Contesting The Hegemony of Market Ideology Gramsci's 'Good Sense' and Polanyi's 'Double Movement - V.birchfield

Contesting the Hegemony of Market Ideology: Gramsci's 'Good Sense' and Polanyi's 'Double
Movement'
Author(s): Vicki Birchfield
Source: Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Spring, 1999), pp. 27-54
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PoliticalEconomy6:1 Spring1999:27-54
Reviewof International
Contesting the hegemony of market

ideology: Gramsci's 'good sense' and
Polanyi's 'double movement'
Vicki Birchfield
Department of Political Science
University of Georgia
ABSTRACT
This article argues that the most fundamental challenge of globalization
(both as a concept and as a sociopolitical process) lies in our need to
reassess its bearing on the meaning and potential of democraticpraxis.
My purpose then is first to offer a critiqueof neoliberalglobalizationfrom
the vantage point of democratictheory, exposing how this form of market
ideology is inherently antithetical to democratic principles. The second
part of the articleshows how two centralthemes in the thought of Antonio
Gramsciand KarlPolanyi may be usefully combinedto produce a forceful
counter-hegemonicmodel to contest the depoliticization,atomizationand
commodification endemic to neoliberal globalization. Whereas Polanyi
demonstratedthe repercussionsof such dominationin the economic lives
of people, Gramsci was concerned to show the political domination
that necessarily precipitatedit. I argue that Polanyi's critique of the selfregulating market and his discernment of society's 'double movement',
when bridged to Gramsci'stheory of ideologicalhegemony and his notion
of 'good sense', supply vital components of a criticaltheorizationof globalization as well as practical strategies of resistance to the anti-politics
of market ideology. Ultimately, I submit that this critical integration of
Polanyi and Gramsci into the globalization debates produces a much
needed analytic strategy which maintains a primacyon politicalagency,
criticallyspecifiesthe national-international
distinction,and makesa methodologicalvirtueof radicaldemocratictheory.
KEYWORDS
Globalization; democratic theory; hegemony; market ideology; 'good
sense'; 'double movement'.
? 1999 Routledge 0969-2290

lR
REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
INTRODUCTION: DEMOCRACY AND

GLOBAL CAPITALISM
The goals of this articleare twofold. First,I wish to problematizeglobalization from the vantage point of democratic theory and, in so doing,
expose what I see as its most paralysing consequence - the hegemony
of market ideology. Second, I propose a framework comprised of two
key theoretical constructs in the work of Antonio Gramsci and Karl
Polanyi that I believe offers a powerful contestationof market ideology
(or neoliberalglobalization)and forms the foundation of a much needed
critical and holistic theorization of internationalpolitical economy. Of
course, the marriageof these thinkersis by no means a blissful one, nor
are the ideological divisions between the two entirely unproblematic.
However, the advantage of opening up a critical dialogue between the
two far exceeds the disadvantage of pairing two otherwise very intellectually distinct thinkers. And, unlike other scholars, such as Robert
Cox and Stephen Gill,' who have recently drawn attention to the points
of contact between Gramsci and Polanyi, I illustrate that it is precisely
the differentemphases of each authorthat make combiningtheir insights
so fruitful.
Any discussion of globalization would be incomplete without an
explorationinto the evolving nature of the relationshipbetween democracy and capitalism. In fact, I submit that the most fundamental
challenge of globalization (both as a concept and as a sociopolitical
process) lies in our need to reassess its bearing on the meaning and
potential of democratic praxis. Yet, as David Held has pointed out,
neither democratic theory nor the various approaches in international
relations theory offer a satisfactoryframeworkfor rethinkingdemocracy
in the global context. The author contends - and I concur - that 'there
cannot be an account of the modern democraticstate any longer without
an examination of the global system and there cannot be an examination of the global system without an account of the democratic state'
(1995b: 27). This observation is reminiscent of that made by Peter
Gourevitch almost two decades ago in his seminal article 'The second
image reversed', wherein he states that the interrelationshipbetween
internationalrelations and domestic politics is so important that 'they
should be analyzed simultaneously as wholes' (1978: 911). Thus, the
renewed interest in integrating comparative politics and international
relations- stemming largely from the globalizationdebates - is just that:
renewed, not novel.2
Held's inclusion of the term 'democratic',however, is distinctive and
points to what I believe could serve as an empirical and normative
connector between these two fields of inquiry, which might, in turn,
generate fresh perspectives and new theoretical and explanatory
28

BIRCHFIELD:CONTESTING THE HEGEMONY OF MARKET IDEOLOGY
strategies for understanding and explaining the processes and consequences of increasing globalization. Assessing the relations between
capitalism and democracy in the light of globalization is rendered all
the more pertinentby the recognitionthat existing within a single world
economy are diverse models of capitalistpolitical economies, underlying
which are competing visions of democracy.3Cognizance of this diversity serves to challenge the myths and exaggerations as well as the
threats and possibilities of globalization. Therefore, no approach to
understanding the global economy can afford to ignore the valuable
contributions that comparative political economists have made in
demonstrating that capitalism is not a monolithic structure but rather
one taking on different qualities in diverse domestic settings reflecting
important historical and cultural particularities.Likewise, students of
comparativepolitics must be ever more attuned to the exigencies of the
world economy. I hope to demonstrate why and how inserting democratic theory at the intersectionof comparativeand internationalpolitical
economy provides a framework apposite to the task of studying the
latest phase of the globalizing political economy.
The following section is devoted to the why aspect, as it offers a
critique of the dominance of neoliberal globalization and its representation as coterminous with democratization. The motivation for
formulatingsuch a position, as I intimated above, stems from the need
to problematize the hegemony of the neoliberal discourse of globalization and to expose how this form of market ideology is inherently
antithetical to democratic principles. The second half of the article
shows how two central themes in the thought of Antonio Gramsci and
Karl Polanyi may be usefully combined to produce a forceful counterhegemonic model to contest the depoliticization, atomization and
commodification of human life endemic to neoliberal globalization. In
the Conclusion, I suggest that a critical integration of Polanyi and
Gramsciinto the globalization debates in this manner produces a much
needed analytic strategy which maintainsa primacyon politicalagency,
criticallyspecifiesthe national-international
distinction,and makesa methodologicalvirtueof radicaldemocratictheory.4Searchingout the affinities of
two great thinkers goes beyond mere intellectual curiosity here: I hope
to demonstratethat Polanyi's critique of the self-regulatingmarket and
his discernment of society's 'double movement', when linked to
Gramsci'stheory of ideological hegemony and his notion of 'good sense',
supply vital components of a criticaltheorizationof globalizationas well
as practicalstrategiesof resistanceto the anti-politicsof marketideology.
But, first, we must begin by examining more carefully what it is that
needs to be resisted.5 Below I examine neoliberal economic globalization from the perspective of democratictheory. It is importantto point
out that what I wish to critique is not the market economy per se, but
29

