Narrow Empiricism of Conspiracy Theorists and a Lesson from History
Sunny
Since the beginning of the corona crisis, conspiracy theories regarding the origin of the virus have also been spreading like an infection. The pandemic corresponded with the infodemic as fake news regarding the origin of the virus and its outbreak over world grew exponentially. As of now, more than a million people have lost lives due to the disease but there is a section of people who consider Coronavirus and lockdown implemented by governments to be a conspiracy. Covidiots, they tell us that the virus is not new but is a seasonal flu virus or it has its origin in a secret lab of China/Bill Gates, or it originated due to 5G bandwidth radiations, or it is the creation of ‘Big Pharma’ to sell its pre-researched vaccine, etc. Theories regarding ‘Deep State’ and comic book-like interpretations of the whole pandemic were also proposed claiming that the ‘Deep State’ wanted to control the population.
These interpretations found resonations among a section of the masses too. The reason has to be sought in the ‘common sense’ prevailing in people. It is an eclectic mesh of empiricist and ignorant observations. Motley theories explain the mechanisms of nature and society. It is expected from a section of the masses to fall prey to such conspiracy theories, as in the absence of access to a reasonable and scientific explanation of social and natural phenomena, they are prone to the vague appeal of such conspiracy theories. However, it is unfortunate that many ignorant and unread “Marxists” likewise start to tail the masses rather than lead and consequently claim that since a section of the masses does not believe in Coronavirus, the latter is a hoax.
What some parts of masses believe in, cannot be a litmus test for the existence of the virus. It was also proposed by these unread “Marxists” that the lockdown introduced by the government to mitigate the spread of the virus was imposed in order to profit the corporate houses and introduce dictatorial laws. They demanded that the lockdown must be lifted because economy is being wrecked and the livelihood of masses is at stake, just for the sake of corporate houses in the name of Covid-19.
Once these ignorant and anti-science common sense claims were trashed by people, they changed track. Now they began to claim that the virus is real and the only way to control the virus is through ‘herd immunity’. According to them only weak and old people would die from this disease and herd immunity will develop in that process. Fascists and right-wingers all over the globe were also against the lockdown as they insisted that the virus is not real, and lockdown will affect the economy adversely. After widespread criticism, the right-wingers did recognize the virus but started the rhetoric of herd immunity. The argument advanced by them was akin to our unread “Marxists”, namely, that even if weaker, sick and older people die, no mitigation procedures like lockdown should be followed, and the economy must be kept running.
The analysis of disease logically leads one to the solution for mitigating and curing the disease. Wrong analysis of both the right-wing (who lie to hide the real class contradictions) and left-wing Covidiots landed them in propagation of myriad forms of conspiracy theories. As a result, at the forefront of the propagation of these inane theories were anti-vaxxers, right-wingers, and some unread “Marxists” as well. Anti-vaxxers is a category of some naturalists who have been asserting that the vaccination is a conspiracy. It was an absurd and ironic situation that the unread “Marxists” were sharing the protest demonstrations held by the right-wingers and anti-vaxxers in Brazil, Europe, and America as “popular protests” against masks and Lockdown.
This absurdity has its roots in vulgar empiricist philosophy. Fascists and reactionary forces use prevalent eclectic empiricist ideas among masses to propagate their ideology. Empiricism is a philosophy popular among common masses, which in the absence of science, have only empirical, phenomenal, and impressionist knowledge about any social or natural phenomenon. According to Marx “Nothing is more tedious and dull than the fantasies of locus communis.” Disregard for theory is an essential feature of empiricism. As Mao explained:
As against this, vulgar “practical men” respect experience but despise theory, and therefore cannot have a comprehensive view of an entire objective process, lack clear direction and long-range perspective, and are complacent over occasional successes and glimpses of the truth. If such persons direct a revolution, they will lead it up a blind alley. (Mao, On Practice)
The unread “Marxists”, lacking theoretical vision, also fall prey to the philosophy of empiricism and start tailing the spontaneous unscientific and empiricist ideas prevalent among the common masses. They do not understand that ‘everything that glitters is not gold’. They assert on empirical observations, but when numerous empirical facts start to refute their theories, they fall back upon mysticism to explain the glaring absurdities in their theories. Every conspiracy theory has an allusion to the presence of some kind of mystical, unknown, and powerful actor behind every phenomenon.
As Engels explained, the dialectical other of shallow empiricism is modern spiritualism:
It is not the extravagant theorising of the philosophy of nature, but the shallowest empiricism that spurns all theory and distrusts all thought. It is not a priori necessity that proves the existence of spirits, but the empirical observations of Messrs. Wallace, Crookes, and Co. If we trust the spectrum-analysis observations of Crookes, which led to the discovery of the metal thallium, or the rich zoological discoveries of Wallace in the Malay Archipelago, we are asked to place the same trust in the spiritualistic experiences and discoveries of these two scientists. And if we express the opinion that, after all, there is a little difference between the two, namely, that we can verify the one but not the other, then the spirit-seers retort that this is not the case, and that they are ready to give us the opportunity of verifying also the spirit phenomena.
