Outline of a Constructive Socialism

Part of an ongoing debate in the German syndicalist press.

Cover: via https://direkteaktion.org/

Part I: Syndicalist Transformation Policy: The Mediation Between Reality and Utopia

Holger Marcks || While the crisis may not have brought much good, it has at least initiated a rethinking within the Left. As early as 2009, Direkte Aktion noted that class and transformational politics were making a comeback.1 And since both approaches—especially in combination—have always been core elements of syndicalism, it could be assumed that this movement offered fruitful suggestions for a renewal of the Left. Today, almost ten years later, a small revival of syndicalism can indeed be observed. As the historian Marcel van der Linden noted in an interview with Neues Deutschland last year , grassroots-democratic unions are currently setting new, albeit “cautious,” accents amidst the general decline of the labor movement.2 The FAU itself has tripled its membership in the last decade, and particularly in Berlin, it has developed into a flourishing and widely publicized grassroots union. With its approximately 500 members, the FAU Berlin is even approaching the membership level of the local FAUD at the end of the Weimar Republic. It thus represents the largest local grassroots structure in Germany and has more active members than other extra-parliamentary organizations of the capital’s left. Syndicalist organizations are also thriving elsewhere in the country, such as the Frankfurt university union unter_bau or the prisoners’ union GG/BO .

At the same time, transformation and class politics have become veritable trend topics on the left. This, however, occurs without much reference to syndicalism. That is ironic. For the general tenor of the debate is not simply about a revaluation of class issues, but also sings the praises of “horizontal” forms of organization that are supposed to underpin a “prefigurative politics”; as “germinal forms” of a future society, they are meant to establish new social “modes of relating” with which capitalist structures can be abolished beyond the state. ” Wait a minute,” the historically and conceptually grounded left might think. “Isn’t that the refrain of syndicalism?” Indeed, these are precisely the characteristics that defined it from the outset and distinguished it from other forms of socialism. The left is therefore, by definition, undergoing a turn towards syndicalism without explicitly acknowledging it. How this concealed syndicalization can be explained is certainly a debatable question. What is certain, however, is that decoupling these ideas from syndicalism leads to problems in strategy development. Because of the misconception that this is a new approach or even a Marxist update, the experience of the movement that has already practiced this approach in various contexts and forms is obscured. Practical experience, however, is the heart of any sound theory.

It is therefore not surprising that these debates often remain cryptic or abstract. They lack practical knowledge of how self-organization functions in various forms and contexts, including its difficulties and contradictions. Consequently, there is a major problem with concrete action. Even the more pointed proposals remain nothing more than wishful thinking, as they do not point to paths that would currently resonate or promise sustainability. A syndicalist-informed perspective could remedy this. After all, where can one find more knowledge about the problems of transformative grassroots organizing if not in the movement that has been practicing and theorizing this for 150 years? This series of articles aims to make such knowledge accessible. It begins with a discussion of syndicalist transformation politics and its relationship to current debates. The second part then presents initial building blocks of a socialist reconstruction, while the third part explains fundamental techniques required for building such organizations. Finally, the series considers further building blocks and envisions a confederation of social reorganization. In this way, a contemporary sketch of what Rudolf Rocker once called “constructive socialism” should be created: a constructive social technology that can strategically mediate between reality and utopia.

The Short Game: Old Wine in New Class Politics

At the beginning of the 2007/08 crisis, one might have thought the revolutionary dawn was imminent. Such was the ecstatic lament for capitalism on the left. The journal Direkte Aktion was among the killjoys at the time, seeing the crisis as “more of an opportunity for reaction.” A left that hadn’t cultivated a social base through persistent class politics could only watch “as history takes a dark turn.” After a ^while , disillusionment did indeed set in, and the voices warning that social issues needed to be addressed more seriously grew louder. With the widespread rise of the New Right, positions demanding a fundamental revision of leftist practices and organizational forms gained momentum. For, with Didier Eribon as a key witness, the suspicion arose that the left, through its repulsive and exclusive constitution, was itself facilitating the authoritarian rollback, or at least lacking any means to oppose it. ⁶ This development finally culminated in a debate about “New Class Politics,” as Sebastian Friedrich dubbed it in Analyse & Kritik . ⁷ With it, the trivial realization now seems to have reached even the activist left that the existing order cannot be destabilized by exclusive intervention groups, but rather requires a base in the lower classes.

Since then, proposals for left-wing renewal have been gaining popularity. And to anticipate the conclusion: it’s clear from these proposals that the left has long neglected strategic thinking and gained little organizational experience. Not only is there a lack of the anthropological sensitivity necessary for a “realistic radicalism,” but , as Loren Balhorn identifies as a weakness of the left in Ada magazine , there is also a lack of understanding “how Phase 1 and Phase 3 are connected,” that is, how the transformation between today and the day after tomorrow is to be accomplished. Thus , the proposals are concrete but disconnected, ambitious but lacking in substance. Take, for example, the plea from Kollektiv Bremen to establish “neighborhood unions.” With this (misleading) approach, they aim to provide contact points in the local area to address all sorts of social problems. This is precisely what almost all left-wing groups already offer. In principle, they are simply turning the mantra of having to “address concrete problems” more outward. And certainly, such a reframing will lead to greater openness than the highly ideological profiling of affinity groups, whose exclusive functioning, however, remains intact. For the fact that elaborate organizational structures are also necessary to be receptive and capable of development is completely ignored.

A similar situation exists with Torsten Bewernitz’s proposal to import Workers Centers from the USA.11 This sounds appealing, especially since these centers are reminiscent of the workers’ exchanges of the old syndical movement, where workers’ solidarity across company boundaries was organized. However, both actually originated from a movement of workers. This is precisely the social base that the proposal lacks, as it aims to reach workers in the first place with such centers. Accordingly, Bewernitz describes them as gathering points for the local left, which is somehow involved in class politics. In doing so, he lists several student-oriented groups that don’t really get beyond the mantra that one simply has to “get practical.” The centers would thus be nothing more than a collection of left-wing activists in a new guise. The same applies to the proposal by Lower Class Magazine to establish a “Congress of Communes.” ¹² Here, too, the ‘innovative’ aspect lies in naming a list of collectives that could coordinate on this, including some left-wing groups that would presumably like to engage in class-political practice. What we see here is nothing more than the mantra that one simply has to “develop a common practice,” as the somewhat unimaginative group “Proletarian Autonomy,” which endorses that congress, demands. ¹³

All these proposals essentially offer no new approaches. They pretend that existing forms of the left simply need to be repackaged. The fact that their isolation might be related to precisely those forms is ignored. And so, these mathematically conceived proposals do not amount to a renewed foundation, but rather to a summation of existing shortcomings. Because they contain no creative approaches for the strategic shift in conditions, “Phase 2” remains a void. In general, there are only a few proposals that attempt to illuminate this void concretely, such as the one from FAU Dresden. With neighborhood councils, through which the self-governing structures of a district are intended to form a communitarian entity, a concept is presented that opens up a transformative perspective.14 However, this strategy is detached from reality, since it again skips “Phase 1”: the establishment of a social base. The councils would thus merely be a collection of left-wing activists who have time for experimental lifestyles. And probably, taking the second step before the first would only increase the distance to one’s social environment. For a small minority to claim the right to reorganize a neighborhood would rightly be perceived as presumptuous, if not illegitimate.

The fact that the left has trouble working on the substance that a transformative policy requires has much to do with the fact that while it can theorize about class issues, it lacks the necessary empathy for practical application. After all, for decades it has been a predominantly youth-cultural event for the descendants of the educated middle class, surviving in niches and having hardly any practical connection to the masses. This gap cannot simply be bridged with class-political postulates, but requires genuine commitment. What exactly this means can be explained with an analogy drawn by the African-American activist Ahjamu Umi when he criticized the US left for its anti-fascist work. ¹⁵ With its short-sighted activism, it apparently wasn’t really interested in solving the problem of the rightward shift, which would mean gaining the trust of the masses through hard work. The activists were like men who wanted to quickly get women into bed but didn’t want to build a deeper relationship with them. This (unusual) analogy can be readily applied to the field of class politics. Many leftists act, so to speak, like pick-up artists who want to conquer the working-class subject directly. And, as with pseudo-Casanovas, this rarely works and they tend to repel – and yet they constantly talk about “picking up” women because they want to make a name for themselves within the scene.

In fact, since 1968 the Left has hyper-ideologized its practice, becoming more interested in how its ideas sound to its scene than in the people involved. This is reflected in its practice-theoretical discourses, which are mostly based on meta- and macro-analytics, meaning they ruminate on “big” problems. “Small” problems are met with contempt; they are unsuitable for leftist self-promotion, which supposedly concerns the big picture. The Left therefore behaves ignorantly in micro- and meso-analytical questions—for example, how organizing and the dissemination of ideas function, or how to constitute organizations efficiently and dynamically. It thus tends to take for granted organizational practices that are neither effective nor conducive to engagement. Expecting a movement to develop “organically,” it fails to recognize how well-constructed organizations and precisely tailored tactics can transform the scope for action. Her approach is so crude, so categorical, that it lacks a nuanced understanding of processes. Long-term strategies, and therefore success, are impossible under these circumstances. Like a novice at chess, she shortsightedly clears pawns only to lose her best pieces in return. She plays the short game , lacking a broader perspective. Such a perspective wouldn’t simply focus on the “big” processes, but would consider how the many “small” ones interact.

Covered-up Syndicalistization: The Tragedy of Transformation Studies

Given this categorical, underdetermined thinking about processes of social change, it seems welcome that a more in-depth field of “transformation research” is now emerging. Simon Sutterlütti and Stefan Meretz serve as examples, recently advocating an approach that does not aim at abolishing capitalism, for instance through the conquest of state-political power, but rather at a revolution of social relations.17 ^The focus here is on social spaces within the capitalist present, in which the inclusive logic of utopian social forms is already contained. These “germinal forms” could serve as the basis for a new society and “abolish capitalism.” This literally describes the core of syndicalist practice theory, and one might therefore be curious to see how the authors further differentiate it. But instead of building on precisely this, the authors declare the germinal form theory—whoosh!—to be their “own.” ¹⁸ Even their publisher emphasizes that these are “new theoretical approaches.” ¹⁹ In this way, 150 years of germinal form theory and practice are simply swept aside. This does not bode well for a theory that claims not to simply break with what already exists, but rather to develop new relationships from it.

But what drives Sutterlütti and Meretz to so brazenly usurp the core tenets of syndicalist thought? That someone who dedicates themselves to theories of revolution could be unaware that the germinal form theory (also called “embryo theory”) represents the starting point of long-standing controversies within the labor movement is truly hard to believe. Especially when one considers that the slogans they employ are nothing more than a paraphrase of the syndicalist guiding principle: that “the new society should be built within the shell of the old.” The mildest criticism would probably be that the authors have little understanding of intellectual history and have allowed themselves to be incited by other usurpers. While this is hardly commendable for someone claiming to resolve the historical contradiction between reform and revolution, it would at least be explainable. For recently, a number of Marxist theorists have prepared the ground for this confusion of ideas, including Erik Olin Wright, whom the authors cite as a key source of inspiration. In Real Utopias, published in 2010, he outlined an egalitarian-socialist transformation perspective that reads like a summary of syndicalist debates. Except that syndicalism itself receives no mention—at most, a few “intuitions of contemporary anarchism” are given cursory attention.

Wright, at least, sheds some light on how this cover-up came about. He identifies three elements of transformation that had previously existed side by side and which he balances into a comprehensive perspective: the revolutionary break , the creation of free spaces , and the reformist symbiosis— thus reducing anarchism to the free-space strategy. This model, also cited by Sutterlütti and Meretz, contains a fundamental flaw: While it is true that neo-anarchism from 1968 onward focused primarily on free spaces, classical mass anarchism, particularly in the form of syndicalism, to which the largest anarchist organizations still belong today, had always considered all three elements together. Equally false is Wright’s assertion that his conception of socialism should not be confused with anarchism because it prescribes rules and coordination mechanisms, whereas anarchists imagine that a new order is established and maintained purely spontaneously. ²⁴ This too is merely a notion of rather vulgar neo-anarchism. Syndicalism, in particular, always assumed an orderly transition to a decentralized planned economy within a federal society. Depending on the definition of the state, this can even be described as a form of state order. ²⁵

Wright’s model is thus based on definitions of the differences between socialist traditions that have little to do with actual historical phenomena. Anarchism, in particular, appears only as a mutilated caricature, while its most significant variant, syndicalism, is completely ignored. A similar lack of knowledge could already be observed in the work of Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt. Even before John Holloway declared it the new Marxist maxim in 2002 that the world should be changed “without taking power,” ²⁶ they laid the foundation in 2000 with *Empire* ^for a perspective of transformative counter-power, drawing on the building blocks of syndicalism.27 Like Wright, they too felt compelled to state that while their approach was deceptively similar to anarchism, it was not an anarchism because they were “arguing from the standpoint of materiality.” ²⁸ To put it bluntly, this is utter nonsense. The split between Marxism and anarchism occurred precisely over the strategic question of whether to seize political power or to carry out a social revolution from below. The anarchists of the First International, like the syndicalists who followed, were proponents of materialism, but they also wanted to complement it with a critique of institutions and culture. ²⁹

Many Marxists have indeed undertaken this expansion since 1968 – and, since it results in a different analytical perspective, have also drawn the same strategic conclusions. In reality, it is no longer Marxism at all. What remains is only a split, fragile identity: a theoretical peculiarity is imagined, supposedly resulting from a specific (and therefore fundamentally narrow-minded) variant of materialism, linked to the fetishization of a thinker who himself vehemently opposed the orientation of today’s “Marxists.” This observation is by ^no means about an ideological fuss, but rather about the problems that arise when concepts, which always intersect with reality, are not handled consistently. Indeed, it is precisely this crude identity – as Wright, Negri, and Hardt demonstrate with their demarcation from anarchism – that draws unnecessary dividing lines, hindering left-wing convergence despite considerable overlap. And at the same time, it narrows the potential for theory formation. Thus, the new “Marxism,” by concealing its syndicalist content, is forced into a farce, to use Marx’s own words. For where it fails to establish the continuity of ideas, it obscures the view of theoretical insights from history, the reconstruction of which is now laboriously repeated.

Take, for example, Bini Adamczak’s *Relationship-Modern Revolution* , which is currently receiving much praise for renewing left-wing revolutionary theory. ³¹ In it, the Marxist author suggests that the left has “always been… trapped in a specific fixation on the overpowering Other,” which has led it to think of revolution primarily negatively as the destruction of bourgeois society. ³² She now argues for “understanding revolution primarily as transformation, even more so as construction,” ³³ which means working on the reality that stands in the way of revolutionary possibility. More precisely: the utopia is to be advanced by building new modes of relating. This, too, can only appear as a new reading of revolution if one bases the mapping of revolutionary theory and practice primarily on the Marxist literary canon. In syndicalism, at least, this has always been the practice. It was not without reason that Karl Korsch observed in 1912 that Marxism had only identified the “negative” side of socialism (the abolition of capitalism); he saw the “positive” side, among other things, in syndicalism with its constructive model of revolution. Finally , in 1950, the ex-Marxist declared that a revival of revolutionary practice required breaking with the overemphasis on Marxist theory—and pursuing other paths to socialism.

The Long Game: 150 Years of Real-Utopian Germ Form Theories

This does seem to be happening, albeit not nominally—which may also explain why it took so long: The identity of many on the left made it difficult to refer directly to non-Marxist traditions. This required several “backdoor moves” that enabled a gradual convergence. Zapatismo , for example, had a transformative effect, incorporating anarchist principles and making them more acceptable on the left in the early 2000s. More recently, Democratic Confederalism has also played a role, transferring anarchist ideas of communalism to the Kurdish context, which, via Kurdistan solidarity, also penetrated the Western left. But the solidarity economy may also have contributed. Inspired in particular by examples in Latin America, where the organizational practices of the labor movement have always had a syndicalist component, its implicit character has also spilled over. ³⁹ More recent terminology also contributes to obscuring genuinely anarchist approaches, such as “horizontalism,” which describes a grassroots democratic practice of “everyday revolutions,” ⁴⁰ or the term “prefigurative politics,” which refers to approaches that anticipate the society of the future in the practices of the present: in essence, germinal politics, i.e., syndicalism. ⁴¹

However, the cover-up of syndicalism cannot be attributed solely to a “Marxist ahistoricism,” as Philippe Kellermann rightly observes.⁴² There are other mechanisms of obfuscation within the left that make it difficult to establish consistency in its ideas. ⁴³ </sup> For example, many positions that were virtually unique to Direkte Aktion ten years ago are now commonplace in left-wing magazines. The ideas of syndicalism have thus diffused, as normative research calls it; and such diffusion often occurs indirectly, through so-called “brokers” who stand between contexts and pass on ideas.⁴ Their origins are thus obscured, a situation further reinforced by conditions within contemporary syndicalism, which, following a quirk of neo-anarchism, presents itself as highly anonymous and reacts allergically to the exposure of faces and figures within the movement. With this variant of the “prohibition of images,” it produces hardly any individuals ⁴⁵ who could be identified with its ideas. At the same time – and here the remaining distinguishing feature of Marxist identity actually applies – anarchists and syndicalists have not been particularly prominent in theoretical discourse in recent decades. They themselves only know fragments of their history and theory, while further developments are rare.

All the more frustrating, then, is the historical discontinuity created by recent transformation theories. Because they adopt a “relationship of non-relation” to syndicalism, ⁴⁶ an alienation from its experiential canon arises that is doubly unconstructive. Firstly, the otherwise sound considerations fail to contribute to the necessary updating of syndicalism. Secondly, this reinvention of the wheel disregards practical knowledge about the contexts and effects of transformative politics. As a result, these theories not only remain in the dark regarding questions that have already been illuminated, but also risk repeating the mistakes of syndicalism. Sutterlütti and Meretz, for example, provide a sociological explanatory model for how alternative structures can replace existing societal institutions, but lacking empirical experience, they cannot answer how this should be implemented in concrete, strategic terms, thus remaining abstract. Due to the same deficiency, Wright, who almost presents a program for transformation, is also merely shooting in the dark. Hardt and Negri, like Adamczak to a lesser extent, often operate in the realm of the cryptic, enriching the debate with academic terms and thought exercises without contributing anything concrete.

