Key terms
Key concepts
Readings
Activities
Discussion questions/points
Other Resources
Key terms
Historical materialism
Productive forces
Productive relations
Mode of production
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Key concepts
The basis of the science of society is historical materialism. Marxism builds on the philosophic principles of materialism — that the universe is "by its very nature material," it exists independent of consciousness. The universe is objective, knowable, and law-governed. Historical materialism applies the principles of dialectics (how things change) and materialism to society and history.
Understanding any society starts with understanding how that society is organized to meet its material needs. This social organization is in turn determined by the available productive forces — the technology and knowledge and organization — in a given period. Each qualitative advance of technology defines a period, or stage of human history. These periods have distinctive corollary forms of social or productive relations. Marx recognized that the relatively mobile (i.e., they are constantly developing) forces of production race ahead of the relatively static relations of production (the relationship of individuals and groups of people to one another in the process of production), laying the basis for transformation in society. That is, societies organize around available technology, and that a qualitative change in the available technology sets the stage for a qualitative change in social relations.
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Readings
Marx, Karl, Excerpt from Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, January 1859
McPherson, James, Battle Cry of Freedom, pp. 472-477. (1988. Ballantine Books; ISBN# 0345359429)
Peery, Nelson, Entering an Epoch of Social Revolution, "The Process of Development" and "The Content of the Time", 1993
"The Shape of History: Historical Materialism, Electronics and Value" (Institute resource paper #4)
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Activities
Select clips of Hollywood videos that depict different historical periods with different modes of production. Identify tools, motive power, forms of ownership of means of production, and people’s relationship to the tools. Create a timeline that shows the progression. The following are some examples of movies that show people producing things in different historical periods:
- Clan of the Cave Bear
- The Ten Commandments
- Modern Times
- Documentary clips on robotics
For this activity use the two worksheets that have been provided in this unit under "Other resources" .
Define the key terms above.
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Discussion questions/points
1. What is the relationship between productive forces and productive relations? In what way are productive relations dependent on productive forces? Do any given productive forces make certain productive relations inevitable? What does it mean to say the productive forces are "mobile" and productive relations are "static"?
2. According to the McPherson reading, why was the U.S. Civil War so bloody? Discuss the reading in terms of productive forces and productive relations.
3. What is the difference between the content of history and the form of history?
4. What conditions were necessary for property and ruling classes to emerge in human history? What conditions are necessary for them to disappear?
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Other Resources
Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. W.W. Norton & Co. An excellent current source of information on the history of human society, from a materialist perspective.
Worksheet 1 – "Societies organize around their tools"
Worksheet 2 – "Questions to consider while watching video"
Ask the Institute staff a question about this unit
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