Radical Politics, Left Convergence and the War of Position

One of the central problems in leftist thought in the twenty-first century has been the ability to unite its various parts in order to develop some form of wider convergence capable of challenging the post-cold war neoliberal capitalist order. Despite numerous rich critiques of the workings of neoliberal capitalism, political strategy has all too often been recued to a renewal of a dated twentieth-century statist project on the one hand and an ambiguous process of civil contestation on the other. This article builds on recent calls for convergence on the left, particularly between the grand traditions of Marxism and Anarchism, which have seen an unparalleled renaissance in innovative development in the last thirty years. It suggests that an open-ended framework of Gramsci’s ‘war of position’ provides an avenue for this convergence to build forms of political strategy. Whilst Gramscian hegemony has often been understood as one of the problematic concepts within leftist though and indeed one that has often led to divergence, it suggests that inclusive version of the term as applied by Stuart Hall and Raymond Williams remains one in which convergence can develop and thrive.