All these theorizing approaches would have benefited from a constructive engagement with syndicalist theory and practice. This would foster a better understanding of the problems and limitations of transformation, which, even when presented in a less radical form than overthrow, can provoke strong reactions that require strategic management. It would also clarify that even nascent approaches, if they are to adequately address the complex task of social reorganization, demand considerable expertise in organizational structures and institutional logics. This begins with how to protect emancipatory structures against authoritarian co-optation or degeneration. Syndicalism has had to grapple with precisely this from its inception. After all, it originated in the First International (1864–1877), in which various workers’ associations (trade unions) established a federal structure where initiative lay with the grassroots. The General Council, led by Karl Marx, attempted to abolish this constitution and impose a centralist party model instead. In the wake of this coup from above, almost the entire International turned away from Marx in order to restore federalism. Nevertheless, this split initiated the decline of the International. ⁴⁷

It is this experience that led to an anti-authoritarian sensitization within the labor movement, through which anarchism differentiated itself in contrast to Marxism. From the 1890s onward, this culminated in the formulation of the syndicalist approach. It was based on the ‘natural’ organizational form of the working class, namely trade unions, and was thus ‘the result of a long practice created by existing conditions’. ⁴⁸ Unlike Marxism, it took them seriously in their function as the ‘true workers’ movement,’ as Friedrich Engels once called the economic fighting organizations of the working class. As an autonomous ‘party of labor,’ they were to render a party-political strategy for seizing state power superfluous and become the school of revolution. ⁴⁹ This meant working ‘on changing mentalities, social forms, and economic relations,’ ⁵⁰ that is, what Adamczak describes as ‘removing’ the reality that stands in the way of utopia. ⁵¹ Thus, syndicalism was fundamentally grounded in materialism, but also emphasized a voluntaristic element. It was a matter of acting from within the existing material conditions, but also of strategically changing them. If the material basis of a society shapes its superstructure, then the basis itself had to be transformed. ⁵²

The syndicalists thus found Marxism’s “external approach” insufficient. ⁵³ They wanted to penetrate to the depths of the material base and play the long game . This long-term strategy amounted to the Bakuninist position that capitalism should be abolished by a “universal association of free agricultural and industrial unions” that would also assume the administrative functions of the state. ⁵⁴ This goal was linked to the idea of ”propaganda of the deed,” which originally—before the concept was interpreted in terrorist terms—was about letting people “see, feel, and touch” socialism through practical examples. ⁵⁵ Beyond this illustrative function, social self-organizations were to provide the foundation for a new society. True to the embryo theory that the ends must always be contained in the means—called “prefigurative politics” by the New Left—precisely what Wright proclaims as a new program should take place: the construction and expansion of horizontal spaces, that is, “real utopias,” within capitalist economies. This very embryonic-theoretical program was already discussed at the Basel Congress of the International in 1869 and taken up and implemented by the syndicalists. Marxism opposed this from the outset ^.

The egg of Columbus: Interest groups as access vehicles

Indeed, syndicalism, which was dominant in the labor movement in many countries before the latter underwent an authoritarian turn after the Russian Revolution of 1917, succeeded in building revolutionary movements in many places. However, the element of revolutionary rupture still carried considerable weight, as the syndicalist fictional novel * How We Made the Revolution* demonstrates. ⁵⁷ Despite all the early stages of revolutionary practice, the transformation could not be conceived without a “final stand,” such as an insurrectionary general strike. ⁵⁸ This was partly justified. For with the growth of the opposing power, the insecure bourgeoisie usually mobilized for violent reaction even before an uprising. In any case, the syndicalists were never able to prevail in direct confrontation with this power. ⁵⁹ This experience led theorists of the movement in the 1920s to consider how the path from the syndicalist organism to the new society could be traversed even without an insurrectionary element. Within the FAUD, a debate on “constructive socialism” was therefore held, ⁶⁰ which led to a further concretization of the germinal form theory. Comprehensive social counter-institutions were envisioned, with which an orderly transition to socialism would be possible. ⁶¹

With the Nazis’ rise to power in Germany in 1933 and the defeat of the syndicalists in the Spanish Civil War in 1939, this theoretical development came to an end. It would be the task of contemporary transformation theories to pick up precisely where this left off. In particular, it would be necessary to explore how to avoid widespread insecurity and the problems associated with insurrection without resulting in ineffectiveness or systemic integration. This would involve finding the right balance between Wright’s elements. Albert Camus had already argued in 1951 that it was the task of syndicalism to find the right “measure.” He maintained ^that syndicalism, to which he attributed “Mediterranean thought,” was fundamentally better equipped to do so than Marxism, which, with its “German ideology,” tended to force utopia into reality. In matters of human emancipation, however, one should always be guided not by abstract necessities, but by concrete possibilities. ⁶³ In the same vein, Alexander Schapiro had previously spoken of a “conscious rebellion” in which the revolutionary program was to be “permanently maximized and never limited to the ultimate goal of ‘integral’ emancipation.” ⁶⁴ And Rudolf Rocker frequently pointed out that the opportunities of a time and the tasks at hand had to be correctly identified. ⁶⁵

All of this is an expression of Pouget’s maxim that revolutionary work must be done “without sacrificing the present to the future or the future to the present.” ⁶⁶ It is, in a sense, about a revolutionary tact, mediating situationally between reality and utopia. It is precisely on this strategic question, which always concerns the appropriate forms of organization first and foremost, that the new transformation theories are at a loss. Sutterlütti and Meretz, for example, themselves admit that they are undecided about what the germinal forms of a new society should be, but are at least certain that this cannot result from networking existing niche projects.67 Hardt, too, has little concrete to say on this question in an arranca interview, but at least clarifies that the occupations of public spaces celebrated by the Left in the early 2010s were far too spontaneous and immediate to be useful for the constitutive process of reorganizing a complex society. Such a movement requires “the creation of new and lasting social relationships and institutions on a large scale.” ⁶⁸ While he may not be able to provide concrete examples of this, he shares in it the imagination of syndicalism, which is equally alien to the spontaneous and simplistic illusions of, for example, neo-anarchism.

Perhaps it is the fragile Marxist identity that prevents us from grasping the fundamental concept. Especially when it comes to “eroding” capitalism from below, as Wright calls it, socio-economic interest groups and self-governance structures remain the most obvious forms of organization. But to explicitly state this would mean nominally joining the syndicalist camp. And at the same time, it would require abandoning the Marxist dogma of union unity and advocating for alternative unions. After all, hardly anyone would claim that established unions with their hierarchical central apparatuses could serve as the seeds of an egalitarian-socialist society. Consequently, talk of “construction” would have to be followed by action; we could no longer rely on the pious hope that a transformative movement would arise directly and “organically.” For while it is of course about a socio-economic organism that harmonizes with real life, such an organism must be indirectly conceived and built by capable activists – including the rules and procedures that a complex social order requires. The problematic aspects of human life must also be anticipated and taken into account. ⁶⁹

Trade unions are the ideal environment for this development, as they represent a special “vehicle of access” to reality. ⁷⁰ Because they address the concrete interests of people, they are not as ideologically demanding and are therefore attractive beyond narrow political affinity. At the same time, they can form the basis of a lasting social mobilization that does not dissipate as easily as a political group. ⁷¹ This is precisely why syndicalism relies on “the most concrete reality,” as Camus says, and tries to integrate its living cells into its strategy. ⁷² How effective this can be is demonstrated by the fact that anarchism has always been able to reach the masses wherever it relied on the trade union form. ⁷³ And this vehicle can certainly gain revolutionary momentum. The basic idea of syndicalism, even before Negri and Hardt marketed it as their theory, has always been to institutionalize the everyday rebellion that emerges in social conflicts in a way that expands rather than contains it. What is crucial, therefore, is not so much the conflicts themselves, but the forms of relationships that are shaped within their context. As Schapiro once explained, this requires placing the interplay between everyday struggles for interests and the development of structures of social reorganization at the center of our thinking. ⁷⁴

Such a constructive social engineering seeks out moments within existing conditions that can be reconnected and transcended to form an alternative. It would be wrong, however, to reduce syndicalism solely to the working-class sphere. Contrary to the prejudice that it is inadequate because it focuses only on businesses, in its heyday it certainly included communitarian structures, such as tenant and unemployment assistance, consumer cooperatives, and educational and cultural associations. In this respect, it hinted at a comprehensive model of social reorganization. The task now is to develop this model more clearly. A combination of diverse interest groups and self-governing structures could provide the foundation for a counter-society whose social relations supersede state and capitalist structures. Such a transformative policy would be a credible vision for the left at a time when revolutionary zeal is considered destructive or naive, yet dissatisfaction with reformist policies is omnipresent. And it would offer the isolated left a way to reconnect. Because fundamental efforts are needed in the social fray for the left to regain its credibility. In this sense, the transformation of society begins with the transformation of the left itself.

The second part of the series of articles will then present the first building blocks of a counter-societal substructure that would be capable of resonating in the current situation.

See Holger Marcks, “The Most Boring Thing in the World: The Trade Union as a Means of Transformation. On the Theory of Social Change in Syndicalism,” in: Direct Action , No. 195, Sept./Oct. 2009 (online here ). [ ↩ ]
Nelli Tügel, “The working class is growing and on the move. Historian Marcel van der Linden on massive strikes, weak unions and precarious standard employment,” in: Neues Deutschland , July 11, 2017 (online here ). [ ↩ ]
See Ferdi Konun, “Make Syndicalism Great Again! Ten Years of Restarting FAU Berlin – A Review”, on: berlin.fau.org, March 20, 2018 (online here ). [ ↩ ]
For the terms, see below [ ↩ ]
Holger Marcks, “The Plague of the Present. Economic crises can wipe out human lives, but not capitalism,” in: Direct Action , No. 190, Nov./Dec. 2008. [ ↩ ]
See Didier Eribon, Returning to Reims , Berlin 2016; and idem, Society as Judgment: Classes, Identities , Paths, Berlin 2017. [ ↩ ]
For the initial article, see Sebastian Friedrich, “For a ‘New Class Politics’: Why common struggles are possible despite sexist, racist, and nationalist divisions,” in: Analyse & Kritik , No. 627, May 2017 (online here ). [ ↩ ]
For the term, see Saul D. Alinsky, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals , New York 1971. [ ↩ ]
Loren Balhorn, “The Underpants-Gnome Left,” on: adamag.de, May 28, 2018 (online here ). [ ↩ ]
Collective Bremen, “Class struggle with the local trade union. Revolutionary neighborhood work is part of class politics,” in: Analyse & Kritik , No. 636, March 2018. [ ↩ ]
Torsten Bewernitz, “Beyond the trade union? A new class politics must become practical – worker centers would be one approach,” in: Analyse & Kritik , No. 638, May 2018. [ ↩ ]
LCM Editorial Team, “Congress of Municipalities: New class politics needs to be linked to real organizing processes. A proposal for what that could look like,” on: lowerclassmag.com, April 23, 2018 (online here ). [ ↩ ]
Proletarian Autonomy Magdeburg and Finsterwalde, “New Social Revolutionary Movement”, on: lowerclassmag.com, May 15, 2018 (online here ). [ ↩ ]
Erna Rauch, “Gaining Perspectives: Organized Neighborhoods and Federations Working Hand in Hand!”, on: direktaktion.org, January 17, 2018 (online here ). [ ↩ ]
See Ahjamu Umi, “Listen to Those Who Know: Don’t React to White Supremacists,” at: abetterworld.me, June 1, 2017 (online here ). [ ↩ ]
The term originates from the philosopher Rahel Jaeggi and refers to a state in which thought patterns have been removed from critical reflection, thus solidifying into ideology; Rahel Jaeggi, “What is Ideology Critique?”, in: Rahel Jaeggi & Tilo Wesche, What is Critique?, Frankfurt aM 2009, pp. 266–295, here p. 268. [ ↩ ]
Simon Sutterlütti & Stefan Meretz, Abolishing Capitalism: An Invitation to Rethink Utopia and Transformation , Hamburg 2018. [ ↩ ]
For example, in an interview with Tomas Konicz, “’We hope that scientific thinking about utopia will become possible.’ A conversation about post-capitalist alternatives with the Keimform bloggers and authors Simon Sutterlütti and Stefan Meretz,” on: heise.de, July 31, 2018 (online here ). [ ↩ ]
See here . [ ↩ ]
See, in general, Lucien van der Walt & Michael Schmidt, Black Flame: Revolutionary Class Politics in Anarchism and Syndicalism , Hamburg 2013. [ ↩ ]
Erik Olin Wright, Real Utopias: Ways Out of Capitalism , Berlin 2017 (English original edition 2010). [ ↩ ]
Ibid., p. 12. [ ↩ ]
In addition to autonomous organizing and building alternative structures (free space), syndicalists also made reform demands of the state and/or operated partially within the framework of legally regulated labor relations (symbiosis), thereby working towards a radical change in the order with growing counter-power, possibly culminating in a final confrontation (break). [ ↩ ]
See ibid., p. 216. [ ↩ ]
Classical anarchist critique of the state is frequently misunderstood as simplistic anti-statism. When, for example, Mikhail Bakunin spoke out against statehood, he primarily had the Prussian centralized state with its military character in mind—and not every administrative and political superstructure that manages and coordinates public affairs. That this critique is based on a completely different understanding of the state than neo-anarchism, which often rejects any form of representation and public control, is also evident in the fact that Bakunin, in his outline of a revolutionary society, envisioned, among other things, constitutions, parliaments, and courts; see Mikhail Bakunin, “Principles and Organization of International Revolutionary Society” (1866) in: idem, Collected Works , Vol. 3, West Berlin 1975 (new edition of the 1924 original, ed. by Max Nettlau), pp. 7–29. Classical mass anarchism, therefore, by no means represented a vision of spontaneous order; He defined himself primarily in contrast to Marxism as a socialism from below, which develops the organisms of social movements into an economic and political system instead of subordinating them to a party construct intended to seize state power. The ‘anti-state’ element lay primarily in this strategy for a transformation beyond the existing state. [ ↩ ]
John Holloway, Changing the World Without Taking Power , Münster 2002. [ ↩ ]
Antonio Negri & Michael Hardt, Empire – The New World Order , Frankfurt am Main 2002 (English original edition 2000). [ ↩ ]
Ibid., p. 358. [ ↩ ]
See Van der Walt & Schmidt, Schwarze Flamme , pp. 49–107. [ ↩ ]
One often hears, for example, that what anarchists could learn from Marxists is, quite generally, their theoretical competence. What this means in political terms, however, seems to be entirely flexible. In a VSA book edited by Michael Brie, for instance, it states: “Marxism lives through its transformations, and it lives only by proving itself as a mode of thought capable of emancipatory intervention in major crises” (see here ). According to this view, Marxism could ultimately be anything that thought leads it to. But this renders the concept of Marxism, which denotes a specific political variant of socialism, completely arbitrary—and thus also the designations of other socialisms that are to be distinguished from it. Referencing Marx’s philosophy is at least insufficient to establish a political “ism.” At best, it justifies speaking of Marxists or Marxologists. Anyone who endorses a participatory socialism that is to be realized through a prefigurative transformation strategy from below is, if one adheres to historical consistency, by definition an anarchist or syndicalist—even if their own identity refuses to acknowledge it. That would be a more appealing self-designation anyway than using the term Marxism to express that one bases one’s identity on the words of some kind of pillar of the establishment. Such a personalized narrowing of the ideological foundation semantically expresses narrow-mindedness, if not outright sectarianism. [ ↩ ]
Bini Adamczak, Revolution or Rather. 1917, 1968 and the future , Berlin 2017. [ ↩ ]
Ibid., pp. 97–98. [ ↩ ]
Ibid., p. 98. [ ↩ ]
See Karl Korsch, “The Socialist Formula for the Organization of the National Economy” (1912), in: idem, Political Texts , ed. by Erich Gerlach & Jürgen Seifert, Frankfurt aM 1971, pp. 17–21. [ ↩ ]
See Karl Korsch, “Ten Theses on Marxism Today”, in: idem, Political Texts , pp. 385–387. [ ↩ ]
In frame analysis, this refers to the diffusion of ideas that find their way into a different context via indirect routes; see Shareen Hertel, Unexpected Power: Conflict and Change among Transnational Activists , Ithaca 2006, p. 8. [ ↩ ]
Holloway, for example, was significantly inspired by Zapatismo. [ ↩ ]
See, in general, Abdullah Öcalan, Democratic Confederalism , Neuss 2012. [ ↩ ]
See Holger Marcks, “Strategy of the Niche. Solidarity Economy between Hope and Illusion”, in: Direct Action , No. 179, Jan./Feb. 2007. [ ↩ ]
It has become fashionable to describe participatory and low-hierarchy structures as ‘horizontal,’ in contrast to ‘vertical’ structures, which function in a representative and hierarchical manner. In its most ‘extreme,’ that is, anarchic form, horizontalism is merely a spontaneous, open social process in which any asymmetry among the participants is rejected. See Marina Sitrin, * Everyday Revolutions: Horizontalism and Autonomy in Argentina *, London & New York 2012; and Marina Sitrin & Dario Azzellini, * They Can’t Represent Us! Reinventing Democracy from Greece to Occupy* , London 2014. We will see in the third part of this series that this can also lead to political contradictions and social exclusion. [ ↩ ]
This term, too, has become fashionable, especially in the English-speaking world, and is often detached from its political originators. However, it was introduced as early as 1977 by Carl Boggs, who at least acknowledges that this form of politics can be traced back to the anarchist and syndicalist movements and was opposed by Marxism. See Carl Boggs, “Marxism, Prefigurative Communism, and the Problem of Workers’ Control,” in: Radical America, No. 6, Vol. 11 (1977), pp. 99–122. [ ↩ ]
See Philippe Kellermann, Marxist Ahistoricism. On Repression, Ignorance and Denunciation: The (Non-)Reception of Anarchism in Contemporary Marxism , Lich 2011. [ ↩ ]
This also includes the generally poor style of frequently failing to cite sources of ideas, whether out of negligence or even spite. [ ↩ ]
See Rebecca Kolins Givan, Kenneth M. Roberts & Sarah A. Soule, “Introduction: The Dimensions of Diffusion,” in: dies. (ed.), The Diffusion of Social Movements. Actors Mechanisms, and Political Effects , Cambridge et al. 2006, pp. 1–17. [ ↩ ]
Adamczak speaks allegorically of a “prohibition of images” to describe a political rationality that rejects the depiction of utopian visions. Here, it literally refers to the widespread attitude within the anti-authoritarian left of not wanting to portray or publicly position figures within the movement. [ ↩ ]
Jaeggi describes the state of alienation as an “impairment of appropriation processes” due to a disrupted relationship with the (life)world that needs to be shaped. See generally Rahel Jaeggi, Alienation: On the Relevance of a Social Philosophical Problem , Frankfurt am Main & New York 2005. [ ↩ ]
See Holger Marcks, “At war with Bakunin. Karl Marx and the split of the First International”, in: Beatrix Bouvier & Rainer Auts (eds.), Karl Marx 1818–1883. Life – Work – Times , Stuttgart 2018, pp. 316–324. [ ↩ ]
Thus Viktor Griffuelhes, quoted in: Hansi Oostinga, “’We only get what we fight for!’ Anarcho-syndicalism today”, in: Hans Jürgen Degen & Jochen Knoblauch (eds.), Anarchism 2.0. An Introduction , Stuttgart 2009, pp. 41–55, here p. 43. [ ↩ ]
Basically see Émile Pouget, Le Parti du Travail , Paris 1997 [original from 1905]. [ ↩ ]
Ibid., p. 209. [ ↩ ]
Adamczak, Beziehungsweise , p. 99. [ ↩ ]
If one follows Marx’s base-superstructure model, according to which the economic base determines the superstructure of a society, then it can confidently be said that the syndicalists turned Marxist revolutionary theory—which posits that the state must be conquered in order to transform the economic base—on its head. This also marks the difference between the concept of a social and a political revolution. Indeed, Lenin, for example, understood his difference from classical social democracy essentially only as a tactical question on the path to socialism. He saw the strategy (conquest of political power) as unchanged in both wings, clearly distinguishing this strategy from the social-revolutionary one of “left-wing radicalism” (including syndicalism). [ ↩ ]
Pouget, Parti du Travail , p. 209. [ ↩ ]
Mikhail Bakunin, “Program and Statutes of the Alliance of Socialist Democracy” (1870), in: idem, Selected Writings , Vol. 6.2, ed. by Wolfgang Eckhardt, Berlin 2011, pp. 832–835, here p. 833. We will address the problem of institutions from an anarchist transformation perspective in the second part of this series of articles. [ ↩ ]
Paul Brousse, “La propaganda par le fait”, in: Bulletin de la Fédération Jurasienne , August 5, 1877. See also Holger Marcks, “Pfade in die Gewalt. Individuelle undsammeln Militanz im strategischen Denken des Anarchismus”, in: Phase 2 , No. 50, Spring 2015 (online here ). [ ↩ ]
Well reproduced in Fritz Brupbacher, Marx and Bakunin. A contribution to the history of the International Workingmen’s Association , West Berlin 1976 [original from 1913], pp. 76 ff. [ ↩ ]
Émile Pataud & Émile Pouget, The Last Battle , Berlin 1930 (translated by Rudolf Rocker). French original: Comment nous ferons la revolution , Paris 1909. [ ↩ ]
This was also due to the fact that (syndicalist) mass anarchism was never entirely free of insurrectionist elements within its ranks, which Alexander Schapiro criticized as a kind of anarchism in its infancy. See Alexander Schapiro, “La reconstrucción económica,” in: Solidarida Obrera , March 25, March 31, and April 8, 1932. [ ↩ ]
The problem of insurrection and reaction will be discussed in more detail in the fourth part of this series. [ ↩ ]
The debate took place in the FAUD’s theoretical journal ( Die Internationale – Zeitschrift für die wunderbare Arbeiterbewegung, Gesellschaftskritik und sozialistischen Neuaufbau [The International – Journal for the Revolutionary Workers’ Movement, Social Criticism and Socialist Reconstruction ]). For the initial article, see Rudolf Rocker, “Constructive Socialism,” in: Die Internationale, No. 1, Vol. 1 (1927). [ ↩ ]
An earlier foundation can be found in: Study Commission of the Berlin Workers’ Exchanges & Franz Barwich, “That is Syndicalism.” The Workers’ Exchanges of Syndicalism , Frankfurt aM 2005 (original from 1923). [ ↩ ]
See generally Albert Camus, The Rebel , Reinbek bH 1969 (original from 1951), especially pp. 226–248. [ ↩ ]
See ibid., pp. 241–244. [ ↩ ]
As reproduced in Jaap Klostermann’s introduction to Alexander Schapiro’s “Report on the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) and the Uprising in Spain in January 1933”, in: Claudio Pozzoli (ed.) Fascism and Capitalism (= Yearbook of the Workers’ Movement, Vol. 4), Frankfurt aM 1976, pp. 159–170, here p. 168. [ ↩ ]
He expressed this very pointedly, for example, in his closing speech at the 1919 Congress of the Free Association of German Trade Unions (FvdG): “Great times sometimes come and find little people. Then, when the opportunity is missed, that which could have made us great and powerful perishes”; FvdG, Minutes of the Proceedings of the 12th Congress of the Free Association of German Trade Unions. Held on December 27, 28, 29 and 30, 1919 in Berlin, in the auditorium of the Luisenstadt Higher Secondary School, Dresdener Str. 113 , Berlin 1920, p. 93. [ ↩ ]
Émile Pouget, quoted in: Oostinga, »We only get«, p. 42. [ ↩ ]
See interview with Konicz. [ ↩ ]
Michael Hardt in an interview with Ben Trott, “From Destatising Movements to Constituent Power,” in: arranca!, No. 47, November 2013 (online here ). [ ↩ ]
Organizational sociology and social movement research offer important structural knowledge for this, which has so far been neglected by the left. [ ↩ ]
A term from social movement research; Mayer N. Zald, “Ideologically Structured Action. An Enlarged Agenda for Social Movement Research”, in: Mobilization: An International Quarterly , No. 1, Vol. 5 (2000), pp. 1–16, here p. 9. [ ↩ ]
See Thomas Goes, “Trade Unions: Why, What, and How,” on: adamag.de, June 27, 2018 (online here ). [ ↩ ]
Camus, The Rebel , p. 241. [ ↩ ]
See Holger Marcks, “Transnational is better. The state and perspectives of syndicalism”, in: iz3w, No. 367, July/Aug. 2018 (online here ). [ ↩ ]
See Alexander Schapiro, “The Politics of the Internationale”, in: The Internationale , No. 7, Vol. 5, July 1932, pp. 145–147. [ ↩ ]

