Jacques Bidet – författare

This book advances a counter-intuitive thesis: modern attacks on the global ecological balance are exclusively the result of processes of social domination, whether they are based on class, gender or nation. If this is the case, then it follows that ecological struggle and social struggle are one and the same thing.

The approach is inspired by Marx’s theory, as revisited through Bourdieu and Foucault, Rawls and Habermas, and Ostrom and Wallerstein. Based on a new concept, that of “metastructure” which defines the relationship between the structural and the symbolic, it confronts contemporary debates on class, gender andcoloniality, as well as on the state, the nation and the World-System.

Global social-ecological destruction is thus analysed on three registers: that of capital, which produces for profit; that of (supposed) competent authority, which produces to produce; and that of the nation, which produces to conquer. Consumerism follows from productivism, not the other way around. The question of need takes precedence over that of desire.

This metastructural configuration poses the imperative constantly renewed to counter the blind logic of capital with a rational logic of organisation, and, at the same time, to counter the logic of the organisers through a democratic discursive logic. This latter is the recourse of common people. The Global South is on the front line of this struggle; and women’s struggle bears its own decisive ecological impulse.

This book advances a counter-intuitive thesis: modern attacks on the global ecological balance are exclusively the result of processes of social domination, whether they are based on class, gender or nation. If this is the case, then it follows that ecological struggle and social struggle are one and the same thing.

The approach is inspired by Marx’s theory, as revisited through Bourdieu and Foucault, Rawls and Habermas, and Ostrom and Wallerstein. Based on a new concept, that of “metastructure” which defines the relationship between the structural and the symbolic, it confronts contemporary debates on class, gender andcoloniality, as well as on the state, the nation and the World-System.

Global social-ecological destruction is thus analysed on three registers: that of capital, which produces for profit; that of (supposed) competent authority, which produces to produce; and that of the nation, which produces to conquer. Consumerism follows from productivism, not the other way around. The question of need takes precedence over that of desire.

This metastructural configuration poses the imperative constantly renewed to counter the blind logic of capital with a rational logic of organisation, and, at the same time, to counter the logic of the organisers through a democratic discursive logic. This latter is the recourse of common people. The Global South is on the front line of this struggle; and women’s struggle bears its own decisive ecological impulse.

In Can Common People Govern?, the renowned French social theorist, philosopher, and historian Jacques Bidet offers a theoretical and political exploration of political parties, movements, and uprisings as forms of popular political organization. He highlights the contradictions of the party-form and the movement-form through a critical analysis of Lenin, Xi Jinping, Gramsci, Althusser, and the theorists of left-wing populism, Laclau and Mouffe. Popular political organization, he argues, must be related to the structure of modern society, in which the popular class is opposed in a “triangular duel” against a dominant class that includes two poles in conflictual connivance, “capitalpower” and “competence-power” (or “elite”). This duality offers the common people an angle of attack for a risky alliance with this elite against capital. This class confrontation is put in the context of the ongoing ecological disaster and popular uprisings. In the age of disaster, environmentalism and social emancipation must be conceived as one and the same thing.

Can Common People Govern? is relevant to students of Marxism as well as wider readership interested in political thought and action.

In Can Common People Govern?, the renowned French social theorist, philosopher, and historian Jacques Bidet offers a theoretical and political exploration of political parties, movements, and uprisings as forms of popular political organization. He highlights the contradictions of the party-form and the movement-form through a critical analysis of Lenin, Xi Jinping, Gramsci, Althusser, and the theorists of left-wing populism, Laclau and Mouffe. Popular political organization, he argues, must be related to the structure of modern society, in which the popular class is opposed in a “triangular duel” against a dominant class that includes two poles in conflictual connivance, “capitalpower” and “competence-power” (or “elite”). This duality offers the common people an angle of attack for a risky alliance with this elite against capital. This class confrontation is put in the context of the ongoing ecological disaster and popular uprisings. In the age of disaster, environmentalism and social emancipation must be conceived as one and the same thing.

Can Common People Govern? is relevant to students of Marxism as well as wider readership interested in political thought and action.

Originally published in French, this English edition translated by Jacques Bidet offers a rigorous and interdisciplinary reading of Capital, challenging dominant mainstream interpretations that overlook Marx’s critique of capitalist society. Centring on the chapter “The Working Day,” the book reveals Marx’s analysis of labour exploitation as a biopolitical struggle between capital and living labour. Drawing on Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, it reframes wage labour as a conflict over bodily autonomy, social reproduction, and the limits of capitalist control.

Through a meticulous reconstruction of Marx’s method — moving from abstract to concrete — eminent Marx scholar Jacques Bidet identifies three distinct levels of labour analysis (general, commodity-based, and wage labour), bringing clarity often lost in mainstream commentaries. He critiques influential interpretations by Harvey, Negri, Postone, and others, while acknowledging Marx’s limits in theorizing race, gender, and nation. To address these gaps, Bidet proposes a “Marxist metastructural theory of modernity” that extends Marx’s emancipatory vision.

Accessible yet scholarly, The Biopolitical Body of Capital is ideal for students and researchers in politics, philosophy, economics, sociology, and history. It speaks to readers seeking a politically engaged, analytically precise understanding of Marx’s work — one that resonates with today’s global crises and the urgent need for transformative change.

Originally published in French, this English edition translated by Jacques Bidet offers a rigorous and interdisciplinary reading of Capital, challenging dominant mainstream interpretations that overlook Marx’s critique of capitalist society. Centring on the chapter “The Working Day,” the book reveals Marx’s analysis of labour exploitation as a biopolitical struggle between capital and living labour. Drawing on Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, it reframes wage labour as a conflict over bodily autonomy, social reproduction, and the limits of capitalist control.

Through a meticulous reconstruction of Marx’s method — moving from abstract to concrete — eminent Marx scholar Jacques Bidet identifies three distinct levels of labour analysis (general, commodity-based, and wage labour), bringing clarity often lost in mainstream commentaries. He critiques influential interpretations by Harvey, Negri, Postone, and others, while acknowledging Marx’s limits in theorizing race, gender, and nation. To address these gaps, Bidet proposes a “Marxist metastructural theory of modernity” that extends Marx’s emancipatory vision.

Accessible yet scholarly, The Biopolitical Body of Capital is ideal for students and researchers in politics, philosophy, economics, sociology, and history. It speaks to readers seeking a politically engaged, analytically precise understanding of Marx’s work — one that resonates with today’s global crises and the urgent need for transformative change.