Žižek: ideologies only win when they lose

I’ve been reading a little bit by/about Slavoj Žižek over the past few days, and find him an intriguing figure, if also an infuriating and incomprehensible one at (quite a lot of) times.

One interesting argument I wanted to share from his essay Mao Zedong: the Marxist Lord of Misrule, though, is his suggestion that an ideology can only flourish in the face of opposition, and only triumph in its apparent defeat. As he puts it:

The true victory (the true “negation of negation”) occurs when the enemy talks your language. In this sense, a true victory is a victory in defeat: it occurs when one’s specific message is accepted as a universal ground, even by the enemy.

Žižek gives two examples of this (three, if you include his parenthetical remark that “the true victory of science [over religion] takes place when the church starts to defend itself in the language of science”). The first is New Labour’s role in confirming the permanance of the “Thatcher revolution” in the UK:

The Thatcher revolution was in itself chaotic, impulsive, marked by unpredictable contingencies, and it was only the “Third Way” Blairite government who was able to institutionalize it, to stabilize it into new institutional forms, or, to put it in Hegelese, to raise (what first appeared as) a contingency, a historical accident, into necessity. In this sense, Blair repeated Thatcherism, elevating it into a concept, in the same way that, for Hegel, Augustus repeated Caesar, transforming-sublating a (contingent) personal name into a concept, a title.

Thatcher was not a Thatcherite, she was just herself – it was only Blair (more than John Major) who truly formed Thatcherism as a notion. The dialectical irony of history is that only a (nominal) ideologico-political enemy can do this to you, can elevate you into a concept – the empirical instigator has to be knocked off (Julius Caesar had to be murdered, Thatcher had to be ignominously deposed).

A similar lesson can be drawn from the Communist Party’s introduction of capitalism to China over the past thirty years, so that the truly revolutionary force in China today is capitalism, with its “breath-taking dynamics of self-enhancing productivity” in which “all things solid melt into thin air”. In the Marxist view, this revolutionary dynamism is an ultimately futile attempt to escape the contradictions of capitalism, and Žižek continues:

Marx’s fundamental mistake was here to conclude, from these insights, that a new, higher social order (Communism) is possible, an order that would not only maintain, but even raise to a higher degree and effectively fully release the potential of the self-increasing spiral of productivity which, in capitalism, on account of its inherent obstacle/contradiction, is again and again thwarted by socially destructive economic crises.

In short, what Marx overlooked is that, to put it in the standard Derridean terms, this inherent obstacle/antagonism as the “condition of impossibility” of the full deployment of the productive forces is simultaneously its “condition of possibility”: if we abolish the obstacle, the inherent contradiction of capitalism, we do not get the fully unleashed drive to productivity finally delivered of its impediment, but we lose precisely this productivity that seemed to be generated and simultaneously thwarted by capitalism – if we take away the obstacle, the very potential thwarted by this obstacle dissipates…

In other words, the economic stagnation seen in Communist countries – and, by the 1970s, in countries following the social democratic/Keynesian policies that were swept away by Thatcherism – were the paradoxical result of the apparent removal of an obstacle having the effect of removing the potential which it had appeared to thwart.

But those who long for fully free and unleashed capitalism, released from the remaining constraints of regulation and social provision should be aware that the same principle may apply in both directions:

[I]t is as if this logic of “obstacle as a positive condition” which underlied the failure of the socialist attempts to overcome capitalism, is now returning with a vengeance in capitalism itself: capitalism can fully thrive not in the unencumbered reign of the market, but only when an obstacle (the minimal Welfare State interventions, up to the direct political rule of the Communist Party, as is the case in China) constraints its unimpeded reign.

The Conservatives and the Human Rights Act

David Davies has become the latest Conservative to attack the Human Rights Act, saying that “We should tear up the Human Rights Act and replace it with something that protects law abiding citizens from violent criminals”, in response to Keir Starmer’s speech defending the Human Rights Act yesterday.

The DPP summarised the rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights in his speech. These are as follows:

• Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law.
• No one shall be subjected to torture or degrading treatment or punishment.
• No one shall be held in slavery.
• Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person.
• Everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law.
• No one should be held guilty retrospectively of a criminal offence.
• Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
• Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
• Everyone has the right to freedom of expression.
• Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association.
• Men and women have the right to marry.
• The enjoyment of these rights and freedoms shall be secured without discrimination on any ground.

Like Starmer, I’d like to know which of these rights the Conservatives consider to be “un-British” and needing to be swept away.

