Can Common People Govern? Political Parties, Movements, and Uprisings

Jacques Bidet has in recent decades carved out a distinctive theory of modernity that starts from, but strives to transcend Marx. In this lucid and wide-ranging book he develops this theory further by rethinking the project of democracy in the context of the accelerating ecological crisis that increasingly threatens humankind. This involves Bidet in both critically interrogating theorists and idéologues - including Lenin and Xi Jinping. Gramsci and Althusser, Laclau and Mouffe - and empirically exploring how political institutions, movements, and parties function in the contemporary world-system. The result is a book that both demands hard thinking and offers radical hope.

Alex Callinicos, Emeritus Professor of European Studies, King's College London

Jacques Bidet incorporates essential elements of Marx's work and, at the same time, makes corrections, indicates blind points and opens up original paths. A call for an uprising of the Nation-World that unites class, race and gender and is guided by the compass of ecology. For us, in the continent of the Amazon Rainforest, inhabited by dozens of indigenous peoples and also of large urban concentrations, this original and exciting book adds a lot to the search for popular struggle.

Armando Boito Júnior, Professor de Ciência Política, Editor of Critica Marxista