Concepts and conversations around ideology have been centered around Marxist concepts on ideology and restructuring focusing them. Althusser argues that Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA) is a “societal mechanism for creating pliant, obedient citizens who practice dominant values” they are described as civil institutions “that have legal standing (hence their designation as “state” apparatuses), including churches, schools, the family, courts, political parties, unions, the media, sports the arts.” Althusser believes that it is through these things we learn, especially church and school, how to be good productive members of capitalist society and these structures keep order of deviation from the expectations of “good citizens” 

Althusser talks about labor power, the reproduction of labor and how both are dependent on each other. The promise of labor power and its reproduction is not enough if the product won’t be suitable to serve the capitalist machine and process of production, meaning the children / new generation are useless unless they learn the skills, rules and expectations of them. He compares the class division and labor dynamic of the capitalist regime to serfdom and slavery. Althusser further builds this point by asserting the basics taught in school are mere early training for different and specific roles in labor production.

Even the behaviors, attitudes, morals and civic and professional conscience we learn in school is credited to something serving the capitalist machine by laying out the foundations for class division and domination.

Althusser uses this example to show “the reproduction of labour power requires ,not only a reproduction, of its. skills., but, also,at the same time, a reproduction of its submission to the rules of the established order,” He’s proposing every institution can and does work against us to form ideological sets that keep us in line with the capitalist regime. This aligns with Marxist writings about the state. Althusser even cites the Communist Manifesto and the Eighteenth Brumair saying “The State is explicitly conceived as a repressive apparatus. The State is a ‘machine’ of repression, which enables the ruling classes (in the nineteenth century the bourgeois class and the ‘class’ of big landowners) to ensure their domination over the working class. thus enabling the former to subject the latter to the process of surplus-value extortion”

Althusser recognizes The State in action repressing the working class and upholding ideas of capitalism as Ideological Apparatuses. There are ISA’s in many facets of society like religion, education, family life, legal stuff, political stuff, trade unions, communications and culture. Althusser notes, often these things are privatized but always they still function in society to enforce “bourgeois law and authority”

Higher powers such as governments and states have exploited the way people are paid and controlled. Especially in the workforce where people can work for long hours just for them to be exploited by getting paid less than what they earn. Or it can be deciding what the State wants its people to do, forcing them into living in these habits where they must work for a ridiculously long time to survive. In the reading Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Louis Althusser), he goes in depth regarding the conditions of production. Explaining that materials and workers both are needed to create material goods. With our Capitalist system that we are enforced in, Althusser elaborates on Law, State, and Ideology.

With the control of the Law being enforced by the State, this can lead onto the class system (that we still have this day), where we have those who are living in luxury and hold plenty of power (The High Class), we then have the people who are there to work for the upperclassmen, live in a decent place that is supported by the hard workers (The Working Class), and those who are struggling financially, not being able to maintain their homes/families (Lower class). One main idea that really stuck out to me was when he mentioned that all individuals are already destined to be a subject, even before they’re born. Which is a quote that I agree, you cannot control where or when you’re born. If we were all given a choice to choose where, when and who should we be born with, I think we’d all choose what we want most/desire (varies across people). But this also brings us to an infamous phrase “The Illusion of Choice” (Thomas Hobson 1544-1631).

One of the ideologies that Althusser brings up is that ideology operates its own people. This meaning that people will follow whatever they’re told to do by those who hold high power. They’re the ones who set the rules and conditions for the people. While the people believe that, that is the way it should be and the standards the people should follow. I think of this like a trend that people (even I) follow. We follow these trends to not feel left out of the circle. If we wear clothing that doesn’t match with our time, we begin to feel isolated from reality, maybe even get discarded by society.