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Historical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, first articulated by Karl Marx (1818-1883). Marx himself never used the term but referred to his approach as "the materialist conception of history."
Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in the means by which human societies collectively cultivate the means to live, thus giving an emphasis, through economic analysis, to everything that co-exists with the economic base of society (e.g.
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Historical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, first articulated by Karl Marx (1818-1883). Marx himself never used the term but referred to his approach as "the materialist conception of history."
Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in the means by which human societies collectively cultivate the means to live, thus giving an emphasis, through economic analysis, to everything that co-exists with the economic base of society (e.g. social classes, political structures, ideologies).
The fundamental proposition of historical materialism is premised in the following materialist conception:
Historical materialism as an explanatory system has been expanded and refined by thousands of academic studies since Marx’s death. Although Marx said he was only proposing a guideline to historical research, by the twentieth century the concept of historical materialism became a keystone of modern communist doctrine.
Key ideas
Historical materialism started from a fundamental underlying reality of human existence: that in order for human beings to survive and continue existence from generation to generation, it is necessary for them to produce and reproduce the material requirements of life. While this may seem obvious it was only with Marx that this was seen as foundation for understanding human society and historical development. Marx then 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, most fundamentally production relations.
However, production does not get carried out in the abstract, or by entering into arbitrary or random relations chosen at will. Human beings collectively work on nature but do not do the same work; there is a division of labor in which people not only do different jobs, but some people live from the work of others by owning the means of production. How this is accomplished depends on the type of society. Production is carried out through very definite relations between people. And, in turn, these production relations are determined by the level and character of the productive forces that are present at any given time in history. For Marx, productive forces refer to the means of production such as the tools, instruments, technology, land, raw materials, and human knowledge and abilities in terms of using these means of production.
Following Marx, writers who identify with historical materialism usually postulate that society has moved through a number of types or modes of production. That is, the character of the production relations is determined by the character of the productive forces; these could be the simple tools and instruments of early human existence, or the more developed machinery and technology of present age. The main modes of production Marx identified generally include primitive communism or tribal society (a prehistoric stage), ancient society, feudalism and capitalism. In each of these social stages, people interact with nature and produce their living in different ways. Any surplus from that production is allotted in different ways. Ancient society was based on a ruling class of slave owners and a class of slaves; feudalism based on landowners and serfs; and capitalism based on the capitalist class and the working class. The capitalist class privately owns the means of production, distribution and exchange (e.g. factories, mines, shops and banks) while the working class live by exchanging their socialized labour with the capital class for wages.
Marx identified the production relations of society (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 constituted 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 is determined by the economic base and the relations that arise from its mode of production.
Historical materialism can be seen to rest on the following principles:
- 1. The basis of human society is how humans work on nature to produce the means of subsistence.
- 2. There is a division of labour into social classes (relations of production) based on property ownership where some people live from the labour of others.
- 3. The system of class division is dependent on the mode of production.
- 4. The mode of production is based on the level of the productive forces.
- 5. Society moves from stage to stage when the dominant class is displaced by a new emerging class, by overthrowing the "political shell" that enforces the old relations of production no longer corresponding to the new productive forces. This takes place in the superstructure of society, the political arena in the form of revolution, whereby the underclass "liberates" the productive forces with new relations of production, and social relations, corresponding to it.
Marx’s clearest formulation of his "Materialist Conception of History" was in the 1859 Preface to his book A contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, whose relevant passage is reproduced here:
"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. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of consciousness. 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. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or — this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms — with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure. In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish 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, artistic or philosophic — in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production."
Perhaps the most influential recent defense of this passage, and of relevant Marxian and Marxist assertions is G.A. Cohen's Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence.
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. The theory shows what Marx called a "coherence" in human history, because of the fact that each generation inherits the productive forces developed previously and in turn further develops them before passing them on to the next generation. Further that this coherence increasingly involves more of humanity the more the productive forces develop and expand to bind people together in production and exchange.
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. This posits that history is made as a result of struggle between different social classes rooted in the underlying economic base.
