Watch the Final Seminar of Marx 13/13 with Étienne Balibar:
Watch the full-length introduction here:
The philosopher Étienne Balibar reads and discusses
Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Program, Conspectus of Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy, and Letter to Vera Zasulich
Tuesday, May 27, 2025
Columbia Global Paris Center
What makes these final texts so utterly fascinating and important is that they encapsulate Marx’s post-economic political thought: his political thinking after he had fully developed and articulated his mature political-economic theories. These political texts of the Late Marx—by contrast to the Communist Manifesto (1848), the Eighteenth Brumaire (1852), or the earlier articles on the thefts of wood (1842)—formulate political views within the framework of Marx’s mature economic thinking.
What we have, in effect, here, is the unwritten final political volume of Capital.
In this political moment, it is especially important to end here, on these political writings, in this last seminar of Marx 13/13, in order to discuss their contemporary relevance. I cannot think of a better critical thinker to do that with than the philosopher Étienne Balibar, with whom we began this seminar series eight months ago and who has been a constant companion on this journey—perhaps since at least the early 1960s.
In the final, closing session of Marx 13/13, the philosopher Étienne Balibar will join us to discuss the final texts of Marx and to reflect on our discussions during the year-long seminar.
Welcome to the final session of Marx 13/13!
