(1923-2007)

André Gorz ended his life, at age 84, together with his terminally ill wife. Gorz was born in Vienna during the interwar years, the son of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. During the 1930s he moved to Lausanne, fleeing from the Nazi threat. After the end of World War II he settled in Paris, where he entered the existentialist and Maoist circles headed by Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. A staunch Socialist, Gorz was one of the founding members of Le Nouvel Observateur in 1964. During the 1960s he focussed his attention on workers’ control and self-management. The 1968 Paris events – in which he had prominent role – were the backdrop for his innovative reflections on the fusion of leftwing policies and ecologism and his analysis of the future of Capitalism in global times. Champion of individual freedom and social justice, Gorz published numerous essays, many of which have been translated into English: Ecology As Politics (1975), Farewell to the Working Class (1982), and Capitalism, Socialism, Ecology (1994). His last piece, Lettre à D. Histoire d’un amour, was an extended love letter to his wife Dorine.