Volume 28 Issue 2 April 2016
With the onset of the global financial crisis, which doesn't show any signs of letting up in different parts of the world, the growing interest in Marxism has manifested itself sometimes as a desire to “return” to the classics in search of different and contemporary interpretations. We start this issue with one such attempt. In “Lukács Today: Totality, Labor, and Fantasies of Revenge,” Oded Nir reconsiders Georg Lukács's notion of totality in light of the critiques delivered by Lyotard, Althusser, Deleuze, and others. Nir argues that critiques of the Lukácsian notion of totality do not necessarily provide a rejection of the concept but rather elaborate a moment in the process of totalization, as Lukács conceived it. Returning to the dialectic of mediation and the immediate in Lukács's writings, Nir elaborates a notion of “immanent totality” in which immediacy and its contradictions are understood in their own terms. For Nir, rethinking the staging of totality presents ways to consider the interconnections between different objects and phenomena and their greater significance—especially in capitalism, which works to prevent distillations of the systematic or total nature of its contradictions. To illustrate these points, Nir examines revenge fantasy films—such as the blaxploitation movies of the 1970s and Quentin Tarantino's films of the 2000s—to establish and clarify the process of immanent totalization that such films exemplify.
The next contribution also takes the perspective of capitalism as a totalizing force as its backdrop. In “The Work of Social Work: NGOs and the Fetishization of Work in Bodhgaya, India,” Jason Rodriguez examines wage relations, social work, and the interplay of class and nonclass processes in the context of NGOs in Bodhgaya, India—the site of Buddha's enlightenment. Based upon ethnographic research in the Indian state of Bihar, Rodriguez challenges the idea that NGO projects are altruistic and thus “outside” of markets and capitalist relations. Focusing specifically on the labor relations of the Organization for Rural Development in Bodhgaya, the article examines how foreign NGO directors utilize the discourses of “social work,” “development,” and “socially engaged Buddhism” to rationalize wages below poverty level, exploitation, and processes of proletarianization. In an environment in which NGO directors seek to help the “poorest of the poor,” as Rodriquez suggests, there are few opportunities for workers to resist these conditions outside of finding better-paying jobs.
The increasing interest in and desire for noncapitalist modes of living have fostered an interest in the history of leftist thought, including Marxism and anarchism, which has helped reveal some of the lesser-known yet quietly influential thinkers, in the process. The next contribution to this issue reveals such a thinker. In “Across and Beyond the Far Left: The Case of Gilles Dauvé,” Chamsy el-Ojeili and Dylan Taylor focus on the life of the ultraleftist French thinker, whose life and work they trace through its different turning points, each representing transformations in Dauvé's thinking. Starting with 1969—when Dauvé developed critiques of substitutionist organizational structures and of parliament and the party form, rejecting trade unionism as well as developing a strong position against nationalism—el-Ojeili and Taylor argue that, inspired by but also distancing himself from the Italian and the German Left, Dauvé rejected democracy, which he saw as the “weapon of capital,” emphasizing that communism was the full transformation of society. The authors then document the evolution of Dauvé's thinking throughout the 1980s, a time of crisis in Marxism, and into the early twenty-first century when searches for alternatives intensified among the global Left. Dauvé, among others, developed a critique of the autonomist movement (which identified drastic shifts in capitalism), arguing that the essentials of the system were still in place and that the main changes were really ideological, in the form of the disappearance of classism and worker identity and of the settling of a “dreamless capitalism” that symbolizes a “loss of faith in the future.” In the more recent phase of this evolution, Dauvé has developed the idea of communization in which he argues for communism not as a future idea to be realized but rather as one that already exists: not as a “society” but as an “effort” produced through communization—an idea very much kindred to some of the ideas developed in the pages of this journal and elsewhere. In this way, argue el-Ojeili and Taylor, Dauvé is a crucial link between left Communism and the communization movement. In all of this, Dauvé's response to what kind of action should be taken is to “follow your instincts,” soliciting criticisms from some who question the voluntarism of the suggestion.
