The Communist Hypothesis

By Alain Badiou, David Macey and Steve Corcoran

“We know that communism is the right hypothesis. All those who abandon this hypothesis immediately resign themselves to the market economy, to parliamentary democracy—the form of state suited to capitalism—and to the inevitable and ‘natural’ character of the most monstrous inequalities.”—Alain Badiou 

Alain Badiou’s “communist hypothesis,” first stated in 2008, cut through the cant and compromises of the past twenty years to reconceptualize the Left. The hypothesis is a fresh demand for universal emancipation and a galvanizing call to arms. Anyone concerned with the future of the planet needs to reckon with the ideas outlined within this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: May 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781781689424

Alain Badiou

Alex Kirstukas has published and presented on Verne's work for both academic and popular audiences and is a trustee of the North American Jules Verne Society as well as the editor of its peer-reviewed publication Extraordinary Voyages. Kirstukas' first published translation was Robur the Conqueror by Jules Verne and published by the Wesleyan University Press in 2017.

Reviews for The Communist Hypothesis

[jonfaith · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The communist hypothesis is that a different collective organization is practicable, one that will eliminate the inequality of wealth and even the division of labour. The private appropriation of massive fortunes and their transmission by inheritance will disappear. The existence of a coercive state, separate from civil society, will no longer appear a necessity: a long process of reorganization based on a free association of producers will see it withering away.

I fear my response to this book, particularly to Badiou's horrific hagiography of The Cultural Revolution will lead to my expulsion from Zizek's cool kids club. Some matters are indefensible. That may not be philosophically progressive, it certainly doesn't coincide with Badiou's living for an Idea. This text isn't John Carpenter's They Live, if I wear the shades, Mao doesn't become decent, the denouncement remains too human and the idealism in the Cultural Revolution is negligible at best.

The section on the Paris Commune is easier to address. Strange how Badiou begins the book with pages of citation from his own play. Bad form.

[pomo58 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This collection of previous writings along with essentially an essay tying them together serves as a limited but useful introduction to this aspect of Badiou's thought. His elaborations on three 'events' (May '68, the Cultural Revolution and the Paris Commune) are used to explain the general idea of the Communist Hypothesis. These chapters make for interesting reading and warrant several close readings if one wants to better understand his argument. This does not necessarily mean agreement, just an understanding. Without an understanding of the ideas as he perceives them (indeed any ideas presented for consideration) it is fruitless to argue for or against them.Briefly, his overarching argument is that even though the attempts at socialism and communism, particularly the latter, have failed it does not logically follow that the ideas at the core have to be abandoned. Much like a scientific theory or hypothesis, as he argues, a failure simply means that a particular attempt has not yet been proven. To a large extent the question may well not be whether the ideas are faulty in themselves but rather whether the attempts at implementation have been the problem. Destruction is not always the difficult aspect but rather filling the void left in the resultant space.While there are more questions raised than answered, this serves as a clear call not to demonize the ideas when one demonizes the failed attempts.Reviewed from an ARC made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[meditationesmartini · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Badiou needs to learn not to talk big. There are some interesting moments here; leading us through idiosyncratic interpretations of the student protests in France in 1968, the Cultural Revolution, and the Paris Commune, he makes and reinforces a case that a thread runs through these episodes, making them the best starting place for learning the lessons about what communism needs to be for the future and how we need to start making it that. Communism has blossomed or advanced a million different ways since the Manifesto, he says, and all of them have ended in abject failure. What that means isn't that communism isn't possible. It just means that we haven't figured out how to do it yet. All the communisms we've tried have been impossible, so the question before us is, how to rescue the idea of communism from those failures? And the hypothesis is that there exists a possible communism that works. And the reason to test that hypothesis is that "all those who abandon this hypothesis immediately resign themselves to the market economy, to parlaimentary democracy--the form of state suited to capitalism--and to the inevitable and "natural" character of the most monstrous inequalities."

Now that's exciting jacket copy! And the book is that particular light communist red that's definitely not orange and definitely not pink, and the writing is gold, Little Red Book-style, and all the signs are there: this is a major new salvo in the communism of the future that is struggling to birth, the indeterminate object around which Zizek, and David Harvey's Enigma of Capital, and in a weird way even housing protests and LOHAS and op-eds hacking on the banks, are orbiting. Take us a step closer, Badiou!

Oh hell, it's later now, and I would really like to know what the fuck happened to the rest of my review and why this keeps happening on librarything. Anyway, long story short on the step closer thing: he didn't.