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A review by caris96
The Democratic Paradox by Chantal Mouffe
2.0
Chantal Mouffe’s thesis in this work can be summarized as follows: “the specificity of modern democracy lies in the recognition and the legitimation of conflict and the refusal to suppress it through the imposition of an authoritarian order. A well-functioning democracy calls for a confrontation between democratic political positions, and this requires a real debate about possible alternatives” (pp. 113).
Mouffe advances a defence of ‘agonism’, which refers to the positive aspects of conflict and their usefulness in a liberal-democratic society. She understands liberalism to mean the projects of universal equality and human rights, and democracy to mean the juxtaposition of an ‘us’ and ‘them’, and the notion of citizenship which delineates those who have access to rights and those who don’t. A liberal (or pluralist? Social?) democracy therefore aims to bridge these two often opposing worldviews.
Mouffe also criticizes the likes of Rawls and Habermas for their moralism and seems to advocate instead for an amoral politics, citing moral approaches as a hinderance to democratic decision-making (pp. 133). This is strange to me as I find myself agreeing more with her liberal opponents on this point; that is, morality is still a useful concept in political discourse. If we regard every politicized decision as amoral, we’ve ceded far more legitimate ground to fascism than we might have intended. I don’t know if in the year 2000 reactionary politics were as bleak as they are today (I wouldn’t see why not), but this seems to me an obviously naïve argument on Mouffe’s part. Then, a hundred pages in, we arrive at some of the most contentious of her claims, in my opinion:
“This is the real meaning of liberal-democratic tolerance, which does not entail condoning ideas that we oppose or being indifferent to standpoints we disagree with, but treating those who defend them as legitimate opponents. […] An adversary is an enemy, but a legitimate enemy, one with whom we have some common ground because we have a shared adhesion to the ethico-political principles of liberal democracy: liberty and equality. But we disagree concerning the meaning and implementation of those principles…” (pp. 102).
Really, Dr. Mouffe? Is this really a worthwhile or effective leftist strategy? And if we disagree concerning the ‘meaning’ of principles of liberty and equality to such an extent, are these principles really valuable? Following Stirner, for example, liberty means that the market is ‘free’, that religion is ‘free’, that the state is ‘free’, but not that I am free. It means these things are free to oppress me, whereas my liberty, to me, would mean my freedom from these things altogether. We don’t simply disagree on meaning, we have mutually exclusive, oppositional definitions of these principles, and to the extent that their ‘meaning’ is dominated so profusely by the hegemonic order, what use have we, the most marginalized on the Left, for them at all?
My general response to Mouffe and other social democratic arguments would be based on a few simple premises:
1) The adversaries of Leftism (from neoliberalism to fascism and in-between) do not play by the same rules of “agonism” that Mouffe advocates for; rather, they exercise authoritarian means to maintain their hegemony, whether that be the market or direct government.
2) If the Left insists on settling with anything less than these means of its adversaries, it will continue to be stifled by them. In a system which expressly thwarts truly democratic or electoral forms of change, and deliberately offers only means of superficial change in order to maintain its hegemony, socialist strategy must, by definition, involve forms of resistance and counter-hegemony that transgress (even denounce) neoliberal governance in order to succeed.
3) This requires serious reconsideration of the practicality of the dictatorship of the proletariat, both informed theoretically by Marxism, and also grounded historically in previous socialist projects. Indeed, we cannot simply dismiss the history of communism with appeals to its “collapse” or “failure” ad nauseam without learning from it, refining it, and organizing around those lessons. This includes not only successful proletarian revolutions, but socialist regimes overthrown in their infancy by Western adversaries. In fact, almost no incidents in history empirically substantiate the efficacy of a domesticated social-democracy for which Mouffe advocates (e.g. the September 30th Movement). And perhaps this explains why she seems incapable of providing any tangible steps in achieving it here and now, save for a few vague references to a pan-Europeanism.
I’ve wrestled with Chantal Mouffe’s work for a while now, but if I had to take sides in this post-Marxist debate, I’d have to say Ellen Meiksins Wood wins out. Wood kind of eviscerates Mouffe in “the Retreat from Class”, and at this point, I just don’t see much of a use for the latter’s theory. This certainly deserves more than one star, as Mouffe engages well with other thinkers, but she lacks much of a direction for her own input in my opinion. I still think “Hegemony and Socialist Strategy” is a solid work, and “The Return of the Political” is at least worth a read—more than I can say about this book here.