Arguments that construe labor as the ontological basis of social life have been and still are prevalent in Marxism. Here, labor is considered as a process through which human beings both realize and transform themselves. The process of labor is the defining moment of the process of becoming a species-being; it is what separates human beings from animals and nature in general. This narrative, which can also be found in the works of Marx, is what Faruk Eray Düzenli takes issue with in his article entitled “Did Marx Fetishize Labor?” Düzenli argues that, despite rare occasions, a holistic look at the works of Marx reveals that he avoided a fetishistic view of labor wherein labor is conceptualized as an eternal necessity independent of all forms of society. Düzenli draws from the work of Slavoj Žižek, who argues that fetishism is more than a matter of “false consciousness” or “reification.” For example, money as the universal equivalent “appears” in its material reality as the “embodiment of wealth” although it is actually the embodiment of a “network of social relations.” For Žižek, people are fetishists not because they believe that money embodies wealth; they are fetishists because they “act” as if it is. People are fetishists in practice. Düzenli extends this argument to commodity economies, stating that, for Marx, abstract labor does not express itself in commodities; rather, the transformation of useful labors into abstract labor becomes possible in the context of a commodity relationship. For Marx, argues Düzenli, abstract labor does not exist “as such”; such an abstraction is possible only because of social relations, which constitute commodity exchange. The concept of abstract labor is thus not attributed the role of the “transcendental subject” that realizes itself in objects. Seen this way, the argument is similar to that of a process without a subject. Düzenli argues that fetishization—the other side of which is “naturalization” or “eternalization”—when extended to the concepts of useful and productive labor, can lead to the concealment of the class aspect of production.
The specificity of the concept of value and of the commodity form are also central to José María Durán’s essay, entitled “Artistic Labor and the Production of Value: An Attempt at a Marxist Interpretation.” Durán raises the central question of whether we can speak of abstract labor regarding the production of art works as commodities. Questioning the mainstream view that explains the relation of exchange in the world of art as a relation between the artist who seeks monetary gain and the consumer who seeks need satisfaction and that presents the artist as independent producer, Durán proposes an alternative conceptualization of the artist in the context of exchange relations: he states that while wage workers sell their labor power, artists sell the products of their labor. Yet, argues Durán, the latter is the product of historically specific circumstances. For example, visual artists during the Italian Renaissance weren't fully the owners of the products of their labors, although they could own some of the means of production. In ancient Greece, production was determined by the users, not the craftsmen. The relation between an artist and the one who buys art is thus not between two individuals but is rather determined by the totality of the historical circumstances.
In Durán's analysis another important point of consideration is the ideology of work in the determination of the nature of artistic production. Here he refers to examples of certain forms of modern art that attribute the final product to the artist whose idea it was, although the production of the work may involve different people. In such cases, those who collaborate with the artist are producers of surplus value, and the artist's claim to ownership does not rest on the ownership of the means of production but rather the ownership of the artistic idea. But then, this notion of ownership itself, argues Durán, is the result of historical circumstances whereby the artwork is considered to be an extension of the artist's subjectivity, and the artist can thus lay claim to the final product, concealing the labor of others. It is through this conceptualization that Durán then moves on to discuss the theme of property rights. We can thus argue that the “naturalization” of the ownership of the product of labor by these artists can be seen as a striking and pertinent example of the fetishization of labor under capitalist commodity relations, as addressed by Düzenli.
The artwork produced by Chto Delat, from Russia, provides us with a view of the nature and purpose of art that is very different from some of the modern artists referred to by Durán. Chto Delat—meaning “What is to be done?,” which comes from the famous novel of nineteenth-century Russian philosopher Nikolai Chernyshevsky—is a transdisciplinary collective of artists, scholars, and activists that aims at politicizing “knowledge production.” Their art work entitled “Face to Face with the Monument,” displayed in this issue, and the layout of which was prepared by Yahya M. Madra, is about the politics of remembering, a dialog “with the dead” without which, the Chto Delat collective believes, we cannot look into the future. This artwork was presented over some days in Schwarzenbergplatz in Vienna through the collective construction of a mural and through dance workshops, lectures, and soundwalks, thus challenging our ways of thinking about artwork by rendering it a more collective activity, blurring the lines between the producers and consumers of art as well as transforming space into a commons during the lifetime of this artwork. Some of the questions raised by the vision of Chto Delat and their relation to monumentality remind us of those posed by Thomas Hirschhorn, whose work we published in recent issues of Rethinking Marxism.
