Marx rejected any universal concept of production outside history.

Evidence

Marx, in fact, argued that there is no “labor” or production in general (Marx, Grundrisse ). Production always assumes specific historical forms, under determinate conditions. The types of society, social relationship, and human culture which arise under these specific historical conditions will also assume a determinate form. One type of production differs fundamentally from another: and since each stage in the development of material production will give rise to different forms of social cooperation, a distinct type of technical and material production, and different kinds of political and civil organization, human history is divided, through the developing modes of production, into distinctive and historically specific stages or epochs . — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 881

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains Marx’s ‘principle of historical specificity’ distinguishing his materialism from vulgar technological determinism.
• QUESTION: Hall cites Korsch for this principle — worth chasing how Korsch formulated historical specificity against vulgar materialism.
• XREF: connects to: Marx rejected Orientalist golden-age romanticism about India’s past. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 1049