nm0089: well good morning everybody [0.2] er [1.4] last year i volunteered or 
was volunteered to give this lecture because somebody was on leave that 
somebody's come back and apparently i'm still giving the lecture i don't know 
how that happened but [0.5] here i am [0.6] and what i'm going to talk about is 
Marxism [0.2] er and Marxist historiography since Marx [0.6] linking up with 
what namex said last week [0.7] and [0.2] i think one of the points that [0.6] 
er is very important about Marx is that Marx's ideas and i i think namex 
mentioned this last week [0.8] are a sort of unique fusion of [0.3] two 
separate categories of thinking [0.6] first of all [0.2] there is a strongly 
philosophical element to Marx [0.5] Marx's ideas [0.2] developed er [0.3] as 
philosophical ideas in the first place [0.8] and [0.3] it was [0.5] once he'd 
kind of developed a er a philosophical view of the world based on Hegel and 
other er thinkers of early nineteenth century Germany [0.6] he then [0.3] er [0.
4] began to observe the realities of capitalist society around him and this 
led to the second layer of his thought [0.4] the kind of empirical [0.3] 
practical [0.3] pragmatic [0.2] understanding of the society in which he lived 
[0.8] now any aspect of Marxist thought has got these two things [0.4] closely 
infused together [0.8] and [0.2] this makes it rather exceptional [0.7] if you 
go back before Marx [0.5] you had philosophers i mentioned Hegel Kant and 
others who were not social analysts [0.6] and you had people who were social 
analysts Montesquieu [0.3] er Adam Smith [0.5] who were not in the true sense 
philosophers i'm not saying they didn't have ideas but they didn't have this 
fusion [0.6] and many people have argued that [0.2] er Marx came to his 
conclusions philosophically [0.4] and then used the world around him to justify 
them [0.5] and there's a very er the linkage between them i think is brought 
out by this perhaps the most famous quotation of from Marx from eighteen-forty-
eight from his thesis on Feuerbach [0.8] where he argues that philosophers have 
only interpreted the world [0.4] the point is to change it [1.2] so [0.2] for 
Marx [0.6] er understanding was simply [0.3] a 
preliminary step [0.5] to action and to changing things [0.7] and [0.3] it 
follows from this that for a Marxist history is as i've said at the bottom [0.
4] it's about analysing the present as well as the past [0.5] with a view [0.5] 
er [0.2] to changing the future not necessarily foretelling the future [0.4] 
but changing the future [1.0] now [0.2] it's with this background in mind that 
i want to talk particularly [0.4] about [0.2] two aspects really following from 
this [0.4] the way that Marxist ideas developed [0.5] and to jump in from time 
to time to talk about the way [0.4] that development of Marxist philosophy [0.
4] began [0.2] to affect the way they looked at history because that's our main 
concern here is the historiography of all this [1.4] now [0.8] the [2.2] 
question [0.4] which arose [0.3] almost [0.3] p-, er [0.5] permanently [0.7] in 
people's minds after Marx [0.7] was the question of [0.3] why [0.2] was it [1.
0] that the revolution that he'd predicted [0.4] had not come about [2.8] and 
[0.5] in many ways the philosophical responses and the other responses to Marx 
[0.4] er [0.6] in the late nineteenth century are answers to this question and 
stro-, and on into the [0.3] 
twentieth century as well [1.1] and [0.5] the first stage in this process 
really [0.5] was one which began [0.6] with [0.2] not Marx himself so much but 
Engels [0.7] and the person who became the leading figure [0.5] in Marxist 
philosophy after [0.7] er after Marx [0.3] Karl Kautsky the leader of the s-, 
German Social Democratic Party [1.0] it's famous [0.2] famously [0.2] er [0.2] 
quoted everywhere that Marx said [0.7] in the latter part of his life as for me 
[0.5] i am not a Marxist [0.7] er and if that phrase meant anything it meant 
that the kind of [0.5] processes which were going on with Marx's ideas towards 
the end of his life [0.5] and certainly after his death in eighteen-eighty-one 
[0.4] were ones which er [0.2] w-, which [1.0] er [0.6] were [1.3] not [0.4] er 
in his view [0.2] following up [0.2] the main i-, the main er essence of his 
ideas in particular [0.7] there were attempts to turn his ideas into systems 
into rules into laws [0.4] they were becoming in the context of the time much 
more positivistic [0.5] er and they turned into what some people have called [0.
2] vulgar Marxism [0.4] er a very crude form of historical materialism [0.5] 
and Kautsky [0.2] 
very much er [0.3] f-, pushes forward this [0.4] er concept of vulgar Marxism 
and of scientific Marxism [0.8] if we look at some of the major features [0.3] 
of that sort [0.3] er of vulgar Marxism or s-, or or or [0.6] er [1.0] this 
attempt to turn into a set of dogmas essentially [1.0] the [0.5] starting point 
for most versions of it was the economic er interpretation of history [0.6] 
economics is the fundamental [0.3] aspect of history [0.5] everything arises [0.
2] er or can be explained in terms of economic conjunctures economic 
development [0.5] er and and economic base [0.8] er and that [0.2] there is [0.
2] er in this interpretation i'll come on to that in a moment [0.5] er [0.3] er 
a model of base and superstructure but the economic interpretation argued the 
fundamental factor on which all other fac-, social factors depended [0.4] was 
[0.3] er [0.4] economy particularly the means of production [0.5] er [0.3] and 
ownership of it the means of production in different societies being land [0.6] 
in feudal society machines and industrial society [0.4] capital and labour [0.
