From Ideology to Hegemony

Below is a section from my thesis on how Marx, Gramsci and Althusser saw the concept of ideology. It is very informative in my study of society and I hope it will be helpful for you as well.

For Karl Marx (Tucker [1972] 1978), when individuals view the world through the lens of ideology “men” and their circumstances appear upside-down as in a camera obscura. This brings up two important questions: (1) What does this mean? (2) How does this happen? For Marx, the lived ideology of the subordinate class, the proletariat, was based upon the dominant classes mode of thought. The bourgeoisie use the power legitimated to the state to make their particular interests appear as if they are in the interests of all of society, that they are the general interest. To do so the bourgeoisie employ the superstructure (the legal and political structure of society) to reproduce the existence of a capitalist base (the economic structure of society). In essence, ideology causes men to see their social existence and relations in ways that do not actually exist, as a result of a socialization process into the dominant classes way of thinking. A mode of thought that does not speak to nor is it from the proletariat’s location within the forces of production, which causes the proletariat’s mode of consciousness to support the dominant class and further their own exploitation. The proletariat sees an economic system of man as a social being and between men as one of autonomous individuals and between things. This view obscures their exploitation and allows the bourgeoisie to accumulate surplus value (profit) from the labor of the proletariat.

In Marx’s view, as individuals enter into relations to reproduce their material livelihood, relations that are independent of their will, they enter into social and political relations as well, ones that are constructed and based upon the form of production through which individuals reproduce their material existence. Furthermore, it is through the reproduction of their material existence that individuals produce their ideas, conceptions and consciousness. Consequently, each persons consciousness is determined by where they fall in the reproduction of society’s material existence. A system of reproduction that depends on an increasingly regimented division of labor, a division of labor that produces different forms of consciousness that come into direct conflict. This conflict arises from the division of labor, as intellectual and material activity are separated and given to different individuals who now have different interests, goals and outlooks on life. Consequently, the struggle for power between these different forms of consciousness are played out in the sphere of civil society, that of the state. Since it is through the state that a group of individuals can gain the political power invested within the state and turn their particular class interests into that of the general interest. As a result of the successful attempt to exercise their particular interests as the general interests, the civil society becomes that of the bourgeoisie and reproduces in the superstructure the same conflicts that exist at the level of the base. “For the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its intellectual force (Tucker [1972] 1978:172).” The class that owns the means of production is at the same time the class of mental production and therefore, the class that lacks ownership of the means of production is unable to articulate their material interests and becomes subject to the ruling classes mental productions.

In summation, the ruling classes ideas must obtain a universal dimension and speak of their communal orientation, they must become the only way of seeing society and its form of existence, their ideas must appear to gain an independent existence apart from the ruling class. As a result, it is illusion when laws appear to gain independence of their relation to the ruling class, who use the state to reinforce their particular interests as the general interest. Thus, the ruling class and the ruling ideas become “lived” by the subordinate classes even though they do not correspond to their actual mode of existence. Thereby, when the division of labor in society that reproduces man’s material existence is actually a social division of labor and therefore a relation of men it can appear as merely a relation of things. For that reason, the current form of production and consumption takes on the appearance of autonomous individuals exchanging private property and denies the interconnection of man that is required for their production and consumption; when in reality this form of production and consumption actually creates men as independent individuals who interact through private property. How individuals view the world is largely imaginary for Marx, a world of illusion, as they do not correspond to reality. They view what is a man made activity and inherently a relation of “men” as a relation of things, one that obscures the capitalist economic system as a historical creation of man and is thereby subject to their control. This illusionary world furthers the proletariat’s exploitation at the hands of the bourgeoisie, who have made their specific value system a universal value system.

Antonoi Gramsci (1971) builds off of Marx’s exposition on ideology and its relation to both the base and the superstructure of society with his discussion of the formation of hegemony. Gramsci argues that every social group arising out of economic production creates a group of intellectuals that provides the group with the knowledge of its purpose in the economic, social and political spheres. These intellectual elite attempt to function as the organizers of society and seek to not only keep but also extend their own classes power. For Gramsci there are two superstructural levels, the civil society (private individuals) and the political society (the state) that work together to preserve hegemony, one groups dominance over others that is exercised throughout society. The two major effects of hegemony are (1) that the masses give consent to the way society is structured and run and therefore give consent to the dominant social group to continue as rulers and (2) this consent thereby allows the dominant social group to exert its force legally to maintain the current societal form.