“Indeed, dialectics cannot be despised with impunity. However great one’s contempt for all theoretical thought, nevertheless one cannot bring two natural facts into relation with one another, or understand the connection existing between them, without theoretical thought. The only question is whether one’s thinking is correct or not, and contempt of theory is evidently the most certain way to think naturalistically, and therefore incorrectly. But, according to an old and well-known dialectic law, incorrect thinking, carried to its logical conclusion, inevitably arrives at the opposite of its point of departure. Hence, the empirical contempt of dialectics on the part of some of the most sober empiricists is punished by their being led into the most barren of all superstitions, into modern spiritualism.” (Engels, Dialectics of Nature)
The Big Pharma/’deep state’/few corporates becomes the supernatural force that explains every inexplicable fact. From the origin of Coronavirus and the implementation of lockdown or deaths caused by disease, a fantastic explanation follows the empiricist explanations.
The problem that we deal with here is thus a complex intricate set of problems. To grasp the essence, we need to untangle the knots of this web to untie its different components. The problem can be seen from the point of view of empiricism prevalent in medical sciences and empiricism prevailing in politics. We will also try to see the current problem with a historical reference to an ideological tendency that existed in Soviet Russia: Lysenkoism.
Empiricism Prevalent in Natural Science and Conspiracy Theories
To understand the essence of any phenomena we must penetrate the layer of outer appearance and reach its inner structure and constitution. It is achieved when our perceptual knowledge reaches to the stage of conceptual knowledge through the dialectic of practice-theory-practice. It is only in practice that our perception deepens and allows a leap to concepts through generalizations, to an understanding of laws, causality, inner structure, and constitution of a process i.e. to conceptual knowledge. The dish of stars in the sky over us is an apparent reality. It is the past we are looking into. If we look at the sky with a powerful telescope it is possible that we may be looking at a star that does not even exist, it might have died long ago, but its light is still reaching us and it appears to us that it is still there. Even the stars we see in night sky with naked eye are in range from few light years to thousands of light-years away and it takes thousands of years for light from some stars to reach us. It takes light around eight minutes to reach earth from sun. The sun we see is around eight minutes old. The night sky is an image of the past. Only through the scientific generalizations we reach to the stage of conceptual knowledge that our sky, the window to the universe, reflects a very dynamic picture of our universe. The Special theory of Relativity gave us conceptual clarity on this question.
Breeding of larvae on rotten meat leaves the impression that a new form of life grew out of it. But it is only the micro-organisms or flies present already in the environment which scavenge the meat and which makes it rot. Louis Pasteur proved it, leading to Germ theory. Robert Koch concluded that diseases are caused by various germs and not by the astrological positioning of planets and stars. Before it, the Miasma theory of Galen was popular according to which the diseases are caused by foul air. The concept of purity and naturalism is still prevalent in traditional medical practices like Ayurveda, Yunani medicine and Homeopathy. All of them are based on limited empirical observations and some pre-modern biological concepts. Many correct observations are made by these empirical practices but that does not make them science, as they lack scientific generalizations that lead to conceptual knowledge. Many concepts of these theories stand in contradiction to modern biology.
Modern Biology is a discipline which is one of the youngest of all modern sciences. First came the discovery of cell and then germ theory, and since then, each step has reduced the erstwhile abstract/mystical forces to concrete material biological causes. Of course, it does not mean that it can answer all questions. The dialectics of development of science is such that it gives many new answers, but only by raising many new questions at the same time. Modern Physics came into existence with the rise of the bourgeoisie during the period of Renaissance. First it was proven by Copernicus and Galileo that the model of the universe was not Ptolemaic, which stated that the Earth is the center of the universe. Apparently, the Sun revolves around the Earth, but science is required to know that appearance is not the reality and that it is the Earth that revolves around the Sun. Then in Chemistry, the phlogiston theory was also a similar concept according to which things catch fire because of a liquid substance called phlogiston present in them. Though phlogiston theory was a step forward but alchemy still hovered around the fire, explosion, and other chemical changes. Our knowledge of the constitution of chemical substances eventually disproved alchemy and phlogiston theories. As physics and chemistry matured, modern biology was born. And with it grew modern medicine, but cobwebs of old medicinal practices are present to this day.
Discoveries of modern science related to evolution and genetic theory emerged only in the 19th and 20th Centuries, constituting another leap of our knowledge of nature. Man first gained conceptual knowledge about galaxies and Earth, and only then was able to understand himself and his descent. Newton preceded Lyell and Lyell preceded Darwin. The mechanical changes on the terrestrial level and cosmological changes were conceptualized in man’s knowledge before the motion of species, which is called evolution. In this sense, modern biology is a young discipline.
