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Highly Speculative Reasoning on the Concept of Democracy

Alain Badiou
translated by Jorge Jauregui
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The word "democracy" is today the main organizer of consensus. What the
word is assumed to embrace is the downfall of Eastern Socialists States, the
supposed well being of our countries as well as Western humanitarian
crusades.

Actually the word "democracy" is inferred from what I term "authoritarian


opinion." It is somehow prohibited not to be a democrat. Accordingly, it
furthers that the human kind longs for democracy, and all subjectivity
suspected of not being democratic is deemed pathological. At its best it infers
a forbearing reeducation, at its worst the right of meddling democratic
marines and paratroopers.

Democracy thus inscribing itself in polls and consensus necessarily arouses


the philosophers critical suspicions. For philosophy, since Plato, means
breaking with opinion polls. Philosophy is supposed to scrutinize everything
that is spontaneously considered as "normal." If democracy designates a
normal state of collective organization, or political will, then the philosopher
will ask for the norm of this normality to be examined. He will not allow for
the word to function within the frame of an authoritarian opinion. For the
philosopher everything consensual becomes suspicious.

To confront the visibility of the democratic idea with the singularity of a


particular politics, especially revolutionary politics, is an old practice. It was
already employed against Bolsheviks well before the October Revolution. In
fact, the critique addressed to Lenin his political postulate viewed as
nondemocratic is original. However its still interesting today to peruse his
riposte.

Lenins counter-argument is twofold. On the one hand he distinguishes,


according to the logic of class analysis, between two types of democracy:

proletarian democracy and bourgeois democracy. He then asserts the


supremacy, in extension and intensity, of the former over the latter.

Yet his second structure of response seems to me more appropriate to the


present state of affairs. Lenin insists in this that with "democracy," verily, you
should always read "a form of State." Form means a particular configuration
of the separate character of the State and the formal exercise of sovereignty.
Positing democracy as a form of State, Lenin subscribes to the classical
political thinking filiation, including Greek philosophy, which contends that
"democracy" must ultimately be conceived as a sovereignty or power trope.
Power of the "demos" or people, the capability of "demos" to exert coercion
by itself.

If democracy is a form of State, what preordained philosophical use proper


can this category have? With Lenin the aim or idea of politics is the
withering of any form of State, democracy included. And this could be termed
generic Communism as basically expressed by Marx in his Economic and
Philosophical Manuscripts. Generic Communism designates a free associative
egalitarian society where the activity of polymorph workers is not governed
by regulations and technical or social articulations but is managed by the
collective power of needs. In such a society, the State is dissolved as a
separate instance from public coercion. Politics much as it voices the
interests of social groups and covets at the conquest of power is de facto
dissolved.

Thus, the purpose of Communist politics aims at its own disappearance in the
modality of the end of the form separated from the State in general, even if it
concerns a State that declares itself democratic.

If philosophy is predicated as what identifies, legitimizes or categorizes


politics ultimate goals, much as the regulating ideas acting as its
representation, and if this aim is acknowledged as the withering of the State
which is Lenins proposition then it can be termed pure presentation, free
association; or again if politics final goal is posited as authority in-separated
from infinity or the advent of the collective as such, then, with regard to this
supposed end, which is the end assigned to generic Communism, democracy
is not, cannot be regarded as a category of philosophy. Why? Because
democracy is a form of the State; let philosophy assess politics final goals;

and let this end be as well the end of the State, thus the end of all relevance
to the word "democracy."

The "philosophical" word suitable to evaluate politics could be, in this


hypothetical frame, the word "equality," or the word "Communism," but not
the word "democracy." For this word is traditionally attached to the State, to
the form of the State.

From this results the idea that "democracy" can only be considered a concept
of philosophy if one of these three following hypotheses is to be rejected. All
three are intertwined and somehow uphold the Leninist view on democracy.
They are:

Hypothesis 1: The ultimate goal in politics is generic Communism, thus the


pure presentation of the collectives truth, or the withering of the State.
Hypothesis 2: The relation between philosophy and politics entails the
evaluation of a certain politics final goal, its general or generic meaning.
Hypothesis 3: Democracy is a form of the State.

