Material Interests

Also known as “economic interests”. The results of production that satisfy men’s material needs in a certain relation of production of society, the embodiment of the material relations of property and of distribution among men.

Starting out from the relations of production of material means, Marxism investigated the question of the relations of interests between men. In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. At different stages of the development of the productive forces, there are different relations of production and economic structures of society constituted by the totality of the relations of production, embodying different interests among men. In relations of production based upon private property, social groups in different positions each have their own material interests. This material interests are manifested in their relation to the means of production, in their role in the social organization of labor, and, consequently, in the dimensions of the share of social wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it. These large groups are classes. The emergence of classes is due to material economic reasons, and class struggles turn, in the last instance, on economic interests in the last instance. Various ideologies and thoughts and ideas are determined, in the last instance, by the conditions of the material life of society. Behind people’s complex thoughts and acts, there are profound material interest claims. Class struggle is the immediate driving force of the development of class society.

Before Marx, there were already some historians who saw the influence of material interests on people’s thought and dealt with the part played by material interests in the history of society. For example, Sima Qian, a historian of ancient China, said in Records of the Grand Historian: “All the hustling and bustling of human activities in the world are for personal gain.” The French historians of the Restoration period held that interests are the source and driving force of all social systems and undertakings, and tried to explain the relation between class struggle and material interests from the economic roots of class struggle. However, they failed to break away from the old path of the 18th-century French materialism that “the world is governed by opinions,” and failed to escape the cage of historical idealism. Engels pointed out: “But the old idealist conception of history, which was not yet dislodged knew nothing of class struggles based upon economic interests, knew nothing of economic interests.” Only Marxism has scientifically revealed the essence of material interests and the part played by them in the development of the history of society.

The study of material interests had a very important place in the process of formation of Marx’s materialist conception of history. In 1859, in the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, when Marx explained the course of his study of political economy, he wrote: “In the year 1842-43, as editor of the Rheinische Zeitung, I first found myself in the embarrassing position of having to discuss what is known as material interests.” During his work at the Rheinische Zeitung, Marx recognized that a pure criticism of religion and of philosophy could not solve real problems. In the first paper reviewing the debate of the Rhine Province Assembly Debates on Freedom of the Press and Publication of the Proceedings of the Assembly for the Estates, he pointed out: “Everything for which man struggles is a matter of his interest”. In the third paper reviewing the debate of the Rhine Province Assembly Debates on the Law on the Theft of Wood, he went beyond the spiritual realm to investigate “material interests”, and saw that behind the legal debate was actually a collusion of material interests among different estates in the social structure. Marx has discovered the abstract essence of “state and law”, criticized Hegel’s conception of state and philosophy of right in works such as Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and the introduction to it, and recognized that it is not the State that determines the civil society, but the civil society that determines the State. This prompted him to begin to study political economy and to study the economic relations of actual capitalism, founding historical materialism and Marxist political economy.

Chinese Communists have always represented the fundamental interests of the broadest masses of the Chinese people. Mao Zedong emphasized that “to serve the people wholeheartedly” is the fundamental aim of Chinese Communists. Deng Xiaoping emphasized that taking the support, approval, satisfaction, and consent of the masses should serve as the highest criterion to test the success or failure of all the work of the Party and the government. The important thought of “Three Represents” emphasized that the Communist Party of China “should always represent the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people”. The core of the scientific outlook on development emphasized putting the fundamental interests of the masses first. Xi Jinping emphasized upholding the thought of “people-centered” development, which embodies the original intention and high degree of consciousness of the Chinese Communists to work for the welfare of the people.