Chris’s Reviews > A Political Life: 1937 - 1985 > Status Update

“Capitalism, whose financial internationalization is the 'supreme stage' - as Lenin said, incorrectly - of imperialism, goes wherever proletarian labour power is abundant, cheap and exploitable, abandoning entire regions along with their worker population, leaving them with nothing to do but wander the colossal ruins of disused factories.”

It’s impressive how aware Badiou is of his own political shortcomings without compromising the integrity of his political position. That he considers himself to be an isolated communist without abandoning convictions when there is no way forward is remarkable.

“To refuse all consensus on this sequence, to assess it carefully, is today an ideological necessity of the utmost importance. Anyone who refuses to do so has already capitulated to the dominant ideology, whatever claims to intellectual independence they might try to make.”