ABSTRACT
One does not normally think of anarchism and recent French philosophical thought as having a natural affinity. Of the major thinkers in recent French philosophy that have addressed political issues – Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Jean-François Lyotard, Michel Foucault, Alain Badiou, Jacques Rancière – none of them have openly embraced the anarchist tradition. Among them, only Rancière has occasionally utilized the term in anything like the sense most anarchists give it. There has been much dialogue between these thinkers and the Marxist tradition. Often, this dialogue involves various kinds of modification of Marxist thought. However, given the contortions made in order to bring Marx into alignment with current thinking, one might wonder whether it would be better simply to seek a new tradition in which to embed their thought.
