Communalism

“The main defect of all hitherto-existing materialism —that of Feuerbach included— is that the Object [der Gegenstand], actuality, sensuousness, are conceived only in the form of the object [Objekts], or of contemplation [Anschauung], but not as human sensuous activity, practice [Praxis], not subjectively.”
The vulgar materialists, who leave out history as far as they are materialist and leave out materialism as far as they deal with history, do not “…conceive human activity itself as objective [gegenständliche] activity” . For Marx, objectivity is human sensuous activity, activity and practice. Both metaphysics, and structuralism and positivism turn the concept of “subjectivity” into a transcendental concept. Metaphysics affirms transcendentality of subjectivity whereas positivism negates it. For Marx, however, “subjectivity” is immanence. Marx detaches the concept of subjectivity from the transcendentality of the world of concepts and renders it immanent to the objectivity of human sensuous activity. For Marx, “Passion is the essential power of man energetically bent on its object” . “History is the true natural history of man” . In this sense, “subjectivity” is one’s conduct over his own conduct. The analytic duality between “subject” and “object” which metaphysics and positivism deify as the constitutive power disappears within Marx’s conception of subjectivity. The objectivity of historical materialism is the analysis of the politicality of the practices of class subjectivities.
For Spinoza, human being is relationality. And for Marx, labor is relationality. Human being or labor is the immeasurable being that changes, and transforms while changing, within subversiveness of its own creativity in becoming. For Spinoza, conatus is the effort of the being to maintain itself and survive, and for Marx the essential power of human being is passion whereas his relational nature is history. Human being or labor as a relational being is becoming and constitution within historical relationality. In this sense, labor is politicality; politicality is labor’s historical nature immanent to its material becoming and constitution. The politicality of labor is objectivity of subjectivity immanent to history.

Domination as Class: Capital
As the power to produce social value, labor is a creative power. This creative power is subjectified under a form of value production changing in relation to the historicality of social relations. Capital represents the historical form through which it politically expropriates labor as creative power. Capital is the alienated form of labor; it is the practice of commodification of labor which is classified under the form of wage labor. The self-affirmative practice of labor within dialectic is negation of negation. This dialectical law is the indispensable law of affirmation of being itself. Capital as a being affirms itself by negating itself as wage labor whereas wage labor affirms itself by negating itself as capital. Hence wage labor is the capitalized form of labor. The product of creative labor is capitalized by way of commodification as private property. The capitalized commodity faces labor as an alien power. Commodity production, which is a form of capital as an alien power, is the practice of expropriation of labor. In this sense, the creative power of labor is weakened through expropriation. In Marx’s theory of surplus value, productive labor represents the capitalized form of labor within the form of wage labor. Affirmation of productive labor means affirmation of wage labor as the capitalized form of labor. Against political expropriation of labor in the form of productive labor, the concept that we, as communists, should affirm is “creative labor”. Negation of negation as the dialectic of affirmative practice of being links to another law of dialectic: the unity of opposites. What operates between wage labor and capital is the law of the unity of opposites. The existence of one of them supposes that of the other. “Therefore, the demand that wage labour be continued but capital be suspended is self-contradictory, self-dissolving.” The contradiction between capital and wage labor is not antagonistic. The conflict that would come out of this contradiction does not constitute a social antagonism. The philosophical foundation of the concept of antagonism constitutes the essence of our political difference. We can specify two tendencies when reflecting on Marx. The first is objectivist, determinist and finalist interpretation of Marx whereas in the second we find a subjectivist Marx. Marx in his evaluation on 1848 Revolutions states that the antagonistic conflict in the class struggle of 1848 hit the contradiction between productive forces and production relations that had not historically developed and turned into an antagonism yet. According to the determinist and finalist interpretation of Marx that has its roots in Marx’s evaluation on 1848 Revolutions and references in the introduction to the book Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, there are two antagonisms: one is the antagonism that exists between classes from the very beginning and the other is the antagonism between the productive forces and the production relations, which is dependent upon historical development. Determinist and finalist Marxism subjects the former to the latter. This is the inevitable consequence of dialectical interpretation of antagonism. The theories of crisis are also founded on this false interpretation. Revolution sinks into the crises of capital. In fact there is no such duality; there is only one antagonism. The crisis of communist revolution is not dependent upon the crisis of capital. On the contrary, it is dependent upon the political crisis created by the subjectivity of practice of labor that becomes autonomous from the crises of capital. In determinist and finalist Marxism, labor and wage labor are the same thing. For such Marxism, the historical crisis of capital is the weakening of the ability of production relations to develop productive forces. At this historical moment the wage labor as productive force turns into a subversive power. It is not right to engage with revolutionary work unless this crisis develops. It is acceptable to adopt reformist demands tactically. However labor and wage labor are not the same thing. Labor is uncompromising from the very beginning; it produces social antagonism in its political subjectivity.
