[[Capitalism]] is not just a historical epoch among [[others]]. In a way, the once fashionable and now half-forgotten Francis [[Fukuyama]] was [[right]]: [[global]] [[capital]] is "the end of [[history]]." A certain [[excess]] which was, as it were, kept under check in previous history, perceived as a localizable [[perversion]], as an excess, a deviation, is in capitalism elevated into the very [[principle]] of [[social]] [[life]], in the speculative movement of [[money]] begetting more money, of a [[system]] which can survive only by constantly revolutionizing its own [[conditions]]-that is to say, in which the [[thing]] can survive only as its own excess, constantly exceeding its own "normal" constraints. And, perhaps it is only today, in global capitalism in its "postindustrial", digitalized [[form]], that, to put it in [[Hegelian]] [[terms]], really existing capitalism is reaching the level of its [[notion]]: perhaps, one should follow again [[Marx]]'s old, antievolutionist motto (incidentally taken verbatim from [[Hegel]]) that the anatomy of man provides the key for the anatomy of the monkey-that is, in [[order]] to deploy the inherent, notional [[structure]] of a social [[formation]], one must start with its most developed form.
Marx located the elementary [[capitalist]] [[antagonism]] in the opposition between use-[[value]] and [[exchange]] value: in capitalism, the potentials of this opposition are fully realized, the [[domain]] of exchange-value acquires [[autonomy]], is transferred into the specter of [[self]]-propelling speculative capital which [[needs]] the productive capacities and needs of actual [[people]] only as its dispensable [[temporal]] embodiment. Marx derived the very notion of [[economic]] crisis from this gap: a crisis occurs when [[reality]] catches up with the [[illusory]], self-generating mirage of money begetting more money-this speculative [[madness]] can not go on indefinitely; it has to explode in ever stronger crises. The ultimate root of the crisis is for him, the gap between use-value and exchange-value: the [[logic]] of exchange-value follows its own path, its own mad dance, irrespective of the [[real]] needs of real people. It may appear that this [[analysis]] is more than actual today when the tension between the real [[universe]] and the real is reaching almost palpably unbearable proportions: on the one hand, we have crazy, solipsistic speculations [[about]] futures, mergers, and so on, following their own inherent logic; on the [[other]] hand, reality is catching up I the guise of ecological catastrophes, poverty, [[Third]] [[World]] diseases in collapse of social life, mad cow disease.
Have Michael Hardt This is why cyber-capitalists can appear as the paradigmatic capitalists today; this is why Bill Gates can [[dream]] of [[cyberspace]] as providing the [[frame]] for what he calls "frictionless capitalism." What we have here is an [[ideological]] short circuit between the two versions of the gap between reality and Antonio Negri Rewritten virtuality: the Communist Manifesto For gap between real production and and the Twenty[[virtual]], [[spectral]] domain of Capital, and the gap between experiential reality and the virtual reality of cyberspace. It effectively seems that the gap between my fascinating [[screen]] persona and the miserable flesh that is "me" off-First Centuryscreen translates into immediate [[experience]] the gap between [[the Real]] of the speculative [[circulation]] of capital and the drab reality of impoverished masses. However is this (this recourse to "reality" which will sooner or later catch up with the virtual [[game]]) really the only way to operationalize a critique of capitalism?Slavoj Zizek.Rethinking MarxismWhat if the problem of capitalism is not this solipsistic mad dance but precisely the opposite: that it continues to [[disavow]] its gap with "reality", Volume 13that it presents itself as serving real needs of real people? The originality of Marx is that he played on both cards simultaneously: the origin of capitalist crises is the gap between use- and exchange-value, Number 3/4 2001and capitalism constrains the free deployment of productivity.
What all this means is that the urgent task of the economic analysis today is, again, to [[repeat]] Marx's critique of [[political]] [[economy]], without succeeding on to the temptation of the [[ideologies]] of "postindustrial" societies. It is my hypothesis that the key [[change]] concerns the status of [[private property]]: the ultimate element of [[power]] and [[control]] is no longer the last link in the [[chain]] of investments, the firm or [[individual]] who "really owns" the means of production. The [[ideal]] capitalist today functions in a in a wholly different way: investing borrowed money, "really owning" [[nothing]]-even indebted, but nonetheless controlling things. A corporation is owned by [[another]] corporation, who is again borrowing money from banks, who may ultimately manipulate money owned by ordinary people like ourselves. With Bill Gates, "private property in the means of production" becomes meaningless, at least in the standard [[meaning]] of the [[word]]. The [[paradox]] of this virtualization of capitalism is ultimately the same as that of the electron in elementary particle [[physics]]. The mass of each element in our reality is composed of its mass at rest plus the [[surplus]] provided by the acceleration of its movement; however, an electron's mass at rest is zero, its mass consisting only of the surplus generated by the acceleration of its movement, as if we are dealing with a nothing which acquires some deceptive substance only by magically spinning itself into an excess of itself. Does today's virtual capitalist not function in a homologous way: his "net value" at zero, he directly operates just with the surplus borrowing from the [[future]].
