Chapter One Outline: The Negativity of the Left

Despite the increasingly apparent contradictions of global capitalism – most notably in the current financial crisis and the interactions between ecological degradation, scarcity of resources and the continued expansion of life threatening poverty – the political Left appears to have no response. If ‘What is to be done?’ was the proto-typical Leftist question, at least for those able to bear the presence of Lenin, today those who cannot have been reduced to asking, ‘How can we help?’

The Left appears to have no response to the contradictions of capitalist political economy primarily because it has lost sight of either political economy or the economy in general. The Left has been split, in terms of academia, politics and ideology, between either an apolitical economy in which the reform of administrative devices are assumed to be neutral, or a withdrawal into (postmodern) politics or cultural studies without economy. It is as if neither politics or economy can be held together at the same time; an impossible element – class struggle – prevents their fusion. In essence, capitalism and class struggle has ceased to exist for both the Left and the Right, a circumstance with which the latter appears quite content. For Radical Leftist politics to regain its strength and begin to engage with the economy, capitalism must again return to the forefront of analysis.

Against the current splitting of the Left, in this thesis I shall argue that Slavoj Zizek operates at a particular symptomatic point within Leftist discourse. Zizek embodies the impossibilities of Leftist politics because, whilst he work grapples with the same difficulties of representation that have brought the downfall of traditional Leftist essentialist (read Marxist) politics, he maintains that the Left must not abandon the political terrain either through a tragic resignation to the dilemmas of representation or by losing sight of the politics of economy, which he labels class struggle. Indeed, Zizek has come to embody the very point of class struggle, insisting on the instantiation of the impossibility of political economy.

Yet, Zizek appears both unable and unwilling to posit an alternative imaginary. Instead he argues that the status of capitalism is such that any alternative or radical action has already been accounted for by the system; in these times it is neither possible to produce revolutionary activity, nor conceive of alternative imaginaries. Because of this interpretation of capital – along with the constitutive inability of psychoanalytic theory to produce a discourse of the good – Zizek’s work has become the point of much academic and political frustration. As he himself would argue, as a symptom, the signifier ‘Zizek’ has become a point of enjoyment. Yet, it is the wager of this thesis that despite the apparent impossibilities of Lacanian politics and Zizek’s interpretation of capitalism, it is Zizek’s work that provides the most hope for the hungry.

We must ask, therefore, If Zizek ‘s work embodies a singular point of radicality against global capital, what kind of political practices stem from his work? Moreover, first we must consider the kind of theory which has led to Zizek holding this position.

The Communist Hypothesis

The Communist hypothesis and comedic democracy

 Western Marxism has been dominated by the search to explain why Marx’s revolutionary agent, the proletariat, has allowed the continued expansion of capitalism. Without the political security of the inevitable revolutionary implosion, the radical left has undertaken a search for a new ‘communist idol’ in the place of the next revolutionary subject or ideological position. Zizek has rejected this continual search, stating that we are already in possession of such a revolutionary possibility; the communist hypothesis. Or, following the Hopi tribal maxim that he quotes, ‘We are the ones we have been waiting for’.

 

The communist idea does not come from an idealic outside position, untouched by the vampirish claws of capital. Rather it comes as a response to the immanent contradictions of capitalism, particularly the capitalist instantion of the impossible class relationship. As such, the communist hypothesis arrives without determinate content. Its articulation is independent of previous articulations in the name of communism. What is to be done is yet to be articulated, but does not have to come from outside of ourselves. The answer lies within the contradictions of capitalism. It is not located with a specific agent or missing ideological narrative but comes rather through our own implication – as practioners rather than believers – in the contradictions of capitalism.

 

For Zizek, this revolutionary potential comes from our universal implication in the contradictions of capitalism. Revolution comes not from a specific subject such as the proletariat, but because in capitalism we are all proletarians. Nonetheless, despite hinting at the shape the communist hypothesis might take, Zizek limits his analysis to the end of capitalism. Within this analysis, however, lie the seeds of a fundamentally different form of political economy. This form is based upon a comedic articulation of the communist hypothesis in what can be deemed communist democracy.

 

The Communist Hypothesis

 

The communist hypothesis is neither an ideal, a semblance or presence to come in a deconstructive sense, nor has it any necessary relation to previous communist instantiations which focused on either property or the state. Rather it is the task of dedicated anti-capitalists and the focus of this thesis to consider the manner in which it must be articulated in today’s conditions.

 

Thus the communist hypothesis cannot be a transcendental idea. Rather it arises as the only radical response to the contradictions of global capital. Western Marxism, beginning with the Frankfurt school has become increasingly critical towards the Hegelian-Marxist notion of determinate negation, by which any new form of society emerges from the contradictions immanent to the current order. Instead, Marxism and other forms of Radical Leftism have adopted a utopia longing for an order which is wholly Other; an order which develops from an unmediated outside.

 

Zizek’s notion of the communist hypothesis is strictly opposed to any notion of an outside to capitalism. Rather Zizek rehabilitates the Hegelian determinate negation in his theory of universality. Under this theory the concrete universal – that which is excluded from the ‘private’ order, yet exceeds its boundaries and remains immanent to the totality – stands directly for universality through determinate negation. Thus the communist hypothesis comes as a response to the immanent contradictions of capitalism, not from a mythically unspoiled outside.

 

 Zizek argues that these contradictions are embodied in four antagonisms which threaten capitalism; the possibility of ecological collapse, the contradictions between immaterial labour, intellectual property and private property, the development of new scientific technologies which are changing the nature of life in its barest form and the new forms of exclusion, which Zizek labels new forms of apartheid. This exclusion is most notable in the rapidly expanding slums of the third world, but increasingly an underclass is developing within the western world itself. This group acts as reserve or surplus labour, the existance of which maintains the status of labour as a commodity and the capitalistic class relations. The radical potential of this group is not their poverty as such – horrific as it is – but rather the walls and divisions used to exclude them from the rest of society.

 

Communism, in the face of these antagonisms, operates as the only alternative in response to the apparent subsumption of the symptoms of capital in the context of Francis Fukuyama’s ‘End of History’ thesis. This thesis has becomes so maligned it is passé to do so, yet it continues to dominate socio-political performance. The domination is such that in response to the contradictions of capitalism, only two possibilities emerge.

