美国左派的新政治图腾——道格拉斯·拉米斯激进民主理论述评

A New Political Totem of American Left:On Lummis' Radical Democracy

拉米斯的激进民主理论是美国左翼理论界重构资本主义批判话语的新探索。通过对民主的重新界定,激进民主理论揭示出民主的真实含义为人民统治,这彻底否定了一切形式的代议制政治的合法性。在此基础上,拉米斯从经济发展与机器世界的非民主性两个方面揭露了资本主义的反民主本质,即促进整体福祉的经济发展不过是掩盖资本全球统治逻辑的遮羞布,而作为工业资本主义符号象征的机器带给人的是异化而非自由。至于激进民主的实现路径和制度安排,需要从社会政治秩序的实现、民主的社会建构、民主秩序的公共信任基础的形成和争取民主的行动的开展等多个角度进行探索。其中,最重要的不是大规模制度性安排,而是民主文化氛围的培育。激进民主作为后马克思主义理论的核心论点,虽然存在无政府民粹主义、乌托邦幻想性和实现路径的虚幻性等症结,但不可否认,由于激进民主的论述直接指向资本主义民主制度本身,它比以往左翼的种种政策批评要激进得多,这就为当代美国左派重整旗鼓和社会政治批判提供了新的理论架构。

Lummis＇ Radical Democracy is a new exploration of the reconstruction of critical discourse of capitalism in American left theoretical cycle.By redefining democracy,the theory of radical democracy reveals the true meaning of democracy as rule by the people,which thoroughly negates the legitimacy of representative politics in all forms.Lummis exposed the anti-democracy of capitalism laying on nondemocratic economic growth and machine world,namely,economic development that promotes overall well-being is little more than a FIG leaf for the logic of global capital domination,and the machine as a symbol of industrial capitalism brings alienation rather than freedom.And then the road to radical democracy and systemic arrangement were explored in four respects：realizing of social politic order,constructing of democratic civil society,building of public trust basic of democratic order and doing the deed for democracy.The most important is not large-scale institutional arrangement,but the cultivation of democratic cultural atmosphere.Although there are some symptoms such as anarchic populism,utopian fantasy and illusory realization path,undeniably,because the discourse of radical democracy directly points to the capitalist democracy itself,it is far more radical than previous policy criticism of the left,Radical Democracy as the core of post-Marxist viewpoints still provides an important theoretic frame for the reviving of American Left and its social-political criticism.