I find it helps to develop a mindset of thinking in terms of dynamic systems where you can identify forces acting upon the system and try to understand likely ways the system will evolve as whole. For example, if we’re dealing with capitalist relations be it today or a century ago, the forces within the system form an invariant. We have people who own substantial capital and those who do not. Their interests form a contradiction because they are fundamentally opposed to each other. If I’m a business owner then my desire is to minimize my costs an maximize profits, while if I’m a worker selling my labour I want to maximize my salary and benefits. Once we frame the problem in these terms we can try to think about potential resolutions to these contradictions, and that’s where historical record becomes informative. If we can identify similar situations in the past, they can inform us on what we can expect going forward.
I find it helps to develop a mindset of thinking in terms of dynamic systems where you can identify forces acting upon the system and try to understand likely ways the system will evolve as whole. For example, if we’re dealing with capitalist relations be it today or a century ago, the forces within the system form an invariant. We have people who own substantial capital and those who do not. Their interests form a contradiction because they are fundamentally opposed to each other. If I’m a business owner then my desire is to minimize my costs an maximize profits, while if I’m a worker selling my labour I want to maximize my salary and benefits. Once we frame the problem in these terms we can try to think about potential resolutions to these contradictions, and that’s where historical record becomes informative. If we can identify similar situations in the past, they can inform us on what we can expect going forward.