NOTES AND COMMENTARY / 159

idea was thought of as marginal or surpassed; at best, it pointed to limits to action,

such as torture. Henceforth, there is more to be said. Politically, we have to take a
negative road; we only know that in our neighbor there is something that is
irreducible, something non-manipulable. Can one go beyond that spiritual experience
of limits to conceive of a public action that is not reducible to an action aimed at
taking power; something that would be an ethical action in competition and still in
solidarity with other actions of the same type? Can one conceive of a law that would
not be monopolized by the state?
To think about the law is not only to think about the limits of the state and the
technocracy; it is also to reflect on the capacity to generate norms. It is to distinguish
innovative social conflicts: those that change the recognized legitimacies. It is to speak
and act so that outside the state, society exists as more than brutal competition. The
material and human congestion from which we suffer necessitates a re-elaboration of
collective life in the midst of a plurality of experiences and choices. This means that
juridical activity (the invention and the confrontation of norms) is one of the keys to
the problem of modern societies.

THE PROBLEM OF POSITIVISM

IN THE WORK OF NICOS POULANTZAS

by Martin Plaut

In his assessment of Miliband, Poulantzas objects that instead of attacking orthodox

theory by presenting a different "problematic," or set of theoretical constructs,
Miliband opposes concepts with facts, thereby " . . . placing himself on their own
terrain." 1 The warning is appropriate and is one that I intend to heed in considering
Poulantzas's work. I will therefore not present an alternative set of data, nor examine
the internal consistency of his categories, although this would represent a legitimate
approach. 2 Instead, I intend to examine certain of Poulantzas's key concepts by
considering their origins in Althusser and before him in the work of Bachelard. 3 This
is of the utmost importance, for their theoretical coherence rests upon this
foundation. It will, therefore, be necessary to devote considerable attention to
Althusser in order to develop an adequate critique of Poulantzas. But before
proceeding to examine the Althusserian system, it is necessary to elaborate some of the
categories in which this analysis will be undertaken.
Habermas has developed a critique of social relations based on a careful
reconsideration of such desperate works as German Idealism, structural function-
alism, systems analysis and hermeneutics. Most important in this context is his
reconsideration of Marx in his essay, "The Idea of the Theory of Knowledge as Social
1. N. Poulantzas in R. Blackburn, Ideology in Social Science (London, 1972), p. 42.
2. This approach is followed in many studies. See, e.g., B. Hindess and P. Hirst,
Precapitalist Modes of Production (London, 1975), Chapter 1, and E. Wright, "Class Boundaries
in Advanced Capitalist Societies," New Left Review 98 (July-August 1976).
3. I shall examine Althusser's categories, upon which Poulantzas relies, and not Althusser's
work on the state in "Lenin and Philosophy," which has little original to say on the subject and
chiefly consists of an extended play upon the fact that the state employs ideology (of which
education forms the most important element under capitalism) as well as repression in order to
maintain the political power of the ruling class.
160 / TEWS

