“Our programme does not contain anything about change, reform or transformation, but rather the smashing of these three foundations of civilisation: family, property, state.”

– Amadeo Bordiga, Forwards, Barbarians! (1951).

Ang kahulugan ng salitang “sibilisado” ay nakabatay sa mga materyal na kondisyong nakapalibot sa isang indibidwal sa lipunan. Madalas, ginagawa itong pamantayan ng mga tao kung ano ang nararapat na ikilos, ipakita, o ipahayag. Ang imahe ng pagiging sibilisado ay nagpapakita ng pagiging disente ng isang mamamayan. Ito rin ay ginagamit na modelo ng mga burgesya bilang isang malaking halimbawa kung paano magmukhang maayos sa kapitalistang sistema.

Pero bago natin suriin ang kapitalistang depinisyon ng pagiging sibilisado, magpokus muna tayo sa tatlong institusyon na binigyang-pansin ni Bordiga bilang mga pundasyon ng umiiral sa kapitalistang sibilisasyon: ang pamilya, ari-arian, at estado.

Ang Pamilya, Pribadong Ari-arian, at Estado.

Ang iba’t ibang porma ng pamilya ay isa sa mga institusyong nag-naturalisa ng “unpaid labor” dahil ito ay nakahulma sa totalidad ng kapital at nagsisilbing porma ng sosyal na reproduksyon. Ang mga porma ng pre-class na lipunan ay hindi pa nakabatay sa mga institusyon ng uri, pribadong ari-arian, at estado. Sa pagbunga ng agrikultura at dibisyon ng paggawa, umusbong ang iba’t ibang ‘method’ ng pag-extract ng surplus na produkto at mga bagong ‘mode ng produksyon’ na may iba’t ibang historikal na dahilan na nakaakibat. Dito, unti-unting nagbago ang mga relasyong panlipunan sa mas komplikadong lebel.

Ang konsepto ng nukleyar na pamilya ay napasailalim at nire-reorganisa sa lohika ng kapital. Dapat nating tandaan na ang mga hierarchy sa paggawa ay hindi lamang natural na umusbong, dahil ang mga ito ay naprodyus dahil sa mga historikal na kondisyon at pag-usbong ng panglipunang dibisyon ng paggawa, kaya lumaganap ang ganitong gawain. Ganoon din sa extended na pamilya, parehas na napasailalim ang mga ito sa totalidad ng kapital. Gayunpaman, parehas ang dalawang klase ng pamilya na rinereprodyus ang sosyal na reproduksyon ng manggagawa na may pagka-peculiar na manipestasyon.

Sa ‘uneven’ na pag-unlad ng relasyong panlipunan, paglala at pagkakaroon ng ‘distinction’ sa tunggaliang relasyon ng uri, at sari-saring pamamaraan sa akumulasyon ng surplus, umusbong ang iba’t ibang uri ng pulitikal na kapangyarihan na kalaunan ay nagresulta sa pormasyon ng estado.

“The state is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The state arises where, when and insofar as class antagonism objectively cannot be reconciled. And, conversely, the existence of the state proves that the class antagonisms are irreconcilable.”

– Vladimir Lenin, State and Revolution (1917).

Ang estado ay hindi isang neutral na entidad. Ayon kay Lenin, ito ay produkto ng hindi pagkakasundo ng tunggaliang uri. Upang maintindihan natin ang layunin ng estado, hindi lang dapat natin ito tawagin bilang instrumento ng mga naghaharing uri upang protektahan ang kanilang pribadong ari-arian. Kailangan din natin itong suriin kasama ang totalidad ng mga sosyal na relasyon na nagre-reprodyus sa isang moda ng produksyon.

Pero masyadong ‘oversimplification’ kung ganitong genealogy ipapaliwanag ang paglitaw ng mga institusyong ito. Dito, mahalagang basahin si Jairus Banaji upang lalong maunawaan ang metodo ng kritikal na materyalismo nina Marx at Engels.

Mula kina Marx at Engels patungo kay Banaji

“The theory has to be stripped of its evolutionism and refurbished to allow for more complex trajectories. For example, transitions to capitalism do not simply replicate some universal model or fixed sequence such as the one implied in the canonical genealogy of European culture (slavery → feudalism → capitalism).”

– Jairus Banaji, Theory as History (2010).

Para kay Banaji, ang method ni Marx ay dapat maunawaan bilang isang pagsusuri sa lipunan na nakaangkla sa historikal na totalidad. Alisin natin ang ebolusyunistang at linyar na pagbasa sa The Origin of Family, Private Property, and the State na naging dominante sa mga iilang Marxistang tradisyon. Ang kalakasan ng method ni Marx at Engels ay nasa konkretong pagsusuri ng mga relasyon sa lipunan, hindi sa mekanikal at unibersal na paglapat nito sa makasaysayang pag-unlad.

Lubos ring kinokontra ni Banaji ang paggamit ng linyar na tingin sa pag-unlad ng produksyon at hindi rin nadedetermina ang ‘mode of production’ sa simpleng pagtingin sa panlabas nitong itsura. Ika nga niya sa kanyang aklat sa Historical Materialism:

“To take modes of production first, these, for Marx, comprised the ‘relations of production in their totality’ (as he says in Wage Labour and Capital), a nuance completely missed by Marxists who simply reduce them to historically dominant forms of exploitation or forms of labour, for example, positing a slave mode of production wherever slave-labour is used or ruling out capitalism if ‘free’ labour is absent.”

– Jairus Banaji

Ang genealogy ng kapitalismo ay napakakomplikado, dahil ang ‘mode of production’ ay hindi agad nadedetermina sa mga pagsusuri lang sa uri ng paggawa. Ang presensya ng ‘slaves’ ay hindi nangangahulugang ‘slave mode of production’ na agad. Ganoon din sa pagsusuri sa lipunan, hindi ibig sabihin na mayroong puwersahang paggawa ay wala na ito sa saklaw ng kapitalistang akumulasyon.

Ano nga ba ang totalidad? Upang mas lalong maintindihan natin ang konsepto ni Marx sa totality, ay dapat balikan natin ang mga sinulat niya sa Grundrisse at The German Ideology.

“The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus the first fact to be established is the physical organisation of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature.”

“The first historical act is thus the production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself.”

– Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology.

“The concrete is concrete because it is the concentration of many determinations, hence unity of the diverse.”

– Karl Marx, Grundrisse.

Ang eksplanasyon o paliwanag ay hindi nagsisimula sa mga ideya, kundi sa pagsisimula ng materyal na buhay ng tao. Ang mga institusyong pamilya, pribadong ari-arian, at estado ay hindi natural na umusbong lamang; may kalakip na mga historikal na dahilan kung paano ang mga ito umusbong. Ang pamilya, pribadong ari-arian, at estado ay hindi dapat tingnan bilang magkakahiwalay na institusyon. Ito ay lumitaw at nagbago sa makasaysayang pag-unlad ng mga relasyon sa produksyon at sa lipunan.

Pinagtibay ito ni Banaji sa kanyang eksplanasyon sa method ng kritikal na materyalismo nina Marx at Engels. Sa pagtingin sa totalidad ng sosyal na relasyon, hindi natin dapat ihiwalay ang mga institusyong nabanggit, dahil magiging diborsyo ito sa dialektika na naaayon sa Marxistang method. Sa madaling salita, ang Marxistang analysis ay kinakailangang tingnan o suriin ang kabuuang totalidad na determinasyon ng mga relasyong panlipunan, upang maintindihan ang akumulasyon, produksyon, atbp.

Dito papasok ang proseso ng metabolismo (Stoffwechsel). Ito ang proseso ng materyal na pagpapalitan ng tao at kalikasan. Ayon kay Marx:

“Labour is, in the first place, a process in which both man and Nature participate, and in which man of his own accord starts, regulates, and controls the material re-actions between himself and Nature.”

– Karl Marx, Capital Vol 1.

Ang punto ni Marx dito, sa pamamagitan ng paggawa at pagtransporma ng tao sa kalikasan, ang tao ay makakaprodyus ng materyal na kondisyon para mabuhay, at sa tuloy-tuloy na paggawa nito ay nare-reprodyus nila ang lipunan.

Kung ang metabolismo ay tumutukoy sa materyal na reproduksyon sa pagitan ng tao at kalikasan, ang mga katanungan na nakapaloob sa historikal na materyalismo ay nagtatanong kung paano ang mga prosesong ito ay inaayos ng mga sosyal na relasyon. Dito nagiging mas mahalaga ang konsepto ng totalidad, dahil hindi nahihiwalay ang produksyon sa reproduksyon, institusyon, uri, atbp. Lahat ng ito ay magkakaugnay sa nabanggit na bahagi ng makasaysayang proseso.

Upang lalo pang maintindihan ang konsepto ng ‘totality’ at ‘metabolism’, dapat nating basahin si Phil Neel.

Ang Kritikal na Materyalistang Pagtingin sa Sibilisasyon

Dito pumapasok ang ‘Social Materialism’ ni Phil Neel sa pagpapakita ng ‘method’ ng kritikal na materyalismo sa planetaryong ‘scale’. Sa Arms in Hand, pinapakita ang pagkabihasa niya sa ‘method’ ng Marxismo.

“capitalism is the first truly sociospheric system—and its technical exoskeleton is therefore planetary.”

– Phil Neel, Arms in Hand (2026).

Mahalagang intindihin ang konsepto ni Neel na “sociospheric system”. Kung ang depinisyon ng metabolismo ay materyal na pagpapalitan sa pagitan ng tao at kalikasan, ngayon naman ay isipin natin ang ‘scale’ o lawak ng mga ito, pero hindi ito nasusukat lamang sa lawak ng kalakalan; sa halip, ang “sociospheric system” ni Neel ngayon ay sumasagot kung gaano kalawak ang narereprodyus na metabolismo sa isang partikular na lipunan.

Sa kapitalismo, ang produksyon at sosyal na reproduksyon ay hindi dapat tingnan lamang bilang isa-isang rehiyon o estado, dahil ang kapitalismo ay integrated na sa buong mundo. Ang mga iba’t ibang pagpoproseso ng produksyon at reproduksyon ay maaaring magkakakonekta sa iba’t ibang bahagi ng mundo. Dahil dito, ang mga imprastraktura sa kapitalismo ay nagiging planetaryo. Ang mga ito ay nakaakibat na sa sosyal na metabolismo ng pandaigdigang kapitalismo.

