Was talking to a classmate about Cuba and told him how embargoes and meddling is one of the main reasons that Cuba is so isolated and behind in many fields compared to other countries.
He snarkily asks why Cuba cares about sanctions since they're communist and shouldn't care about capitalist trade. I reply with something like "because they're marxist, and marxists don't believe in utopia." He gives me a blank stare so I continued talking about how the post cold war system is capitalist, so regardless of what you truly believe in, you have to play according to their rules. If the the system was socialist, then any remaining capitalist country will have to play by the socialists' rules or be left out.
He then says that's proof that Cuba is a failed state because they can't produce everything domestically and need to rely on other countries and that capitalists wouldn't need to play by anyone's rules. I told him that if Taiwan became communist or was reunited with China, the US would be on its knees begging to have access to its technology (okay, I didn't say those exact words because I was trying to stay away from snark). He had no idea what I was talking about regarding Taiwan's tech, so I then brought up how there are more failing capitalist countries in Africa and the Middle East and Latin America than there are existing socialist countries - which for the most part, are doing much better.
He then went on about how religious people are stupid and how Islam is the cause of most of the major conflicts of the modern world without any sort of outside influence. At this point I just chuckled and he ended the conversation. :wall-talk: He's a self proclaimed liberal, though I believe it.
Guess his major
Big 'M' Materialism is the belief that the physical conditions of the world are the primary variables in how history unfolds. Ideology - beliefs, cultures, values - can and do influence history, but the Material will always take precedence.
In this example, the PoliSci Major believe Cuba's modern woes are the result of their communist ideology. While this is a belief about a material place that exists in the world, it is not a 'Materialist' analysis. The perspective is divorced from the historical conditions of the region. Cuba has been under U.S. embargo since the sixties. There have been numerous attempts by the Central Intelligence Agency to destabilize the government and assassinate leaders.
If historical factors are not present in an analysis, if one doesn't acknowledge that the woes of a given nation are not 100% the result of ideology, then the analysis is less Materialist - regardless of the conclusions reached.
Again, you are saying that the statement is not materialist because it is detached from reality. Notice how showing that it is detached from reality with evidence is already sufficient in refuting the statement, without involving materialism at all. Materialist here is only a rigid signifier that confirms whether something is correct/incorrect.
Besides, ideology is not seperate from a materialist analysis
You are correct, I simplified for expediency's sake.
I was under the impression Materialism was a first-princaples approach to understanding history. Is there more to it?