Marxism(s) and "The Withering Away of the State" Author(s): Kenneth Surin Source: Social Text, No. 27 (1990), pp. 35-54 Published by: Duke University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/466306 Accessed: 31-10-2015 04:09 UTC REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: http://www.jstor.org/stable/466306?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Duke University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Text. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 152.3.102.242 on Sat, 31 Oct 2015 04:09:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Marxism(s)and "The WitheringAway oftheState" KENNETH SURIN Whetherovertlyor not,all twentieth-century politicaltheoryhas basically betweentheState,powerand posedthesamequestion:whatis therelationship socialclasses? NicosPoulantzasl hashitherto ofthestateis theological. Revolution Everytheory onlyperfected is todestroy it. thestate;thepoint,however, AntonioNegri2 It is notsomeunavoidablerealworld,withitslaws ofeconomyandlaws of war,thatis nowblockingus. Itis a setofidentifiable processesofrealpolitik andforcemajeure,ofnameableagenciesofpowerandcapital,distraction and andall theseinterlocking withtheembeddedshort-term disinformation, pressuresandtheinterwoven subordinations ofanadaptivecommonsense. Itis not attheseblocksthatthereis anychanceofmovement instaring pastthem.They havebeennamedso oftenthattheyarenoteven,formostpeople,news.The is elsewhere, inthedifficult businessofgainingconfidence dynamicmoment inourownenergiesandcapacities. thattherearepracticalalternatives ... Itis onlyina sharedbeliefandinsistence thatthebalanceofforcesandchancesbeginstoalter.Once theinevitabilities arechallenged, we begingathering ourresources fora journeyofhope.Ifthere arenoeasyanswerstherearestillavailableanddiscoverable hardanswers, and itis thesethatwe can nowlearnto makeandshare.Thishas been,fromthe thesenseandtheimpulseofthelongrevolution. beginning, RaymondWilliams3 It is a commonplaceamong historiansof mentalitiesthatthe modernage begins with the firststages of an uneven,but none the less gradual and inexorable, expropriationof power from the medieval church and its appurtenances.This curtailingof the church's power is howeverjust as much "effect" as "cause," and any remotelyplausible account of the decisive transformations thattookplace in late medievalEurope certainly needs to be more detailed and comprehensivethananythingindicatedby this commonplace. A more complex historical account would at least suggest thatat the end, or near the end, of the Middle Ages early bourgeois capitalism- understoodhere in verybroad termsas theproductof a totalityof complex and mutuallyrelatedeconomic, political and ideological "determinations"- began to createa new economic,social, polit35 This content downloaded from 152.3.102.242 on Sat, 31 Oct 2015 04:09:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 36 and"TheWithering Marxism(s) AwayoftheState" ical and cultural"space," a "space" (or if one prefers,a matrixof opportunities,limitationsand pressures)dominatedby a distinctiveaccumulation strategyand its accompanyingemergentcapitalistclass. The creation of this new "space" representedthe overturningof what had been an overwhelminglyagrariansocial and economic ordercenteredon therural village and manorand based on the hereditaryseigneurial system.The rulingclasses of thispre-modernsystemwere drawnentirelyfromlandowning nobilities and aristocracieswho derived theirlegitimacyfroma churchwhich,as a divinelyconstitutedpower, regulatedeveryaspect of the spiritualand moraleconomyof thislargelyagrarianorder.4 This new "space," over the course of several centuries,was the locus of theeventsand movementsassociated withtheProtestantReformation, the rise of the new science, the IndustrialRevolution,the expansion of cities, the growthof nation-states,the emergenceof mass movements(as in theFrenchRevolution),and so forth.It was a "space" inscribedby new kindsof political theory(e.g. Machiavelli and Hobbes), new philosophies and especially epistemologies(e.g. Descartes and Locke), new theologies (e.g. the various deisms), new modes of aesthetic representation(e.g. depictingthebourgeoisinterieurstartsto become a new formin European painting,the prototypesof the novel representthe beginningsof a new "notation" (to use a termof RaymondWilliams's). The Modern Age is inauguratedwith these (and other) developmentsand transformations.5 But, just as significantly,the arisingof this new and decisive historical conjuncturealso broughtwith it the emergence of a differentkind of human subject- indeed, the notion of a "free" (because self-defining) individual subject begins to be formulatedin the emergingsocial and political theoriesof thattime. Concomitantwith the emergenceof this new subject is the rise of a distinctivemode of social and political organizationand interaction,one which Hegel would termbiirgerliche Gesellschaftand Locke "civil society" (thoughof course Locke and Hegel did not mean exactly the same thingsin theirrespectivedeploymentsof the termsbiirgerlicheGesellschaftand societas civilis). Withthe institution of civil societytheexpropriationof power fromthe medieval church was virtuallycompleted: civil society was centeredon social relationships based on the marketand on city-life,and the churchwas progressively relegatedto the position of having to be one institutionalongside the other institutionswhich constitutedthe marketand the city.6The church thus became, thoughnot immediately,a merelyresidual, as opposed to a dominant,social and cultural formation.("Residual" and "dominant"are of course termsmade well-knownby RaymondWilliams). The construction,the conceptual articulation,of this new "self-defining" subject, the citizen of an equally new and slowly emergentcivil in thephilosophicalanthropologies society,reached its culminating-point of Rousseau and Kant.7 This content downloaded from 152.3.102.242 on Sat, 31 Oct 2015 04:09:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Kenneth Surin 37 II In his anthropology Kanthad,amongotherthings,resolvedto his satisin Rousseau'saccountof was a crucialdifficulty factionwhat ostensibly in freedom.Rousseau, the ContratSocial, had located freedomin a in a social contract betweencitizens.8At thesame generalwill grounded timeRousseau had positedan inevitableconflictbetweennatureand hedrewintheContratSocial tothedistinction society,a conflictintrinsic "natural and "civil between liberty:" liberty" Whatmanloses by thesocial contractis his naturallibertyand an he triesto getandsucceedsin getting; unlimited rightto everything whathe gains is civil libertyand theproprietorship of all he poswhichis bounded naturalliberty, sesses...we mustclearlydistinguish of theindividual,fromcivil liberty, whichis onlyby thestrength limitedbythegeneralwill;andpossession,whichis merelytheeffect offorceortherightofthefirst whichcanbe occupier,fromproperty, foundedonlyon a positivetitle.9 Kantargues,in his essay"Conjectural BeginningofHumanHistory," and nature thatthe resolutionof thisconflictbetweensociety/culture into wouldhave to be a partof anyprocessintegralto ourdevelopment trulymoral beings.'0 The social contract was the cornerstoneof Rousseau's delineationof thenecessaryconditionsforour growthinto moralbeings,andyethe (impliesKant)couldnotprovide- evenifonly inprinciple- an adequateaccountoftheinstitutionalization ofthesocial andespeciallyof theproperintersubjectivity whichhadtoexist contract, in orderforthisinstitutionalization to take place. For we have to be educatedbyreasonintomorality, holdsKant,andthiscan takeplace only in society,whichis therealmof freedom, as opposedto nature,whichis realm the of necessity(though,says Kant,"natureitselfhas giventhe as muchto thisprogress[towards vocationto everyoneto contribute as be within his of freedom] may power"").Rousseau'scharacterization as toil and joyless (modern)society/culture a domainof unremitting is thusseenbyKantas thesourceofan aporia:Rousseauwas artificiality of explicitin his avowal thatsocietywas necessaryforthedevelopment ourmoralfaculties, and yetat thesametimeheregardedthe"pre-social" of an innocenceand goodnessthat individualas preciselytherepository couldnotsurvivein civilsociety.Kantbycontrast understood this"presocial" individualto be livingin a stateof savagery, and deemedabsurd thedefinition of suchan individualas a beingcapable of moralself-directionwhile "he" existedin thisbrutishbut paradaisicalstate.The primalstateof natureforKant is moreakin to the Hobbesianbellum omnis contra omnem, and the Rousseauian invocation of it, and the attendantfiction of a general will underpinningan "historical" social contract,cannot thereforefurnisha coherentaccount of the genesis of moral life. Only freebeings, capable of moral self-direction,can forma This content downloaded from 152.3.102.242 on Sat, 31 Oct 2015 04:09:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 38 and"TheWithering Marxism(s) AwayoftheState" social contract,and yet forRousseau the existenceof a social contractis the essential conditionforthe creationof civil society,thatis, theemergence and growthof such autonomousmoral beings. ("Moral" and "autonomous"are of course virtualsynonymsforKant). To resolve thiscrux in Rousseau's account of freedom,Kant