The Sociology of Postmarxism

Richard Howson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351724111
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Politica

Postmarxism is often depicted as a point of intersection for a set of inter-disciplinary theories that are in themselves complex and dense.

Bringing the postmarxist theory of Ernesto Laclau into the field of political sociology through a close reading and analysis of postmarxism and its relationship to 'the social', A Sociology of Postmarxism develops key postmarxist arguments in an engaging and sociologically applicable way. Indeed, through a threefold method of analysis, Howson first unpacks the relationship between 'the social' and 'the political' by analysing key allied theories to show where the points of connection occur. This is then followed by an insightful analysis of the key features of postmarxist theory such as antagonism and the inevitability of social dislocation, the political importance of hegemony; and the empty signifier thesis and equivalence to show how such theory can be applied at a sociological level. Finally, through the use of sociological categories such as masculinities, migration and social capital, the foregoing theoretical analyses are synthesised to show the social nature of postmarxism and particularly in the context of aspiration and co-operation.

This enlightening volume will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as postdoctoral researchers who are interested in fields such as Political Sociology, Post Marxist Political Theory and Social Theory.

1 Introduction

The articulation between universality and particularity which is constitutively inherent to the construction of a ‘people’ is not something which takes place just at the level of words and images: it is also sedimented in practices and institutions.

(Laclau 2005: 106)

A Sociology of Postmarxism is located within the broad field that can be called political sociology. Its aim within this field is to develop an approach to social theory that is informed by, and can inform our understandings of, the organisation of power within society but in a way that recognises and then develops the relationship between power and cooperation or, in other words, the political and the social. To do this, the political theory that emerged from the work of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe and then Ernesto Laclau and is referred to by these authors as “Post-Marxism” will be drawn upon and considered through classical sociological concepts, as well as ideas within the important and emerging theory of the sociology of social capital. This theoretical approach offers to political sociology interesting ways to explore the following questions: What is the nature of the social, and how should we understand its existence and operation while taking seriously its interaction with the political in the contemporary moment? How do nonrational aspects of life that influence cooperation affect and/or influence the political? Why is developing what might be referred to as the sociology of postmarxism important?

A Sociology of Postmarxism seeks to develop the idea that the social is crucial to politics. In other words, that cooperation is crucial to the development, maintenance and withdrawal of power plus legitimacy within societies. In particular, it seeks to develop the idea of sociality as the balance between cooperation and power by addressing a key argument introduced by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe in their seminal work Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (1985) and developed further in the more recent works of Ernesto Laclau (in particular see; Laclau 1990, 1996, 2005, 2006, Butler, Laclau and Zizek 2000, Critchley and Marchart [Eds.] 2004)—that is, that a crucial characteristic of all social relations is their operation on the basis of what is referred to as the “primacy of the political”. This also offers a rationale for Laclau’s later work because although it is the most developed contemporary articulation of postmarxist theory within the broad field of what might be referred to as neo-Marxist thought, it also highlights a particularly undertheorised and underapplied concept, that of social cooperation. In this context, A Sociology of Postmarxism seeks to reconsider and apply what is already a political theory that is established in the contemporary social sciences yet remains underdeveloped with respect to the articulation of the social (see Nash 2000, Sim 2000, Ashe et al. [Eds.] 2002). This is even though, as will be shown in later chapters, many of its ideas and categories have been appropriated and operationalised in many historical and contemporary situations.

Why the Social?

It is curious that the social, a concept so fundamental and so crucial to the whole of society and therefore central to the sociology project and the broader social sciences, receives so little analytic attention. This importance is evident in the way Jurgen Habermas (1987) describes society as:

the legitimate orders from which those engaged in communicative action gather a solidarity, based on belonging to groups, as they enter into inter-personal relationships with one another.

