Published Spring 2006
 
Moving On
(on Philip Goldstein, Post-Marxist Theory: An Introduction
[SUNY P, 2005])
Phil Goldstein's book Post-Marxist Theory not only introduces the
work of many leading theorists today, but also outlines the major
philosophical and political faultlines that separate them. Moreover,
Goldstein does not limit himself to the realm of political philosophy,
but also considers aesthetics and the current status of cultural
studies. In short, Post-Marxist Theory is a comprehensive attempt
to delineate the contours of contemporary leftist thought in philosophy,
politics, and culture.
This ambitious scope poses two major methodological challenges.
For one, there is the danger of folding the complexity and internal
tensions that exist within the work of a particular author into
to a single, overall thesis or a series of unambiguous statements
to make the ideas more manageable. Goldstein's book doesn't succumb
to this danger. He is always careful to distinguish between the
different phases and contexts of Foucault's materialism, Althusser's
distinction between science and ideology, or Laclau's and Mouffe's
notion of hegemony. Goldstein's own writing demonstrates the degree
to which post-Marxist theory still holds fast to a materialist approach
of reading that emphasizes the historical dimension of abstract
thought. Goldstein also steers clear of the opposite problem that
haunts many comprehensive overviews of contemporary theory, namely
the lack of a clear perspective. He advocates a Foucaultian inspired,
institutional form of post-Marxism as the most promising avenue
for leftist politics today.
In his introduction, Goldstein elaborates four "difficulties of
traditional Marxism": first, its economic reductionism, which reduces
"ideas" to a passive mirror of socio-economic history; second, its
apologetic stance vis-à-vis the Stalinist dictatorship, which is
grounded in the rationalist-scientific ideals Marx inherited from
the Western Enlightenment tradition; third, its humanist belief
in a unified or autonomous "self" (albeit conceived in the form
of a proletarian "class"); and, finally, traditional Marxism's inability
to come to terms with "the autonomy of the disciplines," (17) which
is evident in both contemporary academic discourse and socio-political
institutions. This last point in particular is crucial for Goldstein's
project, allowing him to move from traditional Marxism to various
post-Marxist theories, all of which acknowledge the (post-)modern
diversification of social spheres as well as the irreducible multiplicity
of social struggles in contemporary Western societies.
Throughout the book, Goldstein carefully notes and rejects the
well-known objections mounted by proponents of traditional Marxism.
Among them we find Terry Carver's point that it was Engels rather
than Marx who promoted dialectics as the overriding principle of
Marxist theory. Or Richard Mardsen's and Etienne Balibar's clarification
that neither Marx nor Engels ever referred to "dialectical materialism,"
a doctrine that originated in Joseph Dietzgen's work and became
officially recognized by Lenin and Stalin in the late 20s and early
30s. Or, finally, the general contention that, after all, traditional
Marxism still provides the most powerful conceptual framework to
explore the interrelation between action and reflection today. Goldstein
rightly insists that such "defenses of 'Marxist foundations' accommodate
the totalitarian critique of Marx or ignore or deny it as well as
the independence of disciplinary knowledge and of modern social
movements" (21). In other words, one might say that traditional
Marxists are willing to adjust some of their minor points, but not
to reconsider their overall conceptual framework.
Fredric Jameson's work over the last fifteen years is a case in
point. Although Goldstein is quick to emphasize that Jameson is
certainly not "a blind dogmatist," he points to Jameson's resistance
to post-Marxist theory and his continued adherence to "Marxism's
traditional doctrines, including a 'complex' distinction of base/superstructure,
objective accounts of class contexts, systematic practices of revolutionary
change, the global economy as late capitalism's totality, and the
Frankfurt School's critique of commodity fetishism" (8). When it
comes to theory, Marxists like Fredric Jameson or Terry Eagleton
turn out to be careful reformers, not bold revolutionaries. Thus,
whereas Marxists often pride themselves on their refusal to make
basic epistemological concessions, Goldstein rightly criticizes
this refusal as a form of obfuscation that fails the obvious challenges
facing leftist political theory today.