made two distinctions.'" Kant endorsed (while qualifying in the way mentioned butmade the above) Rousseau's separationof naturefromsociety/culture, latterthe domain of theexercise of reason (reason as an Idea or capacity for Kant is of course an irreducible"given"). At the same time, he detached reason fromthe world of experience by arguingthatreason is transcendentallyconstitutedand thus is able to function"legislatively" forhumanexperience. Kant also introduceda distinctionwithinreason: the principlesof theoreticalreason regulatethe domain of nature,while the principlesof practicalreason regulatesocial and moral life. By making thisdistinctionKant was able to assertboththathumanbeingsare part of the natural order (and hence are "determined") and that they are independentof nature(and hence are "autonomous"and thereforebound by the rationalmoral law). They can be rational,free,moralbeings even as theypartakeof the naturalorder.Kant thus had no difficultyin convincinghimselfthathe had successfullytraversedwhatforRousseau had been a conceptual hiatusbetweenthe naturaland the social. By assigningreason a "legislative" capacity in regardto nature,however,Kant effectivelymade thethinkingsubjectof thisreason thepresupposition of a science of nature.He thus separated,or ratherabstracted, thisepistemologicalsubject fromnature,just as he separatedthe(individual) moral subject fromsocietyby arguing(like Fichte) thatfreedomis a to the suprasensiblecausalityof thewill determiningitselfin conformity universallaw. The individualbringsan inalienable,because by definition freedomto social life (here Kant to an extent always self-determining, retains Rousseau's bifurcationbetween freedom- albeit "natural" as is opposed to "civil" liberty- and social life). This self-determination guaranteedforKant by our noumenalcapacity to act in accord withour conception of ourselves as rational beings. Acting in accord with this self-conceptionrequiresus always to universalizemoralimperatives,and so a vision of intersubjectivelife is integralto Kant's ethical theory.3 Nevertheless, as a long line of critics from Hegel to Habermas have pointedout, thisnormativevision is underminedby Kant's insistencethat the moral subject is groundedin nothingother than this subject's own pure reason. Any and all moralclaims are thatpreciselybecause theyare claims for all rational agents, and so Kant succeeds in giving ethics a universal conditiononly because he totallydivorces this putativelyuniversal condition fromthe exigencies of social and historicalexistence. This specious universalityis thus underpinnedby a subjective "formalism" - which Rousseau interestinglyenough managed to avoid - that This content downloaded from 152.3.102.242 on Sat, 31 Oct 2015 04:09:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Surin Kenneth 39 Hegel, Habermas, et al., came to regard as disastrousfor a substantive social ethic.14 III As Hegel indicates in the "master-slave"section of his Phenomenologie des Geistes, ethical communitiesand, by extension,themembersof these communities,are created throughintersubjectiverelations. Human subjects are constitutedas ethical beings by the theoreticaland practical is relation between self and other.For Kant, however,intersubjectivity guaranteedin advance: by acting in conformitywith the moral law, my own standpoint,in addition to being my own, is also necessarily the standpointof all other rational agents. Kantian moral agents are thus necessarily in a conditionof relationship,at least in regardto the moral sphere,even if thereis no interactionbetween them.Citing this entirely formalcharacterizationof intersubjectivity, Hegel charges thatfar from providingan understandingof ethical existence,Kant's account actually and freerepresentsits dissolution. Kant's concepts of intersubjectivity dom are forever(concretely) unrealizable because, paradoxically, they are in absolutely no need of realization in any kind of normativesocial order.15 Seyla Benhabib and Gillian Rose have been notableamong contemporarysocial theoristsfortheiradvocacy, albeit fromverydifferentstandpoints,of a "returnto Hegel." Seyla Benhabib has (among other things) argued in a discussion of normativefoundationsin critical theorythatHabermas's conception of communicativeethics is broken-backedbecause he tries to derive ultimate moral principles fromthe formalconditions which underpinthe in a way thatis strictly discursivepracticesof an ideal speech-community to Kant's to the derive same principlesfromthe formal parallel attempt conditions of rational understanding.'6Habermas is thus vulnerable to precisely the critique that Hegel makes of Kant. (Benhabib, however, qualifies her "returnto Hegel" by arguing that the account of action provided in theRechtsphilosophieis flawed because Hegel is fundamentallyunable to reconcile freeinteractionwiththepresenceofpluralityand But moreabout Benhabib's views shortly.) interpretiveindeterminacy. In herHegel Contra Sociology,'7 Gillian Rose arguespersuasivelythat the whole sociological traditionstemmingfromDurkheim and Weber (and this means prettywell everythingthatcounts as "sociology" these days!) is flawedat its theoreticalrootsbecause its governingassumptions are thoroughly,even irretrievably, neo-Kantian.This traditionis unable to overcome the typical Kantian dichotomiesbetween concept and intuition, theoreticaland practical reason, and subject and object (the latter This content downloaded from 152.3.102.242 on Sat, 31 Oct 2015 04:09:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 40 Marxism(s)and "TheWithering AwayoftheState" dichotomyusually having as its sociological counterpartthe bifurcation betweenagentand structure).Hegel's philosophy,by seekingto thinkthe absolute, is able to acknowledgethe limitsand pressureswhichconstrain our thinkingthe absolute, and in so doing make a sittlichethic possible. Theories unable to thinktheabsolute in thisway - and thisbecause they are "neo-Kantian" in respect of their determinativeassumptionsshamelessly reinforcebourgeois social and economic relationships.In makingthiscriticismRose is particularlysevere on marxism,saying that its "neo-Kantian"(and even Fichtean) theoreticalorientationstandsin the way of an adequate characterizationof the relationthateconomic forces have to the conditionsof revolutionarypractice. The critiques of Benhabib and Rose are of course very much more detailed and comprehensivethan I have indicated in this rathercursory narrative.But what is significantand interestingabout these critiquesis thattheyostensiblyconverge,despite theirauthors'clearlyverydifferent starting-pointsand theoreticalperspectives,on the notion- which is explicitly renderedin Benhabib's separationof "norm" and "utopia" that there is a valid distinctionto be made between the fulfilmentof normativeideals (e.g. freedomand equality) and the radical transformation of society.The thrustof theargumentsof Benhabib and Rose seems to be that because Habermas (according to Benhabib) and Marx/Durkheim/Weber (according to Rose) are irreduciblywedded to some form of neo-Kantianism,they,despite theirbest intentions,are unable in the end: (i) to move much beyond a formalor quasi-formal specificationof such ideals as freedomand justice; and (ii) to connect theseideals withpracticesthatconduce to thegenerationof a transfigured society. Hence Benhabib and Rose indicate that while Marx and of society is indeed Habermas both acknowledge thatthe transformation for of these condition the realization are not able, despite a ideals, they this acknowledgement,to expound in a really convincingway the relationshipthattheformalconditionsof speech-practiceshave to theproject of a transfiguredsociety (in the case of Habermas) and the relationship thatan analysis of capitalismalong the lines of Capital would have to a transformedpolitics (in the case of Marx). Hegel's critique of Kant however is such thatonly someone heedfulof this critique can hope to point a way beyond the neo-Kantian aporias which attend the work of Habermas and Marx. Both Benhabib and Rose are of course only too aware of the difficultiescreated by Hegel's own substantiveproposals, and their "returnto Hegel" is certainlyone that is circumspectand diligentlyqualified. Nevertheless,it seems to me thatany such "returnto Hegel," no matterhow cautiouslyit is undertaken,is in principlefraught with insurmountableproblems. Let me elaborate as a way of pushing towardsthebeginningof a conclusion to thispaper. This content downloaded from 152.3.102.242 on Sat, 31 Oct 2015 04:09:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Kenneth Surin 41 IV The decisive figurewho stands in the way of any attemptto claim Hegel for the constructionof an adequate social ethic or the specificationof a viable revolutionarypolitics is Max Weber. Habermas himselfrealizes this,and so does Benhabib on his behalf.