For that reason, hegemony consists of not just political force to make compulsory the current economic form, which benefits the dominant group, but that the dominant group is able to maintain a hegemonic influence on subordinate groups through the use of culture as well. Hegemony is maintained through ideas and modes of thought; its power can be wielded either through physical force or intellectual force. It is through the intellectuals of the dominant group that an ideology is disseminated that cultivates within the subordinate groups the bourgeois values that will maintain the current economic, social and political structure. Therefore, through the use of ideology the dominant group is able to gain consent over the lower classes, as the lower classes see their reality through the lens of the bourgeoisie and do not see the world as it is, but as they live it through ideology. It is important to note that Gramsci did not see hegemony as static nor without conflict. Hegemony must be constantly maintained through the use of the superstructure – the apparatuses of the church, education, media and family, which all contribute to the creation and implementation of ideology, which allows for the maintenance of hegemony. Consequently, Gramsci saw that hegemony is difficult to maintain and that total incorporation or domination does not occur, thereby enabling resistance to the dominant ideology. Thus, the role of ideology in the subordination of the working classes was key for Gramsci and he argued for the creation of “organic” intellectuals that were of the working class and spoke of and to their interests. If the working class was ever to gain control of the means of intellectual production, that of the education system and the state and therefore the means to disseminate values that favored themselves then they needed to create a mass of “organic” intellectuals who would popularize the values of the proletariat.

Althusser expounds upon Marx’s concept of ideology and Gramsci’s concept of hegemony through his essay on “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” (2001). Althusser begins with the explanation that the dominant mode of production conditions the social formation and that the continuation of the social formation requires the reproduction of the current productive forces and the existing relations of production. For Althusser, the current productive forces and the existing relations of production are reproduced through the interrelations between the Repressive State Apparatus and the many different Ideological State Apparatuses: religion, education, family, law, politics, communications and culture. In contrast to the Repressive State Apparatus which is one public entity that functions through the use of violence and repression there are a plurality of ISAs whose province is private and function primarily through ideology. Yet, the two are linked since the ruling class that holds State power and controls the RSA also has influence over the ISAs, as “no class can hold State power over a long period without at the same time exercising its hegemony over and in the State Ideological Apparatuses” (Althusser 2001:98). The RSA secures by force the political conditions necessary for both the reproduction of the relations of production and the power of the ISAs, while the ISAs primarily secure the reproduction of the relations of production. Therefore, it is through both control of the RSA and the ISAs that the ideology of the ruling class becomes the ruling ideology. Additionally, Althusser agrees with Gramsci in two respects: (1) that the control over the ISAs by the ruling class is not concrete, resulting in the ISAs being the site of class struggle and (2) that the foremost or dominant ISA in capitalist society is the school or educational ideological apparatus; the school is one of the foremost reproducers of the relations of production and infuses each type of worker with the ideology necessary for their reproduction of the existing relation of production, it socializes them into the ruling ideology.

Althusser builds off of Marx’s work and argues that through ideology men do not represent the real world to themselves, the world as is exists, but an imaginary representation, the world as it appears to them. Ideology represents not the system of relations that actually exists in society and by which men interact with each other but the imaginary relations to which they believe they are governed. “Ideology represents the imaginary relationships of individuals to their real conditions of existence” (Althusser 2001:109). It is an ideology that becomes lived by the people and therefore gains a material existence, as it exists within an apparatus of control and influences action. Ultimately, ideology is situated on turning individuals into subjects, on creating a subject who sees him or herself as a self-contained subject who subjects himself to self-control; rather than being forced into submission the individual submits themselves to subordination, a process Althusser named this interpellation. The individual views him or herself as an autonomous person, a construction of his or her own action rather than their construction through the pre-existing social structures. In actuality, the individual is constituted as a subject not by themselves but by the ISAs. Althusser’s structuralist oriented philosophy shines through in his idea of ideology and interpellation, he argues that the individual is constituted as a subject by pre-given structures; that they are socialized into existing modes of thought with little ability to resist and that the individuals inability to see the process of their social constitution as an autonomous individual is itself ideological.

Althusser, Louis. 2001. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes Towards an Investigation.” Pp. 85-126 in Lenin
and Philosophy, and Other Essays. New York, NY: Monthly Review Press.

Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, edited by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey
Nowell Smith. New York, NY: International Publishers.

Tucker, Robert C, ed. [1972] 1978. The Marx-Engels Reader. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.