Marx and Althusser 000ooo000ooo

Reading Marx's interpretation of ideology reminded me of Jon Stewart's recent interview with Jim Cramer. Althusser's piece then gave an interesting context to this interpretation. As Marx explains, the goal of the creators of an ideology are "to present its interest as the common interest of all the members of society, that is... it has to give its ideas the form of universality, and present them as the only rational, universally valid ones" (40).
In the interview, which appeared on The Daily Show, Stewart accuses of Jim Cramer and the rest of financial "news" shows of serving the interests of creating an ideology that favored big businesses and stock brokers even though they knew the things they were saying would eventually lead to the collapse of the market. In other words, the class in power was creating an ideology that would lead to their own advancement but would ruin many people in lower classes. It is clear that what they were creating was an ideology because if people had really thought about what they were being told they would have had some idea that it didn't make sense. People were being told that they didn't have to work or really do anything and they could just make money. All they had to do was give their money to someone else and watch it grow. This really shouldn't make much sense to a rational individual. However, the ideology created by these shows was able to make people think it was obvious and self-evident that putting your money in stocks was the best way for it to grow and that the stock market could be easy money.
Althusser would probably refer to this as a financial ideology. He explains that most people do not believe ideologies whole-heartedly and understand that they are "largely imaginary, i.e. do not 'correspond to reality'"(44). In this example, most people understand that the stock market is unpredictable and nothing is ever a sure-fire buy. However, while they may not entirely represent reality, ideologies make allusions to reality and provide a way to interpret reality. In this case one could argue that what was being shown on financial TV shows was not an allusion to reality but simulacra. However, in either case people begin to lose sight of the fact that they are not viewing reality, but someone else's representation of it and so they stop thinking about things clearly. This is largely what led many people to get into trouble with the stock market but it also shows the powerful effect that a well thought out and carried out ideology can have on people.