Introduction

Marx produced a number of works, which together provide a relatively adequate outline of his “materialist conception of history”. Though Marx never wrote explicitly on historical materialism, his writings during the years 1843-8 refer to it in a fragmentary fashion. For Marx, it was not a new philosophical system. Rather it was a practical method of socio-historical studies. For him, it was also a basis for political action.

“Communist manifesto, 1948” was the first systematic statement of modern socialist doctrine. Marx contributed the central propositions of the Manifesto, which embody the materialist conception of history, or historical materialism. Clearest exposition of the theory of historical materialism is contained in Marx’s ‘Preface’ to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859).

The framework for his theory of “historical Materialism” was derived from Hegel. Like Hegel, Marx recognized that the history of mankind was simply a single and non-repetitive process. Likewise he also believed that the laws of the historical process could be discovered. Marx deviated from Hegelian philosophy. In sketching out his theory of society and history, Marx repudiated Hegelian and Post-Hegelian speculative philosophy. He built on Feuerbach’s anthropological naturalism and developed instead a humanist ethics based on a strictly sociological approach to historical phenomena. Drawing also on French materialism and on British empiricism and classical economics, Marx’s theory sought to explain all social phenomena in terms of their place and function in the complex systems of society and nature.

Historical Materialism, to quote Marx, is the ‘guiding thread’ of all their works. According to Marx, Humans make their own history weighted by the influences from the past. Marx’s general ideas about society are known as his theory of historical materialism. Materialism is the basis of his sociological thought because, for Marx, material conditions or economic factors affect the structure and development of society. His theory is that material conditions essentially comprise technological means of production and human society is formed by the forces and relations of production.

The theory is known as historical because Marx has traced the evolution of human societies from one stage to another. It is called materialistic because Marx has interpreted the evolution of societies in terms of their material or economic bases. Materialism simply means that it is matter or material reality, which is the basis for any change. The earlier view, which of Hegel, was that ideas were the cause of change. Marx opposed this view and instead argued that ideas were a result of objective reality, i.e., matter and not vice versa..

In his efforts to understand society in its entirety, he has not confined himself to examining the structure of human societies at a given point of time. He has explained the societies in terms of the future of humankind. For him it is not enough to describe the world. He has a plan for changing it. Thus, his sociological thinking largely concerns the mechanism of change. To understand social change, he has derived its phases from the philosophical ideas of Hegel.

Theory of Historical Materialism

Marx identifies four modes of production, during his studies of history of human societies.

Primitive Communism was the first, the simplest and the lowest form of mode of production. During the period of this form of mode of production, appearance of improved and also new implements, such as bows and arrows and learning to make a fire were examples of quantitative changes in terms of the laws of dialectical materialism. Even beginning of cultivation and herding were examples of similar type of changes. The extremely low level of forces of production also determined the corresponding relations of production. These relations of production were based on cooperation and mutual help due to common, communal ownership of means of production. These relations were conditioned by the fact that people with their primitive tools could only collectively withstand the mighty forces of nature.

In primitive society the productive forces developed steadily. The tools were improved and skills were gradually accumulated. The most significant development was the transition to metal tools. With the growth of productivity the communal structure of society started breaking into families. Private property arose and the family started becoming the owner of the means of production. Hence the contradiction between the communal relations of production and the potential forms of exploiting classes led to the qualitative change i.e. transition into ancient mode of production. There was conflict of opposites within the system, which led to the negation of primitive-communal system. Consequently, a new stage of slavery appeared. The slavery system can be described as the negation of primitive communal system.

In Ancient Mode of Production form of society the primitive equality gave way to social inequality and emergence of slave-owning classes and slaves. The forces of production underwent further quantitative changes. In the slave-owning society, the relations of production were based on the slave-owner’s absolute ownership of both the means of production and the slaves themselves and their produce. The relation of masters to slaves is considered as the very essence of slavery. In this system of production the master has the right of ownership over the slave and appropriates the products of the slave’s labour. The slave is not allowed to reproduce. If we restrict ourselves to agricultural slavery, exploitation operates according to the following modalities: the slave works the master’s land and receives his subsistence in return. The master’s profit is constituted by the difference between what the slave produces and what he consumes. But what is usually forgotten is that beyond this, the slave is deprived of his own means of reproduction. The reproduction of slavery depends on the capacity of the society to acquire new slaves, that is, on an apparatus, which is not directly linked to the capacities of demographic reproduction of the enslaving population. The rate of accumulation depends on the number of slaves acquired, and not directly on their productivity.

