MARX'S CONCEPT OF IDEOLOGY

H. M. DRUCKER

of ideology plays an important part in contemporary social and political thinking. In many works which raise the question about the relationship between what men think and how their societies operate some mention of ideology is made. Since the variety of thinkers who write about this relationship have a variety of views on the subject, it is not at all surprising that they disagree about just what an ideology is. It might be helpful if we could agree on just one usage, or, failing that, understand why a variety of usages is necessary and understand them. I do not propose to undertake here the enormous task of reconciling these varied understandings. Neither do I propose to seek to change the situation by proposing yet another definition of ideology. But I do think a great deal of the confusion and disagreement on the subject could be dissipated by an analysis of the original use of the term. The concept of ideology as we now use itall theories agree in this whatever their other disagreementsstems from Karl Marx. Marx was not the man who coined the term; that man was Antoine Louis Claude Destutt de Tracy.1 Neither was Marx the first to take up the coinage. The word appears in something like its original usage in Napoleon's correspondence; it is used by John Adams and Thomas Jefferson in their correspondence and its use was known to Jeremy Bentham.2 But all these pre-Marxist usages can be safely relegated to the preserves of early nineteenth century intellectual historians. For practical purposes the career of ideology begins with Marx. That a newly coined word did not immediately become popular currency but had to wait somefiftyyears (from 1798 to 1846) before achieving any importance is itself worthy of wonder. Why, we may ask, did Marx use a word which had previously been all but neglected to refer to one of his central concepts? Why, more interestingly, did Marx's use of the term achieve wide currency where its predecessors failed? I cannot give anything like a full answer to these questionsfull answers would involve something like a complete theory of languagebut I do hope to show that one major cause of the confusion about 'ideology' is due to the failure of its successive users to appreciate that what Marx did with the word was considerably more complex than they seem to appreciate. Marx was not merely giving a name to a thing; he was not behaving in the way nominalists say men behave when they use new words. There is, of course, a simple and temptingly cynical view of why Marx's complex concept of ideology became popular where its predecessors did not. This cynical view comes to light when we realise that Marx's view is considerably more complex, and consequently difficult to understand, than his predecessors. Even the most superficial reading of De Tracy
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reveals what he understands ideology to be. For De Tracy 'ideology' was the name of the new science which he was in the process of inaugurating.3 He intended his new science to give a correct and universally comprehensible explanation of politics, based on an equally clear natural science. 'Ideology', in its author's intention, was to replace opaque disciplines such as metaphysics, theology and political philosophy. While the other preMarxist uses of 'ideology' were different from De Tracy's they were derived from his use, and what is equally important were as unambiguous as his. De Tracy and his friends formed a political club to publicise his ideas and to examine their ramifications. De Tracy published a three-volume work, Elements of Ideology, which elaborated these notions. Jefferson, who approved of them, had the politically relevant portions of the Elements translated into English, for the enlightenment of the Americans.4 Napoleon made a practice of flattering the group of "Ideologues", as they called themselves, when on his return from Egypt he sought to gain public approval as more than a soldier. Since the "Ideologues", political naivety matched their philosophical optimism, they were easily taken in by this flattery. So much were they taken in that they came to support Napoleon's claims in the hope that he would rule according to the precepts of their programme once in power. When their hopes were disappointed, they attacked him and he reciprocated by attacking ideology. In the course of this attack (which consists of little more than a few remarks scattered over a period of several years) ideology was aptly portrayed as a vacuous, naive form of political pretension.5 Although Napoleon was originally talking about the "Ideologues", this reference became lost as 'ideology' came to stand for any form of wishful political thinking. Perhaps the only element of De Tracy's original use to be found in this newer use was the contrast between 'ideology' and traditional political theory; the inversion involved in the newer meaning is seen in De Tracy's approval of the former and Napoleon's approval of the latter. But the major point for our purpose is that all these preMarxist uses were readily comprehensible and of little subsequent interest where Marx's use was neither of these things. I am convinced that any such simple attempt to explain the success of Marx's use and the failure of De Tracy by reference to the former's seeming obscurity must fail precisely because the obscurity is merely seeming and does not exist in Marx's theory.6 Further, I am convinced that far from being obscure Marx's concept of ideology is of value precisely because it points to a complex relationship between phenomena not usually seen to be related at all. II Even those who dislike Marx intensely cannot deny that he possessed a fine sense of historical understanding. Even they cannot deny the 153

