KARL MARX'S THEORY OF HISTORY
A Defence
G. A. Cohen
Princeton University Press, expanded edition (2000)
(first published in 1978)

"Lenin said the the 'three sources and component parts' of historical materialism were German philosophy, British political economy, and French socialism...." G. A. Cohen, Karl Marx's Theory of History (2000 edition), Chapter I, "Images of History in Hegel and Marx," page 1

"...Marxism is not one theory, but a set of more or less related theories....the Marxist theory of history, which is also called historical materialism...seems to be founded on the Marxist view of what people essentially are.

The heart of historical materialism is the thesis that there is, throughout history's course, a tendency towards growth of human productive power, and that forms of society (or economic structures) rise and fall when and because they enable and promote, or frustrate and impede, that growth. Human productive activity increases in potency as history unfolds, and social forms accommodate themselves to that material growth process. They flourish to the extent that they help to raise the level of development of the productive forces, and they decline when they no longer do so....

...I have argued that the most defensible periodization is a four-stage story.

At the first stage, productive power is too meagre to enable a class of non-producers to live off the labour of producers. The material position is one of absence of surplus, and the corresponding social (or economic) form is a primitive classless society.

In the second stage of material development, a surplus appears, of a size sufficient to support an exploiting class, but not large enough to sustain a capitalist accumulation process. The corresponding social form is, accordingly, a pre-capitalist class society, one, that is, in which the producers do not enter a contract to supply their labour power, as they do under capitalism, but are forced, independently of contract, to yield it in the service of slave-owner, feudal lord, or other non-capitalist superior.

At stage 3 the surplus has become generous enough to make capitalism possible. It then grows still further under the impetus of capitalist competition, until it becomes so massive that capitalism becomes untenable, and the fourth and final social form, which is non-primitive communism, the modern classless society, emerges.

And that is the story of humankind, according to historical materialism, in my reading of the doctrine...." G. A. Cohen, Karl Marx's Theory of History (2000 edition), Chapter XIV, "Restricted and Inclusive Historical Materialism," pp. 364–365

BOOK DESCRIPTION
PUBLISHER
First published in 1978, this book rapidly established itself as a classic of modern Marxism. Cohen's masterful application of advanced philosophical techniques in an uncompromising defense of historical materialism commanded widespread admiration. In the ensuing twenty years, the book has served as a flagship of a powerful intellectual movement—analytical Marxism. In this expanded edition, Cohen offers his own account of the history, and the further promise, of analytical Marxism. He also expresses reservations about traditional historical materialism, in the light of which he reconstructs the theory, and he studies the implications for historical materialism of the demise of the Soviet Union.

BOOK REVIEWS
Anthony Quinton–THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
" A clear, definite, and well-reasoned interpretation of what the theory really is.... Admirably argued and generally exhilarating."

William H. Shaw–AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
"[Karl Marx's Theory of History] is an ambitious and impressive work....Cohen writes with limpidity, verve, and honesty."

Peter Singer–NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS
"Cohen's blend of sound scholarship and acute philosophical reasoning has produced a work with which anyone seriously interested in understanding Marx must come to terms."

Gareth Stedman Jones
"Every sentence has the feel of having been deeply thought through over a long period of time."

E. J. Hobsbawm
"An admirable and formidable book."