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The Ideological Practice of Nicos Poulantzas
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
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- Type
- Notes Critiques
- Information
- European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , November 1976 , pp. 344 - 365
- Copyright
- Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1976
References
* Althusser, L., Pour Marx (Paris, Maspero, 1965)Google Scholar; Althusser, L. and Balibar, E., Lire le Capital (Paris, Maspero, 1966)Google Scholar; Althusser, L., Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (London, NLB, 1971)Google Scholar; Althusser, L., Reponse a John Lewis (Paris, Maspero, 1973)Google Scholar; Aron, R., D'une Sainte Famille á I'autre; essais sur les marxismes imaginaires (Paris, Gallimard, 1969)Google Scholar; Callinicos, A., Althusser's Marxism (London, Camelot Press, 1976)Google Scholar; Claudin, F., La crise du mouvement communiste: du Komintern au Kominform (Paris, Maspero, 1972)Google Scholar; Geras, N., Althusser's Marxism: An account and assessment, New Left Review, No. 71 (1972), 57–86Google Scholar; Giner, S., El progreso de la conciencia socioldgica (Barcelona, Peninsula, 1974)Google Scholar; Glucksmann, A., A Ventriloquist Structuralism, New Left Review, No. 72 (1972), 68–92Google Scholar; Gouldner, A., The Two Marxisms, For Sociology (New York, Basic Books, 1973), 444 sqGoogle Scholar; Karsz, S., Théorie et politique: Louis Althusser; avec quatre textes inédits de L. Althusser (Paris 1974)Google Scholar; Kolakowski, L., Althusser's Marx, The Socialist Register (London, Merlin Press, 1971)Google Scholar; Laclau, E., The Specificity of the Political: around the Poulantzas-Miliband Debate, Economy and Society, V (1975), 69–75Google Scholar; Martins, H. Portugal, in Archer, M. S. and Giner, S. (eds), Contemporary Europo: class, status and power (London, Heinemann, 1971). pp. 60–89Google Scholar. Miliband, R., The State in Capitalist Society (London, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1969)Google Scholar; Poulantzas, N., Pouvoir politique et classes sociales (Paris, Maspero, 1968)Google Scholar; Poulantzas, N., Fascisme et dictature, (Paris, Maspero, 1970)Google Scholar. [There is a shortened edition by Seuil in 1974]; Poulantzas, N., Les classes sociales dans le capitalisme d'aujourd'hui (Paris, Maspero, 1974)Google Scholar. [English ed. 1975]; Poulantzas, N., La crise des dictatures: Portugal, Gréce, Espagne (Paris, Maspero, 1975)Google Scholar; Poulantzas, N., Controversy over the State, New Left Review, No. 95 (1976), 63–83Google Scholar; Several Authors, Dialectique marxiste et pensee structurale (Paris, C.C.E.S., 1968)Google Scholar; Several Authors, Contre Althusser (Paris, U.G.E., 1974)Google Scholar; Sevilla, E. and Giner, S., Absolutismo despotico y dominación de clase: el Caso de Españ, Cuadernos de Ruedo Iberico, No. 43/45 (1975), 83–104Google Scholar; Sole-Tura, J., Introductión a la obra de Nicos Poulantzas, en N.P., Sobre el estado capitalista (Barcelona, Laia, 1974), 5–25Google Scholar; Sotelo, I., Del Leninismo al Stalinismo: modificaciones del marxismo en un medio subdesarrollado (Madrid, Tecnos, 1976)Google Scholar; Urry, J. and Wakeford, J., Power in Britain (London, HEB, 1973)Google Scholar; Vilar, P., Histoire marxiste, histoire en construction, essai de dialogue avec Althusser, Annales, XXVIII (1973), 165–198CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
(1) R. Abon (1969).
(2) N. Poulantzas (1969).
(3) The reasons for this are twofold: we want to make our argument as simple and clear as possible and most of the sources of the debate are readily available. Cf. further footnotes below.
(4) As could be expected Althusser and his followers are far readier to reply to other marxists, than to argue with outsiders. Thus, no substantial replv to R. Aron's critique has been produced.
(5) Cf. the essay by S. Karsz (1974) on Althusser, which centres around this notion. For a development of the problems involved in the relations between Althusser's Marxism and the class struggle, cf. A. Callinicos (1976), pp. 7–9.
(6) This declaration of principles can be found in the introduction to the second major work of Althusser, L. (1966), Pour MarxGoogle Scholar.
(7) Althusser often seems to assume that there has traditionally been only one way of reading Marx, while quite the contrary seems to be the case. Cf. A. Gouldner (1973).
(8) L. Althusser and E. Balibar (1966), vol. I, pp. 15–16.
(9) Ibid.. p. 29.
(10) These criticisms and attacks have other causes as well, and they greatly vary depending on whether they are elicited from the liberal camp (R. Aron (1969)), from the Trotskyst camp (Several Authors (1974)), or from Althusser's own comrades in his or in other parties such as J. Lewis (L. Althusser 1973). The same can be said of Poulantzas.
(11) L. Althusser and E. Balibar (1969), vol. I, pp. 38–51. For an important critique of Althusser's anti-empiricism, from an eminent Marxist historian, cf. P. Vilar (1973).
(12) Ibid. p. 50.
(13) For a discussion of the essential (and relative) autonomy of sociology from the social conditions which surround or give rise to it, cf. S. Giner (1974), pp. 13–54.
(14) L. Althusser and E. Balibar (1966), vol. I, pp. 15–16. The expression has been borrowed by Althusser from his teacher Bachelard, Gaston, cf. Pour Marx, p. 24Google Scholar.
