David Fields — The Mission of Radical Political Economy

Heavy on the jargon of the Left, but an important point about "consciousness-raising" in socio-economic change through social and political activism.

Naked Keynesianism
The Mission of Radical Political Economy
David Fields

Norman Pollack — Dynamics of False Consciousness: America Today

This is an interesting short historical essay on economic history and capitalism led by American liberalism as the paradigm from globalization as a cover for neoliberalism, neo-imperialism and neocolonialism.

What stands out is that the current political debate in the US is chiefly about "the middle class." The contention over inequality in distribution of income and wealth is about a particular segment of the US population that feels it is being left out. There is little to no concern for "the lower classes" in the country or for the condition of most people in the rest of the world resulting from the prevailing social, political and economic paradigm dominated by neoliberalism.

Counterpunch
Dynamics of False Consciousness: America Today
Norman Pollack

See also

False consciousness at Wikipedia

False consciousness by Daniel Little

The basic idea is that cultures have dominant stories that embody ideologies that represent class interests. As a result of buying into the dominant stories, the classes whose interests are not served by the story, go along with the ideology consciously and voluntarily. This is false consciousness since it is based on an account that is biased against those in false consciousness. This accounts, for example, why many so many people continue to vote against their real interests socially, politically and economically. Colloquially, it's called "drinking the Kool-Aid."

Mark Evans — Rethinking False Consciousness

Question: If capitalist economics is based on class exploitation and oppression, then why hasn’t the working class organized itself into a liberating revolutionary movement?

Answer: False consciousness!

The notion of false consciousness has been developed out of Marxist theory. The basic idea can be broken down into the following components. First, the dominant ideas in society are those of the ruling class or classes. Second, the interests of the dominant class or classes are not the same as those of the subordinate class or classes. Third, under such circumstances, the subordinate class(es) tend to adopt the interests of the dominant class and in-so-doing unknowingly takes on an ideological position that does not promote their interests.

Perhaps the most obvious and extreme example of false consciousness, to play-out in the real world, would be that of war. Here the use of nationalism, for example, as a means of getting the people of one country to fight against the people of another country, is employed by elites. Put simply, this results in working class people killing each other to protect and promote the existing power and privilege of the capitalist class.

Understanding that we can be socialized into adopting an ideological position that is detrimental to our own interests is an important step towards the development of revolutionary consciousness. The facilitation of such development also represents perhaps the greatest challenge to revolutionaries. Unfortunately however, the ways in which Marxists have tried to address false consciousness have led to a number of very problematic and undesirable outcomes. Here I would like to highlight two specific, and perhaps related, examples of this problem and present possible alternative solutions...

Interesting Marxian analysis that takes issue with Marxism.
    
teleSur
Rethinking False Consciousness
Mark Evans