Letters from Tomis

Structural Marxism arose in the 1960s as a critique of both Stalinist economism and humanist Marxism.  Louis Althusser and Nicos Poulantzas reinterpreted Marx through a “structuralist” lens, emphasizing the causal primacy of social structures (economic, political, ideological) over individual subjects.  For Althusser, ideology was not merely false consciousness but a material practice embedded in institutions – the Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) – that reproduce capitalist relations.  Poulantzas extended this structural approach to the state, treating it as a site of class struggle and class compromise rather than a neutral organ of democracy or a mere “tool” of the bourgeoisie.  Both theorists insisted that class conflict, in subtle and dispersed form, permeates state institutions and ideological practices.  This essay examines Althusser’s and Poulantzas’s key ideas about ideology and class struggle, and it explores how structural Marxism evolved after the collapse of state socialism (the post-communist era) and how its insights can illuminate today’s capitalism, class relations, ideology, and state power.  We engage critically with the structuralist framework and its critiques, drawing on global examples and interdisciplinary perspectives where relevant.

Louis Althusser: Ideology and Social Reproduction

Louis Althusser reconceived Marxism as a science of history governed by structural laws.  He rejected both the Stalinist dogma of history as inevitable economic determinism and the humanist idea of history driven by individual “species-being.”  Instead, Althusser saw society as composed of relatively autonomous levels – economic, political, and ideological – in a complex, “overdetermined” relation.  The economic level is determinant “in the last instance,” but politics and ideology each have their own specific effects, giving capitalism a flexible and crisis-resistant character.

Central to Althusser’s theory is the concept of ideology.  He defined ideology as the “imaginary relation of individuals to their real conditions of existence”, and crucially insisted that “ideology has a material existence” in institutions and practices.  Ideology is not an illusion simply to be discarded, but a practical, lived force: it operates through the array of ISAs (schools, churches, media, family, etc.) that inculcate the values and “worldviews” of the ruling class.  As Althusser put it, ISAs “articulate the unconscious structures of society” and exist “in institutions and the practices specific to them”.  For example, education and the family form the dominant ISA of bourgeois society: children spend “eight hours a day for five or six days out of seven” in school, being taught the attitudes and rules that sustain class domination.  Under this analysis, the apparent “neutrality” of schools or the family mask their function in reproducing labor power and bourgeois ideology.

Althusser’s perspective profoundly altered the Marxist view of class struggle.  In classic Marxism the economic base was thought to inevitably produce revolutionary crisis; Althusser argued instead that capitalist relations are stabilized by ideology.  Class conflict takes place within ideology, not only in factories.  He insisted that his theory “depends on the primacy of class struggle” – without class resistance, there would be no need for ISAs at all.  Crucially, he held that capitalism’s domination is never total: ideological apparatuses are embedded in material society and thus carry contradictions.  While ideology generally obscures exploitation, it also harbors elements of the proletarian experience.  As Althusser noted, the “basic contradictions and irrationalities of the capitalist system” and the fact that ISAs are bound up in labor mean that ideology cannot achieve uninterrupted domination.  In Althusser’s later account, these contradictions and “ideological sub-formations” open cracks for working-class insurrection (as in the Paris uprising of 1968).  Thus ideology is not mere falsehood but the terrain on which class struggle is both concealed and potentially redoubled.

This structuralist theory of ideology has inspired further developments.  Feminist Marxists, for example, draw on Althusser’s insight that the family and domestic sphere are ideological state apparatuses.  Lise Vogel and Martha Gimenez credit Althusser with stimulating the social reproduction theory that analyzes how gender and household work reproduce labor power.  Judith Butler and others have applied Althusser to identity formation, noting that ideology “gives them the illusion that history was made for them”  and thus underpins normativity and hegemony.  In this way, Althusser’s concept of ideological interpellation (individuals being “hailed” as subjects) has become a powerful tool in cultural and political theory.

