Marxism divides society into two levels; base and superstructure. The base is economic, concerned with the production and distribution of goods, while the superstructure is ideological and comprises of all the institutions that create a society. The Marxist theorist Louis Althusser (1971) further described society as consisting of two State Apparatuses; Ideological State Apparatus made up of family, education, religion, politics, trade unions, mass media and secondly, Repressive State Apparatus comprising of police, army, courts and prisons. Althusser explains that the Ideological State Apparatuses function by use of ideology, whereas the Repressive State Apparatuses use overt and, when necessary, covert violence to control people. However, Althusser accepts that both State Apparatuses use some of each method; the Repressive State Apparatuses would cease to function if they were not also ideological, and Ideological State Apparatuses also use discipline and punishment to control people. The ruling class must have some control over the Ideological State Apparatus if people are to accept the Repressive State Apparatus, and people must be indoctrinated into believing that the capitalist ideology is beneficial to everyone in society. Althusser argues that social change cannot occur until the conditions are right, and that the primary role of the state is to maintain the existing structure in order to make opposition difficult.
Functionalists would assert that the education system is meritocratic, in that achievement is effort-based, and that the system provides equal opportunities for everyone, if they work hard enough. However, this theory does not take into account the class division that exists within the education system, as in all society; children from the lower classes do not have the same life choices as those of the middle and upper classes and are not encouraged to continue with their education beyond the age of sixteen. Advantaged children from the ruling classes, however, are actively encouraged to continue into university education, and it is this elite group that will become the next generation of the ruling class. Marxists believe that all society’s institutions reflect the ideals and serve the interests of capitalism, with education being the dominant ideological state institution. Children spend the majority of their formative years in school, and school instills into them the values and beliefs that are important to capitalism; they are taught to follow timetables, adhere to rules and discipline and ‘conform’ to the system, all of which will be of importance when the pupils become the next generation of the labour force. Althusser asserts that ‘the reproduction of labour power needs not only a reproduction of its skills but also …. a reproduction of it’s submission to the ruling ideology’ (Althusser, 1971, p.127).
The most fundamental of society’s structures, the family, is also viewed by Marxists as beneficial to the capitalist ideal. As in education, family instills the values and beliefs, and enforces the discipline necessary for the next generation of workers and owners. Functionalists of course would argue that the family is an essential core institution of society, socialising children into society and teaching them the morals and values necessary for the stability of society as a whole. Marxist Friedrich Engels (1985) theorised about the role of the family within a capitalist system. He suggested that families had evolved into a bourgeois structure, with the head male as a breadwinner slave with a dependent wife and children. He states that pre-capitalism people had no concept of property and, as monogamy was not practiced, the children ‘belonged to’, and were raised by, all members of the community. It was agriculturisation that first established a need for paternity, in order to ensure rights of inheritance, and this eventually led to industrialisation and a patriarchal society, where men become wage slaves and women stay at home to raise the next generation of wage slaves.
In this sense, capitalism led to the oppression of women, as they became unpaid labour in the home. Feminist Marxists suggest that an end to capitalism would result in a change to the family structure which would see the end of women’s oppression. However, this could be viewed as over-simplification of the problem, and there are other schools of thought that suggest that women, as the physically weaker sex, and the child-bearers, have always been dominated by men and, as with racism, capitalism is just one more form of oppression.
Functionalists such as Durkheim (1961) believe that religion has an integral role to play within society‘s structures; uniting the people in the community, instilling morals and values, and encouraging people to uphold the laws of society. For functionalists, when people worship religious symbols they are in fact worshipping the ideals of society, such as morality and physical denial. Marx, however, believed religion to be ‘the opium of the masses’, a capitalist tool to control the proletariat, by instilling the fear of hell, as a warning against wrongdoing, and the hope of heaven, as a reward for virtuosity. However, functionalists and Marxists both theorise from a macro perspective and it was interactionist Max Weber who considered a more specific link between capitalism and religion. Weber (1974) suggested that protestant Calvanism first created the mood of capitalism. Calvinists believed that our path to heaven or hell is pre-destined, and - as no-one knows who is ‘saved’ and who is ‘damned’ - everyone is obliged to work hard, better oneself and to generate wealth, whilst at the same time practising self-restraint. As these beliefs were passed down to each generation, and each generation interpreted them in their own way, the foundations for capitalism were laid.
