''Invariance'' is a French

magazine A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combinatio ...

edited by

Jacques Camatte Jacques Camatte (born 1935) is a French writer and former Marxist theoretician and member of the International Communist Party, a primarily Italian left communist organisation under the influence of Amadeo Bordiga. After Bordiga's death and ...

, published since 1968. It emerged from the Italian left-communist tradition associated with

Amadeo Bordiga Amadeo Bordiga (13 June 1889 – 25 July 1970) was an Italian Marxist theorist, revolutionary socialist, founder of the Communist Party of Italy (PCI), member of the Communist International (Comintern) and later a leading figure of the Interna ...

and it originally bore the subtitle "Invariance of the theory of the proletariat", indicating Bordiga's notion of the unchanging nature of

communist theory Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a so ...

. Invariance was instrumental in bringing unknown and obscure texts of the Communist Left (Bordiga and the Italian Left, Gorter and Pannekoek from the Dutch-German Left, as well as many others, including Lukacs and Sylvia Pankhurst to the attention of the '68 generation. It also played a major -albeit largely unknown- role in the 1970's crises and dissolution of councilist organisations such as ICO in France and Solidarity in the UK. However, around 1972-75 it broke with many of the tenets of

Bordigism Amadeo Bordiga (13 June 1889 – 25 July 1970) was an Italian Marxist theorist, revolutionary socialist, founder of the Communist Party of Italy (PCI), member of the Communist International (Comintern) and later a leading figure of the Internat ...

and

Marxism Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

per se, arguing that in the aftermath of

May '68 Beginning in May 1968, a period of civil unrest occurred throughout France, lasting some seven weeks and punctuated by demonstrations, general strikes, as well as the occupation of universities and factories. At the height of events, which h ...

there was no longer any potential for the

working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...

to escape the domination of

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...

through

revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...

. Instead it began to take the line that humanity itself had become "domesticated" by the rule of capital and the only solution was to "leave this world", a view which came to influence

Fredy Perlman Fredy Perlman (20 August 1934 – 26 July 1985) was an American author, publisher, and activist. His best-known work, ''Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!'', retells the historical rise of state domination through the Hobbesian metaphor o ...

John Zerzan John Edward Zerzan ( ; born August 10, 1943) is an American anarchist and primitivist ecophilosopher and author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocates drawing upon the ways of life of hunter-gathe ...

and others in their development of

Anarcho-primitivism Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of civilization (anti-civ) that advocates a return to non-civilized ways of life through deindustrialization, abolition of the division of labor or specialization, and abandonment of large-scale organ ...

. It was this radical shift in orientation which caused many of its critics to observe: "nothing varies more than ''Invariance'' ". ''Invariance'' is now in its fifth series and appears sporadically. Every cover features the same image of a tree (held to represent that "all is life"), and on the back the phrase: "Time is the invention of men incapable of love".

Publications

* ''La gauche allemande: Textes du

KAPD The Communist Workers' Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Arbeiter-Partei Deutschlands; KAPD) was an anti-parliamentarian and left communist party that was active in Germany during the time of the Weimar Republic. It was founded in April 1 ...

, de L'AAUD, de L'AAUE et de la KAI (1920-1922)''

External links

* 1968 establishments in France Bordigism Communist magazines French-language magazines Political magazines published in France Left communism Magazines established in 1968 {{italic title