{{Short description|Marxist historiography}}{{For|the journal|Historical Materialism (journal){{!}}Historical Materialism (journal)}}{{use Oxford spelling|date=April 2018}}{{use dmy dates|date=April 2018}}{{multiple issues|{{over-quotation|date=December 2018}}{{tone|date=March 2022}}{{original research|date=March 2022}}}}{{Marxism|philosophy}}Historical materialism is Karl Marx’s theory of history. Marx located historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods.JOURNAL, Baur, Michael, January 2017, Marx on Historical Materialism,www.researchgate.net/publication/334446734, ResearchGate, 1â€“2, For Marx and his lifetime collaborator, Friedrich Engels, historical materialism is the “view of the course of history which seeks the ultimate cause and the great moving power of all important historic events in the economic development of society, in the changes in the modes of production and exchange, in the consequent division of society into distinct classes, and in the struggles of these classes against one another.“BOOK, Jayapalan, N., Comprehensive History of Political Thought, 2001, Atlantic Publisher & Distributors, 248, Although Marx never brought together a formal or comprehensive description of historical materialism in one published work, his key ideas are woven into a variety of works from the 1840s onward.BOOK, Berlin, Isaiah, Isaiah Berlin, Karl Marx with a foreword by Alan Ryan, Princeton University Press, 2013, 9780691156507, 5th, 112, j.ctt46n3qx.13, English, Since Marx’s time, the theory has been modified and expanded. It now has many Marxist and non-Marxist variants.

Enlightenment views of history

Marx’s view of history was shaped by his engagement with the intellectual and philosophical movement known as the Age of Enlightenment and the profound scientific, political, economic and social transformations that took place in Britain and other parts of Europe in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.BOOK, Hankins, Thomas, Science and the Enlightenment, Cambridge University Press, 1985, 0-521-28619-0, 1â€“16, English, BOOK, Brenner, Robert, Merchants and Revolution Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London’s Overseas Traders, 1550-1653, Verso Books, 2003, 978-1859843338, English, JOURNAL, Davidson, Neil, Enlightenment and anti-capitalism,isj.org.uk/enlightenment-and-anti-capitalism/, International Socialism, 6 April 2006, 110,

The “spirit of liberty”

Enlightenment thinkers responded to the worldly transformations by promoting individual liberty and attacking religious dogmas and the divine right of kings.BOOK, Porter, Roy, Enlightenment, Penguin Books, 2001, 9780140250282, 12â€“14, English, A group of thinkers including Hobbes (1588â€“1679), Montesquieu (1689â€“1755), Voltaire (1694â€“1778), Smith (1723â€“1790), Turgot (1727â€“1781) and Condorcet (1743â€“1794) explored new forms of inquiry, including empirical studies of human nature, history, economics and society. Some philosophers, for example, Vico (1668â€“1744), Herder (1744â€“1803) and Hegel (1770â€“1831), sought to uncover organizing principles of human history in underlying themes, meanings, and directions.BOOK, Philosophy of History,plato.stanford.edu/entries/history/#HegHis, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2020, Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, For many Enlightenment philosophers, the power of ideas became the mainspring for understanding historical change and the rise and fall of civilizations. History was the gradual advance of the “spirit of liberty” or the growth of nationalism or democracy, rationality and law.BOOK, Hume, David, History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688, 12 August 2016, Hansebooks GmbH, 978-3-7428-3234-4, 1129763042, This view of history remains popular to this day.BOOK, Durrant, Will, The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time, Simon & Schuster, 2002, 9780743235532, English, NEWS, Carnwath, Ally, Halfhead, Lucy, Toms, Katie, 2008, Blue sky thinking: 10 ideas that changed the course of history, The Guardian,www.theguardian.com/science/2008/jun/22/philosophy.plato, BOOK, Arp, Robert, 1001 Ideas That Changed the Way We Think, Octopus, 2018, 9781788400886, English, BOOK, Hart, Diane, Spirit of Liberty: An American History, Addison-Wesley, 1987, 978-0201209235, English,

Materialism

{{see also|Materialism}}Beginning in the 16th and 17th centuries, materialism came to prominence in Western philosophy, especially in opposition to the Cartesian rationalism of philosophers such as Descartes.BOOK, Marx, Karl, Engels, Friedrich, On Religion, Dover Publications, 2012, 978-0-486-12283-0,books.google.com/books?id=MKm_lWDk1x8C&pg=PA61, da, 2024-01-13, 61, Notable philosophers expounding materialist views included Francis Bacon, Pierre Gassendi, and John Locke.BOOK, Levine, Norman, Marx’s Discourse with Hegel, Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2012, 978-0-230-36042-6,books.google.com/books?id=0QFfAQAAQBAJ, 2024-01-13, 245â€“246, They were followed by a series of materialists in France in the 18th century such as Ã‰tienne Bonnot de Condillac, Claude Adrien HelvÃ©tius, and Baron d’Holbach. In the 19th century, the pre-Marxist communists ThÃ©odore DÃ©zamy and Jules Gay adopted materialism in their historical analysis of society as well. Marx inherited his materialist philosophy from this Gassendi-Dezamy line of thinkers.Marx ‘s ideas were also influenced by his reading of Young Hegelian writer Ludwig Feuerbach’s 1833 work Geschichte der neuern Philosophie von Bacon von Verulam bis Benedict Spinoza which covered Gassendi’s materialist philosophy as well as Gassendi’s treatment on materialist Ancient Greek philosophers such as Epicurus, Leucippus, and Democritus.

Materialist conception of history

Inspired by Enlightenment thinkers, especially Condorcet, the utopian socialist Henri de Saint-Simon (1760â€“1825) formulated his own materialist interpretation of history, similar to those later used in Marxism, analyzing historical epochs based on their level of technology and organization and dividing them between eras of slavery, serfdom, and finally wage labor.BOOK, Leszek KoÅ‚akowski, Leszek, KoÅ‚akowski, Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders, the Golden Age, the Breakdown,books.google.com/books?id=qUCxpznbkaoC, 2005, W. W. Norton & Company, 978-0-393-06054-6, 154â€“156, Google Books, BOOK, Cedric J., Robinson, 18 January 2019, An Anthropology of Marxism, 2, University of North Carolina Press, 9, 978-1-4696-4992-4, 1083096631,books.google.com/books?id=E0CEDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA9, Google Books, According to the socialist leader Jean JaurÃ¨s, the French writer Antoine Barnave was the first to develop the theory that economic forces were the driving factors in history.BOOK, William Buck, Guthrie, Socialism Before the French Revolution: A History,books.google.com/books?id=4DJJAAAAIAAJ, 1907, Macmillan, 306â€“307, Google Books, Marx came to his commitment to a materialist analysis of society and political economy around 1844 and completed his works The Holy Family in 1845, The German Ideology or Leipzig Council in 1846, and The Poverty of Philosophy in 1847 along with Friedrich Engels.{{sfn|Levine|2012|p=247}}

