duction, a clash which finds expression in the struggle between different social groups.
Different groups will have different practical aims, some in the preservation of existing social relations, some in their overthrow so as to allow the development of new social relations based upon new forces of production. The result is that different sections of society have different experiences of social reality. Each will tend to develop its own overall view of society, which will be markedly different to that developed by the others.
Such views are not only accounts of what society is like. They also serve to bind people together for the practical task of preserving or transforming society, for each prioritises some sorts of practical social activity to the detriment of others.
It is only in the minds of certain empiricist philosophers that description and prescription, fact and value are distinct. What is 'good' or 'valuable' from the point of view of one social group and its activity will be 'bad' for another social group. What one section of society sees as essential to the preservation of social life, because it preserves the existing relations of production, will be seen as bad by another because it obstructs the development of new forces of production. Categories which were previously unproblematic, simply descriptions of what was necessary to maintain society and human life, become prescriptions expressing the desires of different, opposed groups.
The struggle for social domination between the different groups is, in part, a struggle by each to impose its view of society, its way of organising social activity, upon the others. It has to assert that its notions are 'true' and the others 'false'; or at least to show that the meaning given by other social groups to their activities can be subordinated to its own overall visions of the world.
The attempt of philosophers to measure rival conceptions of the world against a single lodestone of 'truth' is pan of this struggle. They attempt to generalise the experience of a particular class in such a way as to enable it to dominate the thinking of other classes. But because of the real contradictions between the experiences and interests of different classes, this is an endless quest. Any philosophical view can always be countered by another, since each has roots in the contradictory experiences of material life. That is why every great philosophy eventually slides into mysticism.
But this does not mean, for Marx, that different views of the world are equally valid (or equally false). For some provide a more comprehensive view of society and its development than others.
A social group identified with the continuation of the old relations of production and the old institutions of the superstructure necessarily only has a partial view (or a series of partial views) of society as a whole. Its practice is concerned with the perpetuation of what already exists, with 'sanctifying' the accomplished fact. Anything else can only be conceived as a disruption or destruction of a valuable, harmonious arrangement. Therefore even at times of immense social crisis, its picture of society is one of a natural, eternally recurring harmony somehow under attack from incomprehensible, irrational forces.
Ideology and science
A rising social group, associated with an advance of the productive forces, has a quite different approach. At first, at least, has no fear of new forms of social activity which disrupt the old relations of production and their superstructure along with it. It identifies with and understands these new forms of activity. Yet at the same time, because it is also in collision with the old order, it has practical experiences of that as well. It can develop some sort of view of society which sees how all the different elements fit together, the forces of production and the relations of production, the base and the superstructure, the oppressed class and the oppressing class.
Because it has a practical interest in transforming society, its general ideas do not have to be either a blind commentary on events or a mysticism aimed simply at preserving the status quo. They can be a source of real knowledge about society. They can act not just as a banner to rally people behind, but as a guide to effective action. They can be scientific, despite their origin in the practice of one social group.
Marx certainly thought this was the case with classical political economy. Again and again he refers to the 'scientific' merit of the writings of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, and even of some of the mercantilist and physiocratic economists who preceded them.
They were 'scientific' because they tried to cut through the superficial appearances of society to grasp the 'inner ...
