Penny Lane - Marx

Upon reflecting on the Marxist conception of Ideology, I began to wonder how similar connections could be drawn within our own society. I believe that the illusion of the 'American Dream' is one of the most significant fallacies present in our contemporary culture. Works of Marx teach us that the working class often internalize a false sense of personal influence and capability from the same ideological framework that demean their plight. Under capitalist agenda, the worker is merely an unfortunate but necessary cost in the means of production. Like any other commodity, workers sell their time and efforts to capitalists without any hope of reaping the benefits. Profit, not people, is the primary concern of nearly all economic ventures. To make matters worse, producers are constantly competing against one another in the open market. The labor force is typically the first to experience the repercussions of rivaling businesses, because wages and efficiency cut the greatest costs. While workers have the most to lose under this economic organization, they also have the least to gain from their experience. Due to the class structure in place, the concepts of work and career tend to evoke very different meanings. The American dream propagates the myth of success and passion being a synonymies possibility. Marx states: 'It is not the consciousness of people that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness." We are raised to believe that no matter where we come from or who are fathers are, any individual in this country can make something of themselves if they just try hard enough. This mentality of 'pulling yourself up by the boot straps' is a very American ideology. You only have yourself to blame for personal failures, or so we are told from a young age. The fact of the matter is that the system works to benefit certain types of people, while disadvantaging others. This is not an opinion; it is the cold hard reality of our world. Most people, regardless of skill, intellect, or talent, will remain in the socioeconomic class into which they were born (whether rich, poor, or in between). However, our culture repetitively reinforces the possibility of instant success, rags to riches, and perseverance through hardship to keep the dream alive. The ideology is false, but is continuously propagated through popular media forms. The American dream is simply that, just a dream.