resistance versus emancipation

8/11/2019 Resistance Versus Emancipation

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Resistance versus Emancipation:Foucault, Marcuse, Marx, and thePresent Moment

by Kevin Anderson

I. The Changed World o !"##$#!We live in a far different world than just a few short years ago.Not only have we suffered the greatest economic downturnsince the 1930s, ut we have also witnessed the emergence ofnew forms of mass struggle. !oremost among these haveeen the "011#1" Ara revolutions, still ongoing. Not since1$%$ has the world e&'erienced such a wave of revolutionscrossing orders in such a short 'eriod. (oreover, unli)esome of the other democratic u'heavals of this century *+ran"009, )raine "00%, -eria "000, etc., the Ara revolutionshave articulated not only 'olitical ut also economicdemands. /he s'read of these revolutions countries whosegovernments oasted of their anti#im'erialist credentials li)eiya and -yria has also tested those on the eft who 'laceo''osition to .-. im'erialism ahead of everything else. *!or

more elaoration of this 'oint see my 2ear /wo of the Araevolutions,Logos114%, -'ring#-ummer"01"4 htt'455logosjournal.com5"01"5s'ring#summer6anderson5.

-everal other )ey struggles have emerged in the wa)e of theAra revolutions, among them the summer "011 7ritish youth
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riots triggered y minority youth, a serious challenge toracially ased state5'olice o''ression and austerityeconomics. We have also seen serious movements againstausterity and economic o''ression, aove all in 8reece

*egun efore "011, ut also in -'ain and +srael, as well asthe laor u'heaval in Wisconsin. +n the .-. and the K, the"011#1" ccu'y movement has galvani:ed a new generationof young radicals, most notaly in a)land, ;alifornia wherethey were ale to shut down of one of the world


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source, the writings of (ichel !oucault on 'ower andresistance. Although resistance is not em'hasi:ed in hisearlier writings, y 19B !oucault famously ta)es u'resistance as well as 'ower. 7y now, he s)etches 'ower as a

relation,> not something that is ac=uired, sei:ed, or shared>*History of Sexuality, Col. +, trans. oert Durley, N24Cintage, 19$, orig. 19B, '. 9%. /his notion of 'ower asrelational was surely meant as an allusion to ? and 'erha's asa sulation or su'ersession of E (ar& a society free of alienation,> and the li)e, andat what cost@At the level of 'olitical activism, one ovious cost of ado'tingor even ada'ting !oucault


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+s resistance to Western im'erialism y religiousfundamentalists the same as that y national lierationmovements@

+s the ;atholic ;hurch *'. "%1.A second 'rolem is that !oucault


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whole host of resistances which are integral to 'ower, utthere is no 'ossiility of emanci'ation. /he only 'ossiility isan endlessly shifting constellation of 'ower and resistance>*Dolloway,Change the World without a!ing "ower,

ondon4 luto, "00", '. %0.+n their "011 introduction to a volume of Derert (arcuse*+ntroduction to (arcuse,"hilosophy# "sychoanalysis and$%ancipation, N24 outledge, "011, '. B3.I'. Marcuse&s (reat Reusal

What did (arcuse actually mean y the 8reat efusal>@ +nhis 19B% oo) &ne'(i%ensional )an, which sold very widelyin !rance in the years efore the 'ulication of!oucault4

nderneath the conservative 'o'ular ase is the sustratumof the outcasts and outsiders, the e&'loited and 'ersecuted ofother races and other colors, the unem'loyed and theunem'loyaleF. /heir o''osition is revolutionary even iftheir consciousness is not. /heir o''osition hits the systemfrom without and is therefore not deflected y the systemF./he critical theory of society 'ossesses no conce'ts whichcould ridge the ga' etween the 'resent and its futureI

holding no 'romise and showing no success, it remains


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negative. /hus it wants to remain loyal to those who, withoutho'e, have given and give their life to the 8reat efusal>*(arcuse, &ne'(i%ensional )an#7oston4 7eacon ress,19B%, ''. "JB#J.

Dowever much it was e&'ressed in a language of dee''essimism aout the human 'ros'ect, it is clear that(arcuse


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/he generali:ed scream> against injustice and o''ressionwith which Dolloway egins Change the World withouta!ing "owermay also suffer from some of these 'rolems,as when he writes4 /he loss of ho'e for a more human society

is not the result of 'eo'le eing lind to the horrors ofca'italism, it is just that there does not seem to e anywhereelse to go, any otherness to turn toF. -o 'erha's we shouldnot aandon our negativity ut, on the contrary, try totheori:e the world from the 'ers'ective of the scream> *'. 9.

