Structure-superstructure relations must be posed precisely for historical analysis.

Evidence

It is the problem of the relations between structure and superstructure which must be accurately posed and resolved if the forces which are active in the history of a particular period are to be correctly analysed, and the relation between them determined. Two principles must orient the discussion: 1. that no society sets itself tasks for whose accomplishment the necessary and sufficient conditions do not either already exist or are not at least beginning to emerge and develop; 2. that no society breaks down and can be replaced until it has first developed all the forms of life which are implicit in its internal relations. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 745

Categorization

• DEFINE: Two foundational principles for Gramsci’s analysis of historical possibility: tasks only emerge where conditions exist, and societies are replaced only after exhausting their internal forms.
• XREF: Directly carries forward into Marxist critical-theory readings on how social change becomes (im)possible. — connects to: The homology is as crude an analytic tool as the base and superstructure model. — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 430