Post-Marxist Project: An Assessment and Critique of

Ernesto Laclau

Henry Veltmeyer, St. Mary’s University

The writings of Ernesto Laclau are an important contribution to various efforts over the
last decade and a half to move beyond or resolve a theoretical impasse in Marxist
thought and analysis. In Hegemony and Socialist Stratea, co-authored with Chantelle
Mouffe and published in 1985, Laclau seeks to establish a post-Marxist form of analy-
sis that takes a theoretical position “within Marxism.” It is argued that post-Marxism as
formulated by Laclau is an abandonment, not a renewal, of Marxist thought and that as
such it is part of a long tradition of idealist anti-Marxist criticism that should be rejected
for its theoretical flaws and misplaced criticism.

The works of Ernesto Laclau constitute a critical contribution to post-

Marxist thought. In the opinion advanced by Laclau himself in the preface to the
Spanish edition of Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Towards a Radical
Democracy, written with Chantel Mouffe, “it (the book) has been as of then [its
publication in 19851 at the center of a series of debates, at once theoretical and
political . . . in the Anglo-Saxon world” (1985, p. vii). And so it has. Some
might quibble or take issue with this point (for example, Boron 1996), but there
is no question that Laclau and Mouffe’s book remains a critical reference point
in the ongoing debate that surrounds what some choose to see as a theoretical
impasse, a crisis that calls into question not only Marxism but also all forms of
structural analysis as well as the construction of grand theories associated with
the eighteenth-century Enlightenment project to establish a better form of soci-
ety in which there is economic progress, social justice, and democracy.’ On this
point there is little or no question. But what is very much at issue (and it is a
question raised by Boron among others) is whether post-Marxism, as formulated
by Laclau and Mouffe (that is, as a theoretical and political project), has had a
direct theoretical and practical impact on the real world-on actual struggles or,
more generally, the emergent “new social movements” in Latin America
(Calderon 1995; Escobar and Alvarez 1992). In less ambitious or idealist terms
the question is whether post-Marxism provides a usehl theoretical perspective
and, relative to Marxism, a superior set of intellectual tools for the analysis of
such struggles and social movements for change.
Notwithstanding such questions, Laclau and Mouffe’s book (hereinafter
HSS) and other writings on the topic, such as Laclau’s New Rejections on the

Sociological Inquiry, Vol. 70, No. 4, Fall 2000, 499-5 19

02000 by the University of Texas Press, PO.Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819
500 HENRY VELTMEYER

Revolution of our Times (hereinafter NR), provide useful points of reference for
a critical assessment of Post-Marxist thought. We propose to undertake such an
assessment, with particular reference to the claim by Laclau and others that post-
Marxism provides a salutary revision and a necessary extension of Marxist
thought; that, in other words, it is a critique of Marxism within Marxism.
We will argue that to the contrary post-structuralism constitutes an aban-
donment of Marxism, a rejection of the principles of historical materialism on
which it is based. In this context we argue that post-Marxism is but the latest of
a long series of attacks on the possibility of social science in both its Marxist and
non-Marxist forms. It is, in effect, a rejection of the principles and the method
that define social science as such. As for these principles, there are three at stake:
objectivism (the objective reality of material conditions grasped as “social
facts”); structuralism (the existence of structures that underlie social relations
and that are visible only in their effects and grasped in thought); the rationality
of large-scale processes of change. The basis of such attacks, it is argued, is an
idealist epistemology (subjectivism, contextuality, and nihilism) that underlies
post-Marxism as it does postmodernism. We criticize and establish the contra-
dictions and limits of post-structuralism as formulated by Laclau with reference
to the manifest incapacity of idealism to constitute the basis for the concrete
analysis of any historically given social formation or social movement, new or
otherwise. In this context we also challenge the pretensions of post-structuralism
to constitute a form of analysis superior to Marxism.
The Theoretical Program of Post-Structuralism
On repeated occasions Laclau and Mouffe have taken pains to establish the
theoretical and practical content of a Post-Marxist program, to little avail, one
might add. As might be expected, the point of departure for this program is the
crisis which ostensibly has beset Marxism and other forms of structuralism.
However, somewhat surprisingly they do not root the crisis in the early to mid-
1970s as do most exponents of postmodernism.’ They trace it back to Marx’s
own writings, in fact to its very beginnings when Marx and Engels were “settling
accounts” with “the German ideology” and thereby idealism in its various forms,
including (or in particular) the Hegelian form of their own thinking. In effect, ac-
cording to Laclau and Mouffe, Marxism has always been in crisis, infected at the
outset with a limited capacity to theorize and analyze the problems it had set for
itself It is not simply a question of history having outdistanced Marxism, gener-
ating new conditions that it could not be expected to confront or explain.
Marxism was still-born and misbegotten, a judgment which Laclau and Mouffe
share, somewhat guiltily (they are not innocent in this), with critics on the con-
servative Right such as Karl Popper (1962) or, even earlier, Von Hayek (1944).
In Laclau’s own words, “It (a fatal flaw) is not a (question of) derivation from
 ERNEST0 LACLAU 501

some pristine source, but (of something) that dominates all of Marx’s own
works” (HSS, p. viii).
What is this fatal flaw in Marxism? Laclau and Mouffe are not clear on this
point but as far as one can make out it is a “duality” which “we will attempt to
eliminate [by] affirming the primary and constitutive character of antagonism,”
and which “implies the adoption of a Post-Marxist position” (NR 192). The an-
tagonism? It is found within history, conceived on the one hand as “rational and
objective” (the result of a contradiction between the forces and relations of pro-
duction), and on the other as dominated by negativity and contingency, which is
to say (in Marxist terms), class struggle.
In other words, Laclau and Mouffe propose to address once again a widely
perceived “ambiguity” in Marx’s thought, vis-a-vis the specter that over the years
has bedeviled not only Marxism but sociology. At issue are the “objective” and
“subjective” dimensions of the dialectic which Marx himself as early as 1844
identified in the “superior actions” of the Silesian weavers who acted not just out
of blind necessity but with a theoretical consciousness of the “reason” for its
struggle, constituting itself (in Georg Lukacs’s words) as “the identical subject-
object of hi~tory.”~
Forgetting for the moment the idealism of Marx’s own position here, what
is the standpoint of post-structuralism with respect to the ambiguity in Marx’s
thought on this “primary antagonism?’&First, it should be understood that this
antagonism between the subjective and the objective has been posed as a central
theoretical problem in diverse forms of philosophical and sociological discourse,
and Marx’s formulation is as convenient a reference or starting-point as any. It is
evident that in practice analysis has taken one such form or another. This is to
say, history has been conceived in structural (or scientific) terms as a process in-
scribed in the workings of a system, the objectively given or conditions of which
“determine” the actions and thoughts of people (as individuals, social groups or
classes) according to their position or location. Alternatively, history has been
viewed in quite different terms-with an emphasis on subjectivity, heterogeneity,
and contextuality. In these terms, history is seen as the result of subjectively
meaninghl ,and socially oriented forms of action based on ideas that are con-
ceived and then acted upon. The context of social action-and the making of his-
tory-is not provide by the objectively given conditions of a system, the product
of its underlying structure. Rather, it is based on contingency, on conditions that
are neither structural or necessary but accidental and heterogeneous, their form
determined by the subjective meanings that people attach to their actions in spe-
cific situations.
There have been a number of attempts over the years to constitute a theo-
retical synthesis of this “primary antagonism,” but in practice (that is, in thought)
analysis has taken one form or the other. In this context, supportive interpreta-
502 HENRY VELTMEYER

