Frédéric Lordon

The turn to Spinoza by many Marxists combines the classic problem of Marxism,
that of base and superstructure, economy and ideology, with Spinoza’s challenging
assertion of the identity of order of connection of ideas and things. This paper looks
at two contemporary neo-Spinozists, Frédéric Lordon and Yves Citton, examining the
ways in which their works intertwine economy and ideology, desire and imagination.
The point, however, is not to just read Marx with Spinoza, but to use both together to
make sense of the imaginary and affective dimension of changes within the economy

Dans cette présentation donnée à la conférence d'Historical Materialism donnée à Londres en novembre 2016, je m'intéresse à la notion spinoziste d'indignation et à son interprétation au sein du marxisme spinoziste. En effet, si ce couple Marx/Spinoza a été philosophiquement fertile dans les dernières décennies, le concept d'indignation nous oblige à trancher entre une interprétation strictement spinoziste et une interprétation plus marxiste. Ces deux positions contradictoires peuvent être lues, l'une dans Capitalisme, désir et servitude de Frédéric Lordon et l'autre dans Commonwealth de Michael Hardt et Antonio Negri.
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In the following paper, given at the conference organised by Historical Materialism in november 2016 in London, I focused on the Spinozist notion of indignation et on the use of the notion in Spinozist Marxism. Even though the couple Marx/Spinoza has been fertile in the last decades, the concept of indignation forces us to choose between a strictly Spinozist understanding of the notion and a more Marxist one. These two contradictory stances can be read in Willing Slaves of Capital by Frédéric Lordon and in Commonwealth by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri.

In the context of Spinoza's psychological and political theory, money appears as a profound social problem. I agree with Frédéric Lordon and André Orléan that Spinoza's psychological theory can explain how multiple agents can converge on a single monetary good as a means of payment. I disagree, however, with their further claim that this convergence brings an end to rivalrous conflict among those agents. Instead, I argue, it intensifies and concentrates this rivalry, threatening the very bonds that hold society together. Yet money is, on Spinoza's account, necessary for commerce, and commerce is necessary for humans to live together. The social problem that thus arises is that of ensuring that money can play its vital role in supporting commerce without giving way to destructive rivalries that can destroy society. My interpretation of Spinoza on these points is influenced by the theory of René Girard, with which Spinoza's account has some striking parallels.

This article, while confirming the great interest of spinozist approaches to the state and the currency of A. Orléan and F. Lordon, discusses their analysis which seems to ignore The Reason.
Two texts are discussed:
the description on the EHESS website of F. Lordon's seminar "structuralism of passions",
the article "Genesis of the State and Genesis of the Currency " of A. Orléan and F. Lordon.
This article is based on article (B-2) "Fundamental Premises for any SHS" and above all on article (A-3) criticising Spinoza's Reason and introducing multiple reasons in his works.
In the two texts discussed, Reason is never mentioned: on the one hand there are feelings and on the other hand human institutions (" Majuscule institutions", money, etc.).
By taking up the Spinozist criteria of the "true ", both (a-) the concept of the "State of a mercantile nature", and (b-) the feelings lent to merchants, to explain the supposed things put in place are not proven propositions, in the sense given in Ethics, but premises to be accepted or rejected .... according to our own feelings as readers.
For our part, we accept them with pleasure. We accept them more easily because we will then replace the Reason according to Spinoza with the reasons we propose in the article (A-3) criticising Spinoza's Reason and introducing multiple reasons in his works, before mobilising them to better document the spinozist intuitions of these two authors.

Da oltre un decennio Frédéric Lordon conduce un significativo lavoro teorico volto a ripensare lo statuto delle scienze umane a partire da un'originale lettura della filosofia di Spinoza 1 . La prospettiva sembra promettente, soprattutto se si considera il principale nodo teorico da cui muove, vale a dire l'esigenza di superare la contrapposizione tra l'approccio olistico dello strutturalismo, che ha dominato la cultura europea, e in particolar modo francese, tra anni Sessanta e Settanta, e l'individualismo metodologico che ha egemonizzato le scienze sociali a partire dagli anni Ottanta 2 .

In the following paper, given at the conference organised by Historical Materialism in november 2016 in London, I focused on the Spinozist notion of indignation et on the use of the notion in Spinozist Marxism. Even though the couple Marx/Spinoza has been fertile in the last decades, the concept of indignation forces us to choose between a strictly Spinozist understanding of the notion and a more Marxist one. These two contradictory stances can be read in Willing Slaves of Capital by Frédéric Lordon and in Commonwealth by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri.

