The Base-Superstructure: A Model for Analysis and Action

By Derek Ford

Although Marx himself only mentioned the “base” and “superstructure” in (by my count) two of his works, the base-superstructure “problem” remains a source of serious contention for Marxists, our sympathizers, and our critics. Despite its outsized role in Marxist debates, the model can, when contextualized and understood in its nuances, be quite useful for analyzing capitalist society and organizing for socialism [1].

Marx explicitly introduces the distinction between the base and superstructure in the preface to his 1859 A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. In the preface, Marx builds on his previous work with Engels, The German Ideology, writing:

“In the social production of their existence, humans inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness” [2].

The base of society—which is also translated as “infrastructure”—includes the relations of production and the productive forces. Productive forces name labor-power, instruments or tools used by workers, and the materials workers transform in the production process. The relations of production entail the social organization of production and reproduction, or how the re/production of life is structured. It’s important to emphasize that the base isn’t just the forces of production but production relations, which are not only economic but social.

The superstructure comprises the political-legal system of the state and consciousness—or ideology—in general, which manifests in culture and art, religion and spirituality, ethics and philosophy, etc. The superstructure emerges from the totality of the relations of production. Political activity and intellectual processes and products are conditioned by the mode of production (the relations and forces of production). And as we’ll see below, elements of the superstructure in turn impact the base.

According to Engels, he and Marx laid so much emphasis on the importance of the base because of their historical and material context, because they were responding to those who denied the importance of production. In an 1890 letter to the German socialist Joseph Bloch in which Engels clarifies their model, he notes that “we had to emphasize the main principle vis-à-vis our adversaries, who denied it” [3]. Earlier in the letter, he writes that “the ultimately determining factor in history is the production and reproduction of real life,” and that “if somebody twists this into saying that the economic factor is the only determining one, he transforms that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, absurd phrase” [4].

Engels infers that Bloch’s questions come from his study of secondary literature only, and he asks Bloch to read the primary sources, referring him in particular to Marx’s 1852 book, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, perhaps the only other place Marx mentioned the superstructure explicitly (although he alludes to it elsewhere). In this earlier work, Marx formulates the superstructure like this:

“Upon the different forms of property, upon the social conditions of existence, rises an entire superstructure of distinct and peculiarly formed sentiments, illusions, modes of thought, and views of life. The entire class creates and forms them out of its material foundations and out of the corresponding relations” [5].

Classes, that is, collectives defined by their location in the totality of social production, produce ways of feeling, thinking, and understanding life.

The context and relations of the base and superstructure

That the model isn’t a mechanical formula—in which the base unidirectionally produces the superstructure—is evident when we consider the context in which it appears.

A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy was the product of Marx’s ongoing work on Capital. What were some of Marx’s main critiques of political economy? First, it took appearances for granted and didn’t ask about the underlying structures that generated such appearances. Second, it viewed political economy and the world as a series of independent objects and subjects, when they were interconnected and interrelated parts of a unity or totality that was in constant motion. Third, and as a result of the first two critiques, it didn’t take a historical-materialist approach to understanding these transformations, projecting present categories back into the past and the future, so that capitalism as a social system was figured as eternal.

Those who take the base as independent and static thus side with Marx’s bourgeois adversaries. It’s not an economistic formula in which changes in the economy automatically and predictably lead to changes in society. The base-superstructure is a “spatial metaphor” that serves descriptive purposes [6]. While it can lend itself to a reading whereby what happens below determines what happens on top, if read as a Marxist model it’s helpful for understanding and analyzing the dynamics of the class struggle.

This is why Marx used the superstructure in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: to “distinguish still more the phrases and fancies of parties from their real organism and their real interests, their conception of themselves from their reality” [7]. He goes on to partially locate the failure of the 1848 Paris revolution and the success of the 1851 coup of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte in the emergence of social-democracy, which

“is epitomized in the fact that democratic-republican institutions are demanded as a means, not of doing away with two extremes, capital and wage labor, but of weakening their antagonism and transforming it into harmony. However different the means proposed for the attainment of this end may be, however much it may be trimmed with more or less revolutionary notions, the content remains the same” [8].