tions of Marx’s thought have focused attention on this antagonism, viewing

Marxism as a “theoretical” solution to the problem posed first by Kant and then
by Hegel in terms of the dialectic of reason. Kant’s position was that this dialec-
tic, in which the apparent contradiction between “the idea” and “reality” is re-
solved in the unity of the ideal, which exists only as a potentiality-an “idea
without reality” as Kant would have it-requiring for its realization a separate
practice, with conditions that are not pregiven in thought. In short, the dialectic
involves the extension of reason beyond the empirical limits of the perceived
world so as to grasp its conceptual unity. According to Kant, this process is nec-
essarily contained within thought. However, in taking up Kant’s theory of the di-
alectic of reason Hegel argued that Kant was mistaken to see it as merely a
thought process. As Hegel constructed it, the dialectic of the Idea is the way his-
tory itself unfolds, a formulation accepted by Marx but given a human subject
and “turned on its head.”5
Herein lies the problem and the source of much confusion evident in
Laclau’s formulation of the problem. To write of turning Hegel’s dialectic upside
down as Marx does is to establish a fundamental principle of historical material-
ism: the conditions of “social existence” determine forms of “social conscious-
ness,’’ that is, shape and limit ideas. However, the real issue relates to the
conditions necessary for effecting change. Are these conditions, as Hegel con-
ceived of them, determined by thought but imminent in history? Or, as Kant ar-
gued, do they require a distinct form of practice that occurs outside of thought,
the conditions of which are neither pre-given nor determined in and by thought.
Marx himself addressed this philosophical problem in his Theses on Feuerbach
with the assertion that the issue is not to interpret reality but to change it and to
do so on the basis of a real historically given and practical movement, the con-
ditions of which are not pre-given in thought. Although Marx himself did not
philosophize about this problem his position is fairly clear: the conditions of so-
cial transformation are both objective and subjective. In short, the ambiguity
which Laclau locates within Marx’s thought and regards as a fatal flaw boils
down to the point that the conditions of historical change cannot be predeter-
mined, given within thought as a theoretical solution to a practical problem. In
fact, all what Mam established in this connection was some guiding principles
and a theory that established the social effects of certain identifiable institution-
alized practices or structures. As Mam saw it, the conditions generated by these
structures cannot be seen to fully “determine” (and thus explain) the actual and
specific form of historical developments. In short, the “primary antagonism”
identified by Laclau cannot be resolved within thought as Hegel-and, it would
seem, Laclau-liked to believe.
This is the crux of the problem posed by Laclau. He bases post-Marxism
precisely on the capacity to eliminate this primary antagonism. It is the source of
 ERNEST0 LACLAU 503

his assertion that the logic of Post-Marxist analysis is “incompatible with the cat-
egories of [classical Marxism]” (HSS, p. 4). In constructing this Post-Marxist
logic-in “locating [ourselves] in Post-Marxist space”-it is necessary to reject
both “[the Marxist] subjectivist conception of classes . . . [and] its vision of the
conception of the historic course of capitalist development . . . [and] of course,
a conception of communism as a transparent society in which (the historic) an-
tagonisms have disappeared” (HSS, p. 3). None of these conceptions, Laclau as-
serts, “can be sustained today.”
So what is it that Laclau in turn sustains? What is the ideological standpoint
and theoretical basis of his position that goes beyond Marx to resolve the h d a -
mental ambiguity of Marx’s thought and extend the logic of his social analysis
(away from socialism towards the constitution of “radical democracy”) and yet
finds the solution within Marxism?6 To clarify this position (and to decode the
logic of Laclau and Mouffe’s Post-Marxist analysis) we need to examine their
“deconstruction of classical Marxism.” To this we turn.

The Logic of Post-Marxism

Social Contradiction and the Logic of Class Struggle
As noted, the point of departure for Laclau and Mouffe’s critique of classi-
cal Marxism and its logic of class analysis is an ambiguity which they find
deeply embedded in Marx’s own work. On the one hand, we have the vision,
which is brilliantly, if briefly, encapsulated by Marx in the 1959 Preface to a
Contribution towards a Critique of Political Economy. History here is seen to
unfold in terms of a conflict between the forces and the relations of production.
On the other hand, we have the famous affirmation in the Communist Manifesto
that the “history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
As Laclau and Mouffe deconstruct these two ~taternents,~ the first is a “contra-
diction within an antagonism” while the second is an “antagonism within a con-
tradiction.” (HSS, p. 5). In either case, and this is the bottom line for the authors
(as it is for logical positivists and other critics of dialectical thinking): in ap-
pearance reality is both one thing and another, even its opposite or “negation” as
conceived by Herbert Marcuse and other advocates and practitioners of dialecti-
cal reasoning. However, reality itself does not admit of such a contradiction
(Kosik 1976). It cannot be both positive and negative: it is or it is not.
The logical conclusion drawn from this epistemological premise by Laclau
and Mouffe is that the apparent contradiction found in reality is merely discur-
sive and not anchored in reality. As Gayatri Spivok (Nugent 1995, pp. 124-25),
another post-structuralist, puts it with respect to the Marxist concept of class, it
has no “empirical referents” (it does not exist as such or bear anything but a dis-
cursive relationship to reality). The conclusion is clear: the contradictory features
504 HENRY VELTMEYER

of capitalism are converted, via a Post-Marxist deconstructionist discourse, into

a problem of semiotics, a question of language, the expression of an idea. The
problem as such, as lived and experienced, disappears in the same way as some
conservative sociologist was quoted to have said: “please, let us get rid once and
for all of this terrible malentendu of social classes! There is no reason for class
struggle; it can all be reduced to a problem of communication” (quoted in Boron
1996, p. 23). Similarly, within the framework constructed by Laclau the exis-
tence of class is a matter of “political imaginary.”
But let us pursue this non-dialectical linear logic as traced out by Laclau
and Mouffe. Why is there no antagonism within the contradiction perceived to
exist between the forces of production and their corresponding social relations?
Their answer: an antagonism presupposes an external context, factual and con-
tingent, which has nothing to do with what in Marxist discourse takes the form
of laws of economic development or social movement. Laclau poses this prob-
lem, and states his case, in the following terms:
To show that capitalist relations of production are intrinsically antagonistic implies, therefore,
showing that the antagonism arises logically from the relation between the buyer and seller of
labor power. But this is precisely what cannot be shown . . . only if the worker resists this
extraction [of surplus value] does the relation become antagonistic; and there is nothing in
the category of ‘seller of labor power’ that suggests such resistance as a logical conclusion
(NR,P. 25).
On this point Laclau concludes that:
To the extent that there is an antagonism between worker and capitalist, such antagonism is not
inherent in the relation of production as such but is found between the relation of production
and something the agent of which is outside of this relation-for example, a fall in wages de-
nies the identity of the worker as consumer. There is, therefore, a “social objectivity”-the
profit motive and its logic-which denies another objectivity-the identity as consumer. But if
an identity is denied means that its full constitution as objectivity is impossible (NR,p. 33).

