Productive forces form the measurable skeleton of historical change

Evidence

The ensemble of the material forces of production is the least variable element in historical development: it is the one which at any given time can be ascertained and measured with mathematical exactitude and can therefore give rise to observations and criteria of an experimental character and thus to the reconstruction of a solid skeleton of the historical process. … The ensemble of the material forces of production is at the same time a crystallisation of all past history and the basis of present and future history: it is both a document and an active and actual propulsive force. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1648

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Natural forces become historically operative only when production harnesses them — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1649