The Ideological Component of the Capitalist Order: Neo-Marxist Hypothesizing in the Theory of Complexity

The political theory of neo-Marxist theory of complexity is a new original direction in the development of the neo-Marxist research program. In the view of the theory of complexity, the article considers the scientific issue of the “vicious circle” of the neo-Marxist approach to ideology. Neo-Marxists agreed that a capitalist ideology permeates entire social space and thereby keeps its sustainable reproduction in favor of a ruling class. There was no consensus, however, about the essence (content) of a capitalist ideology. The article aims at a scientific search for the main ideology of capitalism outside the context of the total ideological nature of the capitalist order. The synergetic deconstruction of the neo-Marxist theory of ideology assumed the replacement of a meaningful invariant with its antipode: the principle of system stability with the principle of system instability. Based on the synergetic approach, capitalism is stable due to unstable development, but only within the framework of the attractor of functioning. The theory has revealed that the ideology of “life improvement” is an attractor of the capitalist system. The concept of “capitalist ideological minimalism” has been proposed in the following formulation. The ideology of “life improvement” is at the heart of the functioning of modern capitalism as a historically continuing order for those dissatisfied with capitalism, its practical implementation is vital for the stability of a capitalist system, since the closest, and therefore the most likely option for resolving discontent with capitalism is a state of “being contented with it”.