Part II: Multiple unions as a foundation: First building blocks of counter-power

The strategic transformation of social relations—that is the subject of transformation politics. What this means in a syndicalist context was outlined in the first part of this series.1 At the same time ^, it was argued there that syndicalism already anticipated the principle of the program toward which left-wing debates are currently heading: a constructive social technology that does not aim for immediate disruption of the existing order, but rather promotes mediation between reality and utopia. Such transformation politics allows revolutionary aspirations to have their validity without suspending work on the existing order for an uncertain adventure. This principle now needs to be further differentiated. Up to this point, the subject has only been considered on a metapolitical level.2 That is to say, more recent transformation theories have been placed in conceptual relation to syndicalism in order to highlight the vanishing points of analogous modes of thought. They form the programmatic outline against which a transhistorical principle emerges. How that silhouette can be filled and thus the principle can be developed into a differentiated program, however, must be answered with regard to political levels that affect the purpose, goal and means of the transformation – ³ and this against the background of historical experiences and current conditions.

The different levels of political practice and their interrelationships are precisely what recent transformation theories neglect. As already discussed, these theories do indeed reflect the original syndicalist principle that a libertarian socialism is to be built by establishing new forms of society through organizational forms that prefigure the utopia. However, they barely elaborate on how these real-utopian embryonic forms are to gain power and develop into a counter-power. Thus, they identify processes and mechanisms of transformation in a social-theoretical way, but not the practices capable of activating them tactically and strategically. In the debate surrounding “New Class Politics,” there are indeed proposals for horizontal organizational practices that are seen as having potential for mobilization and social struggles, but these are not embedded in any social theories with which a program of transformation could be developed. After all, this requires not simply concepts for successful grassroots organizing, but rather concepts for successful transformative grassroots organizing. It is one thing to mobilize people and win battles, and quite another to develop structures and institutions from that that enable something like a counter-society.

Syndicalism has always attempted this art, its originality not being inventing grassroots organizing, but rather in its desire to forge building blocks of counter-power from it. It is therefore not an end in itself, but is meant to empower liberation. Because of this purpose, which assumes a constant capacity for expansion of action possibilities, a constructive socialism, as Pierre Ramus once elaborated, must be conceived primarily as a theory of practice, which in turn presupposes a social analysis “that clarifies the motives and backgrounds of human action.” ⁴ For only superficially is it about opposing the state and capitalism with alternative structures. At its core, the work consists of engaging broad masses in such structures, integrating them into them, and elevating them through them. These are tasks that must be accomplished at different levels of action. Thus, engagement occurs at the meso level (organizations as collective actors), integration at the micro level (organizations as an interpersonal cosmos), and elevation at the macro-political level (organizations as social institutions). ⁵ At the same time, the associated goals and means must be consistent with the end if prefigurative politics is to succeed. ⁶ We will now elaborate on this, starting with mesopolitics.

Communicable forms of mediation: The puzzle of real-utopian social engineering

It is to Sutterlütti and Meretz’s credit that they have strengthened the possibility of a new order beyond revolutionary rupture. With their “five-step” model, in particular, they provide a social theory for qualitative systemic change, in which nascent forms bring about a shift in function and dominance. ^Such a model is plausible not least because capitalism, too, developed from nascent forms into the dominant system, entirely without revolutionary rupture—and yet so radically pervasive. In this respect, the authors provide a plausible explanation for how revolutionary work can begin with the existing order, thereby countering the simplistic notion held by some on the left that anything not always about the whole is inevitably swallowed up by the system. However, it becomes questionable when they turn to the scenarios of such a developmental process. For although their work speaks extensively of construction, this process appears largely passive, as something that happens to society. This impression is at least given by their search for potential germinal forms, which they find, for example, in left-wing collective projects, forms of the solidarity economy, or knowledge commons like Wikipedia, and whose “commonistic mode of mediation” is ultimately supposed to create “transpersonal relationships” that become the general social structure. ⁸

These scenarios consist primarily of abstract notions of the emergence of a “commonism,” which read like a prophecy. There is no mention of active construction or creative development. Likewise, apart from normative promises, the constitution of the target society is not envisioned, which is precisely what the authors seem to be demanding. This reticence is likely due to the leftist mentality of not wanting to prescribe too much, so that all leftist projects can find themselves reflected in it, no matter how dysfunctional or incompatible they may be. Perhaps the Marxist logic with its structuralist bias also resonates here , which hardly allows any space for agency , that is, the power of actors, 9 and, as Ramus made clear, “restricts human action to the point of expecting events instead of actively shaping one’s own history.”10 In any case, they thus come into contradiction with their own premises, according to which they are skeptical “that the projects will simply network themselves somehow and thereby create a ‘commonist space’ that will eventually replace capitalism.” ¹¹ At least they contribute little concrete to solving the problem, also identified by Hardt, that a “constitutive power” is needed that addresses the “institution” of new modes of relating “on a large scale.”¹²

The resulting impression that the seeds of the new are already present and merely need to be perceived and expanded quantitatively to lead to qualitative change is also problematic because capitalism, which serves as an example of embryonic development, by no means achieved its breakthrough as naturally as Marxism often suggests. In fact, it was also the result of actively shaped politics. Motivated by material interests, the propertied bourgeoisie gradually established structures and institutions—and quite strategically at that—that enabled a shift in dominance. The development of factory and trading systems, as well as the formation of monopolies and cartels as the foundation, the establishment of a managerial class, banking, and stock markets as the middle ground, and the influencing and shaping of the political superstructure—all these are processes without which the functioning of capitalism could not have so thoroughly permeated society. Syndicalism, in its philosophy of history, always acknowledged this, understanding capitalism more as the result of material and cultural struggles than as a purely historical-materialist consequence. Accordingly, he also gave more importance to the agency of the labor movement.

Building a new society within the shell of the old, therefore, in syndicalist logic, does not mean seeking and expanding the new within the existing structure, but rather constructing something new and finding points of connection within the existing system from which it can draw resources. The distinction may sound subtle, but it is crucial. It means acting from within existing conditions without relying solely on them. One remains grounded in reality and extracts dynamic potential from it to inject momentum into the development of counter-power. And this potential resides in the contradictions of reality. They offer opportunities for struggles that can spark people’s interest in and connection to alternative structures, nurturing their nascent form. Identifying these contradictions and opportunity structures is the materialist aspect of syndicalism—strategically utilizing and expanding them is its voluntarist aspect. In doing so, he avoids the absolute pretensions of “utopian social engineering,” as Karl Popper calls the method of “leaving no stone unturned” in order to realize a radical ideal. At the same time, however, he does not simply follow Popper’s favored “social engineering of small steps,” which is reduced to “looking around for the most pressing evils in order to solve them.”¹³

We will later delve deeper into why reformist and even conservative critiques of utopian social engineering do indeed have a legitimate core. For now, it suffices to note that syndicalism shares concerns about the “dangers of revolution,” ¹⁴ without adopting the standpoint of reformism, which seeks to improve existing institutions through mere “symbiosis,” as Wright calls it.15 More precisely, it follows Plato’s maxim of holistic planning, which Popper attributes to utopian social engineering—that is, defining a radical goal and then determining the individual steps and means for its practical implementation— ¹⁶ but attempts to imbue this holism with the necessary degree of realism inherent in the social engineering of small steps. It thus represents a synthesis of methods: a real -utopian social engineering. In Camus’s interpretation, this means acknowledging the limits of what is situationally feasible, rather than acting from an absolute standpoint. The aim is not to force utopia into reality, but to arrive at a new one through engagement with it. The syndicalist revolt is therefore relative; it focuses on present possibilities, and not, like Marx and Hegel, on historical necessities. It does not evade contradictions, but works with them—in order to overcome them. ¹⁷

In this realistic radicalism, where utopian politics must yield to real life, more than just the sequence of steps is at stake. The puzzle of real-utopian social engineering consists primarily of the dual task of creating new forms of mediation that are also broadly communicable . For example, the utopian socialism of the past and the “lived utopias” of today exhibit such forms, but due to their niche character, they lack a connection to reality through which their illustrative content could generate interest. Marxism, on the other hand, was once quite communicable as a party project, but, as Korsch criticized, its “unconditional adherence to the political forms of bourgeois revolution” meant it failed to solve the other half of the puzzle. ¹⁹ As Sutterlütti and Meretz note, a similar point applies to non-niche movements today, which, through strategic interaction with institutional realities, attempt to “achieve universality, but since they do not build new forms of socialization…”, continue to operate within the framework of political and state change; and this “takes the edge off the emancipatory endeavor,” ²⁰ which is why such “concrete utopias” often remain merely appeal campaigns. ²¹ We will now look at what a syndicalist solution to the puzzle might look like.

Thinking from the beginning to the end, the end to the beginning: Mesopolitics as the linchpin

The real-utopian social technology of syndicalism can also be understood as one of its alternating steps. On the one hand, it works with reality, indeed, draws it along with it, and on the other hand, it builds the utopia it seeks to nurture, without rushing too far ahead. Ensuring that the field of resonance between these two worlds is not disrupted, that is, that the utopia interacts with reality in a way that allows for an increasing flow of resources from the existing to the emerging, is the task of practice theory. ^It must construct organizations that shape interpersonal relationships inclusively, that enable collective action to cope with reality, and that simultaneously serve as the foundation for counter-societal institutionalization. Thus, a holistic program is needed in which micro-, meso-, and macro-politics interlock. If the program fails at even one of these three tasks, it will not work as a whole. Such a holistic approach is circular because it must constantly reassure itself in theory and practice that one level does not misalign another. It differs in its ambition from some other prefigurative transformation approaches, which merely consider whether macro-political goals are reflected in micro-politics. However, this is precisely what deprives them of the strategic interface with reality through which communicability is established.

Syndicalism, on the other hand, takes the meso-level as the starting point of its holistic thinking. From there, it works its way down to the other levels—and back again. Specifically, this means first choosing an organizational form that directly addresses the material interests of the lower classes and is thus capable of resonating with them. In this way, agency and strategic flexibility are to be enabled, so as not to be—like so many groups fixated on the revolutionary Olympus—”shifting sands of history.” At the same time, this is intended to ensure that the present is not sacrificed to an uncertain future, as Pouget used to say. For even if the overall strategy should not succeed, at least a larger piece of the pie would be secured. This is why trade unions are the mesopolitical linchpin of syndicalism. It was clear early on in capitalism that, precisely because they operate from within the contradictions of everyday life, they are extremely effective at mobilizing people. And at the same time, because they address the material basis of capitalism, they contain the potential to perhaps finally take over the infamous bakery. This position was first clearly formulated in 1869 at the Basel Congress of the First International, which can be considered the birthplace of trade union socialism (syndicalism).

While the Geneva Congress of 1866 had already established that trade unions were important beyond everyday conflict “as an organized force for the abolition of the [capitalist] system,” ²⁶ the position that they should form federal councils in the course of their development, replacing that system, found resonance in Basel. The International should therefore not take the path via the state, but should itself be a transnational “state within states” that prefigures the new order.27 This position was initially not clearly identifiable ideologically because, within the International, which was primarily an association of trade unions, ²⁸ it seemed quite obvious to many. However, it increasingly began to be understood as anarchist after the Marxists distanced themselves from it, thus forcing its adherents to define the difference. Marx and Engels followed a position they had already set out in the Communist Manifesto : “Although not in content, in form the struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie is first and foremost a national one.” The proletariat of every country must, of course, first deal with its own bourgeoisie.” ²⁹ They then elaborated on this position, stating that the political centers of power should be conquered by national parties; accordingly, they wanted to restructure the International along party-political and centralist lines.

This strategic framework was constitutive for political Marxism, which from then on was characterized by the organizational form of the state-oriented party ³⁰ and functionalized the trade unions merely as ‘transmission belts’. ³¹ This is the problem that anarchism—on which this same framework had a co-constitutive effect—had with Marxism. ³² And this problem did not arise from the whims of the contentious Marx, but from a conception of practice that he derived from historical materialism. For he wanted the utopian goal to be defined only vaguely as the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’; everything else would result from the driving forces of history. The proletariat had to integrate itself into this process, that is, to follow historical necessities, and this required a centralist or authoritarian mode of organization so that the masses could form themselves in a uniform and objectively correct manner. ³³ Such a view, which Camus elaborated as absolute or “Caesarist,” ³⁴ stood diametrically opposed to the anarchist one, which emphasized relative possibilities. Above all, however, it contained no awareness of problems of prefiguration, such as the fact that in such reasoning “the concerns of the nation-state become intertwined with the intellectual concerns of the party,” ³⁵ or that it contains patterns of justification for totalitarian rule. ³⁶

Anarchists and syndicalists, on the other hand, attempted to anticipate how revolutionary organizations would shape the field of future possibilities for action. In doing so, they essentially foreshadowed the concept of “path dependencies,” which is now commonplace in organizational sociology. In principle, they also represented a more complex understanding of materialism, which could be described as practical materialism. They did not simply analyze opportunity structures as perpetual determinants of history that one merely needs to perceive correctly, but also considered how strategic interactions could transform those structures, giving rise to new possibilities or closures. Consequently, this meant reflexively including their own organizational forms in their analysis. Prefiguration always occurs in political practice, for better or for worse. What is called prefigurative politics is simply that politics which attempts to be aware of this fact. More recent transformation theories are now practicing precisely this, thereby freeing themselves – albeit unconsciously – from the constitutive framework of political Marxism, whose genealogy was based on the negation of the germ-form-theoretical principle of aligning the organizational form with an image of utopia.

Since these theories, however, evade the meso-question of which organizations provide strategic access to reality, they lack the reflexive element necessary for a critical theory of germinal forms. This is evident, for example, in Adamczak, who, like Sutterlütti and Meretz, talks a great deal about construction but conjures up the necessary agency only as a magical force. ³⁷ For her, revolutions are not made but erupt—precisely to open history to all sorts of options. ³⁸ And at the same time, the movement that seizes them is (presumably) supposed to have grown organically. ³⁹ Fragile Marxism thus wants to break free from the old framework but cannot shed the historical-materialist nursery that prevents it from finding a realistic measure. From the absolute necessities that Camus addressed, it leaps to absolute possibilities; from the paralyzing determinism that Ramus identified to a hopeful spontaneism. A practical materialism, on the other hand, attempts to construct the movement holistically, thinking its beginning through to its end and its end through to its beginning. Not guided by metaphysics, but by experiences in a mesopolitics that aims at agency. For in this endeavor, limitations repeatedly become apparent in how the utopian aspirations of real embryonic forms can be reconciled with the real demands of utopian reorganization. Thus, utopia is constantly redefined by the embryonic form, and the embryonic form is redrawn by utopia. ⁴⁰

Beyond improvisation and integration: Misguided paths of transformation policy

Transformation politics is a labyrinth. It can always stray onto dead ends that lead nowhere. Some paths quickly turn out to be dead ends; others only reveal themselves much later as a misguided path from which there is no return. Transformation can thus fail even before it has begun. And it can, after a long journey, end up in the abyss toward which it was headed from the outset—against all hope. In this way, it may often appear as if revolutionary situations have “more possibilities inscribed” than the impending degeneration suggests. ⁴¹ In reality, however, while it does not move along a “linear path,” ⁴² it does move along path dependencies that dispose of the possibilities. This does not only mean that, for example, a Marxist party already carries within it the seeds of a party dictatorship. But above all, it means whether actors who do not carry this degenerative DNA—that is, who function progressively in the best sense—are also positioned in such a way that they can prevail against both authoritarian revolutionary actors and reactionaries . For it is precisely as a result of uprisings that “order security” is so destabilized ⁴³ that a general sense of insecurity mobilizes reaction, thus making conflicts likely in which horizontal actors have a difficult time and authoritarian (revolutionary) actors have an advantage. ⁴⁴

However openly revolutionary situations may appear, their limits are in fact already defined beforehand, even if this may escape the primary perception of the actors. Recent history, for example with the Arab Spring, has once again demonstrated how regularly horizontal movements are crushed by the dynamics of revolutionary conflict interactions and how the uprisings they initiate can dramatically derail. Anarchism and syndicalism, too, have repeatedly experienced this painfully. Despite many hopeful uprisings and revolutions, they have always had to concede defeat to reaction or authoritarian competition. As early as the 1920s, Schapiro concluded, with regard to the Russian Revolution, that a movement that has not fully elaborated its organizational form regulates the revolution in merely “provisional” institutions and falls by the wayside in the struggle for the future. ⁴⁶ Or, to put it in the language of more recent transformation theories: In the sequence of the dissolution of the old order, the forces of self-organization are still in the protracted process of improvised establishment, while the remaining constituted power or constitutive powers of an authoritarian nature are already efficiently formed to make effective use of the old institutions despite their precariousness.

