Abstract
Attacks on John Dewey by proponents of capitalism and Communism have not been few. Nor have they been consistent. If we focus on the years around Dewey’s death in 1952, we find Friedrich A. Hayek denouncing Dewey as “the leading philosopher of American left-wingism” and Harry K. Wells berating him as “the leading philosopher of U.S. imperialism”.1 Obviously, both of these charges cannot be true. Some of the confusion here is due to a lack of understanding (and perhaps not a little malice) on the part of the critics; some of it is a result of Dewey’s attempt to develop an independent social and economic stance that opposed both the capitalism and the organized Marxism of his day. But, whatever its causes, this confusion continues to our present day.
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Notes
Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1950, p. 26
Wells, Pragmatism: Philosophy of Imperialism, NY, International, 1954, p. 132.
Eastman, ‘John Dewey’, Atlantic Monthly (December 1941), p. 682.
In this paper, I have used the following abbreviations for the works of Dewey that reappear frequently: F&C — Freedom and Culture, NY, Capricorn, [1939] 1963; LSA — Liberalism and Social Action, NY, Capricorn, [1935], 1963]; LW — The Later Works, 1925–1953, Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press, 1981-, 8 volumes so far; MW — The Middle Works, 1899–1924, Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press, 1976–1983, 15 volumes; PM — Problems of Men, NY, Philosophical Library, 1946.
Dewey, Lectures on Psychological and Political Ethics, 1898, Donald F. Koch, editor, NY, Hafner, 1976, pp. 399–400
Lectures in China, 1919–1920, Robert W. Clopton and Tsuin-Chen Ou, editors, Honolulu, University Press of Hawaii, 1973, pp. 117–24.
Mead, Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century, Merritt H. Moore, editor, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1936, p. 240
cf. Walter Lippmann, A Preface to Politics, NY, Macmillan, [1913], 1933, pp. 213–4, 238–9.
The early material first appeared in the four volumes: Aus dem literarischen Nachlass von Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, und Ferdinand Lasalle, edited by Franz Mehring, Stuttgart, Deitz, 1902. The Marx and Engels material reappeared in the three volumes of Gessamelte Schriften von Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels, 1841 bis 1850
Stuttgart, Dietz, 1913. The Marx and Engels Historisch-Kritische Gesamtausgabe (MEGA, Frankfurt, Berlin Moscow, 1927–1935) began with some of Marx’ early writings. Marx-Engels, Selected Writings (MESW, NY, International, 1935–6) rendered some of this material into English. The Manuscripts themselves first appeared in MEGA I/3, Berlin, 1932, with a complete English translation only years later: Moscow, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1959; NY, International, 1964. Significant as well was Marx’ Grundrisse which, although written in the late 1850s, was only published in German between 1939 and 1941, and translated into English in 1973.
Dewey, ‘A Great American Prophet’, Common Sense, III (April 1934), pp. 6–7.
Stalin, The Foundations of Leninism, in Works, Moscow, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1953, VI (1924), p. 73.
Alex Bittleman, ‘Some Problems Before the Tenth Convention of the Communist Party’, The Communist, XVII (July 1938), p. 628.
Browder, The People’s Front, NY, International, 1938, p. 289.
Dewey, Theory of Valuation, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, [1939], 1966, p. 61; cf. MW 14:88; LSA 75.
Dewey, Art as Experience, NY, Minton, Balch, 1934, p. 27.
Dewey, ‘The Imperative Need for a New Radical Party’, Common Sense, II (September 1933), p. 6.
Dewey, Lectures in China, p. 118.
Sidney Hook, ‘Why I Am a Communist: Communism Without Dogmas’, Modern Monthly, VIII (April 1934), p. 145
cf. Hook, Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx: A Revolutionary Interpretation, London, Victor Gollancz, 1933, pp. 248–9.
Dewey, ‘Why I Am Not a Communist’, Modern Monthly, VIII (April 1934), p. 135.
Dewey, ‘The Basis for Hope’, Common Sense, VIII (December 1939), p. 10.
