"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles"
Karl Marx

Dialectical Materialism?

Many people have come to know Karl Marx as various things: revolutionary, economist and philosopher. It is sometimes overlooked that he was also a historian. He wrote several historical works the most famous of which is probably "The Eighteenth Brumaire Of Louis Bonaparte".

Marxism and history would appear to be synonymous with two terms: historical materialism and dialectical materialism. Karl Marx, however, apparently never used either term to describe his theory (or method) of history. It was later Marxists, such as Engels who outlived Marx by some 15 years, that popularized such terms. Indeed many believe that Engels vulgarized to a certain extent what Marx really meant with regard to history. Both would later admit that they had perhaps been a little bit too enthusiastic and one sided in their statements concerning history. Indeed Engels was later to admit:

Marx and I are ourselves partly to blame for the fact that the younger people sometimes lay more stress on the economic side than is due to it.

Marx never used the term dialectic materialism nor did he ever argue that history was all down to economics, even less that the historical process was down to the instruments of production. When Marx talked of history he preferred to use the term "the materialist conception of history", this is more than a mere difference in terms that describe the same concept. Perhaps the simplest expression of his materialist conception of history is to be found in the Communist Manifesto:

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."

For Marx then it is clear that class conflict is the dynamo of history yet this is only part of his "materialist conception of history". Marx was also, as you may or may not know, a materialist. The whole basis of his materialist conception of history rests upon the ideas expressed in the folloing passage:

"In the social production of their life men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces...The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines consciousness..."

The instruments or forces of production are indeed important but they are not determining. For example, in order for the transition from feudalism to capitalism to occur it was essential that the forces of production had developed to a given level. For example, it was necessary that the agricultural instruments and techniques had developed to such an extent that they allowed people to be engaged in producitve activities other than agricultural production. Yet there is a difference between saying that the development of the forces of production is essential or necessary and saying that they are the dynamo of history. Marx writes:

"History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living men, who do this, who possess things and fight battles. It is not 'history' which uses men as a means of achieving...its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends."

For Marx social change occurs when the forces of production come into contradiction with the relations of production. By this what he means is that the forces of production develop quicker than the relations of production, which do not change as quickly. As a result you might have the forces of production, which are part of a new mode of production, existing side by side with the old relations of production. The two cannot exist side by side forever, the development of one is fettered by the existence of the other. For example, the capitalist forces of production, the steam engine and machinery, were invented within the epoch of feudalism. Capitalist society developed within the womb of feudal society. The feudal relations of production, revolving around land, were, however, a fetter upon production. In order for capitalism to become the dominant mode of production and the capitalist class to become the ruling class certain conditions had to be meet. What were these conditions?

In Marxs economic work, Capital, he outlines some of these necessary conditions. He writes:

in order that our owner of money may be able to find labour-power offered for sale as a commodity, various conditions must first be fulfilled...labour power can appear upon the market as a commodity, only if, and so far as, its possessor, the individual whose labour power it is, offers it for sale, or sells it as a commodity. In order that he may be able to do this, he must have at his disposal, must be the untrammeled owner of his capacity to labour, i.e. of his person...

The second essential condition to the owner of money finding labour-power in the market as a commodity is this that the labourer instead of being in the position to sell commodities in which his labour is incorporated, must be obliged to offer for sale as a commodity that very labour-power, which exists in his living self.

However, according to Marx the next epoch of history, that of communism, would not be ushered in by any contradiction between the relations and forces of production. Unlike the feudal relations of production it would not be development in the forces of production that would stimulate revolutionary upheaval. For Marx capitalist society, like all exploitative societies, had certain contradictions that would eventually lead to its downfall. Contradictions are best thought of as the seeds of destruction inherent within a given economic system. These contradictions give rise to and were eventually resolved through class struggle. One of the many contradictions of capitalism was that capitalism tended to concentrate capital in fewer and fewer hands yet at the same time workers were concentrated together in ever greater numbers. So the glaring private nature of ownership of the means of production was contrasted with the social nature of production. The working class, herded together in huge factories and cities, grew in strength. This, amongst many other contradictions, would eventually lead to revolution.

Where does this leave the conventional view of history? History is for many simply the actions of great and charismatic men and women. And what about the accident, the unintended consequence or happening, that throws things into the air? Marx never denied that such factors played a part in history. He fully realized that accidents and even charismatic people could help to either speed up the process of historical change or even slow it down. Certain things may well occur that throw a society back in the course of historical development. For example, the proletariat may find that its leaders are incompetent or the opposite may occur as in the case of Russia where they were very professional. Yet for Marx history is linear, it is heading towards an end goal. This end goal in which the means of production are socialized is called communism. It reaches this goal only through advancement through other economic orders, that is, through other exploitative systems of production. No means of production, no steam engine or machine, is going to lead to this transition, it is the proletariat who will by their revolution put an end to all exploitative systems of production.

I leave you with what is probably Marxs most concise expression of his conception of history. He writes:

"Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered and transmitted from the past..."