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 f ...

societies 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. ...

consist of two parts: the base (or substructure) and superstructure. The base refers to the

mode of production In the Marxist theory of historical materialism, a mode of production (German: ''Produktionsweise'', "the way of producing") is a specific combination of the: * Productive forces: these include human labour power and means of production (tools, ...

which includes the

forces In physics, a force is an influence that can cause an object to change its velocity unless counterbalanced by other forces. In mechanics, force makes ideas like 'pushing' or 'pulling' mathematically precise. Because the magnitude and directi ...

and

relations of production Relations of production () 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 published book '' The Poverty of Philosophy'', al ...

(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, organisations, and nations are endowed with or acquire specialised capabilities, a ...

, 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 a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...

institution An institution is a humanly devised structure of rules and norms that shape and constrain social behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions and ...

role A role (also rôle or social role) is a set of connected behaviors, rights, obligations, beliefs, and norms as conceptualized by people in a social situation. It is an expected or free or continuously changing behavior and may have a given indi ...

ritual A ritual is a repeated, structured sequence of actions or behaviors that alters the internal or external state of an individual, group, or environment, regardless of conscious understanding, emotional context, or symbolic meaning. Traditionally ...

religion Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...

media Media may refer to: Communication * Means of communication, tools and channels used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Interactive media, media that is inter ...

, and

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

. 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), was a French Aristocracy (class), aristocrat, diplomat, political philosopher, and historian. He is best known for his works ''Democracy in America'' (appearing in t ...

's observations, Marx identified

civil society Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.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 ''A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy'' () is a book by Karl Marx, first published in 1859. The book is mainly a critique of political economy achieved by critiquing the writings of the leading theoretical exponents of capitalism ...

'' (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 (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

sociology Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. The term sociol ...

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...

, and

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

as utilized by Marxist scholars. Across these disciplines the base-superstructure relationship, and the contents of each, may take different forms. Among Marxists, the very concept of 'base and superstructure' is contentious. The historian E. P. Thompson argues that:

Meanwhile in serious intellectual circles the argument about basis/superstructure goes ''on and on and on''... A whole continent of discourse is being developed, with its metropolitan centres & its villas in the mountains, which rests, not upon the solid globe of historical evidence, but on the precarious point of a strained metaphor.

Ellen Meiksins Wood says: 'The base/superstructure metaphor has always been more trouble than it is worth', while Terry Eagleton describes base and superstructure as 'this now universally reviled paradigm'.
However, other Marxists continue to insist on the paradigm's importance. For example, in Paul Thomas' words: "Without Marx's juxtaposition of base to superstructure we would probably not be speaking of social contradictions at all but would instead be discussing science, technology, production, labor, the economy, & the state along lines very different from those that are commonplace today". Similarly, from

Chris Harman Christopher John Harman (8 November 1942 – 7 November 2009) was a British journalist and political activist, and a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Workers Party. He was an editor of '' International Socialism'' and '' S ...

: "Far from ignoring the impact of the 'superstructure' on the 'base', as many ignorant critics have claimed for more than a century, Marx builds his whole account of human history around it". Stuart Hall argued, "of the many problems which perforce Marx left in an 'undeveloped' state, none is more crucial than that of 'base & superstructure'.Hall, S. (2019: 143). ''Essential Essays. Volume 1''. Morley, D. (ed.). London: Duke University Press. Hall traces the development of the schema from ''

The German Ideology ''The German Ideology'' (German: ''Die deutsche Ideologie''), also known as ''A Critique of the German Ideology'', is a set of manuscripts written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels around April or early May 1846. Marx and Engels did not find a p ...

'' and Preface to the ''Critique of Political Economy'', in which - according to Hall - Marx and Engels show relations of production form "the base" from which "legal and political superstructures" arise, to its application in both ''

Das Kapital ''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' (), also known as ''Capital'' or (), is the most significant work by Karl Marx and the cornerstone of Marxian economics, published in three volumes in 1867, 1885, and 1894. The culmination of his ...

'' and '' The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte''. The latter work, Hall argues, offered a more sophisticated picture of the interaction between base and superstructure and showed Marx was concerned with the "''necessary complexity'' of the social formations of advancing capitalism and of the relations between its different levels".

Max Weber

Early sociologist

Max Weber Maximilian Carl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German Sociology, sociologist, historian, jurist, and political economy, political economist who was one of the central figures in the development of sociology and the social sc ...

preferred a form of

structuralism Structuralism is an intellectual current and methodological approach, primarily in the social sciences, that interprets elements of human culture by way of their relationship to a broader system. It works to uncover the structural patterns t ...

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 philosophy, Marxist philosopher, Linguistics, linguist, journalist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, Political philosophy, political the ...

