Beyond the Crisis of Marxism: Gramsci’s Contested Legacy PDF

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Critical Companion to Contemporary Marxism Historical Materialism Book Series Editorial Board Paul Blackledge, Leeds – Sébastien Budgen, Paris Michael Krätke, Amsterdam – Stathis Kouvelakis, London – Marcel van der Linden, Amsterdam China Miéville, London – Paul Reynolds, Lancashire Peter Thomas, A...

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Critical Companion to Contemporary Marxism

Historical Materialism Book Series Editorial Board

Paul Blackledge, Leeds – Sébastien Budgen, Paris Michael Krätke, Amsterdam – Stathis Kouvelakis, London – Marcel van der Linden, Amsterdam China Miéville, London – Paul Reynolds, Lancashire Peter Thomas, Amsterdam

VOLUME 16

Critical Companion to Contemporary Marxism Edited by

Jacques Bidet and Stathis Kouvelakis

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2008

This book is an English translation of Jacques Bidet and Eustache Kouvelakis, Dictionnaire Marx contemporain. C. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 2001. Ouvrage publié avec le concours du Ministère français chargé de la culture – Centre national du Livre. This book has been published with financial aid of CNL (Centre National du Livre), France. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Translations by Gregory Elliott.

ISSN 1570-1522 ISBN 978 90 04 14598 6 Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

Contents

Introduction: Marxism, Post-Marxism, Neo-Marxisms .......................... Jacques Bidet and Stathis Kouvelakis

xi

Pregurations Chapter One A Key to the Critical Companion to Contemporary Marxism ....................................................................................................... Jacques Bidet

3

Chapter Two The Crises of Marxism and the Transformation of Capitalism .............................................................................................. Stathis Kouvelakis

23

Chapter Three The Development of Marxism: From the End of Marxism-Leninism to a Thousand Marxisms – France-Italy, 1975–2005 .................................................................................................... André Tosel Chapter Four Whither Anglo-Saxon Marxism? ..................................... Alex Callinicos Chapter Five Old Theories and New Capitalism: The Actuality of a Marxist Economics ................................................................................. Gérard Duménil and Dominique Lévy

39

79

95

Congurations Chapter Six Analytical Marxism .............................................................. Christopher Bertram

123

vi • Contents

Chapter Seven The Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory: From Neo-Marxism to ‘Post-Marxism’ .................................................. Gérard Raulet Chapter Eight André Tosel

143

The Late Lukács and the Budapest School ...................

163

Chapter Nine The Regulation School: A One-Way Ticket from Marx to Social Liberalism? ....................................................................... Michel Husson

175

Chapter Ten Ecological Marxism or Marxian Political Ecology? ........ Jean-Marie Harribey

189

Chapter Eleven Theories of the Capitalist World-System ................... Rémy Herrera

209

Chapter Twelve Michael Löwy

Liberation-Theology Marxism ....................................

225

Chapter Thirteen Market Socialism: Problems and Models ................ Tony Andréani

233

Chapter Fourteen The American Radicals: A Subversive Current at the Heart of the Empire ....................................................................... Thomas Coutrot Chapter Fifteen Political Marxism ........................................................... Paul Blackledge Chapter Sixteen From ‘Mass Worker’ to ‘Empire’: The Disconcerting Trajectory of Italian Operaismo ............................... Maria Turchetto Chapter Seventeen Marxism and Postcolonial Studies ........................ Neil Lazarus and Rashmi Varma

255

267

285

309

Contents • vii

Chapter Eighteen Paul Blackledge

British Marxist History ..............................................

333

Chapter Nineteen Vivek Chibber

Developments in Marxist Class Analysis ..............

353

Chapter Twenty New Interpretations of Capital ................................... Jacques Bidet

369

Chapter Twenty-One The New Dialectic ............................................... Jim Kincaid

385

Chapter Twenty-Two Bob Jessop

States, State Power, and State Theory ..............

413

Chapter Twenty-Three Robert Carter

Marxism and Theories of Racism ...................

431

Chapter Twenty-Four Historical Materialism and International Relations ..................................................................................................... Frédérick Guillaume Dufour

453

Chapter Twenty-Five Marxism and Language ...................................... Jean-Jacques Lecercle

471

Figures Chapter Twenty-Six Adorno and Marx .................................................. Jean-Marie Vincent Chapter Twenty-Seven Louis Althusser, or the Impure Purity of the Concept ............................................................................................ François Matheron Chapter Twenty-Eight Marxism Expatriated: Alain Badiou’s Turn .... Alberto Toscano

489

503

529

viii • Contents

Chapter Twenty-Nine Revolutionary Potential and Walter Benjamin: A Postwar Reception History .................................. Esther Leslie

549

Chapter Thirty Critical Realism and Beyond: Roy Bhaskar’s Dialectic ....................................................................................................... Alex Callinicos

567

Chapter Thirty-One Jacques Bidet

Bourdieu and Historical Materialism .................

