Paul Hirst, On Law and Ideology (1979)

Abstract

It is difficult to remember today, and more difficult still for younger generations to imagine, the explosive effects of Althusser’s re-reading of Marx. In a world where the Communist tradition generally, and the Western European Communist parties in particular, seemed a necessary reference, it was difficult to grasp ideological effects other than as the representation of class forces. As the civil rights and women’s and ecological movements gathered force (along with others), the inadequacy of traditional Marxist readings became ever more apparent. Althusser’s political importance lay in his careful analysis of the idea of the economic as determining ‘in the last instance’ and his account of the ‘relative autonomy’ of the ideological. In this, his work seemed to promise both the possibility of engagement in political struggles whose class character was not determined in advance and that of ideological work which which would take seriously new intellectual developments.