However, Althusser’s approach has also attracted sharp critiques.  He was accused of determinism and of collapsing all ideas into ruling ideology.  For instance, critics point out that Althusser’s earliest and mature Marx are separated by a supposed epistemological break, which many consider an overstatement.  His rejection of “humanism” and dialectics invited debate: some argue Althusser overstated the case for the break in Marx, or read Western Marxists (Lukács, Korsch, etc.) superficially.  Others say Althusser underestimates the agency of proletarian movements.  Indeed, he himself conceded that “ideology cannot fully capture a convincing experience of the world”  and insisted that Marxist philosophy must represent “the proletarian class position” in theory.  Thus, while structural in orientation, Althusser’s Marxism left room for the efficacy of class struggle within ideology.  The balance between structural determination and struggle remained a point of contention in his work.

Nicos Poulantzas: The State as a Class Field

Nicos Poulantzas extended Althusserian structuralism to a rigorous analysis of the capitalist state and class power.  A Greek lawyer-turned-Marxist, Poulantzas built on Althusser’s theory of instances to show that the state itself is a “condensation” of class forces.  Unlike older “instrumentalist” Marxist accounts (which saw the state simply as an instrument of the capitalist class), Poulantzas argued that the state has a degree of relative autonomy: it can mediate conflicts, forge class compromises, and at times “organize the interests of the dominant classes” while quelling fissures within capitalism.  In his classic formulation, “the state…is ‘the condensation of a relationship of forces between classes’…Class contradictions are the very stuff of the state”.  In other words, the institutions and practices of the state (legislative, administrative, repressive, etc.) embody underlying class relations.  The state itself has “no power of its own” – it can only exercise power as the representative arena of class struggle.

This view led Poulantzas to a dynamic theory of class.  He defined classes not simply by their place in production, but also by their political formation and representation.  Economic class positions (wages, property) are the basis, but how classes are organized and recognized in politics is decisive.  Poulantzas argued that in monopoly capitalism the “political” level tends to dominate the economic in shaping class conflict.  The state creates ideological and institutional structures that articulate cross-class blocs: on one side the “power bloc” of capitalists and some workers, on the other a “popular bloc” of subordinate classes.  In this way the state “disorganizes” dominated classes – isolating them as individuals – while ensuring an overall balance favoring the ruling bloc.  In Poulantzas’s words, liberal ideals like popular sovereignty actually “enable the capitalist state to act in the interests of the dominant classes” by portraying itself as representative of “the people.”

Poulantzas’s analysis of the state had important strategic implications.  In Political Power and Social Classes (1968) he argued that capitalist states have a “relative autonomy” and multiple apparatuses (administrative, ideological, repressive) that are sites of class struggle.  He broke with Leninist dogma that the state must be simply “smashed” in revolution; instead, he observed that workers have long been partially integrated into the state via welfare institutions, trade unions, and parliamentary channels.  This led him to advocate a “democratic road to socialism” in advanced capitalist countries: building power both within the state and through independent mass movements.  He famously concluded that the state is “neither a thing-instrument that may be taken away, nor a fortress that may be penetrated” but “the heart of the exercise of political power.”  The challenge is to shift the balance of forces inside the state, assisted by grassroots organization.  This strategy, sometimes called “Eurocommunism,” aimed to use democratic institutions as levers for class struggle – a position that drew criticism from orthodox Marxists as “reformist,” but it reflected Poulantzas’s emphasis on the structural complexity of modern states.

Critics of Poulantzas have focused on his structuralism.  Some argued he “reified” class positions or abandoned the concept of the proletariat as a conscious subject.  Others (notably Ralph Miliband) insisted he made the state too independent of capital’s economic power.  Yet in his later work Poulantzas increasingly emphasized contingency and contradiction within the state.  He treated the state apparatuses as a “force field” of shifting class battles.  Indeed, he moved to reconcile the “structure vs. agency” tension by recognizing that the dominated classes are already partly inside the state: through struggles, they had won reforms (welfare, unions) that became part of state machinery.  His final writings raised open questions about how a “structural” theory of the state can cohere with a dynamic class politics.  In any case, Poulantzas’s core idea – that state power is produced and limited by class relations – remains influential in analyses of both liberal democracies and authoritarian regimes.

