How did Karl Marx use the dialectical method to explain social change?

Karl Marx adapted the dialectical method from G.W.F. Hegel, but he transformed it by grounding it in the material world rather than in the "world spirit" or abstract ideas. For Marx, social change is driven by the internal contradictions inherent in the material conditions of human existence.123

Marx argued that history is a process of class struggle, where the fundamental "motor of history" is the tension between the material forces of production and the existing social relations of production. When the mode of social organization—such as legal or political institutions—becomes an impediment to the development of productive forces, a contradiction arises.134

This conflict is not resolved through abstract thought but through concrete, revolutionary action. As these contradictions reach an extreme point, the existing society is superseded by a new, more advanced economic system. Ultimately, Marx believed this dialectical process would lead to the end of class antagonisms and the establishment of a society where the free development of each individual is the condition for the free development of all.1253