How did changes in the means of production create conflict in Marx’s theory of history?

In Karl Marx’s theory of historical materialism, conflict arises from the dynamic tension between the "material forces of production" (tools, technology, and raw materials) and the "social relations of production" (the division of labor and property ownership).12

As human knowledge and technology advance, the material forces of production evolve, eventually outgrowing the existing social and legal structures that regulate them. This creates a fundamental contradiction: the old relations of production—such as those defining who owns the means of production—become a barrier to the further development of these new forces.1342

This structural mismatch manifests as class struggle, the "motor of history," where the class that owns the means of production (the ruling class) clashes with the class that performs the labor (the working class). Marx argued that these contradictions are not merely individual disputes but are embedded in the conditions of social existence, inevitably leading to revolutionary upheavals that replace the old economic system with a more advanced one.1345