Download The Idea Of Communism Narrated By Costas Douzinas Released As Text

as a political theory has always interested me: in particular I find a charm in the writings of Trotsky, However, in the modern world communism cannot come without revolution and violence, This, in the end, is just a book of "what if's" written by men living in ivory towers, The idea of the American Communist Party meeting in the Hilton is absurd, So was the meeting that presented the materials in this book, That said, I wish I was there, After the initial essays which I found too full of abstraction and jargon, I have found myself really enthralled by the essays of Terry Eagleton, Peter Hallward, and Michael Hardt especially these latter two.
Hardt does an excellent job of focusing on the common of communism that is what I'm most interested in, He relates how Marx identified the transition from immobile to mobile production, and then Hardt identifies how we've moved on to immaterial production ideas, actions, media, etc.
I think that's what would best describe the movements about open source, open access, makers, etc, People share, build and create, and share again, often without profit or ownership in mind, That's the common, and this is what I find inspiring,
In finishing the book, I found only a few more essays beyond thosethat I could closely relate to and enjoy, The short essay by Vattimo and the one by Zizek himself, Zizek comes closest to expressing the sentiments I shared above, and also finishes with an interesting view on the current division of mean of production and social classes.

My rating of the book isn't larger only because I found so many of the essays to be too deeply philosophical and beyond relatability, But theseessays that I refer to here certainly are thought provoking and would rate much higher if alone, best essays were those by žižek, hardt, negri, and douzinas, almost all was worthwhile for me though, as an introduction to thest century left, hardt and negris empire is moving up in my queue as a result of my experience reading this book Fascinating When Žižek and others at the Birkbeck Centre for the Humanities conceived of their conference exploring the Idea of Communism and related topics emerging from debates on the left such as Badious Communist Hypothesis they seriously underestimated demand.
As a result, for thisgathering they had to twice move rooms from their initialto finish up in a room holdingand with a furtheron a video feed.
There are at least two ways to read this error the less charitable one suggests that it demonstrates these scholars distance from activist movements, the more charitable one sees it as a sign of a need for rigorous theoretical discussion on the left: I suspect that it is a combination of the two alongside the almost celebrity status of philosophers including Žižek , Hardt amp Negri of Multitude fame, Badiou and their ilk.


This book is a collection, only slightly edited, of the papers presented at the conference, and as with any set of conference proceedings it is uneven with high amp low points depending on your politics and position on the left for those on the Right, I suspect it is all low.
. . From my perspective, the highlights are those papers that have, for the most part, returned to Marx in various ways, This means that, although I quite like some of his other work, Badious opening paper they are arranged alphabetically by author is close to the collections low point even if challenging, stimulating and invigorating but lost in abstraction.


There are, however, several papers that I will keep coming back to Susan BuckMorss for instance demands that we look beyond the Eurocentric left to, for instance, some of Islams internal leftist critics not for their message but fortheir methods, andto better tailor messages to the diverse global conditions we occupy.
It is a fabulous piece of postcolonial Hegelian thinking, Equally, Bruno Bosteels unsettles by demanding that we abandon a Leftist hypothesis and reassert a communism grounded in its liberatory promise, not its false practice an idea he develops through a critical reading of prison writing by Álvaro García Linera currently Vice President of Bolivia.
Most surprising for me was my response to Michael Hardts paper I am generally uncomfortable with the autonomist approach he has been developing with Antonio Negri in recent years, but his paper here is one of the best discussions of the political significance of the commons and one I know that I will return to for other work.


Amid all this, however, the collection is woven through with Žižeks and Badious ongoing case for a step beyond the limitation of Formerly Existing Socialism and a return to communisms promise of emancipation, as well as the role that communism as a utopian goal continues to play in motivating and inspiring activist and other political projects.
Dont read this if you are looking for a political programme read this to be reminded that while there is much that we need to move beyond in some of the old politics of the Left, there

is much that remains important, useful and essential to making sense of and changing the world for the better and to be reminded that the current crisis of capitalism is a failure of its neoliberal utopia of the free market.
Democracy in our global capitalist system has to be put under question, Ecological needs are demanding a rethinking of how our system operates and questions the ability of our surplus consumer system to act correctly and responsibly, As an alternative to capitalism, given the current scenario, communism needs to be analysed again,
The idea of The Idea of Communism is to not throw the argument, at least, of communism out of the window, even though doubts are raised about whether communism as we have known it can or should be allowed to make a come back.
Nevertheless, as a starting point for thinking of a better, more possible future world, this reappraisal of communist philosophy has to be taken into consideration,
As a collection of speeches given by different authors the book probably has something for everyone interested in thinking beyond capitalism, but will probably also be equally unsatisfying when considered as a whole work hence onlystars.
As with all essay collections, some gold: Susan BuckMorss, Costas Douzinas, Terry Eagleton, and Slavoj Žižek some turds: JeanLuc Nancy and Gianni Vattimo with the rest of the essays having some moments of both good and bad.
Do not be afraid, join us, come back! Youve had your anticommunist fun, and you are pardoned for ittime to get serious once again!Slavoj Žižek

Responding to Alain Badious communist hypothesis, the leading political philosophers of the Left convened in London into take part in a landmark conference to discuss the perpetual, persistent notion that, in a truly emancipated society, all things should be owned in common.
This volume brings together their discussions on the philosophical and political import of the communist idea, highlighting both its continuing significance and the need to reconfigure the concept within a world marked by havoc and crisis.
A mixed bag. Some thoughtprovoking stuff certainly, but on the whole rather more conservative in terms of its rethinking of communism than I'd expected, An extremely vital book for those interested in the academictheoretical aspects of Communism, which likely doesn't count as all that many outside of serious scholarship circles, Not an easy read, and not a book to read by stopping midessay for any reason, since the arguments, ideas, and concepts are quite involved and hard to hold on to mentally, even in the moment of reading.
I enjoyed this book immensely, even admittedly not always following some of the essays in anything more than general terms, Startlingly, the Slavoj Žižek chapter was arguably the best of the bunch, and almost completely understandable, a rare feat for me reading him, There are many great entries here, and all deserve concentration and consideration and respect, Communism, as defined here, in its multiplicities of realization, is what the world requires to escape the scourge of Capitalism and its neoliberal supporters, Otherwise, humans do not survive and the Earth carries on without us, probably gladly, considering what we as a species are doing to our borrowed home, Costas Douzinas is Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities and Professor of Law at Birkbeck, University of London, .