Idealism and Materialism Part I: What Do Communists Mean by Materialism?
Materialism is central to communist philosophy. Communists use the theory of materialism to understand how capitalism works and how to defeat it. Like many words used in philosophy, “materialism” has an ordinary meaning and a different, philosophical one. The ordinary meaning of materialism is greed or the desire to possess things beyond all practical need. Obviously, communists reject this.
To explain the communist concept of materialism, we must look at the relation of matter to its opposite. That opposite is thought, or more exactly, it is what human thought produces. The product of thought is called the “ideal.”
Like materialism, “ideal” has an ordinary meaning which is different from its meaning in philosophy. Ordinarily, something is called ideal if it is perfect, or an ideal is a goal that people try to live up to. In philosophy, the ideal means thought or what thought creates.
The lyrics of a song are something ideal that a songwriter thinks up. A theory of chemistry is something ideal whether or not it is correct.
Political ideas are something ideal, whether they express communist politics that will free the working class, or fascist politics that enslave the working class. Racist and sexist ideas are part of the ideal, created and spread by the material force of capitalist propaganda.
The relation between the ideal and the material has been a hot topic in philosophy as long as philosophy has existed. It is also an issue of critical importance for the communist movement.
Are ideas built into the universe or do they fall from the sky? Philosophical materialism says “no,” the ideal is produced by the material. The ideal is a result of thinking, but thinking is a material process taking place in human bodies. Marx put it this way: “the ideal is nothing else but the material, transplanted into the human head and transformed in it.”
Philosophical idealism claims that the ideal can exist on its own and does not depend on anything material. Materialism says that the ideal cannot exist on its own but must always be expressed in something material. It must be written down, spoken, thought in a brain, shown in a picture, etc. So, the ideal cannot even exist without the material. The material and the ideal are opposites, however, and like all pairs of opposites do, each one can affect the other.
People learn the most about something material by acting on it, like building a house. When people learn, knowledge is created, which is something ideal. Once the knowledge has been created, they can use it to make changes in the material thing they know about. They can build a better house.
If we actually do make a change in something material, it must be guided by a plan, by something ideal. Our actions can be guided by a theory we believe. This was Marx’s point when he wrote: “theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses.” A theory does not become a material force just because people understand it, but only when it grips them, that is, moves them into action.
Part II will discuss: How communist ideas can come to grip the masses struggling against capitalism and imperialism.