The State and its Apparatuses

[Title page of Hobbes' Leviathan]

In “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” Louis Althusser contributes to the Marxist discourse on the relationship between the base and the superstructure in order (as implied by his rhetoric) to go beyond it. Recounting the basic framework of what he calls a “metaphor of topography,” Althusser explains that “Marx conceived the structure of every society as constituted by ‘levels’ or ‘instances’ articulated by a specific determination: the infrastructure, or economic base (the ‘unity’ of the productive forces and the relations of production) and the superstructure, which itself contains two ‘levels’ or ‘instances’: the politico-legal (law and the State) and ideology (the different ideologies, religious, ethical, legal, political, etc.)” (90). Each level has what Althusser calls “their respective indices of effectivity,” echoing the Marxist assertion that the economic base has the index of effectivity in the last instance, i.e. if the upper floors of the superstructure “are determinant in their own [. . .] ways, this is true only insofar as they are determined by the base” (90, 91).

This, Althusser points out, does not preclude the question—in fact invites it—of: If, in the last instance, the base is determinant, what role does the superstructure play? (91). More importantly, however, Althusser argues that this representation of society by a spatial metaphor is but descriptive. Thus, while earlier Marxists are to be credited for formulating the model (i.e. for “describing” society), there is a need to go beyond description into what he calls theory. Althusser asserts that while “descriptive theory [. . . is] the irreversible beginning of theory, [. . .] the ‘descriptive’ form in which the theory is presented requires [. . .] a development of the theory which goes beyond the form of the description” (91, 93). This is precisely what he claims to do by refocusing the discourse on the State and its apparatuses.

Taking it straight from Marxist tradition, Althusser defines “the State [a]s a ‘machine’ of repression which enables the ruling classes (in the nineteenth century the bourgeois class and the ‘class’ of big landowners) to ensure their domination over the working class, thus enabling the former to subject the latter to [. . .] capitalist exploitation,” which is what leads to the extortion of surplus-value (92). The State, in other words, is to Althusser a tool of the dominant class(es) in their struggle for and maintenance of (to use Antonio Gramsci’s term) hegemony. It is, in effect, the formally and officially legitimated body that executes the domination of the ruling class, enables (and legitimates!) its extraction of surplus value from—its exploitation of—the working class. The difference with Althusser, however, is that, unlike with Gramsci, the State is no mere tool of or medium by the classes, who, despite these great structural battles, nonetheless remain, as it were, the protagonists, playing the role of the main characters (in that sense Gramsci is still a humanist). With Althusser, the State, as the structural arrangement determined by the power struggle, gains a life of its own (hence Althusser is a “structuralist”). Beyond the control of the classes (taken as “individuals”) and beyond their battles, the resultant social organization performs certain functions.

What exactly is the State? Parallel to the two levels of the superstructure, the State consists of two bodies, two types of apparatuses. First, there is the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA), or the State proper, the State strictly speaking. Althusser explains that “this term means not only the specialized apparatus (in the narrow sense) whose existence and necessity [are] recognized in relation to the requirements of legal practice, i.e. the police, the courts, the prisons; but also the army, which (the proletariat has paid for this experience with its blood) intervenes directly as a supplementary repressive force in the last instance, when the police and its specialized auxiliary corps are ‘outrun by events’; and above this ensemble, the head of State, the government and the administration” (92). “The State apparatus, which defines the State as a force of repressive execution and intervention ‘in the interests of the ruling classes’ in the class struggle conducted by the bourgeoisie and its allies against the proletariat, is quite certainly the State” itself (92). (Hence the Marxist claim of the proletarian struggle against this (type of) State.) This apparatus is repressive because it “functions by violence—at least ultimately (since repression, e.g. administrative repression, may take nonphysical forms)” (96). There is, of course, no purely repressive apparatus, but the RSA does function “massively and predominantly by repression (including physical repression)” (97).

