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What is Post-Marxism and how does its critique of Marxist theory and politics stand up to scrutiny? To what extent does it offer a radical theory and practice beyond Marxism for the twenty-first century? Behind these straightforward questions lies an extensive and diverse literature that departs from, challenges or rejects the contribution of Marxism to the idea of radical and emancipatory politics. Much of this literature signposts social, political, cultural and economic change that moves the world far from Marx's experience and the character of Marxism as a critique of capitalist modernity. It challenges those who have followed Marx to prove the continued validity and applicability of Marxist concepts, ideas and frameworks of analysis.¹ Some of the literature focuses on social divisions (such as gender, sexuality, ethnicity) or political concerns (ecology) that Marx said little about or left, by inference, subordinate to and determined by class struggle.² Some attacks the methodological and epistemological basis of Marx's analyses — the building blocks of Marxist theory and politics — and claim to identify severe limits to the insights Marxism offers.³ Some castigates Marxism as a fundamentally flawed project that gave rise to tyrannical Communist regimes when adopted as a political blueprint.⁴ This discussion will focus in this brief space on the doyennes of post-Marxism, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, who draw from post-structuralist and postmodernist theory to develop their radical materialism, redefining emancipatory politics within the idea of radical democracy.

DOI: 10.1057/9780230518766_13

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