historical materialism

American  

noun

1. (in Marxist theory) the doctrine that all forms of social thought, as art or philosophy, and institutions, as the family or the state, develop as a superstructure founded on an economic base; that they reflect the character of economic relations and are altered or modified as a result of class struggles; that each ruling economic class produces the class that will destroy or replace it; and that dialectical necessity requires the eventual withering away of the state and the establishment of a classless society: the body of theory, in dialectical materialism, dealing with historical process and social causation.

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historical materialism British  

noun

1. the part of Marxist theory maintaining that social structures derive from economic structures and that these are transformed as a result of class struggles, each ruling class producing another, which will overcome and destroy it, the final phase being the emergence of a communist society

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Etymology

Origin of historical materialism

First recorded in 1920–25

Example Sentences

His contextualised critique extends to Marx's early attempts at communist ideology in The Paris Manuscripts, as well as the historical materialism of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.

From The Guardian • Jun. 26, 2013

"The idea is that, after one film, you'll get up and move to the next 'classroom' – as if you'd just had double maths and now it's double historical materialism."

From The Guardian • Feb. 6, 2011

After the Russians came, he switched to Marxism, was made lecturer in historical materialism at Humboldt.

From Time Magazine Archive

I acquired the complete works of Marx and Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, and others and probed into the philosophy of dialectical and historical materialism.

From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela

There was yet another factor, the economic one, which to most modern writers, starting from the basis of historical materialism, has necessarily seemed the chief of all.

From A History of the United States by Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)