What is Content and Form in Dialectics?
By Greek Marxist
Content is the philosophical category which refers to the essential nature of things; the totality of the elements and relations of an object.
Form is the philosophical category which refers to the mode by which a thing exists and operates, the way by which it is organised and it appears.
How do we apply this to society? Content can be seen as the components of society such as the labour process, productive forces, ideology and science, with the Form of society, principally the relations of production,
The Form of Society
For a start, the way by which current society is organised is called “capitalism” and that is its present Form. It is already clear that Form and Content, that is the development of production and material conditions, are inseparable. However, we should also take in consideration that we should not regard “Form” as a homogeneous thing, but a Whole inside which there are many interconnected elements and processes which are nonetheless usually unequal and oppositional with each other. For instance, the capitalist class is the primary Form in comparison to any other within the Whole organisation and functioning of current society, since it is this who is mostly in power over the Content (the means of production, the advancement of science, and so on). This Form also has a relationship of opposition and contradiction with the Form of the working class. This is thus the “principal contradiction” within the capitalist Form. But both the capitalist’s and the worker’s entire Beings are determined by the means of production they own or work in respectively and the wholeness of material conditions in society and nature. Thus, we can conclude that the determining factor within society — or any other thing — is its Content, under which there are Forms of different power, all of which operate and are organised according to the state of the Content at each stage of its development. Namely, the development of social classes (primary Form) — and from there of the entire organisation of society — in each historical epoch corresponds to the then development of the means of production (Content). This point will be sufficiently proved and analysed further later.
However, this by no way means that Form is something solely passive, under the absolute control of other forces. We have to consider the way by which the main Forms of capitalist society — the capitalist class and the working class — operate. Even though their activity is determined by the Content, does it not affect it as well? Consider their role in politics, economy, production and consumption, and the interrelationships thereof within this Whole. Does this not influence the material conditions and productive powers of society? It certainly does. The Whole Form, as well as its aspects when considered separately, produce effects which affect the state of the Content, both promoting and opposing it. An example of this could be the development of science and technology allowed by capitalist industry, which development is nonetheless currently under capitalist restrictions of profit and the like. Another example is production in capitalist society, which expands the productive forces, but simultaneously brings crises at a certain point, contrary to the expansion of these productive forces. With this example one can see, for instance, in what way something like production (Form) influences productive forces (Content). And from here the Whole Form changes too. A change in the Content, (resulting from the interactions and contradictions between Forms within the Whole Form or the Whole Form and surrounding objects (e.g. nature, COVID-19)), is what brings about a change in the Form due to the Content’s bringing new conditions of organisation and operation. This can become quite clear if we consider the approach of the bourgeoisie during different states of the Content, such as during an economic crisis. This is how these categories hence develop. Furthermore, the interrelationships between separate entities can also become clearer now.
Therefore, Content and Form are certainly inseparable and reciprocally interconnected. However, we also have to consider more in-depth the interactions between and the development of these two categories themselves. Indeed, however much the revolutionary dialectical approach we have until now laid down may appear enlightening in its careful examination of the nature of current society, the picture we have until now formed will be very blurry and poor if we compare it with the picture that will unravel to the attentive reader, at the end of our enquiry. And with this, we ought to proceed to give a complete account of the one and true scientific interpretation of human society and history — historical materialism.
The Contradiction Between Form and Content in Development
Society has been through various stages of development, which has been effected both by gradual processes and by radical leaps. The investigation of the reciprocal affection between Form and Content and what follows from it, is essential to the conception of a clear picture of the development of society. An investigation of earlier societies shall be conducted first. Historians divide historical epochs mainly into: prehistoric classless societies, ancient slave-owning societies, feudalism, capitalism, and Marxists hold that the future stages of society are socialism and communism (the reason why will become clear later). However, due to the lack of knowledge on my part regarding the slave-owning stage, an investigation of how that developed into feudal society will, for the time being, be avoided. However, it will be thoroughly analysed how feudal society developed into capitalist, how this will in turn develop into a socialist society, and how this will again develop into a communist society by applying the laws of Form and Content earlier formulated.
