Politics and History: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Marx

by Louis Althusser

In Politics and History, the groundbreaking Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser provides unique appraisals of major writers. In the first two essays of this book, Althusser analyses the work of two of the greatest thinkers of the Enlightenment: Montesquieu and Rousseau. He shows that although they made considerable advances towards establishing a science of politics, particularly in comparison with the theorists of natural law, they nevertheless remained the victims of the ideologies of their day and class. Montesquieu accepted as given the political notions current in French absolutism, while Rousseau attempted to impose by moral conversion an already outdated mode of production. The third essay examines Marx's relationship to Hegel and elaborates on the discussions of this theme in Althusser's earlier books, For Marx and Lenin and Philosophy. Althusser argues that Marx was able to establish a theory of historical materialism and the possibility of a Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism not simply by turning his back on Hegel, but by extracting and converting certain categories from Hegel's Logic and applying them to English political economy and French socialist political theory.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, History, Nonfiction, Theory, 20th Century, France

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Louis Pierre Althusser (1918–1990) was one of the most influential Marxist philosophers of the 20th Century. As they seemed to offer a renewal of Marxist thought as well as to render Marxism philosophically respectable, the claims he advanced in the 1960s about Marxist philosophy were discussed and debated worldwide. Due to apparent reversals in his theoretical positions, to the ill-fated facts of his life, and to the historical fortunes of Marxism in the late twentieth century, this intense interest in Althusser's reading of Marx did not survive the 1970s. Despite the comparative indifference shown to his work as a whole after these events, the theory of ideology Althusser developed within it has been broadly deployed in the social sciences and humanities and has provided a foundation for much “post-Marxist” philosophy. In addition, aspects of Althusser's project have served as inspiration for Analytic Marxism as well as for Critical Realism. Though this influence is not always explicit, Althusser's work and that of his students continues to inform the research programs of literary studies, political philosophy, history, economics, and sociology. In addition, his autobiography has been subject to much critical attention over the last decade. At present, Althusser's philosophy as a whole is undergoing a critical reevaluation by scholars who have benefited from the anthologization of hard-to-find and previously unpublished texts and who have begun to engage with the great mass of writings that remain in his archives.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not necessarily essential, but a very enlightening read to see Althusser directly apply Historical Materialism to the three titled philosophers.

[Rain Sailing]

Didn't read the first section on Montesquieu, but found the sections on Rousseau’s Social Contract and the relation between Marx and Hegel helpful/interesting.

Althusser interprets Rousseau through a series of “Discrepancies” whose existence and silence are the conditions for Rousseau’s thought. These discrepancies regard the discrepancy between the theoretical status of the two contracting parties which constitute the social contract, the terms of the contract itself, and the couplet/contradiction of general/particular will. This final discrepancy reveals itself as the culmination of all previous discrepancies and at the same time reveals itself as the keystone to Rousseau’s Social Contract itself. It is in the slippages, the “play”, in the terms “general” and particular” that Rousseau is able to avoid confronting the reality of organized social groups, classes, or estates within actually existing states. This gap between the reality internal to the Social Contract and the reality outside is what functions throughout all the discrepancies in the social contract and is visible in Rousseau’s two non-solutions which Althusser terms “flight forward into ideology” and “regression in the economy”. Unable to confront the ongoing procession of capitalism, Rousseau hopes to mitigate the influence of organized blocs in the state through the use of education/ideology/secular religion or through the dream of a pre-capitalist petty-artisan based economy in which every member of the state is relatively independent of each other except through commerce. The non-solutions presented by Rousseau in his political philosophy are what leads him towards the realm of art and literature as expressed by his novel Emile.


Althusser’s essay on the relationship between Hegel and Marx reads as an extension of his work in For Marx on the specificity of Marx’s philosophy. He extends his analysis of the relationship between Feuerbach and Hegel, and specifies precisely what was positive in Hegel that Marx utilized in his reading of Ricardian political economy. The positive contribution of Hegel, Althusser claims, is the category of “a process without a subject”—a category that Althusser continues to reference throughout the rest of his life with regards to both science, psychoanalysis, and historical materialism.

[Molsa Roja(s) · Rating 5 out of 5]

L’escrit sobre Rousseau, en aquest cas sobre el Contracte social i no sobre el Segon Discurs, com al llibre anterior —Lessons on Rousseau—, és interessant a certs nivells però diria que no aporta massa a la lectura històrica del text. El text sobre Marx, no l’he llegit però el deixo com a pendent. I per últim, el text sobre Montesquieu, que és absolutament meravellós, en què es du a terme una explicació crítica però acurada de l’obra l’Esperit de les Lleis de Montesquieu en a penes 100 pàgines: sent un text històricament rellevant com és, és tremendament enriquidor disposar del material d’Althusser. Així que agraïda, de nou. Imprescindible per a substituir la que deu ser una feixuguíssima lectura.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

#StudyingForComps
The first part, on Montesquieu, is really clear and interesting. The other two parts, on Rousseau and on Marx+Hegel, are completely incoherent.

[Heba · Rating 4 out of 5]

الكتاب فيه العديد من الأفكار المفيدة والمناقشات المهمة لفلسفات مونتسكيو وروسو وهيجل وماركس.

[Sharif Farrag · Rating 2 out of 5]

Terrible rubbish.