historical materialism differ from other views of history and human society?
For some, non-marxist, historians history is just a random series of events. For others it is the doings of 'great men'. For Marx, however, history can be understood: by analysing the basic structure of society; the contending forces in society; and looking at the dynamics of change. History is not random or accidental, but has discernable causes and definite laws determining its develop- Marx's writing he explains it like this: SOCIALIST OUTLOOK noó March/April 1988
THEORY
Which basic concepts did Marx use to analyse historical development and show how society 'works'? The first concept is that of production, as the basis of all human society. This is common sense. Unlike animals, humanity has to produce, to labour, to ensure its continued survival. Basic needs like clothes and often even food cannot just be found lying about in the open air. They have to be made or farmed. Humanity has to produce to stay alive.
Furthermore, in order to produce its livelihood, says Marx, the human race has to labour not as individuals but collectively. We have to organise a system of production, and the way society does that determines what type of society it is. In one of the most famous passages in
B T' AS I CS
C K What is historical materialism?
Karl Marx: he and Frederick Engels
never left a systematic account of
their 'materialist view of history' 'In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations which are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which raises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness'.
Here Marx is saying that the production process, and the social relations of production — those between lord and serf, boss and worker and so on - are the 'real foundation' of society which determine what kind of society it is and how it works.
Apologists for capitalism pretend that 'society' has always been more or less the same, and always will be - it just 37
gets more complex and wealthier. They argue that the 'human nature' with its movitations of acquisitiveness, private property and greed always predominates. Marx refuted this by showing that many different types of society had existed, capitalism was just one of them, a distinct, but transitory, phase in human development.
Capitalism is one of a series of human societies divided into social classes. But in
societies a form of 'primitive communism' existed where society was not divided between ruler and ruled, exploiter and exploited.
The emergence of classes in society coincides with a change in human society about 6,000 years ago — the so-called 'neolithic revolution'. This revolution involved the abandonment of wandering and hunting tribes, and the transition to settled communities based on stable agriculture and the domestication of animals.
Under these conditions, for the first time society created a surplus of what was needed just to survive and reproduce itself. A privileged class developed which consumed the surplus. Exactly how, however, is still a subject of controversy. Since then, however, most societies have been divided into classes, with a wealthy class which consumes or at least controls the economic surplus, and is usually therefore the ruling class.
The emergence of class society shows something quite fundamental to Marx'si
'social relations are closely bound up with productive forces. In acquiring nero productive forces men change their mode of production; and in changing their mode of production, in changing their way of earning a living, they change all their social relations. gives you a society with the feudal lord; the steam mill society with the industrial capital-
What Marx is saying here (in perhaps an over-simplified way) is that the level of production techniques, and the wealth of society, has an important bearing on the social relations. For example, it is impossible to have capitalism in a society which is so poor that nobody can accumulate personal capital. The transition to a capitalist mode of production from the sixteenth century onwards depended on a certain stage of human wealth and production technique.
In the quotes from Marx, there are two concepts vital to historical materialism. These are the forces of production, the materials of labour like tools, raw materials, factories and the workers themselves, and secondly the relations of production, that is the relations between producers and between classes. 38
THEORY of production. This is the combination of the forces of production and relations of production, which gives a definite and distinct type of society.
The concept of mode of production enables us to categorise and different societies. For example contemporary Britain is quite like contemporary France in its basic technique and production relations. But it is quite unlike ancient Rome or medieval Italy. The mode of production in Britain and France today is the same: capitalism. But ancient Rome and medieval Italy were different.
Engels
Marx analysed three main types of class society, each with their own mode of production: slave society (like ancient Rome and Greece); feudalism, the main type of society in the European middle ages; and capitalism, the society based on private ownership of capital and generalised commodity production.
Each of these societies had a different dynamic, a different 'general social arrangement'. The arrangement in slave society was compulsory labour by slaves owned by their masters. In capitalism, obviously the basic arrangement is wage labour. Because the 'general social arrangement' is different, so is the mode of
Marx developed another idea which is central to historical materialism: the distinction between base and superstructure. Simply summed up, for society to work, the political and legal system, and ideology generally has to 'fit' the economic structure of society. The economic 'base' created a 'superstructure' to fit. For example, a capitalist economic system would produce a capitalist legal system. Who can imagine judges who were against private property? It's a ridiculous proposition. Marx also said 'the ruling ideas of any epoch are the ideas of The two concepts lead to a third: mode the ruling class'. You just have to open
most newspapers or watch television to realise the dominant ideas are those of the bosses — except in times of acute crisis.
According to Marx then, history has to be understood in terms of the underlying forces of historical development. In class-divided society the main social forces are social classes. The conflict between these classes is the motor force of
behind the conflict between classes stands a deeper and more profound contradiction: between the development of the forces of production and the relations of production. As Marx says: 'At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production, or — what is but a legal expression of the same thing — with the property relations ...From forms of development of the productive forces these forms turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution'.
As the wealth and productive technique of society develops, the antagonism struggle ends, according to Marx, in either the victory of one side or 'the mutual ruin of both contending classes'.
Historical materialism which explains historical development by examining through the conflict between the fundamental forces of production and of social classes. Historical materialism is not a magic tool which avoids the necessity to examine the detail of what happens in history, but it shows the actions of individuals are an expression of a wider background.
As Marx said: 'Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not do it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances ... transmitted from the past'.
Historical materialism shows that capitalism is the product of a specific historical period. It is important to remember that like other modes of production it too is not a timeless reality o PHIL HEARSE Further reading The Communist Manifesto (available in pamphlet form, Moscow or Beijing edition). 'Preface' to the Critique of Political Economy (1858). Available in the Marx and Engels selected works in one volume, Lawrence and Wishart. This collection is really useful for many of the best known works of Marx and Engels and includes the Communist Manifesto. The German Ideology, Part I, Lawrence and Wishart. Get the paperback edited and introduced by Chris Arthur.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK noó March/April 1988
KEN BLACK Ray Hill and Andrew Bell The other face of terror — inside Europe's neo-nazi network, a Grafton paperback original, £3.50. FOUR YEARS AGO I was amazed to see the face of a leading British fascist appear on the tv screen to announce that for five years he had been working with the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight on a campaign of information gathering and disruption of fascist organisations.
The tv programme, based on secretly recorded interviews with a variety of European fascists, was the culmination of that work, of which this new book is a record.
Ray Hill records his conversion to fascism in the 1960s, his emigration to South Africa in 1969, his break with fascism and the five years he