It is to the credit of Schapiro’s reflexive theory of practice that he highlighted the importance of mesopolitics for the momentum of the necessary institutionalization. Similar to Valeriano Orobón Fernández, for whom a revolutionary trade union was the only germinal form capable of consciously shaping the transformation, since it “lives in the midst of production, which… is the touchstone of every revolution,” he emphasized the task of constantly updating the theory of practice through everyday struggles. It could not remain at the level of “desiderata,” that is, formulations of the desirable, but required an understanding of its “practical possibilities for realization, which find their limits in the capacities for construction.” His conception of “conscious rebellion” thus corresponds to Camus’s philosophy of “revolt.” This is like “a pendulum [searching] for its true rhythm. But this irregularity… takes place around a pivot point.” Thus, “revolt brings measure and limit to light.” ⁵⁰ Like Camus, Schapiro opposed absolute thinking, not only in Marxism but also in parts of anarchism that were ignorant of the relations of reality. He attributed to the insurrectionary elements, for example, an “unconstructive phraseology” that could only be excused during the “first stammering of our movement.” ⁵¹

All the more so is such a judgment valid today, given the ample knowledge available about the “unintended consequences” of insurrection and revolution, ⁵² which have already preoccupied syndicalist critique. Perhaps also due to the long dominance of Marxism and vulgar anarchism, which lacked a reflexive theory of practice, the Left lags far behind this critical level today. That a phraseology like “ The Coming Insurrection ,” which doesn’t even acknowledge the problem of the “anti-chaos reflex,” ⁵³ can be celebrated in this way is indicative of its “ethical conviction” state. ⁵⁴ A Left that wants to reconnect would be well advised to confront critiques of “revolutionary mythology,” ⁵⁵ indeed, to ask: “How revolutionary is the revolution, really?” ⁵⁶ For its problem is not that the flaws of capitalism cannot be communicated, but rather that both its martial and romantic ideas of revolution are considered naive. The same could be said for the newer transformation theories, which are no longer merely desiderata. Simply promoting horizontal and inclusive structures and hoping they will bring about a shift in function and dominance is insufficient. At best, they remain ineffective; at worst, they contribute to the destabilization of order, their lack of complexity making them incapable of addressing the complex dynamics of struggles for reorganization.

This is a self-referential problem: where nascent forms offer no prospect of counter-power, they remain without agency – and without agency, they develop no prospect of counter-power. Breaking this cycle requires a holistic program that demonstrates a reflexive understanding of the possibilities to be developed. It is about actively shaping a robust foundation for the establishment of a counter-society that provides security and stability, not an uncertain adventure. And this is possible with trade unions that engage people along the lines of everyday contradictions. Through such a mesopolitics, which seeks to strategically expand the organization and tactically respond to conflicts, micro- and macro-political problems constantly emerge in practice, providing a basis for elaborating the nascent form: Does the organization function horizontally and inclusively enough to meet the normative demands of the new order; and is it effective and functionally differentiated enough to deal with the empirical problems of a new order? These questions highlight a tension that necessitates both moderation and a realistic adaptation of utopia. The belief that both can be fully achieved demonstrates precisely that kind of absolute thinking which knows no proportions – and must inevitably lead to ineffectiveness or tyranny.

A reflexive theory of practice engages with contradictions, even if this entails the risk of integrating the nascent form into the existing order. Consider, for example, the established trade unions, which failed to seize power and instead functioned as correctives within reality. This was also due to the Marxist concept of the division of labor between party and union, which reduced the latter to mere compensatory procedures. Syndicalist history, with its many uprisings and revolutions, certainly cannot confirm that trade union work must lead to integration. While it could be argued from a systems-theoretical perspective that protest always possesses a corrective function and, due to its “appellative character,” inevitably ^“ indirectly acknowledges the institutions it opposes,” working with institutional reality remains a prerequisite for further progress. For, as Popper observed, action against concrete grievances is always more readily communicable than an abstract vision of society—and thus a link upon which a new collectivity can even begin to develop. ⁵⁹ As Negri rightly – and in fact syndicalist terms – clarified during a discussion in Berlin in 2009, struggles for concrete improvements such as higher wages are “not revolutionary in themselves”; what matters is “what form the struggles take.” ⁶⁰

Create two, three, many social cartels: Trade union ways out of isolation

The dead end that results from simply avoiding the risk of integration is demonstrated by the current situation of the radical left, where large segments had long made it a matter of principle to distance themselves as clearly as possible from reformism. Their “revolutionary” paradigm—that interaction with institutional realities should be avoided because otherwise one affirms the system or is even co-opted by it—has led primarily to one thing: isolation—that is, less than reformism. Ultimately, this form of absolute thinking, which seeks to avoid “system-stabilizing effects” at all costs, revolves solely around a symbolic politics of non-negotiable issues, with which no agency can develop, thus blocking “the path to the implementation of alternatives.” This is ^certainly not a new phenomenon. “Insurrectionary anarchism” once sought salvation in a “maximalism” that distrusted both engagement in concrete reforms and larger-scale organizing efforts, because these potentially reproduced domination. Thus, he had no other ‘practice’ left than to produce phraseological materials that invoke immediate rebellion, from which everything else must spontaneously follow. ⁶² This vulgar thinking continues to wreak havoc on the left, which often refuses to get its hands dirty with reality.

Ironically, this vulgar anarchist way of thinking also crept into groups that consider themselves Marxist after 1968 and especially from the 1990s onward. They may not have been actively calling for insurrection, but they shared the maximalist logic that all agitation must be about everything. Just like insurrectionists, they liked to attack the “possibilist” forces that based their strategy on relative possibilities—for example, on actors who made concrete demands—because they lacked insight into absolute necessities. And just like their anarchist counterparts, they believed—even if their sophistical rhetoric obscured it—in a simplistic way in magical turns of events. As already indicated above, the idea that transformation can only be consciously shaped once the new society has developed “in the womb” of the old ^is synchronous with spontaneism. Both approaches negate the creative power of the present and rely on a quasi-divine power that will supposedly guide the revolution. This practice-preventing mindset has long paralyzed the left; and so it was no surprise that at the end of the 2000s, when crisis processes ushered in a new era of contested futures, it found itself relegated to the role of spectator.

The so-called claim-making , the struggle for concrete demands, is precisely the crucial “vehicle of access” to reality, ⁶⁴ with which collective practices can be set in motion in the first place—instead of merely simulating such practices through “anti-capitalist” event mobilizations and unrelated militancy. Anarchism knows this all too well. Having grown through trade unions in the First International, it increasingly moved toward insurrectionism after the latter’s split and found itself isolated within a few years. French anarchists, in particular, recognized the reasons for this and, in the 1890s, called for a return to the trade union tradition of the International. ⁶⁵ They thus quickly became the strongest force in the French labor movement and triggered an international wave of syndicalism. In many countries, syndicalism was the dominant force for an extended period. Only after the Russian Revolution, which raised (false) hopes in many – partly because syndicalist revolutionary attempts had failed up to that point – was Marxism able to truly gain a foothold in many places and overtake syndicalism. Nevertheless, it remained dominant in Spain, for example, until the 1930s, and in 1936 it launched its largest revolutionary attempt there, which ultimately failed again in 1939.

Even though everyone always views the Spanish Revolution with a focus on the years 1936–39, what is truly interesting is the decades of work that the CNT and its predecessors carried out before that. Here, the groundwork for revolutionary possibility was laid. But the seeds of failure were also sown here, ^as Schapiro and the Treintistas warned even before 1936, for whom the constructive groundwork was insufficient. ^We will return to this problem of revolutionary tact at the end of the series; here, it should only be noted that trade union work need not degenerate into reformism and is a viable way out of isolation. This is also confirmed by contemporary syndicalism. For after the Second World War, many syndicalist organizations were, for a long time, only trade unions in name. In reality, they were left-wing subcultures that had adopted the absolute ideologies of vulgar anarchism—and were consequently isolated. Only with a return to persistent trade union work was the FAU, starting in Berlin, able to get back on track to some extent. ⁶⁸ In other countries, too, we see how serious workplace activism pays off and enables the anti-authoritarian left to gain a foothold in the circles that the ‘New Class Politics’ aims to address but fails to reach. ⁶⁹

In the medium term, the task of contemporary syndicalism is not only to advance this organizing but also to integrate it into a program of counter-power that sets the grassroots in contrast to existing institutions via an institutional foundation. This is the transformative moment through which the contradictions can be maintained, from whose dynamics shifts in dominance are possible and integration is avoided. ⁷⁰ In this respect, syndicalism differs from established trade unions, which are a symbiotic reflection of existing institutions—and thus possess no transformative potential. It also differs from the now numerous commendable concrete organizing campaigns with which the left seeks to regain social anchoring. While these campaigns do not operate according to the logic of existing institutions, they themselves lack an institutional program that goes beyond those desiderata that express a desire for transformation. ⁷¹ As a result, they actually move toward the problem identified by systems theory: that they function only as a corrective to reality and, in the event of success, even render themselves superfluous. ⁷² Embedding social struggles in a transformative form of trade union that permanently addresses conflicts of interest therefore remains essential.

The form of trade unionism by no means implies a narrowing of focus to workplace work. ⁷³ Rather, in the syndicalist sense, a trade union is to be understood as a social cartel in which groups unite due to their inherent contradictions. The contradiction between the working and entrepreneurial classes is only one of several. Others include those between the tenant and landlord classes, between the consuming and distributing classes, and between the administered and administrative classes. A modern syndicalism should do justice to the multiplicity of classes through multiple trade unions, thus supplementing worker organization with “union-based social organizations” in the rental, consumer, and public sectors, ⁷⁴ which enable a comprehensive policy of transformation. Within the framework of an institutional program, these can represent the first building blocks upon which structures of self-governance—such as economic, housing, consumer, and administrative federations—are built. For it is only through these federations, which guarantee a link to reality, that resources can be transferred from the existing system to the emerging one. Trade unions should indeed be a transmission belt. But not for the party that will return people to the old ways – but for the world of self-governance.

The third part then discusses how to build transformative trade unions and what tactical innovations can help them gain counter-power.

