编者按
“生产力决定生产关系，经济基础决定上层建筑”这一历史唯物主义的基本原理经常被歪曲为经济决定论，而且往往是庸俗的技术决定论。客观地说，这种历史观对于解释社会主义革命时期之前的历史的确具有相当的有效性。但这一原理在用来解释社会主义革命的时候却往往不太奏效，因为无论经济高涨或者经济危机都未能顺其自然地引爆革命并导向社会主义。因此，另一种颇具“唯心主义”的解读从第二国际的失败和列宁的成功之中逐渐发展起来。从卢卡奇的“阶级意识”，到拉克劳、墨非的“霸权”，其实都不是真正的创新，而只是对列宁和葛兰西理论进行意识形态改造的产物。列宁和葛兰西在一个社会主义亟待产生的社会环境中创造着“真理”，这一过程以及这个过程的思想产物被某些思想家过度阐释为一种“哲学”，卢卡奇晚年的反思已经清楚地表明了他早年的理论到底意味着什么，而拉克劳寄予厚望的所谓“偶然性的领域”实际上并不比生产力那归根到底的决定作用具有更少的神秘性。历史必然性和革命主体性之间的矛盾是一个古老而又时新的谜。列宁实践了理论但未能写就相应著作，葛兰西把问题在理论上提了出来并在具体的实践方法上有诸多创造，但阿尔都塞晚年仍被这个问题纠缠并为此殚精竭虑，一直到阿兰.巴迪欧那里才以“事件哲学”的形态终成正果。
为了说明问题并引起阅读兴趣，我们可以尝试用巴迪欧的术语说道：“占领华尔街”运动是一个事实，而一个信仰科学社会主义的政党的建立和发展则是“事件”，事实没有超出“状态”所给予的可能性，但“事件”却在创造着新的可能性，触发新“事实”。主体不是在偶然的空间之中，而是在给定的状态集合之中进行着实践，但他们拥有自由。历史唯物主义的基本原理在“状态”所给定的可能性空间中发挥着作用，主体则在认识了这些原理的基础上改造着现实。从这个角度来看，第二国际的经济主义的确是可笑的，如同期待河流自动产生水电站一样，他们也在等待着无理性的市场秩序自动变成理性的自发秩序，等待着无主体的人类历史自然生成集体意志。另一方面，墨菲等人将能动性神话则是一种理论上的轻浮，因为我们都知道，巧妇难为无米之炊，脱离经济的政治是一种形而上学的臆造。而他们想基于这一点来重构历史科学则更显可笑。
思考这个问题是非常有意义同时也是有意思的，但不能仅仅阅读结论，那样会觉得原来道理如此简单，古人愚笨。要知道，历史科学诞生于历史哲学，科学问题也诞生于哲学问题。这才真正迷惑人的地方。编者选取了两篇相关的文章（第二篇文章是巴迪欧的两年前的讲座，没找到中文翻译，就先把英文版贴出来），供少年中国评论的读者朋友们参阅，希望能引起更多讨论。
孙亮：瓦解“经济主义的政治模式”与“偶然性逻辑”的生成
瓦解“经济主义的政治模式”与“偶然性逻辑”的生成——评析拉克劳、墨非以“去阶级化”为中心对历史唯物主义方法论的批判
孙亮（华东师范大学哲学系，上海，200241）
**摘要：**围绕着人类解放这一主旨的历史唯物主义，其基本的叙事框架是一种“经济主义的政治模式”，即高度关注经济领域对抗性的政治性问题，这是从经济和财产权的视角切入人类解放这一政治性问题的唯一路径。正是立足于这种历史唯物主义的基本叙事框架，形成了马克思自身对于革命主体——“阶级”的建构。在“后革命时代”，如何思考这一历史唯物主义的核心术语，拉克劳、墨非在通向列宁、葛兰西的“思想墓碑”上错误地镌刻了瓦解“经济主义的政治模式”的碑文，从而将“阶级”的思考从经济基础这一分析框架上抽离出来并使其碎片化，以达到其在“资本主义民主”这一既定的设定前提下通向激进多元民主政治的蓝图。
**关键词：**后马克思主义；经济的政治性；偶然性逻辑；误读
将理论中心定位于历史唯物主义“阶级范式”视域下的“历史科学”与立足于资本逻辑进行一种“经院化”的学理批判，是历史唯物主义在当下研究中呈现的两个不同的“历史面相”。虽然基于“整体性”解读马克思主义的要求被一再提出，但是终究不免有落入佩里·安德森批判的困境中，“马克思这位历史唯物主义的创始人，不断地从哲学转向政治学和经济学，以此作为他的思想的中心部分；而1920年以后涌现的这个传统的继承者们，却不断地从经济学和政治学转回到哲学——放弃了直接涉及成熟马克思极为关切的问题”。[1]在国内的马克思主义哲学研究中，存在将理解马克思从黑格尔的解读套路滑向“康德是通向马克思的桥梁”的研究路径，就是典型的将马克思“经济学和政治学转回到哲学”，必然逸出了“人类解放”这一马克思主义的根本旨趣。在这一点上，拉克劳、墨非对历史唯物主义的批判，解构“经济”这个“本质主义的最后阵地”以作为后马克思主义阐释其多元激进民主政治的何以可能的“第一要务”，是“反叛性”地抓住了马克思主义的理论实质。这一点艾伦·伍德有个说法，他认为，拉克劳、墨非把工人阶级的经济利益与社会主义政治联系在一起的历史唯物主义的核心方法论揭示出来，并指认“这一错误的联系，构成了对马克思主义理论与实践的决定性打击”。[2]应该说，将经济基础与上层建筑之间的关系松动乃至“断裂”，是将阶级这一历史唯主义的实践主体碎片化的方法论基础，从而颠覆整个历史唯物主义基础架构。为了能够做到这一点，拉克劳、墨非在霸权理论谱系研究中，揭示了从列宁到自身发展生成的偶然性逻辑的生成史。
一、列宁炸开了“第一个缺口”与“断裂”功效的有限性
