Practice question · Multiple choice
Weber argued that Calvinist ideas helped produce capitalism. Does that refute historical materialism?
Hints
- Ask whether 'in the last instance' is the same claim as 'always and only'.
- A one-way model would be refuted by one counterexample. Is that the model on offer?
Show the answer
B. Not straightforwardly; later Marxists allow feedback
Why
Strict one-way determination would fall to the case, and 'determination in the last instance' does not, which is why the argument has run for a century rather than being settled. The flexibility that saves the theory is also what critics call unfalsifiability, and both observations are fair.
Practise Historical Materialism
The app has 4 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. History I is free to start.
More questions on Historical Materialism
- Sort each verdict on historical materialism: what survives or what fails?
- Marx predicted revolution in the most industrialised countries, and it came first in one of the least.
- Which are genuine contributions historical materialism made to the discipline?
- Marx says the relations of production become a "fetter" on the forces. Why is that the part of the theory…
- Complete the mechanism.
- Put Marx’s modes of production in his sequence.
- Match each mode of production to how its surplus was extracted.