000ooo000ooo 3.18

One thing that I found interesting in class today was the opposing views in American culture about where the "power" lies and who is the ruling class. The reason for this disagreement is clear, our government is much different than the governments Karl Marx was writing about in Europe almost two centuries ago. Our government is designed to give power to the majority so technically the "ruling class" should be the majority. However, suspicion remains that perhaps Marx's ideas aren't so wrong, even in modern America.
As we talked about in class, "He who has the gold rules". In America, those with the gold were having a difficult time ruling because their voices and opinions didn't count for anymore than their farmhand's. By no coincidence though, America is arguably the birthplace of advertising and marketing. Even though technically our voices are all equal, "he who has the gold" has an incredible ability to get everyone else thinking on the same page as them. One good example of this is in Amy Goodman's speech about media in times of war. She explains how even though national public opinion was split about 50/50 about whether we should invade Iraq, and hundreds of people showed up to protest in New York, the media only provided pro-war views which, at the time, were the views of the people with gold.
In other words, the idea of the majority being the ruling class in America is idealistic. We would all like to believe that the ideas our country was founded upon have held up through the centuries. To believe otherwise is often considered unpatriotic. Realistically though, while the majority makes decisions, there is absolutely a ruling class that heavily affects the ideologies of these people. THis goes back to the difference between ideas and ideologies. The majority are often under the influence of the ruling classes ideologies so even though they have the ability to make their own decisions that will benefit them, they often choose decisions based on the ideologies of the ruling class. If Marx's ideas about ideologies are true, it shouldn't matter who is directly responsible for decision making - decisions will still be made based on the ideas of the ruling class.