 For Hook, the connection between Marxism and pragmatism ran deeper than the connection between knowledge as an instrument of change in pragmatism and knowledge as an instrument for revolutionary transformation in Marxism. On Hook’s interpretation, Marx’s theory could be identified as an application of scientific method to social and economic history. The Marxist theory would then be justified in the same way that any scientific hypothesis would be justified, that is, through confirmation by empirical evidence. Thus, the Marxist interpretation of the “contradiction of capitalism” could be interpreted as a verifiable empirical hypothesis about the ways in which the class relations of production, that is, the ways the manufactured and agricultural enterprises of a country were owned and managed, fettered or blocked the social forces of production, that is, the ability of these enterprises to produce a much greater volume of products that could more fully satisfy the needs of persons in a society. The revolutionary slogan calling for the liberation of the social forces of production directed against the class relations of capitalist society could be interpreted as a verifiable empirical hypothesis that socializing the means of production would bring about a far greater volume of products and their distribution to a much greater range of persons in the society. Along these lines, Marxism represented the application of scientific method to the current empirical realities of society. Hook did not balk at referring to Marxism as developing a “science of history.” Similarly, he referred to the Marxist theory and practice of revolution as analogous to the Deweyan model of the application of scientific method to the resolution of a problematic situation.