From a Marxist text or position I expect: (i) an analysis of capitalism in
terms which, however attuned to current tastes, are inspired by the concepts
of Capital; (ii) a political programme deduced from this analysis of capitalism
(it is not enough to anticipate the advent of the revolutionary event as a
divine surprise; it is necessary to prepare for it); (iii) an overall conception
of history that tells me how the seeds of the future are contained in the present
and the past: as a Marxist, I am suspicious of sectoral analyses, even if they
are indispensable, and seek to adopt the standpoint of the totality (to use
Lukácsian language). The danger of this concept of history is obviously
teleology: Marxist have long suffered from it, but through no fault of Marx’s;^17
(iv) a conception of time, centred on the concepts of conjuncture and moment
of the conjuncture, and guiding political action, by distinguishing strategy
from tactics, the urgent from the more long-term, the principal aspect of a
contradiction from its secondary aspects: this, as we have seen, is Lenin’s
contribution to Marxist theory.
These four theses or themes are of immediate concern to political activists,
economists, and historians. However, one can be a Marxist without belonging
to any of these categories. One can be interested (as I am) in literature,
linguistics, the philosophy of language. I therefore need some broader theses
for Marxists who do not spend their time directly analysing the current
situation of capitalism. I am going to propose six, in the shape of six dichotomies
which form a correlation – a philosophical technique I borrow from Gilles
Deleuze, who was fond of it.
First dichotomy: the standpoint of the collective rather than methodological
individualism. We know that the latter refuses to consider society other than
as an aggregate of individuals making rational choices whose resultant explains
social dynamics. For its part, Marxism works with collective entities – class
or party – which are social subjects, social agents. Second dichotomy:
subjectivation as a process of production of the subject, rather than the
subject/person/centre of consciousness. This dichotomy correlates with the
preceding one: if the ‘subject’ is collective, pre-eminence will not be assigned
to the individual subject (a historically dated product), author, speaker, or
moral agent. Third dichotomy: ideology as a necessary framework rather than
ideology as mystification. This dichotomy is situated within Marxism, the
120 • Chapter Five
(^17) See Bensaïd 2002.