What follows? It has been tacitly assumed, throughout Vol ume I., that, apart from temporary marked deviations due to supply and demand, all commodities tend to sell at their value. But it now appears that they do not. They sell at prices which will yield to each capitalist the appropriate profit, and owing to the differing "compositions" of the various capitals employed, as between "constant" and "variable" capital, these prices cannot coincide with the values determined by the amount of abstract labour incorporated in each commodity. Marx's "value," unlike that of the orthodox economists, thus turns out to have no nec essary relation to the price of any particular commodity, but to be a property intrinsic to the commodity and wholly distinct from its market price. On this showing, much of the criticism directed against Marx's theory of value is irrelevant ; for it has been largely based on the assumption that "value" is equivalent to "normal price." And Marx himself appears to assume this in the first volume.
Marx's explanation would probably have been that, throughout Capital, he is dealing, not with the actual phenomena of any particular capitalist society, but with the abstract and unquali fied working of a pure capitalist system treated as a unified whole. In this rarified atmosphere, all labourers are one huge exploited class, all capitalists one exploiting class, all values one unified social value. The divergence between particular values and prices does not arise, because the totals of all values and all prices, in which alone the abstract working of the system can be seen, necessarily coincide. The values of particular com modities can no more be separately determined than the contribu tion of any individual labourer to their production. It is only in the total system that the working of the social process can be clearly seen. This point is of vital importance to the under standing of the highly abstract method followed throughout the first two volumes of Capital. The third, put together by Engels of ter Marx's death from scattered notes, is not wholly in the same vein. It of ten comes far nearer to a discussion of concrete phenomena.
We have seen that Marx represents the State as a part of the political superstructure whose form is, in the long run, governed by the character of the productive forces. Its function is to uphold the dominant productive system, and the social relation ships which are essential for its working. It is "an executive committee for managing the affairs of the governing class as a whole." Accordingly, when a new governing class is brought to power by a revolution in the productive forces, it becomes neces sary for the new class to re-make the State in its own image. It cannot simply take over the State from its old masters, and use it for its own ends; for it will not be adapted for those ends. It must smash the old State, and make a new one for itself. It is
on this part of Marx's doctrine that the modern Communists base their policy, quoting in support of their views Marx's famous discussion of the Paris Commune of 1871, first issued as a mani festo of the International Working Men's Association, and now known as The Civil War in France. On the other hand, the Social Democrats of Germany, and indeed most European Socialist Parties, profess to be Marxist, and yet work for the constitutional conquest of political power by peaceful capture of the existing State machine. They mean to modify the machine, but not to smash it or build up a new State on a purely pro letarian foundation.
The doctrine of the "dictatorship of the proletariat," empha sized by the modern Communists, is based directly on Marx's theory of the State. The dictatorship is the means by which the proletariat makes, and exerts the authority of, a new State of its own. But this stage is conceived as purely transitional. The dictatorial proletarian State is a necessary instrument for the crushing of counter-revolution and the firm establishment of the new order. But, when once this is accomplished, the need for it disappears. There is no longer a proletariat to dictate ; for ex ploitation has been abolished, and all classes are merged in one. The apocalyptic vision of the closing chapter of Volume I. of Capital has come true. The State, in Lenin's phrase, "withers away": the problem of government is replaced by that of social administration in a classless society in which all economic antag onisms have been resolved. Thus Marxian socialism, like all socialism, ends in the proclamation of a Utopia. But this Utopia is not, for Marx, the end ; it is the opening of a new chapter in the record of mankind. At this point, with the final disap pearance of class distinctions and the exploitation of man by man, "pre-history ends, and history begins." No attempt has been made in this article to criticise or evalu ate the Marxian doctrine as a whole. It has been confined to an attempt to state clearly the main outlines of the Marxian system, in so far as this is possible in face of the incompleteness of Marx's published work. In the note below, mention has been made of books both favourable and unfavourable to the Marxian stand point. (G. D. H. C.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.—LivEs--by F. Mehring (in German—English trans lation announced), by John Spargo (Iwo), and (slight but good) by Max Beer (Life and Teaching of Karl Marx 1921). Additional matter in D. Riazanov, Marx and Engels (1927) ; W. Liebknecht, Karl Marx, Biographical Memoirs (Eng. tr. 1901) and Engels' account of Marx in the Handbuch der Staatswissenschaften. BooKs oN MARXISM—K. Kautsky, The Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx (and many other works) ; A. D. Lindsay, Karl Marx's "Capital"; H. J. Laski, Com munism; Bohm-Bawerk, Karl Marx and the Close of his System (reply by R. Hiliferding) ; H. W. B. Joseph, Marx's Theory of Value; J. Borchardt, The People's Marx; E. Aveling, The Student's Marx; A. Loria, Karl Marx; B. Croce, Historical Materialism and the Economics of Karl Marx; N. Lenin, The State and Revolution; L. B. Boudin, Theoretical System of Karl Marx; M. Eastman, Marx, Lenin and Revolution.