Hegemony Bonding Philosophical Critique

Since the mid-1970s, accompanied by the setback of the left-wing politics, theresurgence of the right-wing forces in the westen nations, the regression of theextensive conservatism as well as the wane of the structral Marxsim, many westenleft-wing intellectuals have oppugned the validity of the nature, the goal, the creedand the strategies of the traditional socialism, and it is the very extensive query about"scientific socialism "that gives birth to the straightforeward animadversion upon themain principles of classical Marxism. The subversion against grand narrative in thewesten academe initiated by the booming post-structuralism and post-modernism notonly strengthens the discredit to Marxsim, which promises ultimate liberation, butalso provides the academic grounds, analysis strategies and deconsrtruction methodsagainst Marxsim to the theorists, who were ever radical leftists, which is the essentialbackground that breeds Laclau and Mouffe's post-Marxsim. The dissertation arguesthat Laclau and Mouffe's thoughts follow the evolutive route of structral Marxsim,Gramscianism and post-Marxsim. The thesis Socialist Strategy, Where Next written in1981 marks their conversion from Gramscianism to post-Marxsim, according towhich I divide their thouhgts into two periods: the former period and the latter period. Of all the theorists who are either self-assumed Marxists or so-called Marxists,Laclau and Mouffe occupy a most important status. On one hand, their post-Marxisttheory integrates diverse deconsrtruction points of Marxsim and gets the most out ofthe logic of deconsrtructionism. They employ many principles of postmodernism suchas anti-fundamentalism, anti-essensialism, anti-cenrtalism to deconstruct Marxsim,thereby discarding the key categories and main principles of Marxsim and reachingthe conclusion that it is not an apprehensible and predictable mode of socialrevolution to realize the thorough and all-around liberation of human beings byuniting the mass as a class. On the other hand, by reexpounding radically someconcepts of Marxist theory and recasting or transforming post-modernist theorieswhile using them, they manage to establish the new mode of liberation as asuper-Marxsim essensialism, which combines multielement self-identity with radicaldemocracy in the frame of the theory of discourse. They adopt some views andmethods of post-modernism, but belive in the value judgments prevailong in modernpolitics such as freedom, democracy, political mass struggle, self-determination,liberation and otherwise. therefore, in no way should we identify Laclau and Mouffe'spost-Marxsim with post-modernism. Laclau and Mouffe's post-Marxsim is both theorganic combination of deconstructionism and constructivism and the theoreticalattempt of integrating difference politics with identity, which constitutes their uniquefeature. Based on the study of Laclau and Mouffe's main works, the dissertationinvestigates their early animadversion upon structral Marxsim and their interpretationof Gramscian's theory of hegemony, argues about the inner relations between theirearly ideological criticism and their post-Marxism schematization, analyzes theirtheory of discourse concerning post-Marxism, displays their deconstructiondimensions of Marxism and reveals the theoretical indications and constructivesignificance of their theory of hegemonic articulation.