With all the hype over the latest French SocDem gaining gruond, I feel it's more than appropriate to link this here and for you guys to give it a read. The authors of this piece that had, under the influence of the Situationists and council communism, split from the equivalent of Mélenchon in the past within the PSU. (The PSU being an old party politically situated between the elected SocDems of the PS and the USSR SocDems of the PCF.)
At any rate in the event of a Mélenchon presidency, I'll be more than happy to have a friendly re-evaluation of his term a couple of months into it.
Also IIRC Badiou doesn't vote, principally rejects bourgeois democracy but has also, much to my surprise, become a general opponent of party politics (surprising because it would make him even more party skeptic than me). He comes out of the same post-'68 milieu as the Organization of Young Revolutionary Workers (authors of this piece), Dauvé, the Appelistes, Lettristes, etc., too. I was wondering what you would make of this.
Dominic Martinez
Your article shills the "I chose desire over your religious commitment" meme, which is an old faux-radical '68 theme.
Desire = Law see ch.7.
Julian Rodriguez
Thanks, I will check it out, but could you please also address the second part of my comment. I am curious, especially as you are a Leninist(?), how you interpret those stances and positions of Badiou.
Leo Hughes
evertim
Brody Jones
OP's intention is good. The article, not so much.
Correct.
Much to my surprise too. This and the state is their main political disagreement with Zizek.
I welcome any and all criticism of the party form but in the same vein I demand the person to show a viable alternative. Badiou says that this alternative is yet to be invented. May be so. I'll be receptive to it. He also says that this won't be the same as the examples of alternative forms portrayed by anarchism. (Even they are too "statist" for him, which, let's be realistic, after Makhno & Kekalo is not a wrong assessment.)
I'm very skeptical about Badiou's praxis. The problem: he really is the Plato of our times.
Zachary Hill
Which Badiou book do you recommend for starters?
In which sense?
Alexander Davis
In the vein of his post-'68 milieu come the likes of Dauvé, as I mentioned, who bring forth a vague yet distinct "communisation" theory. It posits that today the party form and State have not just become useless and permanently stillborn, but that their entire potential can only but be subsumed by capital. With our heavily socialized and developed capitalism, the only thing that rests to do is for communists to tail the proletariat in "communising" it. Of course this would be rigidly organised, and "party" in this context is used to refer to an organisation that participates in bourgeois democracy. Such a "communising" structure would have the same structure as a party, but go beyond the basic absentionism of the council communists or even the autonomist syndicates and completely detach itself from involvement altogether.
Dauvé and Badiou both came out of the same historical moment and milieu, the "spirit of 68'", it hangs over all of their work, so I think a bit of the abstentionist, party skeptic, anti-activist and anti-opportunist unintentional overlap is just inevitable.
At least one thing we 100% agree with, though I would put the cause here on the utter theoretical poverty of anarchism (at least the anarchism of those times) when it comes to understanding the root of capitalism; misidentifying capitalism with hierarchy and then inevitably always setting itself up to fail as persisting value-production forces the reintroduction of structural authority.
I also want to know why this is so frequently stated , and I'm sure my autodidactic ass's meager familiarity with Greek philosophy has something to do with it.
Luke Powell
explain
Brandon Diaz
I think it's a meme based on him being a big known philosopher who wrote on Plato a lot.
Jeremiah Evans
a slight burn to Holla Forums tbh fam
Aaron White
I don't recommend starting Badiou by reading him. I've never seen anyone recommend it. Start with the beginner-friendly Introducing Alain Badiou: A Graphic Guide (pic related) and move on to Adrian Johnston's 2009 book Badiou, Žižek, and Political Transformations - The Cadence of Change which focuses exactly on the party debate and offers an in depth look at the general problematic. There will be a chapter in there (ch3 if I remember correctly) which will rely heavily on set theory - a prerequisite to Badiou's ontology. Don't get frightened and just move on if you don't get it. (I haven't found a good and noob friendly set theory intro book yet.)
IMO after these you can begin either by finally reading the author himself. Either start with his Ethics or the already posted St.Paul text.
