How did Karl Marx's ideas about ruling classes influence some postmodern thinkers?

Postmodern thinkers have engaged with Karl Marx’s ideas regarding the relationship between power and knowledge, particularly his dictum that "the ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class."12

While postmodernists hold diverse views on this connection, many have been influenced by the Marxist premise that prevailing discourses in society often reflect the interests and values of dominant or elite groups. This influence manifests in several ways:1

• Critique of Hegemony: Postmodernists often argue that established discourses—such as those of the Enlightenment—are not objective truths but are instead arbitrary constructs that serve to maintain the unjust hegemony of powerful groups over nonelite perspectives.1
• Power and Knowledge: Inspired by Michel Foucault, some postmodernists adopt a more nuanced approach than traditional Marxism, suggesting that what is accepted as knowledge in any era is shaped in complex, subtle ways by considerations of power.1
• Identity Politics: By viewing established norms as reflections of power rather than objective reality, postmodernism provided a theoretical framework for identity politics, allowing various ethnic, cultural, and social groups to challenge dominant narratives.1

Some thinkers, such as Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva, have extended these critiques to argue that specific fields of knowledge, including physics and linguistics, have been shaped by gender-based power imbalances.1