4] er capital in capitalist society labour in in a number of other societies as 
well [0.4] and 
the way in which those means of production were organized and particularly who 
owned them hence the basis [0.3] of class because classes were divided into 
those people who owned these means of production [0.5] and those people who 
were employed to work these means of production [0.4] er in Marx's terminology 
in in a capitalist society [0.4] er the bourgeoisie and the proletariat [1.0] 
so [0.2] vulgar [0.2] er [0.2] Marxists [0.5] argued very strongly for the 
economic [0.3] er determination of society and this led [0.6] er [0.3] some and 
many of the tendencies continued in the twentieth century in fact in some ways 
Stalin is one of the [0.5] er [0.3] leading exponents of this particular 
version and crude [0.4] Marxism as it was developed in the Soviet Union in the 
nineteen late twenties and thirties [0.6] that [0.4] society has a kind of 
basis and a superstructure [0.6] the economy is the basis [0.3] the 
superstructure is everything that's built on it social forms [0.4] but not just 
social forms [0.3] also ideas cultural phenomena [0.5] er law [0.4] er religion 
[0.5] er [0.3] what we're doing today [0.2] er higher education whatever it 
happens 
to be [0.3] all these things arise in this very crude interpretation [0.4] from 
economic er economic er [0.3] economic er origins [0.7] and associated with 
this [0.5] er [0.3] is [0.2] a stress [0.2] on [0.5] the on [0.2] class 
interest [0.2] and class struggle [3.3] and the idea of historical laws and 
historical inevitability [0.5] er in other words er [0.3] the [0.2] version of 
Marxism which is most often criticized by people who don't know much about Marx 
himself [0.4] is often this particular version of Marxism this [0.4] er [0.2] 
version of Marxism which possibly Marx had in mind when he said he wasn't 
himself a Marxist [0.4] but the first stage of development of Marxist ideas [0.
5] brings it into this rather [0.2] er schematic [0.4] positivist influenced [0.
4] er [0.2] rule based idea of [0.2] controlling history [0.3] history working 
directly through laws [0.3] and those laws being readily [0.3] perceptible [0.
2] er and readily er understandable [1.0] now [0.6] er [0.8] that [0.9] 
interpretation [0.8] doesn't satisfy everybody on a number of grounds [0.7] and 
as i've said the key question in people's minds was why had there not been [0.
3] a revolution of the Marxist kind [0.6] and the first [0.3] 
bold effort [0.3] to try to [0.4] answer this question er was put was was one 
[0.3] associated with [0.2] er the name Eduard Bernstein [0.4] in late [0.3] er 
nineteenth er he developed these ideas in late nineteenth er [0.4] early 
twentieth century [0.4] er Britain actually although he was German h-, er er 
his British experiences [0.4] meant a great deal to him [0.5] and he began to 
argue that there were some fundamental flaws he didn't actually challenge the 
[0.2] positivistic element so much he challenged [0.4] the working out of some 
of those rules that we were looking at [0.4] and he argued that [0.2] in actual 
fact the the laws as they were understood by Kautsky and orthodox Marxists [0.
5] the laws of capitalist development [0.3] were mistaken [0.9] hence his ideas 
are often referred to as revisionism [0.6] instead he argued [0.5] that [0.7] 
first of all [0.3] the class [0.4] idea that Marx had and i think that [0.6] er 
[0.2] that [0.2] er [1.0] namex emphasized last week let me just take that it's 
probably easier if i just take that completely off there [0.7] er [0.3] that [0.
3] all that [0.3] classes will polarize [0.4] the middle class will disappear 
the 
proletariat will sink into penury [0.3] the peasantry will th-, will disappear 
the petit bourgeoisie will disappear under capitalism [0.3] and everything will 
move out into [0.3] a wide range of of of polarized classes [0.3] according to 
Bernstein this was not happening [0.5] and he argued that the middle class 
doesn't disappear in fact the middle class is the s-, is the class which is 
expanding most rapidly [0.5] in Britain in the late n-, nineteenth and early 
twentieth century [0.3] so far from polarizing and disappearing into a a class 
struggle [0.3] between the impoverished [0.2] and the super rich which is the 
crude interpretation of Marx [0.5] er the [0.6] development of capitalism [0.2] 
was moving in a different direction [0.4] and er the er [0.6] lower classes 
were not disappearing [0.4] and the reason for this was that ownership of 
capital ownership of the means of production was not as Marx thought polarizing 
[0.4] through competition driving [0.3] poor er er sec-, er [0.6] er failed 
producers out of the market [0.4] and creating a smaller and smaller number of 
big [0.2] er [0.2] successful producers [0.6] er whether it be in 
agriculture or in industry [0.9] so instead [0.5] er Bernstein argued the 
middle class was getting broader [0.6] the working class was actually getting 
richer [0.7] its wages were improving [0.3] it was owning more [0.4] the petit 
bourgeoisie [0.4] small land owners in particular market gardeners that kind of 
person were becoming more rather than less numerous [0.4] and even shareholding 
was becoming dispersed through society [0.6] so that [0.4] from Bernstein's 
point of view [0.5] er capitalism itself was beginning to evolve [0.5] er a 
kind [0.2] o-, [0.3] would hopefully evolve into a kind of socialism [0.4] 
which could be developed through [0.3] pursuit of reformism [0.3] through [0.2] 
pursuing democracy [0.4] through pursuing [0.3] er [0.5] the [0.2] er current 
paths of capitalist development without revolution [0.7] in other words he saw 
in an optimistic way that capitalism itself was dispersing ownership through 
society and once the ownership was dispersed through society was effectively [0.
