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Reserve Text from Louis Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays , London: Monthly Review Press, 1971 Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes toward an Investigation) ON THE REPRODUCTION
OF THE CONDITIONS
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| ------------------------------ 1. This text is made up of two extracts from an ongoing study. The sub-title 'Notes towards an 'Investigation' is the author's own. The ideas expounded should not be regarded as more than the introduction to a discussion. 2. Marx to Kugelmann, II July 1868, Selected Correspond~nce, Moscow, 1955, p. 209.
iliar (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.
1. the productive
forces, Everyone (including
the bourgeois economists whose work is national accounting, or the modern
'macro-economic' 'theoreticians') now recognizes, because Marx compellingly The average economist, who is no different in this than
[129] the average capitalist,
knows that each year it is essential to foresee what is needed to replace
what has been used up or worn out in production: raw material, fixed
installations (buildings), instruments of production (machines), etc.
"I say the average economist = the average capitalist, for they
both express the point of view of the firm, regarding it as But thanks to the
genius of Quesnay, who first posed this 'glaring' problem, and to the
genius of Marx; who resolved it, we know that the reproduction of the
material conditions of production cannot be thought at the level of
the firm, because it does not exist at that level in its real conditions.
What happens at the level of the firm is an effect, A moment's reflection is enough to be convinced of this: Mr X, a capitalist who produces woollen yarn in his spinning-mill, has to 'reproduce' his raw material, his machines, etc. But he does not produce them for his own production --other capitalists do: an Australian sheepfarmer, Mr Y, a heavy engineer producing machine-tools, Mr Z, etc., etc. And Mr Y and Mr Z, in order to produce those products which are the condition of the reproduction of Mr X's conditions of production, also have to reproduce the conditions of their own production, and so on to infinity -the whole in proportions such that, on the national and even the world market, the demand for means of production (for reproduction) can be satisfied by the supply. In order to think this mechanism, which leads to a kind of 'endless chain', it is necessary to follow Marx's 'global' procedure, and to study in particular the relations of ~he circulation of capital between Department I (production of [130] means of production) and Department II (production of means of consumption), and the realization of surplus value, in Capital, Volumes Two and Three. We shall not go into the analysis of this question. 'It is enough to have mentioned the existence of 'the necessity of the reproduction of the material conditions of production. Reproduction of Labour-Power However, the reader will not have failed to note one thing. We have discussed the reproduction of the means of production -but not the reproduction of the productive forces. We have therefore ignored the reproduction of what distinguishes the productive forces from the means of production, i.e. the reproduction of labour power. From the observation of what takes place in the firm, in particular from the examination of the financial accounting practice which predicts amortization and investment, we have been able to obtain an approximate idea of the existence of the material process of reproduction, but we are now entering a domain in which the observation of what happens in the firm is, if not totally blind, at least almost entirely so, and for good reason: the reproduction of labour power takes place essentially outside the firm. How is the reproduction of labour power ensured? It is ensured by giving labour power the material means with which to reproduce itself: by wages. Wages feature in the accounting of each enterprise, but as 'wage capital',(3) not at all as a condition of the material reproduction of labour power. Howeyer, that is in fact how it 'works', since wages represents only that part of the value produced by the expendi- -------------------------------------------- [131] ture of labour power which is indispensable for its reproduction: sc. indispensable to the reconstitution of the labour power of the wage-earner (the wherewithal to pay: for housing, food and clothing, in short to enable the wage-earner to present himself again at the factory gate the next' day --and every further day God grants him); and we should add, indispensable for raising and educating the children in whom the proletarian reproduces himself (in n