Zheng Yongnian, "The Chinese Communist Party as Organizational Emperor: Culture, reproduction and transformation" (Routledge, December 2009):
www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415559652/
Publisher's description: "The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the largest and one of the most powerful, political organizations in the world today, which has played a crucial role in initiating most of the major reforms of the past three decades in China. China's rapid rise has enabled the CCP to extend its influence throughout the globe, but the West remains uncertain whether the CCP will survive China's ongoing socio-economic transformation and become a democratic country [sic]. With rapid socio-economic transformation, the CCP has itself experienced drastic changes. Zheng Yongnian argues that whilst the concept of political party in China was imported, the CCP is a Chinese cultural product: it is an entirely different breed of political party from those in the West – an organizational emperor, wielding its power in a similar way to Chinese emperors of the past. Using social and political theory, this book examines the CCP's transformation in the reform era, and how it is now struggling to maintain the continuing domination of its imperial power. The author argues that the CCP has managed these changes as a proactive player throughout, and that the nature of the CCP implies that as long as the party is transforming itself in accordance to socio-economic changes, the structure of party dominion over the state and society will not be allowed to change."
Review: "Throughout his book, Zheng makes the case that the CCP's approach to power is contingent on historical continuity and draws from practices implemented back when the country was ruled by emperors. Though this argument could be exploited to make a case against democratization, it nevertheless makes a valid contribution to our understanding of the party's resistance to Western-style democracy and the ostensible lack of widespread calls for such democracy among ordinary Chinese. [...] Ironically, as Zheng points out, historical continuity, i.e., the reproduction of the organizational emperorship, is also the main driver behind the CCP's need to adapt and embrace Marxism's nemeses, such as capitalism and democratic elements, as Chinese history is rife with examples of rigid systems being overthrown by a counter-hegemonic force. As such, to avoid a similar fate, the CCP has no choice but to open up, which in turn empowers other social classes that must be kept in check lest they overturn the system. 'As long as the CCP is able to reproduce itself as an organizational emperor,' Zheng concludes, 'it is unlikely that China will develop into a Western style of democracy.'" (J. Michael Cole, "Taipei Times")
Zheng Yongnian is Professor and Director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore.
Showing posts with label communism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label communism. Show all posts
07 November 2010
25 September 2010
Book: In Defense of Lost Causes
Slavoj Žižek, "In Defense of Lost Causes" (Verso, 2008):
www.versobooks.com/books/431-in-defense-of-lost-causes
Publisher's description: "In this combative major new work, philosophical sharpshooter Slavoj Zizek looks for the kernel of truth in the totalitarian politics of the past. Examining Heidegger's seduction by fascism and Foucault's flirtation with the Iranian Revolution, he suggests that these were the 'right steps in the wrong direction.' On the revolutionary terror of Robespierre, Mao and the bolsheviks, Zizek argues that while these struggles ended in historic failure and horror, there was a valuable core of idealism lost beneath the bloodshed. A redemptive vision has been obscured by the soft, decentralized politics of the liberal-democratic consensus. Faced with the coming ecological crisis, Zizekk [sic] argues the case for revolutionary terror and the dictatorship of the proletariat. A return to past ideals is needed despite the risks. In the words of Samuel Beckett: 'Try again. Fail again. Fail better.'"
Review: "Zizek [...] addresses the limits of liberal democratic approaches to politics and the possibility of benefit in totalitarian approaches to statehood. [...] Scholars of political theory and modern philosophy will find much here to consider and argue for or against." ("Library Journal")
Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, and International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at Birkbeck College, University of London.
Matthew Sharpe's article "'Then We Will Fight Them in the Shadows!': Seven Parataxic Views, On Žižek's Style", which appeared recently in the online publication "International Journal of Žižek Studies" (4 [2], 2010), draws on this book.
The full text of the article can be downloaded free of charge here:
www.zizekstudies.org/index.php/ijzs/article/view/261
Excerpts: "Žižek's commitment to the egalitarian-revolutionary Idea places him on a continuum with the radical democratic political tradition with which his earlier work is usually associated. Democracy, rule of and by the people, implies some minimal commitment to egalitarianism, however conceived. Yet, following Badiou, and associating democracy with contemporary liberal-democracy, Žižek at several points indicates that faith in democracy today is the Enemy to be overcome: 'What, today, prevents the radical questioning of capitalism itself is precisely the belief in the democratic form of the struggle against capitalism.' (Žižek 2008, p. 183) [...] Žižek is unconditionally, or rather profoundly, attracted to [...] the utopian moment of radical negativity, in which the old regime is overthrown and suddenly we confront an indefinite, open future, shorn of any 'big Other' defining what is possible and impossible, permitted and prohibited ('Nothing should be accepted as inviolable in this new re-foundation, neither the need for economic "modernisation" nor the most sacred liberal and democratic fetishes' (Žižek 2008, p. 276)"
Matthew Sharpe and Geoff M. Boucher are the authors of a book on "Žižek and Politics: A Critical Introduction" (Edinburgh University Press, March 2010) that also seeks to highlight "Žižek's shift from his earlier, radical-democratic politics, to his later [that is, current], revolutionary, authoritarian vanguardism":
www.euppublishing.com/book/9780748638048
Publisher's description: "In Zizek and Politics, Geoff Boucher and Matthew Sharpe go beyond standard introductions to spell out a new approach to reading Zizek, one that can be highly critical as well as deeply appreciative. They show that Zizek has a raft of fundamental positions that enable his theoretical positions to be put to work on practical problems. Explaining these positions with clear examples, they outline why Zizek's confrontation with thinkers such as Derrida, Foucault and Deleuze has so radically changed how we think about society. They then go on to track Zizek's own intellectual development during the last twenty years, as he has grappled with theoretical problems and the political climate of the War on Terror. This book is a major addition to the literature on Zizek and a crucial critical introduction to his thought." (bold removed)
This book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including table of contents):
http://books.google.com/books?id=OHDgjpvREnMC&printsec=frontcover
Matthew Sharpe is a Lecturer in the School of International and Political Studies and Geoff M. Boucher is a Lecturer in the School of Communication and Creative Arts, both at Deakin University, Geelong, Australia.
www.versobooks.com/books/431-in-defense-of-lost-causes
Publisher's description: "In this combative major new work, philosophical sharpshooter Slavoj Zizek looks for the kernel of truth in the totalitarian politics of the past. Examining Heidegger's seduction by fascism and Foucault's flirtation with the Iranian Revolution, he suggests that these were the 'right steps in the wrong direction.' On the revolutionary terror of Robespierre, Mao and the bolsheviks, Zizek argues that while these struggles ended in historic failure and horror, there was a valuable core of idealism lost beneath the bloodshed. A redemptive vision has been obscured by the soft, decentralized politics of the liberal-democratic consensus. Faced with the coming ecological crisis, Zizekk [sic] argues the case for revolutionary terror and the dictatorship of the proletariat. A return to past ideals is needed despite the risks. In the words of Samuel Beckett: 'Try again. Fail again. Fail better.'"
Review: "Zizek [...] addresses the limits of liberal democratic approaches to politics and the possibility of benefit in totalitarian approaches to statehood. [...] Scholars of political theory and modern philosophy will find much here to consider and argue for or against." ("Library Journal")
Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, and International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at Birkbeck College, University of London.
Matthew Sharpe's article "'Then We Will Fight Them in the Shadows!': Seven Parataxic Views, On Žižek's Style", which appeared recently in the online publication "International Journal of Žižek Studies" (4 [2], 2010), draws on this book.
The full text of the article can be downloaded free of charge here:
www.zizekstudies.org/index.php/ijzs/article/view/261
Excerpts: "Žižek's commitment to the egalitarian-revolutionary Idea places him on a continuum with the radical democratic political tradition with which his earlier work is usually associated. Democracy, rule of and by the people, implies some minimal commitment to egalitarianism, however conceived. Yet, following Badiou, and associating democracy with contemporary liberal-democracy, Žižek at several points indicates that faith in democracy today is the Enemy to be overcome: 'What, today, prevents the radical questioning of capitalism itself is precisely the belief in the democratic form of the struggle against capitalism.' (Žižek 2008, p. 183) [...] Žižek is unconditionally, or rather profoundly, attracted to [...] the utopian moment of radical negativity, in which the old regime is overthrown and suddenly we confront an indefinite, open future, shorn of any 'big Other' defining what is possible and impossible, permitted and prohibited ('Nothing should be accepted as inviolable in this new re-foundation, neither the need for economic "modernisation" nor the most sacred liberal and democratic fetishes' (Žižek 2008, p. 276)"
Matthew Sharpe and Geoff M. Boucher are the authors of a book on "Žižek and Politics: A Critical Introduction" (Edinburgh University Press, March 2010) that also seeks to highlight "Žižek's shift from his earlier, radical-democratic politics, to his later [that is, current], revolutionary, authoritarian vanguardism":
www.euppublishing.com/book/9780748638048
Publisher's description: "In Zizek and Politics, Geoff Boucher and Matthew Sharpe go beyond standard introductions to spell out a new approach to reading Zizek, one that can be highly critical as well as deeply appreciative. They show that Zizek has a raft of fundamental positions that enable his theoretical positions to be put to work on practical problems. Explaining these positions with clear examples, they outline why Zizek's confrontation with thinkers such as Derrida, Foucault and Deleuze has so radically changed how we think about society. They then go on to track Zizek's own intellectual development during the last twenty years, as he has grappled with theoretical problems and the political climate of the War on Terror. This book is a major addition to the literature on Zizek and a crucial critical introduction to his thought." (bold removed)
This book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including table of contents):
http://books.google.com/books?id=OHDgjpvREnMC&printsec=frontcover
Matthew Sharpe is a Lecturer in the School of International and Political Studies and Geoff M. Boucher is a Lecturer in the School of Communication and Creative Arts, both at Deakin University, Geelong, Australia.
21 September 2010
Article: Manifesto of Affirmationism
The leftist French philosopher Alain Badiou's "Manifesto of Affirmationism" (trans. Barbara P. Fulks) was published in the New York-based biannual journal of critical theory, art, and fiction "Lacanian Ink" (24/25, spring 2005: no page numbers given).
The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:
www.lacan.com/frameXXIV5.htm
Excerpts: "We cannot understand what is gripping us and causing us to despair if we do not return again and again to the fact that our world is not at all a democracy, but rather an imperial conservatism under the guise of democratic phraseology. What to say of today's world? A solitary power whose army is terrorizing the entire planet dictates its law of the circulation of capital and images and proclaims everywhere, with the most extreme violence, the Duties and Rights of everyone. [...] Under the imposed name of 'terrorism,' those most violently opposed to this hegemony of the brutal West, for which 'democracy' is spiritual ornament, are in reality part of it [...]: the fury of inspired barbarism against sated imperialism. [...] Romantic formalism has always been an artistic orientation of ensconced and terminal dominations. And it is thus in our time: that of a unique and multiform doctrine (economic liberalism and political electoralism), integrating for the first time the quasi-totality of human species in the distribution and constraint of its fortune.
