A Fractured Lineage

Over the last decade, a small group of thinkers has sought to pose the question of politics, to formulate a theory of emancipatory politics. In the work of Alain Badiou and Sylvain Lazarus there emerges a unique theory of politics that challenges the core principles of Marxist theory, even as their frameworks emerge from Marxism itself. We are not necessarily Lazarusian or Badiouian. We are not necessarily Marxists. We are people who think.

Asad Haider, who tragically passed away at the end of 2025, was influential in transmitting this theory of politics to the American left. His articles “On Depoliticization” and “Socialists Think” were both widely circulated and introduced the Lazarusian notion: “people think,” and the method of saturation, which views politics as sequential and rare. As Haider says,