models where n = 0, 1, 2, etc.) as labour power. Remember that this quantity of value (wages) necessary: for the reproduction of labour power is determined not by the needs of a 'biological' Guaranteed Minimum Wage: (Salaire Minimum lnterprofessionnel Garanti) alone, but by the needs of a historical minimum (Marx noted that' English workers need beer while French proletarians need wine) --i.e. a historically variable minimum. I should also like to point out that this minimum is doubly historical in that it is not defined by the historical needs of the working class, 'recognized' by the capitalist class, but by the historical needs imposed by the proletarian class struggle (a double class struggle: against the lengthening of the working day and against the reduction of wages). However, it is not enough to ensure for "labour power the material conditions of its reproduction if it is to be reproduced as labour power. I have said that the available labour power must be 'competent', i.e. suitable to be set to work in the complex system of the process of production. The: development of the productiye forces and the type of unity historically constitutive of the productive forces at a given: moment produce the result that the labour power has to be (diversely) skilled and therefore reproduced as such. Diversely: according to the requirements of the sociotechnical division of labour, its different 'jobs' and 'posts'. How is this reproduction of the (diversified) skills of [132] labour power provided for in a capitalist regime? Here, unlike social formations characterized by slavery or serfdom, this reproduction of the skills of labour power tends (this, is a tendential law) decreasingly to be provided for 'on the, spot' (apprenticeship' within production. itself), but is achieved more and more outside production: by the capitalist education system, and by other instances and institutions. What do children learn at school? They go varying distances in their studies, but at any rate they learn to read, to write and to add --i.e. a number of techniques, and a number of other things as well, including elements (which may be rudimentary or on the contrary thoroughgoing) of 'scientific' or 'literary 'culture', which are directly useful in the different jobs in production (one instruction for manual workers, another for technicians, a third for engineers, a final one for higher management, etc.). Thus they learn 'know-how'. But besides these techniques and knowledges, and in learning them, children at school also learn the 'rules' of ' good behaviour, i.e. the attitude that should be observed; by every agent in t4e division of labour, according to the job he is 'destined' for: rules of morality, civic and professional conscience, which actually means rules of respect for the socio-technical,division of labour and ultimately the rules of the order established by class domination. They also learn to 'speak proper French', to 'handle' the workers' correctly, i.e. actually (for the future capitalists and their servants) to 'order them about' properly, i.e. (ideally) to 'speak to them' in the right way, etc. To put this more scientifically, I shall say that the reproduction of labour power requires not only a reproduction, of its skills, but also,' at the same time, a reproduction of its submission to the rules of the established order, i.e. ' a reproduction of submission to the ruling ideology for the [133] workers, and a reproduction of the ability to manipulate the ruling ideology correctly for the agents of exploitation and repression, so that they, too, will provide for the domination of the ruling class 'in words'. In other words, the school (but also other State institutions like the Church, or other apparatuses like the Army) teaches 'know-how', but in forms which ensure subjection to the ruling ideology or the mastery of its 'practice'. All the agents of production, exploitation and ,repression, not to speak of the 'professionals of ideology' (Marx), must in one way or another be 'steeped' in this ideology in order to perform their tasks 'conscientiously' -the tasks of the exploited. (the proletarians), of the exploiters (the capitalists), of the exploiters' auxiliaries (the managers), or of the high priests of the ruling ideology (its 'functionaries'), etc. The reproduction of labour power thus reveals as its sine qua non not only the reproduction 'of its 'skills' but also the reproduction of its subjection to the ruling ideology or of the 'practice' of that ideology, with the proviso that it is not enough to say 'not only but also', for it is clear that it is in the forms and under the forms of ideological subjection that provision is made for the reproduction of the skills of labour power. But this is to recognize the effective