Historical materialism

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For the academic journal, see Historical Materialism (journal).
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Historical materialism, also known as the materialist conception of history, is

a methodology used by scientific socialists and Marxist historiographers to understand
human societies and their development through history, arguing that historical changes
in social structure are the result of material and technological conditions rather
than ideals. This was first articulated by Karl Marx (1818–1883) as the "materialist
conception of history".[1] It is principally a theory of history which asserts that the material
conditions of a society's mode of production, or in Marxist terms the union of a
society's productive forces and relations of production, fundamentally determine
society's organization and development. Historical materialism is a fundamental aspect
of Marx and Engels' scientific socialism, arguing that applying a scientific analysis to the
history of human society reveals fundamental contradictions within the capitalist
system that will be resolved when the proletariat seizes state power and begins the
process of implementing socialism.[2]
In seeking the causes of developments and changes in human society, historical
materialism focuses on the means by which humans collectively produce the
necessities of life. It posits that social classes and the relationship between them, along
with the political structures and ways of thinking in society, are founded on and reflect
contemporary economic activity.[3] Since Marx's time, the theory has been modified and
expanded by some writers. It now has many Marxist and non-Marxist variants. Many
Marxists contend that historical materialism is a scientific approach to the study of
history.[4]

Contents

 1History and development

 o 1.1Origins
o 1.2Continued development
 2Key ideas
 3Key implications in the study and understanding of history
 4Trajectory of historical development
o 4.1Primitive communism
o 4.2Ancient mode of production
o 4.3Feudal mode of production
o 4.4Capitalist mode of production
o 4.5Communist mode of production
 4.5.1Lower-stage of communism
 4.5.2Higher-stage of communism
 5Warnings against misuse
 6Criticism
 7See also
 8References
o 8.1Citations
o 8.2Sources
 9Further reading

History and development[edit]

Origins[edit]
Attempts at analyzing history in a scientific, materialist manner originated in France
during the Age of Enlightenment with thinkers such as
the philosophes Montesquieu and Condorcet and the physiocrat Turgot.[5] Inspired by
these earlier thinkers, especially Condorcet, the Utopian socialist Henri de Saint-
Simon 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.[6] According to the socialist leader Jean Jaurès, the French writer Antoine
Barnave had priority in first developing the theory that economic forces are the driving
factors in history.[7] Karl Marx never used the words "historical materialism" to describe
his theory of history; the term first appears in Friedrich Engels' 1880 work Socialism:
Utopian and Scientific,[8] to which Marx wrote an introduction for the French edition. [9] By
1892, Engels indicated that he accepted the broader usage of the term "historical
materialism," writing the following in an introduction to an English edition of Socialism:
Utopian and Scientific;
This book defends what we call "historical materialism", and the word materialism
grates upon the ears of the immense majority of British readers. [...] I hope even British
respectability will not be overshocked if I use, in English as well as in so many other
languages, the term "historical materialism", to designate that 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. [10]
Marx's initial interest in materialism is evident in his doctoral thesis which compared the
philosophical atomism of Democritus with the materialist philosophy of Epicurus[11][12] as
well as his close reading of Adam Smith and other writers in classical political economy.
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 (1845) along with a lengthy rebuttal of Stirner's own critique of socialism

Marx and Engels first state and detail their materialist conception of history within the
pages of The German Ideology, written in 1845. The book, which structural
Marxists such as Louis Althusser[13] regard as Marx's first 'mature' work, is a lengthy
polemic against Marx and Engels' fellow Young Hegelians and contemporaries Ludwig
Feuerbach, Bruno Bauer, and Max Stirner. Stirner's 1844 work The Unique and its
Property had a particularly strong impact[14] on the worldview of Marx and Engels:
Stirner's blistering critique of morality and whole-hearted embrace of egoism prompted
the pair to formulate a conception of socialism along lines of self-interest rather than
simple humanism alone, grounding that conception in the scientific study of history. [15]
Perhaps Marx's clearest formulation of historical materialism resides in the preface to
his 1859 book A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy:
The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political
and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence,
but their social existence that determines their consciousness. [16]