 

The first approach, broadly conceived as conservative or neo-liberal, depending upon location, is the more pragmatic. Under neo-liberal ideology, the capitalist system is considered far from perfect, yet is regarded as not only historically the most effective system, but also the most beneficial system possible. In its most strongly ideological narrative, this approach contends that capitalism is simply a reflection of human nature and no more perfectible. Capitalism will operate in sporadic cycles and will be unjust to some degree. This may seem complacently benign when it comes to the fluctuating price of cheese, but becomes more brutal in regards to naked ambition for limited global resources. It is one thing to justify inflation, quite another to consider the prospect of an outright Oil war between the United States and China. It is also a perspective much more likely to be backed by those on the positive side of capitalistic justice.

 

The other, more liberal, option can be deemed ‘eco-capitalism’. This approach, characterized by the work of Jeffery Sachs and the official benevolence of the United Nations, argues that the productivity of capitalism can be utilized for the good of humanity, whether it is dealing with the ecological crisis, ending poverty or becoming more tolerant towards the Other. In particular the language of its politico-ideological supplement, liberal democracy is used to pacify the brutality of capitalism.

The eco-capitalist narrative acknowledges the symptoms of capitalism yet maintains that they can be resolved within the limits of capitalism. In this sense, eco-capitalism is similar to Marx’s conception of the transition from capitalism to communism. Marx believed that the communist economy would be able to capture the productivity evident in capitalism, without its symptoms. Unfortunately, Marx was unable to understand that this productivity was unique to capitalism itself, and without the torque provided by profit, capitalist productivity would not occur within capitalism. By contrast, the eco-capitalists still maintain their belief in profit, what they misunderstand is that it is profit itself which is causing the problems against which they rally.

 

The communist hypothesis does not emerge from outside of this history, but rather upon the basis of the exclusion around which capital is founded. Under Zizek’s construction of the four dominant symptoms of capitalism, there is one symptom that defines the group; poverty, or rather the exclusion of those in poverty. The other three contradictions have been able to be included within the limits of capitalism. Environmentalism, despite the apparent radical possibility of a chaotic breech of nature, has become sustainable development. The contradictions of private property have become a legal challenge and bio-genetics has developed into an ethical, or even scientific, struggle.  For Zizek these three elements are part of the battle for the commons.

 

Here Zizek follows Hardt and Negri in suggesting that the commons – particularly in the postmodern articulation of the commons in immaterial labour and knowledge – are increasingly being enclosed and privatised. In relation to these specific antagonisms, environmentalism equates to the commons of external nature, intellectual property to the commons of culture and bio-technology to the commons of internal nature. Whilst this enclosure and exploitation of what is common to all evokes the necessary use of communism, it is only the fourth symptom, that of exclusion, which adds the dimension of universality and the consequent possibility of communist ‘democracy’.

 

For Zizek, universality and democracy are intimately intertwined, abet with a characteristic twist. The excluded stand for universality preciously because they are excluded; they are the part with no part, the element whose exclusion constitutes the order. That is, the capitalist empire – both as an ideological system and symbolic/Real logic – must produce an exclusion in order to constitute itself as a set. That exclusion, of the unruly masses with no official place in the private capitalist order, is what makes the totality of Empire universal. The universal is not the failed attempt of any given set to constitute itself, but rather the set and its failure constitute the domain of universality.

 

Zizek links this form of universality to democracy in the Greek sense to signify the intrusion of the excluded into the socio-political space. Here Greek democracy contrasts strongly with Western-style liberal democracy. Liberal democracy seeks to include, but only that which is already symbolised within the current order. That is, liberal democracy is already formed on the basis of the exclusion of class struggle, the main instantiation of which is the masses of urban slums that act as the reserve army of labour for capitalism. By contrast, the Grecian form of democracy is based upon the inclusion of this group – the part with no part in the established order – into the demos. Such a move cannot be established by the demos themselves but rather must come from the internal destabilisation of the order. Thus democracy is universal in the sense that it includes that which is outside of itself, yet necessary for its own constitution.

 

Thus what is vital for both universality and democracy is not exclusion per se, but rather the interaction or gap between the excluded and the established order. The universal may be embodied by the excluded, but universality occurs through the inclusion of the excluded element. Zizek labels this approach a parallax view, where two incommensurable positions are held together. Thus, in Zizek’s communist democracy there is no specific revolutionary agent. Rather the revolutionary potential occurs in the short circuit between the order and its exclusion. The figure of the excluded confronts us – in its universal status – with the truth of its own position. Such a parallax juxtaposition –whereby both (incommensurable) sides are held together in the same frame – makes communist democracy a comedic system in more than just an ironic sense, following Zupancic’s logic of comedy/love, to which I shall soon turn my attention.

 The question becomes of the shape of the communist hypothesis -  is it possible to materially reproduce shared social life based upon an expanded notion of universality or does this simply cement class relations – do we need an entirely new (feminine) version of the impossible universal and the communist hypothesis, one without privatisation?

 

 

Update, August 2008

The majority of my time since the last update has been spent writing an essay considering the relationship between class and capitalism in terms of the interaction between Marxist and psychoanalytic theory. I plan, taking into account several re-writes, that the content of this essay will make up the majority of the first major section of the thesis, originally planned to be ‘What is Capitalism?’. The move to class signalled a change in perspective; rather than attempting to represent or map capitalism, class is instead that which prevents capitalism from being, and the subsequent relations which result from this impossibility. Such a perspective is much more compatible with the epistemological assumptions of psychoanalytic research.

The essay was divided into three sections[i];
- A theoretical history of class after Marx
- Contemporary psychoanalytic perspectives on class
- A theory of the operation of class within contemporary capitalism

The first section proved straightforward, little more than a history lesson, although the narrative was specifically constructed to produce the context for the argumentation to follow. This research did allow me to understand the context for the issues I was considering, but will prove more useful for the introductory stages of the thesis.

