Historical materialism
Historical materialism
The social philosophy of dialectical materialism. The application of the general principles of dialectical materialism to the specific field of human history, the development of human society. One of the chief problems Marx dealt with was that of the basic causal agent in the movement of human history. He states his thesis as follows
“In the social relations which men carry on they enter into definite relations that are indispensible and independent of their will. These relations of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material powers of production. . . . At a certain stage of their development the material forces of production in society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or — what is but a legal expression for the same thing — with the property relations within which they had been at work before. From forms of development of the forces of production these relations turn into their fetters. Then comes the period of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations the distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic — in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out.” (MarxContribution to the Critique of Political Economy, p. 12.) — J.M.S.