Marx's ghost in the London Underground

London Bridge Station, Jubilee line, 24.02.2015

No, London Underground hasn't decided to rise up against capitalism - there is another explanation, I am afraid, and it is quite pedestrian: advertising. 

I was in a terrible rush that day, just like any other day on my way to work. It takes me four hours to get to the university and back again. As I walked by the poster, I could almost hear the marketing executives pitching the idea of promoting a new series of books through unreferenced quotes - poor people, they must have been thinking they are geniuses.

At the end of my lecture that day I wrote the phrase on the board and asked the students if they can identify it. One of them said 'it's from Marxism'; another one simply said 'Marx'. We talked about it, and I explained that the Communist Manifesto was written by both Marx and Engels. Then I asked them what they think the phrase means. There was silence in the auditorium. What about the word 'chains', I encouraged them; are the proletarians literally chained, or does it mean something else? 

The students looked perplexed, all thirty-four of them.  

I like to think that there are people with whom it would be soothing to share this experience. Some would surely want to bring up Gramsci's concept of hegemony in the light of Stuart Hall's early work; after all, it is not coincidental that cultural studies developed in part as a critique of British consensual politics. Others, perhaps a little bit more radical-minded, would probably prefer Debord's concept of the spectacle; after all, isn't this poster a characteristic example of the true becoming a moment of the false? But I imagine there would also be those turning to the Frankfurt School; after all, what could illustrate the disturbing reign of instrumental reason clearer than such a case? 

And so on, and so forth, all the way to the classics and back again; someone will then bring up Hardt and Negri's work on the multitude, and someone else Harvey's critique of neoliberalism, while others will discuss the views of Butler or Graeber on the politics of Occupy. Because it is not that difficult really; after all, fiercely neoliberal and consumerist London does its best to confirm the strength of such perspectives on a daily basis - and more often than not, it seems to be cynically proud of doing so.

But rather than seeking such a discussion, I simply decided to bear the silence of the auditorium. 

Which is why next time I passed by the poster, I stood on the side. The endless flow of commuters kept on rushing. I don't know if any of them could be thought of as proletarian, but none were paying any attention to the poster anyway. That is, until I started taking pictures; suddenly, most were turning around to see what on earth it was that I found so interesting. None, however, slowed down, stopped, or asked me anything. 

But they all looked perplexed. 

When I went through the pictures, they all looked like ghosts as well. And then it hit me; they only looked like that because they were moving.

But me, as a migrant, a precarious worker and an intellectual proletarian, I have currently nowhere to move to. In all of fiercely neoliberal and consumerist London, there is no other place for me to stand than in front of this poster. At least here I can bear the silence better than in the auditorium. And most certainly better than in West End's tourist sights, or South Bank's artistic endeavours, or Shoreditch's hipster joints.

It could be that I am gradually becoming a ghost of myself, as I was afraid I would; but maybe that is not so bad after all. At least if someone asks me thirty years later what I was doing while neoliberalism was in crisis, austerity ravaged the poor, and racism, islamophobia and neo-Nazism were on the rise, I will not look perplexed.  

I don't of course suppose this is something that those marketing executives were concerned with, but what can you do - poor people, they must have been thinking they are geniuses.