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poignancy of his work which derives from his judicious use of this power. Marx places all social facts within an historical context. Thus, when he examines, say, the teachings of Aristotle, he keeps in mind that Aristotle lived in a slave-owning city-state.7 He never makes the mistake of speaking of these teachings as if they were meant to apply to bourgeois society. Of course, we would be making such a mistake ourselves if we expected him to do so since he lived in an intellectual milieu in which historical consciousness was common. For these reasons it is rather startling to realise that a good deal, if not all, of the commentaries on Marx's concept of ideology ignores this fact. This ignorance is all the more startling once one does raise the matter because it is clear that when Marx refers to ideology he is using the word in two different historically differentiated ways. When he refers to the thinking characteristic of an ascendant classspecifically of the bourgeois before they seized powerhe is talking about something very different from the thinking characteristic of a ruling classspecifically of the bourgeois once they were in power. While recognising that they are different, Marx uses the same word 'ideology' to describe both of them thus indicating that they have much in common, to wit, they are both the product of a particular class (as opposed to humanity in general), both these kinds of thinking, different though they are in content, guide and defend that class and both are, what is more important, wrong. Putting the matter as concisely as is consistent with veracity we may express Marx's thinking thus: Today's established rulers were yesterday's parvenus; they may well be tomorrow's has-beens. Today their needs are different from tomorrow's. One of the needs of every class is a theory which will orient it to its world and prescribe its future tasks. Since the needs of the class change quite radically it will have to change its theory too. Throughout its life the theorists of this class will search assiduously for whatever factual or scientific basis for their preconceptions they can find. When no such basis can honestly be found something which looks like one will be patched up and put forward. Honest or not, a class will exalt as 'true' that theory which seems to provide good reason for actions it wants to take in any case. Today's established rulers (Marx developed his concept of ideology in the mid-1840s) are the bourgeois; not so long ago they were an ascendant class faced with the task of overthrowing the landed classes. In their earlier period the bourgeoisie found, in the political economy of Adam Smith and his school, an honest scientific basis for their claims. Among other things, Smith taught that the lifting of restrictions on trade would aid the process of capital-accumulation and that the first nations to overthrow the shackles of restriction, which had been originally inspired by the Physiocrats, would become wealthy fast.8 This was just what the Capitalists wanted to hear. When they achieved power they did just as Smith prescribed and his predictions proved true. But once this had been 154

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achieved, this new ruling class had need of new theories. The very success of its society produced stresses which Smith had not foreseen. It became necessary for it to explain, among other things, why the large majority of men could never hope to share in their new wealth; why there should always be a class of poor men. Thus it was fortuitous, from the point of view of the ruling class, that the Reverend Thomas Malthus discovered (Marx suggests he invented) his theories at about this time. From Malthus one could learn that human population would always grow at such a rate as to ensure that the demand for a subsistence level of food always exceeded the available supply.9 Malthus based these convictions on the supposed fact that human population will always grow in geometric ratio, whereas production of food can only grow in arithmetic ratio. All this was just a bit too convenient for the purposes of the bourgeois class, for 'the parsimonious parson', as Marx called him, had fiddled the figures. This was no science, it was a sham designed to keep the poor quiescent in the knowledge that there was nothing that could be done for them while salving the conscience of the bourgeois for not attempting to do anything. From the knowledge available in the middle of the nineteenth century it was clear to Marx that Smith had been mistaken in 1776 when he wrote The Wealth of Nations. Smith thought that Capitalism could go on creating new wealth indefinitely. Marx claimed to have evidence that this was not so, that there was a limit to the productive capacity of a society organised on Capitalist lines. This error was no fault of Smith's for his work had been the best that could be expected in the eighteenth century. All the same, in the middle of the nineteenth century, it was possible to see that it was wrong and therefore at variance with the teachings of a truly scientific political economy. Therefore Smith's teaching is now ideological, that is, unscientific. Malthus's teaching never had been scientific; it was always fraudulent.10 It had gained currency because it said what the now oppressive ruling class wanted to hear. Malthus's work is a\so "iAe6\ogica\, tTaaX is, \\ \% VsteB&& to tvsAd bads. \Svsfarcesof progress in aid of a selfish class. One might say that in the middle of the nineteenth century the two works amount to the same thing: bourgeois ideology. Marx's comments on the works of Jeremy Bentham provide us with an excellent illustration of the difference between the two kinds of ideology. Bentham's writing, on Marx's interpretation, spanned the period when the bourgeois came to power in the French Revolution; thus it is possible for Marx to describe him at different times as the archetypal bourgeois theorist and the worst of bourgeois apologists. When describing the development of bourgeois ideology in the period before the French Revolution, Marx is kinder to Bentham than when he is describing the period after that event. 155

