Table Of ContentRevolutionaRy Subjectivity in
PoSt-MaRxiSt thought
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Revolutionary Subjectivity
in Post-Marxist thought
laclau, negri, badiou
oliveR haRRiSon
Nottingham Trent University, UK
© oliver harrison 2014
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
oliver harrison has asserted his right under the copyright, Designs and Patents act, 1988,
to be identified as the author of this work.
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The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for
harrison, oliver, 1982–
Revolutionary subjectivity in post-Marxist thought : laclau, negri, badiou / by oliver
harrison.
pages cm. – (Rethinking political and international theory)
includes bibliographical references and index.
iSbn 978–1–4724–2133–3 (hardback : alk. paper) – iSbn 978–1–4724–2134–0
(ebook) – iSbn 978–1–4724–2135–7 (epub)
1. Production (economic theory) 2. capitalism – Philosophy. 3. Working class –
Philosophy. 4. Marx, Karl, 1818–1883 – Influence. 5. Laclau, Ernesto. 6. Negri,
antonio, 1933– 7. badiou, alain
i. title.
hD4904.h338 2014
335.4–dc23 2014011139
iSbn 9781472421333 (hbk)
iSbn 9781472421340 (ebk – PDF)
iSbn 9781472421357 (ebk – ePub)
V
Printed in the united Kingdom by henry ling limited,
at the Dorset Press, Dorchester, Dt1 1hD
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
1 Introduction 1
2 From Marxism to Post-Marxism 7
3 Revolutionary Subjectivity in Marxist Thought 21
4 Ernesto Laclau – Hegemony and ‘The People’ 41
5 Antonio Negri – Self-valorisation and ‘The Project of the
Multitude’ 69
6 Alain Badiou – Event, Truth, and the ‘Communist Hypothesis’ 97
7 Conclusion 125
Bibliography 131
Index 147
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice at the
University of Nottingham for giving me the space and opportunity for developing
my ideas. I would also like to thank my friends and colleagues at Nottingham
Trent University, especially Ian Fraser and Lawrence Wilde; both of which have
helped and supported me so much through the years. Thanks also to Tony Burns
and Mark Wenman. Finally, I would like to thank my family.
Parts of this work have previously appeared in the following:
Harrison, O. (2011), ‘Negri, self-valorisation, and the exploration of the common’,
in Subjectivity, 4 [1], April 2011, pp. 29–46.
Harrison, O. (2011), ‘Revolutionary subjectivity in post-Marxist thought: the
case of Laclau and Badiou’, in Global Discourse, 2 [2], pp. 1–13. This was later
reprinted in Harrison, O. (2012), ‘Revolutionary subjectivity in post-Marxist
thought: the case of Laclau and Badiou’, in Johnson, M. ed. (2012), The Legacy
of Marxism: Contemporary Challenges, Conflicts and Developments. London and
New York. Continuum. pp. 183–199.
This page has been left blank intentionally
Chapter 1
Introduction
Revolutionary Subjectivity Today
In recent years, the question of revolutionary subjectivity has become more and
more prominent in contemporary social and political theory. With the failure
of ‘actually existing socialism’ and the seemingly unsurpassable hegemony of
neo-liberal globalisation, one might be forgiven for asking why. Throughout
the twentieth century, both politically and theoretically it was Marxism that
dominated the discourse of left-wing revolutionary politics. Speaking at Karl
Marx’s funeral in 1883, Frederick Engels argued that Marx had discovered the
‘fundamental law’ that governed the constitution of human history, a law that when
applied to the modern world had unveiled the means to which it would inevitably
falter, and in so doing usher with it a fundamentally new form of communist
society (Engels 1989, pp. 463, 464). The history of Marxism, however, was to
be a painful one. Although it could claim relative success with the revolutions
in Russia (1917), China (1949), and Cuba (1959) amongst others, politically it
ossified into a doctrine that justified state terror, rather than one that advanced
the cause of universal human emancipation. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in
the winter of 1989 the demise of Marxism was deemed complete, leaving only a
disastrously disfigured legacy in its wake.
Throughout the second half of the twentieth century Marxism was
also challenged theoretically. Coinciding with its many explosive political
failures – Khrushchev’s 1956 public denunciation of Stalin, the crushing of the
rebellions in Hungary (1956) and in Prague (1968), and the terroristic excesses
of the Chinese Cultural Revolution – throughout this period many Marxists found
these revelations too much to bear, and gradually began questioning some of
Marxism’s most elementary claims. With the emergence of so-called post-Marxism
in the 1980s, Marxism’s political defeat appeared to be complemented theoretically,
and as such – to use Trotsky’s oft-quoted phrase – Marxism seemed well and
truly consigned ‘into the dustbin of history’. Despite this, following the Global
Financial Crisis of September 2008, elements of Marx’s thought have returned,
inspiring numerous commentaries that have sought to explain it (see for example
Callinicos 2010; Harman 2009; Harvey 2010). At times of capitalist crisis, then, it
would appear that the Marxist critique of political economy remains authoritative
for those attempting to understand the contradictory logic of capital accumulation.
Yet, whilst this critique might have stood the test of time, the return to Marx hasn’t
usually also included his revolutionary prescriptions with respect to resolving
such crises. Today however, this seems to have changed; particularly with respect