"Yes, our time is that of the unique doctrine and of the consensus which is created around it under the strange name of 'democracy.' Any unique doctrine of this type is desperate, nihilist, because it only proposes to the human multiplicity the absurd perpetuation of its obscene order. And the artistic subjectivity that it leads to is that of this nihilism and of this obscenity. [...] The only maxim of contemporary art is to not be 'Western.' Which means also that it should not be democratic, if democratic means: conforming to the Western idea of political liberty. [...] Yes, the only problem is to know if the artistic imperative can be detached from the Western imperative, which is that of marketing and communication. Western democracy, in effect, is marketing and communication. Thus true art is that which interrupts marketing, that which communicates nothing. Immobile and incommunicable, this is the art we need, the only one that addresses everyone, not circulating according to any pre-established network and not communicating with anyone in particular. Art should augment in everyone the non-democratic strength of one's liberty. [...]
"A non-Western art is necessarily an abstract art, in the following sense: it abstracts from all particularity and formalizes this gesture of abstraction. In order to combat expressivity, to combat Romantic formalism, there is only the dynamic of abstraction. [...] The abstraction in art which is and which is to come does not consider any particular public [...]: it does what it says, without needing acceptance from anyone. We affirm that all sociological and institutional speculations about the audience for the arts must be abandoned. Sociology, and criticism itself, is only and always the auxiliary of Western democracy. [...] Convinced of controlling the entire extent of the visible and of the audible through commercial laws of marketing and the democratic laws of communication, contemporary power no longer needs censorship. It says: 'Everything is possible.' Which also might mean that nothing is. Abandoning itself to this authorization to jouir [enjoy, delight in] is the ruin of all art, as well as all thought. We should be our own pitiless censors. [...] It is better to do nothing than to work officially in the visibility of what the West declares to exist."
Alain Badiou was formerly chair of Philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris.
The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:
www.lacan.com/frameXXIV5.htm
Excerpts: "We cannot understand what is gripping us and causing us to despair if we do not return again and again to the fact that our world is not at all a democracy, but rather an imperial conservatism under the guise of democratic phraseology. What to say of today's world? A solitary power whose army is terrorizing the entire planet dictates its law of the circulation of capital and images and proclaims everywhere, with the most extreme violence, the Duties and Rights of everyone. [...] Under the imposed name of 'terrorism,' those most violently opposed to this hegemony of the brutal West, for which 'democracy' is spiritual ornament, are in reality part of it [...]: the fury of inspired barbarism against sated imperialism. [...] Romantic formalism has always been an artistic orientation of ensconced and terminal dominations. And it is thus in our time: that of a unique and multiform doctrine (economic liberalism and political electoralism), integrating for the first time the quasi-totality of human species in the distribution and constraint of its fortune.
"Yes, our time is that of the unique doctrine and of the consensus which is created around it under the strange name of 'democracy.' Any unique doctrine of this type is desperate, nihilist, because it only proposes to the human multiplicity the absurd perpetuation of its obscene order. And the artistic subjectivity that it leads to is that of this nihilism and of this obscenity. [...] The only maxim of contemporary art is to not be 'Western.' Which means also that it should not be democratic, if democratic means: conforming to the Western idea of political liberty. [...] Yes, the only problem is to know if the artistic imperative can be detached from the Western imperative, which is that of marketing and communication. Western democracy, in effect, is marketing and communication. Thus true art is that which interrupts marketing, that which communicates nothing. Immobile and incommunicable, this is the art we need, the only one that addresses everyone, not circulating according to any pre-established network and not communicating with anyone in particular. Art should augment in everyone the non-democratic strength of one's liberty. [...]
"A non-Western art is necessarily an abstract art, in the following sense: it abstracts from all particularity and formalizes this gesture of abstraction. In order to combat expressivity, to combat Romantic formalism, there is only the dynamic of abstraction. [...] The abstraction in art which is and which is to come does not consider any particular public [...]: it does what it says, without needing acceptance from anyone. We affirm that all sociological and institutional speculations about the audience for the arts must be abandoned. Sociology, and criticism itself, is only and always the auxiliary of Western democracy. [...] Convinced of controlling the entire extent of the visible and of the audible through commercial laws of marketing and the democratic laws of communication, contemporary power no longer needs censorship. It says: 'Everything is possible.' Which also might mean that nothing is. Abandoning itself to this authorization to jouir [enjoy, delight in] is the ruin of all art, as well as all thought. We should be our own pitiless censors. [...] It is better to do nothing than to work officially in the visibility of what the West declares to exist."
Alain Badiou was formerly chair of Philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris.
19 September 2010
Article: Neoleninism in Post-democracy (in German)
Micha Brumlik is the author of an article titled "Neoleninismus in der Postdemokratie" (Neoleninism in Post-democracy), published in the monthly German magazine "Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik" (literally, "Pages for German and International Politics"; 8/2010: pp. 105-16):
www.blaetter.de/archiv/jahrgaenge/2010/august/neoleninismus-in-der-postdemokratie
Abstract in English (found online and apparently provided by the magazine): "What do Joachim Gauck's candidacy for German President and the 'Communism Congress' at Volksbühne Berlin [both in June 2010] have in common? Both represent the longing for alternatives in 'Post-democracy'. Micha Brumlik, Professor of Pedagogy at the University of Frankfurt on the Main and co-editor of the Blätter, criticises Alain Badiou's and Slavoj Zizek's undemocratic 'neo-leninism'."
Here too, I had no access to the full text of the article.
www.blaetter.de/archiv/jahrgaenge/2010/august/neoleninismus-in-der-postdemokratie
Abstract in English (found online and apparently provided by the magazine): "What do Joachim Gauck's candidacy for German President and the 'Communism Congress' at Volksbühne Berlin [both in June 2010] have in common? Both represent the longing for alternatives in 'Post-democracy'. Micha Brumlik, Professor of Pedagogy at the University of Frankfurt on the Main and co-editor of the Blätter, criticises Alain Badiou's and Slavoj Zizek's undemocratic 'neo-leninism'."
Here too, I had no access to the full text of the article.
26 June 2010
Book: Marketing Dictatorship: Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China
Anne-Marie Brady, "Marketing Dictatorship: Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007):
www.rowmanlittlefield.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=^DB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=0742540588
Publisher's description: "China's government is no longer a Stalinist-Maoist dictatorship, yet it does not seem to be moving significantly closer to democracy as it is understood in Western terms. After a period of self-imposed exclusion, Chinese society is in the process of a massive transformation in the name of economic progress and integration into the world economy. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is seeking to maintain its rule over China indefinitely, creating yet another 'new' China. Propaganda and thought work play a key role in this strategy. In this important book, noted China scholar Anne-Marie Brady answers some intriguing questions about China's contemporary propaganda system. Why have propaganda and thought work strengthened their hold in China in recent years? How has the CCP government strengthened its power since 1989 when so many analysts predicted otherwise? How does the CCP maintain its monopoly on political power while dismantling the socialist system? How can the government maintain popular support in China when the uniting force of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology is spent and discredited? What has taken the place of communist ideology? Examining propaganda and thought work in the current period offers readers a unique understanding of how the CCP will address real and perceived threats to stability and its continued hold on power. This innovative book is a must-read for everyone interested in China's growing role in the world community."
Reviews: "Anne-Marie Brady has written a timely book about the Chinese media. She has done much to demystify an understudied topic. [...] Brady's work deserves much admiration." (Ashley Esarey, "The China Journal")
"[T]he surface diversity of the Chinese media hides the guiding hand of a high-level Party office in Beijing called the Central Propaganda Department, which works its will across the whole spectrum of activities in media, education, entertainment – [...] what Brady calls a campaign of mass distraction." ("New Republic")
The book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including table of contents):
http://books.google.com/books?id=uj-1sxeO99kC&printsec=frontcover
Anne-Marie Brady is Associate Professor in the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Canterbury.
www.rowmanlittlefield.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=^DB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=0742540588
Publisher's description: "China's government is no longer a Stalinist-Maoist dictatorship, yet it does not seem to be moving significantly closer to democracy as it is understood in Western terms. After a period of self-imposed exclusion, Chinese society is in the process of a massive transformation in the name of economic progress and integration into the world economy. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is seeking to maintain its rule over China indefinitely, creating yet another 'new' China. Propaganda and thought work play a key role in this strategy. In this important book, noted China scholar Anne-Marie Brady answers some intriguing questions about China's contemporary propaganda system. Why have propaganda and thought work strengthened their hold in China in recent years? How has the CCP government strengthened its power since 1989 when so many analysts predicted otherwise? How does the CCP maintain its monopoly on political power while dismantling the socialist system? How can the government maintain popular support in China when the uniting force of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology is spent and discredited? What has taken the place of communist ideology? Examining propaganda and thought work in the current period offers readers a unique understanding of how the CCP will address real and perceived threats to stability and its continued hold on power. This innovative book is a must-read for everyone interested in China's growing role in the world community."
Reviews: "Anne-Marie Brady has written a timely book about the Chinese media. She has done much to demystify an understudied topic. [...] Brady's work deserves much admiration." (Ashley Esarey, "The China Journal")
"[T]he surface diversity of the Chinese media hides the guiding hand of a high-level Party office in Beijing called the Central Propaganda Department, which works its will across the whole spectrum of activities in media, education, entertainment – [...] what Brady calls a campaign of mass distraction." ("New Republic")
The book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including table of contents):
http://books.google.com/books?id=uj-1sxeO99kC&printsec=frontcover
Anne-Marie Brady is Associate Professor in the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Canterbury.
25 May 2010
Book: Maoism: A Critique from the Left
Just published: Prasenjit Bose is the editor of the contributed volume "Maoism: A Critique from the Left" (LeftWord Books, May 2010):
www.leftword.com/bookdetails.php?BkId=279&type=PB
Publisher's description: "What is 'Maoism'? What are its roots, and who are the forces waging a war in its name? The Indian Prime Minister characterizes them as our gravest internal security threat. The Maoists, on the other hand, claim they are the only revolutionary force in India today. The debate in India seems polarized between the hardline advocates of a military response to leftwing extremism on the one hand, and those who sympathize with the Maoists on the other. There is need, however, to look at the roots and origins of left sectarianism and critique it from a Marxist standpoint. In articulating a Left critique of 'Maoism', this book adds a crucial dimension to the ongoing debate in India. [...] P.M.S. Grewal makes a detailed, careful critique of the Indian Maoists' history, their programme and praxis. Nilotpal Basu unravels 'Maoism' as an anti-thesis of Mao Zedong thought. Vijay Prashad takes a critical look at the international experience of left extremism, especially in Latin America."
From the introduction: "Following independence, alongside the emergence of the Communist party as a major opposition force to the ruling Congress party within the parliamentary democratic set up, ideological debates also intensified within the Left on the road to revolution in India. [...] The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [...] arrived at a programmatic understanding that the [...] revolution, directed against the big bourgeoisie, landlordism and imperialism, is to be achieved by combining parliamentary and extra-parliamentary struggles. This overall understanding, however, was questioned by a small section, which considered participation in the parliamentary democratic process – just as the left sectarians did during Lenin's time – to be revisionist and non-revolutionary in principle. [...] Nilotpal Basu's essay [...] makes a robust critique of the anti-democratic practices of the Maoists and their hypocritical sympathizers. He also argues that Maoists can be effectively dealt with, not by means of imposing bans or security measures alone, but by ensuring their political isolation and addressing the developmental needs of the tribal areas where the Maoists operate."