(Alasdair MacIntyrealso recognizes thiswhen,in his book AfterVirtue,he urgesthattheconstructionof a sittlichethic is theonly hope forthosewho desire to flee Weber's "iron cage" of modernity,and thus commendsto such persons the quest of a new kind of world-historicalindividual,viz., a "new St Benedict.") Rose does not ascribe to Weber a similarimportance,which is understandable since she takes Weber to be immuredin the neo-Kantianismshe finds irresolvablyproblematic:Weber may come "after"Hegel, but thatdoes not safeguardhimfromKant's basic errors.Weber (on thisaccount) does not appear to have learntanythingworthwhilefromHegel. The favourable assessmentof Hegel made by Rose (and, verymuchmoreindirectly, by Maclntyre) is arguably warranted.Hegel, we have seen, grounds freedomand self-consciousnessin intersubjectiverecognitionand in so doing overcomes Kant's failure to locate subjectivityin anythingmore thanthe "spontaneity"thatis the groundof the "I think"(where speculative reason is concerned)and in a "pure" infinitewilling (wherepractical reason is concerned). Hegel bringsabout the sublation of knowingand willing in sociality- in thePhenomenologyof Spirit he, like Rousseau, makes historyand communitythe only possible groundforknowingand willing. Hegel's account of the "master-slave" dialectic in this work indicates that the relation of consciousness to the world is one that is essentially practical, in which case it would not be too misleading to iegard his phenomenologyof consciousness as a genuine "philosophyof praxis" (I use thislast phrase withhalfan apology to Gramsci). But, and this is the crucial problem,Hegel's recognitionthatthe groundof selfconsciousness is indissolublycommunaland historicalis preciselythata registeringin theory,a formulationin what can never be more than a philosophy of consciousness. The centralityof the social, and its (for Hegel) attendantdescriptionof reconcilation,is thusnoted merelyas an itemof theory,it is not specifiedin termsof the specific and appropriate practicesinvolved in the constructionof transfigured political communities. Hegel only furnishesa reflectionon possible ways beyondthesocial relationshipsof theprevailingbourgeoisorder.His deliverancesare in the orderof a specificationof truth,whenwhatis needed, at theveryleast, is an account of thecreationof a new theoreticalor non-discursive"space," one in which intersubjectivity is practically(and so "materially")constituted. Hegel's "theorization"of the power of the negative, compelling thoughit is on its own terms,becomes less persuasive whencoupled with his convictionthatthe negative is a momentto be sublated in the reconciling unitythatis absolute spirit. This content downloaded from 152.3.102.242 on Sat, 31 Oct 2015 04:09:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 42 Marxism(s)and "TheWithering AwayoftheState" Hegel, and here the well-knowncharge bears repeating,substitutesa theodicyof thestatefora politics of civil society(thoughat no pointdoes he make the state a religious object by identifyingit with the absolute spirit).This is whereWeberbecomes deeply pertinent,forhe insiststhat it is not possible to constructsuch a "space" of (Hegelian) reconciliation in the modernworld. Here, perhaps ironically,Hegel's stricturesagainst Kant's "transcendentalidealism" (the termis Schelling's) with its "abstract"and "formal"conceptionof reason,and Hegel's contrarystresson the immanenceof reason in the object of knowledge itself,all pave the way forWeber's reflectionson whathe perceivedto be thedecisive mode of rationalityin moderntimes,viz., instrumentalrationality- and this If Weber's analyses of moderdespite Weber's sturdyneo-Kantianism.18 then the civil societywhich even are transfigured remotelyplausible, nity he the state had already at because thought Hegel merely gestured transformation the sittlichkeitwhich subby being accomplished this sumed a "disorganized" civil society will foreverremainan impossibility.Habermas and MacIntyretake seriouslyWeber's claim thatmodern capitalism has subvertedthe dream of a normativeand organic community, that the "appropriate" polity for this "disenchanted" epoch will thereforebe a nation of heroic individuals capable of dealing "soberly" (certainlyone of Weber's favouriteadjectives) withthe"tragic" realities of economic competition,imperialpower, and culturaldominationon a world-scale.Habermas,as has alreadybeen indicated,attemptsto resolve what is in effectthe Weberianproblematicby posing a procedural,intersubjective rationalityas a counterpointto instrumentalor calculative rationality.This otherrationalityand its associated Arendtiantheoryof and reinvigoaction (he believes) can provide thebasis of a transformed rated public sphere. MacIntyre follows Hegel in his quest for the but insteadof directlyemulatingHegel's attemptto locate the sittlichkeit, sittlichkeitin Christianbourgeois society,he tries to hurdleover Weber by resortingto a mythologywhichposits thesittlichkeitin whatis clearly a utopian ordercapable of creatinga new kind of moraland social being (i.e. "a new St. Benedict"). Maclntyredoes not of course follow Hegel in viewing the state as the site of the resolutionof the antagonismswhich pervade civil society- his resolution of the Weberian problematic is profoundlyutopian (this time somewhat in the pejorative sense of the term)inasmuchas he proposes whatamountsto a Kierkegaardian"leap" into an ideal politymiraculouslyevacuated of the irresolvablecontradictionsbesettingmodernbourgeoissocieties. MacIntyre'sbreakwithHegel is thus no more thana half-break:his is a political evasion hardlydifferent fromtheone commissionedby a "pure" Hegelianism. Both Hegel and MacIntyre resort in the end to theodicy.19 Their attendantdifficulties these noteworthyneo- or quasi-Hegelian attemptsto notwithstanding, resolve the Weberian impasse - eitherby identifyingtheoreticallythe This content downloaded from 152.3.102.242 on Sat, 31 Oct 2015 04:09:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Surin Kenneth 43 shape and substance of a reconstructedcivil society (Habermas) or by positing a utopian polity free of decisive contradictions(Maclntyre)seemingly representthe only way forwardbeyond the theoretical immobilismsof neo-Kantianism.20 Hegel was not wrongto indicatethatthe incorporationof civil society into the state is motivatedby the former'sinternaldichotomies.On the contrary,he was able to register- admittedlyonly "in theory,"butat the same time with a scarcely deniable prescience- the beginningsof the total "sublimation" of civil society into the state which capitalism has broughtto a completionin thiscentury.21But is is clear now - and here I am in agreementwithToni Negri- thatthe state is not able to resolve the internalcontradictionsof civil society, that in the present global capitalist conjuncturethe state and civil society have in factbeen metamorphosedintomomentsof a new complex,so thatthe"crisis" of one (or the idea of one) is necessarilythe"crisis" of theother(or theidea of the other).22This means that the conflictsand struggleswhich had (bourgeois) civil society as their locus have now been displaced on to a radically new terrain,one which pertainsto what Negri calls the social and humantotality.And it is now no longerpossible to resolve or stabilize these conflictsby an "upward" organizationor sublimationof traditional (i.e. bourgeois) civil society. The state can no longer be civil society's deus ex machina. The abolition of any final distinctionbetween state and civil society broughtabout by integratedworld-capitalismhas veryconsiderable implications for a "traditional"marxistpolitics of civil society. Indeed, it would notbe an exaggerationto say thatit discreditsjust about everything thathas been previouslyaffirmedin the name of such a politics. For this politics simplyshares too much withHegel. For example, Gramsci,who wrote on civil society as part of his finely-drawnbut fragmentary and in accounts of did was so a that self-avowunsystematic hegemony, way edly Hegelian as well as marxist.He sharedHegel's view of civil society as the primarysphere of cultural-political contestation,even though Gramsci was of course decidedlyunHegelian in his assertionthatwiththe proletariantake-overof civil society- thisbeing an essential ingredient of the revolution- therewould be a transferof controlof theforcesand therelationsof productionto workerscouncils and thepartyrespectively (i.e. to theworkingclass).23Gramsciwas convincedthattheforceswhich created revolutionswere culturaland political ratherthaneconomic, and he thereforeaccorded civil society- thatis, the field ostensiblyoutside the state in which progressive forces struggleto create an alternative (cultural-political) power bloc - a central place in his theoryof the socialist revolution.Withthisrevolution,Gramscibelieves, therewill be a genuine and democraticconvergencebetween the state (or "political society") and civil society.WhatGramscicould notrealize was thedegree This content downloaded from 152.3.102.242 on Sat, 31 Oct 2015 04:09:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 44 and"TheWithering Marxism(s) AwayoftheState" to which late capitalism would bring about precisely this convergence, and this,however,throughmeans thatare ruthlessand arbitraryand with an outcomethatis pervasivelyundemocratic.Gramsci,perhapsmorethan readingof the any othermarxistof his time,resistedan overly-schematic distinctionbetween (economic) "base" and (cultural) "superstructure," but he retainedit none theless (a retentioncommissionedpreciselyin the course of Gramsci's argument- against"economism"- that"base" and are mutuallysupportive).He therebydeprivedthosewho "superstructure" him of followed