1. Introduction: The Return of Marxian Theory in a Financialized World
In today’s global economy — dominated by finance, debt, and digital currency — Karl Marx’s categories of base (struttura) and *superstructure (sovrastruttura) have regained surprising relevance.
In an era defined by monetary creation, central bank power, and the financialization of capital, the Marxian distinction between material foundations and ideological or institutional forms of power provides an indispensable analytical framework.
Marx, in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859) and later in Capital (1867), defined the economic base as the totality of relations of production — the social relations through which individuals produce and distribute material wealth.
Upon this base rises a legal, political, and ideological superstructure, which includes the state, law, and cultural forms of consciousness.
In this conception, the base determines the superstructure, meaning that political and ideological institutions function to reproduce the dominant relations of production.
However, once formed, the superstructure also exerts a reciprocal influence upon the base, stabilizing or transforming the economic system.
This article pursues two goals:
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To analyze in depth the theoretical meaning of Marx’s distinction between base and superstructure;
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To reinterpret it in light of today’s monetary-financial system, in which central banks and fiat money creation embody the structural foundations of contemporary economic power.
2. The Marxian Theory of Base and Superstructure
2.1 The Economic Base as the Real Foundation of Society
Marx defines the base as “the real foundation on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.”
The base consists of the relations of production, that is, the social relations that organize the production and reproduction of material life.
In capitalist society, these relations are built upon private ownership of the means of production and the appropriation of surplus value generated by wage labor.
The base is thus the material skeleton that determines the forms of social, political, and cultural life.
Its dynamism lies in internal contradictions — particularly the contradiction between productive forces and relations of production — which for Marx constitute the motor of historical change.
2.2 The Superstructure: Ideology, Law, and the State
The superstructure encompasses the institutions and forms of consciousness that legitimize and reproduce the dominant mode of production. It includes:
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Political institutions (the State, government, bureaucratic and coercive apparatuses);
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The legal system (property law, labor regulation, contract law);
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Ideological forms (religion, philosophy, culture, media, science).
The superstructure is not merely decorative — it is organic to the system.
It produces consent, normalizes relations of domination, and provides the economic base with moral and symbolic legitimacy.
3. From Industrial Capitalism to Financial Capitalism
In the nineteenth century, Marx analyzed a capitalism grounded in industrial production — factories, physical labor, tangible commodities.
By contrast, the twenty-first century has witnessed the rise of financial and digital capitalism, where value reproduction occurs primarily through credit, debt, and monetary circulation, often detached from labor or material production.
This transformation signifies a profound shift in the economic base.
Today, the epicenter of production and control lies in the global financial system, dominated by central banks, international financial institutions, and capital markets.
Correspondingly, the superstructure has evolved: economic policies, legal frameworks, and media narratives surrounding stability, inflation, and growth operate as forms of ideological legitimation for financial power.
4. Money as the Supreme Form of the Base
4.1 From Labor Value to Financial Value
For Marx, money was the universal equivalent of value — the general representation of abstract labor embodied in commodities.
Yet in today’s capitalism, money has become autonomous and self-referential, detached from the material process of production.
Since the collapse of the gold standard in 1971 and the emergence of fiat currency, money no longer derives its value from a material base, but from institutional trust in the state or the central bank that issues it.
Monetary creation, therefore, has become a political act — an exercise of sovereign power rather than a reflection of productive value.
4.2 Central Banks as Institutions of the Economic Base
Within a Marxian framework, central banks can be seen as organs of the economic base, since they regulate the general conditions for capital reproduction:
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They control money supply and interest rates;
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Intervene in financial markets through quantitative easing and liquidity operations;
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Sustain the solvency of states and corporations, thus defining the system’s survival rules.
In this sense, central banks represent a centralized form of economic power that determines the conditions of production and distribution in contemporary capitalism, while indirectly shaping the political and ideological superstructure.
5. Economic Power and Monetary Sovereignty
5.1 Money and Power: From the Sovereign to Capital
Historically, monetary sovereignty belonged to the State: to mint currency meant to exercise political authority over value.
