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65-463: The term "Post-Marxism" first appeared in Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe 's theoretical work Hegemony and Socialist Strategy . Post-Marxism is a wide category not well-defined, containing the work of Laclau and Mouffe on the one hand, and some strands of autonomism and Open Marxism , post-structuralism , cultural studies , ex-Marxists and Deleuzian -inspired 'politics of difference' on

130-813: A licenciatura in 1964, and received a PhD from the University of Essex in 1977. From 1986 he served as Professor of Political Theory at the University of Essex, where he founded and directed for many years the graduate programme in Ideology and Discourse Analysis , as well as the Centre for Theoretical Studies in the Humanities and the Social Sciences. Under his directorship, the Ideology and Discourse Analysis programme has provided

195-456: A mode of production , and seeks to trace its origins, development, and decline. Marx argues that capitalism is a form of economic organization which has arisen and developed in a specific historical context, and which contains tendencies and contradictions which will inevitably lead to its decline and collapse. Marx considered Das Kapital a scientific work, and in it critiqued both the system and bourgeois political economists who argue that it

260-437: A straw man . Besides Laclau and Mouffe, very few Marxists describe themselves as Post-Marxists, regardless of their own affinities with post-structuralist theories or their reinterpretation of Marx. There is also much disagreement between post-Marxists on fundamental questions of strategy and philosophy (Hegel or Spinoza, for example); some forward a left-populism , others a complete rejection of organised politics , and others

325-517: A "frantic ultra-Leftist stance, wrapped in a Leninism of kindergarten". Das Kapital Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (German: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie ), also known as Capital and Das Kapital ( German pronunciation: [das kapiˈtaːl] ), is a foundational theoretical text in materialist philosophy and critique of political economy written by Karl Marx , published as three volumes in 1867, 1885, and 1894. The culmination of his life's work,

390-469: A "strictly scientific work" of political economy , the content of which did not apply to monarchic Russia, where "capitalist exploitation " had never occurred and was officially dismissed, given "that very few people in Russia will read it, and even fewer will understand it". Nonetheless, Marx acknowledged that Russia was the country where Das Kapital "was read and valued more than anywhere". For instance,

455-452: A French translation, published in 44 installments from August 1872 through May 1875, and then as a single work with a printing of ten thousand copies, the largest up until then. Eventually, Marx's work was translated into all major languages. The definitive critical edition of Marx's works, known as MEGA II ( Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe ), includes Das Kapital in German (only the first volume

520-504: A Hegelian perspective. Turning to the Atlantic, in the UK, Stuart Hall began to experiment with increasingly aggressive post-structuralist theorists in the build up to New Labour while working for Marxism Today , especially in relation to race and identity. John Holloway began to forge a new path between Althusserian structural Marxism and instrumentalist theorists of Monopoly Capitalism . In

585-502: A Marxism for the neoliberal conjuncture required a fundamental reworking, to address the failures of both. Subsequently, Laclau and Mouffe address the proliferation of "new subject positions" by locating their analysis on a non-essentialist framework. Simultaneously, revolutionaries in Italy, known as Operaismo, and later autonomists , began to theorise against the conservative Italian Communist Party , focusing much more on labour, gender and

650-543: A dissertation comparing the philosophy of nature in the works of the philosophers Democritus (circa 460–370 BC) and Epicurus (341–270 BC). The logical architecture of Das Kapital is derived in part from the Politics and the Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle, including the fundamental distinction between use value and exchange value , the syllogisms ( C-M-C' and M-C-M' ) for simple commodity circulation and

715-438: A form of post-Marxism, of having a theoretically weak understanding of value in capitalist economies. It has also been by criticised by other Marxists for being anti-humanist / anti-(Hegelian) dialectical. Post-Marxism of all stripes has also been criticised for downplaying or ignoring the role of race, neocolonialism , and Eurocentrism . Post-Marxism as a term is also seen as being too imprecise, often used as an insult or

