"Is it meaningful to call oneself a democrat? And if so, how do you interpret the word?" In responding to this question, eight iconoclastic thinkers prove the rich potential of democracy, along with its critical weaknesses, and reconceive the practice to accommodate new political and cultural realities. Giorgio Agamben traces the tense history of constitutions and their coexistence with various governments. Alain Badiou contrasts current democratic practice with democratic communism. Daniel Bensaid ponders the institutionalization of democracy, while Wendy Brown discusses the democratization of society under neoliberalism. Jean-Luc Nancy measures the difference between democracy as a form of rule and as a human end, and Jacques Rancière highlights its egalitarian nature. Kristin Ross identifies hierarchical relationships within democratic practice, and Slavoj Zizek complicates the distinction between those who desire to own the state and those who wish to do without it. Concentrating on the classical roots of democracy and its changing meaning over time and within different contexts, these essays uniquely defend what is left of the left-wing tradition after the fall of Soviet communism. They confront disincentives to active democratic participation that have caused voter turnout to decline in western countries, and they address electoral indifference by invoking and reviving the tradition of citizen involvement. Passionately written and theoretically rich, this collection speaks to all facets of modern political and democratic debate.

Democracy in What State? (New Directions in Critical Theory, 11)

Politics & Social Sciences

Agamben, Giorgio

RANCIÈRE, JACQUES

Žižek, Slavoj

BADIOU, ALAIN

Ross, Kristin

Brown, Wendy

Nancy, Jean-Luc

Bensaïd, Daniel

Philosophy

Columbia University Press

The Paris Commune of 1871 was one of the first working class attempts at the social emancipation of the oppressed and exploited. Between 18 March and 29 May 1871, the popular classes succeeded for a while in breaking their chains. It was a short period when people could take control of their lives. The Paris Commune is an inspiration today. The memory of the past and its struggles strengthens the fight for the utopia of the future. 
This book, The Paris Commune - An ode to emancipation, is a collection of writings by Daniel Bensaïd, Olivier Besancenot, Sandra Bloodworth, Judy Cox, Penelope Duggan, Mathilde Larrère, Michael Löwy, Kay Mann, Eric Toussaint.

The Paris Commune

History

Löwy, Michael

Duggan, Penelope

Europe

Resistance Books

Recorded Fragments: Twelve reflections on the 20th century with Daniel Bensaïd

Military

Daniel Bensaïd's challenging survey comes at an appropriate moment. It is a gift to activists reaching for some historical perspective that may provide hints as to where we might go from here. Embracing and sharing the revolutionary socialist political tradition associated with Leon Trotsky, Bensaïd is not simply a thoughtful radical academic or perceptive left-wing intellectual - though he is certainly both - but also one of the foremost leaders of an impressive network of activists, many of them seasoned by innumerable struggles. Daniel Bensaïd emerged decades ago as a leader of the French section of the Fourth International, the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (LCR). Coming from the 'generation of '68' - the layer of young revolutionary activists of the 1960s - he blends an impressive intellectual sophistication with a refreshing inclination for revolutionary audacity, and with activist commitments which have not faded over the decades. In the tradition of Ernest Mandel, Bensaïd has reached for the continuing relevance of revolutionary Marxism not only in the battlegrounds of academe (as a professor of philosophy and author of such works as Marx for Our Times), but even more in the battlegrounds of social and political struggles against the oppressive and lethal realities of capitalist 'globalization.' In this particular work - succinct, crackling with insights and fruitful provocations - Bensaïd surveys the history of his own political tradition. We are not presented with a catechism, but with a set of informative and critical-minded reflections and notes. We don't have to agree with all he says. I certainly question his taking issue with Trotsky over whether or not Lenin was essential for the triumph of the Russian Revolution (Trotsky says definitely yes, Bensaïd suggests maybe not). Nor am I satisfied when he gives more serious consideration to the dissident current in US Trotskyism of Max Shachtman and James Burnham (both of whom ended up supporting US imperialism in Vietnam) than to the tradition connected with James P. Cannon (which played a role in building a powerful movement that helped end the Vietnam war). On the other hand, Bensaïd makes no pretension of providing a rounded historical account of world Trotskyism, or even a scholarly account of the more limited issues that he does take up. He emphasizes that 'this essay is based on personal experience' and is focused on what he views as 'the major debates' within the movement. And one is especially struck by the excellent point he makes in his Introduction (page 14) regarding the necessity of understanding the varieties of Trotskyism around the world in their distinctive cultural and national specificities. Little sense can be made of Trotskyism if it is not related to the actual social movements and class struggles of various parts of the world, and to the left-wing labour sub-cultures, in which it has meaning. The fact remains that Bensaïd offers us a thoughtful, stimulating, valuable political intervention which leaves the reader with a sense of Trotskyism's history and ideas and diverse manifestations - and also a sense of their relevance for the struggles of today and tomorrow. For younger activists beginning to get their bearings, and for veterans of the struggle who are thinking through the questions of where we have been and where to go from here, this is an important contribution.