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 shape the culture of that society—the beliefs and explanations, perceptions, values, and mores—so that the worldview of the rul ...

(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 Walter Anthony Rodney (23 March 1942 – 13 June 1980) was a Guyanese historian, political activist and academic. His notable works include '' How Europe Underdeveloped Africa'', first published in 1972. He was assassinated in Georgetown, ...

, the Guyanese political activist and African historian, in the 1970s 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. Rodney died in 1980, however, and did not have time to witness the effects of the

Chinese economic reform Reform and opening-up ( zh, s=改革开放, p=Gǎigé kāifàng), also known as the Chinese economic reform or Chinese economic miracle, refers to a variety of economic reforms termed socialism with Chinese characteristics and socialist marke ...

of the 1980s ("socialist market economy") that arguably had made China the greatest capitalist country of the world by 2016.

Freudo-Marxism and sex-economy

Freudo-Marxist Wilhelm Reich's discipline of analysis known as sex economy 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 Critical theory is a social, historical, and political school of thought and philosophical perspective which centers on analyzing and challenging systemic power relations in society, arguing that knowledge, truth, and social structures are ...

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 contribu ...

, 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:

Gilles Deleuze

Gilles Deleuze Gilles Louis René Deleuze (18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes o ...

takes a skeptical stance toward Marx's categorization of ideology as a part of the superstructure. Deleuze argues that this categorization minimizes the role that

desire Desires are states of mind that are expressed by terms like "wanting", "wishing", "longing" or "craving". A great variety of features is commonly associated with desires. They are seen as propositional attitudes towards conceivable states of affa ...

plays in forming such systems. He prefers to view ideology as an illusion altogether. In Deleuze's own words:

R.J. Robinson

Robinson argues that Engels' original argument that superstructures are 'relatively autonomous' of their base is correct but that the detail of the argument (which is based mainly on assertion) is unconvincing. Phrases such as 'in the last instance' or 'reflection' are equally undefined. Developing the argument that superstructures exist to deal with contradictions in the base already put forward by

, Terry Eagleton and others, he argues that it is this contradictoriness that forces superstructures to exist outside the base. However, because they exist to solve problems in the base, they affect the base, yet changes in the base (and therefore in these contradictions) still drive superstructures. Hence the 'relative' element of 'relative autonomy'. At the same time, the fact that superstructures must solve problems that their own base evidently cannot means that they must produce the effects and results that the base cannot. So there must be at least some aspects of the forces and relations of production superstructures use that are different from the base. Therefore, a superstructure's 'system of production' must be in some sense different from the forces and relations present in the underlying mode of production/base. For example, legal systems are controlled by appointed authorities (judges), and not by property owners. Hence the 'autonomous' element of 'relative autonomy'.

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. Robinson observes that all economic activity (and perhaps all human activity) is normative - for example, 'it is unlikely that many enter employment without a sense, unspoken or otherwise, that it is a legitimate or proper thing to do'.

The legality question

A critique of the base and superstructure theory is that property relations (supposedly part of the base and the driving force of history) are more properly situated in legal relations, an element of the superstructure. This suggests that the distinction between base and superstructure is incoherent, and undermines the theory as a whole. Defenders of the theory claim that Marx believed in property relations and social relations of production as two separate entities. G.A. Cohen offers a detailed textual analysis to argue this was based on a false interpretation of Marx's position. Robinson argues that legality does not make exploitation possible, but only defines the rules through which it is managed socially when it becomes problematic. Legal definitions of wage labour were only articulated when those workers began to show their strength. Long before that, wage labour and a working class had existed without any notion of a formal contract between legal equals. Law regarding slavery likewise concerned mainly rules for relations between slave-holders (buying and selling, warranties, etc.), and have never been required for slavery to exist. Conversely, in modern societies, domestic labour is barely addressed by law; plainly this is not because it is not prevalent, but because it is not sufficiently contentious to become a matter of significant political dispute, and therefore to require a legal form.

Neoliberalism and the state

Colin Jenkins provides (2014) a critique on the role of the capitalist state in the era of

neoliberalism Neoliberalism is a political and economic ideology that advocates for free-market capitalism, which became dominant in policy-making from the late 20th century onward. The term has multiple, competing definitions, and is most often used pe ...

, using base and superstructure theory as well as the work of

Nicos Poulantzas Nicos Poulantzas ( ; 21 September 1936 – 3 October 1979) was a Greek-French Marxist political sociologist and philosopher. In the 1970s, Poulantzas was known, along with Louis Althusser, as a leading structural Marxist; while at first a Leni ...

. 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.

References

External links

Marxist Media Theory
{{DEFAULTSORT:Base And Superstructure Marxist terminology Marxist theory Marxian economics Sociological terminology