Foucault, Marxism and Critique

Barry Smart

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135174590
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Phenomenology in Philosophy

In this work, originally released in 1983, Barry Smart examines the relevance of Foucault's work for developing an understanding of those issues which lie beyond the limits of Marxist theory and analysis - issues such as 'individualising' forms of power, power-knowledge relations, the rise of 'the social', and the associated socialisation of politics. He argues that there exist clear and substantial differences between Foucault's genealogical analysis and that of Marxist theory. Smart thus presents Foucault's work as a new form of critical theory, whose object is a critical analysis of rationalities, and of how relations of power are rationalised.

1 ON THE LIMITS AND LIMITATIONS OF MARXISM

From the beginning any examination of Marxism is likely to encounter and to promote controversy, for Marxism is a veritable cauldron of interpretations and schools of thought. There may have been only one 'biographical' Marx, but the literature abounds with conceptions of the 'total', 'early', 'mature', 'scientific' or 'humanist' Marx. In addition, there are a plethora of clearly differentiated Marxisms, although not quite, as one commentator would have it, 'almost as many Marxisms as there are Marxists' (Bobbio, 1979a, p. 193). However, underlying the cultural and epistemological differences manifested in the form of several national Marxisms (e.g. Austro-Marxism, English Marxism, etc.) and a variety of rigorously differentiated schools of Marxist thought (e.g. 'humanist' Marxism, 'structuralist' Marxism) there are specific common features, reference points and predicaments. My attention will be directed to these more general elements and conditions and will be focused in particular upon the contemporary diagnosis of a 'crisis of Marxism'.

This is not the first occasion on which the history of Marxism has been punctuated by the cry of 'crisis'; however, the contemporary reference has a qualitatively different significance, for it denotes that a decisive moment or a historic turning point has been reached. Whereas in the past statements about the problems associated with Marxist theory and politics may have emanated from opposing political forces, from those opposed to the Labour Movement, now discussion of the 'crisis of Marxism' encompasses Marxists, fellow-travellers and radical social theorists alike (cf. Anderson, 1976; Althusser, 1978a; Altvater and Kallscheuer, 1979). Although it is difficult to single out any one issue as the catalyst for the current concern, it is evident that an interrogation of the nature of socialism, of the possibility of an alternative social order, is at the heart of the crisis of Marxism. What seems to have taken place is a reassessment of the societies of 'actually existing socialism', and in place of the routine and heavily ritualised defence and expression of sympathetic understanding with the difficulties encountered by the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies in their 'transitional phase' there has emerged a refreshingly critical reconsideration of the limitations of the societies of 'actually existing socialism' (cf. Berlinguer, 1982). Whereas the limitations might once have been explained away as temporary or transitional features of societies progressing along the path to communism, they are now considered to represent the development of a qualitatively different social order or to signify a termination of the transitional process (cf. Bahro, 1978).

The development of a more critical analytical orientation towards the societies of Eastern Europe and the corollary, namely a belated recognition that perhaps their development is incompatible with the promise of Marxist theory, has had two consequences. First, there has been increasing support for the observation that there no longer exists any model for socialism, that our knowledge extends only as far as that which is to be avoided, namely Soviet-style socialism. In turn this has precipitated the formulation of a series of questions concerning, on the one hand, the unrealised conception of socialism, in particular the possibility and desirability of its realisation, and, on the other hand, the reality of the societies of 'actually existing socialism', of how they came to develop in their present form and whether they constitute a realisation of Marxist theory, or are merely pathological forms or deviations. Marxism seems to have few, if any, satisfactory answers to these particular questions. A second and related consequence has been that Marxist theory itself has been critically examined and found to be both limited and deficient. To begin with, specific concepts and premises within Marxist theory have been identified as problematic , for example the premise of economic determination-in-the-final-instance, the conceptualisation of politics and power and the theorising of the relationship between structure, action and consciousness. Furthermore, the epistemological basis of Marxist analysis has become a matter of controversy. The scientific status of Marxism has itself become a critical issue of inquiry.

In this chapter I will being by briefly outlining the major characteristics of the contemporary crisis of Marxism in terms of a distinction between its theoretical and political dimensions. I will then proceed to examine each of these dimensions in more detail.