themeansto "theorize"thenew global phase of capitalist developmentthatunfoldedin the 1960s. For thisnew historicalconjuncturemergestheeconomic,thepolitical,thesocial and theculturalspheres in a seamless totality,so thatthe state becomes the formin which global capital subsumes civil society.It thuseffectivelydecomposes civil society (as understoodin its Hegelian or quasi-Hegelian sense), while still keeping in theirplace the social contradictionswhich this traditionlocates in civil society.24Any strategyforovercomingthese contradictions will thereforehave to begin by recognizingthecomprehensivedissolution of any boundarybetweenthestateand civil society(and theprivaterealm as well) broughtabout by the mostrecentphase in the historyof capitalism. And wheremarxisttheoryis concerned,thisstrategywill requirethe model to be jettisoned:bothGramsci's equation of "base-superstructure" civil society (and the state) withthe ideological "superstructure" (as has just been contended),and Marx's own identificationof civil societywith the economic "base" will thushave to be abandoned.25 In integratedworld-capitalismproductivelabor is positioned within every componentof society: the ubiquityof capital is simultaneouswith the ubiquityof thatwhichyields surplus-valueforcapital, viz., labor. Or as Negri pithilyputs it: "The proletariatis everywhere,just as the boss is."26 Gramsci, like Marx, premises his descriptionof the revolutionary subject on the"factorymodel," thatis, he, again like Marx,endorseswhat Negri calls "the spatial division between the exploiters and the exploited."27This spatial division has now been eliminated- in thecurrent regime of accumulation the whole of society (in its "national" and "paranational" formsalike) is imbricatedin the reproductionof capital, and so, with respect to some more conventionalmarxistaccounts, the state is not,on the one hand, a political "agent" capable of shaping and maintainingclasses, nor,on the other,is it an essentiallyneutralinstrumentat thedisposal of thevariousclasses (thoughinvariablythispolitical is mostreadilyavailable to thedominantor rulingclass).28The instrument statepossesses no poweron its own: it is, instead,theprimarysite or field and fortheexercise of political power,a complex ensembleof institutions their relations ("the state apparatuses") which reflectand balance the power of class forces.29The work of the state in the presentregime of capitalist accumulation is thus the essentially"negative" one of decom- This content downloaded from 152.3.102.242 on Sat, 31 Oct 2015 04:09:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Surin Kenneth 45 and neutralization, by its position,thatis, the modification primarily of the efforts of resistance on of social classes, symbolicrepresentations Thestate- whichapartfromthecomponents thepartofsocial subjects.30 thatconstitute it as an institutional assemblageis no morethana fetish (an "idea") - subservestheprocessesof accumulation by representing thewholeworldof social production foritssubjectsas something thatis Therecan be a marxist ofthismost "natural,"as an inevitability.3i theory recentphaseofcapitalistdevelopment, it but,as hasjustbeencontended, fromthistheory'smoretradiwill involvesomefairlyradicaldepartures laborandthesocialorganization ofthislabor tionalnotionsofproductive forthepurposeofaccumulation.32 V - whichamountsto whatcan perhapsbe called a This new situation of away thestate"- has seen thecreationof a novelover"withering complex. totalitywhichToni Negritermsthesociety-state determining Thisemergent discredits notonlytheHegelianattempts toformutotality of theinternal ofcivil society, latea "vertical"resolution contradictions whichseek such a resolutionby but also those"theological"attempts (suchas a positing,in thefashionof Rousseau,a realmof transparency in of which these contradictions are effaced." This realm "state nature") ortimeoftransparency, as Webersaw,haspassed- perhapsforever. The can certainly be enunciated, butneverpurelyand possibilityof itsreturn of the dichotomiesof civil simplyas the negationor the sublimation resourceforthosewhoseek suchan enunciation society.An alternative has tobe sought,thistimewithout the"theological"invocation ofa realm or timeof transparency. But in thisveryquest,a quest forwhatcan be termed legitimately "utopia"or"heterotopia" (a' la FoucaultorTafuri), the demiseof civil societyin its typicallybourgeoismanifestation is For more social for (and inevitably theory importantly, socialsignalled.34 ist strategy), and significant therefore, onlyone reallyinteresting questioncan remain:namely,whatlies on theotherside of "bourgeois"civil - verymuchinspiredby elementsof thought in society?35 My attempts and Henri Lefebvre to sketchtheoutline Williams,Poulantzas,Negri of an answerto thisquestionin subsequentparagraphswill necessarily haveto be briefandrudimentary. In thisnewepochof capitalistdevelopment, thatof a "real subsumption"of all social formsby capital,a reversalhas takenplace (as was in theprevioussection).The statetoday- and thisincludes maintained those states which, at least until quite recently,were the sites of a professed "already achieved socialism" - no longer has, even if only "in principle," the functionof representingany kind of "popular will." Instead, the institutionalassemblage whose "idea" is the state today serves to incorporateand neutralize any and all movementsof resistance, the This content downloaded from 152.3.102.242 on Sat, 31 Oct 2015 04:09:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 46 Marxism(s)and "TheWithering AwayoftheState" undertakingof this r61lebeing one of the necessary conditions for the realization of surplus value. This is not to imply that the institutional matrixwhich goes by the name of the state is a mere epiphenomenonor appendage of the processes of capitalist accumulation (as implied by Engels when he calls the statea "collective capitalist"). On the contrary, - inas several theoristsworkingwithina broadly marxistframework cluding Michel Aglietta,Alain Lipietz, Ernest Mandel, Neil Smith,and Carolyn M. Vogler- have indicated, the global economy comprises a numberof interrelatednational social formationswith uneven and even incompatiblenational modes of regulationensuing ultimatelyin disproportionate and asymmetricalconcentrationsof capital at the different national spaces.36 But even if it is undeniablethatsystemsof accumulation vary fromone national space to another,it is just as obvious that since the 1960s thecircuitsof capital have been progressivelyand inexorably internationalized.There may not be somethingquite so obvious as a single, universalworking-classof thekindidentifiedby Samir Amin in his earlierwritings,but thereis an integratedworld-capitalismcharacterized by the interpenetration of capital withintransnationalcorporations, the rise of an internationaldebt economy,the creationof an international division of labor, the introductionof flexiblemanufacturing systemsand labor processes, the exponentialgrowth(especially in the economies of the semi-peripheraland peripheralnations) of standardizedmarketsand patternsof consumption,and so forth. In the globally extendeddomainof late capital the institutionalassemblage thatis the state undertakesits integrativeand neutralizingr1le in a way thataccords withwhatPaul Virilio and othershave identifiedas the fundamentallaw of the state, namely, war and the fear of war (the productive organization of this fear being the state's primaryway of securing social integration).37The traditionalwielders of power have increasinglyto resortto dominationand war (particularlythepreparation for war) to halt the social revolutionthat is taking place, while their subjects, the carriersof this social revolution,have (in the "core" industrialnationsat any rate) moreand moreto further thisrevolutionthrough of and the stabilization, especially strategies strugglefor peace. The here a collective resistingsubject, always subject, deterritorializesthe domain of the state by organizing a new kind of social power which cannot be mobilized by war and the fear of war. The state elevates fear into the basic principlewhich underpinsall formsof humanassociation. Fear is mobilized by the state in the cause of the extractionof surplus value (the phenomenaof "militaryKeynesianism"and "the nationalsecuritystate").38The struggleforpeace is thus inextricablylinked to countervailing practices which have as their goal the elimination or the demobilizationof thosefearswhichmotivatethepreparationof war,be it nuclear war or the various modes of "low intensityconflict." This content downloaded from 152.3.102.242 on Sat, 31 Oct 2015 04:09:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Kenneth Surin 47 In this way the creation of a "post-bourgeois"civil society becomes possible forthe firsttime (which is not to implythatthis new society is necessarily more "proletarian,"that is, in the old-fashioned sense of "productivelabour"). It becomes possible to create thisnew civil society because in an integratedworld-capitalismwhichis essentially"paranational" in form,thereis no state, no "new" state,into which this different "heterotopic"socius can effectivelybe sublimated.There now exists the real possibility of devolving all the many and various functionsof the state to the apparatuses which it comprises, and thus to the different collective subjects who emerge,and are emerging,in the course of this decompositionof theinstitutionalassemblage thatis thestate.This "withering away of the state" provides social theorywiththe "imaginary"for "utopia" or "heterotopia," a "utopia/heterotopia" that is unfolding, thoughnotnecessarily"progressing"politically,in thecurrentsocial and culturalterrain.