In this paper, it is argued that even though the concept of community does not play a significant role in Marxist theory, Marxism needs a notion of community, and the paper sets out to theorize how to make sense of this concept in a Marxist theoretical setting. The paper claims that Althusser’s philosophy, especially his elaboration of the concept of practice, may assist us in this task, and it sets out to explore what can be gained by redefining community in terms of practice. In Althusser’s theory, practice and ideology are very closely linked. While recognizing the importance of Althusser’s theory of ideology, the paper then subsequently explores an alternative configuration of the concepts community and ideology. Finally, it is claimed that this analysis may help us to better understand ideologies such as racism and nationalism.

'The VILE MULTITUDE' - MARX AND THE PARIS COMMUNEThe entire purpose of Marx’s work is to enable the working class to act as a revolutionary subject, i.e. as its own liberator, destined to overthrow capitalism. However, this paper demonstrates that this view, which has political validity, is supplemented by another more nuanced and more theoretically interesting understanding of revolutionary upheavals in Marx’s work. This more subtle approach is found particularly in his political analyses, and the paper specifically interprets his writings on the Paris Commune in this light. It is argued that in Marx’s analysis of the actual events, it is not the working classes of Paris that make the revolution. Rather, the revolution is triggered by a series of extraordinary circumstances, and by external agents. It produces an undecidedness, here referred to as a multitude, which is only après coup seized and defined by the working classes. Finally, the paper details how this reading has consequences for a Marxist understanding of politics in general and revolutionary upheavals in particular.

Den europæiske filosofis tradition opstod i opgøret med sofistikken og definiterede sig fra første færd i modsætning til denne.

What constitutes the legitimacy of democratic rule? In this paper it is argued that the answer to this question is the repression of an original exercise of power, which cannot be legitimate, because its function is to delimit and define the demos. Every type of government is based on a similar moment of illegitimacy, and every type of government seeks to make this invisible by inventing a myth of origin – in the case of democracy, this myth is the demos as a pre-existing entity. The paper traces this myth, first in Rousseau’s concept of general will, then in Gutman and Thompson’s contemporary version of a democratic narrative as ‘deliberative democracy’. The common denominator is that these narratives work only as a function of a constitutive void, which both constitutes and disqualifies them. Finally, it is argued that Rancière presents us with an alternative, making it possible to formulate a concept of democracy that does not need a legitimizing myth.

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