Under these three hypotheses "democracy" is not a necessary concept of


philosophy. It can only become such provided one of these three hypotheses
is dropped.

Three abstract possibilities follow:

1. Let generic Communism not be the ultimate goal in politics.


2. Let the relation between philosophy and politics not be one of scrutiny,
enlightenment or legitimization of the final aims.
3. Let "democracy" imply something else than a form of the State.

Under any of these three possibilities the structure according to which


"democracy" is not a concept of philosophy is put into question. I would like
to analyze one by one these three provisions which allow for the
consideration or reconsideration of "democracy" as a category of philosophy
proper.

Lets assume that the ultimate goal of politics is not the pure assertion of
collective presentation, is not the free association of men, disengaged from
the States principle of sovereignty. Lets assume that generic Communism,
even as an idea, is not the ultimate goal of politics. What can then be the
goal of politics, its practices finality, much as this practice involves, or
questions, or challenges, philosophy?

I think two main hypotheses can be construed in light of what is viewed as


the history of this question. According to the first hypothesis, politics aim
would be the configuration, or the advent, of what can be termed "the good
State." Philosophy would be brought forward as an examination of the
legitimacy of the States various possible forms. It would seek to name the
preferable character of state configuration. Such would be the final stake of
the debate on politics goals. This is indeed related to the great classical
tradition in political philosophy, from the Greeks onwards, devoted to the
question of sovereigntys legitimacy. Now, of course, a norm appears on the
scene. Whatever the regime or the status of the norm, an axiological
preference for a distinct type of state configuration relates the State to a
normative principle as, for instance, the superiority of a democratic regime
over a monarchic or an aristocratic one, for any particular reason. That is, the
convening of a general system of norms sanctions this preference.

As a passing remark lets say this situation does not apply to the hypothesis
in which the ultimate goal in politics is the withering of the State, since you
are not dealing with "the good State." For the case you are dealing with the
political process as self-cancellation, that is as engaged in the cessation of
the principle of sovereignty. It does not concern a norm associated with the
state configuration. It rather concerns the idea of a process that would bring
about the withering of the entire state configuration. The singularity of
withering does not belong to the normative question as it can be exerted
upon the persistence of the State. On the other hand, if politics ultimate goal
is "the good State" or the preferable State, then the emergence of a norm
seems ineluctable.

Now, this poses a difficult question in that the norm is inevitably external or
transcendent. The State, in itself, is objectivity without norm. It is the
principle of sovereignty, or of coercion, endowed with a separate functioning
necessary to the collective as such. It will obtain its determination in a set of
regulations stemming from subjective topics. These are precisely the norms
that will introduce the subject of "the good State" or the preferable State. In
our present situation, that is, the circumstance in our parliamentary States,
the subjective relation to the issue of the State is regulated according to
three norms: the economy, the national question and, precisely, democracy.

Lets consider the economy first. The State is accountable for assuring a
minimal functioning of the circulation and distribution of goods; it falls into
disrepute as such if it proves exaggeratedly incapable of complying with this
norm. In the sphere of the economy broadly, whatever its organic relation to
the State, the latter is subjectively accountable for the functioning of the
economy.

The second norm is the national question. The State is under a set of
regulations such as the nation, the representation on the world scene,
national independence, etc. It is accountable for the very existence of the
national principle at home and abroad.

Thirdly, today democracy is itself a norm as its considered within the


subjective relation to the State. The State is accountable for knowing wether
it is democratic or despotic, for its relation towards instances such as
freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of action.

The opposition between dictatorship and democracy is something that


functions as a subjective norm in the evaluation of the State.

