On the Reproduction of Capitalism: Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Louis Althusser)

This book was a cumbersome read. At times I felt like I was following a winding river, meandering from subject to subject, but somehow always coming back to Althusser's main points. Once or twice, Althusser lost me for a moment or two. Like when he began to argue that ideology has no history. Eventually, I did figure out what it was he was trying to say.

Going into Althusser's book I was already familiar with many of his terms, having read an excerpt of the essay featured in Appendix two of the book, which is titled, Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses. Curiously, this essay is basically a summary of the key points of the entire book.

Althusser wrote On the Reproduction of Capitalism in the aftermath of May 1968. The book was originally in French, but has, of course, been translated. Althusser intended to write two volumes, but only this one, the first, was ever completed. Frequently within the book Althusser says he will refer to something in volume two, but of course, he never does, so at times there are some holes in his train of thought.

Additionally, Althusser builds off of and refers frequently to Marxist theory. Therefore, I would recommend at least a basic knowledge of Marx's Capital before trying to tackle this one.

Althusser was interested in class struggle and in determining why the relations of production were constantly reproduced. Althusser took the concept of the base and the superstructure, the base being the economic structure of a state and the superstructure a compilation of other structures which support and are supported by the economic base. Althusser suggests that ISAs, or Ideological State Apparatuses, are a part of the superstructure. These ISAs come in various formats, such as scholastic, religious, political and familial.

Scholastic ISAs, for example, function in the education system. Children are taught correct and incorrect modes of behaviour, such as work ethic and respect towards certain authorities. Althusser says that workers, or the proletariat,  are "hailed," or addressed, by Ideological State Apparatuses and are ultimately convinced to continue to support the economic base and the relations of production, whether they are consciously aware of the fact that they are doing so or not.

Althusser also uses the term Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs). Repressive State Appartuses support the economic base and the uphold the relations of production through force or the threat of force. For example, the threat of arrest, or of being hit over the head with a club for taking part in a protest, are RSAs.

Althusser goes into much more depth, touching on communist parties, the nature of ideology, and the conditions required for revolution. Essentially, though, he emphasizes that past revolutions, like the Russian and French revolutions, failed because bourgeois Ideological State Apparatuses remained in place and were not replaced by new proletariat Ideological State Apparatuses. So, the old ISAs continued to reproduce the old relations of production.

Perhaps Althusser's ideas seem overly complicated, but I assure you, once you read the book his theories will be somewhat clearer. Of course, Althusser is not for everyone. As I said at the start of this review, On the Reproduction of Capitalism is not a light read. It is however, an immensely satisfying one.

Steal This Book (Abbie Hoffman)

Last Fall I was introduced to the writing of Abbie Hoffman through another one of his books, Revolution for the Hell of it. I am endlessly fascinated with the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s, with the protest movements and with the radical literature of the time period. Steal This Book, published originally in 1971, is literally a guide to alternative living and waging war against the system.

Hoffman offers advice on everything from shoplifting, getting free food, hitchhiking, making pipe-bombs, obtaining free furniture, starting an underground press, finding a commune, growing pot, avoiding the draft, getting free education, sneaking into shows, planning for protests, surviving gas attacks and seeking legal aid after arrest. This book is the full package, even providing the names and addresses of organizations that, back in 1971, would have been helpful to those living the counter-cultural life-style. Hoffman even offers advice for those who must go "underground" to avoid arrest.

At the same time, some of Hoffman's advice is still useful today. For example, some of the advice he offers on staging demonstrations is still relevant, as is his advice for starting up an underground paper. Although, the printing methods have changed drastically in the last forty years. In the 1970s, printing presses, long hours of labour, and a few hundred dollars were needed. Today, papers can be laid-out for free on computers, photocopied and distributed far more easily and for much less. In fact, with the internet, an underground paper does not even have to print, if it chooses not to.

Steal This Book is a great read for anyone interested in either modern or past counterculture, but it's also a good choice for anyone looking for a good laugh. If you decide to read this book though, please be sure and pay for it. It was turned down by thirty publishers, partly because of the title. Please, do not steal Steal This Book.