587

Chapter Thirty-Two Deleuze, Marx and Revolution: What It Means to ‘Remain Marxist’ ...................................................................... Isabelle Garo

605

Chapter Thirty-Three Jason Smith

Jacques Derrida: ‘Crypto-Communist’? ...........

625

Chapter Thirty-Four Roberto Nigro

Foucault, Reader and Critic of Marx ..................

647

Chapter Thirty-Five Beyond the Crisis of Marxism: Gramsci’s Contested Legacy ...................................................................................... Fabio Frosini

663

Chapter Thirty-Six Jacques Bidet

Falling Short of Marx: Habermas ..........................

679

Chapter Thirty-Seven Fredric Jameson: An Unslaked Thirst for Totalisation ........................................................................................... Stathis Kouvelakis

697

Chapter Thirty-Eight Henri Lefebvre, Thinker of Urban Modernity ................................................................................................... Stathis Kouvelakis

711

Contents • ix

Chapter Thirty-Nine Kôzô Uno and His School: A Pure Theory of Capitalism .............................................................................................. Jacques Bidet

729

Chapter Forty Raymond Williams .......................................................... Jean-Jacques Lecercle

741

Notes on Contributors ..................................................................................

751

Bibliography ..................................................................................................

755

Index ...............................................................................................................

801

Introduction: Marxism, Post-Marxism, Neo-Marxisms Jacques Bidet and Stathis Kouvelakis

Periodically proclaimed to be dead, or on its way back, Marxism and, more generally, references to Marx are an integral part of contemporary culture. A broad view capable of taking the slightest distance indicates that even today, more than two decades after the eruption of the last ‘crisis’ of Marxism and at a time when the régimes ofcially identied with it belong to history, reference to Marx is in no sense ephemeral – mere residue of a period that is now past – or a local phenomenon, conned to a few geographical and cultural zones or countries. Marxism is demonstrating its persistence, its productivity and its capacity to adapt to contexts and conjunctures. Such is the statement of fact that guided us in the choices governing the production of this book: to indicate the diverse forms – emulating the famous mole of history, they are often subterranean – through which that reference has shaped, and continues to shape, the theoretical debates of the last three decades. Thus, in this Companion, readers will not nd a series of entries corresponding to notions or authors, but a set of chapters offering a broad sense of the main axes (themes, theoretical schools and currents, major authors) around which debates from the 1970s and 1980s onwards have been structured. This perspective is not exhaustive; and different choices could have been made.1

1 Note to the English language edition: six of the chapters in the Dictionnaire Marx contemporain (Presses Universitaires de France, 2001) were not included in this edition, either because they were unsuitable for an anglophone publication, or because they had already appeared in English elsewhere. Chapters 17–25, 28, 29, 32, 33 and 35 were newly commissioned for this edition, whilst Chapters 3 and 16 were substantially revised and updated. The Editors regret that their very ambitious hopes of covering a range of other themes, such as Marxist feminism, geographical-historical materialism (particularly the work of David Harvey), literary and cultural criticism (especially the contributions of Terry Eagleton), new debates in crisis theory (such as

xii • Jacques Bidet and Stathis Kouvelakis

It certainly leaves aside various important geo-cultural zones and some readers are bound to nd it Eurocentric. However, our aim was not to provide a guide to the main concepts of Marxism or an encyclopaedic survey of Marxism. Others, before us, have done that to great effect: we shall simply mention Tom Bottomore’s Dictionary of Marxist Thought (Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1983), Georges Labica’s and Gérard Bensussan’s Dictionnaire critique du marxisme (Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1985), and the Historisch-Kritisches Wörterbuch des Marxismus directed by Wolfgang Fritz Haug (ten volumes, Argument Verlag, Berlin 1994–). And the present volume in no way claims to replace these works, which are indispensable for any reader or researcher interested in Marxism and its history. For our part, what we have sought to do is to pinpoint, and sometimes to disclose, the main tendencies, the lines of demarcation or ight, which today mark the eld of reference to Marx; and the type of effect produced by this reference in the intellectual culture of our time, over and above the question (no doubt crucial) of the future of ‘Marxism’ as such. From this initial decision several imperatives follow, which imposed themselves in the selection and organisation of the material that makes up this Critical Companion of Contemporary Marxism. First and foremost, we wanted to demonstrate the displacement of the ‘centre of gravity’ of Marxist work, which has migrated from the lands where it was traditionally afrmed in the initial postwar decades – namely, southern Europe and Latin America – towards the anglophone world (and especially its universities), which in our time has become the centre of theoretical production referring to Marx. This involves a major transformation in the ‘becominga-world’ of Marx’s thought, to use Henri Lefebvre’s phrase. It requires an in-depth analysis, some elements of which we shall suggest, both in terms of theoretical and historical balance-sheets (‘Pregurations’) and, throughout the book, of sketches that seek to construct a cartography of Marxism today, which is surprising in many respects. The constellations outlined thus simul-

that regarding Robert Brenner’s theses), and so forth could not be realised in the time available. However, they hope that these chapters might be added in future editions of this Companion. The panoramic survey of journals included in the French edition also could not be updated and included here but, again, may appear in future editions.