‘Great man’ history

Marx rejected the enlightenment view that ideas alone were the driving force in society or that the underlying cause of change was guided by the actions of leaders in government or religion. The “great man” and occasionally “great woman” view of historical change was popularized by the 19th-century Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle (1795â€“1881) who wrote “the history of the world is nothing but the biography of great men”.WEB, MacCulloch, Diarmaid, Published in History Today Volume 69 Issue 9 September 2019, Is There Still Value in ‘Great Man’ History?,www.historytoday.com/archive/head-head/there-still-value-’great-man’-history, 20 May 2022, History Today, According to Marx, this conception of history amounted to nothing more than a collection of “high-sounding dramas of princes and states”.BOOK, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, Feuerbach. Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook: B. The Illusion of the Epoch, The German Ideology, The German Ideology,www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01b.htm, Marxists Internet Archive,

Hegel’s contribution to Marx’s theory of history

While studying at the University of Berlin, Marx encountered the philosophy of Hegel (1770â€“1831) which had a profound and lasting influence on his thinking. One of Hegel’s key critiques of enlightenment philosophy was that while thinkers were often able to describe what made societies from one epoch to the next different, they struggled to account for why they changed.BOOK, Berlin, Isaiah, Isaiah Berlin, Freedom and Its Betrayal: Six Enemies of Human Liberty, Updated, Princeton University Press, 2014, 9780691157573, 90, English,

Hegel and historicism

Classical economists presented a model of civil society based on a universal and unchanging human nature.JOURNAL, Choi, Young, Smith’s View On Human Nature: A Problem In The Interpretation of “The Wealth Of Nations” And “The Theory Of Moral Sentiments”,www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/29769511.pdf, Review of Social Economy, 1990, 48, 3, 288â€“302, 10.1080/00346769000000025, 29769511, Hegel challenged this view and argued that human nature as well as the formulations of art, science and the institutions of the state and its codes, laws and norms were all defined by their history and could only be understood by examining their historical development.JOURNAL, Pradella, Lucia, October 2014, Hegel, Imperialism, and Universal History, Science & Society, 78, 4, 428, 10.1521/siso.2014.78.4.426, 24583660, JOURNAL, Fox-Williams, Jack, 2020, Hegel’s Understanding of History,philosophynow.org/issues/140/Hegels_Understanding_of_History, Philosophy Now, 140, Hegels philosophical thought saw it as an expression of a specific culture rather than an eternal truth: “Philosophy is its own age comprehended in thought.“JOURNAL, Winter, Max, 2016, Philosophy is its own time apprehended in thoughts”: Hegel on Time and Concept, Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia, 72, 2/3, 339â€“349, 10.17990/RPF/2016_72_2_0339, 44028676,

World spirit

In each society, humans were ‘free by nature” but constrained by their “brutal recklessness of passion” and “untamed natural impulses” that led to injustice and violence.BOOK, Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, The Philosophy of History, Batochhe Books, 2001, Canada, 55â€“565, 978-0486437552, It was only through wider society and the state, which was expressed in each historical epoch, by a “spirit of the age”, collective consciousness or geist, that “Freedom” could be realized.WEB,socialtheoryapplied.com/2013/10/25/what-did-hegel-mean-by-geist/, What did Hegel mean by Geist?, Social Theory Applied, 2022-08-05, For Hegel, history was the working through of a process where humans become ever more conscious of the rational principles that govern social development.{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}

Dialectics of change

Hegel’s dialectical method presents the world as a complex totality where all aspects of society (familial, economic, scientific, governmental, etc.) are interconnected, mutually influential, and unable to be considered in isolation.BOOK, Rees, John, The Algebra of Revolution The Dialectic and the Classical Marxist Tradition, Routledge, 1998, 978-0415198776, London, 45â€“47, English, According to Hegel, at any particular point in time, society is an amalgam of contesting forces â€“ some promoting stability and others striving for change. It is not just external factors that bring about transformation but internal contradictions. The unceasing drive of this dynamic is played out by real people struggling to achieve their aims. The outcome is that ideas, institutions and bodies of society are reconfigured into new forms expressing new characteristics. At certain decisive moments in history, during periods of great conflict, the actions of “great historical men” can align with the “spirit of the age” to bring about a fundamental advance in freedom.BOOK, Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of History, Batoche Books, 2001, Canada, 44,