Prasenjit Bose is Convenor of the Research Unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
www.leftword.com/bookdetails.php?BkId=279&type=PB
Publisher's description: "What is 'Maoism'? What are its roots, and who are the forces waging a war in its name? The Indian Prime Minister characterizes them as our gravest internal security threat. The Maoists, on the other hand, claim they are the only revolutionary force in India today. The debate in India seems polarized between the hardline advocates of a military response to leftwing extremism on the one hand, and those who sympathize with the Maoists on the other. There is need, however, to look at the roots and origins of left sectarianism and critique it from a Marxist standpoint. In articulating a Left critique of 'Maoism', this book adds a crucial dimension to the ongoing debate in India. [...] P.M.S. Grewal makes a detailed, careful critique of the Indian Maoists' history, their programme and praxis. Nilotpal Basu unravels 'Maoism' as an anti-thesis of Mao Zedong thought. Vijay Prashad takes a critical look at the international experience of left extremism, especially in Latin America."
From the introduction: "Following independence, alongside the emergence of the Communist party as a major opposition force to the ruling Congress party within the parliamentary democratic set up, ideological debates also intensified within the Left on the road to revolution in India. [...] The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [...] arrived at a programmatic understanding that the [...] revolution, directed against the big bourgeoisie, landlordism and imperialism, is to be achieved by combining parliamentary and extra-parliamentary struggles. This overall understanding, however, was questioned by a small section, which considered participation in the parliamentary democratic process – just as the left sectarians did during Lenin's time – to be revisionist and non-revolutionary in principle. [...] Nilotpal Basu's essay [...] makes a robust critique of the anti-democratic practices of the Maoists and their hypocritical sympathizers. He also argues that Maoists can be effectively dealt with, not by means of imposing bans or security measures alone, but by ensuring their political isolation and addressing the developmental needs of the tribal areas where the Maoists operate."
Prasenjit Bose is Convenor of the Research Unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
13 May 2010
Article: Has Indian Democracy Failed?
Smitu Kothari's article "Has Indian Democracy Failed?" was published on 6 August 2007 on the website of Intercultural Resources (ICR), an Indian-based organization "for research and political intervention on issues related to the impacts [of] and alternatives to destructive development".
The article can be read free of charge here:
http://icrindia.org/?p=170
Excerpts: "From whose vantage point do we assess our democracy? The minority that celebrates our 'economic miracle' and has found the means, both legitimate and devious, to enhance its comforts and privileges? Or the over 70 per cent who live on less than Rs 80 [Rupees] a day, some striving to improve their lives against grave odds and others living a life of penury and humiliation? [...] Integral to democracy was the commitment to strive for social and economic justice. Any assessment of our democracy must start with an assessment of that commitment. [...] Can we call our country democratic when, in the past few years, there have been a hundred thousand farmer suicides – a hundred thousand families devastated? [...] This reality points to our being integrated into an undemocratic global economic system dominated by institutions which are silent when the US and Europe heavily subsidise their farmers undermining the very survival of millions of farmers in countries like ours – one of the reasons for the suicides. [...]
"Should we admit failure when the police or the army fire on democratic protests often in the presence of district collectors and senior members of ruling parties? Are the firings and repression in Nandigram and Kalinganagar scattered incidents or are they part of a pattern where 'development flows from the barrel of a gun'? Even a cursory look at what is unfolding in the Northeast highlights how projects ranging from uranium mines to scores of large dams are being implemented with minimal public discussion using lies, subterfuge, armed force and blatant bribery. [...] Despite nine per cent growth, less than one per cent of the national budget goes towards public health spending? We have child malnourishment levels that are higher than sub-Saharan Africa. Highlighting this, a recent government of India-UNICEF study found that 56 per cent of women and 79 per cent of children below three years old were anemic – a situation worse than seven years ago. [...] So you have a classic situation of widening expectations created by a populist image of resurgent India and a reality of disenchantment. It is inevitable in this situation that Maoist movements are finding resonance among despairing populations. Vast areas in Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and Orissa are now under their influence."
The late Smitu Kothari (1950-2009), a social and environmental activist, was Director of Intercultural Resources (ICR), New Delhi, and Visiting Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
The article can be read free of charge here:
http://icrindia.org/?p=170
Excerpts: "From whose vantage point do we assess our democracy? The minority that celebrates our 'economic miracle' and has found the means, both legitimate and devious, to enhance its comforts and privileges? Or the over 70 per cent who live on less than Rs 80 [Rupees] a day, some striving to improve their lives against grave odds and others living a life of penury and humiliation? [...] Integral to democracy was the commitment to strive for social and economic justice. Any assessment of our democracy must start with an assessment of that commitment. [...] Can we call our country democratic when, in the past few years, there have been a hundred thousand farmer suicides – a hundred thousand families devastated? [...] This reality points to our being integrated into an undemocratic global economic system dominated by institutions which are silent when the US and Europe heavily subsidise their farmers undermining the very survival of millions of farmers in countries like ours – one of the reasons for the suicides. [...]
"Should we admit failure when the police or the army fire on democratic protests often in the presence of district collectors and senior members of ruling parties? Are the firings and repression in Nandigram and Kalinganagar scattered incidents or are they part of a pattern where 'development flows from the barrel of a gun'? Even a cursory look at what is unfolding in the Northeast highlights how projects ranging from uranium mines to scores of large dams are being implemented with minimal public discussion using lies, subterfuge, armed force and blatant bribery. [...] Despite nine per cent growth, less than one per cent of the national budget goes towards public health spending? We have child malnourishment levels that are higher than sub-Saharan Africa. Highlighting this, a recent government of India-UNICEF study found that 56 per cent of women and 79 per cent of children below three years old were anemic – a situation worse than seven years ago. [...] So you have a classic situation of widening expectations created by a populist image of resurgent India and a reality of disenchantment. It is inevitable in this situation that Maoist movements are finding resonance among despairing populations. Vast areas in Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and Orissa are now under their influence."
The late Smitu Kothari (1950-2009), a social and environmental activist, was Director of Intercultural Resources (ICR), New Delhi, and Visiting Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
28 April 2010
Article: Against the Myth of Democratic Rights and Liberties
"Communism", the "[c]entral review in English of the Internationalist Communist Group (ICG)", twice published an English translation of the same unsigned (quite likely collectively authored) article originally written in Spanish. While I don't know the date or title of the original article, the first translation was published in November 1983 in issue No. 1 of that review. An improved translation, titled "Against the Myth of Democratic Rights and Liberties", was published in issue No. 8 in July 1993.
The second version of the article can be read free of charge here:
http://gci-icg.org/english/communism8.htm#mythdemo
Excerpts: "In the same way as two opposite classes exist, there are two fundamental conceptions of workers' struggle. One is bourgeois, where one criticizes the lack of equality, of democracy, where one should fight for more rights and liberties. The other is proletarian, based on an understanding of the fact that the roots of all those liberties, rights and equalities are essentially of anti-worker type. This leads to the total practical destruction of the democratic State with its equality, rights and liberties. These two opposite conceptions show the contradiction between, on one hand, passive criticism – to improve, reform, and in this way, reiinforce [sic] the exploitation system – and, on the other hand, active criticismm [sic] , our criticism – the destruction of that exploitation system. [...]
"[T]he mass of human rights and liberties correspond exactly to the ideal form of the reproduction of capitalist oppression. Let's see what this ideal form of democracy is and where it comes from. [...] The party of order, the general party of Capital, or in other words, all the bourgeois parties, is totally unable to face the proletariat [...] as an autonomous force and there is nothing more efficient for the bourgeoisie than the mass of human rights and liberties to drown the working-class, to dissolve it in the false concept of the 'people'. When the proletariat stops existing as a class, when each worker is a good citizen, with his liberties, rights and duties, he accepts all the rules of the game that atomize him and drown him in the mass where his specific class interests disappear. As a good citizen, he does not exist as a class, this is the condition for democracy to work. [...]
"Some people will point out that nowhere such rights and liberties can be found, that everywhere there are prisoners, everywhere the right to strike is limited, that in this country the right of property is limited and that in that country only one party is allowed, etc. All this is obvious. Nevertheless, in all these countries, there is a faction of the bourgeoisie that will criticize the lack of democracy of different governments, and to do so, it must have a democratic ideal as reference. This is exactly what we want to explain and denounce. It is the only way to break with the bourgeois criticism of democracy and to recognize the enemy in all the defenders of a pure and perfect democracy. Indeed, as well as democracy being the product and the reflection of the mercantile basis of capitalist society, it is also the reference of all bourgeois criticisms which only aim at correcting the imperfections of democracy [...].
"The right of election means that every 4, 5, 6, 7, ... years, the worker can dress as a citizen to go and choose his oppressors freely. [...] The so-called rights and liberties even give the workers the 'privilege' to choose between the self-named 'worker parties': to choose the one that will be the most capable of directing the State of Capital and to organize the massacre of the proletarians who would tend to ignore the directives of the big 'worker' parties and who would refuse what the majority has decided. [...] The parties never hesitate in using white terror against the workers' class movement, and always in the name of democracy and liberty, of the right to work, of the respect of the trade-union's decisions ... Without any doubt, the same thing will happen every time the workers' association will become a school for communism, every time the question of socialism will stop being a question of words and a struggle will be carried on, not only for the increase in wages, but for the abolition of wage-labour. [...]
"Repression is democratic because it strikes when the workers leave their uniform of citizenship to act as a class, when they stop accepting being a well disciplined army for the valorization of Capital, for which the bourgeoisie had given them these rights and liberties. [...] Repression of all those who do not accept to behave as good citizens is the logical answer to the bourgeois desire for a democratic paradise. [...] As soon as the proletariat organises as a class, tries to attack the Capital dictatorship, democracy shows its terrorist face; as long as its dictatorship holds on firmly, democracy can show its liberal face to the stupid mass. [...] In the same way that, under capitalism, every worker is potentially unemployed, any worker who does not accept the rules of the citizenship game is, potentially, a prisoner. Repression, torture, murder are only applications of democracy. [...]
"For all these reasons, the communist position [...] is to assert without doubt that the organization of the proletariat is based on no right, no law, no liberty conceded by its enemy but on the contrary, is based on illegal action [....] That does not mean that we abandon a strike when it becomes legal, or that we do not publish and distribute revolutionary press when it can circulate legally or that we refuse to get out of prison when a judge sets us free. That would simply be reacting antithetically on the same legal field. [...] To fight on the illegal field means assuming all tasks independently of all democratic rights and liberties, which are only decisions of our enemy and therefore a strategy of the bourgeoisie to fight us." (all italics originally underline)
The second version of the article can be read free of charge here:
http://gci-icg.org/english/communism8.htm#mythdemo
Excerpts: "In the same way as two opposite classes exist, there are two fundamental conceptions of workers' struggle. One is bourgeois, where one criticizes the lack of equality, of democracy, where one should fight for more rights and liberties. The other is proletarian, based on an understanding of the fact that the roots of all those liberties, rights and equalities are essentially of anti-worker type. This leads to the total practical destruction of the democratic State with its equality, rights and liberties. These two opposite conceptions show the contradiction between, on one hand, passive criticism – to improve, reform, and in this way, reiinforce [sic] the exploitation system – and, on the other hand, active criticismm [sic] , our criticism – the destruction of that exploitation system. [...]