The social-democratic forces, while using revolutionary phrasings, didn’t seek to overthrow the existing relations of production but to manage them in a more equitable manner through the capitalist political and legal superstructure.

Marxism and the base-superstructure model

Given the above, it’s clear that the model is dialectical. As a historical-materialist, Marx understood that the base and superstructure of society change over time and are context-dependent. Neither the base nor superstructure, nor the relationship between the two, are unified, static, or ahistorical.

The relations of production in U.S. capitalism are neither unified nor even strictly economic in the sense that they’re structured and divided by race, nationality, gender, dis/ability, sexuality, and other hierarchies. Engels affirms that the relations of production are social (and racial) in an 1894 letter to the German anarchist Walther Borgius. Responding to Borgius’ request for clarification on the role of the base, Engels acknowledges that “economic conditions… ultimately determine historical development. But race itself is an economic factor” [9]. Clearly race is part of the base, yet it’s obviously superstructural as well, in that 1) race is a historically constructed and evolving category and 2) it’s maintained and ordered not just by economic forces and relations but by elements like culture, the media, and the legal system.

In fact, Engels soon after says that “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” [10]. The boundaries between the base and superstructure are not static or fixed, and superstructural elements in society work to reproduce elements of the base.

Capitalism requires, for example, the legal system of the state to enforce private property rights. In this instance, it’s crucial to the reproduction of the base. Because the capitalist legal system arises from capitalist relations of production, changes in the legal system might alter the existing relations of production, but they can’t fundamentally overthrow them, for that requires the creation of a new social and economic system.

Although Marx didn’t spend much time studying the political economy of cultural activity, another example of the dynamism of the model appears in his argument that artists and other cultural workers are productive agents. He distinguishes those who produce surplus value from those who don’t, although both can be forms of wage-labor (for example, working for the state doesn’t produce surplus value but is a form of labor-power sold to another). Marx conceptualizes intellectual work, dancing, writing, singing, and other “artistic” or “cultural” actions, when performed through the commodity of labor power, as forms of wage labor [11]. Such forms of work can thus be viewed through the prism of the base or superstructure.

All of this highlights that the base and superstructure is a metaphor and model for Marxists, a way to analyze and approach society and social transformation rather than an easy explanation.

Smart phones: An example

To get a better handle on the relationship between material production and ideas or mental conceptions, think about the proliferation of “smart phones.” When, in order to e-mail, we used to have to sit at a computer and connect via cables to the internet, we had a different idea of time and communication than we do now that many of us can e-mail wherever and whenever. A 2021 Pew Research Poll found that 85 percent of people overall (and 73 percent of people earning less than $30,000 annually) in the U.S. have smart phones, so this isn’t a minor phenomenon [12].

The technology makes it possible for your boss to require you to respond to e-mails (e.g., to work) at night. It blurs the distinction between work and life, let alone between work and leisure. How many of us respond to work e-mails on vacation? The smart phone makes it possible for me to ask you a minor question or a series of them throughout the day, rather than wait and type one single e-mail. We begin to think of time differently, and we begin to relate to each other differently. When I was a student, for example, it was normal for teachers to respond to e-mails within a few days. Now the expectation is that teachers respond within hours.

Even our feelings and bodies change. Have you ever felt your phone vibrate in your pocket only to realize it didn’t? This is called “phantom vibration syndrome.” A 2011 study of 290 undergraduate students found that around “89% of the sample had experienced phantom vibrations, and 40% experienced these vibrations at least once a week” [13]. Yet the smart phone didn’t arise spontaneously, it wasn’t dropped from the heavens. Workers conceived of it, designed it, produced it, and made it all possible. It’s a productive material force that changes our forms of consciousness, ways of feeling, senses of time, and more. Yet the reason smart phones were produced and subsequently distributed throughout society is because they increase the productivity of labor. The same object that, when used for work, enters into the base, when used for non-work purposes, enters into the superstructure.