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780-576: A full, three-volume edition as Theorien über den Mehrwert ( Theories of Surplus Value , 1905–1910). The first volume was published in English as A History of Economic Theories (1952). The Communist Party of the Soviet Union published its own edition of Volume IV in which it claimed that Kautsky's edition bastardized the original text, with their version containing more of the original, unedited material. The first translated publication of Das Kapital

845-499: A more recent English translation was made by Ben Fowkes and David Fernbach (the Penguin edition). In 2024, Princeton University Press published the first English translation of the second German edition of Capital, Volume 1, edited and translated by Paul North and Paul Reitter. Volumes 2 and 3 are forthcoming. In 2017, the historian Gareth Stedman Jones wrote in the Books and Arts section of

910-467: A new Leninist vanguard. Ernesto Laclau Ernesto Laclau ( Spanish: [laˈklaw] ; 6 October 1935 – 13 April 2014) was an Argentine political theorist and philosopher . He is often described as an 'inventor' of post-Marxist political theory. He is well known for his collaborations with his long-term partner, Chantal Mouffe . He studied history at the University of Buenos Aires Faculty of Philosophy and Letters , graduating with

975-441: A research framework for the development of a distinct type of discourse analysis that draws on post-structuralist theory (especially the work of Saussure , and Derrida ), post-analytic thought ( Wittgenstein , and Richard Rorty ) and psychoanalysis (primarily the work of Lacan ) to provide innovative analysis of concrete political phenomena, such as identities, discourses and hegemonies. This theoretical and analytical orientation

1040-403: A topic that was prevalent in his earliest writings: populism. In On Populist Reason , Laclau considered the nature of populism in political discourse, the creation of a popular hegemonic bloc such as "the people", and the importance of affect in politics. Building on his earlier work, Laclau argued that the basis of populism lies in the creation of " empty signifiers ": words and ideas that express

1105-433: A universal idea of justice, and symbolically structure the political environment. Against those who see populism as a threat to democracy, Laclau argued that it is an essential component of it. Laclau is known for his long standing dialogue with Lacanian "arch-Marxist" Slavoj Žižek . This dates back to at least 1989, when Laclau wrote the introduction to Žižek's first book in English ( The Sublime Object of Ideology ). Žižek

1170-448: A wide variety of different groups if they are to be successful and establish a left-wing 'hegemony'. In the final chapter of the book, the project of "radical and plural democracy" was advocated: a democracy in which subjects accept the importance of the values of liberty and equality, but fight over what the terms mean. In Hegemony and Socialist Strategy Laclau and Mouffe also offered a constructivist account of 'discourse'. By drawing on

1235-498: Is an expanded English translation of the successful 2008 Japanese pocket version Das Kapital known as Manga de Dokuha . The English translation of volume 1 by Samuel Moore and Eleanor Marx 's partner Edward Aveling , overseen by Engels, was published in 1887 as Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production by Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey, & Co. This was reissued in the 1970s by Progress Publishers in Moscow, while

1300-573: Is efficient and stable. In Das Kapital (1867), Marx proposes that the motivating force of capitalism is in the exploitation of labor , whose unpaid work is the ultimate source of surplus value . The owner of the means of production is able to claim the right to this surplus value because they are legally protected by the ruling regime through property rights and the legally established distribution of shares which are by law distributed only to company owners and their board members. The historical section shows how these rights were acquired in

1365-519: Is essentially restricted to the areas of speech and writing, but any complex of elements in which relations play the constitutive role. This means that elements do not pre-exist the relational complex but are constituted through it. Thus 'relation' and 'objectivity' are synonymous. Saussure asserted that there are no positive terms in language, only differences — something is what it is only through its differential relations to something else." Laclau subsequently used this account of discourse to re-consider

