Historical materialism is Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods.
For Marx and his lifetime collaborator, Friedrich Engels, historical materialism is the "view of the course of history which seeks the ultimate cause and the great moving power of all important historic events in the economic development of society, in the changes in the modes of production and exchange, in the consequent division of society into distinct classes, and in the struggles of these classes against one another."
Although Marx never brought together a formal or comprehensive description of historical materialism in one published work, his key ideas are woven into a variety of works from the 1840s onward. Since Marx's time, the theory has been modified and expanded. It now has many Marxist and non-Marxist variants.
Enlightenment views of history
Marx's view of history is shaped by his engagement with the intellectual and philosophical movement known as the Age of Enlightenment and the profound scientific, political, economic and social transformations that took place in Britain and other parts of Europe in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.
The 'spirit of liberty'
Enlightenment thinkers responded to the worldly transformations by promoting individual liberty and attacking religious dogmas and the divine right of kings. A swathe of thinkers including Hobbes (1588–1679), Montesquieu (1689–1755), Voltaire (1694–1778), Smith (1723–1790), Turgot (1727–1781) and Condorcet (1743–1794) detached from the ecclesiastical interpretation of the world and offered new scientific studies of human nature, history, economics and society. Some philosophers, for example, Vico (1668–1744), Herder (1744–1803) and Hegel (1770–1831), sought to discover an organizing theme, meaning, or direction in human history. For many Enlightenment philosophers, the power of ideas became the mainspring for understanding historical change and the rise and fall of civilizations. History was the gradual advance of the 'spirit of liberty' or the growth of nationalism or democracy, rationality and law. This view of history remains popular to this day.
'Great man' history
Marx rejected the enlightenment view that ideas alone were the driving force in society or that the underlying cause for the rise and fall of kingdoms, empires and states, was due to the actions of people at the top of society: kings, queens, emperors, generals, or religious leaders. The 'great man' and occasionally 'great woman' view of historical change was popularized by the 19th century Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) who wrote 'the history of the world is nothing but the biography of great men'. According to Marx, this conception of history amounted to nothing more than a collection of 'high-sounding dramas of princes and states'.
Materialist conception of history
Inspired by Enlightenment thinkers, especially Condorcet, the utopian socialist Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825) formulated his own materialist interpretation of history, similar to those later used in Marxism, analyzing historical epochs based on their level of technology and organization and dividing them between eras of slavery, serfdom, and finally wage labor. According to the socialist leader Jean Jaurès, the French writer Antoine Barnave was the first to develop the theory that economic forces were the driving factors in history.
Hegel's contribution to Marx's theory of history
While studying at the University of Berlin, Marx encountered the philosophy of Hegel (1770–1831) which had a profound and lasting influence on his thinking. One of Hegel's key critiques of enlightenment philosophy was that while thinkers were often able to describe what made societies from one epoch to the next different, they struggled to account for why they changed.
Hegel and historicism
Classical economists presented a model of civil society based on a universal and unchanging human nature. Hegel challenged this view and argued that human nature as well as the formulations of art, science and the institutions of the state and its codes, laws and norms were all defined by their history and could only be understood by examining their historical development. Hegel historicised philosophical thought and saw it as an expression of a specific culture rather than an eternal truth. Thus: 'Philosophy is its own age comprehended in thought'.