Base and superstructure relate through non-immediate, relative autonomy rather than direct correspondence

Evidence

Thus, in this period, Marx’s “clarification” turns our attention in a new direction. He is concerned, now, with the necessary complexity of the social formations of advancing capitalism and of the relations between its different levels. He is concerned with the “unevenness,” the non-immediate correspondences, between these levels which remain, nevertheless, connected. He is concerned with the functions which, specifically, the superstructures “perform” in relation either to the maintenance and reproduction, or to the retardation of the development, of capitalist social relations: and with the fact that these functions not only appear in ever-more complex forms, but that, at a certain stage of their development, may actually require the non-immediacy—the “relative autonomy”—they exhibit. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 509

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘relative autonomy’ — the core concept of Hall’s Marxism, that superstructures gain independence at a certain stage of capitalist development.
• XREF: Connects to Gramsci’s hegemony and Althusser’s relative autonomy — Hall explicitly builds on this concept throughout his work. — connects to: Structure is a historical stage of group self-making, not a timeless property. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 532; Dialectical criticism of superstructures shifts from causal point-field analysis to homology between two continua — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 44; Reflection theory is a shorthand signaling base-superstructure mediation, not a literal doctrine — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 382 (+1 more)