Structural Marxism in the Post-Communist Era

The collapse of state socialism after 1989–91 profoundly challenged Marxist theory.  In Europe, communists were defeated at the polls or forced out of power; in Asia, the Chinese and Vietnamese “market reforms” ushered in capitalist dynamism under the Communist Party.  Structural Marxists faced the task of explaining how capitalism reasserted itself and what role ideology and the state would play in the new order.

In Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the old ISA of Marxist-Leninist ideology disintegrated, but its vacuum was filled by new ideologies.  The doctrine of “free markets” and democratic transition was itself ideological, promoting neoliberal values.  Former Communist parties often rebranded as social democrats, yet many workers remained skeptical – a phenomenon Althusser would describe as the persistence of “hegemony” of one ideology over another.  Analyses from a structuralist perspective note that the post-communist state apparatus did not vanish: rather, it reorganized under capitalist class interests.  Privatization and bureaucratic networks created new oligarchic classes in Russia and Eastern Europe.  Poulantzas’s insight that states embody class fractions is evident in how post-Soviet states entangled with emerging capitalists (e.g. Russian Kremlin–oligarch alliances).  Class relations reemerged after decades in shadow: for example, land seizures and factory takeovers redefined class positions, while former party officials often metamorphosed into capitalist managers or local tycoons.  Structuralist scholars would emphasize the “overdetermined” nature of these transformations: economic collapse, nationalist ideologies, international influences and popular uprisings all interacted, with no single determinant.

In China, the Communist Party retained political power by embracing market reforms, creating what some call “state capitalism.”  From a structural Marxist view, the Chinese state became the arena of a new class settlement: big capitalists (both domestic and foreign) are represented by technocrats, but the Party maintains ideological control.  Althusser’s theory is useful here: the CCP’s extensive ISAs (propaganda, education, Confucian-nationalist ideology) actively reproduce legitimacy for a system that is economically capitalist.  Meanwhile, the Party’s relative autonomy ensures it can override certain market pressures (e.g. through industrial policy, public investment) to stabilize society.  In other words, the Chinese case illustrates Poulantzas’s idea that the state may “have to take major steps toward accommodating working-class demands” (like a welfare state) even under capitalism, in order to organize class conflict.  Indeed, China’s turn to worker pensions, village elections, and crackdowns on labor unrest can be seen as the state recomposing social forces to maintain control.  Similar patterns appear in Vietnam and Cuba, where one-party rule persists alongside hybrid market elements.

Elsewhere, the end of “actually existing socialism” did not erase global capitalism’s challenges.  The late 20th and early 21st centuries saw rising inequality, financial crises, and new social movements.  Many structural Marxists have re-engaged with Althusserian and Poulantzian ideas to analyze these developments.  For example, after the 2008 financial crash some scholars applied Althusser’s lens to study how ideology was used to justify austerity or bank bailouts.  Poulantzas’s theory of the state informs studies of neoliberal governance: the state appears to serve austerity capitalism, but it also contains internal contradictions – workers and voters periodically revolt against market solutions (as in protests in Greece, Spain, or the Occupy movement).  These struggles can be seen as class battles within the state and ideological apparatuses, validating the continued relevance of structural Marxism’s focus on how power is organized and contested.

However, the post-Cold-War context also gave rise to new criticisms.  In the late 1980s, theorists like Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe declared a “post-Marxist” era in which the old categories of class and state needed radical reworking.  They argued that politics is also shaped by identity and discourse, not just class structures – a critique of “economism” shared by Althusser and Poulantzas but one they believed structural Marxists had not fully addressed.  From a structuralist point of view, such post-Marxist turns sometimes simply displaced class into a new ideological category.  As Laclau himself once acknowledged, he emerged from an Althusser-Poulantzas lineage.  In recent years, voices on the left have debated whether this “cultural turn” ultimately weakened Marxism’s tools for understanding capitalism’s material forces.