"[T]he mass of human rights and liberties correspond exactly to the ideal form of the reproduction of capitalist oppression. Let's see what this ideal form of democracy is and where it comes from. [...] The party of order, the general party of Capital, or in other words, all the bourgeois parties, is totally unable to face the proletariat [...] as an autonomous force and there is nothing more efficient for the bourgeoisie than the mass of human rights and liberties to drown the working-class, to dissolve it in the false concept of the 'people'. When the proletariat stops existing as a class, when each worker is a good citizen, with his liberties, rights and duties, he accepts all the rules of the game that atomize him and drown him in the mass where his specific class interests disappear. As a good citizen, he does not exist as a class, this is the condition for democracy to work. [...]
"Some people will point out that nowhere such rights and liberties can be found, that everywhere there are prisoners, everywhere the right to strike is limited, that in this country the right of property is limited and that in that country only one party is allowed, etc. All this is obvious. Nevertheless, in all these countries, there is a faction of the bourgeoisie that will criticize the lack of democracy of different governments, and to do so, it must have a democratic ideal as reference. This is exactly what we want to explain and denounce. It is the only way to break with the bourgeois criticism of democracy and to recognize the enemy in all the defenders of a pure and perfect democracy. Indeed, as well as democracy being the product and the reflection of the mercantile basis of capitalist society, it is also the reference of all bourgeois criticisms which only aim at correcting the imperfections of democracy [...].
"The right of election means that every 4, 5, 6, 7, ... years, the worker can dress as a citizen to go and choose his oppressors freely. [...] The so-called rights and liberties even give the workers the 'privilege' to choose between the self-named 'worker parties': to choose the one that will be the most capable of directing the State of Capital and to organize the massacre of the proletarians who would tend to ignore the directives of the big 'worker' parties and who would refuse what the majority has decided. [...] The parties never hesitate in using white terror against the workers' class movement, and always in the name of democracy and liberty, of the right to work, of the respect of the trade-union's decisions ... Without any doubt, the same thing will happen every time the workers' association will become a school for communism, every time the question of socialism will stop being a question of words and a struggle will be carried on, not only for the increase in wages, but for the abolition of wage-labour. [...]
"Repression is democratic because it strikes when the workers leave their uniform of citizenship to act as a class, when they stop accepting being a well disciplined army for the valorization of Capital, for which the bourgeoisie had given them these rights and liberties. [...] Repression of all those who do not accept to behave as good citizens is the logical answer to the bourgeois desire for a democratic paradise. [...] As soon as the proletariat organises as a class, tries to attack the Capital dictatorship, democracy shows its terrorist face; as long as its dictatorship holds on firmly, democracy can show its liberal face to the stupid mass. [...] In the same way that, under capitalism, every worker is potentially unemployed, any worker who does not accept the rules of the citizenship game is, potentially, a prisoner. Repression, torture, murder are only applications of democracy. [...]
"For all these reasons, the communist position [...] is to assert without doubt that the organization of the proletariat is based on no right, no law, no liberty conceded by its enemy but on the contrary, is based on illegal action [....] That does not mean that we abandon a strike when it becomes legal, or that we do not publish and distribute revolutionary press when it can circulate legally or that we refuse to get out of prison when a judge sets us free. That would simply be reacting antithetically on the same legal field. [...] To fight on the illegal field means assuming all tasks independently of all democratic rights and liberties, which are only decisions of our enemy and therefore a strategy of the bourgeoisie to fight us." (all italics originally underline)
26 April 2010
Article: Capital and Democracy
In 2006, the Hungarian anarchist "Barricade Collective" wrote an introduction and commentary, titled "Capital and Democracy", to a 1969 text by French communist theorist Jacques Camatte ("La mystification démocratique").
Both an undated English translation of the original text by Camatte, "The Democratic Mystification", and the more recent introduction and commentary (which may or may not have been written in Hungarian initially) can be read free of charge here:
www.anarkismo.net/article/4454
Excerpts from the introduction: "The dead labour's independence [as value] and its dominance over living productive activity – this necrophilia of capital – yields the present disgusting relationship between individuals and the loathsome ideology which adheres to it: the practice and the theory of bourgeois democracy. [...] Democracy assumes different forms according to the forms of productive labour and the extension of commodity production. Ancient democracy was an internal affair of the ruling class, because only free citizens were commodity owners (namely owners of the land, the slaves and their products). In modern bourgeois democracy everybody is a commodity owner, and the key commodity for the bourgeoisie – labour force – is put on the market by the working class. Hence, democracy is total now. [...] Political parties – i.e. the parties of the bourgeoisie, including the social democratic parties – have never represented more than the alternatives of the development of capital, in other words the interests of some ruling class groups. The democratic (parliamentary) principle was the guarantee that the political management would not separate from the interests of aggregate capital. [...]
"When capital comes to a profound crisis, it seems to break with the democratic principle. During the crisis, a huge mass of constant capital loses its value and is unable to function further as capital, to produce surplus value by absorbing variable capital. So the crisis of constant capital is also the crisis of variable capital, which manifests itself in the fall of (real) wages and massive unemployment. Capitalism is unable to handle such crises through the usual reconciliation of interests between capitals (parliamentarism) and the reconciliation of interests between capital and the working class (trade unionism). In such cases, the strongest representative of capital undertakes the task of capitalism's re-structuring, for capital's survival. The main elements of this are the destruction of those capitals which have lost their value and the destruction of the unnecessary labour force – open or hidden war. [...] Facing this phenomenon, leftists shout: 'Capitalism betrays democracy! Capital is capable of sacrificing democracy for its own interests!' Some go so far as to try to prove theoretically that capitalism can never be democratic.
"In contrast to this, it is extremely important to emphasize that the 'anti-democratism' of capital during crises is an absolutely democratic phenomenon. The case is exactly that it tries to maintain the commodity-owner individuals, private property. Capital is obliged to infringe the political rights proclaimed by capital itself (freedom of press, assembly and speech) if they hinder the process of capital's reproduction (production, circulation or both), and democracy between the people is the first precondition for this reproduction. A revolutionary situation is the peak of capitalism's crisis. [...] Revolutionaries who want to fight consistently against capitalism cannot make any compromise with democracy. Democracy is the form of existence of those who have been alienated from the human community, 'of those who have lost their original organic unity with the community'
(Camatte). Therefore the communist revolution which means the creation of human community cannot be victorious without the total destruction of this way of existence." (italics removed)
Both an undated English translation of the original text by Camatte, "The Democratic Mystification", and the more recent introduction and commentary (which may or may not have been written in Hungarian initially) can be read free of charge here:
www.anarkismo.net/article/4454
Excerpts from the introduction: "The dead labour's independence [as value] and its dominance over living productive activity – this necrophilia of capital – yields the present disgusting relationship between individuals and the loathsome ideology which adheres to it: the practice and the theory of bourgeois democracy. [...] Democracy assumes different forms according to the forms of productive labour and the extension of commodity production. Ancient democracy was an internal affair of the ruling class, because only free citizens were commodity owners (namely owners of the land, the slaves and their products). In modern bourgeois democracy everybody is a commodity owner, and the key commodity for the bourgeoisie – labour force – is put on the market by the working class. Hence, democracy is total now. [...] Political parties – i.e. the parties of the bourgeoisie, including the social democratic parties – have never represented more than the alternatives of the development of capital, in other words the interests of some ruling class groups. The democratic (parliamentary) principle was the guarantee that the political management would not separate from the interests of aggregate capital. [...]
"When capital comes to a profound crisis, it seems to break with the democratic principle. During the crisis, a huge mass of constant capital loses its value and is unable to function further as capital, to produce surplus value by absorbing variable capital. So the crisis of constant capital is also the crisis of variable capital, which manifests itself in the fall of (real) wages and massive unemployment. Capitalism is unable to handle such crises through the usual reconciliation of interests between capitals (parliamentarism) and the reconciliation of interests between capital and the working class (trade unionism). In such cases, the strongest representative of capital undertakes the task of capitalism's re-structuring, for capital's survival. The main elements of this are the destruction of those capitals which have lost their value and the destruction of the unnecessary labour force – open or hidden war. [...] Facing this phenomenon, leftists shout: 'Capitalism betrays democracy! Capital is capable of sacrificing democracy for its own interests!' Some go so far as to try to prove theoretically that capitalism can never be democratic.
"In contrast to this, it is extremely important to emphasize that the 'anti-democratism' of capital during crises is an absolutely democratic phenomenon. The case is exactly that it tries to maintain the commodity-owner individuals, private property. Capital is obliged to infringe the political rights proclaimed by capital itself (freedom of press, assembly and speech) if they hinder the process of capital's reproduction (production, circulation or both), and democracy between the people is the first precondition for this reproduction. A revolutionary situation is the peak of capitalism's crisis. [...] Revolutionaries who want to fight consistently against capitalism cannot make any compromise with democracy. Democracy is the form of existence of those who have been alienated from the human community, 'of those who have lost their original organic unity with the community'
(Camatte). Therefore the communist revolution which means the creation of human community cannot be victorious without the total destruction of this way of existence." (italics removed)
17 April 2010
Public lecture: Asia's Anti-Democracy: North Korea
An event in the Business and Policy Speaker Series "Prospects for Democracy in China, Afghanistan and North Korea" of the Asia Society Texas Center, at the Houston Club, 811 Rusk Avenue, Houston, Texas, USA, 29 April 2010, 11.30 am-1.30 pm (Attention: the registration form gives the date as 12 May 2010)
Public lecture by John Delury (Associate Director of the Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations): "Asia's Anti-Democracy: North Korea"
www.asiasociety.org/events-calendar/asias-anti-democracy-north-korea-lecture-john-delury
Description: "One of the last surviving planned socialist economies, history's only communist dynasty, and an ideological hybrid of Confucianism, Christianity, Stalinism, and Maoism, North Korea is truly unique. To its south lies arguably the most democratic society in East Asia – South Korea. Across its northern border, China is being remade by relentless socio-economic dynamism. But North Korea's regime has proven itself remarkably resilient, and at least for now is East Asia's most undemocratic state. John Delury [...] explores what paths, if any, to democratic rule are imaginable for the North Korean people and what can be done to lay foundations for a more moderate and liberal regime."
Cost: $30 members, $40 non-members, $300 tables of 10.
Public lecture by John Delury (Associate Director of the Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations): "Asia's Anti-Democracy: North Korea"
www.asiasociety.org/events-calendar/asias-anti-democracy-north-korea-lecture-john-delury
Description: "One of the last surviving planned socialist economies, history's only communist dynasty, and an ideological hybrid of Confucianism, Christianity, Stalinism, and Maoism, North Korea is truly unique. To its south lies arguably the most democratic society in East Asia – South Korea. Across its northern border, China is being remade by relentless socio-economic dynamism. But North Korea's regime has proven itself remarkably resilient, and at least for now is East Asia's most undemocratic state. John Delury [...] explores what paths, if any, to democratic rule are imaginable for the North Korean people and what can be done to lay foundations for a more moderate and liberal regime."
Cost: $30 members, $40 non-members, $300 tables of 10.
