Understanding Historical Materialism: Society, Production, and Class Struggle
Historical Materialism
The Marxist theory of history is called historical materialism. Its fundamental idea is to reinterpret history in terms of material conditions of production, rather than abstract concepts.
Humans, and by extension society, are the product of material production. Understanding society requires analyzing the actions of transforming nature through work and the economy. According to Marx, material production is primary, not cultural productions.
Marx’s theory is materialist because it interprets the evolution of societies and history based on actual, empirical production (labor, raw materials processing, relations between workers and employers, legal and regulatory frameworks).
Every society can be explained by its organization of material goods production. Conflicts around wealth production drive historical change, leading to societal progress.
The material conditions of a society are called the infrastructure. Intellectual products (laws, justice, science, art, religion) constitute the superstructure. In a simplistic view of Marxism, the infrastructure determines the superstructure. However, Marx acknowledged the mutual influence of cultural productions on material conditions. For example, science and technology, as superstructural products, influence material developments (infrastructure).
Marx, in “The Poverty of Philosophy,” states: “Social relations are closely linked to the productive forces. With the acquisition of new productive forces, men change their mode of production, and in changing the mode of production, in the way of living, they change all their social relations… The same men who establish social relations in line with their material production, produce also principles, ideas, categories, consistent with their social relationships.”
A dialectical relationship exists between infrastructure and superstructure. Dialectical materialism, the most philosophical aspect of Marx’s thought, analyzes this relationship and how means of production affect social class relations.
The Concept of ‘Mode of Production’
This concept defines the material features of any society. The mode of production determines how each society produces goods for subsistence.
In ‘Capital,’ Marx describes different modes of production. Although Marx and Engels never gave a definitive classification, there are basically four:
- The primitive communist mode of production (pre-historical societies and tribal).
- The classic or slave mode of production (Greece and Rome).
- The feudal mode of production (Medieval and “ruralized” zones like Russia or China).
- The capitalist mode of production (the West, from the late Middle Ages to the nineteenth century), divided into stages.
Marx suggested that the succession of modes of production follows objective and unavoidable conditions. He predicted that capitalism would be followed by a communist society with a new collectivist mode of production.
Productive Forces
These are the forces responsible for producing work in each historical period, i.e., the means of production used to produce goods for survival and progress. They are the source of societal wealth. Economic output depends on the type of work and labor productivity. Each society organizes work differently based on its development level and needs.
In each historical moment, three agents constitute the productive forces:
- The labor force (the producers)
- Expertise
- Organizational capabilities or improvements in the division of labor
Relations of Production
This is the set of ties between social classes within each mode of production. According to Marx, these relationships are always conflicting because the immediate interests of different classes are opposed. For example, the working class owns only its workforce, while the bourgeoisie owns the means of production and the labor workforce.
Marx distinguished two types of relations of production:
- The technical relations of production (leading to the division of labor).
- The social relations of production (giving rise to social classes).
The revolutionary character of Marxism derives from the idea that when the operating conditions of the oppressed class exceed certain limits, this class initiates a transformation (potentially violent revolution) of the social conditions of production. The revolutionary moment occurs when productive forces conflict with the state of relations of production. Marx illustrates this in his analysis of the bourgeoisie’s historical development and predicts a similar situation for the proletariat.