从经济的角度解读政治性问题是历史唯物主义十分关键的理论质性。拉克劳、墨非在阐释其多元激进民主政治理论之前，作了一个理论铺垫，那就是，对政治性问题的解决从经济视角解读的历史唯物主义方案进行了“切割手术”。他们认为，历史唯物主义首先面临如下的困难，“经济运动规律的内生特征相应于生产力中心地位这一论题，社会代表在经济层面上的统一相应于工人阶级贫困的普遍化论题；生产关系应该成为超越经济领域的历史利益所在地的条件，相应于工人阶级社会主义根本利益的论题。我们将要证明这三个方面是错误的。”[3]85正是基于这种理论看法，他们断言认为，“为了生产力发展的普遍规律可以充分的发挥作用，所有的生产过程中的要素服从它的决定是必要。为了保证这一点，马克思主义不得不述诸于虚构”。[3]86应该说，拉克劳、墨非对于历史唯物主义的理解是抓到了实质性问题的，并认为由“生产力发展使得资本主义变革为社会主义成为必然”的观念已经被第二国际的马克思主义理论家们变为了教条。如何能够实现“经济—政治”之间连字符的切割，赋予政治斗争的独立意义，从而得出“革命的合法性不再惟一地被集中在工人阶级之中”，[3]59他们在马克思主义发展史的谱系上，找到了理论的源头，即列宁对于这种连字符初步松动的理论突破。
那么，列宁究竟是如何打开这第一个“缺口”的呢？在他们看来，“列宁不再把革命性的断裂构想为单一矛盾之展开的必然的、预定的点，而是构想为特殊的关键性转折点，它由各阶级间力量的关系中的移位所支配。这种观念的背景是把世界资本主义体系理解为一个帝国主义链条，这一链条的最薄弱的环节（在此环节中革命性的断裂是可能的）并不必然地与那种在其中生产力与生产关系之间的矛盾达到了它的最高点的环节正相重合。这种情况下,为经济主义的观念所预见的该阶段的普遍必然性大受质疑”[4]54正因为，帝国主义世界范围的维度恰好意味着各种阶级关系转换的根本原因，这表征危机的革命性解决与经济发展水平之间存有鸿沟，这种逻辑联系就这样拉开了，列宁留给后马克思主义的启示至少在拉克劳、墨非看来是“朝向以政治优先性为中心的新马克思主义观念前进的一个关键点”。[4]54按照列宁主义这种做法，“必定能得出这样的结论:并没有一个先验地决定矛盾将以这种或那种方式得到解决的基本原理。它的结果本质上将取决于政治斗争”。[4]55这样，与那种将历史的发展看作“铁的规律”的第二国际的理论不同的是，“革命的结果并不仅仅是潜在经济进程的上层结构性结果，那么，政治主体，这一结构的代理人，就不再可能被构想为基础的逻辑的简单产物。”[4]55
资本主义不断发展出新的矛盾，仅仅界定在生产层面显得历史唯物主义理论视域过于狭窄，将革命主体从经济基础强硬逻辑中抽身出来之后，已经“迫使社会主义政治也采取大众及其民主的特征，”这时，显然列宁的路线是“完全不相容于考茨基或普列汉洛夫的严格的‘阶级主义’”了，当拉克劳、墨非作出这种论断之后，显然，列宁对于“阶级构造”的逻辑思路被放置到了自己“阶级碎片化”理论的圈套之中，而这仍然没有让他们满意，“列宁主义的观念贯穿着一个基本的歧义：一方面，它在经典的经济主义的政治逻辑中打开了一个明确的缺口；另一方面，它没能充分地思考那种断言政治的优先性在马克思主义的理论与政治话语中所必定产生出的破坏性作用。这就解释了列宁主义势必将达不到对马克思主义的激进改变的原因”。[4]56简单地说，就是，列宁的局限性在于，对革命的分析处置的是一种“进程的中断”的非常态的关键期，这个时候革命先锋的阶级主体才能“渗入”历史。而这也造成了共产国际战线“固作于列宁主义的政治逻辑与考茨基的经济主义逻辑间的持久的二元论中”，关键是“经济主义在稳定时期继续占支配地位。”那么，是否能够更为彻底地解散经济主义呢？换句话说，列宁在“经济—政治”之间的连字符的松动仅仅是一个“非常态”的革命时期，是否在常态的社会整个时期，这样的松动都能够切实可行呢？
贝尔在《资本主义矛盾》一书中曾认为经济、文化、政治各自围绕着自己的轴心在运转，而且各自的空间都具有自我建构的特性，[5]拉克劳、墨非在这一点上与贝尔意见一致，这主要是基于“把政治主体构想为不同于阶级并比阶级更加宽泛，通过社会主义力量必得考虑、也能够接合的多种多样的民主矛盾，这些政治主体得以不断地被建构起来”这一“消解”阶级主体的目的，所以要彻底颠覆历史唯物主义“阶级构造”的经济政治性特质，还必须“比列宁所实现的更加激进的决裂”。[4]58
二、继承与超越：葛兰西“集体意志”主体构造的艰难浮现
伯恩斯坦曾经对历史唯主义所表现出的经济主义政治模式的构架方式提出批评说，“如果社会主义是客观的历史必然性，那么社会党的努力就是人们所想象到的最多余的事情”，况且“有谁能证明这个客观的必然性呢？”[6]可惜地是，伯恩斯坦在马克思主义危机时正确地提出了问题，却回答错了答案。在这方面，“葛兰西也许分享了伯恩斯坦的修正主义”。[3]78同样这个错误的答案对于拉克劳、墨非来讲确是影响深远的，至少否定历史唯物主义发展所具有的客观必然性成为了拉克劳、墨非的后马克思主义思维路线的“中心轴”，刚刚从列宁的不满中走出来，他们立马开始了新的征程，而这在葛兰西的霸权理论中找到了“共鸣”。
