What Are Material Conditions?

[¿Que?]

Exactly what are Marxists referring to when they talk about material conditions? What do material conditions have to do with capitalism and social organization? What does Marx say about material conditions? Is material the same as nature? What kind of empirical evidence does Marx rely on to back up his claims?

[BAM]

For Marx materialism is not just about "matter", but also refers to social activity. So, the "material conditions of capitalism" refer to the social organisation of capitalism and would include, say, class conflict, methods of production, the labour process, and so on.

[S.Artesian]

Exactly what are Marxists referring to when they talk about material conditions? What do material conditions have to do with capitalism and social organization? What does Marx say about material conditions? Is material the same as nature? What kind of empirical evidence does Marx rely on to back up his claims?

The "material of the material conditions is the actual method, terms, determinants, mediations for the reproduction of a society-- human beings as social beings.

Regarding capitalism, it is the opposition of labor to the conditions of labor, which conditions exist as private property of the means of production, that provides the "primary material," the DNA so to speak for the development of the material social conditions of capitalist reproduction. The reproduction is the constant exchange of wage-labor with capital.