Algebra of revolution

File:MaxStirner2.svg|thumb|150px|A caricature drawn by Engels of Max Stirner, whose 1844 work The Unique and its Property prompted Marx and Engels to theorize a scientific approach to the study of history which they first laid out in The German Ideology The German IdeologyThe implication of Hegel’s philosophy that every social order, no matter how powerful and secure, will eventually wither away was incendiary..{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}} These ideas were inspirational to Marx and the Young Hegelians who sought to develop a radical critique of the Prussian authorities and their failure to introduce constitutional change or reform social institutions.BOOK, Berlin, Isaiah, Isaiah Berlin, Karl Marx: Thoroughly Revised Fifth Edition, Princeton University Press, 2013, 978-0691156507, 57â€“61, English, However, Hegel’s contention that ideas or the “spirit of the age” drive history was mistaken in Marx’s view. Hegel, wrote Marx, “fell into the illusion of conceiving the real as the product of thought...“BOOK, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, Grundrisse,www.marxists.org/subject/dialectics/marx-engels/grundisse.htm, Marxists Internet Archive, Marx contended that the engine of history was to be found in a materialist understanding of society - the productive process and the way humans labored to meet their needs. Marx and Engels first set out their materialist conception of history in The German Ideology, written in 1845. The book is a lengthy polemic against Marx and Engels’ fellow Young Hegelians and contemporaries Ludwig Feuerbach, Bruno Bauer, and Max Stirner.{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}
Historical materialism
|width=30%|align=right}}
The production of life
Marx based his theory of history on the necessity of labor to ensure physical survival. In The German Ideology, Marx wrote that the first historical act, was the production of means to satisfy material needs and that labor is a “fundamental condition of all history, which today, as thousands of years ago, must daily and hourly be fulfilled merely in order to sustain human life”.BOOK, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, The German Ideology, The German Ideology, 1845, 1: Feuerbach. Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook,www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm, Marxists Internet Archive, WEB, Engels, Friedrich, Friedrich Engels, 2022, Frederick Engels’ Speech at the Grave of Karl Marx,www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/death/burial.htm, Marxists Internet Archive, Human labor forms the materialist basis for society and is at the heart of Marx’s account of history. Marx viewed labor throughout history, in all societies and in all modes of production, from the earliest paleolithic hunter gatherers through to feudal societies and to modern capitalist economies as an “everlasting Nature-imposed condition of human existence” that compels humans to join socially to produce their means of subsistence.BOOK, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, Capital, Das Kapital, One: The Production of Absolute Surplus-Value, 7: The Labour-Process and the Process of Producing Surplus-Value,www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htm, Marxists Internet Archive, 1867,
Forces and relations of production
Marx identified two mutually interdependent structures of humans interaction with nature and the process of producing their subsistence: the forces of production and relations of production.{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}
Forces of production
The forces of production are everything that humans use to make the things that society needs. They include human labor and the raw materials, land, tools, instruments and knowledge required for production. The flint sharpened spears and harpoons developed by early humans in the late Paleolithic period are all forces of production. Over time, the forces of production tend to develop and expand as new skills, knowledge and technology (for example wooden scratch plows then heavier iron plows) are put to use to meet human needs.JOURNAL, Lin, Justin Yifu, The Needham Puzzle: Why the Industrial Revolution Did Not Originate in China, Economic Development and Cultural Change, 1995, 43, 2, 269â€“292, 10.1086/452150, 1154499, 35637470,www.econ.ucla.edu/workingpapers/wp650.pdf, The case of China shows that a trend is just a trend. In 1400 China possessed many of the ingredients for dynamic technological growth and expansion of political and economic power. They had printing presses, gunpowder, were familiar with distillation, used vaccination for small pox and explored the coastal states of Africa. The reasons for these advances not being capitalised on is explored by the Lin article. From one generation to the next, technical skills, evolving traditions of practice and mechanical innovations are reproduced and disseminated.{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}
Relations of production
Marx extended this premise by asserting the importance of the fact that, in order to carry out production and exchange, people have to enter into very definite social relations, or more specifically, “relations of production”. However, production does not get carried out in the abstract, or by entering into arbitrary or random relations chosen at will, but instead are determined by the development of the existing forces of production.BOOK, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, Capital: Critique of Political Economy, 1999, Marxists Internet Archive, 3, 48, 2018-12-05,www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p2.htm, The relations of production are determined by the level and character of these productive forces present at any given time in history. In all societies, human beings collectively work on nature but, especially in class societies, do not do the same work. In such societies, there is a division of labor in which people not only carry out different kinds of labor but occupy different social positions on the basis of those differences. The most important such division is that between manual and intellectual labor whereby one class produces a given society’s wealth while another is able to monopolize control of the means of production. In this way, both govern that society and live off of the wealth generated by the laboring classes.BOOK, Callinicos, Alex, Alex Callinicos, The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx, Haymarket Books, 2011, Chicago, 99,
Base and superstructure
Marx identified society’s relations of production (arising on the basis of given productive forces) as the economic base of society. He also explained that on the foundation of the economic base, there arise certain political institutions, laws, customs, culture, etc., and ideas, ways of thinking, morality, etc. These constitute the political/ideological “superstructure” of society. This superstructure not only has its origin in the economic base, but its features also ultimately correspond to the character and development of that economic base, i.e. the way people organize society, its relations of production, and its mode of production.WEB, Karl Marx (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy),plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/, 2018-09-06, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), Stanford University, G.A. Cohen argues in (Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence) that a society’s superstructure stabilizes or entrenches its economic structure, but that the economic base is primary and the superstructure secondary. That said, it is precisely because the superstructure strongly affects the base that the base selects that superstructure. As Charles Taylor wrote: “These two directions of influence are so far from being rivals that they are actually complementary. The functional explanation requires that the secondary factor tend to have a causal effect on the primary, for this dispositional fact is the key feature of the explanation.“Charles Taylor, “Critical Notice”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 10 (1980), p. 330. It is because the influences in the two directions are not symmetrical that it makes sense to speak of primary and secondary factors, even where one is giving a non-reductionist, “holistic” account of social interaction..{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}To summarize, history develops in accordance with the following observations:File:Tomb of Nakht (2).jpg|thumb|upright|Scenes from the tomb of Nakht depicting an agricultural division of labour in Ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt

Social progress is driven by progress in the material, productive forces a society has at its disposal (technology, labour, capital goods and so on).
Humans are inevitably involved in productive relations (roughly speaking, economic relationships or institutions), which constitute the most decisive social relations. These relations progress with the development of the productive forces. They are largely determined by the division of labor, which in turn tends to determine social class.
Relations of production are both determined by the means and forces of production and set the conditions of their development. For example, capitalism tends to increase the rate at which the forces develop and stresses the accumulation of capital.
The relations of production define the mode of production, e.g. the capitalist mode of production is characterized by the polarization of society into capitalists and workers.
The superstructureâ€”the cultural and institutional features of a society, its ideological materialsâ€”is ultimately an expression of the mode of production on which the society is founded.
Every type of state is a powerful institution of the ruling class; the state is an instrument which one class uses to secure its rule and enforce its preferred relations of production and its exploitation onto society.{{citation needed|date=December 2018}}
State power is usually only transferred from one class to another by social and political upheaval.{{citation needed|date=December 2018}}
When a given relation of production no longer supports further progress in the productive forces, either further progress is strangled, or ‘revolution’ must occur.{{citation needed|date=December 2018}}
The actual historical process is not predetermined but depends on class struggle, especially the elevation of class consciousness and organization of the working class.{{citation needed|date=December 2018}}

