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Marx's Historical Materialism

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Marx's Historical Materialism
Karl Marx is considered to be one of the most influential thinkers of our age. Born in Germany in 1818, he was greatly influenced by philosophers such as Hegel, Feuerbach & St. Simon. He made an immense contribution to the different areas of sociology- definition of the field of study, analysis of the economic structure and its relations with other parts of the social structure, theory of social classes, study of religion, theory of ideology, analysis of the capitalist system etc. In this essay, we will deal with his contribution to the study of social development or the materialist conception of history.

Marx put forward his conception of historical materialism for the first time in German Ideology in 1845-6. He believed that it was the material world or the mode of production which determines the consciousness of men & the ‘social, political, and spiritual processes of life'. According to him, the mode of production, which refers to the productive forces of society as well as the relations of production; is not simply the reproduction of physical existence, but a definite mode of life. What individuals are, ‘coincides with their production, with what they produce and with how they produce it.' The economic structure is the real foundation on which the ideological superstructures of law, politics, religion & philosophy arise. Marx argued that changes in the mode of production correspond to the different stages of history. According to him, "History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends", and labour forms the basis of human society. Thus, he held that the foundations of reality lay in the material base of economics rather than in the abstract thought of idealistic philosophy. While Durkheim praised the ‘idea that social life should be explained, not by the notions of those who participate in it, but by more profound causes...', he noted the inadequacy of this conception was evident in the study of the family.
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