4 Marx: dialectical materialism and class struggle

Marx argues that the moving force of history is the conflict between classes defined by their relation to production, and that law, politics and ideas belong to a superstructure resting on that economic base. Dialectical materialism is the method: change comes from contradiction within a system, not from an outside force. For a lawyer the claim is testable — look at who a rule was written for, and what changes to the economy produced the change in the rule.