The examination of the heterogeneity of class processes amidst contemporary capitalism has been one of the major projects of Rethinking Marxism. This is the theme addressed in World of the Third and Global Capitalism, written by Anjan Chakrabarti, Anup Dhar, and Stephen Cullenberg (Worldview Publications, 2012). In the book, Chakrabarti, Dhar, and Cullenberg question the relevancy of Marxism from the position of the South. Given that Marxian theory was born in a Western context, Chakrabarti, Dhar, and Cullenberg ask if it is relevant in a Southern situation. In line with other Southern thinkers, such as Franz Fanon, Che Guevara, Mahatma Gandhi, Radindranath Tagore, and Krishnachandra Bhattacharya, the authors are interested not only in struggles for freedom but also in the critique of Western concepts that describe the Global South in problematic terms. Central to the authors' project is the critique of third worldism—the discourse in which the so-called third world is conceptualized in Orientalist and capitalocentric terms as being “lower,” “lacking,” or “lagging” in economic maturation and development. As an alternative, the authors formulate the idea of “the world of the third” as a separate and distinct category that is neither “first world” nor “third world” but occupies a third space and discourse. From this perspective, the authors view their work as an elaboration of the Rethinking Marxism project from the perspective of the Southern situation.
In a commentary on the book, “‘Inclusive Growth’: A Lacanian Reading,” Pranab Kanti Basu situates World of the Third in relation to Chakrabarti and Dhar's earlier book Dislocation and Resettlement in Development: From Third World to World of the Third (Routledge, 2009) as well as in relation to the Lacanian notions of foreclosure/foregrounding. The concept of “the world of the third,” as Basu explains, captures the dislocated who are excluded and/or ignored in hegemonic discourses of development. In Lacanian terms, this exclusion constitutes foreclosure and the authors' representation of the excluded as a foregrounding.
In his commentary, Antonio Callari describes, as his title suggests, a rethinking of “Marxism from the Outside.” Writing as insiders-outsiders to global capitalism, the authors provide a significant contribution to think about and beyond capitalism in Marxian terms, according to Callari. Specifically, Callari argues that the authors present a reconceptualization and reauthorization of the Marxian subject that captures the center as well as “the world of the third.”
Joel Wainwright, in his commentary, “Is the World of the Third Counterhegemonic?,” notes that World of the Third addresses a number of the basic questions that have haunted Marxism since the publication of the first volume of Capital (1867) and since Rosa Luxemburg's The Accumulation of Capital (1913). World of the Third, as Wainwright notes, addresses the question of the relationship between capital and its others and the relation between precapitalist and noncapitalist class processes within the context of global capital. Wainwright praises the book for its critique of third worldism but views the authors' notion that “the world of the third” contains the foundation for counterhegemonic politics as problematic.
In their reply to the commentaries, “(Un)doing Marxism from the Outside,” Chakrabarti, Dhar, and Cullenberg clarify the major themes of the book and respond to the commentators' observations, suggesting that Rethinking Marxism is the proper venue for continuing such discussions.
A number of killings by police of unarmed African American youth has created deepening anger inside and outside the United States. As the frustration and anger over these killings has grown more intense over time, out of which emerged the #BlackLivesMatter movement, related courses were devised in some institutions of higher education across the United States. In the Remarx section for this issue, “Teaching Ferguson: Can #BlackLivesMatter in the Neoliberal University?,” Sarah Dowling, Marcus Johnson, and Ron Krabill reflect on one such intervention made in response to demands from students at the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, University of Washington, Bothell, and they place this intervention in the context of the neoliberal university. The course is called “Ferguson and Beyond: Race, Politics, and Protest in the Contemporary United States,” and the authors describe the challenges of teaching this course, such as trying to develop a radical pedagogy in a mainstream institution, creating critical dialogs within a tuition-generating institution, and faculty leadership in a context driven by student activism. They end their essay by reflecting on the limitations of the course as determined by their reliance on mostly “expert knowledge,” with the necessary diversity in class not being present, while also discussing issues around structural violence against marginalized communities. They wonder about the argument that diversity colludes with neoliberal ideology, confirmed by the objection of their students to being used as recruitment tools for recruiting students from marginalized communities “even as they were underserved on campus.” They conclude that, without being a solution or a failure, “Ferguson and Beyond” still marked a defining moment for students and teachers in the social struggle for justice.
