Research On Marx And Engels’ Theory Of Urban Development

From the perspective of historical materialism,as an important form of human social development,city is not only the product of historical development,but also plays an important role in promoting or influencing the development of history.Although Marx and Engels did not take the problem of urban development as a special topic,because they mainly took the city as the background in their criticism of capitalism,industrial development and workers’ movement,and mostly talked about the content in the process of urban development,this paper believes that the problem of urban development can be highlighted from their text and examined and studied from the perspective of historical materialism.Marx and Engels believed that urban development originated from the development of social productivity,the emergence of social division of labor and the formation of state power.It is constantly changing its form and function with the development of social productivity,the expansion of social division of labor,the change of the nature of state power and the increase of population.Referring to the relevant concepts of ownership in The German Ideology,cities can be said to have experienced the development period of classical antiquity,feudalism and capitalism.They believe that the general law followed by urban development is the development trend from the original urban-rural integration to the urban-rural binary opposition of industrial civilization,and then from the urban-rural binary opposition to the high-quality integration of urban and rural areas in Communist society.On the other hand,urban development plays an important role in social and historical development.Due to the huge gathering capacity of cities to various social resources,it has always occupied the central position of social politics,economy and culture,and played an all-round role in the development of history.It not only plays an important role in improving the level of productivity,enhancing the degree of social division of labor,expanding the scope of social exchanges,promoting the expansion of market scale and promoting the change of social relations,but also plays an important role in the political superstructure and ideological superstructure.It has laid a solid foundation for the realization of human freedom and liberation.Of course,in class society,cities are not only the center of class rule,but also the center of social revolution.Therefore,only by eliminating private ownership,class opposition,urban-rural dual opposition,and finally realizing the high-quality integrated development of urban and rural areas,can cities become the ideal social form of people’s free and all-round development.Marx and Engels’ urban development theory has strong contemporary guiding significance.On the one hand,in the socialist modernization drive of new China,urban and industrial development has played a great role,but the problem of urban-rural dual structure is still prominent.Therefore,the urbanization movement in contemporary China should follow the direction of high-quality integrated development of urban and rural areas.On the other hand,there have been some problems in the city’s own modernization,such as ecological problems,financial expansion,unbalanced distribution and so on.Therefore,urban development should follow the direction conducive to people’s free and all-round development.