Historical Materialism - Marxist Beliefs About History

Marxist Beliefs About History

"Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand." — Karl Marx, Grundrisse, 1858

According to Marxist theorists, history develops in accordance with the following observations:

1. Social progress is driven by progress in the material, productive forces a society has at its disposal (technology, labour, capital goods, etc.)
2. Humans are inevitably involved in production relations (roughly speaking, economic relationships or institutions), which constitute our most decisive social relations.
3. Production relations progress, with a degree of inevitability, following and corresponding to the development of the productive forces.
4. 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.
5. Both productive forces and production relations progress independently of mankind's strategic intentions or will.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. State power is usually only transferred from one class to another by social and political upheaval.
9. 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.
10. The actual historical process is not predetermined but depends on the class struggle, especially the organization and consciousness of the working class.