Marxist Metaphysics: Historical Materialism and Class Struggle

Metaphysics and Marxist Analysis

Metaphysics: One of Marx's major contributions is his method of analyzing social and economic reality, and the historical development of society.

He interpreted history using Hegel's dialectical method from a materialist perspective, focusing on the development of contradictions (thesis, antithesis, synthesis).

Historical Materialism Explained

Historical Materialism: The only existing reality is matter. Historical and social analysis explains all social, political, and cultural aspects in terms of productive forces and production relations.

Marx distinguishes various structures that form the whole of society:

The Infrastructure of Society

• The basic infrastructure of society is the economic system, the way people are organized to meet their material needs. This includes the material forces of production (natural resources, technical resources, knowledge, skills, workforce, etc.) and the relations of production, which are hierarchical relationships between people depending on their position within the production process. These relationships are established between the owners of the means of production and the workforce they employ. The different modes of production throughout history have been slave, feudal, and capitalist.

The Superstructure of Society

• The superstructure of society is formed by the different systems of social organization, politics, ideas, and beliefs.

The superstructure reflects the social class divide between the owners of the means of production (the key class) and the dominated (those used in the production process).

Legal and Political Superstructure

The State and laws align with the infrastructure, placing political power in the hands of the ruling classes and establishing coherent legislative power that protects the political and economic system.

Ideological Superstructure

This includes the ideological beliefs and ways of thinking manifested in a society, such as philosophy, art, religion, and literature.

The infrastructure and superstructure are dialectically related, and their opposition may lead to social change, although this change always involves the economic infrastructure influencing the social, political, and ideological superstructure.

Scientific Concepts in the Science of History

• History is the history of class struggle (masters vs. slaves, serfs vs. lords, proletariat vs. bourgeoisie).
• The class struggle under capitalism is manifested in the labor movement, which aims at the abolition of social classes through the socialist revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the communist society.

Dialectical Materialism

From the works of Marx, Engels developed the so-called dialectical materialism, which seeks to explain all of natural reality. The laws of dialectics include:

• The only existing reality is matter, and dialectical evolution has led to life, and from there to humans. Matter is dynamic and contains within itself the law of its future development.
• Each thing is itself and its opposite.
• There is a shift from quantity to quality.

Materialism denies any God or spirituality, asserting that human intelligence is a product of matter and that humans die away into nothingness. The only possible happiness lies in this world.