Marx's materialism
While the "historical" part of historical materialism does not cause a comprehension problem (i.e., it means the present is explained by analysing the past), the term materialism is more difficult. Historical materialism uses "materialism" to make three separate points, where the truth or falsehood of one point does not affect the others.
First there is metaphysical or philosophical materialism, in which matter-in-motion is primary and thought about matter-in-motion, or thought about abstractions, is secondary.
Second, there is belief that economic processes form the material base of society upon which institutions and ideas derive and rest. While the economy is the base structure of society, it does not follow that everything in history is determined by the economy, just as every feature of a house is not determined by its foundations.
Third, there is the idea that in the capitalist mode of production the behaviour of actors in the market economy (means of production, distribution and exchange, the relations of production) plays the major role in configuring society.
Historical materialism and the future
In his analysis of the movement of history, Marx predicted the breakdown of capitalism (as a result of class struggle and the falling rate of profit), and the establishment in time of a communist society in which class-based human conflict would be overcome. The means of production would be held in the common ownership and used for the common good.
Marxist beliefs about history
According to Marxist theorists, history develops in accordance with the following observations:
- Social progress is driven by progress in the material, productive forces a society has at its disposal (technology, labour, capital goods, etc.)
- Humans are inevitably involved in production relations (roughly speaking, economic relationships or institutions), which constitute our most decisive social relations.
- Production relations progress, with a degree of inevitability, following and corresponding to the development of the productive forces.
- Relations of production help determine the degree and types of the development of the forces of production. For example, capitalism tends to increase the rate at which the forces develop and stresses the accumulation of capital.
- Both productive forces and production relations progress independently of mankind's strategic intentions or will.
- The superstructure -- the cultural and institutional features of a society, its ideological materials -- is ultimately an expression of the mode of production (which combines both the forces and relations 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 production relations (and its exploitation) onto society.
- State power is usually only transferred from one class to another by social and political upheaval.
- When a given style of production relations no longer supports further progress in the productive forces, either further progress is strangled, or 'revolution' must occur.
- The actual historical process is not predetermined but depends on the class struggle, especially the organization and consciousness of the working class.
This sketch is abstract - real historical understanding needed for developing political strategy and tactics must involve "concrete analysis of concrete conditions" (V.I. Lenin).
Alienation and freedom
Hunter-gatherer societies were structured so that the economic forces and the political forces were one and the same. The elements of force and relation operated together, harmoniously. In the feudal society, the political forces of the kings and nobility had their relations with the economic forces of the villages through serfdom. The serfs, although not free, were tied to both forces and, thus, not completely alienated. Capitalism, Marx argued, completely separates the economic and political forces, leaving them to have relations through a limiting government. He takes the state to be a sign of this separation - it exists to manage the massive conflicts of interest which arise between classes in all those societies based on property relations.
The history of historical materialism
Marx’s attachment to materialism arose from his doctoral research on the philosophy of Epicurus , as well as his reading of Adam Smith and other writers in classical political economy. Historical materialism builds upon the idea that became current in philosophy from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries that the development of human society has moved through a series of stages, from hunting and gathering, through pastoralism and cultivation, to commercial society. .
Frederick Engels wrote:
"I use 'historical materialism' to designate the view of the course of history, which seeks the ultimate causes 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, with the consequent division of society into distinct classes and the struggles of these classes."
Warnings against misuse
Marx himself took care to indicate that he was only proposing a guideline to historical research (Leitfaden or Auffassung), and was not providing any substantive "theory of history" or "grand philosophy of history", let alone a "master-key to history". Numerous times, he and Engels expressed irritation with dilettante academics who sought to knock up their skimpy historical knowledge as quickly as possible into some grand theoretical system that would explain "everything" about history. To their great annoyance, the materialist outlook was used as an excuse for not studying history.
In the 1872 Preface to the French edition of Das Kapital Vol. 1, Marx also emphasised that "There 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". Reaching a scientific understanding was hard work. Conscientious, painstaking research was required, instead of philosophical speculation and unwarranted, sweeping generalisations.
But 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. The first explicit and systematic summary of the materialist interpretation of history published, Anti-Dühring, was written by Frederick Engels.
