Practice question · Multiple choice
Some readers take historical materialism to mean that legal, religious and political forms are simply effects of the economy with no force of their own. Why do most sociologists reject that reading?
Hints
- Look for what the authors said when asked directly about the strong reading.
- The letter to Joseph Bloch is the standard reference, and it concedes that the emphasis had been misleading.
Show the answer
B. Engels said the economy determines only in the last instance and other forms react back on it
Why
Engels conceded that he and Marx had stressed the economic side hard against opponents who denied it altogether, and that the stress had produced a caricature. The defensible claim is about explanatory weight over the long run, with real feedback from law, politics and belief, not a one-way mechanism.
Practise Comte and Marx
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