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In Praise of Partisanship

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In Praise of Partisanship A SPECULATIVE THEORY OF POLITICS LOGIC OF THE PARTY-FORM A Dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Sergio Valverde IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Dr. Raymond Duvall, Dr. Antonio Vázquez-Arroyo March 2017 Copyright 2017 Sergio Valverde All rights reserved Table of Contents Chapter 1: Partisanship and Political Reason ……………………….4 Chapter 2: Crushing the Party……………………….………………39 Chapter 3: The Speculative Experience……………………………..63 Chapter 4: The Speculative Value-Form ……………………..……..88 Chapter 5: Crashing the Party…………………………………….…124 Bibliography…………………………………………………………166 i Introduction The US presidential elections of 2016 proved for some the limited possibilities of a two- party oligarchic system and the imperative need to represent more diverse political voices in the electorate. However, the crisis of the party system in America is not to be confused as the cause of the decay of the Republic but rather it is the increasing inequality that has been creeping into our political economy since the Reagan Administration that made possible the fatal choice in 2016 between the neoliberal globalism of the Clintons and the fascist populism of the Trumps. Political theory understands parties as professional machines isolated from society. In many senses, party politics takes place independently of social and economic phenomena. This work aims to show how partisanship is a phenomenon already embedded in the dynamic forces and struggles in society, even before the existence of formal parties, and shows the need for another philosophical understanding of partisanship than the dominant framework used thus far. In doing so, I retrace contemporary and ancient philosophical prejudices against parties and partisanship, and demonstrate through a new reading of Hegel and Marx, how a reframing of the philosophical can be compatible with partisan views, surpassing the moralism and idealism that characterize the dominant philosophical view of parties and politics. I call this re-framing speculative while the dominant paradigm I name it antinomian. In the speculative outlook, opposites are framed in a single political unity and at the same time they maintain their excluding differences. In the antinomian view, political opposition is a problem that must be resolved outside politics, in the realm of ethics or theology. I show that the speculative perspective allows us to comprehend politics in its own terms without abandoning the conceptual rigor and metaphysical pitch of philosophy. The antinomian perspective on the other hand attempts to discipline politics with the jurisprudence of the concept and in this manner leaves politics unknown. One vision belongs to the realist tradition defending something like an autonomy of politics; the other perspective violates such independence and it reduces itself paradoxically to condemnations or praise of the political without adding or subtracting substance. 1 The work of Marx and the revolutionary tradition that originates with Lenin reframed the notion of the partisan and demonstrated that first, partisanship operates still in the depths of the private sphere, in the imperative transactions that capitalism demands from us, and also, that this phenomena is one of the highest philosophical order, to be understood from the most advanced philosophical system produced by modernity - German idealism- and to be practiced not in the halls of universities but in the councils and meetings of political parties. In other words, speculative consciousness is fulfilled in practice, a timeless philosophical ideal if there ever was one that disappeared with the professionalization of philosophy and the privatization of public life. 2 CHAPTER 1 PARTISANSHIP AND POLITICAL REASON “Whoever has reflected little on the nature of an Assembly cannot fail to see that without an opposition, such Assembly is without inner and outer life. It is precisely this antagonism within it that forms its essence and justification. Without it, it has the appearance of only one party or just a clump.” –Hegel “One of the most widespread and unhealthy symptoms of public life is the contempt (if not open hostility) that is displayed towards adherence to a party. It is characteristic of political free lances, and political adventurers to repudiate party affiliations and to talk pompously about party ‘bigotry’, ‘dogmatism’, intolerance, and so on, and so forth. Serious politics can only be promoted by the masses; non- party masses that do not follow the lead of a strong party are, however, disunited, ignorant masses, without staying power, prone to become a plaything in the hands of adroit politicians, who always emerge ‘opportunely’ from the ranks of the ruling classes to take advantage of ‘favorable’ circumstances.” –Lenin “Parties live in a house of power.” –Weber Introduction: The Will to Party 2012 was a momentous year. The people of the world took the streets to demand political freedoms and economic justice. From ousting dictators to checking the banks, democratic energy burst in ways unseen in 30 years. The Reaction was swift. One raïs replaced another in Cairo with customary American backing. Civil war exploded in Libya and Syria on French bidding and Washington “leading from behind.” From Athens to Budapest, even as far north as Helsinki, far-right populism is now experiencing a new golden age. Obama’s imperial humanitarianism funded suspicious pro-democracy movements in Venezuela and Ukraine. As William Robinson writes, “The purpose of [US] ‘democracy promotion’ is not to suppress but to penetrate and conquer civil society in intervened countries, that is, the complex of ‘private’ organization such as political parties, trade unions, the media, and so forth, and from therein, integrate subordinate classes and national groups into a hegemonic transnational social order.” 1 There is one crucial difference between both popular movements. In Cairo and Madrid, protests targeted the political and economic elite; in Kiev and Caracas, pro- 1 William I. Robinson, 1996, Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, Intervention, and US Hegemony. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p.29 3 Western oligarchies organized demonstrations to topple democratically elected leaders. These are two forms of partisanship with two opposite concepts of democracy, one of participation, the other to cement class power. Turning the tide to 40 years of neoliberal depoliticization, these developments show that not only rich elites, but the ordinary citizenry attach great importance to parties and political agitation. Political change is practically impossible in the absence of durable parties. Parties provide leadership and organization to embryonic movements and an invaluable economy of energy to the people. The Left is not the only one that is aware of needing a party organization, even if such awareness is brought by its current defeat. Two recent examples in US politics suffice. Without broad popular support, the Tea Party’s consistent leadership and deep pockets have penetrated the Republican Party becoming a third force in US politics. Occupy Wall Street was finished in its first New York winter. Having no specific program, ideology, leadership and organization, Occupy was seen more as a public nuisance that the Wall Street-funded NYPD quickly scattered. In its lack of ideological articulation, Occupy wasted a precious opportunity to appeal to the working class. The only tangible result, however, was to install the idea of the “99%” in ordinary speech. The Tea Party in contrast commands three State executives (Indiana, Kansas, and Wisconsin) and controls over 20 elected officials in federal legislature2. Parties are the most important organizations of today’s ‘competitive’ regimes. They have been key agents of political development, of revolutions and counterrevolutions in the modern era. Parties mediate civil society and the State; their history draws an arc from being civil associations to the monopoly of the State, of forming party-States (Parteienstaat), as Gerhard Leibholz called it in the 1920s. Leibholz believed that parties activated the masses and bound them to the State. Thus, parties had a foundational role in modern politics. Without “the interposition of these organizations, 2 “A political organization capable of handling such colossal tasks cannot arise spontaneously or haphazardly; it has to be continuously, consistently and consciously built. It is not only foolish but fatal to take a lackadaisical attitude toward party-building or its problems. The bitter experiences of so many revolutionary opportunities aborted, mismanaged, and ruined over the past half century by inadequate or treacherous leaderships has incontestably demonstrated that nonchalance in this vital area is a sure formula for disorientation and defeat.” James P. Cannon, “The Revolutionary Party and Its Role in the Struggle for Socialism”, International Socialist Review, Vol.28 No.5, September-October 1967. 4 the people would today be an amorphous mass, politically powerless and helplessly vegetating to and fro” 3. Yet the rapports of parties with the masses are always shifting, forming cycles of demobilization and mobilization, from elitism to populism and back. At the beginning of the democratic era, parties were elite organizations concerned with managing class power in a world of restricted participation. This type of elite party in Western Europe was not fully integrated into the nascent State bureaucracy
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