presence of a new reality: ideology. Here I shall make two comments. The first is to round off my analysis of reproduction. I have just given a rapid survey of the forms of the reproduction of the productive forces, i.e. of the means of production on the one hand, and of labour power on the other. But I have not yet approached the question of the reproduction of the relations of production. This is a crucial question for the Marxist theory of the mode of production. ' [134] To let it pass would be a theoretical omission --worse, a serious political error. I shall therefore discuss it. But in order to obtain the means to discuss it, I shall have to make another long detour. The second comment is that in order to make this detour, I am obliged to re-raise my old question: what is a society? INFRASTRUCTURE AND SUPERSTRUCTURE On a number of occasions4 I have insisted on the revolutionary character of the Marxist conception of the 'social whole' insofar as it is distinct from the Hegelian 'totality'. I said (and this thesis only repeats famous propositions of historical materialism) that Marx conceived the structure of every society as constituted by 'levels" or 'instances' articulated by a specific determination: the infrastructure, or economic base (the 'unity' of the productive forces and the relations of production) and the superstructure, which itself' contains two 'levels' or 'instances': the politico-legal (law and the State) and ideology (the different ideologies, religious,. ethical, legal, political, etc.). Besides its theoretico-didactic
interest (it reveals the difference between Marx and Hegel), this representation
has the following crucial theoretical advantage: it makes it possible
to inscribe in the theoretical apparatus of its essential concepts what
I have called their respective indices of effectivity. What does this
mean? -----------------
ture) on which are erected the two 'floors' of the superstructure, is a metaphor, to be quite precise, a spatial metaphor: the metaphor of a topography (topique).(5) Like every metaphor, this metaphor suggests something, makes something visible. What? Precisely this: that the upper floors could not 'stay up' (in the air) alone, if they did not rest precisely on their base. Thus the object of the metaphor of the" edifice is to represent above all the 'determination in the last instance" by the economic base. The effect of this spatial metaphor is to endow the base with an index of effectivity known by the famous terms: the determination in the last instance of what happens in the upper "floors' (of the superstructure) by what happens in the economic base. Given this index
of effectivity 'in the last instance', the 'floors' of the superstructure
are clearly endowed with different indices of effectivity. What kind
of indices? Their index of effectivity (or determination), as determined by the determination in the last instance of the base, is thought by the Marxist tradition in two ways: (I) there is a 'relative autonomy' of the superstructure with respect to the base; (2) there is a 'reciprocal action' of the superstructure on the base. We can therefore say that the great theoretical advantage of the Marxist topography, i.e. of the spatial metaphor of 5. Topography from the Greek topos: place. A topography represents in a definite space the respective sites occupied by several realities: thus the economic is at the bottom (the base), the superstructure above it. --------------------------
the edifice (base and superstructure) is simultaneously that it reveals that questions of determination (or of index of effectivity) are crucial; that it reveals that it is the base which in the last instance determines the whole edifice; and that, as a consequence, it obliges us to pose the theoretical problem of the types of 'derivatory' effectivity peculiar to the superstructure, i.e. it obliges us to think what the Marxist tradition calls conjointly the relative autonomy of the superstructure and the reciprocal action of the superstructure on the base. The greatest disadvantage of this representation of the structure of every society by the spatial metaphor of an edifice, is obviously the fact that it is metaphorical: i.e. it remains descriptive. It now seems to
me that it is possible and desirable to represent things differently.
NB, I do not mean by this that I want to reject the classical metaphor,
for that metaphor My basic thesis is that it is not possible to pose these questions (and therefore to answer them) except from the point of view of reproduction. I shall give a short analysis of Law, the State and Ideology from this point of view. And I shall reveal what happens both from the point of view of practice and production on the one hand, and from that of reproduction on the other.