在葛兰西看来，历史和社会不再是被看作为由经济基础对政治和意识形态所必然作用的结果，而所谓的历史客观必然性不过是一种“纯粹经验的和偶然性的契机”，他们“激进的拒绝把具体还原为抽象逻辑的要素、把历史化为生产方式的形而上学、实践理性的形而上学或者人的经济学的形而上学”，葛兰西称之为“绝对历史主义”。[4]58显而易见的是，对于历史唯物主义“经济—政治”的思维架构，葛兰西与列宁之间的有着某种契合，正如，拉克劳、墨非本人所承认的，“于是，葛兰西既代表了列宁主义的连续性同时又代表与列宁主义的脱节。连续性，是因为他扩展了列宁的如下直观：历史并不按一个简单逻辑进行，每一接合和断裂取决于革命主体的政治干预；但也有脱节，因为他并没有把政治的优先性限于革命的紧急关头，而使之成为包括稳定期在内的每一社会形势之下的接合性原则。” [4]59就是说，在对待经济主义的所生成的历史必然性逻辑来讲，葛兰西“的起点属于严格的列宁主义探索”，[3]71具有继承性，则着意在历史必然性的颠覆中，确立偶然性的逻辑，但是，不同是，葛兰西不再像列宁那样，将这一偶然性的政治领导权的确立的时段严格地限定在革命的危机时刻，而是将时间维度延展为社会的一般原则，这种超越性的思路，得到了拉克劳、墨非的认可。
接着，在拉克劳、墨非看来，葛兰西认为经济基础与上层建筑之间的区分已经不可能了，随后将有“历史集团”的概念所取代，什么是“历史集团”呢，即经济基础与上层建筑“这两种元素溶合成一个有机的统一体，”它依赖于各种社会力量的接合性的实践。按照他们的考察，《南方问题笔记》（1926年）是葛兰西第一个使用了领导权这一概念的，[3]71使用这一概念在于使人们不再将工人阶级这一革命主体局限在狭隘的社团利益上，应该更多地吸收来自其他阶层，“但是，这一逻辑仍然预先构造了完全适合阶级联盟概念的阶层利益，”所以，对于革命主体的阶级构造依旧诉诸于经济基础的影响。
如何在根本上将这一主体构造从“阶级联盟”的利益因素中完全地剥离开来，根据葛兰西的看法，“正是从“政治”到“知识分子和道德”层面的运动”转向使其成为了可能，鉴于政治领导权可以建立在联结起来的一致利益上，在其中参与者保持他们自己的身份，道德和知识分子的领导权就需要被大多数参与者分享的全体‘观念’和‘价值’或者用我们自己的术语来说，某些主体立场横贯了大量的阶层。根据葛兰西的观点，知识分子和道德领导权构成了较高的综合‘集体意志’，通过意识形态，它们变成了统一‘历史集团’的有机混凝土。所有这些形成的概念对列宁主义的观点有一个置换作用。[3]72除此之外，一个更为重要的结果是，“政治的范围大大地扩展了。如果政治包括整个社会关系的领域，而这些社会关系得基本接合取决于对抗性社会主体间的各种力量的现存关系而不是被优先于实际斗争的必然结构的因果性限制，那么势必要得出这样的结论：政治的范围覆盖了作为整体的社会全部。”[4]59
我们知道，在传统历史唯物主义的理解中，工人阶级“已经懂得：夺取政权(en s’emparant du pouvoir)以掌握自己的命运、保证自己的胜利，是他们无可推卸的职责和绝对的权利”，[7]109与这种将革命视为一个单一点的突变不同的是，葛兰西强调的是一种阵地战，因为既然“社会整体的接合是政治结合”，注意，这里拉克劳、墨非已经找到了最能激起自身理论思维的种子，这时候经济主义的政治模式崩溃就在眼前了。社会成为了权力与反抗形式得以操作的场域，“既然这些接合并不是来自一个单一的和必然性的根源，就不可能有绝对的和本质性的权力场所，而勿宁存有多重维度、多样的斗争”，这样一来，“社会主义成为了一系列局部性断裂的结果”[4]59我们看到，激进地反驳历史唯物主义的经济主义的政治模式以及向社会主义过渡的策略都在葛兰西这里发生了质的变化，这一变化开启了一条远离马克思主义的通道。拉克劳、墨非指责马克思主义将工人阶级的经济利益与社会主义盲目地捆绑在一起，并认为这直接造成了对整个马克思主义理论及其社会主义革命实践的决定性打击，其危机性正是在于革命主体的中心论与革命焦点的单一性。[8]
但是，虽然葛兰西实现了重要的置换，诸如“意识形态的物质性”、“结束意识形态的还原论”等，也有效地挖掘了偶然性的逻辑，拉克劳、墨非依然认为，“由于断言领导权必须永远与基本的经济阶段相适应不仅仅是肯定经济的最后决定，还重申了制约经济结构是社会重构领导权的潜力的限度，经济空间的基本逻辑本身就不是领导权的。因此，把经济视为由必然规律统一起来的均质空间的自然主义偏见再次显示了它的全部力量”。[3]75就是说，在拉克劳、墨非看来，任何领导权的建立不能单由物质方面或者纯粹的意识形态方面来思考，所以我们可以看到拉克劳、墨非在指责历史唯物主义的本质主义同时也不满于葛兰西的不彻底性、而他们却试图调和两者之间的关系，这就是在“话语”上实现对葛兰西的根本置换。基于“后工业时代是不同于手工业和大工业时代的一个新时代，它的生产力、生产关系、经济基础、财产观念等方面都有了新的特征”，[9]他们开启了自己对于以“去阶级化”为中心对历史唯物主义方法论的深层次批判，试图建构“话语主体”。
三、 “偶然性逻辑”的确立与“历史唯物主义方法论”误读
