Base and Superstructure

Thoughts on production, alienation, and ideology

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faq

FAQ #7: What’s With Your Blog’s Name?

September 16, 2021 /

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.

working-class majority

How to Build a Working-Class Majority

September 13, 2021 /

So, we know there’s a huge political space in the U.S. to the left of Joe Biden. Many of the groups in this space talk about how to build a political majority. Progressives talk about building a coalition majority. Leftists talk about building a working-class majority.

The DSA uses the term ‘multiracial working class’ to get at its target political group. But this term raises as many questions as it answers. Each DSA faction adopts it, and then uses it in varying ways.

Where does this leave us? We don’t know what a working-class majority looks like. At least, not in any settled way. Some leftists seem to think it’s already there for the taking. Others think we need to do far more work to form it. In this post, I’ll see what the data can tell us. Is there a working-class majority out there? What does a working-class majority look like?

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One Way DSA Caucuses Differ

September 2, 2021 /

dsa caucuses org chart

So, back in 2019, I wrote a post on the different DSA caucuses. In that post, I looked only at caucus ideology as caucuses described it.

I thought about doing a similar task before the 2021 DSA Convention. But I decided against it. Why? For one, someone else already did a good job of it. Two, I thought readers might benefit from a fresh approach.

Let’s look at the DSA caucuses by how they react to problems. One specific problem, in fact. So, that’s what I’ll do in this post.

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do what we love

Should We Do What We Love?

August 30, 2021 /

The business literature often tells us that most people don’t like their jobs. Business leaders take a mixed attitude toward this. But what they don’t like – and what the literature also shows – is workers who are actively disengaged from their work. Among other things, disengaged workers show less productivity.

This doesn’t interest me much. As a leftist, though, I’m a lot more interested in the kind of advice the literature provides. It usually recommends a kind of propaganda campaign aimed at workers. These campaigns try to tell workers they have good jobs. They try to get workers more excited and engaged.

Maybe. But, as we know, work won’t love you back. A recent book even tells us as much. Many of us – especially white-collar workers – might consider a different strategy. Why not work a merely tolerable job, complete it quickly and efficiently, and then organize in our own time?

I think lots of people run some version of this playbook. They work a regular job and then organize with the DSA, for example.

Any readers have luck with this strategy?

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