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1430-485: Is in French) and shows all the versions and alterations made to the text as well as a very extensive apparatus of footnotes and cross-references. The first unabridged translation of Das Kapital to Bengali was done by professor Piyush Dasgupta . It was published in six volumes by Baniprakash, Kolkata, India between 1974 and 1983. In 2012, Red Quill Books released Capital: In Manga! , a comic book version of Volume I which

1495-568: Is known today as the ' Essex School of discourse analysis '. Over his career Laclau lectured extensively in many universities in North America, South America, Western Europe, Australia, and South Africa. He also held positions at SUNY Buffalo and Northwestern University , both in the US. Laclau died of a heart attack in Seville in 2014. Laclau studied history at the University of Buenos Aires and

1560-739: Is often very different from that produced by Laclau and Mouffe, and much of the Left has turned against the Post-Marxist turn. Despite being born in Latin America and the Eastern Bloc, post-Marxism is largely produced by theorists of the Global North , as the following criticisms reveal. Aside from perhaps Spivak, there are no notable theorists of the Global South who are within the post-Marxist tradition, and

1625-423: Is spent on commodities for which there is market-demand, can be considered productive labour and therefore exploited on Marx's account. There are also those who argued that Marx's so-called immiseration thesis is presumed to mean that the proletariat is absolutely immiserated. The existing scholarly consensus tends towards the opposite view that Marx believed that only relative immiseration would occur, that is,

1690-407: Is subtitled "The process of capitalist production as a whole" and is concerned primarily with the internal differentiation of the capitalist class. The first three parts are concerned with the division of surplus value amongst individual capitals, where it takes the form of profit. The following parts are concerned with merchants' capital, interest-bearing capital and landed capital. The last part draws

1755-409: Is the most cited book in the social sciences published before 1950. Marx's theory of historical materialism posits that the economic structure of society – in particular, the forces and relations of production – are the crucial factors in shaping its nature. Rather than a simple description of capitalism as an economic model , Das Kapital instead examines capitalism as a historical epoch and

1820-420: Is the point of departure for the topic of capital accumulation which was given its Marxist treatment later in detail by Rosa Luxemburg , among others. Das Kapital, Volume III , subtitled The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole , was prepared by Engels from notes left by Marx and published in 1894. It is divided into seven parts: The work is best known today for Part 3 which in summary says that as

1885-509: Is widely recognized as responsible for Laclau's increased acceptance of Lacanian ideas and his essay "Beyond Discourse Analysis", which was published in Laclau's New Reflections on the Revolutions of Our Time (1990), provided a psychoanalytic critique of Laclau's work. In 2000, Laclau, Žižek and Judith Butler published the trialogue Contingency, Hegemony, Universality , in which each responded to

1950-515: The British Library in London. At the time of his death (1883), Marx had prepared the manuscript for Das Kapital, Volume IV , a critical history of theories of surplus value of his time, the 19th century, based on the earlier manuscript Theories of Surplus Value (1862–63). The philosopher Karl Kautsky (1854–1938) published a partial edition of Marx's surplus-value critique and later published

2015-409: 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 significant book is Hegemony and Socialist Strategy , which he co-authored with Chantal Mouffe in 1985. The position outlined in this book is usually described as post-Marxist because it rejects (a) Marxist economic determinism and (b)

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2080-509: The Martians". Their disagreement escalated in the pages of Critical Inquiry in 2006, when in a spate of essays the two argued in an increasingly hostile manner about political action, Marxism and class struggle, Hegel, populism, and the Lacanian Real. More recently in a 2014 interview with David Howarth, Laclau stated that his relationship with Žižek had deteriorated due to the latter adopting

2145-761: The Peronist politician Arturo Jauretche , a strong opponent of Justo 's dictatorship during the Infamous Decade of the 1930s, was a close friend of his father. In his later years, he had close ties with the Argentine Socialist Confederation (Spanish: Confederación Socialista Argentina ), and in Argentina he is associated with Peronism . Laclau's early work was influenced by Althusserian Marxism and focused on issues debated within Neo-Marxist circles in

