PE You said that the most important thing today is to reach the conviction that something other than capitalism is actually possible. Why do people today find it so hard to imagine an alternative to capitalist society?
AB The big argument is that there’s no modern alternative to capitalism. And that concerns democracy, living in peace, sexual freedom, freedom of morals, the status of women and so forth. All those things are part of the great propaganda of capitalism, because they’re a result of it.
PE So you think that capitalism is responsible for all the things you just listed?
AB Of course capitalism is responsible for them. Definitely.
PE But isn’t that the discourse that legitimizes Western culture?
AB Generally speaking, one could call it the ‘democratic discourse’.
PE Right, but what is the democratic discourse?
AB It’s what I refer to as ‘modernity’, which essentially means a discourse about individual freedoms in the broader sense, that is, personal freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, freedom of assembly and so on.
PE Gender equality!
AB Exactly, gender equality and whatever other kind of equality. That’s the dominant discourse of the West, there’s no doubt. And this discourse is post-nationalist.
PE So you’re saying that the nationalist discourse has disappeared?
AB No, it hasn’t disappeared, but one can certainly observe a weakening of the nation state. The difference is that nationalism today isn’t taken for granted as a natural passion any more. The nationalist discourse has grown weaker in the West. It’s no longer a dominant discourse as it was in the nineteenth century and a large part of the twentieth, because this discourse dominated Europe until the end of the Second World War. It became weaker after that, and lost further influence through the colonial wars. In France, for example, the colonial wars – the war in Indochina and so on – were the last strong expression of nationalism. And because these wars were ultimately useless and were lost, the nationalist discourse was further weakened as well. But I insist that it’s not dead! The best proof of this is that there are organizations that are trying to revive nationalism in order to fight against globalized capitalism with its help, organizations that pose as anti-capitalists. The modern fascist movements also claim to be against globalized capitalism. In France, for example, the National Front is demanding an exit from the EU and the euro, which would ultimately mean an exit from European capitalism.
So this discourse isn’t dead, but I do think it’s been weakened. And that’s a symptom of the crisis in the dominant discourse that I call the ‘democratic discourse’, the discourse that Hollande championed after the terrorist attacks in Paris: the values of freedom, gender equality, moral freedom and so forth. This is the dominant discourse. And why is it dominant? Because it’s a discourse that can claim, ‘Look! Democracy only exists in the developed and globalized capitalist countries! So capitalism and democracy are inseparable, and you’ll have to accept capitalism whether you like it or not, in the name of democracy! Because you want democracy, you’ll be forced to accept capitalism!’ That’s the dominant argumentation. That’s why one has to invent a modernity that can also be compatible with something other than capitalism. Otherwise the situation will remain as it is. One has to invent a new modernity. That’s the great problem. The socialist states already made a mistake by being archaic and traditionalistic in many ways. They promoted the state, obedience and authority. In the realm of aesthetics and morals they were reactionary. One of the great failures of the socialist states – beside their terrorist and criminal side, which was bad enough – was that in the 1920s or 1930s they were already unable to present themselves as a genuinely modern alternative. They gave the impression of being somehow backward, and that’s not just a matter of the economy. Perhaps this question concerns life in a far more general sense. It’s what gave these countries their reactionary character in many aspects; not only regarding freedoms in the political sense – such as freedom of assembly or freedom of speech – but also in terms of the even more basic freedoms like freedom of movement, the freedom to choose one’s own occupation or personal freedom. In all of these matters the socialist states were completely reactionary. These mistakes won’t be repeated today. Today we’re obliged, in spite of everything, to come to terms with modernity somewhat as it is.
PE Do you have some ideas about this?
AB Oh yes, of course. A whole range of the ideas that capitalism claims for itself could exist equally well in a non-capitalist world. Let’s be honest, there’s really no reason why there shouldn’t be equality between men and women in a communistically-organized world! None of the supposed freedoms that capitalism claims as its own are only conceivable within capitalism. It’s only the despotism of the socialist states that’s responsible for this propaganda. The argumentation is very simple. One says, ‘There were attempts to realize communism in various countries, but this led to the disappearance of the usual democratic freedoms; socialism is therefore bad, and only capitalism is capable of guaranteeing these freedoms.’ That’s the absolute core of contemporary propaganda, and you’re receptive to this propaganda too.
PE Certainly! But that’s precisely what makes our discussion interesting.
