Ernesto Laclau in Chantal Mouffe: Post-marxism without apologies

Ernesto Laclau was an Argentine political theorist and philosopher. He is often described as the
"inventor" of post - Marxist political theory. He is known for his collaboration with longtime partner
Chantal Mouffe. Laclau's early work was influenced by Marxism and focused on issues discussed in neo-
Marxist circles in the 1970s, such as the role of the state, the dynamics of capitalism, the importance of
building popular movements, and the possibility of revolution. Laclau's most notable book is Hegemony
and Socialist Strategy, which he co-authored with Chantal Mouffe in 1985 (Wikipedia, 2020).

I have to admit that this text was difficult for me to understand, perhaps one of the reasons was that the
text was in English, but thanks to my colleague Smole, who tried very hard to make this text much more
comprehensible and readable, I was able to understand content and how the writers of Laclou and
Mouffe explored the workings of hegemony and contemporary social struggles and their relevance to
democratic theory. They define the concept of hegemony by combining structuralism, post-
structuralism and psychoanalytic thought with the Marxist tradition of political theory (Vezovnik, 2009).
With the emergence of new social and political identities and frequent attacks by leftist theory on its
fundamental foundations, hegemony and socialist strategy remain as relevant as ever, setting the
necessary antidote against the attempt of the "third time" to overcome the antagonism between the left
and right (Laclau in Mouffe, 1990).

Through this work, colleague Smole also approached us with a book by our mentor, Andrea Vezovnik,
Discourse, which unfortunately I was not able to pick up from the library in time due to the current
emergency, but thanks to her quotes, I was able to overcome this even easier subject, where, above all,
the authors offer a constructivist account of "discourse". Laclau used discourse to re-examine the nature
of identity, arguing that all political identities are discursive - even if individuals perceive them as
"natural" (even to the point where one's identity is not recognized as identity). For example, while an
individual may think that he is just a "born man," for Laclau, this is not the case: "masculinity" is a
socially constructed category that has no innate meaning. Laclau argues that discourses and identities
are in themselves political entities that involve the construction of antagonisms and power relations
(Vezovnik, 2009).

In this article, particular attention has been drawn to the relationship or conflict between capitalists and
workers. The "classic" Marxism assumes that the fundamental antagonism in capitalist society is the
relationship between capitalists and workers. Capitalist appropriation of surplus value created by the
worker. Laclau argues that this connection is not antagonistic in itself. It becomes hostile only if the
worker resists exploitation / appropriation of his surplus (Laclau i Mouffe, 1990). An antagonistic
relationship between worker and capitalist is possible because of the way a worker is constituted
outside of productive relationships (e.g., the fact that he cannot live a decent life, educate children,
recreate, etc.). The essence of antagonism is the impossibility of constituting the social, Inability to
completely sediment discourses and hegemonic practices (Vezovnik, 2009).

The works of Ernesto Laclau have been an important contribution to the various efforts over the last
decade and to the approximation or resolution of theoretical setbacks in Marxist thought and analysis.
In hegemony and socialist strategy, co-authored with Chantelle Mouffe in 1985, Laclau seeks to establish
a post-Marxist form of analysis that takes a theoretical position "within Marxism". Postmarksism is
claimed to have been formulated by Laclau as abandonment rather than the restoration of Marxist
thought, and as such is part of a long tradition of idealistic anti-Marxist criticism that must be rejected
for its theoretical flaws and misguided criticism (Veltmeyer, 2007).

As "post-Marxists" these writers use "material" in various ways, all of which point to limitations and
limitations. This paper focuses on one version of "materialism", a version implied more than elaborated,
in which "material" is equivalent to institutionalized performativity or sedimentary discourse:
"objective" social structures and institutions. Post-markers often use "social" as the equivalent of
"material" in this sense, to gesture towards the context in which politics succeeds or fails. The specifics
of the "social" cannot be theorized within the framework of post-Marxism itself, and Laclau
acknowledges this limitation in his most recent work. Therefore, we conclude that post-Marxism needs
a supplement called political sociology. This is a dangerous addition in the Deridian sense: a necessary
addition that destabilizes the value of post-Marxism gives the distinction between "social" and
"political" in which the last term is privileged (Nash, 2002).

References and literature:

1. Laclau, E. in Mouffe, C. 1987. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Ljubljana: Partizanska knjiga.
2. Nash, K. 2002. Thinking political sociology: beyond the limits of post-Marxism. Available at:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0952695102015004821
3. Veltmeyer, H. 2007. Post‐Marxist Project: An Assessment and Critique of Ernesto Lacla. Available
at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1475-682X.2000.tb00922.x
4. Vezovnik, A. 2009. Diskurz. Ljubljana: Založba FDV.
5. Wikipedia. 2020. Available at :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegemony_and_Socialist_Strategy

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