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For Marx (Verso Modern Classics)

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This collection of essays includes the seminal moments of many concepts still alive in Marxism and academia at large. The essays on "Contradiction and Overdetermination", "On the Young Marx", "Marxism and Humanism", and on the 1844 Manuscripts deserve to be revisited by a wider audience today in light of the growing interest in Marxism informed by post-structuralist thought. Much of Derrida's work owes an unacknowledged debt to the interpretations presented here (e.g. Althusser's concept of overdetermination, and his principled anti-humanism). Highly recommended to those interested in Marxist philosophy.

Although often characterized as 'structuralist' Marxism, this crucial work of textual analysis represents the major turning point in Althusser's Marxian project. Through a radical re-reading of Marx's corpus, Althusser posits an 'epistemological break' which splits Marx's corpus into the humanist and scientific division. Althusser provides us with brilliant critical assessments of the U.S.S.R.'s later appropriation of the humanist Marx to obscure it's own totalitarian impulses. 'Contradiction and Overdetermination' is an absolute tour-de-force of Marxian thought; Althusser scrutinizes the minute particulars of the ruptural force inherent in revolutionary transitions, as well as the nuances of levels of affectivity within the superstructure. Althusser wanted to steer us clear of Stalinist reductions regarding 'dialectical materialism,' and to see the radically complex and sophisticated achievement of Marxian science for what it is. This little text is a remarkable contribution to that effort.

It's been about 25 years since I last read (and reread) this work. "For Marx" and its contextual paradigm influenced me profoundly and contributed vital strands that have formed the course of my life. I think the key theme in Althusser's work and the trend of Marxism of which it is a part is to assert that a high order of thought is needed to be of real benefit to the underdog. I feel Althussers effort (as is Marxism) is a noble if preliminary effort in what can only be termed an epochal effort to consciously rise from the mire of human life dominated by topdogs. What was useful to Marxism of that time was to really take seriously the importance of Psychoanalysis and the pervasive presence of the Uncounscious. Another helpful idea is that of the multi-valenced quality of "social formation" in Contradiction and Overdetermination. Although my philosophical horizons are not defined by Marxism these days, much of Marxism, especially the currents populated by the likes of Althusser, Poulantzas, Gramsci etc. has an honored place in my intellectual tool kit. I feel that the wish to consciously transform our life in a benefical way may be assisted by the likes of Althusser et al, though in and of itself this is not enough.

The first edition of the first volume of Capital was published in 1867. Since then Capital has been interpreted, re-interpreted, and re-interpreted again, and the same applies to Marx's early writings. Much of what has passed for research in Marxism is really textual exegesis, which has its place. But enough is enough.

Marx wrote a great deal, much of it unpublished until after his death. He also spoke a great deal, no doubt sometimes off-handedly, ironically, sarcastically, sometimes without a good deal of forethought, and sometimes with the recklessness born of strong emotion.

Given that Marx was a man of thousands of words, many of which he never expected to be read (The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, The German Ideology, Grundrisse ...), should we really take literally and give what we take to be excruciatingly correct interpretation to every word he ever produced?

Take, as a pertinent example, Marx's reference to the Hegelian dialectic, and the need to stand it on its feet and find the "rational kernel in the mystical shell." Althusser, for reasons he explains in arcane detail, concludes that Marx couldn't have meant that metaphor in the way that he used it. So he proceeds to set things straight with one of the most tedious examples of textual exegesis imaginable. When all is said and done what has he accomplished? Not anything of interest to anyone but a Marxist monk who judges the sacred texts to be sacred, and is committed to demonstrating the rectitude of his judgment.

I've never understood those who hold that an epistemological break occurred somewhere between the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 and the German Ideology, written only three years later. It's true that in the German Ideology Marx explicitly treats human beings as determined by their position in the relations of production, something he does not do in the Manuscripts. It is abundantly clear from the Manuscripts, however, that Marx construed human beings as products of worldly experience, with an historically specific nature, beings for whom experience took precedence over -- in fact determined -- ideas. Contrary to Althusser, Marx was as much a materialist in the Manuscripts as he was in his later work.

The Manuscript's rendering of "crude communism" -- communism before the material and ideological circumstances necessary for its development have been established -- is brilliant. It reads as if Marx had anticipated Cambodian communism under the Khmer Rouge. It's difficult to imagine anyone characterizing this as the work of an intellecutal prisoner of philosophical idealism.

Althusser's set of essays is extraordinary for its scholasticism. Throughout his career, he also got a lot of mileage out of giving profound sounding names to commonplace institutions and activities, for example "ideologucal state apparatus" and "interpellation," and then never developing these concepts beyond the level of the commonest of common sense. His effect on Marxism is deadening rather than reviving. Later in his life Althusser disavowed much of this work, but we keep squirming and sweating, trying to make sense of it. Enough!

Any serious reader of Louis the Horrible is well-versed in the Althusserian arsenal of stock concepts and phrases: ISAs, interpellation, structuralist Marxism, et al. Perhaps a return to Pour Marx is in order amid the all-too-easy refutations of Althusser's legacy (c.f. Ferry and Renault) and the negligent historicizing of the veritably revolutionary/'evental' thinking that was mobilized in pieces like "Contradiction and Overdetermination." There's nothing to be ashamed of: take a look at this seminal work!