According to Marxist theory, the base or infrastructure is the material basis of society that determines social structure, development and social change.[1]​ It includes productive forces and production relations. The superstructure depends on it, that is, the set of elements of social life dependent on the base or infrastructure, such as: the legal, political, artistic, philosophical and religious forms of a specific historical moment. The structural aspects refer to the very organization of society, the rules that bind its members, and the way of organizing the production of goods.

The basic thesis of historical materialism is that the superstructure (in German: Überbau) depends on the economic conditions in which each society lives, on the means and productive forces (infrastructure). The superstructure does not have its own, independent history, but is a function of the class interests of the groups (dominant class/s) that have created it. Changes in the superstructure are a consequence of changes in the infrastructure. This theory has important consequences:

The Marxist theses of infrastructure (in German: Basis) are the following: