ABSTRACT
The view that law is best understood as ideological camoflauge for the social, political and economic interests of the ruling elites has been a powerful form of discourse about law and cannot be ignored by any serious student of the nature of law. The function of ideology is to distort reality but to present itself as the reality. The 'inverted image' of reality than ideology delivers in law is that 'some' equality, 'some' fairness is delivered by law but at the expense of distorting the wider picture of social and economic reality: which is gross inequality. The idea that law disguises reality by presenting an ideal of equality, justice and procedural due process which masks wider and deep social and economic inequalities informs the writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin. The view that law induces a consciousness restricting 'servility of mind' informed the writings of the 'anarchist aristocrats' Bakunin and Kropotkin.
