The Eternal Idea of Revolutionary Justice
Photo by Janine Gordon
Resurgence is in the wind. The cynicism that has dogged every gesture of our resistance is giving way as the disappointment of 20th century communism is eclipsed by the rebellious will to try again. Guiding this radical revival are two philosophers whose political theories breathe new life into the revolutionary project. We speak of Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek, a neo-Platonist-Maoist and a post-Lacanian-Leninist, whose carefully considered political philosophy revives the ideals of egalitarian-communism and heralds revolution in our lifetime.
Their project is philosophically grounded in Badiou’s two-part magnum opus Being and Event and Logics of Worlds. In the preface to the latter work, Badiou hypothesizes that there are four elements of the “eternal Idea” of revolutionary politics: egalitarian justice; revolutionary terror; voluntarism; and trust in the people. And Žižek takes up with gusto the task of applying these elements to contemporary politics. Together, their roadmap for insurrectionary anticonsumerism is invigorating in its breadth and intensity.
It begins with an egalitarian justice that irrevocably overturns the “established hierarchies of power or wealth” by stripping the rich of their supposed right to consume a greater percentage of the world’s resources. This entails “worldwide norms of per capita energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions, etc.” that limit and equalize global development.
The second stage is revolutionary terror, the “will to crush the enemy of the people.” Žižek argues persuasively that we cannot have equality and sustainability without disciplined terror against the hyper-rich. In practical terms this requires the courage to impose a limitation on the “freedom” of wanton consumption that has brought humanity to the precipice along with the willingness to support “ruthless punishment of all those who violate the imposed protective [ecological] measures.”
The third phase responds to the question of how these changes will be accomplished. Badiou and Žižek propose voluntarism or “the belief that one can ‘move mountains,’ ignoring ‘objective’ laws and obstacles.” For too long has our emancipatory project been dismissed because it violates the so-called “laws” of neoclassical economics and the limitations of the capitalist imagery. Voluntarism acknowledges that where there is a will there is a way and that the “only way to confront the threat of the ecological catastrophe is by means of large-scale collective decisions” that pull the brake on the runaway train of capitalism.
Finally, what ties these elements together is trust in the people, the demos of democracy. In rejecting reactionary politics that harbors “antipopular suspicion or the fear of the masses,” we uphold the conviction that “the large majority of the people support these severe measures, see them as their own, and are ready to participate in their enforcement.” This fourth element is the linchpin of them all, a crucial ethical foundation that keeps us from repeating the tragic failures of the past.
What we gain from these four revolutionary elements is a clear strategic statement for attaining our movement’s victory. But as Badiou makes clear, at each step a dangerous perversion of ideals is possible, and a seemingly slight distortion, such as the one that trusts “the People” abstractly but loathes the people concretely, can turn our revolutionary project into another army of oppression. To ward off this evil requires a firm, unwavering commitment to the egalitarian nature of our movement. Further, it demands fidelity to the mental environmentalist’s founding intuition: That our overconsumption is the tool of others’ oppression, that the occupation of our minds builds the sweatshops on their land.
That is why we dream of nothing less than a global emancipation, a spiritual insurrection that sets this false world ablaze.
Micah White is a Contributing Editor at Adbusters and an independent activist. He lives in Berkeley and is writing a book about the future of activism. www.micahmwhite.com or micah (at) adbusters.org
64 comments on the article “The Eternal Idea of Revolutionary Justice”
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Anonymous
Žižek/Badiou/Plato/Lenin/Trotsky/etc. be bullsh*t. You guys all should read Žižek/Badiou/Plato/Lenin/Trotsky/etc...
Anonymous
Žižek/Badiou/Plato/Lenin/Trotsky/etc. be bullsh*t. You guys all should read Žižek/Badiou/Plato/Lenin/Trotsky/etc...
Anonymous
lacanians will rule the world !
Anonymous
lacanians will rule the world !
Gregory A. Butler
I'm a recovering communist [with 14 months "clean" of mouthing absurd revolutionary rhetoric - after 22 years wasted on the grotesque fantasies of the Stalinoid left] so I'm really disgusted by this nonsense.
No matter what these Eurotrash academic superstars/really bad writers Badiou and Zizek have to say, real revolutions don't look a thing like the graduate student fantasy outlined above.
Real revolutions break out from out of nowhere, when, typically but not always at the tail end of a disastrous military defeat in wartime, the rulers no longer know what to do.
Sensing this doubt from their bosses, in desperate search of a solution and no longer willing to tolerate being bossed around by the upper classes (because why follow their orders if they don't know what the hell they are doing?), the poorest of the workers rise in revolt, often with the active aid of draftee enlisted people of the defeated army rising in mutiny against their officers.