03 April 2010
Book: The French Revolution and the Russian Anti-Democratic Tradition
Dmitry Shlapentokh, "The French Revolution and the Russian Anti-Democratic Tradition: A Case of False Consciousness" (Transaction Publishers, 1997):
www.transactionpub.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TRANSPUB&Product_Code=978-1-56000-244-4
Publisher's description: "The political uncertainty following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rejection of the revolutionary model has brought Russian political thought full circle as democratic forces contend with authoritarian nationalism. This volume is essential to understanding the antidemocratic tradition in Russia and the persistent danger of totalitarianism."
The book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including table of contents):
http://books.google.com/books?id=eVKOSX0E2bUC&printsec=frontcover
Dmitry Shlapentokh, born in Ukraine when it was still part of the Soviet Union, is Associate Professor of History at Indiana University South Bend.
www.transactionpub.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TRANSPUB&Product_Code=978-1-56000-244-4
Publisher's description: "The political uncertainty following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rejection of the revolutionary model has brought Russian political thought full circle as democratic forces contend with authoritarian nationalism. This volume is essential to understanding the antidemocratic tradition in Russia and the persistent danger of totalitarianism."
The book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including table of contents):
http://books.google.com/books?id=eVKOSX0E2bUC&printsec=frontcover
Dmitry Shlapentokh, born in Ukraine when it was still part of the Soviet Union, is Associate Professor of History at Indiana University South Bend.
17 February 2010
Book chapter: Žižek against democracy
Jodi Dean's book "Žižek's Politics” (Routledge, August 2006) includes a chapter on "Democratic Fundamentalism" (pp. 95-133):
www.routledge.com/books/Zizeks-Politics-isbn9780415951753
That chapter seems to be largely identical to an article titled "Zizek against Democracy" Dean published in the journal "Law, Culture, and the Humanities" a year earlier (1 [2], June 2005: pp. 154-77):
http://lch.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/1/2/154
From the abstract: "This article takes up [the Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst] Slavoj Zizek's critical interrogation of democracy, defending Zizek's position as an alternative left politics, indeed, as that position most attuned to the loss of the political today. Whereas liberal and pragmatic approaches to politics and political theory accept the diminishment of political aspirations as realistic accommodation to the complexities of late capitalist societies as well as preferable to the dangers of totalitarianism accompanying Marxist and revolutionary theories, Zizek's psychoanalytic philosophy confronts directly the trap involved in acquiescence to a diminished political field, that is to say, to a political field constituted through the exclusion of the economy: within the ideological matrix of liberal democracy, any move against nationalism, fundamentalism, or ethnic violence ends up reinforcing Capital and guaranteeing democracy's failure. Arguing that formal democracy is irrevocably and necessarily 'stained' by a particular content that conditions and limits its universalizability, he challenges his readers to relinquish our attachment to democracy. I argue that critical Left theory should take up this challenge."
Some excerpts (from the book): "[D]emocracy is the form our attachment to Capital takes; it is the way we organize our enjoyment. He writes, 'what prevents the radical question of "capitalism" itself is precisely belief in the democratic form of the struggle against capitalism.' Faithful to democracy, we eschew the demanding task of politicizing the economy and envisioning a different political order. Some theorists think Žižek's position here is mere posturing. [...] [Ernesto] Laclau implies that Žižek's antidemocratic stance is something new. Attention to Žižek's writing shows, to the contrary, that a skepticism toward democracy has long been a crucial component of his project. [...]
"In a number of his early books published in English, Žižek voices a sense of betrayal at the bait and switch occurring in Eastern Europe when they 'went for' democracy and got capitalism and nationalism instead [...], what Žižek calls a 'scoundrel time' when capitalism appears as democracy and democracy as and through capitalism. [...] In subsequent work, Žižek names the limit to current thinking 'democratic fundamentalism'. [...] [D]emocracy binds our thinking – anything that is not democratic is necessarily horrible, totalitarian, and unacceptable to any rational person. [...] Are we destined to fetishize democracy [...]?"
The book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including full table of contents):
http://books.google.com/books?id=NXfzZ9omaQwC&printsec=frontcover
While I haven't been able to access the 2005 journal article, yet another version of this text is available from Dean's blog (I don't know/didn't check, however, to what extent the text may or may not be identical with that published in either the journal or the book):
http://jdeanicite.typepad.com/i_cite/files/zizek_against_democracy_new_version.doc
I couldn't shake the feeling that Dean is a whole lot more anti-democratic than Žižek, and Žižek's writings merely serve her as a prop to expound her own ideas. But, then, that's how Žižek works too.
Jodi Dean is Professor of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and Erasmus Professor of the Humanities in the Faculty of Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
www.routledge.com/books/Zizeks-Politics-isbn9780415951753
That chapter seems to be largely identical to an article titled "Zizek against Democracy" Dean published in the journal "Law, Culture, and the Humanities" a year earlier (1 [2], June 2005: pp. 154-77):
http://lch.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/1/2/154
From the abstract: "This article takes up [the Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst] Slavoj Zizek's critical interrogation of democracy, defending Zizek's position as an alternative left politics, indeed, as that position most attuned to the loss of the political today. Whereas liberal and pragmatic approaches to politics and political theory accept the diminishment of political aspirations as realistic accommodation to the complexities of late capitalist societies as well as preferable to the dangers of totalitarianism accompanying Marxist and revolutionary theories, Zizek's psychoanalytic philosophy confronts directly the trap involved in acquiescence to a diminished political field, that is to say, to a political field constituted through the exclusion of the economy: within the ideological matrix of liberal democracy, any move against nationalism, fundamentalism, or ethnic violence ends up reinforcing Capital and guaranteeing democracy's failure. Arguing that formal democracy is irrevocably and necessarily 'stained' by a particular content that conditions and limits its universalizability, he challenges his readers to relinquish our attachment to democracy. I argue that critical Left theory should take up this challenge."
Some excerpts (from the book): "[D]emocracy is the form our attachment to Capital takes; it is the way we organize our enjoyment. He writes, 'what prevents the radical question of "capitalism" itself is precisely belief in the democratic form of the struggle against capitalism.' Faithful to democracy, we eschew the demanding task of politicizing the economy and envisioning a different political order. Some theorists think Žižek's position here is mere posturing. [...] [Ernesto] Laclau implies that Žižek's antidemocratic stance is something new. Attention to Žižek's writing shows, to the contrary, that a skepticism toward democracy has long been a crucial component of his project. [...]
"In a number of his early books published in English, Žižek voices a sense of betrayal at the bait and switch occurring in Eastern Europe when they 'went for' democracy and got capitalism and nationalism instead [...], what Žižek calls a 'scoundrel time' when capitalism appears as democracy and democracy as and through capitalism. [...] In subsequent work, Žižek names the limit to current thinking 'democratic fundamentalism'. [...] [D]emocracy binds our thinking – anything that is not democratic is necessarily horrible, totalitarian, and unacceptable to any rational person. [...] Are we destined to fetishize democracy [...]?"
The book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including full table of contents):
http://books.google.com/books?id=NXfzZ9omaQwC&printsec=frontcover
While I haven't been able to access the 2005 journal article, yet another version of this text is available from Dean's blog (I don't know/didn't check, however, to what extent the text may or may not be identical with that published in either the journal or the book):
http://jdeanicite.typepad.com/i_cite/files/zizek_against_democracy_new_version.doc
I couldn't shake the feeling that Dean is a whole lot more anti-democratic than Žižek, and Žižek's writings merely serve her as a prop to expound her own ideas. But, then, that's how Žižek works too.
Jodi Dean is Professor of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and Erasmus Professor of the Humanities in the Faculty of Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Book: Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies
Jodi Dean, "Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies: Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics" (Duke University Press, July 2009):
www.dukeupress.edu/books.php3?isbn=978-0-8223-4505-3
From the publisher's description: "Through an assessment of the ideologies underlying contemporary political culture, Jodi Dean [...] argues that the left's ability to develop and defend a collective vision of equality and solidarity has been undermined [...]. As Dean explains, communicative capitalism is enabled and exacerbated by the Web and other networked communications media, which reduce political energies to the registration of opinion and the transmission of feelings. The result is a psychotic politics where certainty displaces credibility and the circulation of intense feeling trumps the exchange of reason. Dean's critique ranges from her argument that the term democracy has become a meaningless cipher invoked by the left and right alike to [...] confronting the marriage of neoliberalism and democracy".
Under the title "W(h)ither the State", she yesterday wrote on her blog: "In a discussion of Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies today some students pressed a point of weakness in my discussion: namely, the critique of democracy in all or nothing terms. Rather than considering the multiplicity of forms of local action and community engagement, I reject the democratic 'system,' its liberal-democratic justifications, and its materialization in communicative capitalism. The state is rotten and thus the only solution is revolution."
Reviews: "Her diagnosis of 'communicative capitalism' discloses how our 'really existing democracies' curtail prospects of radical emancipatory politics. Dean demonstrates this status of democracy as a political fantasy not through cheap, pseudo-Marxist denunciations but through a detailed examination of social, symbolic, and libidinal mechanisms and practices. To anyone who continues to dwell on illusions about liberal democracy, one should simply say: 'Hey, didn't you read Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies?'" (Slavoj Žižek, University of Ljubljana/Birkbeck College, London)
"Jodi Dean provides an incredibly lucid explanation of what neoliberalism has been in terms of both policy and collective fantasies regarding the relation of markets to freedom." (Lauren Berlant, University of Chicago)
Dean is also the author of a number of articles apparently opposed to democracy. Among those I haven't been able to access (and that were published in journals that many university libraries may not be subscribed to) is "The Democratic Deadlock" ("Theory & Event", 10 [4], 2007: pp. not given):
http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/theory_and_event/v010/10.4dean.html
Excerpt: "A commonplace of media punditry in the middle years of the first decade of the twenty-first century concerns the deep divide in American politics. Whether in terms of political parties, red states and blue states, support or opposition to US militarism in Afghanistan and Iraq, or the ongoing culture war between the religious right and the secular left, the United States is depicted as a nation split in its fundamental ethico-political self-understanding. This depiction is misleading. It occludes the way these seeming opponents continue to appeal to democracy. Thus, the administration of George W. Bush presents itself as actively engaged in bringing democracy to the Middle East, as encouraging countries throughout the world to strengthen their democratic institutions. The Left, although seemingly opposed to the Bush administration, also appeals to democracy as that which it wishes to restore, redeem, or reach. Why does the Left continue to appeal to democracy? Is democracy, as Slavoj Žižek asks, the ultimate horizon of political thought? For Žižek, to accept this horizon is to accept an impoverished political field, a diminishment of aspirations to something better. We accept the limitation of democracy, convinced that this is as good as it gets. Real existing constitutional democracies privilege the wealthy. They exclude, exploit, and oppress the poor. Crucial determinants of our lives and conditions remain outside the frame of political deliberation and response."
I also had no access to her article "Feminism, Communicative Capitalism, and the Inadequacies of Radical Democracy", published as a chapter in the contributed volume "Radical Democracy and the Internet: Interrogating Theory and Practice", eds. Lincoln Dahlberg and Eugenia Siapera (Palgrave Macmillan, July 2007).
Presumably the book covers most of the arguments she made in her earlier articles.
