A mentally and physically healthy Canadian, meaning an individual that is not mentally or physically handicapped, should not have any fears of sinking into poverty, so one would think. Yet there are thousands of Canadians struggling to find the money to feed their children. In fact, in 1997, 17.5 per cent of Canadians were of low income, below the poverty line. There are 200,000 Canadians living homeless on the street , concerned with how they are going to keep from freezing to death on

step up and take arms in this new war on poverty.

Karl Marx explains such a situation as: "The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force." Therefore, it is only natural for the government to develop or invent a deceitful ideology in defense of one's own self-interest. J.K. Galbraith puts such a statement into perspective when he writes, "It is the nature of privileged position that it develops its own political justification and often the economic and social doctrine that serves it best."

The ideas of the ruling classes can be explained through Karl Marx's and Frederick Engels writing. One would need to detach the ideas of the ruling class itself and give them an independent existence of their own. Throughout history it is apparent that certain concepts were dominant from ruling class to ruling class. For example, during the time that the aristocracy was dominant, the ideas of honor and loyalty were prevalent. And during the time of the bourgeoisie the ideas of freedom and equality were prevalent. "The ruling class itself on the whole imagines [these ideas] to be so." In modern Canada, the imagined, yet still hidden from the poor, ideas of the government are self-interest and deceit.

"This whole semblance, that the rule of a certain class is only the rule of certain ideas, comes to a natural end, of course, as soon as class rule in general ceases to be the form in which society is organized, that is to say, as soon as it is no longer necessary to represent a particular interest as general or the "general interest" as ruling."

Clearly, there is a social injustice of poverty in Canada. There are books upon books, easily accessible to all, that sharply point out all the statistics that show the disparity of children in poverty; that give numbers of how many homeless people there are; how many families live in poverty; and the list goes on. Yet, people are still unaware of the magnitude of this problem of poverty in Canada. The reasoning behind such a problem can be explored through the writings of Karl Marx in The German Ideology, more specifically the section on Ruling Class and Ruling Ideas. The ruling class is clearly at fault through its ruling ideas. Karl Marx sees no other way of discarding ruling ideas except through revolutions, until finally "the idea" finally emerges, the one true idea that will truly satisfy all. No longer will there be social injustices such as poverty, as there will be no class rule organizing society, rather a communal rule.

Through Marx and Engels writing on the Ruling Class and Ruling Ideas, one is able to see that the prosperous peoples of society and the governments ideas are the occlusion that will not allow females, young adults of 18-24 years, children, and the elderly (these being the most severely hit by poverty ) to escape from the depths of poverty. One must then ask what can be done to terminate this illness that has infested Canada for decades. What historical accomplishment must be made in order to bring all Canadians up to humane living standards? An analysis of Marx's theory on ruling ideas can lead one to formulate possible answers.

There needs to be a revolution against the ruling ideas, according to Marx. Therefore, since these ruling ideas are authored by the government, there needs to be a revolution against the government. Those starting the revolution, are in actuality, representing the whole of society . It is these revolutionaries that are truly connected with the common interests of society. In the case of the Canadian war against poverty, this is evident in the fact that 2 per cent of the population owns 70 per cent of the wealth. This disparity can only be evened out with a revolution. When the other 98 per cent of Canadians rise up to fight this disparity, the revolution will be won. And as

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Approximate Word count = 2783
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)