Despite the increased attention to his work since his death in 1997, Cornelius Castoriadis remains a rather marginal figure in contemporary theoretical and political debate. Castoriadis' contribution, I contend, is best gauged by placing it alongside post-Marxist alternatives such as the one presented by Laclau and Mouffe. Both Laclau and Mouffe and Castoriadis reject the attempt at foundationalist legitimation of the socialist project, emphasising instead the primacy of politics. However, in contrast to Laclau and Mouffe, Castoriadis' project of autonomy contains a robust utopian dimension. Receiving his political inheritance from the broad libertarian socialist tradition, Castoriadis continues to challenge the domination of state and capital and to insist on the liberatory possibilities of direct democracy. His vision for an autonomous political community is matched by his turn to psychoanalysis, where he develops an ethics of autonomous being. Simultaneously modern and post-modern, Castoriadis' social and political thought provides a vital planting of flags for the contemporary progressive intellectual.