Isa sa mga magagandang halimbawa na kanyang sinulat ay ang pagpapaliwanag niya sa sinaunang sibilisasyon katulad ng Song Dynasty sa “Social Logic of the Song Dynasty”. Dito na ipinaliwanag niya ang tributaryong ‘mode of production’ ng Song Dynasty, na kahit ito ay may wage labor, hindi sapat na tawagin itong kapitalista kahit malaki ang komersyo at ekonomiya nito. Kahit malawak ang saklaw ng kalakalan nito sa Asya, hindi ibig sabihin na nakabatay na agad ito sa planetaryong dibisyon ng produksyon. Hindi ito madedetermina sa simpleng lawak lamang ng kalakalan, kundi kung paano nakadepende ang sosyal na reproduksyon ng lipunang ito sa magkakaugnay na proseso ng produksyon na lumalampas sa rehiyonal na saklaw.

“Though money and markets were extensive in this period and relatively advanced forms of capital were common, it was not production-for-value but instead tributary channels centered on the state (and ultimately the imperial court) that knit these three elite strata together and placed them in a position of power over the commoners producing the (ultimately agrarian) surplus from which tribute was derived. Commercial capital, wage labor, and manufacturing systems producing tradable commodities all certainly existed in this period, enabled by rapid increases in agricultural productivity. But these remained subordinate forms entrained to very different social imperatives than those of capitalism proper.”

– Phil Neel, Social Logic of the Song Dynasty.

Sa talatang ito rin niya ipinaliwanag ang totality; ang pagsuri niya sa lipunan ng Song Dynasty ay hindi nagsisimula sa mga tanong kung kapitalista ba ito o hindi, kundi sa pagsusuri sa totalidad ng mga relasyon na nakapaloob sa produksyon at reproduksyon.

Sa pagbabasa kay Phil Neel, masasabi natin na ang planetaryong aspect ng kapitalismo ay di lamang nasusukat sa kung gaano kalayo ang sukat ng sistemang kalakalan ng mga sibilisasyon. Mahalagang suriin din ang lawak ng sosyal na metabolismo upang makita kung paano nagrereprodyus at nagpapatuloy ang kapital. Dahil ang istruktura ng kapitalismo ay nangangailangan ng dependency sa magkakaugnay na proseso na maaaring maganap sa iba’t ibang lugar.

Barbarismo at Sibilisasyon

Ayon sa militanteng tradisyon ng Marxistang Kaliwa, ang pamilya, pribadong ari-arian, at estado ay hindi mga institusyong pumapatnubay sa pagsisimula ng mga Homo sapiens na kung wala ang mga ito ay hindi mabubuhay ang tao. Ang sangkatauhan ay nakabuo ng lipunan bago pa umusbong ang tatlong ito.

Ang komunistang programa ay hindi humahangad sa pagreporma sa tatlong ito, kundi sa pagbuwag nang tuluyan sa mga panlipunang relasyon nito na nagbibigay sa tatlo ng makauring anyo.

Dahil dito, ang mga makatangging reaksyunaryong puwersa ay tumatawag sa amin na mga barbaro. Hindi sa pagroromantisa ng bansag na barbaro, pero kung ito ang katawagan sa aming mga Marxista, pormal naming tinatanggap ito.

Ang salitang barbaro ay ginagamit upang bansagan ang mga kalaban ng Romanong sibilisasyon. Isa rin itong paglalarawan na ang barbaro ay isang ‘savage’ at mapanirang nilalang. Ang mga komunista ay hinahalintulad dito, pero dito binabaliktad ni Bordiga ang kahulugan nito, sa pagtanggap sa bansag na barbaro. Napaka-ironic kung tutuusin, dahil ang mga barbaro mismo ang nag -‘rejuvenate’ sa Roma, sa pamamagitan ng pagbasag ng mga lumang imperyal na istruktura ng imperyo. Dahil dito, nagtransporma at nag-’transcend’ ang lipunang Romano. Sa bokabularyo ni Bordiga, ang barbaro ay di lamang basta mapanirang puwersa dahil sila ang nagbubukas ng posibilidad ng pagdebelop ng panibagong porma ng sosyal na organisasyon.

Bakit nga ba kailangang basagin ang mga institusyong ito bukod sa pagbasag lamang ng kapitalismo? Sa pagbasa kina Bordiga at Neel, ang sistema ng kapitalismo ay nire-reprodyus dahil sa mga totalidad ng sosyal na relasyon nito, kung saan ang pamilya, pribadong ari-arian, at estado ay magkakaugnay. Kung kaya’t ang artikulong ito ay nagbibigay ng emphasis sa method ng ‘historical materialism’ upang tuluyang masuri ang mga pundasyon ng sibilisasyon at maintindihan ang mga layunin ng komunistang programa.

Ang pagbasag sa institusyon ng pamilya ay hindi nangangahulugang pagbasag sa relasyon ng mga tao sa kanilang pamilya, kundi pagbasag ng kapitalistang porma ng pamilya na nagrereprodyus ng naturalisasyon ng ‘unpaid labor’.

Ang pagbasag naman sa pribadong ari-arian ay nangangahulugang pag-alis sa pribadong pag-aangkin sa mode ng produksyon, hindi pag-alis ng personal na ari-arian ng isang tao.

Ganoon din sa estado, ang pagbasag nito bilang isang makauring institusyon na pumapagitan sa tunggaliang uri, hindi pag-alis ng lahat ng sosyal na koordinasyon.

Ang komunismo ay di naghahangad na gawing mas pantay ang trato nito sa mga tao o sa madaling salita, mas sibilisadong kapitalismo, kundi ang pagbasag sa mga relasyong nagrereprodyus ng ‘capitalist class relations’ na nangyayari sa lohika ng kapital na nagreresulta sa tunggaliang ‘uri’ (class).

Kung tutuusin, ang kapitalistang sibilisasyon pa mismo ang barbaro dahil naglalaman ito ng relasyong hindi patas na makikita mo sa mga internal na kontradiksyon nito. Sa kapitalistang sibilisasyon, hinihigop nito ang lakas-paggawa at hinuhubog nito ang katawan ng tao bilang kalakal sa merkado. Ito ba ang depinisyon ng isang ‘sibilisado’ ng mga kapitalista? Ganito ba ang mga pamantayan ng pagiging sibilisado sa pagtanggap ng ganitong realidad? Kung ito ang pamantayan ng pagiging ‘sibilisado’ sa lipunang ito, kaming mga Marxista na ang mga barbaro.

Ang barbaro ni Bordiga ay hindi pagbabalik sa primitibong lipunan, kundi pag -‘transcend’ ng sibilisasyon higit pa sa sosyal na relasyon ng kapitalismo. Ito rin ay pagtanggi na ang kapitalistang sibilisasyon ay ang huling anyo ng mode ng produksyon. Ang pagbuwag sa sosyal na relasyon na nagrereprodyus ng kapitalismo ang kinakailangang hakbang upang mapunta sa rebolusyonaryong pagkasira tungo sa komunismo.

Ang punto rin ng barbaro ay hindi sa paghanga sa pagkawasak; sa halip, isa itong simbolo ng pagtanggi na ang kapitalistang sibilisasyon ang hangganan at huling anyo ng buhay panlipunan.

Sa ganitong kahulugan, ang pagiging barbaro ay isang posisyon laban sa mga kapitalistang relasyon na itinuturing ng mga reaksyunaryo bilang permanente, natural, at hindi na malalampasan.

Tapusin natin ang artikulo sa mga salita mismo ni Bordiga:

“So let there come with socialism a new and fruitful barbarism, such as that which descended from the Alps and renewed Europe, which did not destroy but exalted the centuries of knowledge and art imprisoned in the dungeon of the formidable empires.”

– Amadeo Bordiga, Forwards, Barbarians! (1951).

Abante, Barbaro!

Personal Notes:

Nagpapasalamat ako sa mga makakaliwang Marxista na nagbigay ng mga literary references upang maintindihan ko lalo ang depinisyon ng barbaro ni Bordiga.

Mga Sanggunian:

Banaji, J. (2010). Theory as History: Essays on modes of production and exploitation.

Bordiga, A. (1951). Forwards, barbarians!

Engels, F. (1884). The origin of the family, private property, and the state.

Lenin, V.I. (1918). The state and revolution.

Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1845-1846). The German ideology.

Marx, K. (1857-1858). Grundrisse.

Marx, K. (1867). Capital: A critique of political economy.

Neel, P.A. (2025). Arms in hand.

Neel, P.A. (2025). Social logic of the Song Dynasty.

The normalization of state violence, theatrical partisan politics between dynasties, and the nationalist rhetorics are being presented as political drama; a state spectacle¹ under representational figures as they hide deeper systemic issues of capitalist populism led by multiple dynasties and fanaticism² — politicians transformed as characters of the drama.

Blinded by political figures while being exposed to its supposed turmoil which the capitalist class have imposed onto the society is a national spectacle; we are directly mediated by the image of the state and nation, given by the popularity under Duterte’s regime — this wouldn’t be farther from the truth, where he took advantage of his presidency, constructing a populist approach of authoritarianism by transforming the systemic contradictions of capitalism into spectacular moral conflicts; to control the his narrative of being united within the leftist sphere — his agreement unity and betrayal against leftists and activists — and becoming an ultranationalist figure recalled as a fascist regime, creating a symbolised commodification to represent his position by nationalizing his populism, distorting narratives of his campaigns, all while selectively dividing the masses into “addicts and normal people” under the image of his demagoguery — which directly does nothing resolve the issue because the global capitalist economy is the one driving the narcotrafficking in effect of Neoliberalism in the west (best described in the book Drug Cartels Do Not Exist: Narcotrafficking in US and Mexican Culture by Oswaldo Zavala³), the inequality incentivizes the masses to commit drug trafficking.

The supporting belt of this regime — the internal conflict within the Executive and Legislative Senate, Bato, and the PNP, AFP, and Malacañang during and after Duterte’s regime — accelerates the social conditions and systemic contradictions by normalizing mass violence under “the rule of law,” where addict labelling and red-tagging become the practical norm within the masses, granted that it was assigned into a legislative law.

