Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies: Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics

DEMOCRACY

AND OTK !IE ..

NEOLX

Communicative Capitalism & Left Politics

JODI DEAN

DUKE UNIVERSJ:TY PRESS

! DURHAM

& LONDON

2009

© 2009 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Designed by Jennifer

oo

Hill

Typeset in Arno Pro by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.

JODI DEAN is a professor of political science at Hobart and William

Smith Colleges and the Erasmus Professor of the Humanities in the Fac­ ulty of Philosophy at Erasmus University, Rotterdam. Her previous books include Zizek's Politics, Publicity's Secret: How Technoculture Capitalizes on Democracy, and Aliens in America: Conspiracy Cultures from Outerspace to Cyberspace.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Public�tion Data Dean, Jodi, 1962Democracy and other neoliberal fartta�ies : communicative capitalism and left politics I Jodi Dean. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN

978-o-8223-4492-6 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN

978-o-8223-4505-3 (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. Democratic Party (U.S.) 2. Politics, Practical-United States. 3· Political parties-United States. 4. United States-Politics and goverilllient2001-:- 5. Democracy-United States. 6. Neoliberalism-United States. I. Title. JK2316.D43 2009 324.2736-dc22

�

2009008983

For Paul1 with love and disagreement

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction P O S T- P O LI TI C S A N D L E F T VI C T O RY

1

19

Technology

T H E P R O MI S E S O F C O M MU NI C ATIV E C A PI TA LI S M

2

49

Free Trade

T H E N E O LIBE RA L F A N TA S Y

3

Democracy

75

A K N O T O F H O P E A N D D E S PAI R

4

95

Resolve

S P E AKING O F E VI L

5

Ethics

123

L E F T R E S P O N SIV E N E S S A N D R E T R E AT

6

Certainty

9/11 Notes

145

C ON S PI RA C Y T H E O RI E S A N D P S Y C H O SI S

177

Bibliography Index

203

195

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T

he chapters of

Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies

began as responses. Some were responses to specific invita­

tions. All were responses to the worsening political situation in the United States under the regime of George W. Bush and his global war of terror. I have substantially reworked the arguments here since I first delivered or published them, and I am grateful to those who took the time to respond to the early versions, to question or provoke me, and to offer suggestions and oppor­ tunities. Early versions of the first two chapters were published in

Cultural Politics;

the first appeared as "Communicative Capital­

ism: Circulation and the Foreclosure of Politics;' in volume 1,

(

)

number 1 2oos ; the second appeared as "Enjoying Neoliberal­

(

)

ism;' in volume 4, number 1 2008 . Chapters 3 and 4 grew out of articles published in

Theory and Event:

"The Democratic Dead­

( 2oo8) ; and "Evil's Political number 2 ( 2oos ) . The fifth chapter

lock;' from volume 10, number 4 Habitats;' from volume 8,

reworks material from my contribution to Terrell Carver's and Samuel A. Chamber's

)

Judith Butler's Precarious Politics ( Rout­

ledge, 2008 .

In writing this book, I have benefited from the work of nu­ merous people. I try to thank by name those who extended invitations that enabled me to present and develop my ideas. Yet I want also to acknowledge my appreciation of the work of those who arranged flights and hotels, offices and meals, receptions and translators, but remain unnamed, behind the scenes. Thanks to Gonzalo Portocarrero for the opportunity to deliver a series of

X

A C KN OWLED G M E N T S

lectures inaugurating the Master's Program in Cultural Studies at Catholic

(

University, Lima, Peru and Alexandra Hibbet, who worked tirelessly as a

)

translator and guide ; Zoran Rosko and Petar Milat for the opportunity to present an early version of the first chapter at

MAMA

Multimedia Institute

in Zagreb; Heiko Feldner and Fabio Vighi for arranging a research fellow­ ship and lectures at Cardiff School of European Studies; Lars Iyer for the invitation to Newcastle upon Tyne; David Garcia for the invitation to speak in connection with the exhibit "Faith in Exposure" at Montevideo in Amsterdam; Steven Shaviro for inviting me to give a lecture in the DeRoy Lecture Series in the English Department at Wayne State University; James Maggio for the invitation to the University of Florida; Davide Panagia for the invitation to the Center for Theory, Culture, and Politics at Trent University; Keith Topper for the invitation to participate in the conference on weak ontologies at Northwestern University; Ross Cisneros for the invitation to the summit "Regarding

Evil"

at

M I T;

and, Michael

Norquist for the invitation to speak with the graduate students in political theory at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. T hanks to Steven Johnston and Jane Bennett for introducing me to my editor at Duke, Courtney Berger, and thanks to Courtney for support­ ing this project. Thanks also to John Armitrage, Ryan Bishop, Hubertus Buchstein, Sam Chambers, Mladen Dolar, Andrew Norris, Lee Quinby; Mike Shapiro, and Adam Thurschwell for comments on specific chapters. Thanks to Jackie Stevens and Ken Wark; for their