Social classes have existed for only a very brief period of human history. In fact, they did not exist before 10.000 B.C. The emergence of classes (the Forms of the transitional stage between classless and class society) concurs with the rise of agriculture (Content of that society) — in a way that is by no means coincidental. Most, if not all, modern historians do accept the following view. The rise of agriculture led to higher production of means of subsistence (food), and thus the establishment of permanent villages near agricultural areas. With this followed the emergence of private property, and thus of class society. But what most historians do not accept, is what exactly this proves and can be accurately generalised to. That is: “the development [and emergence] of social classes (primary Form) — and from there of the entire organisation of society — in each historical epoch corresponds to the then development of the means of production (Content)” which was earlier stated and just now proved. We must by no means go down the same way of denial as them. We will by no means hesitate to maintain that Marxism, and the philosophy it is founded on, is an accurate representation of Reality — we will not hesitate for the sake of bourgeois self-centred ignorance and the fabrications surrounding it, which arise from the capitalists’ fear of losing their parasitical rule to this worldview! Let us thus advance further and allow their little beautiful house of cards made of these lies to vehemently come tumbling down.
The way by which feudal society was organised is now to be considered. The aristocracy and the Church were in power, as the primary Form, and the early capitalist class was the other main Form under the Content that was the then development of technology and industry. Due to the reason that was given earlier, how feudal society came into being will not be investigated here. Leaving this matter aside and returning to the subject in question, during feudalism, the early capitalists owned a small amount of capital whose expansion was restricted by the primary Form and the Whole Form. That is, both the feudalist class and the rest of the political, economic, and productive relations within feudal society. These conditions also correspond to the means of production (Content) that were not adequately developed in feudalism. The weak bourgeoisie and the system of feuds corresponded to the inadequate means of production. The authority of the church corresponded to the still premature development of technology and thus of knowledge. But we have maintained that Forms are also active elements, which affect the Content. This activity is expressed as follows. The contradictions within the feudal Form were not very intense, but still quite clear. And these principal contradictions also gave rise to others, such as those between the Enlightenment movement (which appeared at a specific stage of development of science and thence of the bourgeoisie which utilised it) and the Church. The former reflected the aims of the capitalist class, whereas the latter of the aristocracy and of the feudal class. And through all the modes of operation and contradictions, as they grew, the Content of feudal society kept changing: take for example the rise of industrialization. But industrialization also strengthened the capitalist class and thus intensified social and class contradictions. This reciprocal influence between Content and Form is clearly observed here. More importantly, it is observed as not being a straight line, going forward in time but static in respect to change, but an upwards one, with change towards a specific direction. This intensification of contradictions within the Whole of society after centuries of slow gradual processes indicated that a gigantic “leap” was soon to come; a social revolution by which the primary Form is overthrown, as it cannot hold against the ever-rising pressure of both the over-expanded Content and of the other strengthened Forms. Revolutions thus began wherever these contradictions were at their most intense, mainly in Europe.
However, the overthrow of the primary Form is not absolute, especially when the Forms are not inherently and openly contradictory (consider, for instance, that the feudal Whole Form permitted the existence of the capitalist Form and even its expansion, whereas the capitalist Form is openly oppositional to any socialist Form of organisation of society). As a consequence of this, not only did an aristocratic system manage to return to France which had revolted, but the capitalist Form managed to become prevalent in these societies and overthrow feudalism in Europe without such a hostile gigantic “leap” (as the contradictions required for it were not so quantitatively intense — and could neither be — due to their qualitatively particular nature). However, the Old Form was nonetheless overthrown by the New Form, because of the contradictions that in any case inhered in their coexistence (from which necessarily follows some change) and from the fact that the Content was, and always is, better expressed with the New Form (from which necessarily follows a direction towards the “New” in this change) — except in the case of setbacks (which are in short, the brief bringing back of the persevering Old Form over the still underdeveloped New Form). However, the Old Form has still not been overthrown in its entirety, since some aspects of it are not in intense opposition with the capitalist Form, and the latter may sometimes even be benefited by the former. Examples of these are prejudices, such as misogyny and homophobia, and the authority of the Church, elements of the feudalist Superstructure.
The rise of capitalist society, however, also presupposed the rise of a new Form, that of the working class. The whole Form has thus undergone a radical qualitative change from feudalism to capitalism; society is not at all organised as it used to be. With the way the present capitalist Form operates, the interactions between Content and Form or between Forms are much more active, and so are tensions more intense. This is why the first bourgeois revolution occurred a millennium after feudalism came into being, whereas it was only 100–200 years after the breaking out of a socialist revolution. Revolts, worker strikes, political extremities, economic crises, also express the much more intense internal contradictions of capitalist society which keep intensifying as time goes on. This quantitative difference between tensions now and in feudalism follows from the particular qualitative differences in the contradictions between these two different Forms. This challenges most decidedly the saying that “capitalism is human nature”. The process which we described earlier as an upward line is upward because each new major “repetition” of affection between Form and Content occurs under new conditions which were built upon the previous “repetition”, and is thus qualitatively different. The similarity in every “repetition” is that it occurs as a result of contradictory interactions, and this process in the end thus leads to the abolition of these contradictions. One can take an example of this from physics, even.
