on the economy, while if ideology is seen as bound to the economy, all the familiar problems of economic reductionism arise.

The second dilemma facing contemporary Marxist theory of ideology is that of the falsity of ideology. If one holds a view of ideology-as-critique, then that appears to remove from analysis a whole range of ideologies that are not obviously false. If, on the other hand, the term ideology is seen as embracing all forms of knowledge, belief, or practice, then the critical edge of the concept is lost.

As we indicated earlier, Therborn holds that he is taking Marx's insights as a point of departure. He also suggests that the fact that 'the concrete forms of ideologies other than economic positional ones are not directly determined by the mode of production, indicates the limitations of historical materialism' (p. 48 ). Given this position, the problem is how Therborn resolves the dilemmas of Marxism. In the first place, his language has a distinctly Marxist ring to it. However, his conceptions of materialism are not necessarily Marxist. In his broad usage, which corresponds to the conventional sociology of knowledge, materialism amounts to little more than postulating a social explanation of ideology. In his narrower conception of economic materialism, he adopts a Marxist position. For Therborn, class ideologies appear to be determined by economic materialism, but the rest of the ideological universe rests on a material base that owes little to Marxism.

He also emphasizes the critical importance of class in the analysis of ideology. Although Therborn is at pains to show the significance of all kinds of ideology, including non-class elements such as those of gender, race or nation, class ideologies are not only fundamental, they are determining: '. . . the structure of the ideological system, its class and non-class elements alike, is overdetermined by the constellation of class forces' (p. 39 ). For many critics, such an emphasis on class would be quite sufficient to place Therborn firmly in the Marxist camp (or a Marxist camp). That would, clearly, be quite wrong, for what is distinctive to Marxism is not the stress on class per se, but a particular theory of the generation, location and causal effects of classes.

A comparison with the work of Karl Mannheim is instructive here. Again many sociological commentators on Mannheim assume that he was a Marxist because of his belief that social class is the most significant social base of systems of belief. However, the whole point of Mannheim's work is that, for him, social classes are not constituted by their places in economic relations, but are instead essentially political entities, representing collectivities engaged in struggle. The explanation of these class struggles does not lie in the economy but in features of the human condition, particularly the apparently innate tendency to compete. We are not, of course, suggesting that Therborn

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