Browder, ‘The Revisionism of Sidney Hook’ (Part One), The Communist, XII (February 1933), p. 146.
Stalin, ‘Report to the 17th Party Congress’ [26 January 1934], Selected Writings, NY, International, 1942, p. 359.
Dewey, ‘Why I Am Not a Communist’, p. 137.
Trotsky, ‘The Moralists and Sycophants against Marxism’, [1939], Their Morals and Ours: Marxist vs. Liberal Views on Morality, George Novack, editor, NY, Pathfinder Press, 1973, p. 65; Terrorism and Communism, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, [1920], 1961, p. 54; Their Morals and Ours’, [1938], Their Morals and Ours, pp. 49, 37.
Dewey, ‘Means and Ends’, [1938], Their Morals and Ours, p. 69; ‘Why I Am Not a Communist’, p. 137.
Dewey, ‘Why I Am Not a Communist’, p. 137.
Olgin, Why Communism? Plain Talks on Vital Problems, NY, Workers Library, 1933, pp. 62, 46.
Dewey, ‘Why I Am Not a Communist’, p. 136; ‘Means and Ends’, p. 71.
Dewey, ‘Why I Am Not a Communist’, p. 135.
Trotsky, Terrorism and Communism, p. 23.
Dewey, ‘Democracy is Radical’, Common Sense, VI (January 1937), p. 11.
Dewey, ‘The Economic Basis of the New Society’, Intelligence in the Modern World, Joseph Ratner, editor, NY, Modern Library, 1939, p. 432.
Dewey, ‘The Imperative Need for a New Radical Party’, p. 6; The Future of Liberalism or The Democratic Way of Change’, What is Democracy?, Norman, Cooperative Books, 1939, p. 10; cf. PM 119; LW 6: 149, 176; ‘Why I Am Not a Communist’, p. 136.
Dewey, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, NY, Holt, 1938, p. 237.
Dewey, ‘Means and Ends’, p. 71.
Olgin, Why Communism?, pp. 45–6; Dewey ‘The Future of Liberalism or The Democratic Way of Change’, p. 9.
For a discussion of this aspect of Dewey’s social thought, cf. my ‘Dewey’s Method of Social Reconstruction’, Trans. of the C.S. Peirce Society, XX (Fall 1984), pp. 363–93.
Dewey, The Economic Basis of the New Society’, p. 428.
Ibid., p. 430.
Dewey, ‘No Half Way House for America’, People’s Lobby Bulletin, IV (November 1934), p. 1.
Culture and the Crisis, NY, Workers Library, 1932, pp. 5, 17, 30.
Sweezy, The Theory of Capitalist Development, NY, Monthly Review Press, [1942], 1956, p. 241.
Olgin, Why Communism?, p. 81; Stalin, ‘Report to the 17th Party Congress’, p. 331.
Lenin, State and Revolution [1918], in Selected Works, 12 volumes, NY, International, 1938, VII, p. 26
What Is To Be Done? [1902],ibid., H, p. 112
Left-Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder [1920],ibid., X, pp. 84, 60–1.
Dewey, ‘Experience, Knowledge and Value: A Rejoinder’, The Philosophy of John Dewey, Paul A. Schilpp, editor, LaSalle, Open Court, [1939], 1951, p. 593.
Dewey, ‘Creative Democracy — The Task before Us’, The Philosopher of the Common Man, NY, Putnams, 1940, pp. 225–6.
Mills, Sociology and Pragmatism: The Higher Learning in America, Irving L. Horowitz, editor, NY, Oxford University Press, 1966, p. 394.
Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics, NY, Scribners, [1932], 1960, p. xv; ‘The Twilight of Liberalism’, New Republic (14 June 1919), p. 218.
Browder, ‘The Revisionism of Sidney Hook’ (Part Two), The Communist, XII (March 1933), p. 293.
Lippmann, A Preface to Politics, p. 237.
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Campbell, J. (1988). Dewey’s Understanding of Marx and Marxism. In: Gavin, W.J. (eds) Context over Foundation. Sovietica, vol 52. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2903-6_6
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