Sraffa I/33: Alexander Gray to Gerald F. Shove

by
Robert Vienneau
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This is about Shove's review of The Socialist Tradition. Apparently Gray does not take those important in the development of economic thought seriously. Since Piero Sraffa is neither the recipient nor the sender, and the topic is not his work, maybe the editors of his collected works should not include this.

8, Abbotsford Park,
Edinburgh. 10.
3rd November, 1946

Dear Shove,

(If the fact that we occupied adjacent seats on the occasion of one of my rare visits to the Annual Meeting of the Economic Society justifies this assumption of familiarity) - I should like, if I may, to exchange friendly greetings on the excuse of your review of my Socialist Tradition.

First of all I should like to say as a sheep before the shearers is dumb, so in general a reviewee ought to open not his mouth. Nevertheless, I would like to thank you for your kindness: I gather the perusal of my interminable book was not an unusually burdensome task, and I am grateful to you for passing on to others an implied hint that they might do worse than read it, -- if they have time!

This should perhaps be the end of the letter; but even if the sheep should be dumb, perhaps I may classify myself as a tender lamb, and in this capacity be allowed a few bleats by way of comment on your comments.

First of all, as to your main criticism, I agree and plead guilty. I am aware that my various chapters are too independent of each other: in fact when I said something in the Preface to the effect that the chapters were reasonably self-contained, I said this partly in self-criticism. For in a book like this, the chapters should not be too much independent of each other. I can only plead that this springs partly from the way the book arose; and partly from my make-up and (may I say it?) modesty! It does not require much insight to see that the book represents more or less lectures which I given to certain students in alternate years for the last quarter of a century more or less, the dose of course varying somewhat each time. And in these circumstances one tends to skip lightly from one mountain summit to the next. Also perhaps I am more interested in people than in movements; and distrust my power to write that complete history in which all my characters would be integrated with the history of their times. I am glad that you also have a regard for Paguet. I attended his lectures in 1904; and I have always looked upon him as the supreme lecturer and expositor. But, looking back, I think that perhaps he also may have been subject to the criticism you have passed on me. Also perhaps I may say, in the light of your observations, that the title of the book is by no means what I wished to call it. Down to the Galley proof stage, I called it Towards a History of Socialism, meaning thereby that is was a mere contribution to be supplemented later by a better writer, or supplemented now by reference to other books dealing with other aspects and phases. But the Publishers -- and who can resist the publishers -- told me that the title would just not do at all. So I fished round for the second best: but I have always known it was only a second best.

So far we are in agreement! But there are two points on which I should like to utter a minor bleat -- not of protest, God forbid, -- but of comparative innocence: or at least a mild suggestion that I am not as guilty of certain shortcomings as you suggest. Even with the limitation imposed by my 'selective' method of treatment, it was obviously my duty to link up, and consider the permanent legacy of my exhibits. I certainly intended doing so; and I thought I had! But obviously I have not done it well enough. If I may illustrate what I mean: you mention Saint Simon. I certainly point out his relation to Comte and to Carlyle; I point out his relation to all the big-business stuff and the idea of technocracy; I underline his relation to what we still have, the desire to separate administration from politics; through the Saint-Simonians, I indicate that he led by a short-cut to much of Marx. And I specifically refer to him as 'one of the great influences of the 19th century'. Doubtless one could have said all these things at greater length in a book: but I am not sure that I could have done much more in a chapter of 30 pages.

Again at the top of p. 444, you say that I hardly bring out the extent to which Marx draws together the threads running through the writings of his contemporaries and immediate predecessors. I use a different metaphor; but if you look at p. 299, you will see that I am quite alive to the point. I say that he collected his bricks from many masons' yards, but used them to construct a building to his own design; and thereafter, doubtless inadequately, I indicate in the next page and a half a number of the sources from which he drew these bricks. And while on Marx, and the suggestion that my treatment of the M.C.H. is an example of failure to ask whether there may not be a 'substratum of significant truth', I would in the mildest tone point out that in summing up on Marx, I say that the most significant and enduring portion of Marx is contained in the Materialist Conception of History.