The rulers and their state typically fall like a house of cards in the face of the plebians in revolt.
Almost immediately, college educated middle class leftists, and the labor/political leaders of the most prosperous/privileged sections of the working class seize political power ahead of the rebellious but hopelessly disorganized masses.
The new "revolutionary leaders" will CLAIM that they will bring about the demands of the poor in armed rebellion.
In fact, the new leaders will find themselves forced by circumstances and social reality to restore order - to get the power back on, to keep the phones working, to keep food and consumer goods on store shelves, to stop the wave of armed robberies, burglaries and rapes that followed the collapse of the old police departments, to treat the raw sewage pouring into the rivers and to collect the garbage.
They will end up having no choice but to do this using the old government apparatus - in particular, the old police department, the old department of corrections and the old army.
Ironically, these great "tribunes of the people" will dispense with much of what was democratic about the old order - trials by jury, separation of powers between police and the courts, judicial independence, freedom of speech, freedom of the press ect. - and they will maintain and in fact strengthen all that was dictatorial about the old regime.
They will do all of this in the name of "revolution".
It will be a lie, and - despite the propaganda in the controlled 'revolutionary press' - the poor workers and the enlisted soldiers in the "people's army" will know.
There will be revolts - some from armed terrorist groups in league with the old defeated ruling classes but most from former revolutionaries.
The most organized will be from the middle class political factions and labor leaders of the privileged workers who end up losing the game of musical chairs for governmental power that was won by the dominant group of "revolutionaries".
But there will be labor strikes by the poor workers - who find that, despite "winning" the revolution, the work day is longer, their jobs are more dangerous, their pay is nominally lower AND has less buying power in the stores and that their new "revolutionary" bosses are not only more abusive than the old bosses but also aren't even competent to run industry.
There will be bread riots from low income workers and the poor demanding food and consumer goods.
There will be boycotts and economic resistance by small business owners and farmers, who, while supporting the "revolutionary police's" crackdown on crime, will hate the shortages, inefficiencies, price controls, high taxes and general bureaucratic abuses of the new regime - and who will fear (in some cases correctly) that their businesses will be seized.
There will be rebellions by ethnic minorities, who will be outraged that, despite the promises of the "revolution", they are just as racially discriminated against by the new regime as they were by the old one.
And - most dangerously - there will be mutinies among the enlisted soldiers, who will quickly see every democratic right they won in the revolution taken away in the name of "military efficiency" and who will resent the hell out of that.
The new "revolutionary police" will be unleashed without mercy on all of these groups, and, alongside kangaroo court "trials" in the new "people's courts" [which will, curiously, be largely composed of judges and lawyers from - surprise! - the old racist and class biased "justice" system] there will also be widespread torture, physical and sexual abuse of prisoners and outright murder by the "revolutionary police" [many of whom - again, big surprise! - will be the police officers and detectives of the old regime's police departments].
The "revolutionary police" will succeed in restoring order, the new "revolutionary leaders" - along with the educated middle classes - will get all sorts of privileges, just like the old rulers.
Some of the old rulers might even find themselves among the new privileged.
The smaller businesspeople will find their businesses blatantly confiscated by the state, often at gunpoint - and themselves may end up in the new regime's "reeducation camps", often along with their families.
As for workers, the better off layers will have a slightly lower living standard than they did in the days of the old regime, but they will live a lot better than the poorest workers, who will find themselves worse off than they were in the old days.
No worker will have a right to protest any of this, as the unions will be state controlled, strikes will be illegal and the "revolutionary police" will be called in with a quickness if they dare to rise in revolt.
That's what real communist revolutions look like, folks - so let's be honest here, rather than selling a propaganda dream!
GREGORY A. BUTLER
New York, NY
Gregory A. Butler
I'm a recovering communist [with 14 months "clean" of mouthing absurd revolutionary rhetoric - after 22 years wasted on the grotesque fantasies of the Stalinoid left] so I'm really disgusted by this nonsense.
No matter what these Eurotrash academic superstars/really bad writers Badiou and Zizek have to say, real revolutions don't look a thing like the graduate student fantasy outlined above.
Real revolutions break out from out of nowhere, when, typically but not always at the tail end of a disastrous military defeat in wartime, the rulers no longer know what to do.
Sensing this doubt from their bosses, in desperate search of a solution and no longer willing to tolerate being bossed around by the upper classes (because why follow their orders if they don't know what the hell they are doing?), the poorest of the workers rise in revolt, often with the active aid of draftee enlisted people of the defeated army rising in mutiny against their officers.