Utilizing the model for the revolutionary movement

The socialist revolution can’t come without changing the base of society, as it entails transforming private ownership into collective ownership, abolishing capitalist relations and constructing socialist relations. But the superstructure reacts on the base and informs it. There’s a dynamic interplay between the two, and the question is not so much what is located in which part of the model as what is the most strategically significant for advancing the class struggle in a particular setting? The abolition of wage labor—the socialist revolution—has to focus on the superstructure and the base and understand their composition, contradictions, and potentials.

In the chapter on the working day in Capital, Marx describes the decades-long struggle for a “normal” working day. He quotes horrific details about the abuses of industrial capitalism on workers from factory inspectors. At the end of the chapter he declares that “the labourers must put their heads together, and, as a class, compel the passing of a law, an all-powerful social barrier that shall prevent the very workers from selling, by voluntary contract with capital, themselves and their families into slavery and death.” In other words, the tactical objective is to establish “a legally limited working-day” [14].

This is a clarion call for a change in the superstructure, for a legal reform. It’s a significant fight to reduce the working day, not only to protect workers from the abuses of bosses but also to give workers more time to organize. At the same time, it impacts the base of society as well, because given a limited working day, capital has to pursue other avenues to accumulate extra surplus value. In fact, it’s with these limitations that capital turns to the production of relative surplus value, which is when capitalism as a mode of production properly comes into being [15].

Another example is Marx’s critique of Alfred Darimon, a follower of Proudhon, who wanted to introduce a “socialist form” of money that would represent the actual time that workers labored. While Marx acknowledged that “one form [of money] may remedy evils against which another is powerless… as long as they remain forms of money” they’ll reproduce these evils elsewhere in the same way that “one form of wage labour may correct the abuses of another, but no form of wage labour can correct the abuse of wage labour itself” [16]. Capitalism can’t be overthrown without changing the relations of production.

Revolutions require objective and subjective conditions. Without changes in mass consciousness—which are superstructural but relate to and impact the base—no crisis of capitalism will lead to a new mode of production. A crisis in the capitalist system can, in turn, help change that consciousness, but is not in itself sufficient. Neither can be viewed or approached in isolation, and have to be approached as interacting within the shifting totality of capitalist society. In response to these approaches, our tactics and strategies change.

References

[1] Thanks to Jon Greenway for feedback on an earlier draft of this article.
[2] Marx, Karl. (1859/1970).A contribution to the critique of political economy(New York: International Publishers), 20-21.
[3] Engels, Friedrich. (1890/1965). “Engels to Joseph Bloch.” InMarx-Engels selected correspondence(New York: Progress Publishers), 396.
[4] Ibid., 394, 396.
[5] Marx, Karl. (1852/1972).The eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte(New York: International Publishers), 47.
[6] Althusser, Louis. (1995/2014).On the reproduction of capitalism: Ideology and ideological state apparatuses, trans. G.M. Goshgarian (New York: Verso), 54.
[7] Marx,The eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, 47.
[8] Ibid., 50.
[9] Engels, Friedrich. (1894/1965). “Engels to W. Borgius in Breslau.” InMarx-Engels selected correspondence(New York: Progress Publishers), 441.
[10] Ibid., 441-442.
[11] Marx, Karl. (1939/1990). “Appendix: Results of the immediate process of production.” In Karl Marx,Capital: A critique of political economy (vol. 1), trans. B. Fowkes (New York: Penguin), 1044.
[12] Pew Research Center. (2021). “Mobile fact sheet.”Pew Research center, April 7 Availablehere.
[13] Drouin, Michelle, Daren H. Kaiser, and Daniel A. Miller. (2012). “Phantom vibrations among undergraduates: Prevalence and associated psychological characteristics.”Computers in Human Behavior28, no. 4: 1493.
[14] Marx, Karl. (1867/1967).Capital: A critique of political economy (vol. 1): A critical analysis of capitalist production, trans. S. Moore and E. Aveling (New York: International Publishers), 285, 286.
[15] See Majidi, Mazda. (2021). “Relative surplus value: The class struggle intensifies.”Liberation School, 18 August. Availablehere.
[16] Marx, Karl. (1939/1973).Grundrisse: Foundations of the critique of political economy (rough draft), trans. M. Nicolaus (New York: Penguin), 123.

