Ted Stolze: Resources of Hope, Logics of Struggle

In 1864 Karl Marx drafted the "Provisional Rules" that would be formally adopted in 1866 by the International Working Men's Association or "First International." In this document we can clearly see that the defining feature of Marx's mature politics was "that the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves; that the struggle for the emancipation of the working classes means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule" (Political Writings, Volume III: The First International and After, p. 82). In what follows I would like to generalize Marx's all-too-often forgotten "principle of self-emancipation," and to defend Etienne Balibar's contention not only that everyone in society have a fundamental "right to politics," but also that no one "can be properly emancipated from outside or from above, but only by his or her own (collective) activity" (Politics and the Other Scene, p. 167). Although Balibar does not do so himself, one could go beyond a strategic assessment about how best to realize human rights and construct a specifically normative Principle of Self-Emancipation, which I formalize as follows:

A Principle of Self-Emancipation: Actions undertaken to improve the well-being of the oppressed should be either led by the oppressed themselves or, to the extent that this is not feasible, at their behest and under their authority.

Several remarks on this normative principle are in order. First of all, by "oppressed" I mean those who are subject to unreasonable structural or institutional constraint on self-development. Or, in Jean-Paul Sartre's admirably plain terms, oppression consists in "treating the Other as an animal" (Critique of Dialectical Reason, Volume One: Theory of Practical Ensembles, p. 110).

Secondly, following Roy Bhaskar, I use the stronger term "emancipation" instead of "liberation" in order to stress that what I have in mind is not simply the "amelioration of states of affairs" but the "transformation of structures." Moreover, as Bhaskar puts it, self-emancipation also depends on "a conscious transformation in the transformative activity or praxis of the social agents concerned" (Philosophy and the Idea of Freedom, pp. 75-76).

Thirdly, I have qualified this principle to allow the oppressed on prudential grounds--e.g., physical incapacity or external impediment--to select their emancipators from among the non-oppressed. Such selection, of course, need not in every case be the result of a formal election process but can be a matter of a general willingness to cooperate with actions undertaken on their behalf by emancipators.

Fourthly, the Principle of Self-Emancipation is not generally applicable as a comprehensive moral principle (given the problematic cases of children, the severely mentally disabled, and non-humans); hence, following John Rawls's important distinction, I construe it in a restricted and specifically political way. As an immediate implication of Rawls's distinction, I shall identify my own commitment not to a comprehensive, metaphysical Marxism but to a self-standing, political Marxism. A good illustration of what I mean by "political" Marxism would be Marx's opposition to the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin's efforts to make atheism a condition of membership in International Working Men's Association. Although Marx himself, as is well known, was an atheist, he was equally pragmatic and feared a split in the International that would have resulted in the loss of most of the English members.

Note, finally, that there is an unavoidable gap between an ideal of self-emancipation and the non-ideal circumstances that arise in the world. No doubt in certain emergency situations, there is no possibility for consultation between oppressed and emancipators. Nonetheless, even in emergencies an emancipator ought (a) to act as if such consultation had occurred and (b) to be willing and able later to justify to the victim of oppression why she acted as she did.

Since I do not have space to provide a full defense of the Principle of Self-Emancipation, here let me offer only a sketch of my argument. The main point is that such a principle recognizes and preserves the dignity of the victim and avoids paternalism. Although bystanders may be in a position to know who is a victim and why, who other than victims themselves are in a position to express the demand that they be rescued, and in what manner? Victims are never merely victims, they are never simply objects to be manipulated

Ernst Bloch memorably indicated a phenomenological dimension of dignity in terms of the human posture itself: "Walking upright, this distinguishes men from animals, and it cannot yet be done. It exists only as a wish, the wish to live without exploitation and masters" (The Principle of Hope, p. 1367). Nonetheless, even under the most nightmarish circumstances, as Terrence Des Pres argued in The Survivor, his moving "anatomy of life in the death camps," victims of oppression strive to retain their dignity. In short, we must beware of lapses into what Alex Callinicos has termed "moral imperialism," by which self-serving emancipators wind up unilaterally imposing assistance on those deemed to be in need of deliverance from oppression ("The Ideology of Humanitarian Intervention," in Masters of the Universe: NATO's Balkan Crusade, pp. 175-189).

Finally, consider the relationship between dignity and civility. By "civility," I mean, following Balibar, a social condition in which violence and cruelty have been reduced to a minimum. In fact, Balibar has defended a "bottom-up" approach to civility by which "'multitudes'--'ordinary' citizens, classes, 'mass' parties--have come together to force the state to recognize their dignity, and to introduce norms of civility into public service or the public sphere. They have done so precisely in so far as they have used the state and its institutions (schools, the legal and political systems) to civilize themselves--that is to say, in the first instance, to represent the world to themselves as a shared space in which they have their place" (Politics and the Other Scene, p. 33). Indeed, the historical achievement of "mutual recognition" would seem to require ongoing asymmetrical popular pressure on, democratization of, and, ultimately, dismantling of the repressive state apparatus. As Balibar writes elsewhere, "in the course of the class struggle itself" we can see a "practical anticipation of a communist civility" ("The Vacillation of Ideology in Marxism," in Masses, Classes, Ideas, p. 123).

Beyond the theoretical question of how best to respect the dignity of the oppressed, however, there is an eminently practical justification for self-emancipation. For I take it that the purpose of a social movement is not to go down fighting but ultimately to win! Yet, as Alan Gilbert has observed, if a movement to improve the well-being of the oppressed is indeed to be successful, it must stimulate internal discussion of central issues that arise before it. Gilbert puts it well:

To combat a centralized, brutal regime with an experienced network of activists, these movements need decisive leadership. They cannot expect to convene or even vote on every important issue. But to be democratic, that movement needs an understanding of political autonomy, of the Rousseauan and Rawlsian test that each participant can conceive of himself or herself as a member of an ideal sovereign, deliberating in favorable circumstances on the best policies for that movement and the best institutions for a new regime, and, even when disagreeing, can find the main decisions reasonable ("Political Philosophy: Marx and Radical Democracy," in The Cambridge Companion to Marx, edited by Terrell Carver, pp. 190-91).

Here is a key point, then: as a movement of the oppressed takes shape, to the greatest feasible extent the oppressed must be able to deliberate among themselves regarding their own interests and objectives in lessening or eliminating the oppression they experience. As a result, third parties who want to support the cause of the oppressed must do so cautiously and with humility. Above all else, they should repudiate all forms of political paternalism.