(This terrain,in the developed or overdeveloped nations at any rate, is one thathas in any case become typically"post-political" - to use a notion of Negri's and Virilio's). An approximationto this utopia, Negri pointsout, is itselfpromisedby the traditionalwielders of power: theyproffera peaceful society so technologicallyadvanced that classes will no longer exist and "liberal capitalism" or "the values of westernculture"will no longer have anythingleft to contest.39But it is not "advanced technology"and the accompanyingtalismanicinvocation of "western values" that will remedy a deformedsocial order- only thecoming ceaseless humaneffort,and in the end humantransfiguration, collective subjectivities,can accomplish into being of new and different this.40 The objection thatcan plausiblybe raised against theview of the state being canvassed here is thatit is too "optimistic,"thatit involves a gross over-estimationof the influenceand importanceof the new social movements,theirsocial agents,and an attendant"micro-politics."41 It is hard even to know where one should begin when addressingan objection of this kind. The respectiveavowals or disavowals of "optimism"are notoriously and invariablydependenton the particularstandpointsof those who happen to be the protagonistsin such controversies.Possibly the least unsatisfactory way we have of respondingto these chargesof "optimism" or "romanticism"is forus to indicatethattheanalysis of the state outlined in thispaper is irreducibly(thoughof course not merely)philosophical. And "philosophical" notso muchin themoreconventionalsense of being an assemblage of "a priori"principles,but in a way akin to the Kantian "synthetica priori." In this way, it can thenbe maintainedthat thisparticularnarrativeof "the witheringaway of the state" is notpredicated on a philosophyof the will, thatis, a philosophywhichaffirmsthe principle of an interiority(traditionallyunderstoodin termsof the will and its cognates, e.g., the soul or consciousness or whatever).With the This content downloaded from 152.3.102.242 on Sat, 31 Oct 2015 04:09:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 48 Marxism(s)and "TheWithering AwayoftheState" it is no longerpossibleto understand politirejectionof thisphilosophy, cal changein termsofa "bending"ofthewillorthegetting ofmanywills to act in whatever kindofconcert.It is perhapsnoteworthy thatNegriwho has morethanonce beenchargedwithbeingan unabashedvoluntarist- repudiatesan understanding of politicalchangepremisedon just sucha philosophy ofthewill.In an interview withAliceJardine andBrian Massumihe was askedabouthis "optimism" and gave an answerthatis worthquotingat length: "Optimismof reason, pessimismof the will" is directedpolemically against the traditionalposition of the Communistsof theThirdInternational: "pessimismof reason,optimismof thewill." What does that mean? It means thatfromthepointof view of relationsof forcereality cannot be changed, one cannot attack it, but that one can commit oneself to a cause in a totallyvoluntaristicway. The optimismof the will is will-power exercised against the dictates of reason. I have always considered this position blind, mystical,and unreasonable in theworstway. Inherentin thisconceptionis theidea thatifrealitycan be changed at all it is by a small minority, by an entirelysingularwill. I have seen thispessimismof reason and optimismof thewill in action in terrorism.All of theterrorists I have knownthought...thatonly an individual act that broke throughthe crust of reality could have a positive impact.... This practico-materialinertiaof the real presupposes the exceptional moment,the Blitz of reason, the Jetztof the momentof rupture.I see this as an internalizationof Leninism.... Along withthis comes an aristocraticattitudeand a definitionof the intellectual as one who is capable of voluntaristicallypointingthe way, as a Nietzschean intellectualcapable of breaking throughby forceof will....42 Thisdeleuzian"deconstruction" ofthephilosophy ofthewillendorsedby the an for alternative ofpolitics,one which Negripaves way philosophy the constitutive for such a force, acknowledges philosophy,of those irreducible elementswhichfeedintotheconstruction of (an alwayscolin lective)subjectivity: Negri'swords,"respect,sharingideas,thepossiofbuildingsomething These bilityofcontact,thepossibility together."43 newsubjectivities are theloci ofa multiplicity ofpowersand potentials, unlike those philosophieswhichbase themselveson the principleof - in thesephilosophies,a singularization or monologization interiority of the will is inevitablytakento be the enablingconditionof human transformation. Integralto thevery"idea" of thestateis a "logic" which whichgeneratesthis posits the stateas the set or unityof institutions In of the will. and thishomogemonologization manifesting legitimating nizing "logic," the modernstate had requiredall the processes of human transformation to be mediated by its apparatuses. It was thus radically even disenabling, "dystopian." The possibilityof creating new (collective) subjectivitiesis thereforethe mutualimplicateof the possibilityof undoing the effects of these mediations. The "imaginary" for a new This content downloaded from 152.3.102.242 on Sat, 31 Oct 2015 04:09:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions KennethSurin 49 I have soughtto sketchin thissectiongenerates "utopia/heterotopia" which facilitate the"mapping"ofthispossibility, resources just cognitive as theprogressiveundoingof themediationsof theapparatusesof the ofthis"imaginary."44 consolidatestheplausibility-structures statefurther It will be the task of a marxistsocial theory, bothnow and in the to "theorize"themoment of this"utopia/heterotopia" foreseeablefuture, all thatstandsagainstit.45This by (amongotherthings)defetishizing social theorywill thusbe one thatnamesthestateand its "idea" as the extensionoftheprocessesofaccumulation, and functional and fetishized in so doingwill registertheprocessesof its "withering away."For this analysishingesitselfon therealizationthatthesocial and theeconomic of courseone does not wantto bases of the state(thoughultimately thisdistinction) havebegunto crumble.One can saythatitis to maintain morethantwenty-five HenriLefebvre'simmense creditthathediscerned, of this the fora newkind yearsago, implications particular development ofsocialistpractice,one whosegoverning he calls principle "generalised self-management." Accordingto Lefebvre,the"withering away of the stratestate"makespossiblea socialismwhichis implemented through of and the confusion and disorder which gies "unceasingconfrontation, new of a the constitution of base network order; generatea organisations theinterests of thosegroupswhich ratherthanrepresenting presenting constitute 'thepeople'...."46 The "witheringaway of thestate"createsa fortheleft- it generates, on thisaccount,a conjuncture "counter-site" whichproducesnewsubjectswho,unlikesocialistsof previousgenerations,are not fatedthistimeto be positionedon the terrainof their notto proposea politics.It is, in so adversaries.To say thisis certainly faras it is anything thathas to do witha recognizablysocialistand marxist to indicatecertainstrategic politics,a smallattempt possibilities madeavailableto us in thepresenthistorical conjuncture.47 Notes 1. Nicos Poulantzas,State,Power,Socialism,trans.PatrickCamiller, (London:Verso,1978),p. 11. 2. AntonioNegri,"Joumeys civilsociety(In memory ofPeterBriickner)," inThePoliticsof through Subversion: A Manifesto FirstCentury (Cambridge: fortheTwenty PolityPress,1989),p. 170. 3. RaymondWilliams,Towards2000 (Harmondsworth: Penguin,1985),pp.268-9. 