Conflicts are first consciously grasped only at the level of ideology.

Evidence

In this connection Engels’ statement too should be recalled, that the economy is only the mainspring of history “in the last analysis” (to be found in his two letters on the philosophy of praxis also published in Italian); 216 this statement is to be related directly to the passage in the preface to the Critique of Political Economy which says that it is on the level of ideologies that men become conscious of conflicts in the world of the economy. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 708

Categorization

• DEFINE: Core scaffolding: the ‘last instance’ economy qualifier and the claim that ideological consciousness is where economic conflicts become known — foundational for how Gramsci analyzes superstructures.
• XREF: This is the mechanism the Islamophobia readings depend on: struggles are apprehended through ideology and representation before being understood economically.