rather market ideology and its tendency to paralyse or delegitimate

political thinking as a gateway to democraticaction.
To reiterate,if we have learned anything from comparativepolitical
economy, it is that the market economy is not a uniform structure;
rather, its heterogeneity can be understood as historically conditioned
variations in state-society relations. Moreover, this is why developed
capitalist democraciesexhibit different sizes and forms of welfare states
and contending models of state-marketrelations.6The neoliberalmodel
and its attendant free market ideology belie this complex reality. As
Stephen Gill points out, the political project behind the rhetoric
constitutes an attempt to 'make transnationalliberalism,and if possible
liberal democratic capitalism, the sole model for future development'
(1995:412). Thus, it is important first to expose the implications of this
model in order to construct a more compelling contestation of it.
NEOLIBERAL GLOBALIZATION
AS MARKET
IDEOLOGY: A CRITIQUE
By now there is a rather unwieldy literatureoffering a wide variety of

conceptualizations, empirical analyses and theoretical interpretations
of the processes of globalization. Despite this diversity, it is possible
to distil a more or less encompassing definition of what is meant by
globalization. According to Louise Amoore et al., most scholars agree
'that globalization encompasses a broad range of material and nonmaterial aspects of production, distribution, management, finance,
information and communications technologies, and capital accumulation' (1997: 181). This inclusive and rather non-committal perspective
serves to convey the far-reachingnature of globalization;most of the
scholarly work could be categorized according to: (1) which processes
receive the central focus; (2) whether or not authors depict globalization as something qualitativelynew and/or inexorable;and (3) whether
it is conceived as a relatively uncertain, positive or negative phase in
human development and world order.
Such varied positions highlight the epistemological ramificationsand
normativechallenges of the largerglobalizationdebate that are of central
concern in this article. The approach I take derives from my view of
globalization as a dialectical process.7This entails rejecting the notion
that globalization is an external phenomenon that one may observe
objectively,recognizing ourselves as implicated in and inseparablefrom
'the world out there', and focusing on the contradictionsextant in any
given historicalmoment - not merely for critique,but in order to dispel
the myth of inexorableforces and therebytheorize and actualizeprogressive change. I agree with RobertCox (1996:66) that this mode of thinking
is employed 'as much to arouse consciousness and the will to act as to
30

diagnose the condition of the world'. A practical definition of globalization will clarify the relevance of this perspective in grounding the
following critique. To this end, Held's conceptualizationis useful:
globalization can be taken to denote the stretchingand deepening
of social relations and institutions across space and time such that,
on the one hand, day-to-day activities are increasingly influenced
by events happening on the other side of the globe, and on the
other, the practices and decisions of local groups or communities
can have significant global reverberations.
(1995b:20)
Such an interpretationmakes the implications for democraticpolitics
quite clear as new forms of power are being created and exercised in
ways that undermine traditional notions of legitimate authority and
accountabilityas being tied to the territoriallybound state. A tension
emerges, however, from the asymmetrical possession and exercise of
this new power by what some scholars have termed the 'transnational
capital class' (Gill, 1990;Pijl, 1997)or, in other words, the relatively few
who benefit most from the deregulation of world financial and labour
markets and increasing trade liberalization.Dani Rodrick put it quite
cogently: 'globalization is exposing a deep fault line between groups
who have the skills and mobility to flourish in global marketsand those
who either don't have these advantages or perceive the expansion of
unregulated markets as inimical to social stability and deeply held
norms' (1997:2).
Despite such enormous power imbalances, the triumphalistethos of
market ideology seems to prevail. As Gill put it, 'the present world
order involves a more "liberalized"and commodified set of historical
structures,driven by the restructuringof capital and a political shift to
the right. This process involves the spatial expansion and social deepening of economic liberal definitions of social purpose and possessively
individualist patterns of action and politics' (1995:399). While I agree
with the author that this emerging 'marketcivilization' is contradictory
or even 'oxymoronic', I do not think the ideological dimension has
been adequately exposed or problematized in the recent literature.
Consequently,I believe its contestationcan be most propitiously waged
on its own terms - that is, by subjecting market ideology to the core
concepts of democratictheory.
When market logic is applied to more and more areas of human life,
as is the case with neoliberal globalization, what essentially results is
an increasingsublimationof politics and detachmentfrom social reality.
The dominant assumption that human nature and behaviour can be
characterizedas economizing, maximizing utility to secure self-interest,
gains acceptance as an inviolable truth. One result of this is a loss of
31

an appreciationof other values that are completely devoid of economic

rationale,such as respect, tolerance and social growth - or a deepening
of community as opposed to merely its spatial expansion. And now, as
we seem to be moving into an era where the market becomes a chief
rallying cry (and the key metaphor for world dis/order) and is asserted
as the best guarantorof freedom, it is incumbentupon democratictheorists and citizens to take stock of its repercussions for the democratic
experiment.Those who insist that there is no democracywithout a free
market need to be reminded that the two forms of human organization
are not entirely interchangeableand do not necessarily coexist peacefully. As Earl Shorris argues:
Political democracyis a relationamong human beings who control
themselves. Market democracy is a competition in which people
try to control each other ... this one is a misnomer, for the control
of one human being by another,no matter how subtle the means,