The second section was the most troublesome. Here I was inspired by the conference I attended in LA, which was my first exposure to work which specifically focused on psychoanalysis and the economy. Much of this work is limited in its understanding of psychoanalysis and has not been much exposed to psychoanalytic critique, but I believe that it has allowed me to bring my work forward, particularly around class struggle.

In terms of psychoanalysis and class, I have constructed this debate as divided between two positions; Zizek and Yahya Madra/Ceren Ozselcuk[ii] from the Association for Economic and Social Analysis (AESA) group[iii]. The division rests upon an understanding of Lacan's maxim 'There is no sexual relationship'. Both consider that this maxim can be equally applied to class – ‘There is no class relationship’ – but differ in their interpretation of the statement.
For Madra and Ozselcuk, class exists – it is a process which involves the process of producing, distributing and appropriating surplus[iv] - but class relationships are impossible because there is no meta-language which would allow for a neutral approach to the class process. Nonetheless, class relationships do occur, based upon an ideological illusion which mitigates and includes the failure which haunts class, they just always fail. That is, capitalist class relationships are based upon a masculine logic whereby the formation of class relationships is reliant upon an exception[v]. This exception, like Freud’s primordial father from Totem and Taboo, operates at the top of the chain, not at the bottom, and is included within the symbolic matrix of ideology.

Madra and Ozselcuk include both capitalism and communism in this category – an ideological fantasy, based upon an exception element that is notionally outside of the class process yet controls its conditions of possibility. Within capitalism, this exception is the Board of Directors – the only entity within the capitalist enterprise, who does not contribute to, and battles for, control of surplus and the class process[vi]. Only the directors enjoy other people’s surplus without giving anything in return.

I have two problems with this argument. Firstly, within the logic of this argument, I believe that the location of the exception is misplaced. Rather than the Board of Directors (who supply strategic direction) I would argue that it is the shareholders who provide nothing but the conditions of possibility for the capitalist enterprise. My second objection is to the use of an ‘upper’ exception. If you can excuse the limitations of a spatial model, my previous understanding of non-identity had come either in the form of a ‘horizontal’ constitute outside or a ‘lower’ concrete universal. The former referring to the limitations which form the basis of a discourse, say Islam to Christianity, the latter to the exclusion which forms the discourse, third world poverty to first world wealth. Instead, I define the status of the Board of Directors/shareholders as that of a nodal point, or perhaps empty signifier. Whilst they provide a point of difference within the discourse (or rather the very instantiation of difference) this exception is very well accepted from within the discourse; the exception is not excluded from the horizon itself.

In my reading of sexuation, however, I have found that this is in the predominant understanding of exception within a masculine logic. My previous understanding of exception – that of the part with no part – is better understand as an exclusion from the field of understanding. For this reason, and for reasons I shall further elaborate once I move on to Zizek’s work, I decided that I needed to step away from my class essay and gather a greater understanding of sexuation, upon which the difference between Zizek and Madra/Ozselcuk rests. In particular I need to further develop my understanding of sexuation in relation to universality, which is at the forefront of my theoretical understanding. Of special interest is the relationship between sexuation and the concrete universal, the predominant usage of which appears to vary greatly from my present understanding.

At this stage of my research, it appears that differing understandings of sexual difference, in relation to class, is the central division, both theoretical and political, between Madra/ Ozselcuk and Zizek. This division is encapsulated in their differing readings of the maxim ‘there is no sexual/class relationship’. As I noted, for Madra/Ozselcuk, within capitalism class exists relationships do exist, but they always fail. This failure occurs within what they believe to be the hegemony of masculine logic in capitalist class relationships. Against this, Madra and Ozselcuk argue that we need a feminine logic of class, one which breaks with any fantasmatic blockage of the impossibility of class and institutes this impossibility as its founding moment. Under such a feminine logic no one entity would have exclusive rights to surplus, thus breaking with current and conventional understandings of both capitalism and communism. Thus class relationships would still be impossible, but under the feminine construction of this impossibility non-exploitative class relationships are possible. The (non) relationship would be non-exploitative because no entity has exclusive rights to surplus, in contrast to the constitutive exception of masculine class relationships[vii].

It is difficult to reconcile Madra and Ozselcuk’s understanding of non-exploitative class processes with Zizek’s conception of class, even though both start from the same moment in Lacan’s work. There is a certain structural similarity between Madra/Ozselcuk and Zizek, with the former citing Zizek as sharing the usage of the maxim ‘there is no class relationship’ and in considering class as a modality of the real[viii]. At times Zizek’s work on class does resemble Madra and Ozselcuk. He does contend that class struggle is the Real, an impossibility that cannot be instituted within capitalist ideology. Zizek’s main point is that class is the exclusion which founds the capitalist horizon, a determining cause by its very absence that inspires an infinite plurality of discursive responses, which could be read in defence of Madra and Ozselcuk’s understanding of class impossibility Although the latter do not consider this point specifically, it is commensurable within their research.

Where they differ is on sexuation. Although at times Zizek’s implicit[ix] class critiques appear to consider capitalist class relations to conform to a masculine logic, Zizek main contention is that class is already a feminine concept. The impossibility of the class relationship relates to the impossibility of any meta-language within which to discuss class because class is its own exception. If class is the exclusion which founds the symbolic order (under capitalism) than it acts as the exception for all other discourses – class is the exception that allows for our conception of race, democracy and shoe fetishes. It is this exception (making the discourse masculine) which allows for the formation of the concepts of race, democracy and indeed shoe fetishism. But class is also its own exception. For this reason, Zizek argues that class is a feminine non-all – it does not receive the same exceptional guarantee of other discourses. In this sense class ‘does not exist’.