Key implications in the study and understanding of history
Many writers note that historical materialism represented a revolution in human thought, and a break from previous ways of understanding the underlying basis of change within various human societies. As Marx puts it, “a coherence arises in human history“{{sfn|Marx|Engels|1968|p=660}} because each generation inherits the productive forces developed previously and in turn further develops them before passing them on to the next generation. Further, this coherence increasingly involves more of humanity the more the productive forces develop and expand to bind people together in production and exchange..{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}This understanding counters the notion that human history is simply a series of accidents, either without any underlying cause or caused by supernatural beings or forces exerting their will on society. Historical materialism posits that history is made as a result of struggle between different social classes rooted in the underlying economic base. According to G. A. Cohen, author of (Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence), the level of development of society’s productive forces (i.e., society’s technological powers, including tools, machinery, raw materials, and labor power) determines society’s economic structure, in the sense that it selects a structure of economic relations that tends best to facilitate further technological growth. In historical explanation, the overall primacy of the productive forces can be understood in terms of two key theses:{{cquote|(a) The productive forces tend to develop throughout history (the Development Thesis).(b) The nature of the production relations of a society is explained by the level of development of its productive forces (the Primacy Thesis proper).Cohen, p. 134.}}In saying that productive forces have a universal tendency to develop, Cohen’s reading of Marx is not claiming that productive forces always develop or that they never decline. Their development may be temporarily blocked, but because human beings have a rational interest in developing their capacities to control their interactions with external nature in order to satisfy their wants, the historical tendency is strongly toward further development of these capacities..{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}Broadly, the importance of the study of history lies in the ability of history to explain the present. John Bellamy Foster asserts that historical materialism is important in explaining history from a scientific perspective, by following the scientific method, as opposed to belief-system theories like creationism and intelligent design, which do not base their beliefs on verifiable facts and hypotheses.{{sfn|Foster|Clark|2008}}
Modes of production
The main modes of production that Marx identified include primitive communism, slave society, feudalism, capitalism and communism. Mercantilism, mixed economy (state-capitalism) and socialism are sometimes included in the modes of production by later authors. In each of these stages of production, people interact with nature and production in different ways. Any surplus from that production was distributed differently. Marx propounded that humanity first began living in primitive communist societies, then came the ancient societies such as Rome and Greece which were based on a ruling class of citizens and a class of slaves, then feudalism which was based on nobles and serfs, and then capitalism which is based on the capitalist class (bourgeoisie) and the working class (proletariat). In his idea of a future communist society, Marx explains that classes would no longer exist, and therefore the exploitation of one class by another is abolished..{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}} (File:Charewa Mythical hunt scene.jpg|thumb|Ancient cave painting showing the primitive communist mode of production)
Primitive communism
To historical materialists, hunter-gatherer societies, also known as primitive communist societies, were structured so that economic forces and political forces were one and the same. Societies generally did not have a state, property, money, nor social classes. Due to their limited means of production (hunting and gathering) each individual was only able to produce enough to sustain themselves, thus without any surplus there is nothing to exploit. A slave at this point would only be an extra mouth to feed. This inherently makes them communist in social relations although primitive in productive forces..{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}
Ancient mode of production
(File:Maler der Grabkammer des Sennudem 001.jpg|thumb|Ancient Egyptian art depicting the ancient mode of production)Slave societies, the ancient mode of production, were formed as productive forces advanced, namely due to agriculture and its ensuing abundance which led to the abandonment of nomadic society. Slave societies were marked by their use of slavery and minor private property; production for use was the primary form of production. Slave society is considered by historical materialists to be the first class-stratified society formed of citizens and slaves. Surplus from agriculture was distributed to the citizens, who exploited the slaves that worked the fields.BOOK, Harman, C, A People’s History of the World, Bookmarks, (File:Reeve and Serfs.jpg|thumb|Medieval art depicting the feudal mode of production)
Feudal mode of production
The feudal mode of production emerged from slave society (e.g. in Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire), coinciding with the further advance of productive forces. Feudal society’s class relations were marked by an entrenched nobility and serfdom. Simple commodity production existed in the form of artisans and merchants. This merchant class would grow in size and eventually form the bourgeoisie. However, production was still largely for use.
Capitalist mode of production
The capitalist mode of production materialized when the rising bourgeois class grew large enough to institute a shift in the productive forces. The bourgeoisie’s primary form of production was in the form of commodities, i.e. they produced with the purpose of exchanging their products. As this commodity production grew, the old feudal systems came into conflict with the new capitalist ones; feudalism was then eschewed as capitalism emerged. The bourgeoisie’s influence expanded until commodity production became fully generalized:(File:Garment Factory Workers in Thailand.jpg|thumb|Factory workers in the capitalist mode of production)The feudal system of industry, in which industrial production was monopolised by closed guilds, now no longer sufficed for the growing wants of the new markets. The manufacturing system took its place. The guild-masters were pushed on one side by the manufacturing middle class; division of labour between the different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of labour in each single workshop.BOOK, Marx, Karl, The Communist Manifesto, 1848, London,www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007, 12 March 2019, With the rise of the bourgeoisie came the concepts of nation-states and nationalism. Marx argued that capitalism completely separated the economic and political forces. Marx took the state to be a sign of this separationâ€”it existed to manage the massive conflicts of interest which arose between the proletariat and bourgeoisie in capitalist society. Marx observed that nations arose at the time of the appearance of capitalism on the basis of community of economic life, territory, language, certain features of psychology, and traditions of everyday life and culture. In The Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels explained that the coming into existence of nation-states was the result of class struggle, specifically of the capitalist class’s attempts to overthrow the institutions of the former ruling class. Prior to capitalism, nations were not the primary political form.WEB, Dixon, Norm, Marx, Engels and Lenin on the National Question,links.org.au/node/164, Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, 21 April 2018, Vladimir Lenin shared a similar view on nation-states.WEB, ru:Ð’.Ð˜. Ð›ÐµÐ½Ð¸Ð½. Ðž Ð½Ð°Ñ†Ð¸Ð¾Ð½Ð°Ð»ÑŒÐ½Ð¾Ð¼ Ð²Ð¾Ð¿Ñ€Ð¾ÑÐµ Ð¸ Ð½Ð°Ñ†Ð¸Ð¾Ð½Ð°Ð»ÑŒÐ½Ð¾Ð¹ Ð¿Ð¾Ð»Ð¸Ñ‚Ð¸ÐºÐµ, V.I. Lenin. O natsional’nom voprose i natsional’noy politike, V.I. Lenin. On the national question and national policy,leninism.su/works/115-conspect/4248-v-i-lenin-o-natsionalnom-voprose-i-natsionalnoj-politike.html?showall=, ru, 21 April 2018, There were two opposite tendencies in the development of nations under capitalism. One of them was expressed in the activation of national life and national movements against the oppressors. The other was expressed in the expansion of links among nations, the breaking down of barriers between them, the establishment of a unified economy and of a world market (globalization); the first is a characteristic of lower-stage capitalism and the second a more advanced form, furthering the unity of the international proletariat.{{sfn|Lenin|n.d.}} Alongside this development was the forced removal of the serfdom from the countryside to the city, forming a new proletarian class. This caused the countryside to become reliant on large cities. Subsequently, the new capitalist mode of production also began expanding into other societies that had not yet developed a capitalist system (e.g. the scramble for Africa). The Communist Manifesto stated:National differences and antagonism between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto.The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster. United action, of the leading civilised countries at least, is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat.In proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another will also be put an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put an end to. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end.BOOK, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto, The Communist Manifesto, Chapter I. Bourgeois and Proletarians, 1848, London,www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007, 4 April 2019, Marxists Internet Archive, Under capitalism, the bourgeoisie and proletariat become the two primary classes. Class struggle between these two classes was now prevalent. With the emergence of capitalism, productive forces were now able to flourish, causing the industrial revolution in Europe. Despite this, however, the productive forces eventually reach a point where they can no longer expand, causing the same collapse that occurred at the end of feudalism:Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. [...] The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property.