is no democracy.
(Shorris,1994: 137)
When the market mechanism - a method of organization or social
coordination designed to render more efficient the exchange of goods
and services - is associated with a fundamental democratic value liberty8- one necessarilypresupposes a narrow and materialisticconception of both freedom and the aims of democracy itself. Hannah Arendt
captured this effect as she observed, 'the development of commercial
society ... with the triumphalvictory of exchange value over use value,
first introduced the principle of interchangeability,then the relativization, and finally the devaluation of all values' (quoted in ibid.: 253). This
effectively subordinatesactors to rules.
For the market mechanism to function, certain rules must be established. Private property must be guaranteed and incentives to compete
for scarceresourcesare encouragedand describedas natural.Communal
values and cooperation are not nurtured, because that would undermine the role of scarcity, which is the idea underpinning the whole
system. This is one way it weakens the prospects for democracy. By
giving primacy to rules and, more importantly,venerating and reifying
property to such an extent that it acquires the status of personhood, it
excludes other potential ordering principles of society and diminishes
the importance of social values, which are vital to democratic participation and decision making. It should be noted that the hegemony of
the market is achieved by its representation as an uncontroversial
metaphor for a society at liberty to do with property what it pleases
without interference from the state. In the context of globalization,
this becomes increasingly convenient for capital as the state may
abdicate its former responsibilitiesof regulation and provision of social
32

welfare by claiming global competition and market forces dictate such

action.
It is a rathercommonplace idea that our system is based upon Isaiah
Berlin's(1968)'negative freedom'.It is hegemonic from the point of view
that the basic rules of the game, i.e. privilege and protection of private
property and capital above all else, are not seriously contested.
Moreover, the market paradigm of human life is entrenched philosophically by placing the individual (but primarily the individual as
utility-maximizingeconomic agent) at the centre and positing the market
as the best and truest terrainof freedom. Yet, if we subjectthis logic to
democratic principles, a major lacuna emerges. First, asserting the
market as the ultimate realm of freedom ignores the possibility that
freedom is exercised in ways other than producing and consuming.9
Furthermore,if we recognize with Rousseau that 'rules make actors and
actorsmake rules', we realize that by privileging economics over politics,
rules have come to dominate and the market process dictates to society
instead of the other way round. Market logic gives legitimacy to such
a process because freedom is primarily conceptualized in the private
sphere.
This issue raises the deeper problem of the relationshipbetween capitalism (which requires supposedly 'free markets') and democracy. An
overview of the argument made by Bowles and Gintis (1986)regarding
this relationshipis helpful here in eliciting the incompatibilityof market
ideology with the aims and principles of democracy.For these authors,
the relationship between democracy and capitalism is an uneasy one,
as the economic system has as an imperative the privileging of a certain
set of rights over others. Bowles and Gintis forcefully articulatethe idea
that the liberal democraticmodel - and what they refer to as 'capitalist
governance' - necessitate that property rights prevail over personal
rights. They proceed to critiqueboth liberal and Marxistpolitical theory
and propose a theoreticaland practicalagenda for expanding the scope
of both liberty and individual choice, but in a framework consonant
with the notion of popular sovereignty. This comes close to what
I referred to earlier as 'making a methodological virtue of democratic
theory'. In other words, the principles of democracy must be brought
to bear on the questions posed by political economists; in fact, I would
go as far as to say that political economy and democratictheory should
be seen as inseparable forms of intellectual inquiry.10
What is useful in their argument for the development of this critique
of market ideology is the recognition that both liberal and Marxist
theories have too unitary a conception of power, which ignores the
fundamentally political nature of economic life and under-theorizes
the role of the state.11In other words, in a manner strikingly similar to
Karl Polanyi (1944), they argue that although the economy is a site of
33

social conflict, the underlying sources of tension are inherentlypolitical.

Again, in referenceto the three elements of a criticaltheorizationof IPE,
this is an example of what is meant by putting the primacy on the political. The masking or denial of the deliberatelypolitical manoeuvresvital
to the maintenanceof a marketeconomy is what constitutes the essence
of marketideology. Whetheror not 'marketlogic' is hegemonic depends
on how widespread the view is that the market functions according to
inexorable laws (which incidentally effectively subordinates politics
to less consequential areas of social relations). Given the dominant
discourse of neoliberalglobalization,I would argue that the marketethos
is ascending into hegemonic status.
It is worth remembering that it is the capitalist wage relation that
necessitates the conceptual separationof economics and politics, respectively, into private and public spheres of activity,which in turn becomes
the defining featureof the liberalstate.12The main thrustof the argument
presented by Bowles and Gintis is that the democratic experiment
involves the enlargement of popular sovereignty and liberty, but the
process has been inhibited as capitalism and the liberal creed have
produced a collision course between two fundamental rights: property
rights and personal rights. The clash of these rights facilitatedwhat the
authors refer to as an 'institutional modus vivendi' of the two forces,
which entailed a series of accommodations(from Lockeanto Keynesian)
attempting to resolve the contradictorylogic of capitalismwhile 'simultaneously promoting the process of economic growth and containingthe
explosive potential of coexistence of economic privilege and representative political institutions' (Bowles and Gintis, 1986:34).
The above quote contains a very significant insight into the ambiguities involved when relating the market to freedom and democracy,
particularlyas it must be sustained in light of increasing globalization.
The economic privilege the authors refer to is the status liberal theory
grants to the capitalist economy as a private realm of property. Bowles
and Gintis argue that this is an untenable position, as a sphere cannot
be considered private if it involves the 'socially consequential exercise
of power' (ibid.: 66-7).13I would add that the whole notion of privilege
hinges on this vital segmentation of public and private. For instance,
the private status granted to corporations,despite their enormous social
power, effectively removes from political discourse a whole host of
issues that from the democraticperspective should be subjectedto public
debate - not the least of which is the wage labour system and the asymmetries between the power of labour and the power of capital. In
countries where free market ideology is not so pervasive, values such
as social justice and worker democracy are a more frequent part of
discourse (e.g. Germany, France, the Nordic countries). Yet, as capital
is becoming more mobile and globalized, there is an even greaterthreat
34

