Abstract

In this short response to Balibar’s article, I discuss what I consider to be some of the most radical implications of Balibar’s notion of transindividualism. Specifically, I argue that in his reading of Marx, Spinoza and Freud, Balibar complicates not only the categories of the individual and the mass but also even the way that these two concepts are connected, along with a more general subversion of the most fundamental building blocks of capitalism. Balibar shows that communism is already present and active within the heart of alienation, materiality and dialectical relationality and in this way can neither be rooted out nor denied its aleatory presence and possibility.