Abstract

For Laclauian discourse theory, Marx's critical political economy posits an intolerably speculative thesis: in the capitalist formation, the substance of value is abstract labour, and thereby unfurls an entire world history. Such unequivocal and emphatic positing of a suprasensible sociality – speculating without hedging – is awkward and messy, and Laclauian discourse theory seeks to turn Marxian contradictions back into antinomies. The following discussion revisits the grounds on which Laclauian discourse theory has dismissed Marxian political economy and offers an alternative characterization of the latter, one that opens up the possibility of understanding the two analytical approaches as compatible and even as mutually augmenting in the sense that each approach picks up the threads of analysis that lie at the conceptual horizon of the other.