Teleology and Meaning in History

Teleology and Meaning in History Abstract Marx’s philosophy of history follows in the footsteps of Hegel’s; but he claims to criticize and reject Hegel’s idealism and develop a dialectical and materialist philosophy. However, many question how far he succeeds in this. They criticize his philosophy for what they see as significant residual Hegelian and idealist aspects in it. The purpose of this paper is to respond to these criticisms. I shall concentrate particular on arguments made by Althusser and Badiou, and I shall focus on two charges that they and others often make against Marxism: 1) that its account of history is teleological; and 2) that it falsely portrays history as following a necessary and meaningful course. Marx’s philosophy of history follows in the footsteps of Hegel’s, but he claims to criticize and reject Hegel’s idealism and develop a dialectical and materialist philosophy. However, many question how far he succeeds in this. His philosophy is often criticized for what are seen as significant residual Hegelian and idealist aspects in it. The purpose of this paper is to respond to these criticisms. I shall focus on two charges that are often made against Marxism: 1) that its account of history is teleological; and 2) that it falsely portrays history as following a necessary and meaningful course. I Teleology First, then, as regards teleology: Hegel’s account of history is clearly teleological; but whether Marx follows him in this is more debateable. Hegel claims explicitly that history is aimed at an end. The final goal of world history … is Spirit’s consciousness of its freedom, and hence also the actualization of that freedom. (Hegel 1988, 22) This end is not imposed from the outside, it arises out of and is intrinsic to the historical process itself, it is immanent. It is present from beginning as the determining aim of the process. Hegel compares historical development to the growth of a seed into a plant. World history … is the exhibition of … Spirit, the working out of the explicit knowledge of what it is potentially. Just as the germ of the plant carries within itself the entire nature of the tree, even the taste and shape of its fruit, so the first traces of Spirit virtually contain all history. (Hegel 1988, 21) In Hegel’s terms, what is at first in-itself and implicit becomes for-itself and explicit. The development occurs through a process of alienation and its overcoming, it passes through the stages of immediate unity, division, and finally higher unity (or affirmation, negation, negation of the negation). Marx: Textual evidence Marx’s account of history is often said to follow this Hegelian model, `Like Hegel, Marx thought that history is a necessary process heading towards a discoverable goal … Marx’s idea of the goal of world history was, of course, different from Hegel’s. He replaced the liberation of Mind by the liberation of real human beings. The development of Mind through various forms of consciousness to final self-knowledge was replaced by the development of human productive forces, by which human being free themselves from the tyranny of nature and fashion the world after their own plans.’ (Singer 1980, 42-3). but whether or not it does so is much disputed. The evidence from Marx’s own writings seems contradictory. On the one hand, he quite explicitly rejects the Hegelian teleological approach in many places. It is a target of his criticisms from the very beginning. In some of his earliest writings (esp. Marx 1975a) he criticises Hegel in a `Feuerbachian’ fashion for `inverting’ subject and predicate. This is, in part, a criticism of the teleological view that material conditions are determined by a pre-existing Idea rather than vice versa. This sort of criticism is not confined to an early, `Feuerbachian’ phase, as Althusser at times suggests (Althusser 1969). Similar criticisms are repeated in a number of Marx’s later works: for example, in Poverty of Philosophy (1847) (Marx 1955, Chap. 2) In Poverty of Philosophy (1847) Marx also criticizes and rejects the Hegelian formula of the `negation of the negation’, though he uses it in Capital I (Marx 1961, 753) and, of course, Engels adopts it as one his three `laws’ of dialectic (Engels 1964, 63). I will return to this below.; and in the well-known `Afterword’ to Capital, Volume I, where Marx claims that he inverts Hegel’s philosophy, and where he characterizes Hegel’s teleological idea that history is the realisation of the Idea as the `mystical’ side of Hegel’s philosophy. (Marx 1961) There are also what one might call more robust, materialist criticisms of the Hegelian teleological approach. For example, in the German Ideology, the teleological personification of history is rejected as follows: History is nothing but the succession of the separate generations, each of which exploits the materials, the capital funds, the productive forces handed down to it by all preceding generations … This can be speculatively distorted so that later history is made the goal of earlier history ... Thereby history receives its own special aims and becomes "a person rating with other persons" … while what is designated with the words "destiny", "goal", "germ", or "idea" of earlier history is nothing more than an abstraction formed from later history, from the active influence which earlier history exercises on later history. (Marx and Engels 1970, 57-8) Cf Marx (Marx and Engels 1956, chap. 6) quoted below. On the other hand, there is no doubt that Marx was attracted by aspects of Hegel’s philosophy of history and particularly by some of his forms of expression, and at times his account of history has unmistakably teleological implications. For example, in the 1844 Manuscripts, Marx portrays communism as the teleological end of history when he maintains that it is `the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution.’ (Marx 1975b) Explicitly teleological statements of this sort are not confined to Marx’s early works, as Althusser at times suggests (Althusser 1969). Althusser later comes to acknowledge that Hegelian influences are present throughout Marx’s work (Althusser 2006). Indeed, such passages are if anything more frequent in his later writings (Elster 1985). For example, he describes Britain as being `the unconscious tool of history’ in helping to bring about `mankind’s destiny’ by its actions in India. `England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindostan, was actuated only by the vilest interests, and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them. But that is not the question. The question is, can mankind fulfil its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia? If not, whatever may have been the crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that revolution.’ (Marx 1978a, 658) In Grundrisse (Marx 1973, 409) and Capital, Volume III (Marx 1971, 819), Marx talks of the `civilizing’ influence of capitalism as though this is its destined role and purpose in history. (Kolakowski 1978, 348) Passages such as these have unmistakably teleological implications, and others like them have been cited. (Kolakowski 1978, 346-51, Elster 1985, 107-18) In sum: the evidence from Marx’s explicit statements is unclear. He directly rejects the teleological approach in a number of places, but in others he uses language which clearly has teleological implications. Marx’s Hegelianism If his occasional use of such language was the only evidence to convict Marx of teleological thinking, one could perhaps judge that these are mere rhetorical flourishes and that his more considered position is anti-teleological. However, to resolve the question of whether Marx’s philosophy is teleological, one must go deeper than this. For integral to the Marxist account of history are Hegelian ways of thinking and forms of expression in which teleological assumptions, though not explicit, are often said to be implicit. Moreover, these are integral to the Marxist approach. These too must be examined in order to resolve the question. The idea that Marx adopts a Hegelian approach to history is well expressed by Lichtheim as follows. What Marx shared with Hegel was … the belief that there is an objective meaning in history. For Hegel this is constituted by the progressive evolution of the spirit towards freedom while for Marx it is bound up with man’s mastery over nature, including his own nature … History to [Marx] was the story of man’s self-creation. (Lichtheim 1961, 37-8) Moreover, according to Hegel, human (`spiritual’), historical development occurs in a characteristically dialectical fashion through a process of alienation and its overcoming. It starts with a stage of immediate and simple unity which is then negated in a stage of division and alienation, and this in turn is negated to create a higher form of unity – a negation of the negation – which encompasses these differences within it. These Hegelian formulae are often criticised for being teleological. (Althusser 1969) Indeed, Marx himself criticises them in these terms in places (Marx 1955, Marx and Engels 1970 re alienation). However, he also often adopts them to describe historical development. This is quite explicit in a well known passage from the 1844 Manuscripts, in which Marx acknowledges his debt to Hegel. Hegel conceives the self-creation of man as a process, objectification as loss of object [Entgegenstandlichung], as alienation and as supersession of this alienation; … he therefore grasps the nature of labour and conceives objective man – true, because real man – as the result of his own labour. (Marx 1975b, 385-6) As Lichtheim says, here Marx presents history as the story `man’s self-creation’ Cf Gordon Childe’s view that in history `Man makes himself’ (Childe 1941). which occurs through the stages of alienation and its overcoming. Again Althusser maintains (Althusser 1969) that it is only in his early work that Marx sees historical development in this Hegelian way. [tho later came to revise this view] However, such views are evident throughout Marx’s work. For example, in Capital he describes historical development as having the Hegelian form of the `negation of the negation’ (Marx 1961, 753); and in Grundrisse he describes it as going through the typical Hegelian three stage pattern of alienation and its overcoming. Relations of personal dependence (entirely spontaneous at the outset) are the first social forms, in which human productive capacity develops only to a