Category: Politics

“Instead of perceiving what goes on in today’s China as an oriental-despotic distortion of capitalism, one should see in it the repetition of the development of capitalism in Europe itself.”—Slavoj Zizek With an excerpt from Slavoj Zizek’s “From Democracy to...

“All today’s ‘advanced industrial democracies’ are in fact oligarchic democracies: they represent the victory of a dynamic oligarchy, a world government centered on great wealth and the worship of wealth, but capable of building consensus and legitimacy through elections that,...

“It is not in the least evident to me that democracy enjoys total unquestioning support. Things were different during the cold war, when it was democracy versus totalitarianism. But since the Berlin Wall fell, what we’ve witnessed in the countries...

“The power drive outstrips or surpasses power, while at the same time seeking power for its own sake. The surpassing of power is the very principle of democracy—but as its truth and grandeur (indeed its majesty), not as its annihilation.”—Jean-Luc...

“What I am sure of, however, is that this is not a time for sloganeering that averts our glance from the powers destroying the conditions for democracy.”—Wendy Brown Continuing our series of excerpts from Democracy in What State? , Wendy...

“The widely trumpeted victory of democracy soon yielded a crop of new Tocquevilles voicing their ill-concealed dislike of it…”—Daniel Bensaid Continuing our series of excerpt from Democracy in What State? (for excerpts by Giorgio Agamben and Alain Badiou), we feature...

“We will only ever be true democrats, integral to the historic life of peoples, when we become communists again. Roads to that future are gradually becoming visible even now.”—Alain Badiou Yesterday we posted an excerpt from Giorgio Agamben’s contribution to...

“Is it meaningful to call oneself a democrat? And if so, how do you interpret the word?” In the recently published Democracy in What State? , a group of iconic and iconoclastic thinkers responded to the above question. This timely...