Infrastructure and Superstructure: Exploring the Base and Edifice of Society
Infrastructure and Superstructure
Infrastructure (Economic Structure)
The infrastructure, also known as the economic structure, forms the material base of society. It determines social structure, development, and change. This includes the productive forces and the relations of production, and it influences the superstructure.
Superstructure
The superstructure encompasses elements of social life dependent on the infrastructure. This includes religion, morality, science, philosophy, art, law, and political and legal institutions.
Economic Structure
Humans create tangible means of production, influenced by the nature of the object being transformed. This process involves two inseparable elements:
Productive Forces
These are the means of production combined with human labor power. The application of this labor power is called “work done.”
Relations of Production
Humans do not work in isolation but collaboratively. These relations depend not only on the people involved in production but also on the means of production. There are two types of relations of production:
Technical Relations of Production
These are the ways in which individuals control the means of production and the overall work process. Different types of production processes exist:
- Individual Production Process: The individual controls the means and the entire work process (e.g., craft work).
- Simple Cooperative Production Process: All individuals perform the same task, individually controlling the means of production but collectively participating in the labor process (e.g., hunting in primitive societies).
- Complex Cooperative Production Process: There is a division between those who control the working environment and those who control the process. This leads to a technical division of labor, exemplified by capitalist industry. Individuals can be categorized by technical function as direct or indirect, depending on their interaction with the raw materials.
Social Relations of Production
These are the relationships between individuals involved in production. Actors can be classified as owners or non-owners of the means of production. According to Marx, there are two historical forms of social relations:
- Exploiter-Exploited Relationship: The owners of the means of production live off the work of the direct producers or non-owners.
- Reciprocal Partnerships: No part of society lives off the exploitation of another, as ownership of the means of production is collective, not private.
Superstructure
The economic structure is dominated by a system that forms the basis of any production process and its technical and social relations. This system represents a set of ideas, beliefs, institutions, norms, etc., that shape social consciousness. It consists of the legal and political-ideological structure and depends on the economic conditions of each society and its productive forces. It has its own history but is rooted in the class interests that have been created.
Changes in the superstructure are a result of changes in the infrastructure. This theory has important consequences:
- Understanding the elements of the superstructure requires understanding the underlying economic structure and its changes.
- It suggests that human thought is not independent of the economic world, potentially promoting relativism.
In philosophy, this means that the history of philosophy cannot be solely an internal history of thought. It must consider external factors like economics to be understood. Philosophical theories are a product of economic circumstances and the class struggles within the philosopher’s society.
Profit
Profit is the benefit a capitalist gains from selling goods produced by workers. The basic formula of capitalism is “to sell more expensively than one purchases.” Economies do not produce for the sake of meeting needs but to sell products and use the money to buy necessities. Prices are regulated by supply and demand. The value of a commodity is directly related to the amount of human labor embodied within it, referred to as “socially necessary labor time.” This is determined by the average skill of workers and average working conditions.
Labor is a commodity bought and sold in the market. The value of a worker’s labor power is the socially necessary labor time to produce what they need to live. The work produced in a day exceeds the cost of subsistence. This excess is surplus value, the typical form of capitalist profit. Only labor creates surplus value for the capitalist. Profit can be defined as capital produced minus capital consumed.
To determine profit, the capitalist must account for wages, machinery, raw materials, and machinery maintenance (constant capital). To increase profit, either surplus value must increase while constant and variable capital remain constant, or surplus value remains constant while constant and variable capital decrease. Two systems achieve profit growth:
- Absolute Surplus Value: Extending the workday without increasing wages.
- Relative Surplus Value: Reducing the required work time by improving working methods or hiring cheaper labor.