The Political Economy of Difference: Crisis and Renewal of Marxism in the New Left Debate

Abstract

The paper analyzes the theoretical transformations of Marxist political economy in its dialogue with the social movements of the New Left since the 1960s. It argues that, in response to criticisms of the alleged economism and universalism of classical Marxism, a significant part of the tradition reformulated its vocabulary and expanded its analytical scope by incorporating the dimensions of gender, race, and nature into the critique of capitalist sociability. Based on a bibliographic mapping, the text contends that ecosocialism, social reproduction feminism, and antiracist and anticolonial Marxism have, in recent years, consolidated themselves as renewed Marxist research programs. By presenting the formation of these currents and discussing some theoretical outcomes of the debate between the proponents of the so-called politics of difference and Marxism, the article contributes to understanding the history and the current place of the critique of political economy in contemporary social science discussions on oppression and the ecological crisis.