The Marxist tradition is strict, here: in the Communist Manifesto and the Eighteenth Brumaire (and in all the later classical texts, above all in Marx's writings on the Paris Commune and Lenin's on State and Revolution), the State is explicitly conceived as a repressive apparatus. The State is a 'machine' of repression, which enables the ruling class, (in the nineteenth century the bourgeois class and the 'class' of big' landowners) to ensure their domination over the' working class, thus enabling the former to subject the latter to the process of surplus-value extortion (i.e. to capitalist exploitation). The State is thus first, of all what the Marxist classics have called the State apparatus. This term means: not only the specialized apparatus (in the narrow sense) whose existence and necessity I have recognized in relation to the requirements of legal practice, i.e. the police, the courts, the prisons; but also the army, which (the proletariat has paid for this experience with its blood) intervenes directly as a supplementary repressive force in the last instance, when the police and its specialized auxiliary corps are 'outrun by events'; and above this ensemble, the head of State, the government and the administration. Presented in this
'form, the Marxist-Leninist 'theory' of the State has its finger on
the essential point, and not for one moment can there be any question
of rejecting the fact that this really is the essential point. The State
apparatus, which defines the State as a force of repressive execution
and intervention 'in the interests of the ruling classes' in the [138] From Descriptive Theory to Theory as Such Nevertheless, here too, as I pointed out with respect to the metaphor of the edifice (infrastructure and superstructure), this presentation of the nature of the State is still partly descriptive. As I shall often
have occasion to use this adjective (descriptive), a word of explanation
is necessary in order to remove any ambiguity. Whenever, in speaking
of the metaphor of the edifice or of the Marxist 'theory' of the State,
I have said that these are descriptive conceptions or representations
of their objects, I had no ulterior critical motives. On the contrary,
I have every grounds to think that great scientific discoveries cannot
help but pass through the phase of what I shall call descriptive 'theory'.
This is the first phase 'of every theory, at least in the domain which
concerns us (that of the science of social formations). As such, one
might and in my opinion one must -envisage this phase as a transitional
one, necessary to the development of the theory. That it is transitional
is inscribed in my expression: 'descriptive theory', which reveals in
its conjunction of terms the equivalent of a kind of 'contradiction'.
In fact, the term theory 'clashes' to some extent with the adjective
'descriptive' which I have attached to it. This means quite precisely:
(1) that the 'descriptive theory' really is, without a shadow of a doubt,
the irreversible beginning of the theory; but (2) that the 'descriptive'
form in which the theory is presented requires" precisely as an
effect of this 'contradiction', a development of the theory which goes
beyond the form of 'description'. When I say that the Marxist 'theory' of the State available to us is still partly 'descriptive', that means first and fore [139] most that this
descriptive 'theory' is without the shadow of a doubt precisely the
beginning of the M.arxist theory of the State, and that this beginning
gives us the essential point, i.e. the decisive principle of every later
development of the theory. ------------------------- 6. See p. 158 below, On Ideology.
And the accumulation of facts within the definition of the State may multiply examples, but it does not really advance: the definition of the State, i.e. the scientific theory of the State. Every descriptive theory thus runs the risk of 'blocking' the development of the theory, and yet that development is essential. That is why I think
that, in order to develop this descriptive theory into theory as such,
i.e. in order to understand further the mechanisms of the State in its
functioning, The Essentials of the Marxist Theory of the State Let me first clarify one important point: the State (and its existence in its apparatus) has no meaning except as a function of State power. The whole of the political class struggle revolves around the State. By which I mean around the possession, i.e. the seizure and conservation of State power by a certain class or by an alliance between classes or class fractions. This first clarification obliges "me to distinguish j between State power (conservation of State power or seizure of State power), the objective of the political class struggle on the one hand, and the State apparatus on the Other. We know that the State apparatus may survive, 'as is proved by bourgeois 'revolutions' in nineteenth-century France (1830, 1848), by coups d'etat (2 December, May 1958), by collapses of the State (the fall of the Empire in 1870, of the Third Republic in 1940), or by the political rise of the petty bourgeoisie (1895 in France), etc., without the State apparatus being affected or modified: it may survive political events which affect the possession of State
To summarize the
'Marxist theory of the State' on this point, it can be said that the
Marxist classics have always claimed that (I) the State is the repressive
State apparatus, (2) State power and State apparatus must be distinguished,
(3) the objective of the class struggle concerns State power, and in
consequence the use of the State apparatus, by the classes (or alliance
of classes or of fractions of classes) holding State power as a function
of their class objectives, and (4) the proletariat must seize State
power in order to destroy the existing bourgeois State apparatus and,