在历史唯物主义看来，“人们在自己生活的社会生产中发生一定的、必然的、不以他们的意志为转移的关系，即同他们的物质生产力的一定发展阶段相适合的生产关系。这些生产关系的总和构成社会的经济结构，即有法律的和政治的上层建筑竖立其上并有一定的社会意识形式与之相适应的现实基础。物质生活的生产方式制约着整个社会生活、政治生活和精神生活的过程。不是人们的意识决定人们的存在，相反，是人们的社会存在决定人们的意识。”[10]这一历史唯物主义的方法论总纲指明了上层建筑的说明需要经济加以阐明的准则，所以任何政治领域的压迫归根到底是经济领域压迫的表征，但这与拉克劳、墨非所批判的经济决定论显然不同。所以说，马克思主义与自由主义虽然都表明追求民主消除各种形式的压迫，但是根本的区别就在于是否承认经济领域的压迫更为根本，任何政治领域的单方面的消除压迫只不过是一种“虚假”的暂时性现象。19 世纪30 年代的英国宪章运动是当时最盛大的工人运动，宪章派的核心观点是把工人的苦难归因于政治根源，将整个运动的目标锁定在争取普选权。宪章运动以其反面教训为马克思新政治理论的提出作了准备，正是在宪章运动走向衰落的年代里，马克思开始将注意力从国家政治特征转向资本问题，全力聚焦于通过资本来夺取剩余价值而造成的经济上的统治和不平等，由此确认资本主义经济才是权力压迫的中心场域，在政治理论史上第一次提出了“经济的政治性质”问题。[11]正是基于上述所见，马克思把无产阶级的根本目标锁定为对经济领域的私有制实行革命变革，从而才能够真正实现对已往阶级理论的彻底颠覆。这个超越政治问题的“社会问题”就是指经济领域的压迫和对抗性, 它被马克思作为自己政治理论的新领域，“阶级”显然是其历史物主义作为核心的理论范畴。
可惜地是，拉克拉墨非抓住了这一理论实质，却错误地将对“经济决定论”的批判当成了历史物主义的“经济主义的政治模式”消解。如何才能够彻底与“经济主义决裂的结论——它由列宁开创、经葛兰西和陶里亚蒂得以发展；在于坚决地与本质主义的“历史保证”的形而上学决裂；也在于宣称自己为历史过程的“绝对真理”、宣称自己能够预测历史的必然进程的形式上的科学形式决裂”。拉克劳、墨非是怎么样达到对历史唯物主义经济主义政治模式实现“哥白尼式革命”的呢？其偶然性逻辑又是如何接着葛兰西话语言说下去的呢？
在他们看来，“实现领导权的任务或全部政治力量属于历史偶然性领域”。[3]50那么，在马克思主义的理解中，“每一历史时代主要的经济生产方式和交换方式以及必然由此产生的社会结构，是该时代政治的和精神的历史所赖以确立的基础，并且只有从这一基础出发，这一历史才能得到说明；因此人类的全部历史（从土地公有的原始氏族社会解体以来）都是阶级斗争的历史，即剥削阶级和被剥削阶级之间、统治阶级和被压迫阶级之间斗争的历史”，[7]257这一历史必然性，拉克劳和墨菲给予彻底否定，他们的理解是，工人政党所进行的争取解放的斗争都只是一些“偶然性”事件罢了。所以，“彻底的历史主义是一种自我击败的事业。它并没有认识普遍进入全部特殊同一性构造方式”。[12]53-54客观地讲，确立偶然性逻辑就是要彻底消解生产力与生产关系的矛盾推动历史发展这一基本历史辩证法的客体向度。他们坚决指认“必然/ 偶然的二元论打开了通向多元结构合法性的道路,它的内在逻辑和相互关系必须得到承认”。[3]27
具体的途径是，“只要我们拒绝优先化的普遍阶级的本体轮立场基础上的任何认识论特权，才真正有可能讨论马克思主义范畴有效性的程度”。[3]4所以，他们坚决超越葛兰西地方在于，认为阶级“不能够被视为一种由经济结构所先验地担保的本体论上的特权”。[4]62他们做出这样论断的原因在于，生产力与生产关系之间矛盾所展现的经济主义的政治模式并不必然产生出阶级这一革命主体。拉克劳墨非的理论意义在于将阶级指向一种身份属性，经济关系与人的关系之间的割裂开来，最终认为，在经济关系之中是无法推论出的阶级这一人的关系的。因为，生产力与生产关系之间的矛盾与阶级斗争不同在于，一个是“对抗不是资本主义与生俱来的，而是发生在那些关系和外在于他们的工人的身份之间”，[12]213另一个是没有矛盾的对抗性。所以，拉克劳指出，“除非我们被迫面对一种极端的剥削情境，否则工人对资本主义态度完全依赖于他的或者她的身份如何被构造”。[12]213这样一来，第一，阶级从经济视角透视的根本方法论被其解构了。第二，阶级是有身份构造，这前提必须建立在一种经济剥削已经不成为问题的社会中。第三，身份政治取代了阶级政治，在“今天不可能谈论工人阶级的同质性，更不必说把它追溯到资本积累规律中所描述的机制上去了”。[3]82