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In the Holy Family Marx mentions Bentham only in passing. By way of relating the history of Materialism, which led to his own thought, he notes that Bentham, along with Mandeville, was a British Materialist. He writes: "Bentham based his system of correctly understood interest on Helvetius' morality and Owen proceeded from Bentham's system to found English Communism".11 Marx also credits Bentham with founding a plan for penal reform and codification of the laws. 12 And, while there is nothing in the Holy Family to indicate that Marx took any great interest in Bentham's works, he is obviously sympathetic. The German Ideology, which Marx wrote with Engels immediately following the Holy Family, presents a more detailed view of Bentham's contributions. Marx notes that Hegel had seen that the theory of utility Bentham's theorywas the final result of the Enlightenment.13 He explains this theory in some detail, showing its progress through Hobbes and Locke and the French Materialists and examining the relation between Materialism and Capitalism.14 Here, again, Marx notes that the theory reduces all human relations to the relation of utility. This is to say that in bourgeois theory, as in bourgeois society, love, honour and beauty are manifest only in so far as they are useful to the person professing them. Putting this the other way round, the only relations between people are those in which they exploit one another. All this Utilitarianism, in Marx's understanding of it, reaches its zenith in Bentham.15 But even at the moment of Bentham's writing, this social order was changing. Ideology was now becoming more than an unscientific theory it was becoming an apology. Thus, as well as leading the bourgeois, it took on the role of misleading the proletariat. Marx hints at this change in the German Ideology: "The economic content gradually turned the utility theory into a mere apologia for the existing state of affairs, an attempt to prove that under the existing conditions the mutual relations of people are today the most advantageous and generally useful. It has this character in all modern economists.1 6 In Capital these hints become more explicit and detailed. Capital was written almost two decades after the German Ideology and the Holy Family. It is tempting to suggest that Marx developed his notion of ideology as an apologetic technique in the later period of his life. But it must be remembered that he wrote of religion in a similar manner in his Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right as early as 1844. It seems more accurate to suggest that it was Marx's interest rather than his notion which changed as he matured. We find much more attention given to the later period of bourgeois ideology in the later part of his life, and hence we find more vehement condemnations of bourgeois ideology in his later writings. 156

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Thus, Bentham, once so unobjectionable to Marx, becomes the butt of severe vituperation: "Had I the courage of my friend Heinrich Heine, I should call Mr. Jeremy Bentham a genius in the way of bourgeois stupidity".17 Writing in 1867 Marx characterised the change in the bourgeois ideology thus: "With the development of the class struggle between the bourgeois and the proletariat the character of bourgeois political economy undergoes a sharp change. From the time of the conquest of political power by the bourgeoisie in France and England, the class struggle, practically as well as theoretically, took on more and more outspoken and threatening forms. It sounded the death knell of scientific bourgeois economy . . . In place of disinterested inquiries, there were hired prize-fighters; in place of genuine scientific research, the bad conscience and the evil intent of apologetic."! 8 III It is well known that Marx characterised all thinking prior to his own and not only bourgeois thinkingas ideological. By way of contrast his own thinking was 'scientific'. Characteristically, he offers in the preface to the German Ideology to exorcise the "phantoms" from men's minds.19 Later he lumps all these phantoms together under the heading of ideology so that the word applies to ideas from Plato's Republic (the ideology of the Pharaohs) to Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (reactionary aristocratic ideology).20 Such an uncompromising procedure was not calculated to charm the historically sensitive and it certainly calls for some explanation, for it would seem that by lumping together such temporally disparate works, he has broken the constraints of historical criticism. Marx's procedure also calls for explanation when we recall that after carefully separating the honest and apologetic periods of bourgeois thinking he calls them both bourgeois ideology. Would it not make more sense to preserve the distinction as Karl Mannheim did in his subsequent attack on Marx when he distinguished between Utopias (ideas of an ascendant class) and ideologies (ideas of a declining class)? Until very recently 'ideology' was almost always used pejoratively. It was, as the philosophers used to put it, a 'boo-word'. This is to say that describing something as 'ideological' or saying that something was an 'ideology' was a way of condemning it. In this 'ideology' was often opposed to 'science'; 'science' was a 'hurrah-word', its use bespoke approval. Now a science is a body of theory with some more or less complete confirming evidence Gust to simplify a bit), so that if a thinker contrasted ideology to science he was implying that the ideology was also a body of theory. When 'ideology' is used in this way the implication is that the 157

