The pivotal theme in Marx’s materialist conception of history is that
individuals must first satisfy their most basic physical or material needs
before they can do anything else. In practice, this has meant the mass of
humanity, in order to survive, has had to surrender control of its labour
power to those that own the instruments of production. Given the basic reality of property relations, the dominant classes throughout history
have been able to exploit the subordinate classes but this had always led
to class conflict. Indeed, Marx believed that class struggle had been
the principal form of conflict in the whole of human history. Political
revolution had been the main agent of historical development while technological innovation had been the driving-force behind social change.