technically, productively active man. He may transform the landscape on his journey through the mountains. He may confront new tasks and prospects with every step of the path blasted into the cliffs. [But,] his path must adapt to the “passive” structure of the mountain. And he takes flight not from [the power of] his free will, but in compliance with new, deeper, and more complicated structural laws of nature. That is the dialectical, materialist theory of the Marxian conception of history.Der Kulturgeograph muß, wo er konkret denkt, dieser Konzeption sich anschließen. So betont Ratzel mit allem Recht, “daß der Unterschied zwischen Natur- und Kulturvolk nicht in dem Grade, sondern in der Art dieses Zusammenhangs mit der Natur zu suchen ist. Die Kultur ist Naturfreiheit nicht im Sinne der völligen Loslösung, sondern in dem der vielfältigen weiteren und breiteren Verbindung . . . Wir werden nicht von der Natur im ganzen freier, indem wir sie eingehender ausbeuten ud studieren, wir machen uns nur von einzelnen Zufällen vervielfältigen” (Anthropogeographie, 4. Aufl. Stuttgart 1921, I, S. 41). Unsere hier bekundete Übereinstemmuing mit einem Gedanken Ratzels schließt eine kirtische Stellungnahme zu seinem geschichtsphilosphischen Gesamtsystem nicht aus (Vgl. Wittfogel, Geopolitik usw. S. 26 ff.).