beverley, john - after communism

8/8/2019 Beverley, John - After Communism

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After CommunismAuthor(s): John BeverleySource: boundary 2, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Autumn, 1999), pp. 39-46Published by: Duke University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/303738

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After Communism

John Beverley

A postmodern capitalism will necessarily call to life a postmodernMarxism,whichwillcombat it.- FredricJameson, "ActuallyExistingMarxism,"n MarxismbeyondMarxismIwould like to dedicate these reflections to the memoryof CarolKay,whose personal and politicalexample is somehow implicatedinthem. Oneof the thingsthat could be said to define postmodernityas such is the disap-

pearance of the communist alternative to capitalism.Wouldit be possible,however,to reimaginecommunism notonly inthe context of postmodernitybut also in some sense frompostmodernity?The question seems at onceperverse and quixotic. Perverse, because of everything we know aboutthe Gulag, the crimes of Stalin and all the littleStalins, the killing ields ofCambodia,the constant stiflingof free expression and initiativeeven underconditions of what was termed "socialist normality."Quixotic,because ofthe simple, inescapable factof the historical ailureof a system thatjustifiedboundary2 26:3, 1999. Copyright? 1999 by Duke UniversityPress.


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40 boundary / Fall1999those crimes and that repression in the name of buildinga more just anddemocratic human future.But if the collapse of the Soviet Union and the parties related to ithas reduced communism today to a mere theoretical possibility,commu-nism remains, nevertheless, a theoreticalpossibility.Whatis at stake in thatpossibilityis tryingto thinkbeyond the limits of both neoliberal hegemonyand the new forms of "actuallyexisting"social democracy represented bysomething likeAnthonyGiddens's idea of the ThirdWayor RichardRorty'sneo-FabianisminAchieving OurCountry.Most of us wouldagree that the regimes that have emerged as a re-sult of the collapse of communism have been a very mixedbag, especiallyinthe cases of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.This has provokedboth withinand outside the postcommunistworld a nostalgia for what nowappears like a golden age of post-World War IIStalinism, not unlikethenostalgiafor the '50s inU.S. middle-class culture. But the simple restorationof regimes of a Stalinisttype, or the implantationof new ones-even ifthiswere still in fact possible-would simply lead in time to the same impassethe socialist bloc experienced in the 1980s. This is because the seeds ofthat impasse were present in the very form of economic, political,and cul-turalcentralizationand modernizationpracticed by the regimes dominatedby communist parties, regimes we may now recognize as a peculiarformof bourgeois dictatorship.There are manygood reasons to oppose the U.S. blockadeof Cubaor to thinkthat the Chinese model of economic transition s superiorto theRussian one. But no one-and especially not the Cubans or the Chinese-is going to claimthat Cuba or Chinatodayare models of a new type of post-capitalistsociety (indeed, this loss of socialist normativitys precisely whatthe Cuban concept of "special period in times of emergency" expresses).Instead, the strategic projectionof the regimes in both Cuba and China isto use the party'smonopolyof politicaland bureaucraticpowerto facilitateintegration ntocapitalist globalizationwithout he sort of meltdownthattheSoviet Unionexperienced.

Something similar, paradoxically,happens with the contemporaryvariants of democratic socialism or social democracy, from Nelson Man-dela's AfricanNationalCongress inSouth Africa o TonyBlair'sNew Labourin Britain,GerhardSchrider's Social DemocraticPartyinGermany,or,mu-tatis mutandis, Democratic Socialists of America in the United States (Ishould indicatethatmyowndirectpoliticalaffiliationhas been withthistradi-tion).LikeBillClinton,who is to some extent theirmodel, they representthe


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Beverley AfterCommunism41

reconfigurationof the various forms of the historical Left into what the lateMichaelHarrington alled "the leftwing of the possible."But that reconfigu-rationconsists, in the end, in accepting the actual hegemony of globalizedcapital. They propose not an alternativeto that hegemony but rathermoreprogressive ways of designing national or regionalpolicyin relation o glob-alization.They do not have a vision of radicallyother forms of community,value, production,democracy-that is, of the possibilityof another mode ofproduction. They reproducethe traditional unctionof social democracy ofadjustingblue and white collarworking-classand popular-sectordemandsto the requirementsof capital and vice versa. As the recent NATO-ledat-tack on Serbia suggests, they are also unable to detach themselves fromthe logic of imperialism n its contemporaryform.

