Neo-Marxism

Key individuals

Frankfurt School: Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) and Max Horkheimer (1895-1973)

Views on cultural hegemony

-embraced the ideas of thinkers like Gramsci that the hegemony explains capitalisms durability

-argued capitalism’s values infect the arts, the media and the economy

-however they viewed this as only another reason for violent revolution to smash both capitalism and the false consciousness

revolution in the modern day

-not optimistic that revolution would occur

-conceded capitalism was more resilient then Marx predicted

Time for revolution

The next economic slump socialists should advocate for revolution rather than pursue a long term project of cultural change

Solution to capitalism’s corruption of culture

Marcuse argued a society’s economic system shapes its culture

The State in Capitalist Society (1973)

Ralph Miliband

-demolished the idea that socialism could be achieved via gradual, parliamentary reform

-whenever democratic socialist governments had come to power they had been ‘blown off course’

-as Marx said the existing state would always protect the existing, dominant economic class

-’pro capitalist’ forces would always get in the way of the parliamentary road to socialism