Vasilis Grollios

Abstract

As a contribution to the ongoing discussion of radical politics today, this paper offers a critique of the social theory of the Communist Party of Greece in order to demonstrate how key features of first-generation Frankfurt School Critical Theory, informed by negative dialectics, can be of a twofold use. They can be used in order to shed light on important underlying problems currently experienced by mainstream socialist parties but also to demonstrate the continued relevance of Critical Theory towards addressing contemporary issues. The argument here is that the underlying theory of the Greek Communist Party has abandoned the inherently contradictory character of the capitalist mode of production and, along with it, has also discarded negativity and fetishism, and therefore dialectics. As a result it follows traditional theory that perpetuates bourgeois politics.

Keywords

Dialectics, Negativity, Contradiction, Non-identity Thinking

From: Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory 2018 46 (1)

Editor: Wang Yi