Why Not Socialism? (G.A. Cohen)

This book is the perfect size; so little and cute and easy to hold. A mere 82 pages it's a nice light read and a perfect little explanation of modern day socialism. G.A. Cohen tackles socialism through a camping trip metaphor, suggesting that the dilemma modern socialists encounter is the task of discovering how to transfer the collective ideals and principles that occur during a camping trip to other areas of life. I thoroughly I enjoyed it. 

Prison of Grass: Canada from the native point of view (Howard Adams) (1975)

Prison of Grass is a very personal look at the issues and history of First Nations and Métis peoples in Canada. Published in 1975 and written by Métis Howard Adams, the book likens the treatment of First Nations peoples in Canada to colonialism.

Adams traces the history of Canada to the 1600s, blaming the mistreatment and racism towards First Nations on capitalism, the blossoming fur trade and the need for cheap labour. He describes how the Church assisted--perhaps unknowingly--in the suppression and domination of First Nations and Métis. They have been misrepresented in the media, dehumanized and robbed of a claim to a history and national identity.

Adams goes on the offer his own perspectives on Louis Riel and the "rebellions" of 1870 and 1885, proposing that in the latter "rebellion," Riel was simply scapegoat for Ottawa to blame the "rebellion" on. He theorizes that with the money Ottawa spent on suppressing the rebellion, they could have given each "Métis man, woman and child" a thousand dollars each. Instead  much of the money went to companies which provided supplies and transportation to the troops sent to fight. The rebellion, Adams suggests, was not caused by a deep seeded hatred for Canada, but rather a reaction to being denied the means needed to live.

Adams explains how the takeover of culture has occurred through political, economic and cultural channels.
In closing, Adams makes a bold claim, linking First Nations issues to class conflict and suggesting that a "radical nationalism of the native people" was "in the infant stage." For change to happen and for liberation, "we have to learn for ourselves through experience, rather than being dependent on the teaching and information of so-called specialists and experts." In his final line, Adams calls for a "state of revolution."

This book is an explanation, but also a call to action for some. It is a culturally important book and its legacy has lasted into this very decade. Unfortunately many of the issues Adams discusses have changed very little since 1975. For these reasons it is an important read for any Canadian trying to better understand that country around them.

The Protest Singer: An intimate Portrait of Pete Seeger (Alec Wilkinson)

The Romantic in me was drawn into this book from the first page as Alec Wilkinson described Pete Seeger hopping on a bicycle and taking off near the end of his second year of university, trading watercolour paintings for meals and playing music with those he met along the way. 

I heard my first Pete Seeger song in elementary school, but it was years before I realized that what I'd heard had been a Pete Seeger song. Last fall, I followed the rabbit hole on YouTube from Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings songs to Phil Ochs and Pete Seeger. I'd been meaning to read up Seeger for a while, so when I stumbled across this book, I picked it up. 

Not far into the book, Wilkinson says it's something that's meant to be read in one sitting. I did that. (Although I did get up from my chair once or twice for more tea). A mere 152 pages long, I managed to get through it in about an hour and a half.  I know that Pete Seeger died in January, so I can only speculate from the snapshots of his life this book provided that Seeger must have been a beautiful person. 

His philosophy on music interests me. I have long felt a disconnect between music and real life. A dilemma exists. If we simply sing, or listen to songs about issues, how are we helping anyone, or changing anything? Pete Seeger had an answer for this dilemma. He believed that "songs can make someone feel powerful when he isn't by any measure except his own determination." Seeger would play for anyone who would listen and saw music as a collective experience and process, rather than as an individual act.  Music empowers when it is experienced collectively. 

The Protest Singer has left me with much food for thought. I shall probably mull over the content for weeks to come, as I read and experience more. 