So concerned is Laclau with combating “classist reductionism” (which is

found more in Laclau’s mind than in serious Marxist writings) and the multiple
and diverse “essentialisers” of vulgar-Marxism that he falls into the trap of “dis-
cursive reductionism”: the reduction of reality to its concept, putting things into
words. In Laclau’s renovated sociological version of transcendental idealism, the
discourse itself is constructed as the essence of the real, defining its meaning and
giving it form. The objectively given or constituted world (including the actual
history of class struggles) is in this process transformed into a discursive logic;
its conflictual character, established by Marx not through logic but through an
analysis of historically given conditions, is dissolved. Thus, capitalist exploita-
tion cannot be derived from the law of value and the extraction of surplus value
arises only if the worker can be represented discursively-or, as Kautsky once
 ERNEST0 LACLAU 505

remarked, if someone “from the outside” were to inject the worker’s veins with
class consciousness.The capitalist appropriation of surplus value as an objective
process is unable to constitute an antagonism, nor is class struggle as long as
workers do not revolt and resist. For Laclau at issue are not the class conditions
of social production but rather some nebulous social identity of workers as “con-
sumers.’’ Moreover, in this “political imaginary” of workers as a “social agent”
Laclau moves Marx away from historical materialism’s productionist ontology
(exploitative relations of production) and approaches Marx as if his theory were
grounded in a market-based exchange ontology (price struggles over factors of
production). Of course, Laclau knows exactly what he is doing (or writing) here.
In the early 1970s he himself had launched a trenchant critique against such not
uncommon misinterpretations of Marx and Marxism (Laclau 1971).
On this point we might note that this entire question had been addressed by
M a n himself in his Early Works, his critique of Proudhon, as well as his critique
of the Hegelian dialectic which was predicated precisely on the antagonism be-
tween reality and its concept. It is true enough that for Marx (with reference to
the Hegelian dialectic, inverted and given a human subject) an “antagonism”
was the decisive characteristic of the contradiction between wage-labor and cap-
ital-his formulation of the dialectic. But this did not mean the automatic con-
stitution of wage-workers as an historic “subject,” predestined by the forces of
history to redeem humanity-to re-appropriate the human essence or, in a later
scientific version, to overthrow a society based on the exploitation of the work-
ing class.*
It is quite mistaken to associate Marxism with a notion of predestination or
immanence in which the outcome is prefigured or predetermined. Despite
protestations to the contrary, on this issue Marx was closer to Kant than to
HegeLgThis was because Marx, unlike Hegel did not take Laclau’s “primary an-
tagonism” as pre-given or resolvable in thought (derived from a discursive logic
as Laclau seeks to do). In Marx’s view, it would require and entail a distinct and
separate process, the conditions of which have to be created not in thought but
in practice. To be precise, it requires a political practice that is theoretically in-
formed about the process of capitalist development. The objective and subjective
conditions of a class struggle cannot be predetermined in thought, a point which
Marx makes in the following terms:
The domination of capital has created for this mass a situation of common interests. Thus, this
mass has become a class of itself for capital, but as of yet it is not a class in itself. The inter-
ests hat they defend are converted into class interests. But the struggle of class against class is
a political struggle (Marxand Engels, 1966, p. 158).

A few years later (in the Eighteenth Brumaire) Marx would elaborate this
idea, arguing that the objective conditions of a “class in itself” were but the
506 HENRY VELTMEYER

point of departure for a protracted process of class formation and struggle, the
conditions of which by no means could be predetermined in thought. These con-
ditions included a clear awareness of class position and interests, a form of or-
ganization that could overcome the factionalism of local struggles, and the
formation of a political instrument capable of guiding the struggle (Marx and
Engels 1966, p. 3 18).
These ideas, reiterated innumerable times by Marx himself, give the lie to a
notion of the essentialist character of the proletariat or the automatic form of its
actions, a lie repeated over the years in vulgarized forms of Marxism as ad-
vanced by the leading theorists of the Second International, and one that Laclau
resuscitates. In effect, what Laclau does is in the best (or worst) tradition of con-
servative or liberal polemics with regard to Marxist thought and class analysis.
And this is despite an effort to position post-Marxism theoretically within
Marxism. In his post-structuralist discourse Laclau clearly places himself in the
long and tortuous tradition of idealist attacks on objectivism, materialism, and
structuralism in social analysis, that is, on the possibility of social science. We
will return to this point below.
Subordination, Oppression, and Domination
The key to Laclau’s deconstruction of the theory that underlies Marxist
class analysis can be found in the last chapter of Hegemony and Socialist
Strategy. Here Laclau and Mouffe present the concept of “subordination” as the
critical expression of the relation of social conflict found within society. The
point of this presentation is to provide a theoretical analysis of the conditions
under which a relation of “subordination” is “converted into a relation of op-
pression and thus the seat o f . . . antagonism” (HSS, p. 172). In this analysis, a
relation and conditions of “subordination” can be said to exist when “an agent is
subjected to the decisions of another-an employee with respect to employer, for
example, in certain forms of family organization, women with respect to men,
etc.” Relations of “oppression,” on the other hand, form a sub-type of relations
of subordination based on “their transformation into seats of antagonism.”
This post-structuralist discourse takes us back to Max Weber’s concept of
power embedded in a theory of social action and abstracted from any specific
structural context. In this context, relations of “domination” constitute the total-
ity of the relations of subordination, and “can, therefore, coincide or not with ac-
tually existing relations of oppression within a determinate social formation”
(HSS, p. 172).
The problem, according to Laclau and Mouffe, is to determine how and
under what conditions these relations of subordination can and do give way to re-
lations of oppression. Can they be determined in advance by and within thought,
that is, theorized in the way that Marx did on the basis of prior historical expe-
 ERNEST0 LACLAU 507

rience? Given the centrality of this point, their position is reproduced in its en-
tirety:

It is clear why relations of subordination, considered in themselves, cannot be antagonistic re-

lations: because a relation of subordination simply establishes a complex of differentiated po-
sitions among social agents, and we know that a system of differences that constructs all social
identities . . . not only cannot be antagonistic but combines the ideal conditions for eliminat-
ing all antagonisms . . . .It is only to the extent that the positive differential nature of a sub-
ject’s subordinate position is subverted, that an antagonism can emerge. “Serf”, “slave”, etc.,
in themselves do not designate antagonistic positions; it is only in the terms of the formation
of a different discourse, as for example, “inherent human rights”” that the differential positiv-
ity of these categories can be subverted and subordination constructed as oppression (HSS,
pp. 172-3).

