No social group has an a priori privileged revolutionary role.

Evidence

This can only mean that the points of resistance to the antagonizing force are always going to be external to it. So there are no a priori privileged points of rupture and contestation; particularly intense antagonistic points can only be contextually established, never deduced from the internal logic of either of the two opposed forces taken in isolation. In practical terms – going back to the earlier example – there is no reason why struggles taking place within relations of production should be the privileged points of a global anti-capitalist struggle. A globalized capitalism creates myriad points of rupture and antagonisms – ecological crises, imbalance between different sectors of the economy, massive unemployment, and so on – and only an overdetermination of this antagonistic plurality can create global anti-capitalist subjects capable of carrying out a struggle worth the name. And, as all historical experience shows, it is impossible to determine a priori who the hegemonic actors in this struggle will be. It is by no means clear that they will be the workers. All we know is that they will be the outsiders of the system, the underdogs – those we have called the heterogeneous – who are decisive in the establishment of an antagonistic frontier. — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 299

Categorization

• XREF: Undercuts orthodox Marxism’s privileging of the working class in social change. — connects to: Class antagonism cannot be deduced from the concept of capital. — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 298; No subject occupies a neutral position in the social order; Marginalized groups can no longer occupy the proletariat’s revolutionary role — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 749

Broader Connections

• Marginalized groups can no longer occupy the proletariat’s revolutionary role #exemplifies (0.78) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 749
• No subject occupies a neutral position in the social order #corroborates (0.75)