Theory. "4 In this essay Habermas identifies the self-generative process of mankind as
being the result of two forms of activity: "While instrumental activity corresponds to
the constraint of external nature and the level of the forces of production determines
the extent of technical control over natural forces, communicative action stands in
correspondence to the suppression of man's own nature. The institutional framework
determines the extent of repression by the unreflected, "Natural" forces of social
dependence and political power, for repression is rooted in prior history and tradition.
A society owes emancipation from the external forces of nature to labor processes, that
is to the production of technically exploitable knowledge.... Emancipation from the
compulsion of internal nature succeeds to the degree that institutions based on force
are replaced by an organization of social relations that is bound only to
communication free from domination. This does not occur directly through
productive activity, but rather through the revolutionary activity of struggling classes
(including the critical activity of reflective sciences).5
Habermas goes on to show that in his material studies, Marx displays a sensitivity to
both dimensions, but that at a categorical level he assumes a convergence in his
" . . . reduction of the selfgenerative act of the human species to labor. "6 This allows a
natural scientific interpretation of a science of man to take place, as it reduces the
development of consciousness to a by product of man's interaction with nature. With
such an interpretation the necessity for social theory to incorporate a notion of critique
is made redundant and the way is cleared for the manipulative interest inherent in the
concern of the natural sciences to be extended to the social life process. As Habermas
maintains, science lacks the element of reflection and the interest in bringing the
social subject to self consciousness.7 It is this conception of social theory as a natural
science by Marx that Wellmer labels a latent positivism. 8 Schroyer has shown that
this problem has unintended consequences: "First, as mentioned above, the meth-
odological nature of the human sciences has been misunderstood and the Marxist
critique has been represented as a type of materialistic scientism. Consequently it has
tended toward an economistic science which presents social evolution in a
deterministic manner.... Secondly, there has been an authoritarian use of critique by
later Marxists which in the organizational theory of Leninism, reduces the struggle for
political emancipation to strategies for unquestioned instrumental ends. Marxism has
evolved into an elitist paramilitary tradition which subordinates theoretical reflection
and human liberation to the instrumental ends of 'revolutionary' power acquisition."9
Thus, unlike other Marxists, who are content to find fault with certain later
interpretations of his project (the Second International and Stalin providing favorite
targets), critical theory attacks certain fundamental weaknesses in the work of Marx
himself, which they believe to be common to much Enlightenment theory. 10
Wellmer is careful to state in his critique of Marx that the positivism he discerns in
4. J. Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interest (London, 1972), Chapter 3.
5. Ibid., p. 53.
6. Ibid., p. 42.
7. Ibid., p. 46.
8. A. Wellmer, Critical Theory of Society (New York, 1971), p. 67.
9. Although I believe that both deformations are found in Althusser, I only intend to discuss
the former. The latter, generally labelled Stalinism, has an impact upon Marxism that is
discussed by Callinicos (in AUhusser's Marxism [London, 1976], pp. 102-106). Colletti remarks
that he detects an "organic sympathy" on the part of Althusser for Stalinism. (L. Colletti, "A
Political and Philosophical Interview," New Left Review 86 [July-August 1974], p. 17.)
10. See in this regard M. Horkheimer and T. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment (New
York, 1972); J. Habermas, op.cit.,; Wellmer, op.cit.
 NOTES AND COMMENTARY / 161

Marx is not to be found in an overt form, but is the logical outcome of his categories.}1
In Althusser what is implicit becomes explicit. Working in France in the 1960s,
Althusser produced a theoretical anti-humanism in part at least as a reaction to the
humanism of the French Communist Party.12 Against this Althusser states without
hesitation that " . . . in conformity with the tradition constantly reiterated by the
classics of Marxism, we may claim that Marx established a new science: the science of
the history of "social formations." To be more precise, I should say that Marx "opened
up" for scientific knowledge a new "continent," that of history just as Thales opened
up the "continent of mathematics for scientific knowledge, and Galileo opened up the
'continent' of physical nature for scientific knowledge."^ The quotation could be
repeated almost indefinitely, for it colors Althusser's every remark; but this one is of
particular interest in that it is quite specific in equating Marxism with the natural
sciences.14 Yet it would be a mistake to think that Althusser is referring to the natural
sciences in a general way, for he is being absolutely specific. When Althusser refers to
science he draws upon the Bachelardian conception of science, and for very good
reasons, as we shall see. Because of the specificity of his reference, it is necessary to
undertake a brief detour in order to establish what Bachelard understands by the term
science.
For Bachelard, the difference between scientific and everyday experience originates
in the natural tendencies of the mind. The mind spontaneously engages in a dreamlike
reverie which is responsible for all man's acts of imagination, such as art. Science, or
the rational, can only be constituted as a tremendous existential effort, "The first
experience, or to be more exact, the first observation is always a first obstacle for the
scientific culture. In effect, this first obstacle presents itself with a luxuriance of
images; it is picturesque, concrete, natural, simple We begin our investigation by
showing that there is a rupture and not at all continuity between observation and
experimentation."15 Having made the break, the power of imagination is, however,
not vanquished and continues to threaten to reintegrate science into ordinary thought.
The destruction of non-scientific mind by means of which scientific mind establishes
itself is only partial, hence, "We must constantly demonstrate what remnants of
common knowledge still reside in scientific knowledge." 1(> Nor is a single break
enough: in the progress of scientific thought epistemological obstacles arise which
must be overcome by further breaks. Science is therefore preserved by two kinds of
breaks: one that founds the science and another that ensures its continued progress.
Bhaskar quotes what must constitute one of the central phrases of Bachelard:
"science has no object outside its own activity."17 Bachelard asserts that science does
not deal with empirical phenomena, but with "secondary objects" produced by science
in the source of experiments. In the process of this labor, sufficient phenomena are

