Late Modernity, Individualization and Socialism

An Associational Critique of Neoliberalism

M. Dawson

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137003423
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Theory
• Index: Social Sciences

Influenced most notably by Émile Durkheim and Zygmunt Bauman, Dawson outlines how this long neglected stream of socialist theory can help us more fully understand, and possibly move beyond, the problems of neoliberalism and our conceptions of political individualism.

Part I

Theoretical Background

1

The Political Sociology of Late Modernity: Political Individualization

The form of neoliberal capitalism outlined in the Introduction both exists under and gives shape to the condition of late modernity. These two are not intended to be synonyms; late modernity encompasses the logic of social processes while neoliberalism classifies a type of capitalist economy. Since both focus upon claims of globalization and individualism, it may seem plausible that there is an ‘elective affinity’ between them. However, as this chapter suggests, this relies upon a myopic reading of late modernity. Here I will outline the challenges that the emergence of late modernity has posed for sociology – more specifically, political sociology. The three ‘representatives’ of this argument will be Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens. This discussion will discuss the centrality given to individualization by all three in both their analytical theory and their normative alternatives. This has been, in various ways, problematic in each case, so I will also outline a way of rethinking individualization based upon empirical research in the field.

In order to allow for the concept of late modernity to be developed throughout this book, especially to facilitate its application in Part II, this chapter will highlight key themes developed throughout. These relate to four important elements of late modern political sociology: lived everyday experience; the role of the state; political economy; and the nature of political action. As we shall see throughout this chapter, Bauman, Beck and Giddens have seen these four categories as influenced in significant ways by individualization and neoliberalism. Therefore, I will not only provide a rethinking of individualization taking these themes into account but also conclude the chapter by providing four questions related to these themes, which Part II will then attempt to answer utilizing the main claims of libertarian socialism.

The timeline of late modernity is mostly left unelaborated beyond the suggestions that it began to emerge in the second half of the twentieth century (cf. Giddens 1990, Beck 1992, Bauman 2000a). It is useful to think of late modernity as an unfolding process, which first began to appear in the 1950s/1960s, with the emergence of the welfare state. However, late modernity could only be said to be established from the 1980s onwards, since it was then that factors such as individualization and the post-traditional order could first be seen to sprout, which partly helps to account for the concept’s inclusion in sociological discourse in the early 1990s. As I will outline below, it is often suggested that some late modern processes (most notably individualization) were partly found in earlier modern societies. The argument here is that late modernity has both quantitatively extended such processes and qualitatively changed their form. Finally, late modernity is claimed to be the common situation of most, if not all, Western societies, but not of countries beyond the West (Giddens 1994a, Bauman 2000a, 2005a:22, Beck and Grande 2010).¹

Throughout I will provide qualifications and modifications to the theory of the three theorists, but my focus will equally be upon critiquing the understanding of late modernity popular in sociology, of which they are representative. Since all three do not universally use the label ‘late modernity’ to describe the current social setting, we must first consider what they share to make such a classification both useful and accurate.²

On modernity

The best place to start with such a discussion is with the very basis of their thought – that is, their understanding of modernity and modernization. The current phase of late modernity is not a definite break from what came before but rather a direct result and answer to the factors associated with ‘simple modernity’.³ Nevertheless, different terms have been used to categorize this period. Bauman originally spoke of ‘postmodernity’ (Bauman 1987b) and has since shifted his focus to ‘liquid modernity’ (Bauman 2000a). Beck has devoted much of his work to a development of the current phase of ‘second modernity’ as a risk (Beck 1992) or cosmopolitan (Beck 2006) society, and Giddens has given various titles to the stage from ‘second’ to ‘high’ (Giddens 1990) or ‘late modernity’ (Giddens 1991a). Giddens and Beck, however, are bound together by their emphasis on reflexive modernization as the process categorizing this stage (Beck et al. 1994). This re-engagement with the understanding of modernity is central to contemporary sociology since it means the end of the ‘Ma(r)x Weber’ consensus (Beck 1997:21) whereby there were many different sociological paradigms but at least a common understanding of what modernity was. With the break in this consensus, all three argue that the goal of sociology is to understand the basic tenets of modernity and how they have influenced our current stage of late modernity. Therefore the problematic of modernity as a process is central to contemporary sociology (Wagner 2012).

It was in fact this concern with the progress from simple to late modernity which differentiated Bauman’s ‘sociology of postmodernity’ (Bauman 1992a) from other writers’ approaches. Bauman justified his use of the term postmodernity as a form of diagnosis, not prognosis:

I thought and wrote of the ‘postmodern’ as of a new perspective … which one may use to turn modernity around and bring into vision what otherwise would remain unseen … a shorthand from the ‘external observation point’.

