Marxism, Ideology and False-Consciousness etc.

[Oswy]

As I understand it Marxism posits the idea that the mode of production shapes the intellectual and political arena so as to produce a dominant ideology which suits the continuance of that mode.

In simpler language, Marxism argues that capitalism shapes society's understanding of itself which is capitalist friendly, or at least hostile to anti-capitalism.

However, if Marxism has emerged within capitalism - and its distorting effects - how can we claim our understanding is somehow objective and free from those ideological distortions? What special case allows our view to have escaped the power of ideological distortion, and not just be another aspect of capitalist thought?

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ That is why there must be a merger of Marxism and the workers' movement:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/merge-marxism-workers-t70141/index.html


The point is that the whole mass of working-class folks by itself cannot develop this consciousness. It has to be either imported (petit-bourgeois intellectuals, with their literary works, and ESPECIALLY "coordinator"/managerial individuals per my Theory thread on modern class relations (http://www.revleft.com/vb/has-capitalism-really-t65831/index.html)) or developed by informed segments of the working class.

...

I think that one of the limitations of the vanguard coming into the relationship is its lack of comprehension of fighting for the goals (again, mostly immediate) of the workers' movement.

...

I suppose the crisis of theory is two-fold: one relating to revolutionary Marxism (clarity regarding long-term goals), and the other relating to the workers' movement (willingness to fight for workers' immediate goals instead of shouting "economist" and "reformist" ad nauseum without a proper understanding of those two words).

[robot lenin]

That is a very good point. I don't actually know of any answer to this, so I'll just try to wing it ;).

After a few minutes of thinking, I came up with this: Marxism is not an ideology, just a social theory. It is a social theory that predicts the downfall of capitalism, and does this via analysis of past events. It is reasonably believeable, which is why it attained such a following. This leads me to think that it is not a lie, the only part that could be questionned is the assumption that capitalism will eventually fall to Communism. But Marx's prediction that markets will cause crises as the economy shifts ever more violently from boom to bust has been roughly played out.

Some people argue that Marxism has actually helped capitalism stave off rebellion, since the fear of workers rebelling forced gov'ts to enact welfare programmes and curb capitalism. But this was around a century after Marx's theorising, and if it had been a set-up of the bourgeoisie then surely they would have acted immediately to it, rather than let it grow to a position where it challenged capitalism directly (in the bastardised form of the USSR and satalite states).

Although its hard, or maybe impossible to prove, I don't think that capitalism would bring into existence any theory which seeks to destroy it, and is strong enough to do so.

[FireFry]

Marxism relies on intellectual voyeurism. That is an exploration of your situation. The only way workers can fix their shitty wages is through unionisation. Of course, anybody can join the capitalist class at any point, normally, however, there is a real maturity barrier between the capital operators and the proletariat. Where the capital operators are far less mature and paternal than the proletariat and is actively resisting proletarian opinion all the time.

[FireFry]

I guess what I'm trying to point out here is that marxists are blind. And that capitalist just laugh at them while they stumble over themselves trying to cover all their points with facts.

[Led Zeppelin]

As I understand it Marxism posits the idea that the mode of production shapes the intellectual and political arena so as to produce a dominant ideology which suits the continuance of that mode.

In simpler language, Marxism argues that capitalism shapes society's understanding of itself which is capitalist friendly, or at least hostile to anti-capitalism.

However, if Marxism has emerged within capitalism - and its distorting effects - how can we claim our understanding is somehow objective and free from those ideological distortions? What special case allows our view to have escaped the power of ideological distortion, and not just be another aspect of capitalist thought?

A communist revolution is not presupposed to have a class-conscious working-class, on the contrary, the period of socialism exists partly for the reason to raise the working-class to that level of class-consciousness and culture.

The communist revolution arises out of the economic breakdown of capitalism, lead by the class-conscious elements of the working-class.

You would have to wait for hundreds of years before the working-class "develops a socialist consciousness" within a capitalist system, as Lenin said. I would go further and say that it is impossible for the working-class as a whole to develop a consciousness which is independent of the instruments which the bourgeoisie uses to form its consciousness for them.

In other words; the instruments of forming consciousness must be in the hands of the class-conscious working-class before it can lift the class as a whole to that level of development.