In 1848, Louis Bonaparte, nephew of NapolĂ©on Bonaparte, was elected president of the new Second Republic of France. Defending the work of the revolution of 1848, promoting prosperity for all, he promised glory and greatness for a nation which supposedly characterised his uncleâs reign. Because the constitution limited the president to a single four-year term, and because he failed to secure the three-fourths majority required for constitutional revision, he staged a coup dâĂ©tat on December 2, 1851. The coup provides the occasion of Marxâs insightful book The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852).
What follows is an analysis of the post-political as a âpoliticalâ formation, juxtaposed against Marxâs account of the 1851 coup dâĂ©tat by Louis Bonaparte. The first part of the chapter introduces the argument of Marxâs Eighteenth Brumaire as a model for understanding the foundations of contemporary politics. Part two examines the depoliticised conditions of contemporary neoliberal society through the concept of post-politics. This is precisely a moment of Benjaminianism in the sense that the analysis inserts the past into the ânow-nessâ of a present danger, which is post-politics. Aiming to redeem the past generations of the oppressed, a Benjaminian approach allows us to grasp the truth of post-politics, a truth which is found in present-day-life (Benjamin 1999 a: 297). After Benjamin, then, what do we see? It is important to stress that Benjaminâs concept of history does not see in history happy promises. Looking at contemporary society through the lens of Benjamin, what we see is a moment of danger, or post-politics as a counterrevolutionary logic that grows incessantly, with its social regimes and their associated affects. In front of such danger, Benjaminâs concept of history would like to help; an interruptive history which illuminates and actualises new possibilities. From a Benjaminian perspective, the possibility of revolution and dialectical history is what matters.
In this precise sense, one should not forget the face of the past (the spectre). It is true that we see a past that is full of traumatic experiences and counterrevolutionary events. Whereas âthe history of the victorsâ sees the past as something that we should all leave behind, a Benjaminian approach allows us to see history that includes danger and catastrophe, but wants to liberate it from chains. Benjamin sees the past capable of interrupting and thus stopping counterrevolutionary logics that produce non-events in which misery, injustice, and reaction are continuously (re) produced. It is the past which reveals a new dimension of history. That is the difference.
Hence, the importance of Benjaminâs concept of history in which the past (nineteenth-century France) has a new meaning that can rise in light of the present (post-politics). Let me add that I do not mean to equate the political lessons from nineteenth-century France with the current developments in contemporary society. Rather, I use Marxâs diagnoses of the French counterrevolution in order to understand the tenuous relationship between the economisation and the evident militarisation of society. In doing so, I aim to show the emergent link between an analysis which does not forget the past, and the object of its attention, which emerges as a flash in the present, becomes present: âknowledge comes only in lightning flashesâ (Benjamin 1999 b: 456).
Model: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
Hegel observes somewhere that all the great events and characters of world history occur twice, so to speak. He forgot to add: the first time as high tragedy, the second time as low farce.
(Marx 1852/2002: 19)
When Marx wrote of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852/2002), the main question to which Marx was responding was how the revolution of 1848 had led to Louis Bonaparteâs coup dâĂ©tat and the subversion of democracy. To explain these events, Marx divides Louis Bonaparteâs (farcical) rise and rule into three separate phases, in which different alliances of classes and groupings rule. In the first phaseâcalled the February PeriodâKing Louis Philippe, whose rule Marx identifies with the finance aristocracy, is forced to abdicate by a broad coalition, including the republican bourgeoisie. This alliance is modified by the removal of the âproletariatâ from the centre of the revolutionary stage. The second phase is brought on by the fall of the republican bourgeoisie, which gives rise to the Party of Order as the ruling alliance. The Party of Order is a bourgeois formation, representing two antagonistic wings of the two bourgeois factionsâthe landlords (Legitimists) and the industrialists (OrlĂ©anists). For Marx, their rule is made possible only in the framework of republicanism. This is why not royalism but the parliamentary republic becomes the common denominator of the two bourgeois factions. for it is the best possible political shell for the common class interest, the interests of the capital. Eventually, however, republican institutions are discarded by the Party of Order, that is, by âcapitalâ, in the name of âorderâ. This is the key to understanding the different role of the bourgeoisie in 1848 as compared to 1789: in 1789 the bourgeoisie played a âprogressiveâ role by allying with the people against the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the established church, whereas in 1848 they had become much more conservative by doing everything in its power to prevent the spread of potential socialist revolutions.
