Abstract

Perhaps no doctrine in our intellectual history has received more attention—critical, puzzled and celebrative—than that of “economic determinism”. To adequately catalogue the literature on Karl Marx’s epoch-making theory would require, no doubt, a considerable tome.I am not, therefore, going to attempt such a task here, illuminating though it might be as a study in the history and sociology of ideas. Rather I am going to outline an interpretation which will—if I am successful—be both faithful to Marx’s texts and immune to the standard philosophical criticisms which have been hitherto advanced against the theory.