I have always considered that statements such that ‘x doesn’t exist’ are typical Lacanian exaggerations. It is not that something doesn’t exist, it is only that it is lacking. For example ‘the Other doesn’t exist’. If we consider the other to be the symbolic order, then clearly it does exist, but not in complete form. It is like stating the one’s stamp collection does not exist because it does not contain ever possible stamp. From this perspective ‘does not exist’ can be read as ‘is incomplete’. Recently, however, I have begun to reconsider my opinion based on a different kind of reading. This reading is based on Lacan’s notion of ex-istance. As I understand it, ex-stance means that it is not so much that the object doesn’t exist in the sense that it is not there, but that the image of the concept it all its fullness does not exist. That class does not exist is not the same thing as ‘there is no such thing as ghosts’. Rather it states that the universal concept of class does not exist, no matter what particular attempts are made to fill it. In the masculine sense, object relationships are lacking because attempts are made to instantiate a particular to fill the universal

This is Zizek’s understanding of ‘there is no class relationship’. Because class is non-all, it is an impossible object that is beyond definition. One cannot research class in the same way as race or democracy. Instead, researchers can only consider the affects of class, in much the same way as they might consider the affects of the real or black holes.

An understanding of the presence of absence, or effect without (visible) cause is at the core of psychoanalysis. I am confused, however, with the implicitly distinction Zizek makes between class and the real. Class struggle, Zizek regularly reminds us, is a modality of the real. The real, however, is able to be symbolically defined. The analyst is able to understand the effects of the real and represent these effects into a formal concept of the real. The concept of the real does not extinguish the real, but it does give important insight into its affects.

Madra and Ozselcuk use a similar formal definition of class processes as an impossibility, but an impossibility that can be represented formally in its affects. Considering this gap between definitions of the real and Zizek’s reluctance to define class, which we have to assume is deliberate, we have to wonder what the difference is between the real and class as a modality of the real. If class is feminine, is the real also feminine, or is the real between the point, or rather the point itself, in terms of sexuation?

Perhaps I should expand upon my current knowledge of sexuation. As I understand it, the masculine and feminine are two different attempt at universalising the concept, both of which fails. Put another way, the masculine and feminine are two different attempts to symbolise the real. Where the masculine attempts to construct itself as all – everything is within the set, except the one that is not – the feminine is always non-all – there is nothing which cannot be included within the set. The point of failure for the masculine is the exception, for the feminine it is the inability of the set to finalise itself.

We see this in Kant’s ‘mathematical antinomy’ here Kant offers two equally valid perspectives on the universe; the universe is finite and the universe is infinite. The former, which attempts to close off the universe (in doing so producing an exception) is the masculine, whereas ‘the universe is infinite’ is the feminine non-all. The psychoanalytic point is that the symbolic is naturally non-all – it cannot be closed as a set (the focus on the incompleteness of the symbolic order has led to suggestions that Lacan is a post-structuralist) but the masculine subject through either ideological fantasy or the fundamental fantasy, depending on one’s perspective, prefers the illusion of completeness.

What these perspectives are then, is different responses to the Real. The Real of sexual difference however does not operate within the logics, but rather between them. Similar to Zizek’s work on the ‘Parallax Real’ the masculine and feminine logics are simply incommensurable; there is no possibility of translating between them. That is, any construction of sexual difference can only be caught up in sexual difference itself; there is no meta-language for mediating between them. Thus, Zizek’s sexual difference is not of the variety ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’, which implies that men and women have different symbolic universes. Zizek point is more radical than this; sexual difference means that not only are the masculine and feminine different configurations of the symbolic order, there is no point of translation between the two. There is no meta-language; sexual difference is that meta-language.

According to Zizek, the Real of sexual difference corresponds to the Real of class struggle. There is no way to mediate class struggle; class struggle is its own mediation. Just as one can consider the structure of responses to sexual difference – witness Zizek’s work on the masculine and feminine – one can consider actually existing class structures. Class struggle itself, however, cannot be considered as an object of research because it is its own exception – any attempt to define class struggle will come up against class struggle itself. In this sense class struggle and sexual difference are modalities of the Real, a kind of zero-level concept.

Of course, as with Zizek’s conceptions of the Real, the Real is not simply an a priori concept in the traditional sense of a positive determining factor. Rather it is the lack to which discourses respond. That is to say, class struggle is not ahistorical, but rather a historically contingent response to the Real. What Zizek is not clear on is whether class struggle exists only within a capitalist universe, or, as with Madra and Ozselcuk, class struggle is a fundamental impossibility in operation in all forms of economy. He is able to state that the central wager of Marxist theory is that class is the underlying antagonism of capitalism, but is not able to consider the conditions of possibility for class itself, unlike Marx who discussed in detail the possibilities of class relationships between feudalism, capitalism and communism.

To summarise the split between Madra/Ozselcuk and Zizek;
- Both consider there to be ‘no class relationship’ and class to be a modality of the real
- Madra and Ozselcuk define class as a formal process of the production, distribution and appropriation of surplus
- Madra and Ozselcuk consider class relationships to be impossible because of the impossibility of neutral position in relation to the class process
- However, they argue that class relationships do exist. Under capitalism these relations are formed under a masculine logic that produces an exception
- They argue for a non-fantasmatic approach to class under a feminine logic where no one entity has exclusive rights to surplus. They label this approach communism
- By contrast, Zizek contends that class is already a feminine concept
- Class is feminine because it is the underlying antagonism of all other discourses. As such it is the exception which constitutes these concepts, including itself
- Because class is non-all, it cannot be the positive object of research, although Zizek does make ‘class’ analyses in which he suggests that capitalism follows a masculine logic. At the same time, for Zizek any ideological critique is at the same time a class critique.

Spontaneously, I support Madra and Ozselcuk over Zizek, perhaps because they appear to produce a more viable political solution. But I have come to wonder whether this rests on my, and their, misreading of sexuation. I have really struggled to bring together Zizek and Madra/Ozselcuk on class and I think it is because they understand sexuation differing. This is why I have put on hold my essay and stopped to reflect on sexuation. Thoughts?




