Excerpt from Demanding the
Impossible, page 74:
I think that we leftists
shouldn’t simply believe in chaos…. The problem is that when the situation is
totally desperate, especially in a situation where you don’t have to organize
opposition, it’s much more probable that some dictator or new authoritarian
figure will emerge. You probably didn’t experience the war, but I did. I can
tell you that it’s not nice at all to live in that kind of situation. It’s nice
to go on a demonstration and then go and sit in a cafeteria and discuss the
demonstration and so on. To see the public order disintegrate is not a nice
thing. This is why I think that, if you want revolution, you should be a part
of law and order. There’s nothing dishonorable about people wanting basic security.
My god, I like to feel safe. Horrible things happen if you don’t have this
basic law and order. So again, I claim, things are not as dangerous as we may
think. And people believe that the police are usually much more efficient and
aligned in authoritarian countries. But this is the myth of strong
authoritarian countries. “OK, you don’t have freedom, but at least there’s
order and the police provide security.” No, it’s not like that! This is why I
like to read the history books about everyday life under Stalinism. Beneath the
surface, it was extremely violent and chaotic. When somebody beat you, you
couldn’t do anything. This is a paradox. If you were raped, for example, under
Stalinism, and you went to the police station, you know what they would tell
you? “Sorry, we cannot take your case. Because we have to report that there is
less and less crime in the statistics. If we take cases like yours, it would
ruin our statistics.” They were simply corrupted. I never much liked the 1960’s,
but when I spoke with my friends in France, they used to say that the most
beautiful moment in May ’68 was when you came in a car from the suburbs, parked
it to the north of Notre Dame Cathedral, and walked across the river; then you
demonstrated, sometimes burning some cars, but not caring because it’s not your
car, and then, in the evening, you went north and sat in the cafe, and debated
over coffee. Doesn’t this sound interesting? If there is a lesson from
so-called postmodern, post ’68 capitalism, it’s that the regulatory role of the
state is getting stronger…. How many things have to function in order for
something to be done? Laws, manners, rules: these are what make us feel truly
free. I don’t think that people are aware of this fact. That was the hypocrisy
of many leftists there: their target was the whole structure of the state
apparatus of power. But we still need to count on all the state apparatus
functioning. So my vision is not some utopian community without a state. We can
call it the state or whatever, but more than ever what we actually need are
certain organisms of social power and its distribution. Today’s world is so
complex. If you want to build a company today, you have to be very deeply
entwined with the state apparatus – more and more so. This is why I was always
deeply distrustful of those libertarian socialists who claim: “We just want
local communal organization.” I don’t believe in that. I always try to
enumerate how many things have to function at a state level so that they could
do their so-called “local self-management or communal organization.” I think
that the left should drop this model of immediate transparent democracy. It
cannot be globalized in order to function. It needs a very strong state
apparatus, which regulates things. If not, things will happen, as you can see
today, just like capitalism which is getting so chaotic, especially in the
third world. What fascinates me, therefore, is the idea that we the left should
now take over this ideology: “We are the true law and order. We are the true
morality.” I very much like this idea of the left taking this position. And my
position is that we have to engage wherever we can and do whatever is possible.
And all this is what I think we miss in today’s left.
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