Brad’s Reviews > History and Imperialism: Writings, 1963-1986 > Status Update

Althusser presents a "contradictory couple" of the "conditions of existence/conditions of non-existence" of a mode of production in a social formation. In other words, to truly understand the emergence of capitalism for example involves looking at its abortive examples in 'city-states' as much as its successful emergence.
This allows for generative thinking about conditions for socialism prior to its fait accompli.

It is on the basis of the nation-form, hence of the national market, that the 'global', 'international' and 'continental' (Europe) forms of contemporary imperialism are being constituted.

For more on this, see also
Empire of Capital.

We have 'developments' of Marxism involving one or another 'object' (for example, imperialism, by Lenin), one or another domain (for example, the superstructure, by Gramsci). These 'developments' of Marxism are plainly enrichments of Marxist theory...These developments, however, can by no means be called scientific rectifications [revisions!] of Marx's formulations.

This is how Marx is treated by most bourgeois philosophers...He has to be buried in his own time...

If Marxism [provides] scientific principles for the knowledge of history, it cannot be a historicism -- that is to say, something that would deny it all scientific and, therefore, objective value, and therefore all value theoretically independent of time and temporary circumstances.