Etienne Balibar, James Swenson

In Masses, Classes, Ideas, well-known French philosopher Etienne Balibar explores the relationship between abstract philosophy and concrete politics. The book gathers together for the first time in English nine of Balibar's most influential essays written over the last decade, which have been carefully revised and reordered in logical succession with an original preface.

Balibar discusses the influence of political philosophy on collective movements, touching on issues of religious and class struggle, nationalism and racism, the rights of man and the citizen, and property as a social relation. He seeks to explain the novelty of Marxist philosophy and political theory with respect to the classical doctrines of "state" and "revolution." Masses, Classes, Ideas also examines the limitations and aporias which have become manifest in Marxist philosophy and critically assesses its legacy, offering a provocative contribution to the project of renewing democratic theory.

Preface, Part One: Dilemmas of Classical Politics: Insurrection vs Constitution, 1. Spinoza, the Anti-Orwell: The Fear of the Masses, 2. "Rights of Man" and "Rights of the Citizen": The Modern Dialectic of Equality and Freedom, 3. Fichte and the Internal Border: On Addresses to the German Nation, Part Two: Antinomies of Marxian Politics: Materialism, History, and Teleology, 4. The Vacillation of Ideology in Marxism, 5. In Search of the Proletariat: The Notion of Class Politics in Marx, 6. Politics and Truth: The Vacillation of Ideology, II, Part Three: Frontiers of Contemporary Politics: Questioning the Universal, 7. Fascism, Psychoanalysis, Freudo-Marxism, 8. Racism as Universalism, 9. What Is a Politics of the Rights of Man?, Notes, Index, Acknowledgments