2210-533: The Russian edition was the fastest selling as 3,000 copies were sold in one year while the German edition took five years to sell 1,000, therefore the Russian translation sold fifteen times faster than the German original. This edition was in part worked on by revolutionary socialist Mikhail Bakunin , but "he quit after completing part of the first chapter" and it was completed by Nikolai Danielson and German Lopatin among others. Marx revised, rewrote, and monitored

2275-422: The US, Michael Hardt collaborated with Antonio Negri to produce Empire at the turn of the century, widely recognised as a consolidation and re-affirmation of post-Marxism. Harry Cleaver produced innovative readings of Capital , alongside Moishe Postone who reaffirmed Marx's central concepts. Post-Marxism also has different connotations within radical feminist theory. The way Catharine MacKinnon uses

2340-531: The categories cannot explain. This meant that Marx had to build his arguments on historical narratives and empirical evidence rather than the arbitrary application of his ideas in his evaluation of capitalism. On the other hand, Das Kapital has also received criticism. There are theorists who claimed that this text was unable to reconcile capitalist exploitation with prices dependent upon subjective wants in exchange relations. Marxists generally reply that only socially necessary labor time , that is, labor which

2405-412: The circulation of value as capital . Moreover, the description of machinery under capitalist relations of production as "self-acting automata " derives from Aristotle's speculations about inanimate instruments capable of obeying commands as the condition for the abolition of slavery . In the 19th century, Marx's research of the available politico-economic literature required twelve years, usually in

2470-449: The emergence of an entirely new mode of production as the culmination of the same historical dialectic that led to the emergence of capitalism from prior forms. The third volume is highly controversial, peculiarly the tenth chapter, as some economists feel like Marx contradicted himself with the Marxian fundamental value theory while trying to tackle the transformation problem . Volume 3

2535-425: The first place chiefly through plunder and conquest and the activity of the merchant and "middle-man". In producing capital , the workers continually reproduce the economic conditions by which they labour. Das Kapital proposes an explanation of the "laws of motion" of the capitalist economic system from its origins to its future by describing the dynamics of the accumulation of capital, the growth of wage labour ,

2600-436: The first volume. These three volumes are collectively known as Das Kapital . NML: Das Kapital, Volume I (1867) is a critical analysis of political economy, meant to reveal the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production , how it was the precursor of the socialist mode of production and of the class struggle rooted in the capitalist social relations of production. The first of three volumes of Das Kapital

2665-636: The great landmarks of nineteenth-century thought, it is [because it connects] critical analysis of the economy of his time with its historical roots. In doing so, he inaugurated a debate about how best to reform or transform politics and social relations, which has gone on ever since. Positive reception also cited the soundness of the methodology used in producing the book, which is called immanent critique. This approach, which starts from simple category and gradually unfolds into complex categories, employed "internal" criticism that finds contradiction within and between categories while discovering aspects of reality that

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2730-401: The interdependent" connection of humans and nature. The purpose of Das Kapital (1867) was a scientific foundation for the politics of the modern labour movement . The analyses were meant "to bring a science , by criticism, to the point where it can be dialectically represented" and so "reveal the law of motion of modern society" to describe how the capitalist mode of production was

2795-597: The later works of Marx. In France, radicals such as Félix Guattari redefined old Lacanian models of desire and subjectivity, which had often been tied to the communist project, bringing Nietzsche into conversation with Marx. In the Eastern Bloc , the Budapest School began reinterpreting Marx, building on the work of the Praxis School before them. In West Germany, theorists reinterpreted Marx's works entirely from

2860-527: The left and the right wings of Marxism. Nick Thoburn has criticised Laclau's Post-Marxism (and its relationship to Eurocommunism ) as essentially a rightward shift to social democracy . Ernest Mandel and Sivanandan make this same point. Richard Wolff also claims that Laclau's formulation of Post-Marxism is a step backward. Oliver Eagleton (son of Terry Eagleton ) claims that Mouffe's 'radical democracy' has an inherent conservative nature. Other Marxists have criticised Autonomist Marxism or post-operaismo,