See Holger Marcks, “Outline of a Constructive Socialism (Part 1). Syndicalist Transformation Policy: The Mediation Between Reality and Utopia,” on: direktaktion.org, September 3, 2018 (online here ). [ ↩ ]
Metapolitics here is not meant in the specific sense of the ›New Right‹, which understands it as acting in the ›pre-political‹ sphere to gain discursive power over concepts and guiding principles, but rather refers more generally to the overarching determination of political principles from which concrete policies can then follow. [ ↩ ]
The axis of purpose, aim, and means originates from Carl von Clausewitz’s theory of war, but has also proven useful as a framework for analyzing or reflecting on political action. In this framework, the purpose is determined by the (principled) political claim, the aim by a (suitable) strategy, and the means by (effective) tactics. [ ↩ ]
Ilse Schepperle, Pierre Ramus. Marxism Critique and Reception of Socialism , Munich 1988, p. 231. [ ↩ ]
The means or tactics mediate between micro- and mesopolitics, the goal or strategy between meso- and macro-politics, and the purpose or political claim between macro- and meta-politics. [ ↩ ]
Fundamentally, tactics ask about the right mobilization for strategic interactions, and strategy asks about the right interactions for political goals. Prefigurative politics, in particular, must go beyond this linearity and always reflect the political objective back into the tactics—that is, think circularly—if the goal is not to be undermined by choosing the wrong means. [ ↩ ]
See Sutterlütti & Meretz, Abolishing Capitalism , pp. 202–209. [ ↩ ]
See ibid., pp. 209–233. [ ↩ ]
In the social sciences, the extent to which human action is determined by social structures or driven by free choices is an ongoing debate. Depending on how one-sided perspectives are positioned within this tension, one speaks of a bias , that is, a kind of imbalance. [ ↩ ]
This is his position summarized by Schepperle, Pierre Ramus , p. 230. For his well-founded critique of Marxism in full detail, see Pierre Ramus, The False Doctrine of Marxism in the Realm of Socialism and the Proletariat , Vienna & Leipzig 1927. [ ↩ ]
Sutterlütti & Meretz in an interview with Konicz, “We hope” (online here ). [ ↩ ]
Hardt in an interview with Trott, “On Destatizing Movements” (online here ). [ ↩ ]
Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies – Volume I. The Spell of Plato , 7th, revised edition, Tübingen 1992, pp. 189 and 194. [ ↩ ]
All the more so, of course, as its history unfolds and experiences grow. See, for example, Rudolf Rocker, “Dangers of the Revolution,” in: Die Freie Gesellschaft , No. 38, Vol. 4 (1953), pp. 37–50. [ ↩ ]
See Wright, Real Utopias , pp. 453–485. [ ↩ ]
See Popper, The Open Society , pp. 187–188. [ ↩ ]
See Camus, The Rebel , pp. 226–238. [ ↩ ]
Utopian socialism refers to that early socialist tradition which sought to realize a new society through the formation of alternative communities. Its fundamental ideas continue in contemporary communes, which some consider “lived utopias.” See, for example, Bernd Drücke (ed.), Ja! Anarchismus. Gelebte Utopie im 21. Jahrhundert: Interviews und Gespräche , Berlin 2006, pp. 233–263. Why this strategy of creating free spaces (cf. Wright, Reale Utopien , pp. 435–452), sometimes referred to as an “exit” in social movement research, fails to exert any real influence and even coexists quite well with the “system” will be discussed later in this series. [ ↩ ]
Korsch, “Ten Theses”, p. 386. [ ↩ ]
Interview with Konicz, “We hope.” [ ↩ ]
See Alexander Neupert-Doppler (ed.), Concrete Utopias: Our Alternatives to Nationalism , Stuttgart 2018. The approaches presented therein are essentially perspectives on how social life could be organized differently, for example in the form of a socialized healthcare system, but often lack a constructive program based on new forms of mediation that goes beyond simply advocating for an understanding of these perspectives. [ ↩ ]
In sociological terms, practice theory refers to a theory that understands society as a product of social practices. In political terms, it can be understood as a theory that attempts to translate knowledge about the constitutive function of social practices into actions that can change the product of society. [ ↩ ]
Richard Reich thus describes the alienated individual who, in Jaeggi’s words, is unable to enter into a relationship with the world in which this process can be shaped by him; in short, he is impaired in his capacity to shape and appropriate the world (Jaeggi, Alienation , pp. 55–58) and therefore subordinates his thinking to a “mystical longing”; Richard Reich, “Humanity and Political Responsibility,” in: idem (ed.), Humanity and Political Responsibility , Stuttgart et al. 1964, pp. 17–36, here p. 24. [ ↩ ]
See Oostinga, “We only get”, p. 42. [ ↩ ]
A policy that aims solely at the absolute, however, risks achieving nothing in the end or even causing irreparable damage. Or, as Camus says: “Even if justice is not realized, freedom preserves the power of protest and saves the common bond between people”; Camus, The Rebel , p. 236. [ ↩ ]
“Resolutions of First Congress Assembled at Geneva, September, 1866,” in: General Council of the International Working Men’s Association (ed.), Resolutions of the Congress of Geneva, 1866, and the Congress of Brussels, 1868 , London 1868, pp. 3–9, here p. 8. [ ↩ ]
The position was put forward primarily by the Belgian federalist Eugène Hins, who said, among other things: “They want to… transform the current governments. … Comrades, let us not go down this path. … On the ruins of the old states, we will build our own, as it already exists in each of our sections.” Here it becomes clear once again that the anti-statism of the federalists, from which mass anarchism arose, consisted primarily in avoiding the path via the existing state, and less in the fundamental rejection of a superstructure that could be called a state. See, for example, Brupbacher, Marx and Bakunin , pp. 76 ff. [ ↩ ]
See Knud Knudsen, “The Strike History of the First International. An Interpretation”, in: Frits van Holthoon & Marcel van der Linden (eds.), Internationalism in the Labor Movement, 1830-1940 , Vol. 1. Leiden et al. 1988, pp. 304-321. [ ↩ ]
Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, “Manifesto of the Communist Party” (1848), in: MEW , Vol. 4, pp. 459–493, here p. 493. [ ↩ ]
Their reformist and revolutionary variants could be described, following Lenin, as “two tactics” within the same strategic framework. Cf. Vladimir I. Lenin, “Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution” (1905), in: LAW , Vol. 1, pp. 527–646. [ ↩ ]
Social democracy initially pursued a division of labor between the party (politics) and the trade union (economics), with political primacy dominating, following Marx’s line, and the trade union being disciplined. The inability to engage in political strikes in Germany, where Marxism shaped the early labor movement, stems significantly from this. See Holger Marcks, “Who betrayed us…”, in: Direkte Aktion , No. 197, Jan./Feb. 2010 (online here ). The Bolshevized social democracy logically deduced from this that the party was the “guiding force” and the trade union was to serve as the link between the party and the masses. [ ↩ ]
It is more than simplistic to focus criticism of Marx solely on his conduct within the International, rather than on his theoretically grounded conception of practice, which was fundamental to political Marxism. More precisely, this even amounts to not taking Marx himself seriously. The fact that Marx considered the “construction of the future” to be “not our business” is not simply “a gap” in Marxism (Adamczak, Beziehungsweise , p. 101), but rather the constitutive element of the schism between Marxism and anarchism, a break consciously intended by Marx . [ ↩ ]
See Marcks, “On the War Foot”, p. 319. [ ↩ ]
See Camus, The Rebel , p. 242. [ ↩ ]
Rudolf Rocker, Nationalism and Culture , Vol. 1, Bremen 1977 [1949], p. 313. [ ↩ ]
The point here is not that a tyranny was explicitly sought, but rather the implications of a way of thinking and organizing that creates particular opportunities for authoritarian tendencies . In this sense, the path from Marx via Lenin to Stalin was not predetermined, but it was nonetheless organically prepared. See Rudolf Rocker, Absolutistische Gedankengänge im Sozialismus (Absolutist Thoughts in Socialism) , Darmstadt 1950. See also Holger Marcks, “Marxistischer Dreisatz. Anté Ciligas Odyssee durch die Sowjet Sowjet” (Marxist Three-Part Rule: Anté Ciliga’s Odyssey Through the Soviet Union), in: Direkte Aktion (Direct Action ), No. 202, Nov./Dec. 2010 (online here ). [ ↩ ]
“We dreamt Trump into power,” exclaimed alt-right harlequin Richard Spencer after Donald Trump’s election victory, as if magic had been at work. Magic, or “magick,” is thus a placeholder explanation for complex processes that cannot or will not be explained more precisely, such as the belief in the mobilizing power of enchanting messages. See Gary Lachmann, * Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump* , New York 2018. Magic also plays a role on the left—albeit under different auspices—for example, when quasi-religious hopes, desires, and invocations of communist feasibility replace strategic discourse (from which, admittedly, many anarchists were/are not immune). Adamczak represents such a magical communism , which she also indirectly acknowledges. For example, she very perceptively finds in Emma Goldman’s dreamy hope in the Russian Revolution a “religious language” that suggests “that there are misunderstood moments in the political discourse of emancipation whose secular translation has failed because they could not be represented as intelligible in the language of a limited rationality,” only to ultimately agree with Goldman’s “hope for happiness,” replacing its “hallowed ground” merely with a “warming sun.” See Bini Adamczak, * The Most Beautiful Day in the Life of Alexander Berkman: On the Possible Success of the Russian Revolution *, Münster 2017, pp. 9 and 135. One could therefore say that Adamczak translates that religious semantics into a secular one; however, the syntax of the misunderstood (magical) moments remains intact. [ ↩ ]
See Adamczak, Beziehungsweise , pp. 86 ff. Cf. generally Adamczak, Der schönste Tag . [ ↩ ]
Adamczak remains vague about what the construction efforts she calls for are supposed to mean. It is clear that the “revolutionary reconstruction” is meant to be based on solidarity and universality, not totalitarian and not singular, etc.; in this respect, she primarily formulates principles of new ways of relating (see Adamczak, Beziehungsweise , pp. 275–286). How these are to be constructed remains a mystery. Construction thus seems to refer only to the implementation of certain principles of solidarity within a movement, but not to the construction of the movement itself. Consequently, prefigurative politics would also have to understand construction as organizational formation, since the embryonic forms outline the developmental paths of a new order from the outset—and thus also the possibilities for realizing solidarity. That is to say: A reliance on organic movement formation through the promotion of the right principles ultimately implies the imagination that a solidarity-based reorganization could occur spontaneously. [ ↩ ]
In a critical theory of embryonic form, which is reflected in a heuristic practice, there is not only pre-figuration but also post- figuration. For the embryonic form not only simply conditions the utopian output, but the anticipated output should also be reflected in the embryonic form. The ongoing shaping of the embryonic form thus also represents a tracing of the (changing) utopia. [ ↩ ]
Olga Montseny, “Under the Rubble: The Coming Communism. Bini Adamczak on the Possible Success of the Russian Revolution,” in: Huch , No. 88, Oct. 2018 (online here ). [ ↩ ]
Ibid. [ ↩ ]
For the term, see Heinrich Popitz, Phänomene der Macht (Phenomena of Power ), Tübingen 1992, pp. 223–224. [ ↩ ]
Herein lies the crucial weakness of magical communism . It views, for example, the Russian Revolution as a situation with an open outcome because it cannot—correctly—be reduced to the authoritarian potential of the Bolshevik Party, and because the Soviets, for instance, possessed an emancipatory potential. However, what is decisive is not their emancipatory content, but their agency in relation to the agency of other actors. To return to the chess analogy from the first part: A defeat is always, to quote Adamczak, “preceded by a series of failures,” and “almost every stage of this series—though each less so than the preceding one—[contains] the possibility of reversal” (Adamczak, The Most Beautiful Day , p. 134). In reality, however, the course of the game and the defeat are largely predetermined, namely by a lack of preparation that could have enabled the losing player to make “other [correct] decisions” (ibid.): A chess novice will never beat a chess master, probably not even in a situation that is particularly advantageous for him, because he lacks the agency to do so. This disposition is the “uncomprehended moment” of magical communism. Entirely in the tradition of historical materialism, which often lacks a theory of practice, it sees only the structure of an “open” situation, but not how the practice of the actors is dispositioned—and can thus quickly fall into hopeful spontaneism. Practical materialism, on the other hand, relates the agency of the actors to one another and to the structure—and thereby arrives at a realistic understanding of the situation.
Consider Paris 1871, Jerez 1892, Buenos Aires 1909, the Ruhr region 1919/20, Patagonia 1920–21, Kronstadt 1921, Ukraine 1917–22, Asturias 1934. [ ↩ ]
See Alexander Schapiro, “Les périods transitoires de la révolucion,” in: La Voix du Travail , No. 6, Feb. 1927. [ ↩ ]
The unfortunately forgotten thinking of Shapiro – Kropotkin’s secretary, Rocker’s comrade, and political mentor of IISG founder Arthur Lehning – is well summarized in: Klostermann, Introduction; a text that contributes more to a revolutionary theory of practice than all of Marx’s volumes combined. [ ↩ ]
Valeriano Orobón Fernández, “La CNT y la dictadura,” in: Solidaridad Obrera , No. 409, April 24, 1932. [ ↩ ]
Schapiro, “Les Periods”. [ ↩ ]
Camus, The Rebel , p. 238. [ ↩ ]
Schapiro, “La reconstrucción.” [ ↩ ]
For the concept of “unintended consequences,” see the sociological classic by Robert K. Merton, “The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action,” in: American Sociological Review , No. 6, Vol. 1 (1936), pp. 894–904. [ ↩ ]
This explains the widespread aversion to revolutions, which is not necessarily based on a rejection of their normative goals, but primarily on the fear of their unpredictable course. It is a constant factor in the lack of mobilization or even counter-mobilization. See generally Richard Löwenthal, “On the Absence of Revolution in Industrial Societies,” in: Historische Zeitschrift , No. 1, Vol. 232 (1981), pp. 1–24. [ ↩ ]
Max Weber describes as an “ethic of conviction” the mindset of an actor who is not bothered by the fact “that the consequences of his actions will increase the chances of reaction, intensify the oppression of his class, and hinder its advancement.” An “ethic of responsibility,” on the other hand, takes into account “the average defects of human beings” and considers the potential negative consequences of actions when making decisions. See, in general, Max Weber, Politics as a Vocation , Cologne 2014 [1919], pp. 82 ff. [ ↩ ]
Rudolf Rocker, “Revolutionary Mythology and Revolutionary Reality”, in: Die Freie Gesellschaft , No. 36/37, Vol. 4 (1952), pp. 3–15. [ ↩ ]
See Raul Zelik’s engagement with Walter Benjamin’s reflections on the interplay of ‘law-making’ and ‘law-preserving’ violence: ‘How revolutionary is revolution, really? On Walter Benjamin’s ‘Critique of Violence’, in: idem, In the Multiverse of Capital . Who rules how, who protests, who doesn’t, and why not? Hamburg 2016, pp. 39–45. [ ↩ ]
Christoph J. Virgl, Protest in World Society , Wiesbaden 2011, p. 23. [ ↩ ]
Harry Pross, Protest Society: On the Effectiveness of Dissent , Munich 1992, p. 18. [ ↩ ]
See Popper, The Open Society , pp. 189–190. [ ↩ ]
This happened at an event on “Rebellion and Crisis” at the Monarch. See the video excerpt for the passage here . [ ↩ ]
Nicole Deitelhoff, “Empty Promises? Deliberation and Opposition in the Context of Transnational Legitimacy Politics,” in: Anna Geis et al. (eds.), The Rise of Legitimacy Politics: Justification and Critique of Political-Economic Orders , Baden-Baden 2012, pp. 63–80, here p. 74. [ ↩ ]
Or, in a kind of displacement activity, individuals may engage in militancy to supposedly bridge the gap between reality (political ineffectiveness) and aspiration (popular uprising). The entire disposition is well elaborated in van der Walt & Schmidt, Schwarze Flamme , Chapter 4, pp. 157–188. [ ↩ ]
This passivizing Marxist slogan should not be confused with the activating syndicalist slogan of building the new society within the shell of the old . [ ↩ ]
See Part 1 of the series, note 70. [ ↩ ]
See, for example, Fernand Pelloutier, “Anarchism and the Trade Unions” (1895), in: Erwin Oberländer (ed.), Anarchism , Freiburg i.Br., pp. 316–333. [ ↩ ]
Even in anarchist discourse, the path dependencies in which the Spanish Revolution operated are often ignored, and instead, people fantasize about what might have been if they had been allowed to control the decisions of those involved. In this respect, Adamczak’s narrative of the “possible success of the Russian Revolution” finds its parallel in anarchist narratives of the possible success of the Spanish Revolution. [ ↩ ]
See Schapiro, “Report on the CNT”; and “Manifesto of the Thirty” (1931), in: Diego Abad de Santillán & Juan Peiró, Economy and Revolution , ed. by Thomas Kleinspehn, West Berlin 1975, pp. 65–71. The Treintistas were a group of 30 leading CNT members who warned of the risks of an overly rapid revolutionary development. [ ↩ ]
See Konun, “Make Syndicalism” (online here ). Even in Hanover and Jena, serious union work is yielding growth results. A modest, fragile beginning, which everywhere can only be truly expanded through micropolitical realignments, which will be discussed in the next section. [ ↩ ]
For example, the United Voices of the World , which originated in the British Wobbly context, have been able to organize many migrant workers and achieve impressive results through a clearer trade union profile, or the Burgerville Workers Union in Portland, which successfully organizes young fast-food workers. [ ↩ ]
See Sutterlütti & Meretz, Abolishing Capitalism , pp. 209–233. [ ↩ ]
The tenant sector is particularly noteworthy. The organizing around ” Kotti & Co. ” and at Deutsche Wohnen AG, in particular , are impressive examples of grassroots work, which, however, cannot achieve sustainable transformation without institutionalizing their revolt. The same applies to the IL Berlin’s agenda for abolishing the private housing market; see IL Berlin, Das rote Berlin. Strategien für eine sozialistische Stadt (The Red Berlin: Strategies for a Socialist City) , Berlin 2018. While it promotes grassroots struggles, it otherwise offers little more than proposing protests, campaigns, referendums, and civil disobedience. It lacks a bottom-up program for building new forms of social organization. Thus, it remains in precisely the old mold that, according to Sutterlütti and Meretz, blunts emancipatory aspirations. [ ↩ ]
See Virgl, Protest , p. 30. [ ↩ ]
Although syndicalism usually focused on production, since this is the contested foundation of capitalism, it was never limited to factories, but at best also organized other areas important in the general class struggle, sometimes even in forms of municipal politics. [ ↩ ]
For the concept of trade union social organization, see Peter Merten, Anarchism and the Workers’ Struggle in Portugal , Hamburg 1981, pp. 175–181. [ ↩ ]

Part III: Fundamentals of Construction: The Structure of Transformative Organizations

Major change only occurs through the culmination of many small processes necessary for the reorganization of a complex society. In this sense, there are “no shortcuts” on the path to a more social world.¹ It requires engaging in the long game and taking on the “labor of the mountains.”² However, the radical left often lacks the necessary stamina and vision. Frustrated by its isolated position, it has long tried to force its way through the mountain wall—and consequently finds itself repeatedly in the valley of tears.³ Multiple unions that address the concrete interests of the lower classes would, on the other hand, be a way out of that isolation. As explained in the second part of this series,⁴ a strategic interaction with reality aimed at agency can nurture utopian seeds to such an extent that they actually acquire counter-power. In this respect, more realism can bring the emancipatory aspirations of utopia closer than radical utopianism. This dialectic of real-utopian social engineering, as we learn from Camus, is a question of the right measure. It is a matter of working with reality in such a way that a broad collectivity unfolds within the realistically feasible – in order to use this collectivity to “work through” the situation where the “practical possibilities for realizing” utopia reach their limits ^.

These limits are not simply imposed by objective conditions, but, as Schapiro teaches us, are also rooted in the inadequacy of the emancipatory subjects themselves. This is precisely why a mesopolitics aimed at agency is necessary. In attempting to establish this agency through everyday practices along the lines of social contradictions, awareness of one’s own contradictions can also grow. And these contradictions, in turn, demand a realistic adaptation of micropolitics (i.e., the shaping of the embryonic form) and thus of macropolitics (i.e., the utopian construction outlined by the embryonic form). Such practical materialism is largely lacking in the radical left. While it desires agency—and underscores this with declarations of commitment to class politics—this desideratum remains illusory because it wants to see everything realized in utopian ideals that are practically incompatible with the reality of the lower classes. Thus, the movement is supposed to mature organically, even naturally, functioning completely horizontally and inclusively, and not be subject to any pressures of performance or optimization. At the same time, it should bring about innovative ways of relating and a higher consciousness, elevate subaltern subjects and exclude regressive elements, as well as find the right strategies to effectively overcome domination.

The radical left imagines itself as a jack-of-all-trades: a chimera of theoretical parameters that, as will be shown, are practically incompatible. At best, some mediation might be possible between them. But instead of seeking a middle ground, this left wants everything in its entirety—and thus ends up empty-handed. Because its forms of mediation are themselves contradictory, failing even to mediate between its own parameters, they are also unmediatable to the outside world. These forms disregard elementary laws of social interaction and are detached from reality. The overused slogan of the Zapatistas, their desire to defy gravity, may serve as a symbol of this. This may make sense as a negation of the supposed lack of alternatives, but not as a negation of the general laws of socialization to which every inter- and transpersonal form of mediation must submit. ⁹ In a real-utopian sense, a “questioning advance” can therefore only mean ¹⁰ probing these mechanisms in (mesopolitical) attempts at mass organizing and, accordingly, making a realistic adjustment of (micropolitical) relations and (macropolitical) institutions. The following discussion will explore what such a heuristic means for micropolitics, that is, the concrete structure of transformative organizations.

Built on sand: The disenchantment of misunderstood moments

Inevitably, such a reflection on practical experiences leads to a critique of the prevailing micropolitics of the radical left. For in this micropolitics, the desired modes of relating are not measured by whether they enable agency. Rather, those modes of relating identified as the seeds of utopia are themselves considered the yardstick by which left-wing practice must measure itself. Agency—as well as counter-power—is indeed desirable, but only if it arises from precisely those modes of relating that correspond to the left’s own norms of social interaction. For many today, this is considered the essence of radicalism, as it allows for a self-understanding as a guarantor of utopia, which one is unwilling to dilute for the temptations of power politics. As the core of the radical identity it has become, micropolitics in the left ^‘s psyche forms the starting point of all practical considerations, since the implementation of thoroughly anti-authoritarian principles in one’s own contexts is considered a precondition for all further politics. Mesopolitical objectives such as successful mass organizing must necessarily be subordinated to these principles. Because, as a performance requirement, they are seen as an expression of the negated power politics – and thus as a source of contamination for the radical project.

We will later discuss how this cognitive shift occurred within the Left, which had once been quite results-oriented. For now, however, we will focus on the problems that arise from such a radical identity. This primarily concerns the self-referential nature of micropolitics, which, through its absolutization, no longer possesses any instance of reflection. While it is supposed to reflect utopia (and vice versa), thus ostensibly creating a reflexive element, the embryonic form and utopia are usually conceived synchronously. That is, they draw their principles from one and the same source: the negation of social asymmetries as they exist in reality (e.g., hierarchies or inequalities), which are countered with horizontal or compensatory forms of mediation as “lived utopias.” It is precisely this synchronization, this embryonic action based on utopian principles, that is considered particularly radical because of its consistency. In any case , it is indeed a recursive mode of thinking that revolves around itself. Because of the subordination or even rejection of mesopolitical objectives, there is no pragmatic element that could challenge the self-indulgence of utopian principles. Micropolitics (as the absolute reflection of these principles) thus degenerates into an end in itself.

Certainly, one could also recognize a commendable stance in this, namely one that does not seek success at any price and rejects such power politics where the end justifies the means—and is thereby all too often corrupted. This impulse is understandable. But unfortunately, the left has simply inverted the problem by now sanctifying the means. For that is precisely what the synchronization of micropolitics with the purpose of emancipation means. An identity-based closure takes place, in which the means are posited as absolute in cognition, thus decoupling them from the goals against which concrete practices should actually be measured. Through this dissolution of the means-end-end axis, the micropolitical principles, which are utopian in nature, are virtually without competition and are therefore no longer confronted with realistic standards (such as efficiency or success). And this closure has significant implications for the processing of reality, which is thus not strategic but idealistic. It is precisely characteristic of the New Left from 1968 onwards, which was formative for the contemporary left, that it shifted the political focus to subcultures in which the emancipatory need was to be satisfied directly and subjectively: through (ideal) interpersonal relationships in which authoritarian constraints are practically and routinely negated.

It is worthwhile to consult Jürgen Habermas here, who as early as 1969 criticized this cultural-revolutionary approach for its “compulsive rejection of demands for competence and performance orientations,” which followed the rejection of “performance imperatives” or the “authoritarian meritocracy.” ¹⁵ In view of the resulting political “self-gratification,” in which “criteria for the success of instrumentally rational action” no longer applied, ¹⁶ it should come as no surprise that the radical left can hardly intervene in social developments anymore. For where it rejects any rationality that engages with the constraints of real power relations, it cannot develop any agency or counter-power. Ultimately, the construction of such power, even if it is intended to be emancipatory, presents a movement with multifaceted performance and competence requirements.17 It requires structures that are sufficiently open to connection, receptive ^, and assertive to assert the interests of some against the will of others. And this in turn necessitates giving validity to such knowledge that understands how people can be motivated to organize and how their individual differences can be subordinated to collective goals – in order to use this effectively for the most self-determined possible processing of reality.

Where the Left rejects these inherent constraints, it is incapable of reflective, strategic thinking. Instead, it engages in a form of “motivated thinking,” ¹⁸ in which intellectual effort is used to rationalize principles that have been taken for granted and thus solidified into ideology— ¹⁹ instead of examining these principles to see how they hold up in reality and relativizing them (in a way compatible with utopia) for the attainment of political goals. From a political-psychological perspective, this rationality, which pretends that social interaction already takes place under utopian conditions, constitutes an “impairment of appropriation processes.” ²⁰ For without a relationship to the world, in which this relationship is accepted as a prerequisite for one’s own actions, the capacity to “make the world one’s own” and to “shape one’s own life” is disrupted. ²¹ Instead of yielding to their constraints in order to build the capacities for their transformation, one ignores them – thereby surrendering oneself and the world to them all the more. The rationalization of this alienation finds its expression in an understanding of transformation that is nominally constructive because it emphasizes the development of new ways of relating. However, these relationships themselves bear no relation to the reality that dictates the conditions for their development – and are thus built on sand.

The understanding of transformation is therefore a magical one, in which agency appears as a mystery. ²² It is supposed to follow from the efficacy of idealistic principles, invoked in narratives of “it would be nicer if it were nicer”—so that the world might adopt them as norms. ²³ And if the mountain doesn’t come to the prophetess, then the stars simply aren’t aligned! This is roughly the semantics that many radical leftists, whether of Marxist or anarchist self-understanding, express: They tend to rationalize the lack of efficacy of leftist principles—and thus the absence of agency—only with the notion that the conditions for them are not favorable or that not enough has been done to promote them. ²⁴ Whether this is expressed in materialist or spontaneist terminology, in both variants there are “uncomprehended moments” of emancipation that stand in the way of a constructive engagement with the world. ²⁵ In particular, the problem of how the power to effect and the power to act are related appears as a black box that cannot be opened by the identitarian closure—that is, the absolutization of micropolitical principles. It is this area that has been relegated to the realm of mystery in left-wing theory and demands to be demystified.

The misunderstood moments and the Holy Spirit

Bini Adamczak has astutely drawn attention to the problem of misunderstood moments in emancipation discourses (see Part 2, note 37). However, this observation requires a re-examination. While it is true that the problems of revolution require a language to be intellectually processed (i.e., to be intelligible), it seems misguided to apply this idea to “the desire for solidarity-based relationships,” which, according to Adamczak, has not been sufficiently articulated throughout history to bring revolutions to a happy ending . Aside from the fact that demanding ideal—comprehensive, indivisible, queer, compensatory, etc.—solidarity-based relationships (see Adamczak, Beziehungsweise , pp. 284–285) does not represent a differentiation of problems but rather a normative promise, the essentialization of this desire, which is undertaken in this way, represents a further externalization of critique.