Ideology, State, and Class in Today’s World

Structural Marxism remains a potent framework for analyzing contemporary capitalism, even if its original formulations require adaptation.  Althusser’s notion of ISAs invites us to examine the new institutions and media that sustain ideology.  For instance, universities, tech companies, and social media platforms now operate as powerful ideological instruments.  The modern university, as one scholar puts it, “serialis[es] students, stripping them of their individuality in preparation for careers servicing the capitalist order”.  Despite the ideal of neutral scholarship, universities today often instill neoliberal values – teaching students to be competitive, adaptable workers rather than critical citizens.  Similarly, social media and entertainment function as quasi-ISAs: they propagate consumerist and commodified worldviews under the guise of “choice” and personal expression.  Algorithms curate news and ads that reinforce conformity, just as Althusser’s church or media did in his day.  From this angle, the rise of disinformation and “echo chambers” can be seen as ideological struggles – conflicts over what narratives will dominate the social media ISA.

Class analysis also benefits from structuralist insights.  Although capitalism’s contradictions are sharper than ever (superrich elites versus a vast precariat), class identities are complex.  Many workers no longer have the institutional muscle of unions or a unified party; instead class is “made politically” through social movements and electoral blocs.  For example, the late-2010s wave of populisms (from Brexit to Trump to Bolsonaro) can be interpreted through Poulantzas’s lens as new fault-lines in the capitalist state – conflicts over race, nation, or migration that overlay class.  These movements exploit ideological fissures in society; structural Marxism prompts us to ask how they relate to class forces.  In some cases, ruling classes have co-opted populist rhetoric (nationalism or anti-immigrant scapegoating) to defuse genuine class anger, a tactic entirely consistent with Poulantzas’s analysis of power blocs.

State power likewise demands a structural view today.  Neoliberal states have often outsourced repression (e.g. to police or border forces) and relied on ideology (patriotism, consumerism) for consent.  Yet the state’s autonomy has limits – exemplified by periodic crises (financial meltdowns, pandemics, climate disasters) that conventional policies struggle to handle.  From a Poulantzian perspective, such crises reveal the state’s internal contradictions and the potential for social change.  The recent handling of the COVID-19 pandemic illustrates this: governments mobilized massive emergency powers (a repressive function) while also engaging scientific experts and public health campaigns (an ideological function), showing how different state apparatuses interacted in unexpected ways.  Class conflict emerged too: debates over lockdown support were battles over who would bear the economic cost – a contest fit to Poulantzas’s view of the state as a “terrain of class struggle.”

To illustrate, consider one case study: public education in advanced capitalism.  Althusser argued that schools train individuals to accept the existing division of labor.  Today, this is seen in how low-income students receive underfunded schooling that reproduces social immobility, while elite institutions inculcate a managerial class ideology.  Structuralists would highlight how education policy is shaped by economic structures (budget cuts under austerity) and ideological pressures (the “college-for-all” myth).  Another example is mass media: corporate news networks often serve as ideological apparatuses by presenting market logic as “common sense,” even when reporting on inequality or financial corruption.  Ad campaigns and Hollywood movies also subtly perpetuate “neoliberal realism” – the idea that nothing fundamentally can change.  These modern ISA manifestations – schools, media, tech giants – continue to reproduce capitalist relations under new forms.

