Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (2nd,
2001)--Personal notes from my reading in 2014
Ch. 1: Hegemony: The
Genealogy of a concept.
LM (Laclau and Mouffe) begin by tracing
the “genealogy” of the concept of hegemony in a review chapter of 3 Marxist
responses to cracks that seemed to appear in Marx’s theories. They believe the idea of hegemony was the
result of a series of crises in theory and praxis.
They begin by
interacting with Rosa Luxembourg’s analysis of the Mass Strike, specifically, whether it was an effective political
tool. She finds a contrast with the ease
of generation of mass strike in Russia with the fragmentization of strikes in
Industrial Germany. She believes that
the identity of the working class under capitalism is fragmented and can only
be reunited in revolution (10). In
regard to the genealogy of hegemony, LM propose that her seminal moment was the
creation of a “subject position” by referring to class as a symbolic unit, not
a materialistic economic reality as had been previously thought (11).
Kautsky
agrees with Luxembourg regarding the natures of political and economic
struggle—they are both unified efforts.
While for Luxembourg they become unified in revolution, for Kautsky they
are inherently unified, since the political struggle of the working class is
always an economic calculation. However,
his reading of the failure of the collapse of capitalism in Germany, which he
assumed was generalizable and the inescapable result of capitalism, was, in
fact, a German peculiarity, since history evidences a different path for many
other states. The end of the depression
(1873-1896) and the ensuing boom (lasting until 1914), created a crisis in
Marxist thinking, since it could not account for the resurgence of capitalism
except as discontinuities in an otherwise deterministic struggle towards
socialism. LM define these crises as the
pivotal moment in Marxist theorization when subsequent theories tried to
explain new trajectories.
The first
response they explore is the Marxist Orthodoxy of Kautsky and Plekhanov that
emphasizes theory, presuming the end result Marx predicted is a necessary
endpoint, despite the temporary appearance of observable “setbacks”. Concrete examples of capitalism’s failure to
collapse are simply temporary points of struggle, as the example of Germany
(argument from contingency). Or there
may be the temporary appearance of the failure to form a revolutionary
proletariat identity because of nationalism which is only a “screen that hides
the interests of the bourgeoisie” (argument from appearance). The theory predicts the ultimate realization
of proletariat identity, so it will eventually happen, and concrete
counter-examples are reduced to the abstract: a) “diverse subject positions of
a single position,” b) plurality of differences is either reduced or rejected
as contingent,” c) sense of the present is revealed through its location in an
a priori succession of stages.” Kautsky
differs from Plekhanov by introducing the flexibility of political initiative
in creating the space for revolution, requiring the mediation of
intellectuals.
The
Austro-Marxists offered a second perspective from the first response, in that
they took a Kantian approach, rather than Hegelian, by looking at perspectival,
cultural influences, rather than a naturalistic historical trajectory. Given the diversity of types of workers in
the Austrian context, as well as the dual Austro-Hungarian monarchy, there
seemed little possibility of a unified consciousness built on relationships of
production or national identity. The
remaining possibility is the role of political initiative, as opposed to the
economic or simply historical. In any
case, both approaches believed that Marx’s predicted outcome of socialism was
inevitably determined
The second
response to the failure of capitalism to collapse was the revisionism of
Bernstein. In the first response above,
there was an assumption of linearity built on the economic. Bernstein attempted to emphasize the
political as an autonomous sphere, separate from the economic, although LM
believe this isn’t fully done until Gramsci.
There is little possibility for the unification of identity in economic
terms, since the trajectory of the modern economy is diversification. The countervailing trend towards unification
was “party.” For Kautsky, discussions of
the political were the purview of the intelligentsia, for Bernstein, party
became far broader.
Bernstein did
not accept that Marx’s prediction was inevitable, since he did not believe Marx
proved his case, since human will/subjectivity was involved, and history is not
solely objective. Add to that, since the
political identity Bernstein proposed was a “party programme,” there were
ethical decisions that had to be made. Therefore
the process was not purely “scientific” as the determinists proposed. However, Bernstein also proposed an
irreversible evolutionary progression.
