Jacques Derrida on Karl Marx (and his The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte)

What is it about?

The brutality of the current phase of the declining US cycle of accumulation coincides, in the Derrida community, with the universality of the consensus on Martin Hägglund’s thesis about the radical atheism underlying Derrida’s entire oeuvre. According to this thesis, Derrida’s 1993 Spectres de Marx does not mark any ethical turn in late Derrida, but instead remains faithful to early Derrida’s deconstruction of presence. For my study on Derrida’s relevance for a materialist critique of our conjuncture this implies that there is no singularity of Specters of Marx within Derrida’s oeuvre other than the fact that it actually is the Derrida book on Marx. Which in turn means that the book is potentially susceptible to all the criticism that the rest of Derrida’s work has received.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

Sketches a Lacanian critique of Jacques Derrida’s critique of Karl Marx