No Choice but to Choose: The Increased Politicization of Everyday Life

Abstract

This chapter picks up on the first theme of late modernity — namely, the significance of choice within embedded political individualization — and considers its overlap with the first tenet of libertarian socialism: that democracy relies upon pluralized, everyday, outlets. To consider the link between these two I will argue that while theories of late modernity have been relatively explicit concerning the increased political nature of everyday life — notable in Giddens’ definition of life politics (Giddens 1991a:214–17) — the ways in which this occurs and is experienced is not fully elaborated. Bauman is an exception to this by seeing such politicization as a result of the state moving problems ‘downward’ to mask its own supposed impotence in the face of global capital — for example, by placing the emphasis on individuals to re-skill in order to ‘compete’ in a global labour market. Whatever the process by which it occurs for such authors, late modernity becomes a time with an increased politicization of everyday life. This becomes an increased politicization in a quantitative sense (simple modern everyday life was political, late modern is more political), which takes on a new qualitative form as part of this increase (as we will see, there is a greater focus on choice). To discuss this I will make use of Henri Lefebvre’s classic work on everyday life (1971, 1991, 2002, 2005) before turning to the potential alternative of libertarian socialism.