The rulers and their state typically fall like a house of cards in the face of the plebians in revolt.
Almost immediately, college educated middle class leftists, and the labor/political leaders of the most prosperous/privileged sections of the working class seize political power ahead of the rebellious but hopelessly disorganized masses.
The new "revolutionary leaders" will CLAIM that they will bring about the demands of the poor in armed rebellion.
In fact, the new leaders will find themselves forced by circumstances and social reality to restore order - to get the power back on, to keep the phones working, to keep food and consumer goods on store shelves, to stop the wave of armed robberies, burglaries and rapes that followed the collapse of the old police departments, to treat the raw sewage pouring into the rivers and to collect the garbage.
They will end up having no choice but to do this using the old government apparatus - in particular, the old police department, the old department of corrections and the old army.
Ironically, these great "tribunes of the people" will dispense with much of what was democratic about the old order - trials by jury, separation of powers between police and the courts, judicial independence, freedom of speech, freedom of the press ect. - and they will maintain and in fact strengthen all that was dictatorial about the old regime.
They will do all of this in the name of "revolution".
It will be a lie, and - despite the propaganda in the controlled 'revolutionary press' - the poor workers and the enlisted soldiers in the "people's army" will know.
There will be revolts - some from armed terrorist groups in league with the old defeated ruling classes but most from former revolutionaries.
The most organized will be from the middle class political factions and labor leaders of the privileged workers who end up losing the game of musical chairs for governmental power that was won by the dominant group of "revolutionaries".
But there will be labor strikes by the poor workers - who find that, despite "winning" the revolution, the work day is longer, their jobs are more dangerous, their pay is nominally lower AND has less buying power in the stores and that their new "revolutionary" bosses are not only more abusive than the old bosses but also aren't even competent to run industry.
There will be bread riots from low income workers and the poor demanding food and consumer goods.
There will be boycotts and economic resistance by small business owners and farmers, who, while supporting the "revolutionary police's" crackdown on crime, will hate the shortages, inefficiencies, price controls, high taxes and general bureaucratic abuses of the new regime - and who will fear (in some cases correctly) that their businesses will be seized.
There will be rebellions by ethnic minorities, who will be outraged that, despite the promises of the "revolution", they are just as racially discriminated against by the new regime as they were by the old one.
And - most dangerously - there will be mutinies among the enlisted soldiers, who will quickly see every democratic right they won in the revolution taken away in the name of "military efficiency" and who will resent the hell out of that.
The new "revolutionary police" will be unleashed without mercy on all of these groups, and, alongside kangaroo court "trials" in the new "people's courts" [which will, curiously, be largely composed of judges and lawyers from - surprise! - the old racist and class biased "justice" system] there will also be widespread torture, physical and sexual abuse of prisoners and outright murder by the "revolutionary police" [many of whom - again, big surprise! - will be the police officers and detectives of the old regime's police departments].
The "revolutionary police" will succeed in restoring order, the new "revolutionary leaders" - along with the educated middle classes - will get all sorts of privileges, just like the old rulers.
Some of the old rulers might even find themselves among the new privileged.
The smaller businesspeople will find their businesses blatantly confiscated by the state, often at gunpoint - and themselves may end up in the new regime's "reeducation camps", often along with their families.
As for workers, the better off layers will have a slightly lower living standard than they did in the days of the old regime, but they will live a lot better than the poorest workers, who will find themselves worse off than they were in the old days.
No worker will have a right to protest any of this, as the unions will be state controlled, strikes will be illegal and the "revolutionary police" will be called in with a quickness if they dare to rise in revolt.
That's what real communist revolutions look like, folks - so let's be honest here, rather than selling a propaganda dream!
GREGORY A. BUTLER
New York, NY
CAPITALIST
I ENJOYED THIS MAGAZINE WHEN I READ ARTICLES ABOUT ANTICONSUMERISM BUT THIS COMMUNIST BS HAS COMPLETELY TURNED ME OFF TO IT.
COMMUNISM IS OPPRESSIVE
GO READ SOME AYN RAND
CAPITALIST
I ENJOYED THIS MAGAZINE WHEN I READ ARTICLES ABOUT ANTICONSUMERISM BUT THIS COMMUNIST BS HAS COMPLETELY TURNED ME OFF TO IT.
COMMUNISM IS OPPRESSIVE
GO READ SOME AYN RAND
Anonymous
I also approve of liberalisms and happy capitalisms yessir.
Anonymous
I also approve of liberalisms and happy capitalisms yessir.
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