I’ve just started the first long (and the longest) essay in the Philosophy of the Encounter, “Marx in his Limits.” Althusser starts off defining Marxism as encompassing theorizing, organization(s), and actions of organizations. (7.) He declares Marxism to be in crisis, and notes that such a declaration can be hard to make - there are incentives for not making it, motivated in part by an awareness that crisis can lead to collapse (the point is basically that certain Marxists have had their heads in the sand), but it can also lead to renewal and positive rethinking. (10.) Presumably the declaration of the crisis with the intent to work through it contributes to the latter while ignoring the crisis is more likely to lead to collapse. The ability to talk about the crisis is attributed to the strength of movements, not their weakness. (12.)
In his second paragraph Althusser refers to “organizations and practices inspired by Marxist theory” (7). This is not a formulation I like as it can imply a causal direction - theory first, theory as a motor force. I would prefer to see Marxist theory as one inspirational element among many (not least among which is the experience of working). He writes that “the international workers’ movement successfully took its inspiration from Marxist theory in order to forge its unity” (8). That’s a different formulation, places a more active role to the movement, Marxist theory more as tool. Marxist theory’s constituting and unifying function is interesting. I like the foregrounding of that, I’m not sure what I think beyond that. The formulation changes again: “Marxist theory (…) has been, and still is, deeply engaged in the practical struggles - open or clandestine, clear or obscure - of the international workers’ and mass movements” (13), and this is my favorite so far. Engaged with. No possibility of asserting a causal priority or monopoly of decision or intellect.
I don’t like this bit - Althusser describes Marx (as describing himself) as making, “bringing out, revealing and explaining, for the first time, clearly and systematically, objective knowledge, hence the kind of knowledge that could contribute to, and guide, a revolutionary movement, about which he simultaneously demonstrated that it really existed in the working masses” (15.) Nor do I like this: “it was the real - the workers’ class struggle - which acted as the true author (the agent) of the real’s critique of itself. (…) Marx ‘wrote’ on behalf of this ‘author’, infinitely greater than he was - on its behalf but, first of all, by its agency and at its urging.” (18.)
I can’t tell yet if I’m differing from Althusser or Marx or what, but in any case, I don’t find much use for objective as a term. Nor do I find much use of assertions of being the first. This would imply that prior to Marxism there was no knowledge (or only inferior knowledge) that could contribute to a revolutionary movement. Nor do I like the term “guiding.” I don’t like the stuff on the real’s critique of itself as it implies the working class as (just) internal to the capital relation more than I like. Nor do I like the formulation of Marx writing on behalf of and at the urging of the class. Too much of a delegation there, a sort of contract with the masses. All of this that I’ve got reservations may shake out differently as I read the rest of the piece, of course.
I like this very much: “Until one knows which ‘reality’ is in question, everything can be real or be called real - everything, which is to say anything at all. Marx tied critique to that which, in the real movement, grounded critique: for him, in the last instance, the class struggle of the exploited.” (17.) I’m not invested in the grounding or the last instance, but I like the emphasis on the class struggle, the role of the class struggle in relation to Marxist theory. It’s the reverse of that relationship that I’m hesitant about in all this.
Changing the subject, but not entirely, a quote from Sewell’s _Work and Revolution in France_ which I need to try and read real fast as someone’s recalled it to the library out from under me.
“[S]killed artisans, not workers in the new factory industries, dominated labor movements during the first decades of industrialization. Whether in France, England, Germany, or the United States; whether in strikes, political movements, or incidents of collective violence, one finds over and over again the same familiar trades: carpenters, tailors, bakers, cabinetmakers, shoemakers, stonemasons, printers, locksmiths, joiners, and the like. The nineteenth century labor movement was born in the craft workshop, not in the dark, satanic mill.
This fact has important implications for the practice of labor history. Above all, it suggests that research can no longer be confined exclusively to the period since the industrial revolution. If the labor movement were a specific product of the factory, ignoring the period before factories would be defensible. But because it was initiated by artisans, workers in trades with long and rich histories, ignoring the preindustrial period can only have pernicious effects. It is true, of course, that artisans were subjected to new pressures and challenges by the development of industrial capitalism. But their responses were inevitably shaped by values, traditions, and organizational experiences that predated the modern industrial era. The discovery that artisans created the nineteenth-century labor movement makes the problem of continuity with preindustrial forms and experiences impossible to escape.” (1.)