I’d also like to know whether the Conservatives would welcome other countries in the Council of Europe “tearing up” the ECHR and implementing their own national “bills of rights” appealing to populist sentiment (“protecting law-abiding citizens from violent criminals”). Instead of the ECHR, we could have a “Russian bill of rights” (which I’m sure Vladimir Putin would be happy to help draft), or a “Romanian bill of rights”, say. Perhaps Belarus – currently excluded from the Council of Europe due to human rights concerns – could bypass the process by moving straight to a “bill of rights” that reflects its own unique cultural and political requirements rather than those of foreign judges and trendy liberal do-gooders.

I’m left wondering if the Conservatives accept the principle of universal human rights at all. How will they engage with countries with poor human rights records if those countries can just turn round and say, “Like you, we believe human rights are for each country to determine for its own people”?

Finally, I wish that every Conservative who agrees with calls to “tear up” the Human Rights Act would read this article by Conservative pundit Peter Oborne, in which he defends the Human Rights Act as “Churchill’s legacy”, enshrining rights which were formulated under British guidance and which are “absolutely fundamental to the British common law tradition”.

As such, the present Tory party’s hostility to the Human Rights Act should sound a warning for those tempted to believe a Conservative government would significantly reverse New Labour’s more authoritarian tendencies.

Co-operation and free software

The principles behind the Co-operative Party (and indeed the co-operative movement as a whole) – voluntarism, co-operation, mutualism and so on – can also be found in the free/open source software movement.

So it’s not surprising that the Co-operative Party passed a resolution (written by Political Penguin) at last year’s conference in support of open source software, and that their new draft manifesto (PDF) includes a commitment to use open source software more extensively in government IT procurement, and to ensure that open source software is taught in schools (most of which are, sadly, devoted to teaching their students how to use Windows rather than how to use computers).

That said, I’m a little disappointed by the manifesto’s text (which is set out at the end of this post for ease of reference). The focus is on open source as a methodology, rather than software freedom as a principle and as the foundation of a new commons. In addition, where open source is promoted as the “cheaper option”, there is a risk of disillusionment, particularly if users are forced to switch to unfamiliar software without adequate support and training.

So here are a few thoughts on how a broader understanding of software freedom fits well with the principles of the co-operative movement and the Co-operative Party:

• Free software is about freedom, not cost: as GNU’s Free Software Definition puts it, it is “free as in free speech, not free as in free beer”. Much of the most widely-used free software is licensed under the GNU General Public Licence, a “copyleft” licence that requires those who distribute the software (or works derived from it) to do so under the same licensing terms, thus ensuring that the software remains “in the commons” rather than suffering “enclosure” under proprietary licensing terms. This is an ingenious guarantee of continuing freedom and mutualism.
• Free software encourages sharing and co-operation. Most major free software products – such as the various versions of Linux – attract around them a diverse community of developers and users, with user forums in which people can find assistance and support as they get used to the software or encounter problems.
• Free software is good for the Majority World. Proprietary licensing costs mean that people in the Majority World are either excluded from access to IT or are forced to use “pirated” software. Free software provides a means of legal and effective access to a huge range of software. In addition, free software can be translated into local languages or modified to meet local requirements that would not attract the attention of a multinational software corporation.
• Free software increases people’s computer skills. The multi-skilling which is engendered by using more than one operating system means people become more aware of how their computer works, rather than being dependent simply on “the Windows Way”. This is particularly relevant to the Majority World, but is vital for the development of IT skills in Britain, too.
• Free software is the “buy local” option. It is not “cost-free”, but the money that is spent is more likely to stay in this country, since it is spent on support, training and other services, rather than going in licence fees to a US corporation. It’s analogous to buying from a local shop rather than Tesco: more money stays in the local economy.
• Free software is good for the planet: old PCs can often be given a new lease of life by having a version of Linux installed on them, rather than just being dumped once they are no longer able to run more bloated proprietary operating systems.

It would be good to see some more of these perspectives coming to the fore as the Co-operative Party (and the Labour Party, whose record in this area to date has not been great) develop their IT policies in the future.

Further reading

For further reading on software freedom – and the meaning of the term “free software” – see the Philosophy page on the GNU website. GNU is the operating system more commonly referred to by the name of its [usual] kernel, Linux, as explained here.

This post was typed on a computer running Debian GNU/Linux. Debian is a community-developed version of Linux, and is the basis for the more well-known Ubuntu Linux. Debian’s Social Contract strikes me as a great example of co-operative principles re-expressed in the context of software development.

A “co-operator” writes…

Well, I haven’t rejoined the Labour Party yet. But I did finally decide to join the Co-operative Party.

