“Class Struggle is Not a Game”: Daniel Bensaïd’s Relational Conception of Class.

Abstract

While Daniel Bensaïd’s writings on Marxism, socialist strategy, and historical temporality have gained increased attention in the years since his passing, there remain relatively few accounts of his thinking on class. This article seeks to correct that gap by situating Bensaïd’s various texts on class theory in relation to other key reconceptualizations of class in the Marxist tradition that sought to avoid sociological determinism: E. P. Thompson’s lens of class formation and the Italian Workerists’ methodology of class composition. In tracing these connections, we argue that Bensaïd’s conception of class is at once historically grounded and attuned to the open-ended conflictuality and multiple terrains of class struggle.