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Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory Any modern
approach to a Marxist theory of culture must begin by
considering the proposition of a determining base and a
determined superstructure. From a strictly theoretical point of
view this is not, in fact, where we might choose to begin.  It
would be in many ways preferable if we could begin from a
proposition which originally was equally central, equally
authentic: namely the proposition that social being determines
consciousness. It is not that the two propositions necessarily
deny each other or are in contradiction. But the proposition of
base and superstructure, with its figurative element, with its
suggestion of a definite and fixed spatial relationship,
constitutes, at least in certain hands, a very specialized and
at times unacceptable version of the other proposition. Yet in
the transition from Marx to Marxism, and in the