Communist mode of production
Lower-stage of communism
The bourgeoisie, as Marx stated in The Communist Manifesto, has “forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weaponsâ€”the modern working classâ€”the proletarians.” Historical materialists henceforth believe that the modern proletariat are the new revolutionary class in relation to the bourgeoisie, in the same way that the bourgeoisie was the revolutionary class in relation to the nobility under feudalism.BOOK, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme,www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm, 12 March 2019, Marxists Internet Archive, The proletariat, then, must seize power as the new revolutionary class in a dictatorship of the proletariat.Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.Marx also describes a communist society developed alongside the proletarian dictatorship:Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. The phrase “proceeds of labor”, objectionable also today on account of its ambiguity, thus loses all meaning.What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from societyâ€”after the deductions have been madeâ€”exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.BOOK, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme,www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm, 12 March 2019, Marxists Internet Archive, This lower-stage of communist society is, according to Marx, analogous to the lower-stage of capitalist society, i.e. the transition from feudalism to capitalism, in that both societies are “stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges.” The emphasis on the idea that modes of production do not exist in isolation but rather are materialized from the previous existence is a core idea in historical materialism.There is considerable debate among communists regarding the nature of this society. Some such as Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro, and other Marxist-Leninists believe that the lower-stage of communism constitutes its own mode of production, which they call socialist rather than communist. Marxist-Leninists believe that this society may still maintain the concepts of property, money, and commodity production.BOOK, Stalin, Joseph, Joseph Stalin, Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR,www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1951/economic-problems/index.htm, 12 March 2019, Marxists Internet Archive,
Higher-stage of communism
To Marx, the higher-stage of communist society is a free association of producers which has successfully negated all remnants of capitalism, notably the concepts of states, nationality, sexism, families, alienation, social classes, money, property, commodities, the bourgeoisie, the proletariat, division of labor, cities and countryside, class struggle, religion, ideology, and markets. It is the negation of capitalism.BOOK, Marx, Karl, The German Ideology, 1845, Idealism and Materialism, 12 March 2019,www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm, BOOK, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto, The Communist Manifesto, Chapter II. Proletarians and Communists, 1848, London,www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm#007, 12 March 2019, Marxists Internet Archive, Marx made the following comments on the higher-phase of communist society:In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantlyâ€”only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!
Warnings against misuse
{{see also|Economic determinism}}In the 1872 Preface to the French edition of Vol. 1, Marx emphasized that “[t]here is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.“BOOK, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, 1999, Capital: Critique of Political Economy, Das Kapital, 1, Chapter 48. The Trinity Formula,www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch48.htm, Marxists Internet Archive, 2018-12-05, Reaching a scientific understanding required conscientious, painstaking research, instead of philosophical speculation and unwarranted, sweeping generalizations. Having abandoned abstract philosophical speculation in his youth, Marx himself showed great reluctance during the rest of his life about offering any generalities or universal truths about human existence or human history.{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}The first explicit and systematic summary of the materialist interpretation of history to be published was Engels’s book Herr Eugen DÃ¼hring’s Revolution in Science, written with Marx’s approval and guidance, and often referred to as the Anti-DÃ¼hring. One of the polemics was to ridicule the easy “world schematism” of philosophers, who invented the latest wisdom from behind their writing desks. Towards the end of his life, in 1877, Marx wrote a letter to the editor of the Russian paper Otetchestvennye Zapisky, which significantly contained the following disclaimer:{{blockquote|Russia... will not succeed without having first transformed a good part of her peasants into proletarians; and after that, once taken to the bosom of the capitalist regime, she will experience its pitiless laws like other profane peoples. That is all. But that is not enough for my critic. He feels obliged to metamorphose my historical sketch of the genesis of capitalism in Western Europe into an historico-philosophic theory of the marche generale imposed by fate upon every people, whatever the historic circumstances in which it finds itself, in order that it may ultimately arrive at the form of economy which will ensure, together with the greatest expansion of the productive powers of social labour, the most complete development of man. But I beg his pardon. (He is both honouring and shaming me too much.)WEB,www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/11/russia.htm, Letter from Marx to Editor of the Otecestvenniye Zapisky, Marxists Internet Archive, 10 November 2018, }}Marx goes on to illustrate how the same factors can in different historical contexts produce very different results so that quick and easy generalizations are not really possible. To indicate how seriously Marx took research when he died, his estate contained several cubic metres of Russian statistical publications (it was, as the old Marx observed, in Russia that his ideas gained the most influence)..{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}Insofar as Marx and Engels regarded historical processes as law-governed processes, the possible future directions of historical development were to a great extent limited and conditioned by what happened before. Retrospectively, historical processes could be understood to have happened by necessity in certain ways and not others, and to some extent at least, the most likely variants of the future could be specified on the basis of careful study of the known facts..{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}Towards the end of his life, Engels commented several times about the abuse of historical materialism..{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}In a letter to Conrad Schmidt dated 5 August 1890, he stated:{{blockquote|And if this man [i.e., Paul Barth] has not yet discovered that while the material mode of existence is the primum agens [first agent] this does not preclude the ideological spheres from reacting upon it in their turn, though with a secondary effect, he cannot possibly have understood the subject he is writing about. [...] The materialist conception of history has a lot of [dangerous friends] nowadays, to whom it serves as an excuse for not studying history. Just as Marx used to say, commenting on the French “Marxists” of the late 70s: “All I know is that I am not a Marxist.” [...] In general, the word “materialistic” serves many of the younger writers in Germany as a mere phrase with which anything and everything is labelled without further study, that is, they stick to this label and then consider the question disposed of. But our conception of history is above all a guide to study, not a lever for construction after the manner of the Hegelian. All history must be studied afresh, and the conditions of existence of the different formations of society must be examined individually before the attempt is made to deduce them from the political, civil law, aesthetic, philosophic, religious, etc., views corresponding to them. Up to now but little has been done here because only a few people have got down to it seriously. In this field we can utilize heaps of help, it is immensely big, and anyone who will work seriously can achieve much and distinguish himself. But instead of this too many of the younger Germans simply make use of the phrase historical materialism (and everything can be turned into a phrase) only in order to get their own relatively scanty historical knowledgeâ€”for economic history is still in its swaddling clothes!