Post-Marxism

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, whilst remaining committed to the construction of socialism. Post-Marxism can be considered a synthesis of post-structuralist frameworks and neo-Marxist analysis, in response to the decline of the Left after the protests of 1968. Most notably, post-Marxists are anti-essentialist, rejecting the primacy of class struggle, and instead focus on building radical democracy. The term "post-Marxism" first appeared in Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe's theoretical work Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Post-Marxism is a wide category not well-defined, containing the work of Laclau and Mouffe on the one hand, and some strands of autonomism, post-structuralism, cultural studies, ex-Marxists and Deleuzian-inspired 'politics of difference' on the other. Recent overviews of post-Marxism are provided by Ernesto Screpanti, Göran Therborn, and Gregory Meyerson. Prominent post-Marxist journals include New Formations, Constellations, Endnotes, Crisis and Critique and Arena. Post-Marxism first originated in the late 1970s, and several trends and events of that period influenced its development. 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. 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. 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.