Some basic Marxist vocab for y'all
Dialectical Materialism is the science of method. It vital to Marxism because it sets the logical framework for analysis. We are materialists as we aren’t looking at ideas separated from practice; we look at human practices as they materially occur. Dialectics is a bit more difficult, but it comes to play in the entire system of Marxism and most of its offshoots. Examples: the distinctions between form and content, whole and part, quantity and quality, relation and process, necessity and contingency, history and structure are component parts of dialectical analysis. We understand these entities as being in an organic relationship, as the relationship between these entities determines the nature of those entities, rather than understanding each entity in a vacuum.
For example: we have necessary historical relations such as relations of production, with which society can’t do without, then we have contingent historical relations, for instance the specific and concrete way in which the nuclear family is structured. We have necessary structural relations, for instance capital and labor, and we have contingent ones, such as lumpenproletariat and petit-bourgeoisie, which aren’t necessary for the structural relations of capitalism, but rather are contingent. These categories are required for Marxist analysis and are themselves part of dialectics, necessary for the process of practice-theory-practice.
Historical Materialism is the science of history, which sets the postulates of Marxist science. Generally, the postulates can be reduced to these:
1. People must produce the means of their existence; 2. the economic base defines the limits of the superstructure; 3. the mode of production develops through the interaction between forces of production and relations of production; 4. class struggle is the motor of transition from one mode of production to another; 5. communism ends social antagonisms and marks the beginning of emancipation, where humans start making history consciously and collectively.
History has no subject. History is a process with no single cause that indicates origins and ends of historical development. Individuals are shaped into social subjects by the social structures people interact with since or before their birth. We understand these social structures - the superstructure, which includes institutions such as the family unit, school, organized religions, arts, media, labor organizations, the medical establishment, and so on - as being determined by several factors (instances), but in the last instance determined by relations of production, the base.
Like all sciences, Historical Materialism must develop through research.
Political Economy is the study of the mode of production itself, and it is a subset of historical materialism, in the same way historical materialism is topologically a subset of dialectical materialism.
The communist project is where the Feuerbach theses show their relevance: philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point is to change it. One of the important themes in Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is that pure analysis is irrelevant, we must extend analysis into action to make academic Marxism into revolutionary Marxism. All the analysis deriving from dialectical materialism, historical materialism, and political economy is meant to give us the raw materials necessary to form a communist political program meant to change society and bring us to communism. It’s what makes us Marxists and not just historical materialists or dialectical materialists or economists.
Please reblog if you want to educate people on Marxism. This is an explanation given by a friend of mine over Facebook, so do not credit me with any of this.
