Acts of Resistance

Against the Tyranny of the Market

Pierre Bourdieu

A devastating critique of free-market politics from distinguished sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. In his most explicitly political work to date, Pierre Bourdieu, France’s leading dissident intellectual, speaks out against the withdrawal of the state from crucial areas of social life. In this sharp, uncompromising attack on the dismantling of public welfare in the name of private enterprise and global competitiveness, Bourdieu stands up for the interests of individuals, groups, and social movements whose views are ignored in the current climate of market triumphalism. He offers a new vision of internationalism that would defend the collective and individual social rights of ordinary people against the prerogatives of the marketplace. This important and timely book, by one of our most outstanding intellectuals, challenges us to rethink the dominant political wisdom.

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Praise

“Bourdieu may now be handed the mantle of first maitre á penser in Paris.”

—The Times Literary Supplement

“Since the 1960s Pierre Bourdieu's terrific constancy has been there to hold us to the vision of criticism, detachment, reason, truth.”

—The Times Higher Education Supplement

“Pierre Bourdieu has developed one of the most powerful and heuristically promising approaches to human reality on the present scene.”

—Paul Rabinow, author of French Modern

“American readers can now be properly introduced to the political Bourdieu; they can even get an inking of some of his major theoretical ideas . . . without toiling through weighty tomes of academic writing.”