AB But if one takes a closer look at the whole thing, if one examines the four points I was referring to before, one won’t see why communism should be tied to these traditional elements – inequality between men and women, the restriction of free movement and the terrible hierarchy of society – by its nature. I’d even say, on the contrary! These are pathological effects caused by the fact that only a small part of the first point was even grasped as part of the communist programme, namely the transition from private property to state property. That was the only innovation people thought politics could achieve. But firstly, that didn’t work, and secondly, this led during the 1980s to the creation of propaganda that still persists after more than thirty years, which claims that capitalism and democracy are necessarily linked.
PE You’re completely right, I’m receptive to it. And do you know why? Because I fought for all those freedoms, for all those things that are connected to capitalist propaganda. I paid the price for it, just like everyone else who fought for them. And all of us experienced the fact that none of the socialist states managed to guarantee these freedoms.
AB Instead of allying yourself with capitalism, you should have held onto the communist hypothesis! Precisely because you were a victim of the socialist states! You’re not a victim of those states because you were persecuted, but because they convinced you that communism is a bad thing!
PE Yes, maybe.
AB But of course! That’s their great victory over you!
PE All right then, you can convince me that they’re wrong.
AB The point isn’t for me to convince you of anything, but to show you how it’s a victory of capitalism. That’s where the problem lies! In the fact that at the moment, it’s definitely not humanity that benefits from the fall of the socialist states, nor the idea of equality or freedom, but rather Western imperialism in the form of unfettered globalized capitalism, whose victory was sealed by the fall of the socialist states. Those are the winners! The 264 people who own as much as three billion others put together. That’s the price that was paid for it!
PE No, one has to differentiate! I don’t see how …
AB But that’s the price we paid for democracy! Of course. The fact that there are five billion people who own nothing at all is the price that had to be paid for your little Western democracy.
PE But I like my little democracy.
AB Yes, so you take that on board. Do you think it’s normal that the rest of humanity doesn’t own anything?
PE No, just listen to me! I’m fighting against it, but I try to separate the two things.
AB You can’t separate them! The privileges of the West are based on the oppression of the rest of the world! There’s no changing that.
PE But we live in the Western world, you too. You can move freely and all the rest.
AB All the better, but I at least try to use this freedom to develop an idea that benefits the others.
PE What makes you think that I don’t feel the same?
AB The fact that you don’t take the critique of this connection between capitalism and democracy to its logical conclusion!
PE Yes, maybe.
AB It’s true. I can understand your position. Most people, myself included, are very attached to the democratic freedoms of the West. But one still has to understand at some point that it’s a dead end. It’s far too limited a form for the whole thing.
PE But I’d also like to see democratic freedoms being rid of all these effects you’ve spoken of. Of course! That’s why I do this work. But to me that’s a utopia. To put it another way: when I look at the forces working against globalized capitalism today, I can’t see any truly positive alternative.
AB But how can you expect to find a positive alternative if you don’t commit to such a positive alternative yourself? You want to see a positive alternative? Then start thinking about one yourself! You can’t simply demand that there has to be some force. No, if there’s to be a force, it has to be your own first! And mine too! There are moments in history when there are forces that one can join, but today we’re in a situation where one first has to decide what one wants, what one wishes for, what one longs for! One has to decide that with the aid of reason, very rationally, but one has to decide. Because if one doesn’t decide oneself, one can’t expect others to do so either. One can’t demand that some force should exist if one isn’t part of that force oneself.
PE But what should one decide to do?
AB One should decide to declare war on capitalist modernity.
PE On democracy?
AB On democracy in its existing form.
PE And freedom too?
AB The freedom whose price is the acceptance of capitalism, at least. You’re acting as if this freedom can be taken for granted. But it can’t!
In reality, you only have these freedoms because you accept their material precondition, namely globalized capitalism. And this means that you share responsibility for the fact that there are five billion people in the world who don’t own anything. One has to start by saying, ‘I’m in favour of democratic freedoms, I value them, but I refuse to pay this price for them.’ That’s why I call on everyone to think about it, to act and experiment, in order to find out how to preserve as many aspects of modernity as possible in a world that’s no longer capitalist.
PE But if I want to withdraw from this connection between capitalism and democracy as you describe it, then it’s not a purely intellectual matter, is it? Of course I could just say, ‘I withdraw …’
AB But you can’t withdraw! The street you walk in is capitalist! Everything you do is pervaded by capitalism. That’s the overall structure of our society! Capitalism isn’t an independent matter! It’s not something that happens apart from you. We participate in the capitalist life of society every day!
PE So what are you demanding? You walk through the streets too!
AB I demand the abolition of the capitalist organization of society!