Additionally, this spectacle transforms the mass division that has led to communal violence; while as the victims of oppression, we are mediated to act upon the presented narrative of the state and media, acting under the emotion of authentic fear, to side with the senate as they act on the appearance of “justice” while killing people who are victims of the authoritarian capitalist system. The advertisement of “justice” and partisanship becomes prevalent when exploring the forms of a spectacle.

Through the concept of spectacles, Guy Debord explored and introduced its two primary forms: the diffused spectacle⁴ and concentrated spectacle⁵ — they exist based on the real contradictions of capital that are being repressed to conceal the unity of poverty. In Philippine politics, this is most apparent in authoritarian regimes, Debord writes:

The fraudulence of the satisfactions offered by the sys­tem is exposed by this continual replacement of products and of general conditions of production. In both the diffuse and the concentrated spectacle, entities that have brazenly asserted their definitive perfection nevertheless end up changing, and only the system endures. Stalin, like any other outmoded commodity, is denounced by the very forces that originally promoted him. Each new lie of the advertising in­dustry is an admission of its previous lie. And with each downfall of a personification of totalitarian power, the illuso­ry community that had unanimously approved him is exposed as a mere conglomeration of loners without illusions.

— Guy Debord on The Society of the Spectacle

Both the Duterte and Marcos regimes have echoed this harmony of spectacle’s primary forms, as well as the other regimes that came before and after them due to their participation in consumer and bureaucratic capitalism. The state has demonstrated the illusion of a safety net under the guise of each dynasty and parties to reinforce obedience and the perception of the masses, by directly concealing poverty through their governance. Furthermore, Debord has also stated this in relation to this afterthought:

The unreal unity proclaimed by the spectacle masks the class division underlying the real unity of the capitalist mode of production. What obliges the producers to participate in the construction of the world is also what excludes them from it. What brings people into relation with each other by liberating them from their local and national limitations is also what keeps them apart. What requires increased ration­ality is also what nourishes the irrationality of hierarchical exploitation and repression. What produces society's ab­stract power also produces its concrete lack of freedom.

— Guy Debord on The Society of the Spectacle

The political party fiasco between the Marcos and Duterte dynasties — from their unity to separation, Trillanes’ rebellion against the regime, accompanied by his nationalism, and the consistency of the Liberal parties to side with the protest despite their own involvement in the capitalist system inhabits the media-constructed spectacle built as the democratic drama between national camps as a distraction to the systematically designed capitalism, shaping the aesthetics of Philippine politics and further symbolically commodified — representational politics or fanaticism has developed into a necessity to act within politics. Its own contradiction is driving society to fail each moment they reform: national protest marches to reinstate the government's sovereignty. At the same time, the working class is still divided, and the bourgeoisie remain — the crimes are still permitted to exist without accountability from the ruling class.

The material conditions settled by the political fiasco have led to this point of impending violence, a shootout inside the Malacañang.

When Duterte’s allies currently run the Senate, they have the sovereignty to control the narrative of the situation; senators driving livestreams and statements to a level within the understanding of the masses should not be taken as already factual; they are still building symbolic legitimacy over factual legitimacy, particularly the script of warranting an arrest for Senator Bato Dela Rosa and during the shootout, there was news circulating that the Malacañang has stopped the arrest — it was a clear fraudulence in the script that berates the distrust of the masses, but the spectacle defies this as misconception, and detracts the masses to be class conscious due to fanaticism.

The situation becomes much more convoluted upon mixed narratives and impending scenes, which uplifts the drama, and the turmoil would become more obsolete when the masses have taken the figures to become the characters of the drama. As suspected, opinions are varied — Duterte supporters suspect an NBI agent of having committed the shooting, and the opposition rejects this notion, and may have been an obscured fact that led to this situation. Furthermore, the spectacle has made the partisan ideology into loyalist and essentialist identities, due to the transformation of appearances by the fanaticism of these figures; they become the collective sectarians in authority, the opium of the masses to cope with the turmoil of capitalism.

When the spectacle accelerates, it ends with violent impunity that perpetuates its own audience, with the intention to fear the state and reinstate capital. The perceivers, the sets, and the broadcasters are being put inside dangerous situations to satisfy and sensationalize the spectacle’s symbolic image of patriotism and martyrdom. Thus, when the government act within the dramatising script, the audience would never avert their eyes to the issues arising from these situations as the morality of the characters displayed on the media becomes more valuable due to their place in authority; the interpassivity of doing something right by “watching” becomes the form of protest against the system as the spectacle have isolated the views into partisan politics than proper governance and revolution.

Under these representations of government features the hyperreality⁶ that stages the collapse of representations. The condition that detaches the image from its essence is seen within Philippine politics — the synthesis of spectacle’s opposition, which is the poverty that is concealed in the spectacle — the trauma produced by the spectacle has reproduced the social conditions to a point of a simulacrum⁷ no one may remember when such conditions were created. As both the spectacle and the hyperreality are harmonic and interconnected nodes, they are produced inside partisanship by the likes of Duterte’s appeal to the masses — his toughman image and theatrical executions of his protocol created a safe space amongst people, regardless of how it was practically managed; the dogmatic cinema of political melodrama — the heroes and martyrs of the oppressive system, where action celebrities like Robin Padilla or Fernando Poe Jr. took in power to symbolize this script; and the infrastructure of media within politics intervene to crowd the truth about the capitalist system the state adheres deeply.

The staged melodrama of the arrest of Senator Bato, Robin Padilla, and the entirety of the state must not divert the gaze of the masses to their oppressive and distorted class infrastructure imposed on the media. The social anxiety is still in disarray, as the system couldn't be exposed in the name of bureaucratic capitalism.

1. Spectacle - the society mediated by images and representations (i.e. commodities, celebrity figures, news media).

2. Fanaticism - an unwavering, dogmatically certain commitment to sacred values, particularly by partisan leaders, driving intolerant and often violent imposition of those values on others.

3. “This official monopoly on the discourse of the narco is possible because the history of drug trafficking in Mexico is derived from the history of state prohibition. In other words, state prohibition is the condition of possibility for the existence and development of organized crime; all the more reason for the state to invent the language we use to describe it.” — Oswald Zavala, Drug Cartels Do Not Exist: Narcotrafficking in US and Mexican Culture. p. 33.

4. Diffused Spectacle - The seduction of the masses through the abundance of commodities; the desiring-machine of consumer capitalism and liberal democracies.

5. Concentrated Spectacle - The enforcement of obedience through bureaucratic state power; state-centered spectacles (e.g. Stalinism, fascist cults, centralized authority)

6. Hyperreality - the condition to define the blurry distinction between reality and representation.

7. Simulacrum - a representation, imitation, or likeness of a person or thing, often implying an inferior copy that lacks the substance of the original.

References:

Baudrillard, J. (1981). Simulacra and simulation.

Debord, G. (1967). The society of the spectacle.

Katsafanas, P. (2022). An introduction to the philosophy of fanaticism.

Zavala, O. (2022). Drug cartels do not exist: Narcotrafficking in US and Mexican culture.

Classical Fascism is not simply state violence or racism per se; it is a forme of corporatism, which is a political ideology whereby groups collaborate based on their common interests. A corporatist political system is a managed economy in which employers, workers, and state officials work together, and the state mediates and manages each conflicting interest in order to preserve capitalist class relations.

Corporatism functions to mediate class antagonism into state by practicing class collaboration.

Fascism is a historical appearance (erscheinung) of Capital that materializes when bourgeois democracy can no longer suppress proletarian movements made by Capital’s internal contradictions.

Origin of Fascism

Where did the original conception of Italian fascism come from? It was ironically influenced by Sorel’s theory of Syndicalism, which was later coined Sorelianism. Sorel’s Syndicalism is a revisionist interpretation of Marxism that incorporated “myths”. Let us explore his definition of myths in Reflections on Violence:

“In the course of these studies one thing seemed so evident to me that I did not believe that I needed to lay much stress on it: men who are participating in great social movements always picture their coming action in the form of images of battle in which their cause is certain to triumph. I proposed to give the name of ‘myths’ to these constructions, knowledge of which is so important for historians: the general strikes of the syndicalists and Marx’s catastrophic revolution are such myths.”

– Georges Sorel, Reflections on Violence (1908).

Sorel believed that the proletariat could achieve victory through the power of myth. The “myth” of a general strike (will later be influenced by Integral Nationalism as conceived by Maurrass), an image that can mobilize the workers. In this sense, Sorel rejected historical materialism’s emphasis on objective development in favor of voluntarism and moral mobilization. He later rejected these theories and became disillusioned after World War 1.

Mussolini was influenced by Sorel¹ and fused his syndicalist theories with nationalism and corporatism. Classical fascism is originally a left-nationalist movement, but was later modified with the theatrics and characteristics of dictatorship in Fiume created by the Il Profeta himself, Gabriele D’Annunzio², the imagery of Arditi in WW1, and Italian irredentism. Fascism emerged as a nationalist movement that was influenced by revolutionary syndicalism, but subordinated class politics to the nation-state.

But ideas alone do not formulate the emergence of Fascism. We must understand that the historical material contexts shape it too. We must remember that Fascism emerged from the crises created by the Capital itself. Due to Italy’s Two Red Years, the middle class and the elite supported the Fascist movement due to their fears of a socialist revolution materializing.

To protect the ideology of Fascism, Mussolini created Camicie Nere or Blackshirts (modeled on Arditi), which functioned as a militia, which later became a police and repressive state organ as Mussolini grew in power. This targeted trade unions, socialists, and proletariats, etc. The Blackshirts function not merely as an instrument of violence, but also to destroy proletarian unions, and to stabilize Capital during the periods of crises.

Fascism is defined by combination of militant nationalism, organized mass violence (use of paramilitaries), and through class collaborations to mislead and destroy proletarian independence and absorb them into nation-state. This, in turn, stabilizes the capitalist class relations during crises.

Ending Paragraphs

If we throw away the intellectual genealogy, Fascism is a forme of appearance that the Capital assumes when bourgeois democracy can no longer contain the internal contradictions of Capital, it is defined by centralized and open repression of the proletariat.

