Part of a series on
Marxism
Theoretical works Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 The German Ideology Wage Labour and Capital The Communist Manifesto The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy Das Kapital Critique of the Gotha Programme Dialectics of Nature Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism The State and Revolution History and Class Consciousness On Contradiction Prison Notebooks Dialectic of Enlightenment The Wretched of the Earth Guerrilla Warfare Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses Women, Race and Class Empire (Hardt and Negri book)
Philosophy Dialectical materialism Philosophy of nature
Critique of political economy Capital (accumulation) Crisis theory Commodity Concrete and abstract labor Factors of production Falling profit-rate tendency Means of production Mode of production Asiatic Capitalist Socialist Productive forces Scientific socialism Surplus product Socially necessary labour time Value-form Wage labour
Sociology Alienation Base and superstructure Bourgeoisie Class Class consciousness Class struggle Classless society Commodity fetishism Communist society Critique of political economy Cultural hegemony Democracy Dictatorship of the proletariat Exploitation Human nature Ideology Immiseration Imperialism Lumpenproletariat Metabolic rift Proletariat Private property Relations of production Reification State theory Working class
History Philosophy in the Soviet Union Primitive accumulation Proletarian revolution World revolution Theory of historical trajectory
Aspects Aesthetics Archaeology Criminology Cultural analysis Cultural Studies Ethics Film theory Geography Historiography Literary criticism Marxism and religion Sociology Philosophy
Orthodox variants Analytical Black Classical De Leonist Feminist Hegelian Humanist Instrumental Leninism Trotskyism Maoism Neo Open Post Structural Western Marxism–Leninism Anti-revisionism Marxism–Leninism–Maoism Gonzalo Thought Socialism with Chinese characteristics Titoism
Left communist variants Bordigism Communization Council communism
Libertarian variants Autonomism Situationism
Other variants Austromarxism Eurocommunism Neo-Gramscianism Neue Marx-Lektüre Revisionist
People Marx Engels Morris Lafargue Kautsky Plekhanov Du Bois Connolly Lenin Luxemburg Liebknecht Kollontai Bogdanov Hilferding Stalin Trotsky Grossman Zinoviev Bloch Lukács Korsch Bukharin Bordiga Ho Serge Gramsci Galiev Pashukanis Nosaka Benjamin Mao Mariátegui Toledano Horkheimer Volpe Dutt Brecht Marcuse Bordiga Fromm Neumann Lefebvre James Adorno Padmore Sartre Deutscher Beauvoir Hoxha Nkrumah Sweezy Emmanuel Hill Bettelheim Draper Jones Hobsbawm Althusser Hinton Williams Freire Mandel Sivanandan Miliband Lefort Cabral Thompson Bauman Fanon Kosik Berger Castro Guevara Heller Guattari Mészáros O'Connor Wallerstein Mies Tronti Debord Amin Hall Nairn Parenti Negri Jameson Dussel Harvey Laclau Bahro Poulantzas Vattimo Badiou Harnecker Ticktin Altvater Anderson Löwy Resnick Vogel Sison Easthope Rancière Berman Przeworski Blackburn Cohen Therborn Ahmad Losurdo Ture Postone Rodney Spivak Newton Sakai Wood Federici Wolff Balibar Eagleton Hartsock Rowbotham Mouffe Geras Brenner Davis Cleaver Bishop Haraway Panitch Clarke Jessop Davis Wright Fraser Holloway Screpanti McLaren Tamás Hampton Cano Žižek Berardi Sankara Hennessy McDonnell Douzinas Cockshott Roediger Foster West Ghandy Marcos Tarasov Prashad Merrifield Varoufakis Kelley Linera Fisher Li Barker Coulthard Malm Seymour Toscano Bhattacharya Moufawad-Paul Srnicek Horvat Hamza Saito
Journals Antipode Capital & Class Capitalism Nature Socialism Catalyst Constellations Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory Historical Materialism Mediations Monthly Review New Left Review Race & Class Rethinking Marxism Science & Society Socialism and Democracy Socialist Register
Related topics 21st-century communist theorists Anarchism Anarcho-communism Creative destruction Critical theory Criticism of Marxism Communism Communalism Economic determinism Historical determinism History of communism Left-wing politics Marxian economics New Left Old Left Municipalism Political ecology Radical democracy Social democracy Socialism Authoritarian Democratic Libertarian Market Reformist Revolutionary Utopian Soviet democracy Left-wing populism Universal class Vulgar Marxism Economism Worker cooperative Workers' council
Related categories Karl Marx Philosophy of history
Outline  Communism portal  Philosophy portal  Socialism portal
v t e

