Political Economy and the Proper

1 2 3 4 1 5 6 Political Economy and the Proper 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But 14 PRGHUQERXUJHRLVSULYDWHSURSHUW\LVWKHˋQDODQGPRVWFRPSOHWH 15 expression of the system of producing and appropriating products 16 that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many 17 by the few. In this sense, the theory of Communists may be summed 18 up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. 19 —The Communist Manifesto, 223 20 21 [S]ystematic community, the deliberate negation of property, is 22 conceived under the direct influence of the property prejudice; 23 and it is property that is to be found at the root of all communist 24 theories. The members of a community, it is true, have no prop- 25 erty, but the community is the proprietor, and proprietor not only 26 of goods but of persons and wills. It is because of this principle of sovereign property, that labor, which should be imposed on man 27 only by nature, becomes a human commandment. 28 —QP, 203; WP, 196 29 30 Although the recent texts on community cannot be reduced to the 31 classical debate between Anarchists and Marxists, it would be wrong 32 to overlook it. To varying degrees each philosopher appeals to the 33 spirit of the anarchic aphorism—no gods, no masters, and no prop- 34 erty. In fact, each has taken up and pushed this mantra well beyond 35 simply reversing and opposing gods, masters, and property. Nancy 36 continues to search for ways to deconstruct Christianity, Agamben has written several archaeological expositions of economic theology, 5 © 2016 State University of New York Press, Albany 6 Containing Community 1 and since the 1980s Esposito has sought to elaborate on various 2 LPSROLWLFDOˋVVXUHVWKDWZLOOGLVUXSWWKHHQFORVXUHFDXVHGE\SROLWLFDO 3 theology. The second precept is largely, but not exclusively, addressed 4 through their critiques of metaphysical philosophy, especially the 5 notion of the subject. In the substantive chapters on each of them, I 6 UHWXUQWRWKHˋUVWWZRWHQHWVUHSHDWHGO\EXWIRUWKHSXUSRVHVRIWKH 7 opening chapter of this book, I want to focus on the third, which is 8 at the forefront of each of their texts on community. Each attempts 9 to conceive of community beyond the dispositif of the proper. Over 10 the course of this chapter, I provide a rough outline of the rise of this 11 political economy in the West, starting with Locke. 12 I have chosen to start with political economy before turning to Heide- 13 gger’s ontology of the proper in the second chapter to demonstrate 14 KRZVLJQLˋFDQWWKLVWUDGLWLRQLVIRUWKHWH[WVRQFRPPXQLW\HVSHFLDOO\ 15 Esposito’s and Nancy’s. 16 One cannot ignore the large shadow cast by Heidegger on the texts 17 about community, as his work serves as the primary philosophical 18 resource each draws from, especially Nancy and Agamben, but to 19 commence with Heidegger would lead us down a treacherous path. For 20 starters, we would have to deal with his retrograde politics, a problem 21 that has proven to be a source of great consternation in the secondary 22 literature on each of the three philosophers.1 Heidegger’s critics also 23 charge him with obscurantism, a charge that has also been laid on our 24 three main philosophers. Étienne Balibar, for example, praises Esposito 25 and Nancy for their rigorous deconstruction of the role of property 26 in the constitution political borders in an essay called “Citizenship 27 without Community” in We, The People of Europe (OVHZKHUH 28 however, he takes issue with those who seek to deconstruct the 29 proper, notably Derrida. Such efforts, he argues, represent a shallow, 30 postmodern, and, by implication, ideological defense of the liberal 31 archetype of the possessive individual. What else can come from 32 Derrida’s call for “ex-appropriation” than Heideggerian wordplay, 33 such as that between “Eigen, Eigentum, Eigenschaft, and Ereignis” 34 "+HLGHJJHULDQHVFKDWRORJ\KHFRQWLQXHVPD\OHDGWRȤDQ 35 Enteignung [dispossession], a depropriation or disappropriation of the 36 VXEMHFWRIZKDWLVȡSURSHUȢWRWKHVXEMHFW Eigen ȥEXWKHDVNVKRZ 37 formidable is political resistance when its source is etymology? To 38 39 © 2016 State University of New York Press, Albany Political Economy and the Proper 7 oppose appropriation as the lever for revolutionary social changes, he 1 concludes, is a de facto promotion of a radical form of alienation, abyssal 2 alienationE\ZKLFKKHPHDQVDUDGLFDOL]DWLRQRIGLIIHUHQFH 3 It is precisely the terms of this critique that Agamben, Esposito, and 4 Nancy address, not solely in the so-called “jargon of authenticity,” but 5 in their political and economic horizons. Balibar’s critique goes beyond 6 simply indicting them for being Heideggerians, because it presses up 7 against a