Base and Superstructure

Our society is conditioned and structured by the economic realities of our time. While achieving and maintaining economic power is the ultimate motive and force behind all social and political activities such as education, Philosophy, ideology, government, art-science, technology, media and so on. Therefore, economic conditions are the base/infrastructure while social, political and ideological realities built on economic conditions are the Superstructure. The family structure, ethics, behaviours, and beliefs are all shaped and structured by the base, that is to say, the economics and its relations of production. So the Base structures and shapes Superstructure while the Superstructure maintains and supports the Base.

To break it down even further. the economic conditions shape ethics, family structures, social relations, political realities, beliefs and so on while they all support a current economic theory which is shaping them into how and what they are! And now, since we know that social, political and ideological realities, i.e. the Superstructure is conditioned and structured by the base which is economics, we also know that economic power, therefore, includes social and political power and that's the reason when talking about a class we use the term socioeconomic class, not just economic class because the base structures social realities as well.

Material Circumstances and Historical Situation

So the base or economic conditions are termed Material Circumstances while the social, political and ideological atmosphere or the Superstructure generated by material Circumstances is known as Historical Situations. Therefore neither human events in political social or personal domain nor human inventions and productions from nuclear to TV series can be understood without understanding the specific material/historical circumstances which caused them, so all human productions and events have specific material/historical causes.

The accurate analysis of human affairs can not be obtained by the search for abstract, timeless essences, principles or fantasies but only by understanding concrete material conditions in the world. Therefore, Marxist analysis of events and productions focuses on relationships among socioeconomic classes, both with society and among societies, and it grasps the ideas in their totality, not parts, it sees the whole picture and explains it all human activities and affairs in terms of distribution and dynamics of economic power. Marxist praxis asserts that theoretical ideas can only be judged to have value only in terms of their concrete applications. An idea is only worth a value to the point of its applicability with coordinates of objective conditions of reality of our time.