determines their existence, but on the contrary, it is their social existence that determines their consciousness (372).
Marx did not insist that the economic element was the only determinant of history, but, as Engels later explained, he and Marx believed it was "ultimately" the most important factor. As Marx himself acknowledged in 1835 "circumstances are changed
. . . by men" (Engels, "A Letter" 383; Marx, Theses 371). Ideas, laws, values, religions and political and social structures resulted from and were expressions of economic developments. According to Marx and Engels, "the executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the affairs of the . . . bourgeoisie [the dominant economic class]" (The Communist 375).
In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels said that "the history of all existing society is the history of class struggles" (373). What they meant was that, as changes occurred from primitive times to the 19th century in the means or forces of production and societal relationships, the latter had to give way:
At a certain stage of their development the material productive forces of society come into contradiction with the existing productive relationships . . . with the property relationships within which they had moved before . . . With the change in the economic foundation the whole vast super-structure is . . . transformed (The Communist 374).
According to Ebenstein, Marx and Engels meant that "what has doomed all historically known economic system is the fact that when new productive forces develop, the existing productive relationship stands in the way of their proper utilization" (376).
By the means of production in their era, Marx and Engels
were referring primarily to technological innovations which enabled capital to squeeze more efficiency or surplus value out of people and machines. The surplus so generated would take the form of profits, which would be reinvested for ...