The logic of Marx's theory of history

2013

On the basis of an analysis of the concept of labor, the author presents and discusses the four main socioeconomic formations of human history. The author challenges the Marxian project of the elimination of both division of labor and private property pointing to its theoretical and practical shortcomings.

2000

Mills writes: G. A. Cohen's influential ‘technological determinist’ reading of Marx's theory of history rests in part on an interpretation of Marx's use of ‘material’ whose idiosyncrasy has been insufficiently noticed. Cohen takes historical materialism to be asserting the determination of the social by the material/asocial, viz. ‘socio‐neutral’ facts about human nature and human rationality which manifest themselves in a historical tendency for the forces of production to develop. This paper reviews Marx's writings to demonstrate the extensive textual evidence in favour of the traditional interpretation ‐ that for Marx, the ‘material’ includes the economic, and is thus ineluctably social in character. Thus those critics of Cohen who have urged the inclusion of the relations of production in historical materialism's explanans do seem to have Marx's terminological and conceptual backing.

1000-Word Philosophy, 2022

A concise introduction to Karl Marx's theory of history.

Historical Research Letter, 2018

The current study aims to shed light on the historical validity of Marx's materialist theory which is considered the economic ties as the basis of the social ties. The study also showed that Marx though that it was in three directions: German Philosophy, British Classical Economics, and French Socialism. These components help in producing Marx's historical materialism that succeeds in defining the economic doctrine and the social system of each historical stage of human life. They also rejected the idea of any economic and social doctrine that could be able to accommodate several different historical roles. Marx explained that the origin of historical conflicts is the disparity between the situation of the forces of production and the patterns of relations of production. He also claimed that the class struggles in societies is only a social expression of the imbalance between production forces on the one hand, and production relations on the other. His theory also stresse...

CEU Political Science Journal, 2010

Hayek. It investigates the concepts of historicism and determinism. Firstly, historicism is defined as a thinking which maintains that human history progresses according to certain laws, which can be discerned. Secondly, determinism is viewed as the belief that history has a predetermined ending, derivable from these laws. The article then applies the two concepts to Marx's writings. The article argues that Marx's theory of history can be understood in two ways: one centered on the struggle of classes, the other on development of productive forces. However both can be subsumed under a similar model. Finally, Marx's theory of history is both historicist and deterministic.

Poznań Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, 2022