Marxism, Post-Marxism, Neo-Marxisms • xiii

taneously convey a diversication of the philosophical identity of Marxism, its integration into new social and political contexts, and its confrontation with what are in part historically unprecedented subjects – for example, the issue of the so-called ‘globalisation’ of the economy, changes in the labour process and production, generalised urbanisation, the effects of the revolution brought about by information and communication technologies, the new forms of racist violence, of cultural and military imperialism, of male domination, and of the ecological threat. We have also sought to illuminate the interface between ‘Marxism’ and its other – that is to say, to indicate the ways in which Marx is present in what constitutes a kind of environment of Marxism and which, far from being external to it, is its very condition of existence, regardless of whether this is recognised. From Foucault to Bourdieu, and from Habermas to Deleuze, from theoreticians of postcolonialism to a international relations, a set of gures have established themselves, a multiplicity of congurations has developed and become rmly rooted in various political and intellectual contexts, attesting to the vitality of the Marxian reference. It will perhaps be asked if we are still dealing with ‘Marxism’ here. Much has been said recently about ‘post-Marxisms’ and ‘neo-Marxisms’. Although it is not always easy to distinguish between the two, they are differentiated in principle in as much as the one seems to proclaim the exhaustion of the Marxist paradigm, whereas the other introduces problematics which, while maintaining a special relationship with certain ideas derived from Marx, reinterpret them in new contexts or combine them with different traditions. The notion of neo-Marxism is opposed to that of some quintessential Marxism, inscribed in the empyrean of ideas. And, in reality, historically accredited Marxism indeed appears always to have lived off incessant restructuring and innovation, constantly nding in the surrounding culture, in perspectives generated outside its conceptual space and through the breaks that their integration involved, the conditions for its renewal. With the upheavals that marked the end of the twentieth century, any idea of orthodoxy has been shattered. The ‘crisis of Marxism’ has released a variety of more or less eeting currents, schools, groups and unique individual trajectories, translated into shifting reclassications in the theoretical eld. The old lines of demarcation have in the main ceased to operate. It seemed to us that the moment had

xiv • Jacques Bidet and Stathis Kouvelakis

come to attempt to take stock, and to try to pinpoint some of the main themes and tracks in a vast landscape. We felt encouraged to do so by the complete absence of such a cartography in the French literature – an absence that is not without consequences in a debate which is too often enclosed in the national cultural space. Exploring the new tendencies, we have certainly neglected some worthy and signicant work, developed on more traditional foundations. Other gures might have featured, such as Lacan, alongside Foucault and Althusser. Moreover, different organisational options would doubtless have brought out different sorts of intellectual phenomena. For example, had we opted for a presentation by disciplines, readers would have got a better sense both of some massive regressions, like that of Marxist historiography in France (with notable exceptions, such as, inter alia, Guy Bois’s works on the Middle Ages, research in the ‘history of concepts’ or on the French Revolution); and of the complexity and singularity of the relationship to Marx that can be assumed by the various forms of knowledge – sociological, economic, juridical, and so on – whose rigour implies specialisation in their scientic criteria, and which experience some difculty relating to a theorisation of general ambition like that of Marxism. Entering into the subject via major ‘problematics’ seemed to us to be the way to show precisely how, in different fashions, this kind of junction was sought. We have aimed at a meaningful outline, stimulating debate and confrontation, rather than encyclopaedic exhaustiveness. The index of ideas which, as it was being constructed, greatly surprised the editors of this book, makes it clear that contemporary Marxisms speak new languages, that they nd expression only through a broad spectrum of concepts deriving from philosophies and forms of knowledge foreign to the classics, and which today mark its communication with shared critical thinking. However, this does not entail the erasure of the distinguishing characteristics involved in the analysis of societies in terms of class, exploitation, political and cultural domination, and imperialism. *

*

*

Obviously, this work owes much to the work over fteen years of the editorial team of the journal Actuel Marx, one of whose constant concerns has been to

Marxism, Post-Marxism, Neo-Marxisms • xv

take the measure of reworkings of Marxism throughout the world, in different national cultures, in a new era, and in the context of a new civilisation. We hope that this map will make it possible to get a better sense of what is at stake – which is not only theoretical – in the debates that animate a signicant part of the contemporary intellectual eld and thereby contribute to that knowledge of the world which is so essential to those who wish to change it.2

2 We must thank all those who have helped us during this long task: Annie BidetMordrel and Pascale Arnaud, who have participated in a whole host of ways in this undertaking; Sebastian Budgen, who has generously put his vast knowledge of anglophone Marxism at our disposal; our remarkable translators; Dorothée Rousset, who followed the work from beginning to end; Annie Dauphin, for her participation in giving ...