There are, however, in addition to the State proper “a certain number of realities which present themselves to the immediate observer in the form of distinct and specialized institutions” that aid the repressive State apparatus (at least overall) in performing its functions (96). Althusser calls this second type of apparatus the Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs). Broadly speaking, this designates the institutions that deploy (mainly the ruling) ideology. In contrast to the Repressive State Apparatus, there is not one but “a plurality of Ideological State Apparatuses” whose unity is not immediately visible (97). Moreover, ISAs are, for the most part, considered private (by the State that constitutes these divisions, itself above public and private). Lastly, ISAs “function massively and predominantly by ideology,” which (i.e. the ruling ideology) is what unifies their functioning (98). (They do also “function secondarily by repression, even if ultimately, but only ultimately, this is very attenuated and concealed, even symbolic” (98).)

Althusser lists the different ISAs: “the religious ISA (the system of different Churches), the educational ISA (the system of the different public and private ‘Schools’), the family ISA [which "also intervenes in the production of labor power"], the legal ISA [which "belongs both to the (Repressive) State Apparatus and to the system of the ISAs" as the ideas legitimating and embodied in the RSA], the political ISA (the political system, including the different Parties), the trade union ISA, the communications ISA (press, radio and television, etc.), the cultural ISA (Literature, the Arts, sports, etc.)” (96).

Together, either in “very subtle explicit or tacit combinations,” the RSA and the ISAs, united as they are by a common ideology, the ruling ideology, compose the state. The institutions of the RSA and the ISAs can be said to be the state’s arms. Althusser echoes Marx when he says that “given the fact that the ‘ruling class’ in principle holds State power [. . .], and therefore has at its disposal the (Repressive) State Apparatus, we can accept the fact that this same ruling class is active in the Ideological State Apparatuses insofar as it is ultimately the ruling ideology which is realized in the Ideological State Apparatuses, precisely in its contradictions” (98). In stressing the dominance of the ruling ideology in both the RSA and the ISAs, Althusser sidesteps Gramsci’s point that there are many ideologies in the social field (although later he does say that the ISAs also provide an objective field in which different ideologies clash (100)). Althusser’s emphasis, in other words, is on the structural unity (manifesting in the RSA and the ISAs) impressed by ideology that enables the state to pose as a coherent body. (Hence the critique that Althusser’s structuralist Marxism is reductive, unable to take account of the variety of ideologies and of dissent.)

Even though coherent, the two types of apparatuses remain distinct. As Althusser points out, “It is a quite different thing to act by laws and decrees in the (Repressive) State Apparatus and to ‘act’ through the intermediary of the ruling ideology in the Ideological State Apparatuses” (98). Needless to day, both types are essential to the ruling class retaining its hold of the State. Echoing Gramsci, Althusser asserts, “No class can hold State power over a long period without at the same time exercising its hegemony over and in the State Ideological Apparatuses” (98).

Now, what exactly is the goal of the State? What is its purpose? What power does it have? What can it do? Historically, Althusser claims, the State has exercised its power to reproduce the means of production. While Althusser admits that this process (i.e. the reproduction of the means of production) takes place in the (business) firm, he notes that the means are not produced by the capitalist himself or by a lone capitalist. Rather, they are passed from one producer to another (86). Althusser explains that “a capitalist [. . .] has to ‘reproduce’ his raw material, his machines, etc. But he does not produce them for his own production—other capitalists do” (86). Production, in other words, like the material conditions that individuals find themselves in, are social. As a collective undertaking, production necessitates a particular social organization with particular structural arrangements (i.e. production has to take a certain form) that are determined primarily through/in the State. As a coherent body, the State is able to structure the way in which human production takes place.

More important than the means of production are the productive forces themselves—primarily labor power—which, above all, must be reproduced (to become a means for a certain production) (87). This process, Althusser claims, even further from the control (the superb skill!) of the capitalist, “takes place essentially outside the firm” (87). “It is ensured by giving labor power the material means with which to reproduce itself,” i.e. by remunerating the laborers with a certain wage, which, however, but “represent only that part of the value produced by the expenditure of labor power which is indispensable for its reproduction: sc. indispensable to the reconstitution of labor power of the wage-earner (the wherewithal to pay for housing, food and clothing, in short to enable the wage-earner to present himself again at the factory gate the next day—and every further day God grants him); and we should add: indispensable for raising and educating the children in whom the proletarian reproduces himself [. . .] as labor power” (87-8). (Hence the difference between the wage that the laborer earns and the actual value that he produces, which accrues to the capitalist as profits.) This arrangement between labor power and capital is likewise presided over by the State.

