The dominant ideology in Marxist or marxian theory is the set of common values and beliefs shared by most people in a given society, framing how the majority think about a range of topics, from art and science to politics. It precedes and overlaps with the idea of a paradigm. Compare with Gramsci's hegemony. Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... Marxian economics refers to a body of economic thought stemming from the work of Karl Marx. ... Jump to: navigation, search In communication theory, and sociology, framing is a process of selective control over media content or public communication. ... Resources ArtLex. ... // What is science? There are different theories of what science is. ... Look up Politics on Wiktionary, the free dictionary Politics (disambiguation) Democracy History of democracy List of democracy and elections-related topics List of years in politics List of politics by country articles Political corruption Political economy Political movement Political parties of the world Political party Political psychology Political sociology Political... Since the late 1800s, the word paradigm (IPA: ) has referred to a thought pattern in any scientific discipline or other epistemological context. ... Antonio Gramsci Antonio Gramsci (January 23, 1891 - April 27, 1937) was an Italian writer (ethnic Albanian by his father) and a politician, a leader and theorist of Socialism, Communism and anti-Fascism. ... Jump to: navigation, search Hegemony is the dominance of one group over other groups, with or without the threat of force, to the extent that, for instance, the dominant party can dictate the terms of trade to its advantage; more broadly, cultural perspectives become skewed to favor the dominant group. ...

Ideologies in history

In feudal societies, the dominant ideology took religious forms, such as Christianity, making sense of nature and society by means of traditional teachings, established authority and faith. Feudalism comes from the Late Latin word feudum, itself borrowed from a Germanic root *fehu, a commonly used term in the Middle Ages which means fief, or land held under certain obligations by feodati. ... Jump to: navigation, search Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New Testament writings of his early followers. ... The term establishment has several meanings: An establishment is a place of business or residence, or the founding of such a place or business. ... In politics, authority generally refers to the ability to make laws, independent of the power to enforce them, or the ability to permit something. ... This article discusses faith in a religious context. ...

In capitalist societies, the dominant ideology takes a secular form, founded on property rights, but extending to rights in general, and other iterations of a fundamental individualism. It can also extend to include representative democracy. In economics, a capitalist is someone who owns capital, presumably within the economic system of capitalism. ... This page deals with property as ownership rights. ... For the direction right, see left and right or starboard. ... Jump to: navigation, search Iteration is the repetition of a process, typically within a computer program. ... Jump to: navigation, search Individualism is a political and social philosophy, which emphasizes individual liberty, belief in the primary importance of the individual, and in the virtues of self-reliance and personal independence. Individualism embraces opposition to authority (except for other individualists, which are worshipped as heroes), and to all... Jump to: navigation, search Representative democracy comprises a form of democracy and theory of civics wherein voters choose (in free, secret, multi-party elections) representatives to act in their interests, but not as their proxies—i. ...

Class conflict

The dominant ideology is understood by Marxism to reflect or serve the interests of the dominant class in that society - if the dominant ideology conflicted with the legitimacy of the dominant class's rule, then society would have to be in a state of war with itself, with the dominant class appearing as an illegitimate occupation force. This theory is summarized in the slogan: The dominant ideology is the ideology of the dominant class. Jump to: navigation, search In finance, interest has three general definitions. ... Social class describes the relationships between people in hierarchical societies or cultures. ... The word legitimacy comes from the Latin word legitimare and it has two uses: Legitimacy (political science) is whether or not people accept the validity of a law or ruling or the validity of a governing regime. ...

One way to understand marxist revolutionary praxis is that it seeks to achieve just that situation of social unrest in which the ruling class is seen as illegitimate - a necessary precursor to achieving the aim of overthrowing the dominant class of capitalism, the bourgeoisie. The ideology of the working class has to achieve dominance, in order for the working class to become the dominant class. As a word, praxis can mean: Praxis is a Latinate English noun, referring to the process of putting theoretical knowledge into practice. ... Jump to: navigation, search In common usage capitalism refers to an economic system in which all or most of the means of production are privately owned and operated and where the investment of capital, and the production, distribution and prices of commodities (goods and services) are determined mainly in a... Jump to: navigation, search Bourgeoisie () in modern use refers to the wealthy or propertied social class in a capitalist society. ... The term working class is used to denote a social class. ...

