Economic determination can assign dominance to politics or religion in an epoch

Evidence

However, he adds, “it is the mode in which they gained a livelihood which explains why here politics and there Catholicism played the chief part” (Capital , Volume I ). Thus, while the mode of production plays a determining role in all epochs, its role appears here as that of assigning to some other level of practice (politics, religion—i.e., ideology) the “chief role” (the dominant role, as it has come to be designated). This is a new way of formulating the problem of “determination by the economic,” and one which, incidentally, gives far greater reflectivity to the “superstructures” (which can now, in some epochs, be dominant). — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 493

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the crucial distinction between determination and dominance — the idea that economics can be determining while designating another level as dominant.
• XREF: This determination-versus-dominance distinction is central to how Hall (and later cultural studies) deploys a non-reductionist Marxism — connects directly to the reader’s economic-thought project. — connects to: Economics functions as both scientific method and vehicle for ruling ideology. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 607; The Spanish Inquisition was mainly political and economic domination in religious guise. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 117; A society’s economic base determines its political and juridical superstructure. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1628 (+1 more)