For the orthodox, the State was totalizing, and Social Democracy was
exterior to the state, so organizing could only exist outside of the State, and
overturning the State was the only option.
For Bernstein, the proletariat were part of the State, and social
organizing could produce important changes, humanizing capitalism, and making
life fundamentally better for workers.
Democratization could transform the state so that it represented all
people, and workers became true citizens.
LM disagree with this trajectory, since different subject positions can
produce social/political ethical decisions that do not further the cause of the
worker.
The third
response is Sorel’s revolutionary syndicalism.
Sorel proposed the power of
social myth to transform society. His
interest was not so much in a society with a certain form, but with the moral
qualities that allowed society to flourish.
The diversity of workers in society he calls mélange, and they can only
be unified by being willing to establish blocs to enforce economic
reorganization. He became
anti-democratic in that it allowed the fragmentation of subject positions, and
chose instead, the syndicalist myth, the general strike, for in Marx, the
revolution. The mythical constitution in
Sorel’s thought, built to some degree on Nietzsche, could and did go the
direction of fascism on the one hand, or the Bolsheviks on the other. Regardless, he was crucial to the formation
of Gramsci’s thought.
ch. 2: Hegemony: The Difficult
Emergence of a New Political Logic
The problem of the
failure of the working class to come to a unified class consciousness posed a
problem for Marxist theory. Stagism seems
not to have played out as predicted, and “hegemony” became an explanation for
why this failed to happen. Plekhanov and
Axelrod introduced the term to explain the failure of the Bourgeoisie to carry
out the struggle for political liberty, which forced the working class into the
struggle alone. Trotsky built on the
idea of hegemony, proposing it as a way to generate a working-class government.
Lenin, as
Trotsky, built on the idea of hegemony, especially its ability to link an
identity exterior to class identity. For
Lenin, political hegemony involved a representation of interests, in contrast
to class identity, which was the field of the relations to production. In this case, hegemony involved political
leadership with a class alliance.
Parties unite under the leadership of one class against a common
enemy. The potential contradiction
within Leninist hegemony is that, on the one hand, the vanguard creates a
separation between those who lead, and those who are led, and thus tends to be authoritarian,
while on the other hand, the political dimension has far more democratic
potential than what was proposed in the Second International.
Thus, two
types of hegemony developed. The first,
democratic practice, occurs when stagism is renounced, as well as the necessity
of a unified class consciousness. All
people’s interests need to be represented, not just the working class. The second, authoritarian practice, dominates
when the vanguard considers its relation to the masses, simply as
pedagogical. With the rise of fascism,
which considered democratic rights to be “bourgeoisie,” popular and democratic
visions of hegemony emerged that considered it to be the “democratic
reconstruction of the nation around a new class core.” The rise of the importance of the people as
political agents required the idea of class identity be split and fused into a
new type of polarization, which is the process of hegemonic practice. This occurs after the development of new
popular and national symbols, and lose their transitionary features to become
part of the stable political discourse.
Gramsci
extends the concept of hegemony, emphasizing the importance of the working
class building alliances with other groups, representing a broader spectrum of
interests. Further, in a fundamental
change from Lenin, who proposed hegemony as simply political, Gramsci extended
it to include moral and intellectual characteristics. The former presumed a transient,
interest-based alliance. The latter
constructed actual linkages between groups, generating ideology, creating an
organic, historical bloc based on collective will. In this sense, hegemony had to be articulated
and constantly produced through dialogue between groups. Class, in this sense, does not “take” State
power, but becomes State. This process
Gramsci terms the “war of position,” referring to the challenge of creating a
new class core around a unified subject position, a never-ending process. Differing from Sorel, Gramsci’s hegemony
emphasized a democratic plurality, while Sorel believed the generated myth was
based on class.