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Dans cette présentation donnée à la conférence d'Historical Materialism donnée à Londres en novembre 2016, je m'intéresse à la notion spinoziste d'indignation et à son interprétation au sein du marxisme spinoziste. En effet, si ce couple Marx/Spinoza a été philosophiquement fertile dans les dernières décennies, le concept d'indignation nous oblige à trancher entre une interprétation strictement spinoziste et une interprétation plus marxiste. Ces deux positions contradictoires peuvent être lues, l'une dans Capitalisme, désir et servitude de Frédéric Lordon et l'autre dans Commonwealth de Michael Hardt et Antonio Negri.

The paper attempts to stress the concept of immanence, as it has been developed by Deleuze and Guattari through Spinoza, in order to provide a critique of the so called platform capitalism. The digital dimension of economy and politics in fact represents a sort of a counterattack versus Deleuze and Guattari's philosophical perspective of emancipation and the goal of the paper becomes to reactivate such a perspective by reading the works of two important contemporary scholars: Frédréric Lordon and Antoinette Rouvroy. While Lordon represents a powerful way to reactivate Spinoza's immanence in order to provide a new affirmative politics, Rouvroy shows to what degree contemporary capitalism, through its «algorithmic governmentality», is short-circuiting some of the concept developed by the French Theory (from Simondon's transinvidual to Deleuze and Guattari's rhizome and plan of immanence). With the help of these authors and of Benjiamin Bratton, the paper finally shows Immanence's symptoms of weakness in front of such a capitalism, and it attempts to recharge or reload the very immanence taking care of " ingenium " , conceived as the fundamental concept of a new micropolitics.

En este artículo analizo cómo las demandas agrarias de un sindicato de trabajadores rurales del extremo norte del Uruguay han sido administradas en el marco de una política gubernamental de desarrollo que pretendió convertir a sus respectivos beneficiarios en productores eficientes de caña de azúcar. Desde una perspectiva que conjuga el pensamiento de Gilles Deleuze y Félix Guattari con el análisis marxiano de los sistemas de crédito, examino la convergencia conflictiva entre lucha agraria y desarrollo rural, conceptualizándola como un equipamiento inestable de captura del deseo colectivo. A través de la observación participante y en diálogo con los beneficiarios de las políticas de desarrollo en el norte uruguayo, evalúo las consecuencias económicas del “equipamiento de deseo”, señalo sus condiciones de (im)posibilidad y los caminos para su posible superación política. Finalizo reflexionando sobre la primacía creadora del deseo respecto de todo proceso de captura que apunte a encauzarlo y funcionalizarlo.

This article takes up our articles (C-1-1), (C-1-a) and (C-1-b) in order to discuss the proposals of B. Friot and F. Lordon to get out of capitalism, and then to sketch out complementary proposals, notably concerning the initial break to be made (very little mentioned by one and the other) and the discourses to be held to obtain the break. Lordon2 to get out of capitalism, and then to sketch out complementary proposals, notably concerning the initial break to be made (very little mentioned by either of them) and the speeches to be made to obtain the determined support of almost everyone during this break. This initial break has as its sole objective the questioning of the "social relations of appropriation" of the means of production for profit, that is to say to break the monopoly of appropriation by the shareholders by allowing the collective of employees to appropriate the means of production in proportion to their contribution to them.
In relation to the Friot-Lordon proposals, this article addresses four points: (1-) arguments for transformation, (2-) acceptability of their solution, (3-) questions about the citizen anthropology implicitly retained, (4-) what are the economic "balances" to be respected?
With regard to our proposals, more or less the same points are addressed, while also emphasising that the initial break proposed is a necessary step prior to the Friot-Lordon proposals or variants of these, including not planning anything more before having analysed the consequences of this break.

