The Communist Hypothesis

“We know that communism is the right hypothesis. All those who abandon this hypothesis immediately resign themselves to the market economy, to parliamentary democracy—the form of state suited to capitalism—and to the inevitable and ‘natural’ character of the most monstrous inequalities.”—Alain Badiou
Alain Badiou’s “communist hypothesis,” first stated in 2008, cut through the cant and compromises of the past twenty years to reconceptualize the Left. The hypothesis is a fresh demand for universal emancipation and a galvanizing call to arms. Anyone concerned with the future of the planet needs to reckon with the ideas outlined within this book.
“A figure like Plato or Hegel walks here among us!”—Slavoj Žižek
“A Little Red Book for our time?”—Platypus
“An heir to Jean-Paul Sartre and Louis Althusser.”—Lucy Wadham, New Statesman
“Shaking the foundations of Western liberal democracy.”—Times Higher Education Supplement
“One of the saddest, funniest books of the past 20 years.”—John Kappes, Cleveland Plain Dealer