slight extent and at isolated points. Personal independence founded on objective [sachlicher] dependence is the second great form ... Free individuality, based on the universal development of individuals and on their subordination of their communal, social productivity as their social wealth, is the third stage. The second stage creates the conditions for the third. (Marx 1973, 158) Cf Gould 1978. These Hegelian formulae, it is argued, are inescapably teleological. According to Althusser they presuppose a unified process in which there is a single `subject’ – an original simple unity, a simple essence, that is maintained throughout. The `personal independence’ which characterizes the second (capitalist) stage is not genuine independence or individuality, according to Althusser (it is, as Marx himself says, `founded on objective dependence’). There is no true difference, no real externality here (Althusser 1969). The third stage then reaffirms the original unity, albeit in a more differentiated form. Thus the end is present from the beginning. Even though there is supposed to be a process of alienation and its overcoming, negation and negation of the negation, an identical simple subject remains throughout, and there is no real development. According to Althusser, by contrast, we must see history as a `process without a subject’ such as Man or economic development, and without an origin or end. It originates in `complex unity’ and develops in `uneven’ and discontinuous fashion. There is no simple unity or subject of history, either at the beginning or throughout. (Althusser 1969) Man makes himself? Althusser’s criticisms are aimed particularly at the idea that history is a process of human self-creation, as claimed by humanist and Hegelian Marxist accounts such as Lichtheim’s. Althusser’s insistence that history is a `process without a subject’ seems to be the very opposite of this – but the issue is less clear cut than at first appears. The idea that `man makes himself’ is paradoxical and problematic. If man makes himself, was `man’ there at the outset? On Hegel’s view, as we can see from his example of the growth of the seed, the subject (the Idea) is present implicitly (or in-itself, or potentially) from the very start and, in the process of development, it becomes explicit, for-itself, and actual. This is the teleological way of seeing things. But it is not at all clear that Marx adopts this view. For according to Marx (at least in his clearer and more explicit accounts of the matter), in an important sense, the human subject as such is not present at the outset of historical development, it comes into being only in the course of the process. Nor is there any intentional or conscious activity of creation at work at the outset. As Marx says: `history is nothing but the activity of man [i.e., individuals] pursuing his aims’ (Marx and Engels 1956 quoted above?). And he seems to reject entirely the idea that there is any creative agency at work. History does nothing, it ‘possesses no immense wealth’, it ‘wages no battles’. It is man, real, living man who does all that, who possesses and fights; ‘history’ is not, as it were, a person apart, using man as a means to achieve its own aims; history is nothing but the activity of man pursuing his aims. (Marx and Engels 1956, chap. 6) Even the unity that may seem to be implied by saying that history is the story of human self-creation or of the development of human productive powers, seems to be denied here. It would be wrong to think that `history’ or `man’ is functioning as an originating `subject’ here. For what Marx means by `man’, he says, is `real living men’– that is to say, people (individuals and households) in different communities, initially producing in relative isolation from each other and coming into contact with each other. The unity of human history emerges only gradually as social relations develop with the growth of commerce and trade. Universal connection of human activities develops only at the end of the process. `World history has not always existed, history as world history is a result.’ (Marx 1973, 109) Emergent patterns According to this picture, the progressive development of the productive forces and of human capabilities, and hence the creation of the human subject, is not a teleological process of development of a single subject, governed by a goal from the outset. It arises as a result, as an unintended consequence, through the clash of blind and unconscious processes. However, that is not to say that it is a mere chance outcome, a merely arbitrary, accidental, contingent result, as Althusser suggests (as we shall see presently). On the contrary, it is the law-like pattern of development that emerges from the myriad social interactions of individuals each separately pursuing their own ends. The idea that social and economic patterns and historical laws can emerge as an unintended outcome of a situation in which individuals are separately pursuing their own limited and particular ends, was not invented by Marx. The view that there are emergent social regularities and laws was discovered in the eighteenth century by thinkers who laid the foundations for the social sciences. The political economists of the eighteenth