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

'THEORY OF COMMUNISM 695
material production as of any other activity that he performs.
Therefore, all conditions which affect man as a
subject of production modify more or less all his functions
and activities, including those which he performs as creator
of material wealth or commodities. In this respect it can
be shown that all human functions and conditions, how
and whenever they may appear, exercise a more or less
decisive influence on material production."
That there is a Sense in which the Human Will
is Free. Secondly, the systems of men's beliefs possess,
as we have seen, 1 a life of their own which reacts
upon the economic structure of society, and so causes
changes in material things which would otherwise not
have occurred. Even if the roots of a political system are
in the economic order, political systems outrun the
economic orders which give them birth, and, outrunning
them, affect and modify them. Thus a system of government,
by virtue of the desires and ideals which it generates
in men's minds, is enabled to influence the passage of
events, including those events which constitute the process
of economic development. There is, therefore, a continuous
two-way process between matter and mind. Matter in the
shape of the raw materials of die earth its minerals, its
water, its climate and the methods which are adopted
to transform these raw materials into the commodities
which satisfy human needs the mines and the machinery
which are operated by workers and technicians determine
the ideological superstructure of society and so condition
men's minds. But the ideological superstructure, by virtue
of the systems of thought and desire which it generates
in the minds of individuals, reacts in its turn Upon matter,
as human inventions alter the way in which matter is
worked up into usable commodities, and human tastes
and desires determine the way in which these commodities
will be used. Again and again Marx insists that man is
in this sense and within these limits free. ''Man/' he says,
*See above, pp. 680, 681.