Post-Marxists respond to these challenges. Goldstein distinguishes
between two basic groups: those who "preserve the normative force
of Freudian, Hegelian, or critical theory and justify thereby the
radically democratic articulations… of oppositional or independent
movements," and those who "emphasize the socio-historical contexts
of modern discursive practices, not the ideals of theoretical critique"
(21). Among the former, Goldstein includes Ernesto Laclau, Chantal
Mouffe, Jacques Derrida, and John Frow; among the latter, he counts
the later works of Pierre Macherey as well as those of Tony Bennet
and Toby Miller. The first group pursues a philosophically inspired
normative critique (what Goldstein also calls a "Hegelian," "speculative,"
or "theoretical" post-Marxism), the second an institutionally-oriented
political practice (or a "Foucaultian," "socio-historical," or "antitheoretical"
approach). In other words, Goldstein aligns contemporary post-Marxist
thinkers along a philosophical axis defined at one end by the Hegelian
legacy (dialectical thinking, humanism, a teleological view of history,
and normative modes of critique) and at the other by the Foucaultian
legacy (genealogical thinking, anti-humanism, epistemic ruptures,
and institutional activism). The strength of this model is its ability
to register the conflicting impulses that characterized Marx's own
work as well as that of many Marxists today, some of whom are closer
to the young Hegelian Marx (Jameson), while others move toward the
later, functionalist Marx (Martin). There also emerges during the
course of Goldstein's book a third group of intermediate figures
who partake of both Hegelian and Foucaultian modes of critique (such
as Judith Butler) or who move in between traditional Marxism and
post-Marxism (thinkers like Slavoj Zizek, Michael Hardt, and Antonio
Negri).
The various differences between these thinkers are most apparent
with regard to the intellectual engine that powers Marxist discourse,
namely dialectics. Whereas traditional Marxists like Jameson still
proclaim "the persistence of the dialectic," post-Marxism moves
away from this Hegelian-Marxist-Adornian legacy toward a decidedly
un-dialectical notion of history. The latter can take on different
forms and be evoked through various names: "Empire" and "Multitude"
in the work of Hardt and Negri, "Hegemony" and "Populism" as developed
by Laclau, or Slavoj Zizek's idiosyncratic version of a Lacanian-inflected,
postmodern Hegel whose dialectics was allegedly sustained by a fundamental
lack from the very beginning. Regardless of these differences, what
matters is the post-Marxist refusal to think (social) totality along
the dialectical inside-outside model. Rather, they define (social)
totality either as a "negative" or "failed" transcendentalism that
consists of a discursive structure centered around a constitutive
void (Zizek, Laclau) or as a form of pure immanence sustained by
a bio-political plentitude that lacks lack (Agamben, Hardt and Negri).
Either model, however, is constituted by and constitutive of numerous
paradoxes no dialectics could ever dissolve. Indeed, according to
post-Marxist critics, the social Whole can only be thought in and
as paradox, and we cannot predict how this paradox will unravel
and what (social, political, economic, or cultural) effects it will
produce in the future.
Goldstein anchors his discussion of post-Marxism in a comparative
analysis of Althusser and Foucault that resurfaces again and again
throughout the book. Indeed, their work serves him to accomplish
two tasks: first, to distinguish post-Marxism from traditional Marxist
theory, and second, to define the two basic post-Marxist camps,
those who continue the Hegelian legacy of critical thinking and
those who emphasize a practical, institution-oriented approach.
In order for Althusser and Foucault to serve this dual function,
Goldstein oscillates between two kinds of reading. The first of
these emphasizes the similarities between Althusser's and Foucault's
post-Marxist tendencies, allowing Goldstein to distinguish both from traditional Marxist discourse. The second emphasizes the irreducible
differences between Althusser and Foucault to justify Goldstein's
ultimate preference for a Foucaultian inspired discursive practice
as opposed to Althusser's more theoretically-oriented mode of critique.
With regard to the similarities, Goldstein notes that both Althusser
and Foucault disavowed Marxist humanism and emphasized the productive,
generative role of discursive practices over and against human subjectivity.
