Economic Foundation

Core category of historical materialism corresponding to superstructure, refers to the sum total of all aspects of the dominant social relations at a certain stage of development of history. It corresponds to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production, and it is the basis of political life and intellectual life of society. The concept of economic foundation reflects the relationship of man to man in the economic sphere, i.e., the social relations of material production.

The category of economic foundation was gradually developed in the process of founding of historical materialism by Marx and Engels. In their early works such as the Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and The Holy Family, they investigated the question concerning civil society, and the concept of civil society gradually approached the category of “relations of production”. In The German Ideology, Marx and Engels pointed out that this conception of history depends on our ability to expound the actual process of production, starting out from the material production of life itself, and to comprehend the form of intercourse connected with this and created by this mode of production (i.e. civil society in its various stages), as the basis of all history; and to show it in its action as State, to explain all the different theoretical products and forms of consciousness, religion, philosophy, ethics, etc. and trace their origins and growth from that basis. These expositions essentially elaborated the relationship between the economic foundation and the superstructure. In the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx has clearly put forth the category of economic foundation corresponding to the superstructure: In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. In Anti-Dühring, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy and his correspondences on historical materialism in his later years, Engels had more exhaustive elaborations on the economic foundation.

In a given society there are often many different relations of production, and in addition to the dominant relations of production, there are also the germs of new relations of production and the remnants of old relations of production which are not dominant. Among them, only the dominant relations of production can determine the nature and features of the economic foundation of that society and become the economic foundation of society. The economic foundation is the sum total of all aspects and moments of the relations of production, including the relations of property in the means of production, the position of people in the process of production and their relationship, and the relations of distribution of products, and exists in each moment of production, distribution, exchange and consumption. Among them, the relations of property in the means of production are the basis of the relations of production. The dominant property in the means of production determines the nature of the economic foundation of society, and is also the fundamental hallmark to distinguish between different social formations.

Economic foundation and superstructure are a relation of unity of opposites. On the one hand, the economic foundation determines the superstructure. It determines the emergence of the superstructure and the nature of the superstructure. As the economic foundation is, so the superstructure will be. The nature of the superstructure depends not directly on the productive forces but on the relations of production. Engels pointed out that the economic structure of society always furnishes the real basis, starting from which we can alone work out the ultimate explanation of the whole superstructure of juridical and political institutions as well as of the religious, philosophical, and other ideas of a given historical period. The economic foundation determines the revolutions in the superstructure. The development of productive forces inevitably brings about changes in the relations of production, i.e., economic foundation. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure. On the other hand, the superstructure has a reaction upon the economic foundation. The reaction of the superstructure finds its concentrated manifestation in serving its economic foundation, and helps it to form, consolidate, and develop. The economic foundation and the superstructure interact with each other on the basis that the economic foundation plays, in the last instance, the determining part. The interaction constitutes their contradictory movement. The contradiction between the economic foundation and the superstructure is conditioned by the contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production, and the contradictory movement between the productive forces and the relations of production and between the economic foundation and the superstructure permeate the process of development of society from beginning to end and push forward the supersession of social formations.

The category of economic foundation played a key part in the process of founding of the materialistic conception of history by Marx and Engels and their scientific revelation of the general laws of development of human society. The economic foundation is the objective basis for distinguishing between different social forms. Marx said that the relations of production in their totality constitute what is called the social relations, society, and, moreover, a society at a definite stage of historical development, a society with peculiar, distinctive characteristics. Classical ancient society, feudal society and capitalist society are all such a totality of relations of production, and each of them at the same time marks a particular stage in the historical development of mankind. According to the nature of economic foundation, human society can be divided into five basic formations: primitive society, slave society, feudal society, capitalist society and communist society.