On vie dans un monde des contraints. Et dans ce monde il y a au moins deux genres des celles-ci. D'abord, on a des contraintes physiques qui sont issues de la nature. Mais il y a aussi celles qui ont pour leur origine l'activité sociale des êtres-humaines, c'est-a-dire les contraints sociales. Et parfois on les trouve tous les deux très agaçant. Donc, de la même manière qu'un homme ou une femme ne peut qu'être actifs physiquement seulement un certain nombre d'heures par jour, l'Australie ne peut pas s'en passer de son industrie de charbon, et la France ne peut pas arrêter ses ventes des armes aux pays comme l'Arabie Saoudite ou l'Egypte. Le contraint sociale concernant les deux derniers questions s'appelle « la crainte pour l'économie ». Et il semble que nous nous approchons pas à pas d'un moment de notre histoire où il faudra faire le choix entre les deux sortes des contraints. Soit on brise les contraints sociaux, soit nous nous trouverons brisés par les limites imposés par notre planète. Jusqu'ici on ne peut que constater avec ironie le simple fait que l'humanité n'est pas capable de sauver sa planète parce que cela mettrait en danger l'économie. Sauf que contrairement a la planète, quant a l'économie elle représente le choix des êtres-humaines. Cet article a pour son but l'intervention dans les débats liés aux questions environnementaux, qui-heureusement-ont lieu régulièrement en France.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the works of Franck Fischbach and Frédéric Lordon, two French philosophers whose common project is to combine some main Spinozian concepts with Marxian intuitions in order to develop a critique of the recent ideological and material mutations within neoliberal capitalism. In doing so, we will see how the two authors offer a new conception of alienation based on the Spinozian notion of finitude. The capitalistic alienation will be described as an attempt to deny the human finitude through a triple process of subjectivization, de-objectification and fixation of desire. Finally, we will investigate the idea of an imaginary of “positive finitude” as a way of emancipation avoiding the illusory pitfalls of powerlessness and omnipotence, characteristic of a capitalistic subjectivity in lack of finitude.

This paper develops out of a larger project attempting to develop a historical-materialist theory of populism. In this context, what I want to do is reflect on some of the implications of the centrality of the idea of 'reclaiming popular sovereignty' to contemporary mass movements (the movements of the squares, 'left populisms', the revitalization of left social democracy), which have fostered a dawning sense that the left might, after a long interregnum, have 'the majority for their own side'. 1 If this idea represents, as I think it does, a kind of vital 'common sense' of contemporary politics, then we likely ought to do something other than simply dismiss it as mystifying in class terms or as insufficiently radical -we ought to understand why it occupies this position and what possibilities and dilemmas a philosophy and a political strategy beginning in and in conversation with it can develop. So, this is an initial sketch of some ideas that will ultimately lead into reflections on 'the party', though I can't take up that issue here.

Kapitalizm, ücretli emek ilişkisini baskıdan çok rıza üreterek, arzu yönetimi ile sağlamaktadır. Sevince yönelen conatus'a sevinç nesneleri verilir, çalışanlar sevinçli otomatlara, gönüllü kölelere dönüştürülür." Frédéric Lordon-Kapitalizm, Arzu ve Kölelik (Kitap İncelemesi) Frédéric Lordon, "Kapitalizm, Arzu ve Kölelik" 1 başlıklı kitabının önsöz'ünde, "ilişkileri konu alan bir yapısalcılık ile duyguları konu alan bir antropolojiyi, yani Marx ile Spinoza'yı birleştirme savını öne sürmeyi" amaçladığını ifade ediyor. Kapitalizmi yeniden tartışmak isteyen Lordon, bu yeni-yeniden tartışmaya fırsat verecek olanın, Spinozacı duygu antropolojisi ile ücretli emeği konu alan Marksist teorinin kesiştiği nokta olan "birinin arzusu, öbürlerinin etkime gücü ve bunların bir araya gelmesini belirleyen, ücretli emek ilişkilerinin yapısının ürünü olan duygular" olduğunu düşünüyor (Lordon, 2013, s.12-15). İşte bu kesişme noktasını esas alan Lordon, rızanın tam olarak ne anlama geldiği sorusunu soruyor. Ona göre bu soru, sömürü ve yabancılaşmanın ne demek olduğunu yeniden düşünmek, ister eleştirel ister analitik bakımdan olsun, kapitalizmi yeniden tartışma fırsatı doğuruyor. Lordon'un Spinoza ve Marx'ı birleştirme girişiminin değerlendirilmesinde, Spinoza ve Marx'tan alınanlar kadar alınmayanlar, dışarıda bırakılanlar da önem taşıyor. Bunları tespit edebilmek için Lordon'un Spinoza, Marx ve kapitalizm okumasına odaklanılması gerekiyor. Ama bundan önce sorulması gereken bir soru daha var: Geçmişte benzer sentez denemeleri yapılmadı mı? 1 Çev. Akın Terzi, Metis, Birinci Basım, Mart 2013, İstanbul (Capitalisme, désir et servitude, La fabrique, 2010)