We should insist on the fact that capital is a relation that classifies labor in the form of wage labor. It is the power to command labor and its products. It is to expropriate the products of creative labor as private property. Capital is the ability to turn “power over” into “power to do”. If we consider politicality as the subjectivity of being’s self-affirmative practice, the politicality of capital is immanent to the dialectic of its self-affirmation. In other words, the politicality of capital is the subjectivity of production and reproduction of its own being as a class. Capital exists as long as it survives as a class. Its existence as a class depends upon classifying social labor in the form of wage labor. Capital splits, divides, and functions within class conflicts. In this sense, dialectic is the political philosophy of practices of classification.
The politicality of self-affirmative practice of capital is based on classification and power conflict between the “classified” classes. Capital not only classifies labor in the form of wage labor but also subjectifies wage labor as the power of production and reproduction of capitalism. This leads to the enclosure of politicality within the limits of conflict arising from the contradiction between wage labor and capital. That capital as a class constitutes its own class interest as the general interest of society means elimination of politicality of labor by enclosing it within the politicality of wage labor, and political expropriation of labor. Hence any politics of “labor” founded on politicality of wage labor is bourgeois. The modern era of capitalism is the historical experience of politicality of labor based on the politics of “wage labor”. Trade union and party politics, constitutional state and democratization of state constitute an “oppositional” politics of labor founded on bourgeois democracy in essence. Whether this politics is revolutionary or not depends upon contradictions, conflicts and crises immanent to capital’s dialectic of self-affirmation. In the modern era, whereas those imperialist countries powerful enough to overcome the crises of capital was able to reform the politicality of labor in the form of wage labor, this politics, which served in the Third World countries to constitute wage labor as a political class, turned into the revolutionary power of proletariat that undertook bourgeois revolutions. This is the essence of theory of “weak links” in the imperialist era. Politicality of labor depends upon constitution of wage labor as a political class. Whereas in Marx’s period, revolutionariness was identical with communist revolution, in the imperialist era revolutionariness and communism became significantly detached from each other. Although the concept of revolution had been immanent to politicality of social revolution before, it was rendered transcendental by becoming limited with political revolution. The politicality of communism has not been social revolution but social evolution to come after political revolution. The concepts have been replaced: social freedom with political freedom, social independence with political independence, social equality with political equality, social emancipation with political emancipation…The distance between the social and the political has expanded in political terms and politicality of labor has been alienated from sociality. Labor has been enclosed within the politics of constituting itself as a class. As Lenin said, “we are the state!” . And as Lukacs said inversely, “the class has directed dictatorship upon itself”. Politicality of labor has turned into the theory of power rather than a question of power. The theory of power is about the ability of a class to render its politicality immanent to its command over other classes. The concept of revolution has been transcendentalized. It should be re-revolutionized through becoming immanent to the politicality of labor.