By declaring desire to be the essence of revolution, ways of life that claim to embody its norms continue to evade reflection on those very norms, and their internal differences (yes, even relationships of solidarity contain problems that can transcend solidarity) are leveled. The focus of critique then shifts to external conditions that hinder the development of the way of life, including the individual who must entrust themselves to the ideal of that way of life if they wish to hope for a successful outcome of revolutions. This semantics, in which the desire that is to be articulated is both given human characteristics and purified, is not unlike that of the Holy Spirit.

While this religious or magical projection can provide a foundation for a compelling theology of revolution, it cannot form the basis for a theory of practice that heuristically explores the adversities of transformative processes. Desire, in this sense, serves as a placeholder for the still-uncomprehended aspects of emancipation: the inherent problems of the modes of relating through which transformation is supposed to occur. This realm holds the answers not only to why (supposedly) emancipatory modes of relating are incapable of being receptive, productive, or effective, but also to why they lack the epistemic capacity to adequately address the intelligible problems of revolution in theory and practice.

The powerlessness of absolute principles: Why less is often more

Essentially, the Left is its own worst enemy. At the heart of this misunderstood territory lies the leftist subject itself, which, in its role as an (inadequate) agent of emancipation, is under-theorized and, indeed, is met with the very “hostility to theory” that Habermas attributes to it. Where criteria for success are banished from one’s own rationality, there is simply no reflexive moment through which the self could even begin to understand itself in the form of its micropolitics. Micropolitics then relies solely on affects of refusal and becomes entangled in contradictions. Criteria for success are crucial for verifying whether the principles actually serve the purpose of emancipation. Without them, no “internal critique” of the self is possible—let alone an “immanent critique.” ^It then becomes irrelevant whether the deductively formulated principles resonate with the masses they address, or even whether they are compatible with their class reality. Such empirical experiences, which reveal the constraints of reality as well as one’s own contradictions, are disregarded; they are therefore not traced back to principles in order to adapt them inductively. And thus, the path is blocked to establishing a relationship between the self and the world in a way that allows one to work with it purposefully, that is, strategically—a process that presupposes working with these constraints.

A reflexive theory of practice, as Schapiro suggested, is thus directed against the alienation reflected in the suppression of one’s own shortcomings. It does not aim at limiting self-determination, but at expanding it. Self-determination is never absolute, but (doubly) relative: theoretically, it ends where the constraints that one cannot (initially) change begin; and practically, it is greatest when one’s own agency fully utilizes the structural spaces available, which are always also limited by the agency of other actors. In any case ^, there is nothing self-determined about pursuing one’s course regardless of all the “unintended (side) consequences” that arise from interactions with opponents, but also from the assumed reference group. With such an “ethic of conviction,” one checkmates oneself before the game of domination and resistance has even truly begun. In other words, only a chess player who not only masters the rules of the game but is also able to assess the behavior of other players can act autonomously. ³¹ In this respect, autonomous action presupposes the greatest possible knowledge of how the environment—under given conditions—reacts to one’s own practices, and the ability to integrate these understood aspects into one’s own practical considerations.

The rules of the game for changing the rules of the game

On the surface, the task of transformational politics is, of course, “How can the relationships between the characters be reconstructed, thereby transforming both the game and the characters?” (Adamczak, Beziehungsweise , p. 238). But this task, too, is governed by rules that, while not “power-imposed and reified” (ibid.), are all the more compelling because they are inherent in all social interactions. For example, anyone who unilaterally redefines the functions of the characters and their relationships will likely have to play alone; and anyone who arbitrarily prevents others from playing as usual probably even risks getting their comeuppance.

Understanding these supra-political rules, under which socialization and mediation take place independent of context, is the true, underlying art of transformational politics. However, how the specific self, which seeks to transform the game and its characters, actually enters into a relationship with the other players in which it would be able to successfully mediate alternative modes of relating, remains one of the misunderstood aspects of left-wing emancipation discourses, which tend to resist corresponding insights from sociology and psychology. See also note 25.

Such an “ethic of responsibility,” which understands (foreseeable) reactions as a consequence of one’s own practice and thus assumes responsibility for them, is the key to strategic thinking. In contrast to the ethics of conviction, which blames failures on a world that refuses to understand, it heuristically reflects on whether, in approaching a problem—which is always embedded in a complex reality shaped by dynamics of interaction—one has insufficiently considered the “average defects of human nature.” Even the most well-intentioned practice is useless if its consequences are not positive or if it does nothing to change the problem. And these consequences arise from the (non-)reactions of others to one’s own practice, which includes both those of opponents and those of the audience one actually wants to mobilize. Kolja Möller aptly observed in Oxi that a “politics of the issue itself” would benefit the Left. This includes, following Machiavelli, the method of classifying a given situation by objectively assessing the nature and influences of the various actors in the relevant problem area – in order to then use these objective factors to “determine options for action, identify errors in action, and explore new paths.” ³⁵

This method does not approach problems in a principled way, but rather, within the specific complex situation, it orients itself towards the contradictions in order to find a viable approach through trial and error. Of course, from an emancipatory perspective, such a heuristic cannot be conceived in the sense of Machiavellianism, whose sole purpose is to gain or maintain power and which recognizes no principles. The principles oriented towards the emancipatory goal must therefore also serve as a guide, but they must be related to the requirements for agency. This by no means implies sacrificing principles for mere success and abandoning the radical core of the utopia. Rather, radicalism only truly comes into its own through its adaptation to objective constraints. For a politics that is incompatible with the people who are ultimately necessary for a reorganization of conditions cannot be radical at all. It is simply pointless. As the council communist Sam Moss observed as early as the 1930s, the masses in advanced capitalism are primarily interested in maintaining or improving their living conditions. Actors who refuse to compromise their principles in order to successfully mobilize along these lines are doomed to powerlessness.

Assuming that this human problem is inherent in the nature of the revolutionary cause, then the radical maximum is the relative utopian content that can realistically be incorporated into mass organizations. Actors who absolutize utopian principles, on the other hand, are incapable of transformative interaction, so their radicalism degenerates into complacency. This indicates two dependencies between which real-utopian social engineering must maneuver: A mesopolitics capable of engaging the masses (power of action) creates limitations for macropolitics, which is meant to elevate itself to utopia (counter-power); and at the same time, a micropolitics that is too steeped in utopian ideals is unable to engage the masses to make mesopolitics sufficiently interesting (power of effect). This is essential for a critical germinal theory because it places epistemic performance demands on real-utopian organizations. To achieve a balance between practical constraints and utopian ideals in this winding tightrope walk, they must analyze a complex situation, assess the impact of relationships, and anticipate strategic consequences. Such a (collective) heuristic requires mechanisms that allow relevant competencies and experience within the organization to be utilized.

This is precisely where the problem becomes circular: because the radical left is trapped in an identitarian bubble, its micropolitical principles elude critical reflection. ³⁷ And these complacent principles, in which the supposed utopia is reflected, manifest themselves primarily in ways of relating that are intended to be anti-authoritarian. There is nothing inherently wrong with this impulse—but in the left after 1968, it took on almost infantile proportions. Now it was no longer just about working with as little hierarchy as possible , but about defying all authority on principle. However, this also devalued competence and experience. For to the extent that the bearers of such knowledge—the most natural source of authority—were distrusted as potential agents of power, their knowledge itself lost its validity. And thus, in turn, the left slid into an epistemic crisis ³⁸ that reproduces itself. For it requires the validity of socially relevant knowledge in order to shape micropolitics in such a way that such knowledge can actually be applied within it. In other words, the devaluation of knowledge makes it impossible to grasp the knowledge problems of a micropolitics that understands itself only as a reflection of utopian principles. In this respect, infantile anti-authoritarianism is both an expression and a stabilizer of identity-based closure. ³⁹

Infantile anti-authoritarianism and the fight against knowledge

This hostility towards authority, which goes beyond mere criticism of authority, is infantile not only because at the heart of its defiant exuberance lies the immature motive that no one should have control over something one does not control oneself. It is also infantile because it inevitably targets older people. From this narrow perspective, which focuses on individuals rather than content and structures, their natural advantages in experience and knowledge are perceived as an unacceptable power imbalance.

Instead of accepting such advantages and deriving collective benefit from them, the bearers of such knowledge are curtailed – and thus the knowledge itself is contained. The fight against hierarchies of knowledge, which would presuppose the recognition and dissemination of knowledge, is therefore ultimately a fight against knowledge itself.

Exclusive Horizontalism: Mechanisms of a Classist Class Politics

The lack of agency is thus an inherent problem of leftist ways of life. Its solution requires adopting a heuristic perspective, which is blocked by the self-evident hostility towards authority. This ideology ^, therefore, perpetuates the problem, indeed increasingly exacerbating it, so that, in a kind of embryonic melting pot, leftist micropolitics undermines the foundations of a real-utopian mobilization. While the primary function of mesopolitics is to interest broad masses in an organization, its viability ultimately depends on the other levels of transformative politics. If, for example, the macro-political vision is not realistically corrected because the constraints that reveal themselves in micropolitics—the laboratory of utopia—as the limits of possibility for realizing certain modes of relating are ignored, then the real-utopian program cannot credibly convey that it is a viable alternative capable of meeting the complex task of societal reorganization. Likewise, good mesopolitical approaches will not be able to develop their potential for action if micropolitics does not resonate with the realities of the people to be mobilized, i.e., if they cannot be integrated with effective principles.

First-, second-, and third-order problems and solutions

An inherent problem can also be described as a second-order problem. For example, if an organization claims to be particularly inclusive but ultimately only manages to attract a select clientele, this is initially a first-order problem. However, if the organization cannot recognize this contradiction or is only capable of attempts at solutions that exacerbate it, then we are dealing with a second-order problem, insofar as the epistemic constitution of the life form repeatedly reproduces the contradiction. Cf. Rahel Jaeggi, “Experimental Pluralism: Life Forms as Experiments in Problem Solving,” on: polar-zeitschrift.de, April 2, 2015 (online here ).

To resolve the problem, a second-order solution would be needed, one that breaks with the logic that caused the problem. The problem here is that for a life form to accept a second-order solution, it would have to be epistemically structured in such a way that it could recognize a second-order problem—that is, its own epistemic incapacity (a third-order problem, so to speak). This presupposes a structure that would first have to be created as part of the problem-solving process. This is why organizations so often fail to break free from their path dependency: only first-order solutions prevail within them, which usually represent just more of the usual problem-solving approach—and thus exacerbate the problem.

The interdependence of micropolitics can be clearly illustrated by the example of the FAU. This differs significantly from neo-anarchist and autonomous groups that succumb to a “tyranny of structurelessness,” ⁴¹ which aims to stifle any potential power politics in its infancy—resulting in a complete relinquishment of agency. In contrast, the FAU’s attempt to build formal trade union organizations is more likely to yield “structures of non-tyranny,” ⁴² which allow for a potential for agency. However, its structures are also imbued with principles that lack effectiveness. For here, too, the neo-anarchist legacy persists, taking for granted a decidedly anti-authoritarian mode of operation.43 Its structure therefore lacks the mechanisms of interaction that could bring to bear, in structural and strategic matters, the social engineering knowledge necessary for a resonant transformation policy. And here, too, the rejection of success criteria prevents micropolitical certainties from being questioned, certainties that render the claim of mesopolitical mass organizing absurd and cast doubt on the macropolitical vision. It is certainly open to doubt that the FAU would be guided by a reflexive theory of practice, as was developed in the first parts of this series as necessary for a constructive socialism.

This becomes particularly clear in the contradictions of (ultra-)horizontalism. ⁴⁴ While bourgeois democracy is constantly criticized for its formal equality being undermined by material conditions—that is, for political influence being a class issue—it seems that no classist mechanisms are recognized when looking at one’s own relations. Yet, the “grassroots democracy” practiced by contemporary syndicates itself contains a strong asymmetry between social groups. Although every member is formally equal, in practice influence is tied to the commitment of resources: those who always participate in the assemblies where voting takes place implicitly have more voting power than members who rarely attend. And this is all the more significant because these votes take place frequently and at various levels, in order to have even the smallest decisions made by the grassroots in lengthy procedures. This is not only repulsive from a macro-political perspective—imagine, for example, a “utopia” where participation depended on individual effort— ⁴⁵ it also undermines meso-political goals. For in this micro-politics, one social type in particular is disadvantaged: working people with few (time) resources—the very basis of left-wing class politics.

The dystopian shadow in utopian promises

Transformation theory must also ask whether the utopian promises made by so many forms of horizontal micropolitics are truly so promising. A society constantly engaged in assemblies, where those who don’t want to engage in endless plenary sessions with colleagues, neighbors, and so on have comparatively less voting power, can certainly be understood as a dystopia. In the worst case, it creates an aristocracy of activists who generate disproportionate influence through such resource competition; in the best case, it means constant mobilization, since everyone has to participate regularly to have equal influence. Not only does the associated social terror hold enormous potential for personalized conflicts, but it also drives a wedge between the population in a way that the existing order could not. Where people are supposed to determine the shape of their environment themselves in grassroots assemblies, subjective ideas clash unfiltered, so that—without a mediating, representative authority to release the pressure from the cauldron of interpersonal dynamics—people quickly turn on each other.

Such downsides of “grassroots democracy” are rarely considered in proposals from grassroots-organized communities ; see, for example, Erna Rauch, “Gaining Perspectives: Organized Neighborhoods and Federations Hand in Hand!”, on: direktaktion.org, January 17, 2018 (online here ). They only see a generalized “creativity” that is suppressed, but not the destructive potential inherent in the different conceptions of this creativity. Quite apart from the fact that such models can also trigger legitimacy conflicts. Where, for example, neighborhood councils reshape the district because they feel called upon to do so by virtue of their grassroots democratic function, there may be a majority of those affected who do not want these decisions made there at all. They can therefore also be perceived as presumptuous self-empowerment—and thus further widen the gap between activists and the population.

Tom Wetzel has already argued that an organization that operates in a particularly resource-intensive manner cannot be a workers’ organization.⁴⁶ This observation follows quite logically from a practical materialism, as presented in the second part of this series. If one relates the implications of organizational practices to material reality, then it unfortunately becomes clear that the horizontalism of contemporary syndicalism structurally distances the lower classes. This is because, on the whole, they cannot have any interest in investing their scarce resources in a structure that generates more effort than benefit.⁴⁷ It should therefore come as no surprise that the old syndicalist organizations, which still attracted mass interest, operated less horizontally and certainly delegated responsibility vertically.⁴⁸ One can certainly criticize such relationships for potentially disempowering the rank and file . But in grassroots democracy, paradoxical as it may sound, this disempowerment is built in from the outset. Representation guarantees all members an equal minimum level of voting power, which is not dependent on the resources invested. Horizontalism, on the other hand, means unequal voting power for members from the outset, depending on how much say they can afford. ⁴⁹

Asymmetric base: Resource competition in horizontalism

It is crucial to distinguish between a power asymmetry that exists between officeholders and “ordinary” members, and a power asymmetry among the members themselves. The former delegates formal power in a controlled manner from a base of absolute equality: in cyclical elections of representatives, each member has the same voting weight. The latter involves a base of unequals who formally share power, but in which the respective shares of that power are always relative: in serial voting, voting weight accumulates based on participation—and counts all the more the fewer other members participate. This relativity implicitly creates a constant competition for political resources, insofar as the direction of the organization depends on which proponents of particular viewpoints are most frequently mobilized to attend meetings. Ultimately, this results in constant mobilization, because those who are not present at all times lose out in terms of overall voting weight.

Anyone who wants the organization to follow a particular course or style (even if it’s just the existing one) is forced to actively represent and defend it time and again. Because—unlike representative structures that use cyclical elections to determine course and style for a specific period—there’s no respite for questions of direction, the direction emerges from the sum of many individual decisions. On top of that, there’s also a heightened potential for conflict, since such decisions—see note 45—aren’t abstracted through elections, but rather, due to their immediacy, place the specific individuals much more firmly in the spotlight of decision-making criticism. And containing these conflicts is particularly time-consuming because, in this horizontal structure, the dynamics collide unfiltered and with the involvement of many. For people with limited resources, this combination (relatively low voting power + high pressure to mobilize + personalized conflicts + time-consuming clarification processes) is downright toxic.

Representation, therefore, primarily functions inclusively, establishing a symmetrical relationship with the grassroots; more exclusive levels of competence are then built vertically upon this horizontal breadth. In contrast, grassroots democracy primarily functions exclusively, creating vertical asymmetries already at the grassroots level; it is only horizontal insofar as a select circle can then participate in discussions on the breadth of all issues. However, this latter asymmetry is hardly problematized in contemporary syndicalism. Due to an anti-authoritarian bias , only the potential problems between the grassroots and functionaries are perceived. Positive aspects of representation are ignored, as are the problems of horizontalism. This not only maintains a micropolitics incompatible with class realities but also means that the interests of resource-poor members, which should be a central focus of syndicalist class politics, are given little to no consideration in decision-making and organizational development. ⁵⁰ If syndicalism is not to be rendered absurd by such classist mechanisms, it must include representation. Only when members can elect representatives who represent their interests is it possible to involve the masses necessary for transformation policy.

Consequently, this constraint necessitates further principles. The principle of voluntary service, for example, also prevents responsibility from being delegated in a way that does not unfairly disadvantage people with limited resources. For it only tightens the classist screw further if functions are only assumed by those who can afford to do so. ⁵¹ Not only does it exclude many members from taking on responsibility themselves, but ultimately they have no other choice but to be represented by those who do not understand their lived reality. ⁵² This cannot be solved by distributing tasks among many people and frequently rotating staff, as is popular in anarchist circles. On the one hand, this creates additional coordination and consultation efforts, which make the decision-making process more time-consuming; on the other hand, it makes the organization less effective overall, since task performance is subject to significant fluctuations in competence and discontinuities. ⁵³ But an organization that is ineffective and consumes enormous amounts of time simply for its maintenance is doubly uninteresting to the lower classes. In this respect, professionalization is indeed a micropolitical key to broad inclusion – and thus a condition for a mesopolitics that effectively mobilizes the lower classes along their lines of interest.

Why shared work doesn’t necessarily mean less work

Attempts to address the organizational overload through further decentralization represent a first-order solution (see note 40), typical of neo-anarchist logic: If tasks of a certain size become unmanageable—and this begins with ultra-horizontal groups as soon as they transition from the smallest to the smallest group—the intuitive suggestion is to divide the group, distribute tasks among more members, and/or increase task rotation. However, this strictly mathematical perspective disregards fundamental mechanisms of social interaction and ultimately exacerbates resource problems.

Because with each additional degree of decentralization, the coordination effort increases (both between those responsible and between organizational units), just as the grassroots level has to expend more effort in filling, monitoring, relieving, removing, and reassigning tasks. At the same time, more and more tasks have to be assigned to people who are not sufficiently competent for them, while the increased frequency of tasks created by overwork or rotation means that more time has to be spent on training and handover than can be spent working continuously on a single task.

This approach is particularly fatal because, while it may appear to have solved the problem at the smallest level, it shifts the pressure to the higher levels of the federation. Fragmentation not only increases the coordination effort while simultaneously reducing resources for filling mandates, but also complicates joint decision-making to such an extent that effective action is virtually impossible. Ultimately, this undermines the utopian vision, as the model fails to demonstrate its ability to integrate broader segments of society into decision-making and action-oriented processes.

