Base and Superstructure

[Vanguard1917]

Can base and superstructure be divided into two seperate categories, or are they inseparably linked - dialectically? Is it even possible to speak methodologically of a base and a superstructure, or is it more accurate (and fruitful) to study society as a totality?

[Monty Cantsin]

"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.."

Engels to J. Boloch September, 1890.

"Political, juridical, philosophical, religious, literary, artistic, etc., development is based on economic development. But all these react upon one another and also upon the economic base. It is not that the economic position is the cause and alone active, while everything else only has a passive effect. There is, rather, interaction on the basis of the economic necessity, which ultimately always asserts itself."

Letter from Engels to Starkenburg January 25, 1894

[Vanguard1917]

Some Marxists claim that Engels did not fully "understand" the dialectic - or, rather, in his popularisation of Marxism, that he "vulgarised" Marxism somewhat. Georg Lukacs is one of them. For example, Engels liked to make references to natural evolution in explaining social evolution - more than Marx ever did. (At Marx's funeral he made a direct comparison between Marx's discoveries and those of Darwin.) Therefore, in doing so, some say that he negated the role of human consciousness and subjectivity.


"Political, juridical, philosophical, religious, literary, artistic, etc., development is based on economic development. But all these react upon one another and also upon the economic base. It is not that the economic position is the cause and alone active, while everything else only has a passive effect. There is, rather, interaction on the basis of the economic necessity, which ultimately always asserts itself."

In my opinion, this is a correct Marxist standpoint. But the problem is that it could easily be misinterpreted and vulgarised - as was the case with the "Marxism" of Stalin's Comintern, for example. A key theme in Marx's writings (particularly in his earlier writings and in his criticisms of the materialism of other thinkers) is the emphasis on human subjectivity and agency. I think when this emphasis is downplayed, we end up with a fatalistic worldview that does actually reduce the role of humanity to that of a passive bystander.

[Monty Cantsin]

Economic reductionism and historical determism are often thought of what 'Marxism' was about but it’s a complete vulgarisation of Marx’s “philosophy of praxis” as Gramsci used to call it.

I think if you want to understand Marx you have to read a selection of his earlier writings on Hegel, history and then his later writings to find the continuity between them. But also read some of Marx and Engels latter letters responding to misunderstandings which for some reason large groups of revolutionaries still stick too.

Cyril Smith is good along with Marxist Humanists and autonomist Marxists.

[Vanguard1917]

I think if you want to understand Marx you have to read a selection of his earlier writings on Hegel, history and then his later writings to find the continuity between them.

After Lenin made a study of Hegel in 1914, he said that in order to fully understand Marx's Capital one has to have an understanding of Hegel's The Science of Logic ( :( ).

[Monty Cantsin]

you can find heaps of second hand Literature on Hegel though so it's not so bad.

[Vanguard1917]

you can find heaps of second hand Literature on Hegel though so it's not so bad.

Can you recommend any good ones, particularly ones that discuss the connection between Hegel and Marxism?

Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism: A Critical Study (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0252021673/qid=1126951891/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-2005540-4927917?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) by Kevin Anderson is really worth a look.

[Monty Cantsin]

i've seen heaps of it in co-op bookshops but never brought any of it...the stuff i've read is off the internet.

Andy Blunden has writen heaps of stuff on Hegel and his relationship with Marx. which you can find on his website and Marxist.org.

Shlomo Avineri is concered with attacking common misconceptions about hegel but less about his relation to Marx.

there's a few others (wich i havent read) on the Marxists.org site who focus on hegelian logic and it's relation to Marx.... Lawrence Wilde, Hiroshi Uchida and Tony Smith. but i'm yet to have a look at them.

[Vanguard1917]

Thanks, i'll definately have a look at some of those. I also checked out that Karl Korsch link and found some interesting stuff. Have you read anything by Lukacs? I think they shared some similar ideas in their earlier days.

