On April 2, 2025, an article was published on The Nation discussing Kristin Ross’s latest work, The Commune Form: The Transformation of Everyday Life. The book examines a political tradition focused on reimagining class relations, a concept that stretches from the Paris Commune of 1871 to the contemporary struggles of the ZAD (Zone to Defend) activists.
The article reflects on how class society pervades everyday life, manifesting in minor inconveniences that reveal larger asymmetries of power. These experiences, while often seen as mere frustrations, are critical in understanding who controls societal levers of power. According to Theodor Adorno’s philosophy, "wrong life cannot be lived rightly," and thus, reimagining everyday life through collective political struggle is essential for building a better world.
Kristin Ross, recognized as a leading thinker in the critique of everyday life, proposes in her latest work the concept of "the commune form". This notion advocates for reviving anarchistic and communistic traditions to transform societal structures. Ross traces this idea back to Karl Marx’s analysis of the Paris Commune of 1871, where the Communards created new social and political structures for a short period before being violently suppressed by the French state. Despite its brief existence, the Commune provided a template for how laborers could organize and manage their lives without reliance on a wage system.
Ross’s earlier book, Communal Luxury: The Political Imagination of the Paris Commune, detailed how the Communards’ actions established new systems of value distinct from capitalist growth and overproduction. In The Commune Form, she expands on Marx’s ideas and integrates Pyotr Kropotkin’s perspectives, linking the 19th-century peasant revolts and the Paris Commune to contemporary struggles.
The commune form, Ross emphasizes, is not a static blueprint but a flexible model that adapts to the needs of its participants. By revisiting historical examples where communities successfully defended against capitalistic and state encroachments, Ross highlights the significance of land in sustaining the commune form. For instance, the Nantes Commune of May 1968 exemplifies how urban and rural forces can unite to create parallel structures that fulfill essential needs despite government resistance.
A significant case study in Ross’s analysis is the ZAD movement at Notre-Dame-des-Landes. Beginning in 1974, the campaign aimed to prevent an airport construction and resulted in a diverse group of individuals occupying the land. In 2018, after decades of resistance, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the airport would not be built, marking a victory for the ZAD activists.
The commune form, as Ross outlines, emerges in response to capital’s ecological threats, resonating with similar struggles worldwide, including Tokyo’s Chiba Prefecture, the Larzac region of France, and sites in the United States like Standing Rock and Atlanta’s Cop City. Ross argues that land, as a foundation for new ways of living, challenges capitalist ideals by prioritizing subsistence and collective management over economic rationality.
Ross also critiques modern leftist movements for concentrating on urban centers and workplaces while neglecting rural areas and everyday life outside the workday. She asserts that returning to the land is vital for political struggles against capitalist production, which increasingly depletes natural resources.
In conclusion, Ross advocates for reclaiming time and land as part of the commune form’s practical approach to addressing contemporary economic and ecological challenges. By managing resources collectively, Ross suggests, societies can escape the constraints of economic rationality and revive common inheritances before they are lost.