11. Wellmer, op.cit., p. 72.

12. P. Anderson, Considerations on Western Marxism (London, 1976), p. 39.
13. L. Althusser, For Marx (Middlesex, 1969), pp. 13-14.
14. Marx himself at times falls into this trap. See, e.g., his preface to the first German edition
of Capital (in Vol. I [London, 1974], p. 19).
15. Bachelard, quoted in K. Tribe, "On the Production and Structuring of Scientific
Knowledge," Economy and Society, Vol. 2 (197S), p. 469.
16. G. Bachelard, The Philosophy of No (New York, 1968), p. 35.
17. Bachelard, in R. Bhaskar, "Feyerabend and Bachelard: Two Philosophies of Science,"
New Left Review, 94 (November-December 1975), p. 51. Bachelard is insistent upon this point.
He maintains that "In all circumstances the immediate must yield to the constructed."
Bachelard, op.cit., p. 123.
162 / TELOS

produced to undertake the practice of science. This is reflected in the work of

Althusser in a modified form when he states, "a science never works on an existence
whose essence is pure immediacy and singularity ('sensations' or 'individuals'). It
always works on something 'general,' even if this has the form of a 'fact.' At its moment
of constitution, as for physics with Galileo and for the science of the evolution of social
formations (historical materialism) with Marx, a science always works on existing
concepts or Vorstellungen, that is, a preliminary Generality 1 of an ideological
nature." 18 If taken seriously, this can lead Althusserian students into considerable
difficulties when dealing with data, and may lead them to fall foul of solipsism, as may
be seen when Hindess and Hirst maintain: "Our constructions and our arguments are
theoretical and they can only be eavaluated in theoretical terms—in terms, that is to
say, of their rigor and theoretical coherence. They cannot be refuted by any empiricist
recourse to the supposed 'facts of history'."19
The last aspect of Bachelard's work to which I wish to draw attention to cast light
upon Althusser's problematic is his concept of the 'scientific city' as the cornerstone
guaranteeing his epistemology. This 'city' is made up of the institutions and personnel
engaged in the scientific enterprise and entry into its number socializes the scientist
into breaking with his imaginative life. As Bhaskar notes: "It is the scientific city
which holds the criteria of objectivity and truth. The objectivity of scientific
knowledge is thus grounded in inter-subjectivity, the classical stance of Kantian
philosophical idealism."20 This scientific city finds its parallel in Althusser's category
of theoretical practice, which he formulates as an alternative to traditional
epistemology. Althusser rejects any form of epistemology that attempts to come to
grips with the manner in which the world can be known, the relationship between
subject and object as being "ideological."21 Instead, truth is guaranteed inter-
subjectively by a particular level of social existence: "theoretical practice is indeed its
own criterion, and contains in itself definite protocols with which to validate the
quality of its product, i.e., the criteria of the scientificity of the products of scientific
practice. "22 The problems posed by epistemology are thus rejected in favor of the
scientific method.
The fascinating aspect of this rejection is that it follows exactly the pattern
established by early positivism. In his essay on positivism, Habermas traces the
emergence of exactly the same trend in the work of Comte. "Positivism marks the end
of the theory of knowledge. In its place emerges the philosophy of science.
Transcendental logical inquiry into the conditions of possible knowledge aimed as well
at explicating the meaning of knowledge as such. Positivism cuts off this inquiry,
18. Althusser, op.cit., pp. 183-184. As with many of the concepts borrowed from Bachelard,
this one is not ackowledged by Althusser. The only borrowing that he seems to appear to acknow-
ledge is that of the epistemological break (see Althusser, op.cit., pp. 32, 168, 185).
19. Hindess and Hirst, op.cit., p. 3. It is statements such as this that have led Francois
George to attack Althusser for Stalinism. George believes that if theory is all powerful, history is
no longer made by man, but by a party that decides what has and what has not taken place. In
the end, "history is the theory of history projected into reality by bureaucratic power." (F.
George, "Reading Althusser," Telos 7 [Spring 1971], p. 97.) Poulantzas has recently
acknowledged some of the difficulties into which this leads (N. Poulantzas, "The Capitalist State:
A Reply to Miliband and Lacla," New Left Review 95 [January-February 1976], p. 66.) For
further discussion, see M. Plaut and T. Plaut, Book Review, Social Dynamics, 2:2 (December
1976).
20. Bhaskar, op.cit., p. 51.
21. Althusser in L. Althusser and E. Balibar, Reading Capital (London, 1970), pp. 52-56.
22. Ibid., p. 59.
 NOTES AND COMMENTARY / 163