He single-handedly revolutionized the possible ways of looking at all the things philosophy was forever concerned with (science [and math], art, love, politics) in a concise materialist ontology.
It's 10 fricking pages from ch.7.
Nah.
Mmmh, empty phrases taste so good.
Oliver Gray
Damn, this is a good thread, learning stuff about Dauvé and Badiou at the same time! The top two thinkers I'm interested in getting more familiar with atm
Julian Allen
Many thanks for the files, comrade. I'm really bad at math, but I'm deeply interested in Badiou's thought so I'll try to know more about set theory.
Zachary Hernandez
Well, I got it a quick rundown, but it just look like some idealistic ramblings to me. Maybe that's why I never really like Badiou that much in the first place. It's not like I necessarily think he is a bad philosopher, I just don't really agree with him. Btw I'm pretty sure a lot of philosophers before, alongside of after him presented ideas on how to look on all thing philosophicaly in a materialist perspective.
Asher Brown
more picporn from
The last one is cute. CUTE!
Connor Sullivan
Well, I got it a quick rundown of your comment, but it just look like some idealistic ramblings to me. Maybe that's why I never really like you that much in the first place. It's not like I necessarily think you are a bad poster, I just don't really agree with you.
I'm pretty sure a lot of posters before, alongside of after him presented ideas on how to look on all thing shitpostically in a leftypolean perspective.
John Walker
I think I get it now. Still I wonder, is it really the case that the concept of "desire" in the text I linked is used in the same sense?
These are nice. Same illustrator as the Zizek introduction book I got, it seems.
Gavin Barnes
Wow you really showed me with your compelling argument lad.
Asher Ross
m'lady
Nathan Rodriguez
I would say the thoughts around the concept of "desire" differs amongst various philosophers. Obviously Badiou lovers have their own views in that regard, while the autor of the article seem to have the views closer to the Deleuzian as it seems to me. (Which I am a more fan of personally tbh)
Jace Evans
Thanks for posting this OP I enjoyed it quite a lot. This part in particular really resonated with me. I think that this is a pretty good description of the motivations of a lot of the upper-middle class student milieu that get involved with the radical left, including myself.
I also had a pair of questions about left-communism that hopefully someone can answer because their seems to be a lot of people with good understanding of theory in this thread.
1. What exactly is leftcom praxis? I'm having a lot of trouble separating the memeing about armchairs from the actual beliefs. Do they really believe that all we can do is stand aside and wait for the proletariat to carry out the revolution? Something about critiquing the party, unions etc while offering no positive alternative of your own bothers me. At least this author embraced worker councils while IIRC Dauve rejected them which I didn't understand at all.
2. Cab someone explain to me what is going on in chapter 5 of Eclipse or recommend me something supplementary to help me understand it. When he starts getting into the theory heavy stuff he lost me. I've only read abridged versions of Capital and watched those law of value videos so maybe I need to read the real thing before properly engaging with some of this leftcom work.
I almost forgot also what exactly does this article have to do with Melenchon. Is it just the idea that the party form is flawed, or is their some more explicit connection between him and the idea of militancy?
Tyler King
I would also like to know the answer to those questions, particularly number one.
Adam Morris
I'm also curious, I'm only recently started reading about Leftcommunism and have only been aware of Dauve and Communization for the past two months. I know a lot of Leftcoms reject activism and view most party politics as entryist and class collaborationist (at least this is the impression I get). Also, most Leftcoms I've seen seem to be very critical of Council Communism, even though they're extremely influenced by Pancakeman, I feel like most of them lean more towards Bordigian Organic Centralism? As for the whole spontaneity thing, I'm not sure all Leftcoms swallow that pill, and even when they do I don't think any post-'68 or post-Occupy Leftist can really advocate spontaneous revolt in all good faith, as the entire past 40 years of meaningful Leftist praxis has mostly been "spontaneous revolt" as the "Proletarian Party" has become less and less or a viable option for revolution. That being said I actually very specifically get the impression that it's really not "waiting for workers to liberate themselves" at all, in fact I think most Leftcoms very firmly believe that workers do not have the resources or even inclination to self-liberate, which I very firmly agree with. Rather I think their praxis, and I could be wrong here, remember, I'm a baby Leftcom, is something along the lines of a.) waiting for the conditions of Communism to already be present and to not force a revolution prematurely, and b.) to specifically create the conditions for the proletariat to liberate themselves, because this is not something which would take place as a historical inevitability, but rather would need the active participation of Communists. In praxis it might would probably look a lot more like the Italian Years of Lead then May '68. I actually think this is a very orthodox reading of Marx's own theories to be honest, once we reject all the bullshit of the Second and Third Internationals.
