Prefigurative Politics. Paul Raekstad

experiences, and emotions. While many revolutionary leaders in the past have claimed their political analyses to be impersonal and universally applicable, they have often merely assumed that their own personal circumstances are universal – for example, that their interests as white male working-class people are the interests of the whole working class. An intersectional critique shows that different social structures combine to create different circumstances for different people, which has important implications for prefigurative theory and practice. This does not mean that class unity is impossible, but it does mean that our movements need to be diverse.

      Having established the most important arguments for prefigurative politics, we turn to some common critiques and quandaries in Chapters 6 and 7. Chapter 6 discusses debates about taking over the existing state, whether through election, coup, or conquest. Many critics have dismissed prefigurative politics because, they argue, it cannot confront existing power elites at their stronghold by seizing control of the existing state and so cannot carry out a revolution. On the contrary, many socialist supporters of prefigurative politics argue that taking over existing states is neither necessary nor sufficient to bring about socialism. It will shape those who take that power and cause them not to want to give it up, thereby preventing transition; it prevents building the institutions required for a better future society; and its means (in particular economic nationalisation) pave the way for dictatorship. We consider some responses to these concerns, and finish the chapter by looking at two models that have attempted to combine taking state power with prefigurative politics: 21st Century Socialism and Democratic Confederalism. This further shows how prefigurative politics is more multi-faceted and has a broader applicability than some might think.

      Chapter 7 deals with three common interconnected critiques of prefigurative politics. Many critics worry that it is too similar to liberal individualism, that it lacks a serious political analysis and instead unwittingly relies on mainstream liberal assumptions. Many also argue that prefigurativism is too navel-gazing, leading activists to obsess over their own personal behaviours, rather than addressing greater societal concerns. And others claim that intersectional prefigurative politics amounts to a denial of the need to pose a united front against oppressive structures, such as working-class struggle against capitalism. This chapter shows which elements of these criticisms are accurate and useful, and which are based on misunderstandings.

Finally, Chapter 8 concludes by drawing together the main elements of our central argument. While we believe that prefigurativism is necessary, we’re not arguing that it’s everything. Prefigurative politics is far from being the only kind of (valuable) strategy out there and it certainly cannot solve all of our problems, much less do so on its own. But if we want a meaningfully more free, equal, and democratic world, then we have to have it. We need to both resist that which harms us and construct that which helps us flourish. We need to build the emancipation of tomorrow within the struggles against the oppression of today.

      Contemporary society presents us with a contradiction. It is generating a tendency towards greater oligarchy and authoritarianism on the one hand, and a tendency towards greater freedom, equality, and democracy on the other. The future of our species and many others hangs on the question: which way will we go? This book presents arguments for prefigurative politics and shows how it can best be implemented in practice. Whether enough people with the capacity to actively take a stance for a more free, equal, and democratic society will do so, however, is up to each of us. We can’t tell you how it is going to end, but we can tell you that it’s already begun.

Notes

1 One kind of reconstruction is revolution, which we discuss in Chapter 3. 2 That Gandhi is seen by many as the quintessential prefigurativist is regrettable, since Gandhi’s politics were in many respects deeply problematic and very different from those of most contemporary advocates of prefigurative politics. For example, Gandhi lobbied against the rights of Black people in South Africa, defended the Indian caste system, and was unapologetically a serial sexual abuser (Roy 2017). While we can’t expect prefigurativists to be perfect or never make mistakes, these shortcomings are worth mentioning here due to Gandhi’s status as a prefigurativist par excellence in the eyes of many. 3 The first official publication to mention the phrase ‘the personal is political’ was Carol Hanisch’s 1970 article with that title, so named by the editors of the volume in which it appeared. It was, however, in use among feminist activists before then. 4 We have mentioned only a handful out of countless prefigurative projects. Our examples here focus on decolonial, antiracist and feminist movements since these were very influential and important before the term was first employed in its current meaning by Boggs, but are often neglected. The anti-nuclear and environmental movements became hugely influential on prefigurativism later, in the 1980s and ’90s. 5 Here we should perhaps again note one of the limitations of our work, which is that it focuses on English-language texts (including many in English translation) and on debates that occur in English-language political and academic contexts. However, we would also like to point out that many of the texts, thinkers, and ideas discussed here were not originally part of that context – i.e. they were not academic(s), not written or originally read in English, and in some cases knew no English at all. 6 Private property is a concept that is often misunderstood. It refers to the ownership of things that entail or garner significant social power, such as factory buildings, flats for rent, machinery, a brand name, raw materials, or a business as a whole with all of its possessions included. This is usually distinguished from personal property, or possessions which don’t give someone power over others, such as clothes, toothbrushes, and so on. Being against private property does not mean advocating an end to all personal possessions or that everyone should share the same toothbrush or live in the same room. 7 This definition draws on a range of sources, but especially conversations with Mathijs van de Sande and van de Sande (2015), which have been invaluable during the process of writing this book and to which we especially owe the inclusion of ‘experimental’ in our definition. 8 See Nietzsche 2006: 53. 9 See Holloway 2010; Sitrin 2012; and Zibechi 2012.10 See Bray 2013; Graeber 2009 and 2013; Gould-Wartofsky 2015; Maeckelbergh 2011 and 2012; Sitrin and Azzellini 2014; van de Sande 2015.11 See Bray 2013; Gould-Wartofsky 2015; Graeber 2009; and Dixon 2014.12 See Harnecker 2015; Mészáros 1995; and Lebowitz 2010, 2014, and 2015.13 See Biehl 1998; Bookchin 1993, 2005, and 2015; Dirik 2016; Dirik et al. 2016; Knapp et al. 2016; Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness 2015; Öcalan 2017.14 See Franks 2006; Gordon 2018; and Kinna 2016.15 See Monticelli 2018; Raekstad 2018b; Swain 2017; Yates 2015; and Wright 2010; see also note 12 for this chapter.16 This is part of the broader interest we have in drawing together the better parts of anarchist and Marxist theory and putting them into dialogue with each other. We think that for too long sectarian differences have hindered such dialogue, and that reaching a better future requires a much more careful discussion of these two important bodies of thought than has typically taken place. We are not trying to reduce one to the other, nor trying to salvage all the ideas associated with either of the two. What we try to do here is explore some surprising common ground, and see how that can help us to better understand many of their views on, and arguments about, prefigurative politics.