Abstract

The article proposes to reexamine Bourdieu’s relationship with Marxism, and more particularly with Althusserian Marxism. It is suggested here that Althusser may have functioned as a foil for Bourdieu, especially because of the similarities between the Althusserian theory of ideological power and Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic power. The theory of the State is probably the most appropriate ground on which to compare the two thinkers. The recent publication of Bourdieu’s lectures on the State allows one to see how he elaborated within his own historical sociology a theory of the State which is a response to Marxism : by responding to the Marxist critique of Hegel, Bourdieu seeks to show that the dominant, since they invoke the universal in order to legitimize their domination, can be only partially successful in doing so. Bourdieu ends up by conceding to Marxism that the universal makes significant progress only within the terms of the self-interested understanding of the universal which is proper to the dominant.