/312/ Consolation-Prize Marxism & the Bunga-Bunga State ft. Dylan Riley
Added 2023-01-10 07:00:03 +0000 UTCOn the achievement of democracy and the 'impartial' state.
We speak to sociologist Dylan Riley about his new book Microverses, a series of aphorisms on social theory and politics.
The rational-legal state seems to be under threat by politicians who have no sense of the division between public and private – patrimonialists like Donald Trump, or Silvio Berlusconi. What are we to make of this attack on the notion of office?
Anti-corruption politics is often the response, but what happens when the left positions itself as the defender of the 'impartial' bourgeois state – rather than its overthrower? And was democratic capitalism the achievement of a militant working class – or a concession made after the working class had already been disciplined by fascism and war?
Readings:
- Microverses: Observations from a Shattered Present, Dylan Riley, Verso Books
- Seven Theses on American Politics, Dylan Riley & Robert Brenner, NLR
- Inflection Point (podcast), Dylan Riley & Robert Brenner, UC Berkley
- Safe Substitutes for Posting: review of Microverses, Harold Florida, Damage
Comments
Excellent episode. I’m curious if you think Riley’s (and parts of Marxist tradition’s) scepticism of a politics of ‘fairness’ ‘justice’ etc in part explains the contemporary left’s blasé attitude to free speech, and sovereignty/rights in general? Is the lefts attitude on these things not only political laziness born of defeat, but also a genuine feature of Marxist politics proper? I think Bunga (esp Phil) is very hostile to this aspect of the contemporary left, but would also think you’re very sympathetic to Riley’s advocacy of a post-Weberian left politics.
Eamon
2023-01-18 08:28:32 +0000 UTC‘Defenders of the state’ is a huge understatement. The left (if we mean corbyn/sanders left) actively loves the state and sees it as a saviour of sorts or solution to most contemporary class issues. I think this is straightforwardly due to the class composition of the left
John O'Riordan
2023-01-16 14:16:25 +0000 UTCThe disciplining of the population enough to trust them with democracy was already an argument by Hobsbawm, even though he was referring to 50 years before the post wwii era, if I remember correctly (either age of empire or age of extremes). Regarding the Italian case, I think there is a slight overstating of the importance and strength of the left *before* wwii. The left and more specifically the organized working class, was much more disorganised, structurally divided, and scattered than usually thought. Reading Gramsci directly, one can see this very clearly. Organised peasant in the Po plain and in Puglia were quite different from Turin/Milan factory workers Gramsci were in dialogue with, which by the way began to become an important part of the working class only during and after WWI. Electorally, universal male suffrage was implemented in 1912 and in 1913's elections socialists got 17% of the vote (with massive pre-fascist measures like sistematic beatings of known peasant workers agitators or vote buying in the countryside, something that Mussolini himself snarkily reminded Giolitti - the Liberal ex prime minister - in Parliament when liberals attacked fascists for being antidemocratic and violent only a decade later). In 1919 they got 30something. So, not nearly as much as in Germany with socdems. The strong left many speak about when talking about past Italy got its numbers after 1943, when left wing antifascist armed resistance got extremely popular. Regarding post WWII democracy, even though I agree with the general case of the disciplining of the people, american influence has been a massive obstacle to that, it allowed democracy to take hold, but the amount of meddling and interference was extremely high, so much so that aside from massive funding of the right wing flank of the Christian democratic funding, they supported and favoured mafia groups in order to force right wing votes, and planned numerous coups, some of them almost took place. Togliatti instead actually followed the general stalinist flawed strategy of waiting for an inevitable global reversal of power, when the pci would have just grabbed power. It was only later that social democracy came to Italy with the switch of power inside the DC party towards the centre-left internal flank, after the frankly fascist-adjacent Tambroni government caused massive protests in 1960 (that gave rise to 20 years of protests *before* the 68 movement, with which it merges - not the same thing as the American 68). It is in that period, when the PCI begins its own social democratic shift, that a case about the protection of state institutions as a left wing strategy can get more traction. I don't think this changes the argument much, just wanted to get more nuance in there (also, I'm not an historian, so maybe I'm incorrect on certain things).
Andrea
2023-01-15 20:33:30 +0000 UTC