which it conceives as having become meaningless in virtue of the fact of the modern
sciences. Knowledge is implicitly defined by the achievement of the sciences. "23 (As
Marx remarked: history repeats itself.) Instead of an epistemology, positivism based
its philosophy of science on a collection of pre-critical elements that it combined in an
eclectic fashion. But it is here that Althusser, on the one hand, and Comte and Mach
on the other, part company, for although Althusser is a positivist, he is not an
empiricist, and the demand for sense certainty made by early positivists would be
anathema to him. The time has come to try to establish in exactly what sense Althusser
can be labelled positivist.
Althusser's positivism arises from his scientism; from his demand for a rejection as
ideological of all forms of knowledge not produced by science. Habermas sees in
scientism the essence of positivism. "Positivism stands and falls with the principle of
scientism, that it that the meaning of knowledge is defined by what the sciences do and
can thus be adequately explicated through the methodological analysis of scientific
procedures... The replacement of epistemology by the philosophy of science is visible
in that the knowing subject is no longer the system of reference."24 In the work of
Althusser, the knowing subject is explcitly and effectively banished from Marxism.
Indeed, the scientificity of Marxism is based on this very exorcism. And rightly so. The
conception of Marxism as a science is incompatible with the centrality of the notion of
the ego as both the object of determinations and the active subjectivity vis-a-vis nature.
While in Marx there was sufficient ambiguity for the idea of critique and science to
exist side by side, Althusser proposes a reading that eliminates all ambiguity and
replaces it with an unequivocal science of man. The effects of this are numerous, and
only some of them can be considered here, but perhaps most importantly, the
establishment of a science eliminates any notion of emancipation. Colletti makes this
point with great force: "What does it mean to say that for Marx history is a process
without a subject? It means that history is not the site of any human emancipation.
But for the real Marx, of course, the revolution was precisely this—a process of
collective emancipation."25
The critique of ideology that Marx inherited from German idealism is negated at a
stroke, and world history is relegated to an endless night of permanent ideology. This
is a consequence that Althusser faces without blanching: "And I am not going to steer
clear of the critical question: historical materialism cannot conceive that even a
communist society could ever do without ideology, be it ethics, arts or 'world
outlook'."26 The manipulative interest inherent in a scientific interest is installed in
Althusserian theory as the Leninist vanguard becomes scientist, carefully altering the
degrees of ideology necessary for the better appropriation of surplus value under a
future socialism with very restricted horizons. The aim of emancipation can only be
perceived as the lessening of the hours of the working day combined with an
egalitarian conformism.
The misconceived venture of "purifying" Marx to found a science takes its revenge
on Althusser in the problem of rigor. For, despite the fact that Althusser insists that he
is being scientific (an insistence that apparently leads him to adopt the most turgid
and repetitive style), many of his concepts are poorly founded. Thus Glucksmann
argues that Althusser's entire conceptual apparatus just "happens" and that it is on the

23. Habermas, op.cit., p. 67.

24. Ibid., pp. 67-68.
25. Colletti, op.cit., p. 16.
26. Althusser, op.cit., p. 232.
164 / TELOS

flimsiest of grounds.27 Kolakowski, discussing Althusser's concept of ideology, is able

