User:Ssstephen/Reading/Ruling Class

The Ruling Class and the Ruling Ideas: How the Hegelian Conception of the Domination of the Spirit in History Arose.

This essay is an Idea about the primacy of Materialism which is a little ironic. So I think it is important to look at the "material" context this was written in, which is efficient machines and blighted potatoes. There was no food and no work. If these material conditions change, are these ideas still valuable?

In the full title and towards the end of the essay it also claims to be a rebuke of Hegel and German Ideology, in particular the authors seem to be claiming that the domination of the spirit is in fact the domination of the hegemonic ideas of the ruling class, through their presentation as being in the common interest. Does there have to be a common interest?

Also if you do a search for "domination of the spirit" you get lots of interesting results about dominating (evil) spirits. The idea of control in demonology and the history of witches has a lot to say about domination and spirits.

Freedom is the ideal of the free market.