Historical Materialism

One term that bothered me was historical materialism. From Wikipedia, is states that “Historical materialism started from a fundamental underlying reality of human existence: that in order for human beings to survive and continue existence from generation to generation, it is necessary for them to produce and reproduce the material requirements of life.” This concept was developed from Karl Marx and it also sort of explains how the economy works.

The iron cage, according to Benjamin, is damaging because it limits a person’s view about history. We would look at history from a set point such as in the present. In the text page 262, “a historical materialist cannot do without the notion of a present which is not a transition, but in which time stands still and has come to a stop.” The historical materialist does not contemplate about the future; the focus is from the present and here on out to the past.

One thing that I can relate to myself from Benjamin’s work is on page 259 in the text, “smelling a rat, Marx countered that, ‘the man who possesses no other property than his labor power’ must of necessity become ‘the slave of other men who have made themselves the owners…’ This rings true for people in my class; the working class who must sell their labor in order to be slaves of other people of higher authority. I hate my workplace because I just don’t like feeling inferior to my boss when sometimes, I honestly feel like they’re just as dumb or smart as me, yet they only get to be my boss because of their seniority in the retail business.