The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy always increases. In essence, this means that physical contradictions tend to escalate until they break out and then lessen, increasing entropy. However, this does not mean that this upward line is straight. It is a line filled with setbacks, times when contradictions are intense and times when they are not. The fact that we can heat things up, for instance, does not cancel the validity of this law. Similarly, the fact that the revolution in the USSR did not last until the end, is no proof for a failure or impossibility of socialism. And “human nature” only consists of process and development. As has been proven in this analysis, there can be no staticity while the contradictions that bring change to society, or to anything, exist. But exactly because “each new major “repetition” of affection between Form and Content occurs under new conditions which were built upon by the previous “repetition””, each new period of high tension is more intense and likely to escalate into a deviation from “slow gradual processes” towards a gigantic leap where this “upward line” undergoes a radical qualitative change. And this can prove how socialism is a dialectical certainty, a necessary stage of society that will be reached as a result of the inherent brutal contradictions within the current Content of society and its present capitalist Form. Capitalism also was a stage of society that followed from feudalism, even without contradictions so intense that presuppose a radical leap for this qualitative change. But even these post-leap stages of society are qualitatively different. Socialism is not merely a replacement of capitalist contradictions just like capitalism is not merely a replacement of feudal contradictions. And merely because the socialist Form cannot develop within the capitalist just like the latter developed within the feudalist, that does by no way means that it is impossible, since the development of the Form of class which carries with it the socialist Form — the working-class — is necessary for capitalism to operate (something which was not so much the case with feudalism and the early bourgeoisie). Instead, this merely proves how contradictory the capitalist Form is with the current Content and thus with the emerging socialist Form, wherewith the Content is expressed even better. And these contradictions can at times materialise and be clearly seen in the tense class struggle between the capitalist class and the working class. In conclusion, capitalism brought society to open internal conflict more than ever so that socialism arises out of it and brings society one step closer to the abolition of contradictions that is communism, as will be demonstrated in what follows.
The socialist system does not require the emergence of any new class. It succeeds in lessening social contradictions between both Forms and between Form and Content by bringing the working class and the means of production closer. The socialist Form which has been already adequately developed during the capitalist stage of society (in respect to the working class), does not openly contradict the Content of socialist society. The main contradictions that remain after a socialist state has been established are 1) those between the remaining elements of the capitalist Form, such as those in the Superstructure of the capitalist Form, or the capitalist class itself in countries where the revolution has not started or succeeded; 2) those which inhere in a state; and 3) those which inhere in production (for instance between agricultural and industrial production or manual and spiritual labour), all of which are nonetheless minimised by a lot during the evolution of socialism, since the contradictions in them are nothing other than remnants of class society.
During the development of the socialist Form, which is relatively harmonious with the Content of socialist society but contradictory with the capitalist Form, the remaining persevering elements of capitalism and of all past class societies are continuously challenged. These include not only the Form of the capitalist class, but various mindsets, behaviours, prejudices against social groups, and many more. And these are not challenged merely by the legislative Form of socialist society (although this can also play a significant role), but by the socialist Form as a whole. The legislative Form, in all societies, challenges behaviours alone; neither their roots in thoughts, nor of course the roots of thoughts too in the organisation of class societies. Even though setbacks are possible as has been abundantly shown, this does not change the general direction of this entire process, and thus setbacks can always be avoided. After the elements of the capitalist Form — and with it those of the Forms of all class societies and the contradictions that inhere in them — have been done away with, Content and Form unite into one whole. The necessity for the existence of a state disappears by its own nature, and at this stage society reaches what we call communism. That is, a society where classes, and in turn the State, but money too due to the development of the socialist Form, are done away with. In such a society, the conditions for the emergence of any class, (such as the rise of private property as a result of inadequate production and agriculture in ancient societies) become extinct. And with them go extinct all kinds of class, political, economic, and social contradictions, and thus, in communist society prevails the liberated and unrestricted development of both man as an individual and of mankind as a whole.