'. )una*evs+a*a, Marcuse, and FoucaultWhen viewed from the vantage 'oint of !oucault


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(oreover, y leaving his 8reat efusal at such a high level ofindeterminateness, (arcuse o'ened himself u' to the veryty'e of criti=ue that those li)e !oucault would level at himand at the emanci'atory (ar&ism of the 19B0s more

generally. According to !oucault, the 8reat efusal was a lotof hot air mi&ed with nole sentiments, as seen in many of the'olitical 'ronouncements of radical 'hiloso'hers li)e Lean#aul -artre. /o !oucault, such 'hiloso'hers were alwaysready to ta)e a stand ut not to do the intellectual laornecessary to really develo' e&'ertise. ecall !oucault


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/a)e for e&am'le, his writings on +reland of 1$B9#0, wherehe connected class with nationalism, race, and ethnicity ? adiscussion that egan with his writings on oland and on theAmerican ;ivil War. +nside the !irst +nternational, +reland

was a major reason ehind his rea) with the anarchist(i)hail 7a)unin, who did not want the +nternational to getinvolved in non#class> issues li)e the defense of +rish 'olitical'risoners. !or his 'art, (ar& thought that this issue wasintimately connected to the class struggle in 7ritain. All of thisled him to some im'ortant theoretical reflections.

7y 1$0, (ar& saw the +rish inde'endence struggle as dee'ly

lin)ed to the struggles of 7ritish wor)ers against ca'ital. /hisis seen in the ;onfidential ;ommunication> of (arch 1$0, arejoinder to 7a)unin that he drafted on ehalf of the 8eneral;ouncil of the +nternational. Pnglish wor)ing#classconsciousness, (ar& wrote, was attenuated y anti#+rish'rejudice, in a dynamic similar to that of white racism in the-4

/he common Pnglish wor)er hates the +rish wor)er as acom'etitor who lowers wages and the standard of lifeF. Deviews him similarly to how the 'oor whites of the -outhernstates of North America viewed lac) slaves. /his antagonismamong the 'roletarians of Pngland is artificially nourishedand )e't u' y the ourgeoisie. +t )nows that this s'lit is thetrue secret of the 'reservation of its 'ower> *(ar& andPngels, Collected Wor!sGhereafter (P;WH, Col. "1, '. 1"0I

em'hasis in original.(oreover, the +rish inde'endence struggle could, he wrote inthis argument with 7a)unin, ecome the lever> that could'ry a'art 7ritish and thus gloal ca'italism as 'art of aninternational revolutionary struggle4

Although revolutionary initiative will 'roaly come from!rance, Pngland alone can serve as the lever for a serious

economic evolutionF. +t is the only country where the


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capitalist for%, that is to say, comined laor on a large scaleunder the authority of ca'italists, has sei:ed hold of almostthe whole of 'roductionF. /he Pnglish have allthe %aterialconditions for social revolution. What they lac)

is a sense of generali-ation and revolutionary passion. +t isonly the 8eneral ;ouncil Gof the +nternationalH that can'rovide them with this, that can thus accelerate the trulyrevolutionary movement in this country, andconse=uently everywhereF. +f Pngland is the ulwar) oflandlordism and Puro'ean ca'italism, the only 'oint whereofficial Pngland can e struc) a great low is Ireland> *(P;W"14 11$#19I em'hasis in original, trans. slightly altered.

/he last sentence aout landlordism referred to +reland


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full 'roductive forces, hence those of society also, thiscreation of not#laor time a''ears in the stage of ca'ital, as ofall earlier ones, as not#laor time, free time, for a few. Whatca'ital adds is that it increases the sur'lus laor time of the

mass y all the means of art and scienceF +t is thus, des'iteitself, instrumental in creating the means of social dis'osaletime, in order to reduce laor time for the whole society to adiminishing minimum, and thus to free everyone


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individuali:ed social relations. De added that his recentstudies of ussian society convinced me that the commune isthe fulcrum for a social regeneration in ussia> */eodor-hanin,)arx and the Russian Road, N24 (onthly eview,