We knowthat the projectsof both historical communism and socialdemocracy were subordinate in many ways to the project of modernity.Indeed, the argument between capitalism and communism that definedthe cold war was essentially an argument about which of the two couldbest carryforward he possibilityof a political,scientific, cultural,and eco-nomic modernity atent inthe bourgeois projectitself. The basic premise ofMarxism as a modernizingideology was that bourgeois society could notcomplete its own promise of emancipation and materialwell-being giventhe contradictionsinherentin the capitalistmode of production,contradic-tions above all between the social character of the forces of productionandthe privatecharacter of ownership and capital accumulation. Freeing theforces of production rom the fetters of capitalistrelations of production-sothe familiarargument went-the state socialist or quasi-socialist regimesinspired by the Soviet model would soon overcome these limitations,in-auguratingan era of unprecedented economic growth,which inturnwouldbe the materialpreconditionfor socialism and eventuallythe transition tocommunism.The-ultimately triumphant--response of capitalismwas thatthe force of the free marketwould be moredynamicand efficient inthe longrunin producingmodernityand economic growth.

What was not in question on either side of this argument was thedesirabilityof modernityas such and the idea of a teleological historicalpro-cess-involving "stages" of one sort or another--necessary to attain thatmodernity.Modernity mplies the possibilityof a society that is transpar-ent to itself. This is what Habermas'sconcept of communicativerationality


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expresses. What opposes transparencyor the universalizationof commu-nicative rationality,however, is not only the conflict of traditionand moder-nity-that is, the "incompleteness"of modernity, o borrowHabermas's ownterm-but also the proliferation f forms of social heterogeneity producedin part by the very historicalprocess of capitalist modernity,involvingasit does colonization, racism, slavery, demographic catastrophe, mass mi-grations, combined and uneven development, boom and bust cycles, thereproductionof male privilege,and so on. We can agree to call this hetero-geneity (which represents different ogics of the social and differentmodesof experiencing and conceptualizing historyand value withina given socialformationor nation-state) multiculturalism.It is no secret that multiculturalism nd the correspondingpracticesof the new social movements can appearas coincident with neoliberalhege-mony.This is a key theme in the critiqueof multiculturalismrom the Left,expressed most articulately n Rorty'sAchievingOurCountry.Implicitnthisparadox is the greatest challenge neoliberalismposes to the Left:the factthat, inprinciple,neoliberaltheory(andhere itwould be importanto make adistinctionbetween neoliberalismand neoconservatism) does not presup-pose any hierarchyof value apartfrom that expressed in individualmarketchoice. If, nturn,marketchoice is seen as essentially rationaland "free"-that is, not subject to external normative constraints--then, in a sense,Habermas's communicative rationality s already implicit n globalization,and, with the extension of the principleof the market and parliamentarydemocracy to all social spaces, we are, for all practicalpurposes, indeed atthe end of history.The problem is compounded by the theoretical representation ofmulticulturalism nd culturalagency under conditions of globalization inculturalstudies and new social movement theory. In both, global/national(or to use N6stor Garcia Canclini'sterm, "glocal")civil society is seen asthe place where multicultural eterogeneity or hybridity ppears, as againstthe supposedly monological and homogenizing discourses of the nation-state. Paradoxically,however, in makingthis identificationbetween culturalheterogeneityand civilsociety-an identification hatseeks to displace her-meneutic authority romelite cultureto popularreception--culturalstudiesand new social movementtheoryend up legitimizing n some ways the mar-ket and globalization. The very logic of heterogeneity and hybridity heyseek to represent points in the directionof assuming that hegemony is nolongera possibilitybecause there no longerexists a common culturalbasisforforming he collective national-popularubject required o exercise hege-


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mony.There are onlyde-territorializeddentities or identities inthe processof becoming de-territorialized. n the manner of Foucault,power is seen asdisseminated inall social spaces instead of being concentrated in the stateand the state ideological apparatus. Even though it sometimes claims toembrace postmodernism, the projectof culturalstudies in particularrunsthe risk of simply transferring he dynamic of modernization and transcul-turation romthe sphere of bourgeois highcultureto mass culture,which isnow seen as more capable of producingnew forms of "culturalitizenship."Inthis sense, culturalstudies and the new theories of social agency do notbreakwith the values of modernityand do not, inthemselves, point beyondthe limitsof neoliberalhegemony.Would it be possible to derive from multiculturalismmore radicalconsequences, given that what is expressed in the various forms of iden-tity politics that emerge from it are relations of subordinationand margin-alization produced by the character of capitalist development itself? Thisquestion mightbe seen as a variation of the question we started with: Isit possible to imagine an idea of communism that is not tied to a telos ofmodernity/modernization--thats, a "postmodernist"orm