Labor as a Non-Class Power
In Marx, the concepts of labor and wage labor are not identical. “Splitting of labour into labour itself and the wages of labour. The worker himself a capital, a commodity. Clash of mutual contradictions.” Wage labor is a sociological class as classified by capital. Wage labor is productive force of capital. And its political class character is determined as reformism. The class base of reformism is not petty bourgeois but wage labor. The discourses of Keynesian state, welfare state and democratization of state all represent enclosure of politicality of labor within politics of wage labor. In this sense, wage labor is not an antagonist class against capital. This is the substance of politics of radical democracy that has evolved from Bernstein to Laclau and Mouffe and so on.
Labor represents a non-class power against wage labor, and the de-classification against capital’s attempt to classify. Labor is the creative power of de-classification against capital and also labor as the classified productive force of capital. In this sense, this non-class power, the subversive power of de-classification against classification is immanent to the development of productive forces. In this sense, labor is an antagonistic power against capital from the very beginning. Politicality of labor is immanent to the antagonism of de-classification against classification. Whereas the class character of wage labor is sociological, the class character of labor is political. The practice of self-affirmation of wage labor depends upon affirming itself through negating capital. And the practice of self-affirmation of labor is insurgency through self-affirmation. Wage labor represents merely opposition to capital, whereas labor represents revolution against capital. The subjectivity of self-affirmation of capital is dialectical, whereas that of labor is not. Self-affirmation of labor is to lock and subvert classification by political practices of de-classification.
“…the communist revolution is directed against the preceding mode of activity, does away with labour, and abolishes the rule of all classes with the classes themselves, because it is carried through by the class which no longer counts as a class in society, is not recognized as a class, and is in itself the expression of the dissolution of all classes, nationalities, etc. within present society…” For Marx, this is where the significance of proletariat arises. The significance of proletariat for Marx has nothing to do with its being the poorest and the most subordinated sociological class. For Marx the significance of proletariat is historical. The reason is that proletariat is the only power endowed with the politicality to refuse itself as a class. Hence the political significance of proletariat is not dependent upon its class interest in sociological terms. Politicality of proletariat is not only a challenge against capitalism but also against all classes, overall class history, and production and reproduction of relations of classification. This challenge constitutes the de-classification practice against classification and represents the constitution of political subjectivity of labor.

Politicality of Labor: Communalism
At this point, we should contemplate on the concept of “the political”. This is a problematic that the left should face. We may consider the subjectivity of self-affirmative practice of the being as the definition of politicality. If we consider the antagonism between constitution of subjectivity of labor’s self-affirmative practice, and capital’s self-affirmative practice, we would see the antagonistic difference between the politicality of labor and capital. Subjectivity of capital is to exist as a class. This class existence can only be maintained by the production and reproduction of social relations as relations of class production. For capital, the political is power struggle between classes. In this sense, political power or existential power of a class is to be Power. Power is immanent to the ontology of class being. Therefore, the being of a class is to dominate other class/classes that it has classified. This is what the idea of power to constitute one’s own class interest as the general interest of the whole society refers to. It is necessary to be power in order to change from a class in-itself into a class for-itself.
The most significant possibility for a power that needs to be a class to exist is to “free” the transcendental power sphere that would serve to dominate other classes. This is what bourgeois democracy advocated by political economists and liberals with the discourse of political freedom refers to. This is exactly the point where the distinction between the social and the political is maintained. Social inequality is supposed legitimate under the conditions of political equality. Sovereignty is displaced from social to political sphere. For capital, sovereignty is the transcendental power sphere, which constitutes social domination. It is constituted by representation. Social sphere delegates sovereignty to political sovereignty through representation. In this sense, the constitutive power of capital is transcendental power as the political sphere. State as a relation of power and domination is the constitutive power of capital. State is not only a relation of class domination, but rather a relation of production and reproduction of classes. Subsequently, the concept of the political surpasses and overwhelms the concept of the social. From now on, it is the powers that constitute and write history. For capital, to be power is something virtuous and honorable.