Semantics aside, this concludes that the bourgeois state (even with different appearances such as democratic or fascist) does not represent the interests of the proletariat³ as its goal was only preserving the capitalist class relations. The realization of class independence is essential, as only the proletariat can save themselves to the chains of capital…

In the heat of class war, only the independence of the working class can exorcise the capital’s horns.

1. “Reformism, revolutionism, centrism, the very echo of that terminology is dead, while in the great river of Fascism one can trace currents which had their source in Sorel, Peguy, Lagardelle of the Movement Socialists, and in the cohort of Italian syndicalist who from 1904 to 1914 brought a new note into the Italian socialist environment — previously emasculated and chloroformed by fornicating with Giolitti’s party — a note sounded in Olivetti’s Pagine Libere, Orano’s Lupa, Enrico Leone’s Divenirs Socials.” – Benito Mussolini, The Doctrine of Fascism (1932). p.3

2. “Certainly these discussions would have been driven by the skilled rhetoric of D’Annunzio. They were often preceded by song and dancing, which formed an amorphic state religion, and marked by flowery speeches by D’Annunzio to elicit feverish devotion from the townsfolk for his personal cult. Much of D’Annunzio’s political life in Fiume revolved around ceremony and mass participation in state events. Besides communal banquets and balls, D’Annunzio encouraged citizens to listen to his daily addresses from his balcony and to adopt symbolic gestures like the Roman salute.” – Patrick Merkle, Gabriele D’Annunzio and the Regency of Carnaro” (2020). p.14-15

3. “Our critique refutes the deceitful theory that the democratic and parliamentary state machine which arose from modern liberal constitutions is an organization of all citizens in the interests of all citizens. From the moment that opposing interests and class conflicts exist, there can be no unity of organization, and in spite of the outward appearance of popular sovereignty, the state remains the organ of the economically dominant class and the instrument of defence of its interests.” – Amadeo Bordiga, The Democratic Principle (1922).

References:

Bordiga, A. (1922). The democratic principle. Marxists Internet Archive. https://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1922/democratic-principle.htm

Merkel, P. (2020). Gabriele D’Annunzio and the Regency of Carnaro. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/studentpub_uht/166

Mussolini, B. (1932). The doctrine of fascism.

Sorel, G. (1908). Reflections on violence.

Bago painitin ang talyasi’y hinahanda mo ang iyong mga rekado—naghihiwa ng sibuyas, nagbabalat ng bawang, tinatadtad ang sariling daliri, binabalatan ang mukha, at dinudukot ang sariling mata. Pagsalang ng sibuyas at bawang ay alinsunod na rito ang paglahok mo ng sariling laman; sinasangkutsa ang sarili, lumalabas ang iyong katas, nanunuot ang asim at alat ng pawis na siyang magpapalasa sa ihahain sa mesa. At sa wakas, luto na ang iyong obra—ito’y ihahain mo sa harap nila habang binubudburan ng sarsadong dugong pumapatak mula sa brasong pinipigan. Tugon naman ng mga aristokratang bisita’y “malinamnam, ngunit kulang pa!” Dakila kang alipin, kumalas ka sa iyong tali! Magpaulan ng kubyertos, mga tinidor at kutsilyong tingga!

The historical “invariance” of Marxism upholds the continuance of the communist programme developed by Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels that is grounded in the approach of critical materialism. It ensures that the communist programme must remain in line with the materialist critique, as the social relations analyzed by Marx, namely the capitalist class relations and the law of value, are reproduced in contemporary society.

Invariance is not intransigence (refusal to compromise or to abandon an often extreme position or attitude) or blind dogmatic obedience to the literature written by Marx & Engels, but rather the continuity of the materialist method and the programme derived from it. While various phenomena appear to change capitalist society, the changes do not disrupt the reproduction of the value-forme. The essence, namely the fundamental relations of capital as analyzed by Marx, is reproduced or replicated within these changes. You can only break invariance if you can prove that the fundamental relations in capitalism have changed through the use of critical materialist analysis.

Any attempts to revise or modernize Marxism to the changing conditions do not advance theory, but instead dull the revolutionary elements of the programme by changing it to fit the bourgeois society. As said by Amadeo Bordiga in The Historical Invariance of Marxism:

“A new doctrine cannot appear at just any historical moment. There are given, very characteristic—and also very rare—periods in history when it can appear like a dazzling beam of light. If the crucial moment is not recognized and the terrible light not faced, it is no good resorting to little candles instead; by which the way is lit for academic pedants and fighters of little faith.”

— Amadeo Bordiga, The Historical Invariance of Marxism (1952)

By analyzing history, the question of invariance is not just merely theoretical but also historical. There are concrete moments in history where the party decides to maintain or divorce the invariant programme under the pressure of the so-called material conditions or constraints. What presents itself as pragmatism or tactical flexibility often reveals the total divorce of the programme, hence, opportunism.

Eduard Bernstein’s Social Democracy

The divorce of the programme is evident in Eduard Bernstein’s conception of Social Democracy. Bernstein believes that capitalism can be harnessed and its internal contradictions neutralized through a series of gradual reforms. Bernstein’s theory implies that socialism can emerge in capitalism without rupture; it also replaces the programme of rupture with a process of adaptation.

Bernstein’s conception already operates within the inversion of erscheinung and wesen, where appearance (erscheinung) is taken for essence (wesen). Capitalism may change forme or appearance through policies, institutions, etc., but not in its essence: relations of production. Reforms can modify conditions, but it doesn’t abolish the capitalist class relations. Replacing the communist programme with the process of adaptation strips Marxism of its theory of revolution.

Capitalism is defined by contradictory class antagonism between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie; the resolution requires rupture, not reconciliation. Without the rupture of the state forme, the Marxists will not transition to Communism, as it just reproduces the law of value and capitalist class relations. Reforms do not eliminate contradiction, as class antagonism still exists, but is mediated through various institutions of the state. It appears solvable in the lens of reformism without the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie class and the state.

Stalinist Socialism in One Country

A pragmatist divorce, Iosef Stalin’s socialism in one country contradicts the internationalism of the communist programme. But before we critique the Stalinist pragmatism, we must look first at the historical-material context of soviet realpolitik.

It emerged from the defeat of the socialist revolution in Western Europe, more decisively in Germany, where Lenin expected it to have a successful breakthrough. However, due to SPD’s abandonment of revolutionary defeatism by voting for war credits, it contributed to the failure of the revolution to consolidate, and the anti-war Spartacists led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were killed and defeated.

With the defeat of the socialist revolution in Germany and the disintegration of other post-war revolutionary movements, the anticipated international wave of revolutions did not materialize. This left the Soviet state isolated within a global capitalist system.

Under these conditions, a turn toward internal consolidation emerged within the Soviet state, expressed in the doctrine of socialism in one country, as a means of preserving the revolution. This, in turn, produced the hardening of the Soviet state-forme and the displacement of international revolutionary extension.

However, the rejection of Stalinist realpolitik and pragmatism does not automatically mean upholding the continuance of the invariant communist programme. A Marxist can denounce socialism in one country but remain ungrounded in historical invariance and the critical materialist methodology conceived by Marx. This introduces us to a similar unorthodox deviation.

Leon Trotsky’s Permanent Revolution

To continue the Marxist analysis, we must first define Trotsky’s position. Permanent revolution, which comes from Leon Trotsky, outright rejects socialism in one country that was conceived by the Stalinists. Trotsky states that revolutions that happen in underdeveloped countries do not happen in orderly steps; the proletariat should take power and will have to keep pushing forward to socialism, and the revolution must spread internationally to survive.

Trotsky preserves the programme at the level of principle, but moderates its realization through historically specific conditions. He suggested that the proletariat should democratically fight for things like land reform and national independence for these things to materialize. He also advocated for the adaptation of tactics depending on the situation and constraints.

Here is how Trotsky contradicts the programme even if he holds its principles. Invariance states that the programme applies everywhere, regardless of the conditions of a country, since the essence of fundamental relations of capitalism remains. The policies and priorities, such as gaining the immediate minimums (National Liberation, Land Reform, etc.), mediate the programme through historical conditions rather than the assertion of the maximal programme (Abolishment of classes, state, and capitalism). Revolution becomes conditioned by these mediations; even though it is not formally divided into stages (very ironic since Trotsky rejected the Mensheviks’ two-Stage Approach). Finally, the changing of tactics and strategies must always be subordinated to the invariant programme, as the adaptation of tactics always risks divorcing the programme by adaptation to the bourgeois state. This is why the permanent revolution by Trotsky risks reproducing the tendencies he tends to overcome.

“Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence. ”

— Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology (1845-1846)

From the passages written by Marx and Engels, communism is a movement produced by the internal contradictions of capitalism itself. Via abolition, communism is not management, reformism, or the extension of the present state of things. Communism ends capitalist class relations. It is the negative picture of a capitalist society.¹

Therefore, the invariant programme is theorized by Bordiga to assert its goals, which are the destruction of capital; it is not revised to adapt and acquire immediate conditions, partial demands, or minimal stages of transition.

The contradictions of capital will soon produce an inevitable crisis that can lead to its destruction, however there is no predetermined time when it will collapse. Communist revolution is indeed destructive, not in a voluntarist way. Its devastation will soon come, driven by its own internal contradictions as described by Marx himself in Capital Vol 1.²

1. Heisse, Fragments on Invariance (2025). When we speak of communism as a “stateless, moneyless, classless” society, we intuit that the communist program is an inverted picture of capitalist society, but that the categories proper to the capitalist mode of production are inadequate to capture the positive dimension of communism (that is, of communism in its “highest phase”).

2. K. Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (1867). Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolise all advantages of this process of transformation, grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this too grows the revolt of the working class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united, organised by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself. The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production, which has sprung up and flourished along with, and under it. Centralisation of the means of production and socialisation of labour at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated.

To prove that the programme is invariant, it must be tested on historical conditions, not just in theory alone. To further move the critique, let us see what happens when the party abandons the programme in a specific historical context. With that in mind, let us revisit the infamous historical defeats and what caused them to be defeated by the reactionary forces.

P.S. (Will be continued in the 2nd part).

Personal Notes:

I’d like to thank the left-communist comrades who helped me grasp the concepts of invariance. Without them, I would be unmotivated to read theoretical blocks of texts written by known Marxist theorists. Reading complicated theories with friends & comrades is really fun.

