The Communist Hypothesis

We know that communism is the right hypothesis. All those who abandon this hypothesis immediately resign themselves to the market economy, to parliamentary democracythe form of state suited to capitalismand to the inevitable and natural character of the most monstrous inequalities. Alain Badiou Alain Badious formulation of the communist hypothesis has travelled around the world since it was first aired in early 2008, in his book The Meaning of Sarkozy. The hypothesis is partly a demand to reconceptualize communism after the twin deaths of the Soviet Union and neoliberalism, but also a fresh demand for universal emancipation. As third way reforms prove as empty in practice as in theory, Badious manifesto is a galvanizing call to arms that needs to be reckoned with by anyone concerned with the future of our planet.

Review

An heir to Jean-Paul Sartre and Louis Althusser. --New Stateman

Shaking the foundations of Western liberal democracy. --Times Higher Education Supplement

About the Author

ALAIN BADIOU teaches philosophy at the École normale supérieure and the Collège international de philosophie in Paris.