Marx grounded all social inquiry in material conditions of production and political economy

Evidence

History, for Marx, became the antagonistic play of the relations of living social categories whose existence was predicated on the particular characters of production and property that had been the basis of social life. Political economy was thus the most fundamental of historical inquiries. The materialist conception of history situated the objective and necessary forces of a society, distinguishing their significance from those categories of human activity that were the result of pure speculation (idealism) and ideology. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 315

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the materialist conception of history as what Marx means by history itself.