Capitalism’s division of labor yields ruling ideas controlled by the dominant class

Evidence

With the advancing division of labor (on which expanding material production depends) the distinction between mental and manual labor appears: each is installed in distinct spheres, in different practices and institutions, indeed in different social strata (e.g., the rise of the intelligentsia, the professional ideologues): mental labor appears as wholly autonomous from its material and social base and is projected into an absolute realm, “emancipating itself from the real.” But also, under the conditions of capitalist production, the means of mental labor are expropriated by the ruling classes. Hence we come, not simply to “ideology” as a necessary level of any capitalist social formation, but to the concept of dominant ideology—of “ruling ideas.” — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 887 (#expands, via linked claim)

The English working class was never the singular social and historical entity suggested by the phrase. An even closer study of its elements—for we have merely reviewed the more extreme case with the Irish—would reveal other social divisions, some ethnic (Welsh, Scottish, and more recently West Indian and Asian), some regional, and others essentially industrial and occupational. The negations resultant from capitalist modes of production, relations of production, and ideology did not manifest themselves as an eradication of oppositions among the working classes. Instead, the dialectic of proletarianization disciplined the working classes to the importance of distinctions: between ethnics and nationalities; between skilled and unskilled workers; and, as we shall see later in even more dramatic terms, between races. The persistence and creation of such oppositions within the working classes were a critical aspect of the triumph of capitalism in the nineteenth century. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 267 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The ruling class controls mental production and regulates ruling ideas; Ideology masks class by fragmenting people into individuals bound as consumers and citizens; Post-1877 racial division of labor was engineered to stabilize capitalist wealth (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• The ruling class controls mental production and regulates ruling ideas #corroborates (0.95)
• Division of labor creates an autonomous realm of mental labor controlled by ruling classes. #expands (0.95) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 887
• Capitalist proletarianization reproduced internal divisions rather than unifying the working class #complicates (0.75) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 267