To pose the problem in these terms raises a number of questions and invites
serious criticism. First, what is most striking about the passage is that the antag-
onism and oppression of serfs and slaves is constructed as to depend on the ex-
istence of an explanatory or emancipatory discourse, that is, a way of thinking,
speaking or writing about an area of knowledge or theoretical object. This is a
form of idealism (post-structuralism, to be precise) that in fact permeates not
only the cited passage but the entire text. To view the situation of the ancient
slave and medieval serf (and,we could add, with reference to the current context
of capitalist society, the wage-worker) from this angle is to assume that these
“social agents” were unaware that their relation of “subordination” (to the slave-
or land-owner) encompasses an antagonism and the objective conditions of op-
pression. However, as observed by Boron (1996) in his remarks on this point,
history has not registered too many cases of slaves or serfs happy with their sit-
uation or “lot in life.”
In this connection, Boron adds, it can be safely assumed that these “social
agents” were quite aware both of their oppression and the relation of antagonism
that existed between them and the slave-owners or landlords. And this was so de-
spite the absence of any discourse that sought to justify the relation of domina-
tion-subordination and the associated social condition of oppression-to keep
them in their place-and, in a number of contexts, to dampen the flames of re-
bellion. However, as Laclau or Mouffe construct it,” oppression or exploitation
only exists in the form (and under the conditions) of an ideological or theoreti-
cal discourse that unmasks it for its victims.
This point takes us back to Marx in his Early Works where, together with
his companions in theory (the ‘‘Left Hegelians”), he subscribed to what he would
later derisively term “the German ideology”-the notion that the social bearers
of the social relation and conditions of oppression and alienation (the “prole-
tariat” or “suffering humanity”) required for their emancipation the “active ele-
ment” of thought (“philosophy”), to be provided by the intellectuals (“the
508 HENRY VELTMEYER

philosophers”). However, Marx and Engels “settled accounts” with this intellec-
tual posture revived by Laclau and Mouffe. Take, as a case in point, Engels’s dis-
cussion of peasant struggles at the time of Luther. It “appeared” to many, he
observed, as a religious conflict vis-a-vis the Reformation and the question of
subordination to Rome, with no connection to the oppression exercised by the
aristocracy over the peasantry. However, he continued, this was but a symptom
in which a class antagonism, exacerbated by a decomposing feudal order, was
manifest. If the peasants rebelled, which they did, it had little if anything to do
with the 95 theses nailed by an Augustan monk on the door of the cathedral at
Wittenburg; it was essentially a reaction to the material conditions of oppression
by the landlords to which they were subject and of which they were very much
aware.
In any case, if we are to take Laclau and Mouffe seriously, what existed in
Germany and elsewhere at the time prior to the appearance of a relevant dis-
course was the serene world of “subordination” without the class relation of “an-
tagonism” or the condition of “oppression.”” However, as noted by Boron
(1996), from this perspective it would be difficult to explain the millenarian his-
tory of slave and peasant rebellion without recourse to an intellectual discourse
that appeals to an inherent social right to equality and invokes a call to subvert
the social order. Likewise, it would be difficult to explain the strike of Silesian
weavers in 1844 which had intruded upon Marx’s philosophical consciousness
(“the German ideology”) to lead him to what he would later term “the royal road
to science” with respect to understanding the objective conditions that give rise
to class conflict and struggle.12
Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse analysis resembles and perhaps derives from
an analysis made by Michel Foucault of the relationship between forms of
knowledge (embedded in a relevant discourses) and relations of power and sub-
ordination in society.l3 However, what such post-structuralist forms of discourse
analysis fail to realize is that the historical struggles of peoples and classes
against oppression and exploitation generally precedes rather than follows the
appearance of a relevant theoretical (explanatory) or ideological (politically mo-
bilizing) discourse. Thus it is that a better explanation for these struggles is
needed and, despite its apparent simplicity and the ambiguity identified and chal-
lenged by Laclau and Mouffe, can be partially found in Marx’s distinction be-
tween a “class in itself” and a “class of itself.” The utility of this conceptual
distinction is its identification of both the objective conditions generated by the
structure of social relations that individuals inevitably enter into and the corre-
sponding forms of social consciousness which, as Marx points out, cannot be de-
termined in advance, that is theoretically, but require both empirical analysis and
ideological or political practice.
 ERNEST0 LACLAU 509

The Question of Hegemony

The concept of hegemony is central to the theoretical model constructed by
Laclau and Mouffe and their effort to transcend Marxism within Marxism. The
problem, although Laclau and Mouffe do not see it as such, consists in the fact
that the concept of hegemony to which they have recourse is embedded in a the-
ory (Marxism) which is incompatible with the social logic which they seek to
construct. In their own words:
Our basic conclusion with respect to (the relation of the concept of hegemony with Marxist
theory) is as follows: behind the concept of “hegemony” is hidden something more than a type
of political relation that is complementary to the basic categories of Marxist theory. With it
(this concept) is introduced, in effect, a social logic that is incompatible with (Marxist theory)
(HSS, p. 3. Italics in the original).

Several comments on this “basic conclusion” are in order. First, it is not at

all clear why in the construction of their model Laclau and Mouffe insist in mak-
ing repeated reference to a theoretical and conceptual apparatus which postulates
a social logic that is incompatible with the arguments they propose to construct.
What constitutes the “epistemological break” that they purport to make with
classical Marxism? Surely not the mundane fact of coming after it in time? The
problem is posed by Laclau in an interview with the journal Strutegzes (March
1988) where he r e a m e d his point that the concept of “hegemony” serves as
“the point of departure of a ‘Post-Marxist’ discourse within the womb of
Marxism” in that it allows one to conceive of the social as the result of “the con-
tingent articulation of elements around certain social configurations (‘historical
blocs’) that cannot be predetermined in thought and is essentially linked to the
concrete struggles of social agents” (NR, p. 194).
As noted by Boron (1993) in his critique of this formulation, we have here
an element of a form (neo-structuralist) of discourse which can be traced back to
Luis Althusser’s concept of the “specific effect” of the ideological superstructure;
that incorporates a theory which Althusser himself criticized for its overt struc-
turalism, that is, lack of social content and specificity. At issue here is the inter-
pretation which Laclau makes of Gramsci’s concept of hegemony. This
interpretation appears to be based on Althusser’s conception of “ideological
practice” (as distinct from theoretical and political practices, with its own struc-
turally specific conditions). From this perspective, Laclau abstracts from
Gramsci’s concept and discards the idea that it is based on the existence and ac-
tions of a dominant-and ruling-social class formed on the basis of their prop-
erty in the means of production.
In Laclau’s Post-Marxist formulation of the concept of hegemony, its class
content as articulated by Gramsci disappears, dissolved in a conception of a
5 10 HENRY VELTMEYER