The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

I desired some light reading this afternoon, so I pulled The Scarlet Letter from my shelf. I picked it up over Christmas in a bookshop south of the border. Unfortunately, I'm more impressed with the binding of the book than with its contents. I've heard a lot of good things about Nathaniel Hawthorne's book and I'm well aware of its status as a thought-provoking classic, but after reading it, I don't see the value in it.

Of course I sympathized with Hester Prynne, a young mother forced to wear a scarlet "A" on the bosom of her dress because she had sex with a man who wasn't her husband and refused to divulge the name of the man, but I find it hard to believe that Hester's husband would appear in the town and cozy up to Hester's ex-secret lover just to seek revenge. Hester's daughter, Pearl, seemed to lack the facets of a normal little girl, although I suppose that was the point. It's not that I disliked the characters or couldn't stomach them. I found myself indifferent to the characters. 

Additionally, the intro to the book was long-winded and boring. I found myself skimming through parts of "Custom House" in order to get to "Chapter One" and the main story. Perhaps this flaw was not so much the author's fault, but the fault of literary styles in the time the book was written.

Ordinarily, I love so-called-classics, but I didn't see the draw in this one. I'll file it with other classics I've disliked. The Great Gatsby, for instance. Although, The Scarlet Letter was slightly better than that book. 

The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age (Astra Taylor)

I doubt I will ever think about internet use the same way as I did before I read The People’s Platform. Astra Taylor’s book is a well-researched critique of the way the internet is viewed as an “open” and “democratic” stage. While she admits that the internet is a communal place, she also points out that it is a capitalistic place. The internet has not freed us from the gatekeepers of media, but rather given the gatekeepers more gateways to keep.

Taylor explores modern media and the increased content control which the internet has provided to corporations. She discusses the “winner-take-all pattern of the web,” suggesting that it is not the masses who decide what is important on the web, but rather the corporations and the search engines who decide which links appear first in our browsers when we search a term. Tailored search engines like Google determine what we do and do not see based on what the search engine believes we, as consumers, will want to consume. “There may be more stuff out there than ever,” Taylor notes, “but there’s a chance we’re seeing less of it.”

Taylor also laments the decline of journalism, referring to the new form of “reporting” as “churnalism.” More news is really less news, repurposed and summarized to be churned out at an alarmingly fast rate with little fact checking. News stories are not based on what is important, but rather on what will gather the most views and therefore the higher ad revenue. This interpretation of modern journalism, I agree with. I’ve seen one too many “fluff” stories on online news sites and noticed that each article seems to simply regurgitate what every other source has already said.

The internet, as it currently exists, Taylor says, does not create a democratic place, hospitable to the fostering of culture, but rather a “free market” in which those with the money market “culture” to us and determine what we read, hear and view. A disconnect exists, in which the process of consuming culture is seen as more important than the creation of it.

Although I don’t agree with every last argument of The People’s Platform, the book is an eye opener and an important piece of the current discourse involving the purpose and function of internet in our society and in the creation of culture

Something Red by Jennifer Gilmore

As I started to read Something Red I was reminded of the Bellamy Brothers song “Old Hippie,” the first of a series of songs about an aging man who must decided how to handle the new era. Jennifer Gilmore's book, set in 1979 and 1980, focuses on a family of somewhat radical Americans who are trying to adjust to life after the 1960s. The children in the family, a teenage daughter and a son who has just entered college, try to reconcile their parents’ activist past with their own post-sixties world.

I was impressed by how much Jennifer Gilmore drew on historical events to drive the narrative. A key event in the story is the Olympic boycott and the freeze of grain sales to the Soviet Union and many of the discussions in the book are about cold-war politics, food prices, and trade. 

At times, the story was a little hard to follow, as the author switched from character to character with numerous flashbacks to events long before the start of the book. This didn't matter though because the characters were so good that chronological events and the absence of clarity at times was irrelevant to my overall enjoyment. I can’t remember that last time I read a book and felt connected to so many characters all at once. 

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

When I saw this book on the shelf at the bookstore, even though I'd promised myself I was only browsing, I couldn't walk away without it. A 1968 classic recounting the adventures of a drugged-up, spaced-out and tuned-in group calling themselves the "Pranksters" and traveling around the continent on a psychedelically painted bus is a little too hard to resist.