Two types of conflict theory developed out of early Marxism: structural Marxism, as theorised by Althusser, stresses the power of society’s structures to impose consensus; humanist Marxism believes that people have the capacity to challenge the structures and can initiate change. This division developed as a result of the flaws that some theorists saw in Marx’s ideas, for example the lack of any sign of revolution. A group of neo-Marxist thinkers founded The Frankfurt School, and they combined Marxism with psychoanalysis in order to explain why social change is impossible to achieve. Neo-Marxists believe that the ideological structure of capitalist is too strong to be changed. They suggest that the Id - the part of our personality that controls our revolutionary persona - is so firmly controlled by capitalist ideology that revolution will never occur. By a process termed repressive desiblimation, the Id is forcefully brought to the surface in order to control it. For instance, sex and violence in films and computer games satisfy the aggressive, revolutionary impulses in people’s characters ‘virtually’, so that in the ‘real world’ they are acquiescent.
A leading neo-Marxist thinker, Antonio Gramsci (1971), in attempting to explain this, introduced the term ‘hegemony’, to denote the concept of society’s dominant class persuading the subordinate class to accept its ideologies. The hegemonic process influences people in two ways: firstly, by consent, where the values and ideals of the dominant group are accepted by the subordinate group as their own and secondly, by coercion; if hegemonic consent breaks down, the dominant group will use direct force to restore order. Examples of this breakdown been seen in recent years in the poll tax and the fuel protests. Hegemony lulls people into a false consciousness and through mass culture, escapism controls mental thought processes to a point where people become blinded to the inequalities of the system and conform without questioning the empty incentives offered to them. An example of hegemony is the voting system; people believe they are taking part in a democratic process and can elect the candidate they trust to serve their needs. In fact, people are being presented with a ‘false choice’, as all the candidates have been pre-approved or pre-selected by the ruling classes, and once elected into power, the candidate is thereby pre-disposed to serve the interests of capitalism.
Another way in which hegemony works is through the mass media. Strinati (2004) suggests that most of the world knowledge of the subordinate class is obtained from the mass media and therefore, as the mass media is controlled by the dominant classes, they are able to determine how information and social imagery is presented and circulated. Neo-Marxists go further and assert that programmes on television which are overtly critical of the capitalist system are very rare, and can be viewed as ‘tokenistic’, fostering a view that our society is free and democratic and all people’s views are shown. It is in this way that the mass media serves the interests of capitalism, and in this respect it is also self-serving, as the media itself is a capitalist enterprise, making vast profits. Furthermore, ‘the media make inequalities appear natural and inevitable to those who suffer the deprivation and oppression they entail’ (Strinati, 2004 p.122).
In conclusion, this essay has explored the concept of capitalism from the critical viewpoint of Marxism, with reference and comparisons made to both functionalism and Weberism. In accepting that capitalism is the social system under which the world exists, we must also accept that society is divided by the class divisions unavoidably created by that system, and that the ideology that prevails is the ideology of the ruling classes. Marxism defines the division of class as one which exploits the subordinate group, and as such the classes are always in conflict with each other. It can also be argued that the ruling ideology is so firmly entrenched within the structures and institutions of society that little, if any conflict is perceived, and in that respect capitalism has the consensus of society. The hegemonic process by which consensus is achieved must adapt itself constantly to the changing needs of society in order to effectively repress people into conforming economically and politically. It can be argued that the mass media plays a vital part in the hegemonic process and is able to manipulate people’s personalities, by repressive desiblimation, to such an extent that the capitalist system is accepted without question. For these reasons, Karl Marx’s vision of a social revolution is unlikely to ever come to fruition.
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Bibliography
Althusser, L. (1971) Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays New Left Books: London
Durkheim, E. (1961) The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life Allen and Unwin: London
Engels, F. (1985) The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State Penguin: Harmondsworth
Gramsci, A. (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks Laurence and Wishart: London
Marx, K. (1963) Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy ed. T. Bottomore and M. Rubel Penguin: Harmondsworth
Strinati, D. (2004) An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture 2nd edn. Routledge: Abingdon
Weber, M. (1974) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism Unwin: London
Williams, R. (1977) Marxism and Literature Oxford University Press: Oxford