The third phase ends in a coup dâĂ©tat, which brings Louis Bonaparte to power. The alliance behind Bonaparte comprised of the various factionsâfrom finance capital, the Legitimist landed aristocracy, to the industrial bourgeoisie, the lumpenproletariat, the state officials, and the army. As a result, the victory of âorderâ succeeds in conquering democracyâs âdisturbance of orderâ and Louis Bonaparte declares himself emperor of France. In the process, Bonaparte profits from the myth of his uncle as the symbol of the revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality and stability. In exploiting this legend, Bonaparte projects himself as a man who would rule above class interests, the divisions of French politics, for the reconciliation of all classes.
Significantly, as Marx argues, there is something special about France where the head of the executiveâwith a bureaucracy of more than half a million civil servants, a complement of a half million officials alongside an army of another half millionâcontrols a state apparatus which ârestricts, regulates, oversees and supervises civil life from its most all-encompassing expressions to its most insignificant stirrings⊠where through the most extraordinary centralisation this parasite acquires an all-knowing pervasivenessâ (Marx 1852/2002: 53). This is a process in which the âmaterial interests of the French bourgeoisie are intertwined in the most intimate wayâ with the maintenance of the machinery of state (Marx 1852/2002: 54). With the support of the bourgeoisie, Louis Bonaparte needs the widespread and ingenious machinery of the state, âthe fearsome parasitic bodyâ, in order to repress other classes. For this reason, the bourgeoisie is âcompelled by its class position both to negate the conditions of existence for any parliamentary power, including its own, and to make the power of the executive, its adversary, irresistibleâ (Marx 1852/2002). It thus finds the everyday business of democracy useless and stigmatises any popular agitation as âsocialisticâ. By now decrying as âsocialisticâ what it had previously extolled as âliberalâ, the bourgeoisie thus confesses that âits own interests require it to dispense with the dangers of self-governmentâ; that in order to âretain its power in society intact its political power would have to be brokenâ(Marx 1852/2002: 57).
In the name of saving society âfrom being destroyedâ, from âanarchyâ, the bourgeoisie betrays its âprogressiveâ past to try to safeguard capitalist class interests by invoking, in Bonaparte, a leader who contradicts them. Hence they cry out: âonly theft can still save property; only perjury, religion; bastardy, the family; only disorder, order!â (Marx 1852/2002: 107). Put differently, the bourgeoisieâso much afraid of the revolutionary working class and socialist idealsâis willing to sacrifice democracy in order to maintain a state of âorderâ. However, whereas the main protagonist of The Eighteenth Brumaire is the French bourgeoisie, Marx points out that Louis Bonaparte is able to garner the support from the small-holding peasants as well as the petty bourgeoisie and the lumpenproletariat. Bonaparteâs strength lay in his ability to be able to depict himself as âall things to all menâ.
