Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses: Concise Summary

Reproduction of Production Conditions

  • Social formations must reproduce conditions of production to survive.

  • This reproduction can be simple or on an extended scale.

  • Reproduction includes:

    • Productive forces.

    • Existing relations of production.

Reproduction of Means of Production

  • Production requires the reproduction of material conditions.

  • This includes replacing used resources like raw materials and machines.

  • Reproduction must be considered globally, not just at the firm level.

Reproduction of Labor-Power

  • Labor power is reproduced by providing wages, enabling workers to sustain themselves and raise children.

  • Wages are a historically variable minimum, influenced by class struggle.

  • Reproduction of labor-power includes:

    • Skills, acquired through education.

    • Submission to the established order and ruling ideology.

  • Schools transmit skills and reinforce respect for the socio-technical division of labor and class domination.

Infrastructure and Superstructure

  • Marxist conception of society: infrastructure (economic base) and superstructure (politico-legal and ideology).

  • The economic base determines the superstructure 'in the last instance'.

  • Superstructure has 'relative autonomy' and 'reciprocal action' on the base.

  • The edifice metaphor represents determination by the economic base.

The State

  • The State is a repressive apparatus ensuring the ruling class's domination.

  • Includes police, courts, prisons, army, and administration.

  • The State apparatus can survive changes in State power.

State Ideological Apparatuses (ISAs)

  • ISAs are distinct from the repressive State apparatus.

  • ISAs include religious, educational, family, legal, political, trade-union, communications, and cultural institutions.

  • The (Repressive) State Apparatus functions 'by violence', whereas the Ideological State Apparatuses function 'by ideology'.

  • ISAs function predominantly by ideology, but also secondarily by repression.

  • Unity of ISAs is ensured by the ruling ideology, which is the ideology of 'the ruling class'.

  • ISAs are sites of class struggle.

Reproduction of Relations of Production

  • Secured by the legal-political and ideological superstructure.

  • The (Repressive) State Apparatus secures political conditions for the reproduction of relations of production.

  • Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) largely secure the reproduction of relations of production.

  • Ruling ideology ensures 'harmony' between the (Repressive) State Apparatus and the ISAs.

  • Educational ISA has become dominant in mature capitalist societies, replacing the Church.

Ideology

  • Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence.

  • Ideology has a material existence in apparatuses and practices.

  • Individuals' beliefs are material actions within practices governed by rituals.

Ideology and the Subject

  • Ideology interpellates individuals as subjects.

  • The category of the subject is constitutive of all ideology.

  • Individuals are always-already subjects.

  • Ideology hails concrete individuals as concrete subjects.

Christian Religious Ideology Example

  • The structure of all ideology, interpellating individuals as subjects in the name of a Unique and Absolute Subject, is speculary, i.e. a mirror-structure.

  • God defines himself as the Subject par excellence.

  • Relations of production are reproduced through the mirror recognition of the Subject and the individuals interpellated as subjects.