Base and superstructure: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 11:19, 2 February 2025

Revision as of 14:48, 10 June 2025

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Among Marxists, the very concept of 'base and superstructure' is contentious. The historian [[E. P. Thompson]] argues that:<blockquote>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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Thompson |first=E.P. |title=The Poverty of Theory & Other Essays |publisher=Merlin |year=1978 |___location=London |pages=330}}</ref></blockquote>[[Ellen Meiksins Wood]] says: 'The base/superstructure metaphor has always been more trouble than it is worth',<ref>Wood, E.M. (1990: 126). 'Falling through the cracks: E.P. Thompson and the debate on base and superstructure.' In Kaye and McClelland (1990: 124-152).</ref> while [[Terry Eagleton]] describes base and superstructure as 'this now universally reviled paradigm'.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Eagleton |first=Terry |date=2000 |title=Base and superstructure revisited |journal=New Literary History |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=231–40|doi=10.1353/nlh.2000.0018 }}</ref><br>

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".<ref>Thomas, P. (1991). 'Critical reception: Marx then and now.' In Carver (1991: 23-54), ''The Cambridge Companion To Marx''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</ref> Similarly, from [[Chris Harman]]: "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".<ref>Harman, C. (1998). ''Marxism and History. Two Essays''. London: Bookmarks.</ref> [[Stuart Hall (cultural theorist)|Stuart Hall]] argued, "of the many problems which perforce Marx left in an 'undeveloped' state, none is more crucial than that of 'base & superstructure'.<ref name="ReferenceA">Hall, S. (2019: 143). ''Essential Essays. Volume 1''. Morley, D. (ed.). London: Duke University Press.</ref>

Hall traces the development of the schema from ''[[The German Ideology]]'' 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]]'' and ''[[The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte]]''.<ref>Hall, S. (2019: 143). ''Essential Essays. Volume 1''. Morley, D. (ed.). London: Duke University Press.<name="ReferenceA"/ref> 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".<ref>Hall, S. (2019: 143). ''Essential Essays. Volume 1''. Morley, D. (ed.). London: Duke University Press.<name="ReferenceA"/ref>

===Max Weber===

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Developing the argument that superstructures exist to deal with contradictions in the base already put forward by [[Antonio Gramsci]], [[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'.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Robinson |first=R.J. |title=Base and Superstructure. Understanding Marxism's Second Biggest Idea |publisher=Putnery:2 |year=2023 |isbn=9781838193843 |edition=2nd |___location=Alton |pages=Chs 3–5}}</ref>

===Can the base be separated from the superstructure?===