to show that it could apply to a philosophy of history, the history of science, paranoid
delusions or to poetry with equal ease. 28 He goes on to charge Althusser with
producing little more than vague banalities, and of not knowing the difference
between stating a proposition and proving it. 2 " Miriam Glucksmann concludes that
despite his apparent rigor, Althusser's concepts "fall short of his avowed aim—most of
his concepts turn out to be dogmas, words or assertions."30 Nor is it surprising that it
should be so, for any study of social development must of necessity include an
interpretive framework. The concepts that are used, no matter how carefully defined,
lack any basis upon which a rigor similar to that found in the natural sciences might be
anchored. In the following section we will see the difficulties that arise for Poulantzas
when he attempts to use a term such as "limit," but the problem arises essentially from
the application of a technical (or pseudo-technical) language to a social system. The
quality of the subject resists the annihilating attempts of Althusserian positivism.
Having examined some aspects of the Althusserian system, we are now in a position
to assess its impact upon Poulantzas. Without a doubt the most serious deformation
inflicted by this sophisticated positivism is in the specific place and status of the
subject. The category is banned and in its place we find "agents" who "bear" the
structure,31 while existing in a permanently impenetrable fog of ideology. 32 Every
cultural and artistic creation is subject to blanket rejection as ideology. As Adorno
remarked, "In wishing to wipe away the whole as if with a sponge, they develop an
affinity to barbarism."33 The rejection is as vague as it is general for the role and
function of ideology is not clarified. If it requires such an enormous leap to break with
ideology to enter science, how does this happen? If ideology is so all-powerful, how is
Poulantzas capable of escaping from its clutches? 34
A more important effect on the whole of his system arises from the role Poulantzas
assigns to classes, which are the result of the effect of the structure on the agents or
supports of the structure in the field of social relations. The effect of the structure is to
produce class struggles at every level of the structure overdetermined by the political
class struggle, which has as its objective the state, which in turn serves as the cohesive
factor in a formation. 35 Hence it is the political class struggle that brings about the
transformations of the social formation. 36 In other words, the entire structure is

27. M. Glucksmann, Structuralist Analysis in Contemporary Social Thought (London,

1974), p. 71.
28. L. Kolakowski, "Althusser's Marx," Socialist Register (1971), p. 113.
29. Ibid., p. 127.
SO. A. Glucksmann, "A Ventriloquist Structuralism," New Left Review 72 (March-April
1972), p. 136.
31. Poulantzas, op.cit. (1973), p. 62.
32. Ibid., p. 207.
33. Adorno in P. Comnerton, ed., Critical Sociology (Middlesex, 1976), p. 273.
34. Bridges observes correctly that the lack of cohesion of belief systems and the protests that
are generated against the ruling class demonstrate that ideology cannot be understood apart
from an appreciation of the critical capacity of the subject. A. Bridges, "Nicos Poulantzas and
the Marxist Theory of the State," Politics and Society, 4:2 (Winter 1974), pp. 184-185.
35. Poulantzas, op.cit., pp. 76-77.
36. In more strictly Althusserian texts, this point is made with even greater force (leading to
even greater rigidity). Hindess and Hirst state categorically, "We have used the term 'transition'
to refer to a condition in which a specific mode of production is subject to transformation and to
the non-reproduction of its political, ideological and economic conditions of existence.... In
particular, we must insist that transition (and non-transition) can only be understood in terms of
 NOTES AND COMMENTARY / 165

propelled by this motor of history. Yet, the motor is enfeebled by the removal of its
mainspring: the subject and its replacement by the agents. In what way is this
enfeebling? Precisely in the sense that any notion of motivation is removed. While it is
perfectly true that classes are affected by the objective structure of society (or levels of
a formation) if we remove the mediations between subjective factors bearing upon
individuals and thereby upon classes, the result is a weakened and determined
conceptual system. To say, as Poulantzas does, that ideology is a level of the structure
and that it socializes the agent into his class role is not nearly adequate, for it leaves us
entirely at a loss to know in what way we can integrate the role of the individual psyche
into the social system. The insights of Freud are not only regressed behind, but
effectively banished for all time. 37 Yet Poulantzas is unaware of the implications of his
categories. He wishes blithely to borrow from the work of Habermas on legitimation
crises. 38 The borrowing is totally illegitimate, for it clashes with the rest of his
conceptual system. As Habermas maintains, 'Systems are not presented as subjects;
but according to the pre-technical usage, only subjects can be involved in crises."39
Similarly, Poulantzas wishes to handle questions of ideology in a sensitive manner,
but is prevented from doing so in anything like a systematic fashion by the structures of
his analytical framework. Cultural and ideological problems therefore lack the rigor
that is accorded them, for example, by Habermas under the title of communicative
interaction. Only if these are seen as interests in their own right, not determined in the
last instance by the economic, can they be comprehensively considered. 40 It is for this
reason that perfectly valid insights languish in Poulantzas' work without proper
foundation. Take, for example, his observation that the dominant ideology may
contain feudal elements 41 or that "a dominant ideology profoundly impregnated by
the way of life of a class or fraction can continue to remain the dominant ideology even
if this class or fraction is no longer dominant." 42 Perfectly correct! But to merely state
that these are "relatively autonomous" or have their own specific rhythms is totally
inadequate. It is an ultimate irony that the essentialist-humanist-teleological-Hegelian
scholars should end up more concrete than the scientific pupils of Maitre Louis
himself.
The impact of positivism in this area has the effect that we discerned in the work of
Althusser: the curtailing of rigorous analysis. In its place we find the pseudo-rigor that
employs terms (generally without definition) as if they have a precise and
unquestionable utility.43 "Limits" is one such term. Take, for example, its use in the