to the idea and practice of social democracy - which at its root has a
conception of justice which derides this false separation of economics
and politics - and this is precisely why democratic theorizing must
encompass non-territorialnotions of popular sovereignty and solidarity
as well as contest the false separation of economics and politics.
In some ways praxis is ahead of theory, as we see more and more
transnationalsocial forces agitating at the global level.14 Unless we challenge current private/public distinctions and revive the Habermasian
notion of the public sphere, capital and markets will continue to
dominate discourse and thus severely delimit social power.15Bowles
and Gintis contributeto this projectby reminding us that 'the capitalist
economy cannot be judged to be private simply by virtue of the
prominent role played by markets' and by prescribing institutional
mechanisms that promote what Hannah Arendt called 'new public
spaces for freedom' (Bowles and Gintis, 1986:2045).16 This is especially
challenging, however, in the context of the global political economy.
Global capitalismrenders the dualities of public/private and politics/
economics all the more problematic,as national governments may now
justify disengagementsof social welfare commitmentsin the paradoxical
terms of preserving national sovereignty in an increasingly interdependent world. For example, note the following argument by Wolfgang
Streeck regarding the EuropeanUnion:
National political systems embedded in a competitive international
marketand exposed to supranationallyungoverned externaleffects
of competing systems are tempted to protect their formal sovereignty by devolving responsibilityfor the economy to the 'market'
- using what has remained of their public powers of intervention
to limit, as it were constitutionally,the claims politics can make
on the economy, and citizens on the polity.
...
If citizens can be
persuaded that economic outcomes are, and better be, the result
of 'marketforces', and that national governments are, therefore,no
longer to be held responsible for the economy, national domestic
sovereignty and political legitimacy can be maintained even in
conditions of tight economic interdependence:with the nation-state
having offloaded its responsibility for its economy to the 'world
market', its own insufficiency and obsolescence in relation to the
latter ceases to be visible.
(Streeck,1996:307-8)
If indeed 'persuading citizens' is effected, then the hegemony of
market ideology will be achieved. The significant point is that this is
indeed a crucial ideological struggle. And, from the dialecticalperspective, it must be emphasized that this period of shifting social relations
is historicallyproducedand politicallycontestable.
Thus, for those concerned
35

with contesting the anti-democratic impulses of an atomized, antipolitical global market society, we must propose counter-hegemonic
strategies of rectifying a public sphere, where power can be made more
visible and thereforesubjectedto accountability.To be successful, these
strategies must be omnipresentand take multiple forms in the political,
cultural and intellectual realms. In other words, as Barry Gills urges,
'we must make concrete strategies and concepts of "resistance"central
to our analyses of globalization' (1997:11).
As this critiqueof marketideology has tried to illustrate,resistanceto
the market as the key metaphor and organizing principle of our global
society requires both a rejectionof the market model of society that is
grounded in democratic theory and a recognition that the hegemonic
battle of neoliberal globalization is - at this stage - primarily on the
terrain of ideology. These two points draw our attention to two key
thinkerswhose work (especiallywhen combined) representsa powerful
model for understandingand explaining the tensions in and possibilities
for the global political economy. Thus, what follows is a selective presentation of some of the centralideas in the writings of KarlPolanyi and
Antonio Gramsci that I believe shed light on contemporaryproblems
facing the world community and which also elucidate the critical
elements needed for constructinga theory that bridges comparativeand
internationalpolitical economy - that is, offers a truly holistic approach.
TOWARDS A RADICAL DEMOCRATIC THEORY FOR
THE GLOBAL EPOCH: APPLYING POLANYI
AND GRAMSCI
One of the strongest non-Marxistcritiques of market society was that
offered by KarlPolanyi writing in the wake of the Second World War.17
Challenging Adam Smith and the assumptions of eighteenth-century
political economy, Polanyi argued that the establishmentof laissez-faire
economics requiredstate intervention and that market society did not
emerge naturally as a result of man's propensity to 'truck, barter and
exchange',nor was marketexpansion impersonalor inevitable.He notes:
'the road to the free marketwas opened and kept open by an enormous
increase in continuous, centrally organized and controlled interventionism. To make Adam Smith's "simpleand naturalliberty"compatible
with the needs of a human society was a most complicated affair'
(Polanyi, 1957: 140).
The fundamental legacy of Polanyi's work and its relevance to this
article is the author's introduction of the idea that the 'self-regulating
market' was largely a myth as it required deliberate political action to
pave the way for such an approach to economic organization.Though
he wrote from the perspective of an economic historian, his account of
36

the emergence of market society entailed astute, if subtle, political

analysis as opposed to understandingit as a strictly economic phenomenon. Applying Polanyi's perspective to the present situation of global
capitalism and the neoliberal project, we gain insights into how the
process of global marketizationunfolds and in what ways it suppresses
other important societal values that seem central to the life of a democratic society - both domestic and international.
Two specific places in Polanyi's writing where he grasped the antithetical nature of markets and popular sovereignty are his excursus
on the rise of the 'self-regulatingmarket' and his account of society's
'double movement'. In the former, Polanyi distinguishes the move
towards free marketsor self-regulatingmarketsfrom previous economic
systems and emphasizes that never before had marketsbeen more than
accessories of economic life, where 'as a rule, the economic system was
absorbed in the social system', but in contrast the market economy is
one in which markets alone direct the production and distribution of
goods' (ibid.: 68). The following excerpt underlines the assumptions
of this system and identifies what Polanyi saw as a harbinger of its
negative consequences for social and moral life.
An economy of this kind derives from the expectationthat human
beings behave in such a way as to achieve maximum money gains.
It assumes markets in which supply of goods (including services)
available at a definite price will equal the demand at that price.
... Under these assumptions order in production and distribution
of goods is ensured by prices alone. ... Nothing must be allowed
to inhibit the formationof markets,nor must incomes be permitted

to be formed otherwise than through sales. ... Neither price, nor
supply, nor demand must be fixed or regulated;only such policies