One of the aims of Engels's polemic Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science (written with Marx's approval) 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 editor of the Russian paper Otetchestvennye Zapisky, which significantly contained the following disclaimer:
"(...) If Russia is tending to become a capitalist nation after the example of the Western European countries, and during the last years she has been taking a lot of trouble in this direction - she 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 himself 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.)"
Marx goes on to illustrate how the same factors can in different historical contexts produce very different results, so that quick and easy generalisations are not really possible. To indicate how seriously Marx took research, it is interesting to note that 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 most influence).
But what is true is that insofar 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.
Towards the end of his life, Engels commented several times about the abuse of historical materialism.
In a letter to Conrad Schmidt dated August 5 1890, he stated that "And if this man (i.e., Paul Barth) has not yet discovered that while the material mode of existence is the primum agens 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 labeled without further study, that is, they stick on 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, 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, 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 knowledge — for economic history is still in its swaddling clothes! — 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."
Finally, in a letter to Franz Mehring, Frederick Engels dated 14 July 1893, Engels stated:
"...there 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 side — the ways and means by which these notions, etc., come about — for the sake of the content. This has given our adversaries a welcome opportunity for misunderstandings, of which Paul Barth is a striking example."
Historical materialism in Marxist thought
In 1880, about three years before Marx died, Friedrich Engels indicated that he accepted the usage of the term "historical materialism". Recalling the early days of the new interpretation of history, he stated:
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 "In the meantime, the Marxist world outlook has found representatives far beyond the boundaries of Germany and Europe and in all the literary languages of the world."
In his old age, Engels speculated about a new cosmology or ontology which would show the principles of dialectics to be universal features of reality. He also drafted an article on The part played by labour in the transition from Ape to Man, apparently a theory of anthropogenesis which would integrate the insights of Marx and Charles Darwin
(This is discussed by Charles Woolfson in The Labour Theory of Culture: a Re-examination of Engels Theory of Human Origins).
At the very least, Marxism had now been born, and "historical materialism" had become a distinct philosophical doctrine, subsequently elaborated and systematised by intellectuals like Eduard Bernstein, Karl Kautsky, Georgi Plekhanov and Nikolai Bukharin. Even so, up to the 1930s many of Marx's earlier works were still unknown, and in reality most self-styled Marxists had not read beyond Capital Vol. 1. Isaac Deutscher provides an anecdote about the knowledge of Marx in that era:
"Capital is a tough nut to crack, opined Ignacy Daszynski, one of the best known socialist "people's tribunes" around the turn of the 20th century, but anyhow he had not read it. But, he said, Karl Kautsky had read it, and written a popular summary of the first volume. He hadn't read this either, but Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz, the party theoretician, had read Kautsky's pamphlet and summarised it. He also had not read Kelles-Krauz's text, but the financial expert of the party, Hermann Diamand, had read it and had told him, i.e. Daszynski, everything about it".
After Lenin's death in 1924, Marxism was transformed into Marxism-Leninism and from there to Maoism or Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought in China which some regard as the "true doctrine" and others as a "state religion".
In the early years of the 20th century, historical materialism was often treated by socialist writers as interchangeable with dialectical materialism, a formulation never used by Friedrich Engels however. According to many Marxists influenced by Soviet Marxism, historical materialism is a specifically sociological method, while dialectical materialism refers to a more general, abstract, philosophy. The Soviet orthodox Marxist tradition, influential for half a century, based itself on Joseph Stalin's pamphlet Dialectical and Historical materialism and on textbooks issued by the "Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union".
Recent versions of historical materialism
Several scholars have argued that historical materialism ought to be revised in the light of modern scientific knowledge. Jürgen Habermas believes historical materialism "needs revision in many respects", especially because it has ignored the significance of communicative action. Leszek Nowak argues explicitly for a post-Marxist historical materialism.
Göran Therborn has argued that the method of historical materialism should be applied to historical materialism as intellectual tradition, and to the history of Marxism itself.
In the early 1980s Paul Hirst and Barry Hindess elaborated a structural Marxism interpretation of historical materialism.
Regulation theory, especially in the work of Michel Aglietta draws extensively on historical materialism.
Brill publishers of Leyden publish a journal called Historical Materialism which explores different strands of theory in the tradition of Marx, Engels and the Western Marxists.
