ABSTRACT
Single-handedly, Castoriadis and Socialisme ou barbarie challenged both great lies of the age: the supposed emancipatory role of Stalinist socialism and that of the free world, the latter being a Cold War product which homogenized liberal democracies and abominable tyrannies under the sign of the free market and anticommunism. The rationale for tracing Castoriadis’s origins is important in a double sense. The unique feature of Castoriadis’s theory in the period of Socialisme ou barbarie : the universalist character of his critique of bureaucratic capitalism as a global phenomenon, directly grows out of the Greek experience and its theoretical elucidation. The characterization of the break with Marx was important in order to show the specific claims Castoriadis’s own theory makes as well as to ascertain the degree the theory is capable of living up to its set tasks. The theory has very strict requirements which make living among them a difficult task.
