Richard Wolff on Louis Althusser

Democracy and Class Struggle has always been conflicted by Louis Althusser - in fact out view of him is very dialectical - while we learnt from him and appreciated his criticism of Roger Garuady there was always something missing.

Our suspicion was that his stucturalism is the source of his errors - his low estimation of diachrony ( change extending through time) was influenced by the linguistic structuralists like Levi Strauss.

Levi Strauss turns historical materialism on its head by making collective consciousness primary and not social being determining social consciousness the Marxist position 

There is still much work to do to critically appreciate Althusser and we would welcome constructive critiques.