From the Preface to
A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

by Karl Marx, 1859

In the social production which men carry on they enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material forces of production. The sum total ofthese relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society--the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure andto which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode ofproduction in material life determines the social, political and intellectuallife processes in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determinestheir being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines theirconsciousness. At a certain stage of their development, the material forcesof production in society come in conflict with the existing relations ofproduction, or--what is but a legal expression for the same thing--with theproperty relationswithin which they have been at work before. From formsof development ofthe forces of production these relations turn into theirfetters. Then beginsan epoch of social revolution. With the change ofthe economic foundationthe entire immense superstructure is more or lessrapidly transformed. Inconsidering such transformations a distinction shouldalways be made betweenthe material transformation of the economic conditionsof production whichcan be determined with the precision of natural science,and the legal, political,religious, aesthetic or philosophic--in short,ideological forms in whichmen become conscious of this conflict and fightit out. Just as our opinionof an individual is not based on what he thinksof himself, so can we notjudge of such a period of transformation by itsown consciousness; on thecontrary. This consciousness must be explainedrather from the contradictionsof material life, from the existing conflictbetween the social forces ofproduction and the relations of production. No social order ever disappearsbefore all the productive forces for whichthere is room in it have been developed;and new higher relations of productionnever appear before the material conditionsof their existence have maturedin the womb of the old society itself. Therefore,mankind always sets itselfonly such tasks as it can solve; since, lookingat the matter more closely,we will always find that the task itself arisesonly when the material conditionsnecessary for its solution already existor are at least in theprocess offormation. In broad outlines we can designatethe Asiastic, theancient,the feudal, and the modern bourgeois modes of productionas so manyepochin the progress of the economic formation of society. Thebourgeoisrelationsof production are the last antagonistic form of the socialprocessof production--antagonisticnot in the sense of individual antagonism,butof one arising from the socialconditions of life of the individuals;at thesame time the productive forcesdeveloping in the womb of bourgeoissocietycreate the material conditionsfor the solution of that antagonism. This socialformation constitutes,therefore, the closing chapter of theprehistoric stageof human society.


COMMENTARY


This selection from the Preface to "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy" is perhaps the
most compact and concise statement to be found in Marx's writing settingforth his macro-sociology, i.e., Historical Materialism.  It is a statement of a general theory of societal development within which Marx's Capital constitutes a detailed analysis of a specific phase--the capitalist phase.  The statement also reveals rather clearly the basic elements of the Marxist sociological paradigm; it suggests the kinds of questions to be posed for empirical investigation and the framework or "model" within which the answers are to be sought.

In passing it might be observed that the extreme economy of the statement leaves something to be desired from thestandpoint of adequacy, particularly for the student's first contact withMarxist social theory. For this reason it may be useful to point out thatPart I of the Communist Manifesto contains a lengthier (and more literary)statement of the historical materialist theory of social development. Aneven lengthier but still relatively concise exposition is to be found inPart III of Frederick Engels' Socialism: Utopian and scientific.

Marx's theory might aptly be characterized as a sociology of societal self-transformation.  It addresses the movement of human society through a succession of phases or structural forms.  It locates the nexus of social relations within society which generates the activity of society's self-transforming process.  For Marx, society is not to be understood as merely a functional system of interrelated structures, intellectually captured and frozen into ahistorical categories and typologles: it is a system in motion with this motion seen as stemming from an internal dialectical interplay of key sectors of social relations. Moreover, this motion is seen as having an ultimately prevailing determinancy,i.e., material forces of production -------- > social relations of production (together comprising the "material" and economic infrastructure, or "base" ) ---------- > social relations of society in general, or the "superstructure" (the political, legal, familial, etc., structures, as well as the "formsof consciousness' manifest in ideology, philosophy, religion, art and secular knowledge).  Thus social structures are seen not as arrested or frozen in time, but as always in the making, unmaking, and remaking.  A given set of "relations of production and exchange,' as an outcome of its own internal dynamics, generates the conditions of its own obsolescence and creates the foundations of an emergent superseding system of production, and, with it, a superseding configuration of superstructural social and cultural forms.