Today, however, sovereignty over money has been partially transferred to independent institutions such as the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, and the Bank of England.
Their power is far from neutral: they set the conditions for capital accumulation, control global liquidity, and decide — effectively — who has access to credit.
From a Marxian standpoint, this represents a new configuration of the economic base, in which the capacity to decide the value of money — and thus of life — lies in technocratic institutions beyond democratic control.
5.2 Fiat Money as a Mechanism for Capital Reproduction
Fiat money, lacking intrinsic value, has become the primary mechanism through which the capitalist system reproduces itself.
Central banks can create liquidity ex nihilo to sustain credit flows, purchase government bonds, or stimulate markets.
Yet, this monetary power is asymmetrically distributed: its benefits accrue mainly to financial markets and large corporate entities, widening the gap between capital and labor.
In Marxian terms, the creation of fiat money does not abolish exploitation — it abstracts and conceals it, translating domination from the factory floor into the digital circuits of global finance.
6. The Ideological Superstructure of Financial Power
If the economic base expresses power through control of money and credit, the superstructure manifests it through discourses of legitimacy:
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the rhetoric of price stability,
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the fight against inflation,
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the defense of central bank independence,
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and the narrative of fiscal responsibility.
These principles, often presented as neutral or technical, form a monetary ideology that naturalizes the existing relations of power.
As Marx wrote, “the ruling ideas of every age are the ideas of its ruling class” — today, those ideas are the doctrines that justify and normalize financial centrality.
Thus, the ideology of sound money operates as a superstructural veil that disguises the structural reality of credit-based domination.
7. Base, Superstructure, and the Crisis of Contemporary Capitalism
The financial crises of recent decades — from 2008 to the pandemic years — have revealed the structural fragility of global capitalism.
Whenever the system faces collapse, central banks intervene with monetary expansion, asset purchases, and emergency lending, effectively sustaining capital accumulation by preventing its own implosion.
From a Marxian perspective, these interventions are not neutral acts of stabilization but mechanisms of systemic self-preservation: the political and legal superstructure acts to defend the dominant economic base, postponing but never resolving its internal contradictions.
The result is an increasing disconnect between real and financial economies, between production and speculation, and between labor and capital.
Economic power is no longer based on ownership of productive assets but on control over liquidity, credit, and debt.
8. A Marxian Reinterpretation: The New Relation Between Base and Superstructure
In the age of fiat money and financial globalization, the traditional boundary between base and superstructure becomes blurred.
The political superstructure — governments, institutions, media — is deeply embedded in the financial structure of the system, functioning as its regulatory and legitimating mechanism.
This can be described as a form of functional fusion: the superstructure does not merely reflect the base; it becomes a component of it.
Economic imperatives shape political decisions, legal frameworks, and even cultural values.
From a Marxian viewpoint, one could say that the superstructure has internalized itself within the base: ideology is no longer an external mask but a constitutive element of economic processes.
In a world ruled by financial logic, ideology and economy coincide — both sustained by faith in the infinite creation of value through debt.
9. Conclusion: Marx in the Age of Financial Capitalism
Marx’s theory of base and superstructure remains a powerful tool for understanding the nature of contemporary power.
Today, the economic base is no longer represented by industrial capital but by financial and monetary capital, whose operational heart lies in central banks and credit systems.
The superstructure — political, legal, and cultural — continues to legitimize this power, presenting monetary policy as a realm of objective necessity rather than ideological choice.
The creation of fiat money, far from being a mere technical instrument, is at the center of a new regime of value production — one founded not on labor but on institutional trust and managed scarcity.
In this light, rereading Marx means not reviving an old dogma, but recovering the critical spirit of political economy — the ability to unveil how economic structures shape human consciousness and power.
The dialectic between base and superstructure is far from obsolete: it has merely shifted its terrain.
Today, the factory of value is no longer the industrial plant, but the central bank — the modern engine of capitalist reproduction in the era of fiat money.