What is the relation between politics and the world?  It might seem that global capitalism has created one world, but this is an illusion because capitalism creates a world of objects and money that divides human existence into regions separated by fences and walls built to keep some people out.  In place of this falsely unified world of global capitalism, we need to assert a fundamental principle – namely, that there is one world of living subjects.  This, in Badiou’s view, is the categorical imperative of all true politics.

The one world of living subjects is the place where an infinity of differences and identities exist.  Hence foreigners are not a problem but rather an opportunity and a gift.  They bear witness to the youth of the world in its infinite variety, and it is with this youth that the politics of the future rests.  Foreignness is the means by which existence is re-evaluated, and all true politics is a new dawn of existence.

This collection of essays by Badiou, in which he draws out the political implications of recent events and social movements, will be of value to anyone interested in the great social and political questions of our time.

Alain Badiou is a philosopher, mathematician and novelist who lives in Paris.

Part I: Structures and Notions, Becomings and Visions



1. The Neolithic Age, Capitalism and Communism

2. The Notion of ‘Crisis’

3. Science, Ideology, and the Middle Class

4. Lecture at the Institute of Political Sciences



Part II: Thinking the Present from the To-Come



5. Lessons from the ‘Gilets Jaunes’ Movement

6. Pandemic, Ignorance, and New Sites of Collectivity

7. Movements without an Idea and an Idea for Movements

8. World, Existence, Foreignness: A New Dawn for Politics