4] almost a socialist society [0.6] and that's i think behind that other rather 
mysterious quotation there [0.3] the 
ultimate goal of socialism is nothing to me [0.2] the movement is everything in 
other words [0.4] for him [0.2] the idea of [0.3] future communism or whatever 
er i-, utopian society you had [0.3] was not the crucial thing [0.2] the 
crucial thing was the movement towards it [0.4] er and the ideas that er [0.7] 
the the the [0.6] the the workers movement for reform for change bringing 
people together [0.3] er things like trade unions eventually the Labour Party 
these were all things which were developing [0.3] in a big way in the eighteen-
nineties and around nineteen-hundred in the in Britain [0.2] and he saw that as 
the way forward for the labour movement [0.8] of course you'll realize that 
that is exactly the split which has occurred in [0.2] the socialist movement in 
the twentieth century [0.8] between those who follow the revolutionary path [0.
4] and those who follow this reformist path [0.3] if you like Bernstein is the 
founder of New Labour [0.5] maybe they don't even talk about socialism but the 
[0.3] ultimate goal is nothing to me could certainly be said by er Tony Blair 
[0.5] er [0.3] but the movement is 
everything er [0.4] and the idea that that er th-, i mean the the problem that 
arises from this that socialism is split [0.4] of course has helped [0.2] er [0.
8] to maintain [0.3] socialism as a as as as a [0.7] er an unsuccessful 
movement in most respects in the twentieth century in terms of er [0.2] er in 
terms of what was expected in the late nineteenth century [0.6] however not all 
Marxists were as pessimistic about the future although [0.4] Bernstein i 
wouldn't say is pessimistic [0.5] but they were they were less pessimistic than 
he was about the potential for [0.4] er revolution [0.7] and [0.8] the 
revolutionary side of Marxism [0.5] was given [0.7] a [0.2] new lease of life 
naturally by the Russian Revolution [0.6] er but also by [1.5] some ideas which 
preceded it [0.6] and [0.3] the [0.4] er person [0.4] er who [0.2] engendered a 
number of these ideas [0.5] is [0.2] er Rudolf Hilferding [0.2] a an Austrian 
economist and socialist [0.6] er who himself ended up more of a Bernsteinian 
than a revolutionary [0.8] but [0.9] Hilferding [0.2] as i've said like many 
others was interested in the question why hasn't there been a proletarian 
revolution [0.9] and he argued that in fact what was 
happening under capitalism [0.6] was a massive development [0.2] of [0.7] er 
what he called finance capital that capitalism itself was beginning to change 
[0.7] there were i mean today [0.2] we see a capitalism of giant corporations 
bestriding the globe larger than nation states holding nation states to ransom 
[0.8] hence er the need or the drive to do things like put [0.2] er [0.6] er 
the European Union together to try to combat this by uniting nation states to 
try to control some of these big corporations [0.7] er [0.4] but [0.2] he [0.3] 
er argued that what had happened was that er [0.5] capitalism had changed its 
nature in that in Marx's day [0.5] the owners of capital were usually the 
direct investors of capital [0.5] you invested your own money in what seemed to 
be profitable [0.2] potential businesses [0.7] by the end of the century 
according to Hilferding [0.3] capitalism was now based not on individuals but 
on banks [0.5] and other financial institutions which became gigantic pools [0.
3] lakes [0.5] of anonymous capital [0.7] er as they are today [0.8] er you put 
your [0.2] er [0.6] you put your 
money into the bank or i suppose [0.3] probably your overdraft in most cases [0.
4] but your money goes into the bank [0.5] and [0.2] er what happens to it 
where does it go [0.9] the bank lends people money whose money is it lending 
nobody knows it's a great anonymous pool of capital [0.5] which is not 
controlled by individuals you don't control where that money goes still less if 
you [0.5] have pension funds or [0.4] er [0.3] er other [0.3] er [0.2] 
financial [0.2] er services and so on and so forth [0.6] and that money is [0.
5] is allocated by professionals who don't own the money [0.9] er by [0.4] 
professional financial advisers fina-, financial managers for these 
institutions investment managers and so on and so forth [0.7] and he argued 
that this growth of monopoly capitalism was changing the nature of capitalism 
that it wasn't this was one of the reasons why there were super profits being 
made [0.5] er and so on and so forth [0.5] but this was taken up by some of the 
revolutionaries because he also argued [0.4] perhaps here [0.6] echoing a bit 
of Bernstein that capitalis-, this meant capitalism itself was 
becoming more organized this was a second concept he had organized capitalism 
[0.7] for Marx capitalism was based on the anarchy of the market the in the 
inpr-, unpredictability of the market [0.5] the market was a kind of [0.2] er 
tempestuous ocean [0.4] on which capitalist enterprises had to sink [0.2] or 
swim [0.8] er [0.7] in order to protect themselves from this tempestuous sea [0.
4] capitalism is becoming more and more organized er [0.2] finance capitalism 
is one way it's becoming more organized because this meant that there were 
links [0.5] between big companies [0.3] er and banks and heavy investors [0.6] 
but also [0.2] companies themselves were coming together into monopolies and 
cartels and and doing deals with each other to control the market [0.7] the 
idea that capitalists like markets is laughable capitalists hate markets they 
like to control markets or don't like free markets they like to control markets 
[0.7] and he was pointing to this as a way in which big capital had survived [0.
3] the predictions of Marx that it was changing its nature [0.3] it was 
turning into what we think of as monopoly capitalism [0.5] now the points from 
the revolutionary's poi-, er view [0.4] is that certain revolutionaries Lenin 
in the forefront [0.3] seized on Hilferding's ideas [0.5] as a justification 
for the potential for revolution [0.3] in the face of Bernstein's criticism [0.
