These are the core concepts we draw on in our daily analysis. Each definition includes a foundational quote from the primary sources.
Material Conditions
The concrete economic and physical circumstances—resources, technology, labor arrangements—that shape social possibilities and constraints.
"According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life."
— Engels, Letter to Joseph Bloch (1890)
Mode of Production
The combination of productive forces (technology, labor, resources) and relations of production (ownership, class structure) that characterizes how a society organizes economic life.
"The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure."
— Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859)
Base & Superstructure
The economic base (production relations) shapes the superstructure (politics, law, culture, ideology), while the superstructure also reinforces the base.
"Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life."
— Marx & Engels, The German Ideology (1846)
Ideology
Systems of ideas that reflect and reinforce existing power relations, often presenting the interests of dominant classes as universal common sense.
"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas."
— Marx & Engels, The German Ideology (1846)
Class Consciousness
Awareness of one's position within class relations and recognition of shared interests with others in the same class position.
"The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win."
— Marx & Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1848)
Contradictions
Opposing forces or tendencies within a system that create tension and drive change. In capitalism, the fundamental contradiction is between social production and private appropriation.
"The unity of opposites is conditional, temporary, transitory, relative. The struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute, just as development and motion are absolute."
— Lenin, On the Question of Dialectics (1915)
Historical Periodization
Identifying distinct phases of capitalist development (e.g., competitive, monopoly, financialized) to understand why specific contradictions emerge at particular historical moments.
"Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established."
— Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916)
In our daily analyses, these terms appear with expandable definitions you can tap to review. For more on our methodology, see About.