Marx - German Ideology

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>asking /lit/

Are you alright?

>>9983164
I am kind of desperate and need a quick answer.

Those who profit from (own) the means of production have the resources, the means, and the motivation to reinforce their own ownership of the means of production and keep their alienated human machinery subservient.

Smith said in Wealth of Nations that the rich have infinitely more resources and time and motivation to get together and conspire, intelligently and calmly, on how to bust labour's defenses against the rich. The deck is always stacked in favour of the rich, because they are rich. A poor person is at best a cornered animal, but a rich person can hire an army, or an army of specialist lawyers, or pay off politicians, or just in general have nice leisurely vacations in the Bahamas to conspore with other rich guys on how to fuck over the unions.

So it isn't literally conspiratorial, no, but it's a false or secondary layer of consciousness that makes a prima facie unbearable form of life bearable by convincing people that it's normal/good. The rich participate in that false consciousness both consciously and unconsciously themselves, and can be just as taken in by it, especially in the petite bourgeoisie.

If you are told that the Immutable Law of the Universe, by God's decree, is that you should toil in a field while Bob enjoys the fruits of your labour and jerks himself off all day, you are much more likely to keep tolerating that situation, where without that fairy tale you might have done basic Rousseauist logic that any capuchin monkey is capable of and told Bob to even up the labour or go fuck himself. If Bob himself believes in the ideology while you do, and comes out occasionally and pats you on the head and tells you to keep up the good work. or even if he occasionally gives you back some of the food you prepared for him out of "charity" and actually thinks he's a good person. it's still false consciousness.

Gramsci extends the analysis pretty well to the "historic bloc." Given articulations of productive relations will naturally generate whole classes and servitors to maintain those relations. Capitalism will naturally produce whole types and sub-types of good charitable Bobs whose job it is to appease the working class, to obfuscate the means to revolution, to make the ruling classes feel less guilty and prevent them from defecting to the working class, etc. It naturally selects for maintenance of the status quo, naturally seeps into all "positions" in the culture, naturally entrenches itself.

>>9983208
Nice, thank you.

>>9983208
Wealth can be dwindled down and accumulated fairly quickly, i.e. in a span of 2 generations.
The capitalist can also be a slave of his system. Many times they aren't comfy bon viveurs but autistic workaholics that demand the same output from every one of their workers.
Their kids may be more inclined to sit and enjoy the wealth. But then they will lose their position in the ladder because the system is ruthless and another ambitious capitalist will claim the spot