Is the base-superstructure relationship dialectical?

[Questionable]

Do the beliefs present in the superstructure turn around to shape class realities (Like racism or sexism), or is the relationship always one-way?

[Caj]

Yes, it is a dialectical relationship between the base and the superstructure, wherein the base is only ultimately decisive. As Engels said:

According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life. Other than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase. The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure — political forms of the class struggle and its results, to wit: constitutions established by the victorious class after a successful battle, etc., juridical forms, and even the reflexes of all these actual struggles in the brains of the participants, political, juristic, philosophical theories, religious views and their further development into systems of dogmas — also exercise their influence upon the course of the historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form.
( http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_09_21.htm)

[RedMaterialist]

Do the beliefs present in the superstructure turn around to shape class realities (Like racism or sexism), or is the relationship always one-way?

It seems to me that racism and sexism are themselves part of the super-structure. (Race and gender are social constructs, etc.) Under feudalism and slavery, women and slaves are owned by a master class, thus their status is part of the super-structure. Under capitalism, as production expands and women and minorities are necessary to maintain the expanding scale of production, then the sexism and racism tend to recede. Obviously, this happens over hundreds of years, but who would have thought even twenty yrs ago that a black man could be president of the u.s.

[hetz]

Yes, of course.


The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism by weapons, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses. Theory is capable of gripping the masses as soon as it demonstrates ad hominem, and it demonstrates ad hominem as soon as it becomes radical. To be radical is to grasp the root of the matter. But for man the root is man himself.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/df-jahrbucher/law-abs.htm

[Rafiq]

Do the beliefs present in the superstructure turn around to shape class realities (Like racism or sexism), or is the relationship always one-way?

The relationship between what we call the "base" and the "superstructure" is not so simplistic. It doesn't have to necessarily be one way, and it certainly doesn't necessarily have to be an exact two way relationship, i.e. With ideas actually producing and preceding material development. Of course it is unquestionable, that there is a limited two way relationship. Social relations produce Ideas, Ideas which then on their own produce more and influence the ways in which people behave, and as Engels said, shape the form in which class relations exist. Now, what does Engels mean by this? Firstly, he recognized ideas can never shape class relations. They can only shape the rhetorical form in which those objectively existing class relations present themselves as. In the Untied States, just sixty years ago false conscious conflicts took place between people of different ethnicities. In some places, this can assume the form of religious groups, and so on. These Ideas, however, must be adjusted in accordance with these existing material realities, they cannot exist divorced from which. These ideas must furtherly reinforce the existing class interest of which they are a refleciton of, or else they do not work. There is a reason why the 'creative' thesis's of humans are extremely irrelivant. There is a reason the Communist movement does not exist in the same form it did a hundred years ago: It either has no class basis (and therefore is reaching an impending destruction) or serves the interests of other classes (Eurocommunist parties, for example). Though ideas do not reinforce existing social relations on a direct level most of the time. For example, most of the bourgeois class would not profess support for Eurocommunist parties yet these parties would still reinforce their hegemony, or at the least the hegemony of capital. While of course it should even be pressuposed that ideas influence the way in which we perceive each other and behave, we must understand their origins. There is no dialectical relationship between Idealism and Materialism otherwise a "materialist analysis" would just be a position on a universal 'chicken or the egg' argument from the dawn of human civilization (I.e. Material conditions were first, and for the next thousand years we concur with idealists). That is not Marxism. Ideas can only operate within the material context they are birthed in. How then, is communism possible? There is a reason Marx explicitly stated that the embryo of Communism exists within capitalism. It is because Communism is the ideological manifestation of the interests of a real existing class interest which is the greatest component, the greatest distinguisher of capitalist social relations, the proletarian class. Just as capitalism carries it's own systemic contradictions, it does on an ideological level as well. The interests of the proletariat are diametrically opposed to that of the bourgeoisie, the ruling class within capitalism, and it is this material reality which makes Communism, or anther mode of production possible (Class contradiction).

[Questionable]

