Document Type
Journal Article
RIS ID
18616
Citation
Howson, Richard, 2007, From ethico-political hegemony to postmarxism, Rethinking Marxism: A Journal of Economics, Culture & Society, 19(2), 234-244.
http://ro.uow.edu.au/era/802
Abstract
Recent literature on postmarxism has neglected a direct and strong engagement with Gramsci’s theory of hegemony. What has happened through this disengagement is that postmarxism has been imbued with the poststructuralism of Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault. That has rendered it incapable of becoming a theory that can engage the social as well as the political. This paper attempts to reengage with Gramsci’s theory of hegemony and to bring back both the political and the social by focusing on a key aspect of the concept of hegemony-that is, the ethico-political. It argues that, far from being ‘‘just theory,’’ postmarxism’s engagement with Gramsci moves it toward a practical politico-social ontology. In this paper, the nexus between hegemony, the ethico-political, and postmarxism is developed by focusing on two of postmarxism’s key concepts: antagonism and equivalence.