Does the recent success of Podemos and Syriza herald a new era of inclusive, egalitarian left populism? Because leaders of both parties are former students of Ernesto Laclau and cite his account of populism as guiding their political practice, this essay considers whether his theory supports hope for a new kind of populism. For Laclau, the essence of populism is an “empty signifier” that provides a means by which anyone can identify with the people as a whole. However, the concept of the empty signifier is not as neutral as he assumes. As I show by analyzing the role of race in his theory, some subjects are constituted in a way that prevents their unmediated identification with the people. Consequently, Laclau’s view should be read as symptomatic of the problems with populist logic if its adherents are to avoid reproducing its exclusions and practice a more inclusive politics.
In a dizzying global economy full of injustices that threaten our freedom, people who want to promote justice should be disposed to solidarity with each other. When global supply chains assemble products from every corner of the global and workers’ economic futures seem ever more uncertain, the very neoliberal theories that helped usher in this world also provide a powerful way to understand and navigate it. Those who want to resist the injustices of today’s global economy need to reorient their way of seeing so that it is possible to act more effectively. By drawing on a diverse range of thinkers from G. W. F. Hegel and John Rawls to W. E. B. Du Bois and Iris Marion Young, Disorienting Neoliberalism provides an account of freedom that can inform transnational movements for justice. By explaining how neoliberal institutions and ideas constrain the freedom of people throughout the supply chain from worker to consumer, the book provides a new orientation to the global economy in which it is possible for people to see one other as partners in resisting a shared obstacle to freedom and thus be called to collective action. Cultivating this disposition to solidarity better expresses freedom than the pity and resentment which global inequality so often gives rise to. In doing so, the book shows how political theory can be a source of orientation to the world, illuminating how ideals can help guide action even when they may be impossible to realize.
This chapter draws on G. W. F. Hegel and John Rawls to develop a novel account of freedom that shows how many people can see themselves as having an interest in resisting unjust institutions. Taking seriously the effects that social and political institutions have on people before they could ever choose them means that freedom has an essentially retrospective element; a key experience of freedom is the recognition that the institutions which have shaped individuals are ones that could have been freely chosen. Rawls calls this “the outer limit of freedom” and says it is expressed in the dispositions that are acquired from just institutions. In a well-ordered society, citizens both meet their political obligations and express their freedom when they are disposed to reciprocity with each other. Highlighting these Hegelian dimensions of Rawls’s thought shows how egalitarian liberals can be part of a broader egalitarian coalition.
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