Marxism and Materialism | Historiography Shorts 8

Karl Marx theorized that the driver of history was not nations and instead were class struggle. The material circumstances of people’s economic position determined their lives more than anything else. So in his view, the French Revolution resulted in the rise of the bourgeoisie (as in the middle-class) to dominance, beginning the era of capitalism. Ancient history was defined by rulers' exploiting slaves, medieval times by aristocrats’ exploiting peasantry, and modernity by the bourgeoisie exploiting urban labor, also known as proletarians. Every time a lower class would rise up in defiance of the upper class, it would result in a new upper and lower class. Marx believed that the next revolution would result in a proletariat dictatorship, and this would be the last world-revolution as they would first implement a kind of temporary socialism before the state as a whole would wither away, resulting in communism. So historians who utilize this theory of history look at material circumstances of a class and whether they’re aware of their exploitation. This is called materialism, and the recognition of exploitation is called class consciousness. Historiography Shorts playlist: /playlist/PLjnwpaclU4wXi3h9O4E0a0ZVPGYxAuUTy ------------------------------------------------------------ Compendium of Marxist works: https://www.marxists.org/archive/index.htm ------------------------------------------------------------ SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE VIDEOS: /user/CynicalCypher88 Support the channel through PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/CynicalHistorian or by purchasing MERCH: https://teespring.com/stores/the-cynical-historian LET'S CONNECT: Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/cynicalhistorian Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cynicalcypher88 Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/CynicalHistory/ Discord: https://discord.gg/Ukthk4U Twitter: https://twitter.com/Cynical_History

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