1. C.   Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born 48 years before Marx, and offered a sort of evolutionary theory of world history by means of contradiction in idealistic terms.  Marx argued against idealism with his theory of historical materialism, and is said to “turn Hegel on his head.”

2 C.  Where do ideas some from?  They emerge from our productive lives and from the social relationships that undergird our mode of sustaining human life.  Our ideas about the material world are not as important as the material world itself.   The illusions that the ruling class promulgates seem like universal truths, but actually they support (and simultaneously mask) the power of the ruling class itself.

3 C. Marx argued that those philosophers overestimate the importance of ideas, and fail to recognize the “earthly basis of history,” i.e. “definite individuals who are productively active in a definite way” and are creating their own material life.  Most of the other answers are quotes from the Preface to The German Ideology.

4. B.  The ruling bourgeoisie promulgates the illusion that capitalist society is free and equal, when only the industrialists and bankers have true personal freedom, and inequality is endemic to the economy.  Honor and loyalty are the universal ruling ideas of the feudal age. Kinship and altruism might be most relevant among hunting and gathering societies.  International and religiosity are terms that don’t seem very compatible, and are downplayed in bourgeois ruling ideology.

5. A.  Marx and Engels asserted that human history begins with the “existence of living human individuals” fulfilling their needs by producing their own subsistence.  “Herd consciousness” is an early form of human consciousness that arises from the need to interact with other people.  Unlike Hegel, Marx didn’t take a teleological approach to biological evolution.  Finally, humans don’t have a monopoly on ideas.

6. B.  “Freedom” is one of the illusions of the age of the capitalist class.  The ruling bourgeoisie makes sure that it has freedoms to move capital, to exploit workers, to pollute the earth, and to make unlimited profits.  Wage slavery ties workers and prevents them from exercising personal freedom.

7.  A.  There’s no list of tenets which all communist espouse, though we agree on the historical materialist approach.  Ideology is not a scientific approach, but instead hides the power of the ruling class.

8. E. all of the above.  Marx’s discussion of town and country is relevant in understanding the patterns of Republican and Democratic Party support on electoral maps.  The way that the ruling class disseminates its ruling ideas these days may be Fox News.  Historical materialism shows us how a region like the southern US that developed with plantation slavery is now different politically than New England, where industrialism reigned.  All institutions that spring from a particular mode of production, like the US Supreme Court did from monopoly capitalism, protect the ruling class and its economic interests.

Score: 0 wrong: Theoretician. Write an article! Teach a class!!

1 wrong: Developed Marxist. Form a study group, join the party.

2 to 3 wrong: Class conscious worker – study harder.

4 to 5 wrong: Danger! deviations possible. study and then study some more lest you drift into the marsh of opportunism!

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