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Not people, the Mode of Production. Capitalism projects cultute that supports it, like Liberalism, but the French "Marxists" didn't loop that back to Liberalism influencing Capitalism, and then that newly influenced Capitalism projecting new forms of Liberalism. This is why it develops in "spirals," dialectically.
not recognizing that the means of production affects culture and culture affects the means of production seems almost as improbable as not understanding people affect culture.
do you mean they just didn't understand it using the terms that marx specifically set out in his treatise?
I saw a review of Paul Barth's book [Die Geschichtsphilosophie Hegels und der Hegelianer bis auf Marx und Hartmann] by that bird of ill omen, Moritz Wirth, in the Vienna Deutsche Worte, and this book itself, as well. I will have a look at it, but I must say that if "little Moritz" is right when he quotes Barth as stating that the sole example of the dependence of philosophy, etc., on the material conditions of existence which he can find in all Marx's works is that Descartes declares animals to the machines, then I am sorry for the man who can write such a thing. And if this man has not yet discovered that while the material mode of existence is the primum agens [primary agent, prime cause] this does not preclude the ideological spheres from reacting upon it in their turn, though with a secondary effect, he cannot possibly have understood the subject he is writing about. However, as I said, all this is secondhand and little Moritz is a dangerous friend. The materialist conception of history has a lot of them nowadays, to whom it serves as an excuse for not studying history. Just as Marx used to say, commenting on the French "Marxists" of the late [18]70s: "All I know is that I am not a Marxist."
The Base, ie the Mode of Production, is the primary mover. Capitalism is the creator of Liberalism, not the other way around. However, upon acknowledging this, some people fail to "close the loop," seeing the Superstructure, ie culture, merely as a "projection" from the Base, a constant emittance, rather than 2 components that develop each other dialectically, in spirals.
i don't think engels truly believes that moritz doesn't understand the mutually independent relationship of culture and the means of production, it sounds like engles just doesn't approve of moritz's philosophical priorities.
"I am sorry for the man who can write such a thing. And if this man has not yet discovered..."
is a leisurely needling of a disagreeable perspective rather than some certainty that moritz doesn't grasp the relationship between the base and its super structure.
I think it's more a consequence of this being an out of context snippet.
he contextualizes his thoughts well over several paragraphs, providing specific reasons and suppositions for his arguments.
What other context could be provided that would somehow make it clear engles truly doesn't believe that another scholar is missing a fundamental logical connection?
It's specifically a conversation surrounding misunderstandings of Dialectical Materialism, the example given being one such example.
are you a philosophy major or professional yourself? you seem very knowledgeable on the subject.
Nah, I'm just a Communist, I've read a good deal of Marx and the gang.
only in so far as engels is unwilling to consider alternate perspectives.
as I supposed earlier, his criticism sounds more like he's trying to academically armbar moritz's interpretation rather than suggest moritz doesn't actually understand the base and superprojection relationship.
he just understands it and discusses it in a way engels doesn't approve of.
that's how engels is coming off, anyway.
That's a fair interpretation, but it's also worth noting that Materialism in its Dialectical form was very new, ie created by Marx. There was a ton of misunderstanding surrounding his theories (which remains today).
ha, nothing truer these days.