Class, nation, and socialism

摘要

Like all good pieces of writing, Salem's work really opens up a whole range of new questions to explore. I would end with raising some of these in the hope of furthering the conversation around this important book. First, at numerous points in the text, Salem points to the significance of the international sphere in the constitution of Nasser's hegemonic project. One of the factors, however, that receives less attention in her narrative is the multipolar nature of the world market that existed during the years of Egypt's anticolonial struggle. While the post-war period certainly marked the emergence of the USA as the leading capitalist state, the fact that the USSR and China existed at this moment also created the possibility for projects like those led by Nasser. I have mentioned above what I think were the negative influences of the international communist movement on the left in countries such as Egypt, but I wonder if part of the secret to Nasser's brief period of hegemony also lies in the space opened up by a world market that was not solely dominated by a single superpower? And perhaps even more pertinently for contemporary politics, what does this say about how the left should approach the relative decline of the older centres of capital accumulation (such as the USA and Europe), while remaining cognizant of the deeply problematic role often played by rival emerging powers in the world today? Relatedly, I think Salem's book poses some interesting questions around the relationship between hegemony, finance, and our understanding of neoliberalism. As she points out, one of the consequences of processes of financialization over the last 40 years has been the growing weight of financial markets over every aspect of our daily lives, profoundly altering the behaviour and capacities of states, firms (both financial and non-financial), households, and individuals. But in this context, to what degree does a stable hegemonic project necessarily rest upon on the 'success' of financial markets? And given the inherent crisis-prone nature of financial markets, particularly in the South, is an enduring hegemonic project even possible today? Perhaps we should read the eras of Sadat and Mubarak, not simply as an Egyptian experience, but as a universal story-one that points to the highly unstable nature of ideology and governance in contemporary capitalist societies everywhere? Finally, I am interested in what this particular rendering of Egypt's anticolonial moment might tell us about broader theory, specifically the notion of hegemony and the related concepts of consent and coercion. In this respect, I think there is some ambivalence in Gramsci's work-one that is identified in Anticolonial Afterlives-in how to think the relation between consent and coercion. At numerous points, Salem points to the fact that these two terms should not be seen as counterposed or placed in juxtaposition, but viewed in their unity-she notes, for example, that 'coercion is … embedded within consent' (p. 130) and 'coercion and consent exist in a dialectical relationship'. But I think this raises the difficult boundary problem of how to draw a line between concepts that are inherently co-constituted. Moreover, it also poses the question of how we assess whether there was 'more' consent in a particular period than in others. Finally, particularly in the contemporary political conjuncture-is it necessary to read the notion of consent (and its relationship to coercion) in ways that are able to distinguish it from populism?