Capitalism This, exactly, is not just what [[Michael Hardt]] and [[Antonio Negri]] are trying to do in their [[Empire]] (2000), a historical epoch among others. In a waybook that sets as its [[goal]], [[writing]] the [[Communist]] Manifesto for the once fashionable twenty-first century. Hardt and now half-forgotten Francis Fukuyama was rightNegri describe [[globalization]] as an ambiguous "deterritorialization": victorious global capital capitalism pushes into every pore of our social lives, into the most intimate of spheres, and installs an ever [[present]] [[dynamic]], which no longer is "the end based on patriarchal or other hierarchic [[structures]] of historydominance." A certain excess which wasInstead, as it were, kept under check in previous history, perceived as causes a localizable perversionflowing, as an excesshybrid [[identity]]. On the other hand, a deviation, is in capitalism elevated into the very principle this fundamental corrosion of all important social life, in connections lets the speculative movement genie out of money begetting the bottle: it sets free the potentially centrifugal forces that the capitalist system is no longer able fully to control. It is exactly because its global triumph that the capitalist system is more money, vulnerable than ever. The old [[formula]] of a system which can survive only by constantly revolutionizing Marx is still valid: capitalism digs its own conditionsgrave. Hardt and Negri describe this [[process]] as the transition from the [[nation]]-that is [[state]] to global Empire, a transnational entity comparable to sayancient Rome, in which hybrid masses of scattered identities developed. Hardt and Negri thus deserve much praise for enlightening us about the thing can survive only as its own excess, constantly exceeding its own "normal" constraints. And, perhaps it is only contradictory [[nature]] of today, in global capitalism in its 's "postindustrialturbocapitalism", digitalized form, that, and attempting to [[identify]] to put it in Hegelian terms, really existing capitalism is reaching identify the level revolutionary potential of its notion: perhaps, one should follow again Marx's old, antievolutionist motto (incidentally taken verbatim from Hegel) that dynamic. This heroic attempt sets itself against the anatomy standard view of man provides those on the key for [[Left]] who are struggling to [[limit]] the anatomy destructive powers of globalization and to rescue (what there is left to rescue) the monkey-that [[welfare]] state. This standard [[leftist]] view isimbued with a profoundly [[conservative]] mistrust of the dynamics of globalization and [[digitalization]], which is quite contrary o the [[Marxist]] confidence in order to deploy the inherent, notional structure powers of a social formation, one must start with its most developed form[[progress]].
Marx located Nevertheless, one immediately gets a [[sense]] of the elementary capitalist antagonism in the opposition between useboundaries to Hardt and Negri's analysis. In their social-value and exchange value: in capitalismeconomic analysis, the potentials [[lack]] of this opposition are fully realized, [[concrete]] insight is concealed in the domain Deleuzian [[jargon]] of exchange-value acquires autonomy[[multitude]], deterritorialization, is transferred into and so forth. No wonder that the specter of self-propelling speculative capital [[three]] "[[practical]] proposals with which needs the productive capacities book ends appear anticlimactic. The authors propose to focus our political [[struggle]] on three global rights: the rights to global [[citizenship]], a minimal income, and needs the reappropriation of actual people only as its dispensable temporal embodiment. Marx derived the very notion new means of economic crisis from this gap: production (i.e. access to and control over education, information and [[communication]]). It is a crisis occurs when reality catches up with paradox that Hardt and Negri, the illusorypoets of mobility, variety, hybridization, self-generating mirage of money begetting more money-this speculative madness can not go and so on indefinitely; it has to explode , call for three [[demands]] formulated in ever stronger crisesthe terminology of [[universal]] [[human]] rights. The ultimate root of the crisis problem with these demands is for him, the gap that they fluctuate between use-value [[formal]] emptiness and exchange-value[[impossible]] radicalization. Let us take the right to global citizenship: the logic of exchange-value follows its own paththeoretically, its own mad dance, irrespective of the real needs this right of real peoplecourse should be approved. It may appear that However, if this analysis [[demand]] is meant to be taken more seriously than actual today when a celebratory formal declaration in typical United Nations Style, then it would mean the tension between the real universe abolition of state borders; under present conditions, such a step would trigger an invasion of cheap labor from [[India]], China and Africa into the real is reaching almost palpably unbearable proportions: on the one hand, we have crazy, solipsistic speculations about futures, mergers, [[United States]] and so onWestern [[Europe]], following their own inherent logic; on which would result in a populist [[revolt]] against immigrants-a result of such violent proportions that [[figures]] like Haider would seem models of multicultural [[tolerance]]. The same is valid with [[regard]] to the other handtwo demands: for [[instance]], reality is catching up I the guise universal (worldwide) right to minimal income-of ecological catastrophescourse, poverty, Third World diseases in collapse of why not? But how should one create the necessary social life, mad cow disease.-economic and ideological conditions for such a shattering transformation?
This critique is why cyber-capitalists can appear as not only aimed at the paradigmatic capitalists today; this secondary empirical details. The main problem with Empire is why Bill Gates can dream of cyberspace as providing that the frame for what he calls "frictionless capitalism." What we have here is an ideological book falls short circuit between in its fundamental analysis of how (if at all) the two versions of present global, social-economic process will create the gap between reality and virtuality[[space]] needed for such radical measures: the gap between real production and and the virtualthey fail to repeat, spectral domain of Capitalin today's conditions, and the gap between experiential reality and the virtual reality Marx's line of cyberspace. It effectively seems argumentation that the gap between my fascinating screen persona and prospect of the miserable flesh that is "me" off-screen translates into immediate experience the gap between the Real proletarian [[revolution]] emerges out of the speculative circulation inherent [[antagonisms]] of capital and the drab reality capitalist [[mode of impoverished massesproduction]]. However is In this (this recourse to "reality" which will sooner or later catch up with the virtual game) really the only way to operationalize respect, Empire remains a critique of capitalism? What if pre-Marxist book. However, perhaps the problem of capitalism solution is not this solipsistic mad dance but precisely the opposite: that it continues is not enough to disavow its gap with "reality"[[return]] to Marx, that it presents itself as serving real needs of real people? The originality of to repeats Marx is that he played on both cards simultaneously: the origin of capitalist crises is the gap between use- and exchange-value's analysis, and capitalism constrains the free deployment of productivitybut we must needs return to [[Lenin]].