Finally, the global dimension is critical.  Capitalism today is world-scale, and structural Marxism must account for this.  Althusser’s concept of overdetermination can be applied to globalization: various economic and cultural processes (multinational supply chains, international law, global civil society) interact to stabilize the system.  Poulantzas’s ideas suggest that supranational entities (like the EU or IMF) act as composite state apparatuses for global capital, mediating national conflicts.  Simultaneously, anti-colonial and labor movements in the Global South reinterpret ideology.  For instance, some left governments espouse a blend of socialist rhetoric and market policies, creating hybrid ISAs.  Structural Marxism encourages us to look at how these regimes reorganize class power: Do redistributive programs genuinely empower subordinate classes, or do they create a new loyalist stratum, as Poulantzas’s “welfare state” thesis would predict?

Critiques and Continuing Debates

Structural Marxism itself has been scrutinized by scholars seeking to address its limitations.  Feminist critics argue that Althusser’s early work underplayed gender and race – for example, treating the family as an ideological apparatus but without exploring how patriarchy specifically operates within it.  Later “social reproduction theory” (which owes much to Althusser) has sought to fill this gap by analyzing how gendered labor in the home is essential to capitalism’s stability.  Post-structuralist thinkers challenge the idea of fixed structures altogether, emphasizing contingency and discourse; even Butler (in dialogue with Althusser) looks at how subject positions form in fluid ways.  In defense, Althusserians point out that structuralism does not deny change – its whole premise is that structures are constantly being (re)produced or contested in history.  Indeed, Althusser himself was seeking “to explain cultural struggles in terms of a new understanding of ideology”, and he insisted ideology must account for the unpredictable elements of class conflict.

Poulantzas’s theory too has been debated.  Some see tension in his work between a deterministic “structure” of class power and the freedom of political struggle.  The final years of Poulantzas’s life, as one commentator notes, were marked by a “maddeningly abstract” style that grappled with reconciling these elements.  Nevertheless, Poulantzas’s unresolved questions – about the state as both a “machine-like” reproducer of domination and a “field of forces” subject to struggle – continue to spur discussion.  Contemporary Marxists often seek a middle ground: retaining Poulantzas’s insight that the state is not monolithic, while also grounding theory in historical agency.

It should be noted that empirical evidence from the last few decades often vindicates the core intuitions of structural Marxism.  Rising inequality and recurrent crises underscore that capitalism still requires ideological legitimation and state intervention to survive.  At the same time, new movements (labor, environmental, anti-racist) show that class and ideology remain contested terrain.  Structural Marxism provides one rigorous framework for understanding these phenomena – not as a finished theory, but as an evolving toolkit.  As Althusser observed, “the characteristic task of Marxist philosophy is to represent, in theory, the proletarian class position.”  Even in a post-communist world, this means analyzing how that position is shaped by and can transform the structures of ideology and state.

Conclusion

In sum, Louis Althusser and Nicos Poulantzas gave Marxist thought a powerful structuralist vocabulary for analyzing ideology and class power.  Their ideas on ideological state apparatuses, ideological interpellation, relative autonomy, and the state as a condensation of class forces remain relevant for interpreting global capitalism.  After the collapse of state socialism, many Marxists turned away from Marx altogether, but structural Marxism continued to influence analysis of neoliberal states, digital ideologies, and emergent class relations.  Its legacy is visible in contemporary critiques of education, media, and governance, and in the ongoing emphasis on how economic structures, political institutions, and cultural practices interlock to reproduce or challenge class domination.

At the same time, structural Marxism must be updated and criticized.  It must grapple with postcolonial and feminist critiques, with the role of subjectivity and discourse, and with new forms of capitalism (finance, platform economies).  Yet as a global, interdisciplinary perspective, it still offers valuable insights.  Structural Marxism teaches us to look beyond appearances: to see how seemingly independent institutions actually serve the reproduction of a system – and how they also harbor its contradictions.  In today’s world of polarized politics and economic upheaval, the Althusser-Poulantzas framework reminds us that “class struggle takes place within ideology”  and that the state remains “the heart of the exercise of political power.” These lessons are as crucial now as they were half a century ago – and critical engagement with them continues to energize the global left’s understanding of capitalism, power, and the prospects for transformation.