Author: Alain de Benoist

The holistic society of the Middle Ages, as embodied in the “Three Orders of Mankind,” began to be broken down by the coming to prominence of the marketplace with the rise of nation-states.

4,142 words

Part 3 of 3 (Introduction Part 1 here, Chapter I Part 2 here)

Translated by F. Roger Devlin

This strictly economic representation of society has considerable consequences. Finishing off the process of secularization and “disenchantment” of the world that is characteristic of modernity, it results in the dissolution of peoples and the systematic erosion of their particularities. At the sociological level, the adoption of economic exchange leads the society to be divided into producers, owners, and sterile classes (such as the former aristocracy) at the end of an altogether revolutionary process. (more…)

The Scottish economist Adam Smith, who understood the ways in which the market would transform human relations already at the dawn of liberalism.

3,287 words

Part 1 of 3 (Introduction Part 1 here, Chapter I Part 1 here, Chapter I Part 3 here)

Translated by F. Roger Devlin

Liberalism must, however, recognize the fact of society. But instead of asking why the social realm exists, liberals are mainly preoccupied with understanding how society is able to establish itself, maintain itself, and function. Society, as we have seen, is for them nothing but the sum of its members (the whole is nothing but the sum of its parts). It is nothing but the contingent product of individual wills, a mere assemblage of individuals all seeking to defend and satisfy their particular interests. (more…)

The early philosophers of liberalism postulated the “noble savage” as the type of man encumbered by social problems who had existed prior to the advent of civilization, and who still prevailed among the primitive peoples Europeans encountered in the rest of the world. (Detail from Benjamin West, The Death of General Wolfe, 1771.)

3,856 words

Part 1 of 3 (Introduction Part 1 here, Introduction Part 3 here, Chapter 1 Part 2 here)

Translated by F. Roger Devlin

Not being the work of a single man, liberalism has never presented itself as a unified doctrine. The authors who have laid claim to the name liberal have sometimes given divergent and even contradictory interpretations of it. Yet there must have been enough points in common between them to consider them liberal authors. It is precisely these points in common that allow us to define liberalism as a school. (more…)

1.205 slov

English original here

Více než týden po vypuknutí nepokojů se Alain de Benoist pokouší načrtnout jejich „genealogii“: specifičnost francouzské situace, dlouhodobé problémy s masovou imigrací, kultura zapírání a zakrývání etnické reality, individualismus… – to vše ještě více než v jiných zemích přiživilo plameny chaosu. (more…)

The Paris Commune of 1871, one of Europe’s first attempts to seek an alternative to liberalism.

3,103 words

Part 3 of 3 (Introduction Part I here, Introduction Part II here, Chapter 1 Part 1 here)

Translated by F. Roger Devlin

Let us sum up. Man is a “social animal” whose existence is consubstantial with that of society. Justice in the first instance is not a matter of rights but of measure; i.e., it is only defined as a relation of equity between persons living in society, so there are no holders of rights outside social life, and within it there are only those to whom rights are attributed. (more…)

5,704 words

Part 2 of 3 (Introduction Part I here, Introduction Part III here)

Translated by F. Roger Devlin

Now, for liberalism, man — far from being constituted as such by his bonds with others — must be thought of as an individual unbound by any constitutive form of belonging; i.e., outside any cultural or socio-historical context. (more…)

4,615 words

Part 1 of 3 (Introduction Part II here)

Translated by F. Roger Devlin

When liberalism is said to be the dominant ideology of our time, there are always those who protest by citing, for example, the amount of public expenditures or the level of taxation in our country. But this is looking at the problem through the wrong end of the telescope. A liberal society is not exactly the same thing as a liberal economy. (more…)

1,581 words

Czech version here

Editor’s Note: The following translation is reprinted by kind permission of Der Schattige Wald at the Actaeon Journal. The interview was originally published in the Italian journal Il Giornale on July 7. (more…)

Francie a Žluté vesty. Toto hnutí zřejmě nebude podporováno George Sorosem.

414 slov

English original here

Ptal se Yann Vallerie, z francouzštiny přeložil Greg Johnson. (Dvě poslední otázky na odlišná témata byly vypuštěny.) (more…)

2,682 words

Introduction here, Chapter 11 Part 4 here

Translated by F. Roger Devlin

As is well-known, the republican slogan “Liberty — Equality — Fraternity” was first invoked during the French Revolution.[1] At that time it was merely one slogan among many others. Falling into disuse under the Empire, and frequently called into question thereafter, it reappeared during the Revolution of 1848 when it was inscribed as a “principle” of the Republic in the Constitution of February 27, 1848. (more…)

6,471 words

Introduction here, Chapter 11 Part 3 here, Chapter 12 here

Translated by F. Roger Devlin

Biopolitics, in this context, is defined as that force immanent to the social realm which creates relations and forms of life through a cooperative form of production. (more…)

3,226 words

Introduction here, Chapter 11 Part 2 here, Chapter 11 Part 4 here

Translated by F. Roger Devlin

Intellectual labor, say Hardt and Negri, is intrinsically associated with sharing and common production. This “common,” consisting in information, knowledge, and emotional and affective relations is both the condition and the result of today’s predominant form of labor — but of course it has nothing to do with what is generally understood under this term. It does not found a community, for it has neither unity nor identity. (more…)

Antonio Negri (left) & Michael Hardt

5,250 words

Introduction here, Chapter 11 Part 1 here, Chapter 11 Part 3 here

Translated by F. Roger Devlin

“The Empire is constructing a biopolitical order because production has become biopolitical,” states Antonion Negri.[i] That means that the emergence of the Empire as a paradigm of biopower is indissociable from the appearance of a new form of production, viz. “immaterial” labor, which is defined by Hardt and Negri as “labor which produces a non-material good such as a service, a cultural product, knowledge, or communication” (more…)