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thing being talked about is a mistaken or discredited theory. In the body of Marxist literature Smith's Wealth of Nations is an ideology in this sense. In the vocabulary of intellectuals at the time Marx wrote, a distinction was drawn between theories (or sciences) and practices. Self-consciously hard-headed people make such a distinction today; they constantly remind us that what is true in theory does not usually work out in practice. Marx was unhappy with such distinctions; he proclaimed his ideas as a harmony of theory and practice. This is to say that because his theories were theoretically valid (scientific) they would be practically useful. Conversely, because the bourgeois based their hopes on pseudo-scientific theories they were bound to be disappointed. Thus there is a clear link between the theoretical error of bourgeois thinking and its practical failure. In both respects (theory and practice) the bourgeois are mistaken. The practical failure of bourgeois thinking is linked to its theoretical weakness. Marx's perception of this link is an important part of his perception of the social reality of his time. By describing both aspects of bourgeois thinking with the same word ideologyMarx suggests the importance of the relationship. Had he used two different words, as Mannheim did, he could not have been true to this harmony of unity and practice. Further, his practice, so far from being open to question on grounds of historical accuracy, actually manifests considerable historical sensitivity. It is precisely because Marx's ideas point to the right procedure for the proletariat and are, in this respect, opposed to all that precedes them, that all previous theory is ideological; it works against the true interests of the proletariat. IV Marx's partisanship towards the proletariat and his attempt to direct that class to the path of revolution, which follows from his partisanship, is central to his concept of ideology. It is only from the point of view of a revolutionary rhetoric that the two periods of bourgeois thinking are seen as similar. There is an unexamined premise in this argument: the political effect of a theory is assumed to be the most important thing about it. In a weaker form this premise is hardly objectionable. It is generally accepted that political theories can have an effect on political practice. The history of Western politics contains many examples of rulers and private citizens whose actions have been based on some articulate political theory or other. One thinks immediately of Socrates; close to home we have Camus. In a slightly stronger form there is a widespread notion that each polity is held together by some political values or theory shared by all citizens. This belief is common to idealist political philosophers and many empiricist political scientists alike. If it is the case that some such commonly 158

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held values or theory is a precondition of politicson the argument that agreement on some values or other, say tolerance, is necessary to induce men to live peaceably together, then the business of exploring the logical relations of these values can be of considerable political importance. For example, it might be questioned whether a country dedicated wholeheartedly to liberty and equality can long stand, since such a country seems to be committed to granting its enemies the liberty unrestrictedly to attack it. But Marx perceives the relation between political theories and practices to be even closer than this. He is urging that political theorists have a responsibility to see to it that their theories are conducive to the creation and protection of moral policy: and that this responsibility is the most important task such theorists have. No wanton uncoverer of the idols of the market place he. That Marx is frequently taken to be such an uncoverer is some measure of the degree to which his practical intention is often ignored. Marx is careful to uncover only other men's idols. It is only when this is appreciated that Marx's procedure in describing all previous thought as ideological makes any sense at all. Precisely because Marx is partisan, and makes it his business to claim that all other theories are partisan as well, he sees the similarity between the types of ideology as of greater importance than their differences. The harmony of theory and practice, which amounts to the demand that rhetoric be given precedence over logic, seeks to keep the differences between the kinds of ideology hidden from view. For practical, that is partisan, purposes the two are 'birds of a feather'. The classical anti-Marxian statement on ideology is found in Karl Mannheim's Ideology and Utopia.11 A comparison of their respective remarks will bear out just how closely related are Marx's partisanship and his perception of ideology. In most of the important respects Mannheim disagrees with Marx. Most relevant is his disagreement with Marx about the proper relationship between theory and practice and his consequent disagreement with Marx about the relationship between the kinds of false-consciousness. Mannheim distinguishes between ideologies and Utopias. The difference, according to Mannheim, between an ideology and a Utopia, arises primarily from the fact that the former is thinking characteristic of a declining class, while the latter is thinking characteristic of an ascendant class. 2 2 From this it is clear that Mannheim and Marx are making a rather similar distinction. The difference between the distinctions made lies in Marx's refusal to see it as important enough for him to assign different words to the two forms of consciousness where Mannheim thought the difference of fundamental importance. According to Mannheim, classes which cannot accept that they have lost, or are about to lose, power, create ideologies to bide harsh reality from their eyes.23 They are trying to bury their heads in the sand. On 159