In this society, there existed the contradictions between slave-owners and slaves. When the mature conditions were reached the struggle of these contradictions led to the qualitative change i.e. the negation of slave-owning society by way of its transition into feudal society. The conflict of the opposites i.e. the slave-owners and slaves culminated into violent slave revolts ultimately effecting the negation. We can say that the feudal system stands as an example of negation of negation. It means that feudal society can be seen an example of negation of slave-owning society which itself is a negation of primitive-communal society.

In slavery, the growth of the labour force is independent of effective demographic forces. It rests not on the demographic growth, which is due to natural, increase, but on the means devoted to the capture (as in war) of foreign individuals. The possibility of accumulation comes about through the multiplication of slaves independently of growth in the productivity of labour. This mode of exploitation permits a demographic manipulation of society. It permits the modification of the birth rate, the manipulation of the ‘age’ of birth, and the manipulation of the duration of life, especially active life.

In feudal stage, the forces of production saw rapid quantitative change where for the first time inanimate sources of energy such as water and wind were tapped. The development of these productive forces was facilitated by the feudal relations of production. The feudal lords oppressed and exploited their serfs. However, towns began to emerge at this time. Trade, commerce and manufacture began to flourish. Many serfs ran away from the feudal estates to pursue a trade in the growing towns. The conflict of opposites within the feudal system namely, that of landless serfs against feudal lords, reached its maturity. The feudal declined it its negation was the capitalist system.

Serfs, being legally unfree, were deprived of property rights, though they could use the lord’s property. They were obliged to surrender their labour, or the product of their labour, over and above what was needed for family subsistence and the simple reproduction of the peasant household economy. Serfs or the producers were forced to fulfill the economic demands of an overload. These demands could be in the form of services to be performed. These could also be in the form of dues to be paid in money or kind. The dues or taxes were levied on the family holdings of the peasants. Thus, feudal rent whether in the form of services or taxes was an important component of the feudal mode of production. The feudal lord was able to force serfs on the basis of military strength. This power was also backed by the force of law. In this mode of production, serfdom implied a direct relation between rulers and servants. In feudal serfdom, the instruments of production were simple and inexpensive.

Feudal society was seen by Marx and Engels as intermediate, i.e., between the slave society of the ancient world of capitalists and proletarians in the modern era.

The evolution of the feudal system brought about the development of exchange of agricultural and manufactured products in regional markets. Special needs of the ruling class and high ranking Church officials gave an impetus to the growth of commodity production, including consumption goods such as silks, spices, fruits and wines. Around this activity developed international trade routes and mercantile centres. It laid the foundation for capitalist relations of production, which were to become the main contradiction of the system and cause its downfall. In the course of this transformation, many peasants were expropriated from their lands and forced to become wage-labourers.

Asiatic mode of production, an original mode of production, is a distinct from the ancient slave mode of production or the feudal mode of production. The Asiatic mode of production is characteristic of primitive communities in which ownership of land is communal. These communities are still partly organized on the basis of kinship relations. State power, which expresses the real or imaginary unity of these communities, controls the use of essential economic resources and directly appropriates part of the labour and production of the community. This mode of production constitutes one of the possible forms of transition from classless to class societies; it is also perhaps the most ancient form of this transition. It contains the contradiction of this transition, i.e. the combination of communal relations of production with emerging forms of the exploiting classes and of the State.

Capitalism refers to a mode of production in which capital is the dominant means of production. Capital can be in various forms. It can take the form of money or credit for the purchase of labour power and materials of production. It can be money or credit for buying physical machinery. In capitalist mode of production, the private ownership of capital in its various forms is in the hands of a class of capitalists. The ownership by capitalists is to the exclusion of the mass of the population. Goods are produced for sale rather than own use. The capacity to do useful work or labour power is bought and sold in a market. For a period of time (time rate) or for a specified task (piece rate) labour power is exchanged for money wages. In ancient mode of production labourers were obliged or forced to surrender their labour. Contrarily, in capitalist mode of production labourers enter into a contract with employers. The use of money as a medium of exchange gives an important role to banks and financial intermediaries. The production process is controlled by the capitalist or his manager. Financial decisions are controlled by the capitalist entrepreneur. Individual capitalists compete for control over the labour and finance. As a mode of production, capitalism first emerged in Europe. The industrial revolution starting in England and spreading across different countries saw a rapid growth of technology and corresponding rise of capitalist economics. Marx viewed capitalism as a historical phase, to be eventually replaced by socialism.

