The Middle Ages had its version of false consciousness, namely Christianity: hence Marx’s famous aphorism that “religion is the opiate of the masses.”‖ Capitalism has its version, too. This is the supposedly scientific worldview of Locke and the Enlightenment, which pretends that the pursuit of self-interest was natural and inevitable. However, the reign of “ideology” will come to an end when the final victors of history, the proletariat, come to power.