References:

Bordiga, A. (1953). The historical invariance of Marxism. International Communist Party. https://www.international-communist-party.org/basictexts/english/52HistIn.htm

Heisse. (2025). Fragments on invariance. Seenothing. https://seenothing.noblogs.org/2025/12/20/fragments-on-invariance

Marx, K. (1867). Capital: a critique of political economy. Marxist Internet Archive. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/

Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1845-1846). The German ideology. Marxist Internet Archive.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/

Mula pagkabata nilalason na nila ang aking isipan; ang lahat ng bagay ay nakabatay sa kasaganaan. Nakondisyon ako na maging alipin ng sistemang mapang-api, maging sakim, gawin ang lahat para sa sarili. Pero lumalaganap ang mga kontradiksyon na niregalo sa akin ng mapagmahal kong mga magulang—maging mabait sa kapwa at ipaglaban kung ano ang tama. Naging inspirasyon ko nga rin mismo ang pangalan ko, sabi kasi ng magulang ko, hango raw ang ngalan ko sa nabasa nila noon at ang ibig sabihin nito ay “peacemaker.”

Kumaripas ang paghagod ng mga kamay ng orasan sa mga numerong nakasulat, mabilis ang lahat—musmos pa lang ako noon na nginangatngat ang aking bimpo habang pinapagpag ang salawal na may bahid ng buhangin sa bandang pwetan, at ngayon isa na akong ganap na nilalang, may buong kamalayan na ang mundo ay marahas at wala akong ibang alternatiba kundi lumaban. Sabi ng magulang ko, umiwas ako sa anumang gulo, at magpursigi para sa ganon ay maging doktor. Pero ako’y namulat, nagbasa ng mga sulat, aking kaliwang kamay inunat.

Naging maimpluwensya saken ang ika-11 tesis ni Marx sa mga sulat niya tungkol kay Feuerbach. Siguro nga totoo ang mga lasong sinalpak sa isipan ko rati: ang materyal na kondisyon natin ang dumidikta sa kung anuman kahihinatnan ng aking kinabukasan—pero hindi tama na ako’y lumikom ng yaman at pagsilbihan ang sariling kagustuhan. At napagtanto ko ngayon na pahinog na ang aking sarili—oras na para hamunin ang kinagisnang daloy ng buhay.

Naniniwala ako sa kasabihang walang kapayapaan kung walang katarungan. At dahil isang karangalan na nabinyagan ako sa aking ngalang nagkakahulugang “tagapamayapa,” nakikita ko na malaki ang aking tungkulin para baguhin ang mundo. Natatanaw ko na, marahas ang mundo, at marahas din ang plano ko—kung gaano kalakas akong bubugbugin nito, ako’y gaganti nang higit pa sa natatanaw ng mga mata niyo. Unti-unti, malapit na, magiging isa ang aking diwa at ng kanayunan—hangarin kong mamatay na kasing bigat ng bundok; babaguhin ang mundo, hahamunin ang materyal na kondisyon, pagsisilbihan ang maralita habang buhay pa ang pulso ko.

To delve deeper into romantic relations in the Philippines, it is imperative to discuss social relations: the social relations hitherto of a 3rd world country, characterized as semi-feudal, still retain feudal elements despite strong imperialist influences and the introduction of neoliberal ideas. The social relations indoctrinated in us by our Spanish colonizers, influenced by earlier feudal society, remained intact as the Philippines traversed the postmodern world.

“… hence property: the nucleus, the first form, of which lies in the family, where wife and children are the slaves of the husband. This latent slavery in the family, though still very crude, is the first property, but even at this early stage it corresponds perfectly to the definition of modern economists who call it the power of disposing of the labor-power of others…”

— Marx

Through historical materialism, it was evident that the first form of property is the wives and children themselves—the labor power of women is appropriated through the production of a child; children then dispose of their labor power through chores, and later on would serve their parents through the appropriated income from their labor, just as serfs who pay tributes to the feudal lords. As the town progresses, and contradictions arise, developments in commerce have also progressed—but not the social relations between a man and his wife, nor a man with his children. As we go through the stages of history, man has used the nucleus foundation of property to gain, exchange, and sell capital. Bourgeois decadence has used fixed marriages to maintain familial inheritance and property; the proletariat, conditioned by the ruling ideas, has also, in turn, used the latent slaves (women) to reproduce children, to whom the duty of propagation, emotional, and capital investment is expected.

The Two Ruling Power Plays

As the Philippines moves through the spiral between the points of feudalism and industrialization, elements of neoliberal idealism probe within our culture–love usually is driven by hyper-individualistic desires, usually tied to the accumulation of wealth, which is connected to the ethics of political economy according to Marx.

“He puts himself at the service of the other’s most depraved fancies, plays the pimp between him and his need, excites in him morbid appetites, lies in wait for each of his weaknesses, all so that he can then demand the cash for this service of love. (Every product is a bait with which to seduce away the other’s very being, his money; every real and possible need is a weakness which will lead the fly to the glue-pot...”

As a means towards an industrialized society, the contradiction between feudal society and the imperialists is an inevitable result. Production and imports also rise as these objects are realized in society. The needs, which are often alienated from the proletariat, also rise. Consequently, the means, mechanisms, or other tools for production also result in a gradual increase, which in turn serves as growth in private property, or what political economists call assets. On one pole, the ruling bourgeois is self-sufficient as they can maintain an equilibrium between their needs and their private property, expressed as exchange value (money)—on the other end of the pole, the proletariat aims to increase their own property, even if it means the degradation of one’s own dignity (the multiplication of needs and of the means breeds the absence of needs and of means). Through here, we can see the power dynamics between the bourgeoisie, with enough accumulated wealth, and the proletariat, starving to death. Through the capitalist system, the whole population’s need is being reduced to merely the need for money—and to which the proletariat is susceptible, since they have not accumulated much wealth, and are prone to inhumane tendencies just to meet the minimum subsistence of life—and I’ll quote Marx on this one:

“… every need is an opportunity to approach one’s neighbor under the guise of the utmost amiability and to say to him: Dear friend, I give you what you need, but you know the conditio sine qua non; you know the ink in which you have to sign yourself over to me; in providing for your pleasure, I fleece you.”

— Marx

Contextualizing this, the familial relations in the Philippines are still under the two ruling ideas—the power play between the father figure and that of the mother and their children (patriarchy, being extolled in feudal society), and the power play between the man with accumulated wealth (bourgeois) and the chained proletariat.

Liberalism and Neoliberalism

This introduces us to a new kind of ideology. Liberalism defines love as a free, individual, and voluntary choice between individuals. Historically, this kind of love emerged alongside bourgeois society, in which subjects are formally free from feudal bonds but remain materially constrained by class positions. Appearing as a privatized form, it benefits persons with mutual class standing, masking the asymmetries of power.

In a dialectical materialist perspective, the liberal concept of love is ideologically more advanced than feudal-arranged marriage, but it remains structurally limited. Liberal love is free but still materially conditioned. As love becomes economic and integrated into market rationality. Liberal love is truly an individual choice, but it masks the unequal starting conditions.

If Liberalism privatizes love, Neoliberalism commodifies it. Neoliberalism reduces the definition of love to a mere commodity by subjecting intimacy to market logic. Neoliberalism reduces intimacy’s social depth and reconfigures it to exchange logic. Love becomes an investment, an optimization, and a competitive evaluation.

The neoliberal commodification of love brings a new form of savageness, comparable to the feudal form of love. Where feudal relations relied on coercion, the neoliberal perspective of love operates in formal freedom, convincing humans to willingly market themselves as desirable partners, which subtly hides the commodification of human beings. Humans are rendered and categorized as profiles, metrics, and portfolios. This again stresses the previous argument stated: that systemic failure is reframed as personal failure/incompetence (poor communication and personal incompatibility).

Online dating apps are the concrete fruits of neoliberal savageness. The romantic partners believe they are truly autonomous, not recognizing that these are socially conditioned and materially constrained, willingly submit to and market themselves as a commodity. In this way, romantic partners are socially conditioned to maximize desirability and performativity. Therefore, romance becomes a grocery store, and the products are romantic interests. Ironically, rejection becomes market feedback rather than social rupture, and the rejected or defective product (romantic interest) is returned to the dating pool to be cycled to other potential romantic partners.

Therefore, Neoliberalism’s ideology of love does not eliminate coercion; it relocates it. Through the concept of interpellation, individuals are transformed into marketable romantic individuals, reduced to subjects who experience market imperatives as personal desire, preference, and self-expression.

Gramsci’s Cultural Hegemony & Counter-Hegemony

“The “spontaneous” consent given by the great masses of the population to the general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group; this consent is “historically” caused by the prestige (and consequent confidence) which the dominant group enjoys because of its position and function in the world of production.”

— Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks.

This introduces us to Antonio Gramsci’s concept of Cultural Hegemony, which is a consent manufactured to cultural and ideas, not just coercion. Neoliberal love can be a hegemonic ideology alongside Althusserian interpellation, persuading subjects to accept the commodification of intimacy as “natural”. Even when interpellated subjects can consent because of the ideology of commodification of romance feels like a personal and individual choice. We must remember that Gramsci’s concepts are the moral-cultural prehistory of the ISA of Althusser.

Needless to say, the love that has hitherto presented is real and valid—and, to some extent, completely genuine—yet it somehow masks the “business model” or the transactional dynamics of familial relations of love. In this context, love served as an ideology—a concept pursued by the upper bourgeois clans to appease their inner greed for surplus value and to reconcile their estrangement from the working class —a concept that serves as a refuge for the proletariat to distract themselves from the cruelty of capitalism.

Intimacy Under the Rule of Spanish East Indies: Noli Me Tangere

“If I kill the head of a family, if I make a woman into a destitute widow and happy children into helpless orphans … And even then, even then, who will replace the love of a husband and father?”

— Noli Me Tangere (1887).

In Rizal’s novel, Noli Me Tangere. The historical materialist perspective is graphically illustrated, as family and romantic relations are not separable from colonial and feudal hierarchies. Sisa’s suffering and reduction to insanity demonstrate the “slavery” of family members that Marx proposes. Her children, Basilio and Crispin, are exploited for labor power by the friars, leading to the death of Crispin.