Tremendous growth of the productive forces was facilitated by the capitalist relations of production, based on private capitalist ownership. With this tremendous growth of the productive forces, capitalist relations of production cease to correspond to these forces and hinder their development. The most significant contradiction of the capitalist mode of production is the contradiction between the social character of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation. Production in capitalist society bears a strikingly pronounced social character. Many millions of workers are concentrated at large plants and take part in social production, while the fruits of their labour are appropriate by a small group of owners of the means of production. This is the basic economic contradiction of capitalism. This contradiction or conflict of opposites gives rise of economic crisis and unemployment, causes fierce class battles between the bourgeoisie (the capitalists) and the proletariat (the working class, in other words, quantitative changes. The working class would help bring about a socialist revolution. This revolution would, according to Marx abolish the capitalist production relations and usher in the new qualitative change i.e. the communist socio-economic formation.

This new communist socio-economic formation, as we have seen earlier, passes through two phases-socialism and communism-in its development. Socialism does away with private ownership of the means of production. It establishes public ownership of means of production. In such a society the proletariat will jointly own means of production and distribute the produce according to the needs of people. This is the stage of dictatorship of proletariat, which will later on also; do away with the state apparatus leading to a stateless social. This stage of the stateless society will be possible in communism, where the dialectic finally unfolds itself, ushering in a social system, which would be free of any contradictions within classes. According to the laws of dialectics contradictions will remain, as this is the basis of development. Under communism there will be contradiction between Man and Nature, as in primitive Communism. The basic difference now is that the level of technology will be higher and Nature will be exploited more efficiently. Thus we see how the three laws of dialectics, operate in Marx’s interpretation of the history of society.

According to Marx, more than one mode of production may exist within any particularly society at a given point in time. But in all forms of society there is one determinate kind of production, which assigns ranks and influence to all the others.

In the light of above mentioned evolutionary scheme, the following casual explanations can be identified. New developments of productive forces of society come in conflict with existing relations of production. When people become conscious of the state of conflict, they wish to bring an end to it. This period of history is called by Marx the period of social revolution. The revolution brings about resolution of conflict. It means that new forces of production take roots and give rise to new relations of production. Thus, For Marx, it is the growth of new productive forces, which outlines the course of human history. The productive forces are the powers society uses to produce material conditions of life.

In brief, we can say that Marx’s theory of historical materialism states that all objects, whether living or inanimate, are subject to continuous change. The rate of this change is determined by the laws of dialectics. In other words, there are forces, which bring about the change. It can be called as the stage of thesis. Then, there are forces, which oppose the change. This can be termed as the stage of antithesis. The actual nature of change, i.e., the stage of synthesis, will be according to Marx, determined by the interaction of these two types of forces. Before explaining in some detail further connections, which Marx makes to elaborate this theory, it is necessary to point out that different schools of Marxism provide differing explanations of this theory.

Was Marx an Economic Determinist?

It is possible that one may consider Marx as a proponent of economic determinism or the view that economic conditions determine the development of society. But historical materialism is different from economic determinism. Marx’s view the first historical act of man is the creation of his first new need, and no mechanical determination can conceivably account for that. In Marx’s dialectical conception the key concept is “human productive activity” which neither means simply “economic production”.

Marx recognised that without culture there can be no production possible. The reproduction both of life and or the material means of life cannot be understood without turning to the culture, norms and the rituals of the working people over whom the rulers rule. An understanding of working class culture contributes to an understanding of the model of production. Class is a category, describing people in relationships over time, and the ways is which they become conscious of these relationships. It also describes the ways in which they separate, unite, enter into struggle, form institutions and transmit values in class ways. Class is an ‘economic’ and also a ‘cultural’ formation. It is impossible to reduce class into a pure economic category.

Relevance

Further analyzing the importance and contributions of Marx ideas, Historical materialism can be understood as sociological theory of human progress. As a theory it provides a scientific and systematic research programme for empirical investigations and at the same time, programme of intervention into society. It is this unique combination of scientific and revolutionary characters, which is the hallmark of Marx’s original formulation. The theory of historical materialism played an essential part in the formation of modern sociology.

Marx elaborated his conception of the nature of society, and of the appropriate means to study it. He did so in a more precise and above all more empirical fashion than did his predecessors. He introduced an entirely new element to understand the structure of each society. It was derived form the relations between social classes. These relations were determined by the mode of production. It was this feature of historical materialism, which was widely accepted by later sociologists as offering a more promising starting point for exact and realistic investigations of the causes of social change.