The relationship between what we call the "base" and the "superstructure" is not so simplistic. It doesn't have to necessarily be one way, and it certainly doesn't necessarily have to be an exact two way relationship, i.e. With ideas actually producing and preceding material development. Of course it is unquestionable, that there is a limited two way relationship. Social relations produce Ideas, Ideas which then on their own produce more and influence the ways in which people behave, and as Engels said, shape the form in which class relations exist. Now, what does Engels mean by this? Firstly, he recognized ideas can never shape class relations. They can only shape the rhetorical form in which those objectively existing class relations present themselves as. In the Untied States, just sixty years ago false conscious conflicts took place between people of different ethnicities. In some places, this can assume the form of religious groups, and so on. These Ideas, however, must be adjusted in accordance with these existing material realities, they cannot exist divorced from which. These ideas must furtherly reinforce the existing class interest of which they are a refleciton of, or else they do not work. There is a reason why the 'creative' thesis's of humans are extremely irrelivant. There is a reason the Communist movement does not exist in the same form it did a hundred years ago: It either has no class basis (and therefore is reaching an impending destruction) or serves the interests of other classes (Eurocommunist parties, for example). Though ideas do not reinforce existing social relations on a direct level most of the time. For example, most of the bourgeois class would not profess support for Eurocommunist parties yet these parties would still reinforce their hegemony, or at the least the hegemony of capital. While of course it should even be pressuposed that ideas influence the way in which we perceive each other and behave, we must understand their origins. There is no dialectical relationship between Idealism and Materialism otherwise a "materialist analysis" would just be a position on a universal 'chicken or the egg' argument from the dawn of human civilization (I.e. Material conditions were first, and for the next thousand years we concur with idealists). That is not Marxism. Ideas can only operate within the material context they are birthed in. How then, is communism possible? There is a reason Marx explicitly stated that the embryo of Communism exists within capitalism. It is because Communism is the ideological manifestation of the interests of a real existing class interest which is the greatest component, the greatest distinguisher of capitalist social relations, the proletarian class. Just as capitalism carries it's own systemic contradictions, it does on an ideological level as well. The interests of the proletariat are diametrically opposed to that of the bourgeoisie, the ruling class within capitalism, and it is this material reality which makes Communism, or anther mode of production possible (Class contradiction).

I think I get most of what you're saying but would it be possible to give me some more real life examples so I could comprehend more easily?

[Rafiq]

I think I get most of what you're saying but would it be possible to give me some more real life examples so I could comprehend more easily?

During the times of Feudalism class relations to the mode of production existed in a less dynamic and abrupt way than they do today in capitalism. The church existed as a mediation between the conflicting interests of the feudal aristocracy. And thus, Christianity was a superstructure of existing feudal relations. But again, Christianity influenced the way in which several social relations expressed themselves, but it did not shape the actual social relations. The church as an entity may or may not have been aware of it's role in sustaining Feudalism, but because of it's ignorance, this process of perceiving yourself of being an instrument of a higher conscious being they for filled, unknowingly, the interests of the feudal aristocracy. They are doing it, but they don't know it. In this same sense, the ways in which ideas actualize themselves and influence humans do so to reinforce existing class relations, but not on a completely apparent or direct level.

[Marxaveli]

The Base and Superstructure have a symbiotic relationship and thus influence one another, but the Base is predominant as I understand it. Since afterall you need a Base to have a Superstructure. In any given social organization of society, the Superstructure functions in accordance to the Base and its needs. For example, in the 1950's Jim Crow Laws were profitable to the white ruling class, but the Civil Rights Movement in the mid 60's changed that - and that is why it is no longer profitable to be openly racist. Of course, racism isn't gone any means, it is alive and well as its ever been. But it now takes the form of 'symbolic racism' instead. Blacks can now hold public office, vote, sit anywhere they want on a bus, and so forth - but they are also still one of the poorest demographics, have less opportunity to move up the social and economic ladder than whites, and their demographic makes up a majority of the prison population. In fact, some statistics report that there are more African Americans incarcerated today than there were slaves before the Civil War, though I am not sure if such claims are true or not. It seems plausible given the population increase since then, and the development of the 3-strikes laws and 'war on drugs' policies that were blatant attacks on minority communities. In any case, mass incarceration is no coincidental or abstract concept, it is an objective material process within the Superstructure that is in deliberately in place as a leftover remnant from the slavery days - in the late 17th century when the concept of a 'master race' and a 'inferior race' was birthed, the white ruling class (or the so-called 1%) held 45% of all the nations wealth. Today, those statistics are about the same, even though slavery doesn't exist anymore, and white males still hold the overwhelming majority of the top positions in society.

The point is, institutions and ideologies, as parts of the Superstructure, operate in accordance to the material needs required to preserve the Base.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

It seems to me that racism and sexism are themselves part of the super-structure. (Race and gender are social constructs, etc.) Under feudalism and slavery, women and slaves are owned by a master class, thus their status is part of the super-structure. Under capitalism, as production expands and women and minorities are necessary to maintain the expanding scale of production, then the sexism and racism tend to recede. Obviously, this happens over hundreds of years, but who would have thought even twenty yrs ago that a black man could be president of the u.s.
This is true to an extent but I disagree. Mao once said that if we are to understand everything dialetically then we need to grasp the fact that while these social constructs come from the super structure, their need came from the material base, and they can become "self-determining constructs". For example, since the material basis of anti-black racism has disappeared(slavery) theoretically speaking, racism towards blacks should have ended. However this racism in turn created a demand for comedy that plays on the mockery of negative black stereotypes and as a result an industry has been created that must perpetrate black stereotypes in movies, songs, and music, in order to maintain the demand for it's products. This is a good example of how a social construct can become a material force.