[i] In the thesis itself I plan to extend this essay to consider the positive relations (jouissance, ideological fantasy) that stem from the instantiation of class impossibility within capitalism. These relations revolve around the ideological triad liberal-democratic-multiculturalism and the underlying enjoyment of commodity fetishism, as well as the ‘circuit of capital’.
[ii] Madra and Ozselcuk primarily write together
[iii] This group publish primarily out of the Rethinking Marxism journal
[iv] As we shall see, the very act of defining class, let alone debating particular definitions of class, is perhaps the central political/theoretical division separating Zizek from Madra and Ozselcuk
[v] The distinction between an exception, which is accepted within the symbolic terms of the discourse and an exclusion, is vital to this understanding.
[vi] This perspective does not hold any distinction between necessary and surplus or direct/indirect labour
[vii] What I am primarily interested in is what happens to the exclusion which founds the masculine order (the reserve supply of workers) under a feminine logic
[viii] As far as I know Madra and Ozselcuk have not yet appeared on Zizek’s radar
[ix] Implicit in the sense that class is not specifically mentioned as in ‘In capitalism, class relations operate as...’ but dealing with subject matter traditionally linked with class; the proletariat, global slums etc

Zizek and Marxism; Class

Thesis position summary; class

Žižek’s combination of Lacan and Hegel provides a particularly productive approach for understanding social life. Žižek’s work operates via an understanding of ideology, universality and the necessary exclusion caused by the effect of the Real. Increasingly, Žižek has sought to extend his work to a critique of capitalism. In doing so he has begun to work in the Marxist ‘tradition’, integrating several key concepts, must notably class. Conversely, Žižek’s core theoretical insights remain Lacanian, which is problematic for his usage of Marxism. If there is no class relationship, that is, if the positively existing elements of Marx’s work, most notably the revolutionary subject and communism, are no longer viable, what action can be taken against capitalism in the name of Marxism?

Paper summary

As Žižek’s work has become more explicitly political, and in particular anti-capitalist, the concept of class has come to the forefront of his conceptual oeuvre. Žižek’s use of class has signalled an increasing move into the Marxist tradition. His utilisation of class, however, differs from the classical Marxist definition, having taken a Lacanian twist. Žižek resists any positivisation of class, instead considering it to be a modality of the Lacanian Real, that is, a hitch that all symbolisations struggle to integrate. This hitch is then excluded from the discursive horizon, thus becoming a positive factor for other discourses.

However, Žižek’s use of class has been controversial. The field is split between three positions; those who believe that Žižek does not adequately define his concept of class, those who contend that Žižek’s Lacanian version of class is incommensurable with the Marxist tradition from which it stems and critics who argue that Žižek’s conception of class renders it a politically redundant concept. In response, I seek to intervene in this gap – whilst acknowledging the relative salience of the critical positions - by suggesting that class operates in four intertwined iterations. The first is the failure of class relation; class as a modality of the Real. The second is the repression of the necessary exclusion which occurs in actually existing class relationships. This repression is class as the concrete universal. Because there is no possible translation between the concrete universal and the associated abstract universal imaginary (the signifiers and images which cohere our common constructions of shared social life) the affect of the concrete universal is also the Real (in terms of the parallax gap within the universal totality). Finally we have class as it appears within the abstract universal. In this sense the meaning of ‘class’ is determined by a hegemonic battle. Consequently, part of the difficulty of utilising class is the discursive positions into which it fits. Conversely, identifying the most salient of these positions is a vital task for any instantiation of Marxism which hopes to make a radical intervention in the capitalist system.

Genealogy of class within Žižek’s work

The importance of class has developed slowly within Žižek’s work, yet his use of the concept has stayed remarkably consistent. Žižek’s initial English language publication, The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989), focused mainly on the fusion of Hegel and Lacan into a theory of ideology. It is notable, however, that class is introduced in this text, and in a very similar manner to that which will follow in later works. Žižek stated;

‘class struggle is not the last signifier giving meaning to all signification…. but – quite on the contrary – a certain limit, a pure negativity, a traumatic limit which prevents the final totalisation of the social-ideological field. The ‘class struggle’ is present only in its effects, in the fact that every attempt to totalise the social field, to assign to social phenomena a definite place in the social structure, is doomed to fail’ (Zizek, 1989:164).

Although this definition previews the usage of class in later works, it is only introduced as a minor concept, a momentary point amongst a discussion of the structurating effects of the Real. In his next major text, For They Know Not What They Do (1991), Žižek advances his conception of class, although within the same parameters, by explicitly labelling it as a modality of the Real. Class is a modality of the Real because it operates as a hitch in the social-ideological field which all symbolisations attempt to suture; there is no answer to class struggle, in the same manner in which for Lacanian there is no sexual relationship.

Žižek considers class to be of the same category. Class does not exist as a positive object. As Žižek says of Marx’s work on class ‘class struggle functions in a strict sense as the ‘object’ of Capital, that which cannot become the ‘positive object of research’(2006: 82, emphasis in original). As with all modalities of the Real, class exists as both a hitch and an excess. Class is not only the failure of each symbolisation but this failure gives rise to ever more attempts to ‘conceal and patch up the rift of class struggle’ (Zizek, 1991: 100).

Thus the failure of the class relationship produces ongoing attempts to suture this wound in the symbolic fabric. The main effect is to exclude the notion of class from capitalist society, an exclusion which forms the capitalist universal imaginary. Žižek argues that it is this exclusion of class which constitutes the global capitalist horizon. In relation to the battle for universality and hegemony in global capitalism via the exclusion of class, Žižek contends;

‘This contamination of the universal by the particular is ‘stronger’ then the struggle for hegemony ( i.e. for which particular content will hegemonise the universality I question): it structures in advance the very terrain on which the multitude of particular contents fight for hegemony… the question is, also and above all, which secret privileging and inclusions/exclusions had to occur for this empty place as such to emerge in the first place’ (Zizek, 2000d: 320, emphasis in original).

Thus, the fundamental Žižekian point in regard to class is that it is not a positively existing entity. Rather class exists as a modality of the Real. Just as there is no sexual relationship, there is also no class relationship (Zizek, 2006: 82). However, what Žižek fails to do is specify a minimum (formal) definition of class. Even if class is cited as a force of negativity, an exclusion from the dominant order, the concept, in order to be able to identified as having this effect must have an existence in itself. At no point does Žižek specify what class is, beyond its effects. Thus the task for readers of Žižek who wish to take the class seriously to deconstruct Žižek’s work. This deconstruction aims to reveal the reasoning behind Žižek’s instantiation of class. Specifically we must consider why class (according to Žižek) has its stated effect as an exclusion from the capitalist order which constitutes that order. Such an examination requires an investigation into Žižek use of Lacanian theory, as well as the Marxist tradition from which class originates.

