{"id":4083,"date":"2018-10-30T10:21:49","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T14:21:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/?p=4083"},"modified":"2018-10-30T10:21:49","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T14:21:49","slug":"bernard-e-harcourt-epilogue-3-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/bernard-e-harcourt-epilogue-3-13\/","title":{"rendered":"Bernard E. Harcourt | Epilogue 3\/13"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Bernard E. Harcourt\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/3-13\/\">Praxis 3\/13 seminar<\/a> on Bernie Sanders\u2019 <em>Guide to Political Revolution\u00a0<\/em>(2017) and the Indivisible\u2019s <em>A Practical Guide to Resisting the Trump Agenda\u00a0<\/em>(2017) rubbed against a recurring point of friction at the intersection of critical theory and democratic politics: Is it ever possible for an <em>electoral\u00a0<\/em>strategy to be genuinely <em>critical<\/em>? Is it possible to construct a democratic <em>electoral\u00a0<\/em>platform with a realistic chance of succeeding in a country like the United States that also passes <em>critical\u00a0<\/em>muster?<\/p>\n<p>This represents a genuine dilemma, especially if we don\u2019t take the easy way out and let go of that realist constraint. Bernie Sanders almost won the Democratic nomination in 2016\u2014and might have, had it not been for Democratic machine shenanigans\u2014and many people still today ask whether he could have beaten Donald Trump. It\u2019s an open question. So his platform is probably as far to the Left as any possible leftist platform could be, still with a realistic chance of succeeding in this country.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, along several dimensions, Sanders\u2019 agenda seemed to miss the <em>critical\u00a0<\/em>mark. <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/amna-a-akbar-gross-collective-action\/\">Amna Akbar<\/a> criticized Sanders\u2019 <em>Guide <\/em>for not being sufficiently attuned to relations of power, a theme that <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/ghislaine-pages-revolutionary-in-rhetoric-only\/\">Ghislaine Pag\u00e8s<\/a> raised in her post as well; and Akbar faulted Sanders for not challenging the national security state\u2014a real problem if you believe, as I do, that we are experiencing an American Counterrevolution. Brandon Terry argued that the Sanders campaign was not sufficiently attuned to class conflict within African-American communities (26:40); the social problems associated with crime and policing, for instance, are not just problems of racism, but lie at the intersection of race and class, wealth, and poverty. Adam Tooze faulted the Sanders <em>Guide\u00a0<\/em>for its nationalist and patriotic appeals (51:30). The policy suggestions were often too simplistic and too vague, Tooze maintained, and, in the end, did not even amount to a democratic socialist agenda.<\/p>\n<p>The critiques were sharp and stinging, but more than anything they raised the genuine dilemma whether it is possible to honestly engage electoral politics from a critical perspective. If indeed the most important work of critique is <em>ideologiekritik\u00a0<\/em>or exposing regimes of truth, is it even worthwhile to propose policy platforms\u00a0<em>before\u00a0<\/em>the work of critical theory has been accomplished? If political proposals will not even appear reasonable before critique has prepared the ground, then inevitably a critical gaze will demolish any electoral platform that has a realistic chance of winning pre-critique\u2014almost by definition. What\u2019s the value of confronting an existing political platform with critique, then? It would be far more useful instead to just continue unveiling illusions outside or apart from the electoral process.<\/p>\n<p>More than anything, this highlights the instability, from a critical theoretic perspective, of one particular modality of praxis: namely, democratic electoral political practices. This is a crucial point to emphasize. It is an essential starting point if we are to have a fruitful conversation about a particular electoral strategy, such as that of Bernie Sanders and the Indivisible collective. These practices are fundamentally electoral political strategies\u2014as Brandon Terry emphasized as well. The Indivisible <em>Guide\u00a0<\/em>is entirely focused on putting pressure on members of Congress. Sanders\u2019 <em>Guide\u00a0<\/em>proposes predominantly legislative reform. The interventions target our elected officials for electoral change.<\/p>\n<p>In this sense, these practices, by definition, cannot be \u201crevolutionary,\u201d except in a loose metaphorical sense. They are embedded within a constitutional framework, depend on the existing political system, and do not even seek change at the level of a constitutional amendment. They are entirely non-revolutionary in the political sense. They are not intended to bring about a change in political regime. They are not intended to transform the <em>structures\u00a0<\/em>of political power\u2014just the democratic balance. These strategies are not meant to cause a \u201cpolitical revolution\u201d in the classic sense of that term\u2014as regime change. So why, then, does Sanders appropriate the term and why would it bother us that he does?<\/p>\n<p>This was a central point of contention for Adam Tooze, who opened his remarks by questioning the use of \u201crevolution\u201d in the title of his book. Sanders\u2019 platform, Tooze argued, proposes to overthrow or radically transform <em>nothing<\/em>. \u201cWhy use such a striking word in the title?