Brutal Quote by Louis Althusser
“The economic class struggle is a struggle against inessanlty intensified exploitation: not only against the brutal material form of exploitation, capitalism's tendency to reduce wages, and against the class 'techniques' for increasing productivity... but also around the question of the technical-social division of labor that prevails om enterprises, and against bourgeois ideology and repression.”
About This Quote
Source Book: Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, Louis Althusser, 1970
Class struggle includes not only material exploitation but also technical, social, and ideological forces that reinforce capitalist domination.
In simple terms: Class conflict is both economic and ideological.
Key Takeaway
Challenge both material and ideological oppression.
Themes
class
economics
ideology
labor
Mood
critical
analytical
Type
theoretical
political
When to use this quote
- workplace
- policy making
- education
- activism
Key Concepts
marxism
social theory
Questions to Reflect On
- How do technical divisions of labor affect workers today?
- What ideologies sustain economic inequality?
A Different Perspective
Ideological analysis can be abstract and hard to apply.
![“However much an ideologue tries to bury [Lenin] beneath a proof by historical analysis, there is always this one man standing their on the plain of History and of our lives, in the eternal 'current situation.' He goes on talking, calmly or passionately. He goes on talking about something simple…” quote by Louis Althusser](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/147/louis-althusser-23865_analysis_however-much-an-ideologue-tries-to-bury_2530944.jpg)
![“There exists [a] word in German, Geschichte, which designates not accomplished history, but history in the present, doubtless determined in large part, yet only in part, by the already accomplished past; for a history which is present, which is living, is also open to a future that is uncertain…” quote by Louis Althusser](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/d5f/louis-althusser-23865_class-struggle_there-exists-a-word-in-german-geschichte_1311876.jpg)
