Historical materialism

If we connect this to the bigger picture, philosophers like Karl Popper pointed out a fatal flaw in how the theory defends itself.

He argued classical historical materialism often operates as an unfalsifiable system.

Basically playing a game where you can never lose.

Precisely.

We have to look at dirt, at iron, at material reality.

He introduced the concept of historical materialism.

The mechanism is fascinatingly simple.

Marx argued that the economic base of a society, meaning the physical resources, the land, the factories, and who owns them, entirely dictates the superstructure of that society.

But if we continentals had taken the slightest notice of the prejudices of British respectability, we should even be worse off than we are.

This book defends what we call historical materialism, and the word materialism grates upon the ears of the immense majority of British readers.

Agnosticism might be tolerated, but materialism is utterly inadmissible.

And yet, the original home of all modern materialism from the 17th century onwards is England.

Even if I was an agnostic, it is evident that I could not describe the conception of history sketched out in this little book as historical agnosticism.

Religious people would laugh at me.

Agnostics would indignantly ask, was I going to make fun of them? And thus, I hope even British respectability will not be over-shocked if I use, in English as well as in so many other languages, the term historical materialism to designate that 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.

This indulgence will perhaps be accorded to me all the sooner if I show that historical materialism may be of advantage even to British respectability.