In 2000, Rethinking Marxism launched the series Globalization under Interrogation, encouraging contributors to query the current state of affairs by complex analysis of the representations of the overdetermined processes of globalization. In 2002, Bob Jessop became the first contributor to the series, and in this issue of the journal he provides a new contribution in the form of interviewee. In the interview, conducted by Mikkel Flohr and Yannick Harrison, Jessop discusses the concept of the state and state power as well as the current global conjuncture. In addition to examining the North Atlantic financial crisis and its relation to the Eurozone crisis, Jessop discusses how financialization and the rise of political capitalism have raised questions concerning sovereignty and crisis management, contributing to an assault on democracy and the advance of austerity. In closing, the interview turns to a discussion of the challenges confronting SYRIZA, Podemos, and other left-wing social movements in presenting alternative political possibilities.
The International Workingmen's Association has left a profound imprint on the history of Marxism, some reverberations of which we feel to this day. In his review of Workers Unite! The International 150 Years Later, edited by Marcello Musto, Babak Amini argues that the volume brings together a valuable collection of documents, including some never before translated into English, on diverse issues such as the reduction of working hours, women's emancipation and equality, the cooperative movement, trade unions, and forms of property ownership. He underlines the continuing relevance of these questions, especially at a time when global capitalism is in deep crisis and when the Left is trying to regain and broaden its popular support.
The fact that we still continue to debate some of the issues raised during the International points to continuities in capitalism, but we also need to observe its differentiating features. The growing importance of precarity is a distinctive characteristic of contemporary capitalism. Zoe Sherman thus reviews two volumes by Guy Standing, entitled The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class and A Precariat Charter: From Denizens to Citizens. She emphasizes Standing's discussion of the political potential of the precariat, which includes extreme right-wing politics as well as a politics of paradise. The latter, she claims, is Standing's focus in the second volume, in which he articulates the political vision of a charter to include universal basic income, the revival of the commons, the decommodification of education, solidarity-based mutual insurance, and so on. Adding that there is surprisingly very little here on the site of production, Sherman ends her review by underlining Standing's statement that, given that the precariat is defined on the basis of a lack of security, its political triumph will come when the precariat abolishes itself.
The impact of capitalism on the existence of all being has been a topic of intensifying interest and one that this journal too has engaged through articles on the environment and the Anthropocene. The next review examines a book that addresses the connections between capitalism and climate change. Leopoldo Gómez-Ramírez argues that Naomi Klein's This Changes Everything should be praised for offering a very convincing analysis of how the fight against climate change is essentially a fight against unfettered capitalism. This fight is linked intricately to struggles against inequality, for First Nations' land rights, and for global equity. Though commending Klein's work, Gómez-Ramírez adds that while Klein understands that nothing but popular movements will prevent climate change, she doesn't go all the way to arguing that these movements should themselves become the governments of the future.
The history of the controversy on the relation between capitalism and culture is as long as the history of Marxism itself. The final review in this issue is of a book that takes part in this controversy. Mike Krebs and Jim Glassman review Ngai-Ling Sum and Bob Jessop's coauthored book, Towards a Cultural Political Economy: Putting Culture in Its Place in Political Economy. In a postdisciplinary project that transcends the disciplinary boundaries of the humanities and social sciences, Sum and Jessop draw from a critical-realist and strategic-relational approach to outline a nonreductionist analysis of culture within a political-economy framework. Drawing from the works of Marx, Gramsci, and Foucault, Sum and Jessop synthesize what they call “the governmentalization of Gramsci” and the “Marxianization of Foucault.” After laying out the theoretical ground for a cultural political economy, Sum and Jessop provide seven case studies—ranging from Wal-Martization and corporate responsibility to competitive knowledge brands and service governance in Hong Kong to the transnational imaginaries of the BRICS and subaltern groups in China to the North Atlantic financial crisis, as discussed in Jessop’s separate interview with Flohr and Harrison in this issue—as examples of how this research program can deepen critical studies in political economy. This theoretically rich text, as Krebs and Glassman note, is not for the analytically faint of heart, but it is productive and rewarding.
The search for diverse forms of alternatives to current forms of capitalism continues to deepen. As violence uproots whole communities in their millions and pushes them to fatal journeys across land and water, and as governments and people are embroiled in regional religious, denominational, ethnic, and class conflicts, the pursuit of different modes of existence becomes something much more than an intellectual exercise, at times with severe personal and communal cost. The current waves of repression of the freedom of expression that we have been observing outside but also inside of academia have taken variegated forms, such as threats aimed at academics for signing petitions calling for peace or for criticizing governments for majoritarian practices with ethnic and religious overtones. We are thus reminded once again that the quest for different social orders can be very dangerous, which alerts us to the growing importance of continuing, deepening, and widening conversations.
—The Editors |
