Re: On Laclau Mouffe and Foucault

Alejandro Groppo wrote:

> Otherwise i agree with you in the idea that Foucault is more
> microphisical than the gramscian traditiion.

I think it is unfair to Gramsci to describe (implicitly) Laclau and/or
Mouffe as part of a "Gramscian tradition," since Gramsci recognized a
basic difference, in terms of material power relationships which are
extra-discursive (i.e., enduring irrespective of changes taking place at
the level of speech and thought), between bosses and workers.  By
contrast, Laclau and Mouffe, perhaps because they have never had bosses
(I don't know), explicitly reject the claim that there is any such
difference.

Now, this wasn't just a particular opinion held by Gramsci.  It was the
cornerstone of his entire theoretical and political project and
self-understanding.  Moreover, he never -- and could never have, given
his theoretical/political commitments -- detached the concept of
"hegemony" from the fact and the irreducible experience of class struggle
(e.g., from what he learned in his role in the wave of factory
occupations in Northern Italy in 1920 etc.).

One therefore has to hear the "post" in Laclau/Mouffe's self-description,
"post-Marxist."  They are starting with a rejection of Marxism, with a
rejection of the working class perspective that animates Marxism, and
therefore with a rejection of the fundamentals of Gramscian thought.

Steve
Toronto