What Is Historical Materialism?¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter presents historical materialism as the scientific method for understanding human social development, moving beyond pre-Marxist conceptions of history as a series of accidents or expressions of divine will. Marx and Engels established that all human development depends upon the development of productive forces, placing history on a firm scientific basis. The motor force of social development is class struggle, and the viability of any socio-economic system is determined by its capacity to develop the means of production. Crucially, the chapter insists that Marxism does not reduce everything to economics; as Engels clarified in his letter to Bloch, the economic moment is determining only in the final analysis, while superstructural elements—politics, law, religion, philosophy—exercise a reciprocal influence on social development, albeit subordinate to economic dominance.
The chapter traces human evolution from cooperative, egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies, where sharing was central and boastfulness suppressed, through the Neolithic Revolution—the first great transformation in productive forces. This transition to agriculture generated a sustainable surplus, enabling population growth, division of labour, and trade, but simultaneously laid the basis for inequality, social classes, and the state. A privileged caste appropriated the surplus, producing the first great instance of alienation: of the product through private property, of control over life through the state, and of the soul through organised religion. The chapter distinguishes between the Asiatic mode of production, characterised by a despotic god-king and common state ownership, which it deems a historical dead end, and the historically progressive Greek and Roman slave society, which developed productive forces until its inner contradiction—dependence on continuous warfare for cheap slaves—led to its decline.
The narrative proceeds through the rise and fall of successive modes of production: the failure of slave revolts like Spartacus’s, the emergence of Caesarism as the state gained independence as arbiter in class struggles, and the eventual collapse of the Roman Empire, where barbarians were welcomed as liberators by slaves and the poor. Feudalism brought cultural stagnation, but within it rose the bourgeoisie. The chapter surveys bourgeois revolutions—the Dutch revolt, the English Revolution, the French Revolution—noting how each was driven by mass participation yet ultimately compromised with the old order. The 1848 revolutions were led by the working class, not the bourgeoisie, and the Paris Commune of 1871 represented the first workers’ state.
The chapter concludes with capitalism’s fundamental contradiction between social production and private appropriation, expressed in periodic crises of overproduction. The 2008 collapse is presented as the beginning of the biggest crisis in capitalism’s 200-year existence. The choice is socialism or barbarism: either the working class takes control and plans production rationally, or society faces cultural collapse. Socialism requires abundance and the abolition of scarcity, enabling the leap from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom. In a notable polemic, Engels criticises younger Marxists for overemphasising the economic side, producing what he calls “amazing rubbish,” while reaffirming that history is the resultant of many individual wills pursuing consciously desired ends, often producing results opposite to those intended. The real driving forces are those which set in motion great masses, whole peoples, and whole classes, producing lasting historical transformations.