On Ideology

The classic analysis of how particular political and cultural ideas come to dominate society.
The publication of For Marx and Reading Capital established Louis Althusser as one of the most controversial figures in the Western Marxist tradition, and one of the most influential renewals of Marxist thought. Collected here are Althusser’s most significant philosophical writings from the late sixties and through the seventies. Intended to contribute, in his own words, to a ‘left-wing critique of Stalinism that would help put some substance back into the revolutionary project here in the West’, they are the record of a shared history. At the same time they chart Althusser’s critique of the theoretical system unveiled in his own major works, and his developing practice of philosophy as a ‘revolutionary weapon’.
The collection opens with two lucid early articles - "Theory, Theoretical Practice and Theoretical Formation" and "On Theoretical Work." The title piece - Althusser’s celebrated lectures in the "Philosophy Course for Scientists" — is the fullest exploration of his new definition of philosophy as politics in the realm of theory, a conception which is further developed in "Lenin and Philosophy." "Is it Simple to be a Marxist in Philosophy?" provides an invaluable account of Althusser’s intellectual development. The volume concludes with two little-known late pieces - "The Transformation of Philosophy," in which the paradoxical history of Marxist philosopher is investigated; and "Marxism today," a sober balance-sheet of the Marxist tradition. Attesting to the unique place that Althusser has occupied in modern intellectual history - between a tradition of Marxism that he sought to reconstruct, and a "post-Marxism" that has eclipsed its predecessor - these texts are indispensable reading.
"I must now expose more fully something which was briefly glimpsed in my analysis when I spoke of the necessity to renew the means of production if production is to be possible. That was a passing hint. Now I shall consider it for itself. As Marx said, every child knows that a social formation which did not reproduce the conditions of production at the same time as it produced would not last a year.2 The ultimate condition of production is therefore the reproduction of the conditions of production. This may be ‘simple’ (reproducing exactly the previous conditions of production) or ‘on an extended scale’ (expanding them). Let us ignore this last distinction for the moment. What, then, is the reproduction of the conditions of production? Here we are entering a domain which is both very familiar (since Capital Volume Two) and uniquely ignored. The tenacious obviousnesses (ideological obviousnesses of an empiricist type) of the point of view of production alone, or even of that of mere productive practice (itself abstract in relation to the process of production) are so integrated into our everyday consciousness’ that it is extremely hard, not to say almost impossible, to raise oneself to the point of view of reproduction. Nevertheless, everything outside this point of view remains abstract (worse than one-sided: distorted) even at the level of production, and, a fortiori, at that of mere practice. Let us try and examine the matter methodically."