Conjuring hope out of leftist melancholy: Thinking through recent scholarship on neoliberalism and the legacy of socialism

Abstract

while asking about the legacy of socialism in the current neoliberal moment. Traverso's Leftist Melancholia traces how leftists went from being melancholic about the future to giving up on the socialist project. Bockman's Markets Against Socialism attempts to infuse hope into our present by uncovering the concealed history of the role of markets in actually existing socialism and in the formation of neo-liberalism. She contends that neo-liberalism effaced any trace of such a history, which could point the way beyond capitalism. Wang Hui brings a different perspective by theorizing from the global south and from China in particular. He consequently highlights the problems of imperialism and class in twentieth century socialist history. As I articulate the arguments of these three books, I draw on recent Marxist theorists, such as Moishe Postone and Jacques Bidet to construct a theory of capitalism that can make sense of the problems and possibilities associated with our global capitalist present. In short, I argue that theories of socialism must highlight the potential of class and anti-imperialist struggles by placing them within the larger vortex of capitalist and state dynamics. | IN TRO DUCT IO NThe emergence of neo-liberalism and the end of the Cold War have caused the left to be both traumatized and often bereft of compelling explanatory narratives. Many would agree that some type of shift took place around the 1970s and 1980s, but clear explanations of how and why neo-liberalism arose are not easy to find. Moreover, the emergence of neo-liberalism overlapped with the crises of socialism and the end of the Cold-War in Euro-America, which caused a world-wide loss of hope for any alternative beyond capitalism. Given the overlap between neo-liberalism and the crises of melancholia of the left after the Cold War, I decided to read Enzo Traverso's Left-Wing Melancholia, Johanna Bockman's