4. Ofthemanyhistorical accountsofthetransformations whichtookplaceatandsincetheendofthe MiddleAges,I havefoundthefollowing to be useful:FemandBraudel,Civilization and Capitalism, trans.Sin Reynolds,3 volumes,(New York:Harper& Row, 1981-4);Carlo M. 15th-18th Century, Cipolla,BeforetheIndustrialRevolution:EuropeanSocietyand Economy,1000-1700(New York: Norton, 1976);MichaelMann,TheSourcesofSocialPower,vol. 1,(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1986); JanetL. Abu-Lughod, BeforeEuropeanHegemony:The WorldSystem A.D. 1250-1350 Press,1989); and CharlesTilly,The FormationofNationStatesin (New York:OxfordUniversity Western NJ:Princeton Press,1975).A moreintroductory Europe(Princeton, University conspectusis to be foundin Gianfranco Poggi,TheDevelopment oftheModernState:A SociologicalIntroduction Stanford (Stanford: Press,1978),pp. 16-59. University 5. The matter ofperiodizing thesedevelopments andchangeshasalwaysbeenproblematic, andthere is no consensuson datingthe"origins"of theModemAge or therelatedemergenceof a capitalist linkedin someaccounts e.g. Braudel's withthe"rise (an emergence world-system inextricably oftheWest").Braudel(in Civilization and Capitalism, vol. 3, p. 92) arguesthat"thefirstworld-econcenturies." Immanuel omyeverto takeshapein Europe[arose]betweentheeleventhand thirteenth TheModernWorld-System, 3 vols.,(New York:AcademicPress,1974-1980),beginshis Wallerstein, narrative at 1450. MarshallBerman,inAll Thatis SolidMeltsintoAir:TheExperienceofModernity This content downloaded from 152.3.102.242 on Sat, 31 Oct 2015 04:09:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 50 Marxism(s) and "The WitheringAway of theState" at 1500.MichaelMann,in TheSourcesof ofmodemity (London:Verso,1983),locatesthebeginning - peasantcommunities, networks Social Power,statesthat"[by] 1477...localeconomic-power lordly settled andartisanguilds whosecompetition intothatsingle, towns,andmerchant manors, gradually weknowas capitalism... diffuse setofprivate-property into weredeveloping universal, powerrelations theirsimpler, A.D. 1000as thetime modemform"(p. 510). MannfollowsCarloCipollainidentifying inEurope.Fora briefer whenthisprocessofchangebegantobe initiated ofMann'sviews, presentation a Historical inJeanBaechler, JohnA. Hall see his"EuropeanDevelopment: Explanation," Approaching andMichaelMann,eds.,Europeand theRise ofCapitalism(Oxford:Blackwell,1988),pp. 6-19. Debateson thequestionof such"origins"arehoweverbedevilledby insurmountable terminological is right to suggestthatarguments andinmyviewJanetAbu-Lughod about andconceptualdifferences, See thebeginnings of"modem"capitalismorthe"modemworld(economic)system"are"fruitless." in anycase advancestheinteresting herBeforeEuropeanHegemony, argument pp. 8-9. Abu-Lughod andthirteenth was onlyone ofa number centuries thatEuropeinthetwelfth ofworld-economies, "an intotheRed thatstretched toanongoing...worldsystem... theMediterranean through upstart peripheral theStrait[sic] of Malacca to reach Sea and PersianGulfand on intotheIndianOcean and through China"(p. 12). thesignificance oftheriseoftheEuropeancitiesinthelatemedieval 6. Hegel,forone,acknowledged on a basisofcivillaw [Recht] periodwhenhe saidthattheywereplaces"wherea socialorganization ofprincesandfeudallords."See hisThe as powersreacting was firstresuscitated, againsttheauthority trans.J.Sibree,(New York:Dover,1956),p. 387. Translation altered. slightly PhilosophyofHistory, notedbyHegelinthispassagewasaccompanied The expropriation oflegalpowerfromthearistocracy andSean ofthenatureofstatute. As PhilipCorrigan changeinunderstandings byan equallyprofound withtheTudorRevolution ofthe1530s): Sayer,citingtheworkofG.R. Elton,havenoted(inconnection conservative "themedievalconception oflaw hadingeneralbeena highly anddivine, one;laws,natural aboutthe1530swas thenotionthatParliaments make were"disclosed."Whatwas so revolutionary cannotdo, even in spherespreviously laws, and on earththereis nothingan Act of Parliament See Corrigan andSayer,TheGreatArch:EnglishState considered theprovinceofspiritual authority." as CulturalRevolution Formation (Oxford:Blackwell,1985),p. 53. The workinquestionbyEltonis 2nded., 1974). EnglandundertheTudors(London:Methuen, because"he"- thissubjectis typically 7. This"modem"subjectis "self-defining" white/male/hetof thecosmicordersponsoredby themedievalChristian erosexual- is now definedindependently to so have be defined for Kant is an obvious of his implication ecumene.Thatthissubjectwould as "man'sreleasefromhis self-incurred of"Enlightenment" characterization tutelage"andhisdefinitomakeuseofhisunderstanding without direction as "man'sinability fromanother." tionof"tutelage" in LewisWhiteBeck,ed. andtrans., Kanton History See InmanuelKant,"Whatis Enlightenment?," 1963),p. 3. (New York:Bobbs-Merrill, 8. This is clearfromthefollowing passageintheContratSocial: The passagefromthestateofnaturetocivilsocietyproducesa veryremarkable change in his conduct,and givinghis actionsthe in man,by substituting justiceforinstinct when had lacked. Then the voice of takes the only, duty morality they formerly place of physicalimpulsesand rightof appetite,does man,who so farhad consideredonly and to consulthis reason findthathe is forcedto act on different himself, principles, tohisinclinations.... beforelistening We might,overand above all this,add, to whatmanacquiresin civil society,moral freedom,whichalone makeshimtrulymasterof himself;forthemereimpulseof toourselvesis freedom. whileobediencetoa lawwhichweprescribe appetiteis slavery, andDiscourses,trans.G.D.H. Cole,(London:Dent, See JeanJacquesRousseau,TheSocial Contract Translation altered. 1913),1,8, (pp. 15-16oftheCole translation). slightly 9. TheSocial ContractI, 8, p. 16 oftheCole translation. ofHumanHistory," trans.EmilL. Fackenheim, 10.ImmanuelKant,"Conjectural inLewis Beginning betweencultureandnatureis WhiteBeck,ed.,Kanton History, pp. 53-68.Kantsaysthattheconflict and intractably mostevidently positedin Rousseau'sOn theArtsand Sciencesand On theOriginof toresolveitis madeintheContratSocial andEmile.The whereasa moredetermined effort Inequality, resolution byRousseau'sownadmission, simple:sincemoraleducation, proposedbyKantis relatively thisconflictwillbe abolishedonlywhencultureitself takesplace in thedomainof society/culture, moralendofthehumanspecies" becomes"a secondnature"- this,saysKant,"indeedis theultimate (p. 63). ofHumanHistory," ofthestateofnatureis that 11. "Conjectural Beginning p. 68. Kant'sestimation ofall thenatural whileit"didholdupthedevelopment finally capacitiesofhumanbeings,itnonetheless theevils in whichit involvedthem,to leave thisstateand enterintoa civil forcedthem,through would be See a in whichall theirdormant his "Idea for Universal constitution capacities developed." HistoryWitha Cosmopolitan Purpose,"in Hans Reiss,ed., and H.B. Nisbet,trans.,Kant'sPolitical ofthestateofnature Press,1970),p. 49. Kant'sdepiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Writings is compatiblewiththefirstthreeof thefourstagesidentified byRousseauin thespeculative(by his ofthehumanspeciessketchedin hisDiscourseon theOrigin ownadmission)developmental history betweenKantandRousseauemergesmostclearlyinrelation tothefourth Thedifference ofInequality. This content downloaded from 152.3.102.242 on Sat, 31 Oct 2015 04:09:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Surin Kenneth 51 inadvancedcivilsociety, Rousseaumaintains, forRousseau)stageofthishistory: (and current, gross existand humanbeingshavetotoilina stateofunrelieved misery. inequalities betweenRousseauand Kant one shouldnotoverlooktheirobvious In mentioning the differences as pointedoutby Hegel in thesectionon Rousseauin his Lectureson thePhilosophyof affinities, Press,1955),vol. 3, pp. History,trans.E.S. Haldaneand FrancesH. Simson,(New York:Humanities arelucidlyenumerated in AndrzejRapaczynski'sotherwise 400-402.Theseaffinities and differences Natureand Politics:Liberalismin thePhilosophiesof Hobbes,Locke,and Rousseau problematic Press,1987),pp. 239-48. (IthacaandLondon:ComellUniversity thisoutlineofthemodifications introduced 12. Inpresenting byKanttoRousseau's"project"I follow TheOriginsofModernSocial TheoryFromKanttoHegel to JohnF. Rundell,OriginsofModernity: Marx(Madison,Wisconsin:University ofWisconsinPress,1987),pp. 14ff.As willbe indicated later, however,I cannotfullyacceptRundell'sclaim that"Kant ends Rousseau's ambiguousnotionof of Kant's"formalism" freedom"(p. 14): it couldbe arguedthatHegel's repudiation involvesat least to a "half-(re)tum" to Rousseau,and to theextentthatHegel's critiqueof something approximating Kantis probative, Rousseau'saccountoffreedom mustat leastinpartbe preferred toKant's. 13.On this,seeGillesDeleuze,Kant'sCriticalPhilosophy: TheDoctrineoftheFaculties,trans.Hugh ofMinnesotaPress,1984),p. 32. TomlinsonandBarbaraHabberjam, (Minneapolis:University 14. To quotefromHegel'sLectureson theHistoryofPhilosophy, vol. 3, pp.460-61: ... [Kantian]freedom is...onlythenegative ofeverything else;nobond,nothing external, Itis tothisextent itis theidentity ofthewill indeterminate; laysmeunderan obligation. withinitself, itsat-homeness withitself.Butwhatis thecontent ofthislaw? Herewe at Forthesoleformofthisprinciple is nothing more oncecomebacktothelackofcontent. orless thanagreement withitself, theformal oflegislation inthis universality; principle solitudecomesto no determination.... internal The universal, thenon-contradiction of whichcomestobe realityinthepracticalspherejust content, self,is without something as littleas inthetheoretical.... Thus forthe determination of duty...Kant has contributed nothingbutthe formof whichis thelaw ofabstract Thisis thedefectintheprinciple identity, Understanding.... of Kantand Fichte,thatitis reallyformal;chilldutyis thefinalundigested lumpleft withinthestomach, therevelation givento Reason. For Habermas'ssimilarcritiqueof Kant,see "Labor and Interaction: Remarkson Hegel's Jena JohnViertel, andPractice,trans. (Boston:BeaconPress,pp. 142-69. Philosophy ofMind,"inhisTheory toexplaintheir forhumans HabermasrepeatsHegel'schargethatKant'sconcessionthatitis impossible interest inknowledgeor morality arenotthemselves effectively impliesthatthecanonsofrationality defensible. rationally 15. WhileKantmakesthemoralcommunity coextensive withhumanity in general,Rousseau,like arealwaysbounded:suchcommunities are alwaysconstituted Hegel,insiststhatmoralcommunities andbylawsand institutions whichgoverntheserelationships. by specificassociationsand affiliations See theFirstVersionoftheSocial Contract, also titledGenevaManuscript, in R.D. Masters,ed.,On theSocial Contract(New York:St. Martin'sPress,1978),pp. 161-62.For Hegel's criticism of the natureofKant'sphilosophy, abstract see hisNaturalLaw: TheScientific essentially WayofTreating NaturalLaw,Its Place in MoralPhilosophy, and ItsRelationto thePositiveSciencesofLaw, trans. T.M. Knox,(noplaceofpublication: ofPennsylvania Press,1975),p.70 andp. 83. Themost University assessment ofHegel's critiqueof KantremainsLukaics'sTheYoungHegel: Studiesin the significant RelationsbetweenDialecticsand Economics,trans.RodneyLivingstone, Mass.: MIT (Cambridge, Press,1976).See especiallypp. 