\u201d If anything, Tooze suggested, what it reflects is that this <em>Guide <\/em>is truly \u201can <em>American\u00a0<\/em>political document.\u201d \u201cWho else could conceive of this program as a revolution, who else would use that term so casually, where else would such language actually resonate in this political moment?\u201d Tooze asked, \u201c(if it does.)\u201d (46:30)<\/p>\n<p>Tooze is surely right as a formal matter\u2014the <em>Guide\u00a0<\/em>does not advocate regime change or overthrow anything. But here is where we need to <em>reposition\u00a0<\/em>critique, I would argue. We need to rethink the very concept of a critical utopia. We also need to infuse our critical interpretations in the context of this particular modality of praxis\u2014democratic electoral politics\u2014with a bit more Straussianism. Let me explain.<\/p>\n<p>In today\u2019s political climate, almost two years into the Trump administration, I think it would <em>feel\u00a0<\/em>revolutionary\u2014in what way, exactly, I will come to\u2014, but it would <em>feel\u00a0<\/em>revolutionary to transform American society along the following lines, all spelled out by Bernie Sanders:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A national \u2018Medicare for All\u2019 single-payer system (81)<\/li>\n<li>Tuition-free higher education (105)<\/li>\n<li>Federal jobs program (25)<\/li>\n<li>Living minimum wage with paid parental and sick leaves and vacations (2; 17-19)<\/li>\n<li>Increase the number of union jobs by making it easier to join unions (16-17)<\/li>\n<li>A progressive estate tax (42)<\/li>\n<li>Abolition of the death penalty, private prisons, and militarized police forces (166; 165; 170)<\/li>\n<li>A path to citizenship for undocumented residents (189)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This program may well fall short, in certain respects, of genuine democratic socialism: making unionization easier is not the same as creating a political economy in which the workers control the means of production; a minimum living wage is not the same as a minimum standard of living; universal Medicare still depends on private doctors, etc.<a name=\"_ednref1\"><\/a>[1] But it is nevertheless the case that a society constructed along these lines\u2014and all the other myriad proposals like banning fracking (140), reforming personal income tax and closing tax loopholes (41), banning the box (172), legalizing marijuana (171), etc., etc., etc.\u2014would feel radically different than the current American political landscape.<\/p>\n<p>Radical, but not radical enough to be called revolutionary?<\/p>\n<p>What does that mean, \u201cnot radical enough\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>What it tells us, in effect, is that we have a preconceived, ready-made notion of what revolutionary change would amount to, and that Sanders\u2019 program does not pass the bar. If Sanders had proposed that private property be abolished or that workers control the means of production, things would be different\u2014he\u2019d be revolutionary. He\u2019d have crossed the Rubicon. But Sanders did not go politically far enough.<\/p>\n<p>The problem then is tied, at least in part, to this specific modality of praxis: democratic electoral politics in the United States does not allow for much more than what Sanders proposed with any likelihood of winning a presidential election in these times. So the mode of action places constraints on the political horizon\u2014and on political speech. I\u2019ll come back to this in a moment.<\/p>\n<p>There is more, though. The problem also relates to the reified nature of critical utopias. The formal resistance to calling Sanders\u2019 platform \u201cpolitically revolutionary\u201d reveals the rigidity of what it takes to be considered a paradigm shift: certain forms of reorganizing our political economy, such as facilitating unions and using progressive taxation, do not qualify as sufficiently critical, whereas other forms of reorganizing our political economy, such as shifting the means of production to the workers, would.<\/p>\n<p>But that seems far too foundationalist. It rests on an antiquated dogmatic Marxist view. Only if we are wedded to some communalist or socialist utopia\u2014one that, to the best of my knowledge, has never been properly achieved\u2014would we draw these lines.<\/p>\n<p>The real problem in all this, then, is an antiquated utopianism that is way too foundational and not properly situated\u2014not <em>en situation<\/em>, given the reality of American politics today. Truth is, we would be far better off if we imagined critical utopias <em>not\u00a0<\/em>through the lens of foundational ideas of political economy, but rather <em>as a substantial movement toward our critical values<\/em>. Our critical utopias should not aim at particular, rigid regime types, but should consist instead in <em>material change in the direction of our ideals<\/em>. This resonates, I think, with my argument <a href=\"https:\/\/harcourt.praxis.law.columbia.edu\/en\/open-review\/part-ii-utopia-reimagining-a-critical-horizon\/\">in Part II of <em>Critique &amp; Praxis<\/em><\/a>. It also may require flipping critique on its head, as <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/clayton-raithel-bernie-sanders-the-critical-theorist\/\">Clayton Raithel<\/a> suggests in his post.