The debate opened thirty years ago by Norberto Bobbio with a series of articles published by the Mondoperaio magazine raised two challenges to the Marxist theory of politics: 1)Is there a Marxist theory of politics? 2) Which are the alternatives to representative democracy? On the one hand, the debate has revealed a high level of consensus on the values and rules of liberal democracy and, on the other hand, the absence among the participants of the debate of a political theory antagonistic to the constitutional-liberal one. This article deals with this debate and develops the hypothesis that only as a negative political theory Marxism could be a critique of politics, being consolidated as the theoretical program for the overcoming of the political theory of its age and as the practical program of overcoming politics proper.
Norberto Bobbio; Marxism; Political theory