Marx's Historical Materialism: Origins and Core Concepts

Marx's Historical Materialism: Origins & Influences

The idea of historical materialism, developed by Marx, was conceived early in his readings of Feuerbach and Hegel. Feuerbach was seen as a crucial founder of the materialist conception, influencing the path Marx identified. Hegel, on the other hand, interested Marx with his historical conception of human essence, according to which the human being becomes itself through labor. Marx found these statements rather complicated and needed to adapt them. Hegelian dialectics was not something abstract, but Feuerbach's materialism, while important, could not explain the human being at work and within a given society without a historical dimension.

The work done in *The German Ideology* by Marx and Engels served as the foundation for the materialist conception of history. This conception of universal history sees the ultimate cause and decisive driving force of historical events in the economic development of society, specifically in the changing mode of production and the consequent division of societies into different classes and their struggles. This theory describes humans as socially productive beings, creators of their own lives, and products of history.

Economic Structure, Superstructure, & Mode of Production

In the preface to *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy*, Marx synthesizes his ideas:

In the social production of their life, men enter into definite, necessary relations of production, independent of their will, which correspond to a certain stage of development of their material productive forces.

The entire economic structure forms the real basis for the political and legal superstructure, to which definite forms of social consciousness correspond. The mode of production of material life conditions the whole process of social, political, and spiritual life. This fragment introduces three key terminological expressions:

• Economic Structure: The economic system of organization that provides productive forces. The relations individuals have with the owners are what we call *relations of production*.
• Superstructure: The set of ideas and ideological forms of a society that relies on the economy. The superstructure of a society is linked to its economic base.
• Mode of Production: The historical form by which the means of subsistence are obtained.