[Monty Cantsin]

i've only read Korsch but from my understanding they we're both attacking orthodox Marxist philosophy but while Lukacs took his stuff further he folded to the Stalinists and renounced his work. but then i haven’t read him.

[Vanguard1917]

Lukacs ended up supporting Stalin and he degerated politically; but in my opinion this doesn't change the fact that he was once one of the brightest Marxists of the Leninist Bolshevik tradition.

Tailism and the Dialectic (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1859843700/qid=1127269564/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-1656604-2274526?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) by Lukacs is one of the most interesting Marxists texts that I have ever read. I would recommend it to all.

[cph_shawarma]

I am reading History and Class Consciousness right now and so far I find it extremely interesting and surprisingly correct. He asserts what he thinks is 'orthodox Marxism', and his notion of orthodoxy (not the regular notion of orthodox Marxism as the work of Plechanov et al.) coincides with mine, that orthodoxy in Marxism is only a question of orthodoxy in methodology. He describes very well the difference between vulgar materialism and vulgar Marxism and materialist dialectics. I can definitely recommend this book.

[Vanguard1917]

I found History and Class Consciousness to be a very challenging read.
"Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat" is usually considered to be the key essay in the book. Here's a good long quote from it:

"Thus thought and existence are not identical in the sense that they ‘correspond’ to each other, or ‘reflect’ each other, that they ‘run parallel’ to each other or ‘coincide’ with each other (all expressions that conceal a rigid duality). Their identity is that they are aspects of one and the same real historical and dialectical process. What is ‘reflected’ in the consciousness of the proletariat is the new positive reality arising out of the dialectical contradictions of capitalism. And this is by no means the invention of the proletariat, nor was it ‘created’ out of the void. It is rather the inevitable consequence of the process in its totality; one which changed from being an abstract possibility to a concrete reality only after it had become part of the consciousness of the proletariat and had been made practical by it. And this is no mere formal transformation. For a possibility to be realised, for a tendency to become actual, what is required is that the objective components of a society should be transformed; their functions must be changed and with them the structure and content of every individual object.

But it must never be forgotten: only the practical class consciousness of the proletariat possesses this ability to transform things. Every contemplative, purely cognitive stance leads ultimately to a divided relationship to its object. Simply to transplant the structure we have discerned here into any stance other than that of proletarian action – for only the class can be practical in its relation to the total process – would mean the creation of a new conceptual mythology and a regression to the standpoint of classical philosophy refuted by Marx. For every purely cognitive stance bears the stigma of immediacy. That is to say, it never ceases to be confronted by a whole series of ready-made objects that cannot be dissolved into processes. Its dialectical nature can survive only in the tendency towards praxis and in its orientation towards the actions of the proletariat. It can survive only if it remains critically aware of its own tendency to immediacy inherent in every non-practical stance and if it constantly strives to explain critically the mediations, the relations to the totality as a process, to the actions of the proletariat as a class.

The practical character of the thought of the proletariat is born and becomes real as the result of an equally dialectical process. In this thought self-criticism is more than the self-criticism of its object, i.e. the self-criticism of bourgeois society. It is also a critical awareness of how much of its own practical nature has really become manifest, which stage of the genuinely practicable is objectively possible and how much of what is objectively possible has been made real. For it is evident that however clearly we may have grasped the fact that society consists of processes, however thoroughly we may have unmasked the fiction of its rigid reification, this does not mean that we are able to annul the ‘reality’ of this fiction in capitalist society in practice. The moments in which this insight can really be converted into practice are determined by developments in society. Thus proletarian thought is in the first place merely a theory of praxis which only gradually (and indeed often spasmodically) transforms itself into a practical theory that overturns the real world. The individual stages of this process cannot be sketched in here. They alone would be able to show how proletarian class consciousness evolves dialectically (i.e. how the proletariat becomes a class). Only then would it be possible to throw light on the intimate dialectical process of interaction between the socio-historical situation and the class consciousness of the proletariat. Only then would the statement that the proletariat is the identical subject-object of the history of society become truly concrete.[70]"