From: Thomas Schumacher <tschumac-AT-magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: Re: Some theses on Marx
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 94 17:38:42 EDT


Jon's theses on marx raise a stack of questions:

1.   How is the superstructure "lagging" or "stuck" behind the base?  We can
see, following Althusser, that there is uneven development here --
overdetermined by the base, he says -- but this unevenness doesn't necessarily
mean a "leading" base, does it?  What did you mean here?

2.   The comments on subjectivity are less clear.  How do we get subjectivity
from fetishization?  I'm not sure I disagree here, but the waters are a bit
muddled.

3.   Sut Jhally has noted that the shift from formal to real subsumption
necessitates a different analysis of the "superstructure" insofar as the latter
is no longer merely serving a "mystificatory" function but is instead part of
the material functioning of capital (note Harvey, who points out that the flood
of capital into the culture industries in the last two decades is indicative of
how capital shifts to those sectors of the economy with the fastest rates of
accumulation, something which the culture industries have increased even more
so under conditions of postmodernity).  If this is so, previously
"superstructural" sectors of society seem to have been subsumed by capital such
that the base/superstructure model becomes less easy to demarcate or identify
in its parts.

Tom S.


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