Post-Marxism is a political philosophy, critical social theory and Marxist school of thought which radically reinterprets Marxism, countering classical Marxist economism, historical determinism, anti-humanism, and class reductionism,^[1] whilst remaining committed to the construction of socialism.^[2][3] Post-Marxism can be considered a synthesis of post-structuralist^[4][5][6] frameworks and neo-Marxist^[7] analysis,^[8] in response to the decline of the Left after the protests of 1968.^[9] Most notably, post-Marxists are anti-essentialist, rejecting the primacy of class struggle, and instead focus on building radical democracy.^[10][11][12]

The term "post-Marxism" first appeared in Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe's theoretical work Hegemony and Socialist Strategy.^[13][14] Post-Marxism is a wide category not well-defined, containing the work of Laclau and Mouffe^[15][16] on the one hand, and some strands of autonomism,^[17] post-structuralism,^[18][19] cultural studies,^[20] ex-Marxists^[21] and Deleuzian-inspired^[22] 'politics of difference'^[23][24] on the other.^[25] Recent overviews of post-Marxism are provided by Ernesto Screpanti,^[26] Göran Therborn,^[27] and Gregory Meyerson.^[28] Prominent post-Marxist journals include New Formations,^[29] Constellations,^[30] Endnotes,^[31] Crisis and Critique^[32] and Arena.^[33]

History

Post-Marxism first originated in the late 1970s, and several trends and events of that period influenced its development.^[34] The weakness of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc paradigm became evident after the so called "Secret speech" and the following invasion of Hungary, which split the radical left irreparably.^[35] Marxism from then on faced a crisis of credibility, resulting in various developments in Marxist theory, particularly neo-Marxism, which theorised against much of the Eastern Bloc.^[36] This happened concurrently with the occurrence internationally of the strikes and occupations of 1968, the rise of Maoist theory, and the proliferation of commercial television and later information technologies which covered in its broadcasts the Vietnam War.

Post-Marxism, although with its roots in this New Left and the consequent post-structural moment in France,^[37] has its real genesis in reaction to the hegemony of neoliberalism, and defeat of the Left in such events as the UK miners' strike, which was seen as a failure of both the New Left and the Old. Ernesto Laclau argued that a Marxism for the neoliberal conjuncture required a fundamental reworking, to address the failures of both.^[38]

Subsequently, Laclau and Mouffe address the proliferation of "new subject positions" by locating their analysis on a non-essentialist framework.

Simultaneously, revolutionaries in Italy, known as the Workerists and later autonomists,^[39] began to theorise against the conservative Italian Communist Party,^[40] focusing much more on labour, gender and the later works of Marx. In France, radicals such as Félix Guattari redefined old Lacanian models of desire and subjectivity, which had often been tied to the communist project, bringing Nietzsche into conversation with Marx.^[41][42] In the Eastern Bloc, the Budapest School^[43] began reinterpreting Marx, building on the work of the Praxis school before them.^[44]

Turning to the Atlantic, in the UK, Stuart Hall^[45] began to experiment with increasingly aggressive post-structuralist theorists in the build up to New Labour whilst working for Marxism Today, especially in relation to race and identity.^[46] In the US, Michael Hardt collaborated with Antonio Negri to produce Empire at the turn of the century, widely recognised as a consolidation and re-affirmation of post-Marxism.^[47]

Currently, figures in the US, UK, and Europe continue to produce work in the post-Marxist tradition, particularly Nancy Fraser, Alain Badiou, Jeremy Gilbert and Étienne Balibar. This theory is often very different from that produced by Laclau and Mouffe.^[48][49]

Despite being born in Latin America and the Eastern Bloc, post-Marxism is largely produced by theorists of the Global North, as the following criticisms reveal. Aside from perhaps Spivak, there are no notable theorists of the Global South^[50] who are within the post-Marxist tradition,^[51] and the radical movements of the Global South largely remain within the Leninist tradition.^[52] Several reasons relating to political geography and level of academisation are given as explanations. There is some debate however as to whether Cedric Robinson was a post-Marxist.^[53]

Despite this, the Zapatistas have been a large source of inspiration for many post-Marxists.^[54]

Criticism

Post-Marxism has been criticised from both the left and the right.^[55] Nick Thoburn has criticised Laclau's post-Marxism (and its relationship to Eurocommunism) as essentially a rightward shift to social democracy.^[56] Ernest Mandel^[57] and Sivanandan^[58][59] also make this same point. Richard Wolff also claims that Laclau's formulation of post-Marxism is a step backwards.^[60] Oliver Eagleton (son of Terry Eagleton) claims that Mouffe's 'radical democracy' has an inherent conservative nature.^[61]

Post-Marxism of all stripes has also been criticised for downplaying or ignoring the role of race, neocolonialism, and Eurocentrism.^{[62][63][64][65]}

People