The quote from Gordon Brown (the first prime minister to be a member of the Co-operative Party, though not a Co-op MP) on the party’s home page sums it up well:

The Co-operative Party stands for fair trade, for ethical business and for people having a say in the running of their communities.

I’ve long been interested in “non-statist” versions of leftwing politics (ever since aftermath of the 1992 election defeat), and find the Co-op values of mutualism, self-help, democratic control, voluntarism and co-operation appealing. (I’ve always been glad that my bike was build and sold by a co-operative, for example!)

As I may have mentioned before, part of the appeal of the Co-operative Party is precisely that it is not presenting a comprehensive plan for transforming society from top to bottom; that its aims are comparatively modest: the promotion, encouragement and facilitation of more ways for people to work together in cooperation with one another, within the context of a mixed economy that will continue to be dominated by capitalist enterprises for the foreseeable future.

It’s also, on a personal level, a means to align myself with what I’d see as the many good things to have been achieved by this and previous Labour governments, while at the same time having a degree of critical distance from Labour’s biggest flaws: it’s centralising, statist and even authoritarian tendencies, all of which the Co-operative Party has sought to work against over its history.

Finally, it’s a lot cheaper than joining the Labour Party, but let’s not mention that slightly unworthy factor…

A couple of calmer questions

OK, picking the bones out of that last post, there are two key areas of substance which I’d be interested to know people’s thoughts on, especially those minded to vote Conservative at the next election:

1. How would you respond to the warnings made by David Blanchflower (among others) that the rapid cuts proposed by the Conservatives could reverse the economic recovery or even cause a full-blown depression?
2. Do you think that “big government” rhetoric has much traction with the British electorate, regardless of whether you happen to agree with it yourself?

Sounding the alarm

The Conservative party conference has got me on the verge of signing back up to the Labour party. I’ve moved from being despondently resigned to a Tory government – “Well, we’ve got to have one at some point, so it might as well be now” – to being sullenly hostile to the possibility, but now: alarmed.

I’ll warn you: this post is a bit of a rant. I’m not claiming this as a considered political analysis; just an expression of where my thoughts are at the moment. Getting things off my chest, and all that. Hey, it’s a blog, what did you expect?

The economy

What scares me the most is David Cameron and George Osborne’s eagerness to start slashing and burning public spending the moment they get into office. As David Blanchflower argues today, the Conservatives’ plans are just the thing to plunge a fragile economy into a true depression: the real deal, complete with “rapidly rising unemployment, social disorder, rising poverty, falling living standards and even soup kitchens”. Blanchflower continues:

The Tory economic proposals have the potential to push the British economy into a death spiral of decline that would be almost impossible to reverse for a generation.

This is a terrifying prospect, yet the Tories seem to be approaching it with relish. Indeed, they are already holding back recovery, with their irresponsible and unconstitutional instructions to local authorities to put housebuilding programmes on hold and their threat to housebuilders to tear up contracts entered into between now and the election.

“We’re all in this together”

Always reassuring to be told this by a multi-millionaire heir to a baronetcy. Of course, “all in this together” means one thing to public sector workers earning £18,000 – who are being told that’s quite enough money for them – and another thing for millionaires, who are assured that their £200,000 inheritance tax cut is still in the bag.

Though of course, if they’re bankers, George Osborne has warned them that he “reserves the right” to tax them further if they become “reckless” with their bonuses. Ri-i-i-i-ght. (Incidentally: “reserves the right”? You’ll be the government. You don’t need to “reserve the right”.)

That said, Labour needs to handle this carefully. It would be easy for them to turn the public sector pay-freeze into a “payroll vote” issue, which would be a huge mistake (both tactically and as a matter of principle). They need to find a way to broaden their attack by making private sector workers see this as something which also concerns them: both from the losses of public services they will suffer, and the insight it gives into the Conservatives’ tax and spending priorities.

I’d become a bit bored over the years with Labour’s rhetoric of the Conservatives favouring “the few” at the expense of “the many”, but the Conservatives have shown this week that they still live up to the cliché as soon as they feel confident enough to follow their instincts.

Taxdodgers’ Alliance

The Guardian’s report today on the Taxpayers’ Alliance gives us an idea of whose voices are going to be most influential under a Conservative government. As Jon Cruddas puts it, in reference to the long list of major Tory donors who have bankrolled the TPA:

This is an arm’s-length Tory front operation run by big powerful business interests who want to remove themselves from paying tax by poisoning the well of public debate around the issue.

