Professor Richard Wolff on Althusser (TMBS 66)

Michael, Richard Wolff, and David Griscom discuss Althusser.

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[LeninMcDonalds]

Need a Wolff compilation on TMBS. Rest in power Michael.

[TheDavid]

This is so great! Thanks for your work and this interview!

[bosuacjafari]

Your wages actually conceal your time being stolen. Time the only finite resource we know of in the universe, but we waste our time on earth toiling to make some other person wealthier than they already are.

[allypoum]

This is incredibly useful and educational. Wolff is a great teacher.

[dandiacal]

Althusser's memoir, The Future Lasts Forever in the English translation is a must read.

Wolff has something to offer in his analysis of capitalism, but he's a non-communist marxist, in that his conception of a post-capitalist society doesn't break from the market system. Indeed, Wolff's socialism retains commodity production, money, and market exchange. To me such a system doesn't harness the possibilities that post-scarcity society presents.

[fastsavannah]

Did he meet his best Spanish disciple, Juan Carlos Rodríguez and his theory of the “ideological unconscious”? He also was there at the time working with Althusser.

[danintheoutback]

Awesome to have Professor Wolff on...
But what, no Jimmy Dore bashing on this episode...!?

Maybe, just maybe Prof Wolff might just need to lecture Micheal about Solidarity?
Without solidarity, there is absolutely no possible left wing movement.

Micheal Brooks does not understand the very basics of leftism...
Solidarity with other workers, or there is nothing at all.

[davewinterton]

Describing Stalinism as just a ‘dead end’. Understatement of the century 😂

[billpeel]

I'd be curious to see how Althusser's theory of reproduction (I haven't read it, it's on my list) to Pierre Bourdieu's theories of doxa and habitus

[masonkerr]

We always preface that Hitch became a neocon, but we don't mention that Althusser killed his wife...

[josephk]

Nice stuff, guys. Is that the guitar dude from Reverb in the red pullover in the background?

[ArchonTimatron]

It's always seemed to me that the greatest obstacle to the successful implementation of Marxism has been the need to absolutely determine the altruistic motivations of those placed in positions of power. With the great strides made in truth-determining methodology, psychometric testing, and other ways of determining the genuine motivations and desires of people, has any philosopher examined ways of traversing this obstacle? Surely we must now be far more able to ensure that philanthropic and honestly empathetic people are nominated to selflessly manage resources for the good of all? Isn't that possible now, from a scientific and psychoanalytic basis, in a way it simply wasn't in the time of Marx? If anyone has any information on this, please notify me.

[drew]

Gramsci had zero understanding of the marxian superstructure and structure, and this is where althusser criticize him even though he didn't reject the rich explanation to how actually the power works. He pointed the very fact that a revolution implies not only a structural change but even a change in the ideological apparatus. This is why he used to praise mao's cultural revolution, so saying that althusser is a post-modernist and saying that post-modernists are marxists (They utterly reject every meta-analysis so even historical materialism) are very big insults toward every communists

[XlouietheflyX]

Jordan Peterson's 'SparkNotes on the Communist Manifesto' knowledge of Marxism is always good for a few laughs!

[kavehrafie]

Tnx for having Richard Wolff on your show. Definitely, lots to learn from him. I disappointed about this tongue-and-check introduction of Althusserian Marxism b/c things are more complicated than what is presented here. 1) Although Althusser was among disaffected intellectuals who then broke away from Stalinism (I believe by Mechanistic interpretation Prof. Wolff means Stalinist Marxism), he stayed relatively Maoist. 2) Most importantly, Althusser was the spearhead French intellectuals whose project of purging Hegelianism from Marxist orthodoxy (part of the cold war red scare) ended up politically debilitating Marxism (aka. cultural turn). Unlike Althusser, Lukac who is also mentioned in the clip along with Althusser, holds on to Hegelian tradition of Marxism. I believe Althusserian structuralist interpretation of Marx is more determinism than Lukac's Hegelian understanding.

[kierankell]

This guy Althusser was crazy though. In 1980, he murdered his wife and spent the remaining years of his life committed to a psychiatric institution.

[bigusj]

Althusser's concepts of the ISA/RSA (especially read in parallel with their applications like in Parenti's Inventing Reality) are incredibly insightful and useful, but the rest of his ideas lead you right to Wolff's advocacy for co-ops and other fundamentally flawed anti-capitalist strategies. I really think Wolff is a positive force for good, but he is definitely a product of his era, and not theoretically helpful beyond the basics---just like Althusser's Maoism as compared to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

[heraclitusblacking]

Althusser is an interesting figure, and he definitely is worth taking seriously.
But his views of Marxism are particularly related to structuralism, and his views tend to minimize the agency of human beings in changing their circumstances. Additionally, he holds that the early Marxist writing is pretty much bogus. Wolff mentions that Althusser was influenced by post modern thinkers. That's right: Althusser doesn't believe in "alienation" because it assumes (so goes the argument) that there is some essential human nature to be alienated from. An interesting argument, but are we to conclude that the profound sense of loneliness and dissatisfaction that so many of us feel under capitalism is therefore not grounded in capitalist alienation? I mean, Wolff has himself spoken of how traumatizing it is when the work we do is taken from us under capitalism and we are given a wage in return. So I know Wolff doesn't agree with everything Althusser says.

[fizywig]

Wolff does not amplify the distinction between Marx the thinker and Marxism, the economic and philosophical manuscripts were only discovered in 1922 and cast wholly different light on Marx's theory of surpus value, for instance, compared to the crude form of dialectical materialism promulgated by Engels. Also, my understanding of Althusser is that his later writings after he strangled his wife are radically different from the earlier writings, is Wolff talking about the later Althusser here?