“It might be argued that the base determines the superstructure not in a direct way but through a complex system of mediations. Does this allow us to think the concept of ‘relative autonomy’? By no means. ‘Mediation’ is a dialectical category; even more: it is the category out of which dialectics is constituted, and belongs, therefore, to the internal movement of the concept. Two entities that are related (and constituted) via mediations are not, strictly speaking, separate entities: each is an internal moment in the self-unfolding of the other. We can extend the field of mediations as much as we want: in this way we would give a less simplistic vision of social relations, but we would not advance a single step in the construction of the concept of relative autonomy. This is because autonomy—relative or not—means self-determination; but if the identity of the supposedly autonomous entity is constituted by its location within a totality, and this totality has an ultimate determination, the entity in question cannot be autonomous. According to [Georg] Lukács, for instance, facts only acquire meaning as moments or determinations of a totality; it is within this totality—which could be as rich in mediations as we want—that the meaning of any identity is established. The exteriority that a relation of autonomy would require is therefore absent[…]
What happens if, instead, we abandon the concept of ‘determination in the last instance by the economy’? It does not follow either that the autonomy is absolute, or that the ‘economy’ in a capitalist society does not impose fundamental structural limits on what can be done in other spheres. What does follow is (a) that the limitation and interaction between spheres cannot be thought in terms of the category of ‘determination’; and (b) that there is no last instance on the basis of which society can be reconstructed as a rational and intelligible structure, but rather that the relative efficacy of each sphere depends on an unstable relation of antagonistic forces which entirely penetrates the social. For example, the structure of capitalist relations of production in a certain moment will impose limits on income distribution and access to consumer goods; but conversely, factors such as working-class struggles or the degree of union organization will also have a limiting effect on the rate of profit that can be obtained in a political and economic conjuncture. In our book we made reference to something that has been shown by numerous recent studies: namely, that the transition from absolute to relative surplus value, far from being the simple outcome of the internal logic of capital accumulation, is, to a large extent, the result of the efficacy of working-class struggles. That is to say, the economic space itself is structured as a political space, and the ‘war of position’ is not the superstructural consequence of laws of motion constituted outside it. Rather, such laws penetrate the very field of what was traditionally called the ‘base’ or ‘infrastructure’. If determination was a last instance, it would be incompatible with autonomy, because it would be a relation of omnipotence. But, on the other hand, an absolutely autonomous entity would be one which did not establish an antagonistic relation with anything external to it, since for an antagonism to be possible, a partial efficacy of the two opposing forces is a prerequisite. The autonomy which both of them enjoy will therefore always be relative.”
—Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, “Post-Marxism Without Apologies” (1987)
