Étienne Balibar (; ; born 23 April 1942) is a French
philosopher. He has taught at the
University of Paris X-Nanterre
Paris Nanterre University (French: ''Université Paris Nanterre''), formerly Paris-X and commonly referred to as Nanterre, is a public research university based in Nanterre, Paris, France. It is one of the most prestigious French universities, m ...
, at the
University of California Irvine
The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and pr ...
and is currently an Anniversary Chair Professor at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP) at
Kingston University and a Visiting Professor at the Department of French and Romance Philology at Columbia University.
Life
Balibar was born in
Avallon,
Yonne,
Burgundy, France in 1942, and first rose to prominence as one of Althusser's pupils at the
École normale supérieure. He entered the École normale supérieure in 1960.
In 1961, Balibar joined the ''
Parti communiste français''. He was expelled in 1981 for critiquing the party's policy on immigration in an article.
Balibar participated in
Louis Althusser's seminar on
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
's ''
Das Kapital
''Das Kapital'', also known as ''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' or sometimes simply ''Capital'' (german: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, link=no, ; 1867–1883), is a foundational theoretical text in materialist phi ...
'' in 1965. This seminar resulted in the book ''
Reading Capital'', co-authored by Althusser and his students. Balibar's chapter, "On the Basic Concepts of Historical Materialism," was republished along with those of Althusser in the book's abridged version (trans. 1970), until a complete translation was published in 2016.
In 1987, he received his doctorate degree in philosophy from the ''
Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen'' in the Netherlands.
He received his
habilitation from the
Université Paris I in 1993. Balibar joined the University of Paris X-Nanterre as a professor in 1994, and the University of California, Irvine in 2000. He became Professor Emeritus of Paris X in 2002.
His daughter with the physicist
Françoise Balibar is the actress
Jeanne Balibar.
Work
In ''Masses, Classes and Ideas'', Balibar argues that in ''
Das Kapital
''Das Kapital'', also known as ''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' or sometimes simply ''Capital'' (german: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, link=no, ; 1867–1883), is a foundational theoretical text in materialist phi ...
'' (or ''Capital''), the theory of
historical materialism
Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborat ...
comes into conflict with the
critical theory that Marx begins to develop, particularly in his analysis of the category of
labor, which in
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
becomes a form of
property
Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...
. This conflict involves two distinct uses of the term "labor": labor as the revolutionary class subject (i.e., the "
proletariat") and labor as an objective condition for the reproduction of capitalism (the "
working class
The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...
"). In ''
The German Ideology'', Marx conflates these two meanings, and treats labor as, in Balibar's words, the "veritable site of truth as well as the place from which the world is changed..."
In ''Capital'', however, the disparity between the two senses of labor becomes apparent. One manifestation of this is the virtual disappearance in the text of the term "proletariat." As Balibar points out, the term appears only twice in the first edition of ''Capital'', published in 1867: in the dedication to
Wilhelm Wolff
Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Wolff, nicknamed "Lupus" (21 June 1809 – 9 May 1864) was a German schoolmaster, political activist and publicist.
Life
Wolff was born in Tarnau, Kreis Schweidnitz, Silesia (now Tarnawa, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Gm ...
and in the two final sections on the "General Law of Capitalist Accumulation". For Balibar, this implies that "the emergence of a revolutionary form of subjectivity (or identity)... is never a specific property of nature, and therefore brings with it no guarantees, but obliges us to search for the conditions in a conjuncture that can precipitate class struggles into mass movements...". Moreover, "
ere is no proof… that these forms are always and eternally the same (for example, the party-form, or the
trade union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...
)."
In "The Nation Form: History and Ideology," Balibar critiques modern conceptions of the
nation-state. He states that he is undertaking a study of the contradiction of the nation-state because "Thinking about racism led us back to nationalism, and nationalism to uncertainty about the historical realities and categorization of the nation" (329).
