Žižek as a Reader of Marx, Marx as a Reader of Žižek

This chapter does three things. First it explains Žižek’s Marxism in relation to two moments in Marx’s thought—that of structural/circumstantial determination and that of ruptural/revolutionary change—by looking at the ways in which Žižek employs Lacan, Althusser, and Hegel in making sense of this. Then the chapter goes on to argue that rather than seeing Žižek’s work here as a revision of Marx or Marxist theory, we can profitably understand his work as giving us a Marxism that avoids many of the pitfalls of the debates and divisions in Marxism that begin in the 1960s between those who advocate a more structuralist account of Marxism and those who advocate a Marxist theory that makes room for a more robust account of human agency. Finally, the chapter discusses the importance of Žižek’s Marxism for understanding the contemporary conjuncture and the current return to Marx.