What all this means The first [[public]] reaction to such a motto is that the urgent task , of the economic analysis today iscourse, again, to repeat an [[outburst]] of sarcastic [[laughter]]. Marx's critique of political economy: OK, without succeeding even on to Wall Street they [[love]] him today-Marx the temptation poet of the ideologies commodities, who provided perfect descriptions of "postindustrial" societies. It is my hypothesis that the key change concerns the status capitalist dynamics; Marx of private property: the ultimate element of power and control is no longer the last link in the chain of investments, the firm or individual [[cultural]] studies who "really owns" portrayed the means [[alienation]] and [[reification]] of productionour daily lives. The ideal capitalist today functions in a in a wholly different wayBut Lenin: investing borrowed moneyno, "really owning" nothingyou can't be serious! The [[working]]-even indebted[[class]] movement, but nonetheless controlling things. A corporation is owned by another corporationrevolutionary party, who is again borrowing money from banks, who may ultimately manipulate money owned by ordinary people like ourselves. With Bill Gates, "private property in and similar zombie [[concepts]]? Doesn't Lenin stand precisely for the means of production" becomes meaninglessfailure to put [[Marxism]] into [[practice]], at least in the standard meaning of for the word. The paradox of this virtualization of capitalism is ultimately the same as catastrophe that of the electron in elementary particle physics. The mass of each element in our reality is composed of left its mass at rest plus mark on the surplus provided by the acceleration of its movement; however, an electronentire twentieth-century's mass at rest is zeroworld [[politics]], its mass consisting only of for the surplus generated by Real Socialist experiment that culminated in an economically inefficient dictatorship? In contemporary academic politics, the acceleration [[idea]] of its movement, as if we are dealing with a nothing which acquires some deceptive substance only Lenin is accompanied by magically spinning itself into an excess of itself. Does today's virtual capitalist two qualifications: yes, why not function , we live in a homologous [[liberal]] [[democracy]], there is [[freedom]] of thought…however, one should treat Lenin in an "[[objective]] critical and [[scientific]] way: his "net value" at zero, he directly operates just with not in an attitude of nostalgic idolatry, and, furthermore, from the perspective firmly rooted in the democratic political order, within the horizon of [[human rights]]-therein resides the surplus borrowing from lessons painfully learned through the futureexperience of twentieth-century totalitarianisms.
This, exactly, is what Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri What are trying we to say to do this? Again, the problem resides in their Empire (2000)the implicit qualifications which can be easily discerned by "concrete analysis of the concrete [[situation]]", a book that sets as its goal, writing Lenin himself would have put it. "Fidelity to the Communist Manifesto for democratic consensus" means acceptance of the twentypresent liberal-first century. Hardt and Negri describe globalization as an ambiguous "deterritorializationparliamentary consensus": victorious global capitalism pushes into every pore means acceptance of our social lives, into the most intimate of spheres, and installs an ever present dynamicliberal-parliamentary consensus, which no longer precludes any serious questioning of how this liberal-democratic order is based on patriarchal or other hierarchic structures complicitous in the phenomena it officially condemns and, of dominance. Insteadcourse, it causes any serious attempt to imagine a flowing, hybrid identity[[society]] whose sociopolitical order would be different. On the other handIn short, this fundamental corrosion of all important social connections lets the genie out of the bottleit means: it sets free the potentially centrifugal forces say and write whatever you [[want]]-on condition that what you do does not effectively question or disturb the capitalist system is no longer able fully to controlpredominant political consensus. It So everything is exactly because its allowed, solicited even, as a critical topic: the prospects of a global triumph that ecological catastrophe, violations of human rights, sexism, [[homophobia]], antifeminism, the capitalist system is more vulnerable than ever. The old formula of Marx is still valid: capitalism digs its own grave. Hardt and Negri describe this process as growing [[violence]] not only in far-away countries but also in our megalopolises, the transition from gap between the nation-state to global EmpireFirst and Third Worlds, a transnational entity comparable to ancient Romebetween rich and poor, in which hybrid masses the shattering impact of scattered identities developed. Hardt and Negri thus deserve much praise for enlightening us about the contradictory nature digitalization of our daily lives…there is nothing easier today's "turbocapitalism" and attempting than to identify get international, state, or corporate funds for multidisciplinary research into how to identify fight the revolutionary potential new forms of its dynamicethnic, [[religious]] or sexist violence. This heroic attempt sets itself The problem is that all this occurs against the standard view background of those a fundamental Denkverbot, a [[prohibition]] on the Left who are struggling to limit the destructive powers of globalization and to rescue (what there is left to rescue) the welfare state[[thinking]]. This standard leftist view Today's liberal-democratic [[hegemony]] is imbued with sustained by a profoundly conservative mistrust kind of unwritten Denkverbot similar to the dynamics infamous Berufsverbot in [[Germany]] in the late 1960s: the [[moment]] one shows any minimal [[sign]] of globalization and digitalizationengaging in political projects that aim seriously to challenge the existing order, which the answer is immediately: "Benevolent as it is quite contrary o the Marxist confidence , this will necessarily end in the powers of progress.a new [[Gulag]]!"
NeverthelessAnd it is exactly this same thing that the demand for "scientific objectivity" means: the moment one seriously questions the existing liberal consensus, one immediately gets a sense is accused of the boundaries to Hardt and Negri's analysisabandoning scientific objectivity for outdated ideological positions. In their social-economic analysisAs for us here, it goes without saying, the lack none of concrete insight us is concealed involved in any unconstitutional activities. You probably all [[know]] De Quincey's quip about the Deleuzian jargon "simple art of multitude, deterritorialization, and so forth. No wonder that the three [[murder]]"practical proposals : how many people began with a simple murder which the book ends appear anticlimactic. The authors propose at that point, appeared to focus our political struggle on three global rights: the rights to global citizenship, a minimal income[[them]] nothing special, and ended up behaving badly at table! Along the reappropriation of same lines, we would certainly not like to follow in the new means steps of production (i.e. access to and control over education, information and communication). It is those who began with a paradox that Hardt and Negri, the poets couple of innocent beatings of mobility, variety, hybridization, policemen and so onMolotov cocktails which, call for three demands formulated in the terminology of universal human rights. The problem with these demands is at that they fluctuate between formal emptiness and impossible radicalization. Let us take the right point, appeared to global citizenship: theoreticallythem nothing special, this right of course should be approvedand ended up as a [[German]] foreign minister. However, if this demand there is meant to be taken more seriously than a celebratory formal declaration in typical United Nations Stylepoint on which we cannot concede: today, then it would mean the abolition actual freedom of state borders; under present conditions, such a step would trigger an invasion of cheap labor from India, China and Africa into [[thought]] means the United States and Western Europe, which would result in a populist revolt against immigrants-a result of such violent proportions that figures like Haider would seem models of multicultural tolerance. The same is valid with regard freedom to question the other two demands: for instancepredominant, the universal (worldwide) right to minimal incomeliberal-of coursedemocratic, why not? But how should one create the necessary social"postideological" consensus-economic and ideological conditions for such a shattering transformation?or it means nothing.
