Political Ecology of Common People

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.

• 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-State1. The Modern Ecological Class Structure1.1. Capital as a social-ecological fact1.2. Competence as a social-ecological fact1.3. The "fundamental" or "popular" class: the class of the "common people"2. Class Violence and National Violence2.1. The nation-state and its regimes of hegemony2.2. From the Nation to the System of Nations2.3. The political intertwining of class-colony/gender 3. World-System, World-State, World-Nation3.1. The Nation-State within the World-System3.2. Beyond the World-System: the World-State 3.3. Towards the World-Nation?Part II: Citizens of a World-Nation, Residents of the Planet4. Social Domination Alone Is Destroying the Planet4.1. The order of battle4.2. Unthought aspects of productivism and consumerism4.3. On the right and proper use of the planet5. Only Struggles for Liberation Can Protect the Planet5.1. Class struggles as ecological struggles5.2. Gender and Global-South struggles as ecological struggles6. The World-Nation, the Ultimate Ecological Community6.1. The nation as the ultimate figure of the common6.2. Humanity, the ultimate nation6.3. A national politics for humanity6.4. Epilogue: a community of the living?