Karl Marx advocated for the idea that the ruling ideologies in a society are the ideologies held and maintained and perpetuated by the ruling class. Directly quoting Marx in his work The German Ideology he states, “ The ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force”. In what ways can this be true or at least represented in American society today?
The most ready examples stem from the recent presidential election in 2016. In an opinion article by the Washington Post titled “The dark side of American conservatism has taken over”, the author attempts to demonstrate how the current Republican Party and its current conservative leadership all stem from a vast history of blatant racism and extremism. To quote the article directly it states, “ it’s obvious that the history of modern conservatism is permeated with racism, extremism, conspiracy-mongering, isolationism and know-nothingism”. I will not seek to go through and argue any of the points in the article being made, I will however demonstrate that the beliefs of the Republican Party being racist and consists of the same Democratic southern whites who enforced Jim Crow are ruling ideologies and how they are connected to the ruling class.
The ruling class is defined by Marx as those who control material production. This all stems from the idea of Materialism in contrast to Idealism, in using Marx’s definitions I will also operate under the assumption of Materialism. Who is the ruling class in our society, who controls the means of production? That would be the CEO's and board members of fortune 500 companies and billionaires. Now how can we say what ideologies are ruling in society? I define those as premonitions and assumptions held by a majority or at least a large number of constituents. The idea that the Republican Party is made of racists, bigots, and misogynists is not only stated within the article mentioned and repeatedly throughout the Washington Post, but also in various articles and reports by USAToday, CNN, The New York Times, and News Week. In my opinion this represents a ruling ideology because of its obvious prevalence.
For any of this to make sense I now have to prove the connection between the ruling class, social elites made up of billionaires and millionaires, and the prevailing ideology of Republican racism. During the 2016 presidential election Hillary Clinton delivered her infamous “basket of deplorables” comment. Shes quoted as stating Trump supporters are, “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, and Islamaphobic”. She also said in an interview with The Nation, “They will play to the combination of racism and sexism that got Trump elected” referring to the Republican Party. So it is established that Hillary Clinton carries this perception. Clinton raised a lot of money fundraising for her presidential campaign. Smashing the record for most money received and spent on a campaign by accepting nearly 2 billion dollars. Nearly all of this money came exclusively from large donors donating hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars at a time. The extremely wealthy donors (who are included in the list at the bottom) are the ruling class, and by aligning themselves with Clinton, thus align themselves with her and her parties ruling ideologies, accepting them as their own.
Marx is skeptical and applies negative connotation to ideology. He is even more skeptical of the ruling class. According to Marx a ruling class will only convey ideology that keeps them in power and keeps the proletariat submissive. If the ruling ideologies of Republicans being racist are upheld by the ruling class then it is inherently good for those in power which means it is inherently bad for those beneath them, speaking from a materialist Marxist perspective; because, anything that keeps the ruling class in power and ensures working class inequality, is truly “deplorable” and disastrous for society. Whether the ideology is true or not is a separate debate, but simply because the ruling class holds firm to such a stance, should cause the rest of America, the 99%, to be weary and not trust such a sentiment.
http://fortune.com/2016/06/23/56-hillary-clinton-ceos-endorsements/
