Humankind must first of all have land, labor to provide food to eat, drink, have clothing, shelter, education, health care before it can pursue politics, sciences, art, religion, etc. 

As a result, the production of the necessities of life/subsistence and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch form the foundation upon which the political institutions, state/federal government, legal conceptions, art and even the ideas on religion, of the people concerned came into being.  In short, white men wrote Bibles, Arab men wrote Korans, and Jews/semites wrote their Torah/Talmud after they had set up or seized economies, instituted martial/military law, setting up a system of production, distribution, exchange, consumption and reproduction in their own benefit.  This is an economic system.  People must eat to stay alive; people must have clothing and shelter to survive the elements.  When millions of people are involved an economic, political, social and cultural system evolves reflective of the ruling class, race, sex, culture, and generation. 

Growing out of and evolving in accordance with the level of production, therefore, are reflex economic, political, and social systems which administer the how, when, where, and who questions raised by the circulation of the social energy units appropriated or manufactured by technological means.  Populations then organize themselves around those means of production and as a direct material result become a personification of their place in production history. 

The same women and men who develop production relations in accordance with their material productivity, also produce ideas, conceptions, and perceptions in conformity with their production relation.  Assume particular stages of development in production, distribution and exchange and consumption and you will have a corresponding social system, a corresponding organization of social class, state, family, education, health care, science, law, politics, religion, language, ethics, sports, culture---in a word, civilization.  Even the hierarchical organization of sex, race, and ethnicity is determined by the composition of the strata of the population that originally seized control of the means of production and thus organized the immense superstructure of the society in their own interests and image.  In this process, populations develop social relations which correspond to these production forces.  Out of the interaction between technological means and productive relations emerge institutions, or superstructural organs, which serve as organs for the carrying out the day to day life processes of the society as a whole.

These superstructural organs, which take the form of religious, scientific, legal, cultural, medical, sport-recreation, educational, and family institutions, are mere outgrowths of differentiated social production, based on a particular level of technology, production knowledge, and social practice.  In the final analysis, the economic structures determine the political, judicial, and spiritual superstructure of the society.  Military force maintains rule of one class/race/gender/culture over all others while ensuring wealth/power distribution in the hands/interests of the rulers.  Also, the ideological offspring of those superstructures were manifested through various institutions in such a way as to reflect the economic relationships of the society at distinct stages in its development.  In order to administer any multi-cellular formation a central nervous system develops a coordinating organ or subsystem within the unit.  Society are no different.

         
Essentially, then, out of the interaction between technological means and productive relations emerge institutions which serve as organs for the administering of the day to day life processes of the society as a whole.  The societies brain, i.e., its state apparatus, and its central nervous system, i.e., its other superstructural organs which take the form of religious, scientific, legal, cultural, medical, educational, and family institutions are the fundamental systems which control, manage and effectively administer the offspring of ever evolving social production in quality and quantity.  This is a natural process, but it is formalized by human beings representing the ruling classes of that particular society which seizes control of the forces of production and reproduces the internal workings of each institution in its own class image and relative interest.

Thus, as these superstructural institutions emerge grow and develop, the ideas emanating from them are as finite as the production relations they express.  As we have demonstrated through out these and earlier discussions, even this expression of social development is a transient historical product whose existence is determined by the spiraling development of technological means as human beings expand and perfect there means of production.  In the final analysis, in order to reconstruct the social edifice of any ideological system, social science must trace ideology back to the superstructure that produced it and then back to the basis which produced the superstructure.