Editing Philosophy of history (section)

=== Karl Marx ===
[[File:Karl Marx photo from a book by Lenin.jpg|thumb|[[Karl Marx]], founder of [[Marxism]] and [[historical materialism]]]]

[[Karl Marx]] is often thought to be an exponent of [[economic determinism]]. For him social institutions like religion, culture and the [[political system]] were merely by-products of the underlying [[economic system]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://economics.mit.edu/files/9658 |title=Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo. Under the Thumb of History? Political institutions and the Scope for Action |access-date=2015-03-24 |archive-date=2016-09-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160903173720/http://economics.mit.edu/files/9658 |url-status=dead }}</ref> However, he did not see history as completely deterministic. His essay ''[[The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon]]'' contains the most famous formulation of Marx's view of the role of the individual in history:

{{blockquote|Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under given circumstances directly encountered and inherited from the past.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.marx2mao.com/M&E/EBLB52.html|title=The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte|work=marx2mao.com}}</ref>}}