(The value of the wage that enables labor power to reproduce itself is not purely biological but also takes into consideration historical and cultural factors (i.e. what is determined as a “need” by a particular social setting, which, e.g. includes wine for French workers, beer for Germans, a TV set for Americans . . .) (88). This value is also influenced by a certain level of recognition that the capitalist class bestows on the laborers, i.e. affected by what is deemed proper (according to some collectively determined, although implicit, standard) for the laborers to earn, what is deemed decent for a human being to have, what is deemed that workers deserve for the work they have done (e.g. includes social security benefits, public schools . . .) (if only to cover up the stark distinction between the classes, to co-opt them and forestall social discontent?) (88).)

In the process of reproducing these productive forces and means of production, the second level of the economic base—the relations of production—are also reproduced. In fact, Althusser argues that “the reproduction of labor power requires not only a reproduction of its skills, but also, at the same time, a reproduction of its submission to the rules of the established order” (89). Thus, the agent of the social field that reproduces the forces and means of production must also reproduce the way that the agents involved in production (to class them broadly, the laborers and the capitalists) relate to each other, which amounts to the reproduction of the relationship in which one class (the laborers) is subjected to and exploited by another (the capitalists).

Althusser is quick to relate this reproduction of the relations of production to what to him is what makes it possible: ideology. The reproduction of submission of one class to the established order is tantamount to Althusser to “a reproduction of submission to the ruling ideology for the workers, and a reproduction of the ability to manipulate the ruling ideology correctly for the agents of exploitation and repression, so that they, too, will provide for the domination of the ruling class ‘in words’” (89). This “ensure[s for the laborers] subjection to the ruling ideology or [for the capitalists] the mastery of its ‘practice’” (89). The relations of production, then, are reproduced by virtue of ideology—both on the side of the laborer (who, through ideology, is to accept submission) and on the side of the capitalist (who shall instill it).

Thus, “all the agents of production, exploitation and repression, not to speak of the ‘professionals of ideology,’ must in one way or another be ‘steeped’ in this ideology in order to perform their tasks ‘conscientiously’—the tasks of the exploited (the proletarians), of the exploiters (the capitalists), of the exploiters’ auxiliaries (the managers), or of the high priests of the ruling ideology (its ‘functionaries’), etc.” (89). Thus, as Althusser says, “It is in the forms and under the forms of ideological subjection that provision is made for the reproduction of the skills of labor power” (89). In other words, this is how the laborers are not only reproduced as laborers—but as laborers (willingly) exploited by the capitalists. This is how the laborers (and, indeed, even the capitalists) are reproduced, subjected to the current social system with its particular economic base (capitalism). This is how the status quo is reproduced structurally (with everyone in the structure—everyone in the state—implied)—(for Althusser, largely) by ideology.

To illustrate this mechanism concretely, Althusser zeroes in on the ISAs and explains, “Each of them contributes towards th[e] single result [of the reproduction of the relations of production] in the way proper to it. The political apparatus by subjecting individuals to the political State ideology, the ‘indirect’ (parliamentary) or ‘direct’ (plebiscitary or fascist) ‘democratic’ ideology. The communications apparatus by cramming every ‘citizen’ with daily doses of nationalism, chauvinism, liberalism, moralism, etc., by means of the press, the radio and television. The same goes for the cultural apparatus (the role of sport in chauvinism is of the first importance), etc. The religious apparatus by recalling in sermons and the other great ceremonies of Birth, Marriage and Death, that man is only ashes, unless he loves his neighbor to the extent of turning the other cheek to whoever strikes first. The family apparatus . . .” (104).

