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Test II – Summary, Ideology (Week 4- 7)Week 4
“The German Ideology” – Karl Marx
Men distinguished from animals by consciousness as soon as they begin their means of
subsistence(necessities of survival like food, shelter etc.) conditioned by their physical organization.
By producing means of subsistence indirectly material life is produced. This mode of production is
definite (fixed; grounded in history) form of activity and mode of life not pre-ordain; from
above(God). Material conditions determine production. Production came into being as population
increased. Specialization of nations depended on division of labor and development productive forces.
Structure of nations determined by stage of development in terms of production. Way to measure:
degree of division of labor. New productive force→ further development. Division of labor within
nation separates industrial and commercial from agriculture labor i.e. separation town and country. At
later stage separation industrial from commercial labor. Not only division of labor among nations also
individuals. Stages of development (in division of labor)/ Forms of ownership:
1. Tribal
Undeveloped stage of production. Hunting& fishing. Highest stage is agriculture. Low degree division
of labor confined to family. Social structure limited to family. Patriarchy. Slaves at bottom.
2. Ancient communal and state
Union of tribes into city by agreement or conquest. Still slavery. Development movable and
immovable private property. Power over slaves only in community therefore communal i.e. communal
private property. Division of labor more developed. Antagonism town and country. Class relation
citizens/slaves completely developed.
3. Feudal/estate property
Again based on community direct producing class; small peasantry not the slaves. Hierarchical
structure of land ownership. Association against a subjected producing class. Hence, similar to
communal ownership. Feudal system of landownership counterpart in towns in shape of corporative
property. Property in form of labor of individuals. Emergence of guilds as a result of association
against the organized robber nobility; industrialist is a merchant; growing competition; feudal structure
country. Chief property: on one hand landed property with serf labor; on the other hand labor of the
individual with small capital commanding labor of journeymen. Still restricted conditions of
production; small scale and primitive cultivation of land. Little division of labor despite difference of
princes/nobility/clergy/peasants/masters/journeymen/casual laborers. No division of importance
though in agriculture. Also no division in industry or individual trades. Already separation industry
and commerce though. Development of feudal kingdoms arose out of necessity for landed nobility and
the towns.
Thesis statements
- Definite individuals, productively active in a definite way, enter into definite social and political
relations. Demystify each development and look for connection social and political structure with
production.
- Social structure and state evolve out of life process of individuals not as imaginative but as they
really are; as they produce materially, under material conditions.
- The production of ideas , conceptions and of consciousness is directly interwoven with the material
activities and material intercourse of men; the language of real life.
- Conceiving, thinking, mental intercourse of men result out of their material behaviour.
- Men are the producers of their conceptions, ideas etc.
- Real active men, who are conditioned by the development of productive forces.
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, - Consciousness= consciousness existence, the existence of men is their actual life process.
- In ideology men and their circumstances appear upside down as in a camera obscura same happens
for historical life process.
- In contrast to German philosophy which descends from heaven to earth; we descend from earth to
heaven; we do not set out from what men say, imagine, conceive nor from men as narrated, thought of,
imagined, conceived in order to arrive at men in the flesh. We set out from real active men.
- Morality, religion, metaphysics and other ideological forms do not exist on their own, independently.
They have no history, no development.
- As men develop their material production and material intercourse(relations); they alter their thinking
and products of their thinking (it is interwoven). Life is not determined by consciousness; but
consciousness by life. Consciousness is not the living individual; it is the real living individuals
themselves, consciousness is only their consciousness.
- In every epoch, the ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas i.e. the ruling material force of
society is also the ruling intellectual force. The class which controls the means of production, controls
the ideas.
- Ruling ideas are the ideal expressions of dominant material relationship, grasped as ideas which
make the one ruling class, thus the ideas of its dominance. They possess consciousness and therefore
think. As such they rule as thinkers; as producers of ideas, of which the production is regulated and
distributed. Thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch.
- Also division of labor in terms of mental and material labor within ruling class. Mental- thinkers;
active conceptive ideologists. Material- passive and receptive, active members no time to think.
- The existence of revolutionary ideas presupposes the existence of a revolutionary class.
- We cannot detach the ideas of the ruling class and attribute them to an independent existence. As
these ideas are conditioned by its production. Ideas are dominant for a reason not gospel truth, no
value of universality. Ideas of ruling class become dominant ideas as such; and of society(false
consciousness). Ruling ideas are those of the ruling class.
- Each ruling class’ aim is to represent its interests as the common interest of society at large expressed
in an ideal form; that of universality represented as the only universal, rational valid true ones.
- Revolution class not a class at first but representation of majority opposing ruling class who at that
time fail to represent. New ruling class benefits as such other class too; so broader basis and more
profound then previous ruling class.
Week 5
“Ideology” – Raymond Williams(Ch. 4)
Ideology key concept in Marxism. Several definitions interchangeably – the following:
1. A system of beliefs characteristic of a particular class or group;
2. A system of illusory beliefs – false ideas or false consciousness – which can be contrasted with true
or scientific knowledge(based on reality not illusions).
3. The general process of the production of meanings and ideas.
(1) and (2) can be combined; in class society ideas are of the ruling class i.e. false. There’s no single
correct Marxist definition of ideology. Many variations and contradictions within the term.
Historical account
Term coined in late 18th century by Destutt de Tracy. Initial meaning: ‘science of ideas’ drawn from
John Locke’s empiricist tradition to understand nature of ideas. Ideas should and could not be
understood in metaphysic or idealist sense. Science of ideas must be a natural science since all ideas
originate in man’s experience of the world(empiricism). Scientific empiricism. Real elements of
ideology are our intellectual faculties and most evident circumstances. Ideology replaces
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