GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

THEORY OF COMMUNISM 671
things, or, more precisely, a change in the way in which
men treat raw materials in order to satisfy their needs.
From time to time new techniques are introduced, and
these determine new forms of society. Inventions are made,
men's skill improves, knowledge of matter increases. As a
result, new ways of organizing the resources of production
are adopted, and these determine new forms of economic
organization. Thus, economic systems, if they are to keep
need to
pace with the developing resources of production,
be continually modified.
Relativity of Ethical and Legal Codes and Logical
Concepts. (4) Fourthly, at any given stage in the
development of society, its moral and legal systems reflect
its fundamental economic structure, being conditioned by
the need of the exploiting class to justify the peculiar form
of relationship between the two classes, that is to say, the
peculiar form of exploitation of one class by the other,
which the current stage of economic technique brings
into being. Political institutions and legal systems and the
political and legal ideas by means of which men justify
and support them, are thus relative to and determined by
the economic structure of society. They are at once its
product, its prop, and its mirror and in respect
of each
of these three activities their nature is determined by the
particular phase of economic development which they
support and reflect. As with the political and legal systems
of society, so with its moral consciousness. Slavery and
serfdom were approved by the societies which employed
slaves and serfs; inevitably, since the moral consciousness of
these societies, being a reflection of the stages of economic
development to which slavery and serfdom were respectively
appropriate, could not do other than justify them.
For this reason, appeals to right and justice by the exploited
classes will never obtain a hearing, since the moral stan-
dards to which they appeal are based on the assumption
of the lightness of the very system against which they arc
appealing. There are no such things as abstract right or