Pdf document available on : https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01875878
The Tripoli Al-Fayha’ a (Lebanon) urban area has a complex and eventful history. For a century its society has been facing transformative changes with a multitude of sources and consequences essentially linked to the reconfiguration of its economic structures born of its incorporation into modern Lebanon. Once an ancient and influential commercial city with regional and international reach, Tripoli has lost much of its economic vitality. It no longer
creates sufficient wealth to provide its population with the continuation of past prosperity. It has become a place of physical, economic and symbolic battles in which its inhabitants
struggle daily to ensure their livelihood. Postulating the establishment of an economy now principally based on a system of land and real-estate rent and of speculation, our thesis is proposing to analyse the reasons and true tenor of this particular process of production of urban space, as well as its mechanisms and effects, as a study, over time, of the spatialities linked to three urban projects: coastal planning, the realization of a real-estate driven land reparcelling of suburban orchards, and the redevelopment and enhancement of the Medina. The analysis of the sets of actions specific to these three situations – taken in their spatial, historical, and sociopolitical dynamics as well as on a local, regional, national, and international scale – invites one to question the meaning of urbanities and of a possible citadinity at play in Tripoli and, beyond this, to question the fundamental nature of the
power exercised there. This analysis leads us then to ponder on the formation and existence of, as P. Bourdieu would designate it, a real-estate illusio, produced from and producing a
powerful pleasurable “common affect”, which has reached – following B. Spinoza’s proposition – a state of imperium with unsustainable human and governmental consequences.

Le titre de cet article « Avec Lordon, Piketty et tous les autres économistes, pas de danger pour le capital au XXIe siècle » est un clin d'oeil à l'article de F. Lordon1 « Avec Thomas Piketty, pas de danger pour le capital au XXIe siècle ».
Néanmoins, envers les économistes et les travaux cités, notre article n'a ni la verve, ni l'ironie du talentueux article cité de F. Lordon mais il aboutit à la même conclusion : compte tenu des sujets étudiés, des approches mobilisées, des jugements prononcés et des évolutions proposées par les auteurs cités, il n'y a « pas de danger pour le capital au XXIe siècle ».
Pour « Ne pas se raconter d'histoire »2 cet article rappelle quelques bases factuelles à propos du pouvoir du fait de la maîtrise des moyens de production, de la « responsabilité limitée », de la non existence juridique de l'entreprise et de la sphère financière.
Ensuite, cet article analyse quelques discours et propositions3, résolument de gauche d'après leurs auteurs respectifs, pour montrer que, au regard des bases rappelées, on se raconte beaucoup d'histoires, notamment sur la force des arguments moraux face aux droits fondamentaux : il n'y a donc « pas de danger pour le capital au XXIe siècle ».
Les discours sur les thèmes suivants sont analysés : (1-) discours « juridiques » sur les actionnaires, (2-) (absence de ..) discours sur l'acquisition des moyens de production, (3-) confusion actionnaires-entreprises, (4-) discours sur la plus-value, sur son usage et sur la sphère financière, (5-) nombreux discours sur l'exploitation, (6-) les évolutions proposées.
Ces analyses renvoient le plus souvent sur des articles déjà disponibles : article (C-1-1) Genèse et caractéristiques du capitalisme, article (C-1-a) Critique des discours actionnarial et marxiste sur les procédés d’acquisition et d'enrichissement, article (C-1-b) Acquisition des moyens de production, article (C-1-d) sortir du capitalisme, discussion à partir des propositions de Friot et Lordon, article (C-1-e) Absence d'analyse marxiste des causes de la puissance du capitaliste.
Enfin, à propos de l'évolution préalable à mettre en œuvre pour « casser » le capitalisme, cet article renvoie à l'article (C-1-f) transition nécessaire pour sortir du capitalisme.

This conference paper tries to reveal a performative (and hermeneutical) inconsistency characteristic of deterministic explanations of human behavior: when we better understand things, we suppose ourselves able to correct our relation towards the world. But what are we exactly correcting when we understand that our conduct is predetermined?

Through the contemporary intellectual review Lignes, this article charts the responses to neoliberalism and crisis of Michel Surya, Frédéric Lordon and Frédéric Neyrat. In the mid-1990s Surya critiques discourses of transparency which attempt to morally justify financial capitalism. The economist Lordon corroborates Surya’s account of the cynical use of ‘transparency’ within financial milieus, noting that the market’s wealth is generated by opacity. Yet Surya’s account spreads beyond the financial sector, suggesting that the demand for transparency creates a generalized atmosphere of surveillance and ostentation, implying that an opaque withdrawal from the public sphere is a mode of resistance. Also publishing in Lignes, Neyrat moves beyond the potentially sterile binary of transparency and opacity to suggest ‘exposure’ as a mediating term measuring both degrees of appearance and disappearance, and  the exposure of individuals to concrete threats such as debt, harm, surveillance and expulsion. Such conceptual texts are anchored in comparisons to UK Uncut, Occupy, le comité invisible and the black bloc.