Captain Tiago’s full control over his household demonstrates the patriarchal and transactional tendencies of the family, as Maria Clara has no control over her life whatsoever in the context of arranged marriage (Marriage as property, showing how love and personal desire are subordinated to family property, inheritance, and social advancement).

The Spanish ruling class in Noli Me Tangere (Friars) exhibits forms of pre/proto-bourgeois accumulation and moral hypocrisy. Characters like Father Damaso and Father Salvi manipulate social relations for power, showing the synthesis of ideology with economic and property interests. Further strengthening the argument that the bourgeoisie chases social prestige, using romantic/familial relations in order to maintain absolute dominance.

Crisostomo Ibarra’s and Maria Clara’s romance is idealized (as it is genuine, sincere, and pure); However, it is still constrained by social, economic, and political structures. Ibarra is often entangled with the family approval within the novel because of Maria Clara’s family influence and Ibarra’s family history (His father is considered a fugitive). As the novel progresses, we can see how Ibarra fails to satisfy the approval of Maria Clara’s family due to political structures and constraints that are not blamable in the ideological function of love. Tiago and Damaso push Maria Clara into an arranged marriage to gain more social prestige, which further elevates their dominance over the other lower classes. In this way, Maria Clara becomes a mere property and a tool of a strategic alliance to strengthen the bourgeois family

In a structural Marxist perspective (Althusserian), the family in Rizal’s novel functions as an ideological apparatus, reproducing and imposing submission, legitimacy, and hierarchy hidden by the guise of morality. It also normalizes domination while masking the structural and material foundations.

In this logic, Noli Me Tangere exposes that the concept of love fails if it cannot overcome the constraints of social, economic, and political structures. Love persists, but it cannot, on its own, transcend the conditions that govern it.

The Dialectical Negation of Love: El Filibusterismo

“Dead! Dead without me having seen her, dead without knowing that I lived for her — dead!” - Chapter XXIII (A Corpse), El Filibusterismo (1891) p.251

If Noli Me Tangere shows how love functions as an ideology, El Filibusterismo shows what happens in an ideological rupture. Therefore, El Filibusterismo is the negation of Noli Me Tangere in a dialectical sense. Due to material conditions within the novel, Basilio transitions from a man oppressed by the feudal conditions to a rational and disillusioned individual willing to become a co-conspirator of Simoun. Basilio’s character serves as the bridge between the two novels.

This stresses the previous argument that love is not “timeless”. When the material condition changes, love transforms or vanishes. Simoun, formerly known as Crisostomo Ibarra, becomes the residue of the ideological failure of love. Love becomes violence, revenge, hatred, and nihilism. Love does not merely fail; the intensified colonial domination negates the structural possibility of love. Simoun also embodies the exhaustion/burnout of liberal love and the failure of reforms. This proves that if love no longer produces social stability, it becomes a haunting specter, a destructive force. Since the family no longer has power, it has become a failure of the Ideological State Apparatuses, producing despair and rebellion. Therefore, love is still anchored in material conditions. In a Gramscian perspective, when a hegemonic order no longer secures consents it can produce instability. This moment marks the crisis of hegemony. Simoun does not represent liberation; he represents just the counter-hegemonic rupture, as he fails to make a new historical bloc.

“The revolutionary despises all doctrines and refuses to accept the mundane sciences, leaving them for future generations. He knows only one science: the science of destruction.”

— Sergey Nechaev, The Revolutionary Catechism (1869).

Simoun’s character is also similar to a real-life figure, Sergey Nechaev, a Russian revolutionary, known for his pursuit of revolution by any means necessary, even using revolutionary terror. Both Simoun and Nechaev share distinct similarities (rejection of reformist approaches, commitment to revolutionary terror, and nihilism). They also both fail in their goals. This brings the fact, like love, that violence alone cannot transcend material conditions. The failure of the violent strategies used by Simoun and Nechaev is due to material and structural conditions, not due to personal or moral flaws. Although it is different and fundamentally opposite, love and violence (including hate) operate in fundamentally similar ways in a dialectical materialist perspective. It is the result of human attempts to act upon desire and of social contradiction. Therefore, love and violence cannot be separated from the ideology, structural constraints, and material conditions.

From a dialectical materialist perspective informed by Althusser, love and violence are interconnected expressions of human energy shaped by social conditions. Love seeks fulfillment through relationships, while violence arises when material realities and dominant ideas obstruct or distort that fulfillment, revealing the deeper contradictions within society.

Manila as the City that Interpellates: Manila, in the Claws of Light

“Hinalughog ko ang buong Maynila pero…wala si Ligaya”

— Manila in the Claws of Light (1970)

In “Manila in the Claws of Light,” Julio Madiaga, driven by love, comes to Manila to find Ligaya Paraiso. Julio’s journey acts as an ideological interpellation, with love serving as a call that summons Julio into Manila’s social relations. Manila is not just a neutral setting or force; it functions as a spatial Ideological State Apparatus. It shapes movement through streets, factories, ports, slums, and entertainment districts where Julio can and cannot go. It operates continuously, requiring no explicit instructions, and interpellates individuals through cues like orientation, exhaustion, and displacement. In this way, it allocates bodies according to class roles and makes certain deviants, like Julio, highly visible. Manila interpellates deviant subjects through everyday activities: long walks, commutes, work, crowded living quarters, and police presence, treating Julio only as labor power, not as a citizen. Although the city may seem fragmented, ideology masks a structural unity. Labor flows are controlled, poverty is spatially arranged, and mobility is divided by class boundaries. Ligaya becomes the “opium,” representing hope that sustains Julio amidst capitalist exploitation. No single institution teaches Julio the norms and discipline of the city; yet he willingly submits to the spatial Ideological State Apparatus. The space itself is not just repressive; it is reproductive as it continuously reproduces an army of labor by converting and channeling rural migrants into the urban labor force. These are an ensemble of ISAs that becomes overdetermination.

Julio’s interpellation depends on Ligaya’s absence. Structurally, she functions as a full absence as she is displaced, commodified, and absorbed into the sexual economy. When she died, the violence perpetrated by Julio was a structural overdetermination. It is the result of precarious labor, enforced social isolation, and the failure of ideological apparatuses to reproduce consent under Manila’s conditions of exploitation. We can say that Manila itself is an apparatus that cannot produce love.

Lacanian Structural Psychoanalysis

Lacan’s Jouissance Triangle

As pessimistic as the preceding discussion may sound, it is necessary to dwell on the realm of ideas through psychoanalysis–but before that, let’s clarify why we’re using this framework. Psychoanalysis, in general, sounds like an un-Marxian field, but Lacanian psychoanalysis is also materially conditioned. Language and rules (on the symbolic order) are structurally conditioned; the Real, although it can’t be fully articulated, emerges from the impossibility of the synthesis of the contradictions in society; the imaginary is also materially conditioned as it is based on the symbolic order that structures the subjects in how they see themselves.

The structural conditioning of sexual relations: The Lobster

Yorgos Lanthimos, The Lobster (2015).

In The Lobster, social relations are guided by the symbolic order–the cultural hegemony indoctrinates them that they need to have partners, and this is being interpellated by the subjects through the hotel, simultaneously acting as the ISA and the RSA. Through this interpellation the small Other operates in the realm of the Imaginary; it projects to the person an image of themselves, to which the subject will realize that they are not fulfilled– incomplete, and something is lacking; this imaginary image causes the subject to desire affection, commitment, eternal jouissance that can never be realized, just because they were coerced by the structures to think that they are lacking. The main character fully realizes this because he was well aware that the Symbolic operates in a transactional way–love is being achieved through enforced relations guided by shared traits. But the funny thing is that the main character fully submerged himself in the ideology itself–he knows that it is wrong, but as counterintuitive as it sounds, he still goes through the motions being imposed upon him by the big Other (which perpetuates the ideological structure), even until the very end when they have managed to escape everything. David had to blind himself to find a common denominator with the blind, short-sighted woman. Perhaps to the audience, David truly loved the woman—although David had escaped the institution, he still can’t escape the logic of the big Other, not because it does not exist (which truly doesn’t exist according to Lacan and Zizek), but because society functions in a way that it does exist.

Transcending the allegory, the symbolic order is the rules, language, and everything that makes social relations transactional. Ideology functions to fill in the gaps of the social order, which in turn serves as a foundation for the creation of the Imaginary to which we mirror ourselves. Through bourgeois culture, the media that extends to the masses usually idealizes love, and this creates an image in the Imaginary–an image that we are eternally complete through the action of romantic or sexual relations. But as we partake in these meaningful relationships, we encounter the hard kernel of everything, the Real–the promised jouissance of society on love is shattered, we often feel betrayed, unlovable, and all of these are usually traumatic experiences.

In The Lobster, coupling is institutionally enforced; in Filipino social relations, it is culturally enforced through the family, the Church, and social norms that frame partnership as the mark of completion. Media romanticism projects ideal unions that subjects measure themselves against, producing a sense of lack. Yet when intimacy confronts migration, precarity, and class constraints, the promise of fulfillment fractures. What appears dystopian in the film emerges locally as structure: love compelled, idealized, and materially strained—revealing, in the Filipino context, how intimacy remains shaped by overlapping feudal residues and neoliberal pressures that condition how subjects desire, choose, and sustain relationships.

To love is to revolt—it has no guarantee

Some may have undergone desensitization with the idea of love to the point that they despise it—but this isn’t the transcendental path. We shouldn’t conform to cynical withdrawal from love, just like how we don’t withdraw from political discussions despite “unavoidable relentless corruption,” just like how guerrillas don’t withdraw from revolution despite the unfair military advantages of the opposition. We should love despite knowing that the big Other’s promises aren’t guaranteed.

Rewriting material conditions through love

As stated by Marx, the ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class–to liberate love to its purest form (as ironic and idealist as it sounds), we must first change the material conditions that shaped the perception of the business empire that we call “love.” Taking inspiration from Gramsci, we must formulate a counter-hegemony to uproot the malady that vexes our conception of the blooming fruits of love. One may say that maybe we should partake in the sexual and romantic exchange with full lucidity to avoid the traps of the feudal and neoliberal idealization of love, but a true Marxist would say that this isn’t enough.

“Revolutionaries know that to liberate love from oppression, one must strive harder to revolutionize and liberate the entire unjust society.”

