Marxism after Lahire

Résumé 0

This article dialogues with Bernard Lahire’s book The Fundamental Structures of Human Societies (2023), which, by relating Marx to Darwin, could lead to a profound renewal of Marxism. It takes as an axiom that the nature-culture couple cannot suffice for the study of the human species, and that the world of life is only accessible from a natural-social-cultural triptych. This animal “sociality” is stimulated by the long dependence of the child on the mother, determining a relationship between knowledge and domination which will permeate all human institutions. J. Bidet relates this investigation to that of Florian Mazel on ecclesial domination in protomodernity, and to the contributions of Foucault and Bourdieu to the understanding of “the fundamental structure of modern society”, where market coordination is articulated through hierarchical organization. Here is, in the language of Lahire, the “invariant” around which, until today, its “variations” are understood, and its revolutionary potentialities are conceived.