"The subject-agents are only active in history through the determination of the relations of production and reproduction, and in their forms."
Poppycock.
The rest of what Yoshie posts is Althusser trying to have his cake and eat it, too. Niether Marx nor any other sane Marxist ever posited Man and the automatic Subject of History in the way Hegel did, so Althusser's claim that he's clarifying Marx is caca. Althusser claimed that history is a machine and the people are robots. He did this in part to provide Theory for the French CP's resistance to the 1968 uprising in Paris, which was not under their command, so, ipso facto, not good.
Althusser is 100 percent worthless. He said nothing fair and useful about anything, and he wrote atrociously (for the usual reason). ----- Original Message ----- From: "Miles Jackson" <cqmv at pdx.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Saturday, March 13, 2004 8:29 AM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] the gains from variety
>
>
> On Fri, 12 Mar 2004, Michael Dawson wrote:
>
> > If I'm so messing up your meaning, what is it? What have I gotten
wrong? I
> > wrote that freedom of choice was fundamental to human welfare, and you
wrote
> > back saying that might be ethnocentric and that freedom of choice might
be
> > over-rated. People, you argued, were quite happy living in traditional
> > societies that didn't prize freedom of choice and individuality like we
do.
> > What's missing in my comprehension of what you've said?
>
> So far, so good. The "think harder" comment was in reference to
> your reliance on obscenties and ad hominem arguments to respond to
> my views. Read Yoshie's post quoting Althusser at some length; this
> pretty much sums up my views on the problems with your
> celebration of the "free subject".
>
> Miles
>
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