Foucault, Marx, Poulantzas

["Ricardo Duchesne" <rduchesn@xxxxxxxx>]

> Ricardo quotes:
>
> The passage I sent from Laclau and Mouffe's *Hegemony* might
> create the misleading impression - as this book in general did
> among all Marxists - that L&M were advocating a totally contingent
> view. The following passage clarifies their position: "The problem of
> power cannot, therefore, be posed in terms of the search for *the*
> class or *the* dominant sector which constitutes the centre of a
> hegemonic formation, given that, by definition, such a centre will
> always elude us. But it is equally wrong to propose as an alternative,
> either pluralism or the total diffusion of power within the social, as
> this would blind the analysis to the presence of nodal points and to
> the partial concentrations of power existing in every concrete social
> formation" (142).
>
> =====
>
> And the punchline is....?
>
> Michael K.

BTW, I slightly misquoted myself, the words I took from my own
article re Hindess and Hirst. Punchline would be that L &M's idea
about "the presence of  nodal points" is a reasonable in-between
stand pluralism and determinism - but only as far as political or
hegemonic questions are concerned. Geography is a huge
nodal point which sets limits to the possible.