Subjectivation et transformation sociale. Critique du renouveau en théorie de l’action à partir de Karl Lévêque, Etienne Balibar et Louis Althusser

Maesschalck, Marc [UCL]

This article aims at questioning the recent return on the theoretical scene of Marxist theory in the light of the contemporary developments of the theories of collective action. It first points out two impasses of these theories that Marxism needs to acknowledge in order to avoid their repetition: the first one is the belief in the existence of a capacitating unconscious of the masses while the second one is the position of a mediating subjectivity capable of granting the social processes through its scientific intelligence of history. This article will then analyze the interpretations of Althusser proposed by Karl Lévêque and Etienne Balibar in order to show how these authors grasped theses impasses thereby opening the field of a renewal of Marxist theory that does not undermine the level of the unconscious drives that determine collective action. The way in which this level can be worked upon in order to produce a new form of relationality that avoids the two impasses will finally be outlined with the help of the psychoanalytic theory developed by Stephen Mitchell.