‘Base and Superstructure’ is the title of this blog. And so you might think it’s central to my approach to politics.
That’s true, as far as it goes. But it turns out it impacts things in a variety of ways.
‘Base’ and ‘superstructure’ are complementary terms from Marxist theory. They are the two sides of a division of society. The base includes human labor power and its tools, machines, etc. It also includes people’s relations in economic production. Think about, for example, employers and employees, coworkers, etc. The superstructure includes most of the rest of visible society: culture, religion, ideology, values, beliefs, social institutions, personal and group identities, etc.
The Distinction
As you can see in the graphic above, the base occupies a foundational role. It shapes and contours what is found in the superstructure. But, beyond this, it continues to influence the superstructure. The superstructure’s role is secondary, though it is not merely determined by the base. It exerts its own influence.
I accept Marx’s distinction and explanation, at least closely enough that it’s a handy tool. It helps explain what the great “class vs. race or identity” battles often overlook: to say that something is foundational is one thing, and to say it’s the most important thing in a particular instance is different. When you’re unaware of this distinction, you’re prone to serious errors.
What makes something foundational to a problem is that it’s the most essential cause of that problem. When you change it, the problem changes. But that might not be enough to make it the most important thing in our everyday experience. When you see the problem in front of you, what’s most important might not be the same as what’s foundational.
For the political left, the base is foundational. When you push issues to their deepest cause, you find the class system staring at you. But the class system might not be what’s most immediately important and staring people in the face. What’s important, and even what needs to be addressed first, might be something different. It might be race, gender, religion, culture, et al.
The Distinction in Practice
It’s easier to see the distinction in issues of socioeconomic status, such as income inequality. That clearly traces to class systems and relations. You can even see the class foundations below racial or gender-based income inequality. The capitalist class has a material interest in paying workers as little as possible. They use, e.g., anti-women or anti-black attitudes to minimize wages.
Class relations within the base influence certain gendered and racialized attitudes and systems. Those attitudes (superstructure) then influence the capitalist class’s decisions related to labor issues (base). Even though the base is foundational, both the base and superstructure are important. It’s likely that the superstructure most directly impacts victims of these systems (e.g., women impacted by sexism).
Two Examples
Though more difficult to see, this is also true of more explicitly racist and/or sexist systems. You might consider the Jim Crow system in the American South and the racist suppression of Latin American immigration in US in 2018.
In the Jim Crow South, racialized oppression in the form of violence and even lynchings (superstructure) showed up as most important in the lives of black Americans. Below this was a variety of social forces. This includes a sharecropping system and other forms of forced or coerced labor (base). Below even this was a mercantilist and early capitalist world where class relations generated slavery (base). And, shortly following, it generated the racist ideologies that bolstered slavery (superstructure).
There’s something analogous at work going on in the suppression of Latin American immigration. The current crises of capital accumulation create the need to extract more value from labor and pay laborers less (base). The capitalist class generates and encourages the racist, anti-immigrant sentiment they use to justify paying everyone less money (superstructure).
Impact of the Base and Superstructure Distinction
You might say: so what? Why does it matter which is foundational or important, the base or the superstructure? Class or race?
The short answer is that it guides our politics and activism, for better or for worse. Leftists who focus only on the base ignore the oppression that people face on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, and other identities. This blocks unity and activist action. It’s the sort of move that leads people to trumpet the ‘white working class’ and dismiss anything else as dreaded ‘identity politics.’
When people focus only on the superstructure (e.g., identities), they draw false conclusions about how to change the world. Ultimately these sorts of ideologies (which I call ‘identitarianism‘) serve the interests of capitalism and are especially prone to being co-opted by all other manner of hucksters (e.g., politicians who contort identity to serve the interests of the upper middle income and ownership classes, ‘woke celebrities’, etc.).
I’ll continue writing about the impact of this distinction throughout this blog. It has, in my view, a very large impact on many areas of American politics and activism. Its impact moves even through issues not obviously connected.
Postscript
This post is one of a series I’ve identified as central to my blog. You can find the others by clicking the ‘Foundations’ category. If you’re looking for other posts where the distinction in this post is key, check out:
What is Class?
Capitalism and Racism: Which is Prior?
Note: The image at the top of this post is shared under Creative Common license.