146-67. 16.SeylaBenhabib, Norm,and Utopia:A StudyoftheFoundations Critique, ofCriticalTheory(New York:ColumbiaUniversity Press,1986),pp.279ff. 17. GillianRose,Hegel contraSociology(London:AthlonePress,1981). 18. On thisaspectof Weber'srelationto theHegeliantradition, see HarryLiebersohn, Fate and Mass.: MIT Press,1988),esp. pp. 78-125;and Utopiain GermanSociology,1870-1923(Cambridge, LawrenceA. Scaff,FleeingtheIronCage: Culture,Politics,and Modernity in theThought ofMax Weber(Los AngelesandBerkeley:University ofCalifornia Press,1989),p. 56. 19. In characterizing I am not intending to underwrite an Maclntyre'stheodicyas a mythology of"myth" whichdeniesto itanysignificant heuristic value.On thecontrary, Enlightenment conception I endorsePaul Virilio'scontention that"myths havean analytical capacitythatcannotbe denied."For Pure War,trans.MarkPolizzotti,(New York:Semiotext(e), this,see Virilioand SylvereLotringer, 11. evasions are noted in FredricJameson, 1983), p. Maclntyre's political "MoralityversusEthical MarxisminAlasdairMaclntyre substance;or,Aristotelian (1983-84),"inhiscollectionofessays,The 1971-1986 of (Volume1. Situations IdeologiesofTheory:Essays ofTheory)(Minneapolis:University MinnesotaPress,1988),pp. 181-5;andSabinaLovibond,"Feminismand Postmodemism," NewLeft #178 5-28. Review, (1989), pp. 20. Neo-Kantianisms arealso characterized butitis byan equallyproblematic practicalimmobility, no means of Habermasand(as I haveindicated in note19 above) certainthatthecounter-proposals by Maclntyre are themselves entirely freeofthisparticular difficulty. Seyla Benhabib,forinstance, has ethicsina practical direction soughttoextendHabernnas's projectofa communicative by represented This content downloaded from 152.3.102.242 on Sat, 31 Oct 2015 04:09:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 52 Marxism(s)and "TheWithering AwayoftheState" communities ofsolidarity. See herCritique, Norm,and Utopia,pp.279ff.SabinaLovibond, "concrete" andPostmodemism" inher"Feminism to"thereactionary (citedinnote19 above),hasdrawnattention ethics"madeby MacIntyre. See also theessayby of theproposedretumto customary implications FredricJamesoncitedinthesamenote. accountremainstobe givenoftheseveralsignificant A fullerhistorical to go (neo-Hegelian) attempts less-flawed characterizations of civilsociety.Theseendeavorsinvolve "beyond"Hegelbyproviding turn.ThusLukics,inhisnotesfora projected bookon whatcan bestbe describedas a "theological" contrasted theGermanideaofthesolitary soulinan immediate relation to God Dostoevsky, explicitly ofthesoulas a constituent in an isolatedworldwiththeRussianidea (whichLukicsvastlypreferred) ofa divinelyordainedcommunity. On this,see Liebersohn, Fate and UtopiainGermanSociology,p. 186. And,as HelmutPeukertandothershavepointedout,Habermas'sethicofa universalcommunistultifies itselfifitpositsas thisethic'ssubjectsonlythosewhoareliving:solidarity cativesolidarity thatis, if,in themannerfigured is universalonlywhenit is "anamnestic," by WalterBenjamin,it is andlongedforthebetter whichencompassesall thedead whohavestriven future. On this, solidarity see HelmutPeukert, Science,Action,andFundamental Theology:Towarda Theology ofCommunicativeAction,trans.JamesBohman,(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,1984).Benjaminand Bloch areof inthis"theological" turn. courseotherrepresentative figures of Hegel is opento question.JamesSchmidthas argued 21. I am wellawarethatthisinterpretation thatHegel'suse of theterm"civilsociety"has no parallelamongearlierusagesof itanditscognates. als Bourgeois":TheConceptof"CivilSociety"inHegel'sPolitical See his"A Paideia forthe"Biirger 2(1981),pp. 469-93.SchmidtclaimsthatHegel'sdiscussions Thought," HistoryofPoliticalThought, of itssocialcontradictions to providea resolution ofcivil societyarenotreallyintended (as has been theplaceofa contemporary Christian Hegelis seekingto determine arguedhere);rather, pedagogyin similarargument has beenmadeby a societybased on theprincipleof market exchange.A roughly LaurenceDickeyinhismagisterial Hegel: Religion,Economics,and thePoliticsofSpirit,1770-1807 Press,1987).The readingof Hegelcanvassedin thispaperis not (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity in opposition to theviewsofSchmidtand Dickey.My specificclaimis thatHegelis part necessarily of social theoryextending fromRousseauto Habermaswhichhas as one of its of a wholetradition contradictions of bourgeoiscivil society.A muchmore principaltopoithequestionof theinternal cameintoconflict with versionofthisclaimwouldhavetobe advancedbeforemyargument forceful ofSchmidtandDickey. theformulations ofPeterBriickner)," civilsociety(Inmemory "State 22. ForNegri,see inparticular through "Joumeys and "Somenotesconcerning theconceptofthe'nuclear and class in thephaseof realsubsumption," withNegri,"Copyright #1(1988), state',"inThePoliticsofSubversion, pp. 169-99.See also"Interview theneedto distinguish betweenthestateas an "idea" pp. 74-89.The late PhilipAbramshas stressed forhimthestatedoesnotexistinthelattersense).See his"Noteson the and as a "real"object(though theState(1977),"JournalofHistoricalSociology,1(1988),pp. 58-89.I shall ofStudying Difficulty to somethemesbroachedbyAbramslaterinthispaper. return inhischaracterization ofcivilsociety, oftheHegelianaffinities 23. ForGramsci'sacknowledgement see theQuadernidel Carcere,Felice Platone,ed., volume6 (Passato e presente),(Turin:Einaudi, 1951),p. 164. thegrowingstateincorporation 24. Thoughtobe fair,Gramscidid ina senseacknowledge ofcivil fromPrison societyin modemtimes.See especiallytheessay"StateandCivilSociety"inSelections NowellSmith,ed. andtrans., HoareandGeoffrey Notebooks, (London:LawrenceandWishart, Quintin 1971),pp. 210-76.See in particular pp. 262ff.ButGramscialwaysinsistedthatcivilsocietyenjoysa ofthestate,theformer of"hegemony" and thelatterthat constitutive beingtheterrain independence inSelections of"directdomination" or"force."See his"TheIntellectuals," fromPrisonNotebooks, pp. 5-23. See especiallyp. 12. But see also "Stateand Civil Society,"whereit is assertedthat..."civil state See also 239 and The thrust of is "State" indeed is the itself' 261. 160, too, 263). society... pp. (p. mustnow be hereis thatany assertion,howeverqualified,of this"independence" my argument of Gramsci's For finediscussions,to whichI am indebted, regardedas hopelesslyproblematic. treatment ofthedistinction betweentheideologicalsuperstructure (i.e. civilsociety)andthestate(i.e. and Consciousness, Hegemony, "politicalsociety"),see JosephV.Femia,Gramsci'sPoliticalThought: Process(Oxford:OxfordUniversity theRevolutionary Press,1987),pp. 24-129;andBob Jessop,The Press, CapitalistState:MarxistTheoriesand Methods(New Yorkand London:New YorkUniversity 1982),pp. 142-52. ofcivilsocietywiththeeconomic"base,"seetheclaim,madeexplicitly 25. ForMarx'sidentification in Marx's in regardto Hegel,that"theanatomyofcivilsocietyis to be soughtinpoliticaleconomy," Prefaceto A Critiqueof PoliticalEconomy,in David McLellan,ed., Karl Marx: SelectedWritings Press,1977),p. 389. See also TheGermanIdeologyinMarxand Engels: (Oxford:OxfordUniversity CollectedWorks, vol. 5, (New York:International Publishers, 1976),whereMarxsaysthat"theform determined forcesat all previoushistorical of intercourse bytheexisting stages,and in its productive turndetermining these,is civilsociety"(p. 50), andalsothat"civilsocietyembracesthewholematerial withina definite ofproductive forces"(p. 89). ofindividuals intercourse stageofthedevelopment 26. "Stateandclassinthephaseofrealsubsumption," ThePoliticsofSubversion, p. 178.Inaccepting inthelatestphaseintherecomposition ofcapital, ofworkers' struggles Negri'sstresson thecentrality to the multipleand complex I am at the same timeaware of his failureto attendsufficiently This content downloaded from 152.3.102.242 on Sat, 31 Oct 2015 04:09:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions KennethSurin 53 thesestruggles. determinations Thispointis wellmadeinJamesO'Connor,Accumulation underpinning Crisis(Oxford:Blackwell,1984),pp.7-8. ThePoliticsofSubversion, 27. "Stateandclass inthephaseofrealsubsumption," p. 178. 28. Nicos Poulantzasprovideswhatis perhapsthemostsustained critiqueofboththesepositionson thestate.See inparticular hisState,Power,Socialism,trans.PatrickCamiller,(London:Verso,1980). and PoliticalStrategy See also Bob Jessop'simportant (New studyNicosPoulantzas:MarxistTheory York:St. Martin'sPress,1985).See especiallypp. 