As described by Marx commodity is “an external object, a thing which through its qualities satisfies human needs of whatever kind.”  He furthers by describing it as “a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties” (663). Commodity, as the average consumer may view it, far exceeds just the simple physical qualities of the commodity, use-value. Commodity has three values; the use-value may be dictated by the physical attributes of a certain commodity and how it may be applied to human use; the produce value, may be dictated by the labour that is put into the commodity, time and effort; the exchange value is the quantitative value of the commodity, or simply the cost of it.

This is all so relevant because we have become what Marx calls a “consuming nation.” Our entire culture relies on commodities and consumption. The issue with commodities lies within the workers. It has become so that the worker-labourer, who produces becomes lost in the product. That a worker’s value is “reduced to a quantity” (Allred). And because of this there lies a form of alienation from the product, the process and the wage. Now understanding commodity, how it works, who is involved and what it and their value may be is good but then the question becomes what does that have to do with English?

During a lecture Professor Allred quoted someone saying, “Theory is a set of writing that is used outside the boundaries for which it was intended.” So the question still remains, how may we then apply Marx interpretation of commodity and the value of the producer to literary analysis?

In 1967, a french literary critic by the name of Roland Barthes wrote an essay titled “La Mort de L’auteur” or The Death of an Author. His essay argued that when critiquing literature one need not care for the intention or biographical influences of the author. He argued that interpretation of a text may be evaluated on the text and text alone. Many people have debunked this theory but it still exists. A case such as this may be seen as a parallel of the Marx’s commodity theory. A literary text is commodity and we as the critics are the consumer. The value of the commodity, or interpretation, may not simply be determined for our use of it. One must delve deeper and review the workers labour, or author’s intention, when interpreting the commodity. To review a text alone, without author intent, would be to lose sight of the author and is similar to reducing the author to a quantity.

In this reading Louis Althrusser expands upon Marxist “Theory of the State” by adding to the definition of the repressive State apparatus and also adding a new term called ideological state apparatus. The repressive state apparatus is used by the people in power to control the people in the society.  The keyword being repressive meaning to repress the people to follow the rules that are imposed. Althrusser says this is done by ” The state functions by violence.”(1341)  He states this is done by the government, the army, the police, but you can also add on to this with the FBI and CIA and all other agencies that have access to people who can use deadly force or controls them. An example of this could be during the 1992 Los Angles Riots where the National Guard was called in to restore the natural order of society. This was done by violence and force to physically restrain and stop people.

Althrusser gives us his definition of ideological state apparatus which is the people are control by different ideologies. These ideologies are based upon religion, education, communication, culture, legal. This meaning the churches, the schools. Here we have some very distinct differences on how these State apparatus ‘s work. The first way they differ is that the repressive State apparatus is in a public domain whereas the ideological State apparatus is in a private domain.  This public domain means how it sounds, the use at this time was only in public where the state could impose violence upon it’s citizens. The private domain controls people with what there are being taught by religion, or by school, or ruled by their own culture. The next big difference Althrusser identifies to use is that the repressive State apparatus uses violence but ideological State apparatus uses these private domains to keep rule of the dominant power.  For example if we refuse to go to church we become outcast in our community that will not accept us in society. Therefore to be apart of this community we must follow the dominant powers ideology of going to church and being brainwashed to think and act the way they want you. The fear of being outcast is what makes ISA work. On the other hand the fear of violence is how RSA works. They both work in a similar way of keeping order and the status quo. I just find these two concept very interesting in relation to our lives today. Social media is the predominant means for imposing these rulers on us. We see images, watch videos, read articles on the internet that are controlled by the dominant power to spread their ideology. We see the RSA being overtaken by the ISA through the outrage of the powers at be killing innocent people. The use of ISA through social media and through news shows us that the violent force imposed onto the society by police will not be tolerated any longer. Not to be mistaken the RSA and ISA work together but my point meaning that this knowledge of what the ISA were doing to people was not documented to the point we have now where cameras are so readily available. It overall makes the ISA have to think more rationally when imposing their will onto others because they are actually being held accountable for their actions.