这样一来他们颠覆了历史唯物主义的动力机制。传统历史唯物主义将生产力和生产关系、经济基础和上层建筑的矛盾运动决定社会历史的发展，这一点，后马克思主义极力地反驳。并提出了与历史唯物主义相反性质的社会逻辑。“面对那种把社会历史当成理智上可以把握的、围绕概念化规律可以解释的总体这一经典马克思主义理性主义，领导权的逻辑从一开始就扮演了补充和偶然作用的角色，要求在本质和形态学有效性不受任何怀疑的进化典型中引进事态的不平衡(本书的中心任务之一是确定这一特殊的偶然性逻辑)”。[39]确立偶然性的重要性在于，“假如历史就是由外在于人的偶然决定（上帝的意志，本质形态的确定世界，必然的历史规律）而引发的舞台，那么，这将意味着民主不可能是激进的，因为社会建构将不会是政治的，而是社会内在的逻辑结构，”“如果在激进民主的传统概念中，社会透明是实现彻底解放的条件，那么，我现在说的正好相反；这只是说社会是完全偶然的。”在一定的意义上，拉克劳认为马克思“处于唯心主义领域之内（也就是处于现实合理性的最终肯定性中）”，“那种认为历史运动的最终发展规律不是由人类的意识观念变化所决定的，而是由每一个历史阶段中生产力发展与现存的生产关系之间的矛盾所决定的论断，对事物并没有丝毫的改变”。[13]
对于历史唯物主义理解中的“阶级应该在生产关系中加以解读”的说法，拉克劳、墨非认为，生产关系是一个非常模糊的概念，这其中既有生产关系又有生产中结成的人与人的关系。但是，他们并不是要终结革命主体这一至关重要的概念，如何寻找新的革命主体依然是他们的关心话题。既然对抗并不是生发于经济生产领域，随着对于社会偶然性逻辑的确立，从经济转向政治领域即生产场所之外寻找革命主体的策略得到他们的认同。那么，到底如何建构新社会主义运动的革命主体呢？拉克劳、墨非认为，无论是工人、农民或者是女权主义者、生态主义者、和平主义者，只要认同社会主义话语，就可以成为社会主义者，社会主义不再仅仅是单一的工人阶级的解放运动。“这些新的主体以根本不同的方式来界定他们的目标。他们的敌人不是由剥削的功能来界定，而是由某些权力的行使来界定。而且这一权力也不是从生产关系的一个地位获得，而是具有该社会特色的社会组织形式的结果。这一社会诚然是资本主义的，但这并不是它的唯一之特征；它也是性别岐视主义的和父权制的，更不必说种族主义者了。”[4]61实现这一根本性转换至少还建立这样一种理论基础之上，这就是，“社会概念被理解为话语空间”。拉克劳、墨菲承袭了维特根斯坦的后期语言哲学，建立了自己的革命主体的链接策略，走向一种新的领导权的概念，即话语领导权，话语领导权的实现是偶然性的、不确定性的、非本质性的、开放性的话语连接过程，企图完全摆脱了经济主义的决定论，完全摆脱了社会客观性和历史必然性的逻辑。
佩里·安德森在1984年曾经批评过“后结构主义”：话语理论倾向于彻底地摧毁因果观念，把历史和社会的确定性消解为随机性和不确定性。任何对历史和社会的可理解性、因果规则、解释机制等的诉诸都遭到拒斥，取而代之的是对社会领域之开放性和偶然性的腔调。可以说，后结构主义理论导致了历史和社会的“随机化”。因此，安德森的这一批评“也完全适合于拉克劳和墨菲”。[14]拉克劳、墨非的后马克思主义在对历史唯物主义的经济主义的政治模式解构中，消解了阶级这一个革命主体，但是，他们却是对历史唯主义的严重误读，避免不了的命运是，其激进民主政治通向了自由主义。
参考文献
[1]佩里·安德森：《西方马克思主义探讨》[M].北京：人民出版社，1981年第68—69页。
[2]艾伦·伍德：《新社会主义》[M].南京：江苏人民出版社2000年版，第58页。
[3]拉克劳、墨非：《领导权与社会主义策略》[M].哈尔滨：黑龙江人民出版社2003.
[4]拉克劳、墨菲：《社会主义战略，下一步在哪儿？》，周凡：《后马克思主义》[M].北京：中央编译出版社，2007.
[5]丹尼尔·贝尔：《资本主义文化矛盾》[M].北京：三联书店，1989年版，第3-6页.
[6]伯恩斯坦：《伯恩斯坦文选》，人民出版社，2008年版，128页.
[7]《马克思恩格斯选集》，第1卷[M].北京：人民出版社1995
[8]Anna Smith：Lacalau and Mouffe:The Radical Democratic Imaginary，London and NewYork:Routledge，1998，P2.
[9]关柏春：《马克思主义经济学的创新与当代现实》[J].中州学刊，2008（4）：15
[10]《马克思恩格斯选集》，第2卷[M].北京：人民出版社1995年版，第32页。
[11]张盾：《马克思的政治理论及其路经》[J].中国社会科学2006（5）：33
[12]巴特勒，拉克劳，齐泽克：《偶然性、霸权和普遍性》，[M].南京：江苏人民出版社，2004
[13]拉克劳、墨菲：《我们时代革命的新反思》，[M].哈尔滨：黑龙江人民出版社2006年版，第231页
[14]道格拉斯.凯尔纳斯蒂文.贝斯特：《后现代理论》[M].北京：中央编译出版社2001年版，第263页。
**作者简介：**孙亮，男，安徽明光人，哲学博士。现任教于华东师范大学哲学系，兼任《马克思主义中国化研究辑刊》执行主编，主要从事马克思主义哲学史与西方马克思主义研究与教学工作。独立在《马克思主义研究》、《人文杂志》、《学术研究》、《江汉论坛》、《学习与探索》、《东岳论丛》、《学术界》等国内知名期刊发表学术文章60余篇，其中10余篇被《高等文科学校学术文摘》中国人民大学复印资料《哲学原理》、《马克思列宁主义》、《政治学》等全文转载，另被《红旗文摘》《当代社科视野》等论点摘编多篇。
ALAIN BADIOU: IS THE WORD “COMMUNISM” FOREVER DOOMED?
