An important part of Karl Marx’s theories on capitalism relate to consciousness—how people think about things. In this essay, please name and define the two main roles that people hold in a capitalist economy. How do these roles interact in the capitalist economy to produce false consciousness? Who holds what Marx calls “false consciousness”? How are they led to believe this? What did Marx propose to replace false consciousness, and how did he suggest it would affect society?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The two main roles that people hold in capitalism are capitalists—the owners of the means of production, and proletariat—the workers. Marx suggests that false consciousness is produced in capitalism because capitalists receive most of the rewards, through profits, of the work of the proletariat. The proletariat have a false consciousness when they fail to understand how capitalism works, or they incorrectly believe that capitalism benefits them. Workers may believe this because they do not see their own exploitation. They are alienated from the products of their labor, so they do not see how their own work is claimed and earns a profit for someone else, or they don’t believe that this is wrong due to ideology produced by the capitalists, which supports the capitalist system as good. Marx proposed that class consciousness would develop among workers to replace false consciousness, in which workers would truly see the way the system works. This would lead to uprising and revolution. Capitalists would never gain class consciousness because it was not in their interest to see it another way—they benefit too much from the existing system.