Ideological State Apparatuses, Consumerism, and U.S..pdfVIP

RETHINKING MARXISM VOLUME 17 NUMBER 2 (APRIL 2005) Ideological State Apparatuses, Consumerism, and U.S. Capitalism: Lessons for the Left Richard D. Wolff Althusser’s pioneering concept of ‘‘ideological state apparatuses’’ is extended to the unique role of consumerism as a particular ideology enabling and supporting U.S. capitalism. It is argued that rising levels of worker consumption have functioned effectively to compensate workers for (and thereby allow) rising rates of exploitation and their negative social effects. For such compensation to succeed requires that workers embrace an ideology stressing the importance of consumption*/namely, consumerism. It is argued that the weakness of the U.S. left (in labor unions, parties, and movements) stems in part from having endorsed this consumerism rather than undermining it within the framework of an anticapitalist politics. Key Words: Consumerism, Ideology, Althusser In 1969, reflecting on France’s challenge to capitalism the year before, Louis Althusser published ‘‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes Towards an Investigation’’ (IISA).1 Like Marx’s and Lenin’s earlier assessments of the Paris Commune, Althusser’s article aimed to build upon*/by drawing lessons from*/the successes and failures of a historic anticapitalist uprising. Because those lessons are important yet remain widely underappreciated, we review Althusser’s theory of ideological state apparatuses in this paper’s first part. Those lessons enable new insights into the reproduction of capitalism in the United States. The second part examines (1) how the particular ideology of consumerism has been crucial to sustaining the U.S. capitalist class structure, (2) how ideological state