Marxism examines the structure of society and accounts for the changes or the evolution of societies in the historical process. Now the question is what leads to change in social arrangements, changes that are not small social changes but leaps, catastrophes and revolutions? Marx says that there are two things that propel change: forces of production and relations of production. Forces of production are the driving forces of any production process.

This production is that of our material lives in which all of us are involved as labourers. We give our labour and produce various aspects of our material life and these are driven by many things including technology. Because of these forces of production, we have relations of production or relations among people in the production process.