"Socialism," the "People," "Democracy": The Transformation of Hegemonic Logic

Author(s): Ernesto Laclau

Source: Social Text, No. 7 (Spring - Summer, 1983), pp. 115-119
Published by: Duke University Press
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"Socialism,"
the
"People," "Democracy":
The Transformation of
Hegemonic Logic
What does "transition to
socialism'" signify
in Western
Europe
in the last decades of the
20th
century?
The
question
I wish to raise does not concern the chances of such a transition
coming
to
pass,
but rather the
very meaning
or sense that should be ascribed to such a
question.
At the time of marxism's classic debates
-
from the discussion on revisionism to
the
great
division of the workers' movement which followed
upon
the Russian Revolution
-
at least certain
points
seemed taken for
granted by
all
participants:
that
capitalism
found its
historical
negation
in the
working
class,
which
by abolishing
the
private ownership
of the
means of
production
would
lay
the
groundwork
for a
superior
social
organization.
This
would be the
prelude
to full human
liberation,
which would be
accomplished
under commu-
nism. In
spite
of all the
possible
differences of
opinion
that existed between Bernstein and
Kautsky,
Lenin and
Plekhanov,
Turati and
Bordiga,
these differences were
comprehensible
only
within the framework of a fundamental
agreement regarding,
first,
the ultimate direc-
tion of
capitalist society's
historical
movement; second,
the historical
subject
-
the
working
class
-
which would
accomplish
the transition to
socialism;
and
third,
the
unity
and
complementary
character of the diverse contents of
socialism,
inasmuch as the latter is the
final
point
in human
prehistory
and the
starting point
for the
building
of a
society
that would
make all sources of alienation
disappear.
Today, however, sixty years
after the Russian
Revolution,
thirty years
after the Chinese
Revolution,
and after
having gone through
such
experiences
as
Stalinism,
the
sequels
to the
communist
triumphs
in Vietnam and
Cambodia,
and the invasion of
Afghanistan,
that
framework of shared
meanings
has turned into a terrain of
dangerous polysemics.
The
question
-
which socialism?
-
returns with a new force and a new dimension. The time is
past
when it was
possible
to defend in a
convincing way
the idea of a dialectic of a socialist
state,
which would
carry
within itself the seeds of its own
destruction,
or the idea of the
fragmenting
of
objectives
and
stages,
which would find their future
unity
in a reconciliation
of contraries from which all contradictions would be eliminated. Combined and
unequal
development
has so
deeply penetrated
the construction of socialism in all its
aspects
as well
as the
struggles
for
socialism,
that the so-called
paradigmatic "stages"
of
unequal
combina-
tion have lost all
meaning.
However,
the
meaning
and
unity
of the transition
process
to
socialism are not called into
question solely by
our lost illusions and
by
the
warped
mirror of
what is called
"actually existing
socialism,"
which
presumably
reflects back to us the
image
of socialism as
proposed by
classical marxism. Our models'
shortcomings
also reflect a
substantial set of
positive phenomena:
the revolt of the Third World
peoples
and the sudden
appearance
in advanced
capitalist
countries of new social and
political subjects
have added
new dimensions and a new
potential
to the
anti-capitalist struggle. Although
discourse
concerning
socialism
appears today
to be defined
by
a deconstructive movement,
the latter is
only
the
prelude
to second
stage
of
reconstruction,
which should allow us to come
up
with a
new
strategy
and a new
conception
of socialism that will
critically
absorb the
experience
of
the second half of the 20th
century
and will abandon for
good
the
lingering
stale flavor of an
economist and essentialist
conception
of
history.
115
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116 Laclau
I would like to
play
a
part
in this
process
of reformulation with the
following
three
propositions:
(1)
The
history
of marxism can be
presented
as a
growing
divorce between two
perspec-
tives: an essentialist
perspective,
which reduces difference to
identity;
and a second
perspec-
tive
grounded
in the
necessity,
which
history
and
politics
have
imposed,
of
accepting
the
irreducible nature constitutive of difference. The first
position
led to different forms of
economism;
the second led to the dissolution of the
base/superstructure
distinction,
to a
concept
of
politics
as
articulation,
and to the
increasing centrality
of the
concept
of
hegemo-
ny.
(2)
The irreducible nature of difference is
posed
inside of social
agents,
and
they
do not
have an essential
identity
constituted around
privileged
interests and
positions
either of a
class nature or of
any
other
kind;
rather
they
have
only
a
precarious identity,
which is
dependent upon hegemonic
articulation or
upon power
relations
existing
in
society.
