Abercrombie’s Critique of The Dominant Ideology Thesis
by Abercrombie, Hill and Turner create and then criticise a dominant ideology thesis, inferring it from the thought of diverse sociologists and Marxist thinkers.
Abercrombie, Hill and Turner enunciate a dominant ideology thesis with the objective of subjecting it to a fierce critique:
“In all societies based on class divisions there is a dominant class which enjoys control of both the means of material production and the means of mental production. Through its control of ideological production, the dominant class is able to supervise the construction of a set of coherent beliefs. These dominant beliefs of the dominant class are more powerful, dense and coherent than those of the subordinate classes.[1]
Therefore, this dominant ideology is incorporated by the working class and this phenomenon ensures the reproduction of the capitalist system and the absence of a social revolution: the working class is absolutely integrated in the system against its own interest by means of this compact and coherent dominant ideology.
The first remarkable objection to this thesis is, according to Abercrombie et al., the disorganised ways in which, in its multiple versions, it has been presented. There should be a clear answer to each one of these questions in any version of the thesis:[2]
1. What is the dominant ideology?
2. What effect does the dominant ideology have on the dominant class?
3. What effect does the dominant ideology have on subordinate classes?
4. What is the apparatus that transmits the dominant ideology in society?
The responses to these questions given by Marxism and its theorists of the dominant ideology are not very satisfactory, according to Abercrombie et al.:
1. The contents of the dominant ideology are not always specified.
2. Basically, the different versions agree in the profitable and beneficious effects of the ideological dominance for the dominant classes, “although not necessarily throughout their own deliberate activities”.[3]
3. Mainly, the effects concentrate in the incorporation of the working class and its conformism, “though there is considerable disagreement as to the degree of incorporation and the consequent degree of social stability”.[4]
4. The apparatuses have to be very effective in order to overcome the contradictions within the capitalist structures.[5]
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