Popular Culture
22/11/10

Forces of production
-Raw materials
-Technology/tools
-Skills
-Workforce
Forms of Consequence
-Ideaology
-Social institutions
-Superstructure
-Marrige
-Politics
-Religeon

Relations of Production are a direct product of the Forces of Production.
From these emerge the Superstructure.
The Superstructure affects and legitimises the Base.
We are born into Relations of Production – i.e. a place in society at a point in time.
All culture reflects the conflicting Relations of Production.
i.e. in the 19th century women had no vote, therefore the ruling class of men maintained
their position in society.

Materialism
In a Marxist sense this is not the same as how we use it today (it to want to own stuff).
It is understanding the world as a direct response to economic relations of production.
Materialism is opposite to Idealism.

Idealism
Idealism is understanding the world as the product of ideas of people who can change
the world.
Ideology
At its simplest: “a system of ideas and beliefs”
To Marx: ideology “naturalises power relations through false consciousness”
E.g. Marxists would argue that religion emerged at a particular point in time to validate the position
of the upper classes and the Monarchy.
E.g. we are born into a Western, Capitalist society and therefore know no different. Communist
states, e.g. North Korea, are ridiculed and ‘alien’.

Beauty
Male/Female Relations of Production result in our ideas of beauty.
Women are beautiful as seen and promoted from the dominant male point of view.
Engels “The Origins of the Family”
(Co-wrote “The Communist Manifesto” with Marx)
Marriage is a product of relations of production
- The production of resources resulted in the creation of private property
- To keep private property within the family, men instigated the concept of marriage as
they would then know their children were definitely theirs and could pass property to
them.