Preface.

Although the author would prefer the latter, this book could be defined as either a defensive critique or a critical defence: defensive because the book is an attempt to demonstrate the relevance of a historical-materialist approach to historical analysis, and of Marx’ analysis of capitalism; critical because that attempt involves the rejection of main elements in Marx’ own conception of historical materialism as well as his expectations and predictions that capitalismwill (save for the possible common ruin of the struggling classes) be superseded by socialism and eventually communism, and of a number of ideas and arguments in subsequent Marxist writers.

Establishing and criticising Marx’ determinism is not, in fact, the principal aim of the book; nevertheless, much space is devoted to it, for two reasons. Firstly, with some simplification, three main positions on Marxian determinism can be identified within the Marxist or historical-materialist tradition: one that Marxwas a determinist and was right to be one, and hence determinism presents no problem to historical materialism; one that Marx wasnot a determinist, and hence determinism presents no problem to historical materialism; and one, which is argued below, that Marx was indeed a determinist and was wrong to be one, and hence determinismdoes present a problem to historical materialism.

On the latter assumption, it is obvious why the first of these positions must be criticised. The second one is, for one thing, demonstrably wrong – or at least its adherents have the difficult task of explaining why Marx repeatedly predicted the inevitable supersession of capitalism by socialism if he did not in fact consider it inevitable. Perhaps more important, the failure to recognise the problem and its roots in Marx’ conception of historical development cannot but hamper attempts to develop historical materialism into a theoretical edifice which is both tenable and empirically relevant, establishing a firm link between its most abstract theses and the most successful Marxist historiography; the insistence on Marx’ conception of the dialectic of forces and relations of production as the motive power of historical development and transformations will be positively fatal to that endeavour.

It should be emphasised that the argument below is not based on any intrinsically new ideas: insofar as it is original to any extent it is due to the combination of ideas adopted from others, although the responsibility for their interpretation and application of course rests solely with this writer. The following ones inform the very approach to the problematic as well as the argument of the book:

1. The motive power of historical development and transformations is the interaction between social circumstances and agency constituting the actual process of historical eventuation (an idea saturating the best Marxist historiography).
2. Agents’ responses to their “lived” reality (the ensemble of objective circumstances af