Balibar contends that it is impossible to pinpoint the beginning of a nation or to argue that the modern people who inhabit a nation-state are the descendants of the nation that preceded it. Balibar argues that, because no nation-state has an ethnic base, every nation-state must create fictive ethnicities in order to project stability on the populace:
"the idea of nations without a state, or nations 'before' the state, is thus a contradiction in terms, because a state always is implied in the historic framework of a national formation (even if not necessarily within the limits of its territory). But this contradiction is masked by the fact that national states, whose integrity suffers from internal conflicts that threaten its survival (regional conflicts, and especially class conflicts), project beneath their political existence to a preexisting 'ethnic' or 'popular' unity" (331)
In order to minimize these regional, class, and race conflicts, nation-states fabricate myths of origin that produce the illusion of shared ethnicity among all their inhabitants. In order to create these myths of origins, nation-states scour the historical period during which they were "formed" to find justification for their existence. They also create the illusion of shared ethnicity through linguistic communities: when everyone has access to the same language, they feel as if they share an ethnicity. Balibar argues that "schooling is the principal institution which produces ethnicity as linguistic community" (351). In addition, this ethnicity is created through the "nationalization of the family," meaning that the state comes to perform certain functions that might traditionally be performed by the family, such as the regulation of marriages and administration of social security. In recent work following the "populist" wave, Balibar has called the incorporation of these different elements "absolute capitalism."
[Etienne Balibar, "Absolute Capitalism" in ''Mutant Neoliberalism: Market Rule and Political Rupture''. William Callison and Zachary Manfredi, eds. New York: Fordham University Press, 2020.]
Bibliography
Works in French
* 1965: ''Lire le Capital''. With Louis Althusser et al.
* 1974: ''Cinq Etudes du Matérialisme Historique''.
* 1976: ''Sur La Dictature du Prolétariat''.
* 1985: ''Spinoza et la politique''.
* 1988: ''Race, Nation, Classe''. With
Immanuel Wallerstein
Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein (; September 28, 1930 – August 31, 2019) was an American sociologist and economic historian. He is perhaps best known for his development of the general approach in sociology which led to the emergence of his wo ...
.
* 1991: ''Écrits pour Althusser''.
* 1992: ''Les Frontieres De La Démocratie''
* 1993: ''La philosophie de Marx''.
* 1997: ''La crainte des masses: politique et philosophie avant et après Marx''. (French version of ''Masses, Classes, Ideas'', with extra essays)
* 1998: ''Droit de cité. Culture et politique en démocratie''.
* 1998: ''John Locke, Identité et différence - L'invention de la conscience'' (Balibar's Monograph on John Locke)
* 2001: ''Nous, citoyens d’Europe? Les frontières, l’État, le peuple''.
* 2003: ''L'Europe, l'Amérique, la Guerre. Réflexions sur la médiation européenne''.
* 2005: ''Europe, Constitution, Frontière''.
* 2010: ''La proposition de l'égaliberté''.
* 2010: ''Violence et Civilité: Wellek Library Lectures et autres essais de philosophie politique''
* 2011: ''Citoyen sujet et autres essais d'anthropologie philosophique''
* 2012: ''Saeculum : Culture, religion, idéologie''
*2015: ''Violence, civilité, révolution'' (edited volume ''about'' Balibar's work)
*2016: ''Europe, Crise et fin ?''
*2016: ''Des Universels. Essais et conférences''
*2018: ''Spinoza politique. Le transindividuel'' (French version of Italian original, which appeared in 2002)
Selected translations
* 1970: ''
Reading Capital'' (London: NLB). With Louis Althusser. Trans. Ben Brewster.
* 1977: ''On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat'' (London: NLB). Trans. Grahame Lock.
* 1991: ''Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities'' (London & New York: Verso). With Immanuel Wallerstein. Trans. Chris Turner.
* 1994: ''Masses, Classes, Ideas: Studies on Politics and Philosophy Before and After Marx'' (New York & London: Routledge). Trans. James Swenson.
* 1995: ''The Philosophy of Marx'' (London & New York: Verso). Trans. Chris Turner.
* 1998: ''Spinoza and Politics'' (London & New York: Verso). Trans. Peter Snowdon.
* 2002: ''Politics and the Other Scene'' (London & New York: Verso). Trans. Christine Jones, James Swenson & Chris Turner.
* 2004: ''We, the People of Europe? Reflections on Transnational Citizenship'' (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press). Trans. James Swenson.
* 2013: ''Identity and Difference: John Locke and the Invention of Consciousness'' (London & New York: Verso).
* 2014: ''Equaliberty: Political Essays'' (Durham, NC: Duke University Press). Trans. James Ingram.
* 2015: ''Violence and Civility: On the Limits of Political Philosophy'' (New York: Columbia University Press). Trans. G.M. Goshgarian.
