failure of humanily reach for my gun"). Marxist categories, Louis Althusser tithesis-synthesis" notion of dialectics. Basing himsell on a reading of Lenin's conception of revolutionary crises, Althusser argued that in studying concrete conjunctures Marxists had to analyse the way in which contradictions at mation) interacted, and at a certain point produced a critical rupture (overdetermined contradiction). Aficionados of contemporary "chaos theory" will be able to see the parallels between this idea and the way in which or- dered systems suddenly break up and become "chaotic". But despite the suggestive insights Marxists had too simple a concept of con- tradiction based on the Hegelian 'thesis-an- different levels of reality (and the social for- OBITUARY Widely reviled on the Trostkyist says PHIL HEARSE, has much to Obituaries for Louis Althusser, important Marxist philosopher in credited him with being the most who died in October, have widely left as a Stalinist, Althusser left a the post-war period. This claim, lasting mark on Marxist theory. While he did not succeed in his project of refounding Marxist recommend it.
"production" of theoretical knowiedgo, a) the 'concrete-in-thought' as opposed to the object of The weakness of this system has been com- the development of Marxist theory, include First, his theory of knowledge. In a highly stylised and formal set of propositions ahout Althusser - closely following Spinoza - in- b) the validation of otherwise nf scientific knowledge rakes place 'entirely in thought' mented on by virtually every Marxist critic. "rea-concrete' knowledge. and cal Marxism was dominated by the fad of 'overdetermined contradiction', it contains ambiguities which are dangernus for Marxist theory, which we tervention in the carly 1960s, where theoreti Marx's early writings and a heavily "Hegelian' reading of them. This meant, in the works of Roger Garudy - the leading philosopher of the French Communist Party - a unilateral rendering of Marxism as a critique of humanity's 'alienation' from its essentin] "species being'. On this hasis a fashionable Althusser began his work as a political in refer to below. Why then should Trotskyists think Al- There are three points of reference in his theless his attempt to re-work the concepts of historical materialism end sank his whole project, none- philosophy, and although his sys- cepts which have passed into the tem contains flaws which in the knowledge elaborated new con- received wisdom' of Marxism. and the marxist theory of thusser important?
This theory of scientific knowledge breaks about understanding the real world but about understanding concepts, The real concrete" in establishing this schema Althusser section of the Economy - Here Marx insists (and here lies the links between the real world and reflec- fion, and between theory and practice as the decisive criterion of truth. If the validation of posed to social practice, then theoretical practice as Althusser called it is not really broke with Marx's own most precise explana- Grundrine entitled "The Method of Political theory takes place entirely in thought, as op Althusser's schema is inherently unknowable. tion of his method - the • an interpretation of humanity's 'species being". but a science of kism just a moral and ethical cntique, and to Indeed, Althusser tumed the fashion of they were not "real Marxism'. He claimed that theologians. Althusser intervened sharply against these readings, insisting that Marxism socicty, of history and ol social formations, economics, history and politics as some sort Marx's early writings especially the 1844 Manuscripts - on its head by insisting that Thus he attacked any tendency to make Mar- downgrade: Marx's later of unfortunate deviation. wat not " 'humanisn" work (1) which are of lasting valuc. First his societies, the fact that each "social formation' Tonnation', Prior to Althusser's intervention Marxists had tended to analyse cach concretc society as simply an example, however im pure, of one ot other "classic" mode of produc tion established by Marx and Engels slave socicty, feudalism, capitalism, and so on. Al- thusser insisted on the complexity of real contained elements of and survivals of dif- ferent modes of production, elements which "overdetermined' by the dominant social rela- in dominance" elaboration of the
The second fuilure of Althusser's systom is and acted upon one another through their concrete in theory is a synthesis of ahstructions: but he also insists that these abstractions are worked up frm dain on the - facts - not simply from otber Quential - his critique of "cconomiem". React- ing against the notion that the different levels and politics) are reducible to the economic' level, he repcated that the different levels of the social formation had their own specificity the superficial similarity with Althusser) that more important because it is much more in- of the social formation (for example ideology tion, and worked out the scientific categories of Capital and mature Marxism - surplus: value, exploitation, mode of production, and used to analyse society and guide the struggle What can we say of this intervention? Ar the very least Althusser overdid it Ho was Xism. He was right to stress the dangers of of the 'Marxist in Marx there was an 'epistemological break" in the mid-1840s, as Marx broke from his pro- vious philosophical speculations about aliena- so on - scientific theories which could be right to stress to scientific character of Mar- humanists' - people who had broken with rightism in the writings of the proletariat. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 29. December/January 1990/91 serian, use tie notion of "social formation"? Exactly - but only because Althusser invenled it. There is just one reference to the term in tween concrete social formation and the idea Ferent, higher, level of abstraction, owes its contradiction. Previously, said Althusser, This notion of cach social formation as a "complex whole structured in dominance' may seem bunal and obvicus today. Don't all Marxists, even the passionate anti-Althus- the whole of Marx (2). The distinction he- of mode of production' which exists at a dif- Althusser's second decisive contribulion origin to Althusser. (3)