Vaccination too, began only after knowing the immunity and other mechanisms of the human body and actions of germs on us. Edward Jenner discovered the vaccine for small-pox and later Fleming discovered first antibiotic vaccine. Germ theory was discovered by Louis Pasteur and Koch and it could have developed only in the 19th century. It demolished the theory of spontaneous generation of life. Oparin and Bernal proposed the biochemical origin of life, which was, later proven correct by experiments of Urey and Miller. The discovery of cells, the establishment of the theory of evolution, germ theory and usage of vaccines are important steps in development of human knowledge. This knowledge is the reflection of eternally moving matter on our minds and hence is always relative. There is always a horizon of the unknown and a frontier that represents a haziness of uncertainty for human knowledge. In the dialectic of ignorance and knowledge, there remain remnants or old skin of past theories lingering over new conceptions. In science we should not use concepts like truth and error in the absolute sense. They certainly can be used regarding some of the discoveries of what Engels has called exact sciences, which can be regarded eternal truths, that are final and ultimate. However, most of the discoveries or theories of science are relative and like all other thought categories move in a dialectical motion. As Engels explained:
Truth and error, like all thought-concepts which move in polar opposites, have absolute validity only in an extremely limited field, as we have just seen, and as even Herr Dühring would realise if he had any acquaintance with the first elements of dialectics, which deal precisely with the inadequacy of all polar opposites. As soon as we apply the antithesis between truth and error outside of that narrow field which has been referred to above it becomes relative and therefore unserviceable for exact scientific modes of expression, and if we attempt to apply it as absolutely valid outside that field we really find ourselves altogether beaten: both poles of the antithesis become transformed into their opposites, truth becomes error and error truth. (Engels, Anti-Duhring)
Remnants of theories of the past are dialectically negated in practice. Empiricism is contrary to dialectical materialism in the sense that it does not understand that the knowledge grows deeper and in the dialectical spiral of practice-theory-practice, we reach from lower levels to ever higher levels of perceptual and conceptual knowledge. The spiral of practice-knowledge-practice is unknown to empiricists. Modern science has proven that its worldview is dialectical materialism. But various empiricist conceptions are still persistent. As modern biology is a younger science, the marks of old empiricist and metaphysical theories are still present on it. This is even truer in the context of the common sense notions regarding biological phenomena among the masses. The popularity of conspiracy theories around Covid-19 is a perfect example of empiricism widespread in the common masses. If now we see the problem of Covid-19, we can easily understand the different conspiracy theories and their source of ignorance around such theories.
Covid-19 is caused by SARS Coronavirus-2 and it affects the upper respiratory system of the patient. The virus is a strain of Coronavirus. Common cold is caused by certain strains of Coronavirus, which are different from SARS Coronavirus-2. When defining a disease, we define objective statistical parameters like basic reproduction number R(o) (number of people an infected person can infect), case fatality rate, and infection fatality rate to assess the danger a disease presents. What is a virus? A virus is the genetic material in protein coating that can have a lipid coating. SARS Coronavirus-2 has protein spikes protruding though the lipid coating around protein envelope containing RNA strands. The presence of lipid coating is the reason why alcohol-based sanitizers or soaps are effective against the virus. According to the genetic structure, it has been predicted that the virus has zoonotic origins (which means that it has passed to humans from some non-vertebrate animals) and it has species jump to humans via an immediate host. Most probably it has jumped from source host bat. Bat virus is genetically very similar to SARS Coranavirus-2. Various genetic structure studies on the virus reject the possibility of its origin in laboratory. All evidences point towards evolution of virus via natural selection. The state of the art technology in lab does not allow such evolution to be carried out in laboratory.
Viruses do not have a metabolic mechanism and depend upon living organisms for their propagation. Genetic material inside protein envelope is either DNA or RNA, which is the material of heredity. All characteristic information of an organism is present in this genetic material. The virus attacks a multicellular organism body by entering inside the cell and makes use of the metabolism of cells to replicate itself. SARS Coronavirus-2 enters the human body and gets attached to enzyme present on human cells through its protein spikes. The immune system of our body tries to attack the virus and immune responses are triggered. There are two types of immune responses: innate and adapted. The innate response is associated with the release of certain chemicals like cytokines, which try to kill the infected cell and thus produce a systemic response like fever. All other symptoms like runny nose, sore throat, and muscle sore are effects of our immune system’s innate response to the pathogens. Thus, symptoms of flu, common cold, and Covid-19 are similar. Empiricists postulating on phenomenal knowledge thereupon declare these diseases to be identical. Empiricistically, Covid-19 can be called a viral infection identical to flu and common cold. The reason for the common masses believing in conspiracy theories is precisely because of this reason. The various medical practitioners of Homeopathy and Ayurveda also propagate such mysticism appertaining to the different viruses. These are practices based upon empirical observations to counter diseases when the body is invaded by foreign bodies. These are symptom-based. How can they counter Covid-19? Well, they cannot! Many medical quacks use these empirical similarities to disprove the existence of novel Coronavirus.
The second type of immunity response is called adapted immunity response. Adapted immunity responses involve lymphocyte cells and antibodies that have particular response to specific pathogen. This immunity triggers the response whenever it identifies a pathogen (a foreign substance) and produces antibodies, and cells specific to them, counter these pathogens and memorize the characteristic structure, called antigen, of pathogen to attack the virus if it enters into our body again. Adaptive immunity can be natural or artificial. Artificially adapted immunity is developed through vaccines. It is the introduction of a vaccine, which has characteristic structure of disease-causing pathogen but does not harm our body, and our immune system recognizes the characteristic structure of the pathogen and attacks the pathogen when it actually infects us.
