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Unit-8: Materialistic Interpretation of History

If the queen of England, Elizabeth I had married and had children, then Britain would not have notes
become one United State.
4. the historical division of time is not correct : Marx has divided human history into five parts.
Many scholars are not agreed with his order. He talks of Sociolistic age following Capitalism. But in
Russia and China were there is Socialism it did not come after capitalism, like Marx imagined. They
were both agrarian countries, not developed completely in the industrial sense.
5. it is not possible for history to come to a full stop after stateless society : It is not correct of Marx
to state that the progress of history will stop once a stateless society is created. Change is the constant
law of nature. According to the dialectics that brought about era/age changes, will also be the basis
for further changes in the present age; but Marx has not mentioned this anywhere.
6. Marxs statement this anywhere gained through economic power is not correct. The situation can
be contrary to this.
8.3 summary

y Historical materialism is name given by Marx to his theory about history. Its basis is the
defining of the law that defines the movement–method of history. With the help of this theory
Marx elucidates the definition of materialism.
y This theory of Marx is most important theory of the economic resources, from the view of the
definition of changes in social life, social events and social changes.
y The idea of the historical materialism was used by Marx with a view to profess and strengthen
his scientific socialism.
y According to the words M. Siddirobe, “Historic materialism is a philosophical knowledge,
which in the form of a united definition, helps in the activity of defining society, and studies
the main laws that include and govern its development.

8.4 Keywords

1. Historical materialism : When any society is defined by the parameters of the means of
production; production–related and production–powers, then this is called the materialistic
definition of history or named historical materialism.
2. ignoring the factor of co–incidence : Marx has left out the factor of co–incidence in his
definition of history

8.5 review Questions

1. Discuss briefly the theory of historical materialism of Marx.
2. How did Marx explain historical events in contradiction to Hegel?
answers : self assessment

1. materialistic 2. Marx 3. humans

8.6 further readings

Books 1. Structure of Sociological Thoughts – J.H. Turner.
2. Social Ideology – Rabindranath Mukherjee.
3. Sociological Theory – Abraham and Morgan.

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