Laclau And Mouffe’s Class Theory And Critical Studies

Since the 1970 s,Western Left-wing politics began to decline,the right trend of obvious,a conservative policy in the political arena had become more and more popular,and Marxism began to decline.Against this background,scientific socialism suffered from doubt,and some leftist theorists began to criticize the principle of Classic Marxist.Laclau and Mouffe as the founder of the post Marxism,tried to withdraw from the new theory and solve the new problems in the new period.First of all,Laclau and Mouffe clarified their own theory: In the new era,the social identity was based on the social identity,which was divided into different social groups.Each group should have right to gain social recognition by competing for non-political leadership(also known as "discourse power").We can see that the theoretical essence of the theory: It is a kind of post-modernist thought of deconstruction and its theory can’t catch the root;Its essence is reformismandit betrayed Marxism.Laclau and Mouffedeconstruct the class theory of Marxism.They criticized the theory of the Marx class and the main body of the proletariat.They understood the theory of the Marx class as a "class reduction theory",and criticized.They came to the conclusion that the traditional theory of the Marx doctrine in 1990 s had lost the necessity of existence and there should be a new theory to guide the new struggle and socialist practice.On the basis of criticizing the traditional theory of Marxism,The leadership thought is the core of Laclau and Mouffe ’s class theory."Leadership" means "non-political leadership",that is,"ideology" and "discourse power".They argued that,in the modern condition of the capitalist society,the proletariat power was not enough to fight against the bourgeoisie.The Democratic groups should give up the armed struggle and violent revolution,through the fight for the right to say,for non-political leadership and legal status in order to get expand the power of the group and achieve the interests of the community.Radical democracy is practice target of Laclau and Mouffe ’s class theory.They thought that under the guidance of the traditional Marxism,we cannot realize socialist democracy,but will move toward the opposite of democracy – hegemony.And so they hoped that through the struggle for non-political leadership,the political discourse will became into political essentialism,revolutionary political culture into the political class and political identity into politics.At that time,all classes and groups would achieve the balance.The aspiration of the class theory is good,and its theoretical point of view is also very striking,but there are some defects in the theory.In ontology,Laclau and Mouffe thought that Marxismwas a kind of economic determinism,and in their theory,they tried to eliminate all economic factors,and even to the other extreme,the political priority.On the theory of knowledge,Laclau and Mouffe agreed to Constructivism and Contextualism.In the view of history,Laclau and Mouffe hope to replace the material revolution through the spiritual struggle,and in order to achieve multi democracy.Their theory would have made the socialism in an unstable situation,or even in danger of subversion.In methodology,they were too highly praised by chance,randomness,and reject regularity and necessity.As a result,their theorywas divorced from reality.Although there are many drawbacks inLaclau and Mouffe’s class theory,we cannot deny all of the theory.We must admit that the theory itself is very valuable for the protection of civil rights and the exploration of the road of democracy.In respects of strengthening the ideological construction,the consolidation of the working class leadership,thepromotion of the people and social justice and equity,Laclau and Mouffeprovide us with a lot of useful references.