RAW POLITICS Politics without the State Terry Eyssens This thesis is submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. School of Behavioural and Social Sciences and Humanities. University of Ballarat PO Box 663 University Drive, Mount Helen Ballarat, Victoria 3353 Australia Submitted in January 2011 ABSTRACT This thesis begins with the contemporary political situation, where the extent of political thought and activity has been largely reduced to repetitive discussion about how established liberal representative systems of governments should best function. In this situation, where the State and its institutions have a monopoly on politics, there is almost no scope for the consideration of other modes of political thought and activity – in particular, the possibility of politics without the State. The argument is framed by two different responses to this situation. Firstly, many political philosophers (such as Richard Rorty) argue that the monopoly is here to stay, that western liberal democracy is as good as it gets, and that the best we can do is attempt to improve the system by alleviating the occurrences of injustice that remain. On the other hand (and in their own ways) Cornelius Castoriadis and Michel Foucault argue that current political thought is fundamentally obsolete and incongruous with our present and call for a shift away from our reliance on traditional forms of political organisation. As such, they call for us to „invent new modes of being together‟ and „new schemas of politicisation‟. In response to Rorty‟s provocation and to the calls of Foucault and Castoriadis, the thesis firstly examines traditional anarchist theorisations of „politics without the state‟ and finds them to be as contained by the State and its founding concepts as the political liberalism of our present. All that remains to be salvaged from anarchist thought is the idea expressed in its name: that is, to be „without rulers‟. In order to escape such conceptual containment, Raw politics aims to produce a „stripped-down‟ conceptualisation of politics. This politics is the practical activity of people being together, talking together, and responding to their time and place together, in ways which are not enclosed, limited or monopolised by notions of allegiance to governmental institutions, by community or collective identity, or by ideas derived from particular and incongruous historical or geographical events (such as the Athenian polis). This is a politics that does not posit an end to its activity that is other than its activity. As such, Raw politics is a politics „without the State‟, „without rulers‟ – a politics for politics‟ sake. ii STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP Except where explicit reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis contains no material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or part from a thesis by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma. No other person‟s work has been relied upon or used without due acknowledgement in the main text and bibliography of the thesis. Signed: Dated: Terry Eyssens Candidate Signed: Dated: Dr. Jane Mummery Principal Supervisor iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I could not have completed this thesis without the inspiration, adulteration and support of a good number of people and I would like to thank them for this. Firstly, I thank Karen Ballard and Ziggy Ballard for their enduring patience, love, friendship and good natured encouragement over the five years that this work has taken to complete. Ziggy deserves extra thanks for his editorial assistance as I worked towards a complete draft. Thanks to my family, who have always supported me. I am also very grateful for the support of my great friends, Simon Firth, Alan Turner, Jeroen van Veen, Kristelle Sherwood, Leanne Hogben, Sally Skinner, Damien Dupuis, Antony McMullen, Damon Young, Craig Middleton, Andrew Taylor, Bianca Taylor and Paul Watt. I look forward to seeing more of them now that this work is done. I‟d like to offer my sincere appreciation to the University of Ballarat, particularly those in the Research and Graduate Studies Office, for providing me with both the opportunity and the material support to pursue this project. Many people have read and commented on draft sections and chapters of this thesis. Their comments, questions and critiques have been invaluable. Thanks to Sally Skinner, Alan Turner, Roberto Schiavo Lena, Damien Dupuis and Damon Young. I must also thank my examiners, whose comments and criticisms have been vital in the completion of this work. To my lovely friends, students and colleagues at the University of Ballarat, particularly Marnie Nolton, Erika Gaudlitz, Alice Mills, Neena Misra, Strobe Driver, Demelza Hall, Christina Sadowski, Blake Peck, Zeb Leonard, Kate