The concept of democracy — both ideologically and theoretically — is of key importance in “the radical reconception of revolutionary theory,” to quote from our masthead. The following excerpts from Badiou’s contribution to Democracy in What State? may serve as a beginning step in that direction. In this book a number of contemporary thinkers (Giorgio Agamben, [...]
Posts under ‘Communism’
Some contributions to thinking in the present moment
There’s a new wind blowing across this globalized world, from Tunisia to Egypt to Greece to Spain to Occupy Wall Street. How do the theoretical investigations of this site relate to this, to what’s new and emerging? This question of the emergence of novelty, of understanding this very changing world so as to help to [...]
Zizek on our situation — and communism
Slovaj Zizek is always interesting, always changing, often irritating or apparently dismissable, but always (I believe) serious and radical in intent. The following is republished here from the symptom. Our task is thus to remain faithful to this eternal Idea of communism: to the egalitarian spirit kept alive over thousands of years in revolts and utopian [...]
How can communism come to be?
Bruno Bosteels is one of that group of Badiou translators (Peter Hallward, Oliver Feltham, Alberto Toscano, Jason Barker are some others) who have also written interpretively and critically on him. Bosteels’ latest writing in this vein is Badiou and Politics, a much anticipated book, literally just out, which readers can expect to see talked about [...]
What is communization?
Communization (to give it anon-British spelling) is the name for a theory or approach developed by Gilles Dauvé and others. Perhaps its central thesis is that a communist revolution begins its work of “communization” from the very first day. But, although the approach stems from this basic anti-stagist thesis, it does not represent a revolutionary [...]
What is Badiou’s communism?
The following essay by J. Ramsey is expanded from remarks delivered at the Platypus Society Convention in April, as part of a panel on Badiou and Post-Maoism: Marxism and Communism Today. Other speakers were Chris Cutrone of Platypus (whose paper can be found here), Mike Ely of Kasama (whose remarks can be found on Kasama), [...]
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 [...]
Could the present crisis be an opening to communism?
The following very interesting — and challenging — piece originally appeared on troploin. Thanks to Nick for drawing attention to this. The following quotations from this essay are not consecutive; they are a few excerpted with an eye to showing a main line of thought in the piece. In the capitalist mode of production as [...]
How can communism be brought about?
David Harvey has recently published two notable books. One, A Companion to Marx’s Capital, is essentially a text version of his introductory course of lectures on Capital. (The book is not a transcription of the lectures, but a written work encompassing the same territory.) The other is an approach to the analysis of the current [...]
Can the impossible happen?
This essay originally appeared in the July-August New Left Review. After decades of the welfare state, when cutbacks were relatively limited and came with the promise that things would soon return to normal, we are now entering a period in which a kind of economic state of emergency is becoming permanent: turning into a constant, [...]
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