4] er and Bernstein's revisionism because [0.5] the conclusion which [0.3] 
Lenin drew from Hilferding's ideas [0.4] of organ-, organized capitalism was 
that here was capitalism [0.4] itself developing institutions [0.4] which [0.2] 
could be taken over [0.7] by a future revolutionary state [0.7] because instead 
of having a whole inchoate class of capital owners [0.4] running the capitalist 
economy [0.6] you now had these key [0.3] financial managers [0.4] who were 
working for banks for salaries [0.6] if you decapitated capitalism [0.6] er and 
that in a se-, er in in Lenin's view meant nationalizing the banks [0.6] you'd 
be able to control capitalist society this was the this was Lenin's assumption 
at the turn of the century from these ideas [0.5] so by nationalizing the banks 
[0.3] you could then control [0.4] er you could then 
control [0.9] er [1.0] the evolution of capitalism control where investment 
went and you could control [0.3] where [0.4] er [0.3] the priorities for 
society were [0.5] and the fundamental problems of exploitation hopefully could 
be avoided by the state intervening and controlling this process and moving 
towards socialism so Lenin [0.4] saw this as as a-, a-, as er monopoly 
capitalism as a step towards [0.3] potential socialism because sen-, socialism 
is supposed to be a rational controlled organized society [0.9] er one which 
was er in which [0.6] human beings [0.2] er called the tune and [0.2] organized 
society the way they wanted it [0.4] not one in which society called the tune 
[0.3] and organized human beings in whatever was appropriate to the given [0.3] 
economic er [0.2] conditions of the day [1.6] secondarily Lenin also looked at 
another phenomenon of the late nineteenth century as did Rosa Luxemburg and 
Nikolai Bukharin [0.6] to argue that one of the reasons for the growth of these 
big monopolies and the expansion of capitalism was imperialism [0.9] that [0.3] 
er where Marx might have thought 
that capitalist ec-, capitalist er [0.6] er r-, [0.2] profit rates would fall 
because ca-, if capitalism was a kind of enclosed system once it became a 
global system the massive opportunities for [0.4] what Lenin called super 
profits to be made [0.3] by investing overseas and international trade and the 
monopoly companies were in the forefront of this [0.7] and he argued that the 
[0.4] most advanced workers of western Europe the wor-, the er [0.5] er [0.4] 
skilled workers of Germany and France and Britain [0.4] were actually doing 
quite well out of capitalism as it was this is of course what Bernstein had 
also said [0.3] because they were able to be paid by the super profits of 
imperialism [0.6] so this was buying them off so to speak from their 
revolutionary potential [0.8] er [0.3] and Lenin also came to the conclusion [0.
4] that since imperialism is a global system you could have a revolution at any 
one point of it Bernstein er er Bukharin [0.7] er [0.3] was the first person to 
coin the phrase that capitalism could break at its weakest link [0.6] er and 
Lenin's conception of capitalism was of of a 
global system with Russia as one of its weakest links [0.4] so while Russia was 
not a capitalist society at the time of the Russian Revolution [0.4] Lenin 
thought he was breaking [0.2] the world system of capitalism [0.3] by er 
attacking it at this [0.2] at this weak link [0.3] and from there it would 
spread to where it should take place [0.3] in Germany [0.3] er in France in 
Britain in western Europe [0.4] and eventually who knows even in North America 
[1.0] er [0.6] s-, but Lenin [0.3] er and these thinkers were still [0.4] 
fairly much [0.2] in the tradition of the semi-positivistic er [0.3] 
interpretation of Marx [0.6] since the Russian Revolution particularly since 
many people [0.5] er [0.5] on the left criticized the Russian Revolution and 
the way it was developing from very early on inclusing including Rosa Luxemburg 
who was [0.5] very worried about the dictatorial and anti-democractic 
tendencies of Lenin and the Russian Revolution in nineteen-seventeen and 
nineteen-eighteen very early on [0.8] er [0.2] many [0.2] er [0.2] thinkers 
began to look in different directions [0.4] for [0.2] er [0.5] new inspiration 
about Marxist ideas and these are ones 
which begin to feed in to [0.4] er [0.8] which begin to feed in to [0.3] a new 
[0.3] er way of looking at society [0.4] er and these are ones which become 
particularly influential [0.3] for twentieth century [0.3] er Marxist hi-, and 
other historiography [0.7] in particular [1.2] a group of thinkers [0.4] er [4.
8] began [0.2] to move away from this er traditional [0.5] as it were almost 
rule based [0.2] er version [0.2] of [1.3] Marxism [0.8] to drawing attention 
to quite different aspects of it [0.8] to argue [0.2] that [0.8] the revolution 
had not occurred [0.5] for [0.2] amongst other things what we might think of in 
some way as cultural reasons [0.6] that [0.3] they turned our attention towards 
the issue of consciousness [0.6] the political awareness of a given individual 
or a d-, given group of individuals [0.5] er what role does this play in 
history [0.4] we can't say that the economic base simply determines what 
everybody thinks [0.4] what they think and the struggle [0.4] for them to 
develop their own ideas [0.4] and for them to [0.2] er [0.4] become er part of 
a larger movement focused around particular ideas [0.3] and to become aware of 
their situation in 
society [0.4] is one of the reas-, is one of the factors [0.3] er why or or or 
the fact this hasn't happened is one of the reasons why [0.3] society [0.4] er 
[0.3] why the revolution that Marx expected had not taken place [0.4] and in do-
, in in pursuing this area they began to open up a whole [0.3] er [0.5] whole 
range of issues [0.4] er for social and historical exploration [1.0] er [1.3] 
in a sense the earliest of these although he's often forgotten [0.4] is Antonio 
Labriola who was [0.2] perhaps the first person to begin to break [0.5] with [0.
3] er [0.6] the more [1.3] er [1.8] positivistic interpretation of Marxism [0.
