Abstract
Marx’s theory of history contains at its core a dialectic between inherited material circumstance and its incessant social transformation by contemporary human agency. In the now classic statement of this idea Marx wrote:
Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.2
I am grateful to Sarah-Jane Bey-El-Araby, Peter Benson, Alan Carling and Alex Callinicos for their comments and criticisms of an earlier version of this paper, which prompted extensive rewriting.
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Notes
Marx (1977) The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, p. 300.
Marx (1977) ‘Preface’ to A Contribution to A Critique of Political Economy, p. 389.
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© 1995 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Kirkpatrick, G. (1995). Philosophical Foundations of Analytical Marxism. In: Carver, T., Thomas, P. (eds) Rational Choice Marxism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24183-5_10
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