Theory and Socialist Strategy

Abstract

The global left is embroiled in two concurrent but separate debates. The first concerns the so-called in marxism, the second is a much more recent controversy: what is the status of socialism both as an alternative to capitalism considered historically, and as a social movement. The crisis in marxism is not new; it has reappeared periodically since the turn of the 20th century and possesses a different character than the issues surrounding socialism. First of all, since marxism considers itself a critical or positive science (depending on tendency), its links to socialist politics, which have a distinctly character, are indirect. One may argue that the new self-examination of marxism has been detonated by the conjuncture of economic and political developments, but the nature of the questions asked and the answers provided are connected to the specific discourses of science. Put another way, the sociological and ideological aspects of the crisis of marxism as a science do not exhaust the issues. Later, I will try to survey the history of the crisis in marxism problem since the turn of the 20th century. Suffice it here to point out that while it is not new, every reincarnation adds more challenges to the marxist scientific paradigm. For example, none of the previous periods in this debate subjected socialism to such scrutiny as is currently the norm, or challenged the role of the working class as a vital component of any possible emancipatory project. Thus socialism suffers today from the first global challenge to at least three of its fundamental claims: 1) to be the determinate alternative to the prevailing capitalist world order; 2) that the societies that constitute the really existing socialisms represent an historical advance over advanced capitalist countries, and that under conditions of world economic and political crisis of the capitalist order the movements toward socialism are clearly on the political agenda; and 3) that socialism as an ideology subsumes other oppositional social movements and can accommodate their demands within its program. Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe have added their voices to these debates. What distinguishes Hegemony and Socialist Strategy from other contributions are two critical differences. First, theirs is the boldest, if not the first, attempt to marshal the entire corpus of French post-structuralist philosophy as methodological and epistomological critiques of historical materialism. They have not only provided an external critique in the light of events, but have attempted to refute marxism from within as a form of essentialism. Further, they have proposed an alternate paradigm