Carter Parker
The Italian Years of Lead, while important to study, are not exactly a replicable sequence. They do introduce the problems to be solved though, namely the difficulty of generalizing struggle without the consistency of any stable class composition and the extreme unevenness of the revolutionary process given the demise of a class that allows for a certain logic of hegemony to synchronize the insurrectionary wave. 77-79 are difficult to understand–you essentially had a situation in which one militant section of the class was engaged in low intensity civil war with the state and bourgeoisie while lacking the conditions for any sort of political body to arise that could generalize that intensity. It's tempting to call it ultra-left adventurism if that didn't connote that the problem was subjective/theoretical rather than rooted in the depoliticized integration of the state and representational politics and the decomposition of the working class. In any case, the period ushers in an impasse that the proletariat has yet to overcome.
Nathaniel Ward
Any good reading on the years of lead? Preferably not a full book but if that is all you have so be it.
Jayden Fisher
This is a high quality post comrade.
I agree, this pretty much defines every contemporary Leftist moment in the past 40 odd years, especially today, the Left seems largely composed of a very loose coalition of students, undocumented workers, precarious workers, refugees, etc. I've seen some Leftists put forward that the answer to this is to drop the designation of Proletariat as "worker" and embrace Proletariat as a broader "non-owning" class, personally I don't know how I feel about that.
Could you go into this a bit more?
Could you recommend some Leftcom literature that goes into this "integration" as well as this "decomposition" and some possible solutions?
I second this, your post makes me want to read more broadly about this period.
No solutions here, but good reflections on decay of classical workers movement: endnotes.org.uk
Mason Miller
Unironically, this is why I love Leftcoms on this board, they're consistently the most intellectually honest posters on here. Unlike MLs and ancoms they never claim to have answers to shit they're uncertain of and confident enough to realize that not having a pre-packaged polemical response doesn't invalidate your entire politics.
By 1979 there were about 45 major armed groups and hundreds more diffuse, small armed grouplets!
Bentley Jenkins
Are Leftcoms not Leninists? They seem a lot closer to Lenin then tankies tbh fam
Juan Howard
Didn't the original leftcoms (other than Bordiga, he's irrelevant, I mean Pannekoek and Luxemberg and Ruhle) reject Lenin precisely because they thought his work was too revisionist and would lead to a one-party state's dictatorship over the proletariat?
Daniel Miller
Luxemburg was not a "left-com" and she did not reject Leninism.
Levi James
Pacifism is the enemy of revolution but we need fresh ideas for revolution.
Oliver Cooper
Idk if anyone on this board reads fiction or just theory, but part of this book takes place during the Years of Lead. It is an excellent read and class conscious as fuck.
Daniel Hughes
Bordiga is certainly not irrelevant, but to answer your question yes, some Leftcoms were anti-Bolshevik, particularly the Council Communists and Paul Mattick, but anti-Leninism isn't a defining feature of contemporary Leftcom theories and most contemporary Leftcoms probably like Lenin, even if they think he made terrible decisions praxis-wise. Also, Rosa Luxemberg wasn't a Leftcom, and certainly not anti-Bolshevik, both she and Lenin were produced by a lot of the same ideas circulating the Second International.
Wyatt Nelson
If anything, the councilist traditions of Ruhle, Pannekoek, et al are definitely less relevant and completely dead than anything by Bordiga in extension to Lenin.
