Counter-Hegemonic Struggles

Abstract

The present essay is written in the belief that socialists do have a distinctive contribution to make to counter-hegemonic struggles; and that the socialist alternative which they propose is now more than ever needed in the struggle against conservative hegemony. Of course, this socialist contribution does not in any way oppose the concerns of 'new social movements'. On the contrary, these concerns - anti-sexism, anti-racism, ecology, sexual liberation, peace, etc - are part of the socialist agenda; and there are many people in 'new social movements' who are themselves socialists and who conceive their concerns as bound up with socialism. But the question which I want to raise here is what are the fundamental positions which may nowadays be said to constitute the specific contribution which socialists can make to counter-hegemonic struggles. These positions need restating on at least two counts. The first, is that they are now so often contested on the Left, or simply ignored. The second is that the crisis of Communist regimes, and the collapse of some of them, has given hegemonic forces a wonderful opportunity to proclaim not only that Communism was dead or dying, but that socialism in any version was in the same condition. Nothing, from a socialist perspective, could be more necessary than to counter this, and to provide a reasoned argument on behalf of the main propositions which define socialism.