Two versions

There are two distinct, rival models offered by Marxists to characterize the operations of the dominant ideology. A crude summary of both models follows: Model has many different meanings, depending on the context. ...

Top down

In the first model, ideology is constructed in a more or less deliberate fashion by bourgeois or petit-bourgeois intellectuals. Since the bourgeoisie owns the media, it can select which ideas are represented there, and selects just those ideas which serve its own interests. Petit-bourgeois or Anglicised petty bourgeois is a French term that reffered to the members of the lower middle social-classes. ...

The working class is overwhelmed by the barrage of bourgeois ideas, since it owns no media of its own, and perhaps because it lacks intellectuals of its own. It adopts a bourgeois outlook on its own exploitation (sometimes termed false consciousness) and loses its political independence as a class. This article discusses the economic concept of exploitation. ... False consciousness is the Engelsist hypothesis that material and institutional processes in capitalist society mislead the proletariat — and perhaps the other classes — over the nature of capitalism. ...

Bottom up

In the second model, ideology emerges spontaneously at every level of society, and simply expresses the existing material structure of that society. Members of every class construct their own understanding of the society, based on their personal experiences. Since those experiences are primarily of capitalist social relations, their ideology tends to reflect the norms of capitalist society. Here the content of, for example, a newspaper is determined not by the prejudices of the relevant media mogul, but by the social narrative to which both proprietor and reader contribute. Workers in this model are not passive victims of brainwashing. A media proprietor is a person who controls, either through personal ownership or a dominant position in a public company, a significant part of the mass media. ... Narrative is a term which has several and changing meanings. ... Passive has several meanings: In grammar it describes a grammatical voice. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Mind control. ...

The working class begins to experience and express a different type of social relation, one that challenges the legitimacy of capitalism, with the birth of trade unions. Workers gradually achieve successes by taking a collective approach to their individual problems. This new material structure in capitalist society forms the base of a new ideology, one which expresses the interests of workers and which is contradictory to the dominant ideology. Certain Marxists term this phenomenon "embryonic class consciousness". A union (labor union in American English; trade union, sometimes trades union, in British English; either labour union or trade union in Canadian English) is a legal entity consisting of employees or workers having a common interest, such as all the assembly workers for one employer, or all the workers... A base is: in mathematics: A number that is raised to a power, or base of an exponential function. ... Class consciousness is a category of Marxist theory, referring to the self-awareness of a social class, its capacity to act in its own rational interests, or measuring the extent to which an individual is conscious of the historical tasks their class (or class allegiance) sets for them. ...

Critical note

In Marxist theory, a particular class comes to dominate society when that class is a progressive force powerful enough to overthrow the previous ruling class. For example, the great bourgeois revolutions of the 17th and 18th centuries occurred because the bourgeoisie had become the standard-bearer for social progress, the universal class. The bourgeoisie gradually began to lose its progressive character and became increasingly reactionary once it came to power (since it began to support the status quo rather than seek further social progress). As a consequence, the dominant ideology may contain an admixture of socially progressive and regressive elements. Therefore, Marxists do not reject everything and anything related to the dominant ideology of capitalism; rather, they agree with its progressive elements and criticise its regressive elements. In other words, Marxist critiques of the dominant ideology of capitalism are not normally crude rejections of their content, but rather of their limiting, capitalist form. Jump to: navigation, search Look up Revolution on Wiktionary, the free dictionary This article is about revolution in the sense of a drastic change. ... Jump to: navigation, search Bourgeoisie () in modern use refers to the wealthy or propertied social class in a capitalist society. ... Universal class is a category derived from the philosophy of Hegel, redefined and popularized by Karl Marx. ... Progressivism or political progressivism is any of several historically related political philosophies or political ideologies. ... Content can mean Comfort and a feeling of satisfaction Creations, as in open content or free content. ... This article is about the meanings of the word form connected with shape or structure. ...

Vulgar versions of such marxian critiques, in which both form and content of bourgeois rights are devalued, have been deployed by repressive states to justify denying their citizens basic human freedoms. It is a matter of controversy between Marxists and their critics whether such outcomes are necessitated by the theory, or are rather perversions of the theory. The term vulgar originally meant of the common people, from the Latin vulgus. ...