and measures are in order which help ensure the self-regulation
of the marketby creating conditions which makethe marketthe only
organizingpowerin the economicsphere.
(ibid.: 68-9)
What Polanyi was driving at here and throughout his book were the
mythic proportions of the assumption of human nature and behaviour
underlying the marketeconomy and its centralityto the 'disembedding'
of the economy from social relationsand institutionswhere values other
than profit had previously prevailed. The authorstructureshis argument
around an analysis and critique of the commodificationof land, labour
and money, which he decries as an artificial process producing 'fictitious commodities', the consequences of which subordinate the
substance of society to the mechanism of the market.
The implications of this system for democracy are woven throughout
his analysis but are most emphatically relayed in his discussion of the
37

double movement, which he empirically substantiateswith his account

of the Chartistmovement. A focal point of his account is the constitutional separationof economics and politics and the observationthat this
was essentially designed to 'separatepeople from power over their own
economic life' (ibid.: 225). The Chartistpetition that the disinheritedbe
allowed to access the state unleashed the potential of political power although their demands were rejected by the House of Lords in the
name of 'the institution of property on which all civilization rested'
(ibid.). The key theoreticalinsight Polanyi imparted in his story of the
Chartistsis summed up in the following passage.
The Chartistshad fought for the right to stop the mill of the market
which ground the lives of the people. But the people were granted
rights only when the awful adjustmenthad been made. Inside and
outside England from Macaulayto Mises, from Spencerto Sumner,
there was not a militant liberalwho did not express his conviction
that popular democracy was a danger to capitalism.
(ibid.: 226)
Thus, consistent with my critique of market ideology, Polanyi illustrated that it is the tendency of market economics to insist that all other
rights and values be subordinatedto the sacral realm of property, and
that it is only through humanity's struggle to protect itself against
the vagaries of the market that civilization is rescued and the reality of
society rehabilitated.One scholar in a recent analysis of Polanyi's work
summed up the moral and social ramifications of the transition to
laissez-faire economics as a shift from Gemeinschaft
to Gesellschaftthat
'entailed a loss of a certain vital human quality [replaced with an]
atomized society in which the interdependencyof individuals was not
mediated through political, social, or religious institutions but via the
market and contract' (Booth, 1994: 656-7).18
Neoliberal globalizationmight be seen as anothergrand-scaleattempt

at laissez-faireeconomics that more than anything else demonstratesthe
power of market ideology: why else would its disastrous consequences
be risked again? This question is precisely why Polanyi's exposition of
'the self-regulatingmarket' as a dangerous myth is so criticallyinstructive at this moment in history. But Polanyi did more than offer this
critical interpretation of the fallacies and travesties associated with
laissez-faire economics. He also implicitly planted the seed of a radical
democratic theory that I think is aptly summed up in his idea of the
'double movement'.
Polanyi's concept of the 'double movement' refers to society's
'inevitable self-protectionagainst the commodificationof life' (Mendell
and Salee, 1991: xiii). Polanyi writes: 'For a century the dynamics of
modern society was governed by a double movement: the market
38

expanded continuously but this movement was met by a countermovement checking the expansion in definite directions' (Polanyi, 1957:
130). He argued that there were basically two organizing principles in
society at work simultaneously. On the one hand, there was economic
liberalism 'aiming at the establishment of a self-regulating market,
relying on the support of the trading classes and using largely laissezfaire and free trade as its methods', and on the other there was 'social
protection aiming at the conservation of man and nature as well as
productive organization,relying on the support of those most immediately affected by the deleterious action of the market - primarily, but
not exclusively, the working and the landed classes' (ibid.: 132).
The discernment of the double movement intimates how Polanyi's
ideas could be employed to invigorate political economy with democratic theory. This is useful not for theoreticalpurposes alone, but also
because, as Polanyi has shown, it is the natural, spontaneous response
of individuals and collective society to preserve not only their own
autonomy but their very existence by trying to shape their destiny
through a more democraticallycontrolled,socially embedded economy.
Such a view also resonates with the thesis of Bowles and Gintis that the
rights necessary to make capitalism work and those required to fulfil
democraticideals are often in direct conflict. Thus, the most dire consequence of the hegemony of market ideology would be that the need to
make market forces conform to principles of democracy is supplanted
by a norm that delegitimates political demands that are construed as
infringing on the functioning of the market.
Stephen Gill has invoked Polanyi's 'double movement' as a metaphor
for the 'sociopolitical forces which wish to assert more democratic
control over political life' (Gill, 1995b:67). While in spirit I agree with
this characterization,what I have shown is that Polanyi's account of the
Chartist movement should be read as something more tangible than a
metaphor;it is in fact an explicitly political response to the other part
of the double movement - that of economic liberalism and the myriad
voices in service to capital. And, in contrast to the way Gill has put it,
perhaps the emphasis should be on elucidatingways of asserting democratic control over economic life. Or the dubious distinction between
economic and political life could simply be dismissed. In this context
Polanyi's model (undergirdedby a broad and rather ambiguous definition of society, hence his underdeveloped sense of agency) is usefully
complemented by Gramsci'swork.
As one scholarastutely observed:'Gramsci'scontributionto the notion
of civil society was to recognize, for the political dimension, what
Polanyi recognized for the economic: that civil society itself could not
survive without its own forms of regulation' (Smith, 1994: 14). This is
precisely why adjoining Gramsci's theory of ideological hegemony
39

