Laclau’s post-Marxism reframed left politics from class conflict to a peoples-versus-elites cleavage.

Evidence

Although Laclau passed away in 2014, shortly before Europe’s populist moment peaked, he had impeccable credentials—he had been close to Hugo Chávez and supportive of Argentina’s Kirchner government in the early 2000s. Since his so-called post-Marxist turn in the early 1980s, Laclau had urged the European left to abandon antiquated references to “class.” Instead, he sent them out into the streets with a new cleavage: peoples versus elites. — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 27

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the key conceptual move of post-Marxist populism: dropping class language in favor of a peoples/elites binary, which underpins the entire chapter’s theory of the populist moment.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how exactly does Laclau’s theory justify this substitution, and does abandoning class necessarily entail abandoning redistributionary politics?
• XREF: connects to: Left populism helped destroy post-politics yet failed to restore mass politics — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 345; Postindustrial society narratives ideologically mask continuing class struggle. — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 39; Populist-left politics emerged amid party decline and labor movement collapse — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 15

Broader Connections

• Postindustrial society narratives ideologically mask continuing class struggle. #contradicts (0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 39
• Left populism helped destroy post-politics yet failed to restore mass politics #qualifies (0.78) — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 345
• Populist-left politics emerged amid party decline and labor movement collapse #complicates (0.75) — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 15