certain determinate conditions of class struggle and as a possible outcome of that struggle."
Hindess and Hirst, op.cit., p. 278.
37. On the regression of theory in this field, see R. Jacoby, Social Amnesia (New York, 1975).
38. N. Poulantzas, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism (London, 1975), p. 173.
39. J. Habermas, Legitimation Crisis (London, 1976), p. 3.
40. See for example Habermas' work on distorted communication. Op.cit., Chapter 17.
41. Poulantzas, op.cit., p. 203.
42. Jbid., p. 203.
43. Miliband has also attacked Poulantzas for his lack of rigor. Cf. R. Miliband, "Poulantzas
and the Capitalist State," New Left Review, 82 (November-December 1973), pp. 86-87. Woolfe
points out that the manner in which Poulantzas deals with his opposition is equally slack:
"Throughout "Political Power and Social Classes' non-Althusserian ideas are tagged with the
allegedly unpleasant label of'humanist' (e.g., 'we risk falling into the humanist outlook') or
'historicist'. These conditions are made to appear as reprehensible as psoriasis or acne; if one
does not prune them, they will spread." A. Woolfe, "New Directions in the Marxist Theory of
Politics," Politics and Society, 4:2 (Fall 1973), p. 141. Certainly this tendency to dismiss with
166 / TELOS

introduction to the chapter entitled "Fundamental Characteristics of the Capitalist

State." Here Poulantzas writes: "The capitalist state, in which the specific autonomy
of instances is located by its relation to the relations of production, sets the limits
which circumscribe the relation of the field of the class struggle to its own regional
structures. In other words, these state structures, as they appear in the relation of the
instances, carry inscribed within them a set of variations which in delimiting the class
struggle achieve concrete reality according to the effects which this struggle has on the
state within the limits thus set." ^The words carry with them an air of authority, as if
absolute clarity has been achieved, but the effect is a result merely of stylistic
pyrotechnics lacking the precision to which it lays claim. After all, we are provided
with no criteria by means of which to judge when a limit has been reached, and on
having been reached, what will follow. While it is possible to provide universally
acceptable criteria for judging when and under what circumstances a bar of metal will
suffer fatigue, the same is not possible when considering a social system. Natural
science employs a language which attains nomological closure, an attainment that
cannot be met by social sciences that can only be subject to discursive justification,
because of the very different role and interaction of subject and object.45 Without an
intersubjectively agreed upon basis, any study in this area must fall into dogmatism. In
the end, positivism produces the illusion of competence while undermining itself.
Althusser's replacement of epistemology by a philosophy of science led, as we
mentioned, to difficulties in the utilization of empirical material. In Poulantzas, this is
reflected in a vast proliferation of categories in the hope that every possible
contingency will be taken care of. Thus, in dealing with classes, we find that
Poulantzas distinguishes between dominant and dominated classes, class fractions,
strata and categories, with fractions being subdivided (in the case of the dominant
class) into hegemonic and reigning fractions. These combine into power blocs, engage
each other in alliances and constitute themselves as "supporting" classes, and so it
continues. Nor are these terms used in any normal fashion. Supporting classes, for
example, support the state without any real political sacrifice on the part of the power
bloc, act out of fear of the working class and are typically drawn from the
small-holding peasantry and lumpen proletariat.46 While this may be an accurate
description of the class situation at the end of the first period of the parliamentary
Republic in France, to invent a specific category to deal with this contingency is to
indulge in ad-hocery of the worst order. What has in fact taken place is that in an
effort to retain theflexibilitynecessary for dealing with complex situations, Poulantzas
has so stretched his categorical structure to include an ever increasing number of
concepts that he is left with a system that has burst its logical constraints and in which
almost anything can happen. The entire bundle of categories is dependent upon the
single thread of a "determination in the last instance of the economic" for its
coherence. No matter how frequently this determination is restated, it is insufficiently