“Big government”

This is actually the area of recent Tory rhetoric which gives me some hope for a Labour fightback. Blaming the country’s woes on “big government” sounds more like a US conservative concern, and shows the influence of American conservatism on the Cameroons.

I’m not convinced that the British public thinks in the same terms. People are more likely to talk about the government “not doing enough” than about government being “too big”. Yes, they will complain about the government spending too much, or interfering in people’s lives, but that is still seen in terms of the effectiveness (or otherwise) of government rather than in US-style terms of “big” vs “small” government.

Margaret Thatcher’s problem with government was not its size – central government became larger and stronger under her premiership, which was exactly how she wanted it – but its involvement in matters which she considered best left to the market. It was socialism, not “big government”, that she opposed. I suspect that in this she had a much better handle on the British electorate’s political instinct than do those around David Cameron.

On the other hand…

…I’m also hopeful that the Tories have now revealed just enough of what they have in mind to energise Labour into developing a coherent alternative narrative (though, as Polly Toynbee points out today, the early auguries for this are not good). As Nye Bevan pointed out, we don’t need a crystal ball to know what a Conservative government will do: just a history book.

As Martin Kettle points out, the Tory conference (not least Cameron’s own speech) raises serious concerns about the Conservative party’s competence and true agenda. As he puts it, “the course set by Cameron and Osborne is not just doctrinaire”, but “dangerous”. There is an opportunity for Labour here, and indeed at least one poll has shown a post-conference dip for the Tories and rise for Labour, narrowing the Conservative lead to 9 points.

But in his final sentence, Kettle hints at why Labour may still fail to take this opportunity:

An energised Labour party, under an effective leader, could do the Tories a lot of damage right now.

An “energised” Labour party? An “effective” leader? Sadly, the evidence points to neither of those conditions being fulfilled at the moment.

Political plot

Took the Political Compass test again. Last time I scored -0.50 economic, -5.44 social. This time, have swung back to the left while remaining firmly on the “libertarian” side of the social line.

How to revive Labour: values, not Tory-bashing

This week’s Spectator has some interesting articles on the future of the Labour party, including one from Martin Bright arguing that Labour now needs to skip a generation - “if [Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper, David and Ed Miliband, Andy Burnham a and James Purnell] genuinely have the interests of their party at heart, they will drift gracefully into middle age…” – and an open letter from Daniel Finkelstein to Peter Mandelson on how to revive the Labour party.

Finkelstein’s article deserves reading in its entirety, but two points in particular leapt out at me;

1. Attacking the Tories can be counterproductive

Finkelstein argues that Labour attempts to discredit the Tories are making matters worse for Labour than for the Tories:

When people watch Labour politicians talking about Tories, they are making judgments about Labour, not about the Tories. They are asking themselves – does this person seem pleasant? Is he interested in the things I am interested in? Has he got things in proportion? Does he care about the country or just his political point?

Your dividing lines and attempt to define David Cameron as a right-wing toff make you look as if you have things out of proportion, only care about politics and may not be nice. In other words, you are squandering what has often been a Labour advantage – that you care, that you are likeable.

This problem is likely to get worse as the election approaches and Labour politicians become more desperate – just as it was looming annihilation that led the Tories to their disastrous “Demon Eyes” campaign before the 1997 election, only succeeding in adding to their image as “the nasty party”.

2. You need to make voting Labour feel good

Finkelstein argues that people voted for Margaret Thatcher because “she made them feel they were doing good for the country” by “helping hard-working people and curing the British disease”. Similarly, “people felt great about voting for Tony Blair in 1997″. He continues:

So you need to talk more about Labour’s values, about the sort of country you are trying to create. Make people feel great about being on your side. Make them feel it’s something that good, caring people do. If you just tell them that you will protect them from the evil Tories, you will get nowhere.

Sadly, a visit to Labour’s website is enough to demonstrate that Finkelstein’s advice is falling on deaf ears. From the home page, there are at least four attacks on the Conservatives only a click away. But I had to do a Google site search in order to find Clause IV – the main statement of Labour’s values, as adopted in 1995:

The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few.

This remains an attractive statement of intent (if not a particularly attractive piece of prose!), so why isn’t this pushed further to the fore in Labour’s presentation of itself? They could even find a way to skip the “democratic socialist” bit if they felt that was going to frighten the horses.

Similarly the statement of “Labour’s purpose”:

Labour’s purpose is fairness: fair rules, fair chances and a fair say for everyone.

If Labour wants to go down fighting with honour, in a way that gives it a ghost of a chance of recovering quickly, then that is the sort of message it should be promoting: not the “David Cameron will eat your babies” stuff which is likely to be served up instead.

