Objective vs. subjective stuff: same as base-superstructure?

[Die Neue Zeit]

I'm a bit miffed at the throwing around of the words "objective dynamic/factors" and "subjective dynamic/factors." Where in Marx and Engels were these words first used? Were they used to mean the same thing as the reductionist base-superstructure?

[¿Que?]

I don't know about the first question, but I certainly wouldn't simply discard the base/superstructure metaphor as reductionist. Marx specifically talks about this in the preface to a critique on political economy. It is only reductionist insofar as social change occurs only through changes in the economic base, which in turn negates the whole idea of the proletariat gaining political power, otherwise not affecting anything if the reductionist argument was correct.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I discarded it years ago, in fact. My model is the internal structure of the Earth, plus a little bit of the atmosphere and beyond:


Related to both of the above aspects is the reductionist (nowadays, or perhaps since Vladimir Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg) base-superstructure analysis of society. Back then, Marx was probably using the static analogy of buildings – the architecture of which is not learned by youths in school – as the basis of his analysis. However, it does not describe the motion, flux, shifting balances of forces, and other changes that form the dynamic reality of class struggle and all of human civilization. On the other hand, something like the structure of the Earth – which is learned by youths in school – does. There is a solid inner core, a liquid outer core, a rocky mantle but with creeping convection – the driving force for plate tectonics – and a crust. Part of the "base" is still static, and this is analogous to the solid inner core. As for organization, perhaps it is best for mantle convection to be the best analogy. After all, without it, there are no plate movements, which facilitate the enablement of complex chemistry and recycling of carbon dioxide. In other words, without convection, there would be no life on Earth!

Some may argue that this new, more dynamic analogy does not link changes in the core to changes in the crust, which was the whole point of Marx’s analogy of buildings. However, the liquid-iron outer core is the source of Earth’s geomagnetic field and magnetosphere, which in turn protects life on Earth’s crust from the fatal particles of the solar wind!

[robbo203]

I don't know about the first question, but I certainly wouldn't simply discard the base/superstructure metaphor as reductionist. Marx specifically talks about this in the preface to a critique on political economy. It is only reductionist insofar as social change occurs only through changes in the economic base, which in turn negates the whole idea of the proletariat gaining political power, otherwise not affecting anything if the reductionist argument was correct.


True but then I guess it could be argued that the gaining of political power was itself impelled by economic factors which supplied the basic motive for the proletariat to do so.

This distinction between objective and subjective factors has always struck me as somewhat suspect. - certainly in the social sciences where the idea that you can talk about a "value free" perspective is hogwash but even in the natural sciences it is questionable

[blake 3:17]

It could be worth going over some discussions of the subject from Stuart Hall & his crowd.

I've always been puzzled by Engels & Althusser about the economic being the 'final' determinant. My life is oriented towards the cultural and ideological which can make elements of the base seem unimportant.

I am disappointed my many left discussions which don't really address questions of labour and production in a sensible way.