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Contradiction is one of the most important concepts in Marxist philosophy. When we think about Marxism, we typically think about the contributions that Marx, Engels, Lenin (and many others since) have made specifically to the study of political economy—but there are also deep philosophical underpinnings that form the foundation of Marxist political economy, and one of these foundational philosophies is dialectical materialism.  Dialectical materialism brings together two important components of Marxist thought: dialectics and materialism. Broadly speaking, dialectics is grounded in the idea that in order to understand the world, we must look at things in relation to one another and not as isolated and separate phenomena. And we must also understand that those relations include opposing forces that act in contradiction to one another. For example, the two opposing forces at play in capitalism are the bourgeoisie and the proletariat—or capitalists and workers.  The other part of dialectical materialism, the mat