For decades, Marxism and the socialist tradition more generally — of which Marxism is just apart — were associated with a doctrine known as materialism. But in the recent past, this approach has largely been abandoned by critical theorists, to the point where its mere mention is met with skepticism, if not derision. In this article, I briefly describe what materialism entails and then examine some common criticisms leveled at the theory. I show that these objections are in large measure misplaced and, further, that it is not only still possible to abide by traditional materialism in social theory but that it is the indispensable foundation for the revival of left-wing politics.

To fix our thoughts, let us note that materialism can be understood in three distinct senses. One is an ontological or metaphysical materialism. This is the view that reality exists independently of our minds, which is true of the natural world as well as the social world. This is in contrast to what is sometimes called idealism, which supposes that what we take to be real might just be a product of our imaginations.

The second is an epistemological materialism, which is the view that, even though ideas mediate our access to reality, the structure of reality imposes limits on the variability of our impressions of the world. This means that although we might have mistaken understandings of what is “out there,” there is a means to correct them through engagement with the world around us. Hence, an approximately accurate knowledge of reality is possible.