8] and [0.3] he [0.9] pointed to the fact that [1.9] what materialist theory 
represented for him [0.6] was [0.2] the first attempt to create [0.5] a sort of 
[0.2] er [0.5] general science general social science [0.4] unifying different 
historical processes [0.7] er the materialist theory is the culminating point 
of this process [0.6] what he meant was that [0.2] in looking at history and 
the way it develops [0.6] er [0.2] materialism and the materialist theory is 
the first to break away from the compartmentalization of history into [0.5] 
religious history history of politics [0.4] er history of the 
law constitutional history [0.3] and so on and so forth [0.4] and begin to look 
[0.3] at human society as a whole and of course this has been [0.5] er a 
massive [0.2] er [0.3] development [0.2] in er twentieth century historical 
studies and twentieth century historical understanding [0.5] that there is 
nothing these days [0.3] which is [0.2] separate from history [0.5] and in 
particular [0.3] er it's this [0.2] er sort of holistic sense of history [0.6] 
but Labriola's ideas er gave way to others which became [0.3] er i think much 
more [0.2] e-, effective [0.9] in particular [0.3] er [0.2] i [0.2] Georg 
Lukacs the Hungarian Marxist [0.8] er [2.3] and i've taken a couple of key [0.
4] er s-, er a couple of key [0.2] er [0.4] concepts from him [0.8] er he 
developed the idea or [0.3] this is present in Marx although er it's a 
technical point here that [0.5] Marx's [0.2] er [0.6] philosophical ideas of 
the early [0.5] er writings were not known [0.6] er until the nineteen-thirties 
and the nineteen-forties because some of his key works had never been published 
[0.5] until that time so in many ways Lukacs was [0.5] er [0.6] er er was was 
predicting er the er ideas of Marx which had not yet been er published and 
revealed [0.8] and he emphasized the question o-, the 
issues of alienation and reification and i include reification [0.6] 
particularly because many people have seen this as being crucially relevant to 
modern consumer society [0.8] alienation [0.3] is a concept which is present in 
Marx and er particularly in those early writings [0.6] er [0.5] s-, as i say 
only a few of which had actually been published at the time Lukacs was writing 
[0.6] by which Marx argued that human beings could create things [0.5] which 
they didn't recognize as their creations and kind of bowed down to them as 
though they were what controlled human beings [0.7] in other words human beings 
had a had a a tendency to create [0.3] their own masters [0.2] in various ways 
[0.6] and by looking at er a number of these things as social conventions 
rather than as ruling forces [0.4] you could then take a step towards [0.2] er 
overcoming this alienation and controlling them [0.6] there were a number of 
important [0.2] er [0.8] er examples of this [0.6] let's take er [0.3] a very 
philosophical example a lo-, er Marx's view on this arose from some [0.4] 
theological interpretations by 
Feuerbach whom i mentioned earlier [0.6] about the idea of God [0.6] Feuerbach 
argued that it wasn't God that created man it was man that created God [0.6] 
because God was a human conception and a human construction so to speak [0.5] 
and having created this [0.5] er [0.3] construction [0.4] human beings then [0.
2] took it as a literal reality and began to obey [0.4] er this er God which 
they themselves had created [0.6] it seems a strange [0.3] sort of theology i 
suppose to most of you but it has been quite influential amongst religious 
thinkers as well because [0.5] it does point to the fact that [0.2] knowledge 
of God as we or [0.5] conceptions of God [0.2] as we understand them are human 
creations there's no two ways about that [0.4] er although that doesn't 
necessarily follow that God is a human creation in this sense [0.3] but 
certainly the conceptions of God are [0.7] and secondarily [0.2] in more social 
terms [0.6] er one could point to [0.4] phenomena like [0.2] er [0.2] we have 
in foremost in our mind i suppose the market [1.0] don't buck the market [0.2] 
why not buck the market we made it it's our market it's supposed 
to be there to do what we want [0.6] that is what er er Lukacs would argue 
these are human creations there's nothing s-, nothing sacred about the market 
the market is a human convention [0.6] money is a human convention [0.7] all 
these things are created by people so why do we bow down and worship them as 
though they were ruling over us [1.1] er so [0.2] many Marxists began to argue 
that the first step towards revolutionary action was to un-, with this level of 
understanding this level of combating [0.3] of what appeared to be the 
fundamental rules of society around us [0.9] and a special form of alienation 
was this one er [0.3] which er w-, this one [0.7] usually referred to as 
reification [0.6] which is er defined roughly speaking [0.4] er [0.2] as 
transforming human properties into properties of man-made things [0.6] er this 
of course has opened up a lot of discourse about the nature of modern consumer 
society and advertising and things like that [0.7] when you buy a commodity 
these days it's often associated with things which are way beyond that 
particular 
commodity [0.5] er you're buying fun you're buying happiness you're buying 
goodness knows what if you buy the right product [0.6] if you can associate 
thirst with a can of Coca-cola you're winning aren't you [0.6] er persuade 
people that they don't want a drink they want a Coke [0.5] er you are moving 
towards er [0.3] towards controlling or or or developing [0.4] your own 
commercial interests over people [0.4] and in a mass scale this idea that you 
can actually [0.2] er er you you can actually influence people by [0.4] er 
turning [0.4] these human properties into commodities [0.5] is o-, is referred 
to also as commodity fetishism i suppose we live in an age of commodity 
fetishism [0.5] er as you're only too well aware i'm sure [0.4] designer this 
designer that label this label that the right thing here the right thing there 
why are you buying those things [0.5] er [0.5] to be seen to be you to be to be 
with to to to to be buying the right things whatever it happens to be [0.4] 
this is a form of reification it's not because you want them or y-, because you 
need them or because there's any particular [0.4] er [0.2] necessity to have a 
[0.4] a pair of Calvin 
Klein underpants or whatever it happens to be [0.4] er [0.3] but you made but 
you still go out and people still go out and buy them [0.5] er [0.4] and er [0.