Critique of the Misunderstanding Concerning Marx’s Base-Superstructure Spatial Metaphor

By Carlos Garrido

Karl Marx’s 1859 preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy [i] represents one of the clearest reflections of the development of his and Engels’ thought. In what amounts to a short four and a half pages, Marx concisely exhibits the resulting conclusions of more than two decades worth of studies – from his first encounter with the economic question in 1842-3 via the polemic over landed property and forest theft, to the latest decade and a half painfully spent in the British Museum in London (except for the short interruption of the 48 revolutions) divided between the political writings for the New York Tribune and his economic studies for this text and for Capital, which this text is a dress rehearsal for. Although endless work can be done on these four and a half pages, I would like to limit myself to a clarification of the famed and famously misinterpreted spatial metaphor of the economic foundation and the political-legal superstructure. 

The most common misunderstanding of this metaphor posits that the economic foundation absolutely determines the ideological superstructure. In this view, all legal, political, philosophical, and religious structures and forms of consciousness are reducible to a reflection of the present economic situation. This perspective, held primarily by various vulgar Marxists of the second international and by critics of Marx (esp. the Weberian conception of Marxism), has come to be labeled as economically reductive and subsequently critiqued by dozens of 20th century Marxist, e.g., Althusser, Gramsci, Lukács, Lenin.

On the other hand, as a reaction to this economic reductionism, some Marxists have rejected the conception that the economic foundation influences the superstructure any more than the superstructure influences the economic. This perspective holds that there is a mutual conditioning of the two spheres, a dialectical interpenetrative relation between the opposing poles of the economic foundation and the ideological superstructure, where, as Marcuse states, “ideology comes to be embodied in the process of production itself.”[ii] The various reactions to economic determinism may take different forms, generally, what they share is a refusal to describe the influence of the economic realm on the ideological as ‘determinist’ – unless couched within a framework that equalizes the determination of the superstructure on the economic in a dialectical fancy of interpenetrative determination.   

Funny enough, Marx’s preface presents the relation between the economic and the superstructural with an ambiguity which seems to foreshadow both misinterpretations. First, he states that “the mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life,” then that “it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness” (KM, 20-21). These two sentences chronologically follow each other but refer to two different (albeit synonymous) concepts for describing the relationship between material life and the ideological superstructure, viz., conditions and determines.

Although synonymous, ‘conditions’ carries conceptually an openness for a less rigid affecting relationship. To say that something conditions can range from meaning that it influences to determines. Given the conceptual ambiguity, it would seem that the economic reductionist group would read conditions qua determines while the group which reacts to the reductionists would read conditions qua influences. Between this binary of blue and red pill, can we ask for another color?

I think Marx offers us blue and red for us to make purple, indubitably the most beautiful color keeping with Plato. In essence, both misunderstandings are partly correct – the economic foundation determines the superstructure, but the superstructure can also influence the economic foundation.

As Althusser noted,[iii] in a seemingly contradictory manner the superstructure is determined by the economic base while nonetheless sustaining a “relative autonomy” in relation to it, effectively allowing it to have “reciprocal action” upon it. It is important to note that this Althusserian formulation is actually a reconceptualization of how Engels dealt with the issue in a 1890 letter response to Conrad Schmidt. In this letter from an aged Engels, we find an elucidation for this often-misunderstood spatial metaphor, and consequently, a clarification of the scope of rigidity the concept of determination carries in his and Marx’s works.

This letter, along with the others with which it was jointly published as Engels on Historical Materialism, gives a fascinating insight into how determination ought to be read in the Marxist tradition. Before Engels deals with the question of the economic foundation’s determination of the superstructure, he examines production’s (as in the moment, the “point of departure,”[iv] not the whole) determinative relation to the moment of exchange, and the moment of exchange’s determinative relation to the newly separated money market. He says,

Production is in the last instance the decisive factor. However, as soon as the commercial exchange of commodities separates itself from actual production it follows a movement which, although as a whole still dominated by production, in turn obeys in its particular details and within the sphere of its general dependence, its own laws.

