In
Marxist theory
Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are works in philosophy that are strongly influenced by Karl Marx's materialist approach to theory, or works written by Marxists. Marxist philosophy may be broadly divided into Western Marxism, which drew fro ...
,
society
A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Soc ...
consists of two parts: the base (or substructure) and superstructure. The base refers to the
mode of production which includes the
forces and
relations of production
Relations of production (german: Produktionsverhältnisse, links=no) is a concept frequently used by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their theory of historical materialism and in ''Das Kapital''. It is first explicitly used in Marx's publish ...
(e.g. employer–employee work conditions, the technical
division of labour
The division of labour is the separation of the tasks in any economic system or organisation so that participants may specialise (specialisation). Individuals, organizations, and nations are endowed with, or acquire specialised capabilities, an ...
, and property relations) into which people enter to produce the necessities and amenities of life. The superstructure refers to society's other relationships and ideas not directly relating to
production including its
culture
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...
,
institution
Institutions are humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions a ...
s, political
power structures,
roles,
ritual
A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized ...
s,
religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...
,
media, and
state. The relation of the two parts is not strictly unidirectional. The superstructure can affect the base. However the influence of the base is predominant.
Model and qualification
In developing
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville (; 29 July 180516 April 1859), colloquially known as Tocqueville (), was a French aristocrat, diplomat, political scientist, political philosopher and historian. He is best known for his wo ...
's observations, Marx identified
civil society as the economic base and
political society as the political superstructure. Marx postulated the essentials of the base–superstructure concept in his preface to ''
A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy'' (1859):
Marx's "base determines superstructure" axiom, however, requires qualification:
#the ''base'' is the whole of productive relationships, not only a given economic element, e.g. the working class
#historically, the ''superstructure'' varies and develops unevenly in society's different activities; for example, art, politics, economics, etc.
#the ''base–superstructure'' relationship is ''reciprocal''; Engels explains that the base determines the superstructure ''only in the last instance''.
Applications and revisions
Marx's theory of base and superstructure can be found in the disciplines of
political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and ...
,
sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...
,
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...
, and
psychology
Psychology is the science, scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immens ...
as utilized by Marxist scholars. Across these disciplines the base-superstructure relationship, and the contents of each, may take different forms.
Max Weber
Early sociologist
Max Weber
Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas p ...
preferred a form of
structuralism over a base and superstructure model of society in which he proposes that the base and superstructure are reciprocal in causality—neither economic rationality nor normative ideas rule the domain of society. In summarizing results from his East Elbia research he notes that, contrary to the base and superstructure model "we have become used to," there exists a reciprocal relationship between the two.
Antonio Gramsci
The Italian political philosopher
Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Francesco Gramsci ( , , ; 22 January 1891 – 27 April 1937) was an Italian Marxist philosopher, journalist, linguist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, political theory, sociology, history, and linguistics. He was a fo ...
divided
Marx's superstructure into two elements: political society and civil society. Political society consists of the organized force of society (such as the police and military) while civil society refers to the consensus-creating elements that contribute to
cultural hegemony
In Marxist philosophy, cultural hegemony is the dominance of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class who manipulate the culture of that society—the beliefs and explanations, perceptions, values, and mores—so that the worldview o ...
(such as the media and education system.) Both constituents of this superstructure are still informed by the values of the base, serving to establish and enforce these values in society.
Walter Rodney
Walter Rodney, the Guyanese political activist and African historian, discussed the role of
Marx's superstructure in the context of development cycles and colonialism. Rodney states that while most countries follow a developmental structure that evolves from feudalism to capitalism, China is an exception to this rule and skipped the capitalism step:
The explanation is very complex, but in general terms the main differences between feudal Europe and feudal China lay in the superstructure – i.e. in the body of beliefs, motivations and sociopolitical institutions which derived from the material base but in turn affected it. In China, religious, educational and bureaucratic qualifications were of utmost importance, and government was in the hands of state officials rather than being run by the landlords on their own feudal estates.
By extension this means that the Marxist development cycle is malleable due to cultural superstructures, and is not an inevitable path. Rather the role of the superstructure allows for adaptation of the development cycle, especially in a colonial context.
Freudo-Marxism and sex-economy
Freudo-Marxist
Freudo-Marxism is a loose designation for philosophical perspectives informed by both the Marxist philosophy of Karl Marx and the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud. It has a rich history within continental philosophy, beginning in the 1920s ...