4] this is er what Lukacs would think of as reification [1.6] now associated 
with that also moving into the cultural area [0.5] is another one of those that 
group of thinkers [0.4] er Antonio Gramsci [1.3] er [0.6] and Gramsci [0.7] er 
[0.3] developed a number of ideas [0.6] but he's most [0.2] well known for [0.
3] the [0.2] concept of hegemony [1.1] Gramsci spent most of his life in [0.2] 
er or a large part of his life in [0.2] Mussolini's prison system [0.6] er and 
he had a great deal of time to reflect on these issues [0.4] and perhaps not 
the greatest access to information but [0.4] he argued [0.2] that [0.2] er [0.
6] the issue of consciousness was crucial [0.6] because [0.5] er [1.0] the [0.
7] socie-, [0.2] the [0.3] crucial element in society or a crucial element in 
society which Marx had not really er [0.3] allowed for in this particular way 
[0.4] was the cultural domination of a particular class [0.3] the ideas and 
beliefs which [0.4] are shared by a wide proportion of a society the 
assumptions of that particular society [0.6] the web of beliefs as it 
says here the institutional [0.3] and social relations [0.4] of a given society 
[0.4] and through this through establishing a certain set of beliefs let's take 
[0.2] the one one of those that i [0.4] mentioned before [0.5] if everybody 
believes in the market the people in whose interest the market operates of 
course [0.4] er [0.3] have succeeded in establishing that particular [0.2] set 
of er concepts and beliefs [0.3] in society [0.3] and if people accept it 
that's fine for them maybe not quite so fine for the people who [0.5] er do not 
er [0.2] benefit so er [0.2] thoroughly from the market [0.8] and [0.2] er this 
intellectual hegemony this cultural hegemony [0.3] was the work [0.3] of [0.3] 
intellectuals now [1.3] er [1.3] for Gramsci everybody is in part an 
intellectual intellectuals are not entirely a separate class [0.5] every form 
of labour [0.2] has a certain intellectual content to it according to him [0.8] 
er it's a question of the proportionality [0.5] but he divided [0.2] 
intellectuals into two classes [0.3] organic intellectuals and traditional 
intellectuals [0.4] roughly speaking i suppose in as far as he was 
concerned goodies and baddies [0.4] traditional intellectuals those who 
established [0.5] the hegemonic ideas of the time [0.5] and organic 
intellectuals [0.4] people who were associated with [0.3] particular groups and 
classes in society [0.5] and [0.2] e-, and [0.2] enunciated and and developed 
[0.2] the ideas characteristic of those particular classes [0.5] so different 
classes would have their own organic intellectuals [0.5] er the working class 
would have its intellectuals the middle class would have its intellectuals [0.
4] the aristocracy would have their intellectuals intellectuals were part of 
every other class [0.3] and int-, intellectualism was a part of almost every 
human being's [0.4] er [0.8] er [0.3] part of every human being's [0.4] er 
outlook on life although he obviously hadn't seen Do You Want to be a 
Millionaire [0.7] [laughter] er [0.6] er [0.3] but [0.2] the [0.4] sphere in 
which this [0.2] e-, [0.2] evolves and which this battle takes place [0.4] is 
another key concept which is talked about a great deal civil society [0.7] 
because [0.2] er [0.4] one of the [0.2] long term phenomena since the Middle 
Ages was the growth of [0.4] er o-, of 
society and of important er changes and important forces in society [0.3] 
outside the state [0.7] and civil society was the area in which intellectuals 
[0.3] battled out their different conceptions [0.5] and in fact would conduct a 
kind of intellectual class struggle [0.3] through the media [0.3] the press 
television [0.4] er and all the rest of it and and that [0.4] er this was an 
area of political activity major political activity [0.4] moving away from the 
kind of traditional Marxist emphasis on workers' movements trade unions [0.4] 
er [0.2] strikes and that kind of thing which were still important [0.5] but 
for Gramsci the the additional element which was required was to move [0.2] 
into a ch-, challenge [0.4] the ruling hegemonic ideas [0.3] of a given er 
period and a given generation [0.7] now [0.3] er [0.3] what has all this got to 
do with [0.2] er historiography [0.7] a lot of these ideas had important 
implications [0.7] and i think i've got [0.4] er [1.7] two or three [0.2] er [0.
3] two or three er [0.9] er [0.3] concepts here i think we've got time to do 
this [0.9] er [0.2] what is how how [0.3] is are these ideas beginning to 
affect [0.4] how [0.2] history is understood [0.9] er [1.9] 
first of all [0.2] it i-, [0.2] it's implicit [0.4] that [0.9] er [0.8] 
according to a number of these ideas [0.8] and i s-, [0.3] er and i suppose [0.
6] both the [0.2] consciousness ideas to some extent [0.5] but even more the 
vulgar Marxist ideas [0.5] the idea i mean most Marxists would argue [0.3] that 
history was structural [0.8] that the role of individual [0.2] er [0.3] men and 
women [0.5] was not crucial in history [0.8] er [1.6] human beings would be the 
object of history not its subject [0.4] the whole point of revolution was to 
change this relationship to turn them into the subjective history so they 
controlled their own history [0.9] but [0.2] er [0.6] historical explanation 
moves away from the idea of great individuals [0.4] and moves more towards the 
idea of groups [0.3] of classes [0.3] of structural problems [0.3] er and so on 
and so forth [2.0] secondarily [0.5] i suppose [0.2] er [0.6] from the mid-
nineteenth century [0.2] we tend to talk these days about historical change [0.
4] rather than about historical progress [0.6] er historical progress is 
something [0.3] which er people are [0.4] much more sceptical about today and 
we use the much more neutral word change to [0.4] describe how 
the different conflicting forces we're talking about [0.4] er impact on each 
other [0.3] and create er a new situation [0.7] it's also [0.4] er and i've 
mentioned this already [0.5] er has moved towards [0.4] er history becoming 
more holistic [0.5] so the history is not divided up into separate domains [0.
