Reprinted from the symptom (edited slightly for typos and paragraphing). The Tunisian and the Egyptian people are telling us: raise up, build up a public space for the communism of movement, protect it by all means while inventing the sequential course of action. The universal reach of popular uprisings Alan Badiou The wind of the [...]
Posts under ‘Authors’
Marx’ theory and the crisis this time
As this review of his two most recent books observes, David Harvey has been engaged in constructing a synthesis of Marx’ views on the causes of capitalist crises for several decades, and has, in The Enigma of Capital, written the first “book-length example of Marxian crisis theory addressed to the current situation.” This appeared in [...]
Zizek and Badiou
It has seemed to me for some time now that Zizek has been drawing his political inspiration and some of his main themes from Badiou (and I’d be anxious to hear others’ thoughts on this). But in Zizek these themes acquire a different spin and go in quite another direction than that which they have [...]
Austerity, butterflies, and the future
A prime preoccupation on this site has been the investigation, discussion, and movement toward theorization of the contemporary configuration of capitalism, its economic, political and ideological aspects. In the following essay Don explores the consequences for bourgeois forms of rule, of the transnational constitution of present-day capital and its movement toward an increasingly decentered global [...]
John Steele: Marxism, Politics, and Evil
Is Marxism, or revolutionary politics generally, sufficient for human emancipation? In Ethical Marxism, Bill Martin argues that Marxism requires ethics as the necessary foundation of any politics which may actually be capable of leading to this goal. The following essay critically examines this book and this thesis. Khukuri features several essays by Bill Martin, and [...]
Do the beginnings of revolutionary change exist today?
We’ve posted a previous piece by William K. Carroll, on the transnational capitalist class question (a subject on which he has written a just-published book). In the following essay, though (republished from Interface: a journal for and about social movements), Carroll’s subject is what sort of movement, or counter-hegemonic bloc, will be necessary to break [...]
Causes of capitalist crises — and this one
Let’s continue to talk a little more about capital and the crisis. We’ve featured David Harvey previously, but the following gives perhaps a more overall sketch of his theory of the present crisis and of capitalist crises in general, which he sees as potentially arising from any of a number of possible blockage points in [...]
The crisis now, and possible futures
I was able to attend one session of the Global Crisis: Rethinking Economy and Society conference last weekend at the University of Chicago, and want to give a bit of a report on some some of the talks. The conference was hosted by the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory (3CT, as they style themselves), at [...]
Badiou — and George Bernard Shaw — on Richard Wagner
Another book by Badiou just out in Engish, this one on a surprising topic. Richard Wagner is not someone about whom I have much knowledge, either artistically or politically, aside from the usual background that he’s often been classed as a racist and reactionary. This is a verdict against which Badiou argues in Five Lessons [...]
Marx, necessity, and freedom
There’s a justly famous passage in the third volume of Capital (quoted at the head of this article) in which Marx talks about moving beyond the “realm of necessity” into “the realm of freedom.” But what exactly is included in each of these realms? Specifically, can work ever be a part of the realm of [...]
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