Criticisms
Philosopher of science Karl Popper, in his 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.
Underlying the dispute among historians are the different assumptions made about the definition or concept of "history" and "historiography".
Different historians take a different view of what it is all about, and what the possibilities of historical and social scientific knowledge are.
Historians also differ greatly about questions such as (1) the kinds of generalisations which can be validly made about history, (2) about the kinds of causal connections which can validly be postulated in history, and (3) about the validity of different kinds of explanation of historical development.
Broadly, the importance of the study of history lies in the ability of history to explain the present. 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 explain the present from a belief-system point of view.
It has been argued that the theoretical framework of Sociobiology explains certain facts better than does Historical Materialism.
Further reading
- Ronald L. Meek, Social Science and the Ignoble Savage, Cambridge U.P. Cambridge studies in the history and theory of politics, 1976
- Paul Blackledge, Reflections on the Marxist Theory of History (2006)
- John Bellamy Foster, Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature, London, New York: Monthly Review, 1999
- Franz Mehring, On Historical Materialism (classic statement by a contemporary and friend of Marx & Engels)
- Z.A. Jordan, The Origins of Dialectical Materialism (good survey)
- Gustav A. Wetter, Dialectical Materialism: a Historical and Systematic Survey of Philosophy in the Soviet Union. (alternative survey)
- Loren R. Graham, Science Philosophy and Human Behavior in the Soviet Union. (sympathetically-critical of dialectical materialism)
- George Novack, Understanding History: Marxist Essays (Trotskyist interpretations of problems of history)
- H. B. Acton, The Illusion of the Epoch. (critical account which focusses on incoherencies in the thought of Marx, Engels and Lenin)
- Gerald Cohen, Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence. (influential analytical Marxist interpretation)
- Helmut Fleischer, Marxism and History. (good reply to false interpretations of Marx's view of history)
- E.P. Thompson, The Poverty of Theory. (polemic which ridicules theorists of history who do not actually study history)
- , Routledge 2004 by Allen W Wood - delves into misinterpretations of Marx including the substitution of "Historical materialism" by Lenin/Engels's concept of Dialectical Materialism
- William H. Shaw, Marx's theory of history (short survey)
- Johan Witt-Hansen, Historical Materialism: The Method, The Theories. (sees historical materialism as a methodology, and Das Kapital as an application of the method)
- Gordon V. Childe, Man Makes Himself (free interpretation of Marx's idea)
- Leszek Nowak, Property and Power. Towards a non-Marxian Historical Materialism. (attempt to develop a post-Stalinist interpretation of Marx's project)
- Joseph Stalin, Historical and Dialectical Materialism. (classic statement of Stalinist doctrine)
- Mao Zedong, Four Essays on Philosophy. (standard Maoist reading of Marx's materialism)
- Goran Therborn, Science, Class and Society (critical survey of the relationship between sociology and historical materialism)
- Ernest Mandel, Introduction to Marxism. (emphasizes understanding the roots of class society and the state)
- Ernest Mandel, The Place of Marxism in History (modelled on Lenin's "Three components of Marxism" but with an interesting section on the reception and diffusion of Marxism in the world)
- Hal Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution (4 volumes). (captures the full subtlety of Marx's thought, but at length)
- Franz Jakubowski, Ideology and superstructure. (attempts to provide an alternative to schematic interpretations of historical materialism)
- Wal Suchting, Marx: An Introduction. (good short introduction)
- Chris Harman, A People's History of the World (Marxist view of history according to a leader of the International Socialist Tendency)
- Jürgen Habermas, Communication and the Evolution of Society. (argues historical materialism must be revised to include communicative action)
- Anton Pannekoek, .
See also
External links
=Private Property
To understand Marx's theory one must first understand the Marxist concept of private property. "Private property" in the terminology of Marx's time, for Marx himself, and for Marxists today, does not mean the simple possessions of a person, but the ownership of productive property or property which produces a profit for the owner, such as corporate ownership, share ownership, land ownership, and, in the case of slave society, slave ownership, since the slaves worked the land, mines and other means of producing the material means of existence.
