Political culture - Approaches to political culture - The marxist approach

3 important questions on Political culture - Approaches to political culture - The marxist approach

How did Marx view political culture?

As ideological power.
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas. Ruling material force of society, is at the same time the ruling intellectual force.

What are Marx's two theories of culture?

1. Suggests that culture is class-specific: as members of a class share the same experiences and have a common economic position and interests, they are likely to have broadly similar ideas, values and beliefs.
(thus, proletarian and bourgeois culture and ideas are different from each other).

2. Emphasizes the degree to which the ideas of the ruling class pervade society and become the ruling ideas of the age.
In this view political culture is nothing more than bourgeois ideology.

What is the most influential 21st century exponent of this view?

Antonio Gramsci;
class system is upheld not simply by unequal economic and political power, but also by bourgeois hegemony (spiritual and cultural supremacy of the ruling class, brought about through the spread of bourgeois values and beliefs via 'civil society' - church, media etc).

In order for socialism to be achieved, a 'battle of ideas' has to be waged through which proletarian principles, values and theories displace/challenge bourgeois ideas.

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