(which also contains what I interpretas a theory of agency) to Polanyi's

critique of 'marketutopia' is so valuable.
Though Polanyi laboured to reveal the deliberatelypolitical nature of
economic organization, his main concern was to present the economy
as a necessarily embedded social structure,not to articulatea political
theory or fully specify the role of agency. Mitchell Bernard refers
to these ambiguities generally as 'the problem of agency in Polanyi's
history' - one aspect of which is a 'technological determinism' (1997:
81-2). If there is a technologicaldeterminism(and Bernardsuggests this
is how Polanyi explains 'fictitious commodities' (ibid.: 80-1)), I would
suggest this is a consequence of Polanyi's supposed rejectionof Marxian
historical materialism. Since Marx elaborated the original argument
about 'the fetishism of commodities' in the opening pages of Capital,
Polanyi, perhaps rather than acknowledging his intellectual debt to
Marx, distinguishes his view by treating commodificationas a function
of technological change rather than (and independent of) the mode of
production. This again raises an important issue as to whether it is
possible to reconcile the non-Marxismof Polanyi with the Marxism of
Gramsci. One response is that both thinkers were concerned with and
critical of economic determinism and both were radically committed to
the democratic construction of a socialist society. Perhaps if Polanyi
could have read Gramsci's'Problemsof Marxism'(1971)he would have
been able to acknowledge his own debt to Marx's ideas rather than
disavowing it because of their horrendous distortion in StalinistRussia.
Moreover, as I hope to show below, merging the insights of these two
thinkers is far more productive than reading either author singly or
dwelling on the divisions they have in their respective relationshipsto
Marxism.
Gramsci's conceptualization of the relation between structure and
agency, articulatedthrough his theory of hegemony, provides a deeper
understanding of the formation and nature of counter-movements
(as well as their failure to materialize). Thus, I propose that linking
Polanyi's account of 'market utopia' to Gramsci's more sophisticated
conceptualization of power and state-society relations will supply a
more encompassing conceptual frameworkfor a holistic, criticaltheory
of globalization.
The goal of the following appropriationof Gramsci'spolitical theory,
then, is to show how his conceptual schemas of ideological hegemony
and civil society are interrelatedand why the two constructs serve as
both theoretical and practical tools for contesting market ideology and
its latest incarnation - neoliberal globalization. My interpretation of
Gramsci'sradical democratictheory is rooted in the appreciationof his
convictionthat 'tuttala vita e politica',which alreadyestablishesa strong
affinity with Polanyi. This theme woven throughout his writings
40

strengthensthe claim of this article that economic organizationis politically motivated and therefore legitimately contestable in a democratic
society.
I argue that Gramsci'svision of civil society is unique in that, unlike
both liberalism and orthodox Marxism, he described civil society as
inherently public, which explains in part his theory of hegemonic
politics. This public conception of civil society will be clarifiedbelow in
an effort to illuminate the manner in which ideological hegemony is
both constituted and contested.
In a very compelling and encompassing reassessmentof the legacy of
Antonio Gramsci, Dante Germino portrays the thinker above all else
(linguist, philosopher, activist, theatre critic, provincial Sardinian,
founder of the Italian Communist Party) as an 'architect of a new
politics'. The passage below sums up Germino's very insightful
summary of Gramsci'slife work.
One could say Gramsci accomplished a Copernicanrevolution in
politics by giving the world of political and social relationshipsa
new sun. What had previously been described as 'marginal'territory - the everyday lives of the impoverished and the illiterate
majority of humankind - becomes for Gramsci the center around
which the political world evolves. The whole human world of language, art,literature,philosophy, and - yes - architectureis enlisted
by Gramsciin the task of overcoming the oppressive state apparatus, together with its supporting societal caste, whose raison d'etre
has been to perpetuate the distinction between the powerful and
prestigious few at the expense of the powerless and despised many.
(Germino,1990:263)
Gramscisaw society as comprised of a small but dominant centre and
a large body of 'emarginati'- marginalizedpeople at society's periphery
who are never allowed to penetratethe traditionalpower structure.That
vision laid the foundation for his 'politics of inclusion' (his formulation
of the 'philosophy of praxis' or Marxist political theory) which had as
its primary goal the erosion of the boundaries dividing the centre and
the periphery. In the PrisonNotebookshe observes:
The cornerstoneof politics and of any collective action whatsoever
is that there are governors and governed, leaders and led. All the
art and science of politics is based on this primordial,irreducible
fact, obtaining in general conditions ... the new politics concerns
itself with how to attenuate this fact and make it disappear.

(quoted in Germino, 1990:243)19
These excerpts serve as a springboard from which to examine
Gramsci'sconcepts of hegemony and civil society. As mentioned above,
41

Gramsci depicts civil society as constituted in the public sphere, in

contrast to liberalism'sassignment of civil society to the private realm.
Civil society is the site of both domination and consent, concepts which
Gramsci sometimes uses interchangeably depending on whether he
refers to old politics or his hope for a new politics where active consent
reigns rather than ideological domination exercised through folklore,
religious myth, ignorance,contradictoryconsciousness,etc. For Gramsci,
society is held together by hegemony rooted in civil society.20The
complex interplay between these two constructs is what distinguishes
his theorization from reductionist Marxism.
Gramsci dismissed the rigid separation of base and superstructure
and began to describe domination as something congealed in the
superstructure- the cultural,intellectualand moral realm - as opposed
to the economic base. He effectively introduced human agency and a
theory of consciousness here while also retaining the penetrating
Marxian critique of the historicity of social relations embodied in the
mode of production.
Provokingpart of Gramsci'squery was the lack of proletarianrevolution in the west. As he began to rethink and challenge economistic and
reductionist conceptualizationsof the state, he realized consent was the
only path towards revolution.21 He went beyond Marx's understanding
of civil society and false consciousnesswith his realizationthat there was
a meshing of base and superstructurein which a whole social stratum
operated to maintain the system. Two important sections of his prison
writings detail his analysis of this phenomenon.First,his chapteron intellectuals describes the relationshipbetween intellectualgroups in society
and the forces of productionas one in which intellectualsappearto serve
as deputies of the dominant group 'exercisingthe subalternfunctions of
social hegemony and political government' (Gramsci,1971:12-13).
The second point of reference is his section on the state and civil
society, from which I extract a paragraph containing one of his most
famous sentences:
We are still on the terrain of the identification of the State and
government - an identificationwhich is precisely a representation
of the economic-corporateform, in other words of the confusion
between civil society and political society. For it should be
remarkedthat the general notion of State includes elements which
need to be referredback to the notion of civil society (in the sense
that one might say State = political society + civil society, in other
words, hegemony protected by the armour of coercion.
(ibid.: 262-3)
This lends support for my claim that he placed civil society in the
public realm. For Gramsci hegemony functioned in the public sphere
42

