This conception states that all ideas and social institutions are the superstructure of a material economic base. The social class that controls the means of production in each social system is the ruling class. The superstructure - ideas, currents of thought, culture - reflects the interests of the dominant class. In capitalism, the dominant class is the bourgoisie, the owners of factories (Marx saw and lived in the capitalism of the 19th century). This theory is also called dialectical materialism or historical materialism.
