ABSTRACT
G.A. Cohen is a leading commentator on Marx, and his book, Karl Marx’s Theory of History (1978), is widely regarded as setting a new standard in the subject. This extract from a later book recapitulates a central theme in that earlier one. Cohen first gives an account of historical materialism, showing that the ‘development thesis’ – the claim that ‘the productive forces tend to grow in power throughout history’ – is explanatorily fundamental. In this exposition he also defines the key terms ‘forces of production’, ‘relations of production’ and ‘superstructure’. He then shows that historical materialism relies on ‘functional explanations’. These appear to explain events in terms of their effects, which, as Cohen shows, is impossible. Instead, Cohen construes functional explanations in such a way that this problem is avoided.