(15) The word ‘problematic’ has been received with some awe in Anglo-Saxon Althusserian circles. Let us point out Althusthat it is quite common in other languages (French problématique, Spanish problemática, German Problematik) and very frequent in social science. Ralf Dahrendorf, a non-Althusserian if there ever was one, uses it in an English text of his, though not in domiits German version. We fail to see that it has in Althusser any different meaning from that of its rigorous use in his own French language. However, Althusser claims (Pour Marx, p. 24) that it has a specific meaning, derived from Jacques Martin, In Althusser it means ‘the specific unity of a theoretical formation’.
(16) Thus A. Callinicos (1976, p. 41) is right when he says that the criticisms of Roger Garaudy and others against Althusser's allegedly simple functionalism are inept. Though Althusser's ‘functionalism’ indeed presents many similarities to that of Parsons and others—a fact very often pointed out by critics—his notions of contradiction principals, structure à dominante, among others, go a long way to meet the standard criticisms one may level against functionalism. Yet, he remains a sophisticated functionalist-structuralist.
(17) In psychoanalytical theory a behaviour pattern is considered over-determined if it possesses more than one meaning or expresses conflicts and drives stemming from more than one dimension of the psyche. It thus provides one single ‘solution’ to several forces or contradictions.
(18) Althusser (1966), p. 206.
(19) Quoted by A. Callinicos (1976), p. 61.
(20) L. Althusser (1971).
(21) For full accounts of Althusser cf. A. Callinicos (1976), S. Karsz (1974) and N. Geras (1972) and L. Kolakowski (1971).
(22) N. Poulantzas (1968), p. 8.
(23) In several aspects the treatment of imperialism and the rise of an extremely powerful bourgeoisie by Poulantzas coincides with the positions taken by the Italian communist leader Palmiro Togliatti, probably the most important ideological spokesman for Western Communism in the ‘fifties and early’sixties.
(24) The publication of this book gave rise to a well-known debate in left-wing circles which includes much criticism we would like to avoid duplicating here; we thus refer the reader to it. It started with the publication of Ralph Miliband's The state in capitalist society (1969) and was followed by articles and rejoinders in the New Left Review. The polemic has early ued into 1976 with Poulantzas' reply to Ernesto Laclau and Ralph Miliband: N. Poulantzas (1976).
(25) Poulantzas, N. (1974). All our references are to the English edition of this bookGoogle Scholar.
(26) N. Poulantzas (1974), pp. 38–88 of the English edition.
(27) N. Poulantzas (1970), pp. 37–60.
(28) N. Poulantzas (1974), pp. 91 sqq.
(29) Ibid. p. 46.
(30) Ibid. pp.109–155.
(31) Ibid. p. 193.
(32) Echoes of a Weberian-Parsonian analysis could be rightly detected here, despite Poulantzas' references to structural determinants, for the latter remain un specified.
(33) Unfortunately this criticism may be extended to a great number of left-wing writers, whose use of the terms ‘masses’—together with the attribution of charismatic virtues to what it denotes—has never ceased. The ‘masses’ are glorified by them as much as they are denigrated and feared by doctrinaire conservatives. It is not necessary to give any sources on Poulantzas' most generous use of the word ‘masses’. His writings are full of constant references to them.
(34) N. Poulantzas (1970). The references here are related to the edition of 1974.
(35) Followers of Poulantzas themselves grant this much. Referring to this issue, the joint authors of one interesting review intended for private circulation say: ‘Although the words “classes” and “class struggle” are common in these texts, Poulantzas does not demonstrate how they should be theorised. Indeed the words “class struggle” do not function as a concept in Poulantzas' work and they are often added as an afterthought’.
(36) Claudin's, Fernando important Crisis of the Communist Movement (1972)Google Scholar—translated into French and English—is never mentioned. Claudfn's book remains a much better source of the question of Stalinist policies towards fascism. About the Leninist roots of Stalinism cf. Sotelo, Ignacio, Del Leninismo al Stalinismo (1976)Google Scholar.
(37) N. Poulantzas (1970), edition of 1974, p. 20.
(38) Ibid. pp. 210–211.
(39) N. Poulantzas (1975).
(40) Ibid. pp. 9, 31, 51, 91; and 21, 29, 76 and 133.
(41) For a sociological analysis of the nature of Francoism, cf. E. Sevilla and S. Giner (1975).
(42) K. Marx, The eighteenth Brumaire…
(43) N. Poulantzas (1975), pp. 132, 134, 135.
(44) Ibid. p. 134.
(45) Ibid. pp. 71–93.
(46) The issue is tackled by Gouldner, A., ‘The Two Marxisms’ (1973) and T. Bottomore (1975)Google Scholar.
(47) For an accurate description of the class structure of Portugal before April 1974, cf. H. Martins (1971).
(48) Epitomized by such companies as Minas del Rif, Companla de Tabacos de Filipinas, Barcelona Traction, etc.
(49) N. Poulantzas (1975), p. 108.
(50) Ibid.
(51) We refer the reader to references to such criticisms in the foregoing notes. Interestingly, Poulantzas' strategy when answering critics—usually if they belong to the Marxist camp—is to criticise their own work, instead of explaining his. Cf. his strictures against Miliband's alleged ‘Anglosaxon’ empiricism. Whatever Miliband's faults, his work—like that of say C. W. Mills on the United States or that of Percy Allum on Italy—can at least be judged in the light of available evidence.
(52) In the first pages of Classes in Contemporary Capitalism Poulantzas admits that there may be several 'overdeterminants, but does not tell us which they are.