Ideologues, intellectuals and theorists

 (From Ercan Gündoğan, 2011, A Theory of Capitalist Society and Social Dialectics, Lap Lambert, p: 364-69)

Simultaneity of living, acting and thinking for a human existence and becoming becomes a social division of labour for the whole of social relations.  This is the division of labour among workers-capitalists, politicians-bureaucrats and intellectuals-ideologues-theorists. Each social group is specialized and this fact allows us to divide social relations into economic, political and ideological spheres or alternatively, into the base and superstructure. Actually at the social level, we have just division of labour or the specializations of certain groups and sections which live, act and think in certain levels.

A capitalist live as a capitalist but does not act as a politician and think as an ideologue. A politician does not live as a capitalist, but acts as a politician and does not think as an ideologue. An ideologue does not live as a capitalist and does not act as a politician but does think as an ideologue.

A worker is not a capitalist, and generally not a politician and an ideologue. Workers are not capitalists, politicians and ideologues. For a worker, social relations are unequal and asymmetrical although for capitalists, politicians and ideologues there are opportunities to acquire their respective identities and positions. It is a fact that politicians can become ideologue and even capitalists and ideologues are always close to politics and can become politicians. For a worker, trade unions, local consuls, neighbourhood organizations, cooperatives, ethnical and religious organizations can provide a social mobility and political opportunity. They can get the opportunity of being a part of the lower echelons of the political organizations.  As for intellectuality and ideology, they have less opportunity due to their weak educational background and social connections. As for capitalist position, similarly only the lower echelons of market is open to them and this means that workers can become only a lower part of the petty-bourgeoisie.

Intellectuals, ideologues, theorists form a special class which is specialised on systematic thinking on the social whole. Therefore, they differ from other professionals such as university professors, educated people, enlightened people and clergy. They show what the question is and what is to be done to solve it. They provide a mode of thinking with key concepts, approaches and solutions. Social-democrat and liberal states use the concepts of welfare, democracy, rule of law, state of law, freedom of speech and association, which have been produced by their intellectuals and ideologues. Socialist states used the concepts inherited from Marx and Lenin, for instance. Concepts, definition and solution of problem are given and circulate through all society from the top political-bureaucratic groups to ordinary professionals and local administrators. Ideologues theorize all economic and political problems and solutions to them with their concepts and mode of thinking.

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher’s governments circulated all neo-liberal concepts and mode of thinking such as privatization, management, productivity as Churchill and his period introduced the concepts of iron curtain, totalitarianism, etc. “Open society” becomes the slogan of capitalist democracies against all socialist countries rather than against fascist dictatorships and military dictatorships and Arab monarchies supported by the capitalist democracies.

Ideologues produce a mode of thinking with all concepts, questions and answers for all societies. For this they first play a political function to support rulers and eliminate opposition. Deception of masses and distortion of real facts are not creating “a false consciousness”, but showing the self-consciousness of capitalists, politicians and ideologues. Actually they impose their own consciousness by circulating it through all mediums they own or control. For the workers and all masses, false-consciousness is nothing but their dominated consciousness, which is not appreciated, educated, taught and circulated and hence remains just popular, partial, dispersed.

Workers can create their “popular” intellectuals, ideologues and theorists as well as scientists from within and attract the intellectuals from the petty-bourgeois circles.

Ideological sphere is not composed of the contradictory unity of bourgeois and socialist ideologies, but of the contradictory unity of bourgeois mode of thinking and practical, partial thinking of the workers and masses. Just as the worker-capitalist relation of the economic sphere emerges as ruler-ruled relation, the sphere of ideology is based on the main contradictory relation between ideologue-intellectual-theorist of the bourgeoisie and practical thought of the masses. I as a human can think of everything but I cannot be a capitalist or politician. Thinking is open to all humans. Becoming an ideologue is also possible for all humans. However, in the ideological sphere, the question is whether you support, believe in and adopt the current social system. As capitalist economy requires capitalist-worker relation and as capitalist politics needs ruler-ruled relation, capitalist sphere of ideology needs bourgeois thought-worker thought as a dialectical relation.

Bourgeois thinking and worker thinking can be differentiated according to whether the knowledge of domination and dominated position can be conceived, evaluated and then theorised. Even an ordinary capitalist has a self-consciousness of its economic, political and ideological spheres that he/she dominates due to his/her political and ideological sections. However, the workers can achieve their own self-consciousness only when the spheres of economy, politics and ideology begin to dissolve into opposite sides. Such dissolution has to occur simultaneously in each sphere so that opposite sides can achieve the consciousness of the social whole. It means that capitalists, rulers and ideologues lose their roles within the social whole. Ideology as the bourgeois mode of thinking should confront the socialist one. Ruling mode should face the rulers’ mode of ruling. Similarly, production mode of the capitalists should contradict the production mode of workers.

Nevertheless, we have shown something new until now. Ideology is not simply divided into bourgeois and socialist thoughts. Rather, it has two opposites such as the knowledge of the system and practical and experienced based knowledge. Ideologues have the former type of knowledge and the mass of the workers has the latter one. Socialist intellectuals try to first close the gap and then reformulate all dominant ideologies for the interests of the mass of workers.

Bourgeois ideology is the ideology of the existing, dominant social relations and is diffused into the every possible cells of society. Even the most theoretical socialist ideology can create only a powerful opposition to it. For this reason, it always remains partial, local and even temporary. That bourgeois ideology is systematic and theoretical does not mean that capitalists, rulers and holders of the dominant ideologies are systematic, theoretical and holistic. Rather, they have the key concepts, beliefs and the mode of thinking imposed on all humans. Their systematic and theoretical and holistic ideologies mean that they diffuse and circulate into every cell of social relations. Therefore, such characteristics are valid only for social whole rather than individual level. Dominant bourgeois ideologies are actually full of inconsistent, partial, unrelated theories which are produced by unconnected specialists. Nevertheless, their internal inconsistencies and separation produce more confusion and inconsistency and separation among the intellectuals and theorists.

Typical characteristic of the dominant ideology, which is partial and separate for individuals and systematic and holistic for the social whole, is that it offers a mode of thinking, of defining and solving problems for all individuals from capitalist and workers to rulers and ruled ones to even ideologues themselves.

Therefore, mode of production, mode of government and mode of thinking are valid for both individuals and social whole in the form of social division of labour. The mode of thinking is systematic and holistic in that it is diffused, circulated and taught through all individuals. However, for a socialist intellectual, it is full of contradictions and inconsistencies.