THE CRISIS OF MARXISM

An assumption of a positive and close relationship between theory and political practice has generally constituted a fundamental feature of Marxist analysis. It has frequently been stated that Marxist theory may be realised in practice, that the truth or validity of its knowledge may be confirmed or given by the objective results of social practice (cf. Kolakowski, 1971, p. 59; Mao, 1971, pp. 67–8). However, it also seems to have been the case that the appropriate moment for the realisation of theory has remained, with perhaps one or two controversial exceptions (e.g. the Russian Revolution), in a relatively indeterminate future. Hence, alongside an emphasis on social and political practice as some sort of 'mechanism of verification' we will also find that the question of the theory-practice relationship within Marxism has remained both ambiguous and problematical (cf. Anderson, 1976; Poulantzas, 1978), although a tendency to accord priority to the political dimension, to political practice, has remained a consistent feature of Marxist discourse.

Given the significance of formulations of the relationship between theory and political practice within Marxism it comes as no surprise that a series of events which took place in 1968 have been consistently identified as the locus of the emergence of the contemporary crisis of Marxism. In particular it is the events of May in France and the events known as the 'Prague Spring' in Czechoslovakia which have been located at the epicentre of the current crisis of Marxism. These events brought into focus once more a series of issues which have been the source of intermittent controversy throughout the history of Marxism. The events of the 'Prague Spring' and its aftermath served to draw attention once again to the reality of Eastern European socialism and forced Marxists to readdress a series of questions and problems to which there could be no easy answers. The events of 'May '68' in France and other forms of protest elsewhere in the West caused Marxists to reflect upon the continuing incompatibility of their theoretical 'expectations' with the pattern of development of Western capitalist societies. Both sets of events disrupted conventional forms of Marxist discourse and precipitated the process of re-examination, reformulation and reconceptualisation of which we have yet to hear the last. This is not the place to explore these events in detail, but it is necessary to make a few additional comments on the events of May '68, for they may be regarded as of some significance in the development of new forms of politics and new forms of analysis.

There are two observations to be made on the events of May '68. First, the forms of popular protest and political action involved mass movements of people. These movements seemed to emerge spontaneously. They were formed independently and outside of the conventional political institutions of opposition, namely the trade unions and the political parties of the Left. Finally they were informally or non-bureaucratically organised around quite specific struggles which could not be simply conceptualised as class struggles. The second observation which needs to be made is that the Communist Party in France (PCF) adopted a generally unsympathetic and conservative role towards the series of popular protests and demonstrations involving students and workers which took place between 3 May and 1 June. Indeed, it has been suggested that all the organised opposition parties, the PCF, the Federation of the Left (FGDS) and the Left-Wing Socialist Party (PSU), had no conception of what was happening during the first two weeks of May, since the events concerned were beyond their political frame of reference. Ultimately the fragile alliance between students and workers was broken by the Gaullist government and the communist-dominated trade union federation (CGT) persuading workers to end their protests and to return to work.

Throughout this period the PCF had adopted a conservative position, having determined that the conditions were not 'ripe' for radical social change and that the form taken by the popular protests and rebellions was 'adventurist' (cf. Posner, 1970). However, it would seem that the hostility of the PCF was not entirely a matter of a principled objection to strategy or a consequence of a different analysis of the 'balance of forces', but rather that it represented a manifestation of the self-interest of the organisation. There existed a strong feeling within the leadership of the party that its organisation was being challenged by the upsurge of popular protest and the emergence of informally organised groupings. Nevertheless, whatever the reasons for the response of the PCF to the events of May '68, there seems to be a high degree of unanimity amongst commentators that 'The restraint exercised by the Communist leadership was … even more effective than governmental resistance' (Glucksmann, 1970, p. 185). Undoubtedly the contribution of the PCF and the CGT to the termination of the May movement constituted something of a revelation for those people who had associated these organisations with a radical and progressive politics, and furthermore it served as a powerful reminder of the possible conservatism of Marxist political parties. In addition it raised the spectre of conservative tendencies within Marxist theory.

