Marx and Engels’ Theory of Ideology

Marx and Engels’ theory of systems of thoughts and ideas that systematically reflect a specific economic formation of society.

The term ideology was first used by the French philosopher and economist de Tracy in the early 19th century to refer to the science of ideas. He held that men cannot know things themselves, but only the ideas formed by the perception of things, and that one can grasp the direction of historical development only by standing on a solid foundation of the science of ideas. This thought was ridiculed by Napoleon as “an abstract speculative doctrine which was divorced from the realities of political power”, while the concept of ideology was given the meaning of “unscientific and false concept”. Marx and Engels did not give a definition of ideology; they initially used the concept in a critical, negative sense, referring to a system of false ideas divorced from reality. In The German Ideology, they targeted the Young Hegelian ideologists, who considered conceptions, thoughts, ideas, in fact all the products of consciousness, to which they attribute an independent existence, as the real chains of men, and that the real world can be changed by fighting only against these illusions of consciousness. Marx and Engels pointed out that they were the staunchest conservatives despite their allegedly “world-shattering” statements. Moreover, Marx and Engels, standing on the position of historical materialism, further changed and developed the theory of ideology. In The German Ideology, they pointed out that “men, developing their material production and their material intercourse, alter, along with this their real existence, their thinking and the products of their thinking.” “It is not consciousness that determines life, it is life that determines consciousness.” This is Marx and Engels’ positive account of ideology. In 1859, in Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx dealt with historical materialism regarding the dialectical relation between ideology and economic foundation: “The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life.” It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but their social being that determines their consciousness.

Marx and Engels’ theory of ideology of includes: on the origin and content of ideology, ideology is a product of history, and in the early period of the development of mankind, human consciousness was directly intertwined with human activity and intercourse, there was no such thing as ideology. Later, with the appearance of surplus-produce and the emergence of classes, a separation between mental and physical labor appeared. It is only when people of different classes observe and think in terms of their own interests that an ideological system emerges that reflects a specific economic formation and the interests and demands of a specific class. Ideology includes political and juridical ideas, moral, religious, artistic and philosophical forms. Different forms of ideology coordinate and complement each other, reflect the economic foundation of the society from different aspects, and function in different forms. Ideologies manifest themselves as ideologies of classes; the ideology of a society manifests itself as the ideology of the ruling class. “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. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of intellectual production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of intellectual production are subjected to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relations, the dominant material relations grasped as ideas; hence of the relations which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance.” In addition, Marx and Engels also proved the relative independence of ideology, showing that there is both complete synchrony and incomplete synchrony between the development of ideology and social being, and that it can be ahead of or lag behind social being and have a reaction upon social being.

The theory of ideology is an important thought of Marx and Engels. The founding of the Marxist theory of ideology provided a powerful ideological weapon for the development of the proletarian movement.