century realised that the separate actions of many independent individuals in the market lead to law-like economic regularities. In a well known passage, Adam Smith describes the way the market operates when individuals pursue their own interests. The individual `intends only his own gain’ but he is led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was not part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. (Smith 1970, IV.ii, paragraph IX) Hegel takes up this idea in his notion of the `cunning of reason’. God lets men do as they please with their particular passions and interests; but the result is the accomplishment of – not their plans, but His, and these differ decidedly from the ends primarily sought by those whom He employs. (Hegel 1892, 209Z, 350) And Hegel applies this thought to history as follows. In world history the outcome of human action is something other than what the agents aim at … something other than what they immediately know and will. They fulfill their own interests, but something further is thereby brought into being, something which is inwardly involved in what they do but which was not in their consciousness or part of their intention. (Hegel 1988, 30) It is important to see that there is a fundamental ambiguity in the way Hegel explains this notion of the cunning of reason. At times, he implies that individuals simply pursue their own purposes in society and the influence of Reason (or God) exists only in the final outcome. At other times, however, there is clearly a teleological element in his account, and he claims that a teleological goal is at work from the outset. (McCarney 2000) World history does not begin with any conscious goal, such as we find in the particular spheres of human life … World history begins with its universal goal: the fulfilment of the concept of Spirit – still only implicit (an sich), i.e. as its nature. That goal is the inner, indeed the innermost, unconscious drive; and the entire business of world history is … the work of bringing it to consciousness. (Hegel 1988, 27) A teleological picture is quite explicit here. There is a teleological goal to history which is at work from the outset. Such a teleological view may also be implicit in Adam Smith’s idea of the `invisible hand’. (ref Andy Denis) Subsequent political economists, however, treat this as a mere metaphor that carries no suggestion that the market is itself an agent or that there is a teleological process at work. Their thought is that new economic patterns and regularities develop only as the outcome of the innumerable interactions of economic life. Moreover, these patterns are not reducible to the sum of individual actions. They emerge only when there is a certain level of complexity. At that point, new social patterns develop and a new level of economic and social theory is needed to study and comprehend them. (Sayers 1996) For the most part at least, it is clear that the Marxist account of history is in this non-teleological tradition. It sees history as following a progressive pattern which goes through the stages of alien and its overcoming, as described in passages from Marx quoted above. The result is the development of human material powers, ultimately including the ability to be conscious of them and to control them. In the process, in other words, the human subject is created. But this result is not the teleological goal of the process. It is rather the outcome of blind forces, the unintended result of human productive activity. This point is also made by Engels in a Letter to Bloch (Engels 1978). He uses an analogy with the parallelogram of forces in simple mechanics to explain the same idea: that history is the unintended outcome of many individuals interacting and clashing. Engels’ analogy is not a particularly happy one, and Althusser is right to criticise him for the confused use he makes of it (Althusser 1969, 120f). However, Althusser then goes on to criticise Engels for trying to explain historical events in terms of individual actions. This is a complete misunderstanding. In fact, Engels is doing the precise opposite. Like Hegel and Marx, he believes that historical laws are emergent. They constitute a new level of phenomena which precisely cannot be reduced to the sum of individual activities. (Sayers 1996) A process without a subject? Attempts to understand such emergent patterns in the natural world were at the centre of some of the most important advances in the natural sciences in Marx’s time, and the influence of these on his thought is evident in his writings. Marx increasingly draws on the natural sciences to illustrate and illuminate his own approach. Cf Wendling 2009. He particularly welcomed evolutionary theory as confirming his own non-teleological theory of history. Darwin’s work is most important and suits my purpose in that it provides a basis in natural science for the class struggle in history … Despite all deficiencies, not only is the death-blow dealt here for the first time to `teleology’ in the natural sciences but its rational meaning is empirically explained. (Marx n.d.) It is interesting to note that Marx expresses a causal conception of biological evolution and compares it to his own account of history before