Gáspár Miklós Tamás
Quick Facts
Biography
Gáspár Miklós Tamás (G. M. Tamás; Hungarian: Tamás Gáspár Miklós; born November 28, 1948), often referred to in the media as TGM, is a Hungarian Marxist philosopher and public intellectual. He writes primarily about political and aesthetic questions.
Biography
Born in Cluj, Romania, he presently lives in Budapest. A dissident at the end of the state socialist (Communist) period, he was initially a libertarian socialist. While in contact with these authors, his perspective is distinct from the Budapest School, the major tradition of leftist Hungarian philosophy. From 1986 to 1988, he taught in the U.S., Britain, and France, and studied at Oxford. At the beginning of the post-socialist era in 1989, he became committed to a liberal program, and was a leader of the Alliance of Free Democrats. He served in the Hungarian Parliament as a representative of the Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ), from 1989 to 1994. He re-identified as a Marxist in the early years of the 21st century. He served as President of the extra-parliamentary Green Left between 2010 and 2011.
He is a vocal opponent of the Hungarian state, governed by Viktor Orbán and the Fidesz party, as well as neoliberalism. His theoretical work draws on the ideas of Italian autonomism (Antonio Negri), German Neue Marx-Lektüre (Hans-Georg Backhaus and Helmut Reichelt), and American Political Marxism (Robert Brenner and Ellen Meiksins Wood). He also refers to the insights of Georges Bataille and Moishe Postone.
He is known for developing the concept of post-fascism. In his words,