Living with the Fragments: Further Thoughts on Norman Geras’s Critique of Post-Marxism

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ABSTRACTThis article revisits and re-evaluates a famous debate between Norman Geras and Ernesto Laclau. This exchange was one of the few direct confrontations between Marxism and post-Marxism in terms of its significance for the evolution of Marxist theory, characterised by increasing fragmentation often morphing into post-Marxist theory. The article also considers the significance of the debate in relation to the nature of Geras’s adherence to Marxism and his intellectual and political trajectory. It argues that Geras was more of a post-Marxist than he thought he was, and became more so over time, and that Laclau’s ethical reluctance was close to at least one of Marx’s “spirits.” Finally in raising the question of how anti/post-capitalist theorists should live with and without Marx(ism) this article suggests that the debate in many ways still has contemporary relevance.