Superstructure: Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 21:43, 19 April 2025
The superstructure is the totality of all the social phenomena which ultimately arise from the economic base, or in other words, all the elements of society which do not relate to the base, including culture, politics, religion, etc. The superstructure includes social consciousness (including all forms of ideology), human social relationships other than those which constitute the relations of production, and institutions and organizations that make up society, such as the state, political parties, legal and religious institutions, etc.[1]
Each mode of production (e.g. capitalism, socialism) has a separate superstructure to accompany it. The base creates the superstructure while the superstructure itself only influences the base.
See also
References
- ↑ Karl Marx. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Preface.
“The general guiding principle of my studies can be summarized as follows: In the social production of their existence, men 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. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or—this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms—with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.”