Karl Marx in Brussels: Historical Materialism Explained

Karl Marx in Brussels: Historical Materialism

After being expelled from Paris, Marx settled in Brussels, where he formulated the core theses of historical materialism. These include:

• Social Production: In the social production of their lives, men enter into involuntary and necessary relations of production. These relations depend on the development of material productive forces.
• Means of Production: The degree of development of material productive forces determines the relations of production. These are also property relations, dividing society between those who own the means of production and those who must sell their labor as merchandise.
• Infrastructure and Superstructure: Production relations and productive forces constitute the material infrastructure, which generates the legal and political superstructure, as well as all forms of social consciousness.
• Social Being and Consciousness: The mode of production influences the entire social, political, and spiritual era. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but their social being that determines their consciousness.
• Social Change: Change occurs when the material progress of productive forces conflicts with existing relations of production or their legal expression—property relations.
• The Transition to a Classless Society: In capitalism, which has generated bourgeois antagonism, the development of material forces of production naturally leads to a classless society. The capitalist system encourages the development of productive forces through competition between capitalists.