On 6/9/2011 3:53 PM, Pat Gunning wrote:
> you believe that a false ideology could serve that interest


I believe the general question is:
can a false belief system serve one's interest
better than true beliefs (leaving that concept
uncontested).  A subsidiary question is, can
a group make itself better off by perpetuating
a false belief (whatever the mechanism.)

I think both casual reflection and the evidence
are unambiguous about this: yes.

Here are two crude examples, just to make the point.

In 15th century Spain, being a convert to Catholicism
was safer than being a Muslim or a Jew.  (Not safe
enough.) In late 17th century Salem, skepticism about
the link between misfortune and Evil was hazardous.

In general, adapting many of one's beliefs to one's
society can be useful, independent of the factual
basis of those beliefs.

Now for an example to address the subsidiary question.
In 18th century America, belief in racial superiority
served the interests of slave owners.

In a prisoner's dilemma, if everyone believes it pays
to cooperate, all will end up better off than if
everyone understands that defection is dominant.


Taking a modern example, work on system justification
has found that many people are motivated to defend to
defend the status quo, whether the status quo is
objectively serving their interests or not.

Now some people will be silent only like Galileo,
accepting that it is in their interest to acquiesce
to a false belief. ("And yet it moves.")  But
actually holding the false belief is even safer
and can thereby be more useful.  (Of course it is not
always easy to simply choose what to believe ...)

As a final example, consider the treatment by the
economics profession of "rational expectations"
in the 1970s and 1980s.  In terms of career opportunities,
it was clearly advantageous to "believe in" RE modeling.

None of this directly addresses whether the bourgeoisie
can benefit as a group from their false bourgeois ideology
nor what mechanism might lead sustaining that ideology,
because I have little idea about what such terms might mean.
But to the extent that this boils down to a question of
whether a group can ever sustain false beliefs and benefit
from that, the answer is clearly yes.

Cheers,
Alan