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Summary Marx's theory of history
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Notes on Marx's theory of history, taken from the Preface to a Critique of Political Economy and Cohen's 'History, Labour and Freedom'
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Marx’s Theory of HistoryPreface to A Critique of Political Economy
Neither legal relations nor forms of state can be grasped from themselves or through the
development of the human mind (ideas) – can only be understood through the material
conditions of life
Independently of their will, all men enter into definite relations of production that correspond
to a definite stage of development of the productive forces
The sum total of these productive relations forms the economic (or ‘real’) structure of society,
on top of which is constructed the legal and political superstructure, to which correspond
definite forms of social consciousness
Hence the modes of production of the material world determine social, political and
intellectual processes
Man’s social being determines his consciousness, not the reverse (Hegel/idealism)
At a certain point in an epoch, the productive forces come into conflict with the existing
relations of production
At this point the existing productive relations transform from agents of development into
fetters
This event initiates an ‘epoch of social revolution’ – as the economic foundation transforms so
follows the entire superstructure
Material or economic transformation can be ‘determined with the precision of natural
science’, whereas the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophical transformation of the
superstructure is less predictable, depending on ideology and agency as men ‘fight it out’
The superstructure (including law, philosophy, ethics) is artificial, and hence we cannot judge
any ‘period of transformation’ on its own consciousness, or superstructure (does the same go
for epochs as well as periods of transformation)
Instead this consciousness must be explained by the ’contradictions of material life’, the
tension between productive forces and relations of production
Progressive epochs in the economic formation of society: Asiatic, ancient, feudal and modern
bourgeois
The bourgeois relations of production are the final antagonistic form of the social process of
production, but they also create the material conditions for the solution of that antagonism
Cohen – History, Labour and Freedom
Forces and Relations of Production
Productive forces are those facilities and devices which are used to productive effect in the
process of production: means of production (raw materials, instruments of production) and
labour power (including skills)
Knowledge is the most important productive force
Measure of growth in power of productive forces = how much (or little) labour must be spent
with given forces to produce enough to satisfy basic needs
Relations of production are relations of economic power, of the economic power people
enjoy/lack over the means of production and labour power e.g. economic power capitalists
have over means of production, power workers have over labour but not means etc
Total sum of relations of production = economic structure (base)
Productive forces are not part of the economic structure, but they do determine it. Cf a
building – economic structure is foundations, productive forces are the ground below, even
more foundational
Superstructure includes legal and political aspects of society (but maybe not much more)
The level of development of the productive forces explains the nature of the production
relations, and they in turn explain the character of the co-present superstructure. What kind of
explanation? Functional.
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