In the social sciences and social and political theory in particular, its meaning, which brings into play the cooperative processes and mechanisms that enable people within groups to create and maintain solidarity, is simply taken for granted. In this regard it is instructive to note that in The Blackwell Dictionary of Social Thought (1994) there exists no entry for ‘social’. However, without discussion it is immediately applied as a qualification to a whole panoply of terms such as change, choice, contract, control, democracy, differentiation, history, mobility, movement, policy, psychology, structure, welfare and, of course, -ism. This type of taken-for-granted application of meaning also extends into a range of social and political theory texts (see Dowse and Hughes 1972, Bottomore 1979, Orum 1983, Nash 2000) through which is suggested that the meaning of social is not only assumed to be known immediately, but that it can also be taken to operate coherently and singularly. Although there is a consensus that power as politics plays a central role in the work of political sociologists, the social is often described and applied differently. For example, Nash (2000), drawing on Orum’s (1983) work, recognises the connection between politics and the “social circumstances” in which it operates. Bottomore, on the other hand, speaks of power in “social contexts”. Following Jary and Jary (1991), social is simply described as reflecting the interaction and organisation of people. But this immediately raises two important, though problematic, aspects about the meaning of the social. First, it assumes a holistic meaning. In other words, it appears to represent anything and everything to do with people and what people do. Therefore, all forms of interaction and all types of organisation become included (see also Rush and Althoff 1971: 1–3). The breadth of social’s holistic explanatory circumference becomes so all-encompassing that it slips unnoticed into representations of fields beyond its capacity. For example, it is not immediately apparent what is meant by the social in social change. If we were to apply the idea of social as interaction and organization, then we could interpret social change as expressing the way people’s interactions with each other and how they organise themselves change over time. But then we must inquire what differentiates social change from political change or economic change? Is there not interaction and organisation, which constitute social relations, that can be specifically identified as existing within political life, and therefore should change be argued to reflect political change only? How do the various forms of change become subsumed effectively into social change? Is this possible? These questions lead to the emergence of the second aspect of the meaning of the social—that is, its simultaneous individualistic operation. In other words, the meaning given to the social offers particular specificity and is delineated from other fields of knowledge and practice in society, so, for example, from political or economic life. This is certainly reflected in the political theory of Laclau (see 1996: 48) who claims that in the contemporary moment it is possible to see “an expansion of the political at the expense of the social” even though they operate in a contingent relationship. In this context the social is constructed as a reference to the interaction and organisation of people outside of the fields of politics and economy. This type of excision creates even more problems for the political sociological project because now sociology is understood to explore not just the particular disciplinary field that exists beyond politics and economics, but in addition, if we follow critics such as Laclau (in Howarth, Norval and Stavrakakis 2000: xi) who refers to the importance of moving research away from the “sociologistic categories”, which are also the sites of interaction and organisation within a society where “meaning” is produced, this exposes the very real complexity that operates within political sociology’s circumference of knowledge and meaning.

The discussion about the importance of the social is not an idiosyncratic exercise in semantics. The importance of ensuring a clear description of terms and the distinction between them has been an important first task in the development of political sociology (see Rush and Althoff 1971, Dowse and Hughes 1972, Bottomore 1979: 8, Nash 2000) even though the outcomes have been less than effective in providing a clear description of the social. In this context, there is a need here to clarify what is meant by social or the social for three reasons: 1. it fills a definitional gap in the social sciences and, in particular, political sociology; 2. without understanding clearly what is meant by the social, it is impossible to fully grasp the meaning of the political, a point that postmarxists would recognise as the contingent nature of the nexus between the social and the political (Laclau 1996); and 3. because it is a concept that has been applied in the postmarxist theorisations and methodologies but remains poorly developed and understood.

Why Postmarxism?

Even in the coming together of the two words ‘post’ and ‘marxism’ there is no standard form that necessarily follows. For many, including Chilcote (1990), Saravanamuttu (1995), Misra (1998), Boron (2000), Devenney (2004: 138) and el-Ojeili (2010), the form adopted is ‘post-Marxism’. The capitalisation of ‘Marxism’ suggests an emphasis on the Marxist component. However, other writers, such as Aronowitz (1986) use the form ‘post-marxism’ that suggests an attempt to remove the emphasis but, nevertheless, it still indicates the prefixing of something to Marxism. When referring to other ‘post’ theories, writers such as Callinicos (1985) and Sim (2000) remove the hyphen and use the form of ‘postmodernism’ or ‘poststructuralism’. This suggests that there is no longer a prefix that seeks to alter the meaning of the second term, but rather, it is a term synergised and holding meaning in itself. For the remainder of this book it will be this form that will be used—that is, postmarxism, unless discussing the way others deal with the term (as in the next chapter).

