Key terms
Key concepts
Readings
Activities
Discussion questions/points
Key terms
Productive forces
Productive relations (relations of production)
Class
Base
Superstructure
Dialectical Materialism
Revolution
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Key concepts
The base of society is the way people relate to one another in the production of their lives and their means of life, in other words, the productive relations. Classes are an aspect of these productive relations. People do not relate on just any basis. They relate to one another through their mutual relation to property. This in turn defines the society. A state, a legal system, social institutions and ideas arise on this base. These elements make up what we call the superstructure. The superstructure reflects, protects, organizes and strengthens the base.
With the introduction of qualitatively new productive forces the leap -- a series of changes wherein one quality is replaced quantitatively, or stage by stage, by another quality -- begins. Revolution is not simply the overthrow of one class by another, but rather the disruption and destruction of the entire society brought about by the introduction of the new quality. The base begins to disintegrate and new relationships struggle to be born. New groups or new classes are created, unable to exist in the old productive relations.
All of society is pulled into the process -- the classes fight one another, the classes fight themselves, and all are forced to attack society and fight for its reorganization in their interests if they are to survive. Nothing is automatic about this process. The rise of new classes plays an indispensable part in the process of social destruction, but reconstruction takes consciousness. As in all processes, the introduction of the new quality is necessary to bring about qualitative change.
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Readings
Marx, Karl, "Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy", January 1859
Rally Comrades! "Culture, Ideology, and Sectarianism", August 1982
"How and Why Things Change" (institute resource paper #3 - starting with "The application of these laws to the changes taking place in society")
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Activities
Identify some examples of different forms of property throughout history.
Identify some examples of different types of productive relations throughout history.
Create a chart or diagram of the productive relations of these societies, and list parts of the superstructure of those societies.
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Discussion questions/points
1. Are the productive forces part of the base of society?
2. Does a given level of technology make a particular kind of society inevitable?
3. Why can't the base be attacked?
4. Where do new classes come from?
5. How is the superstructure destroyed?
6. What is the difference between reform and revolution? How does the difference relate to base and superstructure?
7. How can a leap take a long time, but also be a sudden break or rupture?
8. Why is the struggle for reform objective? What does it mean to say "the leap is governed by the subjective"?
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