Historical Materialism: Foundations of Social Transformation
Marx and Engels not only exposed the materialistic dialectical
development in nature, but also applied it to society. With his action created the scientific theory of social evolution, ie historical materialism, which aims at the study of society and the laws governing its development. These laws are objective, that is as independent of consciousness as are the laws of nature. They are also knowable, and in this sense man
employs in his practical activity. For historical materialism, we must understand the scientific study of social reality and its historical evolution, according to the dialectical method and from the materialistic standpoint. As such science is not content with the explanation of this or that society, in this or that historical moment, but has developed a set of general concepts that will enable studies of any society
complete. By economic theory, historical and philosophical attempts to discover the laws governing social change and presents a method for the interpretation of social conflict and transformation.
The German Ideology already contains, nuclear, and dialectical materialism
history. First of all, nature and history can not be regarded as antithetical, as if they were two different things. The origins of man as producer of his own life (through work) are social. Assume social cooperation by certain relations conditioned by the production and release of human population from their biological limits. We have already discussed that if we think the story mode as the development of Hegelian spirit, then it
turns, Marx, in action imaginary imaginary subjects. By contrast, Marx and Engels argue that the evolution of history is always due to material causes economic. They are not the ideas or intellectual elites, those who make history. Are men as workers, whose needs and interests very specific materials, without whose practical activity ideas are historically
powerless: Ideas can never run anything. For the implementation of the
ideas men are needed to put into action a practical force. (Marx-Engels, The Holy Family) Indeed, in different ways, based on Marx’s critique of Hegelian philosophy and Engels for critical analysis of bourgeois economy had reached the conclusion that the history of society can not be understood but as the story of self-production of man by himself, at work, in particular social conditions that almost from the beginning until that time had involved the exploitation of man by man. A purely theoretical criticism of the young
Berliners of the Hegelian Left, and their struggle for self-consciousness, opposed Marx and Engels in The Holy Family and The German Ideology, the revolutionary transformation of the material conditions of human existence in capitalism by the workers. They know (the workers) that the property, capital, money, wage labor, and so on., Are not exactly ideal fantasies of their brains, but very practical and very creative materials from its self-alienation, which can only be overcome also, in practical and material ways, so that man becomes
man not only in thought, in consciousness, but in
Being real in life (Marx-Engels, The Holy Family).
They are also the existential conditions, materials and practices, the
working class under capitalism, which enable the development of class consciousness, in order precisely to the material processing and circulation of these conditions. In fact:
Much of the English and French proletariat is already conscious
its historical mission, and works constantly to raise this
consciousness lucidity. (Marx-Engels, The Holy
family). The defining characteristic of historical materialism is the claim that are the economic foundations and modes of possession of material goods which are at the basis of all social transformation. The social structure and the engine of change are the wills of persons taken individually, or ideas, let alone the divine will, but the material, the actual social and economic life of man, economic needs and economic interests of different
social groups.
The fundamental proposition of historical materialism is, therefore, the claim that l to social existence determines social consciousness.
Social existence is defined by the material life of society and primarily, the productive activity of men, along with the economic relations between them are generated in the production process. For social consciousness is meant the intellectual life of men, ideas, trials and theory that lead in their practical activity. Marx and Engels were supported by the fact that man, before turning to philosophy, art, science or any other activity, eat, drink, own a house, etc.. And this is achieved only through work, through the production of material goods. The economic phase of development for a people or a
time is the basis on which have developed political institutions, legal concepts, ideas, artistic and even religious ideas of man. It usually includes historical materialism in what has been called theories or philosophies of suspicion: those who maintain that to understand the behavior of an individual or a social group is not adequate to meet the explanation that the person or group gives out same, since this explanation is not objective, but
mediated as a result of the individual or group interests. To understand an individual or group is necessary to suspect the understanding he has of himself and referred to another level of reality different from one’s own conscience: As not judge an individual by the idea he has of
itself, nor can we judge that the time of disorder
self-consciousness, it is necessary, however, explain this
awareness about the conditions of material life, conflict
between the social productive forces and relations
production. (Marx, Contribution to the Critique of the
political economy. Preface). The philosophers of suspicion have been Freud, which emphasizes the unconscious motivation in human behavior, Nietzsche, for which Western culture antivital hides his character, and Marxism, whereby the true foundation of social behavior is not in the level of understanding that men have of themselves, understanding that is at the level of ideology, but on the level of economic and political interests of the dominant group.