* 2015: ''Citizenship'' (Cambridge: Polity). Trans. Thomas Scott-Railton.
* 2017: ''Citizen Subject: Foundations for Philosophical Anthropology'' (New York: Fordham University Press). Trans. Steven Miller.
* 2018: ''Secularism and Cosmopolitanism: Critical Hypotheses on Religion and Politics'' (New York: Columbia University Press). Trans. G. M. Goshgarian.
* 2020: ''Spinoza, the Transindividual'' (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press). Trans. M.G.E. Kelly.
Online texts
Occasional Notes on Communism. In: Krisis: Journal for Contemporary PhilosophyTheses for an Alter-Globalising Europe
(1968).
Self-Criticism: Answers to Questions from Theoretical Practice(1973).
(1977).
At The Borders Of Europe(1999).
References
Further reading
* Stoler, Ann Laura (ed.), Thinking with Balibar: A Lexicon of Conceptual Practice, Fordham University Press, 2020.
* Montag, Warren; Elsayed, Hanan (ed.), Balibar and the Citizen Subject, Edinburgh University Press, 2017.
* Deleixhe, Martin, Etienne Balibar. L'illimitation démocratique, Michalon, 2014.
* Gaille, Marie; Lacroix, Justine et Sardinha, Diogo (ed.), "Pourquoi Balibar ?", Raison Publique, 2014.
* Hewlett, Nick, Badiou, Balibar, Rancière: Re-Thinking Emancipation, Continuum, 2010.
* Lacroix, Justine, La pensée française à l'épreuve de l'Europe, Grasset, 2008.
* Raynaud, Philippe, L'Extrême gauche plurielle. Entre démocratie radicale et révolution, Autrement, 2006.
External links
Archival collections
Guide to the Etienne Balibar Papers MS.C.023.Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.
Other
Selected bibliography (up to 1998).*Anna-Verena Nosthoff, "Equaliberty: Notes on the Thought of Etienne Balibar",
Critical Legal Thinking.'
Racisms, Migration & Citizenship in Europe: Etienne Balibar and Sandro Mezzadra in Conversation (Audio-English)- darkmatter Journal, 5 Aug 2007.
intervention d'Etienne Balibar & Moishe PostoneCongrès Marx International V : Altermondialisme/ anticapitalisme. Pour une cosmopolitique alternative. October 2007
Debating with Alain Badiou on UniversalismOpening statement, 2007 Koehn Event in Critical Theory. A dialogue between Alain Badiou and Etienne Balibar on "Universalism", University of California Irvine, February 2, 2007
Etienne Balibar’s Lecture ''Spinoza’s Three Gods and the Modes of Communication'' at the Conference of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities ''Thinking with Spinoza: Politics, Philosophy and Religion'', 7 & 8 May 2009 (podcast)For a phenomenology of cruelty;Interview with E.balibar* http://nplusonemag.com/balibarism Bruce Robbins' "Balibarism!"
* http://heymancenter.org/events/thinking-with-balibar/ "Thinking with Balibar" Conference at Columbia University, fall 2014
*
Wendy Brown,
David Harvey, and
Etienne Balibar at London Critical Theory Summer School – Friday Debate 2015
and Wendy Brown,
Costas Douzinas Costas Douzinas ( el, Κώστας Δουζίνας; born 1951) is a professor of law, a founder of the Birkbeck School of Law and the Department of Law of the University of Cyprus, the founding director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities ...
, Stephen Frosh, and
Slavoj Zizek
Slavoj may refer to:
*Karel Slavoj Amerling (1807–1884), Czech teacher, writer, and philosopher
*Slavoj Černý (born 1937), Czech former cyclist
* Slavoj Žižek (born 1949), Slovenian philosopher
See also
*Záboj and Slavoj, outdoor sculpture ...
at London Critical Theory Summer School – Friday Debate 201
{{DEFAULTSORT:Balibar, Etienne
1942 births
Living people
People from Avallon
École Normale Supérieure alumni
University of Paris faculty
University of California, Irvine faculty
French political philosophers
French historians of philosophy
Continental philosophers
French Marxists
Marxist theorists
20th-century French philosophers
French male writers
Spinoza scholars
Spinozist philosophers
French expatriates in the United Kingdom
French expatriates in the United States
21st-century French philosophers
Critics of political economy