Common: On Revolution in the 21st Century

Contemporary protest movements are contesting the oligarchic appropriation of natural resources, public services, and shared networks of knowledge and communication. Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval show how the common has become the defining principle of alternative political movements in the 21st century, tracing the active lives of human beings and calling for a revolution to institutional transform society.

\n Format: Paperback / softback
\n Length: 496 pages
\n Publication date: 24 January 2019
\n Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
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Across the world, contemporary protest movements are challenging the oligarchic appropriation of natural resources, public services, and shared networks of knowledge and communication. These struggles revolve around a fundamental demand and are grounded in an irreducible principle: the common. In this comprehensive examination, Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval illustrate how the common has emerged as the defining principle of alternative political movements in the 21st century. Within societies deeply influenced by neoliberal rationality, the common is increasingly invoked as the central concept in practical struggles that give rise to new forms of democratic governance. Through a feat of analytical clarity, Dardot and Laval meticulously dissect and synthesize a vast corpus on the concept of the commons, drawing from fields such as philosophy, political theory, economics, legal theory, history, theology, and sociology. Instead of conceptualizing the common as an inherent essence of humanity or as inherent in nature, the thread developed by Dardot and Laval traces the active lives of human beings. It emphasizes that only through practical activities of commoning can decisions be made about what will be shared in common and what rules will govern the commons' citizen-subjects. This re-articulation of the common demands nothing less than the institutional transformation of society by society. It calls for a revolutionary shift.

\n Weight: 748g\n
Dimension: 157 x 233 x 27 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9781350021211\n \n