That
implies,
too,
that we must
reject
the
apriori
determination of a
privileged agent
for the
transition to socialism.
(3) Socialism, accordingly,
has no other content or
unity
than that with which the
very
process
of
hegemonic
construction endows it. When essentialism with
respect
to
subject
and
process disappear,
so too vanishes the
very
idea that socialism's contents
enjoy
an essential
unity.
So it is false to assume that the abolition of the
private ownership
of the means of
production
holds the
promise
of total human liberation. In fact the latter is
dependent upon
the construction of a historical
subject
whose
identity
cannot be
grounded
in
any
kind of
productivist metaphysics.
FIRST PROPOSITION
From the
very beginning
of marxism's transformation into a
systematic
doctrine
-
and
here I am
referring
to the Second International and to
Kautsky
and Plekhanov's work -
socialist
strategy
confronted a crucial
problem:
how to deal with
questions
of
difference,
how to act on historical terrain where that which was
radically
other with
respect
to the
starting point
did not
yield
to efforts at assimilation. How can the national
question,
the
problem concerning
intellectuals,
and the historical
challenge represented by
the
peasant
question
be reduced to a common
identity,
to determinate contents from a
purely
class
perspective?
From the end of the 19th
century
on,
the
multiplication
of differences irreduci-
ble to a
simple logic
of class was
posed
in terms of a
growing complexity
of the social
field,
which resisted all efforts towards a reductive identification. In the first
stages
of the debate
on revisionism Antonio Labriola asserted: ". . .
Actually, underlying
the clamor of debate
is a serious and substantial
problem.
The ardent,
burning,
and rash
expectations
of several
years ago
-
expectations
too
precise
in detail and color
-
are now
running up against
the
more intricate resistances of economic relations and the more
complex machinery
of the
political
world."' These "intricate resistances" will
only multiply
in the later
phases
of
socialist
struggle.
Lenin was destined to
perceive
the
problem
from an
opposing, though
complementary, angle:
whereas,
according
to classical
economism,
there could not be
any
resistances in terms of an essentialist
logic
of
stages,
the overdetermination characteristic of
I
Antonio Labriola, "Polemiche
sul
socialismo,"
in
Scrittifilosofici
e
politici,
ed. Franco Sbarberi
(Turin:
Einaudi, 1973), II, 918.
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Transformation of
Hegemonic Logic
117
the
imperialist
era offered
unprecedented political
vistas.
Gramsci,
on the
contrary, grasped
the
strength
and
stability
of the
system
of
resistances,
of
traditions,
and of
complexities,
which at the level of civil
society
characterized
capitalist
social formations. Yet the two
perspectives
are
rigorously complementary:
neither favorable circumstances nor sources of
resistance can be
fully explained by
class
logic.
All of which confronts us with a clear-cut alternative. Faced with a
growing
social
complexity
and with the
expansion
of the field of
differences,
we have two
possible
solutions: either to
deny
them
outright
and to reduce them to a real
identity,
or to
recognize
their
fundamentally
irreducible nature and to understand
political struggle
as the
process
of
their differential articulation. The first
procedure
is characteristic of conventional reduction-
ism and is
grounded
in a
rigid separation
of base and
superstructures.
One level of social
reality "expresses"
or
"represents"
a
reality
that is constituted at a different level. Social
classes - constituted at the level of
productive
relations
-
"speak" through
forms of the
state,
forms of
political struggle,
and forms of consciousness. There is one level at which the
real is constituted and another where the
very
same real
expresses
or hides itself. Within this
theoretical context two
arguments
enable us to brush aside the insurmountable
opacity
of
differences and to reduce
society
to the
tautological transparence
of a
logic
of
identity.
The
first,
which we can call the
appearance argument, presents superstructures
as so
many
forms
generated by
a social
logic
that receives confirmation from another
quarter.
The
second,
which we will call the
contingency argument,
consists in
recognizing
the
specificity
of
difference while at the same time
assigning
it a
secondary ephemeral
character which allows
us to
ignore
it.
(Thus Kautsky,
for
example,
considered that the middle classes and the
peasantry
were condemned to
disappear by
the
logic
of
capitalist development
and
that,
consequently,
the
working
class could scorn them in the formulation of
any anti-capitalist
strategy.)
