Questions and Suggested Reading

How can we claim that human society is lawful? Do we have free will?
Are historians neutral? Do they need to be?
Do Marxists reduce everything to economics?
What do Marxists mean by base and superstructure? What is the real relationship between these two?
Why would a Marxist claim that the development of human society represents progress?
What role do individuals play in history?
What is the relationship between human consciousness and social change?
What role does labour play in human evolution?
Are human beings naturally selfish? Is there such a thing as human nature?
What was the Neolithic Revolution?
In what sense was class society necessary?
What was the Asiatic mode of production and why was it not a focus of Marx’s writings?
In what sense would a certain mode of production be more progressive than another?
What were the ‘Dark Ages’ and how do we explain why this period occurred?
What was feudalism? How does the exploitation of the wage worker differ from that of the serf?
How was feudalism overthrown and what role did the bourgeoisie play in this process?
How does the proletarian revolution differ from bourgeois revolutions?
Why did Marx describe the working class as the ‘gravediggers’ of capitalism?
What caused the degeneration of the workers’ state established by the October Revolution of 1917?
In what sense did capitalism represent a colossal leap forward for humanity?
In what ways would socialism take society forward?