He also highlights that both regard the subject as the interpellative
effect of discourse and jointly insist on the productive power of
social institutions as a means to reproduce the social Whole. In
other words, Goldstein equates Althusser's notion of ideology with
Foucault's notion of discourse (cf. pages 25, 27n., 38, 42n., 70).
At other times, however, Goldstein emphasizes the different cultural
perspectives that ensue from an Althusserian as opposed to a Foucaultian
approach. Whereas the former tends to dismiss "non-scientific" readings
of art as "ideological" and disregards their specificity, the latter
concentrates instead on the "influence [these readings] have exerted
or how they have construed the work and why" (87). The reason for
this difference is Althusser's continued belief in economic determinism
"in the last instance," which is completely absent in Foucault.
In other words, even the later Althusser remained a proponent of
traditional (scientific) Marxism, in spite of his seemingly post-Marxist
theoretical innovations.
This ambiguous status of Althusser's (post-)Marxism causes some
distress in Goldstein's otherwise masterful analysis as he wrestles
with the differences between the early and the later Althusser.
At times, he seems ready to dismiss these differences, insisting
that the later Althusser never did "give up the idea that theory
grasps reality" (27). Althusser still insisted on the determining
power of class-struggle in both practice and theory. Philosophy,
for Althusser, "is in the last instance class struggle at the level
of theory" (Althusser, Essays in Self-Criticism 167; qtd. in Goldstein
28). Hence, even though the later Althusser acknowledged that there
are many discourses claiming to speak the "truth," he still considered
Marxist theory to be a privileged voice in the chorus. At other
times, however, Goldstein seems to agree with Stephen A. Resnick
and Richard D. Wolff's view that, for Althusser, "(t)here is no
inter-theoretic standard of truth" (qtd. in Goldstein 28). Moreover,
Goldstein explicitly endorses Resnick's and Wolff's parallel between
Althusser and Richard Rorty's anti-foundationalism, which seems
strained since there is absolutely nothing in Rorty that would faintly
resemble Althusser's unwavering theoretical commitment to his political
views. For Rorty, political beliefs are private and irrational;
they have nothing to do with either political theory or philosophy.
Unlike Rorty, Althusser was not a postmodern relativist, because,
for him, theory mattered, and mattered politically. Resnick's and
Wolff's apparently similar claim that Althusser's "'relativist'
commitment to the plurality of theories" merely serves as a "prelude
for the specification of … partisan positions" (qtd. in Goldstein
32) skirts the real issue, which is not that Althusser held fast
to his own partisan beliefs (he certainly did), but that he continuously
tried to legitimize and defend these beliefs philosophically—something
that Rorty (or Foucault) never attempted to do.
Indeed, the later
Althusser (much like Resnick and Wolff and many other proponents
of traditional Marxists today) wanted to have it both ways: he acknowledged
the "overdetermination of the social Whole," yet nonetheless insisted
on the determining power of economics "in the last instance." Moving
back and forth between these contradictory viewpoints enabled him
to proclaim both his firm belief in the irreconcilable multiplicity
of mutually exclusive truth claims in philosophical discourse, while
at the same time laying claim (as the speaker of a "subject-less"
discourse) to a privileged insight into the "real" workings of history
(i.e., class-struggle in theory).
Even though Goldstein remains fairly critical of Resnick and Wolff's
overall conceptual framework, he nonetheless seems to endorse their
reading of Althusser as a radical anti-foundationalist philosopher.
This endorsement deprives Goldstein of the opportunity to pinpoint
the line between traditional Marxism and post-Marxism that runs
through Althusser's later work and separates him from Foucault.
Foucault does not advance a normative hierarchy between discourses.
All of them are equally "true" in the sense that they have material
effects upon the social Whole. These effects can then be studied
and evaluated according to whatever (political) perspective one
chooses to adopt. Thus, the normative distinction between "right"
and "wrong" gives way to the discursive distinction between a "productive"
or a "non-productive" or an "effective" or a "not-effective" approach
to achieve a particular socio-political goal. Althusser and Foucault
represent, for Goldstein, the difference between a theoretically-oriented
and a praxis-oriented version of post-Marxism. Foucault thus emerges
as the first and foremost post-Marxist thinker to date.