2925-440: The nature of identity, arguing that all political identities are discursive - even if they are experienced by individuals as 'natural' (even to the point where one's identity is not recognised as an identity). For example, though an individual may think that they are just 'born male' this is, for Laclau not the case: 'maleness' is a socially constructed category that has no innate meaning. In his more recent works Laclau returned to

2990-453: The organic fixed capital requirements of production rise as a result of advancements in production generally, the rate of profit tends to fall . This result which orthodox Marxists believe is a principal contradictory characteristic leading to an inevitable collapse of the capitalist order was held by Marx and Engels to—as a result of various contradictions in the capitalist mode of production —result in crises whose resolution necessitates

3055-511: The other. Recent overviews of post-Marxism are provided by Ernesto Screpanti , Göran Therborn , and Gregory Meyerson. Prominent post-Marxist journals include New Formations , Constellations , Endnotes , Crisis and Critique and Arena . Post-Marxism first originated in the late 1970s, and several trends and events of that period influenced its development. The weakness of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc paradigm became evident after

3120-466: The others' works in a three-essay cycle. Although Žižek and Laclau noted their similarities and mutual respect, significant political and theoretical differences emerged between all three interlocutors. Following several acrimonious publications in the early 2000s, Laclau wrote in On Populist Reason (2005) that Žižek had an impractical and confused approach to politics, describing him as "waiting for

3185-670: The precursor of the socialist mode of production . The argument is an analysis of the classical economics of Adam Smith , David Ricardo , John Stuart Mill and Benjamin Franklin , drawing on the dialectical method that G. W. F. Hegel developed in Science of Logic and The Phenomenology of Spirit . Other intellectual influences on Capital were the French socialists Charles Fourier , Henri de Saint-Simon , Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon . At university, Marx wrote

3250-466: The radical movements of the Global South largely remain within the 'Old Left' tradition. Several reasons relating to political geography and level of academisation are given as explanations. There is some debate however as to whether Cedric Robinson was a post-Marxist. Despite this, the Zapatistas have been a large source of inspiration for many post-Marxists. Post-Marxism has been criticised from both

3315-541: The rise of Maoist theory , and the proliferation of commercial television and later information technologies which covered in its broadcasts the Vietnam War . Post-Marxism, although with its roots in this New Left and the consequent post-structural moment in France, has its real genesis in reaction to the hegemony of neoliberalism , and defeat of the Left in such events as the UK miners' strike . Ernesto Laclau argued that

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3380-469: The scientific journal Nature : What is extraordinary about Das Kapital is that it offers a still-unrivalled picture of the dynamism of capitalism and its transformation of societies on a global scale. It firmly embedded concepts such as commodity and capital in the lexicon. And it highlights some of the vulnerabilities of capitalism, including its unsettling disruption of states and political systems. [...] If Das Kapital has now emerged as one of

3445-452: The so called " Secret speech " and the following invasion of Hungary , which split the radical left irreparably. Marxism from then on faced a crisis of credibility, resulting in various developments in Marxist theory, particularly neo-Marxism , which theorised against much of the Eastern Bloc. This happened concurrently with the occurrence internationally of the strikes and occupations of 1968 ,

3510-495: The social intertwining of the different capitals, of the component parts of capital and of revenue (= s)". This intertwining, conceived as a movement of commodities and of money, enabled Marx to work out at least the essential elements, if not the definitive form of a coherent theory of the trade cycle, based upon the inevitability of periodic disequilibrium between supply and demand under the capitalist mode of production ( Ernest Mandel , Intro to Volume II of Capital , 1978). Part 3

3575-447: The solid foundation on which the whole of the unfolding analysis is based. Marx wrote in a letter sent to Engels on 30 April 1868: "In Book 1 [...] we content ourselves with the assumption that if in the self-expansion process £100 becomes £110, the latter will find already in existence in the market the elements into which it will change once more. But now we investigate the conditions under which these elements are found at hand, namely