Thus the actual situation of the question subordinates the State to the
normative threesome of economic functioning, national evaluation and
democracy. Here "democracy" acts as a normative characterization of the
State, precisely as what can be termed the category of "a politics," not of

politics in general. "A politics" is what regulates a subjective relation to the


State. Lets say that the state configuration regulating its subjective relation
to the State under the three aforementioned norms economy, national
question, democracy may be dubbed parliamentarism, though I prefer to
call it parliamentary-capitalism. However, since "democracy" is here
summoned as the category of a particular politics a particular politics whose
universality is quite problematic we should refrain from defining it as being
in itself a philosophical category. At this level of analysis then "democracy"
unfolds as a category characterizing by means of the formulation of a
subjective norm in relation to the State a particular politics, which I deem to
call "parliamentarism."

So much for the case with regard to the hypothesis that politics ultimate goal
is in determining "the good State." What you get at most is that "democracy"
turns out to be the category of a particular politics, parliamentarism. This is
not a definite reason to posit "democracy" as a philosophical concept.

What we are examining here is the ultimate goal of politics when this goal is
not generic Communism. Our first consideration was that politics aimed at
establishing the best possible State. It follows from there that "democracy" is
not necessarily a concept within philosophy.

The second possible reasoning leads you to the notion that the ultimate goal
of politics is none other than itself. In this case politics would not address the
issue of "the good State" but would be its own goal for itself. Conversely to
what has been reflected previously, politics would then become a movement
of thought and action that freely eludes the dominant state subjectivity and
propounds, convenes, and organizes projects ill-suited for consideration and
representation within the norms under which the State functions. In this case
politics is presented as a singular collective practice estranged from the
State. Again that kind of politics, in its essence, is not the carrier of a State
agenda or a state norm but is instead the development of what can be
termed the dimension of collective freedom, precisely in that it avoids the
normative consensus represented by the State provided the State is
assessed by this organized freedom.

"Democracy," is it thus relevant? Yes, "democracy" is relevant "if democracy


is to be understood in a sense other than a form of the State." If politics is

thus to itself its own goal insofar as it is able to withdraw from state
consensus, it could eventually be termed democratic. Yet in this case the
category will not function in a Leninist sense, as a State form. And this brings
you back to the third negative condition with regard to the three Leninist
hypotheses.

Here concludes the first part of our discussion, that is: what if the goal of
politics is not generic Communism?

The second part of the discussion concerns philosophy itself. Lets assume
that philosophy is not related to politics as much as it is the representation or
the seizure of politics ultimate ends, that philosophy has another rapport to
politics and that it is not intended to evaluate the appearance before a
court or legitimate politics ultimate ends. How does philosophy then relate
to politics? What is the name of that relation? How are we to prescribe it?

There is a first hypothesis, namely that the task of philosophy would be what
I call the formal description of politics, its typology. Philosophy would set up a
space where politics are discussed in accordance with their sort. All in all,
philosophy would be a formal apprehension of States and politics as it preelaborates or exposes the said typology to possible norms. Yet, when this is
the case indubitably this is part of the work of thinkers such as Aristotle or
Montesquieu it becomes apparent that "democracy" acts upon philosophy
as the description of a form of the State. There is no doubt about it.
Accordingly, the categorization starts from state configurations, and
"democracy" becomes, from the viewpoint of philosophy, the description of a
form of the State, as opposed to other forms such as tyranny, aristocracy and
so on.

But if "democracy" designates a form of the State, the premise would then be
asserted, regarding this form, about "the goals of politics." Is it a matter of
"willing" this form? If so, we are inside the logic of "the good State," which is
what was previously analyzed. Or is it a matter of going beyond this form,
dissolving sovereignty, even democratic sovereignty? In this case we relapse
inside the Leninist frame, the withering hypothesis. In any event, this option
brings you back to the first part of the discussion.