It is precisely when he becomes aware of himself as a man âsuperiorâ to his bourgeois rivals, as an âauthorityâ over them, that Louis Bonaparte attains a position which enables him to become the master of the society, an âoriginal authorâ, in his own right (Marx 1852/2002: 64). And, as Marx argues in another passage, it is this âabject dependenceâ which enables Louis Bonaparte to represent each class against all the others in turn (Marx 1852/2002: 101). Because they are unable to enforce their class interest, a master, Bonaparte, must represent them. But herein lay the central dilemma of Bonaparteâs rule: he wants to be seen as the âpatriarchal benefactor of all classesâ, but, in this, he is spectacularly unsuccessful because he could not âgive to one class without taking from anotherâ (Marx 1852/2002: 108). Thus, in the final analysis, Bonaparte is a âfloating signifierâ, whose true loyalty lies with himself, his clique, the clandestine police force and standby army who keep him in power. And the rest is a total failure: Bonaparteâs coup is undoubtedly illegal and brutal. As a result, the revolution of 1848 becomes an empty gesture, embodying a dialectic of âpurificationâ and âdestructionâ. The authoritarian regime the coup establishes is an exceptional period of âdictatorshipâ where the rule of law is suspended. The state power, therefore, unconditionally authorises itself to exercise an absolute power in order to suppress other classes. Anticipating states of emergency in modern times, thus restoring the security state by manifesting it at its most spectacular, the âobsceneâ message of the âunlimited governmental powerâ imposed by Louis Bonaparte is thus: âlaws do not really bind me, I can do to you whatever I want, I can treat you as guilty if I decide to do so, I can destroy you if I want toâ (ĆœiĆŸek 2006: 337). Consequently, the process of promising peace and national honour culminates in a brutal and decidedly unbourgeois regime of banditry that seizes the reins of power. It is the army, âpersonified by its own dynastyâ, which must ârepresent the State in antagonism to the societyâ (Marx 1986). In fact, the bourgeoisie renounces power in favour of a gangster regime (Carver 2002: 152), for Bonapartism is about enforcing and preserving capitalist exploitation.
The constitution, the national assembly, the dynastic parties, the blue [right-wing] and the red [left-wing] republicans, the heroes of [the Algerian wars in] Africa, the thunder from the grandstand, the sheet-lightning of the daily press, all the literature, political names and intellectual reputations, the civil law and the penal code, libertĂ©, egalitĂ©, fraternitĂ©, and the ninth of May 1852 [when Bonaparteâs presidency was supposed to expire, but didnât]âall that has magically vanished under the spell of a man whom even his enemies would deny was a sorcerer.
(Marx 1852/2002: 23)
The aim of Bonapartism is to recognise popular sovereignty whilst placing it under a specific authoritarian regime in the best interests of the bourgeoisie. At the heart of the regimeâs policy is technocratic and administrative romanticism, which is seen as crucial in building a competitive economy. Thus, the entire bureaucratic-military machine is deployed to safeguard the managerial-technocratic âbourgeois orderâ, to support the governmentâs candidates, and to counter opposition. Salvation seems to be offered by the security state. The oft-proclaimed desire for liberty is compounded always by social fear. âLibertyâ depends both on the curbing of the personal power of the Emperor and on the preservation of order (Carver 2002: 156â7).
The French as a whole nation thus sees not the emergence of a democratic society but the return of a demoralising defeat at the hands of a popular âreaction under the leadership of Louis Bonaparteâ (Thoburn 2003: 54). Under the repetition of Napoleon in Louis Bonaparte, the revolution leaves no room for rightful actors on the scene, bourgeois and proletarian, âmaking way for a troupe of substitute comedians whose burlesque performance reaches its climax in the triumph of the clown Louis Napoleonâ (RanciĂšre 2004: 93). What we have here is a repetition with difference that is âenriched by the notion of a decline from heroism to foolishnessâ: â⊠the London constable [Louis Bonaparte], with a dozen of the best debt-ridden lieutenants, after the little corporal [Napoleon Bonaparte], with his roundtable of military marshals! The eighteenth Brumaire of the fool after the eighteenth Brumaire of the genius!â (Marx 1852/2002: 19; see also Carver 2002: 120). The result is a deeply retrogressive situation, wherein, âit seems that the state has merely reverted to its oldest form, to the shameless, bare-faced rule of sword and crossâ (Marx 1852/2002: 22). The âthreatâ of the socialist revolution leads the bourgeoisie to the conclusion: âbetter an end to terror than terror without end!â (Marx 1852/2002: 89). Its logic, of course, is political. This is a history which produces a period of âcrying contradictionsâ. In the end, nothing changes and everybody occupies exactly the same position as in the beginning. Hence, Marx writes on the Second Republic: As a result, the class struggle is foreclosed, the antagonism and conflict are merely weakened and transformed into harmony, all corners of society are framed and measured by economic terms, and the entire political structure is delimited to the actual reality by preventing potential ârevolutionaryâ events from occurring. Louis Bonaparteâs ideal is a society without conflict, antagonism, and radical social change.
