Socialism is a word that you’ve likely heard used with various different meanings. In the US, the word Socialism is often used to describe the Scandinavian Social Democracies. These aren’t Socialist though. They’re Capitalist societies with strong unions and good…
Historical Materialism is the study of social development through the application of Marxist philosophy. Historical Materialism starts from the proposition that before people can create art, culture, science, or politics, they first have to produce for their material needs; that…
“Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of…
The state consists of all the institutions that the ruling class uses to coerce the other classes in society. This includes the institutions of “legitimate” violence, such as the police, military, courts, and jails, as well as the institutions of…
Dialectical Materialism is the Marxist philosophical framework. Put another way, it’s the method we use to analyze the world. Marxism doesn’t provide a set of dogmas that teach us how to act in all situations. But it does provide us…
In Marxism, a person’s class is defined by their relationship to the Means of Production (the stuff that’s used to make stuff, such as tools, machinery, and raw materials.) While classes can be broken down into finer categories, it’s common…
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” – Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto The ideas of class and class struggle are intimately tied up with Marxism because Marxists see economic relations as both…
Marxism, aka Scientific Socialism, is a field of study first developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the 19th Century, which continues to develop to this day. Before Karl Marx, all attempts at socialism had been utopian. That is…