The emergence of new 'social subjects' or new political groupings, 'groupuscles', around specific issues, such as education, women's liberation, ecology, gay liberation, prisoners' rights, and so forth, has, especially since May '68, constituted a problem for conventional Marxist political analysis. The tendency to conceptualise politics in terms of class politics and thereby to reduce the political to the level of class relations, class alliances and class struggle has proven less than satisfactory, causing some Marxist theoreticians to consider alternative non-Marxist conceptualisations of power and politics (cf. Poulantzas, 1978). The emergence of new 'social subjects' has also drawn attention to the limitations of conceptualising effective modes of political association as equivalent to hierarchical forms of political organisation and to the associated problem of the relationship, or lack of such, between, on the one hand, the political organisation and its membership and, on the other hand, the political organisation or party and other constituencies. One of the implications of May '68 was that the institutionalised organisations of political opposition were unable to represent a sizeable fraction of their membership and were even less capable of comprehending, let alone representing, the interests, wishes and desires of those people who expressed themselves through participation in new political groupings.

Whether we are to regard the events of May '68 as a success or a failure is a matter of debate. If we attribute to the participants an intention to radically transform the social order then perhaps it is appropriate to talk of failure. In that case we come close to an endorsement of the official PCF position, namely that the time was not right and that the events were the product of 'political adventurism'. On the other hand, it may equally well be argued that the events of May '68 constituted not only a critique of the existing social order but in addition a de facto critique of institutionalised and hierarchically organised forms of political opposition, and that in so far as Marxist theory and related forms of political organisation were indeed revealed to be problematic then the events may not be regarded as a failure. Although May '68 was much less than a revolution in the conventional sense of that term, by which I mean that no attempt was made to destroy or to seize state power, it did nevertheless constitute a challenge to the social order. Several fundamental aspects of social life were challenged, including the legitimacy of ruling and oppositional institutions; models of production, consumption and information; as well as established rules, beliefs and customs. The May movement initiated a critique which

questioned the 'organizational viewpoint', which orders our world by parcelling out social life and labelling individuals…. [It] opened a breach in the technocratic-bourgeois order. The depth of this breach was such that, however brief its duration, it shook the bureaucracy of the so-called Left, which, in at least one of its wings, is the potential home of totalitarianism. (Lefort, 1978, p. 37)

Despite a general restoration of the 'old order', the effects of the May movement have not been erased; its legacy is present in new modes of social and political thought and in the new forms of politics and social struggle which have emerged since 1968 and which in their turn stand in a relationship of opposition to the 'further homogenization of society and its technical rationalization' (ibid.).

The other event which we may situate at the epicentre of the current crisis of Marxism is, as I have already noted, that of the 'Prague Spring'. Undoubtedly, the events in Czechoslovakia in 1968, the 'Prague Spring' and its aftermath, constitute something of a watershed for Western socialists and for Western communist parties, for the possibility of the construction of a humane form of socialism, 'socialism with a human face', was crushed in the name of friendship and in the cause of the restoration of an impoverished and bureaucratically regulated system of oppression. With this event the rationale for the societies of 'actually existing socialism' has been more difficult to sustain, although there have been some 'noble' attempts. Admission of the regular violation of human rights in the USSR and in other Eastern European states; of the growing economic crisis in Comecon (cf. Carlo, 1980); of the existence of powerful and privileged ruling strata in the societies of 'actually existing socialism'; and of the barbarity of the various forms of military intervention which have been explained as necessary to preserve socialism (e.g. East Germany 1953, Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968, Afghanistan 1979, Poland 1981), has been difficult to resist, and has contributed to the emergence of a critical examination of Soviet-style socialism, of the form of social, political and economic life in the societies of actually existing socialism, and finally, because it is implicated, of Marxism itself.

Although the 'Prague Spring' and its aftermath may serve as yet another illustration of an indefensible intervention by the Soviet Union in the internal affairs of an independent state, albeit a member state within the Warsaw Pact, the responses elicited from the Western European communist parties did not conform to type: whereas the invasion of Hungary in 1956 had been largely tolerated, the invasion of Czechoslovakia was not. Indeed, it has been argued that the destruction of Dubcek's communism by the Soviet invasion was synonymous with the birth of Eurocommunism (cf. Levi, 1979), for the myths of the social, economic, political and moral superiority of the Soviet Union were no longer sustainable. It is from this moment that we can trace the growth of fundamental differences between the communist parties of East and West, differences which have been articulated in the form of conceptions of democratic roads to socialism (e.g. by the communist parties of Italy (PCI), Spain (PCE) and Great Britain (CPGB)) and these, in turn, have been associated with quite radical examinations and reformulations of Marxist theory.

