Marxism
Although England was the nation which actualized the ideas of the early Civilization phase of the West — the period 1750–1900 — namely, Rationalism, Materialism, Capitalism, yet these ideas would have been actualized otherwise, even if England had been destroyed by some outer catastrophe. Nevertheless, for England these ideas were instinctive. They were wordless, beyond definition, self-evident. For the other nations of Europe, they were things to which one had to adapt oneself. Capitalism is not an economic system, but a world-outlook, or rather, a part of a whole world-outlook. It is a way of thinking and feeling and living, and not a mere technique of economic planning which anyone can understand. It is primarily ethical and social and only secondarily economic. The economics of a nation is a reflection of the national soul, just as the way a man makes his living is a subordinate expression of his personality. Capitalism is an expression of Individualism as a principle of Life, the idea of every man for himself. It must be realized that this feeling is not universal-human, but only a certain stage of a certain Culture, a stage that in all essentials passed away with the First World War, 1914–1919. Socialism is also an ethical-social principle, and not an economic
program of some kind. It is antithetical to the Individualism which produced Capitalism. Its self-evident, instinctive idea is: each man for all. To Individualism as a Life-principle, it was obvious that each man in pursuing his own interests, was working for the good of all. To Socialism as a Life-principle, it is equally obvious that a man working for himself alone is ipso facto working against the good of all. The 19th century was the age of Individualism; the 20th and 21st are the ages of Socialism. No one has understood if he thinks this is an ideological conflict. Ideology itself means: the rationalizing of the world of action. This was the preoccupation of the early phase of the Western Civilization, 1750–1900, but no longer engages the serious attention of ambitious men. Programs are mere ideals; they are inorganic, rationalized, anyone can understand them. This age however is one of a struggle for power. Each participant wants the power in order to actualize himself, his inner idea, his soul. 1900 could not understand what Goethe meant when he said, “In Life, it is Life itself that is important, and not a result of Life.” The time has passed away in which men would die for an abstract program of “improving” the world. Men will always be willing to die however, in order to be themselves. This is the distinction between an ideal and an idea. Marxism is an ideal. It does not take account of living ideas, but regards the world as a thing that can be planned on paper and then set up in actuality. Marx understood neither Socialism nor Capitalism as ethical world-outlooks. His understanding of both was purely economic, and thus a misunderstanding. The explanation Marxism offered of the significance of History was ludicrously simple, and in this very simplicity lay its charm, and its strength. The whole history of the world was merely the record of the struggle of classes. Religion, philosophy, science, technics, music, painting, poetry, nobility, priesthood, Emperor and Pope State, war, and politics — all are simply reflections of economics. Not economics generally, but the “struggle” of “classes.”
