CHAPTER VI 



THE ENVIRONMENTAL SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGISTS 



KARL MARX (1818-1883) 



Economic Determinism 



KARL MARX, the founder of scientific socialism, finds place in our 

 discussion, not so much because of his contribution to the develop- 

 ment of the doctrine of adaptation as a theory of social progress as 

 because of his emphasis on certain features and factors of progress 

 which properly interpreted are fundamental and have been given 

 saner interpretation since. 



Marx started as a disciple of Hegel and never entirely freed 

 himself from Hegelian a priorism and dialectic. He became a 

 Hegelian of the Left, however, which at the time was dominated 

 by Feuerbach whose materialistic philosophy is well summed up 

 in the aphoristic and much-quoted expression " der Mensch ist 

 was er isst." Like Comte, his French contemporary, Feuerbach 

 united a scientific view of life with a passion for humanity. The 

 result among the young Hegelians was Humanism linked with 

 Communism. This provided a fertile soil for the production of 

 scientific socialism with its philosophy of " economic determin- 

 ism." ' 



The transformed Hegelianism of Marx led him to find the cause 

 of all historical movements in material conditions. 2 His interest 

 in the proletariat class with their bad conditions of life and labor, 3 

 led him to a study of the industrial revolution and its connection 

 with feudalism. Out of this study came his teaching that class 

 struggle is the very essence of history and that methods of pro- 

 duction and exchange are the fundamental causes of these strug- 

 gles and of the social institutions and ideals growing out of them. 



1 John Rae, Contemporary Socialism, pp. I2gf. ; Kirkup, History of Socialism, 

 ch. VII. 



2 Manifesto of the Communist Party (1898). 



3 Capital, pp. 392 f., 502 f. 



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