This book is the first comprehensive guide and introduction to the central theorists in the post-marxist intellectual tradition. In jargon free language it seeks to unpack, explain, and review many of the key figures behind the rethinking of the legacy of Marx and Marxism in theory and practice. Key thinkers covered include Cornelius Castoriadis, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Deleuze and Guattari, Laclau and Mouffe, Agnes Heller, Jacques Derrida, Jurgen Habermas and post-Marxist feminism. Underlying the whole text is the central question: What is Post-Marxism? Each chapter covers a key thinker or contribution and thus can be read as a stand alone introduction to the principal aspects of their approach. Each chapter is also followed by a summary of key points with a guide to further reading.  

Jürgen Habermas: Reconciling Modernity, Autonomy and Solidarity

Jürgen Habermas: Reconciling modernity, autonomy and solidarity

I have been a reformist all my life, and maybe I have been a bit more so in recent years. Nevertheless, I mostly feel that I am the last Marxist. (Habermas, 1992b: 469)

Habermas's theoretical enterprise effectively made Marx into a pioneer of contemporary emancipatory theory rather than its prophet. The very breadth and systematicity of his project exposed some limitations of Marx's thought, limitations that at the very least stem from his historical location at the birth-pangs of industrial capitalism (Habermas, 1990: 11). Marx could not have witnessed capitalism's longevity, its ability to stabilise itself through different forms of state intervention, and become more socially, politically and economically complex, especially as a ...

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