Exclusion through inclusion: The epistemic failure of horizontalism

A class-political transformation organization stands or falls on its effectiveness. The credibility of its utopian perspective depends on this, as it must also convey the ability to tackle complex problems. It goes without saying that verticalization and professionalization also entail acute risks. But firstly, these risks can certainly be contained, for example, through concepts of federalism and autonomy or specific mechanisms of input, control, and the separation of powers. ⁵⁴ And secondly, these risks are countered by the chronic classism inherent in horizontality and volunteerism. It is therefore wrong to understand emancipation and effectiveness as mutually exclusive antagonists. Rather, emancipation of the lower classes is impossible without effectiveness. An organization that is supposed to be an instrument for gaining more resources cannot credibly demonstrate its usefulness if it primarily burns through resources. The improvements that the FAU, for example, is able to achieve are disproportionate to the effort it generates. Their economics, in which – to put it bluntly – a dozen people are employed to change a lightbulb, represent a harsh cost calculation that can only retain particularly dedicated activists in the long run. ⁵⁵

The context dependency of verticalization and professionalization

The neo-anarchist critique of vertical and professional structures is essentially based on an inadmissible comparison. It uses centralized organizations with very specific working methods and programs, such as the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) or (authoritarian) political parties, as examples to demonstrate the dangers of such structures. However, assessing the functioning of organizations requires a holistic approach that considers the interplay of organizational elements as a whole. After all, in every social system, the function of a particular element depends on its contextual embedding.

Criticism should therefore be oriented towards a comparable context, such as earlier syndicalist organizations. And it cannot be said that the vertical and professional elements of these organizations always led to authoritarian degeneration or reformist corruption. Rather, history shows that in a context characterized by federalism and autonomy, a variety of mechanisms are possible for containing or even avoiding problems of verticalization and professionalization. However, these mechanisms are no more practiced in the DGB context than in ordinary political parties. And contemporary syndicalism is also far from utilizing them if it refuses to even consider the intricacies of vertical or professional structures based on sweeping, false, and ahistorical judgments.

In the short term, the self-deception of contemporary syndicalism—that it can achieve more than the much-maligned “representative politics”—can be masked by individuals making extraordinary efforts. In the medium term, however, this exploitation of resources stifles the organization’s capacity for action and development. A bureaucratic apparatus not only enables routines that prevent the need to redraft numerous issues in every problem case, but ^it can also free up the necessary resources to evaluate problems in organizational practice and implement reforms. Otherwise, growth spurts that demand organizational adaptation lead to reform gridlock and ultimately to intractable crises. Solving these crises requires structures in which relevant knowledge is strategically allocated. In structures like those cultivated by the FAU, experienced activists—the potential bearers of such knowledge—are constantly occupied with conveying minimum standards to a fluctuating membership and training new members for specific tasks. ⁵⁷ So instead of carrying out important tasks and developing the organization further, they have to devote all their resources to teaching basic skills and preventing regression. And the broader the horizons of the grassroots become, the greater the effort required for this.

What is intended here as inclusion and activation ultimately has the opposite effect. On the one hand, ad-hoc trained members are often overwhelmed with important tasks, which can lead not only to frustration and withdrawal among them, but also among members who expect continuity and effectiveness.⁵⁸ On the other hand, experienced members are constantly forced to fill gaps, which, in the context of an anti-authoritarian climate, demands additional justification from these more active members.⁵⁹ In this cycle, even the experienced members are ultimately worn down, not least because they are generally older and therefore often have more professional and/or family obligations that make this commitment unsustainable in the long run. Ultimately, this has fatal consequences for the social composition of an organization. This organizational model, which can only maintain its stability to a reasonable degree through the self-sacrifice of activists, is primarily compatible with social types who are either not yet so deeply involved in professional and familial obligations or who follow lifestyles that largely avoid such obligations. It is obvious that ^, despite all the workers’ rhetoric, the ranks of contemporary syndicalism are thus filled primarily by students and members of the subcultural left.

The trade union as a fig leaf for individual self-discovery

In neo-anarchist thought, the ability of people to take on tasks and mature personally through them is considered a high value, almost the essence of emancipation. This is ultimately used to justify the frequent rotation of tasks and the initial unimportance of competency requirements. While this fetish of individual self-development might function socially acceptable in small groups without significant practical application, it falls far short in contexts involving increased responsibility (e.g., high financial burdens, legal risks, labor disputes where livelihoods are at stake, etc.). In these situations, high demands on the tasks themselves are necessarily met, along with social pressure to fulfill them adequately. When people are entrusted with tasks they are not equipped to handle, they do not mature but are instead burned out. At the same time, it fosters frustration among those who have invested a lot of their lives in building something that is set back or even destroyed by poor execution of the mandate, just as it alienates members who need a resilient organization to improve their living conditions, one that doesn’t constantly collapse like a house of cards.

Ultimately, this reveals another facet of infantile anti-authoritarianism, one that renders the purpose of syndicalism absurd: In order for a few individuals lacking social integration and experience of responsibility to experiment, the entire organization must accept shortcomings that prevent effective organizing and the pursuit of subordinate interests. Indeed, one gets the impression that this model is only useful for a very specific social type: socially isolated individuals who, lacking professional and familial obligations, as well as qualifications, feel a need to try out different tasks. It must seem particularly insulting to older people, who are professionally and familially engaged and naturally always take on responsibility, that they are to serve as experimental material in a kind of social therapy for post-adolescent subjects. See also note 55.

This problem should not be underestimated, because it further exacerbates the epistemic crisis arising from the lack of allocation of competence and experience. It is already a contradiction of contemporary syndicalism that it claims to be dynamic and progressive, yet allows decisions to be made by a swarm in which only a small minority is willing to actively shape the process. ⁶² And even when attempts are made to delegate some responsibility, it rarely improves matters. Many of the tasks facing a transformative organization are simply too complex for the average random assembly constellation to competently assess who would be competent to accomplish them. ⁶³ Contemporary syndicalism is further removed from the learning organizations that Pouget once called for as a “school of revolution” than classical syndicalism, whose structural, strategic, and programmatic orientation was certainly shaped by leading figures. ⁶⁴ In the aforementioned social composition, the further consequence is that the inability to develop perpetuates a state that is particularly incompatible with the general public. This is because, thanks to this group, it is primarily subculture norms that regulate the perception of right and wrong ways of relating.

This epistemic failure is therefore also reflected in a political culture that is directed against its actual target groups. This is clearly evident in left-wing identity politics, which also has an influence on contemporary syndicalism. This can be understood as a normative mode in which political truths are defined by identity.⁶⁵ Central to this is the standpoint theory, according to which the perspective of a deprived group is to be placed above that of a privileged group.⁶⁶ In itself, this norm makes sense, but in conjunction with other norms of the left-wing scene, it has a toxic effect. On the one hand, the paradigm that the personal is political inflates individual behaviors into questions of power that are to be decided by a hierarchy of identities.⁶⁷ On the other hand, the “politics of the first person” ensures that the feelings of individuals who identify with a deprived group are considered to have the power to define the political landscape.⁶⁸ But if the standpoint-theoretical assumption is correct that privileged positions create blind spots in the perception of power relations, then identity politics composed in this way on the left must turn out to be classist. For where the context is primarily populated by descendants of the educated middle class, cultural conflicts are inevitably decided to the detriment of proletarian identities.⁶⁹

The double straw man: The confusion surrounding identity politics

It has become fashionable on the left to understand identity politics as advocating for the interests of minority groups—or rather, subaltern groups (women, for example, are not a minority). This is not only historically ill-informed but has also created utter chaos in the discourse on “new class politics” because it equates the question of for whom politics is made with the question of how politics is made. Fundamentally, feminism and anti-racism (as well as class politics) are not identity politics, but rather (subaltern) interest politics. And of course, every form of politics is always connected to identity, which is why identity politics is not simply defined by the fact that identity is involved. Rather, (left-wing) identity politics has always been about the fact that belonging to, or identifying with, a deprivileged group is a central criterion of epistemic authority in political discourse.

This becomes clear during its formative phase, when the US New Left—the epicenter of left-wing identity politics—proclaimed the unconditional support of national liberation movements as its guiding principle and labeled all those who did not submit to its postulates as “objectively reactionary.” It is thus a matter of an epistemic mode of politics in which the categorical imperative is formed through subject-bound power of definition. In this respect, identity politics and class politics are not fundamentally contradictory, since class politics can also operate in this mode. However, an identity-based class politics—that is, a politics that elevates members of a particular class to epistemic authorities—is not particularly popular on the left. The left is quite skeptical of the notion that workers, solely on the basis of their deprivileged position, are capable of defining what is politically right. Rightly so, many consider this an oversimplification of the epistemology, since the world is too complex and the identity group too heterogeneous to ascribe a kind of guiding consciousness to it.

The left enthusiastically applies this essentializing and anti-Enlightenment logic of knowledge to feminism and anti-racism. This is the core of the critique of identity politics, which initially articulated itself only clumsily before increasingly finding its voice. However, this voice encounters a semantics against which it is bound to bounce off. For now that identity politics is equated with subaltern interest politics, nominal criticism of identity politics is understood as a relativization of subaltern interests, when in fact a mode is being criticized that is by no means synonymous with feminism and anti-racism. For some, for example, “identity-political feminism” is a pleonasm like “white horse,” for others a questionable association like “illiberal democracy.” This indifference in the discourse on “New Class Politics” leads, on the one hand, to a lack of understanding about the meaning of the debate (why shouldn’t class politics, feminism and anti-racism go together!?) and, on the other hand, to a lack of understanding (do they not want to understand how irrational and regressive identity politics is!?).

This completes the confusion, which was set in motion by a straw man argument from genuine identity politicians, a fallacy many on the left have fallen for (for example, Bini Adamczak in her interview with Raul Zelik, available online here ). For when criticism of the mode of identity politics took shape, they accused it of being criticism of feminism and anti-racism themselves, entirely in line with the identity-political credo: whoever does not recognize my power to define is acting against my group! As a result of this effective rumor, criticism of identity politics itself must defend itself against the accusation of constructing a straw man for identity politics, since this (i.e., subaltern interest politics) is in fact far more multifaceted than the criticism suggests.

After all, situations of discrimination are so complex that it is often unclear who has the upper hand in the accumulation of privileges. ⁷⁰ And how a complex situation is interpreted depends on one’s perspective, so that primarily the underprivileged, who share the privileges of the dominant milieu, are heard. ⁷¹ That this is an educated middle-class milieu in the left-wing context is evident, for example, in the dominant interpretation of feminism, which particularly shapes left-wing micropolitics. This interpretation is considered pro-women to give ample space to behavioral issues and to work in a particularly anti-authoritarian manner. ⁷² However, precisely such practices increase the workload enormously, so they are more of interest to privileged women. For if it is generally true for the lower classes that resource-intensive practices are not compatible with their reality, then this is all the more significant for their female members, who on average have even less time. ⁷³ Thus, what has an inclusive effect on a privileged segment of the underprivileged group “woman” excludes the broader lower classes—including their women. ⁷⁴ This reproduces a composition that reinforces micropolitical norms and undermines mesopolitical goals. It also fuels the vicious cycle of social exclusivity and epistemic failure inherent in left-wing horizontalism.

The final section discusses what programmatic consequences can be drawn from the micropolitical experiences and how this affects the utopian vision.