Labor does not need to delegate its own sovereignty to political sphere through representation. This sovereignty socially belongs to itself. Labor does not need any political sphere transcendental to social sphere, and hence Power, either. The reason is that the ontological being of labor does not require being a social class. Being a class is something external to its social fabric and nature. The ontology of subjectivity of labor’s practice of self-affirmation is immanent to the politicality of de-classification. In this sense, politicality of labor is not dependent upon being a social class, and production and reproduction of controversies between social classes. Political subjectivity of labor is antagonist in relation to that of capital from the very beginning. It is not a clash of sociological class interests and demands but of two different lives.
The political power of capital originates from its social power: money, knowledge, institutional organization and power. And labor has no sociality from which it derives its political power. The only power that labor has against capital is escape from, resistance to, insurgency and revolution against classification. Whereas capital produces and maintains its life through its domination, labor desires life within its insurgency. In this sense, what classifies labor is its insurgency. Capital wants labor to be a social class. Labor does not want to be a social class. Capital does not want labor to be a class in the political sphere whereas labor wants to be a class in the political sphere. What constitutes labor as a class is not its sociality but politicality. Labor is a non-class class. It is a class not for taking power but for subverting it. Labor is revolutionary not in order to reproduce itself as a class by taking power but to refuse itself as a political class and subvert the concept of class. Changing world without being power does not mean changing the world without subverting power. It means changing the world without being a class in our social sovereignty. This is what proletarian dictatorship means to us. Proletarian dictatorship is the organized violence of revolution for subverting power and refusing all relations of classification rather than for being power and class. We consider the proletarian dictatorship as the “Commune” that burned the guillotine.
Why Communalism? We do not here suggest the concept of “communalism” in opposition to the concept of communism. On the contrary, we define communalism as politicality of immanent constitution of communism. We think on not affirmation of labor through negation of capital but on subversion of capital through affirmation of labor. We consider the notion of politicality in terms of constitution of labor’s subjectivity. As for the opposition between the social as the immanent power and the political as transcendental power, we consider communalism to be the social as the immanent power. We object to the concept of politicality considered as practice of social classification. For us, politicality as classification means political expropriation of labor. We object to approaches that delay the practices of de-classification to the future from a determinist, economist and finalist point of view. We consider practices of de-classification as the becoming and constitution process of labor’s self-affirmation and self-valorization, which is immanent to the present. Communalism is immanent constitution of communism. It is revolutionizing the concept of revolution. It is counter-constitutiveness immanent to resistance. We consider communalism as the desire for revolution not for power but for life. What is the constitutive power and subject of communalism? The constitutive subject of communalism is not a sociological class. The politics that would constitute the political composition of any revolution forms the essence of the revolutionary theory. The discourses of political democracy, political independence, political freedom and political equality that have until recently served to turn a composition of sociological class interests into a Power have lost their ability to constitute working class as a revolutionary power. The expectation for a class composition founded on class alliances cannot be realized any more. The discourse that would constitute class composition today has turned into a politics of de-classification. It is social independence, social freedom, social equality and emancipation. The subject to be constituted by politics of de-classification is multitude. Multitude is neither a measurable sociological class nor a political class alliance. Multitude can only be observed if constituted as a political power and class. Multitude is a class concept. However it is a class concept that supersedes the concept of working class which is limited with the category of productive labor. Multitude as the constitutive subject of communalism is the immeasurable class constituted by politics of de-classification. Multitude is communalist autonomy and communism immanent to the present.

Otonom, no. 13, July-September 2006

Marx, Theses on Feuerbach, 1845.
ibid.
Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, “1844.
ibid.
Marx, Grundrisse, 1857.
Classification is here used to refer to production and reproduction of class relations in relation to subjectification as a power relation.
Lenin, Political Report to the Eleventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.), 27th March 1922.
Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, 1844.
Marx; German Ideology, 1845.