Jodi Dean is Professor of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and Erasmus Professor of the Humanities in the Faculty of Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
www.dukeupress.edu/books.php3?isbn=978-0-8223-4505-3
From the publisher's description: "Through an assessment of the ideologies underlying contemporary political culture, Jodi Dean [...] argues that the left's ability to develop and defend a collective vision of equality and solidarity has been undermined [...]. As Dean explains, communicative capitalism is enabled and exacerbated by the Web and other networked communications media, which reduce political energies to the registration of opinion and the transmission of feelings. The result is a psychotic politics where certainty displaces credibility and the circulation of intense feeling trumps the exchange of reason. Dean's critique ranges from her argument that the term democracy has become a meaningless cipher invoked by the left and right alike to [...] confronting the marriage of neoliberalism and democracy".
Under the title "W(h)ither the State", she yesterday wrote on her blog: "In a discussion of Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies today some students pressed a point of weakness in my discussion: namely, the critique of democracy in all or nothing terms. Rather than considering the multiplicity of forms of local action and community engagement, I reject the democratic 'system,' its liberal-democratic justifications, and its materialization in communicative capitalism. The state is rotten and thus the only solution is revolution."
Reviews: "Her diagnosis of 'communicative capitalism' discloses how our 'really existing democracies' curtail prospects of radical emancipatory politics. Dean demonstrates this status of democracy as a political fantasy not through cheap, pseudo-Marxist denunciations but through a detailed examination of social, symbolic, and libidinal mechanisms and practices. To anyone who continues to dwell on illusions about liberal democracy, one should simply say: 'Hey, didn't you read Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies?'" (Slavoj Žižek, University of Ljubljana/Birkbeck College, London)
"Jodi Dean provides an incredibly lucid explanation of what neoliberalism has been in terms of both policy and collective fantasies regarding the relation of markets to freedom." (Lauren Berlant, University of Chicago)
Dean is also the author of a number of articles apparently opposed to democracy. Among those I haven't been able to access (and that were published in journals that many university libraries may not be subscribed to) is "The Democratic Deadlock" ("Theory & Event", 10 [4], 2007: pp. not given):
http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/theory_and_event/v010/10.4dean.html
Excerpt: "A commonplace of media punditry in the middle years of the first decade of the twenty-first century concerns the deep divide in American politics. Whether in terms of political parties, red states and blue states, support or opposition to US militarism in Afghanistan and Iraq, or the ongoing culture war between the religious right and the secular left, the United States is depicted as a nation split in its fundamental ethico-political self-understanding. This depiction is misleading. It occludes the way these seeming opponents continue to appeal to democracy. Thus, the administration of George W. Bush presents itself as actively engaged in bringing democracy to the Middle East, as encouraging countries throughout the world to strengthen their democratic institutions. The Left, although seemingly opposed to the Bush administration, also appeals to democracy as that which it wishes to restore, redeem, or reach. Why does the Left continue to appeal to democracy? Is democracy, as Slavoj Žižek asks, the ultimate horizon of political thought? For Žižek, to accept this horizon is to accept an impoverished political field, a diminishment of aspirations to something better. We accept the limitation of democracy, convinced that this is as good as it gets. Real existing constitutional democracies privilege the wealthy. They exclude, exploit, and oppress the poor. Crucial determinants of our lives and conditions remain outside the frame of political deliberation and response."
I also had no access to her article "Feminism, Communicative Capitalism, and the Inadequacies of Radical Democracy", published as a chapter in the contributed volume "Radical Democracy and the Internet: Interrogating Theory and Practice", eds. Lincoln Dahlberg and Eugenia Siapera (Palgrave Macmillan, July 2007).
Presumably the book covers most of the arguments she made in her earlier articles.
Jodi Dean is Professor of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and Erasmus Professor of the Humanities in the Faculty of Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
15 February 2010
Article: H.G. Wells's "Liberal Fascism"
Philip Coupland, "H.G. Wells's 'Liberal Fascism'" ("Journal of Contemporary History", 35 [4], October 2000: pp. 541-58):
http://jch.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/35/4/541
Abstract: "During the 1930s H.G. Wells's theory of revolutionary praxis centred around a concept of 'liberal fascism' whereby the Wellsian 'liberal' utopia would be achieved by an authoritarian élite. Taking inspiration from the militarized political movements of the 1930s, this marked a development in the Wellsian theory of revolution from the 'open conspiracy' of the 1920s. Although both communist and fascist movements evinced some of the desired qualities of a Wellsian vanguard, it was fascism rather than communism which came closest to Wells's ideal. However, in practice, despite the failure of approaches to parties of the left and centre as possible agents of revolution, Wells rejected the British Union of Fascists. The disparity between Wells's theory and his actions when faced by the reality of fascism echoes the unresolved tension between ends and means at the heart of the concept of 'liberal fascism'."
Excerpts: "[I]n [the writer, social critic, and utopian] Wells's thinking the forces of destruction and creation, darkness and light, are best understood as a dialectical unity. The same paradigm, I would argue, when applied to Wells's theory of revolutionary praxis in the 1930s, shows how he was not forced to be either a liberal or an authoritarian, but could seek 'liberal' ends by means which were anything but. [...] The relationship between these two sides of Wellsism is well illustrated by the 'Liberal Fascism' which Wells called for in his address to the Young Liberals at their Summer School in Oxford in July 1932.
"'Central' to this reborn 'Liberalism' would be what Wells called a 'competent receiver', by which he meant 'a responsible organisation, able to guide and rule the new scale human community'. The 'competent receiver' was also, Wells carefully explained, 'flatly opposed' to the norms of 'parliamentary democracy', being a 'special class of people' of the type anticipated in 'the Guardian of Plato's Republic'. 'Concrete expressions of this same idea' included 'the Fascisti in Italy', Wells believed. [...] The alternative was for 'civilization' to be left to 'stagger down past redemption to chaotic violence and decadence'. [...]
"[L]iberalism would become an organization to 'replace the dilatory indecisiveness of parliamentary politics' [...,] 'a sort of Liberal Communist Party or a sort of Liberal Fascism'; 'a Liberal Fascisti, for enlightened Nazis ... a greater Communist Party' [...]. The early [Russian communist] party had been acceptable because it replaced the mysticism of 'the version of deified democracy, the Proletariat' with an authoritarian élite. However, against this he saw the 'heavy load of democratic and equalitarian cant' which 'ordained that at the phrase "Class War" every knee should bow'. [...] Wells condemned 'the old sentimental unwashed sweating "democratic" side' of socialism, 'all natural virtue, brotherhood and kisses' [...].
"Wells believed that the early twentieth century had seen the opening of 'the epoch of dictatorships and popular "saviours"'. However, not all forms of authoritarian rule were equal in his opinion. Because Wells firmly and consistently believed that the cult of the leader displaced the force of reason, what was important in the modern form of dictatorship was not the person of the leader but the organization he led. [...] He dismissed the Soviet system as 'a politician's dictatorship, propagandising rather than performing, disappointing her well-wishers abroad'."
Philip Coupland earned a PhD in History from the University of Warwick in 2000. The author of a book and various articles, he does not appear to be currently affiliated to any university.
http://jch.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/35/4/541
Abstract: "During the 1930s H.G. Wells's theory of revolutionary praxis centred around a concept of 'liberal fascism' whereby the Wellsian 'liberal' utopia would be achieved by an authoritarian élite. Taking inspiration from the militarized political movements of the 1930s, this marked a development in the Wellsian theory of revolution from the 'open conspiracy' of the 1920s. Although both communist and fascist movements evinced some of the desired qualities of a Wellsian vanguard, it was fascism rather than communism which came closest to Wells's ideal. However, in practice, despite the failure of approaches to parties of the left and centre as possible agents of revolution, Wells rejected the British Union of Fascists. The disparity between Wells's theory and his actions when faced by the reality of fascism echoes the unresolved tension between ends and means at the heart of the concept of 'liberal fascism'."
Excerpts: "[I]n [the writer, social critic, and utopian] Wells's thinking the forces of destruction and creation, darkness and light, are best understood as a dialectical unity. The same paradigm, I would argue, when applied to Wells's theory of revolutionary praxis in the 1930s, shows how he was not forced to be either a liberal or an authoritarian, but could seek 'liberal' ends by means which were anything but. [...] The relationship between these two sides of Wellsism is well illustrated by the 'Liberal Fascism' which Wells called for in his address to the Young Liberals at their Summer School in Oxford in July 1932.
"'Central' to this reborn 'Liberalism' would be what Wells called a 'competent receiver', by which he meant 'a responsible organisation, able to guide and rule the new scale human community'. The 'competent receiver' was also, Wells carefully explained, 'flatly opposed' to the norms of 'parliamentary democracy', being a 'special class of people' of the type anticipated in 'the Guardian of Plato's Republic'. 'Concrete expressions of this same idea' included 'the Fascisti in Italy', Wells believed. [...] The alternative was for 'civilization' to be left to 'stagger down past redemption to chaotic violence and decadence'. [...]
"[L]iberalism would become an organization to 'replace the dilatory indecisiveness of parliamentary politics' [...,] 'a sort of Liberal Communist Party or a sort of Liberal Fascism'; 'a Liberal Fascisti, for enlightened Nazis ... a greater Communist Party' [...]. The early [Russian communist] party had been acceptable because it replaced the mysticism of 'the version of deified democracy, the Proletariat' with an authoritarian élite. However, against this he saw the 'heavy load of democratic and equalitarian cant' which 'ordained that at the phrase "Class War" every knee should bow'. [...] Wells condemned 'the old sentimental unwashed sweating "democratic" side' of socialism, 'all natural virtue, brotherhood and kisses' [...].
"Wells believed that the early twentieth century had seen the opening of 'the epoch of dictatorships and popular "saviours"'. However, not all forms of authoritarian rule were equal in his opinion. Because Wells firmly and consistently believed that the cult of the leader displaced the force of reason, what was important in the modern form of dictatorship was not the person of the leader but the organization he led. [...] He dismissed the Soviet system as 'a politician's dictatorship, propagandising rather than performing, disappointing her well-wishers abroad'."
Philip Coupland earned a PhD in History from the University of Warwick in 2000. The author of a book and various articles, he does not appear to be currently affiliated to any university.
14 February 2010
Article: A Contribution to the Critique of Political Autonomy
French communist political theorist Gilles Dauvé wrote his essay "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Autonomy" for the fifth annual "Vår Makt" seminar, organized by the Swedish group Motarbetaren in Malmö on 1-2 November 2008. The text surveys various theories and criticisms of democracy and discusses their respective limitations.
The article can be read free of charge here:
www.motarbetaren.se/vm08/dauve.pdf
Excerpts: "Public opinion dislikes but understands those who despise democracy from a reactionary or elitist point of view. Someone who denies the common man's or woman's ability to organize and run himself or herself, logically will oppose democracy. But someone who firmly believes in this ability, and yet regards democracy as unfit for human emancipation, [...] gets the reputation of a warped mind who'll end up in the poor company of the arch-enemies of democracy: the fascists. [...] For all these reasons, the critique of democracy is a lost or forgotten battle. [...]
"Still, while most people go on at length about the failings of democracy, very few are willing to discuss its nature, because it appears as the best framework for human emancipation, and the only way to get it. [...] Communism opposes democracy because it is anti-State. Fascism only opposes democracy, because it is pro-State. We take on democracy as a form of the State, whereas reactionaries take it on as a political form they consider too feeble to defend the State. [...] Communists have had to deal with parliamentarianism as one of the forms (and not a feeble one) of government and repression. [...]