in a first phase, replace it with a quite different, proletarian, State
apparatus, then in later phases set in motion a radical In this perspective, therefore, what I would propose to add to the 'Marxist theory' of the State is already there in so many words. But it seems to me that even with this supplement, this theory is still in part descriptive, ,although it does now contain complex and' differential elements whose functioning and action cannot be understood without recourse to further supplementary theoretical" development. The State IdeologicalApparatuses Thus, what has to be added to the' Marxist theory' of the State is something else. [142]
In fact, i.e. in their political practice, the Marxist classics treated the State as a more complex reality than the definition of it given in the 'Marxist theory of the State', even when it has been supplemented as I have just suggested. They recognized this complexity in their practice, but they did not express it in a corresponding theory.(7) I should like to attempt a very schematic outline of this corresponding theory. To that end, I propose the following thesis. In order to advance the theory of the State it is indispensable to take into account not only the distinction between State power and State apparatus, but also another. reality which is clearly on the side of the (repressive) State apparatus, but must not be confused with it. I shall call this reality by its concept; the ideological State apparatuses. What are the ideological State apparatuses (ISAs)? They must not be confused with the (repressive) State apparatus. Remember that in Marxist theory, the State Apparatus (SA) contains: the Government, the Admin- ----------------------------- 7. To my knowledge,
Gramsci is the only one who went any distance in die road I am taking.
He had the 'remarkable' idea that the State could not be reduced to
the (Repressive) State Apparatus, but included, as he put it, a cert3in
number of institutions from' civil society': the Church, the Schools,
the trade unions, etc. Unfortunately, Gramsci did not systematize his
institutions, which remained in the state of acute but fragmentary notes
(cf. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, International Publishers,
1971 pp. 12,259,260-3; see also the letter to Tatiana Schucht, 7 September
1931, in Lettre del Carcere, Einaudi, 1968, p. 479. English-language
translation in [143] istration, the Army, the ,Police, the Courts, the Prisons, etc., which constitute what I shall in future call the Repressive State Apparatus. Repressive suggests that the, State Apparatus in question 'functions by violence' --at least ultimately (since repression, e.g. administrative repression, may take non-physical forms). I shall call Ideological State Apparatuses a certain number of realities which present themselves to the immediate observer in the form of distinct and specialized institutions. I propose an -empirical list of these which will obviously have to be examined in detail, tested, corrected and reorganized. With all the reservations implied by this requirement, we can for the moment regard the following institutions as Ideological State Apparatuses (the order in which I have listed them has no particular significance): --the religious
ISA (the system of the different Churches), I have said that the ISAs must not be confused with the (Repressive) State Apparatus. What constitutes the difference? ---------------------------------- 9. The 'Law' belongs both to the (Repressive) State Apparatus and to the system of the ISAs [144]
As a second moment, it is clear that whereas the unified -(Repressive) State Apparatus belongs", entirely to the public domain, much the larger part of the Ideological State Apparatuses (in their apparent dispersion) are part, on the contrary, of the private domain. Churches, Parties, Trade Unions, families, some schools, most newspapers, cultural ventures, etc., etc., are private. We can ignore the first observation for the moment. But someone is bound to question the second, asking me by what right I regard as Ideological State Apparatuses, institutions which for the most part do not possess public status, but are quite simply private institutions. As a conscious Marxist, Gramsci already forestalled this objection in one sentence. The distinction between the public and the private is a distinction internal to bourgeois law, and valid in the (subordinate) domains in which bourgeois law exercises its 'authority'. The domain of the State escapes it because the latter is 'above the law': the State, which is the State of the ruling class, is neither public -nor private; on the contrary, it is the precondition for any distinction between public and private. The same thing can be said from the starting-point of our State Ideological Apparatuses. It is unimportant whether the institutions in which they are realized are 'public' or 'private'. What matters is how they 'function. Private institutions can perfectly well 'function' as .Ideological State Apparatuses. A reasonably thorough analysis of anyone of the ISAs proves it. But now for what is essential. What distinguishes the ISAs from the (Repressive) State Apparatus is the following
basic difference: the Repressive State Apparatus functions 'by violence', whereas the Ideological State Apparatuses function 'by ideology'. I can clarify matters by correcting this distinction. I shall say rather that every State Apparatus, whether Repressive or Ideological, 'functions' both by violence and by ideology, but with one very important distinction which makes it imperative not to confuse the Ideological State Apparatuses with the (Repressive) State Apparatus. This is the fact
that the (Repressive) State Apparatus functions massively and predominantly
by repression (including physical repression), while functioning secondarily
by ideology. (There is no such thing as a purely repressive apparatus.)
