later also taught as a professor. He joined the French
Communist Party in 1948 and became widely known
for his contributions to the theoretical debates con-
cerning MARXISM during the 1960s and 1970s. His
major works include For Marx (1965) and Reading
Capital(1968). Althusser’s popularity declined in the
early 1980s when he was confined to a psychiatric
institution for three years after strangling his wife in
1980.
Althusser’s Marxist theory was influenced by struc-
turalism, which views social and cultural structures as
complex systems of differentially related elements
organized according to their own specific rules. For
Althusser, structuralist Marxism differs from tradi-
tional Marxism in two significant respects: It is antihu-
manist and antieconomist. First, according to
Althusser, HUMANISMprivileges the notion of an indi-
vidual subject or consciousness that precedes social
experience and action. However, Marx’s work demon-
strated that consciousness is determined primarily by
class location and social conflicts associated with the
prevailing mode of production. Thus, Althusser insists
that social structures should not be considered as the
intentional products of subjects who possess a pre-
given human nature, but that human subjects are pro-
duced by existing social conditions. In particular,
IDEOLOGYplays a fundamental role as a determining
force shaping consciousness. The dominant capitalist
mode of production reproduces itself, for example, by
forming individuals with an ideological consciousness
appropriate to the social division of labor and to the
desires and habits of material consumption and accu-
mulation. In other words, individual human behavior
becomes an effect rather than a simple cause of the
existing social structure in which it is located, even
though the ideological framework leads individuals to
consider themselves as self-determining agents.
Second, Althusser rejected economic determinism,
or “economism,” the conventional Marxist doctrine of
the economic system being the most important driv-
ing force in determining the organization of society
and its political, legal, and cultural components.
Althusser argued instead that the structure of society
consists of relatively autonomous levels (the ideologi-
cal, political, cultural, and so forth) that can function
and can be analyzed, independent of the economic
system. Each level functions as a mode of production
whose fundamental characteristics distinguish it from
other levels. One consequence of Althusser’s argument
was a challenge to the Marxist theory of HISTORICAL
MATERIALISM, according to which, historical progress is
necessarily determined by economic conflict between
the ruling class and the oppressed classes of each
form of society. Such a straightforward account of his-
torical progress is surely misleading, Althusser sug-
gested, given the “interpellation” of ideology and the
relative autonomy of science, religion, law, education,
and other ideological state apparatuses. Nevertheless,
Althusser’s critique was tempered by his claims that
the “effectivity” of the relatively autonomous levels of
society is, in the end, determined by the economy and
that the later Marx himself recognized the complexity
of historical change following a radical “epistemologi-
cal break” with his early humanistic theory.Further Reading
Smith, S. Reading Althusser: An Essay on Structural Marxism.
Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984.American political thought
The political ideas dominant during the almost 400
years since Europeans settled on the North American
continent and what became the United States of Amer-
ica. American political thought is diverse in origin and
historical development, but certain dominant themes
of DEMOCRACY, EQUALITY, INDIVIDUALISM, religion, and
progress characterize uniquely “American” political
theory when compared with European, Asian, or
African.
The earliest American political thought was simply
an extension of the prevailing British government: an
absolute MONARCHY, limited representative Parliament,
FEUDALISM, and an official Protestant state church. The
British colonies in North America were ruled with
royal governors under royal charters, beginning with
those of Queen Elizabeth I. All land and authority was
granted by the Crown and protected by the British mil-
itary.
The first uniquely American political thought came
with the PURITANEnglish settlements in Massachusetts.
Their governing document, the MAYFLOWER COMPACTis
considered the first written CONSTITUTIONin America.
The Puritans were English Calvinists who worked to
achieve a pure, uncorrupted CHRISTIAN church and
Christian community. The Mayflower Compact
declared the Puritan intent to create the colony “for
the glory of God, and the advancement of the Christ-
ian faith” and to frame “just and equal laws, ordi-
nances, acts, Constitutions and offices” which would8 American political thought