The 1960's is an attractive decade to read about, both politically and culturally (and what's not to love about the fashions?). Books like The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test are such satisfying reads not because they offer grand insight into politics, but because books like this one serve as folklore. This book is like a mirror into the way some people experiencing the 60's saw the 60's.

In the midst of the drugs, parties and wandering minds, there is revealed a philosophy towards life in which we are actors creating our own scripts and filming our own "movies." We perceive things as we wish to perceive them. If we perceive them differently, then they are different.

At one point we are told that "Art is not eternal," a bold statement in a culture that wishes to preserve.

At another point we are told that "Sometimes we don't even realize what we really care about, because we get so distracted by the symbols," as when we feel pride in a flag. I was struck by how true this is. When we stand up for the national anthem at an event, what exactly are we standing up for? A symbol? Do we understand what the symbol means to us, personally?

As Wolfe writes near the beginning, "Everyone is picking up on the most minute incidents as if they are metaphors for life itself." The whole book, in the midst of the nonsense, is steeped with metaphors.

When I picked up this book, I expected a wild, yet intellectually satisfying ride. I got what I asked for. The 1960s were truly a wonderful time for writing.

One Canada: Memoirs of the Right Honorable John G. Diefenbaker: The Crusading Years 1895 to 1956

As part of my goal to become better acquainted with Canadian politics and political history, I'm making my way through the memoirs of former Prime Minister Diefenbaker. This volume, the first of three, follows his life from childhood to his years of law school and practicing law and right up to his entry into Federal Canadian Politics as a Conservative.

I was intrigued not only by the life of Diefenbaker--he came from humble beginnings, his father being a school teacher--but also by the portrait of Canada he portrays. The Canada of the years between 1895 and 1956 is highly regionalized, each province or section cut off from the others, held together only by infrastructure, bureaucracy and economics.

I was also interested to note how early on his life Diefenbaker began to consider a Bill of Rights. For those readers who don't know, a Bill of Rights came into effect in Canada in 1960 as a precursor the The Charter of Rights and Freedoms which was created in 1982.

I'm looking forward to reading the second and third books by Diefenbaker. I'm sure they will be just as enjoyable, if not more.

The Communist Manifesto (Karl Marx And Freidrich Engels)

I re-read this over the weekend and I have to say I got much more out of it this time than I did when I first read it at age seventeen. Perhaps it is life experience that has made The Communist Manifesto an easier read the second time through, or perhaps it is nearly two years of university education and numerous books. Whatever it is, this time I through I had a smooth, easy read. This time through I was not only reading but also thinking.

By the time I reached the final lines, "Working Men Of All Countries Unite!" I felt I had a better grasp of what Marx and Engels had been trying to say. I also felt, as I did the first time I read this work; I agreed with much of what Marx and Engels had to say.

Naturally, I disagreed with many statements too, which I will not go into here because it would take thousands of words for me to express my thoughts on Marx and Engels. Also, I am sure there are many many reviews and papers on the web offering in-depth analysis of the points which Marx raised. Whether critics, or I suggest that Marx was right or wrong on certain points is irrelevant to new readers of the work, as the readers must interpret The Communist Manifesto and decide for themselves whether Marx and Engels were wrong or right in little, part or everything.

There is one line, which is one of my favourites in the work, and it sums up many of my own beliefs: "the free development of each  is the condition for the free development of all." I firmly believe that people should have access to the education required to reach their full potential, regardless of what class, or income level they've been born into. When all people are given the resources to develop their own minds and skills then we will have taken a step towards a successful and prosperous society.

If you're over the age of eighteen and are an avid reader, but haven't picked up Marx yet, I'd say you're a little behind. Whether you agree or disagree a knowledge of Marx is necessary for a student to function in the academic world. Although Marx is long dead his ideas and the ideas built off of him still flourish, even if many academics read him as history rather than as an author relevant to current times.