When we looked at Marxism we saw that the contributions of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels are seminal to an understanding of culture. The ruling ideas of each age were in reality the ideas of the ruling class and Marx shows that very epoch is characterized by a system of exploitation. The forms are different from epoch to epoch but the nature of the exploitation continues in the sense that there are those who have control over the means of production and there are those who are always dominated and exploited since their labor is not adequately compensated for. We also saw that the history of mankind may be seen as a struggle among classes.

We also saw very importantly that history moves on in a dialectical process which Hegel had called thesis, antithesis and synthesis. According to Marx and Engels whenever the forces of production come into conflict with existing relations of production then society enters a new mode of production.