This critique is Although most of us probably do not only aimed at the secondary empirical details. The main problem agree with Empire is Jurgen [[Habermas]], we do live in an era that the book falls short in its fundamental analysis of how (if at all) the present globalcould be designated by his term neue Undurchsichtlichkeit, social-economic process will create the space needed for such radical measures: they fail to repeatnew opacity. More than ever, in today's conditions, Marx's line of argumentation that our daily experience is mystifying. [[Modernization]] generates new obscurantisms; the prospect reduction of freedom is presented to us as the proletarian revolution emerges out arrival of the inherent antagonisms of the capitalist mode of productionnew freedoms. In this respect, Empire remains a pre-Marxist bookthese circumstances one should be especially careful not to confuse the ruling [[ideology]] with ideology that seems to dominate. HoweverMore than ever, perhaps the solution is one should bear in [[mind]] Walter [[Benjamin]]'s reminder that it is not enough to return ask how a certain [[theory]] (or art) declares itself to Marx, stay with regard to repeats Marx's analysissocial struggles; one should also ask how it effectively functions in these struggles. In sex, the effectively hegemonic attitude is not patriarchal [[repression]] but we must needs return to Leninfree promiscuity; in art, provocations in the style of the [[notorious]] "[[Sensation]]" exhibitions are the norm, the example of the art fully integrated into the establishment.
One is therefore tempted to turn round Marx's eleventh [[thesis]]. The first public reaction task today is precisely not to succumb to the temptation to act, to such directly intervene and change things (which then inevitably ends in a motto cul-de-sac of debilitating [[impossibility]]: "what can one do against global capital?"). Rather, the task isto question the hegemonic ideological coordinates, of courseor, as [[Brecht]] put it in his Me Ti, an outburst of sarcastic laughter"Thought is something which precedes [[action]] and follows experience. Marx: OK" If, even on Wall Street they love him today-Marx the poet of commodities, who provided perfect descriptions of capitalist dynamicsone follows a direct call to act, this act will not be performed in an empty space; Marx of it will be an act within the cultural studies hegemonic ideological coordinates. Those who portrayed "really want to do something to [[help]] people" get involved in (undoubtedly honorable) exploits like Medecins Sans Frontieres, Greenpeace, and [[feminist]] and antiracist campaigns, which are all not only tolerated but even supported by the alienation [[media]]; even if they seemingly enter economic territory (say, by denouncing and boycotting companies that do not respect ecological conditions or that use [[child]] labor). They are tolerated and reification supported so long as they do not get close to a certain limit. Let us take two predominant topics of our daily livestoday's radical American academia: postcolonial and queer (gay) studies. But Lenin: no, you can't be serious! The working-class movementproblem of postcolonialism is undoubtedly crucial; however, revolutionary party, and similar zombie concepts? Doesn't Lenin stand precisely for the failure "postcolonial studies" tend to put Marxism translate it into practice, for the catastrophe that left its mark on multiculturalist problematic of the entire twentieth-centurycolonized minorities's world politics"right to narrate" their victimizing experience of the power mechanisms that [[repress]] "[[otherness]]" so that, for at the end of the Real Socialist experiment that culminated in an economically inefficient dictatorship? In contemporary academic politicsday, we learn the idea root of dealing with Lenin postcolonial exploitation is accompanied by two qualifications: yesour [[intolerance]] toward the Other, and, furthermore, why notthat this intolerance toward the "Stranger in Ourselves", in our inability to confront what we live [[repressed]] in and of ourselves. The politico-economic struggle is thus imperceptibly transformed into a liberal democracypseudo-[[psychoanalytic]] drama of the [[subject]] unable to confront its inner traumas. The [[true]] corruption of American academia is not primarily financial-it is not only that they are able to buy many European critical intellectuals (myself included, there is freedom up to a point)-but [[conceptual]]: notions of "European" [[critical theory]] are imperceptibly translated into the benign universe of thought…howevercultural studies chic. With regard to this radical chic, one the first gesture toward [[Third Way]] ideologists and practitioners should treat Lenin be that of praise: they at least play their game in an "objective critical and scientific a straight way", not and are honest in an attitude their acceptance of nostalgic idolatry, and, furthermorethe global capitalist coordinates, from the perspective firmly rooted in the democratic political order, within the horizon of human rightscontrast with pseudo-therein resides radical academic leftists who adopt toward the lessons painfully learned through the experience Third Way an attitude of twentieth-century totalitarianismsutter disdain while their own radicality ultimately amounts to an [[empty gesture]] that obliges no one to anything determinate.