The same is true for the money market. Just as soon as dealing in money is separated from commodity exchange, it acquires a development of its own, special laws determined by its particular nature, and its own phases. Yet they all take place within the given limits and conditions of production and commodity exchange

The same relational function of determination/conditioning is sustained with the economic foundation and the political superstructure (and afterwards with the legal, philosophical, and scientific aspects of the superstructure):

While the new independent power must, on the whole, submit to the movement of production, in turn it also reacts, by virtue of its immanent, i.e., its once transmitted but gradually developed relative independence, upon the conditions and course of production. There is a reciprocity between two unequal forces; on the one side, the economic movement; on the other, the new political power which strives for the greatest possible independence and which having once arisen is endowed with its own movement. The economic movement, upon the whole, asserts itself but it is affected by the reaction of the relatively independent political movement which it itself had set up. This political movement is on the one hand the state power, on the other, the opposition which comes to life at the same time with it.

These passages not only demonstrate with utmost clarity how a determinative relation can sustain within it a relative independence (what Althusser later calls ‘relative autonomy’) which allows the determined variable a capacity to react and influence that which determines it, but in demonstrating the translatability into various spheres of how this relationship functions, Engels is providing a general formulative understanding of the question on determination. In essence, the variable which determines (or conditions) sets the parameters for the determined variable, such that the determined variable presupposes the other’s boundaries for its activity. Concretely, the superstructure presupposes a specific economic foundation which has set a historical boundary on it. Within this determined space, the superstructure is relatively autonomous, enough so that it becomes capable of emergent qualities which can have a reactive or “counter-active influence” upon that which determines it.

Philosophically, the position can be labeled as compatibilist, i.e., there is a soft determination which allows for the conditioned autonomous expression of that which is determined. Therefore, although the determination of the economic foundation on the superstructure is not absolute (hard determinism), neither is it nonexistent. Engels critiques both positions: he argues it is “altogether pedantic to seek economic causes for all” things, asserting that in doing so Paul Barth is “contending against windmills,” while also criticizing the position which altogether either denies determination or places the primary source of determination on the wrong variable as participating in “ideological conceptions” whereby the real relationship is inverted and placed on its head, making one take the “effect for the cause.”

Why do these misunderstandings arise? As the conclusion in Engels’ letter states,

What all these gentlemen lack is dialectics. All they ever see is cause here, effect there. They do not at all see that this is a bare abstraction; that in the real world such metaphysical polar opposites exist only in crises; that the whole great process develops itself in the form of reciprocal action, to be sure of very unequal forces, in which the economic movement is far and away the strongest, most primary and decisive. They do not see that here nothing is absolute and everything relative. For them Hegel has never existed. Yours, etc.

Carlos L. Garrido is a philosophy graduate student and assistant at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. His specialization is in Marxist philosophy and the history of American socialist thought (esp. early 19th century). He is an editorial board member and co-founder of Midwestern Marx  and the Journal of American Socialist Studies. 

Notes

[i] All subsequent quotes from this text will be from this edition: Marx, Karl. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. (International Publishers, 1999).

[ii] Marcuse, Herbert. One-Dimensional Man. (Beacon Press, 1966), p. 189.

[iii] In his essay Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses

[iv] In the appendix to the above edition of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, a drafted introduction called ‘Production, Consumption, Distribution, Exchange (Circulation)’ provides an analysis of the relation each of the four moments has with the other. Here he calls production the “moment of departure.” This draft is included in the introduction of a series of manuscripts now known as Grundrisse.

Calibrating the Capitalist State in the Neoliberal Era: Equilibrium, Superstructure, and the Pull Towards a Corporate-Fascistic Model

By Colin Jenkins

The following is Part one of a multi-part series, "Applying Poulantzas," which analyzes the work of Greek Marxist political sociologist, Nicos Poulantzas, and applies it to the unique political and economic structures found under neoliberalism and post-industrial capitalism.