This is a very simplified picture of a very complex process, but it was necessary to understand the basics about pathogens, immunity system and vaccination. But our Covidiots, including the unread “Marxists”, in absence of knowledge regarding vaccine and virology or epidemiology start to sing in chorus with anti-vaxxers that vaccine is a fraud and to recover from infection we must let our naturally-acquired immunity to work. But this is rejection of modern biology and if anyone lauds it, he must not declare himself a Marxist. This is the argument they give in support of herd immunity too. They maintain that scientists are working for pharmaceutical corporate giants not to produce vaccines but a commodity and to secure their profits. Of course, every discovery of science becomes a commodity in capitalism, including the labour power of the scientists and other intellectual workers. It is idiotic to reiterate this truth in order to disprove the scientific nature of various discoveries. This certainly does not mean that vaccination is fakery. E=mc2 was used by scientists to make nuclear bomb resulting in annihilation of lakhs of people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki but that does not mean that the equation is incorrect. We must differentiate science from the ways in which this system utilizes it.
A virus is not a matter of speculation as you can observe the virus under a microscope. SARS Coronavirus-2 has also been observed under electron microscope. You can test it by testing the antigen, protein of SARS coronavirus-2, present in the body; or through RT PCR (reverse transcript polymerase condensation reaction) test of the virus, which tests the RNA of virus in upper respiratory tract of patient. It is an objective fact. The biological structure of the virus, which distinguishes it from other viruses, is an objective fact. But the lack of knowledge of science leads to belief in all sorts of conspiracy theories.
The Ideological Function of Conspiracy Theories
These theories help put a veil over the contradictions of capitalism. The COVID-19 spread among humans due to the anarchic destruction of the environment by capitalism. The habitat of wildlife is shrinking on a large scale because of the blind and anarchic profit-driven growth of industrialization and agriculture. When their habitat is destroyed virus specific to particular species of wildlife come into contact with our society. Right since the beginning of the human society, viruses have been infecting us. However, the blind profit drive has led to the destruction of ecology and environment in such proportions especially in the later part of the Twentieth century, that infections from viruses and the infections causing epidemics and pandemics, has become a serious crisis. The process of a virus entering human hosts is through ‘species jump’ where a virus associated with species of wildlife encounters humans, and through genetic evolution, starts to affect humans.
In capitalism, we are cursed with frequent epidemics as capitalists try to “rule over nature like a conqueror” and on the other hand, the public health infrastructure (wherever it exists) is gradually dismantled and health too is transformed into a commodity. This wreaks havoc on the poor population. The ‘angel of death’, as Engels referred to pandemics, spreads its wings over slums but does not leave the housing of the rich also. Unable to understand the socio-ecological origin and spread of virus, Covidiots claim that scientists working under Big Pharma are creating these viruses in laboratory! The unread “Marxists” also share these fantasies. They add the adjective ‘Bourgeois’ to the scientists to reject their theories on the basis of their social class character. This is class reductionism. This was also one of the defining features in Lysenkoism. We will be dealing with it later in our article.
Another point to note is that whenever scientists had to revise their analysis, the Covidiots celebrated that this proves that scientists are wrong! The revision of death counts in some countries or the revisions of analysis of origin of virus was ridiculed by these Covidiots. Science does not have answer to every question and is historically conditioned by our observations. The metaphysicians play on this uncertainty and the factor of unknown which is always present in the arena of science, and come up with fantastic explanations of natural phenomena. Scientists can only answer questions with uncertainties and unknowns. This is what separates science from religion. Lenin explains that scientific ideology is historically conditional:
In a word, every ideology is historically conditional, but it is unconditionally true that to every scientific ideology (as distinct, for instance, from religious ideology), there corresponds an objective truth, absolute nature. You will say that this distinction between relative and absolute truth is indefinite. And I shall reply: yes, it is sufficiently “indefinite” to prevent science from becoming a dogma in the bad sense of the term, from becoming something dead, frozen, ossified; but it is at the same time sufficiently “definite” to enable us to dissociate ourselves in the most emphatic and irrevocable manner from fideism and agnosticism, from philosophical idealism and the sophistry of the followers of Hume and Kant. Here is a boundary which you have not noticed, and not having noticed it, you have fallen into the swamp of reactionary philosophy. It is the boundary between dialectical materialism and relativism.
The materialist dialectics of Marx and Engels certainly does contain relativism, but is not reducible to relativism, that is, it recognizes the relativity of all our knowledge, not in the sense of denying objective truth, but in the sense that the limits of approximation of our knowledge to this truth are historically conditional. (Lenin, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism)
In the analysis of Coronavirus whenever there is an error in observation and analysis, it is used by propagandists of conspiracy theorists to contend that scientists are wrong. Conspiracy theorists exploit empiricism prevalent among the masses and are backed by various half-cooked theories regarding genes and other scientific concepts. One version of the conspiracy theory claims that through the Covid-19 vaccine, quantum dot bots will be introduced into the body, which will control the humans. It is just a ridiculous fallacious concept. It resembles the theory that the new 500- and 2000-Rupee currency notes in India introduced after demonetization have nano-chips to track currency through satellite! The utter incapacity to comprehend the complexity of phenomena leads to such absurd mystic explanations of things. This is the modern spiritualism prevalent as a shadow of empiricism. The genetic mutation of the virus by 5G technology and other claims too are equally inane. But due to ignorance, these ideas always reverberate. The lack of knowledge due to empiricism is always full of mystic theories, somewhat akin to the way in which magic worked in the primitive era. A magical explanation is sought for the unexplained. Empiricism has always been followed by spiritualism as its shadow.