“historic bloc” formed by diffuse and indeterminate “social subjects” and the
power embodied in “their collective will” and expressed by them under “histori-
cally specific concrete but indeterminate (unspecified) conditions.” However, for
Gramsci no matter how complex the contingent mediations involved at the level
of theory and in practice (and culture and ideology) the concept of hegemony is
fundamentally tied to the existence of classes formed in the sphere of economic
production, as well as a politically defined class struggle. As Gramsci puts it: “if
hegemony is ethical-political (in character) it cannot help but be economic . . .
have its basis in the decisive function exercised by the ruling group in the deci-
sive nucleus of economic activity” (Gramsci 1966, p. 31).
In our deconstruction of Laclau and Mouffe’s concept of hegemony it is
clear that unlike Gramsci’s formulation, it is grounded in neither Marxist class
theory or its underlying conception of historical materialism, the principles of
which define Marxism at the level of theory. So what remains of Laclau’s claim
that post-Marxism is a form of Marxism, a renovated or reborn version that more
adequately captures and makes sense of what others have defined as “the post-
modern condition”? Is post-Marxism, as argued by Laclau, left with the “best
fragments” of Marxism, and thus representing a continuation of the intellectual
and political project taken up by Marx but now moribund? Or does it, as we
would argue, abandon this project to launch another, in effect if not in design or
intent joining a by now well-established effort to intellectually and politically de-
mobilize the class struggle against an oppressive and exploitative system?
From Social Class to the Social Agent
The basis of post-Marxism is a rejection of the concept which lies at the
heart of Marxist analysis: class, defined in terms of the relationship of individu-
als to the means of production under conditions that are, as Marx conceived it,
“definite and beyond their will,” and that correspond to stages in the develop-
ment of society’s forces of production. What Laclau, and postmodernists gener-
ally, object to in Marx’s conception of class is that it specifies conditions that are
structural in origin and “objective” in their effects-that, in effect, it reduces a
complex social structure with diverse subject positions to relations of property in
the means of production and that it further reduces a heterogeneous spectrum of
interests and experiences to the objective conditions of these relations. Reality, it
is argued, is not so simple. Or, as Nietzche argued in a different context, “there
are no facts, only interpretations.” Although the relations that people enter into
could be seen as patterned or structured, the structures so formed cannot be at-
tributed to relations of class and its objectively defined conditions; in fact,
Laclau and Mouffe assert, with reference to the first principle of historical mate-
rialism established by Marx: they are indefinite and not beyond an individual’s
will. In general, they observe, reality is better viewed and understood in terms of
 ERNEST0 LACLAU 5 1 1

diverse contingent subject positions on the basis of which individuals acquire

their social identity, experience and interpret their reality, and act. In these terms
we can identify (and Laclau and Mouffe write about) “social agents” rather than
social classes.
Although not clearly laid out in either of the studies that we have discussed,
it is possible to identify within Laclau and Mouffe’s post-structuralist discourse
and associated project three lines of attack on the Marxist concept of class. First,
with mixed reference to arguments advanced by postmodernists and mainstream
American sociologists, a number of post-structuralists argue that the concept
overgeneralizes and essentializes conditions found in particular contexts, and as
a result obscures equally important cleavages based on gender, ethnicity, and
other social factors; and it fails to explain the presence or working of these fac-
tors within society. The suggestion is that the heterogeneity of these differences
defines contemporary politics at the level of identity. A second line of attack de-
rives from a post-structuralist critique and reading of contemporary theoretical
or ideological discourses. On this basis “class” is viewed as a meta-theoretical
construct, a concept without a “empirical referent,” which is to say: there are no
objectively given conditions that determine the form and structural limits of
“class interests.” On the contrary, it is held that these “interests” are nothing but
a theoretical construct and that their conditions of existence are subjective in the
sense that they are not objectively determined (assigned to positions) but defined
and given meaning on the basis (and in terms) of the social identity of the indi-
viduals involved; that this identity is determined (that is, defined) within a spe-
cific cultural (rather than a structural) context; and that these subjectively
determined and culturally defined meanings that individuals attach to their own
and each other’s actions “determine” how they see and experience the struggle
over diverse and heterogeneous “interests.” In short, the issue is not what condi-
tions cause people to act and see things (their interests, for example) in a certain
way, but rather what meanings they attach to each other’s actions in specific con-
texts. Clearly these meanings are social as well as conceptual constructs, but as
such do not in any way derive from the objectively given conditions of a social
structure based on relations of class. Rather, they are socially constructed on the
basis of diverse “subject positions” within a heterogeneous structure and within
a specific context.
In addition to these two lines of attack on the Marxist concept of class,
some post-structuralists make the point that there have been vast transformations
in the economy and society that have obliterated the old class divisions and ren-
dered inapplicable corresponding conceptual distinctions. The proponents of this
view do not reject a connection between the form or meaning given to the di-
verse subject-positions of individuals within a text (theoretical discourse) or the
outside world. But, they argue, this world has fundamentally changed; in effect
5 12 HENRY VELTMEYER

and in fact it is no longer possible to detect any stable structure or intelligible

process in this post-modern condition; and as a result, the Marxist concept of
class is rendered irrelevant as well as inadequate for grasping in thought what
exists in rea~ity.’~
In pursuing one or more of these three lines of attack on the Marxist con-
cept of class, and in making reference to conditions that are at least perceived
and thus taken to be “real” by those subject to them, some Post-Marxists ac-
knowledge the existence and significance of property in the means of production
as a possible basis for social identity and action. But they see production rela-
tions as highly variable, contingent in their form on their specific context, the
conditions of which are more subjective than objective.
In this context, the concept of class is seen as a poor and inadequate tool of
analysis as opposed to that of “social actor” (“subject” or “agent”) which is at
once more general and specific in its application. And there is no question here
of class struggle against the workings of a system defined by its mode of pro-
duction or of workers seizing the instruments and apparatus of state power as the
basis for an emancipator project, launching a process of social transformation-
the construction of a socialism.
The central question (and project) for post-Marxism as constructed by
Laclau and Mouffe no longer is the transformation of capitalism and the con-
struction of socialism; rather, it is the institution of radical democracy-an ex-
tension, ironically (given the postmodernist/Marxist skeptical attitude towards all
meta-narratives), of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment project as conceived
by Rousseau and others in political philosophical terms: the creation-concep-
tion that is-of “the good society.” In this regard, Laclau and Mouffe here appear
to break rank with the advocates of postmodernism who totally eject this project
in its diverse dimensions and its intellectual basis in scientific thought. l5
Towards a Conclusion:Post-Marxism as the Renewal or the End of Marxism?
Throughout his work and a series of polemics with Marxists who have
stayed the course (of Marxism), Laclau defines post-Marxism as a position
within Marxism. Specifically, he argues: “I do not reject Marxism. What has oc-
curred is very different, which is that Marxism has disintegrated and I believe
that what I am left with is its best fragments” (NR, p. 21 1).
Two observations can be made on this point. First, with regards to the “dis-
integration” of Marxism Laclau apparently has in mind and makes repeated al-
most obsessive reference to the collapse of socialism in the former Soviet Union
and the Eastern European bloc. However, it is a curious procedure to challenge
and reject a body of theory, or to write of its disintegration, on the basis of a
practice by a political regime set up in its name. The relevance of Marxism as a
body of theory and method of analysis clearly cannot by any means be settled on
 ERNEST0 LACLAU 5 13