19$3, '. 1"%. +n the 1$$" 'reface to the ussian edition ofthe Co%%unist )anifesto, (ar& and Pngels suggested that alocal u'rising s'ar)ed y these communal social formationsin ussia could form the starting 'oint for a gloalcommunist revolution, if such an u'rising could lin) u' withthe revolutionary laor movement in the Western ca'italistlands.(oreover, (ar& made a )ey 'hiloso'hical 'oint during one of

these discussions, one that challenges the 'ostmodernistaccusation *y Lean#!ranQois yotard and others that (ar&or totality in which all 'articulars are swallowed u'. /his isalso relevant to !oucault vs. an overarching 8reat efusal. +t is a 'oint thatta)es us ac) as well to the difference etween an astractuniversal in the Kantian manner and the Degelian ty'e of

concrete universal.

+n an 1$ letter res'onding to a discussion of Capitaly theussian writer N. K. (i)hailovs)y, (ar& defended himselffrom the charge of unilinearism, of the notion that ussia hadto follow the 'athway of 7ritain, first uilding u' its'roductive forces and only then eing ale contem'lateconcretely the 'ossiility of a truly emanci'ated, socialist

society. +n res'onse to his critics, and to his su''orter(i)hailovs)y*)arx and the Russian Road, '. 13B. /his also reversed(ar&


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and Pngels also too) with regard to ;hina in the Co%%unist)anifestoof 1$%$./hus, y the 1$$0s, (ar& was not only theori:ing veryconcretely aout ussia


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asolute negativity. At the same time, the master*ialectical (aterialism and the !ate of Dumanity>G19%H,Spheres of $xistence2 Selected Writings, ondon4Alison S 7usy, 19$0, '. 9./. Marx and 0uman EmancipationDegel


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overcoming the antithesis etween mental and 'hysicallaor> *(P;W "%, '. $.(ar& alludes to this notion of a fully emanci'ated humane&istence not only in various shorter te&ts, ut also

throughout the central wor)s of his criti=ue of 'oliticaleconomy, from the.rundrisseto Capital, as eter Dudis hasshown in his)arx,s Concept of the 3lternative toCapitalis% *eiden4 7rill, "01". +n the .rundrisse, (ar&writes4When the limited ourgeois form is stri''ed away, what iswealth other than the universality of individual needs,ca'acities, 'leasures, 'roductive forces etc., created through

universal e&change@ /he full develo'ment of human masteryover the forces of nature, those of so#called nature as well asof humanity *.rundrisse, '. %$$.A decade later, in Capital, (ar& elaorated his conce't ofcommodity fetishism, wherein human relations are li)e thoseetween things, totally ojectified and instrumentali:ed. /oe sure, this is a distorting lens, ut it is also a form of reality,for under ca'italism, that is what human relations really

are.> A most chilling 'assage. And while (ar& contrasts thesutle and hidden commodity fetish to the o'en rutality offeudal domination over the 'easantry, his most im'ortantcontrast is to the not#yet#society that is nonetheless 'regnantwithin ca'italism itself. /his is where the veil of the fetishthat hides the reality of social relations is to e swe't away ythe self#activity of the wor)ing class4 /he veil is notremoved,> he writes, until the 'roduction 'rocess changes,

until it ecomes 'roduction y freely associated human


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eings and stands under their conscious and 'lanned control>*(ar&, Capital, Col. +, trans. 7en !ow)es, N24 enguin, 19,'. 13, trans. altered. /his re=uires a material foundation>that has een develo'ed through a long and 'ainful 'rocess,

over many centuries *'. 13.!ree and associated laor is also the term (ar& used todescrie the aris ;ommune of 1$1 in the Civil War inFrance. /here, he wrote that the ;ommune constituted the'olitical form as last discovered under which to wor) out theeconomical emanci'ation of aour> *(P;W "", '. 33%.-imilarly, as early as 1$%3, he had written of the differenceetween merely 'olitical and fully human emanci'ation4

olitical emanci'ation is not the com'leted contradiction#free form of human emanci'ation> *n the LewishTuestion,> in (ar&,$arly "olitical Writings, edited yLose'h


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Pven Dolloway, one of !oucault


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*% A return to (ar& after these deates over resistance andemanci'ation shows that his general dialectic ? rooted inDegel E is not one of astract universalism ut has 'lenty ofroom for the s'ecificities of nation, ethnicity, and race, issues

on which he ma)es im'ortant and original contriutions.(ar&

resistance versus emancipation

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