Political Empiricism and Coronavirus
Conspiracy theories also present politically naïve understanding. It was widely claimed that the virus was developed by China/Bill Gates/Big Pharma/’Deep State’ for political and economic gains. Covidiots do not recognize that the appearance gives shallow knowledge of any phenomenon. Luddite movement during the inception of capitalism was one such movement where the reason for the misery of workers was ascribed to machines. Workers used to break the machines in their misery. The working-class movement grew politically after the strikes in Lyon city, the Chartist movement of English workers, and the revolutions of 1848. This experience was summed up scientifically in theory by Marx and Engels and only under the guidance of Marxism, the working-class movement was able to realize that the bourgeoisie is their real enemy and became acquainted with the theory of class struggle. But in the absence of theoretical rigor or a disregard for theory, working-class movement moves to economism, trade unionism and anarchism which have their philosophical roots in narrow empiricism. The economism of Robocheyo Deylo, the spirit believer Wallace (referred in the quote of Engels presented above), and the modern conspiracy theorists have a common thread of narrow empiricism running through their theories. It is precisely narrow empiricism that eclipses the understanding or origin of virus, its spread, the failure to stop the disease, lockdown and the profit-driven vaccination.
The belief that the virus is a conspiracy was also fueled by Donald Trump and right-wing leaders like Bolsonero. When the disease spread unchecked, various countries implemented lockdown. Covidiots claimed that lockdown is a conspiracy of governments to impose autocratic measures. And when governments proposed big bailouts for corporate houses, it was reiterated that lockdown is a conspiracy so that the corporate lobby could be bailed out. But this reverses the relation between cause and the effect. In general, lockdown is a valid scientific policy for the mitigation of any virul infection to save the weak from infection. Even Socialist China implemented a lockdown to prevent the spread of a viral infection. However, under capitalism, the bourgeois state implements every such policy in a capitalist way, that is, with general capitalist interests in command.
How various bourgeois governments implemented lockdown and the policies they executed during the lockdown, does not prove that the government enforced lockdown to profit corporate and to inflict autocratic laws. The economy was already in tatters when the pandemic hit, which only aggravated the crisis. Further, to claim that during lockdown, profits of capitalists increased is factually incorrect, although it is true that some capitalists benefitted from the lockdown. The profit of capitalist class has its origin in the production of surplus value. It is idiotic to claim that the appropriated surplus value increased during the lockdown. The concentration of capital did not increase during the lockdown as production of surplus value was severely restricted. The lockdown certainly deepened the crisis of world capitalism as the only source of value, which is production by exploitation of labour, was hindered during the lockdown. However, in every crisis, there is a parallel process of centralization of capital. The bigger capital eliminates the smaller capitals through mergers and acquisitions. This does not represent the absolute increase in the magnitude of surplus value. On the contrary, it represents the centralization of capital that reduces the number of magnates of capital. Therefore, the largest corporations increased their profits during the lockdown by swallowing the smaller capitals, which were forced to undersell. Secondly, every crisis benefits certain sectors of economy due to their particular location and function in the capitalist economy. Thus, the e-marketing companies, IT and communications companies and online business firms profited hugely from the conditions created by the lockdown. What the Covidiots and unread “Marxists” do not understand is the difference between the concentration of capital (which is possible only with increasing general accumulation of capital) and centralization of capital (which is possible and even usual during the crisis of accumulation). Thus, the obscene profits of the biggest corporate houses were confused by these ignoramuses with the increasing profitability of the capitalist system and therefore the lockdown was construed as a “conspiracy” to increase the profits of the capitalist class! This only shows an utter lack of understanding of the basics of Marxist political economy. Only during the production process surplus is generated and hence the profit of capitalist class is generated. Marx explained that, in periods where there is no crisis, both concentration and centralization of capital takes place. It is the normal course where expanded reproduction takes place. According to Marx:
With the increasing mass of wealth which functions as capital, accumulation increases the concentration of that wealth in the hands of individual capitalists, and thereby widens the basis of production on a large scale and of the specific methods of capitalist production. The growth of social capital is effected by the growth of many individual capitals. All other circumstances remaining the same, individual capitals, and with them the concentration of the means of production, increase in such proportion as they form aliquot parts of the total social capital. (Marx, Capital, Volume 1)
However, the process of centralization of capital can and does happen without the concentration of capital, which can happen only when overall social capital increases due to expanded reproduction and increasing accumulation. Marx explains the concept of centralization of capital as follows:
It is concentration of capitals already formed, destruction of their individual independence, expropriation of capitalist by capitalist, transformation of many small into few large capitals. This process differs from the former in this, that it only presupposes a change in the distribution of capital already to hand, and functioning; its field of action is therefore not limited by the absolute growth of social wealth, by the absolute limits of accumulation. Capital grows in one place to a huge mass in a single hand, because it has in another place been lost by many. This is centralisation proper, as distinct from accumulation and concentration. (Marx, ibid)
Thus, the centralization of capital can occur even if the total capital decreases or remains stationary. According to Marx this centralization occurs continuously. Big capital swallows the smaller capital in competition. In economic crisis not every capitalist is ruined, but only a section of capitalist class is ruined, mostly the smaller and weaker capitalists. In this process, even some big capitalists go bankrupt, whereas a section of big capitalists increases their wealth during crisis. The increment in profit is explained by concentration of capital while centralization of capital explains monopolization of capital. But according to conspiracy theorists a section of capitalists planned the lockdown to increase their profits and the capitalist state, abandoning its duty to serve the general class interest of the capitalist class, aligned itelf with a small coterie of big capitalists and imposed lockdown so that it can increase its profits! This is a travesty of Marxist analysis.
