Ideology and Class After Althusser: An Introduction to Göran Therborn (feat. Mike McCarthy)

I am joined by Mike McCarthy for a discussion on "The Ideology of Power and the Power of Ideology" by the Marxist sociologist Göran Therborn. First published in 1980, this work stands as a masterpiece. We situate Therborn’s contribution and underscore its originality and importance within the history of Marxism. We then address the key arguments and propositions of the text, from the critique of false consciousness, the ideological formation of human subjects, to the basis of historical materialism in any given ideology, to the ways that class overdetermines all ideologies.

Mike McCarthy is faculty at the University of California, Santa Cruz and he is the author, most recently of The Master’s Tools published January 2025 with Verso Books.

Check out our first conversation on "The Critique of Class Abstractionism"