Louis Althusser’s concept of overdetermination follows directly from his structuralist concept of social systems.[II]
He suggests, at least implicitly if not explicitly, that the determining factors at work alongside each other in various instances of social reality are in fact convergent, because they all contribute simultaneously to the reproduction of the system, to its adaptation to what is required for its evolution, and to the crisis that will eventually propel society beyond it.
The economic determinants, and those that govern politics, ideology, and culture, all work in the same direction and consequently ‘overdetermine’ social evolution. Thus, if a transformation is economically necessary, it also is politically, ideologically, and culturally necessary—and the reciprocal is also the case. If one accepts that the economic factor is, in the last analysis, decisive, the notion of overdetermination can easily lead to an economic determinist reading of history in which the other factors adapt themselves to the requirements of the economic one.This is certainly a possible interpretation of Marxism, and I would not be so presumptuous as to deny this reading by, for example, calling it ‘deviationist’ or, even worse, ‘heretical.’ But it is not my interpretation of Marxism, for at least two reasons.
The first reason is that I do not think it right to pose the question of the relationships among various determining influences as though similar terms apply to all the stages of history. I have often said and repeated that economics as an autonomous factor is specific to capitalism, while in former, tributary, systems it is subordinate to politics. This observation is perhaps not incompatible with the Althusserian theory, and some of his pupils have integrated it into the system of their master by suggesting a distinction between decisiveness in the last analysis and dominance.
I consider this a useful proposition, and I myself have adopted it precisely to formulate the distinguishing difference between tributary systems (in which politics is dominant) and capitalism (in which economics is dominant).
All that is certainly quite familiar to those who have read my writings on this subject. I will not dwell on it.The second reason is, on the contrary, totally incompatible with Althusserian structuralism and, consequently, with his concept of overdetermination. According to my thesis, each of the determining factors is governed by its own logic, whether its status be that of last-analysis determinance (economics) or dominance (political in tributary systems, economic in capitalism, or, as I maintain, cultural in the communist future). These specific logics are autonomous, and complementarity among them does not necessarily ensue, even spontaneously. They frequently clash with each other, and it is a priori impossible to foresee which of them will predominate. In my opinion, Marx perfectly analysed the economic logic of capitalism, and the accumulation of capital, as its dominant trait, that is to say, the channels through which this economic logic is imposed onto political, ideological, and cultural logics. On the other hand, I have said that neither Marx nor the historical forms of Marxism have put forward comparably powerful analyses dealing with the logics of the other determining factors. Moreover I do not believe that non-Marxian theories have made any significant contribution in these regards.
The conflict among determining factors, through which each expresses its own logic, gives to history its own specific range of uncertainty, and this distinguishes it from fields governed by natural law. Neither social nor individual histories are ‘programmed’. Freedom is defined precisely by this conflict of logics, which allows choice among different possible alternatives. Therefore, against the concept of overdetermination I advocate that of underdetermination.
Does this mean that societies are incoherent? Not at all; they always are coherent in the sense that the conflict among logics (underdetermination) always finds a solution, one among several possible solutions, through the subordination of some logics to others.
Social, political, ideological, and economic struggles mould societies by forcing them to choose one type of coherence rather than another.In contemporary discussions the autonomy of these different logics has been emphasised by various participants, most notably the autonomy of a unity (itself complex) among political, ideological, and cultural factors. Nevertheless, I do not consider that the various theses put forward on these subjects are really strong enough to carry conviction (at least not with me). They point out problems, but give no answers. This weakness is frequently expressed in sentences like ‘Such- and-such analysis or conceptualisation is economic determinist, and disregards political or cultural factors.’ Yes, they are disregarded, but how is one to overcome such ‘disregard’ and demonstrate the complementary (overdetermining) or con- flictual (underdetermining) relationship of the logics at issue?
It is easy for me to agree with Jean Baudrillard that value has a symbolic dimension, that the domination of power centres over the system as a whole is related to the fact that those centres are also the producers of the meanings and signs tlLat are indispensable to everyone. But how does this production of meaning operate? What are the symbols at issue, and what is it that makes them what they are? Discourse about these subjects has remained very vague, even though here and there interesting and pregnant insights have been expressed, as was the case in its time with Freudian Marxism or, today, with the critique of patriarchy.
On the other hand I find it very difficult to accept the idea that strong cultural logics, each very different from one another, have prevailed over what Braudel calls the long run, that is to say, over a span sufficiently long enough to include within it social and economic changes important enough to be considered qualitative transformations. I have criticised this idea, which 1 have termed ‘culturalist’, and which, in this moment of crisis, has the wind in its sails (on this topic see my critique of postmodernism).