What are Lenin is for us not the nostalgic [[name]] for old, dogmatic [[certainty]]-quite the contrary. To put it in [[Kierkegaard]]'s terms, the Lenin we want to say to this? Againretrieve is the Lenin-in-becoming, the problem resides Lenin whose fundamental experience was that of [[being]] thrown into a catastrophic new constellation in the implicit qualifications which can be easily discerned by "concrete analysis old coordinates proved useless, and who was thus compelled to reinvent Marxism-[[recall]] his acerbic remark apropos of the concrete situationsome new problem: "About this, as Marx and Engels said not a word." The idea is not to return to Lenin himself would have put itbut to repeat him in the Kierkegaardian sense: to retrieve the same impulse in today's constellation. "Fidelity The return to Lenin aims neither at nostalgically reenacting the democratic consensus" means acceptance [[good]] old revolutionary [[times]]" nor at the opportunistic-pragmatic adjustment of the present liberal-parliamentary consensusold program to "new conditions" means acceptance of , but at [[repeating]], in the present liberal-parliamentary consensus, which precludes any serious questioning the Leninist gesture of how this liberal-democratic order is complicitous reinventing the revolutionary [[project]] in the phenomena it officially condemns and, conditions of course, any serious attempt to imagine a society whose sociopolitical order would be different. In short, it means: say [[imperialism]] and write whatever you wantcolonialism-on condition that what you do does not effectively question or disturb more precisely, after the predominant political consensus. So everything is allowed, solicited even, as a critical topic: politico-ideological collapse of the prospects long era of a global ecological progressism in the catastrophe, violations of human rights, sexism, homophobia, antifeminism, 1914. Eric Hobsbawn defined the growing violence not only in far-away countries but also in our megalopolises, [[concept]] of the gap between twentieth century as the First and Third Worlds, [[time]] between rich and poor1914, the shattering impact end of the digitalization long, peaceful expansion of our daily lives…there is nothing easier today than to get internationalcapitalism, stateand 1990, or corporate funds for multidisciplinary research into how to fight the emergence of the new forms form of ethnic, religious or sexist violence. The problem is that all this occurs against global capitalism after the background collapse of a fundamental Denkverbotreally existing [[socialism]]. What Lenin did for 1914, a prohibition on thinkingwe should do for1990. Today's liberal-democratic hegemony is sustained by a kind of unwritten Denkverbot similar to "Lenin" stands for the infamous Berufsverbot in Germany in the late 1960s: the moment one shows any minimal sign of engaging in political projects that aim seriously compelling freedom to challenge suspend the stale, existing order(post)ideological coordinates, the answer is immediately: "Benevolent as debilitating Denkverbot in which we live; it is, this will necessarily end in a new Gulag!"simply means that we are allowed to [[think]] again.
And it Lenin's stance against [[economism]] as well as against pure politics is exactly this same thing that crucial today, apropos of the demand for "scientific objectivity" means[[split]] attitude toward economy in (what remains of) radical circles: on the moment one seriously questions hand, there are pure "politicians" who abandon economy as the existing liberal consensus, one is accused site of abandoning scientific objectivity for outdated ideological positions. As for us herestruggle and [[intervention]]; on the other hand, it goes without sayingthere are the economists, none fascinated by the functioning of us is involved in any unconstitutional activities. You probably all know De Quinceytoday's quip about the "simple art [[global economy]], who preclude any possibility of murder": how many people began with a simple murder which at that pointpolitical intervention proper. Today, appeared more than ever, we should here return to them nothing specialLenin: yes, and ended up behaving badly at table! Along economy is the same lineskey domain, we would certainly not like to follow in the steps of those who began with a couple of innocent beatings of policemen and Molotov cocktails which, at that point, appeared to them nothing special, and ended up as a German foreign minister. However, battle will be decided there is a point on which we cannot concede: today, actual freedom of thought means the freedom one has to question break the predominant, liberalspell of global capitalism-democraticbut the intervention should be properly political, "postideological" consensus-or it means nothingnot economic.
Although most of us probably do not agree with Jurgen Habermas, we do live in an era that could The battle to be designated by his term neue Undurchsichtlichkeitfought is thus twofold. First-yes-anticapitalism. However, the new opacity. More than everanticapitalism without problematizing capitalism's political form (liberal parliamentary democracy) is not sufficient, our daily experience no matter how radical it is mystifying. Modernization generates new obscurantisms; Perhaps the reduction of freedom [[lure]] today is presented the [[belief]] that one can undermine capitalism without effectively problematizing the liberal democratic legacy which (as some Leftists [[claim]]), although engendered by capitalism, acquired autonomy and can serve to us as the arrival of new freedomscriticize capitalism. In these circumstances one should be especially careful not This lure is strictly correlative to its [[apparent]] opposite, to confuse the ruling ideology with ideology pseudo-Deleuzian, love-[[hate]], fascinating/fascinated poetic depiction of capital as a rhizomatic monster/vampire that seems to dominate. More than deterritorializes and swallows all-indomitable, dynamic, everrising from the [[dead]], one should bear in mind Walter Benjamin's reminder that each crisis making it stronger, Dionysus-Phoenix reborn. It is not enough to ask how a certain theory in this poetic (or artanti) declares itself -capitalist reference to stay with regard to social struggles; one should also ask how it effectively functions in these struggles. In sex, the effectively hegemonic attitude Marx that Marx is not patriarchal repression but free promiscuity; in art, provocations in the style really dead: appropriated when deprived of the notorious "Sensation" exhibitions are the norm, the example of the art fully integrated into the establishmenthis political sting.
