Economic base determines superstructures by setting limits, not by specifying their content

Evidence

We have suggested that, properly understood, there are hints in the structure of the argument in Capital about how this new problematic of base and superstructure can be developed, as well, of course, as a major exposition of the necessary conceptual ground on which this theoretical development should be undertaken. There is no space to take this very far here. One way is to take the law and tendencies of “the self-expansion of capital,” not as specifying in detail the content and forms of the superstructures and thereby “determining,” but as providing the governing movements (including the contradictions and crises in that self-expansion, and the “solutions” which permit capital to continue to accumulate while reproducing its antagonisms at a more advanced level of composition), dictating the tempo and rhythms of development in the other parts of the social formation: setting limits, as it were, to what can or cannot be a solution adaptable to capital’s self-expanding needs, and thus as determining through the repertoire of solutions (political, social, ideological) likely to be drawn on in any particular historical moment of conjuncture. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 515

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies Hall’s distinctive reading of Marx’s base-superstructure determination as limit-setting rather than content-specifying.
• XREF: Connects to Althusser’s ‘determination in the last instance’ and the concept of relative autonomy in later cultural studies. — connects to: Structure itself is not the problem; its excessive use is. — Jo Freeman, The Tyranny of Structurelessness, 447