Wilhelm Reich's discipline of analysis known as
sex economy Sexual economics relates to how participants think, feel, behave and give feedback during sex or relevant sexual events. This theory states that the thinking, preferences and behavior of men and women follow the fundamental economic principles. It w ...
is an attempt to understand the divergence of the perceived base and superstructure that occurred during the
global economic crisis from 1929 to 1933. To make sense of this phenomenon, Reich recategorized social ideology as an element in the base—not the superstructure. In this new categorization, social ideology and social psychology is a material process that self-perpetuates, the same way economic systems in the base perpetuate themselves. Reich focused on the role of
sexual repression in the patriarchal family system as a way to understand how mass support for Fascism could arise in a society.
Critical theory
Contemporary Marxist interpretations such as those of
critical theory reject this interpretation of the base–superstructure interaction and examine how each affects and conditions the other.
Raymond Williams
Raymond Henry Williams (31 August 1921 – 26 January 1988) was a Welsh socialist writer, academic, novelist and critic influential within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the media and literature contrib ...
, for example, argues against loose, "popular" usage of base and superstructure as discrete entities which, he explains, is not the intention of Marx and Engels:
Can the base be separated from the superstructure?
John Plamenatz makes two counterclaims regarding the clear-cut separation of the base and superstructure. The first is that economic structure is independent from production in many cases, with relations of production or property also having a strong effect on production.
The second claim is that relations of production can only be defined with normative terms—this implies that social life and humanity's morality cannot be truly separated as both are defined in a normative sense.
The legality question
A criticism of the base and superstructure theory is that
property relations
Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...
(supposedly part of the base and the driving force of history) are actually defined by legal relations, an element of the superstructure. Defenders of the theory claim that Marx believed in property relations and social relations of production as two separate entities.
Neoliberalism and the state
Colin Jenkins provides (2014) a critique on the role of the capitalist state in the era of
neoliberalism
Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent f ...
, using base and superstructure theory as well as the work of
Nicos Poulantzas. Regarding developments in the United States during this era (roughly 1980–2015), Jenkins highlights the nature in which political parties and the political system itself are inherently designed to protect the economic base of capitalism and, in doing so, have become "increasingly centralized, coordinated, and synchronized over the past half-century." This, according to Jenkins, has led to a "corporate-fascistic state of being" that is challenging the equilibrium of this fragile relationship. His analysis specifically addresses the role of both major parties, Democrats and Republicans, in the United States:
Triviality
Neven Sesardic agrees that the economic base of society affects its superstructure, however he questions how meaningful this actually is. While the original claim of a strong form of economic determinism was radical, Sesardic argues that it was watered down to the trivial claim that the base affects the superstructure and vice versa, something no philosopher would dispute. Thus Sesardic argues that Marx's claim ultimately amounts to nothing more than a trivial observation that does not make meaningful statements or explain anything about the real world.
See also
*
Althusser
*
Classical Marxism
Classical Marxism refers to the economic, philosophical, and sociological theories expounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as contrasted with later developments in Marxism, especially Marxism–Leninism.
Karl Marx
Karl Marx (5 May 1818, ...
*
Criticism of Marxism
*
Critique of political economy
*
Cultural hegemony
In Marxist philosophy, cultural hegemony is the dominance of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class who manipulate the culture of that society—the beliefs and explanations, perceptions, values, and mores—so that the worldview o ...
*
Dialectical materialism
*
Economic determinism
*
False consciousness
*
Historical materialism
Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborat ...
*
Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses
*
Materialism
*
Reification
*
Social change
Social change is the alteration of the social order of a society which may include changes in social institutions, social behaviours or social relations.
Definition
Social change may not refer to the notion of social progress or soci ...
*
Social structure
References
Further reading
*
Althusser, Louis and
Balibar, Étienne. ''
Reading Capital''. London: Verso, 2009.
*
Bottomore, Tom (ed). ''A Dictionary of Marxist Thought'', 2nd ed. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing, 1991. 45–48.
*
Calhoun, Craig (ed), ''Dictionary of the Social Sciences'' Oxford University Press (2002)
*
Hall, Stuart. "Rethinking the Base and Superstructure Metaphor." ''Papers on Class, Hegemony and Party''. Bloomfield, J., ed. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1977.
*
Chris Harman.
Base and Superstructure. ''International Socialism'' 2:32, Summer 1986, pp. 3–44.
*
Harvey, David. ''A Companion to Marx's Capital.'' London: Verso, 2010.
* Larrain, Jorge. ''Marxism and Ideology''. Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1983.
*
Lukács, Georg. ''History and Class Consciousness''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1972.
*
Postone, Moishe. ''Time, Labour, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory.'' Cambridge
ngland Cambridge University Press, 1993.
*
Williams, Raymond. ''Marxism and Literature''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.
External links
Marxist Media Theory
{{DEFAULTSORT:Base And Superstructure
Marxist terminology
Marxist theory
Marxian economics
Sociological terminology