The precise nature and specific processes of this dialectical self-transformation of societal structure is a matter of scientific analysis guided by the general theoretical propositions set forth so consisely in the Preface. Marx's historical materialism isnot a general sociology in the sense of a total conceptual and theoreticalsystem composed of universal categories; it is an analytical model, thatin application, is limited in historical scope and in the range of socialphenomena it take into account.

The method or strategy of analysis implied is anchored in the historical dimension, pivoting on the present in terms of the present's antecedents in the past and its hidden progeneration ofthe future. Analysis is always of an historically specific organizationand dynamics of society, in terms of its emergence from the organizationand internal dynamics of an antecedent society, and, in turn, its generationof the salient features of a superceding organization of society. Thus Marxexamined the capitalist organization of society as an emergent outcome offeudal social relations, and then, in a painstakingly detailed analysis,laid bare the internal workings of the capitalist relations of productionand exchange and the processes by which it was creating the conditions ofits own obsolescence and replacement by a new organization of society, thesalient features of which were created by capitalist society itself. Thisdetailed analysis was developed in his magnum opus, Capital, but the guiding Theoretical framework was succinctly set forth in PartI of the Communist Manifesto in 1848, as indicated by the followingarrangement of passages:

We see then: the means of production and exchange on whose foundation the bourgeoise built itself up were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage of the development of the means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organization of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder.

Into their places stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted to it, and the economical and political sway of the bourgeoise class.

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The bourgeoise cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relationsof production, and with them the whole relations of society. . . Constantrevolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions,everlasting uncertainty and agitation, distinguish the bourgeoise epoch fromall earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train ofancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formedones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts intoair, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at least compelled to facewith sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with hiskind. The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chasesthe bourgeoise over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere,settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere.

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The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeoise class, is the formation of and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labor. Wage-labor rests exclusively on the competition between laborers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoise, replaces the isolation of the laborer, due to competition, by their involuntary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry therefore cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoise produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoise therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.


This sequence of quotations severely abridges the full exposition of theoretical reasoning conveyed in Part I of the Manifesto, but it does illustrate the paradigmatic reference points of the historical materialist strategyor method of analyzing societal self-transformation, as well as conveyinga clear sense of society in motion.


SOME POSTULATES AND PROPOSITIONS

OF MARX'S MACRO-SOCIOLOGICAL PARADIGM

Basic postulates

1. The reality of individual human beings, i.e., 'human nature,' is their social being--the ensemble of their social relations, past and present.

2. The reality of "society" is that it is a relational system, i.e., an organization of social relations among its members.

3. The most fundamental social relations are those implicated in producing the means of subsistence. Therefore, the most fundamental sector of society's total relational system is the sector of social relations of production and exchange.

Propositions

  1. The manner in which the social relations of production and exchange are organized is constrained by the character and level ofdevelopment of the material forces of production, i.e., the material resources and implements of production, along with the existing technology and the state of the industrial arts.
  2. The progressive growth and development (in scale, complexity, and sophistication) of the material forces of production tends to generate disequilibrium between the material forces of production and the existing social relations within which production is carried out; the existing social relations of production, crystallized during an earlier stage of the development of the material forces of production, now become obstacles to further progress and the source of social tensions.
  3. The manner in which the social relations of production and exchange are organized sets the conditions and determines the general character and configuration of all other institutionalized social relations, i.e., of social relations in general throughout the society.
  4. The "superstructure' of non-economic institutionalized social relations reflectively constrain the social relations of production and exchange.  In other words, the social activities of production and exchange are carried on within and in conjunction with noneconomic institutions, e.g., in conformity with law and/or custom. (Note that such constraints of superstructural institutions may be either in harmony with or at odds with the relations of production and exchange in any given historical situation.)
  5. The mode of production, embracing both the materialand social aspects of production and exchange, are primary determinants inshaping the forms of consciousness (ideology, belief systems, values)prevailing in the society.
  6. The production of surplus wealth, over and above that     sociallynecessary to maintain and perpetuatethe populationof producers, results in the appropriation of surplus socialwealth by themore powerful group or groups in society, with a consequentconcentrationand redistribution of surplus wealth.
  7. When the means of production have beenappropriated by certain groups in a society, who then control access to themeans of production by other members of the society, the social relationsof production and exchange have become the basis of the establishment andperpetuation of social classes in the society.

