For Ryerson, an understanding of social relations was paramount if one was to garner an understanding of history; his encounter with Innis's materialism led Ryerson to the charge that equated Marxism and economic determinism. He wrote "Marxism holds that it is the people who make history-their labor and their struggles and their dreams; and that these are understandable and have meaning when seen in their real setting…." He added, "Labor, production, the real relationships of living society: this is the point of departure for historical materialism….Thought and feelings, ideas and passion and imagination have their being in a material world, are conditioned by it, work upon it." Ryerson's approach to history is that of a man who sees the struggles and ideas of people as the driving force behind history. He did not believe they operate within a vacuum but within a given social system. Ryerson recognised the interplay of freedom and necessity within the development of history "as it is in the best Marxist historical writing."