One So where in all this is therefore tempted to turn round Marx's eleventh thesis. The first task today is precisely not to succumb Lenin? According to the temptation to actpredominant doxa, to directly intervene and change things (which then inevitably ends in a cul-de-sac of debilitating impossibility: "what can one do against global capital?"). Rather, the task is to question years after the hegemonic ideological coordinatesOctober Revolution, or, as Brecht put it Lenin's declining [[faith]] in his Me Ti, "Thought is something which precedes action and follows experience." If, today, one follows a direct call to act, this act will not be performed in an empty space; it will be an act within the hegemonic ideological coordinates. Those who "really want creative capacities of the masses led him to do something to help people" get involved in (undoubtedly honorable) exploits like Medecins Sans Frontieres, Greenpeace, and feminist and antiracist campaigns, which are all not only tolerated but even supported by emphasize the media; even if they seemingly enter economic territory (say, by denouncing and boycotting companies that do not respect ecological conditions or that use child labor). They are tolerated and supported so long as they do not get close to a certain limit. Let us take two predominant topics [[role]] of today's radical American academia: postcolonial [[science]] and queer (gay) studies. The problem of postcolonialism is undoubtedly crucial; howeverscientists, "postcolonial studies" tend to translate it into rely on the multiculturalist problematic [[authority]] of the colonized minorities' "right to narrateexpert: he hailed " their victimizing experience of the power mechanisms that repress "otherness" so that, at the end beginning of the day, we learn the root of postcolonial exploitation is our intolerance toward the Other, and, furthermore, that this intolerance toward very happy time when politics will recede into the "Stranger in Ourselves", in our inability to confront what we repressed in background…and engineers and of ourselves. The politico-economic struggle is thus imperceptibly transformed into a pseudo-psychoanalytic drama agronomists will do most of the subject unable to confront its inner traumastalking. The true corruption of American academia is not primarily financial-it is not only that they are able to buy many European critical intellectuals (myself included, up to a point)-but conceptual: notions of "European" critical theory are imperceptibly translated into Technocratic postpolitics? Lenin's [[ideas]] about how the benign universe of cultural studies chic. With regard road to this radical chic, socialism runs through the first gesture toward Third Way ideologists and practitioners should be that terrain of praise: they at least play their game in a straight way, and are honest in their acceptance of the global capitalist coordinates, in contrast with pseudo-radical academic leftists who adopt toward the Third Way an attitude of utter disdain while their own radicality ultimately amounts to an empty gesture that obliges no one to anything determinatemonopoly capitalism may appear dangerously naïve today.
Lenin is for us not <<Capitalism has created an accounting [[apparatus]] in the nostalgic name for old, dogmatic certainty-quite shape of the contrary. To put it in Kierkegaard's termsbanks, the Lenin we want to retrieve is the Lenin-in-becomingsyndicates, the Lenin whose fundamental experience was that of being thrown into a catastrophic new constellation in which old coordinates proved uselesspostal service, and who was thus compelled to reinvent Marxism-recall his acerbic remark apropos of some new problem: "About thisconsumers' societies, Marx and Engels said not a wordoffice employee unions." The idea Without big banks socialism would be impossible…our task is not here merely to return lop off what capitalistically mutilates this excellent apparatus, to Lenin but to repeat him in the Kierkegaardian sense: to retrieve the same impulse in today's constellation. The return to Lenin aims neither at nostalgically reenacting the "good old revolutionary times" nor at the opportunistic-pragmatic adjustment of the old program to "new conditions"make it even bigger, but at repeatingeven more democratic, in the present, the Leninist gesture of reinventing the revolutionary project in the conditions of imperialism and colonialismeven more comprehensive…This will be country-wide book-more preciselykeeping, after the politicocountry-ideological collapse wide accounting of the long era production and distribution of progressism in the catastrophe of 1914. Eric Hobsbawn defined the concept of the twentieth century as the time between 1914goods, the end of the longthis will be, peaceful expansion of capitalism, and 1990so to [[speak]], something in the emergence nature of the new form skeleton of global capitalism after the collapse of really existing socialismsocialist society. What (Lenin did for 19141960-70, we should do for1990. "Lenin" stands for the compelling freedom to suspend the stale, existing (post26: 106)ideological coordinates, the debilitating Denkverbot in which we live; it simply means that we are allowed to think again.
LeninIs this not the most radical expression of Marx's stance against economism as well as against pure politics is crucial todaynotion of the general intellect regulating all social life in a [[transparent]] way, apropos of the split attitude toward economy postpolitical world in (what remains which "administration of) radical circles: on people" is supplanted by the one hand, there are pure "politiciansadministration of things" who abandon economy as the site ? It is, of struggle and intervention; on the other handcourse, there are easy to play against this quote the economists, fascinated by tune of the functioning "critique of today's global economy, who preclude any possibility instrumental [[reason]]" and "[[administered world]]" (verwaltete Welt): "totalitarian" potentials are inscribed in this very formula of a political intervention proper[[total]] social control. Today, more than ever, we should here return It is easy to Lenin: yesremark sarcastically how, economy is in the key domainStalinist epoch, the battle will be decided thereapparatus of social administration effectively becomes "even bigger." Furthermore, one has to break is this postpolitical [[vision]] not the very opposite of the spell [[Maoist]] notion of global capitalism-but the intervention should be properly [[eternity]] of [[class struggle]] ("everything is political, not economic.")?
