Material Civilization

The sum total of material achievements created by man in the process of knowing and reshaping the world, which mainly manifests itself in the increase of the level of productive forces, accumulation of wealth and improvement of material life, and is the fundamental basis for the existence and development of human society.

Marx and Engels attached great importance to the fundamental position and fundamental role of material civilization in the system of human civilization and formed a systematic understanding from concept to theory. Marx and Engels did not directly use the term “material civilization”, but the terms “material production”, “material intercourse”, “material life”, “civilization”, etc., which they often used, already imply some semantics of material civilization. Marx held that material civilization was a product of the practice of humanization, “nature builds no machines, no locomotives, railways, electric telegraphs, self-acting mules etc. These are products of human industry; natural material transformed into organs of the human will over nature, or of human participation in nature. They are organs of the human brain, created by the human hand; the power of knowledge, objectified.” That is to say, material civilization is humanized “natural material”, which consists of natural, social and a variety of other elements. Productive forces are the core constituent element of material civilization. Marx pointed out in Economics Manuscripts of 1857–1858 that “science too is among these productive forces”, “another productive force which costs for capital nothing, it is the scientific power”. Science and technology, as an element of material civilization, once widely used in production, will bring about a prosperity of material civilization in all respects and an overall change of society. As Engels held: “In these years, steam-powered means of transport have finally defeated other means of transport; on the seas ships are now crowded out of sailboats at sea; on land, railway transport rank first within all civilized countries, which is followed by gravel surfaced roads; transportation is now three times faster than in the past, and freight cost used to be three times as expensive.” Lenin said, “for to be cultured we must achieve a certain development of the material means of production, we must have a certain material base.” Material civilization mainly contains the following elements: the state of productive forces, the state of the conditions of production (including the instruments of production, technical equipment, etc.), the scale of production, the degree of accumulation of material wealth of society, the state of the daily life conditions of people, etc. The more fully developed these elements are, the higher the degree of material civilization will be. A certain level of material civilization is connected to a certain level of development of the productive forces, and is the actual manifestation of the state of development of the productive forces. Material civilization of a certain historical period is not only a condensation of the achievements of the development of material production in previous historical phases, but also an immediate manifestation of the achievements of material production in the actual society. The higher the degree of material civilization, the farther away mankind is from barbarism, the less dependent it is on nature, and the stronger its capacity to control nature.

The nature of material civilization is determined by the mode of production of society. However, material civilization itself is interlinked, closely connected and has a relation of inheritance with all phases of society. Socialist material civilization can be spoken of only in the sense that the fruits of material civilization are enjoyed by the people under the socialist system, and are at the service of the people and of socialism. Socialist material civilization is built under the relations of production with the public property in the means of production as the mainstay; it can inherit all the achievements of material civilization created by mankind in history, and especially absorb the achievements of material civilization created by all the countries of the world today, and is thus able to build up its own material civilization at a faster rate and with a higher productivity of labor.

The concrete historical unity of material and spiritual civilization constitutes a specific epoch of civilization. Material civilization provides the material basis for the formation and development of the spiritual civilization and, in particular, plays a decisive role in the cultural construction in spiritual civilization. The level of spiritual civilization of society depends in the final analysis on the degree of development of its material civilization. The development of socialist material civilization and the growth of material wealth will, in the final analysis, be used to improve the material and cultural life of the people and to satisfy their ever growing material and cultural needs. Marx said: “Wealth is a thing, which is embodied things, in material products, which confronts man as subject.” This is the basic requirement of socialist material civilization. “A genuinely Marxist ruling party must devote itself to developing the productive forces and, on that basis, gradually raise the people’s living standards. This means building a society with high level of material civilization.”