Karl Marx, part 7: The psychology of alienation

[CHIMO]

In these last two columns I want to bring us back to more speculative, philosophical and even theological ground with a discussion of ideology and of alienation. I will cover the concepts in Marx and his immediate successors and will then go on to talk about the way in which "western" Marxism evolved out of the failure of the much-heralded proletarian revolutions of the 19th century and the turn towards moderate "social democracy", the rise of fascism in the inter-war period and the descent of Soviet Marxism into reductionist barbarism. All of these developments run counter to what Marxists had largely hoped and worked for until the first world war. What Marxist thinkers since Marx have been wrestling with is the question as to why nothing unfolded as it should have done.

Marx maintains that the ruling ideology is always the ideology of the ruling class and that the set of ideas and thought patterns existing in any epoch will – "in the final instance" – closely follow the material and social relations of production. As soon as the surplus product we have been discussing emerges and class develops which has control over that surplus, then that class will require that those who do the producing learn to accept the "rules" of production and distribution.

Thus, in feudal society, for example, we will have feudal ideologies that emphasise hierarchy, God-given positions in society, stability and the divine right of kings to rule and a religious form that bolsters those requirements – in European feudalism this is represented by Catholicism and orthodoxy.

The order that prevails will always be seen for extended periods of time as the "natural law" in which the way things are is the way they should be. In bourgeois society the rules change. Stasis and hierarchy are overthrown in the name of dynamism and innovation and a breaking down of restrictive practices and you become a "self-made man" off to seek your fortune. In religious terms, orthodox Catholicism is superceded by a religion that allows you to find your personal relationship with God, or in Engels' terms, become functionally secular.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/may/16/karl-marx-psychology-alienation

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