theoretical work - especially on cconomics Althusser's mental illness, from which he tragedy of the murder of his wife Helene in tant from the class struggle. It was and is a crisis which cannot be adequately dealt with stitution where he died. Hir work emerged from the growing crisis of Stalinism, and its In the end it could only be dealt with at the level of directly political struggle and the suffered for several decades, led to the final 1980, and his committal to a psychiatric in- reflection among intellectuals who were dis at the level of philosophy, as Althusser tried. and politics - needed to back that up. party-approved denounced Althusser's work as the most What then of Althusser's politics? The accusation that he was simply a Stalinist is often a substitute for critical engagement. The British SWP regularly trot out this ac- cusation against their own resident heretic, Alex Callinicos, who rightly sees some value in Althusser's work. They conveniently for- philosopher, Georg Lukacs, was not exactly pristine pure when it comes to Stalinism The historian E.P. Thompson OBITUARY (which he described as historicism'). while the economic level is the determinant one in the last analysis, 'the lonely hour of phrase strikes at the heart of Marxism. If the sion, which has raged as long an Marxism controversial among Marxists, had Althusser stuck more rigidly to his own 'structure in dominance' idea. Althusser argued, that the last analysis never comes. This laconic lonely hour of the last analysis never comes. then the idea of the economic as the deter Now, a central problem in this discus various 'effects', This would have been un- meant by the economic basis of society, which he argued is its "real has existed, is establishing what Marx minant level is worthless.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 29, December/January 1990/91 is not the consciousness of men which determines 6. Sce, most famously, Engels" letler to Bloch Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Stralegy, Verso (1986), For a critique sec: Ellen Meiksins Wood, 9. E.P. Thompson, The Poverty of Theory. Merlin, 1978. See Perry Anderson's brilliant destruction of Thompson in Arguments Within ces. The sum total of these relations of productions constitules the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and politi- and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions die social, political and intellectual life process in general. It their being, but on the contrary dicir social being in the Marx-Engels Selected Correspondence in 7. See Political Power and Social Classes. 8. Notoriously, in Ernesto Laclau and Chantal ring about it. See Marx", in the Marxist 5. 'In the social production of their hfe, men sable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage in the development of their material productive for- which determines their social consciousness". 2. In the Preface to the Contribution to The preface is included in the Marx-Engels aclected works in one volume, Lawrence 3. A recent exposition of mode of Emest Mandel has a distinctly Althusserian Economics, The New Palgrave vol, Mao- 4. Among the best accounts of the development of Marx's thought is the high- ly underrated book by Ernest Mandel, The Forma tion of the Economic Thought of Karl Mart, NB (sic) enter into definite relations that are indispen 1) The most important of Althusser's writings are: For Murs (1965); Reading Capital (1968), with Etienne Bailbar; and Philosophy (1970) All published by Verso. The beat exposi- tion/critique is Ted Bentone The Rise and Fall of Structural Marman, Macmillan a Critique of Political Economy (1859). (1988). Sce also Anderson (note 9 below). 'social formation" one volume (Lawrence and Wishart). The Retreat from Class, Verso 1987. English Marxism, Verso (1980). Nicos Poulantzas, Verso (1968). millan (1990) p.6. never had access to the volume of Trotsky s philosophical writings published in 1986, or derstand the theoretical contribution of the As all the obituaries have related, student revolt in May 1968. In the 1970s he less, a partisan of left Eurocommunism. Al- thusser was never a Stalinist hack or an But of course he never made any critical engagement with Trotskyism, and thus with a central strand of classical Marxism. He showed the slightest interest in trying to un- tions forget the situation in which Althusser of the party orthodoxy, implicitly siding with China in the Sino-Soviet dispute. Althusser became the guru and adviser to a group in the CP's youth organisation, who were later expelled to become the leadership of the Union Jeunes Communistes - Marxiste- Leniniste (UJCML), which played a certain role, as a Mao-centrist organisation, in the reworked his criticisms of the CP leadership and of the Soviet Union to become, more-or- complete expression of Stalinism in theory, Althusser was never in any party but the French CP. His work started as a left critique including Trotskyism (9). All these accusa- and "declared war" on 'all such Marxisms" Longlames, wrote, and what he war trying to do apologist for the party apparatus. Trotskyist current: • his underestimation of social classes as rory has an unfolding meaning and logic gle. Invariably this leads to a political shift to failings of the Althusserian • his later idea that institutions likc • his polemic, in the name of concrete conjuncture, against the idea that human his- production relations in Britain are those of existing in parallel with the social relations of production and with no real hierarchy of causality between them. This has led many influenced by the Allhusserian tradition to repudiate Marxism as a socio-economic link between ideology and politics and the cial relations of production becomes destruc- determinism, and in particular to break the fundamental level of classes and class strug- relations" and ideological social relations" In Althusser's work, and more blatantly in that of his most prominent successors like capitalism, and that this capitalist social for- Nicos Poulantzas (7), the concept of the so- project which can only be mentioned bere: and churches its general dynamic", its laws of you cannot analyse the politics and ideology of "Thatcheriam" without tal character of any social formation, motion', can only be established at the tion. To take the most banal example. "Social relations of production' is the most important concept in the whole that politics and ideology had a rela- contemporary foundation". Hundreds of critics of position of historical materialism (5), that the economic baris of socicty is Marx and Engels always conceded tive autonomy" (6). But the fundamen- level of the social relations ol produc- Marx have failed to notice that he in- sisted, even in the most famous ex the "social relations of production'. "idcological apparatuses of the state" find political mation is in crisis and decline. of historical materialism. schools, the media that the active social subjects, tured. Thus the right (8). Further knowing Page 30