Superstructure

Worked through in 6 videos · 9 passages.

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Summary

Dominique Pagani approaches the superstructure from the schema in Marx's preface: an economic base that determines a superstructure, which would be its reflection. He sees this as a spatial and synchronic metaphor, that is, a starting abstraction in which time plays no part1 2. According to him, Marx introduces time: when the base contradicts what lies above it, the superstructures take more or less time to be affected. So there is always a lag, and he gives the survival of Roman law as an example3 4. The relation is never vertical or mechanical, since the top comes into contradiction with the bottom5. He defines superstructures as the ideological forms in which people become aware of the conflict between productive forces and relations of production. They express a reality without knowing it, and the infrastructure never appears in pure form but first in this form6. Finally, he distinguishes Marx, for whom the superstructure is the outcome of a process coming from below, from Clouscard, for whom it becomes causal at a second stage7.

Summary produced automatically from 9 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.

Talks · 27 Mar 2023Praxis and psyche

8:51Superstructures change more slowly than infrastructures, and it is in this ideological form that men become conscious of the relations of production.
38:26Infrastructure never appears pure, but first in the form of superstructure.

Cycle 9.2 · 5 Feb 2021#9.14 How can sciences of history be real?

53:28The preface's spatial metaphor: the infrastructure determines the superstructure, which is a starting abstraction, without time.
1:03:02It never happens in a vertical and mechanical way: the top enters into contradiction with the bottom.

Cycle 7 · 17 May 2020#8 Harnessed to confinitude

18:37Marx introduces time: when the base contradicts what is above, the superstructures take a longer or shorter time to be affected.

Cycle 6 · 30 Jan 2020#6.4 The logic of the subject in the face of the reconstitution of Nazism

1:00:14The forms in which men become conscious of the conflict between productive forces and relations of production; they express a reality without knowing it.

Series · 5 Jul 2018Being and Code

52:56In Marx, the outcome of a process coming from below; in Clouscard, in a second moment, the superstructure becomes causal.

Series · 2 Feb 2016Hegel on the Beach 5/5

24:33The basic schema posits an economic base and a superstructure that would be its reflection, in a spatial and synchronic metaphor.
26:44There is always a gap between infrastructure and superstructure, as shown by the survival of Roman law.