For example, the Army and the Police also function by ideology both
to ensure their own cohesion and reproduction, and in the 'values' they
propound externally. It is necessary to add that this determination of the double 'functioning' (predominantly, secondarily) by repression and by ideology, according to whether it is a matter of the (Repressive) State Apparatus or the Ideological State Apparatuses, makes it clear that very subtle explicit or tacit combinations may be woven from the interplay of the (Re- [146]
Nevertheless, this remark leads us towards an understanding of what constitutes the unity of the apparently disparate body of the ISAs. If the ISAs 'function' massively and predominantly by ideology, what unifies their diversity is precisely this functioning, insofar as the ideology by which they function is always in fact unified, despite its diversity and its contradictions, beneath the ruling ideology, which is the ideology of 'the ruling class'. Given the fact that the 'ruling class' in principle' holds State power (openly or more often by means of alliances between classes or class fractions), and therefore has at its disposal the (Repressive) State Apparatus, we can accept the fact that this same ruling class is active in the Ideological State Apparatuses insofar as it is ultimately the ruling ideology which is realized in the Ideological State Apparatuses, precisely in its contradictions. Of course, it is a quite different thing to act by laws and decrees in the (Repressive) State Apparatus and to 'act' through the intermediary of the ruling ideology in the Ideological State Apparatuses. We must go into the details of this difference --but it cannot mask the reality of a profound identity. To my knowledge, no class can hold State power over a long period without at the same time exercising its hegemony over and in the State Ideological Apparatuses. I only need one example and proof of this: Lenin's anguished concern to revolutionize the educational Ideological State Apparatus (among others), simply to make it possible for the Soviet proletariat, who had seized State power, to secure the future of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the transition to socialism. to --------------------------- [147]
Let me run through my comments. If the thesis I have proposed is well-founded, it leads me back to the classical Marxist theory of the State, while making it more precise in one point. I argue that it is necessary to distinguish between State power (and its possession by. ..) on the one hand, and the State Apparatus on the other. But I add that the State Apparatus contains ------------------ The first principle
was formulated by Marx in the Preface to A Contribution This by virtue of the second principle: the class struggle extends beyond the ISAs because it is rooted elsewhere than in ideology, in the Infrastructure, in the relations of production, which are relations of exploitation and constitute the base for class relations.
two bodies: the
body of institutions which represent the I can now answer
the central question which I have left in suspense for many long pages:
how is the reproduction of the relations of production secured? But as I have argued that it is essential to go beyond this still descriptive language, I shall say: for the most part, it is secured by the exercise of State power in the' State Apparatuses, on the one hand the (Repressive) State Apparatus, on the other the Ideological State Apparatuses. What I have just said must also be taken into account, and it can be assembled in the form of the following three features: ----------------------- 12. For the most part. For the relations of production are first reproduced by the materiality of the processes of production and circulation. But it should not be forgotten that ideological relations are immediately present in these same processes. [149] |
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