Base and Superstructure

If anything I feel the base is the state and everything else is subordinated to state security including economic and cultural factors.

I also reason that the state (government) came before economic organisation because security must precede economic activity for there to be any economic activity. Any economic activity would then be subordinated to the government's security making political power the base.

^^^^ this hasn't been answered either

Think harder: in a primitive classless society with little to no rigorous division of labor everyone has to work towards basic subsistence. Only when agricultural / material conditions develop past a certain productivity can a large enough surplus be produced for a state to form and a rupture of society into classes

the culture cannot operate outside the boundaries of its political economy, it is not entirely dictated by the economy in the way you're thinking, but economic base does affect how culture is expressed (for example, the growth of prosperity gospel and the subversion of the church into a vociferously pro-capitalist institution.

it should be remembered that conservatism originally was opposed to unfettered capitalism, in favor of the old feudal order. there is still a great deal of this in conservative rhetoric, but it is distorted due to a lack of any coherent conservative theory and a shit ton of propaganda. in practice, the old aristocracy and the liberals basically joined forced during the 20th century and rule the West as a de facto one party system, but the conservative masses aren't really in favor of "capitalism" so much as they're in favor of some idealized notion of property and liberty that doesn't actually work in the real world. when you look at the infantile notions conservatives have to fix the economy (so that it's some supposedly good capitalism), the prescriptions are ridiculously naïve, and that demonstrates what Marx was talking about - someone could invent some ideas about restructuring the economy to fix capitalism and make it work in some idealized way, but those solutions don't work for a reason as long as you retain the Law of Value, commodities, money, and so on (and the Law of Value is necessary so long as humans engage in market exchange and so long as large quantities of human labor are a politically useful form of power). likewise, if someone just decided to ban market exchange right away and force a planned economy, it would not stick just because of wishes and unicorns - markets materialize for a reason, they aren't just something baked into the human brain nor are they the work of nefarious Jews or what have you. that we have the means today to operate a planned economy is not in of itself enough, things do not materialize just because the technology is there, but technology is necessary to make the leap from capitalism to a centrally planned socialist economy, for the idea of socialism to be materially realized.

Your existence is determined by how you obtain and secure your means of subsistence (water, food, shelter). In a society, the means of subsistence are produced through labor. An economic system determines what and how these means are produced and distributed. Your existence is determined by the economic system you are a part of. Everything else is secondary (culture, identity, myth, superstructure). You can't just imagine your means of subsistence into existence. Things like cultural beliefs and practices can have some influence on planning and adjusting economic activity, but only insofar as it remains benign or reinforces the current paradigm.

A capitalist government or the State serves capitalist interests. You can have government without capitalism, it's just management of labor and resources.

All sorts of economic systems exist (black markets are an obvious one) that do not fall under the purview of a government or State. Economic activity, labor, and production all existed prior to government and State. A government is used to manage and optimize economic activity.

not every capitalist country is wholly given over to the capitalist ideology. i'd dare say there are very few politicians for whom capitalism is the absolute end unto itself. the closest ideology to "pure capitalism" would actually be progressive liberalism. the conservative ideology isn't pure capitalism, it's an hodgepodge of feudalist mores, social Darwinism, theology, and some complete nonsense. there is a reason why conservatives have to more or less accept the liberals as a fact of life, however much conservatives rail against liberalism and talk shit about how they want things to be like the good old days.

the governments, even those that nominally stand against unfettered capitalism, have to work within a capitalist framework so long as we're doing things through generalized commodity exchange with limited or no central planning and with the expectation of property rights being a thing). that's why Chavez couldn't just nationalize everything, and why America can't mint a $20 trillion coin to solve debt and tell the banks to piss off.

i think there is some confusion on this because so many socialists do buy into a moralistic or spooky notion of what capitalists do, like the spirit of capitalism is doing all of this. it's not that at all, it's the material conditions and the existence property as a fact of reality - not because private property is an innate property of humanity or the universe, but so long as there are antagonistic interests within a society, there is going to be some concept of "mine". socialism doesn't seek to abolish "mine" but instead places the means of production in the hands of society as a whole in a free association of workers, removing the superfluous role of the capitalist owner. that much can be done through struggle. the notion that a capitalist is necessarily going to fight to the death and employ the Samson option if defeat looms over them is just moralism and workerism. historically, the ruling (neo)liberal order formed not from an uninterrupted string of radical bourgeoisie seizures, but from a gradual alliance between the conservative and liberal blocs and the final admission that feudalism is dead, more or less completed by the start of the 20th century.

“In the trusts, freedom of competition changes into its very opposite — into monopoly; and the production without any definite plan of capitalistic society capitulates to the production upon a definite plan of the invading socialistic society. Certainly, this is so far still to the benefit and advantage of the capitalists. But, in this case, the exploitation is so palpable, that it must break down. No nation will put up with production conducted by trusts, with so barefaced an exploitation of the community by a small band of dividend-mongers.

In any case, with trusts or without, the official representative of capitalist society — the state — will ultimately have to undertake the direction of production. [4] This necessity for conversion into State property is felt first in the great institutions for intercourse and communication — the post office, the telegraphs, the railways.

If the crises demonstrate the incapacity of the bourgeoisie for managing any longer modern productive forces, the transformation of the great establishments for production and distribution into joint-stock companies, trusts, and State property, show how unnecessary the bourgeoisie are for that purpose. All the social functions of the capitalist has no further social function than that of pocketing dividends, tearing off coupons, and gambling on the Stock Exchange, where the different capitalists despoil one another of their capital. At first, the capitalistic mode of production forces out the workers. Now, it forces out the capitalists, and reduces them, just as it reduced the workers, to the ranks of the surplus-population, although not immediately into those of the industrial reserve army.

But, the transformation — either into joint-stock companies and trusts, or into State-ownership — does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. In the joint-stock companies and trusts, this is obvious. And the modern State, again, is only the organization that bourgeois society takes on in order to support the external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against the encroachments as well of the workers as of individual capitalists. The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine — the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers — proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is, rather, brought to a head. But, brought to a head, it topples over. State-ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution.

This solution can only consist in the practical recognition of the social nature of the modern forces of production, and therefore in the harmonizing with the socialized character of the means of production. And this can only come about by society openly and directly taking possession of the productive forces which have outgrown all control, except that of society as a whole. The social character of the means of production and of the products today reacts against the producers, periodically disrupts all production and exchange, acts only like a law of Nature working blindly, forcibly, destructively. But,with the taking over by society of the productive forces, the social character of the means of production and of the products will be utilized by the producers with a perfect understanding of its nature, and instead of being a source of disturbance and periodical collapse, will become the most powerful lever of production itself.”
t. Engels

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There wouldn't be economic divisions before the state creates them though.

Subsistence comes after security though. You can't get an economy going under foreign invasion or civil war. The state must exist which then creates class divisions which result in economic disparity. Then the economy changes over time. Then culture perhaps adapts to the security and economy. I see that as a more realistic view of the Base and Superstructure.