not only through indirectpolitical support but through depictions of life

in art, in literature and even in private relations of domination in the
patriarchalfamily structure.Walter Adamson describes this Gramscian
conception of civil society as follows: 'By civil society ... I mean the
public space between large-scale bureaucraticstructures of state and
economy on the one hand, and the private sphere of family, friendships,
personality and intimacy on the other' (1987:320).
Kai Nielson remarksthat for Gramsci,in contrastto Hegel and Marx,
'the conflicts of civil society are centrally political' (1995:46). Gramsci's
reflections on Machiavelli reinforce this assertion and provide some
clues for overcoming the problem of hegemony without active consent.
In 'The modem prince' Gramsci revealed a deep appreciation of
Machiavelli's insights into the nature of politics and power and
attempted a systematic analysis of ThePrinceto draw a parallel to the
role of the modem mass party. What impressed Gramsci about The
Princewas the fact that it was what he dubbed a 'live work, in which
political ideology and political science are fused in the dramatic form
of a myth' (1971: 125).22Although his analysis engaged many aspects
of Machiavelli'sthought, he drew out most powerfully the capacity of
theoretical abstraction and symbolism in representing the notion
of 'collective will' and tapping into popular consciousness.
In a sense, Gramsci critically read Machiavelli's Princeas a kind of
'politicalmanifesto'.In a subsequent entry in his Notebookshe continued
to grapple with how the modem prince or the Communist Party could
transform society without deception or force. A key strategy and
perhaps the clearest example of what Gramsci's politics of inclusion
would resemble is contained in the following statement:
[the modem prince or the revolutionary party] is head of a new
type of state which is not exclusive. Rather,it exercises the hegemonic function in civil society.
...
It is not possible to create a
constitutionallaw of the traditionaltype on the basis of this reality,

which is in continuous movement; it is only possible to create a
system of principles asserting that the state's goal is its own end,
its own disappearance,in other words, the reabsorption
of political
societyinto civil society.
(quoted in Germino, 1990:225)
Although there is a common thread here with the classical Marxian
notion of the 'withering away of the state' it must be understood as
distinct from it. In contrast,Gramscirailed against the notion of permanence or an end point to politics, and instead envisioned politics as
an open-ended, continuously transformative process through which
thought and action become unified. Mark Rupert adds that Gramsci's
political objective is to:
43

transcend the division of capitalist society into rulers and ruled,

dominant classes and subaltern groups, state and society. While
such a struggle - eventuating in a 'regulated society', that
is, socialism - will necessarily entail the transformationof the
capitalist economy, it is neither determinedby 'causes' originating
in that economy, nor are its implications limited to economic
changes. Gramsci's radical politics envisions a comprehensive
transformationof social reality through the effective creation of a
counter-culture,an alternativeworld-view and new form of political organization in whose participatoryand consensual practices
that world-view is concretely realized.
(Rupert,1995:28)
To understandhow Gramscithought this process could actually come
to fruition, we need to examine more carefullyhis complex formulation
of hegemony and, in particular,how ideological hegemony was positively construed.23The positive construction of ideological hegemony
derived from Gramsci's appreciation of the fact that this type of
hegemony was an integral part of politics that is necessary for the
functioning and stability of any regime. The critical question was what
the hegemony was actually based on - active or passive consent. He
believed, for example, that the bourgeois revolution was hegemonically
unsuccessful in Italy, thus paving the way for the Fascists, who, in
return,were not (positively) hegemonic because they relied on force and
imprisoned opponents of the regime (see Gramsci, 1971:263).
Positive hegemony relies on widespread popular consent deriving
from a philosophical world-view, for Gramsci preferably that of the
philosophy of praxis, a non-economistic Marxism where 'good sense'
reigns over 'common sense', and thus where force, or what he called
the 'armourof coercion',of the state was unnecessary.Hence, it is essential to recallhow Gramsciunderstood ideology as underlying or guiding
individual and collective action. He clearly breaks with hard structuralism in 'The study of philosophy', where, I believe, he articulatesa
strong individualist-based conception of the role of ideas and their
collective expression as 'common sense', which is usually a fragmentary
and uncriticalconception of the world.24
Showing his true radicalismand belief in the ability of common people
to be self-determining,Gramsci seems to show here that emancipation
must begin in the ideational realm. He notes that it must be shown that
all 'men are philosophers', but what is necessary is to make this
conscious, critical activity.25He asks whether it is not
better to work out consciously and criticallyone's own conception
of the world and thus, in connectionwith the labours of one's own
brain, choose one's sphere of activity, take an active part in the
44

creation of the history of the world, be one's own guide, refusing

to accept passively and supinely from outside the moulding of
one's personality.
(Gramsci,1971:323-4)
Ideological hegemony comes into play when there is uncontested
common sense, despite the internal contradictions of any such single
conception of the world which serves the dominant few to the detriment of the marginalized many.
Yet, as I claim above, Gramsci realized that hegemony was a necessary fact of collective political life; thus, he also conceptualizeda positive
or ethical hegemony.26His idea of 'good sense' is central here and is
intimatelyrelated to his belief in radicaldemocracy.First,Gramscinotes
that 'philosophy is criticism and the superseding of religion and
"common sense". In this sense it coincides with "good" as opposed to
"common sense"' (ibid.: 326). Later in this same selection Gramsci
defines 'good sense' as 'a conception of the world with an ethic that
conforms to its structure' (ibid.: 346). I believe this is a key location of
Gramsci's dialectical understanding of the relation between base and
superstructure. Furthermore, I think it essentially boils down to
Gramsci's reformulation of Marx's idea that the point of philosophy
should no longer be to interpret the world but to change it, and that
this philosophy or 'good sense' had to be widespread in the everyday
lives of individuals in all facets of life if any genuine change were to
transpire.
The problem of change then hinges on how entrenched ideology or
popular common sense is in terms of its consistency with the structural
requisites of society. Market ideology is the necessary corollary to
neoliberal economic globalization,without which the structuralrequirements of increased capital mobility, wage depression, flexible modes of
production and accumulation,etc. could not be justified and permitted.
So 'free markets' has to be the talk of the town in every corner of the
globe. Thus, a contestation of neoliberalism must begin by a dereification of the market which would demonstrate the fundamentally social
and, therefore,public nature of economic relations. This reinforces the
contradiction of the liberal depiction of civil society as private and,
through a Gramscianinterpretation,it reveals that its depoliticizationis
ideologically necessary to maintain the current structural status quo.
Hence, it is vital that the notion of hegemony be seen as constituted in
civil society if Gramsci's political theory is to be properly understood
and related to his vision of radical democracy.
The problem arises presently, however, in terms of moving from
Gramsci'sconception of civil society as specific to a national context to
one that may need to be expressed and theorized internationally.27
This
45