The stages of history
Marx saw that each stage or epoch created a new class or invention that would lead to its downfall. However the downfall would not be an automatically negative event, since with each step humanity at large would benefit. Each passing stage would therefore raise the standard of living of the masses while at the same time be doomed to its own downfall because of internal contradictions and class conflicts.
Only the last two epochs are spared from this fate. With socialism the final oppressive class is overthrown and society is put under the tyranny of the majority and thus advances into communism.
The first three stages are not given particular attention, since by Marx's time they had long come to pass. As such, he does not provide the principles of these stages as he does for capitalism and the stages that follow. However these epochs have common characteristics nonetheless.
Primitive Communism
The First Stage: is usually called Primitive Communism. It has the following characteristics.
- Shared property: there is no concept of ownership beyond individual possessions. All is shared by the tribe to ensure its survival.
- Hunting and gathering: tribal societies have yet to develop large scale agriculture and so their survival is a daily struggle.
- Proto-democracy: there is usually no concept of "leadership" yet. So tribes are led by the best warrior if there is war, the best diplomat if they have steady contact with other tribes and so forth.
The primitive communism stage most likely begins soon after the dawn of humanity itself, at the stage where fire is developed, and communal living therefore becomes more convenient. Primitive communist societies tend to be very small, consisting of a maximum of a few hundred members, with size being dependent upon the environment. In this stage humanity is no different from any other animal, in that it has not yet found ways to bend nature to its will.
This stage ends with the development of private property, especially with the development of large scale agriculture. This in turn produces productive property, such as cattle and slaves.
Slave Society
The Second Stage: may be called Slave Society, considered to be the beginning of "class society" where private property appears.
- Class: here the idea of class appears. There is always a slave-owning ruling class and the slaves themselves.
- Statism: the state develops during this stage as a tool for the slave-owners to use and control the slaves.
- Agriculture: man learns to cultivate plants and animals on a large enough scale to support large populations.
- Democracy and Authoritarianism: these opposites develop at the same stage. Democracy arises first with the development of the republican city-state, followed by the totalitarian empire.
- Private Property: citizens now own more than personal property. Land ownership is especially important during a time of agricultural development.
The slave-owning class "own" the land and slaves, which are the main means of producing wealth, whilst the vast majority have very little or nothing. The propertyless included the slave class, slaves who work for no money, and in most cases women, who were also dispossessed during this period. From a Marxist perspective, slave society collapsed when it exhausted itself. The need to keep conquering more slaves created huge problems, such as maintaining the vast empire that resulted (i.e. The Roman Empire). It is ultimately the aristocracy born in this epoch that demolishes it and forces society to step onto the next stage.
Feudalism
The Third Stage: may be called Feudalism it appears after slave society collapses. This was most obvious during the European Dark Ages when society went from slavery to feudalism.
- Aristrocracy: the state is ruled by monarchs who inherit their positions. Or at times marry or conquer their ways into leadership.
- Theocracy: this is a time of largely religious rule. When there is only one religion in the land and it's organizations affect all parts of daily life.
- Hereditary classes: castes can sometimes form and one's class is determined at birth with no form of advancement. This was the case with India.
- Nation-state: nations are formed from the remnants of the fallen empires. Sometimes to rebuild themselves into empires once more. Such as England's transition from a province to an empire.
During feudalism there are many classes such as kings, lords, and serfs, some little more than slaves. Most of these inherit their titles for good or ill. At the same time that societies must create all these new classes, trade with other nation-states increases rapidly. This catalyzes the creation of the merchant class.
Out of the merchants' riches, a capitalist class emerges within this feudal society. However there are immediate conflicts with the aristocracy. The old feudal kings and lords cannot accept the new social changes the capitalists want for fear of destabalizing or reducing there power base, among various other reasons that are not all tied to power or money.
This proto-capitalist and capitalist classes are driven by the profit motive but are prevented from developing further profits by the nature of feudal society where, for instance, the serfs are tied to the land and cannot become industrial workers and wage earners. Marx says, Then begins an epoch of social revolution (The French Revolution of 1789, Cromwell in Britain, etc) since the social and political organization of feudal society (or the property relations of feudalism) is preventing the development of the capitalists' productive forces.