Mouffe advances a defence of ‘agonism’, which refers to the positive aspects of conflict and their usefulness in a liberal-democratic society. She understands liberalism to mean the projects of universal equality and human rights, and democracy to mean the juxtaposition of an ‘us’ and ‘them’, and the notion of citizenship which delineates those who have access to rights and those who don’t. A liberal (or pluralist? Social?) democracy therefore aims to bridge these two often opposing worldviews.
Mouffe also criticizes the likes of Rawls and Habermas for their moralism and seems to advocate instead for an amoral politics, citing moral approaches as a hinderance to democratic decision-making (pp. 133). This is strange to me as I find myself agreeing more with her liberal opponents on this point; that is, morality is still a useful concept in political discourse. If we regard every politicized decision as amoral, we’ve ceded far more legitimate ground to fascism than we might have intended. I don’t know if in the year 2000 reactionary politics were as bleak as they are today (I wouldn’t see why not), but this seems to me an obviously naïve argument on Mouffe’s part. Then, a hundred pages in, we arrive at some of the most contentious of her claims, in my opinion:
“This is the real meaning of liberal-democratic tolerance, which does not entail condoning ideas that we oppose or being indifferent to standpoints we disagree with, but treating those who defend them as legitimate opponents. […] An adversary is an enemy, but a legitimate enemy, one with whom we have some common ground because we have a shared adhesion to the ethico-political principles of liberal democracy: liberty and equality. But we disagree concerning the meaning and implementation of those principles…” (pp. 102).
Really, Dr. Mouffe? Is this really a worthwhile or effective leftist strategy? And if we disagree concerning the ‘meaning’ of principles of liberty and equality to such an extent, are these principles really valuable? Following Stirner, for example, liberty means that the market is ‘free’, that religion is ‘free’, that the state is ‘free’, but not that I am free. It means these things are free to oppress me, whereas my liberty, to me, would mean my freedom from these things altogether. We don’t simply disagree on meaning, we have mutually exclusive, oppositional definitions of these principles, and to the extent that their ‘meaning’ is dominated so profusely by the hegemonic order, what use have we, the most marginalized on the Left, for them at all?
My general response to Mouffe and other social democratic arguments would be based on a few simple premises:
1) The adversaries of Leftism (from neoliberalism to fascism and in-between) do not play by the same rules of “agonism” that Mouffe advocates for; rather, they exercise authoritarian means to maintain their hegemony, whether that be the market or direct government.
2) If the Left insists on settling with anything less than these means of its adversaries, it will continue to be stifled by them. In a system which expressly thwarts truly democratic or electoral forms of change, and deliberately offers only means of superficial change in order to maintain its hegemony, socialist strategy must, by definition, involve forms of resistance and counter-hegemony that transgress (even denounce) neoliberal governance in order to succeed.
3) This requires serious reconsideration of the practicality of the dictatorship of the proletariat, both informed theoretically by Marxism, and also grounded historically in previous socialist projects. Indeed, we cannot simply dismiss the history of communism with appeals to its “collapse” or “failure” ad nauseam without learning from it, refining it, and organizing around those lessons. This includes not only successful proletarian revolutions, but socialist regimes overthrown in their infancy by Western adversaries. In fact, almost no incidents in history empirically substantiate the efficacy of a domesticated social-democracy for which Mouffe advocates (e.g. the September 30th Movement). And perhaps this explains why she seems incapable of providing any tangible steps in achieving it here and now, save for a few vague references to a pan-Europeanism.
I’ve wrestled with Chantal Mouffe’s work for a while now, but if I had to take sides in this post-Marxist debate, I’d have to say Ellen Meiksins Wood wins out. Wood kind of eviscerates Mouffe in “the Retreat from Class”, and at this point, I just don’t see much of a use for the latter’s theory. This certainly deserves more than one star, as Mouffe engages well with other thinkers, but she lacks much of a direction for her own input in my opinion. I still think “Hegemony and Socialist Strategy” is a solid work, and “The Return of the Political” is at least worth a read—more than I can say about this book here.