Relevant critiques of Žižek’s use of class

Žižek’s inability to properly define the place of class has led to confusion amongst followers and critics alike. The following are some of the most prominent critiques of Žižek usage of class;

Andrew Robinson and Simon Tormey, suggest that while Žižek attempts to revive class struggle, he does so in accordance with a Lacanian-Hegelian agenda which bares little relation to either a traditional, or an ‘empirical’ conception of class (Robinson & Tormey, 2005: 95). For Robinson and Tormey, Žižek substitution of traditional Marxist class struggle for the Lacanian Real is theoretically regressive, bound to remain within an atmosphere of antagonism and violence without progressive political hope (ibid: 96).

Mark Devenney (2007:54) is extremely critical of Žižek’s conception of class. Suggesting that Žižek’s argument is ‘extraordinary’, Devenney contends that Žižek makes three key propositions in regards to class, for which he provides no evidence;

1. Positive elements such as race obscure class antagonism;
2. Class is a purely formal gap proved by it’s lack of formal expression;
3. Class over determines and structures the whole field in advance.

Devenney contends that the true role of class in Žižek’s work is that it ‘allows Žižek to wear Marxist labels’.

In reply, Žižek is equally critical of Devenney, in particular his ‘faked ignorance’ at the possible structuring role of an element which is symbolically absent (Zizek, 2007: 212). For Žižek and other writers of a Lacanian orientation, the effect of symbolic absence (in the form of the Real) does not equate to an absence of symbolic effect. Indeed, one should emphasise that the notion of societal impossibility is always double; not only is it impossible for society to reach a level of fullness, but the ontologically necessary barrier preventing society from reaching fullness is also impossible to symbolise (Zizek, 2000a: 100). This double impossibility produces the relationship between the symptom – which reveals the effects of impossibility – and ideology, which attempts to suture and displace the effects of the symptom.

Conversely, Devenney’s point has some relevance. If Žižek is suggesting that class over-determines the symbolic in its absence, what evidence does he provide for this assertion? This is a point to which we shall return, although it is worth noting here that the structuring role of class should not be taken as an a priori, rather it is a political exclusion, one which can be discovered only via concerted and applied political analysis, through a Lacanian lens and Žižek’s own notion of short-circuit analysis.

Sean Homer (2001: 7) argues that Žižek’s ‘thoroughgoing Lacanism appears to rule out the possibility of any orthodox ‘understanding’ of Marxism, or, indeed, the formulation of a clearly identifiable political project’. Although Homer suggests that Žižek’s rehabilitation of class is ‘to be welcomed’ (p.14), Žižek’s lack of positive definition of class has meant that the successful integration of class struggle into his project has been prevented by his adherence to Lacanian psychoanalysis.

Likewise, Ernesto Laclau states that Žižek’s political work suffers from ‘combined and uneven development’;

‘While his Lacanian tools, together with his insight, have allowed him to make considerable advances in his understanding of ideological processes in contemporary societies, his strictly political thought has not advanced at the same pace and remains fixed in very traditional categories’ (Laclau, 2000b:206).

Matthew Sharpe claims that Žižek fails to properly define class and in doing so utilises various definitions. He states that Žižek utilises two separate positions on class; class as ‘empirically locatable phenomena’ and ‘class struggle as a priori’ (Sharpe, 2004: 203-204). Although Sharpe’s work insightfully reveals hesitations in Žižek’s work around capitalism[i] (ibid: 196-198), in relation to class struggle, Sharpe produces something of a misreading of Žižek’s work.

Sharpe claims that Žižek’s notion of class and is split between an empirical concept and theoretical proposition. Sharpe argues that Žižek uses class both in terms of ‘empirically located phenomena’ and as an ‘a priori’’ concept. As well as arguing that class is the one element amongst many in terms of global struggle, Žižek makes numerous references to actually existing sites of class struggle. Sharpe suggests that this usage of class opens up Žižek for critique, particularly in light of the post-Marxism emphasis on discursive contingency, which has ‘robbed’ the working class of its privileged ontological status.

Sharpe contrasts Žižek’s efforts to provide examples of actually existing class struggle with his conception of class struggle as an a priori concept. Here Žižek is using class struggle as the Real, a traumatic hitch that cannot be symbolised, yet constitutes the horizon of understanding (ibid: 205). Just as, according to Laclau and Mouffe, ‘Society doesn’t exist’ (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985), neither do class relationships. There is some validity in this critique; Žižek does discuss class in both objective and formal terms, the designation of class struggle as the central antagonism of our times being the work of ‘concrete social analysis’ (Zizek, 1994: 25).

Conversely, Sharpe’s reading of these positions as an inconsistency in Žižek’s work is incorrect. Rather, both these positions stem from class as the Real. For Žižek, class is first and foremost an a priori concept[ii]. However, although class as the Real reveals that class relationships do not exist, the failure of class does not prevent the continued production of surplus-value. The necessary effect of economic reproduction based on surplus is class struggle[iii].

As such, there are several modalities of class antagonism within Žižek’s work. This does not change the fact that these operations come in response to class as a fundamental hitch in the process of economic reproduction. Nonetheless, Žižek’s refusal to define class beyond its structuring effects does pose a problem for his theory of capitalism.

My response to the problems inherent in Žižek’s usage of class

In response to this gap, I propose that class can be operationised in a manner which remains within the Marxist tradition, whilst retaining commensurability with Lacanian psychoanalysis. This operationisation relies on the usage of Žižek’s concept of concrete universality in order to refuse the deadlock of avoiding a direct positivising definition, yet requiring a minimal conception in order to work with the concept. This reflects the difficulty in positivising elements of the Real. Conversely, as Žižek (Zizek, 2000b: 214-215) himself states, when the Real is conceived as an internal - as opposed to external - limit to symbolisation, the failure of symbolisation can be represented through it’s effects. In turn, symbolisation can occur around these effects; hence the symbolic concept of the Real.

In order to work within this deadlock, the definition of class requires multiple classifications through several iterations before coming to rest with the concrete universal. The first step is to identify the very status of class which would allow for the lack of a class relationship. This step is the most difficult as it relies on a degree of positivisation which is largely disavowed in Žižek’s work.