Cet article discute les articles critiques de F. Lordon et de J. Périchaud sur l'ouvrage « Le capital du 21. siècle » de T. Piketty1. Il en discute les points suivants : (1-) les définitions de « capital » par Piketty, Périchaud et Lordon (et Marx), (2-) les critiques de Périchaud et Lordon du fait de ces définitions, (3-) la caractéristique du capitalisme renvoyant dos à dos Piketty et Périchaud-Lordon.
Cette discussion repose sur les bases du système de production et de mise à disposition de biens et de services que nous considérons comme les plus importantes : les moyens de production, et ce pour répondre à deux questions : qui les financent et qui les possèdent. Notre approche se veut marxiste (en distinguant ceux qui possèdent et gouvernent les moyens de production et ceux qui n'ont que leur force de travail à proposer) et matérialiste (elle ne s'embarrasse pas d'histoires et de concepts et se concentre sur les faits)2.
Cette discussion renvoie à des articles déjà disponibles : article (C-1-1) Genèse et caractéristiques du capitalisme, article (C-1-a) Critique des discours actionnarial et marxiste sur les procédés d’acquisition et d'enrichissement, article (C-1-b) Acquisition des moyens de production, article (C-1-d) sortir du capitalisme, discussion à partir des propositions de Friot et Lordon, article (C-1-e) Absence d'analyse marxiste des causes de la puissance du capitaliste.
Tous ces articles reposent sur le même constat : seuls les « capitalistes » possèdent de fait et gouvernent les moyens de production, alors qu'ils n'y participent financièrement que peu : du fait de la responsabilité limitée et de l'inexistence juridique de l'entreprise, celle-ci contribue beaucoup plus aux moyens de production mais ne peut en être propriétaire au titre de sa contribution3 : l'entreprise finance les moyens de production que possède le capitaliste, et ce en plus des dividendes et rachat d'actions qu'elle lui verse, tout en payant tout le reste (salaires et charges, impôts et taxes, etc..).

À partir d’une lecture de trois textes récents, cet article s’attache à décrire une poétique particulière, qui met en rapport expérimentation formelle et engagement politique. D’un retournement l’autre (2011) de Frédéric Lordon, Poétique de l’emploi (2018) de Noémi Lefebvre et Les enfants vont bien (2019) de Nathalie Quintane inventent tous trois, selon des modalités différentes, des formes visant à rendre inopérante une langue (politique, médiatique, économique) jugée délétère. Nous montrons qu’à la suite des analyses de Victor Klemperer au sujet de la colonisation de la langue allemande par le national-socialisme, ces écrivains mettent en lumière les ruses et les tours de la “novlangue” contemporaine. Leurs textes ne se limitent toutefois pas à en constater les effets néfastes : tout en dévoilant le caractère pernicieux de cette langue qui se propage au point de devenir commune, ils visent, par le biais d’une série de formes poétiques que nous mettons en évidence, à lui ôter son pouvoir. Chez ces auteurs, la création littéraire est résolument branchée sur l’action politique. Dans la lignée des réflexions de Giorgio Agamben sur la révolution, nous proposons de qualifier leur poétique de destituante.

E l pensamiento occidental se rehúsa a abandonar la bien arraigada idea de que la razón constituye la cualidad humana por excelencia. En el siglo XX, el suelo sobre el que descansaban los grandes paradigmas del conocimiento se resquebrajó ante la afirmación de nuestra vacuidad. Los viejos intentos humanistas que buscaban determinar la esencia de lo humano dieron a la razón un lugar secundario en pos de su aparente contraparte, los sentimientos. Toda esta polémica tuvo como telón de fondo la crisis de los fundamentos que cristalizó en la muy conocida muerte de Dios, tesis que obligó a replantear la montura conceptual sobre la cual discurre, aún hoy, el pensamiento occidental.

La presente relazione si occupa di analizzare nello specifico l'opera Capitalismo, desiderio e servitù di Frédéric Lordon (DeriveApprodi, Roma 2015), soffermandosi in modo particolare sul lavoro e il nuovo senso della mobilitazione salariale contemporanea.