4] er it becomes [0.2] er the object of the historian is to try to give [0.3] 
much broader explanations [0.3] touching on all aspects of of life [0.5] er the 
the traditional fields in British historiography break up after the First World 
War [0.5] er i've given a few examples down there [0.5] and in the words of 
Gareth Stedman Jones before [0.3] this happened [0.2] no attempt was made to 
fuse this aggregate of specialist routines [0.3] into a meaningful [0.2] 
historical totality [0.6] so [0.3] er that is partly er the way in which [0.2] 
er [0.8] which historiography [0.5] er began to evolve under the pressure of 
these kind of ideas which have come from other quarters as well but [0.4] this 
was a major challenging area [0.6] er [0.2] going beyond that [4.7] er [1.6] i 
haven't [0.9] talked in any great detail about the subject of dialectics 
because er [0.5] it's a 
complex issue in itself [0.7] but [0.3] er [0.2] having said that progress has 
given way to historical change [0.7] er Marxist historians in particular [0.5] 
tend to put stress on dialectical iss-, on on on diale-, the dialectical nature 
of historical struggles [0.6] I-E that there are always conflicting forces [0.
4] that force A conflicts with B [0.4] and very often this produces a synthesis 
of both those forces C which is different from either A or B [0.7] and history 
moves co-, constantly dialectically because C then gives rise to its opposing 
idea D [0.4] which produces E [0.4] and h-, and this leads to an interpretation 
of history which is based on the constancy of change [0.9] that there is no 
stability in history [0.4] er nothing stays the same [0.5] er [0.5] that change 
is the normal condition of life rather than stability [0.6] er we would 
probably [0.3] not have [0.2] a big problem [0.2] er understanding that but 
conservatism [0.5] with a small C is based on the opposite point of view that 
stability is normal and change is abnormal [0.6] er and that er this er 
dialectical view of history [0.5] 
shows that change is the fundamental bedrock of history [0.3] er rather than er 
any form of stability or stasis [1.9] secondly [0.3] er [0.8] the [0.6] 
particularly the the Western Marxists [0.5] raised as i've said the problem of 
consciousness [0.5] er and added to the more [0.2] positivist structuralist 
interpretations [0.5] the whole issue [0.5] of it being far too crude to simply 
say that complex [0.5] er cultural [0.3] phenomena like law and religion [0.4] 
can simply be crudely related to the economic base of a given society [0.5] 
these are much more complex and they need much more detailed examination they 
need to be looked at [0.3] much more carefully and much more closely [0.5] er 
you can't simply say Jane Austen is a f-, [0.2] is a mouthpiece [0.4] of the 
British upper classes [0.2] that sort of thing although many [0.5] er [0.2] 
crude Marxist literary historians have attempted to do things like that [0.5] 
er Lenin himself said that Tolstoy was just [0.5] er largely a mouthpiece of 
the Russian landowning gentry which seems the most inadequate description of 
Tolstoy [0.4] imaginable to anybody who's read him [1.1] thirdly [0.3] er these 
people [0.2] drew attention to [0.3] a whole new areas of historical subject 
matter [0.7] obviously implicit in what i've been saying the development of 
capitalism itself [0.6] er Marx analysed the capitalism of his day [0.5] er the 
analysis of contemporary society and its evolution over the previous decades 
and centuries [0.3] was absolutely crucial to this level of historical 
understanding [0.6] er [0.5] industrialization came into the picture [0.4] er 
[0.6] the [0.2] er agitations of the oppressed classes [1.0] er the ideas [0.4] 
of peasants workers [0.3] peasants and workers were almost entirely absent from 
historiography [0.4] except as occasional intruders in peasant revolts or [0.4] 
er [0.5] er un-, er untidy uprisings of various kinds in the past [0.3] there 
was very little interest [0.2] in these groupings [0.5] er and there was very 
little interest in in in er in revolutions [0.3] it was thought rather crudely 
[0.5] that it wasn't going to be possible [0.3] to write the history of 
ordinary people because they didn't leave any traces behind [0.5] but 
essentially this is the kind of argument which has been levelled [0.4] 
at any er at many of the new phases of [0.2] er historical interpretation [0.6] 
it's not my job to bring this up to date but i can remember when gender history 
began to evolve [0.6] er conservative historians again with a small C argued [0.
4] well there can't be any gender history we can't write the history of women 
because there can't be any evidence for it because if there had been we would 
have done it [0.7] this idea that history is evidentially based and emerges [0.