the basis of the collapse of “actually existing” socialism. Nor, for that matter, can
it be settled by reference to the apparent refusal or failure of the working class
in capitalist societies to act out the role cast for it in Marxist theory, a failure
which has led some to search for a substitute force for social transformation, and
others such as Gorz and Laclau to abandon the entire socialist project. Secondly,
the phrase “left with . . . its best fragments” is revealing of the form and limits
of Laclau’s analysis. His procedure-to deconstruct certain fragments from a
text and combine it with elements from another-reminds one of the definitive
critique made by Althusser of the methodological individualism and eclecticism
that has characterized liberal thought and analysis. It is also reminiscent of
Georg Lukacs’s critique of forms of analysis that violate the principles of di-
alectical logic which, Lukacs (1971, p. 27) argued, rather than economic deter-
minism constitutes Marxism at the theoretical level. As Lukacs formulated it,
Marx’s dialectical logic is based on “the point of view of the totality,” that is, the
capacity to reconstruct in thought (as a “concrete abstraction,” to use Althusser’s
language) the complexity of a contradictory, multidimensional and dynamic so-
cial whole. In this context, non-dialectical non-Marxist thinking is unable to
grasp reality in its various dimensions as a totality. It tends to decompose reality
into various parts and fragments, reifying them as if they had an independent ex-
istence-the economy, politics, society, culture-each viewed from a distinct
angle, with its own domain and intellectual apparatus (economics, sociology, po-
litical science, anthropology), abstract in form and without substance.
Laclau is undoubtedly sincere in thinking that he has appropriated or has
been left with the “best fragments” of Marxism. However, it is significant that so
many students and practitioners of Marxism have been unable to determine what
these fragments are as reconstructed by Laclau, or have been unable to see any
connection between any such fragments and the intellectual tradition founded by
the philosopher of Trbveris.l6 Furthermore, even if it were intellectually possible
to break down Marxism into various “fragments,” it would seem to be somewhat
contradictory, on the one hand to seek and preserve the “best fragments” of
Marxism, while on the other arguing “the importance of deconstructing Marx-
ism, not merely abandoning it.” In this connection, in his interview with
Strategies, Laclau sustained (this time with good reason) that “the relation with
tradition should not be one of submission and repetition but that of transforma-
tion and criticism” (NR, p. 189).
But what is unclear and absent in any part of his writings is any evidence
that the Marxist tradition of class analysis and theory has been converted into an
obstacle to creativity and the formulation and solution of new problems. As a re-
sult, Laclau’s agenda, the foundation of a new intellectual and political project
(post-Marxism), at the very least has been left up in the air. First, the object of
his polemic is poorly defined or misplaced. An objective and dispassionate
5 14 HENRY VELTMEYER

review of Laclau’s work by someone who respects his intelligence and the sys-
tematic nature of his reflections suggests that in each instance he has taken on
the worst deformations and vulgarizations of Marxism represented in the Second
and the Third Socialist International. Thus, Laclau is able to imagine and write
as follows:
[ . . . ]a theory based on the gradual simplification of the class structure under capitalism and
the growing centrality of the working class [or that considers] the world as fimdamentally di-
vided between capitalism and socialism . . . Marxism is its ideology (NR, pp. 213-14).

What Marxist would recognize him or herself in such a caricature? And so it

goes throughout his text: Marxism is assimilated with its various vulgarizations
and, as with the worst apologists and ideologues of capitalism in its current ne-
oliberal form, equated with “actually existing” (and now defunct) socialism. For
some unstated and unknown reason, Laclau totally ignores the many and signif-
icant contributions to the body of Marxist theory made by so many who have
worked and continue to work within the theoretical tradition of Marxism, often
polemically but always creatively, extending its horizons and sharpening its
tools. For none of these and other such scholars has the Marxist tradition consti-
tuted an insurmountable obstacle to innovative work; on the contrary.
In contrast to these Marxist theorists Laclau and Mouffe have found it con-
venient if not necessary to establish “post-Marxism” as a means of purging from
Marxism those elements that have infected it from the very beginning with fatal
effects. However, nowhere in their various writings do they offer any convincing
arguments to back up or support their critical stance. Instead what we find within
their various deconstructions is assertion upon assertion about Marxist theory,
many of them such as charges of reductionism, economism or essentialism, stan-
dard fare in North-American social science, and none that is particularly new. As
but one example of this point, take Laclau’s citation and reflections on Marx’s
well-known formulation of historical materialism in the 1859 Preface to a
Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Laclau’s comments on the rel-
evant passage, taken from a text written originally in German, and cited to the
point of certifying the deterministic character of Marxism, focused on the verb
bedingen which should be defined as “to condition” (as opposed to the verb bes-
timmen, which is best translated as “to determine”). Despite the fact that Marx
specifically chose and used bedingen rather than bestimmen, Laclau interprets
Marx with the connotation of the latter. This less-than-innocentmisinterpretation
of Marx’s thinking (Marx clearly opted for the use of bedingen) reappears in
New Reflections, in the context of a polemic with Norman Geras, in the form of
an argument that “the baselsuperstructure model affirms that the base not only
limits but determines the superstructure in the same way that hand movements
determine those of its shadow on a wall” (NR, p. 128).
 ERNEST0 LACLAU 5 15

This “interpretation” of Marx warrants two brief observations. First, Marx’s

meaning is consciously or unwittingly (in ignorance) misinterpreted with refer-
ence to the given translation of bedingen. Second, no Marxist worthy of the
name these days if ever would utilize such a deterministic model as reflected in
the phrase “the hand and its shadow” and that so upsets Laclau’s sensibilities.
At issue here is not as Laclau himself puts it: an effort to “discover the real
significance of Marx’s work” (NR, p. 213). Rather, the aim is to convert
Marxism into “a vague term of political reference, whose content, limits and
reach should be defined in each conjuncture,” a “floating signifier” which allows
talk of the “end of ideology,” opening up the possibility of constructing inge-
nious “language games” or forming an alternative “political imaginary”(NR, p.
213). Notwithstanding Laclau’s own construction of this intellectual operation its
aim is clear enough: to liquidate Marxism-and, by extension, socialism-as a
liberating utopia and as a project of social transformation.
Laclau himself constructs this “redefinition of the socialist project” in the
following terms:

a[s] a radicalization of democracy; that is, as the articulation of struggles against different
forms of subordination-class, gender, race, as well as those others opposed by ecological,
anti-nuclear, and anti-institutionalmovements. This radicalized and plural democracy that we
propose as the objective of a New Left, is inscribed in the tradition of the “modern” political
project formulated as of the Enlightenment. (HSS, p. ix).