— Trisha Sarmiento, Love a Revolutionary, Love the Revolution (2017).

Perhaps love is indeed a violent force–a tool capable of liberating the masses from the shackles of the semi-feudal and semi-colonial society. Inspired by the “On the Proletarian Relationship of the Sexes,” love should still be grounded on the material bases of society; while “sex love” exists, in which it is impossible to liberate ourselves from, it is necessary to direct and prioritize “class love” through the revolutionary struggle–after all, love is sweetest when it blooms and liberates the masses.

References:

Brocka, L. (1975). Manila in the Claws of Light.

Communist Party of the Philippines. (1998). On the Proletarian Relationship of the Sexes.

Gramsci, A. (1929-1935). Prison Notebooks.

Lanthimos, Y. (2015). The Lobster.

Marx, K. (1844). Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.

Marx, K. (1869). Capital: A Critique of Political Economy.

Nechaev, S. (1869). Catechism of a Revolutionary.

Rizal J. (1887). Noli Me Tangere.

Rizal J. (1891). El Filibusterismo.

Sarmiento, T. (2017). Love a Revolutionary, Love the Revolution.

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“If you love without evoking love in return—that is, if your loving as loving does not produce reciprocal love; if through a living expression of yourself as a loving person you do not make yourself a loved person, then your love is impotent— a misfortune.”

— Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Love is a social relation. Everything you know about love is socially produced. You don’t just feel something; the definition of the “love” you perceive is what society perceives about love. You name it “love” because of society’s definition of love. In this perspective, the definition of love changes depending on what is commodified and what is culturally acceptable by society. You don’t enter the world knowing how to love; you learn it by experiencing care, attachment, affection, and attention. With these experiences, you learn what to love, who to love, what not to love, etc. Experiencing these and the conditions of the society on how they define love will shape how you interpret love. In short, love is shaped, organized, and given meaning by society itself.

The statement “Love is a social relation” is further strengthened by Tabula Rasa. Tabula Rasa by John Locke argues that the idea of individuals being born empty of any built-in mental content, so that all knowledge comes from later perceptions or sensory experiences. However, Tabula Rasa itself is lacking without Dialectical Materialism; A dialectical materialist analysis argues that human consciousness is also shaped by experience, but in a social and material context, rejecting the epistemological individualism of tabula rasa. Ideas, beliefs, and knowledge arise not merely from individual sensory input, but from material conditions, labor, and social relations.

Althusser further implies this materialist account by emphasizing that individuals are already subjects of ideology. One does not first exist as a neutral individual, as they are not born as a fully formed self, as ideological structures already exist and actively place them into social roles, turning them into subjects. Love is therefore not learned neutrally through experience, but encountered through interpellation (a concept introduced to Marxist theory by Louis Althusser as the mechanism through which pre-existing social structures “constitute” (or construct) individual human organisms as subjects (with consciousness and agency). Due to Ideological State Apparatuses, individuals misrecognize interpellation as free will (viewing them as natural, masking the fact that they are ideologically imposed) into recognizable roles such as lover, partner, spouse, or parent

What appears as personal discovery is, in fact, the lived experience of ideological positioning. Individuals come to recognize themselves within these roles and experience the effects associated with them (jealousy, commitment, fidelity, cheating, and betrayal) as natural and personal. In this argument, ideology does not negate material conditions but mediates them.

In this way, Dialectical Materialism shows that love takes different forms in different historical and material contexts, shaped by the economic and social conditions that make its reproduction possible, while Althusser shows how these forms are lived, felt, and internalized through the roles and positions that society assigns to us. Together, they help us understand love not as a private feeling or personal choice, but as a social experience grounded in material reality and structured by ideology.

Love implies subject-positions. Love is not just a mere person plus feeling, but a position within an ideology that produces both the subject and the feeling simultaneously.

Due to these role dynamics, the concepts of jealousy, commitment, fidelity, cheating, and betrayal exist, as ideology has already interpellated individuals into relational subject-positions governed by norms and expectations.

In an Althusserian perspective, the family itself functions as an Ideological State Apparatus, responsible for reproducing labor-power ideologically. (By producing individuals as subjects integrated by preconditioned social roles, making it seem natural and freely chosen).

From a Dialectical Materialist angle, love reproduces material and social structures as it is deeply tied to reproduction. Mainly, how a modern family works (biological, economic, and ideological).

It is biological (remember love is partly chemical) as it promotes sexual reproduction and naturally promotes cooperation around reproduction. It chemically produces attachment to gestate, protect, feed, and socialize children. However, love alone does not form just because of chemicals in the person’s brain, but because social relations give it a concrete form.

It is economic. Capitalism doesn’t just need workers; it needs them to reproduce for future generations to come for the capitalist machine to survive. According to Friedrich Engels in The Origins of Family, Private Property, and the State, the modern family does not emerge solely from love, but from the need to distribute inheritance, ensure paternity, and reproduce labor power in stable and predictable form. Therefore, love is historically shaped into a private, familial bond that naturalizes unpaid labor (especially women’s labor). Here’s the exact Engels quote:

“It develops out of the pairing family, as previously shown, in the transitional period between the upper and middle stages of barbarism; its decisive victory is one of the signs that civilization is beginning. It is based on the supremacy of the man, the express purpose being to produce children of undisputed paternity; such paternity is demanded because these children are later to come into their father’s property as his natural heirs.”

— Friedrich Engels, Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State, II. The Family, 4. The Monogamous Family.

It is ideological. Love is depicted as a timeless and universal aspect of the historical specifics of the monogamous family. It also advances gender ideology by portraying maternal instinct as unpaid labor justified by social norms. Poverty, childcare, and elder care are presented as family responsibilities. Because of these ideologies embedded in the concept of family, critiques of the family are seen as cynical and inhuman.

In a romantic context.

Romantic relationships are not separate from the family. It is the precondition. It functions as a screening and stabilizing mechanism before reproduction, as it trains the individuals to learn exclusivity, emotional dependence, and long-term commitment.

It is still biological as it serves as the chemical basis of attraction, attachment, and bonding. However, it is regulated by the questions who is to love? What is desirable for love? What counts as love? What is acceptable to love? This enforces the argument that biologically humans are capable of giving love, but it is still society that enforces and conditions what the definition of acceptable love is.

It is still economic. Being in a romantic relationship eases the distribution of resources between two individuals, reducing resource precarity and softening economic necessity. Enduring bad conditions is reframed as “emotional compatibility” instead of “economic compatibility”. It is still related to family, since these practices prepare for the future or possible household/family formation. In a deeper dialectical materialist analysis, romantic love becomes training for reproductive labor as it trains the human being to care, have patience, and to compromise. In these conditions, gendered expectations appear, such as women are expected to become emotional managers while men become future providers. These practices normalize unpaid labor before family formation.

It is still ideological. Romantic love is not purely a matter of choice, as it often masks factors such as class boundaries (people pair with those of the same social class), economic pressure (Stability, security, and prospects are often perceived as “chemistry”), and survival logic in partner selection. Love becomes risk management, and emotional language covers up practical calculation. Ideologically, it becomes an individual responsibility as well, since failed relationships are often attributed to poor communication and personal incompatibility, while ignoring the structural causes of their failure. Love turns systemic failure into personal failure. Love becomes opium too, aside from religion, as it helps people to accept the exploitation of the capitalist system. Romantic love, contrary to popular belief, is not “timeless”; what counts as “romantic” changes with material conditions. Further strengthening the argument that love is socially shaped.

We can say that love is indeed an ideological phenomenon shaped by material conditions–then how can love transcend structural conditions? Also, what are the different forms of romantic love that have emerged throughout Philippine history? Definitely, love isn’t static nor linear; it’s a fluid process that has undergone a variety of sublations. This raises the question: if love is a constant dialectic that undergoes constant negation, preserving or canceling remnants of the different epochs of Philippine society, how did it present itself throughout history?

It will be continued in the next article:

References:

Marx, K. (1844). Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.

Engels, F. (1884). The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.

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(A picture of BGC I took a few years ago.)

Introduction

Before starting the critique, let us define Structural Marxism. It is an approach to Marxism that uses structural principles (interpreting elements of human culture through their relationships to a broader system), mainly developed by the French philosopher Louis Althusser. Structural Marxism is anti-humanist; it avoids being moralistic. The tendency to moralize risks Marxism slipping into idealism, in which one attributes social outcomes to individualistic and personal behavior. This is problematic from a structural standpoint, as it neglects analysis of material conditions, class relations, and ideological apparatuses. By focusing on these structures, it emphasizes that Marxism is a method of scientific critique rather than moral judgement.

Middle Class Moralization

I won’t define “young stunnas” anymore, as I assume that everyone is already familiar with the slang. The Filipino middle class often criticizes the “young stunnas” in moral frameworks that are both anti-poor and elitist. The middle classes or the petty bourgeoisie often criticize these “young stunnas” for being out of place by causing a ruckus in BGC (a privatized place). It is usually erroneous to be a moralist when analyzing a specific class of people. “Young stunnas” itself is an ideological label used by the petty bourgeoisie to describe their imagination of what the youth should or should not be. Their meaning can have various interpretations, such as street fashion, informal employment, social media portrayal, etc. This fuses into a moralized figure that obscures the structural conditions of its existence. By focusing on them as morally irresponsible individuals, it masks the structural and material conditions that shape their behavior.

Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses

In Althusserian terms, young stunnas are interpellated: a description or identity given to someone or something; the process of assigning an identity to someone or something by ideology; they are hailed and identified as problematic youth. In this way, the structural constraints (limited mobility, problematic labor, etc.) are hidden behind a facade that presents them as motivated by their free moral behavior. In this critique, we reframe young stunnas as an ideological effect to examine the material conditions that create this figure.

“What distinguishes the ISAs from the (Repressive) State Apparatus is the following basic difference: the Repressive State Apparatus functions ‘by violence’, whereas the Ideological State Apparatuses function ‘by ideology’.” - Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (1970), Louis Althusser.

This introduces us to Ideological State Apparatuses, which served to transmit the values of the state, to interpellate those individuals affected by them, and to maintain order in a society, above all, to reproduce capitalist relations of production. The ISA includes many forms of institutions, such as family, churches, media, law, etc. Multiple ISAs produce the behavior and condemnation of young stunnas. In this angle, we can say that young stunnas themselves are socially produced rather than a product of individual moral failure.

