Political Science

Historical materialism is one of the central theories of Marxism about how history develops. In simple terms, historical materialism argues that history is shaped largely by material conditions: how people produce food, shelter, tools, wealth, and resources; how labor is organized; and who controls the means of production.

A mode of production is one of the most important building blocks of Marxist theory. In simple terms, a mode of production is the way a society organizes the production of goods and resources. It describes how people get food, build shelter, make tools, produce wealth, and organize labor.

Marxism is a political, economic, and social theory based on the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. At its core, Marxism argues that society is shaped by the way people produce and distribute the things they need to survive. Food, housing, tools, factories, land, technology, wages, and labor are not just economic details. For Marxists, they are central to understanding power.

Karl Marx is one of the most influential and controversial thinkers in modern history. His ideas helped shape political movements, revolutions, governments, labor movements, academic theories, and debates about capitalism that continue into the present day. Some people see Marx as a brilliant critic of inequality and exploitation. Others see his ideas as dangerous because of the authoritarian governments and violent revolutions later associated with Marxism.

To understand Marxism, we first have to understand the world Karl Marx was looking at. Karl Marx lived during the rise of industrial capitalism in Europe. This was a period when societies were changing rapidly. For centuries, many people had lived in rural villages, worked on farms, and produced much of what they needed locally.

Module 3 introduces Marxism as a structural theory of power by arguing that politics cannot be understood only through leaders, laws, and institutions, but also through economics, class, labor, ownership, and production. The module explains how Karl Marx saw industrial capitalism as a system that created both great wealth and deep inequality, and how he argued that conflict between owners and workers was built into the structure of capitalism itself. It also introduces major Marxist ideas such as the mode of production, historical materialism, dialectical materialism, class struggle, alienation, socialism, and communism.