Faced with this reductionist
perspective,
the alternative consists in the full
accep-
tance of differences as constitutive of the social field and in the
understanding
of
political
struggle
as
practices
which articulate those differences.
If,
for
example,
national
identity
is
not the
necessary superstructure
of a determinate social
class,
the fact that it turns
up
tied to
certain,
specific
social sectors and not to others in the result of
political struggle
and of a
political
construction.
This kind of articulation
-
which is
compatible
with the
recognition
of difference and
which constructs the
acceptability
of certain discourses on the basis of the deconstruction of
other discourses
-
is what we call a
hegemonic
articulation. It is not a coincidence that the
concept
of
hegemony
made its sudden
appearance
in the marxist tradition at those moments
when economism's
logic
of
identity
encountered its limits: in
Leninism,
inasmuch as it was
an
attempt
to
depict
the
working
class not as the mere vehicle of its own interests but as a
power articulating
a
large popular
terrain;
and in
Gramsci,
in so far as he
recognized
the
specific
resistances which the Leninist
avant-garde
came
up against
in the most
developed
capitalist
countries,
and inasmuch as he
recognized
as well the vast
process
of rearticulation
of the masses' common
sense,
which was concomitant with the
coming
of fascism.
SECOND PROPOSITION
Classical marxism was
grounded
in the
postulate
of a
unitary subject
of the transition to
socialism. This
class,
of
course,
was the
working
class united around
specific
interests.
What is
more,
there was a fundamental
gap
between the terrain where its interests were
constituted
-
productive
relations
-
and that other terrain where these interests were
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118
Laclau
represented
-
politics
and
ideology.
On the other
hand,
the notion of class interest was
only
a new variant of homo oeconomicus,
behind which resurfaced all the idealist essentialism
that modem
philosophy
was
using
to
pose
the
problem
of the
subject.
On the
contrary,
our
problem today
is how to construct the
unity
of the socialist
subject
once we have admitted
that it
comprehends
a
variety
of
positions
and cannot be reduced to the social
agent's position
in
productive
relations. For
example,
what kind of correlation is there between a white
worker's
position
in conflicts that take
place
on the
shop
floor and his
position
in
experiences
of racial violence in the
neighborhood
where he lives? Does there exist a
necessary
relation
between union
militancy
and the
struggle against
racism?
Contemporary experience
-
from
that of South African unions to that of
Georges
Marchais and his bulldozers
-
clearly
demonstrates that such a correlation is
problematic
at best. The conclusion that must be
drawn is that the
very
articulation of the
subject's
diverse
positions
is the result of a
struggle
for
hegemony,
and
that,
consequently, hegemony
is the
very process
of
constructing
politically
the masses'
subjectivity
and not the
practice
of a
pre-constituted subject.
Here is
where our
experience
has lead us furthest afield from classical
marxism;
for the latter it was
taken for
granted
that there was an exact fit between
physically
individuated
agents
and the
unitary
structure of their
positions. (In
passing
it
may
be said that false consciousness did not
imply
the
possibility
of
contradictory positions:
the sole contradiction allowed for arose from
the
subject's nonrecognition
of his or her "interests" or essential
position
and did not arise
from the
acceptance
of a
contradictory
difference between one
subject's
two
positions.)
Today,
the fundamental
problem
is the constitution of the
unity
of the
subject
of historical
change
on the basis of
different,
even
contradictory, positions
that are
present
in one and the
same individual. The
cleavage
of the
subject
is the terrain and
starting point
for
political
action:
hegemony
is
nothing
other than the
attempt
-
by
definition
incomplete
and
open-
ended
-
to
perform
an
impossible
suture.
The
starting point,
then,
must be the identification of
positions
with which
hegemony
constructs a differential
system
of relations. We will call
any position
which is the seat of an
antagonism
the democratic
position,
that
is,
that
position
in which
subjectivity
is constructed
through
the
contradictory play
of
power
and resistance to
power.
We will then call the
popular position
that
position
which,
beginning
with the construction of a
system
of
equivalences
between democratic
positions,
divides
society
into two
antagonistic
terrains.
This last is the level of
hegemonic practices,
which
supposes accordingly
the construction of
a
complex subject
as
agent
of historical
change.
