The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus the first fact to be established is the physical organisation of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Marx states that the basic fact of history is the existence of living individuals, whose physical organization and relation to nature must be first established.
- In plain terms
- History starts with living people and how they are physically organized.
- What can you take from it?
- Begin any analysis with the material conditions of individuals.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How do material conditions shape consciousness?
- Can we separate individuals from their environment?
Another view
It reduces complex cultural factors to mere physical organization.
More from Karl Marx
Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movem…
Permalink to quote #23 The fact is, therefore, that definite individuals who are productively active in a definite way enter into these definite social and political relations. Empir…
Permalink to quote #25 Very well then! Emancipation from huckstering and money, consequently from practical, real Judaism, would be the self-emancipation of our time. An organization…
Permalink to quote #22
Related quotes
Bourgeois class domination is undoubtedly an historical necessity, but, so too, the rising of the working class against it. Capital is an historical necessity,…
Rosa LuxemburgRosa Luxemburg quote #1 All in all, Engels talked so much rot of every kind, that now all the world's academies of science should be directed to rectify his mistakes and idiocies.
Aleksandr ZinovyevAleksandr Zinovyev quote #4 Historically, Marxism was born with the ambition of explaining everything in the world scientifically. It is known, that Marx even dealt with mathematics. Alth…
Aleksandr ZinovyevAleksandr Zinovyev quote #9