Understanding capitalist structures must precede effective revolutionary practice
Evidence
To take this conceptual opening further—both to modify and to extend it, critically—is, at the same time, to advance Marxism as a critical science and as a theoretically informed revolutionary practice. Only when we can grasp and comprehend the dense, opaque integument of capitalist societies—their base and their complex superstructures—through the former are we likely to be able to develop a sufficiently informed practice to transform them. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 539
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- APHORISMS: A credo tying theory to practice — the intellectual grasp of opaque social structure is the precondition for transformative action.
Related
- Marx derives superstructures from the phenomenal forms of exchange relations (similarity 0.82)
- Socialism emerges within capitalism as existing structures rather than an ideal (similarity 0.82)
- Marx’s superstructures are determined yet fundamentally necessary, not empty illusions. (similarity 0.80)
- Socialist transformation requires consciousness of total impossibility first (similarity 0.80)
- Marx’s theory must be continuously developed because capitalism constantly changes. (similarity 0.80)
- Structuralism permits thinking structure apart from relations between people. (similarity 0.80)
- Capitalism becomes a whole form of social life through the superstructures, not just production. (similarity 0.79)
- Abstraction is the essential instrument for revealing structures invisible to direct observation (similarity 0.79)
- Marxist thought neglected the state until Poulantzas and Althusser revived it (similarity 0.79)
- Capitalist and formally pre-capitalist modes combine in structured dominance. (similarity 0.79)
- Marxist ideology carries a negative judgment and must be analyzed as superstructure (similarity 0.78)
- Marx broke with political economy by abstracting structures apart from individuals (similarity 0.78)
- Marxist theory provides a critical framework for analyzing class struggle’s influence on cultural practices (similarity 0.78)