This is exactly how we keep intentionally misunderstanding Das Kapital on internet forums.
Class is not a minor outcome of a social moment. It is not a mere symbol that can be quickly turned on or off by a culture, the way a culture might shift from enjoying boxing to preferring mixed martial arts.
Class has arisen as an essential structure in the reproduction of society since the dissolution of European fuedalism. The same business logic that produces all our material wants, from coats to bushels, comes hand in hand with the logic that every business must give the profit (surplus labor) back to capital. Culture is a material basis, but class is the overdetermining superstructure.
Shifting from a class based society to a classless one would require a fundamental shift in the economic relations where workers would own the means of production. This shift would tear apart the material basis of our culture. MTV/Viacom, MSNBC/Fox/CNN, RCA/TicketMaster/C3, WaPo/NYT/WSJ, TWTR/Facebook/Google: all of these cultural production centers would shatter into cultural microcosms if the workers at these firms weren't bound to profit maximization.
On the other hand, it is trivial to manufacture new cultures without a whiff of change to class.
To clarify - you think that I'm intentionally misunderstanding Das Kapital by questioning how someone could believe that class and culture are intermixed? Or do you think that the material conditions of a given society are largely determined by class relations, and acting as if that's not the case is an intentional misreading of Marx?
Class is not a minor outcome of a social moment. It is not a mere symbol that can be quickly turned on or off by a culture, the way a culture might shift from enjoying boxing to preferring mixed martial arts.
Class has arisen as an essential structure in the reproduction of society since the dissolution of European fuedalism. The same business logic that produces all our material wants, from coats to bushels, comes hand in hand with the logic that every business must give the profit (surplus labor) back to capital. Culture is a material basis, but class is the overdetermining superstructure.
Shifting from a class based society to a classless one would require a fundamental shift in the economic relations where workers would own the means of production. This shift would tear apart the material basis of our culture. MTV/Viacom, MSNBC/Fox/CNN, RCA/TicketMaster/C3, WaPo/NYT/WSJ, TWTR/Facebook/Google: all of these cultural production centers would shatter into cultural microcosms if the workers at these firms weren't bound to profit maximization.
On the other hand, it is trivial to manufacture new cultures without a whiff of change to class.