At this point, it does seem as though Althusser (contrary to Gramsci) is asserting that there is but one ideology in society, namely, the ideology of the ruling class, adopted by everyone regardless of their own class backgrounds. How does he account, then, for the varied teachings of different churches (e.g. of the Catholic, Protestant, Judaic, Islamic, etc. churches?), or the different “ideologies” (narrowly defined) offered by different political parties (left, right, and center), and, more importantly, for so-called “revolutionary” acts, such as certain protest movements (e.g. the Berkeley Free Speech movement) or some works of art (as in Heidegger’s conception of it)? In what does the unity of ideology consist? In the content or merely functionally, in terms of what, in the end, it ends up doing? In response to this, Althusser claims that despite the seeming variety at the level of ideology, there is ultimately a structural unity—both in function and in content. There is, he says, a “concert [which, even though varied,] is dominated by a single score, occasionally disturbed by contradictions (those of the remnants of former ruling classes, those of the proletarians and their organizations): the score of the Ideology of the current ruling class which integrates into its music the great themes” (104). “In this concert, one ideological State apparatus certainly has the dominant role,” namely: (for Althusser) the school (104).

Ideology, moreover, is already present in the workings of material processes. While “the relations of production,” Althusser writes, “are first reproduced by the materiality of the processes of production and circulation, [. . . it can be said that] ideological relations are immediately present in these same processes” (100n). Thus while Althusser maintains the materialist Marxist stance that assumes that there are material things and processes to begin with, ideology is interwoven in these material processes, in which even as the State and ideology manifest, as it were, from material conditions (both the means of production and the relations of production), the State, through ideology, does something to these material conditions. Althusser specifies what exactly ideology is able to do when he says, “Whereas the unity of the (Repressive) State Apparatus is secured by its unified and centralized organization under the leadership of the representatives of the classes in power executing the politics of the class struggle of the classes in power, the unity of the different Ideological State Apparatuses is secured, usually in contradictory forms, by the ruling ideology, the ideology of the ruling class” (100).

Hence the blurring of the distinction between base and superstructure, between production and ideology—or, more precisely, the better delineation of their intertwining. (Deleuze and Guattari would go further in undermining ideology altogether, as in statements as, “There is no ideology and never has been” (ATP 4).) Relations of production turn out to be closer to ideology as had been earlier delineated, which can then change the base of the economic base, the forces of production. This is because, for Althusser, ideology is at the center. is intertwined in the structural workings of the system in which it reproduces the material means of production. This is how he can then say that “the Ideological State Apparatuses may be not only the stake, but also the site of class struggle, [especially when] the class (or class alliance) in power cannot lay down the law in the ISAs as easily as it can in the (Repressive) State Apparatus, not only because the former ruling classes are able to retain strong positions there for a long time, but also because the resistance of the exploited classes is able to find means and occasions to express itself there, either by the utilization of their contradictions, or by conquering combat positions in them in struggle” (99).

And this entity that, as it were, is in charge of the site where ideological battles are fought in which one emerges dominant, whose apparatuses disseminate (mainly the ruling) ideology, in the process reproducing (perpetuating) the current social structure, the economic base? Who/What is this? None other than the State, which presides over the state, the social body that encompasses both levels (RSA and ISAs) of the superstructure and the material infrastructure. The state of things (the current system, the established order (of structural relations)) maintained by the State and (through ideology) its apparatuses. As Althusser says, “The reproduction of the relations of production [. . .] is secured by the legal-political and ideological superstructure” (100). That is, concretely “by the exercise of State power in the State Apparatuses, on the one hand the (Repressive) State Apparatus, on the other the Ideological State Apparatuses” (100).

There is a complex two-sided interaction (something like a nonlinear, multi-causal feedback mechanism, as Deleuze and complexity thinkers would say) taking place between the RSA and the ISAs, the two main arms of the State (in order to reproduce the social system). Althusser describes, “The role of the repressive State apparatus, insofar as it is a repressive apparatus, consists essentially in securing by force (physical or otherwise) the political conditions of the reproduction of relations of production, which are in the last resort relations of exploitation. Not only does the State apparatus contribute generously to its own reproduction (the capitalist State contains political dynasties, military dynasties, etc.), but also and above all, the State apparatus secures by repression (from the most brutal physical force, via mere administrative commands and interdictions, to open and tacit censorship) the political conditions for the action of the Ideological State Apparatuses” (101).