The Althusserian Overdetermination

By stating these arguments in the previous paragraphs, the behavior of and the stylistic choices of young stunnas are products of material conditions. This introduces us to an Althusserian concept called overdetermination (borrowed from other disciplines by Althusser). It is Althusser’s way of expressing the historical effect of the ensemble of contradictions on each contradiction. We can say that the emergence of young stunnas is overdetermined by various conditions (economic conditions, urban and spatial conditions, social conditions). Their hyper-flashiness and their hypermasculinity are symbolic responses to material deprivation and social marginalization that are produced by colonization and post-colonization. However, these are not psychological claims, but a socially produced effect made by the ISAs. By replacing moralism with structural scientific analysis, we can conclude that young stunnas are the products of intersecting social forces, rather than viewing them as morally problematic.

(A graph showing how young stunnas are socially conceived.)

The petty bourgeoisie’s insistence on discipline, hard work, respectability, etc., is not neutral authorization; they are ideological fantasies that justify existing social hierarchies in the system, as they are also interpellated into believing that these are universal virtues that must be followed by anyone. The application of these values to the petty bourgeoisie seems logical, as these ideals can help them to secure stable jobs and predictable career paths. However, when it is applied to the marginalized, such as “young stunnas”, the standards become obscured and misread as personal failure rather than structural constraints. Structural deprivation becomes moral deficiency. These values are imposed by ideological interpellation of ISAs. That the middle-class’s perspective of moralism legitimizes structural inequality and ignorance of systemic causes.

The emergence of young stunnas is not a mere cultural trend; it emerged from historically specific conditions that shape urban youth, including labor markets, spatial organization, and postcolonial social formations. The performative traits of hypermasculinity of young stunnas have colonial and post-colonial roots.

BGC as Ideological State Apparatus.

BGC itself is not a neutral force. It enforces privatized ideas. It is the material and ideological apparatus that produces social identities. It hails the petty bourgeoisie as disciplined and interpellates marginalized classes as problematic. The ISAs that envelop BGC merge to make the marginalized hyper visible. Visibility is ideologically productive because it turns individuals into objects of judgment and social meaning within a system of power, rather than simply allowing them to exist. The visibility itself is not an individual moral failure. It is the ideologically produced effect of structural conditions (economic exclusion, postcolonial urban planning, and class-based aesthetic norms). BGC functions as an ISA that reproduces capitalist hierarchies and transforms structural deprivation into a moral spectacle.

BGC exemplifies the concept of overdetermination. The emergence of young stunnas in this space is shaped by contradictions (economic exclusion, postcolonial urban planning, class-based aesthetic norms, and social media visibility). Their behavior and hyper visibility are not psychological idiosyncrasies but socially produced effects of these intersecting structural forces. Ideological function is not abstract; it is materially embedded in urban space itself.

In this way, BGC becomes the spatial ISA. Urban Space is not neutral; it organizes interpellated subjects through its architecture, surveillance, and privatization. The middle-class recognizes the hail and, as already interpellated subjects, conforms, while the marginalized class, such as the young stunnas, are rendered deviant within this spatial order.

This stresses that BGC is a pseudo-capitalist utopia; it enforces the illusion of meritocracy, social mobility, discipline, and opportunity. However, these ideals are only accessible by few privileged petty bourgeoisie & bourgeoisies. This capitalist utopia is dictated by the corporate elite, which enforces petty-bourgeois values and hides structural inequalities by portraying them as the image of universal opportunity.

Conclusion

Therefore, we conclude that “young stunnas” is a structural effect, not a mere moral effect. BGC and the middle class contribute to the overdetermination, resulting in the social emergence of social figures called “young stunnas.” This social figure reveals how BGC, an ISA, reinterprets structural conditions/deprivation as moralized hyper visibility, reproducing capitalist hierarchies under the guise of meritocratic opportunity (Meritocracy in a capitalist system is an illusion.). This, in turn, makes the middle class accept and reproduce this moral framing that creates a feedback loop (the reproduction of ISA and Capitalist Hierarchies it masks). This is where the concept of Althusserian misrecognition occurs. Individuals perceive their actions and social roles as freely chosen, as they are interpellated at will, not recognizing that they are structured by ideological and material forces. Overall, privatized spaces like BGC should not exist because they function as material ideological apparatuses that reproduce capitalist class relations by interpellating subjects through exclusionary urban space.

References:

Althusser, L. (1962). Contradiction and Overdetermination

Althusser, L. (1970). Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses

Capitalism, as defined by Marx, is a mode of production in which the means of production are privately controlled by a small minority, the “bourgeoisie,” while the majority is the “proletariat,” a class that sells its labor power to make a living. While it sounds good on the liberal surface, it creates an exploitative system in which the proletariat generates more value than the wages they receive, while the capitalists/bourgeoisie capture the surplus for profit. Because the system creates competition, expansion, and promotes meritocracy, proletariats are tied and subordinated to profit-making rather than promoting genuine and innovative creativity. In this exploitative system it creates alienation of the proletariat to the products of their labor, their own potential, and from everyone.

Dreams are personal or social aspirations of an individual. Capitalism reduces these and gate-keeps them to the “privileged”, or in other terms, the bourgeoisie. In turn, dreams become tied to capitalism’s schtick of reducing the proletariat’s life centered on work, survival, and profit instead of personal/social aspirations and expression of human freedom.

How does the Capitalist system destroy the dreams of the exploited classes?

The Capitalist system reshapes and limits the dreams of the proletariat via material conditions, reducing their dreams and aspirations to a mere survival dictated by economic pressure. Capitalists mask these sufferings through the term “meritocracy” (a system under which advancement within the system turns on “merits”, like performance, intelligence, credentials, and education), which reinforces the idea that personal failure is due to the lack of effort instead of systemic inequality. When in reality, it ignores the material conditions that shape the capitalist system. Things such as social class, wealth, education, race, gender, and accessibility to networks create and shape advantages and barriers to all individuals entrenched in this system. Meritocracy justifies inequality and creates an illusion that every individual, regardless of the material conditions, can achieve whatever dreams are possible. A skilled and hardworking proletariat with a low-paying occupation may abandon their possible dreams due to debt, contractual jobs, and a lack of social capital. Evidently, this reshapes material opportunity, dreams, and aspirations. Individual proletariats are forced to act for economic survival, killing their original dreams. Also, dreams that are not profitable are often dismissed as idealistic drivel, an illusion that reinforces inlaid/predetermined hierarchies by promoting that the capitalists reward societal merit.

Les Misérables’ Fantine perfectly mirrors a proletarian figure with a crushed dream due to a capitalist system. A person who works in harsh conditions and a working-class woman who must sell her labor to survive. A person trapped within the material conditions of a capitalist world. Fantine’s economic pressures will soon worsen, and she will resort to desperate measures (selling her hair, teeth, and eventually her body). Fantine’s dream of providing Cosette with a better life transforms into a series of sacrifices that affect her health and sanity. A suffering that shows effort alone is really insufficient under social and systemic inequality. In this example, the novel perfectly captures how the average French proletariat suffers through the systems of capitalism.

Capitalism crushes passion-fueled dreams, framing them as “idealistic” slop in terms of profitability, affecting the individual’s psychological and cultural perspective.

The system promotes and markets “hyper-individualism” (refers to an extreme focus on personal autonomy, self-reliance, and independence, often at the expense of community, social responsibility, and collective well-being) with a flavor of Social Darwinism through the guise of meritocracy (body of pseudoscientific theories and societal practices that claim to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics and politics). Due to these societal norms, capitalism forces humans to act or to be reduced like animals competing for food and survival in a civilized facade that creates pressure and toll on mental and physical health. Advertisements, corporate influences, and influencers promote dreams that are marketable and will benefit the capitalist machine. Capitalism destroys passionate workers, craftsmen, musicians, etc., due to possible financial failure and redirection of work towards a profitable, non-satisfactory job. This is how capitalism shapes and limits material possibilities and dreams.

Real-World Case Studies

According to recent data from IBON Foundation (2025) reveals that much of the employment growth in the Philippines masks a deepening trend of job precarity. Total employment rose to 49.2 million in February 2025, an increase of 204,000 compared to February 2024. The number of openly informal workers also climbed by 326,000 to 20.6 million, representing approximately 42% of the total employed population (IBON Foundation, 2025). This increase reflects a shift toward flexible, informal, or freelance work, including gig work, part-time jobs, and unpaid family labor, rather than an improvement in job quality.

Basically, Filipinos are forced to work even if the jobs are unstable and lack of steady income. The material conditions of a Filipino proletariat force them to abandon their personal dreams in order to be economically stable. Unstable work conditions limit the possibility of achieving personal dreams. Making economic survival a priority rather than their personal aspirations.

Closing Analysis/Conclusion

Through Marxist analysis, we can conclude that capitalism really does crush our dreams as it shapes our material, economic, and social conditions, making us prioritize survival and profitability over our passionate dreams. Some dreams and personal aspirations are only achievable by the bourgeoisie, as they have access to the privileged resources that make things advantageous compared to the proletariat and other oppressed classes. The capitalist system also provides a meritocratic myth that serves as a facade to the systemic inequality we face day by day. This myth leads the proletariat to adapt to hyper-individualism, disregarding the collective community, and evokes a reminiscence of the Social Darwinist perspective, though a milder one. Dreams are also blasphemed to the point that if they are not profitable, it is an idealistic slop or drivel. The system conditions us to dream within economic limits.

Maybe we’re all Fantines being slaved away by the capitalist system, crushing our hopes and dreams because the bourgeoisie decided to greed away the opportunities that a normal person should achieve. Fantines that are just disposable workforces, replaceable once productivity turns to zero. What a grim and horrific system!

“Pessimism of the spirit; optimism of the will”. - Antonio Gramsci

As revolutionary optimists, we must not lose hope. Maybe we can learn from Gramsci’s quote, Gramsci encourages us to be realistic but have a hopeful mindset. We can acknowledge that reality is harsh, but we must not give up hope or trying to change it. We must organize against this exploitative system.

References:

IBON Foundation. (2025, April 8). Worsening informality behind rise in employment. IBON.org. https://www.ibon.org/worsening-informality-behind-employment-rise/