the publication of Darwin, Origin of Species (eg in Grundrisse, Intro 1858). As so often ground-breaking ideas emerge simultaneously in a number of different places. In an illuminating passage, he compares historical progress with geological processes. Bourgeois industry and commerce create [the] material conditions of a new world in the same way as geological revolutions have created the surface of the earth. (Marx 1978b, 664) nb in same article he talks of man’s `destiny’ and `historical task’ in apparently teleological way (cf above). Marx’s meaning is clear: historical development (so far) has been driven by blind causal forces, it has not been a teleological process. However, it is leading towards increasing self-consciousness, control, freedom. History, in other words, has been a process without a Subject, but it will not forever remain so (as Althusser implies). A conscious human historical Subject is being created through the blind action of causal processes. [Cf idea of what Dawkins calls `blind watchmaker’ (= idea of emergent pattern).] The Subject will be the end of the process: not in the sense of a teleological or final end, but rather as an emergent and proximate end. This process – the development of the human powers of consciousness and freedom – is not complete. Through it human beings will eventually be able to control their own historical development. Then, for first time they will be able to make history into a teleological process, consciously governed by an idea and intentionally aimed at end. In a well-known passage, Marx describes communist society of the future as the `end of prehistory’. With this phrase he is clearly alluding to the Hegelian picture of history, but it should not be interpreted as expressing a teleological thought. For what Marx is referring to is the end only of this present, blind, stage of social development – the end of the era of development governed by the clash of blind forces. He is not saying that communism will be the final – teleological – end of history. Rather, it will mark the beginning of a new era which will be made possible, When a great social revolution shall have mastered the results of the bourgeois epoch, the market of the world and the modern powers of production, and subjected them to … common control. (Marx 1978b, 664) `Man's own social organization, which has hitherto confronted him as a process dictated by nature and history, now becomes a process resulting from his own voluntary action. The objective extraneous forces which have hitherto dominated history now pass under the control of man himself. It is only from this point that man will himself make his own history fully consciously, it is only from this point that the social causes he sets in motion will preponderantly and ever increasingly have the effects he wills. It is humanity's leap from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom.’ (Engels 1962) Mészáros 2011 gives an excellent account of these ideas. II Meaning in history I have been discussing and defending the Marxist theory of history against the charge of teleology, but scepticism about its Hegelian character goes much deeper than this. The idea that history is a necessary and meaningful process is a fundamental tenet of Hegel’s philosophy that Marx shares. This whole way of thinking about history is repudiated by many philosophers as a Hegelian distortion of Marxism. They maintain that history is punctuated by a series of radical discontinuities and breaks. This view has been particularly influential in recent French philosophy, Similar ideas have been influential in English speaking philosophy as well (Kuhn 1970). it has been put forward in one form or another by Foucault, Lyotard, Deleuze, Althusser and Badiou. Cf Choat 2010. All these writers, with exception of Althusser, are strongly influenced by Nietzsche. According to Nietzsche, historical change the outcome of the arbitrary exercise of Will to power. His philosophy of history is specifically aimed against Hegelianism. (Nietzsche 1994) All these writers repudiate any idea that history follows a necessary course. Thus Althusser argues that history is an `aleatory’ process, Aleatory: `dependent on chance, luck’. determined by accidents and chance events. Similarly, Badiou stresses role of the `event’ in history – unpredictable occurrences which set the course of development on a new and different path. Hegel and Marx both accept the idea that there are discontinuities and breaks in historical development, in that both see history as divided into a series of distinct stages. However, they reject the idea that these have the character of arbitrary `events’ that arise entirely unheralded and unpredictably, as if from nowhere. That is to say, they both reject the idea of mere discontinuities, pure uncaused events. They both adhere to the Kantian view that it is a `regulative principle’ – a fundamental principle of all rational and scientific thought – to assume that every event has a cause, even if that cause is not understood. The idea of an event that arises ex nihilo, uncaused and unpredictable, is tantamount to the idea of secular miracle, it is a retrogressive piece of quasi-theological mythology. (Bensaïd 2004, Landa 2013) May `68 