The status of class relates to the fundamental economic issue of production and distribution of surplus-value. All modern (class) societies produce an economic surplus in order to reproduce themselves. Surplus-value is at the core of any economic system and is especially salient within capitalism in the form of profit. Profit and its oppositional determinate, class, are the fundamental base structure of capitalism. Even if one considers that capitalism itself is ‘non-all’, a contingent entity which is always in flux, revolutionising its own conditions (Zizek, 2006: 82), at the same time capitalism is always something, that something being surplus-value[iv] (Miklitsch, 1998: 497)

Class defines one’s position relative to surplus. This is not to suggest that class is a fixed concept, following, as an example, the Marxist class groups of Bourgeois and Proletariat. Rather I am suggesting that the concept of class, as a minimal definition, relates to the (economic) production of surplus-value that is necessary for reproducing modern society. The core question of class is, who is it that owns the means of production for surplus? Who is able to appropriate this surplus? (Glynos, 2001:80).

Thus, class is not purely a capitalist concept; it pertains to all surplus producing societies. A society in which no surplus is produced would not be a class society. This is not to suggest that such a society would be without hierarchy. This hierarchy, however, would be of a different nature from class societies.

In class societies in which surplus is required from societal reproduction, there exists no fair and guaranteed manner of distributing this surplus; any attempt at constructing a perfect class relationship will always fail. It was this symptom that Marxism and its various instantiations in communism and socialism, sought to remove. Removing class struggle is an ontological impossibility. Rather, economic systems have to establish themselves in relation to class as a form of the Real.

Žižek makes this point in The Sublime Object of Ideology (Zizek, 1989: 3). Lacanian ethics is not about removing the gap between the Real and symbolic, rather it is about establishing one’s relationship with that gap, integrating it into symbolisation. To integrate class into society is to acknowledge it as a fundamental hitch which cannot be removed. Vitally, however, acknowledging the Real should not result in a pragmatic resignation which confines politics to the already existing (Devenney, 2007: 46).[v]

Importantly, Žižek distinguishes between Lacanian and Marxist ethics. Marxist thought assumed the existence of a fundamental antagonism (class) which mediated all other antagonisms. Historical developmental would bring about the end of this antagonism, and thus all other antagonism. For example, communism would finish class struggle and thus all patriarchy.

Whilst Žižek, through the initial work of Ernesto Laclau, rejected the logic of the one mediating antagonism, his Lacanian theory has allowed his thought to go past that of post-Marxism. Conversely, as we shall see, this movement brings Žižek, through his notion of the concrete universal, back to the original Marxist position. This position, however, has been subject to the dialectical process; a classic example of Lacanian-Hegelian determinate reflection where the initial obstacle becomes the very positive condition of the discourse.

Here Žižek states he wants to go beyond Laclau and post-Marxism, characterised by Laclau’s discourse theory, in stating that the plurality of discourses – post-modern particularism – is a response to some fundamental real exclusion. For Žižek this exclusion is the Real. As I will expand on later, class is the Real, both in the sense that there is no class relationship and as the gap opened up for the instantiation of class as the concrete universal. It is to class as the concrete universal to which we now turn.

The core concept of Žižek’s notion of class is that there is no class relationship; no externally guaranteed manner in which surplus can be distributed. At the same time however, a (failed) class relationship always exists. That is, surplus-value is necessarily produced for the material reproduction of society. In our capitalism economic system that surplus (profit) is appropriated amongst the owners of capital[vi]. Under capitalist ideology this appropriation is considered fair reward for the risk taken by the owner in their investment of capital. Contrastingly, Marxist ideology equates profit with the exploitation of the workers who produced the surplus. What both these ideological positions are responding to is class as the Real; that there is no class relationship.

Both these ideological positions, capitalist and socialist, attempt to rid themselves of the symptoms of the exclusion of class as the Real, although via differing methods. Socialism both repressed and externalised the symptom. Surplus production was considered the territory of the worker. The cause of the failure to bring about the perfect economic system/class relationship was externalised to ‘enemies of the state’ through various infamous exterminations.

In contrast, capitalist, the more successful ideology, has acknowledged (in a more palpable fashion) the presence of the symptom. Within capitalist society there are various devices for this acknowledgement, the democratic process, unions, and charitable organisations. Additionally externalisation occurs, notably that the economically unsuccessful are themselves at fault for their status.

Additionally, within capitalist society the notion of class itself is disavowed, displaced to a number of fetishes. Class, particularly within western societies, is considered to be an increasingly redundant notion. Instead other concepts have sought to explain social stratification, such as social class and ethnicity. Additionally, the affect of class as the Real has been transferred onto various cultural fetishes, such as culture itself (e.g. working class culture, sport, drinking etc) and most significantly commodity fetishism.

Thus the role of ideology, and its various mechanisms, is to repress the necessary exclusion which stems from the instantiation of any class relationship. If class relationships are impossible, yet necessary, any attempt at universality in terms of surplus-value must exclude in order to constitute itself. This exclusion - the universal exception - is the concrete universal. The concrete universal is the element which is part of the set, yet incommensurable with that set. It constitutes the totality of universality. The universal is split between an abstract universal imaginary – the signifiers and images by which we guide our sense of shared social life – and the concrete universal, the exclusion which allows for the operation of the abstract universal.

Within our capitalist economic system, shared social life – abstract universality – is constituted by the production, and in particular the consumption of surplus-value, primarily in the name of surplus-enjoyment. This system is constituted on the jouissance of commodity fetishism and an ideological supplement of liberal democracy. Indeed, as something of a side bar, capitalism itself is left out of the hegemonic self-descriptions of western societies. It is almost as if to identify with capitalism is too brash, capitalism itself being too strong (Zizek, 2007: 212). Instead, it is liberal-democracy that is the primary societal value-identification in western societies. Capitalism, and the production of profit, is taken to be a natural existing state of affairs.

Within this universal imaginary, class relationships do not exist. Rather, we are all constituted on the same side of surplus-value. Ideologically, a sense of formal equality exists; all have the potential to consume and enjoy the fruits of production. Here exceptions to the rule are contingent aberrations, soon to be included in the universal set. Witness the construction of 3rd world nations as ‘developing countries’.