<\/p>\n<p>The fact is, the abolition of private property or the nationalization of industries does not guarantee fair and equitable outcomes. So we might end up calling a political transformation \u201crevolutionary\u201d even if it results in vastly disproportional distribution of resources to high functionaries of the system\u2014which should pose just as much of a problem with the use of the term \u201crevolutionary.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One option would be to do away with the term entirely; but a better option would be to get less formal: to conceive of a material change in the direction of our critical values as achieving revolutionary transformation. Beyond a certain point, our society would be so much better and more just that we could call that politically revolutionary change. In fact, we might even call it a social revolution\u2014for instance, if we had universal health care, tuition-free higher education, livable wages, a path to citizenship, etc., in this country. Only a misguided, antiquated, reified notion of a communist horizon would prevent us from thinking that we would have achieved radical, if not revolutionary change in America.<\/p>\n<p>Coming back to the first point\u2014electoral politics as a mode of praxis\u2014it is important to emphasize that the modality itself puts limits and constraints on the praxis.<\/p>\n<p>First, electoral politics as a praxis pushes us toward explicit proposals and platforms. It forces the political actors to position themselves along simple political lines. It does not really allow political actors, as allies, to step back.<\/p>\n<p>If you are running for office, realistically, it is probably not enough to say that you are going to create a space for the voice of those who are not being heard, to be heard. Only with great difficulty can you make the move that the founding intellectuals did in the manifesto of the <em>Groupe d\u2019information sur les prisons (GIP)\u00a0<\/em>and declare, as the GIP manifesto did, that \u201cIt is not for us to suggest reform. We merely wish to know the reality. And to make it known almost immediately, almost overnight, because time is short.\u201d<a name=\"_ednref2\"><\/a>[2] The idea of simply letting others be heard does not function very well in <em>electoral\u00a0<\/em>politics. The closest you get is the \u201clistening tour\u201d that has become increasingly popular as a way for a politician to claim to \u201clearn\u201d something from the people and to postpone some policy details. But electoral politics does not go very well with the arts of being an ally and stepping back. Aman Akbar correctly spoke about the need for progressive movements today to listen and make a space for the discourse of the less advantaged; and stressed that \u201cwe can\u2019t have all the answers.\u201d The trouble is, it is not clear how those sensibilities work, or if they can work well, with electoral politics as a mode of praxis.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone emphasized the need for critical thinkers to get outside the academy. I would like to end there because that is such a critical point. As many observe today, one of the central problems facing critical theory is that its field has narrowed. Critical theory has become increasingly limited to the academy and to professionalized critics\u2014as Didier Fassin and Linda Zerilli argue in forthcoming chapters to <em>A Time for Critique\u00a0<\/em>(Columbia University Press, forthcoming 2019).<\/p>\n<p>But if we are going to redress this problem, we, as critical theorists, are going to need to be a little more generous with non-academics or with non-professionalized critics. The fact of simplicity alone \u2013 or of \u201csloppy sociology\u201d as Adam Tooze said \u2013 cannot be a response to a practical guide like Sanders\u2019, which is intended to be a political platform and not a doctoral dissertation. For many reasons. First because Sanders is trying to cover eight disciplines, if not more, in 198 pages. But second, and more importantly, because simplicity may be serving other ends.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s close, then, by taking a closer look at one of the purportedly sloppiest areas in Sanders\u2019 <em>Guide<\/em>, namely immigration reform. During the seminar, Sanders was critiqued for only proposing solutions related to the <em>existing\u00a0<\/em>undocumented persons in this country, and failing to address the larger question of open borders\u2014a particularly tricky question for a socialist-friendly agenda given the longstanding tension between, on the one hand, the history of internationalism, and, on the other hand, the parochialism of national unions and domestic workers who fear that open borders would invite too much labor and thus depress domestic work and wages.<\/p>\n<p>A look at Sanders\u2019 <em>Guide\u00a0<\/em>makes clear that a lot of the proposals on immigration are indeed focused on the undocumented <em>already\u00a0<\/em>on American soil. When Sanders describes immigration reform in detail, he focuses, \u201cfirst and foremost,\u201d on \u201ccreating a path for the eleven million undocumented people in our country to become lawful permanent residents and eventually citizens\u201d (189); his immigration reform includes as well the DREAM Act for those in the military or attending college (189), ending family deportation sweeps (190), family detention (191) and private detention facilities (191), and imposing measures on employers to prevent exploitation of the undocumented (192).