â€”constructed into a neat system as quickly as possible, and they then deem themselves something very tremendous. And after that, a Barth can come along and attack the thing itself, which in his circle has indeed been degraded to a mere phrase.WEB,www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_08_05.htm, Letters: Marxâ€“Engels Correspondence 1890, Marxists Internet Archive, 7 December 2011, }}Finally, in a letter to Franz Mehring dated 14 July 1893, Engels stated:{{blockquote|[T]here is only one other point lacking, which, however, Marx and I always failed to stress enough in our writings and in regard to which we are all equally guilty. That is to say, we all laid, and were bound to lay, the main emphasis, in the first place, on the derivation of political, juridical and other ideological notions, and of actions arising through the medium of these notions, from basic economic facts. But in so doing we neglected the formal sideâ€”the ways and means by which these notions, etc., come aboutâ€”for the sake of the content. This has given our adversaries a welcome opportunity for misunderstandings, of which Paul Barth is a striking example.WEB,www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1893/letters/93_07_14.htm, Letters: Marxâ€“Engels Correspondence 1893, Marxists Internet Archive, 7 December 2011, }}Engels warned about conceiving of Marx’s ideas as deterministic, saying: “According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life. Other than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase.“BOOK, Blackledge, Paul, Friedrich Engels and Modern Social and Political Theory, 2019, State University of New York Press, 168, On another occasion, Engels remarked that “younger people sometimes lay more stress on the economic side than is due to it”.NEWS, Aboulafia, Mitchell, 1 December 2019,www.jacobinmag.com/2019/01/karl-marx-engels-capitalism-political-economy, Eight Marxist Claims That May Surprise You, Jacobin, 19 August 2020,
Criticism
Philosopher of science Karl Popper, in The Poverty of Historicism and Conjectures and Refutations, critiqued such claims of the explanatory power or valid application of historical materialism by arguing that it could explain or explain away any fact brought before it, making it unfalsifiable and thus pseudoscientific. Similar arguments were brought by Leszek KoÅ‚akowski in Main Currents of Marxism.{{sfnm |1a1=KoÅ‚akowski |1y=1978 |2a1=Popper |2y=1957}}In his 1940 essay Theses on the Philosophy of History, scholar Walter Benjamin compares historical materialism to the Turk, an 18th-century device which was promoted as a mechanized automaton which could defeat skilled chess players but actually concealed a human who controlled the machine. Benjamin suggested that, despite Marx’s claims to scientific objectivity, historical materialism was actually quasi-religious. Like the Turk, wrote Benjamin, “[t]he puppet called ‘historical materialism’ is always supposed to win. It can do this with no further ado against any opponent, so long as it employs the services of theology, which as everyone knows is small and ugly and must be kept out of sight.” Benjamin’s friend and colleague Gershom Scholem would argue that Benjamin’s critique of historical materialism was so definitive that, as Mark Lilla would write, “nothing remains of historical materialism [...] but the term itself”.MAGAZINE, Lilla, Mark, Mark Lilla, 25 May 1995, The Riddle of Walter Benjamin, The New York Review of Books,
Continued development
In a foreword to his essay Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (1886), three years after Marx’s death, Engels claimed confidently that “the Marxist world outlook has found representatives far beyond the boundaries of Germany and Europe and in all the literary languages of the world.“{{sfn|Engels|1946}} Indeed, in the years after Marx and Engels’ deaths, “historical materialism” was identified as a distinct philosophical doctrine and was subsequently elaborated upon and systematized by Orthodox Marxist and Marxistâ€“Leninist thinkers such as Eduard Bernstein, Karl Kautsky, Georgi Plekhanov and Nikolai Bukharin. This occurred despite the fact that many of Marx’s earlier works on historical materialism, including The German Ideology, remained unpublished until the 1930s.The substantivist ethnographic approach of economic anthropologist and sociologist Karl Polanyi bears similarities to historical materialism. Polanyi distinguishes between the formal definition of economics as the logic of rational choice between limited resources and a substantive definition of economics as the way humans make their living from their natural and social environment.BOOK, Polanyi, K., The Great Transformation, 1944, New York, 44â€“49, In The Great Transformation (1944), Polanyi asserts that both the formal and substantive definitions of economics hold true under capitalism, but that the formal definition falls short when analyzing the economic behavior of pre-industrial societies, whose behavior was more often governed by redistribution and reciprocity.BOOK, ibid., 41, While Polanyi was influenced by Marx, he rejected the primacy of economic determinism in shaping the course of history, arguing that rather than being a realm unto itself, an economy is embedded within its contemporary social institutions, such as the state in the case of the market economy.ENCYCLOPEDIA, Hann, Chris, Economic Anthropology, Economic Anthropology, The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, 2018, John Wiley & Sons, 9780470657225, 1â€“16, 10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea2194, free, Perhaps the most notable recent exploration of historical materialism is G. A. Cohen’s (Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence),{{sfn|Cohen|2000}} which inaugurated the school of Analytical Marxism. Cohen advances a sophisticated technological-determinist interpretation of Marx “in which history is, fundamentally, the growth of human productive power, and forms of society rise and fall according as they enable or impede that growth.“BOOK, G. A., Cohen, G. A. Cohen, Karl Marx’s Theory of History, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1978, x, JÃ¼rgen Habermas believes historical materialism “needs revision in many respects”, especially because it has ignored the significance of communicative action.JOURNAL, Habermas, JÃ¼rgen, Autumn 1975, Toward a Reconstruction of Historical Materialism,www.unige.ch/sciences-societe/socio/files/3514/0533/6053/Habermas_1975.pdf, Theory and Society, 2, 3, 287â€“300, 10.1007/BF00212739, 2018-12-05, 113407026, GÃ¶ran Therborn has argued that the method of historical materialism should be applied to historical materialism as an intellectual tradition, and to the history of Marxism itself.BOOK, Therborn, GÃ¶ran, Science, Class and Society: on the formation of Sociology and Historical Materialism, 1980, London, Verso Books, In the early 1980s, Paul Hirst and Barry Hindess elaborated a structural Marxist interpretation of historical materialism.BOOK, Hirst, Paul, Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production, Hindess, Barry, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975, London, Regulation theory, especially in the work of Michel Aglietta draws extensively on historical materialism.BOOK, Jessop, Bob, Critical Realism and Marxism, Routledge, 2001, Brown, A., London, Capitalism, the Regulation Approach, and Critical Realism, Fleetwood, S., Roberts, J., Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, much of Marxist thought was seen as anachronistic. A major effort to “renew” historical materialism comes from historian Ellen Meiksins Wood, who wrote in 1995 that, “There is something off about the assumption that the collapse of Communism represents a terminal crisis for Marxism. One might think, among other things, that in a period of capitalist triumphalism there is more scope than ever for the pursuit of Marxism’s principal project, the critique of capitalism.“BOOK, Introduction, 1995, Democracy against Capitalism, 1â€“16, Cambridge University Press, 10.1017/cbo9780511558344.001, 978-0-521-47096-4, [T]he kernel of historical materialism was an insistence on the historicity and specificity of capitalism, and denial that its laws were the universal laws of history...this focus on the specificity of capitalism, as a moment with historical origins as well as an end, with a systemic logic specific to it, encourages a truly historical sense lacking in classical political economy and conventional ideas of progress, and this had potentially fruitful implications for the historical study of other modes of production too.Referencing Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach, Wood argued for historical materialism to be understood as “a theoretical foundation for interpreting the world in order to change it.”
See also
{hide}columns-list|colwidth=20em|