Strategies of Resistance & 'Who Are the Trotskyists?'

IMG Publications

The Dispossessed: Karl Marx's Debates on Wood Theft and the Right of the Poor

Excavating Marx's early writings to rethink the rights of the poor and the idea of the commons in an era of unprecedented privatization &nbsp; The politics of dispossession are everywhere. Troubling developments in intellectual property, genomics, and biotechnology are undermining established concepts of property, while land appropriation and ecological crises reconfigure basic institutions of ownership. In The Dispossessed, Daniel Bensaïd examines Karl Marx's early writings to establish a new framework for addressing the rights of the poor, the idea of the commons, and private property as a social institution. In his series of articles from 1842-43 about Rhineland parliamentary debates over the privatization of public lands and criminalization of poverty under the rubric of the "theft of wood," Marx identified broader anxieties about customary law, property rights, and capitalist efforts to privatize the commons. Bensaïd studies these writings to interrogate how dispossession continues to function today as a key modality of power. Brilliantly tacking between past and present, The Dispossessed discloses continuity and rupture in our relationships to property and, through that, to one another. In addition to Bensaïd's prescient work of political philosophy, The Dispossessed includes new translations of Marx's original "theft of wood" articles and an introductory essay by Robert Nichols that lucidly contextualizes the essays.

Business & Money

Real Estate

Univ. of Minnesota Press

Excavating Marx’s early writings to rethink the rights of the poor and the idea of the commons in an era of unprecedented privatization\nThe politics of dispossession are everywhere. Troubling developments in intellectual property, genomics, and biotechnology are undermining established concepts of property, while land appropriation and ecological crises reconfigure basic institutions of ownership. In The Dispossessed, Daniel Bensaïd examines Karl Marx’s early writings to establish a new framework for addressing the rights of the poor, the idea of the commons, and private property as a social institution. 
In his series of articles from 1842–43 about Rhineland parliamentary debates over the privatization of public lands and criminalization of poverty under the rubric of the “theft of wood,” Marx identified broader anxieties about customary law, property rights, and capitalist efforts to privatize the commons. Bensaïd studies these writings to interrogate how dispossession continues to function today as a key modality of power. Brilliantly tacking between past and present, The Dispossessed discloses continuity and rupture in our relationships to property and, through that, to one another. 
In addition to Bensaïd’s prescient work of political philosophy, The Dispossessed includes new translations of Marx’s original “theft of wood” articles and an introductory essay by Robert Nichols that lucidly contextualizes the essays.

University of Minnesota Press

A philosopher and activist, eager to live according to ideals forged in study and discussion, Daniel Bensaïd was a man deeply entrenched in both the French and the international left. Raised in a staunchly red neighbourhood of Toulouse, where his family owned a bistro, he grew to be France’s leading Marxist public intellectual, much in demand on talk shows and in the press. A lyrical essayist and powerful public speaker, at his best expounding large ideas to crowds of students and workers, he was a founder member of the Ligue Communiste and thrived at the heart of a resurgent far left in the 1960s, which nurtured many of the leading figures of today’s French establishment. The path from the joyous explosion of May 1968, through the painful experience of defeat in Latin America and the world-shaking collapse of the USSR, to the neoliberal world of today, dominated as it is by global finance, is narrated in An Impatient Life with Bensaïd’s characteristic elegance of phrase and clarity of vision. His memoir relates a life of ideological and practical struggle, a never-resting endeavour to comprehend the workings of capitalism in the pursuit of revolution.

An Impatient Life: A Memoir

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

Verso

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

The end of Soviet Socialism signalled to some observers that the ghost of Marx had finally been laid to rest. But history’s refusal to grind to a halt and the global credit crisis that began in 2008 have rekindled interest in capitalism’s most persistent critic. Written during the mid-nineties, a period of Western complacency and neo-liberal reaction, Marx for Our Times is a critical reading of dialectical materialism as a method of resistance. Without denying the contradictory character of Marx’s thought, and with a sensitivity to the plurality of theories it has inspired, Daniel Bensaid sets out to discover what in Marx remains dynamic and relevant in our era of accelerating economic change. Marx’s theory emerges, not as a doctrinal system, but as an intellectual tool of social struggle and global transformation in a world where capital continues to dominate social relations.

Marx for Our Times: Adventures and Misadventures of a Critique

Economics

Verso Books

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Books by Bensaïd, Daniel