As it happens no socialist would or could dissent from such a project on

condition that it not require renunciation of the need to do away with capitalism,
an objective that not even Edouard Bernstein (who was, despite everything, a so-
cialist) would concede. Nevertheless, this is precisely what Laclau and Mouffe
call for: in lieu of socialism they propose a radicalized form of democracy
which, when all is said and done, does not require nor is predicated on a social
transformation of the operating “system.” Thus do Laclau and Mouffe complete
their itinerary: beginning with an epistemological break with Marxism (with the
abstract and vulgarized forms of Marxism associated with the Socialist
International) they end up shelving the socialist project, substituting for capital-
ism a more humane form of economic and social organization based on “radical
democracy.” Without saying so, Laclau and Mouffe share the thesis enunciated
by Francis Fukuyama and the New Right, namely that capitalism marks the final
chapter of human history.
It is necessary to raise here the question: do we have in Laclau and Mouffe’s
post-Marxism the renovation or the renunciation of Marxism as an intellectual
and political project-an extension or repudiation? The answer appears in a
closer examination of what Laclau and Mouffe mean with their “radicalized
democracy.” At one level, what they mean is clear enough: “The task of the Left
5 16 HENRY VELTMEYER

. . . does not consist in rejecting liberal-democratic ideology; rather, [it consists]

in deepening and extending it in the direction of a radicalized and plural [form
of] democracy” (HSS, p. 199). As professors of political science, Laclau and
Mouffe are necessarily aware of the fact that such deepening and extension of
the dominant ideology cannot possibly escape the conditions and limits of the
functioning of the capitalist system and its articulation with a class-based struc-
ture of domination and exploitation. Years of debate and analysis (Lenin,
Luxemburg, etc.) into the connections among liberalism as ideology, democracy
as the goal, and capitalism as the underlying system are totally ignored, as are
the obvious structural and class limits to liberalism identified by Barrington
Moore and other Marxist historians, not to speak of Max Weber and other non-
socialists who at least had a serious grasp of the limits of liberal democracy. At
this level (theoretical discourse) the analysis of Laclau and Mouffe is surpris-
ingly and disturbingly facile and shallow, As discourse it is disconnected from
any serious analysis of the conjunctural and structural forces that are operating
as never before on a global scale, penetrating even the most isolated and mar-
ginal social formations such as in the highlands of Chiapas.
In the context of these “developments,” in which the realities-and “objec-
tive” conditions--of class are acknowledged even by the apologists of neoliber-
alism and capitalism, to talk or write of radicalized democracy, and to renounce
a call for and the politics of social transformation, is to take a giant step back-
ward and to declare oneself at odds with Marxism. In this context, Laclau and
his post-Marxist project should be understood for what it is: a rejection, and not
the renovation of Marxism, and as such it is an advance position in the latest out-
break of a long war of idealism against materialism as well as social science gen-
erally. The effect, if not the conscious aim, of this war is to isolate and
undermine the social base for fundamental social change; to take away one of its
major intellectual and political tools: Marxism.

ENDNOTES

‘This project (or process) of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment (the age of reason-belief
in the power of human reason to grasp the nature of the world and change it accordingly on the basis
of rational principles), reflected in the idea of progress, arguably is the major center of reference for
all of the meta-theories of social change (and transformation) advanced by the theorists in the clas-
sical tradition of sociological analysis; it also constitutes an ideal reference point for the analysis of
“modernity” by most modernist sociologists such as Jurgen Habermas and a critical reference point
for theorists of post-modernism such as Boudrillard, Derrida, Lyotard, Foucault.
*Within sociology probably the first statements of postmodernism as condition (post-moder-
nity) and as form of analysis (post-structuralism) can be attributed to C. W. Mills who noted as early
as 1959 that “we are at an ending of ‘The Modem Age’ to be succeeded by a postmodem period in
 ERNEST0 LACLAU 5 17

which all expectations that have characterized ‘Western Culture’ are no longer relevant [and]
Enlightenment faith in human progress, together with the principal ideologies grounded in this faith
have virtually collapsed as an adequate explanation of the world.”
’On the importance of the Silesian weavers’ strike in 1944 in the evolution of Marx’s theory of
proletarian self-emancipation, and its intrusion upon his philosophical (and idealist) thought of the
reality of class struggle, see Veltmeyer (1978).
40n the issue of idealism versus materialism in Marx’s thought and that of an “epistemological
break soon thereafter see, inter alia, Veltmeyer (1978).
’Ibid.
6As we note and argue elsewhere, the basis of post-Marxism, as formulated by Laclau and oth-
ers, and of postmodernism in its various forms and recent permutations in social thought, is based on
post-structuralist analysis and critique of structuralist discourse, but Laclau does not follow some of
these postmodernists in their radical idealist epistemology (the meaning of a text has no empirical
referents) of Baudrillard and Gayatri Spivak, who once said that “class is the purest form of signi-
fier”-“pure” in the sense that as a linguistic symbol it does not have a concrete referent in the ma-
terial world among others. Unlike these radical postmodernists, Laclau does allow the possibility of
a “social logic”; that is, a stable structure and an intelligible process, for without these there is no
logic, just uncertainty, contingency, and subjectively defined and culturally specific “meaning.”
7 0 n this quote see Engels’s qualification in footnote 4 @age 34 of the new Verso edition) to
make clear that Laclau and Mouffe quite consciously and purposefully have constructed a straw man
for the purposes of their “refutation.” The author thanks an anonymous reviewer for this note.
*In his Early Works, not only did Marx coquette with Hegel’s dialectic (the notion that the con-
flict between “what is” and “what ought to be” is apparent rather than real; that is, resolvable within
thought) but it was his central device for posing problems. Thus just as “God” is nothing but the ob-
jectified and alienated form of the “human essence” (freedom, reason) capital appears as independent
from and dominant over its creator (labor). Similarly, the proletariat appears as the missionary of the
“human essence” or, in Lukacs’s formulation, “the identical subject-object of history.” As such, it is
destined to overcome its own alienation through an emancipatory praxis that unites “freedom” (the-
oretical awareness or consciousness of reason-the “active element” of thought, subject of history)
and “necessity” (the “practical negation” of the human essence/ the object of history). On this ideal-
ist problematic of Marx’s Early Works, see Veltmeyer (1978). In his later writings, on the basis of a
materialist conception of society and history, Marx abandons this idealist problematic. Instead of be-
ginning with some notion of the “human essence” existing only in alienated form and of the prole-
tariat as the identical subject-object of history, Marx establishes “empirical premises” for a science
of society. Within this framework (historical materialism) the position and historic praxis of the pro-
letariat are analyzed in quite different nonessentialist terms.
90n this point see, inter alia, the Italian Marxists Della Volpe and Colletti as well as Veltmeyer
(1978). At issue here Marx’s epistemology. For Kant, theoretical analysis (pure reason) and practice
(practical reason) are each constituted by conditions specific to it; praxis does not automatically flow
from theory: “to think” something is not to cause it to be. Therefore, ideals are “ideas without real-
ity.” A separate practice is required to translate ideas into reality. Hegel took Kant to be mistaken:
ideas are the very essence of the real and the “dialectic of reason” is not just a thought process; its
conditions are real and it corresponds to the way history itself unfolds. The point is still controver-
sial, but it could be argued, as do Colletti and Della Volpe as well as Althusser, that in this respect
Marx is much closer to Kant than to Hegel.
“As this author sees it, post-structuralism (as opposed to the anti-structuralism of phenome-
nology, existentialism,and even the Frankfurt School of Social Research) is predicated on the notion
that the objectivity (and meaning) of social conditions exist at the level and in the form of the text
or discourse. In these terms, the meaning of the text is embedded within the text and cannot be
5 18 HENRY VELTMEYER