If this is true and if we are forced to abandon the notion of a
unified social totality amenable to rational, normative critique,
how could we possibly continue the leftist project of progressive
social change? What does Goldstein advocate leftists should do?
He asserts that we need to "reveal the sexual, racial, class, and
ethnic divisions of social life and promote its progressive transformation"
(21). And he ends his book with the exhortation to "support the
progressive organizations that have already been successfully established"
in order to "effectively promote the progressive transformation
of Western social life" (113). It is safe to assume that nobody
on the left—not even traditional Marxists—will disagree with these
goals. According to Goldstein, politically motivated activism and
personal engagement in already existing social institutions is all
that remains of the great Marxist ideals of social transformation.
This mirrors Richard Rorty's binary vision of political struggle:
either we pursue specific political objectives within a given bourgeois
liberal democracy or we resign ourselves to political impotence
by adopting the abstract geo-political goals of what Rorty denounces
as the "farcically overtheorized view of the cultural Left." In
my eyes, however, Rorty's (and, by extension, Goldstein's) position
falsely presumes that liberalism itself cannot be deconstructed
without inevitably giving rise to a wholesale rejection of the democratic
principles that constitute Western societies. But liberalism and
democracy are not one and the same, as Carl Schmitt and, more recently,
Chantal Mouffe have argued.
If we fail to reflect upon these constitutive tensions at work
in contemporary Western societies, the difference between post-Marxism
and postmodern liberalism collapses. This is why Rorty's specific
goals for the future development of Western societies (such as less
economic inequality, more individual freedom, etc.), are in complete
agreement with Goldstein's general call for the "progressive transformation"
of the various "divisions of social life" (21). Both Rorty and Goldstein
advocate the pursuit of progressive political objectives within
the given institutional structure of liberal democracy. Hence, post-Marxist
politics turns out to be the liberal "engineering" of politics after
all—a revelation that confirms the worst suspicions raised by traditional
Marxists ever since the publication of Laclau and Mouffe's Hegemony
and Socialist Strategy twenty years ago.
I believe that this worrisome
conflation of post-Marxist and liberal politics is due to Goldstein's
wholesale rejection of the theoretical strand of post-Marxist theory,
notably the works of Laclau/Mouffe, Butler, Derrida, and Zizek.
One of the crucial insights of the Marxist tradition was precisely
the irreducible interconnectedness of theory and practice. To wit,
it is certainly a worthwhile goal to support the unionization of
Wal-Mart employees in the US. But without thinking through and attacking
the underlying economic rationale of neo-liberal globalization,
such efforts are bound to produce only short-term victories that
will ultimately end in more outsourcing and continued exploitation
overseas. Recognizing this interdependency of theory and practice
is crucial for the survival of leftist politics and constitutes
one of the few elements that ought to be salvaged from traditional
Marxism. I hasten to add that doing so does not lead us back to
the Althusserian contradiction to think society as a determined
overdetermination. Instead, it prompts us to think through paradox
as the ontological ground of the social. A paradox, however, is
not the same as a contradiction. The latter can be unraveled dialectically,
but the former cannot. A contradiction exists between two independent
and self-sufficient propositions, whereas a paradox is always already
contradictory in itself from the very beginning. Hence, any subsequent
attempt to "dissolve" or "unfold" paradox into some kind of dialectical
narrative cannot but violate and thus destroy it.
In other words, the problem with the later Althusser was not that
he reflected upon political practice in philosophical terms (which
is precisely what we need to be doing). The problem was that his
theory relied upon an antiquated Marxist vocabulary that became
increasingly divorced from the realities of global capitalism. It
is no longer an issue of formulating the right questions in order
to tease out the implicit answers latent in Marx(ist) texts, as
Althusser once claimed in Reading Capital. Instead, the questions
are obvious – What kind of socialist economic model can compete
with global capitalism? What are viable political alternatives to
the current liberal democratic order?—but the answers are missing.
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