The second possibility implies philosophys attempt to apprehend politics as a


singular activity of thinking, of politics itself as providing for the historical
collective a modality of thinking which philosophy must take in as such. Here
philosophy should be understood consensual definition as the cogitative
apprehension of thinking operational conditions in their different registers. If
politics is deemed as an operative thinking, in a register of its own (Lazarus
central thesis), then philosophys task is the grasping of thinking operational
conditions in this particular register named politics. It follows that if politics is
an operative thinking, it cannot be subservient to the State, it cannot be
reduced to or reflected on its state dimension. Lets venture a rather spurious
proposition: "the State does not think."

As a passing remark, the fact that the State does not think is the source of all
sorts of difficulties for philosophical thinking as far as politics is concerned. All
"political philosophies" adduce evidence that the State does not think. And
when these political philosophies posit the State as leading the research on
politics as thought, difficulties increase. The fact that the State does not think
leads Plato, at the end of book IX in Republic, to declare that as a last resort
you can pursue politics everywhere except in your own fatherland. And the
same eventuality brings Aristotle to the distressing conclusion that once the
ideal types of politics have been isolated, only pathological types are left in
the real. For instance, for Aristotle monarchy implies a kind of State that does
think and is reputed to be thinkable. Yet, in the real there are only tyrannies,
which do not think, which are unthinkable. The normative type is never
achieved. This also leads Rousseau to ascertain that in history all that exists
is dissolved States, and no legitimate State. Finally, these postulates, which
are extracted from within utterly heterogeneous political conceptions, agree
on one point: namely, it is not possible to envision the State as the doorway
to politics research. Perforce one comes up against the State as a nonthinking entity. The problem should be pursued from another angle.

Therefore, if "democracy" is a category of politics-as-thought, that is if


philosophy needs to use "democracy" as a category to get hold of the
political process as such, then this political process eludes the pervasive
injunction of the State, since the State does not think. It follows that
"democracy" is not here understood as a form of the State but differently,
otherwise, or in another sense. And this is how you are brought back to the
proposition positing "democracy" as something other than a form of the
State.

Lets then advance a provisional conclusion: "democracy" is a category of


philosophy only when it indicates something other than a form of the State.
Yet what is "something other"?

There lies the core of the question. It is a problem with conjunction. To what,
other than the State, is "democracy" to be conjoined in order to become a
real approach to politics-as-thought? There is a large political tradition
pertinent to this, and I wont go further into it. Lets suffice to mention just
two examples concerning the attempt to conjoin "democracy" to something
other than the State thus allowing the meta-political (philosophical) reexamination of politics-as-thought.

The first instance concerns the direct conjoining of "democracy" to the


political activity of the masses not to the state configuration but to its
immediate antagonism. For usually the masses political activity, its
spontaneous mobilization, comes about under an anti-state drive. This
produces the syntagm of mass democracy, which Ill style romantic, and the
opposition between mass democracy and democracy as state configuration,
or formal democracy.

Whoever happens to have experienced mass democracy historical events


such as collective general assembling, crowded gatherings, riots, and so on
manifestly notices an immediate point of reversibility between mass
democracy and mass dictatorship. Inevitably the essence of mass democracy
is translated into a mass sovereignty, and this mass sovereignty becomes in
turn a sovereignty of immediacy, of assembling itself. The sovereignty of
assembling exerts pattern formations Sartre termed "group-in-fusion" a
fellowship of terror. Here Sartrian phenomenology persists indisputably. There
is an organic correlation between the practice of mass democracy as internal
principle of the group-in-fusion and a point of reversibility with the immediate
authoritarian or dictatorial element at work in the fellowship of terror. Looking
into the issue of mass democracy itself notice that it is not possible to
legitimate the principle after the sole appellative of democracy, since this
romantic democracy immediately includes, in theory as well as in practice, its
reversibility into dictatorship. You are dealing thus with a pair
democracy/dictatorship that avoids an elementary designation, or eludes a
philosophical apprehension, under the concept of democracy. And what does
this entail? It entails that whoever assigns legitimacy to mass democracy, at
least today, does so on the basis, or rather from the viewpoint of the nonstate perspective of pure presentation. The appraisal, even under the

