The Apostle of Reason: Hegel & the Desire for Emancipation in the 21st Century

Theories of social class, so Fredric Jameson described at the time, appeared to be on the wane, and far less important, than theories of authoritarianism, racism, and sexism in the aftermath of the postmodern turn. This was at the height of the social welfare period in the 1960s, and during the earliest forgings of the postmodern cultural revolution that would lead into the 1980s and 1990s – the decades that saw the rise of neoliberalism and the defeat of European Communism. During a moment of class compromise between capital and labour, it appeared then that a class politics, not to mention the agency of the working class as a revolutionary subject, lacked any seriously threatening gesture to the established order. As the Soviet Union veered towards collapse and ultimate demise, the practical project of Communism, too, seemed to have finally been plunged into the dustbin of history