The battle to be fought is thus twofold. First-yes-anticapitalism. HoweverAre, however, anticapitalism without problematizing capitalism's political form things really so unambiguous? What if one replaces the (liberal parliamentary democracyobviously dated) is not sufficientexample of the central bank with the World Wide Web, no matter how radical it is. Perhaps the lure today is 's perfect candidate for the belief General Intellect? [[Dorothy Sayers]] claimed that one can undermine capitalism without [[Aristotle]]'s Poetics effectively problematizing is the theory of detective novels avant la [[lettre]]: since poor Aristotle didn't yet know of the liberal democratic legacy which (as some Leftists claim)detective novel, although engendered by capitalism, acquired autonomy and can serve he had to refer to criticize capitalismthe only examples at his disposal-the tragedies. This lure is strictly correlative Along the same lines, Lenin was effectively developing the theory of the role of the World Wide Web but, since the Web was unknown to its apparent oppositehim, he had to refer to the pseudo-Deleuzianunfortunate central banks. Consequently, love-hatecan one also say that "without the World Wide Web socialism would be impossible…our task is here merely to lop off what capitalistically mutilates this excellent apparatus, fascinating/fascinated poetic depiction of capital as a rhizomatic monster/vampire that deterritorializes and swallows all-indomitableto make it even bigger, dynamiceven more democratic, ever rising from even more comprehensive? In these conditions one is tempted to resuscitate the deadold, each crisis making it strongeropprobrious, Dionysusand half-Phoenix rebornforgotten Marxian dialectics of the productive forces and the relations of productions. It is in already a commonplace to claim that, ironically, it was this poetic (anti)-capitalist reference very dialectics that buried really existing socialism: Socialism was not able to sustain the passage from industrial to Marx that Marx is postindustrial economy. However, does capitalism really deadprovide the "[[natural]]" frame of the relations of production for the digital universe? Is there not in the World Wide Web and explosive potential also for capitalism itself? Is not the lesson of the Microsoft monopoly precisely the Leninist one: appropriated when deprived instead of fighting its monopoly through the state apparatus (recall the court-ordered split of his political sting.the Microsoft Corporation), would it not be more "[[logical]]" to socialize it, rendering it freely accessible?
So where in all this The key antagonism of the so-called new (digital) industries is Lenin? According thus how to maintain the predominant doxaform of (private) property, in within which only the years after logic of profit can be maintained (see also the October Revolution, Lenin's declining faith in Napster problem-the creative capacities free circulation of [[music]]). And do the masses led him to emphasize [[legal]] complications in bioenergetics not point in the role same direction? The key element of science and scientists, to rely on the authority of new international trade agreements is the expert: he hailed "the beginning protection of that very happy time when politics will recede into [[intellectual]] property": whenever, in a merger, a big First World company takes over a Third World company, the background…and engineers and agronomists will first thing they do most of is close down the talkingresearch department." Technocratic postpolitics? Lenin's ideas about how (In [[Slovenia]]-Henkel-Zlatorog, our company had to sign a formal agreement not to do any research!) Paradoxes emerge here that bring the road notion of private property to socialism runs through extraordinary [[dialectical]] paradoxes: in India, local communities discover that medical practices and [[materials]] they have used for centuries are now owned by American companies, so they should be bought from them; with the terrain biogenetic companies patentizing genes, we are all discovering that parts of monopoly capitalism may appear dangerously naïve todayourselves-our genetic components-are already copyrighted, owned by others.
<<Capitalism has created an accounting apparatus in Today we see the shape [[signs]] of the banksgeneral unease, syndicateswhich is already exploding: I am, postal serviceof course, consumers' societiesreferring to the events usually listed under the name of "Seattle." The long honeymoon of triumphant global capitalism is over, and office employee unionsthe long-overdue "seven-year itch" is here. Without [[Witness]] the panicky reactions of the big banks socialism would be impossible…our task media which, from Time to the Cable News Network, all of a sudden started to warn about Marxists manipulating the crowd of "honest" protesters. The problem is here merely now the strictly Leninist one of how to actualize the media's accusations: how to lop off invent the organizational structure that will confer on this unrest the form of the universal political demand. Otherwise, the momentum will be lost and what capitalistically mutilates this excellent apparatuswill remain will be the marginal [[disturbance]], perhaps organized as a new Greenpeace, with certain efficiency, to make it even biggerbut also strictly limited goals, even more democraticmarketing strategy, even more comprehensive…This will be country-wide book-keepingand so on. In other [[words]], the key "Leninist" lesson today is: politics without the organizational form of the party is politics without politics, country-wide accounting so the answer to those who want just the (quite adequately named) "new social movements" is the same as the answer of the production and distribution Jacobins to the Girondin compromisers: "You want revolution without the revolution!" Today's blockade is that there are two ways open for the sociopolitical engagement: either play the game of goodsthe system-"engage in the long march throught the institutions"-or get involved in new social movements, this will be, so from [[feminism]] through [[ecology]] to speakantiracism. And again, something the limit of these movements is that they are not political in the nature sense of the skeleton universal [[singular]]: they are "one-issue movements" [[lacking]] the [[dimension]] of socialist society. (Lenin 1960[[universality]]-70that is, 26: 106)they do not relate to the social [[totality]].
Here, Lenin's reproach to [[liberals]] is crucial: they only exploit the working classes discontent to strengthen their own positions vis-à-vis the conservatives, instead of [[identifying]] with it to the end. Is this not also the most radical expression of Marx[[case]] with today's notion of left liberals? They like to evoke [[racism]], ecology, [[workers]]' grievances, and so forth to score points over conservatives without endangering the system. Recall how, at Seattle, Bill [[Clinton]] himself deftly referred to the protesters on the general intellect regulating all social life in a transparent waystreets [[outside]], reminding the gathered leaders [[inside]] the guarded palaces that they should listen to the [[message]] of the postpolitical world in demonstrators ( the message which "administration of people" is supplanted by the "administration of things"? It is, of course, easy Clinton [[interpreted]], depriving it of its subversive sting attributed to play against this quote the tune of dangerous extremists introducing chaos and violence into the "critique majority of instrumental reason" and "administered world" (verwaltete Weltpeaceful protesters). It's the same with all new social movements, up to the Zapatistas in Chiapas: systemic politics is always ready to "totalitarianlisten to their demands," potentials are inscribed in this very formula depriving them of total social controltheir proper political sting. It The system is easy to remark sarcastically howby definition ecumenical, open, in the Stalinist epochtolerant, the apparatus of social administration effectively becomes ready to "listen"even biggerto all." FurthermoreEven if one insists on one's demands, is this postpolitical vision not they are deprived of their universal political sting by the very opposite form of the Maoist notion of the eternity of class struggle ("everything is political")?negotiation.
