Week Seven: Louis Althusser

Analyzing the concept of the infrastructure and the apparatus
and how it pertains to the conditions of society

     In the 1971 essay titled, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation),” by author Louis Althusser, the concept of “state apparatuses” is introduced to the reader as an infrastructure system for society. According to Althusser, this system allows the artist to communicate with the audience about the issues directly relevant to their lives rather than creating artworks that do not engage the community. Throughout his essay, Althusser reiterates that these systems conform to economic domination rather than serve as a response to nature, politics, society, and culture.
    Althusser states that the reproduction of the conditions of the production is due to factors, which are part of the definite relations of production, such as: 1) reproduce the productive forces and 2) reproduce the existing relations of production. In doing so, Althusser also notes the complex idea of how accounting macro-economic theoreticians prove that all production is possible through material conditions allotted for production, which in a sense equates to the “reproduction of the means of production.”
    An example of this is when Althusser said that the average economist is equivalent to the average capitalist because they both represent the view of “the firm.” This individual uses foresight to understand what materials are expendable and require routine replacement such as raw material, fixed installations (buildings), and instruments of production (machine), etc. In one example, Althusser states that: Mr. X uses wool to spin yarn in his spinning mill while Mr. Y is a productive sheep farmer and Mr. Z exploits these resources even more because he is an industrial engineer who produces machines and tools in his factory.
With these three individuals working together, this is a continuous cycle of reproduction for another person to create an interchange of goods and services. Althusser’s example reminds me of how tools were first made in previous history. Take for instance if one required an axe to cut down a tree. First, a piece of wood is whittled down for the handle and then other tools sharpen the metal for the blade. It is this continuous cycle of production and reproduction. Handmade tools are necessary to create factory equipment and so on, etc.
Althusser states that we have ignored the reproduction of what distinguishes the productive forces from the means of production, for example, the reproduction of labor power. By funding the labor power with wages as its required material means to continue the cycle. He discusses the concept of wage capital (housing, food and clothing; incentives for the factory worker to come back to work each day). However, he said that this not required as a “biological” minimum wage but rather Marx’s concept of a historical minimum. For example, Althusser mentions beer for the English workers and wine for the French. Throughout the reading, Althusser states that this concept is not defined by the historical needs of the working class as recognized by the capitalist class but by the historical needs imposed by the proletarian class struggle, which is a double class struggle against the lengthening of the working day and against the reduction of wages. Therefore, the available labor power must be competent for example to be suitable to be set to work in the complex system of the process of production. He states that the socio-technical division of labor equates to different jobs and posts throughout a firm or company.
Althusser states that diversified skills that are not characterized by slavery or serfdom, but rather this reproduction of the skills does not occur with on-the-spot apprenticeships within the production itself but rather due to the capitalist education system, institutions, and other opportunities. He mentions that at school, children learn literary culture for higher management positions, manual hands-on work, technicians, and engineer.
Throughout history, Althusser states that children learn proper behavior and attitude, which include rules of morality, civic and professional conscience that lead to the destined position where the socio-technical division of labor as well as the order enacted by class domination. An example is when children speak a certain way in different cultures but not only through a reproduction of skills but a reproduction to the submission to authority. Althusser states throughout his essay that a reproduction of the ability to manipulate the ruling ideology correctly for the agents of exploitation and repression, so that they provide for the dominating class through “words.”
    He continues discussing that all the agents of production must perform these tasks conscientiously of the exploited (proletarians) of the exploiters (capitalists) of the exploiters’ auxiliaries (managers) or of the high priests of the ruling ideology (functionaries), which brings his to more concepts of ideology and questioning: what is a society (and its infrastructure)? Althusser defines the infrastructure as the economic base of society whereas the superstructure contains two levels or instances, which are equivalent to politico-legal (law and the State) and ideology equal to religious, ethical, legal, political themes, etc.
    Furthermore, Althusser states that the structure of every society as an edifice contains a base (infrastructure) that has two floors of the superstructure, this acts as a metaphor suggest something visible. Each structure needs a strong foundation, which means that the “determination in the last instance” by the economic base. He continues this concept when he mentions that the Marxist tradition of a “relative autonomy” of the superstructure with respect to the base and in addition, to the “reciprocal action” of the superstructure of the base.
Althusser explains that this concept reveals determination as a critical element because the last instance determines the whole edifice and thus, it obliges us to recognize how the structures work together because of the reciprocal action of the superstructure on the base. The edifice serves as a metaphor, which remains descriptive while the State represents a repressive apparatus while the ruling classes such as the 19th century bourgeois class and the big landowners to ensure their domination over the working class. To further breakdown this concept, Althusser delineates that legal practices include the courts, prisons, police, and the army whereas then the head of State equals the government and the administration.
Therefore, Althusser discusses more about descriptive theory, which includes two things such as the irreversible beginning of a theory and that the descriptive form in which the theory is presented requires a contradiction, resulting in a theoretical process, which goes beyond the form of description. These somewhat complex ideas continue by discussing that the development of the theory is essential because of its indispensable status to add something to the classical definition for the State as a State apparatus. Toward the end of his essay, Althusser explains the difference between the public (Repressive State Apparatuses, RSAs) and private domains (Ideological State Apparatuses, ISAs), which include churches, parties, trade unions, families, some schools, most newspapers, and cultural ventures. The following lists provide more in-depth representations of Althusser’s studies.

Marxist theory with State power and State apparatus:
1.    The State is the repressive State apparatus
2.    State power and State apparatus must be distinguished
3.    The objective of the class struggle concerns the State apparatus by the classes (or alliance of classes or of fractions of classes)
4.    The proletariat must seize State power in order to destroy the existing bourgeois State apparatus and, in a State apparatus, then in later phases set in motion a radical process, that of the destruction of the State (the end of State power, the end of every State apparatus).

Repressive State Apparatus (RSAs) = govt, admin, army, police, courts, prisons, etc.
These function by violence since administrative repression may take non-physical forms

Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA)
1.    Religious (different churches)
2.    Educational (private + public)
3.    Family [intervenes reproduction of labor power; either unit of production or consumption]
4.    Legal [the Law also belongs to the RSAs category]
5.    Political (including different parties)
6.    Trade-Union
7.    Cultural (literature, the Arts, sports, etc.)

The topographic language (infrastructure, superstructure) is secured by legal-political and ideological superstructure:

1.    All the State apparatuses function both by repression and by ideology, with the difference that the RSA functions massively and predominantly by repression, whereas the ISAs function massively and predominantly by ideology.
2.    The RSA constitutes an organized whole whose different parts are centralized beneath a commanding unity, that of the politics of class struggle applied by the political representatives of the ruling classes in possession of State power, the ISA are multiple, distinct
3.    The unity of the RSA is centralized and organized under the leadership of the classes in power who execute politics of the class struggle and the unity of the different ISA is secured, usually in contradictory forms by the ruling ideology of the ruling class.