So one thing I’m trying to understand with the base and the superstructure is with respect to tech startups and the approach to engineering that they take. Basically:

Start ups are in a constant cycle of chasing venture capital funding, needing to show constant growth of users/customers at fairly regular intervals
This leads to a myopic focus on quality in engineering, as it is (incorrectly) deemed as a hindrance to delivering new features that would allow for increased growth. (In reality, the initial cost of focusing quality is quickly surpassed by the drag of poor code and technical decision making forever increasing as it is left unaddressed, but I digress).
Further to that, early employees of the company are strongly incentivized in the short term, by relatively large stock option grants. These grants are generally exercisable after 1 year, and most folks will move on to another company after 2 years. As such, there is no incentive for them to fix the engineering mess they have created if the company is growing - someone else will be employed at a later date to solve that problem, for significantly less equity in the company. These later employees are effectively doing the work of repairing the poor work that the early employees left in their wake. A technical debt Ponzi scheme, if you will.

So given all that - where is the base and the superstructure? Is it all base, as it is a combination of means and relations of production? Is tech bro “fuck quality” culture the superstructure here?

Sorry if this makes no sense or is baby brained, I’ve been stewing on this idea of tech debt being a Ponzi scheme for a while and I want to be able to talk about it correctly from a materialist perspective. And I’m not the brightest at this stuff :comfy:

[–] ChestRockwell@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

The relations and means of production are all the coding/incentives/stock options, etc. Meanwhile (and this shows the spiral shape), the fuck quality culture comes out of those material conditions and, in turn, begins to reflect back upon the material conditions that produced it.

Basically, keep in mind that neither arrow in the circuit is deterministic or either the base or superstructure is homogenous. Raymond Williams talks about the idea of "dominant, residual, and emergent," basically that just because the dominant mode of production might be capitalist, it doesn't mean there aren't residual ideological and material (base) formations from feudalism or other material settlements.

In short I think you're already on the right track here