Name – Arushi Sharma

Roll – 820033

Semester V, Year III

Sociological Thinkers 1 | BA (H) Sociology

Q. Explain the Materialistic Conception of History.

Historical materialism is a term with the help of which we can understand the Marxist
method of explaining the historical development of human society. Marx explains the various
stages of human society in a materialist way and unfolding of various stages as made by man.
History is neither accidental nor mystical. It needs to be explained by recognising mankind's
productive activity in society as the most fundamental human activity. Marxist application of
the materialist method is to be found primarily in his thesis on Feuerbach and the German
ideology which is co-authored with Engles.

Essentially Marx proposed a unique philosophy of history by engaging himself with two
German philosophers of opposite camps, on the one hand, he was impressed by the idealist
philosopher George Hegel, and on the other hand, he critically evaluated the materialist
philosopher Feuerbach. Feuerbach stuck to an orthodox materialist position to question
Hegel’s idealist thinking. Marx realised that it was crude to perceive human activity itself as
an objective reality. The active side of human consciousness was ignored by Feuerbach. On
the other hand, Hegelian idealism captured its abstractly; he qualified the early materialist
criticism of Hegel’s idealist philosophy.

From Hegel, Marx acknowledged the concept of dialectics, but he tried to strip dialectics
from its idealist trappings. The very notion of dialectics, Marx realised, was crucial to
overcoming the one-sidedness of Feurbachian materialism. The concept of dialectics images
the world as not something static, it underscores the aspect of dynamics, conflicts and
contradictions as integral to the making and shaping of the world around us.

Hegel proposed a superlative understanding of reality as an absolute spirit; when the notion
of dialectics is employed as a self-generating, self-differentiating and self-particularising
process of reason. In the dualism between matter and mind, Hegel derives existence from
essence. Marx wishes to correct a Hegelian dialectic by favouring a materialistic application
of dialectics. The combination of materialism with dialectics transforms both. Properly
understood, the materialism of dialectical materialism is not, like its traditional ancestor,
reductive. It does not reduce ideas to matter, asserting their ultimate identity. It holds,
dialectically, that the material and the ideal are different, in fact, opposites, but within a unity
in which the material is basic or primary.
Matter can exist without the mind, but not vice versa, and the mind was historically emergent
from matter and remains dependent on it. What the component of dialectics asserts is that
concrete reality is not a static substance in undifferentiated unity but a unity that is
differentiated and specifically contradictory, the conflict of opposites driving reality onwards
in a historical process of constant progressive change, both evolutionary and revolutionary,
and in its revolutionary or discontinuous changes bringing forth genuine qualitative novelty.
It is such an emergent novelty that the mind is understood by this materialist version of
dialectics.
Accordingly, it is the matter that explains every aspect of existence. Marxist criticism of
Hegel’s idealism developed over the years. the external world as deterministic is not exactly
given the ultimate and exclusive causal primacy by Marx. Instead, the creative aspect of the
human species was understood by him.

Marx thought that human activity, which was both central and principal, was what created
history. Complex interactions between active humans and the outside physical world are
necessary for human development. Our senses aid in our understanding of the outside world,
and through our conscious decisions, we actively shape this universe.

The relationship between matter and mind is explained by the dialectical principle itself.
Marx actually used dialectics in conjunction with materialism to create the various historical
changes. Dialectical materialism recognises the matter of opposites in all things as well as
the fact that they are inextricably linked to one another. According to dialectical materialism,
things come into being and stay that way through an ongoing process of change and
development.

The three basic laws of dialectics are the law of the unity of opposites, the law of negation
of negation, and the law of the transformation of quantity into quality. These three laws
describe how different periods of history have developed. Every state of being is susceptible
to change, and change always begins with a quantitative force before developing into a
qualitative one. Every state of existence is made up of two opposing forces that are
interlocked with each other and oppose one another. The opposing force is negated in turn in
the following stage of history.

The system or the state of order must be examined to find any changes. Contradictions are a
necessary part of life, and when the different eras of history are pieced together, we discover
that, beyond the pre-class era of early communism, all succeeding eras are characterised by
class divisions. The main force behind history is class conflict, but understanding dialectics
teaches us that these conflicts are merely the manifested form of a deeper contradiction. In
terms of ownership of the means of production, how society is organised for production
presents the fundamental contradiction.

Marx examines the structure of any society using two metaphors, the "base" and "the
superstructure". Base is a representation of a society's fundamental structure, which is also
its economic structure. Superstructure, on the other hand, refers to a society's legal, cultural,
political, and ideological components. Any society's superstructure is determined by its
economic foundation, or base.

Consequently, it is clear that the productive forces and social relations of production make up
the mode of production (economic foundation) of society. The terms "land, capital, tools,
and techniques" refer to the resources that are necessary for any productive activity. They
cannot produce anything on their own, just like any other physical object, when left to
themselves. They require human labour to "bring them to life." Forces of production are what
are created when the means of production are combined with human labour. Additionally, the
idea of the relations of production, which deals with the nature of the connection between
human labour and the means of production, is a crucial idea.

A society shifts from one state to another as a result of the forces of production being altered
and improved, rendering obsolete the previous relations of production. The historical
relationship between the forces of production and the previous relations of production
denotes a specific mode of production, and whenever and wherever the forces of production
depart from the previous relations of production, a new mode of production is discovered.

By applying this reasoning, Marx was able to reconstruct the various eras of history, starting
with the pre-class society or primitive communist community, where there was no concept
of private property or class (pre-class). This was followed by the Ancient society, also
known as the Slave society, which introduces class distinction and private property. The
Masters and Slaves are the opposing classes in this situation. The next stage was the feudal
society, which was characterised by the feudal means of production (rural economy), which
consisted of the feudal lords and serfs, two fundamentally opposed forces. Eventually, this
feudal society crumbled, giving rise to the capitalist mode of production, which is
characterised by the expansion of production processes and the accumulation of capital. The
capitalists and the worker represent the two main opposing forces in this situation
(bourgeoisie and proletariat). Marx claims that the socialist mode of production serves as a
prerequisite for the next stage, which he refers to as the socialist society, in which private
property is abolished.

We can see that the materialist interpretation of history emphasises how the growth of the
productive forces, relations of production, and means of production have influenced the
evolution of the human race. As a result, history is a continuous process in which no stage is
definitive and fixed. Each stage of history retains the remnants of the stages that came before
it.

Despite these ideas, Marx’s works does not come without criticism of its own; he
overemphasizes on economic relationships and seems to practice economic determinism,
talking about conflicts, but only limiting them to the economy and not including other aspects
like religion, gender and so on. Karl Popper critiques Marx by saying that Marxism is
unscientific in its methodology. Sometimes, it cannot even be tested and things said by Marx
have to be taken purely on the basis of faith.