Books

Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism
Fundamentals of Marxismâ€“Leninism

Concepts

Economic determinism
Formalistâ€“substantivist debate
Parametric determinism
Technological determinism
Technological unemployment
Theory of historical trajectory

Comparative

Progressive revelation (BahÃ¡Ê¼Ã)

{edih}
References
Citations
{{reflist|22em}}
Sources

BOOK, Benjamin, Walter, Walter Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History, Theses on the Philosophy of History

,

BOOK, Cohen, G. A., Gerald Cohen, 2000, 1978, Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence, expanded, Oxford, Clarendon Press, Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence

,

BOOK, Engels, Friedrich, Friedrich Engels, 1946, Foreword,www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1886/ludwig-feuerbach/foreword.htm, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy,www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1886/ludwig-feuerbach/index.htm, Moscow, Progress Publishers, 21 April 2018, Marxists Internet Archive

,

BOOK, Foster, John Bellamy, John Bellamy Foster, 1999, Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, New York, Monthly Review Press

,

BOOK, Foster, John Bellamy, John Bellamy Foster, Clark, Brett, Brett Clark (sociologist), 2008, Critique of Intelligent Design: Materialism versus Creationism from Antiquity to the Present, New York, Monthly Review Press, 978-1-58367-173-3, registration,archive.org/details/critiqueofintell00fost

,

BOOK, Fromm, Erich, Erich Fromm, 1961, Marx’s Historical Materialism,www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/ch02.htm, Marx’s Concept of Man, New York, Frederick Ungar Publishing, 21 April 2018, Marxists Internet Archive, Marx’s Concept of Man

,

BOOK, KoÅ‚akowski, Leszek, Leszek KoÅ‚akowski, 1978, Main Currents of Marxism: Its Origins, Growth and Dissolution, Main Currents of Marxism

,

BOOK, Lenin, Vladimir Illyich, Vladimir Lenin, n.d.

ÐšÑ€Ð¸Ñ‚Ð¸Ñ‡ÐµÑÐºÐ¸Ðµ Ð·Ð°Ð¼ÐµÑ‚ÐºÐ¸ Ð¿Ð¾ Ð½Ð°Ñ†Ð¸Ð¾Ð½Ð°Ð»ÑŒÐ½Ð¾Ð¼Ñƒ Ð²Ð¾Ð¿Ñ€Ð¾ÑÑƒ), Critical Remarks on the National Question, ÐŸÐ¾Ð»Ð½Ð¾Ð³Ð¾ ÑÐ¾Ð±Ñ€Ð°Ð½Ð¸Ñ ÑÐ¾Ñ‡Ð¸Ð½ÐµÐ½Ð¸Ð¹ Ð’. Ð˜. Ð›ÐµÐ½Ð¸Ð½Ð°, ru, 24, 5th, 113â€“150,

BOOK, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, 1977, Preface,www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm, Dobb, Maurice, Maurice Dobb, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Ryazanskaya, S. W., Moscow, Progress Publishers, 21 April 2018, Marxists Internet Archive, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

,

BOOK, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, {hide}long dash, |year=1993|title=Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy|translator-last=Nicolaus|translator-first=Martin|location=London|publisher=Penguin Books|isbn=978-0-14-044575-6|title-link=Grundrisse

{edih}

BOOK, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, Engels, Friedrich, 1968, Selected Works in One Volume, London, Lawrence and Wishart

,

BOOK, Meek, Ronald L., Ronald L. Meek, 1976, Social Science and the Ignoble Savage, Cambridge Studies in the History and Theory of Politics, Cambridge, England, Cambridge University Press

,

BOOK, Nirenberg, David, David Nirenberg, 2013, Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition, David NirenbergAnti-Judaism: The Western Tradition, New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 978-0-393-34791-3,
BOOK, Popper, Karl, Karl Popper, 1957, The Poverty of Historicism, The Poverty of Historicism

,

JOURNAL, Seligman, Edwin R. A., Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman, 1901, The Economic Interpretation of History, Political Science Quarterly, 16, 4, 612â€“640, 10.2307/2140420, 2140420

,

JOURNAL, Thompson, E. P., E. P. Thompson, 1965, The Peculiarities of the English,www.socialistregister.com/index.php/srv/article/view/5963, Socialist Register, 2, 311â€“362, 21 April 2018

,
Further reading
{{further reading cleanup|date=April 2018}}

BOOK, Acton, H. B., H. B. Acton, The Illusion of the Epoch

, Critical account which focusses on incoherencies in the thought of Marx, Engels and Lenin.

BOOK, Anderson, Perry, 1974, Lineages of the Absolutist State

,

BOOK, Aronowitz, Stanley, Stanley Aronowitz, 1981, The Crisis in Historical Materialism

, American criticism of orthodox Marxism and argument for a more radical version of historical materialism that sticks closer to Marx by changing itself to keep up with changes in the historical situation.

BOOK, Blackledge, Paul, 2006, Reflections on the Marxist Theory of History

,

BOOK, Blackledge, Paul, Paul, Prew, TomÃ¡s, Rotta, Tony, Smith, Matt, Vidal, 2018

journal=The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx,www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190695545.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190695545-e-1, 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190695545.001.0001, 9780190695545,

BOOK, Boudin, Louis B., Louis B. Boudin, 1907, The Theoretical System of Karl Marx, Chicago, Charles H. Kerr Publishing Co.

, Contains an early defence of the materialist conception of history against its critics of the day.

BOOK, Childe, V. Gordon, V. Gordon Childe, Man Makes Himself

, Free interpretation of Marx’s idea.

BOOK, Cohen, Gerald, Gerald Cohen, Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence

, Influential analytical Marxist interpretation.

BOOK, Draper, Hal, Hal Draper, Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution

, Captures the full subtlety of Marx’s thought, but at length in four volumes.

BOOK, Fleischer, Helmut, Marxism and History

, Good reply to false interpretations of Marx’s view of history.

BOOK, Gandler, Stefan, Stefan Gandler, 2015, Critical Marxism in Mexico: Adolfo SÃ¡nchez VÃ¡zquez and BolÃvar EcheverrÃa, Historical Materialism Book Series, 87, Leiden, Netherlands, Brill Academic Press, 978-90-04-28468-5, 1570-1522

,

BOOK, Giddens, Anthony, Anthony Giddens, 1981, A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism

,

BOOK, Graham, Loren R., Loren Graham, Science Philosophy and Human Behavior in the Soviet Union

, Sympathetically critical of dialectical materialism.

BOOK, Habermas, JÃ¼rgen, JÃ¼rgen Habermas, Communication and the Evolution of Society, January 1976,archive.org/details/CommunicationAndTheEvolutionOfSociety

, Argues historical materialism must be revised to include communicative action.

BOOK, Harman, Chris, Chris Harman, A People’s History of the World

, Marxist view of history according to a leader of the International Socialist Tendency.

JOURNAL, Harper, J., Anton Pannekoek, 1942, Materialism and Historical Materialism,www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/materialism/index.htm, New Essays, 6, 2, 21 April 2018, Marxists Internet Archive

,

BOOK, Holt, Justin P., 2014, The Social Thought of Karl Marx, Los Angeles, SAGE Publications, 978-1-4129-9784-3, 10.4135/9781483349381

, Provides an introductory chapter on historical materialism.