Capitalism
Marx pays special attention to this stage in human development. The bulk of his work is devoted to exploring the mechanisms of capitalism, which in western society classically arose "red in tooth and claw" from feudal society in a revolutionary movement.
Capitalism may be considered the Fourth Stage in the sequence. It appears after the bourgeois revolution when the capitalists (or their merchant predecessors) overthrow the feudal system. Capitalism is categorized by the following:
- Free Market economy: in capitalism the entire economy is guided by market forces. Supporters of Laissez-faire economics argue that there should be little or no intervention from the government under capitalism. Marxists, however, such as Lenin in his
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, argue that the capitalist government is a powerful instrument for the furtherance of capitalism and the capitalist nation-state, particularly in the conquest of markets abroad.Private property: the means of production are no longer in the hands of the monarchy and its nobles, but rather they are controlled by the capitalists. The capitalists control the means of production through commercial enterprises (such as corporations) which aim to maximize profit.Parliamentary democracy: the capitalists tend to govern through an elected centralized parliament or congress, rather than under an autocracy. Capitalist (bourgeois) democracy, although it may be extended to the whole population, does not necessarily lead to universal suffrage. Historically it has excluded (by force, segregation, legislation or other means) sections of the population such as women, slaves, ex-slaves, people of color or those on low income. The government acts on behalf of, and is controlled by, the capitalists through various methods.Wages: in capitalism, workers are rewarded according to their contract with their employer. However their hours or rate of work are often subject to increase outside their immediate control, and their wage is, in any case, but a fraction of the true value produced by their labor. The unpaid labor of the working class is the essential component of the profit for the capitalist, because the worker is not paid the true value of his labor: he is exploitedWarfare: capitalism spreads from the wealthiest countries to the poorest as capitalists seek to expand their influence and raise their profits. This is done directly through war, the threat of war, or the export of capital. The capitalist's control over the state can thus play an essential part in the development of capitalism, to the extent the state directs the warfare or other foreign intervention.Monopolistic tendencies: the natural, unrestrained market forces will create monopolies from the most successful and/or vicious commercial entities.
In capitalism, the profit motive rules and people, freed from serfdom, work for the capitalists for wages. The capitalist class are free to spread their laissez-faire practices around the world. In the capitalist-controlled parliament laws are made to protect wealth and the wealthy.
But, according to Marx, capitalism, like slave society and feudalism, also has critical failings - inner contradictions which will lead to its downfall. The working class, to which the capitalist class gave birth in order to produce commodities and profits, is the "grave digger" of capitalism. The worker is not paid the full value of what he or she produces. The rest is surplus value - the capitalist's profit, which Marx calls the "unpaid labour of the working class." The capitalists are forced by competition to attempt to drive down the wages of the working class to increase their profits, and this creates conflict between the classes, and gives rise to the development of class consciousness in the working class. The working class, through trade union and other struggles, becomes conscious of itself as an exploited class.
In the view of classical Marxism, the struggles of the working class against the attacks of the capitalist class lead the working class to struggle to establish its own collective control over production - the basis of socialist society. Marx believed that capitalism always leads to monopolies and leads the people to poverty; yet the fewer the restrictions on the free market, (e.g. from the state and trade unions) the sooner it finds itself in crisis.
Socialism
After the working class gains class consciousness and mounts a revolution against the capitalists, Communism, which may be considered the Fifth Stage, will be attained, if the workers are successful.
Lenin divided the period following the overthrow of capitalism into two stages: first socialism, and then later, once the last vestiges of the old capitalist ways have withered away, communism (). Lenin based his 1917 work, The State and Revolution, on a thorough study of the writings of Marx and Engels. Marx uses the terms the "first phase" of communism and the "higher phase" of communism, but Lenin points to later remarks of Engels which suggest that what people commonly think of as socialism equates to Marx's "first phase" of communism.
Socialism may be categorized by the following:
- Decentralized planned economy: without the market, production will be directed by the workers themselves through communes or workers' elected councils.
- Common property: the means of production are taken from the hands of a few capitalists and put in the hands of the workers. This translates into the democratic communes controlling the means of production.