(Bauman and Beilharz 1999:339)

Consequently, one of the reasons Bauman stopped using the term postmodernity was that, try as he might, it did wish to signal a different phase from modernity:

‘Postmodern’ was also flawed from the beginning: all disclaimers notwithstanding, it did suggest that modernity was over. Protestations did not help much, even as strong ones as Lyotard’s (‘one cannot be modern without being first postmodern’) – let alone my insistence that ‘postmodernity is modernity minus its illusion’. Nothing would help; if words mean anything, then a ‘postX’ will always mean a state of affairs that has left the ‘X’ behind.

(Bauman and Yakimova 2002)

This is part of the reason why Bauman changed his use of signifier to liquid modernity (Bauman 2000a). As a result, throughout this book I will treat postmodernity and liquid modernity in Bauman’s work as if both were describing the same, late modern, society.⁴ While this equation of post and liquid modernity in Bauman’s work is not without controversy,⁵ I would argue that his frequent and vociferous claims that his ‘liquid turn’ was brought on by a) associations with theorists such as Baudrillard and Lyotard (Bauman and Beilharz 1999) and b) the suggestion of a ‘new’ stage are not factors related to what the theory said but rather the way it is read. In short, liquid modernity is a better metaphor – metaphors being central to Bauman’s sociological method (Jacobsen and Marshman 2008) – for the form modernity takes in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, not a new stage after postmodernity.⁶ Neither of these terms suggests a new kind of modernity – it is possible to find liquids in solid modernity, and vice versa – but there is a shift in the ‘manifest and latent purpose’ within these two epochs, from a focus on creating new solid forms of social order, to more liquid and contingent forms (Bauman and Dawes 2011:132–3).

A similar conception of modernity resides within reflexive modernization (Beck et al. 1994), defined as: ‘A radicalisation of modernity which breaks up the premises and contours of industrial society and opens paths to new modernities or counter-modernities’ (Beck 1997:17). Reflexive modernization opens up the key concepts and assumptions of modernity, increasing understanding of how these have developed and impacted society. This happens not only at the institutional level, leading to internally reflexive systems (Beck 1992), but also at the micro level, where individuals become reflexive agents (Giddens 1990). Such reflexive agents are especially central to Giddens, whose structuration theory bases many of its assumptions upon their presence (Giddens 1984). The reflexive nature of the modernization project during late modernity is also highlighted by Bauman, since late modernity is ‘Fully developed modernity … that acknowledged the effects it was producing through its history’ (Bauman 1992a:187). Therefore, all three utilize common themes in their conception of a transformation of modernity (Wagner 2012:35) by drawing upon ideas of reflexivity (either individual or systemic); unintended consequences of simple modern processes; and a continuum between stages of modernity (simple and late) rather than a break.

These views link directly to what categorizes modernity as a period: the modernization process and how this has adjusted in late modernity. For example, Bauman argues that modernization was originally classified as the ‘melting of solids’ for Marx and the dominance of the reality principle over the pleasure principle for Freud. The impetuses behind these processes remain, however their direction changes. Whereas the melting of solids had previously resulted in the production of new solids more fitting to the capitalist order, they are now melted purely to remove obstacles to human choice (Bauman 2000a). This is notable through the expansion of the market principle into areas of social welfare. Such a shift is also due to an adjustment in the process identified by Freud. The reality principle no longer rules over the pleasure principle: instead they become mutually sustaining. The satisfaction of the pleasure principle becomes the very basis of maintaining the reality principle. This is most significantly a capitalist process: whereas previous, simple modern, forms of capitalism were based on delaying gratification in order to maintain the security of the present (most notable in Keynesian policies), the focus is instead upon instant gratification, expressed most prominently via consumerism (Bauman 1982). Once ‘the reality and the pleasure principle strike a deal’, ‘the search for pleasure could become the major (and sufficient) instrument of pattern maintenance’ (Bauman 2002:187).⁷

A similar process is identified by Giddens, who refers to modernity as a ‘juggernaut’ (Giddens 1990). During simple modernity, individuals were effectively ‘along for the ride’; the juggernaut knew the route to be taken and the end destination. But the processes of reflexive modernization allow a revaluation of modernization and the ability to choose the direction of this juggernaut (Giddens 1990, 1999a). This is done largely through the interaction with expertise (in Giddens’ terms ‘expert systems’ (1991a:243)) and the re-embedding of expert driven modernity. Beck holds a similar view by seeing engagement with expertise as driven by a critical consideration, at individual and collective level, of side effects (Beck et al. 1994:29), although he argues that it is in fact contested ‘non-knowledge’ which such reflexivity produces (Beck et al. 1994:177–8, Beck 2009:122). Therefore all three see freedom, in terms of an actor’s ability to act, as a central part of late modernity. Whereas for Bauman this freedom is to some extent illusionary, repression has lessened, but this has been replaced by seduction (Bauman 1992a). For Giddens, and to a lesser extent Beck, this is positive freedom allowing for some (albeit slight) influence over modernity via an interaction (fruitful or not) with expertise or supposed expertise. Common instances of the above are said to occur within phenomena such as climate change, where the processes of modernization (industrialization, etc.) produce a condition where individual action, guided by contested knowledge, is said to be the solution (Beck 1995); intimate relationships, where increased equality and emotional disclosure place more emphasis upon ‘self-help’ mechanisms to maintain the relationship (Giddens 1992); and job hunting, where employees are expected to revel in the possibility of ‘re-skilling’ and taking control of their employment options (Bauman 2002).