PE Without knowing how one should organize society? I fear that would mean a regression to totalitarian structures of the kind we saw in the socialist states.
AB But that’s over! It was a first attempt. The dominance of private property, competition, profit and inequality, those are things that have existed for millennia and continue to this day. There’s actually greater inequality today than at any time in history! It’s been calculated that the gap between the small group of the global oligarchy and the lower social strata today is larger than the gap between nobles and serfs in the ancien régime. The world we live in is a pathological world. At the current stage of development, after the failure of a first counterattempt, you can’t demand any guarantees. First one has to reach the conviction that a change is inevitable. One mustn’t accept the world as it is!
PE So one has to reject this idea that democratic freedoms and the democratic constitution are tied to capitalism?
AB That’s not an idea, that’s a fact. Democratic freedoms only exist in the developed capitalist countries.
PE But you just said that this connection isn’t a necessary one, isn’t that right?
AB It’s urgently necessary to insist that there’s no necessary connection! Because I don’t see why it should be necessary.
PE But I recall Marx’s analysis of the transition from feudalism to capitalism in the Grundrisse, for example, where he speaks of individual freedom. For him, this freedom is the precondition for the emergence of the proletariat, which needs to be freely available for capitalist production. So I do see a connection there between the fate of bourgeois democratic society and the capitalist mode of production.
AB Of course, but that connection is a historical one! Marx only refers to that to show that these supposed freedoms are soaked in ‘ice-cold water and egotistical calculation’. The purpose of individual freedom was indeed to spawn the proletarians as well as their masters, the capitalist entrepreneurs. It was individual freedom that produced this form of organization. There was no legal bond like that between nobles and serfs; the serf is no longer owned, but that still doesn’t mean things are democratic. And that wasn’t what Marx said; he doesn’t speak of democracy at all in this context. He says that this is the value the bourgeoisie introduced: the value of individual freedom; because, strictly speaking, the world of bourgeois society isn’t one in which inequality is legally based, but a world of practical inequalities, inequalities in deeds, where it’s a matter of winning out over one’s competitors. For there to be competition, there obviously has to be some freedom, that’s clear. But this freedom is a deceptive freedom. In reality, it’s only the freedom of those with money in relation to those with none.
PE Exactly – what we call freedom, what we see as the positive values of our lives, our society, actually serves the purpose of training people for globalized capitalist production. Freedom of travel and movement is necessary so that workers, ideas and technologies can spread and circulate accordingly. In that sense, freedom is connected to the capitalist mode of production. What I’d like to know is what, on the other hand, a post-capitalist society and a post-capitalist mode of production would look like. What would happen to capitalist production and everything associated with it, such as individual freedoms?
AB The destiny of this freedom is actually wage labour. You don’t work for the good of the community or to create something new, but to receive wages. This means that labour power is itself a commodity. The freedom you speak of, capitalist freedom, is the freedom to turn everything into a commodity. Voilà!
Maybe it’s possible to imagine a freedom that’s something different from the freedom to become a commodity. Beyond that, Western freedom is very limited, because everyone is convinced that the capitalist world is the only possible world. So essentially everyone thinks the same thing; strictly speaking, there’s no freedom of thought. Take another fundamental freedom, for example: freedom of the press and information. In France, all so-called ‘left-wing newspapers’, like Le Monde or Libération, are directly owned by major French capitalists. Directly! And it’s the same with the big television channels like Canal+ or France 1. So the reality is that information is controlled by capital.
PE Aren’t there any free channels of information?
AB So far, every time a free channel of information existed, either its scope was very limited or it was bought up. The history of the French newspaper Libération is baffling. This is a newspaper that was founded by the radical Left in the ’68 movement, at a time when the dominant narrative was a narrative of protest. Today the newspaper belongs to the three great capitalists by the Seine, so it necessarily serves the dominant discourse, spiced up with a little emancipatory rhetoric.
So I think that the constitutive elements of modern freedom today are, on the one hand, structured in their very existence by the dominance of capitalism; on the other hand, however, there’s no reason to think that they, as forms of freedom, are necessarily connected to capitalism as such. On the contrary: whenever one looks more closely, one sees that these freedoms are actually limited; for example, the newspapers are owned by capitalists. So the freedom of information is obviously deceptive. The same applies to the big television channels. And then the public health system falls bit by bit into the hands of the capitalists, and so on. But there’s no proof that this connection is necessary. The only proof relates to what we’ve already discussed, namely that these elements of modernity relating to private life were largely eliminated in the socialist states. But I think that this is precisely what contributed to their collapse. And that clearly proves that it can’t work like that.