TY - CHAP

T1 - There Is No Alternative

AU - Wilson, Japhy

AU - Swyngedouw, Erik

PY - 2015/4

Y1 - 2015/4

N2 - In the concluding chapter, the authors return to the question of democracy. Yet in the on-going fallout from the global financial crisis, even the least radical of democrats would struggle to disagree with Alain Badiou’s assertion that democracy now means ‘nothing more than an eager willingness to service the needs of the banks’ or his claim that what passes for democracy would be more accurately named ‘capitalo-parliamentarism’. In this context, the chapter argues that any commitment to democracy that precludes the urgent transformation of the capitalist mode of production can only be regarded as part of the problem. It is from this perspective that the idea of communism is discussed, an idea that may galvanize a new emancipatory imaginary.

AB - In the concluding chapter, the authors return to the question of democracy. Yet in the on-going fallout from the global financial crisis, even the least radical of democrats would struggle to disagree with Alain Badiou’s assertion that democracy now means ‘nothing more than an eager willingness to service the needs of the banks’ or his claim that what passes for democracy would be more accurately named ‘capitalo-parliamentarism’. In this context, the chapter argues that any commitment to democracy that precludes the urgent transformation of the capitalist mode of production can only be regarded as part of the problem. It is from this perspective that the idea of communism is discussed, an idea that may galvanize a new emancipatory imaginary.

U2 - 10.1515/9780748682980-017

DO - 10.1515/9780748682980-017

M3 - Chapter

SN - 978-0748682973

BT - The Post-Political and Its Discontents, Spaces of Depoliticisation, Spectres of Radical Politics

ER -