So why postmarxism? This is a question that is asked of me constantly. The concern of those who ask is perhaps driven by what el-Ojeili (2010: 261) refers to as postmarxism’s “troublesome” nature, particularly for contemporary left-espousing theoreticians and practitioners. Not least because it exposes certain concerns that are not just about the contemporary global collapse of socialism, but also, the collapse of the Marxist epistemological and ontological foundations that this socialism built itself on. In doing so, postmarxism contributes to a continuing process of opening Marxism to scrutiny at a particularly vulnerable moment and in a way that had not been experienced throughout its history. The many critics of postmarxism have simply not accepted as necessary the idea of moving beyond classical Marxist thought and practice and of adapting it to contemporary social and political conditions. For example, Norman Geras (1987), who says he speaks for Marxists everywhere when he suggests that Marxists can accept that some people may continue to reject or no longer identify as Marxist but claim alignment to some of its principles and tenets while moving beyond others, is untenable. For this critic of change and those who see value in his claims, the scrutiny and critique that postmarxism develops and elaborates is a purely theoretical exercise, drawn primarily from the poststructuralism stable of theory and, therefore, disconnected from the real conditions of life. Again, as Norman Geras (1987) makes clear, “[m]uch of this [Marxist thought] has simply been denatured, a whole swathe of arguments, themes, concepts and theory [has] been transmuted and deranged”. Wolff and Cullenberg (1986: 133) preempted Geras’ concerns when they concluded that readers of postmarxism:

will accept these complicated rejections of Marx’s work and return to various pre-marxist and non-marxist positions as somehow definitively transcending the Marxist tradition. Such readers may then miss what is original and distinctive in Marx’s many contributions including all that has been debated and remains contentious within the tradition. Readers, then, will be left to reinvent slowly and painfully Marx’s wheel and we will all be the losers for it.

However, another way of viewing postmarxism is to consider that its key theoretical tenets are reflections of the global contemporary experiences of socialism and the Left that have occurred since World War II. Beginning with the fall of the Soviet Union and its trickle-down effect throughout Eastern Europe, the dramatic changes that continue in China, which has seen it shift from a Maoist version of socialism to a one that has moved beyond many key socialist principles as they are inflected with capitalist principles. Also, the Left must consider the emergence of the “protestor” that Time magazine (2011) named person of the year. In other words, the scrutiny and questioning, and the concomitant changes and adaptations to Marxist thought that postmarxists present, were and are occurring at a time of high sensitivity for Western scholars and practitioners of the Left. This sensitivity is made even more acute because many of those Marxists/socialists who had built and sustained the socialism of the early post–World War II period have themselves moved beyond positions they had long defended. New versions of socialism emerging in China, Russia and Latin America, for example, are no longer grounded in traditional Marxist epistemological and ontological positions. In this context the ability for Marxism to continue as a critical and positive science that could assist in the analysis and challenge of the contemporary globalised capitalism begins to lose some of its potency. But as Saravanamuttu (1995: 46) notes, the genesis of postmarxism did not emerge out of the Eastern Marxist praxis or failed socialisms, but rather from the intellectual critique of Marxism by Western scholars, just as the most vocal and sustained attack of postmarxism also comes from the West.

Nevertheless, within the critiques of postmarxism, the failures of and changes to the real socialist experience were soon forgotten, and instead, postmarxism is challenged on the basis of its theoretical approach and then, curiously, its lack of resonance with real life. In particular, the idea that postmarxism could offer social science a way of rethinking the key tenets of social critique that developed out of classical Marxism or, more specifically, its historical materialism and class antagonism, was seen as valueless and deeply troubling, especially given that this rethinking is approached in both a derivative and synergetic way. In other words, it draws epistemological strength from interpretations of critical social theories such as various neo-Marxist interpretations, psychoanalysis and postmodernist/poststructuralist approaches, not to mention philosophy and linguistics that seek to explain social phenomena (see Smith 1998: 42–115), while always staying grounded in a particular interpretation of the theory of hegemony (see Laclau 1996, 1999). In so doing, it is seen to transform contemporary meanings/identities such as worker, male/female, democracy, poverty, etc., through a theory that recognises the contingency and heterogeneity of meaning/identity. It is this nature of heterogeneity that forms the basis of the practice of social emancipation and justice through what Laclau and Mouffe (1985) referred to as a “deepening of democracy”, or a radical pluralism.

