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#althusser

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Thinking about modes of production and how important the concept was for the development on non-Western #Marxism, because it allowed for separating historical analysis from purely theoretical. But I'm wondering whether people like Samir #Amin or Walter #Rodney actually read #Althusser or #Balibar.

Balibar (in Lire le Capital and Cinq Etudes) develops a flexible, historically contingent notion of modes of production on a theoretical level, but Amin (and, after him, Eric Wolf or Jairus Banaji) make it concrete, developing it along non-European case studies in order to show it isn't exclusive.

Amin lived in Paris for a time and taught in Vincennes in 1969, so I would be astonished if he hadn’t connected to these discussions, but he doesn’t cite them anywhere as far as I can see.

An excellent short documentary on the life and thought of Louis #Althusser. He is an interesting figure in the history of modern thought, highly influential and, for some, a flashpoint of controversy. I'm no expert on his thought, but given what I know, I would have to say I'm, at least to some degree, an "Althusserian." What I did not know is how much of his thinking I learned via others.

Warning: the video opens with a description of a murder.

#marxism #philosophy

youtu.be/bKDahXlfFlY?si=WVO9k6

Replied to Bryan Kam

@bryankam

Althusser does that; he makes Marx resonate with concepts from other traditions, and what we hear is a voice that is completely fresh yet entirely at home with all the other classical thinkers, and at the same time somehow it also has immediate and urgent relevance in the political battles of 1960/70s France. He is a magician.