as an `event’ Badiou is fond of citing the `events’ of May `68 in France as an example of a supposedly unheralded `event’ (Badiou 2010, 13). Sudden and surprising as these events were, however, even to the participants in them, there is no reason to believe that they arose ex nihilo. On the contrary, like any others, these events must be understood in their wider historical context, not only in France but world-wide. In fact, they constituted only one small and parochial part of a global convulsion that came to a head in that year. They coincided with student protest movements all over the world; with the climax of the Vietnam war and the opposition to it in the US and world-wide; with the civil rights movement in the US; and with massive upheavals in the non-capitalist world as well, in the shape of the `Prague spring’ in Czechoslovakia, and the Cultural Revolution in China, etc. To see that there is this wider context to the events of May `68 in France does not, of course, explain them. However, it does indicate that to understand them one must look to the wider historical conditions that led to them. That is the only rational approach to seeking an understanding of why these events occurred (and why they did not succeed in effecting the changes that were intended from them). As Bensaid argues, referring to some other supposed `events’ cited by Badiou: `the storming of the Bastille can be understood only in the context of the Ancien Régime; the confrontation of June 1848 can be understood only in the context of urbanization and industrialization; the insurrection of the Paris Commune can be understood only in the context of the commotion of European nationalities and the collapse of the Second Empire; the October Revolution can be understood only in the particular context of ‘capitalist development in Russia’ and the convulsive outcome of the Great War.’ (Bensaïd 2004) No doubt Badiou would insist that he does not deny this. The `event’, he acknowledges, is always `situated’, it is connected with the circumstances in which it arises. He says, for example: The event is both situated – it is the event of this or that situation – and supplementary thus absolutely [my italics] detached from, or unrelated to, all the rules of the situation … You might then ask what it is that make the connection between the event and that `for which’ it is an event. This connection is the void of the earlier situation. (Badiou 2001, 68) However, the mere ` void’ of the earlier situation is no help in establishing this connection since it is completely indeterminate. Thus although Badiou tries to `situate’ the event in this way, he immediately negates this by maintaining that the event is also `absolutely detached’ from the situation; and the evident contradiction between these two positions is left unresolved. However, the emphasis in most of his writings is very firmly on the aspect of detachment. (Bensaïd 2004) The contradiction between change and continuity is an important topic in Hegelian and Marxist philosophy as well. According to Hegel, there is both a quantitative and a qualitative aspect to change. Gradual, quantitative changes eventually give rise to a substantial qualitative change (Sayers 1985, 170f ). Marx adopts this way of thinking too (e.g., it is clearly at the basis of his account of revolutionary transition in the account of historical materialism in his 1859 Preface (Marx 1978c, 4-5). Cf also Engels,`law of transformation of quantity into quality’ (Engels 1964, 63). Where Marx differs from Hegel is on the character of the causes involved. For Hegel these are primarily ideal whereas for Marx they are material. In order for historical change to occur the necessary material conditions must be present (Marx and Engels 1970, 59). This is the materialist view. Althusser’s attempt to construct an alternative, `aleatory’ materialist tradition and include Marx in it, is an exercise in philosophical myth making, pure and simple. (Althusser 2006) Freedom An advantage that is claimed for the idea of breaks and uncaused events, is that it sees the future as open. Unlike the Hegelian and Marxist view that history is following a necessary course, it appears to allow for the possibility of novelty and radical change. As Althusser puts it, it allows for `a history which is present, which is living, is also open to a future that is uncertain, unforeseeable, not yet accomplished, therefore aleatory’ (Althusser 2006, 264). No doubt it is right to question the simple determinism that can all too easily be read into the Marxist account. However, the effect of insisting on the arbitrary character of historical events (à la Althusser and Badiou) is to deny the effect of material conditions altogether, and make Marxism – or rather communism – into a purely voluntaristic political idea, a result of mere political will and commitment unconnected to the historical circumstances. The Marxist idea of communism is not simply a political idea of this Nietzscheian sort. It is grounded on a historical theory according to which capitalism is a particular and limited historical stage that, because of the conflicts at work within it, is destined to come into crisis and to create the conditions for its overthrow and the creation of a new sort of society. This historical account is fundamental to Marxism. Badiou rejects it in favour of a purely political notion of communism. Bosteels is therefore right to suggest that he is `a philosopher who is first and foremost a communist before being, or perhaps even without being, a Marxist.’ (Bosteels 2005, 751) The Marxist historical view does not to deny the possibility of political choices or of freedom. Indeed, such changes cannot happen without them. It is wrong to imagine that the fact that events are caused rules out the possibility of choice or freedom. Freedom is not a merely negative phenomenon: it does not imply arbitrary or uncaused action, it does not exist in the mere absence of determining conditions. On the contrary, freedom involves self-determination: the ability to choose what we do and to enact our choices. This ability develops as our abilities and powers develop, it is a social and historical product. The Idea of Communism Badiou’s views on communism have been much discussed recently (Douzinas and Žižek , Žižek 2013, Bosteels 2005, Dean 2012). Communism, he maintains, will come about as the result of an unpredictable and unheralded event. We can form an `Idea’ of it, but this is only the thought of its possibility (as opposed to its impossibility) – not of its actual future occurrence, still less of its necessity. (Badiou 2010, 13). The `communist idea’ thus entails that the future of capitalism is uncertain and open, it has a `horizon’ (Dean 2012), alternatives are possible. (Badiou 2010) This won’t do. The mere uncertainty of the future does not disclose anything specific about it. If we don’t know anything about what is over the horizon we are in no position to say that it will be communism: it may just as well be more capitalism, or fascism, or total annihilation, or anything else. For this reason, Dean 2012 has no basis for talking about a communist horizon to capitalism. Marxism, too, maintains that capitalism has a `horizon’, but not in this way. Fundamental to Marxism is the view that there are objective – economic, social and historical – forces at work within capitalism, creating the contradictions that are leading towards a specifically socialist sort of society in the future. This is the materialist basis of the `idea’ of communism. Otherwise it is mere fantasy and illusion. if [the] material elements of a complete revolution are not present (namely, on the one hand the existing productive forces, on the other the formation of a revolutionary mass …), then, as far as practical development is concerned, it is absolutely immaterial whether the idea of this revolution has been expressed a hundred times already, as the history of communism proves. (Marx and Engels 1970, 59) Capitalism has been going through a crisis of just the sort that Marx describes in his work, and the idea of communism is now firmly back on the agenda. However, the revolutionary `mass’ to bring it about that Marx refers to has not materialized. Today the working class is not the revolutionary force that Marx and earlier Marxists believed it would become, nor is there any other group that can credibly be said to have taken its place. Communism seems a distant prospect. This is the problem that is now facing Marxists and other radical opponents of the present system, and it is the problem to which the philosophers I am now discussing are responding. It is sometimes said that Marxism has been refuted: that capitalism is the final stage of historical development, the `end of history’. If no forces emerge to challenge capitalism and create a new and better world, then the idea of communism will indeed be refuted and Marxism discredited. But there is no good reason to believe that this will be the case. The capitalist world is still riven by the contradictions that Marx describes, and these will surely lead eventually to the emergence of forces of opposition. This is what one might call the `faith’ of communism. This is the language that Badiou uses too. He talks of maintaining `fidelity to the event’ of communism, and of making a Pascalian `wager’ on future revolutionary change. Following Goldmann 1964 he invokes Pascal. `We must wager! Badiou appropriates Pascal’s injunction: we must ‘wager on a communist politics’ because ‘we will never be able to deduce it from capital’. (Bensaïd 2004) From a different political perspective, Paul Blackledge arrives at a remarkably similar position: “Marxism involves not a deterministic prediction of the socialist future of humanity but rather a wager on the revolutionary potential of the proletariat.” (Blackledge 2012, 142) And he is right to describe things in this way. If recent years have taught us anything, it is that crisis alone will not bring about a fundamental change to the system, the agents who will overthrow it and create a new form of society must also exist; and there is no present sign of them. To continue to adhere to the idea of eventual revolutionary change in these circumstances does therefore involve an element of faith and a wager. But this is not the mere blind faith implied by Badiou’s notions of the `event’ and his dematerialised `idea of communism’. 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