Thank you for being here today. It’s a real brave gesture to talk of Communism just after the victory of Barak Obama and when there is a violent crisis of capitalism. However, to do that in a theater in New York is magnificent.
I begin by two very different things. On the one hand some very abstract definitions, on the other hand some very concrete points in concern with the victory of Obama. And it’s from the point of view of the position between the two, philosophical definitions and concrete study of contemporary thought, that I shall introduce the old word Communism.
So first the definitions. I name ‘event’, a rupture in the normal disposition of bodies and normal ways of a particular situation. Or if you want, I name ‘event’ a rupture of the laws of the situation. So, in its very importance, an event is not the realization/variation of a possibility that resides inside the situation. An event is the creation of a new possibility. An event changes not only the real, but also the possible. An event is at the level not of simple possibility, but at the level of possibility of possibility.
I name ‘state’ or ‘state of the situation’ the system of constraints, which precisely limit the possibility. For example today I name the state of our situation, capitalist economy, constitutional form of government, veridical laws about the order of labor, army, police, and so on – all that composes the state of our situation. The state defines what is possible and what isn’t. So an event is always something which happens beyond the state. And therein lies the difference between an event and a simple fact.
I name ‘truth procedure’ or ‘truth’ an organization of consequences of an event. The process or the fact of naming the process of what follows an event.
And I name ‘facts’ the consequences of the existence of the state.
So the truth is not purely composed of facts. It’s my own position to complete. The truth is also the becoming of the new subject, the new collective subject, when the event is political. Concerning this new collective subject, I can speak of the creation of the truth. Concerning the state, I can speak of historical facts. For example, the revolution of October 1917 in Russia is the creation of a new political truth. In the same country, the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany in 1945 is a historical fact. Towards the same history, which happens at times from an event and at times from a historical fact.
And finally a historical point. In fact when it transforms the relationship between the identities of individuals and the identity of the power. For example when Lula became the president of Brazil, it was a simple fact and not an event of historical transcendence. Because it was the first time a simple worker occupied the head of the state.
Identities like ‘worker’, ‘gay’, ‘black’, ‘woman’, ‘Jew’, ‘youth’, ‘small’, ‘red-haired’, etc., are of no importance in the true political being which is universal or general. But the relationship between these predicates, this identity and the power, can be of some simple value concerning the action of the state.
With all that in mind we can say some words about the great victory of Obama, though it is impossible for me to say anything concerning a fact, here and today. First, and I hope it’s not too sad for you, it’s clear that Obama’s victory is not a political event. To hard comparison, with the same feel for the movement of the civil rights, under the direction of Martin Luther King during the 60s, has been a great popular event. But the success of Obama is for the moment, of the moment, straight inside the apparatus of the state, the great capitalist economy, huge social inequalities, the war outside in Afghanistan, etc, two political parties. So Obama’s victory is a fact – maybe an important fact – of the history of the state, but not, at least for the time being, a political event.
Second, Obama’s victory is certainly a very important symbolic point of the state, of the history of the state. The development of this real from Africa – of black people, in the name of slavery, of cultural domination, of racism and poverty – is an enormous event, a strong symbol, and not only for African Americans, but also for humanity as such.
But the symbolic level of the state is different from political truth. This strong symbol can perfectly be, at the political level, empty or even negative. The decision will be, finally, not in the hands of Obama, but in the subjective determination of the symbol. Could you accept the advice from an old philosopher, from an old country? I just can say to you, separate the levels. Don’t confuse them. Enjoy the Symbolic. Don’t trust the state. And concerning politics rely only on yourself, on the collective action.
But here we have a new operation: How can we be prepared for a political event? How can we believe in something which is really a political event and not a fact of the state of history? Generally, in those acts we live in a sort of political activity. We accept the general laws of the state as a necessity. To anticipate the creation of the new possibility, the possibility which is not the simple development of the state facts, at least at an intellectual or ideological level, we must have an idea of the possibility, a general idea of the possibility of a different possibility. We have the ideal of the formal possibility of other possibilities. And during more than one century, Communism has been the name of this ideal. And it was a great name at first. When we find this name which was the name of the possibility of something else, we have to return to the signification it had originally in two texts of Karl Marx’s. One is from 1844 – the manuscripts of 1844 – and the other is from 1848, the famousManifesto of the Communist Party.
In these texts Communism first signified negativity. It signified that the logic of place, of the fundamental subordination of global workers to a dominating class, could be surmounted. The structure of domination, which is that of history in its antiquity, is not to be confounded. Consequently, said Marx, the oligarchic power created in the corrupt state, although they’re paying the workers in an organized situation, is not ineluctable. Other, the negative part of the word Communism. The Communist idea, the good word, and I quote… not for Marx, but as a hypothesis. The Communism hypothesis is that another collective organization can go on. Each an every one that has this, this new organization will eliminate the inequality of worth and even, for Marx, the division of work. People who were separated between manual work and intellectual work, in other words between the city and the country, each and everyone will be polyvalent workers: this is the expression in Marx’sManifesto. The private appropriation of monstrous fortunes and their transmission of within their means by the very existence of the political state apparatus, protected by the military and the police, separated from the civil society, will no longer appear to be an obvious necessity.
There will be, after Marx set up, after a brief sequence of what he names the plus-value, charged with destroying working men or the poor workers, a long sequence of the organization in the ways of free association of producing wealth, which would support what Marx named the Decline of the State. And it was the most important definition of Communism, which was ‘the process of the decline of the state’.
Let me remind you that the state is here not only the state of government, police, army, and so on, but all that limits the possibility of collective creation.
