Page:The Advancing Proletariat (1917).pdf/8

6 SIMILAR EXPERIENCES BEGET SIMILAR IDEAS. The average of the experiences of a community, or a class, a nation, or a race begets the central idea of that community, or class, or nation, or race; therefore, in attempting to explain the tendency of any such community, class, nation, or race to gyrate about some central idea, or concertedly move towards some definite goal, we must discover those similarities of experience which furnish the common ground for similarity of thought and unity of action.

History furnishes us with many instances of great popular and class movements, but it was not until Marx enunciated the Law of Economic Determinism, that a rational basis for the interpretation of these events was secured. In his researches into history, he observed certain classes of men always standing together—always appearing upon the same side of the great historical arguments—and, upon a careful analysis, he promulgated this law, that THE THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS OF MEN ARE DETERMINED BY THE MANNER IN WHICH THEY OBTAIN THEIR LIVING. The same being only another way of stating the evolutionary truths, that man is a product of his environment; and that his thoughts and ideas are generated by his contacts and experiences with the world around him.

Carried over into the field of Historical Economics and applied to the Science of Sociology this law is translated into the Theory of the Materialist Conception of History which declares that ALL THE SOCIAL PHENOMENA IN ANY HISTORICAL EPOCH MAY BE EXPLAINED UPON THE BASIS OF THE METHOD OF WEALTH PRODUCTION AND EXCHANGE EXISTING AT THAT TIME. Immediately History ceases to be a mere record of the