(noun) the Marxist theory of history and society that holds that ideas and social institutions develop only as the superstructure of a material economic base
Unlike in what I believe are simplistic readings of Marxian political economy, or ‘historical materialism’, noting the hegemonic tendencies of the capitalist economy in a capitalist society does not imply that ‘the economy’ is always the predominant ‘subsystem’ of a society, in the way of a ‘substructure’ governing a ‘superstructure’.