appellation of democracy, of mass democracy as such, is inseparable from


the subjectivity of generic Communism. The legitimization of this couple of
immediacy democracy/dictatorship is only conceivable if the pair is
thought, and valorized, from the generic point of the withering of the State,
or from the perspective of a radical anti-state attitude. Actually, the opposite
pole to State consistency, which precisely shows up in the immediacy of mass
democracy, is a provisional representative to generic Communism. We are
now brought back to our first major hypothesis: if "democracy" is conjoined to
"mass," the goal of politics is actually generic Communism, whence
"democracy" is not a category of philosophy. This conclusion is empirically
and conceptually established by the fact that from the perspective of mass
democracy it is impossible to differentiate democracy from dictatorship. It is
what has obviously enabled Marxists to employ the expression "dictatorship
of the proletariat." It should be our understanding that the subjective
valorization of the word "dictatorship" thus rested on the presence of such
reversibility between democracy and dictatorship as it historically appears in
the figure of mass democracy, or revolutionary democracy, or romantic
democracy.

We are left with another hypothesis, a quite different one: "democracy"


should be conjoined with the political regulation itself. "Democracy" would not
be related to the figure of State or to the figure in political mass activity, but
would rather relate organically to political regulation, provided that political
regulation is not subservient to the State, to "the good State," when it is not
systematized. "Democracy" would be organically tied to the universality of
political regulation, to its capability of universality, and thus the word
"democracy" and politics as such would be bound. Again, it is politics in the
sense that it is something other than a State program. In this case, there
would be an intrinsically democratic characterization of politics, insofar as its
self-determination is posited as a space of emancipation removed from State
consensual figures.

There is some evidence of this in Rousseaus Social Contract. In chapter 16,


book III, Rousseau discusses the issue of the establishment of the State
apparently the opposite topic we are discussing here the issue of the
institution of the State. He comes up against a well-known difficulty, namely
that the causative instrument of government cannot be a contract, cannot
proceed from the dimension of a social contract in the sense that this
contract acts as founder of the nation as such. The institution of the State
concerns specific individuals, and this cannot be carried out by means of a

law. For Rousseau a law necessarily implies a global association relating the
people to the people and thereby cannot involve specific individuals.

The institution of the State cannot be a law. And this suggests that it also
cannot be the practice of sovereignty. For sovereignty is precisely the generic
form of the social contract and it always connotes a relation of totality to
totality of the people to the people. Apparently, we face an impasse here. A
decision is needed, a decision that should be at the same time special (since
it establishes the government) and general (since its taken by the "totality"
of the people and not by the government, which does not yet exist and will
eventually be established). However, it is impossible for Rousseau that this
decision result from the general will, since every decision of this kind should
be manifested in the shape of a law or a deed of sovereignty. And this can
only be the contract agreed upon by all the people and all the people, a
contract that bears no particular character. You can also posit the question
this way: the citizen votes for the laws, the governmental magistrate takes
the concrete measures. How are particular magistrates to be appointed when
there arent yet any magistrates, but only citizens? Rousseau pulls himself
out of this difficulty by stating that "the institution of government is
accomplished by the sudden conversion of sovereignty into democracy so
that without sensible change, and merely by virtue of a new relation of all to
all, the citizens become magistrates, and pass from general to particular acts,
from legislation to the execution of the law." For many this was a singular
conjuring trick. What does this sudden conversion without any modification of
the organic relationship between totality to totality mean? How does a mere
displacement of this relation, which is the social contract as instituting the
general will, allow for the proceeding to the possibility of initiating particular
political acts? Basically this means leaving aside the formal argumentation
that democracy originally refers "to the particular character of the interests
at stake in political regulation." Political regulation with its particular interests
at stake in the last resort it only has particular stakes is confined to
democracy. Rousseaus case for the establishment of government is but one
symbolic example. Generally speaking, the universality of political regulation
much as it evades the singular holding of the State can be deployed as
such only when particular interests are at stake and is constrained, when
deployed under particular stakes, if only to invest the democratic form in
order to remain political. Here a primary conjunction between democracy and
politics effectively takes place.

