Historical change arrives only when material conditions are already ripe

Evidence

A reference to Marx’s Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy : “No social order ever perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself. Therefore mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, it will always be found that the task itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution already exist or at at least in the process of formation.” — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2559

Categorization

• DEFINE: Marx’s historicism thesis — that societies only perish when their productive forces are exhausted and new relations appear only when material conditions are maturing — is a foundational scaffolding concept the Islamophobia readings will build on (epochal change is structurally constrained, not voluntarist).
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s existing theoretical toolkit on hegemony and common sense — Gramsci draws on this Preface in his own theorizing about when revolutionary tasks become possible. Also connects to the concept of historical epochs and structural determination found in later critical theory. — connects to: Natural forces become historically operative only when production harnesses them
• APHORISMS: “Mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve” reads as a durable maxim about the relationship between ambition and feasibility.

Related

• Social orders only die after their productive forces have fully developed (similarity 0.83)
• A social order persists until new productive relations mature within it (similarity 0.82)
• Social orders collapse only after their productive forces are exhausted (similarity 0.82)
• Societies only undertake tasks whose material conditions are maturing (similarity 0.81)
• Natural forces become historically operative only when production harnesses them (similarity 0.81)
• Societies only pose problems they can solve, and orders die only when superseded. (similarity 0.79)
• Socialist transformation requires consciousness of total impossibility first (similarity 0.79)
• Natural forces become historical only through social creation and use (similarity 0.79)
• Societies only rise or fall when material conditions make it possible (similarity 0.79)
• Historical materialism requires no metaphysical-materialist foundation (similarity 0.79)
• Marxist theory itself is a product of historical contradictions and will disappear with them (similarity 0.78)
• Material forces of production are the measureable skeleton of historical process (similarity 0.78)