This blog summarises French philosopher Alain Badiou’s important book A New Dawn for Politics. In it, Badiou criticises Western democracy for acting as the central force sustaining a corrupt and unjust global order. This blog can be read in conjunction with a previous blog on Noah Chomsky whose ideas mirror those of Badiou.

Capitalist Modernity as the Contemporary Neolithic

Since history began, human beings have been living in hierarchical societies ruled by an elite, preserved by a minority (who benefit from the arrangement), while subjugating a majority. This basic form has persisted since pre-history. According to Badiou, contemporary capitalist modernity is simply the latest in a long line of variations on this basic social template that has been with us since the Neolithic. Such a system, by its very nature, can only be maintained through violence and brings with it “monstrous inequalities, military massacres, and false and dangerous ideologies and understandings of the world.”