3] er full blown out of the archives [0.4] er [0.6] in fact of course once 
people started asking questions about the history of women they went and found 
there was a whole new way of looking [0.3] at e-, at at at at archives which 
already existed or material which already existed [0.3] and whole [0.2] swathes 
of material which had never been looked at the same had been done for peasants 
the same had been done for workers [0.5] classes who had been [0.4] er in the 
phrase hidden from history [0.4] er it's a ques-, and and this points to the to 
the to to the [0.9] er [0.9] er [0.5] this points to the er fact that [0.9] 
historians no longer [0.2] saw themselves as 
the subjects of historical enquiry [0.5] er as or as outside it [0.4] it led to 
the whole [0.2] question of the role of the historian themself [0.8] er [0.3] i-
, if in the nineteenth century traditional idea [0.3] the historian was above 
history [0.5] er and simply [1.3] related what had happened [0.9] er [0.7] 
these ideas led to historians becoming part [0.5] of the hi-, of the social 
process [0.5] historians themselves [0.2] are [0.4] organic or traditional 
intellectuals [0.4] they are part of the intellectual struggle [0.4] they are 
part of hegemony [0.8] if conservative or dominant ideas suggest that [0.3] er 
[0.4] women should not be emancipated historians over the past hadn't even 
noticed that they were [0.6] unemancipated [0.4] and then suddenly when the r-, 
issue of women's emancipation arises [0.3] historians begin to turn towards it 
as a new question a new hish-, issue [0.6] similarly in the nineteenth century 
[0.4] national historians turn towards the history of their own nationalities 
[0.7] historians in other words [0.2] increasingly become part of the 
intellectual struggle [0.5] er and see themselves as part of the 
intellectual struggle [0.4] and in fact come to the conclusion that they cannot 
separate themselves [0.2] from the society in which they exist [0.5] this has 
led to [0.2] er and again it's a territory that i don't want to jump into at 
this particular moment [0.5] the sort of post-modernist extremes of this that 
[0.4] er [0.2] you go to so far that the histor-, that history [0.4] at the end 
of the day doesn't tell you anything about the past because it's a construction 
of the historian [0.7] er herself or himself [0.6] er [0.4] and [0.2] er [0.4] 
while most [0.3] Marxist historians wouldn't go as far as that [0.4] the the 
objectivity of history [0.3] was undermined by this and the subjectivity of 
history [0.4] was stressed [0.5] that doesn't mean to s-, that doesn't mean to 
say one can necessarily conclude [0.4] that one will need that that w-, one can 
go as far [0.9] er as the post-modernists in saying that there's no such thing 
[0.4] as [0.3] history or we cannot know anything worth knowing about the past 
[0.4] most historians would tend to disagree with that [0.7] so [0.3] if just 
to summarize at the end [0.5] er if we look at [0.2] er [0.3] a [1.6] number of 
points 
made by the Italian historian Momigliano [0.7] quoted by Hobsbawm [0.6] er [0.
3] arguing what had happened to history in the hundred years after Ranke [0.7] 
er [0.2] he stressed in particular two or three of the points that we've been 
looking at here [0.6] a decline in political and religious history [0.7] er 
national histories begin to look old-fashioned according to this [0.5] er and 
instead of [0.3] national and religious history history of the state [0.5] er 
there's a major turn towards social and economic history [0.6] er and the 
twentieth century has seen of course massive development in the late twentieth 
century massive development of social [0.4] and economic history [0.6] er [0.9] 
it's no longer easy [0.8] to use ideas as an explanation of history [0.9] 
although ideas as i've been stressing have a role in history [0.5] the concept 
that everything in history arises from [0.4] ideas which had been prevalent [0.
5] er [0.2] in certain schools of nineteenth century historiography [0.4] er is 
much more difficult to sustain these days [0.5] that ideas [0.2] themselves are 
seen as [0.2] socially [0.9] i don't know whether to 
say conditioned or determined perhaps the best word is to say socially shaped 
[0.6] er they don't arise full-blown unobjectively [0.4] er in people's heads 
they are themselves partly constructed socially [0.6] er and ideas themselves 
are related to the society in which they evolve [1.0] er [0.7] and [4.4] 
although we can then [0.5] er move on from that [0.5] and say that one can look 
at explanations in term of social forces [0.5] it still doesn't necessarily 
solve that thorny issue [0.3] of the precise relationship [0.5] between [0.2] 
er the explanation of historical events [0.3] and the explanation of individual 
actions [0.9] what is the relationship between these two this is something 
which constantly puzzles historians and constantly puzzles [0.4] philosophers 
of history [0.8] can we go totally structural and say individual actions mean 
nothing [1.2] probably not [0.6] because at certain stages individual actions 
can weigh very heavily [1.1] if Stalin had not been Stalin there may not have 
been a terror [0.4] if Lenin had not been Lenin there might not have been a 
Russian 
revolution if Napoleon had not been Napoleon er the French Revolution might 
have turned out differently [0.4] individual actions individuals may un-, 
certain under certain conditions be very effective [0.8] but we can't go to the 
other extreme and say history is nothing but [0.6] the accumulation of the 
action of individuals [0.2] or dominated by the action of individuals [0.6] 
because those individuals work in contradictory and sometimes complementary 
ways and it's what they do it's a resultant of what they all do together [0.9] 
which in a sense changes history rather than what they do as individuals it's 
the [0.3] resultant of of of of the collective actions of individuals very 
often which [0.4] er which leads to social pri-, er issues so it hasn't 
actually solved this problem [0.8] and finally as i've already mentioned it had 
become very much more difficult [0.3] to speak of progress [0.3] or of the 
meaningful development of events in a certain direction [0.5] what is poshly 
known as a teleological view of history the idea that [0.4] things are always 
moving towards some sort of 
goal [0.6] er usually for the better [0.5] er progress in the liberal 
historiography in the mid-nineteenth century [0.5] future socialist society and 
perhaps communism [0.4] in the Marxist interpretation of history [0.4] er 
Marxism is seen [0.3] as a kind of teleological history i-, itself is a kind of 
teleological history [0.5] because it does see [0.2] society rising through 
different stages [0.4] towards [0.3] er some sort of [0.4] ideal [0.2] er 
utopian [0.3] er future [0.4] er [0.4] and [0.4] this er vision [0.2] er is is 
one which is shares er i-, well not the same vision but the er notion of that 
kind of progress is something which [0.5] Marx shared with er many of his 
contemporaries who were liberals [0.5] and one which is much more sceptically 
er looked upon today [1.0] okay i want to stop there [0.2] and er [0.6] you 
should have a copy of a few items of bibliography which has been circulated [0.
5] er to add to what you've already got because [0.3] these are quite 
interesting articles focused specifically on the issues i've been talking about 
[0.5] Marxist interpretation of history [0.4] and er Marxist interpretation of 
society [0.5] okay