Passion without truth, truth without passion; history without events; development driven solely by the calendar and wearisome through constant repetition of the same tension and release; antagonisms which seem periodically to reach a peak only to go dull and diminish without resolution.
(Marx 1852/2002: 34)
Because the lessons of the French counterrevolution are past, they can never be experienced again in unmediated form. But The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte can be experienced now and in the future. It is here that one should return to Benjaminâs concept of history, for it allows us to generate an interrelationship between past and present events. Here the implicit issue is the construction of a critical analysis that interweaves Marxâs arguments of The Eighteenth Brumaire with post-politics, how âhistory is referred to its âmakingââpolitical praxisâ (Tiedemann 1983: 84, 91). By juxtaposing Marxâs analysis of the 1851 coup dâĂ©tat and post-politics, I argue that there is a direct relationship between past and present events, a certain relationship which enables us to see the future as a new radical possibility, which goes beyond just the temporality of the present. For Benjamin, then, an interruptive philosophy of history makes sense only insofar as the past critically examines the present conditions. This analysis is of course âdialecticalâ: âfor while the relation of the present to the past is a purely temporal, continuous one, the relation of what-has-been to the now is dialectical: is not progression but image, suddenly emergentâ (Benjamin 1999 b: 462). Following Benjamin, the dialectical image is the moment of awakening from hell, the very hell of post-politics as a counterrevolution-ary system. It identifies with the oppressed of the past and present as a crucial strategy in overcoming the time-continuum of post-politics.
Benjaminâs main concern is to seek the future in the past that journeys in the present. In this respect, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparteâs temporal status in a continuous present is âstill journeyingâ (Marx 1852/2002: 98). Rereading Marxâs cutting descriptions of Bonaparte and of French politics with an eye focused on contemporary society, the late post-political politics comes to mind again and again. But, to reiterate, by juxtaposing these two historical realities I do not mean to suggest that the political lessons from nineteenth-century France should be equated with the current developments in contemporary society. The point of comparison is confined to the lessons of the relationship between neoliberalisation and the increasing militarisation of contemporary society.
Past makes its present appearance as an interruption of the present. And âarticulating past historically means appropriating a memory as it flashes up in a moment of dangerâ. This danger for Benjamin is what âthreatens both the content of the tradition and those who inherit itâ (Benjamin 2003: 391). By âthose who inherit itâ Benjamin means the tradition of the oppressed, those who are awareâthrough a dialectical perspectiveâof this very danger and the meaning of liberation. Hence the importance of The Eighteenth Brumaire which enables us to see history as both a moment of danger and hope in which âtime takes a stand and has become to a standstillâ (Benjamin 2003: 396). Through an analysis of The Eighteenth Brumaire as the clash between the past as a moment of danger and hope arises, then, a new mode of critical thought, where the present remembers the past and liberates the oppressed. In short, The Eighteenth Brumaire allows us to introduce an âuntimelyâ intervention into the counterrevolutionary aspects of the present conditions, which is post-politics.
The Eighteenth Brumaire has relevance today on its 164th anniversary for many reasons. First, if Napoleon Bonaparte is a floating signifier who can be classified as a tragic hero, then the emptiness of the imitative acts of Louis Bonaparte can be qualified as âlow farceâ (Martin 2002). In this way, Marx tries to ...