Brass, Deborah Greenslade, Nicholas Moll and Paul Williams, thanks for sharing this strange, meandering experience with me. Marnie Nolton, Erika Gaudlitz and Alice Mills deserve extra thanks for reading sections of the thesis and providing exceptional advice and feedback. I am grateful to my supervisors, Dr. Jane Mummery and Dr. Jeremy Smith for the amazing trust they have had in me. This gave me the licence and the confidence to follow my thoughts where they would go. I also thank them for their steady and firm guidance as I thought through and wrote this thesis, and for pushing me to places I was reluctant to go. Most of all, thanks to Jane Mummery for doing more for me during the writing of this thesis than everyone else put together. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………………………… ii STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ……………………………………………….. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ………………………………………………………... iv TABLE OF CONTENTS …………………………………………………………... v INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………………….. 1 1. THE STATE: Necessity and its discontents ………………………………………. 11 The modern State …………………………………………………………………….. 11 The necessary State ………………………………………………………………….. 13 The default State ……………………………………………………………………... 17 The absence of the (natural) State …………………………………………………… 19 Against necessity (and sometimes nature): Anarchism and the anarchists ………….. 23 The endurance of the liberal State …………………………………………………… 31 2. THE INTRANSIGENT STATE: As good as it gets ……………………………… 36 The inertia of necessity ………………………………………………………………. 37 The conventional State ………………………………………………………………. 40 The consequences of convention (as pragmatism) …………………………………... 41 Liberalism and politics ………………………………………………………………. 45 As good – and as bad – as it gets …………………………………………………….. 50 Violence and the State ……………………………………………………………….. 51 Coercion by convention ……………………………………………………………… 54 Conventions and power ……………………………………………………………… 61 3. ALLEGIANCE AND ALIENATION: The State needs us 65 Necessity again: The necessities of the State ………………………………………... 67 From phraseology to ideology ……………………………………………………….. 71 Flight forward into Hegel ……………………………………………………………. 73 Marx, the State, and Alienation ……………………………………………………… 75 Alienation, anomie and the State …………………………………………………….. 80 From convention to governmentality ………………………………………………... 83 The State needs „us‟ to be an „I‟ ……………………………………………………... 86 v 4. FREEDOM FROM POLITICS: For the subsistence of the State ………………. 88 Freedom from the senses …………………………………………………………….. 89 The Enlightenment context ………………………………………………………….. 92 From detached minds to detached citizenry …………………………………………. 94 Autonomy and the social world ……………………………………………………… 98 Overcoming detachment: From thinking to doing …………………………………... 100 Autonomy and autarkeia ……………………………………………………………. 102 Autonomy and freedom in political life ……………………………………………... 106 Foucault: Autonomy as critique ……………………………………………………... 111 The refusal of the limits of the State ………………………………………………… 113 5. AGAINST SUBSISTENCE: Refusing freedom from politics …………………… 116 Castoriadis and the invention of a new mode of politics ……………………………. 117 The refusal of subsistence …………………………………………………………… 122 Foucault and the subject of discourse ………………………………………………... 130 To refuse subsistence ………………………………………………………………… 134 Foucault and Castoriadis: Politics without the State? ……………………………….. 141 6. A PLOY: Strategy, play and gathering …………………………………………… 147 Strategy and play …………………………………………………………………….. 148 Playing out the subject (or playing without the subject) …………………………….. 157 Politics for politics‟ sake …………………………………………………………….. 158 i. Politics ………………………………………………………………………. 158 ii. Being together: gathering …………………………………………………... 163 iii. Discussing together: everyday speech, parrhesia and sincerity……………... 166 iv. Deciding together?: interpellation and doing, sending and deployment …... 172 v. Is this democracy? ………………………………………………………….. 177 vi. Anarchism again ……………………………………………………………. 180 A ploy ………………………………………………………………………………... 181 7. FROM WITHERING TO WHATEVER: Approaches to non-State politics …... 183 Subjectivity of the multitude – Experience of an „ungathered‟ ethical subject ……… 183 Empire, multitude, the common ……………………………………………………... 185 Multitude and revolutionary freedom ………………………………………………... 193 Politics of the multitude, weight of Empire …………………………………………. 196 vi Ethics as non-state politics ………………………………………………………...… 201 Critchley‟s ethics for „anarchic metapolitics‟ ……………………………………….. 202 May‟s ethics for a poststructuralist anarchism ………………………………………. 205 Ethics and raw politics ………………………………………………………………. 209 Where to? Whatever? ………………………………………………………………... 211 8. RAW POLITICS: Of purities … and the raw ……………………………………. 214 Politics ……………………………………………………………………………….. 214