Since the capitalist formation of relations between what is perceived as the 'public sector' and the 'private sector,' traditional nation-states and their governing bodies have played a major role as facilitators of the economic system at-large. This became a necessary supplemental component as localized economies, which were dominated by agrarian/plantation life, gave way to industrialization and subsequent mass migration into urban centers, thus introducing new industrial economies based in the manufacturing/production process. With the advent of wage labor came predictable outcomes of capital accumulation and a perpetually increasing polarization between the owning class and working class. And with this growing inequality came the notions of worker collectivization and unionism which, absent any equalizing measures taken by the State, were the only sources of hope for workers who quickly found themselves, their livelihood, and their family's well-being at the mercy of a rapidly fluctuating and exploitative labor market. Work was often hard to come by and, when it was available, the wages "earned" were barely enough to cover basic necessities like food, clothing and shelter - provisions which had long been commodified to create expanding avenues of profit for the owning class.

The inherent instabilities created by this economic system — a system that exists for the sole purpose of creating or maintaining individual/personal wealth (as opposed to preserving collective/societal wealth) — require components that act solely as stabilizers. Despite its shunning, the existence of society — or "the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community" — not only remains, but actually serves as the casing for which this system must rely on, or more aptly, capitalize from within. And because of this reliance, the instabilities and contradictions that simultaneously represent natural byproducts and threats become common growths as the result of a counterintuitive and inhumane arrangement, and must be kept in check through a delicate (though not necessarily intricate) balancing act.

In order to "balance" competing interests - in this case the "dominant" and "dominated" classes - the political sphere, a major element of the State apparatus, assumes a vital role. As such, Nicos Poulantzas, building upon earlier theoretical contributions from the likes of Antonio Gramsci, details the dynamic process whereas the state serves as a facilitator to the unstable equilibrium that is produced by the internally antagonistic capitalist system. Ultimately, through this act of facilitating, the state (by deploying its political power) negotiates a perpetual series of "compromises" in the form of economic "sacrifices" which are accepted as a necessity by the dominant classes; and which are precisely aimed at creating a limited equilibrium that ensures a minimal degree of social stability (maintained by the political superstructure) atop the inherently asymmetrical economic base.

Poulantzas explains:

"…political power is thus apparently founded on an unstable equilibrium of compromise. These terms should be understood as follows: 1) Compromise: in the sense that this power corresponds to a hegemonic class domination and can take into account the economic interests of certain dominated classes even where those could be contrary to the short-term economic interests of the dominant classes, without this affecting the configuration of political interests; 2) Equilibrium: in the sense that while these economic 'sacrifices' are real and so provide the ground for an equilibrium, they do not as such challenge the political power which sets precise limits to this equilibrium; and 3) Unstable: in the sense that these limits of the equilibrium are set by the political conjuncture." [1]

Gramsci tells us, "The life of the state is conceived of as a continuous process of formation and superseding of unstable equilibria… between the interests of the fundamental group and those of the subordinate groups - equilibria in which the interests of the dominant group prevail, but only up to a certain point, i.e. stopping short of narrowly corporate interest."[2] In other words, as the capitalist system naturally bends toward a corporate-fascistic state of being through the simultaneous developments of capital accumulation and mass alienation - thus forming structures of domination that extend from the economic base and into the political, social, and cultural realms - there develops a need to stabilize the fragile nature (in the sense that such imbalance is a constant threat to the societal structure at-large) of this system.

The need to maintain this equilibrium exists as long as a wholly functioning society is requisite for capitalist expansion - or, as long as worker-consumers represent viable targets of exploitation. In Political Powers and Social Classes, Poulantzas identifies certain measures that represent embedded concessions on the part of the owning class, carried out by the state apparatus through a systematic process that is relatively fluid and effortless (though, as Poulantzas points out, competing interests exist even within this elite bureaucracy). In recognizing the function of the state and its role atop the capitalist formation of relations, Poulantzas explains, "The notion of the general interest of the 'people', an ideological notion covering an institutional operation of the capitalist state, expresses a real fact: namely that this state, by its very structure, gives to the economic interests of certain dominated classes guarantees which may even be contrary to the short-term economic interests of the dominant classes, but which are compatible with their political interests and their hegemonic domination."[3]

Political systems based on grand "democratic" narratives like "representative democracy" and "republicanism," as well as Rousseau's "social contract," are ideal enablers for this societal arrangement. This is the very reason why liberalism and the modern adaptation of the "liberal politician" play such a crucial role in their opposition to the proto-fascist nature of "conservatism." Their superficially adversarial relationship represents the ultimate stabilizer as its reach is limited to the confines of the political superstructure. And, because it deals primarily with "social issues" (including passive measures of economic redistribution), it is ultimately relegated to directing the aforementioned "compromises" of the dominant class. It does not and can not transform the economic base (the capitalist hierarchy) as these compromises, while representing "real economic sacrifices" that are necessary to provide the ground for equilibrium, "do not as such challenge the political power which sets precise limits to this equilibrium."

