Marx and history: the limits of ‘radical change’ thesis

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to point out the limits of ‘radical change’ thesis in Marx’s thought. According to this view, there would be a ‘unilinear’ and teleological conception of history in his period of youth. However, for some authors, at some point in his theoretical evolution from 1850’s, Marx would break with this position and formulated a multilinear view of history. From a critical revision, it is intended to point the limits of this thesis from the analysis of Marx’s theory of history that was already in consolidation in the 1840’s. More precisely, in the texts The german ideology (1845-46) and Poverty of philosophy (1847), we can see that Marx’s theoretical works of the mid-1840’s is precisely against a philosophy of history, pointing limitations for the idea of ‘radical change’ in the theory of history.