Review
In ‘Figures of Communism,’ an alternative to combat the new forms of fascism
The book will appeal to those who are sensitive to the problems posed by the ecological or feminist movements but don’t manage to grasp the element that unites them. And it will appeal to those who are unwilling to give up on communism altogether.
Amid the onslaught of extreme right forces that is upon us, there is at least one reason to read a book such as the one written by French philosopher and economist Frédéric Lordon, Figures du Communisme (“Figures of Communism”, French edition published in 2021 with La Fabrique Editions; translated to Italian as Figure del Communismo, Ponte alle Grazie, 300 pages, €22): in order to find an alternative to combat the new forms of fascism, and call it “communism,” one must make it desirable and give it a form. Or rather, a shape.
Without this work of giving shape, any story that goes by the name of “communism” will remain impractical. Communism, Lordon observes, cannot be desirable just because capitalism has become odious. It must be desirable for its own sake. And to be so, it must be seen, imagined, felt. In short, it must give itself a form.
One possible shape of communism, and a viable goal of politics as we have it now, is what Lordon calls a “general economic guarantee.” This is, in other words, what has elsewhere been called an “unconditional basic income,” a proposal that falls within the scope of what can be called, legally and politically, a right of existence: that is, a revolutionary principle that can underlie both material action designed to guarantee a decent life and a new Constitution that would guarantee human life as well as the lives of other species. Such a “guarantee,” formulated by Lordon with an interesting take on the work of French sociologist Bernard Friot, author of the “living wage” theory, is a communist measure because it cuts off the capitalist blackmail, i.e. “work for a miserable wage or starve.”
Another shape of communism would be “the formation of a new hegemonic bloc” driven by “the masses and their outbursts” in response to the current closure of both the “social-democratic” space, “revolutionary vanguards” and “armed struggle” (since “no one has the will to take up arms”). This (Gramscian) idea of a “hegemonic bloc” is the antithesis to the performance art of the post-fascists, who think they’ve successfully appropriated Gramsci only because they speak of a “war of ideas” purged of any reference to class struggle. What they’re actually doing is engaging in class struggle by allying themselves with the new European Commission, Musk and the new technofascism.
For Lordon, on the other hand, a “hegemonic bloc” is the result of a politics of emancipation based on the “guarantee of existence,” a general system of health, and access “to the means of material tranquility.” Together, these conditions must be created, or re-established, in order to develop the creative powers of all and institute free production and association, which are denied at the root by capitalism. Such a “bloc” could oppose capitalist hegemony by organically linking relatively autonomous struggles against racism and the gendered exploitation of reproductive labor to anti-capitalism, without subordinating one to the other.
Lordon breathes new life into an important political direction that has arisen from the new social movements and the reflection they have generated. In the last part of his book, the philosopher argues that the practical critique of capitalist domination cuts across all the dimensions in which the latter has asserted itself: from that of racial domination (colonialism as a fact of capitalist expansion; internal racism as a factor in the production of an underclass) and gender (separation of labor between the sexes, including in the wage system; wage inequality between the sexes), and arises even if capitalism is egalitarian in terms of race and gender. The failure to make connections between these dimensions allows adversaries to creep in and poison the wells. The recent U.S. elections have provided yet another example of this.
The main valuable point of this book lies in its pragmatic and political tension that allows a reader reduced to despair by the closing off of visions of the future to reconnect with the desire to take the initiative. It will appeal to those who are sensitive to the problems posed by the ecological or feminist movements but don’t manage to grasp the element that unites them. And it will appeal to those who are unwilling to give up on communism altogether – and rightly so – and are wondering how one might start to weave its fabric once more, seeing it against the light both with respect to the actions of the aforementioned movements and with respect to the current reactionary offensive.
The book can relieve the doubts of those who are skeptical that communism is a transition and that it goes up against both the market and the state. Lordon might answer that this too is a “figure of communism,” namely the dialectic of praxis. In addition to “what to do,” one must ask the question of how to do it while the current is moving in a different direction. In this, even a book can be helpful in learning how to swim.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/unalternativa-di-combattimento-contro-le-nuove-forme-del-fascismo on 2024-12-04