Science, Policy, and Marxist Historical Materialism

The Application of Science and Policy

Marxist historical materialism investigates human society without ideological assumptions, based on empirical individuals and the relations established between them.^[7] Unlike approaches that show capitalism as a static system or as a product of natural evolution, historical materialist research reveals its historical character and therefore transitional nature in the development of mankind.

Marx and Engels applied this new conception of history to analyze political and social events of the past and their time. This led to a new wave of socialism, where the taking of sides by communism and proletarian class struggle compounded the scientific study of bourgeois society and the transition from this to a communist society.^[8] In explaining political and social revolutions by the contradiction between productive forces and production relations and class struggle, Marx and Engels challenged both the bourgeois view of history based on the history of ideas and "great men," as well as socialist currents that deduced the struggle for socialism from abstract ideals of Justice, Freedom, and Equality.^[9] The revolutionary development of the productive forces under capitalism made it possible for all human needs to be met, and that the development of production could dispense with the division of society into exploiting classes (holders of the social means of production) and exploited classes (required to maintain the exploiting classes through surplus labor). With this premise, communism was conceived as a historical necessity rather than as a utopian aspiration, since capitalism generates internal contradictions, creating the need to revolutionize bourgeois relations of production and creating the historical subject trained for this mission: the proletariat.^[10]

In this way, historical materialism as formulated by Marx is inextricably linked to the proletarian class struggle for communism.^[11] This does not mean their conclusions (especially in the economic field) are not scientific, but that they are not intended to be a "neutral" positive science. Instead, they are intended to be a useful scientific knowledge for proletarian emancipation.^[12]