BOOK, Jakubowski, Franz, Franz Jakubowski, Ideology and Superstructure

, Attempts to provide an alternative to schematic interpretations of historical materialism.

BOOK, Jordan, Z. A., 1967, The Origins of Dialectical Materialism,marxmyths.org/jordan/article.htm, The Evolution of Dialectical Materialism: A Philosophical and Sociological Analysis, London, Macmillan, 21 April 2018, Marx Myths & Legends

, Good survey.

BOOK, Mandel, Ernest, Ernest Mandel, Introduction to Marxism

, Emphasizes understanding the roots of class society and the state.

BOOK, Mandel, Ernest, Ernest Mandel, {{long dash, |year=1986|title=The Place of Marxism in History|url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/19xx/marx-hist/index.htm|publisher=International Institute for Research and Education|access-date=21 April 2018|via=Marxists Internet Archive

}}Modelled on Lenin’s “Three components of Marxism“{{citation needed|date=December 2013}} but with a section on the reception and diffusion of Marxism in the world.

BOOK, Mao Zedong, Mao Zedong, Four Essays on Philosophy

, Standard Maoist reading of Marx’s materialism.

BOOK, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, 1848, Manifesto of the Communist Party, The Communist Manifesto

,

BOOK, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, {hide}long dash, |year=1869|title=The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon|title-link=The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon

{edih}

BOOK, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, {{long dash, |year=1887|editor-last=Engels|editor-first=Friedrich|editor-link=Friedrich Engels|title=Capital: Critique of Political Economy. Volume I: The Process of Production of Capital|translator1-last=Moore|translator1-first=Samuel|translator2-last=Aveling|translator2-first=Edward|translator2-link=Edward Aveling|location=Moscow|publisher=Progress Publishers|title-link=Capital, Volume I

}}

BOOK, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, {hide}long dash, |year=1895|title=The Class Struggles in France, 1848â€“1850|title-link=The Class Struggles in France 1848-1850

{edih}

BOOK, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, {hide}long dash, |year=1932|title=Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844|title-link=Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

{edih}

BOOK, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, {hide}long dash, |year=1932|title=The German Ideology|title-link=The German Ideology

{edih}

BOOK, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, {{long dash, |year=1956|editor-last=Engels|editor-first=Friedrich|editor-link=Friedrich Engels|title=Capital: Critique of Political Economy. Volume II: The Process of Circulation of Capital|edition=2nd|translator-last=Lasker|translator-first=I.|location=Moscow|publisher=Progress Publishers|title-link=Capital, Volume II

}}

BOOK, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, {{long dash, |year=1959|title=Capital: Critique of Political Economy. Volume III: The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole|title-link=Capital, Volume III

}}

BOOK, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, {{long dash, |year=1964|editor-last=Hobsbawm|editor-first=E. J.|editor-link=Eric Hobsbawm|title=Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations|translator-last=Cohen|translator-first=Jack|location=London|publisher=Lawrence & Wishart

}}

BOOK, Marx, Karl, Karl Marx, {hide}long dash, |year=1969|chapter=Theses on Feuerbach|title=Marx/Engels Selected Works|location=Moscow|publisher=Progress Publishers|pages=13â€“15

{edih}

BOOK, Mehring, Franz, Franz Mehring, 1975, On Historical Materialism,www.marxists.org/archive/mehring/1893/histmat/index.htm, Archer, Bob, London, New Park Press, 21 April 2018, Marxists Internet Archive

, Classic statement by a contemporary and friend of Marx & Engels.

BOOK, Novack, George, George Novack, 2002, Understanding History: Marxist Essays,www.marxists.org/archive/novack/works/history/index.htm, Chippendale, New South Wales, Resistance Books, 978-1-876646-23-3, 21 April 2018, Marxists Internet Archive

, Trotskyist interpretations of problems of history.

BOOK, Nowak, Leszek, Leszek Nowak, Property and Power: Towards a Non-Marxian Historical Materialism

, Attempts to develop a post-Stalinist interpretation of Marx’s project.

BOOK, Rees, John, John Rees (activist), The Algebra of Revolution

, Classical Marxist account of the philosophy of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Lukacs, and Trotsky.

BOOK, Rigby, S. H., 1998, Marxism and History: A Critical Introduction, 2nd, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 978-0-7190-5612-3

,

BOOK, Shaw, William H., Marx’s Theory of History

, Provides a short survey.

BOOK, Spirkin, Alexander, Alexander Spirkin, 1990, Fundamentals of Philosophy,archive.org/details/FundamentalsOfPhilosophy_913, Syrovatkin, Sergei, Moscow, Progress Publishers, 978-5-01-002582-3, 15 January 2011

,

BOOK, Stalin, Joseph, Joseph Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism, Dialectical and Historical Materialism

, Classic statement of Stalinist doctrine.

BOOK, Suchting, Wal, Marx: An Introduction

, Includes a good short introduction.

MAGAZINE, 1979, The Materialist Conception of History,www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/study-guides/materialist-conception-history, Education Bulletin, 1, 21 April 2018

,

BOOK, Therborn, GÃ¶ran, GÃ¶ran Therborn, Science, Class and Society

, Critical survey of the relationship between sociology and historical materialism.

BOOK, Thompson, E. P., E. P. Thompson, The Poverty of Theory

, Polemic which ridicules theorists of history who do not actually study history.

BOOK, Wetter, Gustav A., Dialectical Materialism: a Historical and Systematic Survey of Philosophy in the Soviet Union

, Alternative survey.

BOOK, Witt-Hansen, Johan, Historical Materialism: The Method, The Theories

, Sees historical materialism as a methodology and Das Kapital as an application of the method.

BOOK, Wood, Allen W., Allen W. Wood, 2004, Karl Marx, 2nd, Arguments of the Philosophers, Abingdon, England, Routledge, 978-0-415-31697-2

, Delves into misinterpretations of Marx including the substitution of “Historical materialism” by Lenin.{{Marxist and communist phraseology}}{{Historiography}}{{Authority control}}

- content above as imported from Wikipedia
- "Historical materialism" does not exist on GetWiki (yet)
- time: 8:13am EDT - Wed, May 22 2024

[ this remote article is provided by Wikipedia ]

LATEST EDITS [ see all ]

GETWIKI 21 MAY 2024

The Illusion of Choice
Culture

GETWIKI 09 JUL 2019

Eastern Philosophy
History of Philosophy

GETWIKI 09 MAY 2016

GetMeta:About
GetWiki

GETWIKI 18 OCT 2015

M.R.M. Parrott
Biographies

GETWIKI 20 AUG 2014

GetMeta:News
GetWiki