<\/p>\n<p>These particular measures do indeed focus on the undocumented who are already on American soil, but there are other recommendations that are more open ended:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cImmigration reform must create viable and legal channels that match our labor market needs and promote family cohesion.\u201d (192)<\/li>\n<li>\u201cImmigration reform must eliminate the three-year, ten-year, and permanent \u2018bars.\u2019\u201d (190)<\/li>\n<li>\u201cIn light of a historic refugee crisis, immigration reform means reaffirming our commitment to accepting our fair share of refugees.\u201d (193)<\/li>\n<li>\u201cAnd lastly, immigration reform means recognizing that inequality across the world is a major driving force behind migration. The truth is, our free-trade policies are exacerbating inequality by devastating local economies, pushing millions to migrate. We must rewrite our trade policies to end the race to the bottom and instead work to lift the living standards of Americans and people throughout the world.\u201d (193-94)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Those proposals are more open ended, and also address some of the supposed root causes of migration. Sanders\u2019 discussion of immigration embeds a lengthy discussion of the impact of NAFTA\u2014recognizing that migration and economic trade policies have to be addressed hand-in-hand.<\/p>\n<p>But even more, and more generously, when you look at where Sanders starts, it is not at all clear that the \u201cpath to citizenship\u201d is limited to only current undocumented residents\u2014or that there is any grandfathering going on. He defines \u201cpathway to citizenship\u201d openly for any and all \u201cundocumented immigrants living in the shadows.\u201d (177) There is no caveat that this applies only to <em>present\u00a0<\/em>undocumented residents; a proper system with a path to citizenship would apply prospectively to new undocumented residents as well. Some of the vocabulary is jarring on a first read\u2014and Tooze underscored this following passage:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>PATH TO CITIZENSHIP: a system that allows undocumented immigrants who are in good standing to pay a fine, learn English, and <em>go to the back of the line\u00a0<\/em>for the opportunity to become citizens. (177-178)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The language about going \u201cto the back of the line\u201d is somewhat harsh at first\u2014as Tooze emphasized. But in truth, all it means is that there is a queue: the most recently entered undocumented resident should not get their papers before another undocumented person who was here before them, in the queue. Surely we can agree on that. There should be chronological order to all this.<\/p>\n<p>So one way to read this platform is that, although it does not\u00a0<em>state\u00a0<\/em>\u201copen borders,\u201d it takes the approach of both addressing the root causes for migration and trying to put in place a process that would effectively create the possibility of far more open or porous borders. On its face, it is more than simply focused on the current undocumented population. And if we read it closely with more of a Straussian touch\u2014given especially the limitations of democratic electoral politics <em>as a mode of critical praxis<\/em>\u2014then surely there is a strong indication of the direction of change, in relation to our shared critical values.<\/p>\n<p>My point is <em>not\u00a0<\/em>that we should <em>not\u00a0<\/em>read critically. Critical readings are necessary and especially productive when they highlight conceptual problems. So, for instance, Tooze critiqued the anachronisms in Sanders\u2019 <em>Guide<\/em>: it makes more reference to 20<sup>th\u00a0<\/sup>century giants like IBM than to our current monopolist GAFAs (Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon). That does reflect either an outdated analysis or a sleight of hand (if in fact the hesitation to address the GAFAs is out of fear of alienating the younger generation). Important critique, worth pursuing.<\/p>\n<p>My point instead is two-fold: first, that electoral politics as a praxis puts certain constraints on political speech that may require us to read more subtly democratic electoral proposals; and second, that we need to discard antiquated reified utopias and begin to think and imagine more critically <em>en situation. <\/em>How then do we move critique outside the academy and beyond professionalized critics? Maybe we start by being more generous to fellow travelers.<\/p>\n<h1>Notes<\/h1>\n<p><a name=\"_edn1\"><\/a>[1] For a quick primer on democratic socialism, see the <em>New York Times\u2019\u00a0<\/em>concise recent article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2018\/09\/22\/us\/politics\/what-is-democratic-socialism.html\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"_edn2\"><\/a>[2] GIP, \u201c(Manifeste du GIP)\u201d (February 8, 1971), in Foucault <em>Dits &amp; \u00c9crits<\/em>, text no. 86 (translation by Stuart Elden).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Bernard E. Harcourt\u00a0 The Praxis 3\/13 seminar on Bernie Sanders\u2019 Guide to Political Revolution\u00a0(2017) and the Indivisible\u2019s A Practical Guide to Resisting the Trump Agenda\u00a0(2017) rubbed against a recurring point of friction at the intersection of critical theory and&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/bernard-e-harcourt-epilogue-3-13\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51935],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts-3-13"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4083\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}