Origin of the superstructure

[december]

Hello. I am trying to understand how the superstructure emerges from the base. My original understanding was that the elements of the superstructure, such as law, religion, education, and state, emerge as a sort of conspiracy that the bourgeoisie perpetuate against the proletariat. I questioned this when I thought this required too much human intentionality for a materialist theory.

Reading Ralph Dahrendorf I understand now that the superstructure can emerge as a way for the bourgeoisie to regulate their relations to one another without the conscious impeteus to exploit per se. However I need some eludication of this and some examples of this. Any thoughts? Thanks.

[Blake's Baby]

Well, there has been a superstructure for a lot longer than there has been a bourgeoisie, and in general the forms of the superstructure continue to exist long after their content has disappeared. New exploiting classes rarely destroy large parts of the existing structures of society, instead they take them over and use them. I suspect this has been the case since the establishment of chiefdoms in the Bronze Age (or whatever). Most 'revolutions' before the Paris Commune deliberately clad themselves in a rhetoric of a 'return' to an earlier more harmonious state. thus, they weren't positioning themselves in opposition to the system, it was easier to say that system was basically OK but the people running it had lost sight of... God's plan, the true way, the ancient freeedoms of (insert mythical ethnic or political group here) etc.

I'm not sure intentionality is really an issue. If the 'new order' is really couched in terms of a return to or a purification of the old order, the superstructure isn't intentionally created, but it does mutate in something like an intentional way. This is in line with historical materialism - 'man makes history, but not in circumstances of his own chosing', after all.

Just some semi-random thoughts. Hope they help some.

[december]

Thanks. That is great info. You are right they use the existing structures often. I guess like when Christians started trying to convert, often violently, Pagans that they considered barbaric they kept the Pagan holidays and some traditions, that might be an example.

As far as changes being a reversion to an earlier form, sometimes a perceived golden age, that was interesting. The history comment summed up that part well. Thanks again.