So Communism in the middle of the 19th century designated the very general fact of intellectual reorganizations. And this fact is the horizon for any action, although local and limited in time, as it may be, which breaking with the order of the established state composes a fragment of the new politics, fragment of politics of mobilization. It is in short Communism, an idea whose function is regulatory and not a program. It is absurd to categorize the Communist hypothesis to be apetit objet abecause it serves to produce, between different politics, lines of demarcation for a given political sequence. It is extra compatible with the hypothesis of equality with which Communism is an ideal, and it is emancipating, on the one hand, as directly opposed to the Communist identity and its reactionary stance.
Communism in fact is a heuristic hypothesis frequently used in politics even if the word does not appear. And so it’s a useful idea for the political determination and not the concrete program of these politics.
Maybe you know the violence and kinds of ferocity with Jean-Paul Sartre who, in the 50s of the last century, said that any anti-communist is a dog. If we correctly read these abrupt contents it’s true. Any action of the state, because it can, any action of the state that appears formally contradictory with the communist hypothesis in the general sense must be judged as opposed to the recognition of the goal of humanity. And so it’s opposed to the properly united destiny of humanity.
As we know, the contemporality of, as we should say, capitalism, a name of social existence, as the correct name of social existence is competition. That is to say, it is the war within the capital and outside it, that the war as real is certainly the intra-human part of humanity.
In another interview, the same Sartre says, in such terms, I quote; “If the Communist hypothesis is not right, if it is not applicable, this means that humanity is not in itself something very different from ants or ferrets.”
What he is saying there is that if competition, free markets, the search for littlejouissanceand the walls that protect you from the desires of the weak are collectivified, the human being is not worth scum.
So only, to be a real actor, the real activity of the becoming-human of the human beast, we have to know the history of the Communist hypothesis. And we have to study the question: is really the Communist hypothesis right or completely wrong?
In fact, there are two great historical sequences of this hypothesis. And it is quite a question both of them. The sequence of the creation, the creation of the power itself and that of the first attempt to realize the theory. The first sequence begins with the French Revolution and goes to the Paris Commune. Let us say, from 1792 to 1871. The first sequence of the Communist hypothesis: it is that of the creation of the hypothesis. This sequence links (and develops) the idea of Communism as a popular mass movement with the notion of the savior of all. That is, the concrete form of the idea during this sequence, mass movement on one side and on the other side the savior of all. Because it was a mobilizing popular movement, under multiple forms – demonstrations, strikes, uprising, armed action, and so on – around the figure of overthrowing the state – we know, the state was, within its walls, not only the government, the state was the form of the reduction of possibility – it must be strong to emancipate the possibility as such. And the only possible actor of this destruction is the mass movement, and, first, the mass movement of workers. And this overthrowing of the state is an insurrectional overthrowing, which is called, as you know, revolution.
So finally, there is a strong lesson achieved between the Communist idea and the practical upheaval, revolution. This revolution must suppress the existing forms of society – private property, private means of ownership, the separation of humans into nations, the distribution of work, and so on – and establish Communist equality, or what the working-class thinkers of the 19th century, as my friend Jacques Rancière was so well inclined to, names the ‘community of peoples’. Communism was, by insurrection, the realization of the community of peoples.
This sequence closes with the astonishing newness and radical flavor of the Paris Commune in 1871. The Commune represented a different alternative, a rare combination of popular movement, working-class direction, and augmented insurrection. It showed the economy of modernism of this formula, namely who was murdered, as you know, or exercised the power of the completely new tying of two moments, in one of the largest capitals of Europe. But it also showed it for what it was worth, for it was not able either to extend the revolution to a national scale, or the capacity to organize resistance to the counter-revolution, which was entirely supported by the French middle class.
The second sequence of the Communist hypothesis goes from 1917, the Russian Revolution, to 1976, the end of the Cultural Revolution in China, which also marks the end of the militant youth movements in Europe and America (and Latin America of course), which arose all over the world, somewhere between 1966 and 1975, and whose center, from the point of view of political innovation, was May 1968 in Paris and consequently during the years that followed. But as you know during the late 60s we have many of the things forming political resistance to the Vietnam War in America and also the movement of the youth practically in all countries all over the world.
This second sequence lasts about 60 years, but notice that it is separated from the first by a gap of about the same length, more than 40 years. The history of the Communist hypothesis is not a continuous history; it’s a continuity by sequences, which are separated. It is important for us, for maybe we are right now between two sequences.
So this second sequence, which begins with the Russian Revolution, is dominated by one thing and it’s (betting on it): How can we be victorious? That is the somber and practically unique question during the revolution. How contrary to the Paris Commune can we endure, embracing the sanguine revelation, the rich people and their mercenaries? How can we organize the new power, the new state, in such a way that its enemies would not destroy it?
Lenin recognized it, since under Lenin it the first answer to this question was founded. And it’s certainly not for nothing that Lenin responded to the problem, when the insurrection lasted in Russia one day longer than the Paris Commune. This official victory and the real, what concerned Lenin were the problems of organization and indifference and was entirely contained, starting with 1902 and of course inWhat is to be done?, Lenin’s famous textWhat is to be done?, in the theory and the practice of the centralism and organization of a class party. We can say that the Communist Party only gives body in their thesis to the realization of the Communist hypothesis.
This construction of the second sequence of the hypothesis, the Party, actually restores the question initiated in the first sequence, the question of the victory, in Russia, in China, in Albania, in Korea, in Vietnam, and sometimes in Cuba, and thus gives directions to the Communist Party, the complete revolution of the political and social order at once.
After the first sequence, whose dividing line was the formulation of the Communist hypothesis, and of the reality of the movement, of the mass movement, there was effectively a second sequence whose very line was a harsh and militaristic organization, local victory, duration, and construction of the new state.