labels reaches a peak of imperfection when Poulantzas accuses Marcuse, Adorno and Goldmann
of implicitly accepting the'end of ideology' thesis. Cf. Poulantzas, op.cit. (1973), p. 196. It would
indeed be difficult to find theorists further removed from Bell than the three whom he accuses.
To believe that the concept of tota! reification implies an end of ideology is nothing short of
fantastic.
44. Poulantzas, ibid., pp. 187-188.
45. See in this regard "Reason and Interest: Retrospect on Kant and Fichte," Chapter 9 of
Habermas, op.cit.
46. Poulantzas, op.cit., pp. 243-244.
 NOTES AND COMMENTARY / 167

powerful to maintain the system's unity. Essentially, Poulantzas falls between the two
poles of a single determination (such as that constructed by Hindess and Hirst) and a
multiplicity of determinations (to be found in the work of Habermas). The end
product lacks theoretical coherence.

GEORGES HAUPT, 1928-1978

by Paul Breines
Georges Haupt died of a heart attack in March of this year. He was 50 years old. His
name and work were not known to all Telos associates and readers, but for those who
had felt even briefly his extraordinary spirit and energy, his death, a great shock, casts
a shadow on everything. For Georges Haupt was a model of that rare type—the
catalyst, the inspirer, a personal and intellectual life-force. It is a rotten but typical
fact that only with his death do we begin to realize just how many lives he touched,
how much work he encouraged, how many projects he helped initiate, how wonderful
a socialist intellectual he was. Jokes are often made about jet-set Marxism, conference-
circuit leftists and so on; they are often appropriate. But Georges Haupt, who died en
route from a conference, represented the other side of the coin: he showed how much
a traveling demiurge of socialist studies could really accomplish in our time.
Born in 1928 in the western, Hungarian-speaking part of Romania, Georges Haupt
lost his family to Nazism and was himself in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. As a young
Communist, educated in the USSR after World War II, he rose to precocious
prominence in the Historical Institute of the Romanian Academy of Sciences, serving
as the director of its modern history section for five years while still in his twenties. His
work centered around the history of the labor and revolutionary movements in
Romania, and on their relations to parallel movements in Russia. Having been a
deportee, Georges Haupt became an emigre in 1958, when he left Romania for good.
Settling in Paris, he emerged as assistant director and then (from 1969) director of the
Slavic Studies section of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, also serving on the
editorial boards of several journals, including Le mouvement social, France's main
labor history review. Beginning in the late 1960s, he undertook travels of a different
sort, namely, as visiting professor several times in the history departments at the
University of Wisconsin, at Northwestern University, in Zurich and at the Free
University in West Berlin. At the time of his death, he had begun what was to have
been a series of visits to the Fernand Braudel Center at the State University of New
York at Binghamton, where he initiated a seminar on socialism and labor movements
in international perspective. He was also directly and indirectly involved in numerous
institutes and projects in Europe, England, and here ("Mole Editions" of Urizen
Books; New German Critique; Telos; and in its first years at the University of
Wisconsin, Radical America found Georges Haupt among its supporters).
Georges Haupt brought his experiences (which might well have produced an anti-
communist) and mastery of a great range of languages to the work of historical
reappraisal of the major forms of socialism, the Second and Third Internationals. As
an historian of socialism, Georges Haupt was fondly but inappropriately referred to by
J.P. Nettl as an archive rat. That he burrowed through and digested mountains of
documents is not in question. The point is simply that this was no end in itself. His