Eric Hobsbawm Quotes

The major strength of Wolf's book - his concentration on interaction, intermingling and mutual modification - is at the same time its major weakness, since it tends to take for granted the nature of the dynamism which has brought the world from pre-history to the late twentieth century. This is a book about connections rather than causes. Or rather, the author has re-thought the problems of the genesis and development of capitalism less fundamentally than those of the interconnections essential to it.

In short, the analysis of modes of production must be based on study of the available material forces of production: study, that is, both of technology and its organization, and of economics. For let us not forget that in the same Preface whose later passage is so often quoted, Marx argued that political economy was the anatomy of civil society. Nevertheless, in one respect the traditional analysis of mops and their transformation must be developed - and recent Marxist work has, in fact, done so. The actual transformation of one mode into another has often been seen in causal and unilinear terms: within each mode, it is argued, there is a 'basic contradiction' which generates the dynamic and the forces that will lead to its transformation. It is far from clear that this is Marx's own view - except for capitalism - and it certainly leads to great difficulties and endless debates, particularly in connection with the passage from Western feudalism to capitalism.

The fundamental question in history implies the discovery of a mechanism for both the differentiation of various human social groups and the transformation of one kind of society into another, or the failure to do so. In certain respects, which Marxists and common sense regard as crucial, such as the control of man over nature, it certainly implies unidirectional change or progress, at least over a sufficiently long time-span. So long as we do not suppose that the mechanisms of such social development are the same as or similar to those of biological evolution, there seems to be no good reason for not using the term 'evolution' for it.

It is in this situation that political partisanship can serve to counteract the increasing tendency to look inwards, in extreme instances the scholiasm, the tendency to develop intellectual ingenuity for its own sake, the self-insulation of the academy. It may indeed fall victim to the same dangers itself, if a sufficiently large 'field' of a self-insulated partisan scholarship develops.

Having established the limits beyond which partisanship ceases to be scientifically legitimate, let me argue the case in favour of legitimate partisanship, both from the point of view of the scientific or scholarly discipline and from that of the cause to which the scholar feels committed.

In short, for everyone engaged in scientific discourse, statements must be subject to validation by methods and criteria which are, in principle, not subject to partisanship, whatever their ideological consequences, and however motivated. Statements not subject to such validation may nevertheless be important and valuable, but belong to a different order of discourse. They pose extremely interesting and difficult philosophical problems, especially when they are clearly in some sense descriptive (for example, in representative art or criticism 'about' some specific creative work or artist), but cannot be considered here. Nor can we here consider statements of the logico-mathematical type, insofar as they are not (as in theoretical physics) linked to validation by evidence.

In analysing both agricultural change and economic growth in general, non-economic factors cannot be divorced from economic ones - certainly not in the short run. To separate them is to abandon the historical, that is the dynamic, analysis of the economy.

From the historians' point of view these assumptions must be realistic or they are junk. If we use the assumption of perfect foresight by businessmen to construct data, the question of its empirical validity is crucial. Altering the assumptions, whether about the model or about the data, can make a substantial difference to both the data and the answers.

Economists might conceivably agree on the value of history for their discipline, but not historians about the value of economics for theirs. This is partly because history covers a much wider field. As we have seen, it is an obvious drawback of economics as a subject dealing with the real world that it selects out some and only some aspects of human behaviour as 'economic' and leaves the rest to someone else.

If economics is not to remain the victim of history, constantly attempting to apply its tool-kit, generally with a time-lag, to yesterday's developments which have become sufficiently visible to dominate the scene today, it must develop or rediscover this historical perspective. For this may have a bearing not only on tomorrow's problems, about which we ought, if possible, to think before we get swamped by them, but also on tomorrow's theory.

My argument implies that, divorced from history, economics is a rudderless ship and economists without history have not much idea of where it is sailing to. But I am not suggesting that these defects can be remedied simply be getting some charts, that is by paying more attention to concrete economic realities and historical experience. As a matter of fact, there have always been plenty of economists ready and anxious to keep their eyes open. The trouble is that, if in the mainstream tradition, their theory and method as such has not helped them to know where to look and what to look for.

History, whose subject is the past, is not in a position to be an applied discipline in this sense, if only because no way has yet been discovered to change what has already happened. At most we can make counterfactual speculations about hypothetical alternatives. Of course past, present and future are part of one continuum, and what historians have to say could therefore permit both forecasts and recommendations for the future.

The history of society is still being constructed. I have in this essay tried to suggest some of its problems, to assess some of its practice, and incidentally to hint at certain problems which might benefit from more concentrated exploration. But it would be wrong to conclude without noting, and welcoming, the remarkably flourishing state of the field. It is a good moment to be a social historian. Even those of us who never set out to call ourselves by this name will not want to disclaim it today.

So let me conclude. History has made progress this century, in a lumbering and zig-zag manner, but genuine progress. In saying this I am implying that it belongs to the disciplines to which the word 'progress' can properly apply, that it is possible to arrive at a better understanding of a process which is objective and real, namely the complex, contradictory, but not adventitious, historical development of human societies in the world. I know that there are people who deny this.

Let me put it in paradoxical form. It is equally unhelpful to dismiss Marx because we dislike his demonstration that capitalism and bourgeois society are temporary historical phenomena, and to embrace him simply because we are for socialism, which he thought would succeed them. I believe Marx discerned some basic tendencies with profound insight; but we do not know actually what they will bring. Like so much of the future predicted in the past, when it comes it may be unrecognizable, not because the predictions were wrong but because we were wrong to put a particular face and costume to the interesting stranger whose arrival we were told to expect.