"Democratic" systems which involve periodic elections of "representatives" to "public" office accomplish two important tasks in this regard. First, they create a façade of civil empowerment - a form of political compromise which gives the dominated classes the appearance of choice vis-a-vis universal suffrage. Second, they create a political sphere that, while completely fused with the long-term interests of the dominant classes (through its sole purpose as a facilitator), operates as a separate entity existing outside the economic base - a separation that is, as Poulantzas explains, both an exclusive and necessary element to the capitalist system. It reminds us of John Dewey's claim that, "As long as politics is the shadow cast on society by big business, the attenuation of the shadow will not change the substance." In the US, the two-party political system has proven extremely effective in this regard. Aside from differences on social issues like abortion and gay marriage, as well as socioeconomic issues like unemployment insurance and public assistance, both parties ultimately embrace capitalist/corporatist interests in that they both serve as facilitators for the dominant classes: The Republican Party in its role as forerunner, pushing the limits of the capitalist model to the brink of fascism; and the Democratic Party in its role as governor, providing intermittent degrees of slack and pull against this inevitable move towards a "corporate-fascistic state of being."

The distinction made between 'the political' and 'the economic' is important to consider, though these boundaries have seemingly blurred in the age of neoliberalism and the intensification of the merger between "public" and "private." And while Poulantzas insists this separation is inherent and theoretically unbreakable, he (along with Gramsci) may have underestimated the extent to which compromises may be reined in without destabilizing the equilibrium beyond repair. During the neoliberal era, there have been many developments which have pushed this long-standing balance to the verge of "narrow corporatism" and beyond, including factors related to technology and government surviellance, growth in the banking industry, the development of corporate media and intricate propaganda, financialization's role in supplementing monopoly capitalism, and the maturation of the international economic system and all of its mediating components, to name a few; but that discussion is for another place and time.

For the purpose of this analysis, we are focused on national electoral politics and political parties, and the specific role they play in maintaining the status quo - in this case, not only the capitalist hierarchy, but also the stage of monopoly capitalism which has come to fruition over the past few decades. The distinction between base and superstructure allows us to see how the political apparatus, through the actions of political parties, exists solely as a tool for the "power bloc." Furthermore, it allows us to divert from reductionist theories which attempt to highlight a singular cause, and move towards a more nuanced critique of the capitalist state, especially in the "pluralist" form that we see in the US and other "western democracies."

"As far as the terrain of political domination is concerned, this is also occupied not by one single class or class fraction, but by several dominant classes and fractions," explains Poulantzas. "These classes and fractions form a specific alliance on this terrain, the power bloc, generally functioning under the leadership of one of the dominant classes or fractions, the hegemonic class or fraction."[4] In this instance, even with a government that includes separate branches - legislative, executive, and judicial - and represents several interests, as in Robert A. Dahl's "polyarchy," the state still exists and operates on the foundation of a capitalist system that creates its own hierarchy. The members of this "political terrain" are not necessarily synchronized with one another when it comes to geography, special interests, localized interests, and priorities when maintaining the equilibrium, and they don't have to be. Despite these various pieces which make up the power bloc, in its own formation the base forces the political "superstructure" to adjust accordingly. This is why modern practices like "blanket financing" of political campaigns, which consists of corporations or private interests providing monetary support to opposing candidates and political parties in a particular election, have become so prevalent. Politicians, despite what their personal beliefs or aspirations may be, are put into power by the very hierarchy that depends on the economic base. Their positions of power cater to and are reliant on not only the power bloc which put them there, but the maintenance of the very system that allows them to stay there. Therefore, while they may possess some leeway in terms of pushing superficial agendas, their ability to do so is granted by the hierarchy extending from the economic base. Ultimately, in order to maintain its own existence, the political apparatus must protect the base - and is essentially designed (or is ever-evolving) to do so despite its "relative autonomy" which is "inscribed in the very structure of the capitalist state."