Are, however, things really so unambiguous? What if one replaces the (obviously dated) example of the central bank with the World Wide Web, today's perfect candidate for the General Intellect? Dorothy Sayers claimed To repeat Lenin is thus to accept that Aristotle's Poetics effectively "Lenin is the theory of detective novels avant la lettre: since poor Aristotle didn't yet know of the detective noveldead"-that his [[particular]] solution failed, he had to refer to the only examples at his disposal-the tragedies. Along the same lineseven failed monstrously, Lenin was effectively developing the theory of the role of the World Wide Web but, since the Web that there was unknown to him, he had to refer to the unfortunate central banksa [[utopian]] spark in it worth saving. Consequently, can To repeat Lenin means that one also say that "without the World Wide Web socialism would be impossible…our task is here merely has to lop off distinguish between what capitalistically mutilates this excellent apparatus, to make it even bigger, even more democratic, even more comprehensive? In these conditions one is tempted to resuscitate the old, opprobrious, Lenin effectively did and half-forgotten Marxian dialectics of the productive forces and the relations field of productions. It is already a commonplace to claim possibilities thathe opened up, ironicallythe tension in Lenin between what he effectively did and another dimension, it what was this very dialectics that buried really existing socialism: Socialism was not able to sustain the passage from industrial to postindustrial economy. However, does capitalism really provide the "natural" frame of the relations of production for the digital universe? Is there not in the World Wide Web and explosive potential also for capitalism itself? Is not the lesson of the Microsoft monopoly precisely the Leninist one: instead of fighting its monopoly through the state apparatus (recall the court-ordered split of the Microsoft Corporation), would it not be Lenin more than Lenin himself."logical" To repeat Lenin is to repeat not what Lenin did but what he failed to socialize itdo, rendering it freely accessible?his missed opportunities.
The key antagonism of the so-called new (digital) industries is thus how to maintain the form of (private) property==References==# Hardt, within which only the logic of profit can be maintained (see also the Napster problem-the free circulation of music)M. And do the legal complications in bioenergetics not point in the same direction? The key element of the new international trade agreements is the "protection of intellectual property": whenever, in a mergerand A. Negri. 2000. Empire. Cambridge, a big First World company takes over a Third World companyMass.: Harvard [[University]] Press.# Lenin, the first thing they do is close down the research departmentV.I. (In Slovenia1960-Henkel-Zlatorog, our company had to sign a formal agreement not to do any research!) Paradoxes emerge here that bring the notion of private property to extraordinary dialectical paradoxes70. Collected Works. 45 vols. Moscow: in India, local communities discover that medical practices and materials they have used for centuries are now owned by American companies, so they should be bought from them; with the biogenetic companies patentizing genes, we are all discovering that parts of ourselves-our genetic components-are already copyrighted, owned by othersForeign [[Languages]] Publishing House.
Today we see the signs of general unease, which is already exploding: I am, of course, referring to the events usually listed under the name of "Seattle." The long honeymoon of triumphant global capitalism is over, the long-overdue "seven-year itch" is here. Witness the panicky reactions of the big media which, from Time to the Cable News Network, all of a sudden started to warn about Marxists manipulating the crowd of "honest" protesters. The problem is now the strictly Leninist one of how to actualize the media's accusations: how to invent the organizational structure that will confer on this unrest the form of the universal political demand. Otherwise, the momentum will be lost ==Source==* [[Have Michael Hardt and what will remain will be Antonio Negri Rewritten the marginal disturbance, perhaps organized as a new Greenpeace, with certain efficiency, but also strictly limited goals, marketing strategy, and so on. In other words, Communist Manifesto For the key "Leninist" lesson today is: politics without the organizational form of the party is politics without politics, so the answer to those who want just the (quite adequately named) "new social movements" is the same as the answer of the Jacobins to the Girondin compromisers: "You want revolution without the revolution!" Today's blockade is that there are two ways open for the sociopolitical engagement: either play the game of the system-"engage in the long march throught the institutions"-or get involved in new social movements, from feminism through ecology to antiracism. And again, the limit of these movements is that they are not political in the sense of the universal singular: they are "one-issue movements" lacking the dimension of universalityTwenty-that is, they do not relate to the social totalityFirst Century]]. Here, Lenin's reproach to liberals is crucial: they only exploit the working classes discontent to strengthen their own positions vis-à-vis the conservatives, instead of identifying with it to the end. Is this not also the case with today's left liberals? They like to evoke racism, ecology, workers' grievances, and so forth to score points over conservatives without endangering the system. Recall how, at Seattle, Bill Clinton himself deftly referred to the protesters on the streets outside, reminding the gathered leaders inside the guarded palaces that they should listen to the message of the demonstrators ( the message which, of course, Clinton interpreted, depriving it of its subversive sting attributed to the dangerous extremists introducing chaos and violence into the majority of peaceful protesters). ItRethinking Marxism's the same with all new social movements, up to the Zapatistas in Chiapas: systemic politics is always ready to "listen to their demands," depriving them of their proper political sting. The system is by definition ecumenical, open, tolerant, ready to "listen" to all. Even if one insists on one's demands, they are deprived of their universal political sting by the very form of negotiation. To repeat Lenin is thus to accept that "Lenin is dead"-that his particular solution failed, even failed monstrously, but that there was a utopian spark in it worth saving. To repeat Lenin means that one has to distinguish between what Lenin effectively did and the field of possibilities that he opened up, the tension in Lenin between what he effectively did and another dimension, what was "in Lenin more than Lenin himself." To repeat Lenin is to repeat not what Lenin did but what he failed to do, his missed opportunities. References Hardt, M., and A. Negri. 2000. Empire. Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard University Press. Lenin, V.I. 1960-70. Collected Works. 45 vols. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House.From: Rethinking Marxism, Volume 13, [[Number ]] 3/4 2001. [[Category:Articles by Slavoj Žižek]][[Category:ZizekSlavoj Žižek]]
[[Category:Works]]
[[Category:Essays]]
