Political Ecology of Common People

Advancing the concept of the 'metastructure' to define the relationship between the structural and the symbolic, this book argues that the global ecological crisis has resulted exclusively from processes of social domination, from which it follows that ecological struggle and social struggle are one and the same thing.

List of contents

Introduction: What is to be done in the age of disaster?
Preamble: the "metastructural turn"
Part I: Capitalism and the State, the World-System and the Class World-State
1. The Modern Ecological Class Structure
1.1. Capital as a social-ecological fact
1.2. Competence as a social-ecological fact
1.3. The "fundamental" or "popular" class: the class of the "common people"
2. Class Violence and National Violence
2.1. The nation-state and its regimes of hegemony
2.2. From the Nation to the System of Nations
2.3. The political intertwining of class-colony/gender
3. World-System, World-State, World-Nation
3.1. The Nation-State within the World-System
3.2. Beyond the World-System: the World-State
3.3. Towards the World-Nation?
Part II: Citizens of a World-Nation, Residents of the Planet
4. Social Domination Alone Is Destroying the Planet
4.1. The order of battle
4.2. Unthought aspects of productivism and consumerism
4.3. On the right and proper use of the planet
5. Only Struggles for Liberation Can Protect the Planet
5.1. Class struggles as ecological struggles
5.2. Gender and Global-South struggles as ecological struggles
6. The World-Nation, the Ultimate Ecological Community
6.1. The nation as the ultimate figure of the common
6.2. Humanity, the ultimate nation
6.3. A national politics for humanity
6.4. Epilogue: a community of the living?

About the author

Jacques Bidet is a former professor at the University of Paris-Nanterre, France, and the founder of the journal Actuel Marx. Throughout his research since the 1980s, he has been developing a theory of modern society and history known as a "metastructural theory of modernity", mainly inspired by Marx, in the light of both Althusser and Habermas.

Product details

• Authors: Jacques (University of Paris Nanterre Bidet, Bidet Jacques
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.01.2025
• EAN: 9781032512907
• ISBN: 978-1-0-3251290-7
• No. of pages: 184
• Series: Critiques and Alternatives to Capitalism
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Philosophy > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: general, reference works; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories; Social Theory, PHILOSOPHY / Social, PHILOSOPHY / Political, POLITICAL SCIENCE / History & Theory, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / Social Theory, Social & political philosophy, Political science & theory, social and political philosophy, Far-left political ideologies and movements, Political science and theory, Marxism & Communism