Lexia. Rivista di semiotica. Vol. 41-42: Ideologia/Ideology

Starting from Ferruccio Rossi–Landi’s (1921–1985) semiotic theory, this paper attempts to explain why political economy can be un-derstood as a form of ideology. In line with Michel Callon’s analysis of the performative character of economics, Critical Discourse Studies seem to suggest that political economy is not only an academic — or purely spec-ulative — form of discourse; rather, it is a concrete political project. This characterization is in line with Rossi–Landi’s interpretation of ideology as social teleology. In this sense, political economy involves ideology as well. Nevertheless, contrary to what certain studies seem to propose, the accep-tation of ideology as “false consciousness” remains a fundamental tool to il-lustrate certain basic semiotic implications of the concept of “ideology”. More specifically, “false consciousness” is a fundamental concept for un-derstanding the Marxian category of “fetishism”, i.e. the cognitive relation between concrete economic actors and the Commodity Form, as described by Marx. From such a perspective, the issue of “fetishism” represents a field in which ideology dovetails with economics, allowing new opportu-nities for semiotic analyses. Rossi–Landi considered fetishism as a case of false consciousness, deriving from a dysfunctional — i.e. alienated — semiosic process of the attribution of properties. Hypothesising a dialogue be-tween Rossi–Landi and Algirdas Julien Greimas (1917–1922), I will at-tempt to explain why fetishism — understood as false consciousness — can be analysed through the Greimasian square of “veridiction”. Furthermore, according to Rossi–Landi, ideology is a linguistic verbal translation of false consciousness; more specifically, ideology is false thinking. Starting from this definition, I will propose to consider political economy — as critically analysed by Marx — as a linguistic and conceptual translation of the eco-nomic actors’ false consciousness. I believe this proposal is coherent with Marx’ argumentations given that he clearly affirms that fetishism deceives both economic actors and political economists. Finally, Callon’s analyses on the relation between economics and economy can help to develop a conception of ideology where the semiotic problem of veridiction — con-nected with the category of false consciousness — dovetails with the issue of performativity — connected with Rossi–Landi’s understanding of ide-ology as social teleology.