"[R]ejecting parliament does not sum up nor define our perspective, no more than despising the rich or hating money. [...] Dictatorship is the opposite of democracy. The opposite of democracy is not a critique of democracy. [...] [D]emocracy has been a distorted word ever since its return in the mouth of bourgeois revolutionaries from the 18th century onwards, and of most (but not all) socialists in the 19th and 20th centuries. [...] Democracy is not to be denounced and smashed, but superseded. Like other essential critiques, the critique of democracy will only become effective by the communizing of society. [...]
"The partial, confused yet deep communist movement that developed in the first half of the 19th century initiated an equally confused yet persistent critique of democracy. Both movement and critique were soon pushed in the background by the rise of organized labour that tried to make the most of bourgeois democracy. Yet every time the movement re-emerged, it got back to basics, and revived some aspects of the critique of democracy. [...] In the first half of the 20th century, new proletarian shock waves led to a reborn critique that (re)discovered these long-forgotten intuitions, but failed to be up to them. [...] The theoretical inroads made over 150 years ago have yet to be taken up. [...]
"Democracy is the most adequate political capitalist form. Whether we like it or not, democracy is an excellent expression of life under capitalism. It helps maintaining the degree of liberty and equality required by capitalist production and consumption and, up to a point, also required by the necessary forced relationship between labour and capital. [...] To put it bluntly, there's no practical critique of democracy unless there's a critique of capitalism. Accepting or trying to reform capitalism implies accepting or trying to reform its most adequate political form. [...]
"There's no point in sorting out bad (bourgeois) democracy and good (direct, worker, popular) democracy. But there's no point either in declaring oneself an anti-democrat. [...] There are no 'anti-democratic' specific actions to be invented, no more than systematic campaigns against advertising billboards or tv – both closely linked to democracy, actually. [...] So, in future troubled times, our best contribution will be to push for the most radical possible changes, which include the destruction of the State machinery, and this 'communization' process will eventually help people realize that democracy is an alienated form of freedom. [...] Democracy is the separation between action and decision."
In French, Gilles Dauvé and Karl Nesic in February 2009 published a book titled "Au-delà de la démocratie" (Beyond Democracy; my translation) with Éditions L'Harmattan:
www.editions-harmattan.fr/index.asp?navig=catalogue&obj=livre&no=28049
The arguments of the book appear to be very similar to those of the above article.
The article can be read free of charge here:
www.motarbetaren.se/vm08/dauve.pdf
Excerpts: "Public opinion dislikes but understands those who despise democracy from a reactionary or elitist point of view. Someone who denies the common man's or woman's ability to organize and run himself or herself, logically will oppose democracy. But someone who firmly believes in this ability, and yet regards democracy as unfit for human emancipation, [...] gets the reputation of a warped mind who'll end up in the poor company of the arch-enemies of democracy: the fascists. [...] For all these reasons, the critique of democracy is a lost or forgotten battle. [...]
"Still, while most people go on at length about the failings of democracy, very few are willing to discuss its nature, because it appears as the best framework for human emancipation, and the only way to get it. [...] Communism opposes democracy because it is anti-State. Fascism only opposes democracy, because it is pro-State. We take on democracy as a form of the State, whereas reactionaries take it on as a political form they consider too feeble to defend the State. [...] Communists have had to deal with parliamentarianism as one of the forms (and not a feeble one) of government and repression. [...]
"[R]ejecting parliament does not sum up nor define our perspective, no more than despising the rich or hating money. [...] Dictatorship is the opposite of democracy. The opposite of democracy is not a critique of democracy. [...] [D]emocracy has been a distorted word ever since its return in the mouth of bourgeois revolutionaries from the 18th century onwards, and of most (but not all) socialists in the 19th and 20th centuries. [...] Democracy is not to be denounced and smashed, but superseded. Like other essential critiques, the critique of democracy will only become effective by the communizing of society. [...]
"The partial, confused yet deep communist movement that developed in the first half of the 19th century initiated an equally confused yet persistent critique of democracy. Both movement and critique were soon pushed in the background by the rise of organized labour that tried to make the most of bourgeois democracy. Yet every time the movement re-emerged, it got back to basics, and revived some aspects of the critique of democracy. [...] In the first half of the 20th century, new proletarian shock waves led to a reborn critique that (re)discovered these long-forgotten intuitions, but failed to be up to them. [...] The theoretical inroads made over 150 years ago have yet to be taken up. [...]
"Democracy is the most adequate political capitalist form. Whether we like it or not, democracy is an excellent expression of life under capitalism. It helps maintaining the degree of liberty and equality required by capitalist production and consumption and, up to a point, also required by the necessary forced relationship between labour and capital. [...] To put it bluntly, there's no practical critique of democracy unless there's a critique of capitalism. Accepting or trying to reform capitalism implies accepting or trying to reform its most adequate political form. [...]
"There's no point in sorting out bad (bourgeois) democracy and good (direct, worker, popular) democracy. But there's no point either in declaring oneself an anti-democrat. [...] There are no 'anti-democratic' specific actions to be invented, no more than systematic campaigns against advertising billboards or tv – both closely linked to democracy, actually. [...] So, in future troubled times, our best contribution will be to push for the most radical possible changes, which include the destruction of the State machinery, and this 'communization' process will eventually help people realize that democracy is an alienated form of freedom. [...] Democracy is the separation between action and decision."
In French, Gilles Dauvé and Karl Nesic in February 2009 published a book titled "Au-delà de la démocratie" (Beyond Democracy; my translation) with Éditions L'Harmattan:
www.editions-harmattan.fr/index.asp?navig=catalogue&obj=livre&no=28049
The arguments of the book appear to be very similar to those of the above article.
13 February 2010
Articles: Communism Against Democracy
The pamphlet "Communism Against Democracy" (Treason Press, 2005) contains two older articles by (semi-)anonymous authors, namely "Against Democracy", written in 1993 by "Wildcat" (from the UK), and "... And Democracy Continues its March", written also in the 1990s by, presumably, the publisher of the irregular magazine "Against Sleep and Nightmare", one Red Hughes (from the US).
The pamphlet can be read free of charge here (though it is advisable to print it out as otherwise the pagination is all mixed up):
http://ledpup.dyns.net/treason/Pamphlets/Communism%20Against%20Democracy/Communism%20Against%20Democracy.pdf
From the introduction: "The two texts in this pamphlet are communist critiques of democracy. Not just 'bourgeois democracy' but democracy as such. Democracy implies the separation of people into isolated, warring individuals. This isolation will be overcome in struggles against capitalism (and thus democracy). These struggles will need to be organised but not by a mass of atomised individuals voting on decisions, then acting. Most struggles do not happen because a mass of citizens vote to take action but because a determined minority of troublemakers take bold action [...].
"Democracy is the ideal form of capitalist rule. Of course capitalism can and does quite happily exist under various forms of undemocratic rule, whether fascist, military dictatorship, monarchy or 'Communism'. But 'one man, one vote' corresponds to the abstract equality of capitalism where my dollar is worth just as much as [late Australian media tycoon] Kerry Packer's. It is no coincidence that in the last 30 years during which life has been subordinated to monetary relations like never before that [sic] more and more states have become democratic."
Excerpts from "Against Democracy": "[R]evolutionaries should oppose democracy in all its forms. [...] I want to suggest that when people talk about 'real' or 'workers' democracy in opposition to bourgeois democracy, in fact they do mean the same thing that the bourgeoisie mean by democracy, despite superficial differences. The fact that they chose to use the word democracy is actually far more significant than they claim. This is why it is important to say 'Death to democracy!'. [...]
"My basic contention here will be that however much you claim to be against property (as Lenino-Trotskyo-Stalinists do) or even against the state (as anarchists do), if you support democracy you are actually for property and for the state. [...] You can say that democracy expresses the essence of capital [...] that equality is just an expression of the equivalence of commodities. [...]
"The miners' strike in the UK in 1984-5 provided many inspiring examples of how the class struggle is anti-democratic in practice. The strike itself did not start democratically – there was no ballot, no series of mass meetings. It began with walk-outs at a few pits threatened with closure, and was then spread by flying pickets. [...] There were also numerous examples of sabotage and destruction [...], such activities, by their very nature, cannot be organised democratically".
From "... And Democracy Continues its March": "Democracy is the language of 'common sense' in a world where capitalism controls people's senses. [...] Today's democracy never has to attack its true enemies but only phantasms within itself. It is only the exchange of one sort of rhetoric for another. [...] This system is the dictatorship of the commodity, the world market and of the billionaires. But simultaneously it is the rule of democracy. Once all action and every person can be translated into empty choices, those choices can be exchanged with each other like dollars or spectacular images. [...] Democracy is now the ideal dialogue of capital. [...]
"The [communist] spirit of collective power, of a community of masters, is exactly the opposite of the democratic spirit. Democracy drowns the individual in the choices of the majority. It presumes that the individual choice is always hostile to the power of the masses. Thus democratic ideology creates the paranoia that everything contrary to its current formalism of process is the same as Stalinist dictatorship. [...]
"Those who are taking back their lives must be strong and alive, not fair and democratic. [...] To be anti-democratic is to reject the fetish of democracy, to not give any voting process an inherently superior position over the total process of living. Proletarians, those who have nothing to lose from the destruction of this society and know it, must become anti-democratic to achieve their ends."
The pamphlet can be read free of charge here (though it is advisable to print it out as otherwise the pagination is all mixed up):
http://ledpup.dyns.net/treason/Pamphlets/Communism%20Against%20Democracy/Communism%20Against%20Democracy.pdf
From the introduction: "The two texts in this pamphlet are communist critiques of democracy. Not just 'bourgeois democracy' but democracy as such. Democracy implies the separation of people into isolated, warring individuals. This isolation will be overcome in struggles against capitalism (and thus democracy). These struggles will need to be organised but not by a mass of atomised individuals voting on decisions, then acting. Most struggles do not happen because a mass of citizens vote to take action but because a determined minority of troublemakers take bold action [...].
"Democracy is the ideal form of capitalist rule. Of course capitalism can and does quite happily exist under various forms of undemocratic rule, whether fascist, military dictatorship, monarchy or 'Communism'. But 'one man, one vote' corresponds to the abstract equality of capitalism where my dollar is worth just as much as [late Australian media tycoon] Kerry Packer's. It is no coincidence that in the last 30 years during which life has been subordinated to monetary relations like never before that [sic] more and more states have become democratic."
Excerpts from "Against Democracy": "[R]evolutionaries should oppose democracy in all its forms. [...] I want to suggest that when people talk about 'real' or 'workers' democracy in opposition to bourgeois democracy, in fact they do mean the same thing that the bourgeoisie mean by democracy, despite superficial differences. The fact that they chose to use the word democracy is actually far more significant than they claim. This is why it is important to say 'Death to democracy!'. [...]
"My basic contention here will be that however much you claim to be against property (as Lenino-Trotskyo-Stalinists do) or even against the state (as anarchists do), if you support democracy you are actually for property and for the state. [...] You can say that democracy expresses the essence of capital [...] that equality is just an expression of the equivalence of commodities. [...]