It is not difficult to understand that the events of 1968 and their associated developments should have precipitated a crisis of Marxism. The conventional response within Marxism to problems of theory and practice has been to return to first principles, to the classical texts of the tradition, to work out, or perhaps more appropriately, to discover a solution. Such a response, of course, represents merely one option and it is predicated on the assumption that a solution may be generated from within a Marxist problematic. Alternatively, it might be argued that the respective problems and limitations do not admit of a solution within a Marxist problematic, in other words, that the various schools of Marxist thought, each attempting to formulate the definitive Marxist analysis, achieve nothing more than a restatement of the problems. As Bobbio has remarked:

Instead of proceeding, as would any scientist who attempts to substitute adequate for inadequate theory, the doctrinaire follows the opposite path, that of substituting a 'correct' for a necessarily incorrect interpretation of the doctrine. Therefore it comes to pass that a doctrine's fate is characterized not by one theory succeeding another, but by differing interpretations of the text clashing with one another. (1979a, p. 192)

Hence we encounter a plethora of schools or sects (e.g. existential, phenomenological, structuralist Marxism, etc.), each addressing and claiming to resolve the problems of Marxism.

However, beneath the apparent differences between the respective schools and analyses of Western Marxism there remain the unresolved limitations and problems which have been inherited from the classical Marxist tradition (cf. Anderson, 1976). It is to these problems and limitations as they have been manifested within Marxist theory that I will turn first.

PROBLEMS OF THEORY

The relationship between Marxist theory and the pattern or sequence of historical events has never been simple or straightforward. The October Revolution, the continual adaptability of the capitalist mode of production, changes in the social class structure, the rise of new political groupings and a variety of other developments have, at different moments, brought into question the conception of a relationship between Marxist theoretical analysis and the pattern of historical events. Not infrequently, some might argue too often (cf. Bobbio, 1979a), it has been history or the event rather than theory or analysis that has been regarded as out of step or in 'error', or alternatively the limitations of analysis have been treated as the product of errors of interpretation or of readings of the texts. A different and more credible response to the evident distance between Marxist theory and the sequence of historical events is that such a gap is inevitable. In one instance it has been argued that this distance 'between theory and the real holds good for every theory, including Marxism' (cf. Poulantzas, 1978, p. 22), in another that 'there will … always remain an inherent scissiparity between knowledge and action, theory and practice' (cf. Anderson, 1976, p. 110). To pursue this issue further we necessarily have to consider the question of the epistemological grounds of Marxism, namely the question of its scientificity.

The question of science and scientific method has become an increasingly significant issue within Marxist theory. The authority vested in or claimed for Marxism has almost always been grounded upon, or derived from, conceptions of the validity or 'truth' of the analyses it has generated, and ultimately behind these conceptions of validity or truth there has been a conception of the scientific grounds of Marxism. The extent to which attempts have been made to establish the scientific grounds of Marxist analysis has varied throughout the history of Marxist thought, although it seems to have become an issue of increasing significance within the tradition of Western Marxism, that tradition which began with attempts to account for the disparity between Marxist theory, the Russian Revolution and its controversial aftermath. Increasingly the question of the epistemological grounds and methodological basis of Marxism has become associated with a general debate over the epistemological and methodological status of the human or social sciences (cf. Therborn, 1976). However, the principal source of the controversy over the question of the scientificity of Marxism lies with Marx's work, so we should proceed from there.

The roots of Marxism lie in the nineteenth century, and the predominant conception of scientificity informing the Marxist tradition has been derived from that era. Moral values and political preferences may have featured to a greater or lesser degree in the works of Marx and Engels, but it has generally been argued that the true value of their works, their authority so to speak, has been derived from the epistemological status of their analyses. It is the assumed scientific status of their analyses which has provided the authority for the formulation of political programmes, plans and social policies. However, the question of th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 On the limits and limitations of Marxism
• 2 Marxism, theory and politics
• 3 Reaction, revision and criticism
• 4 Genealogy, critique and the analysis of power
• 5 Discipline and social regulation
• 6 Critical analyses of rationality
• Bibliography
• Index