Essay on Marx and Engels, Mészáros and the problem of ideology

Abstract

The discussion in the ideological field is far from being overcome. Often we come across different authors, each in his own way, trying to make an effort to systematize the concept, both in the field of Marxism and outside it. An interpretive tendency in the sphere of gnosiology, supposedly in the name of Marx and Engels, seeks to restrict the concept to the notion of “false consciousness”, understanding ideology as a false and misleading perception of subjects about reality. In this essay, we aim to demonstrate there is not oversimplification in the above-mentioned authors that allows us to reduce ideology to the false consciousness notion. Furthermore, we propose an approximation and a theoretical continuity between the Marx and Engels formulations in The German Ideology and by Mészáros in The Power of Ideology in which the concept appears as a practical social conscience broadly articulated in the struggle for the social metabolism control.