putting new discoveries into practice.”
“They weren’t?”
“That was because of the way the economic life of the community was organized. Production was mainly based on slave labor, so the citizens had no need to increase production with practical innovations. This is an example of how material relations help to affect philosophical reflection in society.”
“Yes, I see.”
“Marx called these material, economic, and social relations the basis of society. The way a society thinks, what kind of political institutions there are, which laws it has and, not least, what there is of religion, morals, art, philosophy, and science, Marx called society’s superstructure.”
“Basis and superstructure, right.”
“And now you will perhaps be good enough to pass me the Greek temple.”
Sophie did so.
“This is a model of the Parthenon temple on the Acropolis. You have also seen it in real life.”
“On the video, you mean.”
“You can see that the construction has a very elegant and elaborate roof. Probably the roof with its front gable is what strikes one first. This is what we call the superstructure.”
“But the roof cannot float in thin air.”
“It is supported by the columns.”
“The building has very powerful foundations—its bases—supporting the entire construction. In the same way, Marx believed that material relations support, so to speak, everything in the way of thoughts and ideas in society. Society’s superstructure is in fact a reflection of the bases of that society.”
“Are you saying that Plato’s theory of ideas is a reflection of vase production and wine growing?”
“No, it’s not that simple, as Marx expressly points out. It is the interactive effect of society’s basis on its superstructure. If Marx had rejected this interaction, he would have been a mechanical materialist. But because Marx realized that there was an interactive or dialectic relation between bases and superstructure, we say that he is a dialectical materialist. By the way, you may care to note that Plato was neither a potter nor a wine grower.”
“All right. Do you have any more to say about the temple?”
“Yes, a little. Could you describe the bases of the temple?”
“The columns are standing on a base that consists of three levels—or steps.”
“In the same manner we will identify three levels in the bases of society. The most basic level is what we may call society’s conditions of production. In other words, the natural conditions or resources that are available to society. These are the foundation of any society, and this foundation clearly determines the type of production in the society, and by the same token, the nature of that society and its culture in general.”
“You can’t have a herring trade in the Sahara, or grow dates in northern Norway.”
“You’ve got it. And the way people think in a nomadic culture is very different from the way they think in a fishing village in northern Norway The next level is the society’s means of production. By this Marx meant the various kinds of equipment, tools, and machinery, as well as the raw materials to be found there.”
“In the old days people rowed out to the fishing grounds. Nowadays they use huge trawlers to catch the fish.”
“Yes, and here you are talking about the next level in the base of society, namely, those who own the means of production. The division of labor, or the distribution of work and ownership, was what Marx called society’s ‘production relations.’ “
“I see.”
“So far we can conclude that it is the mode of production in a society which determines which political and ideological conditions are to be found there. It is not by chance that today we think somewhat differently—and have a somewhat different moral codex—from the old feudal society.”
“So Marx didn’t believe in a natural right that was eternally valid.”
“No, the question of what was morally right, according to Marx, is a product of the base of society. For example, it is not accidental that in the old peasant society, parents would decide whom their children married. It was a question of who was to inherit the farm. In a modern city, social relations are different. Nowadays you can meet your future spouse at a party or a disco, and if you are sufficiently in love, you’ll find somewhere to live.”
“I could never have put up with my parents deciding who I was to marry.”
“No, that’s because you are a child of your time. Marx emphasized moreover that it is mainly society’s ruling class that sets the norms for what is right or wrong. Because ‘the history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles.’ In other words, history is principally a matter of who is to own the means of production.”
“Don’t people’s thoughts and ideas help to change history?”
“Yes and no. Marx understood that conditions in society’s superstructure could have an interactive effect on the base of society, but he denied that society’s superstructure had any independent history of its own. What has driven historical development from the slave society of antiquity to the industrial society of today has primarily been determined by changes in the base of society.”
“So you said.”
“Marx believed that in all phases of history there has been a conflict between two dominant classes of society. In antiquity’s slave society, the conflict was between free citizen and slave. In the feudal society of the Middle Ages, it was between feudal lord and serf; later on, between aristocrat and citizen. But in Marx’s own time, in what he called a bourgeois or capitalist society, the conflict was first and foremost between the capitalists and the workers, or the proletariat. So the conflict stood between those who own the means of production and those who do not. And since the ‘upper classes’ do not voluntarily relinquish their power, change can only come about through revolution.”
“What about a communist society?”
“Marx was especially interested in the transition from a capitalist to a communist society. He also carried out a detailed analysis of the capitalist mode of production. But before we look at that, we must say something about Marx’s view of man’s labor.”
“Go ahead.”
“Before he became a communist, the young Marx was preoccupied with what happens to man when he works. This was something Hegel had also analyzed. Hegel believed there was an interactive, or dialectic, relationship between man and nature. When man alters nature, he himself is altered. Or, to put it slightly differently, when man works, he interacts with nature and transforms it. But in the process nature also interacts with man and transforms his consciousness.”
“Tell me what you do and I’ll tell you who you are.”
“That, briefly, was Marx’s point. How we work affects our consciousness, but our consciousness also affects the way we work. You could say it is an interactive relationship between hand and consciousness. Thus the way you think is closely connected to the job you do.”
“So it must be depressing to be unemployed.”
“Yes. A person who is unemployed is, in a sense, empty. Hegel was aware of this early on. To both Hegel and Marx, work was a positive thing, and was closely connected with the essence of mankind.”
“So it must also be positive to a worker?”
“Yes, originally. But this is precisely where Marx aimed his criticism of the capitalist method of production.”
“What was that?”
“Under the capitalist system, the worker labors for someone else. His labor is thus something external to him—or something that does not belong to him. The worker becomes alien to his work—but at the same time also alien to himself. He loses touch with his own reality. Marx says, with a Hegelian expression, that the worker becomes alienated.”
“I have an aunt who has worked in a factory, packaging candy for over twenty years, so I can easily understand what you mean. She says she hates going to work, every single morning.”
“But if she hates her work, Sophie, she must hate herself, in a sense.”
“She hates candy, that’s for sure.”
