Feminism and the political: introduction

The paper compares and confronts the work of two of the most distinguished living Marxist philosophers: G. A. Cohen from the English-speaking world, and Louis Althusser from France. It develops a critique of certain of Cohen's theses from the standpoint of ideas present in the work of Althusser. But it also problematizes certain presuppositions common to the work of both – in particular, the notion that historical development (transition or revolution) should be explained in terms of some general theory of non-correspondence between productive forces and production relations: the difference being simply that, within this scheme, Althusser accords explanatory primacy to the latter, Cohen to the former. Cohen's and Althusser's accounts of technological innovation and development are also compared, in connexion with the contrasting place which they attribute to the notice of human rationality on the one side and class struggle on the other.