The
emergence
of the
"people"
-
understood as the
plebs (the masses)
and not as the
populus (the nation)
-
as historical
protagonist
was the
great
transformation of
politics accomplished by
the
bourgeois
revolu-
tions. Insofar as it
began
to threaten the foundations of
bourgeois power
this new factor was
the
target
of
bourgeois attempts
at deconstruction. Disraeli's social
politics,
the conservative
Prussian
revolution,
Giolitti's "monarchist socialism" constituted
transformism's2
varied
attempts
at
deconstructing popular equivalences
and at
setting up
a
political system
based on
the differential
absorption
of democratic
positions.
Classical marxism confronted the
prob-
2
A term derived from Italian
political vocabulary. Quintin
Hoare writes: "This term was used from the 1880s
onwards to describe the
process whereby
the so-called 'historic' Left and
Right parties
which
emerged
from the
Risorgimento
tendended to
converge
in terms of
programme during
the
years
which followed, until there ceased to
be
any
substantive difference between them." See Antonio Gramsci, Selections
from
the Prison Notebooks, ed.
and trans.
Quintin
Hoare and
Geoffrey
Nowell Smith
(New
York: International Publishers, 1971), p.
58n.
[Translated by Roddey Reid]
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Transformation of
Hegemonic Logic
119
lem
from an economist
perspective: capitalist development
was understood to be
leading
towards the
increasing proletarianization
of the middle classes and
peasantry,
in such a
way
that
by
the end of this
process
the confrontation between
"people"
and
"power"
would
coincide with the one between the
proletariat
and the
bourgeoisie.
It is at this
moment,
however,
that the
shortcomings
of economism and class reductionism are revealed for all to
see. All of
contemporary experience
-
the rise of fascism
constituting
the most notorious
example
-
has
clearly
shown, first,
that class
positions enjoy
no essential
centrality;
second,
that it is
possible
to isolate the latter in a
corporatist
fashion; and, third,
that the
construction of an
anti-capitalist popular position
around the
working
class,
far from
being
the
consequence
of some
infrastructure,
is the result of a
complex political
construction,
which, moreover,
is
fairly exceptional
in the
highly
industralized countries.
Let us examine the
paradox
which socialist
struggle
confronts us with in the countries of
advanced
capitalism.
On the one
hand,
the
potential
for
anti-capitalist struggle
is
greater
than
ever. New
political subjects (the
feminist and
ecology
movements,
racial
minorities,
nation-
alist and sexual
groups, struggles
within
institutions)
have arisen on the
political
terrain and
have
occupied
a mass of democratic
positions infinitely
more diverse than those
existing
at
the
beginning
of the
century
or even on the eve of the second world war.
Yet,
on the other
hand,
to link these
positions together
-
that
is,
to transform them into
popular positions
towards the
goal
of
constituting
a
"people"
-
is more difficult than ever.
Any
new
hegemony
must
begin
with this fundamental fact and must construct forms of
popular
equivalences
which exclude all authoritarian
unification.
These forms must be
compatible,
then,
with the
plurality
and
autonomy
of social movements. This means that the
"party"
cannot be the
only
form of
struggle
and the
only
form of socialist
organization.
THIRD PROPOSITION
In this
light
the
problem
of the transition to socialism seems out of
place.
It is no
longer
a
question
of
working
out a
range
of
possibilities
on the basis of a
pre-constituted subject
which would
naturally
and
spontaneously
tend to
accomplish
certain socialist
objectives.
But since there is no
longer
a
pre-constituted subject,
the
unity
of socialism's contents cannot
be
guaranteed by any necessary
movement within the infrastructure. In other
words,
there is
no
eschatology
which assures us
that,
beyond
a
process
of
political
construction which
is,
strictly speaking,
a
creation,
history
is
working
its
way
to a
happy ending.
The construction
of the
political subject
and the construction of the
unity
of the contents of
socialism, then,
are
two different
ways
to
designate
the same
process.
Gramsci's notion of the war
of position
can thus demonstrate all its rich
implications. Why implications?
Because that
concept's
possible developments
and extensions were not clear to Gramsci himself. If civil
society's
"resistances" cannot be
frontally
attacked,
this means
they
cannot be
destroyed
but rather
dismantled,
deconstructed. There is no deconstruction without the creation of new articula-
tions. Political
practice
as articulation and
hegemony
thus
imply
at once a more democratic
vision of socialism and the defense of a new radicalism. The
latter,
by denying
the existence
of
privileged points
of attack from which one can assure a continuous chain of effects
leading
necessarily
to
socialism,
presents
as the
unique guarantor
of socialism the extension of
political struggle
to the
entirety
of civil
society.
Emrnesto
Laclau
Translated
by Roddey
Reid
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