In the
post-WWI period, the idea of national plans for unity and economic projects
were begun, but generated few results until the Great Depression. The presumption of an economically-based
strategy was that revolution, not politics, was the only way to socialism. However, Planism moderated this idea, and since
capitalists were in charge of things, socialists used political means to implement
programs to support the poor and strengthen unions. The larger goal was to create a mixed
economy, which would eventually dissolve the need for capitalism. However, prior to 1945, the class emphasis
limited hegemonic articulation, and after 1945, the strength of the Welfare
State distorted class lines, so that social democracy became a practice within
the existing State, not an alternative to it.
LM attempt to
show that classical Marxist theory, based solely on economic position, is
untenable from an hegemonic perspective, because of three mistaken assumptions
of this position. First, the assumption
that there are endogenous laws of an economy, which is not so, since social
relations impact the relationships to production—these laws are not “natural,”
but involve numerous and diverse forms of domination. Second, the assumption that there is a core
class nature, which is not so, since fragmentation of class and subject
position is clear. Third, the assumption
that the working class has a unique relation to production that makes them
inherently aligned with socialism, which is not so, because there are
historical interests as well as economic.
Since this final attempt to return to economic essentialism seems to be
a doomed project, Marxism shifted to the recognition that socialism was not
inevitable, but would depend on the political mediation of intellectuals to
provide articulation of the subject position.
Ch. 3: Beyond the Positivity of
the Social, Antagonisms and Hegemony
For LM, “hegemony
supposes a theoretical field dominated by the category of articulation.” Thus, they argue that one of the first tasks
of understanding hegemony is to understand articulation. Building on recent linguistic and
sociological traditions that explore the concept of constructivism and
discourse, LM argue that “articulation is a practice, and not the name of a
given relational complex” (93), and, moreover, require specific “elements” that
are thus articulated. Drawing from
Hegel, they propose that “identity” is not a fixed entity, but a concept under
continual flux, derived from relations and historical dialectics. This produces a contradiction—Hegel,
representing “the highest point of rationalism” (95) is arguing for the
importance of reason and intelligible structure, while at the same time laying
the foundation for the recognition that structures are indefinitely in flux,
and that meaning is derived vis-à-vis cultural production, not a pre-existing,
defining essence.
Althusser’s
discussion of complexity, relying on the concept of overdetermination is important in LM’s analysis of
articulation. Though they ultimately
reject his frame, they bring in his concept of the symbolic and social
dimension of meaning construction. The
assertion is made that “society and social agents lack any essence” (98), but rather,
are a series of symbolic relations, constantly in “relative and precarious
forms.” LM argue that, like Hegel,
Althusser faces a fundamental conflict—while arguing, on the one hand, that
social relations are the product of these symbolic overdeterminations, he later
argues that economics can be deterministic of the structural form of
society. It is this conflict that leads
LM to reject Althusser’s latter proposition, and problematizing the former,
while recognizing his important contribution, and that it is Althusser’s very
philosophical disjuncture that helps us understand articulation and thus
hegemony. In doing so, they assert that
one of the problems with Marx’s “scientific socialism” is that he relied on an
understanding of economic determinism, as well as the objectivity of social
categories, such as institutions, identities, and structures. However, if all of these are open to
discursive, and thus non-contingent processes, then it produces a flaw in Marx’s
argument. Thus, “far from a rationalist
fame in which social agents, perfectly constituted around interests, wage a
struggle defined by transparent parameters, we have seen the difficulties of
the working class in constituting itself as a historical subject, the
dispersion and fragmentation of its positionalities, the emergence of forms of
social and political reaggregation—‘historical bloc’, ‘collective will’,
‘masses’, ‘popular sectors’—which define new objects and new logics of their
conformation” (104-105).