The above has outlined a general discussion of how the concept of modernity is dealt with by our three theorists. This will be continued during the course of the book. However, were one to offer an exact definition of modernity common to all three it would be ‘disembedding’ – that is, the disruption of what already exists (be it social customs, norms or structures) to be replaced by newer forms. Modernity always aimed to destroy what had come before, whether it be traditional ways of living, belief or sociality. In simple modernity, all three agree that modernity not only had a telos but was justified by a tautology: modernity emerged in order to create modern societies; modernization is modernity’s ‘mode of being’ (Bauman and Beilharz 1999:339). Here they are a direct descendent of the first theorists of modernity who conceived of the modern condition as both a form of critique and a normative project (Wagner 2012:11–63). It is the basis of critique and the normative goal of this disembedding which shifts during late modernity. For Giddens and Beck the re-embedding is not justified by what is to come but instead is justified by what has come, hence its ‘reflexive’ nature. Bauman on the other hand sees the dis-embedding occurring without re-embedding, hence the ‘liquidification’ of modernity, itself a result of a reflexive awareness of the problems caused by previous re-embedding. Such problems include nuclear fallout (Beck 1992); the Holocaust (Bauman 1989a); and structural inequality (Giddens 1982c). All of these are examples of the processes of simple modernity leading to a critique within late modernity. Also notable here is a suggestion of the increased importance of individuals as agents of modernity. This is part of a significant trend of late modern sociology to favour a more, albeit not wholly, microsociological approach (Heaphy 2007). Individuals and their lifeworlds are the main subject matter of this field of sociology. This centrality of the individual has, as we will see in the rest of this chapter, had a profound impact on the four key elements of late modern political sociology highlighted at the start of this chapter and to which I will return in the conclusion. The next section discusses what is considered to be new in this discussion.

The centrality of individualization to late modern life

The starting point for a discussion of what categorizes the microsociology of late modernity must be individualization. While late modernity cannot be reduced to individualization, without it the theory loses any sense of internal coherence. It is at this point that we begin to see a significant difference for Bauman in comparison with Beck and Giddens,⁸ namely his focus is on late modern processes as forms of stratification rather than of integration. Individualization is very much a contested concept and most of the proponents of the concept have provided sometimes abstract, or open-ended, definitions (Mills 2007). In the next section I will discuss in more depth some of the secondary analysis of this concept. For now it is enough to say that for our three theorists, individualization refers to the way in which identity is transformed from a ‘given’ into a ‘task’, and that individuals are encouraged to take responsibility for this task (Bauman 2000a:31–2). At the same time, individualization is seen as more than an individual orientation and is also a form of social organization. This involves the dissolving of both collective allegiances and orientations in favour of individuals being given greater responsibility for their own social positioning and activity. In the most radical reading, social reproduction shifts from being structurally to individually generated.

Each theorist is distinct in their approach to individualization, with regard to both causes and effects, despite some shared concerns (Howard 2007a). To expand on these approaches, I will begin with Beck, whose elaboration of individualization has been the most comprehensive. For Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, individualization occurs when ‘the individual is removed from traditional commitments and support relationships’ (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002:203). Much of the impetus towards this is institutional. Beck and Beck-Gernsheim take as their starting point the emergence of ‘institutionalized individualism’ (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002:xxi): the centrality of the individual to social institutions, notably governmental bodies. The result of institutionalized individualism is that

Central institutions of modern society – basic civil, political and social rights … are geared to the individual and not to the group. Insofar as basic rights are internalised and everyone wants to or must be economically active to earn their livelihood, the spiral of individualization destroys the given foundations of social coexistence. So – to give a simple definition – ‘individualization’ means disembedding without reembedding.

(Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002:xxi–i)⁹

Modernity has always created individuals. However, the social cohesion of categories such as class and the family helped compensate for the institutional individualism of simple modernity. But for Beck and Beck-Gernsheim their legitimacy was largely based on tradition. Now tradition’s influence is passing due to ‘detraditionalization’ and the resulting ‘opening up of the human biography’ (Beck 1997:95–7) to other forms of action, thanks to globalization and the structural reflexivity of late modernity. With the removal of any authority these categories had, the process of individualization becomes complete. Consequently, this has a paradigm shifting effect for the rest of our sociological understanding since it devalues our previous analytical concepts into purely ‘zombie categories’ (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002), so-called since they are sociologically alive but empirically dead, s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: The (In)compatibility of Socialism and Late Modernity
• Part I: Theoretical Background
• Part II: Reconciling Late Modernity and Libertarian Socialism
• Conclusion: Political Sociology, Critique and Alternatives in Late Modernity
• Notes
• References
• Index