Abstract

Derrida’s deconstruction of Marx was a hegemonic reading of Marx that he always wanted to do but in his own way. Derrida is often quoted saying that “I meant to read Marx my way when the time came.” And when communism fell, in the ruins of Marxism, on the grave of Marxist–Leninist–Stalinism, the time had finally come for Derrida to read Marx, his way, or rather deconstruct Marx, his way. Derrida’s deconstruction of Marx calls for a new reading of Marx. It was a reading of the haunted and the haunting Marx, whose ghosts continue to encounter us in the future that is not present, but also no less spectral than the past. That is, Derrida’s deconstruction of Marx is the return of the ghost that is always spectral. The play of difference between the spirit and the spectral is the différance of Derrida’s deconstruction of Marx. Derrida’s Specters of Marx has been popularly recognized as the long-awaited reading of Marx or Marxist (but not Marxists). The book was the publication of the two lectures that Derrida delivered at the Conference on “Whither Marxism?” organized by the Center for Ideas and Society at the University of California, Riverside, 1993. The paper is an attempt to bring forth the working of deconstruction in Derrida’s reading of Marx as given in his Specters of Marx.