The Plebeian Experience : a Discontinuous History of Political Freedom PDF
Preview The Plebeian Experience : a Discontinuous History of Political Freedom
1-1/8” praise for the plebeian experience breaugh How do people excluded from political life achieve political agency? Through a series “The Plebeian Experience is a rich, discontinuous history of plebeian upris- of historical events that have been mostly ings from the founding of republican Rome to the present. Martin Breaugh the plebeian overlooked by political theorists, Martin writes vividly of these holidays of the oppressed in ancient Rome, Renais- Breaugh identifies fleeting yet decisive sance Italy, and modern Europe as seen through the eyes of Livy, Machiavelli, experience instances of emancipation in which people au ja Montesquieu, Marx, Thompson, Soboul, and Abensour. Those who follow the tho ck t h e p l e b e i a n took it upon themselves to become politi- r e Occupy or the Aboriginal Idle No More Movements will obtain fresh insight ima t im and exhilaration from Breaugh’s highly readable account of these spontaneous cal subjects. Emerging during the Roman ge a plebs’s first secession in 494 bce, the plebe- : © ch ge: p struggles for dignity.” ed andrew, University of Toronto ian experience consists of an underground ia a or unexplored configuration of political r r a pia is c “The plebeian insurrection is nothing other than the people’s assuming of e x p e r i e n c e strategies to obtain political freedom. The z o z m people reject domination through politi- e s m responsibility, through political action, for their own humanity.” i u cal praxis and concerted action, therefore martin breaugh was educated at the Univer- ne stéphane legrand, Le Monde , m establishing an alternative form of power. sity of Paris VII-Denis-Diderot and is as- a y “One of the most interesting features of the book is precisely the way that the sociate professor of political theory at York 1 University (Toronto). His research focuses 6, 1 author sets out to analyze the plebeian principle in what he calls ‘a discon- Breaugh’s study concludes in the nineteenth 87 tinuous history of political freedom,’ in which, for Breaugh, as for Badiou or century and integrates ideas from sociology, on the theory and practice of emancipatory 1 © Rancière, politics is necessarily rare.” a discontinuous history philosophy, history, and political science. politics and radical democracy. a d bruno dias, Radical Philosophy Organized around diverse case studies, o c his work undertakes exercises in political - lazer lederhendler is a full-time freelance pho “Breaugh describes the insurrection of the oppressed on the stage of the world o f p o l i t i c a l f r e e d o m theory to show how concepts provide a literary translator. His translations of con- t o and history. It is the voice of the excluded that we should never forget. He even different understanding of the meaning of s temporary Québécois fiction have earned /co reconstructs the philosophical genesis of a ‘plebeian principle’ that disrupts historical events and our political present. various distinctions in Canada and abroad. r b the presuppositions of inherited thought and traditional political philosophy. The Plebeian Experience describes a recur- i s He lives in Montreal, Quebec. j From this first book, which audaciously poses the all too often ignored ques- ring phenomenon that clarifies struggles for a c tion of the plebs, we can rightly judge that it is very promising.” emancipation throughout history, expand- dick howard is distinguished professor ket miguel abensour, University of Paris VII-Denis-Diderot ing research into the political agency of the emeritus of philosophy at the State Univer- d e many and shedding light on the richness of s sity of New York, Stony Brook. He is the au- ign columbia studies in political thought - political history m a r t i n b r e a u g h radical democratic struggles from ancient thor of The Primacy of the Political: A His- : c h Rome to Occupy Wall Street and beyond. tory of Political Thought from the Greeks to an columbia university press new york cup.columbia.edu g the French and American Revolutions and ja printed in the u.s.a. t r a n s l at e d b y l a z e r l e d e r h e n d l e r e The Specter of Democracy: What Marx and l e Marxists Haven’t Understood and Why. e columbia tt hh ee pp ll ee bb ee ii aa nn ee xx pp ee rr ii ee nn cc ee columbia studies in political thought i political history CC66330066..iinnddbb ii 99//2200//1133 1100::1166 AAMM columbia studies in political thought/political history dick howard, general editor Columbia Studies in Political Th ought/Political History is a series dedicated to exploring the possibilities for democratic initiative and the revitalization of politics in the wake of the exhaustion of twentieth-century ideological “isms.” By taking a historical approach to the politics of ideas about power, governance, and the just society, this series seeks to foster and illuminate new political spaces for human action and choice. 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Kahn, Political Th eology: Four New Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty (2011) Stephen Eric Bronner, S ocialism Unbound: Principles, Practices, and Prospects (2011) David William Bates, S tates of War: Enlightenment Origins of the Political (2011) Warren Breckman, A dventures of the Symbolic: Post-Marxism and Radical Democracy (2013) CC66330066..iinnddbb iiii 99//2200//1133 1100::1166 AAMM columbia university press i new york CC66330066..iinnddbb iiiiii 99//2200//1133 1100::1166 AAMM columbia university press publishers since 1893 new york chichester, west sussex cup.columbia.edu Copyright © 2007 Editions Payot & Rivages Translation copyright © 2013 Columbia University Press All rights reserved Th is work is published with support from the French Ministry of Culture / Centre national du livre. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Breaugh, Martin. [Expérience plébéienne. English.] Th e Plebeian Experience : A Discontinuous History of Political Freedom / Martin Breaugh ; translated by Lazer Lederhendler. pages cm. — (Columbia studies in political thought/political history) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-231-15618-9 (cloth: alk. paper) isbn 978-0-231-52081-2 (e-book) 1. Democracy—History. 2. Political science—History. 3. Liberty—History. 4. Plebs (Rome) 5. Jacobins—France—History—18th century 6. Jacobins—Great Britian— History. 7. Sansculottes. 8. Paris (France)—History—Commune, 1871– I. Title. jc421.b78313 2013 320.01—dc23 2013013654 Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. Th is book is printed on paper with recycled content. Printed in the United States of America c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 book & cover design: chang jae lee cover image: paris commune, may 16, 1871 © adoc-photos / corbis References to websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared. 0011__bbrreeaa1155661188__ffmm..iinndddd iivv 1100//1188//1133 1111::5544 AAMM F or André Vachet, h omme libre CC66330066..iinnddbb vv 99//2200//1133 1100::1166 AAMM All that people have at birth is the potential to be free. Actual freedom begins with acts of liberation. —Oskar Negt While I understand that the word “people” seems to have been appropriated by populism, I see no reason to be intimidated by this. Why desist from reappropriating the word “people,” not in the sense of an identity but in the concrete sense of the plebs? Th e plebs demanding their rights. —Jean-Luc Nancy If history is to be creative, to anticipate a possible future without denying the past, it should, I believe, emphasize new possibilities by disclosing those hidden episodes of the past when, even if in brief fl ashes, people showed their ability to resist, to join together, occasionally to win. I am supposing, or perhaps only hoping, that our future may be found in the past’s fugitive movements of compassion rather than in its solid centuries of warfare. —Howard Zinn CC66330066..iinnddbb vvii 99//2200//1133 1100::1166 AAMM c o n t e n t s F oreword dick howard xi Preface xv Acknowledgments xxv part i: what is “the plebs”? 1. Historical Genesis of the Plebeian Principle 3 Th e Roman Republic: Th e First Plebeian Secession (494 BCE) 4 Florence: Th e Ciompi Revolt (1378) 11 Romans: Carnival and Revolt (1580) 18 Excursus 1: On the “Originary Division of the Social” 25 Naples: Th e Revolt of Masaniello (1647) 31 Excursus 2: On the “Intractable” 36 2. Philosophical Genesis of the Plebeian Principle 44 Machiavelli: Th e Plebs, Confl ict, and Freedom 46 Montesquieu: In Praise of Division 52 Vico: Th e Plebs and the “History of All the Cities of the World” 60 Ballanche: Th e Plebeian Principle 66 De Leon: Th e Leaders of the Plebs 73 Foucault: Th e Plebs—Baseness or Resistance? 81 Rancière: Th e Plebeian Disagreement 91 Answer to the Question, “What Is ‘the Plebs’?” 98 part ii: the question of the forms of political organization Prologue: On the Dominant Political Confi guration of Modernity 105 3. Sectional Societies and the Sans-Culottes of Paris 112 Origin and Action of the Sectional Societies 114 First Exemplary Political Struggle: Against Centralization 121 CC66330066..iinnddbb vviiii 99//2200//1133 1100::1166 AAMM viii contents Second Exemplary Political Struggle: Against the Great Specialists 127 A Practice of Insurrection 130 Th e Insurrection Against the Girondins 132 Th e Insurrection Against the Th ermidoreans 136 4. Th e London Corresponding Society and the English Jacobins 142 On the Plebs: Th inking with Th ompson Against Th ompson 143 On the English Jacobins 144 Eighteenth-Century England and the French Revolution 146 “Th at the Number of Our Members Be Unlimited” 151 “Th e Liberty Tree” 155 A Heritage Without a Testament? 164 Plurality 165 Political Capacity 167 Otherness 168 New Political Spaces 169 Active Citizenship 170 5. Th e Paris Commune of 1871 and the Communards 173 What Is a Communard? 173 Toward the Paris Commune: A Political Apprenticeship 174 Political Clubs Under the Commune: A Radical Democracy 182 Th e Communalist Contribution: Critique of Politics, Practice of Freedom 191 part iii: the nature of the human bond Prologue: Social Bond, Political Bond, and Modernity 201 6. Th e Sans-Culottes: A Political Bond of Fraternity 205 Th e Sans-Culottes: A Political Bond 206 Fraternity in Action 206 Fraternization as Political Practice 209 Politics, Violence, and Fraternity: A Tenuous Political Bond 211 Rousseau’s Legacy? On Undividedness Among the Sans-Culottes 213 7. Th e English Jacobins: A Political Bond of Plurality 218 Th e Industrial Revolution in England 219 Th e Break-Up of the Traditional Social Bond 222 Rebonding: Th e London Corresponding Society 224 “Unlimited Number”: Plurality as Political Bond 226 A Political Bond of Division? 227 CC66330066..iinnddbb vviiiiii 99//2200//1133 1100::1166 AAMM contents ix 8. Th e Communards: A Political Bond of Association 230 Th e Political Situation in France Before the Commune 231 A Core Principle of Communal Action: Association 234 Association as Political Bond 236 Dividedness or Undividedness Among the Communards? 239 Conclusion 241 Notes 245 Bibliography 283 Index 301 CC66330066..iinnddbb iixx 99//2200//1133 1100::1166 AAMM
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