The economic basis determines the superstructure

Doesn't make any sense.

Could you please help me to improve?

We must first understand what you're trying to say. The economy relates to "superstructure" in what ways? Are you familiar with economic theory?

what I am trying to say is that money may play a very important role in raising a person's status. If she or he can barely make a living, it is hard for a person to enjoy fancy cars or other luxuries. Another example is that in China we used to have a phylosophy that women are supposed to be housewives, taking care of children and the husband. Therefore, this leads to the fact that women don't have a say in a family. So nowadays, those women who are in favor of working independently often say something as I mentioned. I am just trying to find the English equivilent. Thanks

But you must also understand that not everybody has a goal to have luxury cars or rich lifestyles to be happy. It also depends on how the country's government treats its people, and the freedoms they enjoy. Many wealthy people are not happy. Many have poor health or relationships. Many marry multiple times. I've seen many people without luxuries or money who are happier than most with money. I have traveled extensively around the world, and have traveled to over 150 countries - including three times to China - and found smiling faces in simple villages and outbacks. It usually depends on the culture, and the lifestyle they have become accustomed to.

Many cultures around the world now allow women the same freedoms and independence as men; they work at jobs, and also take care of their families. Many are leaders of industry, and of government. Many women earn more than men, and many are in the professions previously restricted to men. The world is changing for the better IMHO.

You are talking about Marxism.

Marx thought that society's economic structure determines the way people think.

While Max Weber believed just the opposite: Peoples beliefs influenced the way they set up their economy.

For Marx, who called those aspects of society's economy (the relations of production, viz., the way in which people's lives are determined by the way they make distribute, and use material goods) the infrastructure, and beliefs, including religion and the arts, the superstructure, he believed that the infrastructure determined the superstructure.

Weber linked capitalism in Europe to Calvanistic predetermination and the Protestant Work Ethic, viz., careful not to waste money, save it, invest it, and that economic prosperity reassured people that they were favored by God. So, to Weber, capitalism grew out of this Christian philosophic base and this religious superstructure determined the infrastructure, the economics of capitalism.

Regardless that a lot of neoconservatives had been Shachtmanites, and have corruputed the name. I remain a Schactmanite, true to the socialist cause. For Max Shachtman, with all his hostility to the totalitarian left, he reserved a special contempt for former radicals who peddled their disillusionment on the open market. He once dismissed the memoirs of several ex-communists by saying that they were composed by a formula: "Once I was so stupid, now I am so smart."

In the Shachtmanite world, a certain degree of rigor is required: and confession minus analysis still equals bourgeois self-indulgence.

The phrase is correct.

It won't make sense to most native English speakers, but only because they have never read any Marxist books, and do not know the terminology.

Only because it's your opinion that I agree with your opinion about our inability to understand the statement. Otherwise, I understand Marxism to mean exploitation, and I'm having difficulty with reconciling luxury to in a communistic society.

Cicerone, it's THEORY.
According to Marx, the economic basis (the development of means of production) determines the superstructure (forms of government, cultural tracts, etcetera).
For example, the development of trade and new forms of productions produced a transition from Feudalism to Capitalism. In his point of view the Rennaissance and the Illumination were possible only because economic development was creating a new class, the bourgouise.
You can discuss whether it's a valid theory or not.
All I'm saying is the the phrase MAKES SENSE, grammatically.

Adverb: It sounds to me as if the Chinese sentence you're trying to translate is itself a translation of something Karl Marx said in German. The canonical translation from the German original into English would be: "The economic substructure determines the (social) superstructure."

Even so, the terms sound unidiomatic in English. There's probably nothing you can do about it, for the following reason: In the English-speaking world, unlike in China, Marxism has never been a dominant ideology. It has merely been yet another modestly influential ideology among many. Consequently, the language of Marxism has never become idiomatic in everyday political discourse -- unlike in China and other formerly communist countries.

There is a more general lesson here: Any Marxist jargon you translate into English will sound un-idiomatic to native English speakers, except maybe to a handful of Marxist academics.

Some languages have a problem translating the Marxian term "infrastructure".
In both Spanish and Italian, it is translated as "base" (basis), since "infraestructura" (Sp.) or "infrastruttura" (It.) refers to public works such as roads, wells, sewer, etc...

I agree with your opinion about any Marxist term not being understood by most native English speakers. Not even the word "proletariat" is known to them, while -for example- in Mexico the word "lumpen", a shortening for the Marxian term "lumpen-proletariat", is widely used. Someone spits on the floor and you tell him "don't be a lumpen!".

Just checked a couple of Marxist texts in English: it says "economic base".
So there you go, Adverb: The economic base determines the superstructure.

It's always fun to see which German words get imported into other languages. "Lumpen", however, exists as a German noun independent of any Marxist jargon. As the singular or plural of the German noun "lumpen", it means "rag" or "rags". As the plural of the noun "lump", it refers to people in a derogative sense, roughly comparable to the English "riffraff". Marx expanded it into the compound noun "lumpenproletariat", which means "proletarian riffraff", or, more literally translated, "riffraff proletariate". I guess the politically correct term today would be "working poor".

... which goes to prove our point. The on Marxian term that's understood in Mexico isn't Marxian, just German.

Well, there are other terms... proletarian, class struggle... will think of others later.

"Plusvalía" ("surplus value" in English, "mehrwert" in German) is used, but with a totally different meaning: a house or plot has "plusvalía" if the zone is getting more expensive and the real state has more value. So I guess, the use of this originally Marxian word owes a lot more to German than to Marx.

Some workers -older than 40- use "plusvalía" in the Marxian sense: "I'm going to sweat surplus value" instead of "I'm going to work". But the funny phrase is heard less and less, as Marxist jargon is being totally lost.

Lumpenproletariat refers to an underclass, not really Working Class: thieves, prostitutes, street vendors, petty drug traffickers who are impossible to assimilate to the revolutionary values of the true Workers.