Ideology according to Marx – definition and explanation
Karl Marx's philosophy should be understood against the background of
the philosophy of the Enlightenment that believed that the world can be
objectively understood through the medium of the naturally observing mind that
is the gateway for liberating the human spirit.
Marx wrote "The German Ideology" two years before he published
his famous "Communist Manifesto" and already here he presents a well
formulated, and revolutionary, understanding of ideology. Unlike the young
Hegelians, led by Feuerbach, Marx claimed that ideas and ideology are no independent,
as Idealism would have, but rather a product which is dependent on material
matters, namely social and economic structures. According to Marx, ideas,
perceptions and consciousness are always the result of specific historic material
circumstances.
What differentiates humans from animals according to Marx is that man is
the only species that manufactures in order to survive; this is his basic function
while every other aspect of human life is derived from this one central
feature. According to Marx every society in history organized its production
according to its available means of production that determine relations of
production (i.e. feudalism, capitalism, communism…) and its own concept of
property.
This is what Marx calls the economic base. On top of the economic base
Marx poses the "superstructure", all cultural structures that are the
result of the economic base. An important part of the superstructure is, according
to Marx, ideology. Ideology according to Marx is a veil pulled over the economic
base in order to prevent people from seeing its inherit injustice (that is, until
communism comes). Ideology convinces people that the current state of
production is justified, warranted, "natural" or anything else which
gets them to comply to it. Ideology has been famously referred to my Marx as "False Consciousness". Revolutions come about when the fallacy of this
consciousness is recognized.
When Hegel and his followers saw a shift in human consciousness Marx saw
a shift in human economical structures that results in changes to the ideology.
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More summaries of Marx's writings and ideas:
An Extended Summary of The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels (chapter 1, chapter 2, chapters 3 and 4)