Hegemony and Counter-hegemony: Marxism, Capitalism, and Their Relation to Sexism, Racism, Nationalism, and Authoritarianism

A critical examination of the relationship between Marxism and other social justice movements, including feminism, anti-racism, gay liberation, environmentalism, anarchism and Native activism. The capitalist social order is like a Hydra, a many-headed dragon. Try to cut off one head, and the others will kill you. The only way to kill the beast is to cut off all its heads at once. The social revolution must grow to encompass not merely the economic means of production, but the entire mode of social life, including its familial, sexual, racial, national, gender and authority roles. The tactics of the traditional Leninists are entirely unsuited for that task. Only a wider-ranging social movement can hope to defeat capitalist hegemony.