Notwithstanding this prima facie troublesomeness, postmarxism has been able to acquire influence in the social sciences (Boron 2000: 50) and continues to extend its reach and application to fields as diverse as development sociology; religious studies; African literary studies; gender studies and masculinities theory; cultural and queer studies; class; various regional politics such as the Middle East, China, Malaysia and Brazil; and new social movements. In all these fields the key objective of engaging postmarxist theory is to explore the limits of hegemonic rationality that influences the nature of the social, in particular, by questioning the Marxist claim that at the frontier of the social stand the workers as the vanguard, conscious of all antagonism and whose task it is to direct all challenge toward a fundamentally production-based, capitalist-informed hegemony. Postmarxism argues that this position is now no longer sustainable. In line with Fred Halliday’s (1997: 17) argument with respect to the Middle East, the question is no longer “[i]s class determinant”, but rather, “[w]hat is the role of class, and what are the roles of dominating classes at particular moments … [in] history?” In this regard, postmarxism owes much to the real changes that have occurred in the nature and operation of politics during the second half of the twentieth century and which have continued to crystallize into the twenty-first century: globally. It offers a way for all scholars working in the fields of resistance to consider seriously the changes that have become manifest through the increased politicisation of the social on the back of a plurality of new and continuing antagonisms and the conditions for and nature of their challenge to particular hegemonic formations that aggregate and give form to what might be understood as Western hegemony. These include challenges by pro-feminists to hegemonic masculinity, queer to hegemonic heterosexuality, class to the capitalist political economy, antiglobalisation to transnational finance and business, environmentalism to exploitative ecology and religiosity to secularism and science. In this context, postmarxism recognises society as a politically heterogeneous space, and this is why Laclau (1990) argues that one of the key characteristics of social relations is the primacy of the political, and where political for Laclau always begins with antagonism. Therefore, all social relations are or have the potential to become antagonistic and, as a result, social relations exist always in relation to the political.

So postmarxism recognises contemporary society as a disarticulated space where antagonistic plurality marks out the nature of contemporary democracy and society. To critics such as Boron (2000: 72) who accept postmarxism’s growth but question its key principles, such disarticulation and plurality is simply relativism:

No socialist could disagree with a proposal aimed at the radicalisation of democracy, provided that the achievement of this goal did not involve denying the need to overcome capitalism … However, this paramount goal is precisely what has evaporated … when they wind up proposing a “radicalised and plural” democracy as the supreme objective of a supposed new left.

(emphasis added)

Two questions can be directed immediately at this type of argument: first, do postmarxists really see a radicalised and plural democracy as the truth that marks the end of history for the Left? So much so that it assumes utopian status, albeit postmarxist style, and therefore is the best way of making sense of the nature of antagonism and its immediate development in the contemporary moment and, second, in this radicalised and plural democratic space is class really rejected and the challenge to capitalism negated?

The discussions and arguments that follow throughout this book will attempt to develop and apply postmarxist theory, but will do so with consideration of these questions. First, the book will seek to question the idea that postmarxism represents an eternal truth. It will question whether a postmarxist approach actively demotes the concerns about labour and capitalism to a position that is removed from and unable to develop a critique and a program of change. Also, is it possible to consider that capitalism holds no privileged position in the list of contemporary antagonisms? This point was highlighted in Time magazine’s recognition of the great changes that occurred in 2010–2011, which it argued occurred within a space where regional or localised politics became primary rather than change through universal class formations and their challenges to corporate greed, specifically. Second, postmarxism will be applied as a theory that assists in the explanation of antagonism as it manifests itself in the contemporary social moment. This second position is crucial because if we were to take Boron and other critics seriously, we would have to demote the emergence and identity of China and the antagonisms that challenge it; the Arab Spring and the heterogeneous nature of the people who protested; and the plurality of uprisings that have seen leaders such as Mubarak of Egypt exiled, Gaddafi of Libya killed and Al-Assad of Syria slowly being isolated internationally. In other contexts, too, we would need to reduce second-wave feminism and the global environmental and sustainability movements to positions of lesser importance, isolated from the antagonism against capitalism. Thus, as has been argued by its critics to suggest the importance of this diversity, heterogeneity or plurality of antagonism is simply to fall into a form of relativism. But this type of critique also suggests that these other realities offer no valuable insight into the contemporary nature of the relationship between the political and the social. Further, their dismissal within the process of trying to find a thread that ties all this diversity to a Marxist-informed struggle against capitalism has become difficult to sustain given the developments in the discipline of sociology and particularly within political sociology.

Why Postmarxism and Social Capital?

The development of political sociology has historically been fraught, but not so much with the problems of identifying the lines of delineation between it and new disciplines such as political science, but rather, from an anxiety produced from the problem of defining what ‘political’ means. Dowse and Hughes (1972: 4–9) unpack this issue and show that there are two aspects to defining political that are crucial to how it might apply sociologically. A starting position comes from political science, which has historically held to the argument that politics refers to a “settled order” (Dowse and Hughes 1972: 4). In other words, politics is about producing order and here the state is central. In the introduction to Bernard Crick’s (1959: XI) book The American Science of Politics, politics in poli...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 From the Social to the Political
• 3 Classical Approaches to the Social
• 4 Establishing a Basis for Postmarxism
• 5 From Antagonism to Equivalence
• 6 Finding the Political in Social Capital
• 7 Desert: Migration as Social Dislocation
• 8 Aspiration: Hegemonic Masculinity as Empty Signifier
• 9 The Impossibility of Society Thesis: Some Final Considerations
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index