False Consciousness. The concept of false consciousness is a complex cognitive-epistemological and socio-economic political concept. It was first explored in some details by the philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment prominently by Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson but came to be associated with the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The concept occurs in Marx’s and Engels’ work at a junction point of various equally complex concepts like theory of history, social class, consciousness, social and self consciousness, class consciousness, commodification and commodity fetishism, ideology and alienation. It is often claimed (e.g Joseph McCarney) that Marx does not use the phrase false consciousness and Engels is, then, referred to as the only one to use it. This is not true. Both of them use the term. But though it is one of the most central Marxian terms each uses it only once in their whole (published) work. But the use of the Hegelian category of appearance is essential here. One of the meanings of the category appearance in Hegelian system is distorted and deceiving reflection of the nature of things. Besides all sorts of different meanings of the term in Hegelian philosophy, Marx and Engels use it also to refer to distorted knowledge and or inadequate expression of reality. Marx uses the term in an 1854 in New York published essay Der Ritter vom edelmütigen Bewußsein (The knight of noble-minded consciousness). However, he uses it not in a conceptual way to categorise a certain phenomenon. Rather, he merely remarks polemically against A. Willich that he (Willich) is suspecting behind the right facts false consciousness. The connotation of Engels’ usage of the term is something more substantial but curious enough it does not occur in one of his major writings. In a letter to Franz Mehring from 14 July 1893 he discusses the genesis of ideology (superstructure) and how it affects structure. He admits that he and Marx emphasized how structure determines superstructure but neglected to work out how superstructure affects structure. In this context he asserts: ideology is a process accomplished by the so-called thinker. Consciously, it is true, but with a false consciousness. The real motive forces impelling him remain unknown to him; otherwise it simply would not be an ideological process. Hence he imagines false or seeming motive forces. It is thank to the work of the first generation of Marxist philosophers, prominently to that of Georg Lukács, that the concept false consciousness assumed the preeminence which it enjoys in contemporary debates - in particular on ideology. Lukács works out the meaning of the concept for example in his classical essay Class Consciousness. He suggests that Marx’s concept of false consciousness arises as a reply to bourgeois philosophy and sociology of history. According to Lukács bourgeois philosophy of history and sociology tends to give up the sense of history as progress to justify contemporary form of the organization of society as natural and eternal or it must cut out everything in the progress of history that refers to the future. Consequently, it reduces the progress of history to the role individualities or supernatural forces like God. Now, Marx resolves this dilemma of bourgeois theory of history, Lukács suggests, by developing his concept of historical materialism and by presenting human relations in capitalist society as the reification. This is, then, the stage where, by referring to Engels’s above-mentioned letter Lukács introduces the concept of false consciousness. He poses the question whether historical materialism takes into account the role of consciousness in history. In this connection he speaks of a double dialectical determination of false consciousness. On the one hand, considered in the light of human relations as a whole subjective consciousness appears to be justified because it is something that can be understood, that is, it gives an adequate expression of human relations. But as an objective category it is a false consciousness as it fails to express the nature of the development of society adequately. On the other hand, this consciousness in the same context appears to fail to achieve subjectively aimed goals because they appear to be unknown, unwanted objective aims as if they were determined by some mystical supernatural alien forces. The whole work of Marx is dedicated to the explanation of this contradiction. As Rosa Luxemburg has shown, Marx’s and Engels’ whole work is driven by the question of how human relations can be brought into an agreement with human consciousness. The mature work of Marx’s on this question is Capital. The key chapter for the study of Marx’s concept of false consciousness is the first chapter of the Capital on commodities. The key concept for understanding of this concept is his concept of commodity fetishism, which he develops in this chapter. In his analysis of commodity Marx differentiates between value in use and value in exchange. The use-value of commodities is obtained by transforming natural objects into useful objects, say, by transforming wood into table. This transformation is accomplished by useful or productive labor to satisfy various human needs. The exchange-value is the relative value of commodities, which refers to socially necessary labor time that was necessary to produce them. The use-value is realized in the consumption of commodities. The exchange value is realized in the exchange process, that is, by relating to commodities to one another and exchanging them for one another. Now, in his analysis of the relationship of use-value and exchange value Marx sees a mutual negative relationship. He thinks that this negative relationship originates in the value from of commodities because in the exchange process the aim of production (satisfaction of needs) has been reversed into obtaining of exchange-values. The aim of production is, then, no longer satisfaction of human needs but production and realization of exchange values. This gives rise to the fact that human products as commodities dominate humans rather than vice versa humans their product. This is, in turn, the reason why everybody strives to realize exchange-values and becomes commodity fetishist. From now on commodities (a trivial thing, if considered in the light of use-value) appear to be mystified things endowed with life and turned into supernatural divine forces that are prayed for. As a result human relations take the form of social relations between products. The commodification of products, however, requires the commodification of human labor too. The commodification of human labor in turn requires the separation of laborers from their means of production and monopolization in the hands of the few (original accumulation) so that the laborers have nothing to sell but their labor forces, that is, their physiological and intellectual functions of their bodies. This is also the source of the rise of social classes in capitalist society with their class consciousnesses or ideologies. In capitalist society, then, there are two contradictory sets of ideologies: on the one hand, there is the institutionalized ideology of ruling class claiming to represent the whole of society and there is, on the other hand, the subaltern ideology of subordinated classes. In short, ideology as a form of consciousness arises from social class relations. Marx’s concept of ideology has been often equated with false consciousness. But as Theodor W. Adorno has shown as early as 1930s and as Hans Heinz Holz and István Mésáros enforced in the 1970s the equitation of ideology with false consciousness is undertaken in the tradition of Weberian sociology – in particular in the sociology of knowledge of Karl Mannheim. Ideology in Marxian thought has many meanings and false consciousness is just one of them. To introduce a historical perspective into the debate on false consciousness, in his above-referred essay Lukács suggests considering Marx’s concept of ideology in the light of class position vis-à-vis the means of production. Only in this manner, Lukács thinks, one can obtain the category of objective possibility to overcome consciousness as ideology and false consciousness. He thinks that because of its position vis-à-vis the means of production the only class that is objectively interested in overcoming consciousness as ideology and false consciousness is working classes. Marx and Engels formulated this idea as early as 1848 in the Manifest of Communist Party. Doğan Göçmen Further Reading István Mésáros, Marx’s Theory of Alienation, Merlin Press, London, 1986. István Mésáros, The Power of Ideology, ZED Books LTD, London & New York, 2005.
_______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