As it is known, the second sequence created in its turn a program that did not have the means to dissolve, with the result that apparently it did not solve the problem left by the first. And in fact, the Party, the Communist Party, which was the body of the Communist hypothesis, the Communist Party adapted to the insurrectional and military history that was successful against fighting their supporters, opposed to the inept, for the construction of the State around the dictatorship of the proletariat in the sense of Marx. That is, a state organizing the transition towards another state. The power of organizing the non-powered, the dialectical form of the decline of the state. Under the form of the party-state – like in Russia, China, and other places – a new form of state, which was authoritarian and imperialist, was instated. And this state was negative, very far from the practical law of the people, and very far from the ideal of the decline of the state. The deployment of, as some would have put it, violence, was in no recognition in the state of the inertia of its internal bureaucracy. When the peasant has competition imposed on him by a mercenary, with the army taking more than its share to demonstrate it, you would never win.
The most important contemporary problem is that the political form of the party does not equate with the certain reorganization and the creative transformation of the Communist hypothesis. And it is to this problem that participated the last important contributions of the second sequence. The Cultural Revolution in China and its neighbor Russia, is named, for example, after Mao. In China, Mao’s maxim on this point was: No Communism without the Communist movement. No Communism is without the Communist movement. The party is not sufficient: if you don’t have the movement, you have nothing at all – if any cause can be taken in the name of, to resonate, to develop the power of the state, and consequently the combination of the real world, the Cultural Revolution attempted to start, and quickly becomes cowardly and violent. The definition of the enemy, being either uncertain or directed against the unity – the whole of society, the Communist Party – Mao has something to do with this when he declares, and I quote: “We do now know, in our country, where the movement is, or whether the movement is in the Communist Party.”
So, the struggle was finally between the party and the facts. And it destroyed the social consistency. Finally, the old order had to be re-established in the worst conditions. In France, after May 68, the dominating motif was that the organized collective action should create new political space, and not reproduce the centralized management of the state. The reinvigorated content would be new forms of organization and action, enveloping the same political divisions, intellectuals and workers, and proposing the prolongation of the Communist hypothesis even beyond the logic of size or of power. There is an event that even if this experience were under new forms, at the end of May 68, it would be considered that on the whole the modern form of the reactionary state was once again dominant in markets, under the cover of democracy.
The word Communism is today a completely forgotten word, only practically identified with a lost experience. It is why the political situation, and the ideological situation are so confusing. Because in fact, the Communist hypothesis, with or without the word Communism, which is only a word, you can speak, for example of the egalitarian hypothesis or the hypothesis of radical equality or whatever, but all that remains of the right hypothesis, the right to think an idea of new possibilities, and not only of realization of old possibilities inscribed in the state. I see no hope. If this hypothesis must be ours, once more we need new words. But we know better to do anything whatsoever as far as the collective action is concerned. Without the horizon of equality and Communism, without this idea, nothing in historical and political revolution is of the nature to interest the philosopher. Let everyone mind his own business and talk no more about it.
In fact, what has become of it, or we can even say our ‘philosophical duty’, is to contribute with finding a new mode of existence of the hypothesis we have, new kinds of political organization this hypothesis can give rise to. We have learned from the second sequence and its fateful failure, we must return to the conditions of existence of the Communist hypothesis, and not only to perfect the means of our struggle.
The lesson of the second sequence is that the question of victory cannot be the center of our sequence. We have, and we must, experience something new, and, there is, after the resistance, the question of the power. What is the politics which is not to be confused with the question of the power? That is, the real one. We cannot be satisfied with the dialectic situation between the state and the mass movement, with the preparation of the insurrection, with the construction of the power pool and dialectic organization, with the concept of revolution, which today is obscure. We must, in reality, reestablish first the hypothesis, communist or egalitarian, with the ideological or militant fit. And with respect to this, we are closer to the powers already in mind in the 19th century. There we are with the history of the revolution of the last century. We are much closer to the 19th century than to the last century. In the dialectical division of history we have, sometimes, to move ahead of time.
Just like maybe after 1840, we are now confronted with absolutely cynical capitalism, more and more inspired by the ideas that only work backwards: poor are justly poor, the Africans are underdeveloped, and that the future with no discernable limit belongs to the civilized bourgeoisie of the Western world. All kinds of phenomena from the 19th century reappear, extraordinarily extended forms of misery within these countries themselves. Forever growing in inequality, the radical cut between the people of the working classes, of the uninformed, and the middle class, the complete dissolution of political power in the service of property and capitalist profits. Several years of ratiocination, disorganization of revolutionaries, and the nihilist despair of large portions of the youth, the servility of the large majority of them, and the experience of the base obsequiousness of formal groups in the quest of the contemporary means to establish, re-establish, find new definitions for the Communist hypothesis.
All these characteristics are very close to the political situation which was dominant in Europe in the middle of the 19th century. Which is why the apparent victory of capitalism, occasion to the second sequence of the Communist hypothesis, had been, in fact, a very strong reaction, a very strong return to something very old. The politicization of contemporary capitalism is as you see the return to the cynical capitalism of the 19th century. And it is probably why after the 19th century the question is not for us the victory of the Communist hypothesis, but the conditions of its identity. Our problems are much more the problems of Marx than the problems of Lenin, and that was the great question of the revolutionaries of the 19th century.
First, did the historical existence of the hypothesis produce the conditions in a large nation of people and that we are not made prisoners by the very definition of the word uttered by our enemies? Even historical resistance to the hypothesis, where there is a lot of power, is that, sort of identified here, that is oppressing us. It is complex, but at the moment exciting too. By combining conflicts of thought because at the beginning we are dealing with a new form of an instance or idea, there is a weight to the constructions of thought, like the construction of a new form of dialectic by Marx. These constructions of thought are always normal and universal. But we are also with new political experimentations, which are local and singular, and the mixture of the two may constitute a thought at the universal level, with political experimentation at the local or singular level, which finally can produce the new form: the Communist hypothesis.
This existence must be, throughout history, in consciousness, by new forms of these organizations of what is the political event, and on the level by the result and by learning of local experimentation. So we can open the third sequence of this great time, we can. And if we can, we must.
Thank you.