Historical materialism introduced into sociology a new method of inquiry, new concepts, and a number of bold hypotheses of explain the rise, development, and decline of particular forms of society. All of these came to exercise, in the later decades of the nineteenth century, a profound and extensive influence upon the writings of sociologists.

Historical materialism not only provides a method to understand the existing social reality; it is a method to understand the existence of other methods. It is persistent critique of the aims and methods of the social sciences.

Therefore, historical materialism emphasizes the fundamental and causal role of production of material conditions in the developmental of human history. Marx traced historical events in the light of materialistic understanding of reality.

Beyond all doubts theory of historical materialism is a great contribution of Marx to the modern world.

Criticism

Marx is being criticized because his prophesy that capitalism will gradually weaken itself has miserably proved wrong. On the other hand, capitalism has strengthened itself. It has changed its character with the changing times. It has now started extending facilities to the working classes and has also successfully gained the co-operation of workers in certain fields. Dahrendorf, in his book Class and Class conflict in Industrial Society, examines the usefulness and applicability of Marx’s sociological work to the study of modern industrial society. However, these concepts and theories require to be modified if they are to be applied to modern industrial society because they refer too specifically to capitalist society. There have been highly significant changes great enough to produce a new type of society: modern industrial or post-capitalist society.

It is undoubtedly true that economics has basic and essential effects on the social and political conditions of society. But at the same time one cannot deny that in the present complex human life economic aspect is not the only single dominant factor, which contributes, but other aspects of superstructure like religion, customs and conventions have their own role to play.

Marx did not leave behind any systematic presentation of the history of India. He set down his observations on certain current Indian questions, which attracted public attention, or drew materials from India’s past and present conditions to illustrate parts of his more general arguments. The concept of Asiatic Mode of Production is therefore inadequate for an understanding of Indian history and society.

In addition to this, Marxian theorists under estimated the role of ideologies. If economic facts give birth to ideologies, equally the ideologies also give birth to various political and social conditions, which altogether change economic conditions. Russian revolutionaries and Gandhian ideologies completely brought about a change in social economic and political conditions in their own countries.

Another point of criticism is that Karl Marx has laid stress on the fact that only those who are economically powerful wield political power as well. No doubt to some extent it might be true but it is not always and absolutely correct. In the past neither Brahmins nor Papacy had economic power though they had considerable political influence.

Marxian theory of historical materialism, while laying stress on the economic factors, does not take into consideration human feelings and sentiments which are deeply rooted in the minds of mankind and which are more important in some cases than the economic factors. In fact in our present democracies these sentiments and feelings are touched by the clever people for getting votes. Freud laid stress on sexual metaphor in his analysis while accounting for all forms of mental illness. Although Freud too is criticized for his apparently mono causal explanation, still Marx also fails to take Freudian views into consideration.

Then, it is said that Marx has failed to explain the causes, which bring about changes in the nature of production. How production changes its course and character is a very important influencing factor in our social, economic and political set up and should have been properly developed.

Marxian theory of state is against the established classical theory of state. For him state is a wheel of oppression and its authority is used against the weak classes. He believed that state represented the will of the economically strong classes. But it is not always correct. The Rajas and Badshahs in the past generally represented all the classes. Even in modern times, the state is meant for the welfare of all irrespective of any class distinction. In fact the modern Parliaments have representatives from all classes of society who look after the welfare of all rather than the welfare of a few. Marxian theory is, however, correct when applied to 19th century when laissez faire theory was in operation. But after abandoning that policy the states have now become welfare states and not instruments of exploitation. Dahrendorf highlights that over the last 100 years, social and economic inequalities have been reduced as the state has guaranteed a minimum standard of living to its citizens and has heavily taxed those on the highest incomes and those with the greatest wealth.

In providing a critique of macro theory, postmodernism has established an intellectual tradition that has challenged Marxism. By arguing for subjectivism and micro sociological analysis, leading postmodern thinkers have instituted a theoretical and practical shift away from Marxist tradition. Postmodernists argue for the existence of a multiplicity of theoretical standpoints, addressing the relationship of the individual to the phenomenon, rather than trying to place either into a broader schema. The employment of historical materialism in this setting separates him from postmodern thought, as Marx affirms a necessary connection between the material conditions of existence and the content of individual cognition, a more positivistic assertion.