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Economic determinism is a theory that economic relationships (such as being an owner or capitalist, or being a worker or proletarian) are the foundation on which all other social and political arrangements are built. In the Marxist version associated with Karl Marx, the emphasis is on the proletariat, who are predicted to revolt and overthrow capitalism. Marxist thinkers have dismissed plain and unilateral economic determinism as a form of "vulgar Marxism", or "economism", nowhere included in Marx's works. In the writing of American history the term is associated with historian Charles A. Beard (1874-1948), who was not a Marxist but who emphasized the long-term political contest between bankers and business interest on the one hand, and agrarian interests on the other.〔Peter J. Coleman, "Beard, McDonald, and Economic Determinism in American Historiography," ''Business History Review'' (1960) 34#1 pp. 113-121 (in JSTOR )〕 ==Relation to Marxist philosophy== According to Marx, each social mode of production produces the material conditions of its reproduction, that is, ideology (which gathers all the political, law and cultural spheres). Thus, ideology permits the mode of production to reproduce itself. Furthermore, Marx and Engels are said to have believed,〔Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, "The German Ideology," from Selected Writings, pg 120〕 should a revolutionary force change the mode of production, the dominant class will immediately set out to create a new society to protect this new economic order. In the modernity of their era, Marx and Engels felt the propertied class had essentially accomplished the establishment of a new societal and economic order, instinctively creating a society protective of their capitalist interests. They made this statement to the Bourgeoisie in the Communist Manifesto: "Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class, made into law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions of the existence of your class."〔Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, ''Communist Manifesto'', pg 35〕 The young Marx hence criticized man's alienation, a concept which he later replaced by the critique of commodity fetishism. "Vulgar Marxism" has considered that the relation between the economical infrastructure and the ideological superstructure was a unicausal one, and thus believed in economic determinism. This has been criticized by various Marxist theorists, who dismissed it as a form of economism or economic reductionism. They claimed the relationship is much more reciprocal and complex than unilateral determinism would have it. They asked this: "Are men free to choose this or that form of society? By no means."〔Karl Marx, ''Poverty of Philosophy'', pg 152〕 According to this view, the thing which we call 'free will' is nothing other than an awareness of the impelling forces which move an individual to action; in taking action, he is not free to change the course his very nature dictates." Many Marxists claim that Marx and Engels viewed this law of 'economic determinism' as the creative force in human progress. Engels stated: "The final causes of all social changes and political revolution are to be sought, not in men's brains, not in man's insight into internal truth and justice... but in the economies of each epoch."〔Friedrich Engels, ''Socialism -- Utopian and Scientific'', pg 54〕 Therefore, Engels advocated a revolution in economic structure as the only valid way of improving society and ending the oppression of the working class. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Economic determinism」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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