336ff. 29. HereI followtheaccountgivenbyPoulantzasinState,Power,Socialismandelaborated byJessop viewofthestateis directly withtheone inthestudycitedinnote28 above.ThisPoulantzian congruent of For this see the so-called school" claim, RobertBoyer, "regulation politicaleconomy. espousedby trans.CraigChamey,(New York:ColumbiaUniversity TheRegulation School:A CriticalIntroduction, An indebted to the of 92ff. the economicconditions Press,1990),pp. account, school," "regulation associatedwiththe rise of "postmodemity" is to be foundin David Harvey,The Conditionof An Enquiryintothe Originsof CulturalChange (Oxford:Blackwell,1989). See Postmodernity: especiallypp. 121ff. doesnotmakeconflicts 30. As AlainLipietzputsit:"Thestate,as a terrain ofstruggle, but disappear, so thatindividuals and classesdo not thehegemonicconfiguration of social relations, it does protect on a Tale: The MarxistFoundations of consumethemselves in endlessstruggle." See his"Reflections theConceptsof Regulationand Accumulation," trans.JaneJensonand MargieMendell,Studiesin onthetopicofthestateas a "terrain PoliticalEconomy26 (1988),p. 18.Thereis a sustained reflection of struggle"in RaymondWilliams,Towards2000, pp. 177-217. Williamswas of course much influenced byPoulantzas. 31. It is difficult to makethispointanybetterthanthelate PhilipAbrams:"The stateis at mosta - an ideologicalartefact and independence to the messageof domination attributing unity, morality ofthepracticeofgovernment." amoralanddependent See his "The Difficulty of disunited, workings theState,"p. 81. The claimthatthestateis no morethan"an idea" holdstrueof thestatein Studying all itshistorical and geopoliticalvariants itdoes notrelyforitsplausibility on anyspecifictheses ofthispaperthat However,it is assumption concemingthedifferent phasesofcapitalist development. thelatest,"paranational," stageof capitalistaccumulation generates, perhapsforthefirsttime,the conditions whichitpossibileto namethis"idea" forwhatit is andthusto accountforits"material" effectiveness. 32. Thevisionoftherevolutionary bythisaccountis morecomplexandmulti-facprocesssuggested etedthanthatpromoted marxistaccounts.Carl Boggs has rightly notedthatthe by moretraditional Gramscian"project"mustmove froma construalof "hegemony"and "counter-hegemony" which and axiologicalproperties of social movements to one privilegesthe morepurelyepistemological which,alongthelinesdescribed Williams,emphasizeswhatWilliamsterms"livedsocial byRaymond relations." Boggssaysthat"Gramsciglimpsedthegeneraloutlinesofthisproblembutlittleelse."See Marxism(Boston:SouthEnd Boggs,The TwoRevolutions:Gramsciand theDilemmasof Western modelis to be foundin Press,1984),p. 284. Williams'sseminalcritiqueofthe"base-superstructure" "Base and Superstructure in MarxistCulturalTheory,"in Problemsin Materialismand Culture (London:Verso,1980),pp. 31-49. 33. Fortheinterpretation of theRousseauian"stateofnature"as a realmof transparency, see Jean Rousseau:Transparency and Obstruction, trans.Arthur Starobinski, Goldhammer, Jean-Jacques (LondonandChicago:University ofChicagoPress,1988),see especiallypp. 25-6. 34. The "fall"ofcivilsocietyis an intrinsic "thewithering partofthegeneralprocessI havetermed away of the state."The end of bourgeoiscivil societyalso deprivessociology- thetheoryof the resolution oftheintemalcontradictions ofcivilsociety,i.e. thatwholetradition whichextendsfrom RousseauandKantvia HegelandMarxto Habermas- ofa rationale foritsexistence. 35. It is howeverinteresting to notethatBorisKagarlitsky believestheSovietUniontodayto be confronted withonlytwogenuine"choices":eitherthecontinuation ofbureaucracy orthecreationof a civilsociety(in Kagarlitsky's case onethatwillcertainly be "non-bourgeois"). See his"Perestroika: The DialecticofChange,"in MaryKaldor,GerardHoldenandRichardFalk,eds.,TheNewDetente: East-West Relations(London;Verso,1989),pp. 323-50.See especiallyp. 349. Rethinking 36. My formulation hereis infactmostaccordant withthepositionofthe"regulation school."See MichelAglietta, "WorldCapitalismintheEighties," NewLeftReview#136(1982),pp.5-42;andAlain NewLeftReview#132(1982),pp.33-47.Forotheraccounts,see Lipietz,"TowardsGlobalFordism?," EmestMandel,Late Capitalism,trans.JorisDe Bres,(London:Verso,1978); Neil Smith,Uneven Nature,Capitaland theProduction Development: ofSpace (Oxford:Blackwell,1984); and Carolyn M. Vogler,TheNationState: TheNeglectedDimensionof Class (Aldershot: Gower,1985). Robert whenhe saysthatthesameinternational economicmeasure Boyerthusstatesa virtualcommonplace ordevelopment has a variableimpactdepending inevitably uponthenationalspacein question:..."the sameintemational disturbance (anoilpriceincrese, rates,etc.)hasdifferent risinginterest consequences in France,Germany, theUnitedStatesandJapan,or amongoil producers and oil importers." See his TheRegulationSchool,p. 70. The crucialquestion,on whichthereis certainly no unanimity between thesewriters, is howevertheoneofcausality:is integrated "a function oftheuniversal world-capitalism ofthelawunequalandcombined (as is claimedinMandel,p. 23), oris itinstead validity development" thecase thatunequaldevelopment is a function oftheglobally-integrated character of latecapitalism This content downloaded from 152.3.102.242 on Sat, 31 Oct 2015 04:09:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 54 Marxism(s)and "TheWithering AwayoftheState" whichis morecongruent withtheviewsoftheother (as is claimedinSmith,p. 98)? Thelatterposition, moreplausible. writers mentioned inthisnote,appearstobe somewhat 37. On theimportance of warandthefearof waras a mechanism forsecuringsocial integration in thepresentday state,see RaymondWilliams,Towards2000, pp. 218-40; and Negri,"Some notes theconceptofthe'nuclearstate',"ThePoliticsofSubversion, concerning pp. 191-99.Butabove all, see Paul Virilio,L'Insecurit6 du territoire (Paris:Stock,1976);L'Esthetiquede la disparition (Paris: Ballard, 1981); Speed and Politics:an Essay on Dromology,trans.Mark Polizzotti,(New York: and trans. Mark Polizotti,(New York: Semiotext(e),1986); PopularDefense Ecological Struggles, trans.PatrickCamiller,(London: Semiotext(e),1990); Warand Cinema:TheLogisticsofPerception, PureWar. Verso,1989); andVirilioand SylvereLotringer, see AlainLipietz,"The Debt Problem,EuropeanIntegration 38. On "military and Keynesianism," theNew Phase ofWorldCrisis,"NewLeftReview#178(1989),pp. 37-50.On "thenationalsecurity Crisis,pp. 188ff. state,"see JamesO'Connor,Accumulation civilsociety," ThePoliticsofSubversion, 39. Negri,"Journeys through pp. 175-6. 40. NegrihasbeenaccusedbyAlainLipietz,andlessdirectly byAsorRosa,of"a headlongvoluntarist Creditand theWorld flightintothefuture"(Lipietz).See Lipietz,TheEnchantedWorld:Inflation, Crisis,trans.Ian Patterson, (London:Verso,1985),p. 141. Rosa objectsto whathe regardsas the and unproductive formsof rebellionpromoted likeNegri.See hisLe Due gratuitous by intellectuals toRobertLumley, StatesofEmergency: Societd(Turin,1977).I amindebted Cultures ofRevoltinItaly and a helpfuldiscussion. from1968 to 1978 (London:Verso,1990),pp. 308ff.,forthisreference ofNegriin Umberto Eco, inhisromana clef,TheNameoftheRose,providesan allegoricaldepiction thefigureof thefanaticalBrotherMichael,a renegadeFranciscanwhogoes to thestakefortaking andpenance.I shallarguesubsequently theteachings ofSaintFrancison poverty thatthese "literally" includesanyonewhosharesa number ofhisviewsto Negri- andthisbyimplication imputations aregroundless. of a Sorelian"voluntarism" 41. ThusevenRobertLumley,in hisjudiciousassessment of NegriandtheAutonomia movement, thenewsocialactors."See Lumley,StatesofEmergency, saysthatthey"wereproneto romanticize p. 309. andBrianMassumi),"Interview," 74-5. 42. ToniNegri(withAliceJardine #1(1988),pp. Copyright andperhapssurprising 43. Negri,"Interview," herebetweenNegri's affinity p. 75.Thereis a profound ofreason"andRaymondWilliams'srepeatedclaimthatthere ofthebasisforan "optimism delineation forthewholepositivehumanreference," andthat"a desiretoknowwhatis bestand is "no substitute do whatis good, is thewholepositivenatureof man [sic]." See Williams's1958 essay"Cultureis inResourcesofHope (London:Verso,1989),pp. 6-7. In thesameessayWilliamsclaims Ordinary," mutualobligation, thattheworking-class andcommon wayoflife,..."itsemphasesofneighbourhood, as expressedin thegreatworking-class is in factthe betterment, institutions, politicaland industrial bestbasisforanyfuture Englishsociety"(p. 8). 44. Here I invokethenotionof "cognitivemapping"as outlinedin FredricJameson, "Cognitive eds.,Marxismand theInterpretation ofCulture Mapping,"in CaryNelsonand LawrenceGrossberg, of Illinois 347-57. and Press,1988)pp. (Urbana Chicago:University between"utopia"and"heterotoFoucault'sdistinction 45. I haveso farabstainedfromunderwriting fora sitethatis, in his words,"fundamentally pia" -"utopia" beingforFoucaultthedesignation a "realsite"thatis thespaceofaneffective offorces. contestation unreal,"while"heterotopia" signifies On this,see Foucault,"Of OtherSpaces,"Diacritics16 (1986), pp. 22-7.Although nothing compels is howeverslightly thenotionof"heterotopia" morecongruent withthe me toendorsethisdistinction, in this lineofthought essay. pursued 46. See HenriLefebvre,TheSurvivalofCapitalism:Reproduction oftheRelationsofProduction, trans.FrankBryant, (London:Alison& Busby,1976),pp. 125. toFredricJameson forhiscriticisms ofan ancestor ofthispaper. 47. I am indebted This content downloaded from 152.3.102.242 on Sat, 31 Oct 2015 04:09:29 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions