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Theoretical Review

Although de Tracy set up the term idea-logy, the initial discussion of ideology stemmed from Marx’s related discourses. To understand Marx’s perspective on ideology, or to understand how he explained the relationship between humans’ activity and their corresponding consciousness, all discussions have to return to his critique on political economy. Marx (1971) wrote,

Procedure 2: Applying Theoretical Foundation In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. (pp. 20-21)

By studying political economy, Marx explained the concepts of material productive forces, means of production, and the relations of production together with how capital defines economic activities. These conceptual discussions together comprise what he claimed to be the economic base-structure. Another concept based on this base-structure is what Marx named the political superstructure. Regarding the relationship between these two structures, Marx argued that following the development of capitalism, an inevitable clash between the productive forces and the relations of production would lead to the alteration of the base-structure, which, simultaneously, would also induce the adjustment of the superstructure. In other words, the superstructure is an inevitable corollary of the base-structure; or say, the economic base-structure directly determines the superstructure.

Marx’s demonstrative logic is reflected in his words, “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness” (p.

21).

What should be noted here is that Marx’s attitude regarding this gradually conceptualizing notion of ideology so far has not referred to a concept with negative meaning or capability (e.g., distortion). Marx just simply explained how economic factors determine humans’ thoughts without judgement.

To Marx, the alteration which happens in the economic base-structure is observable and which could be found through natural science evidence. Differently, the form of alteration that most concerned him was “the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic — in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out” (p. 21).

That is to say, what human beings should be most worried about are those ideological forms which attempt to pretend that everything is going well. Accordingly, the question arises of how to appraise whether these ideological forms are beneficial or harmful to people, and most importantly, who can determine this? Capitalists, the governors, educators, or…?

Marx (1971) answered,

Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness,

but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production. (p. 21)

The first quotation implies his critique on the idealism which is demonstrated in his books The Holy Family and The Germany Ideology⁸⁸

As a result, if the economic base-structure plays such an important role, then a new question emerges: who controls the base-structure? Or, who controls those ideological forms which indeed results from the alteration of the base-structure? Above questions or the question of how and why ideology is created, could find answers in Marx and Engels’ (1970) book The German Ideology where Marx described the function of ideology, albeit through abstract concepts, as

. The second quotation refers to his methodology of dialectical materialism. Drawing on Marx (1971), whether those ideological forms are beneficial or harmful is impossible to examine through idealism since it would be adopting one side’s consciousness to judge/evaluate consciousness of the other side. Instead, the alteration in the economic base-structure is the pivot to be scrutinized which echoes Marx’s perspective: humans’ social existence determines their consciousness.

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 ruling intellectual force.

(p. 64, emphasis original)

These words reveal his concern about who controls the relations of production, or, who are dominated. This concern initiated his investigation into the inequality which resulted from unbalanced power relations. As the notion of power is considered, the study of (false) consciousness which is offered/constructed by certain groups to influence/control other groups become one of the key points to understand Marx’s ideology concepts. Marx’s contribution conceptualizing the notion of ideology is that he has found a competing relationship between diverse classes (i.e., the bourgeoisie and the proletariat). This also resulted in other discussions of social phenomenon such as alienation and fetishism.

88 For his critique on Holy Family’s idealism, please refer to Chapter 5.

Procedure 2: Applying Theoretical Foundation Marx’s concept of ideology derived from his investigation on the unbalanced power relation between two classes. The ingredients of his ideology theory included concepts such as division of labour, relation of production, base/superstructure, false-consciousness, alienation, class struggle, which were all introduced in the previous chapter. While an IAC article adopts these concepts to explain its researched phenomenon, it could be said that such an article applies to Marx’s analytical pathway (or the Marxist form of ideological analysis/critique) which could be abstracted as follows:

MaWhoever controls the relation of production (base-structure) Mbcontrols the power of interpretation (superstructure).

McThis “who” is capable of creating (false) consciousness (to Marx, the ‘who’ is the dominant class).

MdWhile the dominated group lives under this (false) consciousness, Meit also suffers from four types of alienated condition.

MfAs a result, they are unable to freely perform their free will to reach the destination of being objectification.

MgIn order to remove the (false) consciousness, the dominated group has to sense this oppressed condition, to jump from class-in-itself to class-for-itself.

Empirical Analysis

The previous section first explained the birth of Marx’s concept of ideology, then revealed Marx’s consistent argument—the competing relationship between diverse classes. His concepts have been utilized to establish what this thesis calls Marx’s analytical pathway. Of course, this pathway could be extended. Here, RA02 is taken as an example to explain how Marx’s pathway was applied in practical analysis.

Example 6-1: RA02 considers how the UK media misrepresents Islam where Islam is stigmatized through a violent, irrational, and radical image. The application of Marx’s analytical pathway in RA02 could be drawn as follows:

MaThe access right of media (newspapers) in the UK is mainly controlled by white English people.

MbHence, they also control the power to define Islam and Muslims.

McThey created a stigmatized image of Islam and Muslims

Mesuch that the Islamic immigrants who live in the UK cannot determine who they are and they have become alienated from themselves.

Most IAC articles which were examined in this thesis did not simply adopt a particular set of ideology concepts (e.g., only Marx’s) to demonstrate their arguments. Due to the diverse research cases, the concepts adopted by IAC analysts depend on the arguments that IAC analysts make. Thus, Example 6-1 only shows how Marx’s pathway was applied to RA02 with a holistic perspective. It does not mean that RA02 only adopts Marx’s concept of ideology to compose its discourse; other analytical pathways (e.g., Althusser’s, Gramscian, etc.) could also be found in RA02.

To provide a better understanding of how Marx’s analytical pathway was applied, Table 6-1 is a reference list showing the application of Marx’s analytical pathway in the 33 IAC articles. The original IAC articles could be found in the disk attached in Appendix 1.

Table 6-1: Reference of IAC Articles Which Apply Marx’s Analytical Pathway SWPs Code: P2-M (Marx’s Analytical Pathway)

Articles Found References/Examples

RA01 p.166(2); p.172(8)

RA02 p.247(3)c; p.248(4)a,b; p.249(5)a,b; p.253(9)c;

RA03 p.143(7);

RA05 p.3(1); p.4(2); p.12(10); p.13(11);

RA06 p.445(1)a,b; p.446(2); p.448(4)a,b; p.450(6)a,b,c; p.456(12); p.457(13)a,b;

RA07 p.107(1); p.108(2)c; p.109(3); p.110(4)c; p.113(7); p.114(8); p.116(10);

RA08 p.261(1)a,b; p.264(4)b,c;

RA10 p.419(3); p.424(8); p.427(11)c;

RA11 p.101(3); p.105(7); p.107(9); p.108(10);

RA12 p.1025(1)a,b; p.1026(2)c; p.1029(5);

RA13 p.287(9)c;

RA14 p.100(1)c,d; p.101(2)c,d; p.102(3)c; p.103(4)a,b,c; p.105(6)c.d; p.106(7);

RA15 p.455(1); p.456(2); p.457(3); p.462(8); p.465(11); p.467(13); p.468(14); p.469(15);

RA16 p.138(2)a,b; p.139(3);

RA20 p.354(2)a,b,c; p.355(3)a,b; p.356(4); p.357(5)a,b; p.358(6)a,b; p.361(9)a,b; p.362(10);

p.364(12); p.366(14)c; p.367(15)f;

RA21 p.412(2)c; p.413(3)c; p.415(5); p.416(6); p.421(11); p.423(13)c; p.425(15); p.427(17)c;

RA22 p.70(1)c,f; p.71(2); p.73(4)c; p.74(5)c; p.75(6)c; p.76(7)b; p.77(8); p.78(9); p.79(10); p.80(11);

RA23 p.387(2); p.388(3); p.390(5)c; p.394(9); p.395(10)c; p.396(11)a,b,c;

RA24 p.487(1)c; p.489(3); p.490(4); p.491(5); p.494(8)a,b; p.495(9); p.496(10); p.498(12)c;

RA25 p.470-1(5-6); p.478(13)a,b;

RA27 p.181(2)a,b; p.182(3)a,b,c; p.186(7)a,b,c; p.187(8)c; p.190(11); p.191(12)c; p.192(13);

p.197(18)c; p.198(19)a,b; p.198(19); p.199(20)c;

RA28 p.161(5); p.163(7); p.164(8); p.170(14)c; p.171(15); p.172(16); p.173(17); p.179(23);

RA29 p.915(2); p.918(5); p.919(6); p.920(7); p.925-6(12-13);

RA30 p.466(2); p.467(3); p.469(5)c; p.471(7); p.472(8); p.473(9); p.479(15)c; p.480(16)c; p.481(17);

p.482(18)c; p.483(19)c; p.485(21); p.486(22); p.488(24); p.489(25)a,b,c; p.490(26)a,b;

RA31 p.219(2)c; p.223(6); p.226(9)c; p.228(11)c; p.229(12)c; p.230(13); p.231(14)c; p.232(15);

p.233(16); p.240(23); p.241(24);

RA32 p.18(2); p.20(4); p.24(8); p.26(10)d;

RA33 p.650(10)b; p.652(12); p.653(13); p.655(15)a.b; p.656(16); p.658(18)b,c; p.661(21)c,d;

p.662(22)d; p.670(30)b,c;

Concepts a: Base-structure); b: super-structure; c: (false)-consciousness; d: alienation.

Procedure 2: Applying Theoretical Foundation Application of Marx’s Analytical Pathway

The above discussion has just described how Marx’s concepts of ideology were applied in IAC articles. The following Table 6-2 is a suggestion for future IAC analysts to apply Marx’s way of analysing ideology. It explains that if the methodology of ideological analysis/critique could be established, as suggested in Chapter 4, then this table (6-2) explains how future IAC analysts, and under what conditions, might apply Marx’s concepts in their writings. Establishing a set of procedures (i.e., methodology) for ideological analysis/critique is an ambition of this thesis although not its primary focus. Thus, the following table can only provide a brief explanation based on the concepts mentioned above.

It does not refer to Marx’s entire concept of ideology.

Table 6-2: Application of Marx’s Analytical Pathway

Concept of Ideology The Applicable Condition

Class Struggle*

When the primary research subjects and other subjects are within a mutually competitive relationship (i.e., competition for power, rights and interests, authority to interpret, rights to control…etc.), the concept of Class Struggle can be adopted to describe the opposing relation between the two.

Base/

Superstructure

When the research topic implies how a vested group takes advantage of its economic predominance (here, it does not merely refer to money but also to the relation of production) by utilizing the mechanism of superstructure (e.g., education, religion) to gain the authority to define something, analysts could apply notions of base-structure and super-structure to acquire a theoretical support.

Alienation

When analysts try to describe how human beings lose their identification of themselves or their relationships and linkage to their achievements, the concepts of alienation can be applied, e.g., when they feel no connection with their own identity, their co-workers, their work results and the working environment.

Class-in-itself/

Class-for-itself*

This concept is often adopted to provide utopian advice about what research subjects should do in order to remove the bondage, namely that the oppressed group needs to realize their living condition as jumping from class-in-itself to class-for-itself.

*The term Class here refers to this thesis’ extended concept of a competing relationship between diverse groups.