Marx 13/13 seminar: The Last Texts of Marx (Gotha Program, Bakunin, Zasulich) with Étienne Balibar

The philosopher Étienne Balibar reads and discusses with Bernard E. Harcourt Marx’s last texts (The Critique of the Gotha Program (1875), Conspectus of Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy (1874), and Letters to Vera Zasulich (1881)) at Marx 13/13 @Columbia in Paris. Read more here: https://marx1313.law.columbia.edu/13-13/ The full-length introduction to Marx 13/13 is here: https://tinyurl.com/IntroMarx1313 The recording of the seminar is here: https://youtube.com/live/5nwOCRrql4w Information about Marx 13/13: https://marx1313.law.columbia.edu/ Information on the 13/13 series: https://cccct.law.columbia.edu/content/13-13 ***** This is the seminar with Étienne Balibar at Marx 13/13 at which we read and discuss Marx's last writings, including his Critique of the Gotha Program (1875), his conspectus and critique of Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy (1874), and his letter and drafts to the Russian revolutionary, Vera Zasulich (1881). 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. We will study them at the seminar Marx 13/13 with 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 this final, closing session of Marx 13/13, the philosopher Étienne Balibar joins us to discuss the final texts of Marx and to reflect on our discussions during the year-long seminar. Welcome to Marx 13/13!