A theorisation of Corbynism (Hardt and Negri)

An orthodox Marxist would be extremely interested in Momentum, the radicalisation of predominantly young, middle-class professional types organised around Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party. It would seem highly reminiscent of the 'New Left' student movements of the sixties and seventies (full disclosure: I was there).

Said Marxist would, however, be far less impressed by the level of consciousness of the movement's thinking: its faddish diversities, its self-indulgent identity politics, its horizons delimited by left-wing social-democracy.

Traditionally we would call such proto-ideologies petit-bourgeois and see their proponents as candidates for a deeper education. But ancien-Marxism seems falsified by history - no lessons there to learn. The result - inevitably - is the theorisation of left-populism by itself as the new anti-capitalism.

Parenthetically, this rather ignores just how popular Corbynism and its American and Continental cousins are with the left bourgeoisie!

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The poster-children for this way of thinking - after Paul Mason's efforts - are the theorists Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, boosted by left-academics such as Phil Burton-Cartledge.

Phil has written a series of posts explaining the new ideas - I'll just quote a summary.

"What is clear for Hardt and Negri is the revolutionary party is out. As the properties of fixed capital are distributed among our growing legions of cognitive and socialised workers, the 'functions' of the revolutionary party are diffused among the politicising networks.

"Rather than the received conception of a vanguard of class conscious cadres providing leadership for the rest to follow, cadre building applies to the class as a whole. The power of the multitude lies in its being the living substance of the common, and increasingly their common lines of flight are putting them on a collision course with capital.

"Biopolitical production wrapped up in dense webs of communication brings people together, educates them, politicises them. For example, the incessant identity-related debates are no longer the concern of radical elites beavering away in academies but are now the property of millions of people, as the fall out from Charlottesville demonstrates.

"The aim then is to build up the capacity for self-organisation, forge new institutions that bring out the common interests of socialised workers without denying their difference. The image is of a self-activating, self-coordinating swarm that can simply overwhelm capital and the state in a process of creative destruction, of replacing one form of organising society with another."

None of this is well-defined. None of this has the ring of truth. Seems more like opportunistic pandering to a set of inchoate longings which have nothing to do with undermining capitalism and everything to do with its further development. Notice how the critiques of capitalism - how very bad it is - have a ritualistic and anaemic quality.

Those middle-to-upper-class Momentum supporters, those SJWs in the States, those French supporters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon in La France Insoumise, are having the time of their lives under capitalism.

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I feel, nonetheless, slightly motivated to read the final book of Hardt and Negri's trilogy, Commonwealth, if only to understand their thinking more fully.

I have to say though, that I do rather prefer my own vision as to the future destiny and supersession of capitalism - it's a lot more grounded in reality.

Amazon link

"Together Hardt and Negri's work is considered to be responsible for a resurgence of interest in non-orthodox Marxism and its political manifestations.

"Commonwealth is the final part of a trilogy that began with "Empire" in 2000, a book that was published during the emergence of the alter-globalization movement. "Multitude" followed in 2004, developing the ideas that had been introduced in "Empire," in particular the concept of the multitude as a new revolutionary subject. "Commonwealth" is a worthy addition to the trilogy, expanding and clarifying on the understandings in the previous books, but perhaps more significantly grounding their analysis within an extended discussion of "the common...".

"Commonwealth" is a book that challenges presuppositions about the utility of Marx, and introduces the possibility of combining his insights with the ideas of other significant authors such as Nietzsche, Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, who are not traditionally associated with the radical communist project."

From the Amazon page.

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Following on from John Gray's insightfully scathing review of Commonwealth, I should perhaps turn to Slavoj Žižek, a writer who prefers to épater les bourgeois rather than flatter them.

In Gray's words,

"A Slovenian philosopher, psychoanalytical theorist and film critic, Žižek has become a gadfly of the left establishment, a prolific provocateur whose principal aim seems to be to confound his tender-minded readers. His target throughout this book is not the right but the soft, democratic, meliorist left, which imagines that the egalitarian goals of communism can be realised by non-repressive, liberal means.

"Žižek is savagely scornful of this view, writing sharply that "One of the mantras of the postmodern left has been that we should finally leave behind the 'Jacobin-Leninist paradigm' of centralised dictatorial power. But perhaps the time has now come to turn this mantra around... Now, more than ever, one should insist on the 'eternal Idea of Communism' - strict egalitarian justice, disciplinary terror, political voluntarism, and trust in the people."

"In other words, dictatorship is indispensable to the communist project. Mass coercion and terror are not departures from a humane vision, brought about by tyrannical leaders acting in backward conditions. Lenin and Stalin were genuine masters of revolutionary strategy, who knew that without organised terror their goals would never be achieved."

Amazon link

Gray is reviewing Zizek's First as Tragedy, Then as Farce,  but perhaps it's worth waiting a couple of weeks for the prolific Comrade Žižek's latest opus: Lenin 2017: Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through?

But perhaps it's time to lose patience with showmen who really haven't a clue as to what is to be done?

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Next: What the Owl said to Lenin and Trotsky.