However, it is the ISAs that “largely secure the reproduction specifically of the relations of production, behind a ‘shield’ provided by the repressive State apparatus. It is here that the role of the ruling ideology is heavily concentrated, the ideology of the ruling class which holds State power. It is the intermediation of the ruling ideology that ensures a (sometimes teeth-gritting) ‘harmony’ between the repressive State apparatus and the Ideological State Apparatuses, and between the different State Ideological Apparatuses” (101). Together, they uphold the state (both the State and the current state of things).

The State, this social body (with its institutions, its arms, made coherent by ideology—reproducing the economic base, serving as the site in which the ruling class(es) is able to exercise power) “has no meaning except as a function of State power” (94). The State, in other words, is but an entity that has no meaning in itself—except as something that can (deploying its apparatuses) exercise State power. In addition to betraying the difference between the State and State power—i.e. between a body that exists (and its apparatuses) and the power vested on it, i.e. what it can do, what it can exercise (on whom), how much . . .—this statement by Althusser (perhaps he is classically Marxist in this way) opens the possibility for State power—its extent, its legitimation, its nature, its purpose—being altered, i.e. for the State to change (hands)—”without the State apparatus being affected or modified: it may survive political events which affect the possession of State power,” i.e. with the State still being potent (still having State power), but perhaps for an entirely different purpose, perhaps under the vanguard of a different class (94).

Hence the due attention that Marxism accords the State. Given what it has done, given what it can do, the State stands to some (certainly not only to Marxists) as the prized goal of the struggle, being the powerful means that it is to forward (class) interests. Thus, for (some) Marxists “the whole of the political class struggle revolves around the State, [. . . i.e.] around the possession, i.e. the seizure and conservation of State power by a certain class or by an alliance between classes or class fractions” (94). In other words, “the objective of the class struggle concerns State power, and in consequence the use of the State apparatus by the classes (or alliance of classes or of fractions of classes) holding State power as a function of their class objectives” (95).

In these delineations of Marxist thinking about the State, Althusser, I think, is delineating the same thing that Gilles Deleuze calls subjugated-groups. (It must be noted that Althusser here takes the stance of someone who explains rather than someone arguing for what he is explaining.) In effect, the goal of the Marxist revolutionary is to steal State power, to, as it were, capture the State, so that it can legitimately and with power represent its class interests (where, Deleuze warns, this revolutionary ends up being just another group that subjugates!). Then the Marxist drama reaches the climax as the proletariat discovers its unique role in history as the universal class. As Althusser explains (in explaining Marxism), “The proletariat must seize State power in order to destroy the existing bourgeois State apparatus and, in a first phase, replace it with a quite different–proletarian–State apparatus” (95). Thus we have change, which, since all movement is structural (implying in it all levels of society), changes the whole social structure itself, into a different state (by a State that now represents proletarian—universal!—interests).

A question that Deleuze could pose here is: But why have a State at all? Especially when we know that they who have control of it are so prone to becoming just like–if not worse than–their predecessors (i.e. when the revolutionary himself subjugates: Subjugated-Group!)? (When even resistance can be fascist?) Why capture the State at all and not—simply—destroy it? In other words, why communism and not anarchy? Or, perhaps more precisely, why molarity and not a war machine? Why a territory at all (with its bureaucrats, its governors) rather than nomadic deterritorialization? Why (ordered) administration (no matter how benevolent) and not (organized) permanent revolution?

As Althusser goes on to say, continuing the Marxist narrative, once the proletarians have taken the State, “then in later phases, [they will] set in motion a radical process, that of the destruction of the State (the end of State power, the end of every State apparatus)” (95). Here Deleuze would ask: But why have such an intermediary Leninist stage? Why not destroy—right here, right now—immediately, completely?

Given that (as Marxists themselves delineate!) the State is what it is, why have it at all? Why work with it? Why exist amidst its apparatuses? In other words, why remain enclosed by the State in its tentacles that suck the life (libido, labor: energy, force, desire) out of us to serve blood (surplus value) to the vampiric hegemon (whether the dominant class or the vanguard of the people)? Why (desire/)capture the State (e.g. win parliamentary elections, gain the support of the people (which, Deleuze would be quick to point out, is no safeguard against established fascism!))—and not destroy it, destroy it completely? Why (microfascism and) not freedom, freedom directly and right away?