See Jane McAlevey, *No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age* , Oxford 2016. The title of the recently published German translation (“No Half Measures”) is unfortunately somewhat misleading, as it perpetuates the notion that limited demands should be rejected. The real issue, however, is creating a sustainable foundation upon which “real power” (McAlevey) can be built, meaning not taking the second or third step before the first. Half measures are therefore quite necessary to approach the whole strategically. [ ↩ ]
Bertolt Brecht used this term to describe the tasks that arise before the revolutionary breakthrough, after which what has been won must be preserved and developed (“the toils of the plain”). See Bertolt Brecht, “Perception” (1949), in: idem, Works. Large Annotated Berlin and Frankfurt Edition, Vol. 15, Frankfurt am Main 1993, p. 205. [ ↩ ]
This does not necessarily mean that she is impetuous in the sense of the infamous ‘revolutionary impatience’, wanting to reach a free society without detours. Rather, we are dealing with an inability to determine her own situation, map out the route, and make the necessary preparations. Why this epistemic inability is rooted in left-wing micropolitics is the main focus of this part of the series. [ ↩ ]
See Holger Marcks, “Sketch of a Constructive Socialism (Part 2). Multiple Trade Unions as a Foundation: First Building Blocks of Counter-Power,” on: direktaktion.org, October 31, 2018 (online here ). [ ↩ ]
See Part 1, note 5. [ ↩ ]
See Part 2, note 49. [ ↩ ]
To illustrate this point, imagine a rusty office worker attempting an intense tennis session. He develops back pain because he is being asked to perform at a level beyond his current fitness. “The required performance (demand) cannot be achieved by the available musculature (reality)” (see here ). [ ↩ ]
“Someone said that being against neoliberalism is like being against the law of gravity. Well then: Down with the law of gravity!” (Subcomandante Marcos). [ ↩ ]
Neither are humans infinitely malleable, nor are the possibilities of interpersonal and transpersonal relationships infinite. Firstly, intersubjective understanding is always subject to psychological differences, which give rise to contradictory evaluations of the relationships. Secondly, every complex of relationships contains inherent contradictions that, in addition to their advantages, also present disadvantages. [ ↩ ]
This is the Zapatista slogan from the very beginning (“We move forward by questioning”), which is also overused to rationalize contradictions between aspiration and reality as problems that will somehow resolve themselves. [ ↩ ]
Especially in Germany, this idea has become dominant in the radical left through the autonomous movement. The core of the autonomous-tinged radical identity is precisely to define oneself as the starting point of revolutionary change, that is, to integrate one’s own life into countercultural spaces whose norms are considered emancipatory. Accordingly, for a long time, those who maintained the greatest possible distance from bourgeois lifestyles and pursued maximum freedom politics were considered particularly radical or revolutionary. [ ↩ ]
See Part 2, note 18. [ ↩ ]
According to this logic, it is essential to avoid all constraints, because otherwise radical subjects would be co-opted or even corrupted, and the project would ultimately reproduce existing power relations. The movement itself is always under suspicion of “totalization,” which can only be overcome by limiting one’s own politics to micropolitical subversions (cf. Adamczak, Beziehungsweise , p. 233) and refusing to build structures that involve performance pressures. [ ↩ ]
See Part 2, note 3. [ ↩ ]
Jürgen Habermas, Protest Movement and University Reform , Frankfurt am Main 1969, p. 16. See also note 13. [ ↩ ]
Ibid., p. 14. [ ↩ ]
It could even be said that no policy is more demanding than an egalitarian-socialist policy of transformation. After all, it not only has to master the “small” art of making use of the political rules of the specific order, but also the “high” art of working with the social rules of general order change, especially in a particularly revolutionary way. And this is all the more challenging because it eludes primary perception and requires a theory of revolution empirically grounded in transhistorical and cross-contextual experiences. We will address the problem of specific and general critiques of order in Part 4 of this series. Here, we will discuss, among other things, how the structure of an organization must (not) be designed so that it can epistemically manage and practically apply the necessary reflexive theory of practice. [ ↩ ]
This refers to a cognitive mechanism in which the perception and evaluation of information are guided by expectations and desires. See Ziva Kunda, “The Case for Motivated Reasoning,” in: Psychological Bulletin , No. 3, Vol. 108 (1990), pp. 480–498. This mechanism is all too human, which is why it must be transcended, especially in strategic thinking. This involves not only anticipating how others (both target and adversary groups) will react to certain messages and practices based on their ideological dispositions, but also questioning one’s own certainties that stand in the way of (communicative) actions that could motivate those others. [ ↩ ]
See Part 1, note 16. A typical rationalization mechanism is the externalization of criticism: The environment is to blame for what doesn’t work within one’s own context, as it refuses to acknowledge the correct norms and thereby reproduces contextual conditions that hinder the free development of those norms. Accordingly, left-wing analyses are constantly searching for systems of repression and delusion that prevent people from developing the correct consciousness, while agitation efforts are aimed at either “getting this out of people’s heads” or “smashing” that one. The extent to which one’s own norms have become outdated, perhaps even preventing emancipatory processes, is rarely up for debate. [ ↩ ]
Jaeggi, Alienation , p. 55. See also Part 1, note 46. [ ↩ ]
Ibid., p. 58. [ ↩ ]
See also Part 2, note 37. [ ↩ ]
See Kolja Möller, “The Politics of the Issue Itself: Revolutionary Realpolitik Instead of Fairy Tales,” on: oxiblog.de, April 21, 2018 (online here ). [ ↩ ]
This also reveals a structurally conservative mentality at work, one that is present—to a greater or lesser extent—in all political milieus because it is not ideologically driven but simply human. Radical leftists, for example, particularly enjoy mocking the SPD (Social Democratic Party) because it is steadily losing support and can hardly come up with any other explanation than that it has “failed to reach the voters.” At the same time, however, they themselves are unwilling to make radical breaks with their own established practices, which—despite receiving even less support than the Social Democrats—they want to instill in the minds of the masses without compromise. People tend to rationalize the contexts in which they are involved. Where heart and soul and life’s time are invested, identity becomes especially entrenched, and to maintain its stability, contradictions are often ignored and grievances are met with apologetics. This is precisely why techniques of co-optation work so well: by integrating critics and opponents into certain structures, they often adapt to the structure’s logic in order to resolve the cognitive dissonance that results from identifying with the new position and their old reservations about it. In this respect, the anti-authoritarian concern that people might become entangled in, for example, a bureaucratic apparatus is quite understandable. On the other hand, this also means that organizations that try to circumvent the problem by relying solely on grassroots activism actually reinforce structural conservatism. While vertically differentiated groups at least have a base that, due to its relative distance, can act as a critical thorn in the side of entrenched officials, in such horizontal groups virtually the entire base is entrenched and tends to rationalize its own engagement. [ ↩ ]
See the box “The Misunderstood Moments and the Holy Spirit”. [ ↩ ]
Habermas, Protest Movement , p. 16. [ ↩ ]
Internal critique means measuring a form of life (or in this case, a germinal form) against its normative claims, comparing these with its actual effects—and drawing conclusions from the contradictions that arise. A prerequisite for this, of course, is that one actually adopts this standard, which is impossible in the micropolitics of underperformance. Immanent critique goes further and identifies areas of tension within a formation that “drive it beyond itself” (Jaeggi, Critique , p. 287). It is therefore concerned with the immanent problems of organizational practices that themselves create normative facts, for better or for worse. Immanent critique thus inquires into the characteristics by which a context, in dealing with problems, creates other or further problems that ultimately (re)configure its characteristics. [ ↩ ]
For the definition, see Part 2, note 9. [ ↩ ]
See Part 2, note 52. [ ↩ ]
See Part 2, note 54. [ ↩ ]
See the box “The rules of the game for changing the rules of the game”. [ ↩ ]
See Part 2, note 54. Strictly speaking, this is even the essence of a non-alienated state: the (critical) identification with the consequences of one’s own actions in a given context. [ ↩ ]
Weber rightly points to the quasi-religious mindset of the ethics of conviction: “the Christian does what is right and leaves the outcome to God”; Weber, Politics , p. 82. [ ↩ ]
Ibid. [ ↩ ]
Möller, “Politics of the Cause”. [ ↩ ]
Sam Moss, “On the Impotence of Revolutionary Groups,” in Living Marxism , No. 7 (1939), pp. 216–220. [ ↩ ]
As a reminder: Since left-wing micropolitics understands itself merely as a reflection of utopian principles – and vice versa – there is no performance-oriented point of reference (e.g., the mesopolitical goal of mass organizing) that would qualify its inability to exert influence as a problem of weight. [ ↩ ]
An epistemic crisis is understood here as the inability of an intersubjective context to produce, retrieve, and/or utilize knowledge with which problems concerning the purpose of the context could be qualified and solutions developed. [ ↩ ]
See the box “Infantile anti-authoritarianism and the fight against knowledge”. [ ↩ ]
See the box “First, Second, and Third Order Problems and Solutions”. [ ↩ ]
This is the verdict of the feminist and social scientist Jo Freeman in her widely acclaimed critique of political groups that reject formal structures, especially the division of labor and vertical decision-making. These groups are not only characterized by their limited capacity for receptiveness and effectiveness (leading to a resigned acceptance of ineffectiveness). Furthermore, hierarchies emerge from this apparent lack of structure, hierarchies that are even less controllable than formal hierarchies. See Jo Freeman, “The Tyranny of Structurelessness,” in: Berkeley Journal of Sociology , No. 17 (1972/73), pp. 151–164. Ironically, Freeman’s concept of an informal hierarchy, within the context of infantile anti-authoritarianism, did not lead to the formalization and thus control of such hierarchies, as Freeman suggested. Instead, it led to the suppression of informal power—personified by epistemic authorities—which further weakened its mechanisms in both theory and practice (see also note 40). This also shows what it means when a life form, due to its inherent characteristics, reacts to a problem in such a way that it creates new problems that leave their mark on its character (see also note 27). [ ↩ ]
See Peter Seyferth, “Structures of non-tyranny versus the tyranny of structurelessness. The use of power in making and implementing decisions,” in: Klaus Mathis & Luca Langensand (eds.), Anarchy as a stateless order?, Berlin 2019, pp. 121–144. [ ↩ ]
This is evidenced by: constant general meetings with extensive decision-making procedures, weak secretariats in constant rotation, offices with only limited executive powers, purely voluntary operation, countless autonomous working groups, delegations without decision-making authority, time-consuming and decision-blocking voting methods, overburdened congresses, syndicate formations without significant prerequisites, etc. etc. [ ↩ ]
When horizontalism is mentioned here, it refers to its extreme interpretation within the neo-anarchist or autonomous left. Syndicalism, with its concepts of federalism and autonomy, has always been a (relatively) horizontal movement. However, the organizations of classical syndicalism, which certainly included vertical elements and a political superstructure, have little in common with the excessive ultra-horizontalism of contemporary syndicalism. [ ↩ ]
See the box “The dystopian shadow in utopian promises”. [ ↩ ]
See Tom Wetzel, “On Organisation,” in: Ideas & Action , No. 9 (1988), or on libcom.org, April 20, 2017 (online here ). The text criticizes, in particular, the consensus principle, which, due to its time-intensive nature, disadvantages people with little time (e.g., wage earners). However, the argument can be extended and applied to all organizational elements—structural and cultural—that make a collective context slow and cumbersome, or incapable of decision-making and action. [ ↩ ]
From a cost-benefit perspective, the FAU, for example, is a huge loss-making venture. In protracted and arduous struggles, often waged for individuals or small groups, it achieves only minimal successes, which are disproportionate to the excessively high level of member involvement in decisions and actions. This would only pay off in the medium term if these examples led to more people joining. However, few people remain committed to these struggles, as they experience firsthand that the solidarity they enjoy and could give back to other members comes at a high price, far exceeding the benefits of the struggles. In that sense, from a purely material perspective, one would be better off enjoying one’s free time than investing one’s resources in the FAU. [ ↩ ]
Classical syndicalism certainly had (paid) boards and governing bodies with decision-making powers, while delegates were often sent with relatively free mandates based on their personal authority. Anyone who believes, for example, that CNT syndicates, despite 60- to 70-hour workweeks filled with grueling labor, constantly met to reach consensus on all sorts of matters and rotate tasks is projecting today’s neo-anarchism onto the past. [ ↩ ]
See the box “Asymmetric Base: Resource Competition in Horizontalism”. [ ↩ ]
While in representative structures every member has the same formal influence in the election of representatives, in the ultra-horizontal model the formal influence of those who, for example, are less able to attend meetings due to professional and family obligations, is diminished compared to others. If they cannot attend at all, they have no vote and can only exert influence informally. Furthermore, the problem is exacerbated by the various levels of horizontal participation. Many workers have just enough resources to contribute to their workplace group, where concrete union work takes place. They often have to miss general assemblies of the union. Yet it is precisely there that the strategic and political framework decisions are made, which in turn affect concrete union work. It should be obvious that these decisions are not exactly close to the needs of the workers if those assemblies are primarily attended by members who, lacking workplace involvement, can afford to attend. This, too, is part of the epistemic constitution. [ ↩ ]
Payment also has a participatory function. In Athenian democracy, for example, allowances were once introduced to provide a material basis for the political engagement of citizens with low incomes. [ ↩ ]
This is what it means when framework decisions are made within a social composition that is not representative of the composition of the companies. See note 50. [ ↩ ]
See the box “Why shared work is not necessarily less work”. [ ↩ ]
See the box “The Context Dependence of Verticalization and Professionalization”. [ ↩ ]
The constant mobilization resulting from the persistent lack of clarity regarding direction and style (see note 49) amounts to a compulsion to be an activist, which few can fulfill. For many, the only options left are to be a second- or third-class member—or to leave. Contemporary syndicalism makes no secret of the fact that it has no problem with this. It is not uncommon to hear that having a say requires commitment, sometimes coupled with a devaluation of members who do not (or cannot) participate in time-consuming work and discussions; not to mention the contempt for passive members, whom one doesn’t even want as members in the first place. Aside from the fact that this represents an ignorance of the material realities of many people, it resonates with an almost religious code of honor, which becomes particularly clear when the self-exploitative nature of commitment is acknowledged, but this is demanded as a necessary sacrifice for paving the way for revolutionary paradise. [ ↩ ]
For the positive and necessary function of a functionary apparatus or organizational bureaucracy, see Thomas Goes, “Trade Unions: Why, What, and How,” on: adamag.de, June 26, 2018 (online here ). [ ↩ ]
In ultra-horizontalism, experienced activists are fully occupied with two things: First, they have to keep the most essential things running, requiring considerable effort in legitimizing and communicating their views. Every minor problem requires that it first be communicated to a broader, constantly fluctuating base so that countermeasures can be approved. Second, they are supposed to pass on their knowledge to new members so that they can take their place, but only a fraction of this knowledge is ever shared, meaning they themselves constantly have to step in as backup . Much of the experience-based knowledge (so-called “implicit knowledge”) is not something they can pass on through explicit communication, and only a small percentage of those being trained ultimately assume any responsibility. Logically, in such a context, no capacity remains to translate experience and knowledge into necessary reform processes, especially since such processes are particularly time-consuming in ultra-horizontalism due to the aforementioned effort required for legitimizing and communicating their views. [ ↩ ]
See the box “The trade union as a fig leaf for individual self-discovery”. [ ↩ ]
Of course, even in contemporary syndicalism, there are natural authorities who, through experience, knowledge, and commitment, hold their organization together and advance it to a greater or lesser extent. However, this clashes with the anti-authoritarian ideology, as well as the public image that claims there should be no authority figures. Consequently, members who subscribe to this ideology or who joined based on the promises of this public image react angrily to individuals who prove to be relatively influential, as these individuals supposedly represent something contrary to the organization’s principles. Experienced members are therefore forced into a peculiar tightrope walk to ensure the organization’s stability: they must assert their knowledge without doing so too directly. In doing so, they constantly risk coming under fire, since the infantile anti-authoritarianism places particular emphasis on identifying potential “string-pullers” and neutralizing their influence. Consequently, you can only diffuse experience and knowledge in a trickle and with maximum effort – with the result that sooner or later you have to ask yourself whether your skills wouldn’t be less wasted elsewhere. This also impairs the organization’s epistemic performance. [ ↩ ]
It’s a truism that the radical left is predominantly a post-adolescent movement. This also applies to the FAU, even though, with its appeal as at least nominally a workers’ organization, it can boast somewhat more age diversity. The age problem is certainly acknowledged within the scene (see, for example, the debate evening organized by Wilhelmsburg Solidarisch on “Dead End Activism”; online here ). However, instead of adapting structures to the realities of the target group in the spirit of practical materialism, the movement generally leaves its own ways of relating to others unquestioned – instead, in the spirit of religious self-sacrifice (cf. note 55), people are expected to adapt themselves, i.e., to accept deprivation or even subordinate their life and career plans to it. It’s particularly important to remember that social change naturally requires dedicated activists; but when a structure functions in such a way that this becomes a prerequisite for the recruitment and integration of members, it amounts to sectarianism. Because then, beyond expressions of sympathy, there are no opportunities for identification or connection for broader circles – and aging members repeatedly outgrow the organization. An exception to this might be those members whose participation is not primarily politically motivated, but for whom the form of the ‘union’ serves as a meaningful bond for social interaction that they otherwise lack in their lives. It’s not uncommon to hear that, for example, the FAU is considered by many to be a substitute for social participation. [ ↩ ]
This does not mean, of course, that these individuals do not also work or are not workers, or that the atypical employment situations in which they often find themselves should not be organized. Nevertheless, the distinction between descendants of the lower classes and proletarianized descendants of the educated middle class is important. Firstly, despite a (self-chosen) precarious phase of life, the latter often possess other forms of security that their families can offer should they revise their life plans. Secondly, their socialization brings with it a different habitus, which differs from the social interactions and perceptions of the lower classes. Both of these factors are reflected in decision-making preferences and cultural practices that do not resonate with those of the actual target group. [ ↩ ]
Indeed, psychological studies have found that the vast majority of people are reluctant to make decisions for a collective because the consequences are not entirely clear to them; see, for example, Micah G. Edelson et al., “Computational and Neurobiological Foundations of Leadership Decisions,” in: Science , no. 6401, vol. 361 (2018). For a horizontal organization, this presents a serious problem: its average meetings tend to avoid making more complex decisions. This not only allows human structural conservatism to play a more prominent role than in organizations that attempt to assign certain decisions to qualified individuals (see note 24), but it also leads to sluggishness in strategic interaction. This is, of course, incompatible with the organization’s ambition to experiment as a germinal form and to act flexibly in social struggles. [ ↩ ]
To be able to assess the competence of others in a field, one must first possess a certain level of competence in that field (see Justin Kruger & David Dunning, “Unskilled and Unaware of it. How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments,” in: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, No. 6, Vol. 77 (1999), pp. 1121–1134). This is because, as David Dunning stated in an interview with the New York Times (online here), “The skills you need to find the right solution are precisely the skills you need to recognize a solution as correct.” Therefore, it is not at all far-fetched that models of representative democracy , for example , involve political parties in the selection of specific personnel, whereas personnel decisions resulting from direct elections sometimes turn out to be particularly appalling (for example, Donald Trump). [ ↩ ]
See Part 1, note 49, for Pouget. It is downright bizarre that neo-anarchism never tires of emphasizing the importance of such historical figures for the movement, yet with its infantile anti-authoritarianism, it cultivates a climate in which they and the movement could never have distinguished themselves to such an extent that it is likely to be known to their present-day epigones. [ ↩ ]
See the box “The Double Straw Man: The Confusion Surrounding Identity Politics”. [ ↩ ]
Standpoint theory posits that the episteme of a deprivileged group is better suited for an objective perception of the world. While this may be a useful orientation for uncovering the “blind spots” of privileged perspectives, it has been elevated to a political imperative within the Left . In its most blunt application, it has led, for example, to the uncritical support of “anti-imperialist” struggles, regardless of how reactionary their dominant forces are—often disregarding the fact that progressive forces within the reference group itself need external support against reactionary dominance. In practice, standpoint theory thus tends toward an essentialization of groups that obscures their internal differences. The influence of this simplistic interpretation within the Left, which once sought to explore the complexity of the world, has significantly lowered its epistemic level. As a result, the left often conflates hierarchy and domination under the banner of emancipation, because it confuses the dominant voices of a group with the standpoint and interests of that (heterogeneous) group. [ ↩ ]
This is the consequence of a paradigm shift that began in the 1960s within the Left, which increasingly attributed importance to the individual subject in the reproduction of power relations. With this subjective turn, the Left adopted a new strategy: to (supposedly) radically abolish domination, it became necessary to directly address the behavior of the individual. The result is a “rigid radicalism” in which those who reprimand their fellow human beings for “wrong” consciousness and behavior, thus instilling in them the “correct” form of radicalism, can feel particularly radical themselves (see, in general, Carla Bergman & Nick Montgomery, Joyful Militancy: Building Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times , Oakland 2017). It should therefore come as no surprise that the Left is particularly susceptible to personalized conflicts. This “dislocation of power” (Saul Newman, From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power , Lanham 2007), which makes interpersonal relationships the starting point for social change, consequently politicizes the individual personality: what each person symbolically represents determines who is friend and who is foe. It establishes a call-out culture in which individuals are pilloried and which has no sense of deviation or complexity. Above all, it is toxic because it spreads mistrust and fear, undermines solidarity, and serves as a gateway for personal power games. Once intended to make people feel safer in the political arena, it has transformed the left into a psychological war zone .
In particular, this concept, which—from the 1970s onward—aimed to give more weight to the perspectives of subaltern subjects within groups in order to counteract power and difference in their immediate environment, caused identity politics to tip into irrationalism. While it might still make sense to give special consideration to the collective interests of a subaltern group in a given context, this concept now ensured that individual viewpoints were considered quasi-representative of the entire subaltern group. This not only creates theoretical contradictions (for example, if two members of a group have different views on a problem, both are supposed to have the power to define it vis-à-vis non-members), but in practice also divides the group itself. This is because further conflicts of interest run through every group, so that these informal factions each claim interpretive authority for their own viewpoint. Consequently, the privileged segments of the group are more likely to be heard, while others are rendered invisible (see note 66). [ ↩ ]
It is no coincidence that the behaviors sanctioned by “rigid radicalism” (see note 67) essentially correspond to those of the lower classes. The language and symbolism of political correctness —in their concretely expected form—are also colored by habit, thus reflecting the dominance of the educated middle class on the left. For example, on the left, a diplomatic and understated demeanor is considered polite and correct, while a very direct and boisterous approach is deemed disrespectful and patriarchal-authoritarian. Yet, in the lower classes, plain speaking and assertiveness are seen as honest and showing interest, while diplomacy and equanimity are perceived as insincere and apathetic. This cultural discrepancy can also be explained materially, since members of the lower classes not only grow up in a harsher environment that allows less room for sensitivities, but also because time is a scarcer resource, necessitating more direct communication. And last but not least, social milieus also create different values, connotations, and ambivalences of terms, which the rigid moral framework of left-wing language policy cannot even begin to address. [ ↩ ]
To put it bluntly, the “three to one” of the triple oppression theory has turned into a “two to one” within left-wing circles. This is particularly evident at universities, where the radical left has exerted the strongest political and cultural influence. Although social background is the most significant exclusion criterion in the education system (only a few percent of students from educationally disadvantaged families even reach university, while the gender ratio is balanced at all university levels except the professorial level), structures promoting diversity for working-class children are nonexistent, unlike the many for women and LGBTQ+ people (see Jürgen Gerhards & Tim Sawert, “Diversity at Universities: Solidarity Ends at the Border of the Underclass,” in: Frankfurter Allgemeine , January 14, 2019; online here ). At the same time, left-wing university groups have all sorts of tools that empower women and people of color vis-à-vis white and male group members, while no one would dream of granting special rights to poor, white men. There is definitely a classist component here, for example, when the left-wing rebel from the professorial family that always provides for her can sanction or block someone who has made it to university through great hardship and has a particularly difficult time there due to a lack of financial and cultural resources. [ ↩ ]
This is the inherent problem of standpoint theory: In a complex, mixed situation, there are always (at least) three times three dimensions of privilege difference at play interpersonally. And which of these dimensions come to the fore in perception depends, in turn, on one’s own standpoint and its blind spots. In a predominantly educated, middle-class society, it should therefore come as no surprise that predominantly feminist and anti-racist interpretations, which are compatible with the hegemony of the educated middle class, find support. This is one of the reasons why left-wing identity politics is (unconsciously) always also an instrument of class rule – even if it nominally sees itself as connected to class politics. [ ↩ ]
In left-wing circles, boisterous speech is coded as patriarchal, and to avoid male dominance, communicative interaction is expected to pay particular attention to emotional aspects. At the same time, the active willingness to contribute experience and take on responsibility is seen as a male drive for recognition, used to marginalize women, which is why the space for such dynamism is often severely restricted. This reflects an image of women in which femininity is constructed as quiet, timid, and sensitive, frequently coupled with the notion that men wield the whip in the family and advance their careers at the expense of women. This isn’t necessarily wrong. However, class differences should also be considered here. These stereotypes, originating from the middle and upper classes, have little to do with the realities of the lower classes. Fiery, even obscene, speech patterns, including the kind of sweary, insulting language à la Elena Miras, are quite common among women there and often not even considered offensive (in fact, condescending criticism of such behavior can often lead to conflict), while men toiling away in factories (for career advancement!) often stand meekly before them. Those who grow up in the lower classes, where material realities shape different cultures (see note 69), will certainly have fewer stories of devoted and sensitive mothers, but rather of those who bravely (and, incidentally, disproportionately often mothers of multiple children and single parents) defy their circumstances and cannot afford to be sensitive. In this respect, the left, with its micropolitics, reproduces gender stereotypes that originate from the actually patriarchal family structures of the bourgeoisie. It is certainly no coincidence that their codes of political correctness essentially reflect its staid and moralistic etiquette (you don’t say that!). And, especially in recent years, this has been compounded by the influx of educated middle-class millennials, coupled with a peculiarly infantile sensibility. Overprotected and often raised as only children, they are frequently emotionally immature and make collective deliberations particularly dependent on their individual inner selves, which often believe they deserve special treatment. [ ↩ ]
Women still perform more work in society than men. In the EU, for example, among those in paid employment (part-time or full-time), women contribute an average of six more hours per week to production and reproductive labor. Furthermore, women become mothers significantly earlier than men become fathers. In Germany, for instance, women assume family responsibilities almost seven years earlier on average, limiting their opportunities for voluntary work. At the same time, material constraints ensure that even couples with alternative role models ultimately end up in the traditional “breadwinner model” (see Lisa Yashodhara Haller, Parenthood in Capitalism : State Influences on the Division of Labor Among Young Parents , Frankfurt am Main 2018). [ ↩ ]
Motherhood, family, and reproductive labor remain the strongest factors preventing women from participating in politics. At the same time, it is evident that, at least in non-conservative contexts (i.e., where women are not explicitly confined to traditional role models), supposedly patriarchal cultures do not constitute particularly significant mechanisms of exclusion. For example, in almost all DGB (German Trade Union Confederation) member unions, the proportion of female members roughly corresponds to the proportion of women among the employees in their respective operational areas, while they are frequently overrepresented on executive boards and committees relative to their membership share. This is despite the fact that these organizations do not pursue the rigid behavioral and regulatory policies that radical left-wing structures have identified as the key to greater female participation. On the contrary, in many left-wing structures that rely heavily on precisely this approach, the proportion of female members is lower. This is also the case in the FAU (Free Workers’ Union). The already resource-intensive functioning of horizontalism is further intensified by this. Not only does it demand more space for managing the division of tasks, but politically fostered sensitivities also often require time-consuming clarification processes. The emotional labor that women already have to perform more of in society thus becomes the core of political work as well. And where quota regulations, coupled with a low percentage of female members, ensure that women disproportionately assume voluntary roles, the exploitation of female labor is further intensified. Especially in contexts hostile to authority, these unpaid jobs confer less power than they represent dirty work for the predominantly male collective. Combined with cultural mechanisms of exclusion (see notes 69–71), such a system can only be incompatible with the reality of proletarianized women. Instead of adapting micropolitics to their material constraints, the organizational practices intended to be inclusive actually exacerbate classist and sexist exclusion. This means that, in addition to the double burden of production and reproduction, they add a third burden that can only be reconciled with their precarious resources through further self-sacrifice. [ ↩ ]

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