Furthermore, lockdown and its implementation under the capitalist system, even in liberal democracies, will always be dictatorial for the common people. The class which is in power and is at a vantage point to make good of all opportunities will certainly use lockdowns too to its ends. Thus, turning ‘catastrophe into opportunity’, all capitalist governments used the lockdowns to curb the democratic rights and civil liberties of the working masses. What is so surprising about that? How does it prove that lockdown itself was a capitalist conspiracy? Have these Covidiots even imagined what kind of global consensus would be required among the capitalist classes of all countries to impose such a lockdown as a conspiracy? The limits of the idiocy of such unread “Marxists” is clearly visible if one looks at the implications of their arguments.
Secondly, if the implementation of lockdown is not followed with testing, contact tracing, quarantine and treatment then it will fail. Lockdown failed to sufficiently control infection in many countries precisely due to the lack of proper testing, tracing and treatment. Moreover, the failure to control Covid-19 was also due to the collapse of public health services, which had been systematically destroyed in almost all capitalist countries in order to benefit the private sector. The failure of the public health system wreaked havoc in general. Patients of cancer, cardio, respiratory diseases and other common diseases also faced a severe health crisis. There was a mental health crisis as well. Indeed, these factors were absolutely aggravated during the pandemic, but the lockdown in itself was not the reason as the Covidiots and empiricists suppose, but the class character of the way in which the lockdown was implemented in a system driven by private profit. This is a simplification of the problem by empiricists. Unable to grasp the essential factors behind the tragedy that ensued after the pandemic and lockdown, they peddle easily accessible “truths” of the conspiracy theories. Yes, most certainly, Big Pharma looks for every opportunity to make profits. Many governments used the pandemic to pass draconian laws too. Bailout packages were announced and few capitalists made profit as well. Big Pharma will seek profit in every tragedy and fascists and the right-wing will seek every opportunity to impose draconian laws. But to reduce the problem caused by the structural crisis of capitalism to the pandemic and lockdown in itself, in fact, gives a clean chit to capitalism, as the entire thing becomes a conspiracy of certain capitalists rather than a systemic crisis of capitalism.
Genetics and Narrow Empiricism in Lysenkoism
In USSR during socialist construction a similar mistake was committed. The Lysenko movement led to the hinderance in the study of genetics. It was made difficult to criticize the incorrect views of Lysenko. A very naïve solution to the problem presented by agriculture was sought by Lamarckian understanding of Lysenko, which gained support from socialist state machinery in the name of criticism of Bourgeois ideology in Science. But that does not harm the great summits that the Soviet science reached. We will present a detailed critique of all these positions in another article but here we will limit ourselves to the empiricist and layman understanding of Lysenko and his ridicule of theory which must serve as a lesson for the unread “Marxists”. It was a blunder to support a metaphysical empiricist theory against the correct dialectical materialist theory of change in species. This was an example of mechanistic understanding prevalent in the Party. The Zhadanov thesis of 1946 is an example of this mechanistic trend when art works of Eisenstein, Shostakovich, Vakhtangov and others were criticized for being too abstract. Overall, a tendency of productivism and economism was prevalent in Bolshevik Party, as a result of a philosophical mechanical tendency after Lenin. To gain a better understanding we should briefly seek the historical setting in which Lysenkoism grew.
The period when Lysenkoism grew was the post-NEP period of the beginning of collectivization movement. Famine created by hoarding of grains by new kulaks also put pressure on agriculture. Secondly, there was a wide gap between agriculture and industry. Agricultural surplus was utilized for industrial expansion. This was in part an objective limitation, as large scale production was necessary for socialism. However, without a grasp on revolution, simply promoting production led to compromising the question of constant revolutionization of production relations. The productivist notion of developing productive forces led to the particular relations between mental labour and manual labour, town and country, and industry and agriculture that existed in the Soviet Union. The complex objective conditions and subjective conditions created the ground for the mistake of Lysenkoism.
Secondly, the conditions for agriculture were difficult in Russia geographically. In such situations, any agricultural technique or theory which yields better produce will obviously gain. Lysenko utilized vernalization, grafting and hybridization to lead better agricultural produce. Vernalization meant freezing the seeds and sowing them in spring season. The word is derived from Latin- Vernum which means spring. Lysenko was experimenting with grafting of various plants. He claimed to follow Michurin on this stand and developed a Lamarckian evolutionary theory. Lysenko’s genetic theory model was Michurin-Darwinian. Grafting and various techniques helped overcome the adversities that agriculture faced in Russia. Moreover, the crisis of agriculture required urgent measures. Lysenko came with an immediate solution. This was the second objective condition.