According to Poulantzas, by recognizing both the autonomy of the "state machine" as well as the existence of a "power bloc" which mimics society's pluralist form, it will "enable us to establish theoretically, and to examine concretely, the way in which the relative autonomy of the capitalist state develops and functions with respect to the particular economic-corporate interests of this or that fraction of the power bloc, in such a way that the state always guards the general political interests of this bloc - which certainly does not occur merely as a result of the state's and the bureaucracy's own rationalizing will."[5] This understanding includes "firmly grasping the fact than an institution (the state) that is destined to reproduce class divisions cannot really be a monolithic, fissureless bloc, but is itself, by virtue of its very structure (the state is a relation), divided."[6] Poulantzas continues:

The various organs and branches of the state (ministries and government offices, executive and parliament, central administration and local and regional authorities, army, judiciary, etc.) reveal major contradictions among themselves, each of them frequently constituting the seat and the representative - in short, the crystallization - of this or that fraction of the power bloc, this or that specific and competing interest. In this context, the process by whereby the general political interest of the power bloc is established, and whereby the state intervenes to ensure the reproduction of the overall system, may well, at a certain level, appear chaotic and contradictory, as a 'resultant' of these inter-organ and inter-branch contradictions.[7]

This "division," and these "contradictions," were never more evident than with President Dwight Eisenhower's 1961 farewell address and sobering warning against the rising "military industrial complex," which publicly displayed a major fission within the power bloc. According to Poulantzas, this splitting is irrelevant in the capitalist scheme of things because it remains, by design, autonomous from the base; and, therefore, will naturally work itself out to accommodate that base, whether through conscious coordination or through inherent process. In the age of neoliberalism and monopoly capitalism, the state has become highly concentrated out of necessity. In this sense, C. Wright Mills' assessment rings true:

As each of these domains becomes enlarged and centralized, the consequences of its activities become greater, and its traffic with the others increases. The decisions of a handful of corporations bear upon military and political as well as upon economic developments around the world. The decisions of the military establishment rest upon and grievously affect political life as well as the very level of economic activity. The decisions made within the political domain determine economic activities and military programs. There is no longer, on the one hand, an economy, and, on the other hand, a political order containing a military establishment unimportant to politics and to money-making. There is a political economy linked, in a thousand ways, with military institutions and decisions. [8]

This intertwined political economy exists within the superstructure. It's increased centralization, coordination, and synchronization over the past half-century has undoubtedly pushed the US government to the brink of a "corporate-fascistic state of being." In this development, the equilibrium has never been more delicate and fragile. The two-party system, thriving from the pluralist nature of both the electorate and power bloc, has proven efficient in carrying out trivial "concessions" that give "the economic interests of certain dominated classes guarantees which may even be contrary to the short-term economic interests of the dominant classes, but which are compatible with their political interests and their hegemonic domination."[9] The expansion of domestic militarization and the intensification of "austerity measures" have introduced a degree of "corporate-fascistic" torque unseen before from within a mature capitalist state. How far these embedded "compromises may be reined in without destabilizing the equilibrium beyond repair" remains to be seen.

References

[1] Poulantzas, Nicos (Timothy O'Hagan translating). Political Power and Social Classes. Verso, 1975, p. 192.

[2] Gramsci, Antonio. Prison Notebooks, p. 182.

[3] Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, p. 191.

[4] Poulantzas, Nicos. Classes in Contemporary Capitalism (Translated from French version by David Fernbach). Verso, 1978, p. 93.

[5] The Poulantzas Reader: Marxism, Law and the State. Verso Books: London/New York, 2008, p. 284.

[6] Ibid, p. 285.

[7] Ibid, p. 285.

[8] C. Wright Mills. The Power Elite, New Edition. Oxford University Press: 2000, p. 76.

[9] Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, p. 191