    8. Corollary: When the means of production are held in common, or when they are so primitive as to be easily reproduced by individuals, the society will be "classless" in its structure.

    8. When the surpluses produced by one classare appropriated by another class, the basis for antagonistic classrelations is established.

    1. In a class-stratified society, consciousness of class interests and inter-class antagonisms tend to become expressed in ideology and in political action. The objective class (class-in-itself) then tends to become a selfconscious "social class" (class-for-itself) , pursuing its own economic, social, and political interests in opposition to the classor classes with whom it is antagonistically related.
    2. The degree of class consciousness and the potential for classbased social and political organization depends upon the specific character, i.e., the specific forms of social cooperation and/or competition, and the historical development of the system of social relations of production and exchange.
    3. To the extent that newly emergent social classes can develop social solidarity and effective political organization, to that extent they have the potential, in the course of class struggle, of either modifying existing social relations of production and exchange or of replacing them altogether with new social relations of production, i.e., carrying through a social revolution and inaugurating a new mode of production

Comment: The outcome of historicallyspecificclassconflicts cannot be established axiomatically; the outcomeis determinedbya convergence of complex and historically specific conditionsand events.Logically, class struggles do not inevitably result in socialrevolutionor'social progress," they may alternatively result in (1) socialand politicalreaction--amore draconic reassertion of the power of the existingexploitingclass andof the existing social relations of production, (2) longperiodsof "balanceof power" accommodations between the opposing classes,(3) 'thecommon ruinof the contending classes." ( Communist Manifesto)Marx's historicalprognosis: A commentary

Marx paid tribute to the historical accomplishmentsof capitalism: "The bourgeoisie has played a most revolutionary role in history... The bourgeoisie, during its scarce one hundred years, has created moremassive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generationstogether." (Manifesto)

So impressed was Marx with this factthatitled him to predict that the class struggle generated by the capitalmodeofproduction would be the last act in an epochal drama of classstrugglesthatbegan with the first civilizations.  Thanks to the massiveproductivecapacitycreated during the bourgeois epoch, the basis was laidfor the finalconquestof economic scarcity.  The anticipated victory of theproletariatin thisfinal class struggle would therefore usher in the dawnof a humansocial orderin which the exploitation of man by man would no longerbe necessaryor evenworkable.

Unlike the culmination of previous classstruggles in the long history of civilization where the revolutionaryclass,once victorious, becomes itself a ruling and exploiting class, themodernindustrial working class would end its own exploitation only by instituting social ownership and operation of the immense industrial systemwhichcapitalism itself had created and had already made so highly socialin itsorganization.  Social ownership and operation of an immenselyproductiveindustrialsystem, i.e., a 'socialist' or 'communist" mode of production,hadno hiddenpotential for generating yet another exploited class.  So,withthe contradictionbetween social production and private ownership resolved,andwith a productivecapacity sufficient to generate all the goods and servicesrequiredby allthe members of society (that is, no longer competition forscarce resources),the result would presumably be an end to class dividedsociety.  Allmen andwomen would now be workers, but productive work wouldnow be immeasurablymore humane, more enjoyable, and most of all, would occupyonly a relativelysmall portion of the individuals time and life space. For the first time,man could and would exercise intelligent control overhis own social destiny.

Such was the vision of Marx, his historical prognosis which he felt was justified by the implications of his scientific analysis of capitalist society.  But it was a vision, a prognosis, and notascientific conclusion in the strict sense of the method of social science.  Moreover, history has a way of confounding even the most scientificallyinspired prognoses and, not infrequently, turning inspiring visions into nightmares.