cover image On the Reproduction of Capitalism: Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses

On the Reproduction of Capitalism: Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses

Louis Althusser, trans. from the French by G.M. Goshgarian. Verso (Random, dist.), $29.95 (288p) ISBN 978-1-78168-164-0

Published in France in 1995, this translation of an unfinished manuscript by French intellectual and card-carrying communist Louis Althusser is a cascade of incomplete moments: written shortly after the student and worker uprising of May 1968 and having just recovered from a depressive psychosis, Althusser attempts to reconsider the role ideology plays not only in the continued reproduction of capitalism as an economic system, but also in its everyday social workings. Standing as the companion to an unwritten second volume, its opening question, "What is Marxist-Leninist Philosophy?" is left unanswered. Likewise, his central assertions that the education system is the primary ideological means of reproducing capitalism and that there is a "state ideology" that holds all other ideologies in line%E2%80%94those of religious institutions, the family, unions, cultural institutions, news agencies, etc., are left to be proven in unwritten works. Thinkers on the left who hoped that this work would fill the gaps left in Althusser's famous essay "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," which was based on this manuscript, will have to look elsewhere. What can be taken away from it, however, is what Althusser in the end does convince: that ideology is more than just thought. It is instead found in the everyday activities in which we all participate. (Feb.)