If there is one thing that everyone knows about Louis Althusser, it is that he killed his wife - the sociologist and rĂ©sistante HĂ©lène Rytmann-LĂ©gotien. In this article, William S. Lewis asks how should this fact effect the reception of Althusser's work, and how should those who find Althusser's reconceptualisation of Marx and Marxism usefully respond?Â
What is the capitalist democratic state and how should it be confronted? The left has typically seen the state either as an instrument of class rule that needs to be "smashed" or, as with social democracy, as a neutral medium which can be wielded by functionaries with the correct ideas. In this, a series of seven theses on the nature and function of the capitalist state, Michael A. McCarthy argues that both are wrong and that we need a reinvigoration of the late work of Nicos Poulantzas for a full, democratic understanding of the state.
Why sociological questions cannot be answered by Marxian theory, and vice versa.
This text is excerpted from Considerations on Western Marxism, written in 1974 as the introduction to a reader on Western Marxism whose publication was ultimately delayed before appearing as a standalone volume in 1976.
What was so marvellous to Benjamin about this goofy, eternally hovering angel with hair that looks like paper scrolls, aerodynamically hopeless wings and googly if rather melancholy eyes? “This,” he wrote in one of his greatest essays, “is how one pictures the angel of history.”
