A Rethinking of Superstructure?

Although admittedly not familiar with the details of the argument, I understand there has been, and is, an ongoing debate about the relationship between the base and superstructure in capitalism. In traditional Marxist political economy, I think there is a pronounced and linear relationship between the two: the superstructure arises from – is based upon – the base, or the mode of production.
Our discussions of immaterial, and as a subcategory, affective labor, illustrate to me, not necessarily a full reversal of the relationship of base to superstructure, but definitely a profound modification. It is no longer the case that culture, morality, and subjectivity get directly and linearly informed by production. However, I wonder if that was ever the case. Harvey, discussing changes that had to be made within the Fordist era of production, writes that “the state of class relations throughout the capitalist world was hardly conducive to the easy acceptance of a production system that rested so heavily upon the socialization of the worker to long hours of purely routinized labour . . .” (128). Here we see that first the socialization of the worker to the imperatives of capital must take place, and not socialization as a product or even side-effect of the mode of production. Harvey also states that Ford sent social workers to the “privileged” immigrant workers’ houses to “ensure that the new man of mass production had the right kind of moral probity, family life, and the capacity for prudent and rational consumption . . .” (126). In other words, it seems that a certain culture, one conducive to and malleable for capitalism must be created before the mode of production can reach what capitalists see as its ideal level of production and efficiency.
This change in the relation between base and superstructure becomes even more obvious, and perhaps, simultaneously, more detrimental to agency, in post-Fordism or the era of flexible accumulation. However it takes on a different character. Previously, in Fordism, superstructural values were created, harnessed, or refined to increase production. Through the postmodernisation or informatisation of the economy, superstructural elements such as culture and subjectivity are no longer just used to increase efficiency in production but as the modes of production themselves.