LM now link
articulation to discourse through establishing a fundamental difference with
Foucault. While the distinguished
between “the linguistic and behavioral aspects of social practice” (107), LM
reject that distinction, arguing that the two are intertwined reciprocally to
such an extent that it is fruitless to
attempt it. Continuing in this same
vein, they reject also the emphasis on the Enlightenment discussion about the
nature of the “mental” relationship to ontologies, affirming the reality of the
material world. Thus, it is not
“objects” which LM wish to deconstruct, but the recognition that our
interactions with objects is mediated through discourses—giving the example
that an earthquake is a material reality, but our perception of the meaning of
the earthquake, and our responses to the earthquake, come from symbolic
relations mediated by histories of discourses, and specifically, our
contemporary embeddedness in a series of discourses. They relate this to Wittgenstein’s language game
concept (108). Thus, our experiences of
the world cannot be relegated strictly to the mental, or to decontextualized
discourses, but are, at least in part, rooted in some actual material objects,
although our understanding of these objects are shaped by our context within
our experiences of discourses. So while
they affirm the reality of material objects, they also affirm that “if
contingency and articulation are possible, this is because no discursive
formation is a sutured totality and the transformation of the elements into
moments is never complete” (106-107).
But far from arguing that there is, therefore, no such thing as meaning,
they simply propose that meaning is always in flux, and that flux is
intentionally directed: “Any discourse is constituted as an attempt to dominate
the field of discursivity, to arrest the flow of differences, to construct a
centre. We will call the privileged
discursive points of this partial fixation [of meaning], nodal points” (112).
Finally, they define “the practice of articulation” as “the construction
of nodal points which partially fix meaning; and the partial character of this
fixation proceeds from the openness of the social, a result, in its turn, of
the constant overflowing of every discourse by the infinitude of the field of
discursivity. Every social practice is
therefore—in one of its dimensions--articulatory” (113).
The latter
half of the chapter includes examples of these articulations, and applies them
directly to the concept of hegemony. For
example, they argue that, while “sex” is an ontologically real expression of
body differences, “femininity” and “masculinity” are social constructions, and
are overdetermined, producing inequality for women: “The ensemble of social
practices, of institutions and discourses which produce woman as a category,
are not completely isolated but mutually reinforce and act upon one another”
(118). Similarly, Marxist discussion
about class and workers are the result of social practices and discourses, and
the meanings and referents are constantly in flux—in fact, the attempt to
convince workers to organize based on their interests, is a social practice
that actively constructs the interests themselves (120). They continue, distinguishing the popular subject position from the democratic subject position: the former constitutes a binary set of
antagonisms, such as the struggle for liberation of the colonized from a brutal
colonizing power, representing a fairly clear and delimited antagonism in
society. The latter does not evidence
such a pattern, but “emerges within an ensemble of positions, within a
relatively sutured political space formed by a multiplicity of practices that
do not exhaust the referential and empirical reality of the agents forming
parts of them” (132). Democratic
positions are constituted by overdetermined struggles with many social
relations converging to generate the antagonisms. Finally, linking these ideas to hegemony,
they depart from Gramsci in a way that rejects his essentialist presumptions,
allowing for an argument from the constructivist frame, specifically: “(a) his
insistence that hegemonic subjects are necessarily constituted on the plane of
the fundamental classes; and (b) his postulate that, with the exception of
interregna constituted by organic crises, every social formation structures
itself around a single hegemonic centre.” (137-138)
Ch. 4: Hegemony and Radical
Democracy
LM end by bring the conversation to their
primary target—discussing the importance of democracy, interrogating the
concept of democracy, and constructing a critique of the Right and the Left in
their failure to further either equality or democracy. They begin by recognizing that Marx’s vision
of a proletariat, produced by the relations of production, with a linear
trajectory of collective consciousness and revolution, has simply not been
seen—instead, western societies developed “the corporatization and separation
of those sectors which should ideally have been united ‘among the people’
(150).
