Structural Marxism is an approach to

Marxist philosophy Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are works in philosophy that are strongly influenced by Karl Marx's materialist approach to theory, or works written by Marxists. Marxist philosophy may be broadly divided into Western Marxism, which drew fr ...

based on

structuralism In sociology, anthropology, archaeology, history, philosophy, and linguistics, structuralism is a general theory of culture and methodology that implies that elements of human culture must be understood by way of their relationship to a broader s ...

, primarily associated with the work of the French philosopher

Louis Althusser Louis Pierre Althusser (, ; ; 16 October 1918 – 22 October 1990) was a French Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the École normale supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy. Althusser ...

and his students. It was influential in France during the 1960s and 1970s, and also came to influence philosophers, political theorists and sociologists outside France during the 1970s. Other proponents of structural Marxism were the sociologist

Nicos Poulantzas Nicos Poulantzas ( el, Νίκος Πουλαντζάς ; 21 September 1936 – 3 October 1979) was a Greek-French Marxist political sociologist and philosopher. In the 1970s, Poulantzas was known, along with Louis Althusser, as a leading structur ...

and the

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and v ...

Maurice Godelier Maurice Godelier (born February 28, 1934) is a French anthropologist who works as a Director of Studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences. He is one of the most influential French anthropologists and is best known as one o ...

. Many of Althusser's students broke with structural Marxism in the late 1960s and 1970s.

Overview

Structural Marxism arose in opposition to the

instrumental Marxism Instrumental Marxism, or elite model, is a theory which reasons that policy makers in government and positions of power tend to "share a common business or class background, and that their decisions will reflect their business or class interests". ...

that dominated many western universities during the 1970s. In contrast to other forms of Marxism, Althusser stressed that Marxism was a

science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

that examined objective structures, and he believed that historistic and phenomenological Marxism, which was based on Marx's early works, was caught in a "pre-scientific ideology". Toward the middle of the 1970s and throughout the 1980s, Marxist theorists began to develop structuralist Marxist accounts of the state, law, and crime. Structuralist Marxism disputes the

instrumentalist A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...

view that the state can be viewed as the direct servant of the capitalist or ruling class. Whereas the instrumentalist position is that the institutions of the state are under the direct control of those members of the capitalist class in positions of state power, the structuralist position is that state institutions must function so as to ensure the viability of capitalism more generally. In other words, state institutions must reproduce capitalist society as a whole. The debate between structural and instrumental Marxists was characterized by the Miliband–Poulantzas debate between instrumentalist

Ralph Miliband Ralph Miliband (born Adolphe Miliband; 7 January 1924 – 21 May 1994) was a British sociologist. He has been described as "one of the best known academic Marxists of his generation", in this manner being compared with E. P. Thompson, Eric Hob ...

and structuralist

. Structuralists view the state in a capitalist mode of production as taking a specifically capitalist form, not because particular individuals are in powerful positions, but because the state reproduces the logic of capitalist structure in its economic, legal, and political institutions. Hence, from a structuralist perspective one would argue that state institutions (including legal ones) function in the long-term interests of capital and capitalism, rather than in the short-term interests of members of the capitalist class. Thus the state and its institutions have a certain degree of independence from specific elites in the ruling or capitalist class.

Long- versus short-term class interests

Structural Marxism posits that the state functions to serve the long-term interests of the

Bourgeosie The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. The ...

. Building upon the works of

Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
''

class conflict Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor. The forms o ...

, the irreconcilable tension between the

proletariat The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philo ...

and the bourgeoisie.Lenin, V.I. (2004/1917). ''The State and Revolution''. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing.Offe, Claus (1974). ''Structural Problems of the Capitalist State: Class Rule and the Political System''. In

Klaus von Beyme Klaus Gustav Heinrich von Beyme (3 July 1934 – 6 December 2021) was a German political scientist who was Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. Education Beyme ...

(ed.) ''German Political Studies, vol. 1''. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publishing. By regulating these antagonisms rather than eliminating them which is thought impossible without violent revolution—the state serves to stabilize the capitalist system as a whole and preserve its existence. Structuralists differentiate between the long-term and short-term interests of the capitalist class in order to describe the necessity of the state to the capitalist system. Short-term interests of the bourgeoisie include policies that affect capital accumulation in the immediate future such as tax breaks, reduced minimum wages, government subsidies, etc. They maintain that when the state does not benefit the bourgeois class' short-term interests, it is acting on the behalf of its future interests. Accordingly, when the state seems to act on behalf of the proletariat rather than the bourgeoisie (raising minimum wage, increasing labor rights, etc.) it is serving capitalist interests by meeting the demands of workers only enough to prevent an uprising that could threaten the system as a whole. Because the interests of the proletariat and the capitalist classes are counter to one another, the state is necessary to regulate the capitalist system and assure its preservation by forcing capitalists to agree to demands of workers to which they otherwise would not succumb. Similar arguments have been made concerning structural theories of the capitalist nature of the state.

Claus Offe Claus Offe (born 16 March 1940 in Berlin) is a political sociologist of Marxist orientation. He received his PhD from the University of Frankfurt and his Habilitation at the University of Konstanz. In Germany, he has held chairs for Political S ...

averred that the class-character of the state could only be observed in an ''ex post'' perspective. In other words, the class character of the state can only be shown after policies are put in place and the outcome is observed. Because of this, he criticizes structural theories which attempt to prove the capitalist character of the state, claiming they do so on an unfounded basis: because outcomes of the state's policies are empirically capitalist, it does not make the State a capitalist enterprise in its nature.Kołakowski, Leszek (1971),
Althusser's Marx
. ''Socialist Register'' 1971, pp. 111–28.

References

{{Use British English Oxford spelling, date=December 2019 Eponymous political ideologies Marxist schools of thought Neo-Marxism Social theories Structuralism