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Name:____________________

HIST 3311

Historical Materialism

1. Define historical materialism. What is different in Marx's assessment from

others?

Marx and Engels's concept of dialectical materialism provides the philosophical

foundation for historical materialism. For example, biological evolution occurs in animals and

plants when their survival strategies are at odds with their surroundings. As we gain more

independence, our social awareness will have more leeway to 'define our social existence.' Marx

sees the entire course of history as just a process of confronting Alienation, and he sees historical

materialism as merely describing the motion of alienated existence.

2. What are the four aspects of Marx's "Production of Material Wealth"?

Productive forces show how humans use tools, resources, and components to generate

wealth. Productive forces are intrinsically human, but the concept that technology may mediate

between humans and the natural environment is essential. Labor is not adequate. Tools and

outcomes are different. Marx divided production into human labor, the object of work, and labor

tools. People and machines together create productive forces and ways.

3. Define base structure versus superstructure. Do they (or can they) change?

In your opinion, which is more important?

Karl Marx, a sociological pioneer, conceived a society's foundation and structure.

Production forces the resources and commodities utilized to make goods for the organization are

the "basis." Civilization's "superstructure" is everything else. The superstructure norms, values,
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beliefs, and ideology—gives the foundation legitimacy. It makes production relations look fair

and natural, even if they benefit the ruling class.

4. Define Marx's concept of Alienation. What is his solution to this problem?

As described by Karl Marx's thesis on Alienation, people in a society with a labor

division and distinct social classes become emotionally and psychologically estranged from

essential parts of their own humanity. In statements 12 and 13, Marx describes his early

conception of communism, which he saw as the answer to Alienation. Abolishing private

property and the link between private land and wage labor is essential to ending Alienation.

5. Is Marx an idealist? An optimist? A revolutionary? Why or why not?

Because of his distance from bourgeois materialism and Hegelian idealism, Marx was

justified in calling his philosophy a synthesis of humanism and naturalism. Marx was indeed a

revolutionary since he exposed the ugly reality of capitalism and radically altered the ideology of

capitalism, which held that workers were expendable.