4- Marxism
John Storey, Cultural Theory and
Popular Culture: An Introduction
, Classical Marxism
• Karl Marx (1818-1883) : some of his concepts include
historical determinism, criticism of capitalism, social
classes, revolution/socialism/communism
• Marxism is a difficult and contentious body of work. But it
is also more than this: it is a body of revolutionary theory
with the purpose of changing the world. As Marx (1976)
famously said: ‘The philosophers have only interpreted the
world, in various ways; the point is to change it’ → This
makes Marxist analysis political in a quite specific way.
• As the American Marxist cultural critic Fredric Jameson
(1981) puts it, ‘the political perspective [is] the absolute
horizon of all reading and all interpretation’
, Classical Marxism
• The Marxist approach to culture insists that texts and practices
must be analyzed in relation to their historical conditions of
production → political economy approach
• Marx’s Base/superstructure: In Marxist theory, human society
consists of two parts: the base (or infrastructure) and
superstructure:
• The base comprises the forces and relations of production
(employers, work conditions, the technical division of labour , and
property relations into which people enter to produce the
necessities and amenities of life)
• The superstructure of a society includes its culture, institutions,
political power structures, roles, rituals, and state.
• The base determines (conditions) the superstructure
Base →→→→→ Superstructure
, Classical Marxism
• The ‘base’ consists of a combination of the ‘forces of
production’ and the ‘relations of production’:
-The forces of production refer to the raw
materials, the tools, the technology, the workers and
their skills, etc.
- The relations of production refer to the class
relations of those engaged in production. Eg. the slave
mode produces master/slave relations; the feudal
mode produces lord/peasant relations; the capitalist
mode produces bourgeois/proletariat relations. It is in
this sense that one’s class position is determined by
one’s relationship to the mode of production.
John Storey, Cultural Theory and
Popular Culture: An Introduction
, Classical Marxism
• Karl Marx (1818-1883) : some of his concepts include
historical determinism, criticism of capitalism, social
classes, revolution/socialism/communism
• Marxism is a difficult and contentious body of work. But it
is also more than this: it is a body of revolutionary theory
with the purpose of changing the world. As Marx (1976)
famously said: ‘The philosophers have only interpreted the
world, in various ways; the point is to change it’ → This
makes Marxist analysis political in a quite specific way.
• As the American Marxist cultural critic Fredric Jameson
(1981) puts it, ‘the political perspective [is] the absolute
horizon of all reading and all interpretation’
, Classical Marxism
• The Marxist approach to culture insists that texts and practices
must be analyzed in relation to their historical conditions of
production → political economy approach
• Marx’s Base/superstructure: In Marxist theory, human society
consists of two parts: the base (or infrastructure) and
superstructure:
• The base comprises the forces and relations of production
(employers, work conditions, the technical division of labour , and
property relations into which people enter to produce the
necessities and amenities of life)
• The superstructure of a society includes its culture, institutions,
political power structures, roles, rituals, and state.
• The base determines (conditions) the superstructure
Base →→→→→ Superstructure
, Classical Marxism
• The ‘base’ consists of a combination of the ‘forces of
production’ and the ‘relations of production’:
-The forces of production refer to the raw
materials, the tools, the technology, the workers and
their skills, etc.
- The relations of production refer to the class
relations of those engaged in production. Eg. the slave
mode produces master/slave relations; the feudal
mode produces lord/peasant relations; the capitalist
mode produces bourgeois/proletariat relations. It is in
this sense that one’s class position is determined by
one’s relationship to the mode of production.
