Postmodern Left-Liberalism: Hardt and Negri and the Disavowal of Critique

Abstract

In this article we set out to critique what we term the politics of left-liberalism. Broadly speaking, we situate left-liberalism around four principles. First, left-liberalism rejects Marx’s labour theory of value. Second, left-liberalism believes that capitalism is inherently antagonistic. Third, left-liberalism develops a notion of resistance to the antagonistic nature of global capitalism through a politics of cultural difference. Fourth, left-liberalism often believes that global capitalism is now constituted through a type of informational post-industrialism. We develop these points through a critique of Hardt and Negri, who we believe articulate a postmodern version of left-liberalism. We highlight problems in Hardt and Negri’s rejection of Marxist value theory and their notion of singular events. We then set out an alternative notion of the event through the work of Badiou and Deleuze and Guattari, which is then applied to make some wider critical observations on left-liberal politics.