The Fundamentals of Marxist Historical Science

Marxist Historical Materialism and the Theory of Alienation

Historical materialism in Marxism posits that history is neither a collection of dead facts (empiricism) nor the imaginary action of imaginary subjects (idealism). Instead, it is the succession of different modes of production, which represent the actual process of production or the productive activity of man.

The crucial idea of historical materialism is that economic production serves as the basis for historical phenomena and any history according to Marx. For him, the evolution of man is the product of material conditions—specifically, the conditions for production and social relations. Accordingly, by mastering the material conditions and the mechanisms that govern them, historical materialism can lead humanity to its ultimate goal: a society without classes.

This science of history allows us to be masters of our destiny, free from the blind determinism of production or the harmful effects of capitalism as an economic, social, and political system.

The Two Levels of the Social System

Marx identifies two fundamental levels within the system:

• 1. The economic structure or infrastructure: This is the basis of the entire system, including both the forces of production and the relations of production.
• 2. The superstructure: This refers to all legal and political institutions, as well as ideological structures (moral, political, and religious ideas) that radiate from and serve the infrastructure.

In this framework, history is not understood as a succession of facts unrelated to each other, but as the passage from one mode of production to another. The contradictions within the forces of production are the primary drivers of history.

Forms of Alienation

Alienation is the process of emptying oneself, where the product of labor is considered something alien and the property of the owners of the means of production. It has a threefold origin:

1. Economic: The transmission of property to another.
2. Juridical: An individual transfer that a person makes of their freedom to society.
3. Theological: The action by which God creates and produces the world.

Other Types of Alienation

• Social Alienation: Society is built on class divisions and a split between civil society and the state. It is tied to ideologies where the bourgeois class enriches itself at the expense of the working class, turning human relations into mercantile relations.
• Political Alienation: This is the division between the theoretical status of freedom and equality among citizens and the actual situation of inequality and domination in labor relations.
• Religious Alienation: Religion and religious life are not constitutive of the human being; they are related to economic and sociopolitical organization, acting as a human projection of the misery and tears of social life.
• Philosophical Alienation: This is a distorted interpretation of reality. Marx argues that philosophy must cease to be purely speculative and instead become practical and revolutionary.