Base and Superstructure

Abstract

Abstract In the preface to the first published installment of his critique of political economy, Marx presented the classic statement of the base and superstructure metaphor. Sketching the “guiding thread” of his work, Marx noted that humankind enters determinate, necessary social relations of production appropriate to a determinate developmental stage of the material forces of production. These relations, comprised of real individuals, their activity, and the material conditions in which they live, constitute the “economic structure” – the real basis of the legal and political superstructure and determinate forms of social consciousness. The material infrastructure, Marx maintained, was the real locus of fundamental transformation – not new ideas or changes in the superstructure. The social relations of production – property relations – initially facilitate but later fetter the development of the material forces of production, leading to social change. The material forces of production consist of raw materials, machinery, technology, production facilities and labor power. The conscious, revolutionary subject – the proletariat – is one of the productive forces. Similarly, the social relations of production include workers' aggregation in increasingly larger factories which could influence class consciousness and fuel revolutionary enthusiasm. Read this way, Marx's position is not objectively (or structurally) deterministic.