3640-449: The term post-Marxism is not based on post-structuralism. She says "feminism worthy of the name absorbs and moves beyond marxist methodology", meaning that Marxism is not to be left behind but built on. Currently, figures in the US, UK, and Europe continue to produce work in the post-Marxist tradition, particularly Nancy Fraser , Alain Badiou , Jeremy Gilbert and Étienne Balibar . This theory

3705-418: The text contains Marx's analysis of capitalism , to which he sought to apply his theory of historical materialism "to lay bare the economic law of motion of modern society", following from classical political economists such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo . The text's second and third volumes were completed from Marx's notes after his death and published by his colleague Friedrich Engels . Das Kapital

3770-615: The transformation of the workplace, the concentration of capital, commercial competition, the banking system, the decline of the profit rate , land-rents, et cetera . The critique of the political economy of capitalism proposes: After two decades of economic study and preparatory work (especially regarding the theory of surplus value ), the first volume appeared in 1867 as The Production Process of Capital . After Marx's death in 1883, Engels introduced Volume II: The Circulation Process of Capital in 1885; and Volume III: The Overall Process of Capitalist Production in 1894 from manuscripts and

3835-531: The view that class struggle is the most important antagonism in society. In their 2001 introduction to the second edition Laclau and Mouffe commented on this label, stating that whilst ' post -Marxist' they were also 'post- Marxist ': their work, though a departure from traditional Western Marxism, retained similar concerns and ideas. A key innovation in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy was Laclau and Mouffe's argument that left-wing movements need to build alliances with

3900-648: The whole account together. The aim of the volume as a whole is to locate and describe the concrete forms which grow out of the movements of capital as a whole. Thus, the various forms of capital approach step by step the form which they assume on the surface of society in the action of different capitals on one another in competition and in the ordinary consciousness of the agents of production themselves (25) (Clarke). In volume 3 (as in his earlier text The German Ideology ), Marx discusses how primitive accumulation alienates humans from nature. In volume 3, Marx also describes capitalism as producing an "irreparable rift in

3965-475: The work of the later Wittgenstein, they argued that social entities only become meaningful through both linguistic and non-linguistic discursive articulation. As such, the meaning of something is never pre-given but is, instead, constructed through social practices. In a later summary of his view, Laclau claims there is support for this broad sense of discourse in Saussure. "By discourse... I do not mean something that

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4030-581: The worker and the industrialist (as in Volume I), but rather the money owner and money lender, the wholesale merchant, the trader and the entrepreneur or functioning capitalist. Moreover, workers appear in Volume II essentially as buyers of consumer goods and therefore as sellers of the commodity labour power , rather than producers of value and surplus-value , although this latter quality established in Volume I remains

4095-607: Was a member of the PSIN (Socialist Party of the National Left) until 1969, when the British historian Eric Hobsbawm supported his entrance to Oxford. He had close links with Jorge Abelardo Ramos , the founder of the PSIN, although he stated in 2005 that the latter had evolved in a direction he did not appreciate. In the same interview, he claimed that he came from a Yrigoyenista family, and that

4160-597: Was in the Russian Empire in March 1872. It was the first foreign publication with the French edition beginning publication in August 1872 and the English edition appearing 15 years later in 1887. It was even published before the first modern Russian translation of the whole Bible in 1876. Despite Russian censorship proscribing "the harmful doctrines of socialism and communism ", the Russian censors considered Das Kapital as

4225-496: Was published on 14 September 1867, dedicated to Wilhelm Wolff and was the sole volume published in Marx's lifetime. Das Kapital, Volume II , subtitled The Process of Circulation of Capital , was prepared by Engels from notes left by Marx and published in 1885. It is divided into three parts: In Volume II , the main ideas behind the marketplace are to be found, namely how value and surplus-value are realized. Its focuses aren't so much

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