Democracy can then be defined as what authorizes an individual investment


under the law of the universality of political will. "Democracy," in a way,

names the political figures of the conjunction between particular situations


and politics. In this case, and in this case only, "democracy" can be
recaptured as a philosophical category. Hereafter democracy will designate
what can be termed as the effectiveness in politics, meaning politics when it
conjoins with particular interests. Thus understood politics becomes free from
its accountability to the State.

In order to pursue this contention you would expound on how "democracy," in


this conjunction to political regulation as such, refers in philosophy to the
taking in of a specific kind of politics whose regulation is universal. Still this
specific kind of politics may conjoin to the particular in a figure wherein
situations transform so as to render impossible any other inequitable
enunciation.

The reasoning of this position is rather complex and I present a brief outline.
Lets say that "democracy" posits the fact that politics with regard to a
politics of emancipation is sooner or later related to the special nature of
peoples lives, not to the State, but to people as they come forth in the public
space. Again, politics cannot be itself, which is being democratic, in its
dealing with this particularity in peoples lives, unless it dismisses all
inequitable sense in the very dealing. For, if politics allows for an inequitable
acceptation in its dealing, then it introduces a nondemocratic norm in the
original sense I am addressing here and the conjunction is cancelled. This
means politics is no longer competent to deal with the particular from the
perspective of the universal regulation. Politics will deal with the particular
differently; it will deal with it from the perspective of the particular regulation.
Thus, the case would be that every particular regulation redirects politics
towards the State where it is subjected to the constraint of state jurisdiction.
Consequently, the word "democracy," in its philosophical significance,
presupposes a kind of politics insofar as the effectiveness of its emancipatory
process works at the impossibility proper of all inequitable enunciation in
concern with this situation. For the aim of this kind of politics to be real
proceeds from the fact that these enunciations are, by means of such politics,
not forbidden but impossible. Interdiction is always a rule of the State;
impossibility is a regulation of the real.

Also democracy as a philosophical category is what "brings forward equality."


Or, what excludes from circulating as political nominations or as political
categories any sort of predicate formally in contradiction with the
egalitarian idea.

In my view, this very fact drastically restricts the possibility of using in


politics, under the philosophical sign of democracy, any type of "communal"
designations. For the communal designation or the identity assignation to the
subsets as such cannot be dealt with after the idea of the impossibility of an
inequitable enunciation. Consequently, democracy" is that which regulates
politics in relation to communal predicates, to subset predicates. Democracy
is that which anchors politics to the element of universality proper to its
destination. It will also expose articulations of race as well as sexual or social
or hierarchic articulations, or an enunciation such as: "there is a problem with
immigrants," that would undo the conjunction between politics and
democracy. "Democracy" means that "immigrant," "French," "Arab," "Jew" are
words that inevitably bring calamity to politics. For these words, and many
others, necessarily refer politics to the State, and the lowest and most
essential function of the State is the inequitable breaking of mankind.

Ultimately, the task of the philosopher consists of exposing a certain politics


to its evaluation. Neither in the sense of "the good State," nor in the sense of
generic Communism, but intrinsically, that is to say for itself. Politics
sequentially defined as that which attempts to create the impossibility of the
inequitable enunciation, might, by the slant of the word "democracy," be
exposed through philosophy to what Ill call a certain eternity. Lets say that
by means of the word "democracy" thus conceived, by means of philosophy
and philosophy alone, politics can be evaluated after the rule of the eternal
return. Then philosophy takes hold of politics, not just as the particular or
pragmatic avatar of human history, but as connected to a standard of
evaluation, which upholds without ridicule, or without crime, that the return
be foreseen.

In the end a very old word, a word very much worn, philosophically nominates
those politics that overcome this ordeal: its the word "justice."

*From Abrg de mtapolitique, Seuil: Paris, 1998.

This English version was published in lacanian ink 16 (out of print)

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