Third, the young generation which grew up in socialist Russia was reaching University and technical institutes. Sons and daughters of workers and peasants were at the front of socialist construction. They were reaching universities and challenging the university elite from the pre-revolutionary era. Winds of change were blowing all through the education institutions. In 1930 collectivization movement began. The situation of famine created by kulaks, need for agricultural surplus and the collectivization movement, all asked the soviet workers and peasants to stand for the socialist construction. Five year plans were initiated and a healthy socialist competition was organized to build socialism. Lysenko was one among many peasants who responded to political situation. He was the one who took the challenge raised by conditions of agricultural crisis. In this sense, his response was politically correct and this was the third reason for the rise of Lysenkoism.
Fourth, the state of genetics at that moment was still in its infancy. The genetics was modeled on Morgan and Mendel’s experiments, hence called Morgan-Mendel genetics. It was the basis on which modern genetics grew. The best model of the study was Drosophila (fruit fly). The scientists associated with this were ridiculed by Lysenko as theorists without practice. The genetics was still in its infancy and the experiments of the theory could only be small steps at that time. Various scientists of Genetics from the western world were openly racist and reasoned that the white race was genetically superior to the black race. The rulers and the ruled were predetermined according to heredity. It was still a theoretical issue and had no practical say on many questions risen. The crisis of agriculture required urgent measures, but genetics provided only caution and confusion. Lysenko openly claimed that through grafting and vernalization he will increase the harvest. It was the fourth major cause of the rise of Lysenkoism.
Morgan-Mendelian Genetics was presumed to be a bourgeois science mainly due to its practice in the West and the reactionary political positions of many of the leading scientists of genetics. It was associated with the eugenetics which was a racist theory. An alternative Lamarckian understanding of genetics, Michurian-Darwinian was proposed by Lysenko which rejected the existence of genes. Furthermore, it was speculated that the Morgan-Mendelian genetic science was not practical and those geneticists were “fly breeders and people haters”. A narrow empiricism was the philosophical cornerstone of Lysenkoism which criticized the genetic theory by defining it as bourgeois ideology. According to Lysenko, “It is better to know less, but to know just what is necessary for practice.”
He used revolutionary slogans and class analogy to support his theory and condemn Mendelian Morganist school for ‘menshevizing idealism’. His class background was also used as propaganda to counter pre-revolutionary era intellectuals. This became popular among people after criticism of Deborin who was criticized for ‘menshevizing idealism’. Still, a healthy debate continued between Lysenkoist group and the genetic school.
Whole philosophical shell to the kernel of grafting and vernalization of Lysenko was created by Prezent. Mitin rightly criticized Prezent in 1939 and asked to divide the result of agronomy of Lysenko from philosophical scholasticism of Prezent. Although the whole Lysenkoist problem is umbilically-linked in academia to its anti-Stalin propaganda, anti-socialist propaganda and pseudo-facts, yet we must understand that Lysonkoism was indeed a theoretical mistake. The so-called objective study of Loren Graham and Joravasky is also heavily biased with anti-Stalin and anti-Soviet point of view. Helena Sheehan presents an objective picture, but her analysis misses the historical analysis. Levins and Lewontin present the best analysis of the Lysenko problem claiming it to be a conjuncture of historical, political and scientific development of that time, although their understanding of problems of socialist construction is amateurish. We will present a thorough critique of Lysenko problem in a separate article and will limit ourselves to the content of present article.
Lysenko proposed that species of grain can be altered by altering the environmental conditions. The acquired characteristics during the lifetime of a plant will be transferred to its progeny; this Lamarckian understanding that only Environment decides characteristics of the organism was the theoretical premise of Lysenko. But this is incorrect. This was an empiricist and metaphysical understanding of change in species. But the experiments of Lysenko were yielding results, and harvests did improve. The reason for this improvement was not a Lamarckian adaptation of the seeds, but it can be explained by multiple factors among which the primary factors were grafting and vernalization. Lysenkoist position explained that the phenotype of an organism depends only on environment; while the genetics school pointed out that it depends only on the genotype. Although, the genetic school upheld that the expression of genes is only dependent on genes, but the expression is probable, while Lysenko proposed deterministic solutions to the problems of speciation. On one hand, the genetic school put emphasis only on genes and ignored the environment and on the other hand, the Lamarckian standpoint of Lysenko put emphasis only on the environment but rejected the existence and influence of genes. Both of the standpoints were incorrect, but genetics school was less erroneous than Lamarckian school, as it emphasized the internal factor as the determinant.
