psychological basis for all human evolution. The question, however, still remains: what determines the thought of humanity? . . . This claim (that all sociology must be based exclusively on economics, and that all social life is nothing but a reflex of economic life) can not be countenanced for the obvious reason that there are as many kinds of social relations as there are classes of social wants. We have not only economic wants, but also moral, religious, jural, political and many other kinds of collective wants; we have not only collective wants, but individual wants, like physical, technical, æsthetic, scientific, philosophical wants. The term 'utility,' which has been appropriated by the economist, is not by any means peculiar to him. Objects may have not only an economic utility, but a physical, æsthetic, scientific, technical, moral, religious, jural, political or philosophical utility. The value which is the expression of this utility and which forms the subject-matter of economics is only one subdivision of a far greater class. For all the world is continually rating objects and ideas according to their æsthetic, scientific, technical, moral, religious, jural, political or philosophical value without giving any thought to their economic value. So far as utility and value are social in character, that is, so far as they depend upon the relation of man to man, they form the subject-matter of sociology. Economics deals with only one kind of social utilities or values, and can therefore not explain all kinds of social utilities or values. The strands of human life are manifold and complex.
"In this aspect what is untrue of the individual can not be true of the group of individuals. We have passed beyond the time when it was incumbent to explain the fallacy lurking in the phrase 'the economic man.' There is indeed an economic life and an economic motive—the motive which leads every human being to satisfy his wants with the least outlay of effort. But it is no longer necessary to show that the individual is impelled by other motives than the economic one, and that the economic motive itself is not everywhere equally strong, or equally free from the admixture of other influences. A full analysis of all the motives that influence men, even in their economic life, would test the powers of the social psychologist. There is no 'economic man,' just as there is no 'theological
Page:The Theoretical System of Karl Marx (1907).djvu/48
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