The other minor bleat I should like to utter is against myself and not you. I should be sorry if you got the impression that I was not taking my subject seriously, -- indeed almost to the point of regarding the whole socialist and anarchist tradition as a joke. God forgive me: apart from government activities which come and go, this is the only thing I have taken seriously in the last 25 years! Nor would I poke fun at any of my sitters: with very few exceptions, I love them too much. I would suggest, for instance, that I am just about the first person (in English at least) who has given Proudhon a fair run for his money (I think Brogran is rather disappointing on Proudhon). In my youth he was looked on as a dreadful person who said that God was evil; and he also said that if any one deserves to be in Hell, it is God. I have almost made it possible for a Scots Elder to shake hands with him. Nor would I admit that my book is a Fool's Gallery: in the earlier stages, a Gallery of Eccentrics, if you like: and therein lies their fascination. I may have failed ignominiously at what I tried to do; but I had hoped that I was giving every one a fair run. Though I do not say so, my Preface is chiefly directed towards Hearnshaw, for whom, if a man is called a Socialist, it is already sufficient proof that he is also a twirp and a twister and also a consummate fool. I certainly had no intention of compiling a record of folly. You will observe that in the Preface I say that the Socialists are interesting, because, among other things, they are prophets. In the concluding Chapter (p. 506) I say that 'much of what the socialists contended for forty years ago has passed into a fairly general acceptance in the minds of the population at large'. With this as my beginning and end, I do not think that I can quite fairly be regarded as in search of folly undiluted with wisdom.

You ask two specific questions.

(i) I have no doubt you are right about the date of the conversion of the Marx household. I shall look it up. I see that I speak of a 'recent conversion' which is reprehensively vague. If I am not exactly trembling on the brink of a Second Impression; I am at least on the brink of that point in the stage of exhaustion of the First Impression when the Publisher asks for a complete list of all misprints etc with a view to a second impression (And there are a Hell of a lot of French accents that have gone astray!) And if I can get it done I shall put this right.

(ii) On the St. Luke and St. Matthew point, I rely on the authentic text alone. It is obvious that Luke gives an abridged version of what is in Matthew. The fuller text is, I should think, the more correct: and the abridgement, whether intentionally or not does not greatly matter, has been made in such a way as to convert the spiritual hunger into a physical hunger etc. I do not know what the theologians would say to it. Needless to say, in this age, when we all get our ideas from others, I got this idea also from elsewhere. It was put into my head by Adler, Geschichte des Sozialismus.

I hope that you do not regard this as a querulous letter: it is not so intended. Meanwhile as a token of appeasement and an emblem of good will, I enclose a copy of a book which I see I published 14 years ago. You may understand the lengthy Introduction, if you do not understand the body of the Book. I send it to you chiefly that you may see what I look like when I am in fact not taking my subject seriously.

Yours sincerely,
Alexander Gray

I do not know who Paquet or [F. J. C.?] Hearnshaw are.

Anyways, The Socialist Tradition did undergo a second impression in 1947. Gray does not like Marx and writes in a straightforward, non-Hegelian style. Topics covered include Plato, the Old Testament, the New Testament, church fathers such as Thomas Aquinas, and Thomas More and a couple other utopians. Gray writes about Rousseau some others who I do not recognize. William Godwin, Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Robert Owen, Louis Blanc, and Proudhon each get a separate chapter. (I finally have Iain McKay's collection of Proudhon's writing on order.) English Ricardian socialists have most of a chapter. Marx and Engels are grouped with Lassale and Rodbertus in a chapter on "scientific socialism". Gray writes about some anarchists. Fabians and Eduard Bernstein are in a chapter on "evolutionary socialism". Syndicalism, guild socialism, and Lenin are the three final substantial chapters before a Postface. One could certainly argue about some of these selections and groupings, but the book seems quite comprehensive. With the index, it is 523 pages.

• Alexander Gray. 1937. The Development of Economic Doctrine: An Introductory Survey.
• Alexander Gray. 1946. The Socialist Tradition: From Moses to Lenin.