"The miners' strike in the UK in 1984-5 provided many inspiring examples of how the class struggle is anti-democratic in practice. The strike itself did not start democratically – there was no ballot, no series of mass meetings. It began with walk-outs at a few pits threatened with closure, and was then spread by flying pickets. [...] There were also numerous examples of sabotage and destruction [...], such activities, by their very nature, cannot be organised democratically".
From "... And Democracy Continues its March": "Democracy is the language of 'common sense' in a world where capitalism controls people's senses. [...] Today's democracy never has to attack its true enemies but only phantasms within itself. It is only the exchange of one sort of rhetoric for another. [...] This system is the dictatorship of the commodity, the world market and of the billionaires. But simultaneously it is the rule of democracy. Once all action and every person can be translated into empty choices, those choices can be exchanged with each other like dollars or spectacular images. [...] Democracy is now the ideal dialogue of capital. [...]
"The [communist] spirit of collective power, of a community of masters, is exactly the opposite of the democratic spirit. Democracy drowns the individual in the choices of the majority. It presumes that the individual choice is always hostile to the power of the masses. Thus democratic ideology creates the paranoia that everything contrary to its current formalism of process is the same as Stalinist dictatorship. [...]
"Those who are taking back their lives must be strong and alive, not fair and democratic. [...] To be anti-democratic is to reject the fetish of democracy, to not give any voting process an inherently superior position over the total process of living. Proletarians, those who have nothing to lose from the destruction of this society and know it, must become anti-democratic to achieve their ends."
11 February 2010
Book: Dangerous Dreamers: The Australian Anti-Democratic Left and Czechoslovak Agents
In January 2010, Peter Hruby published a book titled "Dangerous Dreamers: The Australian Anti-Democratic Left and Czechoslovak Agents" with iUniverse:
www.iuniverse.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-000136333
From the publisher's description: "Australian spy Ian Milner was suspected of working for Soviet and Czechoslovak secret services on four continents. He served at the United Nations in New York, and the FBI followed him day and night before eventually declaring he was not a spy. But secret documents from Prague show he was spying all along. Wilfred Burchett claimed to be an independent Australian journalist. He wrote dozens of books, and Prague documents prove that he was a secret member of the Communist Party of Australia. He also worked for Soviet, Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese secret services. Drawing upon past secret documents of Australian, Czechoslovak and U.S. secret agencies along with important Soviet records, historian and professor Peter Hruby, who grew up under Communist rule and taught in Australia for decades, uncovers the secrets of the ideology and its manipulative advocates.
"Along with the stories of spies previously unknown or overlooked, also discover: How Communists pushed for revolution in Australia; The role of writers and artists in the struggle; How terrorists and politicians influenced the movement".
Czech-born Peter R. Hruby, from Annapolis, Maryland, USA, lived and taught at universities in Australia from 1971 to 2000. He is the author of numerous books and articles.
www.iuniverse.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-000136333
From the publisher's description: "Australian spy Ian Milner was suspected of working for Soviet and Czechoslovak secret services on four continents. He served at the United Nations in New York, and the FBI followed him day and night before eventually declaring he was not a spy. But secret documents from Prague show he was spying all along. Wilfred Burchett claimed to be an independent Australian journalist. He wrote dozens of books, and Prague documents prove that he was a secret member of the Communist Party of Australia. He also worked for Soviet, Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese secret services. Drawing upon past secret documents of Australian, Czechoslovak and U.S. secret agencies along with important Soviet records, historian and professor Peter Hruby, who grew up under Communist rule and taught in Australia for decades, uncovers the secrets of the ideology and its manipulative advocates.
"Along with the stories of spies previously unknown or overlooked, also discover: How Communists pushed for revolution in Australia; The role of writers and artists in the struggle; How terrorists and politicians influenced the movement".
Czech-born Peter R. Hruby, from Annapolis, Maryland, USA, lived and taught at universities in Australia from 1971 to 2000. He is the author of numerous books and articles.
10 January 2010
Book: Democracy in Europe: A History of an Ideology
Democracy an ideology? Yes, if you will believe Luciano Canfora's book "Democracy in Europe: A History of an Ideology" (trans. Simon Jones; Wiley-Blackwell, 2005):
http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1405111313.html
Publisher's description: "This history traces the development of democracy in Europe from its origins in ancient Greece up to the present day. Considers all the major watersheds in the development of democracy in modern Europe. Describes the rediscovery of Ancient Greek political ideals by intellectuals at the end of the eighteenth century. Examines the twenty-year crisis from 1789 to 1815, when the repercussions of revolution in France were felt across the European continent. Explains how events in France led to the explosion of democratic movements between 1830 and 1848. Compares the different manifestations of democracy within Eastern and Western Europe during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Considers fascism and its consequences for democracy in Europe during the twentieth century. Demonstrates how in the recent past democracy itself has become the object of ideological battles."
Review: "Canfora's book provides powerful insights into the idealogical [sic] use of democracy." ("European Review of Labour and Research")
Canfora writes: "[W]hat has prevailed in the end – or rather as things stand now – is 'freedom.' It is defeating democracy. This freedom is not, of course, for all, but for those who are 'strongest' in competition, be they nations, regions, or individuals. [...] [F]reedom is disturbing in that it is either total – in all areas, including personal conduct – or it is not; and every obligation that favors the less 'strong' is precisely a limitation on the freedom of others. In this sense, [Giacomo] Leopardi's view of the unbreakable, inescapable connection between freedom and slavery corresponds to reality. [...] Slavery is, of course, geographically scattered, cleverly dispersed, and concealed in the media. [...]
"[F]reedom has won – in the rich world – with all the terrible consequences this has, and will continue to have, for the rest. Democracy is postponed to some other era, and will be reinvented all over again by other individuals. Perhaps not by Europeans."
Canfora's book is so vehemently anti-democratic, it has been claimed, or at least critical of western democracy and pro-communist/Stalinist, that the intended German publisher refused to print the translation.
The book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including table of contents):
http://books.google.com/books?id=dodcJC_b1_QC&printsec=frontcover
Luciano Canfora is Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Bari.
http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1405111313.html
Publisher's description: "This history traces the development of democracy in Europe from its origins in ancient Greece up to the present day. Considers all the major watersheds in the development of democracy in modern Europe. Describes the rediscovery of Ancient Greek political ideals by intellectuals at the end of the eighteenth century. Examines the twenty-year crisis from 1789 to 1815, when the repercussions of revolution in France were felt across the European continent. Explains how events in France led to the explosion of democratic movements between 1830 and 1848. Compares the different manifestations of democracy within Eastern and Western Europe during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Considers fascism and its consequences for democracy in Europe during the twentieth century. Demonstrates how in the recent past democracy itself has become the object of ideological battles."
Review: "Canfora's book provides powerful insights into the idealogical [sic] use of democracy." ("European Review of Labour and Research")
Canfora writes: "[W]hat has prevailed in the end – or rather as things stand now – is 'freedom.' It is defeating democracy. This freedom is not, of course, for all, but for those who are 'strongest' in competition, be they nations, regions, or individuals. [...] [F]reedom is disturbing in that it is either total – in all areas, including personal conduct – or it is not; and every obligation that favors the less 'strong' is precisely a limitation on the freedom of others. In this sense, [Giacomo] Leopardi's view of the unbreakable, inescapable connection between freedom and slavery corresponds to reality. [...] Slavery is, of course, geographically scattered, cleverly dispersed, and concealed in the media. [...]
"[F]reedom has won – in the rich world – with all the terrible consequences this has, and will continue to have, for the rest. Democracy is postponed to some other era, and will be reinvented all over again by other individuals. Perhaps not by Europeans."
Canfora's book is so vehemently anti-democratic, it has been claimed, or at least critical of western democracy and pro-communist/Stalinist, that the intended German publisher refused to print the translation.
The book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including table of contents):
http://books.google.com/books?id=dodcJC_b1_QC&printsec=frontcover
Luciano Canfora is Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Bari.
04 January 2010
Article: Andrew Nathan on China and democracy
In 2008, Brookings Institution Press published "China's Changing Political Landscape: Prospects for Democracy", edited by Cheng Li:
www.brookings.edu/press/Books/2007/chinaschangingpoliticallandscape.aspx
From the publisher's description: "While China's economic rise is being watched closely around the world, the country's changing political landscape is intriguing as well. Forces unleashed by market reforms are profoundly recasting state-society relations. Will the Middle Kingdom transition to political democracy rapidly, slowly, or not at all? In China's Changing Political Landscape, leading experts examine the prospects for democracy in the world's most populous nation."
Among the most interesting contributions to this volume is Andrew J. Nathan's chapter titled "China's Political Trajectory: What Are the Chinese Saying?" (pp. 25-43).
The book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including list of contributors and table of contents). This link will take you directly to Nathan's chapter:
http://books.google.com/books?id=AYnSgrxdOXcC&pg=PT41&dq
Having studied what leading intellectuals and political actors in China publicly and in private say about democracy, Nathan finds that
"[s]imilar-sounding ideas may mean different things in different institutional and intellectual contexts. [...] Persons of influence in China who call for democracy are not advocating competitive elections for top posts. The governance reforms under way or proposed for the future aim to make the authoritarian system more fair, more effective, and more – not less – sustainable. [...]
"Many believe that systems based on political competition foster division and reward selfishness. [...] Whatever one calls this set of beliefs, their implication [...] is that the Chinese actors who currently hold influence are not likely intentionally to steer their system toward what most in the West call democracy, for the simple reason that most of them do not believe in it."
Whatever may happen in the future for any number of internal or external reasons, "[w]hat is knowable is that for the time being the wind in China blows but weakly in the sails of the democratic idea."
Andrew J. Nathan is Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science at Columbia University.
www.brookings.edu/press/Books/2007/chinaschangingpoliticallandscape.aspx
From the publisher's description: "While China's economic rise is being watched closely around the world, the country's changing political landscape is intriguing as well. Forces unleashed by market reforms are profoundly recasting state-society relations. Will the Middle Kingdom transition to political democracy rapidly, slowly, or not at all? In China's Changing Political Landscape, leading experts examine the prospects for democracy in the world's most populous nation."
Among the most interesting contributions to this volume is Andrew J. Nathan's chapter titled "China's Political Trajectory: What Are the Chinese Saying?" (pp. 25-43).
The book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including list of contributors and table of contents). This link will take you directly to Nathan's chapter:
http://books.google.com/books?id=AYnSgrxdOXcC&pg=PT41&dq
Having studied what leading intellectuals and political actors in China publicly and in private say about democracy, Nathan finds that
"[s]imilar-sounding ideas may mean different things in different institutional and intellectual contexts. [...] Persons of influence in China who call for democracy are not advocating competitive elections for top posts. The governance reforms under way or proposed for the future aim to make the authoritarian system more fair, more effective, and more – not less – sustainable. [...]
"Many believe that systems based on political competition foster division and reward selfishness. [...] Whatever one calls this set of beliefs, their implication [...] is that the Chinese actors who currently hold influence are not likely intentionally to steer their system toward what most in the West call democracy, for the simple reason that most of them do not believe in it."
Whatever may happen in the future for any number of internal or external reasons, "[w]hat is knowable is that for the time being the wind in China blows but weakly in the sails of the democratic idea."
Andrew J. Nathan is Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science at Columbia University.
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