established as a relation of truth (correspondence with the real); as Spivak formulates it, meaning has
no “empirical referents” or, as Nietzche had formulated it in an earlier intellectual context, “there are
no facts only interpretations” (none of which, his postmodern heirs would add, has a privileged ac-
cess to the truth, the search for which should be entirely abandoned).
”As Laclau and Mouffe would have it: “Our thesis is that only from the moment in which a
democratic discourse is available to articulate the diverse forms of resistance to subordination, do the
conditions exist that make possible the struggle against different forms of inequality” (HSS, p. 173).
As Boron (1996, p. 27) notes, it is difficult to explain in terms of this thesis the appearance of di-
verse social struggles from the days of antiquity and beyond to the Age of the Enlightenment at
which point such a discourse was constructed.
‘*On this point-the critical role of the weavers’ strike in Silesia in the transformation of
Marx’s thinking-see Veltmeyer (1978).
I3On Foucault’s analysis of this knowledge-power relation see, inter alia, Foucault (1969) and
Smart (1985). Although Foucault himself eschews any attempt to construct a general theory, his
analysis clearly departs from and evidences what could be construed as a basic principle of post-
structuralist discourse analysis: that social relations of power derive their objectivity from, and are
mediated by, the existence of a theoretical or ideological discourse; that they are embedded in spe-
cific forms of speaking, thinking and writing which are used by their agents to subordinate those who
do not have this knowledge.
I4On this point see, inter alia, Veltmeyer (1997).
I5On this postmodernist perspective see, inter alia, Schuurman (1993) and Veltmeyer (1997).
I6The intellectual trajectory of Ernesto Laclau is reflected in the most diverse opinions and
judgments of his work made by his many critics. See, for example, Mouzelis (1978); Geras (1987);
Mouzelis (1988); Geras (1988); Wood (1986). Laclau and Mouffe defended themselves from these
and such criticisms in Laclau and Mouffe (1987).

REFERENCES

Anderson, Perry. 1976. “The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci.” New Lefr Review 26:5-78.
Booth, David. 1993. “Development Research From Impasse to a New Agenda.” Pp. 49-76 in
Beyond the Impasse, edited by F, Schuurman. London: Zed Press.
Boron, Atilio. 1996. “Postmarxism? Crisis, recomposicion or Liquidacion del Marxism0 en la obra
de Emesto Laclau.” Revista Mexicana de Sociologia (58)1:42-60.
. 1993. “Estado, democracia y movimientos sociales en America latina.” Memoria 54.
CEMOS, Mexico.
Calderon, Fernando. 1995. Movimientos sociales y politica. Mexico: Siglo XX1.
Escobar, Arturo. 1995. Encountering Development: The Making and the Unmaking of the Third
World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Escobar, Arturo, and Sonia Alvarez, eds. 1992. The Making of Social Movements in Latin America:
Identi@, Strateu, and Democracy. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Foucault, Michel. 1969. The Archeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language. New York:
Harper Colophon.
Geras, Norman. 1988. “Ex-Marxism Without Substance: Being a Real Reply to Laclau and Mouffe.”
New Left Review 40:34-62.
Gramsci, Antonio. 1966. Note sul Machiavelli, sulla Politica e lo Stat0 Moderno. Torino: L. Einaudi.
Kosik, Karel. 1976. Dialkctica de lo Concreto. Mexico DF: Grijalbo.
 ERNEST0 LACLAU 5 19

Laclau, Ernesto. 1990. New Reflections on the Revolution of our Time. London: Verso.
. 1989. “Politics and the Limits of Modernity” in A. Ross (ed.), Universal Abandon? The
Politics of Postmodernism. Edinburgh University Press.
. 1971. “Feudalism and Capitalism in Latin America.” New Lefr Review 23: 19-38.
Laclau, Ernesto, and Chantal Mouffe. 1987. “Post-Marxism Without Apologies.” New Left Review
3979-106.
. 1985/1987. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. London: Verso; Hegemonia y estrategia so-
cialista. Hacia una radicalizacibn de la democracia. Madrid: Siglo XX Editores.
Lukacs, Georg. 1971. History and Class Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. 1966. Selected Works. Vol. 1. Moscow: Progress Books.
Mouzelis, Nicos. 1988. “Marxism or Post-Marxism.” New Left Review 40:107-23.
. 1978. “Ideology and Class Politics; A Critique of Ernesto Laclau.” New Left Review
25:4541.
Nugent, Daniel. 1995. “Northern Intellectuals and the EZLN.” Monthly Review Press 47(3): 1 2 k 3 8 .
Popper, Karl. 1962. The Open Sociery and its Enemies. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.
Schuurman, Frans. 1993. “Modernity, Post-Modernity and the New Social Movements.”Pp. 187-206
in Beyond the Impasse, edited by F. Schuurman. London: Zed Press.
Smart, Barry. 1985. Michel Foucault. Chicester: Ellis Honvood.
Veltmeyer, Henry. 1997. “New Social Movements in Latin America: the Dynamics of Class and
Identity.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 25(1):139-69.
. 1978. “Marx’s Two Methods of Social Analysis.” Sociological Inquiry 48(3):101-12.
. 1974. “The Structuralist Interrogation of Levi-Strauss and Althusser.” Science and Society
38(4):385-421.
Von Hayek, Friedrich. 1944. The Road to Serfdom. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Wood, Ellen Meiksins. 1995. Democracy Against Capitalism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press.
. 1986. The Retreatfiom Class. A New “True” Socialism. London: Verso.