Rethinking Transition in the Multiple Times of the Present

Times are dark. In an age characterized by systemic chaos both in the international domain and in the world system, wars proliferate. Climate change increasingly makes planetary habitation precarious and, in many regions, already impossible. We are bombarded with promises about energy transition and ecological responsibility that threaten to become just another ruse of capital. Apocalyptic tones abound, in critical thinking, popular culture, and even within social movements. While neoliberalism has long been an obsession of the left, electorates seem convinced that the right offers the best possibilities of exit from it. Any vision of a life after capitalism seems remote. The deep embeddedness of the capital relation in social life affects not only the wealthy world but also extends across diverse terrains of poverty and inequality. Under these conditions, the prospect of a transition away from capitalism seems hopelessly unrealistic. The devastating effects of capital’s rule over the world are today more apparent than ever, in their social as well as environmental dimensions. Yet while acknowledging this predicament, we do not see the present as swallowing itself up. The times in which we live are shaped by a profound heterogeneity. Recent decades have demonstrated that capital is able to exploit multiple times and spaces in its search for limitless accumulation, yet these times and spaces remain open to the invention of a new politics of liberation. In the following pages we explore this openness by harking back to a vexed question in Marxism – the transition to communism. Without nostalgia, we seek to revivify this question through an analysis of some of the most burning issues of the present.