Denis Collin

Machiavel a la r putation d' tre un penseur immoral. Son ouvrage le plus c l bre, Le Prince, est accus d' tre un manuel de rouerie et de cynisme en politique.Au contraire, il nous invite regarder en face la r alit politique et humaine. Contre les illusions, les discours moralisateurs, il s'agit de chercher la v rit et d'adopter une d marche scientifique pour penser s rieusement l'action.Cette introduction nous offre les cl s pour comprendre Le Prince, livre fondateur de la pens e politique moderne, et l'actualit de ses enseignements pour nos soci t s contemporaines.

For four centuries, the modern world has been dominated by machinery. One philosopher sees living beings as perfected machines (Descartes), another sees nature as the work of an engineer equipped with a supercomputer (Leibniz). Money is the soul of capital, the machine is its body. But the elimination of life in favor of the mechanical leads to a general commodification of human life and a loss of our being-in-the-world. Turning nature into a mere raw material, replacing vital processes with mechanical procedures-all this makes it possible to treat human beings as things, and turn them into predictable beings. This man, who was promised to become "master and possessor of nature", is in the process of becoming the servant of his own creations. If we don't want to give way to the posthuman, it's time to take the measure of what's at stake and think about how we can put grains of sand in the machine. That's what this book is all about.

Le monde moderne, depuis quatre si cles, est domin par la machinerie. Tel philosophe voit les tres vivants comme des machines perfectionn es (Descartes), tel autre pense la nature comme l'oeuvre d'un ing nieur muni d'un supercalculateur (Leibniz). L'argent est l' me du capital, la machine en est le corps. Or, l' limination de la vie au profit du m canique conduit une r ification g n rale de la vie humaine et une perte de notre tre-au-monde. Faire de la nature une simple mati re premi re, remplacer les processus vitaux par des proc dures m caniques, tout cela permet de traiter les humains comme des choses pour en faire des tres pr dictibles. Cet homme, qui l'on promettait de devenir ma tre et possesseur de la nature, est en passe de devenir le serviteur de ses propres cr ations. Si nous ne voulons pas laisser la place au posthumain, il est temps de prendre la mesure de ce qui se joue et de r fl chir aux moyens de mettre des grains de sable dans la machine. C'est l'objet de ce livre.

Emancipation is the real thread running through Marx's thought. He's not concerned with capitalism, or Marxism for that matter, but with capital: it's this fundamental notion that we need to return to in order to understand Marx's thought and communism. This also requires resituating the richness of his argumentation in the light of his life's journey, rather than the myth that has been forged around the father of "Marxism". Denis Collin helps us understand Marx's ideas and why he deserves to be considered one of humanity's greatest thinkers.

L' mancipation est le v ritable fil conducteur de la pens e de Marx. Il ne s'occupe pas du capitalisme, ni du marxisme d'ailleurs, mais du capital c'est cette notion fondamentale qu'il s'agit de revenir pour comprendre la pens e et le communisme de Marx. Cela n cessite galement de resituer la richesse de son argumentation l'aune de son parcours de vie, et non plus du mythe qu'on a forg autour du p re du marxisme . Denis Collin nous permet de comprendre quelles sont les id es de Marx et pourquoi il m rite d' tre consid r comme l'un des plus grands penseurs de l'humanit .

Nos soci t s contemporaines nous laissent croire que nous sommes libres; c'est un leurre. Nous sommes encore ferr s dans nos cha nes, y compris en Occident. Des cha nes que nous prenons pour des ailes: nous nous croyons en d mocratie, nous pensons que le travail permet de nous manciper et nous imaginons que les nouvelles technologies nous facilitent la vie. Telle est notre novlangue quotidienne. Mais l'oligarchie r gne, l'homme est embourb dans la soci t de consommation et le lib ralisme, le contr le s curitaire est de plus en plus pr gnant, tandis que les progr s m dicaux en mati re de procr ation nous rapprochent d'une fabrication industrielle de l'humain . Dans ce contexte, nous devons interroger et repenser les conditions d'une v ritable lib ration humaine. C'est le travail qu'a entrepris Denis Collin. Se basant sur de nombreuses r f rences historiques et philosophiques, il en red finit les concepts et nous ouvre de nouvelles perspectives politiques, conomiques, sociales et m taphysiques. La mise en place d' associations partielles tous les niveaux de l'organisation politique, la fin du salariat au profit de la coop ration des producteurs, la r alisation de l'homme au travers de son activit cr atrice, la garantie du primat de la subjectivit face au scientisme, font partie de ces armes destin es rompre nos cha nes.

It's high time we realized that there is hardly a thinker who has more perceptively sketched the outlines of a future that is our present. Contrary to what is repeated by those who would like to refute Marx without having read him, the economic predictions deduced from the analyses in Capital have, for the most part, been validated. This book demonstrates this with rare clarity, tracing the history of capitalism over the last hundred years in the light of Marxian theses. The concentration and centralization of capital, the creation of a world market and a global division of labor, right up to the emergence of Chinese power, are all in Marx. Joint-stock companies, investment funds, hedge funds, the development of speculation not on actual profits, but on expectations of future profits, junk bonds-in short, all the ways in which capital seeks to overcome the barriers inherent in the capitalist relationship-are all set out in some detail in Capital. Marx was right, for the worse. But capitalism keeps rising from its ashes. Revolution is a long time coming. Have we reached the end of history? Are rebellions nothing more than a flash in the pan on a joyless horizon? Are we condemned to watch the stock market yo-yo like helpless spectators? The author prefers not to resign himself to this. He shows how, by subjecting the entire planet to its law, by turning billions of Indians, Chinese and Africans into proletarians, by exploiting every possible field of accumulation, capitalism is preparing for the moment when the logic of surplus value will indeed collapse. In the meantime, this book examines a few avenues for a radical alternative.

Machiavelli has a reputation as an immoral thinker. His most famous work, The Prince, is oftemnm criticized as being a manual for political cunning and cynicism.On the contrary, Machiavelli invites us to face up to political and human reality. Faced with illusions and moralistic rhetoric, we must seek the truth and adopt a scientific approach to seriously reflect upon action.This introduction provides us with the keys to understanding The Prince, a foundational book of modern political thought, and the relevance of its teachings for our contemporary societies.

Our contemporary societies let us believe that we are free; it is a delusion. We are still shackled in our chains, even in the West. Chains that we take for wings: we believe ourselves to be in a democracy, we think that work allows us to emancipate ourselves and we imagine that new technologies facilitate our lives. This is our daily "novlangue".But oligarchy reigns, man is mired in consumerism and liberalism, security control is more and more prevalent, while medical progress in procreation brings us closer to an "industrial fabrication of the human". In this context, we must question and rethink the conditions of a true human liberation.This is the work that Denis Collin has undertaken. Basing himself on numerous historical and philosophical references, he redefines the concepts and opens up new political, economic, social and metaphysical perspectives. The setting up of "partial associations" at all levels of political organization, the end of wage labor in favor of the cooperation of producers, the realization of man through his creative activity, the guarantee of the primacy of subjectivity in the face of scientism, are among the weapons intended to break our chains.