Despite its close connection to Marxism, the term false consciousness was never used by Karl Marx. The first treatment of false consciousness as a theoretical concept was in History and Class Consciousness (1923) by the Hungarian philosopher and literary critic György Lukács. The concept was developed in the 20th century by Marxist scholars such as German-born American philosopher Herbert Marcuse and French sociologist Henri Lefebvre. Since the late 20th century, the concept has been used outside of explicitly Marxist theorization in studies of oppression based on gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and race. See also Ideology: Hegel and Marx. In Marxist theory, false consciousness is a term that describes how material, ideological and institutional processes mislead members of the proletariat and other class actors within capitalist societies and conceal the exploitation inherent in social class relations. Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) used the term “false consciousness” in a letter to Franz Mehring in 1893 to address the scenario in which a subordinate class deliberately embodies the ideology of the ruling class. [1] [2] [3] Engels calls this consciousness “false” because the class asserts itself for goals that do not benefit it. Although Marx himself did not use the term false consciousness, he paid great attention to the related ideas of ideology and commodity fetishism. As a concept, false consciousness has been criticized as elitist, authoritarian and unverifiable. Gaventa, for example, believes that consciousness cannot be false, because “if consciousness exists, it is real to its holders” (Starks, 2007).
The rest is done by cutting two upper teeth and four lower teeth and replacing the bad ones at the desired angle. Marx saw false consciousness as the product of an unequal social system controlled by a powerful minority of elites. The false consciousness among workers that prevented them from seeing their collective interests and power was created by the material relations and conditions of the capitalist system, by the ideology (worldview and dominant values) of those who control the system, and by the social institutions and their functioning in society. And no problem should be defined by its outliers, because it paints a false picture. false consciousness in philosophy, especially in critical theory and other Marxist schools and movements, the idea that members of the proletariat unconsciously misperceive their real position in society and systematically misunderstand their true interests in the social relations of production under capitalism. False consciousness refers to people`s inability to recognize inequality, oppression and exploitation in a capitalist society because it is dominated by viewpoints that naturalize and legitimize the existence of social classes. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the philosophical and anthropological school of structuralism began to gain popularity among academics and public intellectuals, focusing on the interpretation of human culture in relation to underlying structures such as symbolic, linguistic, and ideological perspectives. The Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser popularized his structuralist interpretation of false consciousness, the ideological apparatus of the state. Structuralism influenced Althusser`s interpretation of false consciousness, which focuses on the institutions of the capitalist state—especially those of public education—that impose an ideological system that promotes obedience, conformity, and submission. [7] False consciousness is a socially induced misperception and misunderstanding of social life. False knowledge is not simply ignorance of certain information – such as the amount of fine Microsoft has imposed for illegal practices ($1 billion). This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of social events.
Here are some political examples of false consciousness: A trend consistent with the false consciousness described by Carl Ratner (2014) is the trend of “employee choice” health care in the United States. Class consciousness and false consciousness are concepts introduced by Karl Marx that were later developed by the social theorists who came after him. Marx wrote about theory in his book “Das Kapital, Band 1” and again with his frequent collaborator Friedrich Engels in the impassioned treatise “Communist Manifesto”. Class consciousness refers to the consciousness of a social or economic class about its position and interests in the structure of the economic order and the social system in which they live. In contrast, false consciousness is a perception of one`s relationship with social and economic systems of an individual nature and an inability to see oneself as part of a class with certain class interests in relation to the economic order and the social system. Marx claimed that there were distortions in the consciousness of the lower class; And if these distortions did not exist, the lower class of the majority would quickly overthrow its leaders. Lukacs, G. (1971). Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein: Studien zur marxistischen Dialektik. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (Originally published 1922) It contributed to a false image of law enforcement based on isolated injustices.
Marx cited the phenomenon of commodity fetishism—the way capitalist production represents relations between people (workers and owners) as relations between things (money and products)—with a key role in creating a false consciousness among workers. He believed that commodity fetishism served to obscure the fact that the relations of production within a capitalist system are in fact relations between people and that they are changeable as such. Marx believed that the capitalist system was rooted in class conflicts—especially the economic exploitation of the proletariat (the workers) by the bourgeoisie (those who owned and controlled production). He argued that the system only worked as long as workers did not recognize their unity as a class of workers, their common economic and political interests, and the power inherent in their numbers. Marx argued that if workers understood all of these factors, they would gain class consciousness, which, in turn, would lead to a workers` revolution that would overthrow the system of exploitation of capitalism. Marxists use false consciousness to explain why the working class does not revolt against its subordination, but accepts the legitimacy of the power structures that oppose them. Once people with identification are arrested, they are particularly vulnerable to forced and often false confessions. At the time Marx was writing about class consciousness, he saw class as the relation of people to the means of production—landlords versus workers.
While the model is still useful, we can also think about the economic stratification of our society into different classes based on income, occupation, and social status. Decades of demographics show that the American dream and its promise of upward mobility is largely a myth. In truth, the economic class into which a person is born is the main determinant of how economically equitable they become as adults. However, as long as a person believes in the myth, they will continue to live and function with false consciousness. Without class consciousness, they will not realize that the stratified economic system in which they operate is designed to provide workers with only the bare minimum of money, while huge profits are funneled to the owners, rulers and financiers at the top. According to Marx, before developing class consciousness, workers lived with false consciousness. (Although Marx never used the term real, he developed the ideas he embraces.) In essence, false consciousness is the opposite of class consciousness. Individualistic in nature and not collective, it produces a vision of itself as a single entity competing with others from its own social and economic position, rather than as part of a group with united experiences, struggles and interests. According to Marx and other social theorists who followed, false consciousness was dangerous because it encouraged people to think and act in ways that went against their economic, social and political interests.
False consciousness is a concept of Marx`s social class theory and refers to how the consciousness of the lower classes systematically misperceives the dominant social relations that create their oppression in society.