The Decline of the Class Struggle

Post-Marxism is important today. Post-Marxism implies that elements of Marxism are taken up and utilized for the struggle for freedom while other elements are rejected. We will now examine the issue of 'class' and why class is no longer relevant as a category to initiate a struggle for freedom. In moving from Marxism to post-Marxism in this way, we will have to marginalize certain identities, while bringing other identities closer to the struggle for freedom. We will also have to change the fundamental ways in which a Marxist views society and reality. But, we must also show how the Marxist way of doing analysis is still a positive way of articulating a struggle for freedom.

Class is no longer very relevant. This is because the class-based way of struggle (“class struggle”) only goes to divide the population along certain lines which do not 'naturally' pertain to how society is constructed in reality; the class struggle assumes the creation of a class consciousness, which is a slow and complicated process. Indeed, it is because of the inadequacy of the class struggle that there is so much violent conflict as a result of the struggle. Frustration is an important consequence in class struggle; frustration determines the violence of the class struggle; frustration signifies that the divisions of class are inadequate. Many a politician diverts the attention of the crowd towards the other from the upper class, as if the other is the problematic site of the class struggle. In fact, it is never another subject, but the Other of analysis and knowledge (“Other as language” in the Lacanian sense) which is problematic. But the Other is much more difficult to approach and counter for the masses than the other is; and countering the big Other may not be the way forward for struggles anyway. That is why the division of society based on class is still an easy way out for those who want to vent or apply frustration.

Society today is much more blended in than the divisions based on class makes apparent. The upper class person may be a kin or a friend of a lower class person and so on. Society is organically more whole rather than fractured along class lines. Different class elements interact in the everyday, that is, constantly, so it is highly impossible to formulate an antagonistic relationship between two classes. All classes are vital to society. For a class struggle, there is the need of an 'incubation' period, a preparing period...and it is this period where the nefarious elements of class struggle, such as propaganda, are produced. 

But, what is most important is that the lower classes of today have themselves been made into important objects rather than serving as an excess to capitalism. There is no human excess to capitalism today, in that, all peoples are relevant. This is the transition highlighted by Foucault in his text on the birth of 'population' as a category: it is the whole population which is at stake, which is equally important for power, than one class being privileged over another. The days of privilege are gone. With the extinction of privilege along class lines, any critiques of the culture of the upper classes are also no longer important (the cultural sphere is the location where privilege is made apparent.) 

Having rejected the division of class, we must still believe that Marxism is a positive way forward. We must propose another type of division. The solution here too is borrowed from Foucault and Lacan: the division based on 'self' and 'other' is more important. This is because of the possibility that the knowledge of Marxism is available to all and has, in a sense, become part of the norm. There is no need for the group or the collective. The group or collective had as its birth the classroom, where the total population was gathered. To put forward a dialectic not between the powerful teacher and the student, but between the students is an important step to achieve in post-Marxist times. The fundamental critique must be leveled on the collective itself during the process of its learning, the collective as population and the self as an rebellious outlier to it. This means that learning should be individualized, each individual must creatively offer itself to the knowledge material at hand. 

Globalization and Types of Information

The streams of information in the age of globalization have been 'multiplied,' in the sense that the same subject now receives information from different sources, with different levels of 'accuracy' of these pieces of information. What is first at stake is the question of who these informational statements are speaking to, and to what end. It seems that today they are more and more speaking of the subject in his/her immediate present and immediate surroundings. One can think of 'Google Maps,' which can help the subject map the location of where he/she is standing right this moment. Before the global era, information was not so fast and applicable to the surroundings of people as they moved about. There was a possibility of 'going underground' and being away from information, the subject was not as vital to the flow of information as it is today...

In the global era, the person is at the border between two streams of information. In a sense, rather than creating territories that are more and more adept at housing the person, the global era creates 'asubjective' territories where the person himself/herself is the border. Being at the border between two, the subject is open to both streams of information. The subject hears two statements of information at the same time. Big media today is precisely concerned with making what the subject hears more 'sonorous,' that is, of having both sets of information provide the same type of content and the same level of accuracy. Today, one statement informs the other. And, both statements interchange rapidly, informing one another continuously and constantly. This sonorous seamless character of two streams of information keeps the subject in check, and doesn't allow in the subject to foster doubt. The main goal, always, is to keep constructing the subject as being at the border, to make the information seem trivial to the subject by creating in the subject a massive void, so that the subject desires more information to fill this void.

In the more extreme global, in the global with high levels of intense conflict, the same two streams of information do not inform one another, but are rather dissonant with one another, and create noise. There is inaccuracy in the content of the information and a chance to foster doubt in the subject, but even more so, cause a disturbance in the subject as to the possibility of a 'true' world with straightforward facts. Thus, the accuracy of information between two streams (two big media houses) is what indicates the level of functionality of the global. In this conflict-ridden global, the subject is no longer a functional border, but rather is divided by the two sets of information it receives.

Multinational Organizations and a Structuring of (Anxious) Power

It is time to ask for the legacy of multinational organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank. What have they achieved? It is not suffice to say that they have alleviated some of the world's problems, for these are not final but intermediate goals of the organizations...these are what they do in the everyday. But, what of their goals in the long-run? Since we do arrive at any conclusion from the fact that the West is, in fact, particularly obsessed with 'power,' we should ask, what have the multinational organizations done in the field of power? The answer is this: that they have constructed fantasies of structured power, meaning that, they have fantasized of having put power in a proper place and of having managed its flow into other places. 

