In this short book, Jacques Rancière takes stock of the state of
contemporary politics and examines current developments in the light of
his writings. Rancière takes issue with what he sees as the
consolidation in recent years of an increasingly oligarchic class of
professional politicians within the system of representative democracy,
while simultaneously objecting to leftist animosity towards electoral
politics. He discusses a wide range of contemporary political movements
and figures, from Nuit debout and Marine le Pen to Occupy, Trump, Syriza
and Podemos, and he offers a trenchant critique of a variety of ideas
and thinkers associated with radical politics, such as the ideas of
immaterial labour and cognitive capitalism and the concept of
insurrection put forward by the Invisible Committee. But above all he
talks about the time in which it makes sense to talk about all this, a
time for which history has made no promises and the past has left no
lessons, only moments to be extended as far as possible. In politics,
there are only presents. It is at every moment that the bonds of unequal
servitude are renewed or that the paths of emancipation are invented.
Presented in the form of a dialogue between Jacques Rancière and Eric
Hazan, this timely reflection by one of the most influential radical
thinkers writing today will be of interest to a wide readership.