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the other side are those who need to kid themselves into thinking that they are about to assume power in order, thereby, to bolster their morale. They are the Utopians. All classes create one or other kind of false consciousness and hence all are deluded (and none are securely in power?). Mannheim claims that his position is opposed alike to both ideology and Utopia. In distinction to these deluded partisans he is an objective scientist.24 Putting this another way, we can say that Mannheim's theoretical activity is conspicuous by its freedom from the taint of practical exigency. Since practical considerations, such as the need to bolster morale, cloud the vision, Mannheim's theoretical purity is held to be a necessary condition of the truth of his ideas. How, we may wonder, does Mannheim justify his claim to be above the practical battle? He does this by making the fantastic further claim that his Sociology of Knowledge will be scientific because its practitioners will come in equal numbers from the opposed classes.25 Presumably the conflict thus engendered will ensure that neutrality wins the day. With this further claim we can see that it serves Mannheim's purposes to emphasise the differences between the two types of false consciousness. He needs (at least) two differing errors so that this can arise in theoretical purity out of the negation of both. As it happens, Mannheim's ideas in these respects do not command much respect. To mention only the most obvious difficulty, it is far from clear that Mannheim actually attained the non-partisan purity which his procedure is supposed to ensure. His preference for the Utopian form is ill concealed. He describes it as a relatively diseased form of social thinking; nothing like so bemused as the ideological. But these difficulties are by the way; there are more than a few difficulties with Marx's position too. For whatever reason, there seems little enough evidence that the proletariat want the revolution towards which Marx urges them. The central point is that Marx's perception of the two different kinds of false consciousness and bis conflation of them are perfectly pellucid once one takes his historical sensitivity and practical intention into account.
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MARX'S CONCEPT OF IDEOLOGY ^Destutt de Tracy, "Memoire sur lafaculte depenser", Memoires de I'lttstitut National des Sciences et Arts pour Van IV de la Republique; sciences morales et politiques Tome premier, Paris. Thermidor An VI, p. 324. 2 See Picavet, F., Les Ideologues: Essai sur Vhistoire des Idees et des Theories Scientifiques, Philosophiques, Religieuses etc. en France Depuis 1759 (Paris, 1891) and Van Duzer, C. H., Contributions of the Ideologues to French Revolutionary Thought (Baltimore, 1935). 3De Tracy, op cit., p. 324. 4 Destutt de Tracy, A Treatise on Political Economy; to which is prefixed a supplement to a preceding work on the understanding of Elements of Ideology (Georgetown, 1817). 5 For a list of these remarks see Drucker, H., "The Nature of Ideology and its place in Modern Political Thought", Appendix (unpublished Ph.D. Thesis at London University). cf. Gould, J. and Kolli, W. T., A Dictionary of the Social Sciences (London, 1964), pp. 315-317, esp. p. 316. ?See Marx, K., Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (London, 1928), Volume I, pp. 387-8. Marx, K., Theories of Surplus Value (Moscow, 1954), Part I, pp. 41, 68-9, 71, 77-79, 83, 85-6, 100, 153. 'Marx, K., op cit., p. 278. See Meek, R., Marx and Engels on Malthus, (London, 1953), pp. 11, 121-2. lOMarx is harder on Malthus than his Socialist Theory requires. There is no reason inherent in Socialism why a Socialist state could not limit birth control. See the introduction by Anthony Flew: Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, Harmondsworth, 1970), pp. 48-54. UMarx, K., Holy Family or Critique of Critical Critique, (Moscow, 1957), p. 176. 12 Marx, K., Holy Family or Critique of Critical Critique (Moscow, 1957), pp. 237,249. 13 MPJX, K., German Ideology (Moscow, 1965), pp. 448-9. Hop. cit., p. 449. 1s op. cit., p. 454; cf. p. 452 on the role of J. S. Mill "The complete union of the theory of utility with political economy is to be found, finally, in Mill". Marx, K., Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (Moscow, 1954), Volume I, p. 620. 1'Marx, K., Theories of Surplus Value (Moscow, 1954), p. 25. 1 "Marx, K., German Ideology, preface. 2Marx, K., Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (New York, 1967), p. 365; 760 fn. "Mannheim, K., Ideology and Utopia (London, 1936). 22 Mannheim, K., Ideology and Utopia (London, 1936), p. 173. " o p . cit., p. 175. " o p . cit., p. 76. 2s op. cit., pp. 139-142. The claim mentioned is not, of course, the only guarantee of the scientific purity of Mannheim's new science. But it is crucial.
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