What does it mean to structure something such as power? It means to spread out in different intensities the thing, but even before that, it means to divide and deconstruct the thing to such a degree that it becomes not something which can be captured by a single place, but is in fact many things/sub-components spread out across many places. So, structuring power is to eliminate power's oneness, and also to divide power along different intensities. This was achieved by the multinational organization: to divide the world along developed and developing lines, and then to posit different frameworks for each of these categories. The world, in other words, was fragmented along different intensities of power. We no longer live in a single (united) planet, but we live in a multiplicity...and our aim today, in servitude of power, has been to find more and more difference. 

Let us offer an explanation as to why there was the need in the developed world for such an organization as the UN or World Bank. It was inspired totally by a first-world problem: the inability to decide which nation would be the most powerful, and whether such a nation would be singularly powerful. Anxiety was key: anxiety that the other would be more powerful than one, and therefore, as an 'anti-anxiety' the developed world decided to combine and add up its resources and power, so that one wouldn't be more powerful than the many. Thus, we have the security council, where the heads of state all pool together their power and destabilize the weight of power in favor of themselves and away from the United States. A legally administered framework is in place, a placement of different nations along certain intensities of power so that any one nation cannot emerge as powerful within the framework. But what about outside the framework? It seems true that the structure is managed according to the agendas of what is outside of it. But what is most important is that the structure itself creates a position external/outside of it. It is not, therefore, in the context of an inside-outside reality where the structure is manifest, but, it is with the construction of a structure that the external is created. What we mean is that the UN did not emerge in the context of American dominance, but, it helped form American dominance in its own way. 

Anxiety does not completely quell the question of power, in a sense, anxiety is never a zero-sum game, but rather a compromise. The compromise here is that power would be maintained but it would be transformed into a multinational entity, rather than remain in the hands of a national entity. What is even more key about anxiety is that it is not so much turned towards the other (in a revolutionary vein) but rather turned towards the self (in a self-preservation vein). It does not seek to destroy the anxiety-producing other, it is not about valor, but, it is about making sure that one is protected, it is more defensive. Thus, it suffices when the other goes into hiding, when the powerful operates behind the scenes, where there is doubt as to whether the other operates or not. We have, in the security council of the UN, a great showcasing of the powerful network of individual nations, but, behind the scenes, the United States operates as the true power. As long as the US stays behind the scenes, the anxiety of other nations is not provoked and produced, but as soon as there is a show of power within the UN itself, then there is anxiety and a potential for conflict. The UN, therefore, poses as a neutral framework, a neutralizing structure, a structure which can defuse conflict and tensions...but in actual fact, there is an ignorance on the part of the UN regarding the fact that there are nations which operate their international relations outside of it. There is the real confusion in the UN between the notion that "power is structured" (a false notion) and "power desires (an other) structure" (a true notion). 

The UN is therefore a structure that does not itself have power but which manages power, which allows for a way to fight the anxiety of other nations in the face of US neo-imperialism. The UN upholds the illusion that it has true power, when in fact its only power is in upholding the veil which fights anxiety. But, if the UN is an empty mechanism, it certainly has another role to play in global politics: for if it is empty, it can be filled with a variety of substances...another very important role the UN body plays is by signifying the inevitability of the next empire. The UN is a body which can be used by any empire as it sees fit, it is a tool of power play and a tool of exercising power, without itself being powerful...it serves in the hands of the powerful. So, if the US withers away, the next power will be able to use the UN for its own ploys and tactics, and develop, via the UN framework, another type of international relations. This is precisely what the structuring of power means, that the principle of structuring has allowed empty positions to develop where different nations can sit and play their roles within the entire power play. And between the truly powerful and the rest is the question of anxiety, of self-preservation from a threat rather than any offensive towards itself gaining more power. 

The question now is this: how does one nation cease to play into its current position within the power play and become powerful by itself? How is there rebellion in a structure? Perhaps we have an answer if we revisit anxiety: a nation becomes anxious and defensive, not because of any weakness it sees with itself, but with the weakness of the mechanism (UN, World Bank) itself. When the mechanism which manages power itself becomes seen as weak, then there is anxiety among some elements within a structure. When the structure is weak, there is anxiety from structural elements within it. The veil itself appears damaged, allowing too much room for American power to manifest. Thus, with anxiety as its propulsion, a new nation challenges the veil, it challenges the UN. And there is now finally a conflict, between the US and this new nation, the outcome of which is that either this new nation is destroyed, or it gets a better position within the UN just to refurbish the veil of the UN itself. What this means is that, in global politics today, it is not so much about challenging the US which gives one power, but challenging and critiquing the UN, abstaining from the UN etc..the UN has become the site where power play can operate, a commons where two contesting powers conflict, rather than there being direct contact and friction between two powers. The irony is that, the more one nation abstains from the UN, or shows its anxiety regarding the UN, the more it becomes likely that it will be a dominant member of the UN in the future. The UN by itself has no answer to power play, it is formally ready for any type of power which seeks to fill it with substance. Therefore the UN is not a peace-building organization in any sense, it is rather, an organization which allows power to build itself and its influence in a very systematic manner, so that there is not much 'collateral damage' in the form of anxiety. 

And one gets anxious when one sees a glimpse of the other and thereafter begins the process of constructing a narrative about the other. What truth of anxiety can we shed here? We can say that anxiety is formed on the evidence that the other is in fact just like the self, that the other has the same desires as the self does, that the other is a mirror image of the self. The desires most hidden and suppressed within the self, when given a substance in the excluded other, provokes anxiety and posits questions and doubts regarding the whole power play of a tool such as the UN. It is not the case that an unfolding of the structure posits power at the end of it in a future which will never arrive, but, the excluded element is always animated, and makes of the whole structure a series of contact zones...the excluded element (neo-imperial USA) is very mobile, and it is this chaotic character too which causes anxiety among other nations.