Peter,
I've always been uncomfortable with the basic contradiction of the role of false consciousness in Marxist theory (including that of Gramsci). Your message inspired me to review Marx to learn where he deals with false consciousness.
"I agree with Marx that "being determines consciousness" which means that the natutre of one's relationship to capital and income-producing property is what sets the tone for how one views the world and the particular social/economic/political system," and "But I also agree with Marx about the dastardly role of false consciousness among the working class (cleverly cultivated and manipulated by the bourgeoisie, as explained by Gramsci) in duping people into accepting values inimical to their own welfare."
In the MIA archives I found one direct reference to false consciousness in Marx's writings: in the The Knight of NobleConsciousness published as pamphlet in New York, January 1854. This was written in response to what was a collection of outright lies written by Willich in his Doktor Karl Marx und seine Enthüllungen", published in the Belletrisches Journal und New-Yorker Criminal-Zeitung on October 28 and November 4, 1853, concerning Marx's criticism of the activity of the Willich-Schapper sectarian and adventurist group in his work Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne published in Basle in January 1853
Marx appears to have been much more interested in falseness (or illusion) in consciousness rather than false consciousness. Falseness in consciousness, in contrast to false consciousness, is the objectification of incomplete or confused notions of conditions. The following are examples of Marx's descriptions of falseness in consciousness in a number of writings representing his view of the subject at different stages of his thinking.
a.. From German Ideology (1845)
Since the State is the form in which the individuals of a ruling class assert their common interests, and in which the whole civil society of an epoch is epitomised, it follows that the State mediates in the formation of all common institutions and that the institutions receive a political form. Hence the illusion that law is based on the will, and indeed on the will divorced from its real basis - on free will. Similarly, justice is in its turn reduced to the actual laws.(1845) German Ideology: Part 1 Feuerbach: "The Relation of State and Law to Property"
In civil law the existing property relationships are declared to be the result of the general will. The jus utendi et abutendi ( The right of using and consuming (also: abusing), i.e. of disposing of a thing at will) itself asserts on the one hand the fact that private property has become entirely independent of the community, and on the other the illusion that private property itself is based solely on the private will, the arbitrary disposal of the thing. In practice, the abuti has very definite economic limitations for the owner of private property, if he does not wish to see his property and hence his jus abutendi pass into other hands, since actually the thing, considered merely with reference to his will, is not a thing at all, but only becomes a thing, true property in intercourse, and independently of the law (a relationship, which the philosophers call an idea). This juridical illusion, which reduces law to the mere will, necessarily leads, in the further development of property relationships, to the position that a man may have a legal title to a thing without really having the thing. Ibid: "The Relation of State and Law to Property"
For this ideological subdivision within a class: 1) The occupation assumes an independent existence owing to division of labour. Everyone believes his craft to be the true one. Illusions regarding the connection between their craft and reality are the more likely to be cherished by them because of the very nature of the craft. In consciousness - in jurisprudence, politics, etc. - relations become concepts; since they do not go beyond these relations, the concepts of the relations also become fixed concepts in their mind. The judge, for example, applies the code, he therefore regards legislation as the real, active driving force. Respect for their goods, because their craft deals with general matters. Ibid: Notes, written by Marx, intended for further elaboration 12. FORMS OF SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS
a.. and From Value, Price and Profit (1865):
Firstly. The value or price of the labouring power takes the semblance of the price or value of labour itself, although, strictly speaking, value and price of labour are senseless terms.
Secondly. Although one part only of the workman's daily labour is paid, while the other part is unpaid, and while that unpaid or surplus labour constitutes exactly the fund out of which surplus value or profit is formed, it seems as if the aggregate labour was paid labour.
This false appearance distinguishes wages labour from other historical forms of labour. On the basis of the wages system even the unpaid labour seems to be paid labour. Value, Price and Profit: IX. Value of Labour
You see, therefore, the fallacy of the popular notion, which confounds the decomposition of a given value into three parts, with the formation of that value by the addition of three independent values, thus converting the aggregate value, from which rent, profit, and interest are derived, into an arbitrary magnitude Ibid
In most of his discussion on Capitalist economic theory Marx does not regard bourgeois economists or the Capitalists whose activity maintains the Capitalist economic system as willfully concealing truths. This is very consistent with my own experience in relations with most participants in the Capitalist system - both proletarians and entrepreneurs. When you think about it, the system couldn't work any other way. After all, if proletarian consciousness is only Captialist as a consequence of cynical advertisement techniques employed by the ruling class, we'd be compelled to conclude that the elites of Capitalist society are crtpto-Marxists. Do you really think that George and his friends Cheney and Rumsfield are crypto-Marxists?