- Council democracy: Marx, basing himself on a thorough study of Paris Commune, believed that the workers would govern themselves though system of communes. He called this the dictatorship of the proletariat, which, overthrowing the dictatorship (governance) of capital, would democratically plan production and the resources of the planet.
- Labor vouchers: Marx explained that, since socialism emerges from capitalism, it would be "stamped with its birthmarks." Economically this translates into the individual worker being awarded according to the amount of labor he contributes to society. Each worker would be given a certificate verifying his contribution which he could then exchange for goods.
Marx explains that socialist society, having risen from a self conscious movement of the vast majority, makes such a society one of the vast majority governing over their own lives:
Now the productive forces are truly free to develop, but in a democratically planned way, without the vast waste of anarchic capitalist society, its wars and destruction of the planet. One of the primary tasks of the workers in the socialist society, after placing the means of production into collective ownership, is to destroy the "old state machinery.” Hence the bourgeoisie's parliamentary democracy ceases to exist, and fiat and credit money are abolished. In Marx's view, instead of a dictatorship of capital, in which rulers are elected only once every few years at best, the state is ruled through the dictatorship of the proletariat with the democratically elected workers' commune to replace the parliament:
The commune, in Marx and Engels' view, modeled after the Paris Commune, has a completely different political character from the parliament. Marx explains that it holds legislative-executive power and is subservient only to the workers themselves:
Marx explained that, since the first stage of socialism would be "in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges", each worker would naturally expect to be awarded according to the amount of labor he contributes, despite the fact that each worker's ability and family circumstances would differ, so that the results would still be unequal at this stage, although fully supported by social provision.
Fiat money and credit whose values were determined by anarchic market forces are abolished. Instead, in his Critique of the Gotha programme, Marx speculated schematically that from the "total social product" there would be deductions for the requirements of production and "the common satisfaction of needs, such as schools, health services, etc" which latter deduction "grows in proportion as the new society develops", and, of course, deductions "for those unable to work, etc". After these deductions the workers could divide up the wealth produced by their labor and everyone could be simply given a "certificate from society", which could then be exchanged for products. This schematically introduces a means of exchange ("the same principle" i.e. money) in socialist society but with the speculative element removed.
In this way, each worker is paid according to the amount of labor contributed to society, in other words according to the agreed difficulty, length of time, and intensity of his labor. All goods (such, for instance, as housing) are priced in a greater degree according the amount of labor required to produce them, which the individual worker can buy with his labor voucher.
Only if this new socialist society manages to end the destructiveness of capitalism and leads to a higher quality of life for all will socialist society be successful. As socialism raises everyone's quality of life above the precarious existence they knew hitherto, providing decent health care, housing, child care, and other social provision for all without exception, the new socialist society begins to break down the old inevitably pecuniary habits, the need for a state apparatus will wither away, and the communist organization of society will begin to emerge. Socialism, in the view of Marxists, will succeed in raising the quality of life for all by ending the destructive contradictions which arise in capitalism through conflicts between competing capitalists and competing capitalist nations, and ending the need for imperialist conquest for the possession of commodities and markets.
Communism
Some time after socialism is established society leaps forward, and everyone has plenty of personal possessions, but no one can exploit another person for private gain through the ownership of vast monopolies, and so forth. Classes are thus abolished, and class society ended. Eventually the state will "wither away" and become obsolete, as people administer their own lives without the need for governments. Thus, communism is established, which has the following features:
- Statelessness: there is no government or nations any more.
- Classlessness: all social classes disappear, everyone works for everyone else.
- Propertylessness: there is no money, all goods are free to be consumed by anyone that needs them.
In the Communist Manifesto Marx describes communism as:
Few applications of historical materialism, the philosophical system used by Marxism to explain the past progressions of human society and predict the nature of communism, account for a stage beyond communism, but Marx suggests that what has ended is only the "prehistory" of human society; now, for the first time, humankind will be no longer be at the mercy of productive forces (e.g. the free market) which act independently of their control. Instead human beings can plan for the needs of society and the preservation of planet, inclusively, democratically, by the vast majority, who now own and control the means of production collectively. By implication, then, only now does the real history of human society begin.
See also
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