Historical Materialism and Marxism

AvilipsaRautela

Historical materialism remains one of the intellectual bases of Marxism. It proposes that technological advances in modes of production inevitably lead to changes in the social relations of production.[8] This economic "base" of society supports is reflected by and influences the ideological "superstructure" which encompasses culture, religion, politics, and all other aspects of humanity's social consciousness.[9] It thus looks for the causes of developments and changes in human history in economic, technological and more broadly, material factors as well as the clashes of material interests among tribes, social classes, and nations. Law, politics, the arts, literature, morality and religion are understood by Marx to make up the superstructure as reflections of the economic base of society. Many critics have argued that this is an oversimplification of the nature of society and claim that the influence of ideas, culture and other aspects of what Marx called the superstructure are just as important as the economic base to the course of society, if not more so. However, Marxism does not claim that the economic base of society is the only determining element in society as demonstrated by the following letter written by Friedrich Engels, Marx's long-time contributor:

According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimatelydetermining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life. More than this neither Marx nor I ever asserted. Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the only determining one he transforms that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase

However, this also creates another problem for Marxism. If the superstructure influences the base then there is no need for Marx's constant assertions that the history of society is one of economic class conflict. The way to solve this problem is to understand that Marx saw the economic base as ultimately real. Marx believed that humanity's defining characteristic was its means of production and thus the only way for man to free himself from oppression was for him to take control of the means of production. According to Marx, this is the goal of history and the elements of the superstructure act as tools of history. Even if Singer's interpretation of Marx's intuitions on the "goal of history" is faithful to Marx's original intent, that still would not make this viewpoint necessarily true.

Murray Rothbard criticized historical materialism as well, arguing that Marx claimed the "base" of society (its technology and social relations) determined its "consciousness" in the superstructure, yet, building on the arguments of Ludwig von Mises, Rothbard observes it is human consciousness which drives the development of technology and social relations. Rothbard argues that Marx ignores how the base arises, which obscures that the true causal path is from the superstructure to the base, as human beings determine the development of technology and the social relations they wish to pursue. Rothbard quotes von Mises, who states "We may summarize the Marxian doctrine in this way: In the beginning there are the 'material productive forces', i.e., the technological equipment of human productive efforts, the tools and machines. No question concerning their origin is permitted; they are, that is all; we must assume that they are dropped from heaven."

Source:
Historical Materialism