They affirm,
with Foucault, that “wherever there is power there is resistance” (152), but
argue that political resistance, whose goal is to end relations of
subordination, are the result of specific discourses that allow such collective
action, but are not a “natural” effect of subordination. They distinguish subordination, as a fairly banal series of hierarchical
relationship, that arguably occur with consent and tacit approval, contrasted
to oppression, which is subordination
that generates antagonisms, and finally domination,
which is when the subordination relationships themselves are perceived as
illegitimate, and typically require a discourse external to those relationships
in order to be recognized as illegitimate (154). They emphasize that collective action for
change often comes from these externally derived discourses. They provide the example of mid-1800s when a
labor movement developed, but rather than following the trajectory that Marx
predicted, of rejecting the entire system of relations of production, they
followed a “reformist” path, which, for Marx, was a step backwards.
They describe
that something the “new social movements” have in common are a differentiation
from “workers’ struggles” (159), but that they also draw from a democratic
impulse for equality (161). They cite a
pivotal moment, when Fordism became the dominant economic process, when
“intensive” capitalism transformed all of social life—“culture, free time,
illness, education, sex and even death.
There is practically no domain of individual or collective life which
escapes capitalist relations” (161).
They continue, that the demands for equality, and specifically, the
subsequent implementation of the Keynesian Welfare State, created a far greater
role for the state in the lives of the public, as well as creating the need for
a large bureaucracy, producing a “double transformation”—that of
capitalism/commodification and of bureaucracy.
This led to the development of resistance not only to inequality in a
class sense, but resistance to bureaucratization, generating movements for
autonomy, liberation from the state, and demonstrations of individual
uniquenesses—this from both Right and Left.
By the time of the Reagan-Thatcher era, neo-liberalism had been
successfully constructed as a form of resistance against the impositions of the
state, and the importance of the free-market for liberty. They invoke Stuart Hall, saying, “Thatcherite
populism ‘combines the resonant themes of organic Toryism—nation, family, duty,
authority, standards, traditionalism—with the aggressive themes of a revived
neoliberialism—self-interest, competitive individualism, antistatism. In the case of the United States, Allen
Hunter shows that the attack of the New Right on the Welfare State is the point
at which the cultural and economic critiques come together” (170)
They remind
the reader that the rise of the New Right, exemplified by Hayek, and
libertarians, such as Nozick, are able to gain dominance because of a
successfully constructed and implemented discourse that speaks to the popular
concerns, generating “a new historic bloc” (176). They emphasize that if one’s goal is to find
the one objective answer, one will fail, and that the essentialist presumption
is a primary obstacle in moving forward into a product discussion for the Left
(177), which can only be overcome by abandoning the belief “that there are privileged points from which an emancipatory
political practice can be launched” such that the left can engage in a “complex
process of convergence and political construction” (174). They also note that the Left’s concern with
individual liberty has become a hindrance to the process, especially in the
sense of the concept of “possessive individualism,” or that “the rights of
individuals as existing before society, and often in opposition to it” (175),
taking a stance against the idea of “natural rights” (184), arguing that rights
come from the state.
As they
conclude, they assert that “The task of the Left therefore cannot be to
renounce liberal-democratic ideology, but on the contrary, to deepen and expand
it in the direction of a radical and plural democracy” (176)—the last section
of the book explores this idea. For
example, they tie this back into socialism, by recognizing that democracy will
require some kind of socialism, in that the capitalist relations of production
generate fundamental inequality—but that socialism does not inherently entail
democracy (178), so democracy must take precedence, and represents far greater
range of processes to generate equality.
Further, to generate public credibility for a new/revised discourse of
equality, specifically, a “democratic equivalence” to the discourse generated
by the Right, the Left must develop “a new ‘common sense’” of what constitutes
equality (183). They emphasize that this
will require a balance of both liberty and equality (184). They end, saying “the field of the political
as the space for a game which is never ‘zero-sum’, because the rules and the
players are never fully explicit. This
game, which eludes the concept, does at least have a name: hegemony” (193).