Though, as Daniel Finkelstein points out, all this is futile without a change of leader. This is going to be a “time for a change” election, and Labour can’t claim to represent change with Gordon Brown still in office. Which takes us back to Polly Toynbee’s column as mentioned in my previous post.

Gordon Brown’s resignation speech?

Polly Toynbee’s column today is brilliant, but futile: “Gordon Brown can at last emerge a hero, by giving a resignation speech at the party conference” – but it’s not going to happen, is it?

Still, she provides a couple of reminders as to why the election of a Conservative government next year will be a tragedy for this country, as the Gordon Brown from her alternative universe – the one in which he has the courage to call inevitability’s bluff – tells his audience:

Make no mistake, had David Cameron and George Osborne been in power to do what they proposed, the catastrophe doesn’t bear thinking about. With ATM machines within hours of shutting down, the Conservatives urged us to do nothing, spend nothing, laissez-faire and let it happen. Supermarket shelves would have emptied in a chaos of panic. To spend money then was to invest in saving us all, and the debts we incurred were a price well worth paying. Had we not spent that money, the cost of total collapse would have been unimaginably higher.

And, more positively, an affirmation of social democracy as a means of providing things that improve life for all of us:

Ask yourselves what you value most in life. Most precious are those things we can only purchase together: health, education, safety in the streets, fine public spaces, parks, museums, sports grounds and beautiful public buildings. No shop sells anything we prize so highly. Don’t let all these good public things descend again into the petty squalor of the 1980s and 1990s for the sake of a few more pounds in your pocket. The small state is the squalid state, penny-pinching, mean-spirited and devoid of things that make a country proud.

The essence of “co-operative socialism”

Greg Rosen’s book Serving the People quotes two statements in particular that seem excellent summaries of what “co-operative socialism” is about, in contrast to the centralised state-socialism that characterised much of Labour’s actions.

The first was written by Harold Campbell in 1947 (p.27):

The Co-operative Party advocates the sovereignty of the consumer. It declares that the state should be controlled in the interests of the consumer as a co-operative society is controlled in his interests. …

It bases its advocacy upon the socialist ground that consumer control is the only truly classless control. The consumer interest is all embracing: any other is a limited interest. … The specific role of the co-operative movement in politics is the advocation of libertarian socialism, based upon the classlessness of consumer sovereignty.

In the drive to make as much headway in five years towards a new and planned Britain by the Labour government, much that is kindly and human and liberal (in its wider sense) is in danger of being overlooked. … In the clash of interests apparent in the transition to the new order – the clash between capital and labour – the claim of the consumer to be the only non-sectional and therefore classless or unifying interest, is in danger of being ignored or – when it is heard – not understood.

The second is from the party’s annual report in 1979, which contained the following repudiation of the “Bennites” then seeking to dominate the Labour Party (p.54). (Note: I have a lot of admiration for Tony Benn. But I certainly find the following a more appealing account of socialism than the “Old Labour” path of nationalisation and state control):

We have regarded it as a principal function of the Party to demand the organisation and government of society so that the maximum degree of free and voluntary association is provided. Our Labour Party allies have not always followed this precept. This is largely because the emphasis of Labour Party thinking has been the interest of the producer in the form of the organised worker.

For many years we have questioned the validity of nationalisation as the ultimate development of socialism and claim that it does not in fact mean consumer control, since it encourages uniformity rather than diversity. …

Co-operators are by natural inclination social democrats. They believe that power belongs to the people, authority rests on consent and should be granted, sparingly, to those leaders chosen by the community. And those leaders should at all times be accountable. …

We advocate co-operation as the form of social ownership most likely to succeed. It will succeed because it attracts the support of those engaged in the enterprise. The Co-operative form of social ownership is the alternative to nationalisation and state ownership. Nationalisation is right for some industries but not for all. … The state is not always the same thing as the community.

The common themes in these statements, separated by 30 years and written in very different contexts, seem to be:

• a “libertarian socialism”, based on voluntary co-operation rather than state ownership;
• the “sovereignty of the consumer”, in which our interests as consumers are seen as a unifying force, contrasted with our opposing interests as “capital” or “labour”;
• a scepticism about nationalisation, seeing it as leading to “uniformity rather than diversity”, and as harmful for “much that is kindly and human and liberal”; and
• the need for power to be granted to the state “sparingly” and with full accountability.

If “socialism” – a word which, let’s face it, can be something of an empty container into which a wide variety of conflicting ideas can be poured – has any future, then it has to be along these lines.