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PHILOSOPHY Henri Lefebvre and statism Dr Stuart Elden, University of Warwick, on 5 June 2001 Henri Lefebvre's long life came to an end in 1991, so it is somewhat perverse that only in the 1990s have key works been translated into English, and long out-of-print books reissued in France. This session began by talking about the contemporary interest in Lefebvre's work, particularly in fields such as human geography and cultural studies. It was suggested that Lefebvre's theoretical complexity and political engagements are in danger of being neglected in these analyses. The presentation therefore discussed Lefebvre's long intellectual career in the context of his life, noting some key political and philosophical issues. It spent some time on Lefebvre's work on Marxism, discussing particularly the Hegelian influence; and moved on to talk about Lefebvre's relation to Nietzsche and Heidegger. Within this broader understanding of his philosophy, the discussion then looked at some well-known concepts of Lefebvre's everyday life, the production of space, and work on the rural and the urban. A major part of the presentation concentrated on the four volume work De l'État, written between the years 1976-78. The first volume of this work situates the state in the modern world, that is at the world scale; the second traces Marxist theories of the State from Hegel to Mao through Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Luxemburg; the third discusses the statist mode of production; and the fourth analyses the relation between the state and society. The most important themes were suggested to be the following:- 1. The distinction between le politique [the political] and la politique [politics], which enables a distinction between the thinking of the political and political action. 2. The politics of scale, with the shift from nation-state to a world level [mondialisation]. This includes the transfer or extraction of surplus value not just from one class, but from one country to another. The developing world has become the global proletariat, or the proletariat for the first world. As political de-colonisation began economic colonisation moved into a new phase. 3. The state organisation of space, and the political production of space: the abstract space of business and information networks, capital flows; and the concrete space of trade routes, production lines, cities, buildings, tourist destinations, etc. 4. The major innovation of the text - the mode of statist production. This is used to understand Stalinism and state socialism; fascism (with economic and political plans); and social liberalism (an attempt at some redistribution but without addressing the underlying issues i.e. the state appropriation of the result of exploitation).
The presentation ended by invoking Marx's famous 11th Thesis on Feuerbach. This suggests that "the philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it". However today it seems there may be a lack of alternatives. Protesters after Seattle seem to know (at best) what they are against, but not what they are for. Perhaps then (as Slavoj Zizek does in his reading of Lenin) we need to reverse and amend Marx: "Everyone wants to change the world, but lack alternate ways; the point is to interpret it". Lefebvre seems to provide some direction in this inquiry. Stuart Elden |