Genes primarily decide the phenotype, but environment provides condition for its development. Secondly, while genetic school was probabilistic and never cared to explain the probabilistic nature of its origin rather claimed it to be an intrinsic property. It put more emphasis on contingency. Lysenko’s theory was deterministic and emphasized on ‘necessity’. The dialectic of necessity and contingency was broken in both the schools. The debates between Lysenko and genetic school became a public topic. Workers’ magazines were debating both theories. Lysenko was winning the narrative because he responded to a current political question and claimed that he can end the agricultural crisis. Contrary to the claims of bourgeois academia and media Lysenko was never supported by state machinery because of his theory during the so-called great purge. In the so-called great purge, people both from Lysenkoist and the genetic school side were persecuted for conspiracy against the state and not for their biological standpoint. Only in 1948 after the Second World War and the announcement of the cold war, genetics was condemned, and Lysenko was made the head of agronomical institute and genetics institute of academy of science. Again, contrary to the claims of bourgeois academia, research in genetics continued but with Lysenko as the head of the agronomical and genetic studies. Research on genetics was Lysenkoist i.e. Michurian-Darwinian and not Morgan-Mendelian. This was a counter-factual standpoint of the party. This understanding contradicted the understanding of Lenin, who said that we must differentiate between the philosophical point of view of a scientist and his theory. The question of politics and natural science were merged with each other. It is an important lesson which we must keep a note of, as Lenin was very clear on how we should treat the theory of natural science and philosophical position of scientists concerned.
It should be remembered that the sharp upheaval which modern natural science is undergoing very often gives rise to reactionary philosophical schools and minor schools, trends and minor trends. Unless, therefore, the problems raised by the recent revolution in natural science are followed, and unless natural scientists are enlisted in the work of a philosophical journal, militant materialism can be neither militant nor materialism. Timiryazev was obliged to observe in the first issue of the journal that the theory of Einstein, who, according to Timiryazev, is himself not making any active attack on the foundations of materialism, has already been seized upon by a vast number of bourgeois intellectuals of all countries; it should be noted that this applies not only to Einstein, but to a number, if not to the majority, of the great reformers of natural science since the end of the nineteenth century. (Lenin, On the Significance of Militant Materialism)
We should also consider the treatment of natural scientists by Marx and Engels who dialectically divided the objective scientific theory from the philosophical viewpoint of the scientists. We must divide one into two and not merge two into one. First is the method of dialectics, while the other is the metaphysical method. One good example of application of dialectics is in analysis of Darwin and his Malthusian theory by Marx and Engels. Marx and Engels appreciated the theory of evolution greatly. As Marx wrote to Lassalle in a letter:
Darwin’s work is most important and suits my purpose in that it provides a basis in natural science for the historical class struggle… Despite all shortcomings, it is here that, for the first time, “teleology” in natural science is not only dealt a mortal blow but its rational meaning is empirically explained. (Marx, Letter to F. Lassalle, January 1861)
While appreciating the scientific revolutionary character of Darwin’s contribution they criticized his and certain social Darwinists’ justification of Malthusian theory of population on basis of Darwin’s scientific theory:
All that the Darwinian theory of the struggle for existence boils down to is an extrapolation from society to animate nature of Hobbes’ theory of the bellum omnium contra omnes [war of all against all] and of the bourgeois-economic theory of competition together with the Malthusian theory of population. Having accomplished this feat … these people proceed to re-extrapolate the same theories from organic nature to history, and then claim to have proved their validity as eternal laws of human society. The puerility of this procedure is self-evident, and there is no need to waste words on it. (Engels, Letter to Pyotr Lavrov, November 12-17, 1875)
And further
Let us accept for a moment the phrase “struggle for existence,” for argument’s sake. The most that the animal can achieve is to collect; man produces, he prepares the means of subsistence, in the widest sense of the words, which without him nature would not have produced. This makes impossible any unqualified transference of the laws of life in animal societies to human society. (Engels, ‘Notes and Fragments’, Dialectics of Nature)
This dialectical treatment was blurred during the Lysenko debate, but it owes to the nascent state of genetics also, which was still in its formative years. But the mechanist understanding prevalent in the Party allowed growth of such narrow empiricist theory and pushed back the development of Soviet genetics. The class reductionism of Lysenkoism also is repeated by our present unread “Marxists” that the scientist concerned are bourgeois scientists and therefore their science and scientific theory must also be discredited.
Conclusion
In the current scenario, the refutation of the scientific analysis of Coronavirus by various empiricists and conspiracy theorists has been akin to Lysenkoism where slogans have replaced concrete analysis and narrow empiricism is prevalent instead of dialectical materialism. Coronavirus is a virus that jumped species from a bat or some other wild animal and caused an upper respiratory infection. Following the most crude and plebian kind of empiricism or layman’s logic, our Covidiots claim that the disease is just a seasonal flu or common cold. The different infection fatality rates and case fatality rates are objective facts which clearly demonstrate that Coronavirus is not just another seasonal flu. However, faced with irrefutable data and evidence, the unread “Marxists” claim that the government is fooling the people and is presenting fake data. Yes, the government did tamper with the data, but not to magnify the threat of Coronavirus but to downplay this threat and underestimate the deaths cause by Coronavirus, as is now well-known. The authoritarian implementation of lockdowns, its failure in many countries to sufficiently contain the spread of infection and aggravation of the economic crisis were not product of conspiracy of a few capitalists and ‘deep state’. They were structural products and outcomes of a profit-driven capitalist system. Narrow empiricist, mysticism and utter failure to comprehend or lack of access to scientific knowledge is at root of all these conspiracy theories and they need to be dispelled by revolutionary communists. This too is a site of ideological struggle in the society between bourgeois narrow empiricism and metaphysics on the one hand and dialectical materialism on the other.
