Etienne Balibar

If fundamental political categories were represented as geometric shapes, citizenship would be one of those rotating polyhedrons with reflective surfaces that together create effects of light and shade. With extraordinarily acute discernment, the leading philosopher Étienne Balibar examines one by one the various faces of this object, more numerous - and far more fissured - than one would imagine. The question of what it means to be a citizen has, from the dawn of Western politics, been anything but clear and straightforward; and modernity has shown it to be even more enigmatic and contested. Inseparable from democracy, and the demands for equality and liberty from which democracy draws its origins, citizenship is constantly being redefined within the unresolved contradiction between universal principles and the discriminatory mechanisms that regulate membership of a political community. Not everyone is a citizen, even within one nation-state. It has been said that?certain persons are in society without being of society?. The dynamics of inclusion and exclusion continue to generate dramatic asymmetries and create openings and closures, especially today in a time of particular fragility and when national sovereignty is in flux. So are there too many antinomies within citizenship? Balibar does not shy away from these antimonies, but he knows that to renounce citizenship would be to abandon the chance to create new modes of collective autonomy, in short, to democratize democracy.

First published in French in 2010, _Equaliberty_ brings together essays by Étienne Balibar, one of the preeminent political theorists of our time. The book is organized around _equaliberty_, a term coined by Balibar to connote the tension between the two ideals of modern democracy: equality (social rights and political representation) and liberty (the freedom citizens have to contest the social contract). He finds the tension between these different kinds of rights to be ingrained in the constitution of the modern nation-state and the contemporary welfare state. At the same time, he seeks to keep rights discourse open, eschewing natural entitlements in favor of a deterritorialized citizenship that could be expanded and invented anew in the age of globalization. Deeply engaged with other thinkers, including Arendt, Rancière, and Laclau, he posits a theory of the polity based on social relations. In _Equaliberty_ Balibar brings both the continental and analytic philosophical traditions to bear on the conflicted relations between humanity and citizenship.

Cet article propose une nouvelle lecture de la théorie des « quatre discours » élaborée par Lacan en 1969-1970. Son argument est d’abord que la théorie doit être replacée dans un double contexte pour que ses intentions soient révélées et que son système dense d’allusions soit clarifié : les lendemains immédiats de l’insurrection de 68 en France, lorsque l’institution universitaire (dans laquelle Lacan lui-même s’était intégré) fut violemment contestée et que l’idée de révolution redevint extrêmement populaire parmi les étudiants « gauchistes », et le débat intellectuel entre plusieurs protagonistes du moment « structuraliste », qui élaborèrent des théories concurrentes du « discours » (Foucault, Althusser, Deleuze et Guattari à leur manière). Surtout, il soutient que la prise en compte du « discours » supplémentaire (le discours du capitalisme), mentionné avec insistance mais aussi de manière elliptique dans les textes et interventions ultérieurs, ne conduit pas à un achèvement de la théorie (permettant de combler l’écart entre les concepts lacanien et marxien de la domination, à travers l’équivalence de la « plus-de-jouir » et de la « plus-value »), mais à la déconstruction de ses tensions latentes. Négativement, cela conduit à accepter que le but de Lacan était de définir la psychanalyse comme un discours antipolitique, neutralisant l’antagonisme du capitalisme et du socialisme, et stigmatisant les mouvements révolutionnaires comme exprimant le désir du Maître. Positivement, elle conduit à décrire l’« alliance » de l’analyste et du patient (« hystérique ») comme une antithèse radicale aux « discours » (ou structures) dominants du pouvoir et du savoir, et une voie privilégiée vers la compréhension du « non-rapport » (ou rapport impossible) qui empêche toute relation sociale d’atteindre la stabilité.

A rich and accessible introduction to Marx's fundamental concepts from a key intellectual--now updated. Written by one of political theory's leading thinkers, The Philosophy of Marx examines all the key areas of Marx's writings in their wider historical and theoretical context--including the concepts of class struggle, ideology, humanism, progress, determinism, commodity fetishism, and the state. Etienne Balibar opens a gateway into the thought of one of history's great minds. In this updated edition to this now classic work, Balibar has added a substantial introduction and new material. Complete with key 'information boxes' for the student to make the most challenging areas of theory easy to understand, this remains the best available introduction to the most important thinker of the past 200 years.

In The Philosophy of Marx, Etienne Balibar provides an accessible introduction to Marx and his key followers, complete with pedagogical information for the student to make the most challenging areas of theory easy to understand. Examining all the key areas of Marx’s writings in their wider historical and theoretical context—including the concepts of class struggle, ideology, humanism, progress, determinism, commodity fetishism, and the state—The Philosophy of Marx is a gateway into the thought of one of history’s great minds.