of communism?If multiculturalism s essentially a demand for equality of opportunity-inaccord with the legal category of the subject and the principleof individualrights-then it is not only compatiblewithneoliberalhegemony but also re-quires, in a sense, the market and liberaldemocracy to constitute itself assuch. Inturn,the logic of both capitalist states and market functions is toorganize hybridor heterogeneous populationsinto fixedidentitycategories:poor,black,gay, indigenous, Latino,woman, AIDSvictim,Catholic,and soon (partof the problemwith identitypolitics is, of course, that one personcan be all these things at once).But if the demand is not so much for formal equality-the "levelplayingfield"--as foractual epistemological, cultural,economic, and civic-politicalequalityand self-realization,such that culturaldifference (say, thefact of having Spanish as a primary anguage in the United States) doesnot implya limitationon citizenship, then the logic of multiculturalismwillnecessarily have to question the ruleof capital. To paraphrasewhat Itaketo be Ernesto Laclauand Chantal Mouffe'scentralargument in Hegemonyand Socialist Strategy, multiculturalism onforms to liberalpluralismbe-cause the identities in play in multiculturalism ind in themselves, ratherthan ina transcendental social principleorgoal, the principleof theirvalidityand rationality.On the other hand, to the extent that the autoconstitutionofmulticulturaldentitiesis tied to forms of subalternityproducedby bothcapi-


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44 boundary / Fall1999talist and precapitalist orms of inequalityand exploitationuntransformedorreinforcedby modernity, he identityclaims participateina common "egali-tarianimaginary"-as Laclau and Mouffecall it-that is potentiallyanticapi-talist. What fuels identitypolitics, in other words, is hatred and negation ofsocial inequalityand discriminationas such. This makes itpossible to pro-duce fromidentitypoliticsnot onlyserialized interest-grouppoliticsbut alsowhat Laclau and Mouffecall a "popular ubject position"--thatis, a positionthat would tend to divide the politicalspace into two antagonistic blocs: thebloc of "thepeople"and the bloc of the elite or rulingclass.The idea inherent in this argument is that one can derive the pos-sibilityof communism from the principleof multiculturalism. imagine thepoliticalform of this possibilityas something like a postmodernist reincar-nation of the Popular Front-the idea (perhaps more than the reality)ofthe Rainbow Coalitionor the BrazilianPT (Workers'Party)are two modelsthat come to mind. Such movements seek to interpellate"thepeople" asa bloc but not as a unitary,homogeneously "modern" ubject-the sub-ject of Habermas's"communicative ationality"r "rationalhoice Marxism,"or Rorty'sneo-Fabian utilitarian ubject. Rather,"thepeople" is itself self-constituted as internallyfissured, heterogeneous, multiple,somewhat onthe order of what Paolo Virno understands by "the multitude" r what JeanFrangois Lyotardunderstands by "the pagan." The people-multitude,asopposed to the people-as-one of populistmodernity,would be the political-culturalexpression of the egalitarian imaginary nherentinmulticultural et-erogeneity. This means that the people is "essentially"multiculturalintheway that GayatriSpivakspeaks of the "strategicessentialism" of feminismor subalternstudies historiography):Thatis, multiculturalisms a necessaryrather han a contingentaspect of the identityof the people as such. Itdoesnot mean, however,generalizingthe principleof heterogeneity to the wholesocial space, such that existing economic, racial,ethnic, class, and genderinequalitiesare themselves manifestationsof a heterogeneity that fits withthe logic of marketliberalism("differenttrokes for different olks")and theoperations of civilsociety. Rather,the possibilityof heterogeneity is articu-lated as internalto the bloc of the people, which in turn has to be posedagainst that which it is not, a constitutive outside. That outside wouldhaveto be the logic of acculturationor transculturationof capitalist modernity(and the homogeneity requirementof the capitalist nation-state) and thelaw of value itself, seen in the last instance as incompatiblewiththe char-acter of the recognition/redistributionlaims of both class and multiculturalidentitypolitics.


