K a r l M arx and Philosophical M aterialism

41

T he theoretical attempt to ensure that no man in the

world should suffer material or intellectual need any longer
is something which does not need any metaphysical
ultimate justification. Critical materialism disdains to
continue the tradition o f mere philosophizing by investi
gating the riddles o f the world or, with, unflinching
radicalism, putting itself continually in question in the
style o f modern ontology. Its intellectual construction was
undertaken by finite men and grew out o f the definite histor
ical tasks o f society. Its aim is to help men out o f their selfmade prison o f uncomprehended economic determination.
Although the materialist theory seeks out the social
bases o f even the most delicate ,cultural artefacts, it is still
far from being the positive world view1 which is made out
o f it today in communist countries. Basically it is a unified
critical judgment on previous history, to the effect that men
have allowed themselves to be degraded into objects o f the
blind and mechanical process o f its economic dynamic.
Ernst Bloch is therefore right to say that so far no human
life has existed, but only an economic life which has
driven men, turned them away from their true selves,
and made them into slaves and exploiters.7* Econom ic
factors are as sharply emphasized by the theory as by social
reality itself. However neither the economy nor the prole
tariat was for M arx a metaphysical principle o f explanation.
T h e economy was to be brought back again from its allpowerful position to a subordinate role. The m aterialist
character o f M arxist theory does not amount to a confession
o f the incurable prim acy o f the economy, that anti-human
abstraction achieved by the real situation. It is rather an
attempt to direct mens attention towards the ghostly
internal logic o f their own conditions, towards this pseudophysis that makes them commodities and at the same tim e
provides the ideology according to which they are already
in control o f their own destinies.
Horkheimer characterized the anarchy o f capitalist pro
duction in the following way;
T h e process is accom plished not under the control o f a conscious w ifl
but as a natural occurrence. Everyday life results blindly, accidentally,
and badlyfrom the chaotic activity ofindividuals, industries and states.74