Daily Archives: May 25, 2013

Rational Kernel, Real Movement: Badiou and Theorie Communiste in the Age of Riots

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By Nathan Brown (από Lana Turner)

In the first chapter of Le Réveil de l’Histoire, Alain Badiou takes up a question often posed about his work: its relation to Marxism. He relates an exchange with Antonio Negri at the 2009 conference on “The Idea of Communism,” in which Negri took him as an example of those who claim to be communists without even being Marxists— to which Badiou replied that this was better than being Marxist without even being communist. What is at stake in this exchange is not so much the relation of Badiou to Marxism, nor of Negri to communism, as the present relation between Marxism and communism. This is what I want to address at the prompting of Badiou’s invigorating book.

For Badiou, “genuine Marxism” is “the organized knowledge of the political means required to undo existing society and finally realize an egalitarian, rational figure of collective organization for which the name is communism.” He proposes this definition against a Marxism that consists in assigning a determinate role to the economy and the social contradictions that derive from it. This is an economistic or vulgar Marxism at which, Badiou argues, stock brokers and the advisors of politicians are at least as adept as the theoreticians who espouse it.

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On the Swedish “Riots”: Megafonen speaks about Husby

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Κείμενο της αριστερής ομάδας Megafonen. Στο κείμενο φαίνεται πώς το “αθέμιτο” της διεκδίκησης επεκτείνεται πέρα από το ζήτημα του μισθού. Οι Megafonen έφτιαξαν ένα “ταμείο” στο οποίο μπορεί ο καθένας να καταθέτει χρήματα υπέρ των “πληγέντων από τις ταραχές”.

Δες και το ντοκυμανταίρ τους για την αποτυχία των διεκδικητικών αγώνων στα προάστια εδώ

Husby besieged by police officers. Go home? This IS our home

The effect of the police murder of 69-year-old man in Husby on Monday 13th May arrived today: a conflict between the cops and local citizens after four cars were burned in the evening.

Whatever we do, the police and the mainstream media will brand it as “mindless chaos”, this is what has always been written about the suburbs and its people, but actually it was a protest against Monday’s killings. This is absolutely NOT a coincidence, this is not an isolated riot. This is the only way to express frustration when other democratic avenues are closed. Those organising with us know that peaceful demonstrations have been held but the dialogue has been left unanswered. Police investigating their own and declare that no error has occurred, even though the truth is simple: what happened on Monday was the murder of one of our neighbours.

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