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Beverley AfterCommunism45To put this another way, the unityand mutualreciprocityof the ele-

ments of the people depend (as the Rainbow Coalitionmeant to symbolize)on a recognitionof socioculturaldifference and incommensurability--arec-ognition,that is, of "contradictionsamong the people" (Mao).Communismwouldthen be the social formofthis differenceand incommensurability, ith-out resolvingthem into a transcendent or unitaryculturalor political ogic.Some final,perhaps overlapping,observations:1. Inthe problematicLaclauand Mouffeelaborate, the possibilityofmulticulturalisman pointeither in the directionof the proliferationf "demo-craticsubject positions"of an advanced liberalismor in the directionof the"popular ubject position"of a potentiallycounterhegemonic historicalbloc.But it should be immediatelyevident that what is operative in both politicalalternatives is essentially the same social-cultural ogic. This argues foraconvergence or tactical alliance between the forms of advanced liberalism(forexample, liberal eministand postcolonialtheory,orcritical egal theory)and the projectof reimaginingcommunism,a convergence thatwouldpassbeyond in some ways the limitsexpressed in current social democraticorNew Democratpolitics.2. Ifone of the characteristics of the poststructuralistinterventionhas been the overdeterminationof class identity by other identities,by thesame token it is necessary to insist in turn on the overdeterminationofthose identitiesbyclass identity.But this is also to ask howclass itselffunc-tions as an "identity"atherthan as an abstract relation of production hatassumes that political-culturalgency flows from that positioning.3. FredricJameson and others have argued the "systematicincom-patibility"between the principleof the market and socialism, noting theenormous destructive force-both economic and cultural-ideological-ofthe reintroduction f capitalistmarketrelations in postcommunistsocietiessuch as Russia. But the recognition of the relation between the marketand democratizationin the neoliberalcritiqueof state planningor controldoes not implynecessarily an identificationof markets with capitalismor,forthatmatter,of markets as such withthe "freemarket."Thatidentificationdepends, rather,on the ideological function of neoliberalismto assure thehegemony of global capital, since markets are not practices exclusive tocapitalismand marketrelationsas such do not define capitalism(therecanbe modes of production hat depend on markets butthat are not capitalist,as inthe case of pettycommodityproduction,and, bythe same token,therecan be social regimes of class exploitation--forexample, feudalism-thatdo not depend on the market).The question is not whether markets are


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better than state or communalplanning,but ratherwhose class and groupinterests and values are hegemonic inthe operations of both the state andthe economy-that is, it is a politicaland culturalquestion. State ownershipof the means of productiondoes not in itself implynoncapitalistrelations ofproduction.4. The argument developed in postcolonial and subaltern studiesabout the incommensurability f what Dipesh Chakrabarty alls the "radicalheterogeneity"of the subalternand the modern nation-state has coincidedwith the effective weakening and de-territorializationf the nation-state bycapitalist globalization. Nevertheless, the space of hegemony in political-legal and cultural erms is still the nation-state (or, ifyou prefer, hegemonystillhas to pass at some pointor otherthroughthe nation-state). Itwouldbenecessary, therefore,to develop a new concept of the nation,of "national"territoriality,dentity,and interests, of the national-popular-one inwhich in-stead of "themany becoming one,"the one wouldbecome many.We needto move, in other words, fromutopiato heterotopia.5. Forreasons that will be obvious, the projectof reimaginingcom-munism will have to be, for the time being, more a project in the field of"culture"han in the sphere of practicalpoliticsoreconomics. Butone of thecharacteristics of postmodernityis precisely the breakdownof what Jos6Joaquin Brunnerhas usefullycalled "the 'cultural' onception of culture"-the concept that identifiescultureessentially with the academic humanitiesorthe Sunday supplement of the newspaper. However, he new centralityofcultureinglobalizationalso marks a new sense of limit,a limit hatconcernsour own role and responsibilityas intellectuals. If, to gain hegemony orsocial equality,subalternclasses or groups have to become like that whichis already hegemonic-that is, "modern"bourgeois culture-then that cul-tureand that class willcontinue to win, even afterthey have been defeatedpolitically.This paradox defines the crisis of the projectof communism inthis century. Itmeans, therefore, that the task of reimaginingcommunismwillrequirenotonlya radicallynew political maginarybut,at the same time,a critiqueof the forms of academic knowledge as we practicethem, that is,of our own complicityin producingand reproducingrelationsof social andcultural nequality.

beverley, john - after communism

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