With the notion of the concrete universal, however, a different logic appears. Instead of focusing on the ideology of the abstract universal, the concrete universal considers exceptions to be part of the totality of capitalism. Exclusions, such as the workers of the developing world, are an essential, internal element of the capitalist totality. They are an exception to the set – incommensurable with the consumption standards of western capitalism – yet constitutive of the set. That is, for the consumption standards of the western world to function, an excess supply of workers is required. This excess of workers keeps wage prices low and production costs down. For this excess of workers, however, extreme and absolute poverty, possibly resulting in death, is a likely result. Indeed, the planet simply does not have the carrying capacity to be able to support bringing the majority of the population out of poverty.

It is this massive contradiction within capitalism that is repressed as the concrete universal. Thus, the concrete universal holds the very material Truth of class in terms of the predominant class relationship that operates within capitalism. Additionally, class as the concrete universal operates as the second modality in which class functions as a modality of the Real. Not only is there no class relationship, which acts as the Real in any economic system, but the instantiation of class relationships produces a gap between the abstract and concrete universal. This gap, which appears as symptoms throughout the symbolic order, is a modality of the Real.

It appears that we have returned full circle to the originary Marxist position, that is, of a base superstructure which is repressed by the operation of ideology and commodity fetishism. This move is perhaps Žižek’s most radical break (Miklitsch, 1998: 484); away from the contingency of post-Marxism, Žižek’s re-emphasises essentialism - an essentialism of the Real - which avoids the positivising constructions of traditional Marxism, yet maintains its traditions.

Indeed there is a strong link between these perspectives, a link which retains much of its original emphasis. However, critically a dialectical reversal has occurred. This reversal centres on the negative ontology which founds Žižek’s work. Here, instead of class as a positively existing entity, class is the exclusion (negative) which allows for the constitution of the positive order. Thus, while class is not simply one type of struggle amongst the battle for hegemony, as Laclau claims (2000a:292), but rather the key element which overdetermines the chain, conversely, the overdetermination of the chain does not occur from a positivisation of class, but rather a fundamental negativity that is excluded from the system. The absence of class from the symbolic order, therefore, is not evidence that class struggle does not exist. Rather class peace is already an effect of class struggle – of the power of contemporary capitalist ideology (Zizek, 1994: 23-25).

Žižek signals this conception in his discussion of historicism and historicity in Contingency, Hegemony, Universality. History is not an epistemological movement from essentialism to post-modernism, but rather a series of responses to class struggle (Zizek, 2000a: 112). That class struggle is largely absent from western contemporary struggle does not mean that class struggle is irrelevant, as Laclau would have it (Laclau, 2000a:300). Rather, for Žižek, Laclau’s very move into post-Marxism, into the explicit privileging of the political and the democratic, is a response to capitalism and class(Zizek, 2000a: 98).

It is only by means of a short-circuit analysis, which reveals the exception in its status as the concrete universal, that the true positioning of class in relation to capitalism can be considered. That is, while class is not a positive element in itself within the abstract universal imaginary of capitalism – here it appears as a marginalised category – through a short-circuit analysis, which reveals the exclusion from the universal imaginary, the role of class is revealed to the analyst. Thus the short-circuit analysis allows the analyst to grasp a concept which is unable to be positivised within the existing order. It is this kind of analysis which is required to restore class as a truly subversive category in the Marxist tradition of anti-capitalism.

Future issues

- What are the implications of this theoretical investigation for political action?
- How does this conception of class relate to Marxism, both from Marx himself and followers of Marx?




References

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Homer, S. (2001). It's the political economy, stupid! On Zizek's Marxism. Radical Philosophy, 108(July/August).
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Sharpe, M. (2004). Slavoj Zizek: A Little Piece of the Real. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Zizek, S. (1989). The Sublime Object of Ideology. London: Verso.
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Zizek, S. (2000a). Class Struggle or Postmodernism? Yes, Please! In J. Butler, E. Laclau & S. Zizek (Eds.), Contingency, Hegemony, Universality; Contemporary Dialogues on the Left (pp. 90-135). London: Verso.
Zizek, S. (2000b). Da Capo senza Fine. In J. Butler, E. Laclau & S. Zizek (Eds.), Contingency, Hegemony, Univerisality. London: Verso.
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[i] Sharpe highlights Žižek’s repeated class to politicise the economy, his tendency towards journalistic-style critique, ad hoc analyses and directive to other writers. These are valuable areas of critique to which I plan to return. Sharpe’s work is especially insightful for me as it considers many of the issues that I am covering. Essentially it argues that Žižek does not produce a coherent theory of capitalism because of the above reasons. I would like my thesis to build on this statement and construct a Žižekian inspired critique of Political Economy.
[ii] The notion of a priori is difficult in this context. Class as an a priori does not mean that absolutely universal, predating language. Rather, in the society in which we live, constructed in language, class is an exclusion from language, by language that consitutes the foundations on which language operates. But this is not to suggest that class operates univerisally in all possible formations. Rather it is politically a priori.
[iii] Note that both Sharpe and Devenney contend that Žižek constantly calls for a renewed critique of political economy, yet does not achieve this task. Devenney takes to account Žižek labelling capital as the Real, where post-Marxism is not welcome. Conversely, Žižek attacks the very form of current critiques of political economy. These attacks at policising the economy stay within it’s very parameters, achieving the policisation of the adminstration of the economy, but not considering the exclusion which consitute the economy (Zizek, 2000a: 97). Indeed Žižek considers that postmodern politics (within which he includes Laclau) cannot repolicise the economy because ‘the very notion and form of the political in which it operates is grounded in the depoliticisation of the economy’ (ibid: 98, emphasis in original).
[iv] We should also note the link between the production of surplus-value and surplus-enjoyment as the fundamental link between Lacan and Marx (Zizek, 2000c: 23-4; 2006: 82).
[v] But I have not quite worked out what the ‘correct’ relationship to class as the Real should be
[vi] Although it should be noted, of course, that the surplus appropriated by owners is taxed for community use, as well as the income of workers.