much broader problem that each philosopher has struggled 8 with: trying to formulate a type of politics that avoids, rather than 9 counters, the trappings of the dispositif of the proper. Nancy’s and 10 Agamben’s vehement opposition to formulating political prescriptions 11 and ascribing to any operative type political practice, for example, 12 has become a sticking point among their critics.2 We might even call 13 theses critiques updated versions of the longstanding dogma held by 14 Marxists that the anarchic refusal to combine economic appropriation 15 ZLWKSROLWLFDODSSURSULDWLRQ LHWKHVWDWHPXVWEHVHL]HGDORQJZLWK 16 WKHIDFWRULHV OHDGVWRDQXWWHUO\LPSRWHQWIRUPRISROLWLFV(DFKRI 17 the three main philosophers we examine in this book, however, has 18 provided a litany of tools for rethinking precisely how the dogmatic 19 call for appropriation, or worse, re-appropriation, represents nothing 20 more than an ideological defense of the dispositif of the proper. What 21 if politics are no longer conceived in the aporetic dialectic of alienation 22 and appropriation? Moreover, what if community itself is no longer 23 constituted as something that is proper to those who belong and thus 24 improper to those who don’t? 25 Before we get to these questions, much context must be provided. 26 Over the course of this and the next chapter I have selected a handful 27 of themes that must be covered before I turn to the substantive 28 investigations of the three philosophers. What follows is not a 29 comprehensive overview of the broader problematic of proper, but 30 rather a rough sketch. In this chapter, I provide a brief account of the 31 role of the political economy in modern Western political theory. Then 32 I examine, in broad strokes, the three authors’ general critique of the 33 role of the proper in formulating community. I end by addressing their 34 common goal of dis-containing community. In the second chapter, I 35 return to each of these issues, explicitly addressing them in relation to 36 Heidegger’s ontological philosophy. 37 38 39 © 2016 State University of New York Press, Albany 8 Containing Community 1 I. The Proprietary Confusion 2 3 If we were to pinpoint a central moment in the genealogy of this 4 dispositif, we would have to begin when the West set out to colonize 5 the rest of the world. Pope Alexander VI’s Papal Bull of 1493, the 6 enclosure movement in England, and the social contract tradition 7 epitomized by John Locke’s theory of property, are three forma- 8 tive moments in what is now an unrelenting and all-encompassing 9 process. Today, we are well beyond the point of “primitive accumu- 10 lation” as the relentless drive to appropriate things has engulfed 11 everything that has stood in its path. In our contemporary neoliberal 12 era, we are running out of objects to convert into property.3 Very few 13 are immune to the proper, as conservatives, liberals, and communists 14 alike are dogmatically committed to this now hegemonic dispositif. At 15 its core rests the modern model of the proprietary subject. Although 16 +XJR*URLWXVZDVWKHˋUVWWRDUWLFXODWHWKLVVXEMHFW/RFNHȢVYHUVLRQ 17 became the archetype that we still employ today.4 In paragraph 27 of 18 his Second Treatise on Government, Locke famously claimed: 19 20 Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, 21 yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any 22 right to but himself. The labour of his body and the work of his hands, 23 we may say are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the 24 state of nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour 25 with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes 26 it his property. It being by him removed from the common state of 27 nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to 28 it, that excludes the common right of other men: for this labour being 29 the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have 30 a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, 31 and as good, left in common for others. 32 33 Locke’s liberal doctrine of property represented a radical break from 34 the two conventional doctrines of his time—“acquisition”/“conquest” 35 DQGȤOHJDOGLYLVLRQȥ $UHQGW 3URSHUW\DQGRZQHUVKLSKDG 36 been viewed as human inventions that were supported by human 37 laws, but Locke argued that the human is by nature a proprietary 38 being. There are two essential elements in this new model of the 39 © 2016 State University of New York Press, Albany Political Economy and the Proper 9 subject, which has had drastic effects on modern thought: he elevated 1 the personal as the principle domain of property, and he created a 2 stark division between the proper and the common.

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