Category: Blogging (Page 4 of 7)

So, occasionally people ask me about the blog’s name (Base and Superstructure). Sometimes they’re just curious. At other times, they know a bit about Marxism and think the name might indicate that I’m some kind of ‘class reductionist‘ (by which they might mean any number of things).

I’ve written about this topic a number of times. Including the very first post back in 2018. In fact, it’s a frequent topic I return to from a variety of angles. But I’d also like to write a short version of a more complicated set of ideas.

Here’s the short version: The term ‘class‘ refers to relationships among different groups of people. These relationships concern which groups own and control economic resources. When trying to best explain society, class relations form the most fundamental explanatory unit. Other things, like religion, culture, identity, and so on, are an important part of our lives and an important social force. They’re also important to our efforts to create and maintain socialist movements. But class is typically where the buck stops.

That’s what the blog name means to me. And while it might make me a ‘class reductionist’ in some narrow explanatory sense, I certainly think there are things other than class that are very important to politics and movements.

Oh, thanks for asking!

As many readers already know, I published my first book about six years ago. It’s called Classify and Label: The Unintended Marginalization of Social Groups. This book covers much of my early research focused on the social impact of classifications in the sciences and everyday life.

I’ve kicked around a number of book ideas since then, and I published an ebook on Trumpism (A Primer on Trumpism) before the 2020 election.

But lately my thoughts have turned toward foreign policy, particularly the idea that the U.S. left still doesn’t have much of a consensus on what a foreign policy should look like. I’ve written a series of posts on foreign policy on this blog, and I’m collecting that material and turning it into a book project! The basic idea here is that we need to build a left consensus on foreign policy. And we should organize that consensus around principles of international solidarity and working-class unity across borders. With that kind of consensus in place, we can do better organizing across borders.

The manuscript is pretty much done. I’m thinking now about publishing options.