Marx the Scientist

The reading this week talks about Marx's quest for a scientific way to understand history and people in order to determine where things will go in the future. I think we can all agree that that is not only a little over ambitious, but impossible. I say that it is impossible because of the same issue we came upon with Freud's dream theory. The problem with Freud's theory was that it was not falsifiable, we could not find a counter-example because none existed; all of Freud's examples were dream's of his own. I think that this is a similar situation. As the editors put it in the book, "We know of no similar histories elsewhere in the universe - nor can we do experimental reruns of historical events!" (170). This shows the fallibility issue. There is nothing that can be tested or compared. History happened, and while one could analyze it and attempt to find patterns in it, there is no way to test it. Theories of human nature may be a little easier to test  and monitor, but when applying such ideas to 'history' in general, encompassing all the countries of the world, it is not possible to determine causes and effects for everything that happens. I think Marx was smart to say "that the economic basis has a very significant influence on everything else" (170), but is not a total determinant for what happens everywhere in the world.