By the way, Marx describes this innocence in a most precise and succinct manner when he writes of the modes of production as developing "behind mens' back," i.e. outside of conscious awareness. Piero Sraffa also makes this point in his brilliant analysis of the integral role of the exploitation of labor in Capitalist economy.
The reference to research results that inspired this exchange is very dramatic but is significantly lacking in substance. I would like to know what were the questions put to the proletarians polled, what kind of proletarians were queried, and whether they had any more than a popular acquaintance with economic theory.
Regards,
Victor
----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Farruggio
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Sent: Thursday, December 25, 2003 1:01 AM
Subject: Re: false consciousness
To me the question of false consciousness is the key to why there has been no workers' revolution in the US, despite the fact that it has had a large powerful working class for more than 100 years. I agree with Marx that "being determines consciousness" which means that the natutre of one's relationship to capital and income-producing property is what sets the tone for how one views the world and the particular social/economic/political system. Middle class people see the world very differently than working class people (including Bourdieu's "habitus" and all that), and the bourgeoisie sees things very differently from all of the above. But I also agree with Marx about the dastardly role of false consciousness among the working class (cleverly cultivated and manipulated by the bourgeoisie, as explained by Gramsci) in duping people into accepting values inimical to their own welfare.
Here's an interesting recent study that documents once again how it works in electoral politics. This is just a snippet from the intro, along with one link to a discussion of the larger study. I have more material on this for interested parties.
Cheers,
Pete Farruggio
UC Berkeley Sociologist Arlie Hochschild answers the question, "Why are 50% of Blue Collar White Males Planning to Vote for Bush in 2004, Even When He is Picking Their Pockets and Stealing the Futures of Their Children?"
A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW
"George W. Bush is sinking in the polls, but a few beats on the war drum could reverse that trend and re-elect him in 2004. Ironically, the sector of American society now poised to keep him in the White House is the one which stands to lose the most from virtually all of his policies -- blue-collar men. A full 49 percent of them and 38 percent percent of blue-collar women told a January 2003 Roper poll they would vote for Bush in 2004." -- Arlie Hochschild
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16885
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At 11:36 AM 12/24/2003, you wrote:
Thanks for another great thought-provoker, Eugene. I will be away from computer for the next days but I want to slip in a thought in this thread because I have been giving this problem of false consciousness some thought, especially in respect to workers, but also all social classes. My experience has generally confirmed the idea that a key driver of people's political and social consciousness is the relationship they have with property - their own, and that of others. Just measuring income and assets in dollar totals loses much of the dynamics of this relationship. In my opinion it is property (of which money is one form) that really constitutes membership and aspired membership in a social class. Property comes in various forms; capital (loosely, objects that can be worked on or with that can produce saleable products) at one end of the spectrum and personal property with negligible value (mundane clothes, dishes, etc.) at the other. Its the relationship people and families have to the first end, to capital (money-making property) that I think has the deepest effects on working people and everyone else. These relationships come in many, many forms, from outright ownership, to owing a substantial debt to be the caretaker of some property, to owning a capitalist business, to working for a capitalist and identifying with their capital and methods of business. Aspirations for shifting one's class position - for example, quitting one's job and owning one's own business - also play an enormous role. When major aspects of the capitalist property system break down, or especially, alternate between stability and mass misery, working people begin to restructure their conception of property - personal, private and public - and under those conditions, begin to lose their false, individualistic consciousness and gain a much more realistic sense of the socio-economic system they are collectively trying to live in. Under such conditions, mass working class consciousness often begins to emerge. Attitudes about social issues undergo deep transformations as the oppressed engage in struggle; notions of emancipation and freedom become paramount. Rich capitalists, of course, would see this process in just the opposite way - when the workers begin to think of property and social change in a socialist way, they are losing their minds. The essential idea I am suggesting here is to view people's relationships with property as a key to comprehending core features of their political, social and cultural consciousness. As their relationships with property change, so does their consciousness.
Best,
- Steve
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