I have not rejected this idea on the grounds of its ‘anti-Marxism’ (a sort of theological reasoning for which I have only contempt) but because I believe that I have shown it to be belied by history. For example, I have recongnised that what people claim as their own diverse ‘cultural particularities’ (particular to Christian ‘occidentals,’ or to the Muslim or Confucian worlds) have in reality operated in a very similar way in various tributary societies of the past. They should therefore be considered ‘generalities’, even though taking on particular forms. I have likewise recognised that capitalism constituted a break in the cultural history of Europe, not a continuity. On these ground I have affirmed— in contradistinction to Serge Latouche’s ‘Westernisation of the world’ thesis—that the predominant culture of our modern epoch is not ‘Western’ but is really and truly capitalist. By this I mean first of all that this culture—which can be described in terms of Promethean dynamism—was not that of medieval and Christian Europe. It is another matter altogether that Europeans, having broken with their own past, should have wished to deny that past by claiming for themselves mythical ancestors present in both their past and current history (see my explication of this matter in Eurocentrism). 1 also mean, when I choose to describe modern culture as capitalist, that the essential features of this culture are easily explained by the basic features of capitalism. Cultural dynamism is not at the origin of the dynamism of capital accumulation (though this is what Max Weber basically maintained). On the contrary, it is the dynamism of capital accumulation (which is effortlessly explained through competitive pressures on every capitalist) that carries in its wake the dynamically changing modern culture.Also worthy of mention are other attempts, quite outside the scope of Marxist discussions, to analyse social change on the basis of an avowed irreducibility of different structural levels to any economic, or other ‘common denominator’.
I refer here especially to the theses of those called postmodernists. I will put forward a critique of them in a later chapter, because these propositions seem to me to be typical in all ways of the social thought characteristic of moments of crisis like the present. Out of an almost morbid fear of falling into ‘past excesses,’ (as shown by their critique of ‘broad narratives’ and their mistrust of conceptual thought), they calmly accept a complementary function to the ideas needed to legitimise the globalised neoliberal economics prevalent at this moment. Postmodernism, for all these reasons, has remained sterile insofar as it provides no way to account for the specific logics of those non-economic factors.All that being the case, the charge of economic determinism against the main historical forms of Marxism is valid and well established, whereas the charge that Marxism is inherently economic determinist is quite dubious. Even though neither Marx nor the Marxists have yet produced specific theories of ideology, politics, and culture comparable to their economic theory—no more than have the nonMarxists—Marx’s approach calls out for just that. There is thus a noneconomic- determinist interpretation of Marxism, to which I adhere.
Social classes under capitalism (not in ‘all modes of production’ as was stated in the Second and Third Internationals’ popularisations of Marxism) are not defined solely by their relationship to the production and distribution of surplus value. As I read Marx, capitalism is based on economic alienation, in contrast to earlier forms of society based on other forms of alienation (which may be regarded as metaphysical). Alienation of labour is no less basic than its exploitation in our analysis of social classes in the modern world. To go beyond capitalism, therefore, requires not merely a ‘rectified apportionment of value’ (which would lead only to an imaginary ‘capitalism without capitalists’) but rather the liberation of mankind from economic alienation.
I maintain that, although historical forms of Marxism have forgotten it, Marx’s critique of ‘economic efficiency’ represents merely a particular form of rationality rather than being in itself the expression of rationality in general.
Here again I refer to what I have written elsewhere, especially in regard to the so-called environmental dimensions of the question of capital accumulation.Undoubtedly, social classes do not represent the only social realities, not even in the modern world, not even in its advanced centres. But in pointing out the existence of other forms of social solidarity—that of nations or of various communities and social groupings—does one do anything more than point to the existence of logics other than the economic one? Here again, until substantial progress has been made in the analysis of the political, ideological, and cultural logics there will be no progress in the analysis of those social solidarities, whether they complement or conflict with those stemming from the organisation of society into classes.
The discussion ought to be carried beyond the identification of social classes to deal with actual and possible ‘class alliances’ both in the metropolitan centres and in the peripheral countries of the polarised global system. I will only comment very briefly on these questions, which 1 have taken up in other writings.
First: In the centres, do we have social democracy or social imperialism? Even if they were social imperialist, the social compromises in the metropolitan countries (the welfare state) are not irreversible, as proven by the neoliberal efforts to dismantle them. The workers’ revolt against capitalism cannot be reduced to class struggles within the framework of the capitalist mode of production, no matter how important these might be; it is, or can also be the rejection of alienation (1968 shows this) and as such calls for going beyond the framework within which capitalism reproduces itself.
Second: Is the historical goal of bourgeois imperialism merely economic, or does it call for reflection concerning the role of nations in history? Of course I do not believe that to pose such a question is to ‘go outside of Marxism’. It is, on the contrary, a response to what was anticipated above, the need to show how politics is linked to economics.
Third: If neoliberalism persists and achieves its goals, will the new globalisation restore the commonality of the ‘active’ and ‘reserve’ armies of labour in central and peripheral countries, and by that very fact will it (as Giovanni Arrighi suggests) give a revolutionary role back to the working classes?
Fourth: Was the Sovietist model ‘statist’ proving thus that a ruling class can establish its existence through politics, or was it an attempt at ‘capitalism without capitalists’ destined, as reality has now shown, not to be overthrown by a capitalist counter-revolution but to evolve naturally into a ‘capitalism with capitalists’?
Fifth: Should the peripheral bourgeoisies, whose essential function is that of intermediary for world capital, still be characterised as bourgeois? Or are they merely comprador political classes?