Abstract
This chapter distinguishes between two approaches to spontaneous politics, as moment and as beginning, and it identifies their limits. It argues that whereas the first approach (exemplified in the work of Wolin and Rancière) empties spontaneous politics of its creative potential, the second approach (exemplified in the work of Hardt and Negri) asserts the creativity of spontaneous politics, yet reduces it to one form: self-activity. Seeking to escape the narrowness of these two projections of radical democracy, the paper turns to Rosa Luxemburg’s work. It argues that in the synthesis she draws between spontaneity and organisation, reform and revolution, we find a third option for radical politics.
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Tambakaki, P. (2019). Rosa Luxemburg on the Dialectic of Spontaneous and Party Politics. In: Kets, G., Muldoon, J. (eds) The German Revolution and Political Theory. Marx, Engels, and Marxisms. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13917-9_16
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