Most of the academic left has long been silent on the topic of strategy. Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s Hegemony and Socialist Strategy marked a watershed moment for strategic thinking in the post-Marxist tradition upon its publication in 1985. The book, long a mainstay in many a graduate theory seminar, breaks with what Laclau and Mouffe regard as Karl Marx’s fundamental essentialisms, particularly on class, and theorizes the practical formation of a pluralistic “radical democracy” in the context of hegemony. It was big in its day. But lately strategy has had few champions.

One crucial exception was leftist political scientist Leo Panitch. Panitch’s 2010 book Renewing Socialism: Transforming Democracy, Strategy and Imagination calls for the cultivation of what he calls a “socialist imagination” and a recuperation of revolutionary politics from the New Right. As Vivek Chibber wrote of him in a 2020 obituary for Jacobin, “Leo was forced to keep his feet on the ground, to think about practical strategy, a real road to working-class revival.”

But Panitch was mostly alone among leftist theorists in his granular focus. It is, rather, in the business world where strategy is flourishing today. Business strategy, or “strategic management,” as it is more often called, has been around since the 1950s but has exploded in recent decades. Books like Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works and Your Next Five Moves: Master the Art of Business Strategy promise silver bullets for corporate success. McKinsey & Company and other consulting firms have thrived in part because they are seen as offering an edge in business strategy, and strategy, consequently, has become one of the hottest specializations in B-school.