曹招根在《理论前沿》２００１年第 １０期上撰文说，假如我们将意识形态的产生仅仅看作是为经济基础服务，那么这种认识是片面和狭隘的。从现代经济发展的现实来看，意识形态的功能并不仅仅在于对经济基础具有反作用，它本身就具有经济功能。它已经由社会经济发展的外生变量， Cao Zhaogan wrote in his article “The Frontier in Theory”, No. 10 of 2001, that if we regard the emergence of ideology as merely serving the economic foundation, then this understanding is one-sided and narrow. From the reality of the development of modern economy, the function of ideology is not only that it has an adverse effect on the economic foundation but that it itself has economic functions. It has been replaced by the exogenous variables of socio-economic development,