problem directs our attention to the hitherto unaddressed 'international-national distinction' which I have suggested is an essential
element of a more useful analytical and theoretical model for understanding globalization.Below I will briefly identify how this distinction
was addressed by Gramsci and Polanyi - reinforcing the idea that
collapsing the distinction of comparative and international political
economy is integral to a critical theorization of globalization.
Both Gramsci and Polanyi had an organic conception of society and
were concemed with how an internationaleconomy and international
relations impinged on the 'organic rationality' (Polanyi) or sparked an
'organic crisis' (Gramsci)within domestic society. Polanyi devotes his
to an analysis of the interopening chapter of The GreatTransformation
national system and draws a complex picture of the workings of the
four key institutions of nineteenth-centurycivilization: the balance of
power; the internationalgold standard;the self-regulatingmarket;and
the liberal state. But, of these institutions, Polanyi shows how the myth
of the self-regulating market was most disastrous. As shown above,
Polanyi thought the spread of the market system had been arrested
through its encounter with a 'protective counter-movement tending
toward its restriction... such an assumption,indeed, underlies our own
thesis of the double movement' (1957:144).Although the author focuses
exclusively on English society when he describesthis double movement,
as one commentatorobserves, Polanyi perhaps foreshadowed a necessary double movement that transcendednational boundaries.
This nationalisation of politics and markets produces a further
paradoxical development. The new state becomes embedded in a
structure of internationaleconomic competition and retreatsfrom
internal regulation, surrendering the principle of ordering social
relations and distributingresources to the market.
(Glasman,1994:61)
In a similar vein, Gramsci,as IPE theorists using his work well know,
stated that international relations follow rather than precede fundamental social relations. But a more interesting and often neglected
extension of this idea is Gramsci's insight contained in the following
passage:
according to the philosophy of praxis (as it manifests itself politically) ... the international situtation should be considered in its
national aspect. In reality, the internal relations of any nation are

the result of a combination which is 'original' and (in a certain
sense) unique: these relations must be understood and conceived
in their originalityand uniqueness if one wishes to dominate them
and direct them. To be sure, this line of development is toward
46

internationalism,but the point of departure is 'national' - and it

is from this point of departure that one must begin. Yet the
perspective is internationaland cannot be otherwise.
(Gramsci,1971:240)
Mark Rupert rearticulatesthis dialectical view of the internationalnational connection as 'second order alienation',which he defines as the
'mutual estrangement of political communities which are themselves
constructed within relations of alienation' (Rupert,1995:33). This reinforces Gourevitch'spoint that the distinction between comparativeand
international political inquiry is a rather dubious one. Both Polanyi
and Gramsci, despite their narrow concerns for specific national situations, avoid this errorby embracinga holistic view of the expansionary
logic of capitalism in order to clarify the root source of domination.
WhereasPolanyi demonstratedthe repercussionsof such domination in
the economic lives of people, Gramsciwas concernedto show the political domination that necessarily precipitated it, and neither author
ignored the extent to which international-nationalconnections could be
manoeuvred by powerful private forces to undermine popular sovereignty. I believe such a combinationof insights from these two thinkers
serves as a solid foundation for formulatinga radical democratictheory
for the global epoch.
CONCLUSION
The primary aim of this articlehas been to demonstratethat ideological
hegemony, as currently manifested through neoliberalism'schampioning of market society, has damaging consequences for democratic
praxis, whether at the local, national, regional or global level. The
greatest risk is that the market metaphor (for conceptualizing world
order and for organizing social life) sublimates politics. It debilitates
political discourse by maintaining the outmoded distinctions of public/
private, politics/economics and national/international. Yet, politics is
the vehicle of public deliberationwhereby genuine social compromises
may be reached and those forces beyond the direct control of ordinary
citizens may at least be contested and made accountable. If market
ideology prevails, the very ideals of democracy are put into jeopardy
as the mythic ideal of the free market trumps the real potential of
politics. The joint legacy of Polanyi and Gramsciis their common interrogation of this phenomenon - albeit from different vantage points and
distinctive intellectual backgrounds.
As I contended at the outset of this article, a critical integration of
Gramsci and Polanyi into the globalization debates yields an analytic
strategy which maintains a primacy on political agency, specifies the
47

national-internationaldistinction and makes a methodological virtue of

radical democratic theory. I hope the synthesis I have presented here
serves to persuade readers that, despite the differences between these
two thinkers, their major ideas certainly embody these three elements
which should also serve to inform a more holistic approach to understanding internationalpolitical economy. Further,together these authors
supply the vital components of a counter-hegemonic model which
contests neoliberal globalization.
To summarize, what is essential is a thoroughgoing critique of the
market model of society which reveals it for what it is - a commodification of all aspects of social life in which the rights of property prevail
over fundamentalpersonal rights - and a theory of ideology and change
which enables individuals to theorize resistanceto this model and actualize progressive change. Polanyi challenged the assumptions of market
ideology and the market model of society by showing that its segmentation of public and private life, its simplistic, ahistoricalportrayal of
human nature,and its illusion of economics as private activity only mask
underlying privilege and domination. Gramsci showed that the necessarily complex but identifiable process of hegemony is what seals the
endurance of the ideological power exercised by certain social groups
over others; thus, a pivotal point of transformationlies in the realm of
popular belief. When read jointly in this manner, Polanyi and Gramsci
pack a powerful punch in terms of determining what is real and what
is myth in the globalizationballyhoo.
Gramsci's'good sense' might be seen as the guiding thought behind
the action of the progressive side of the 'double movement'. Obviously
both elements are necessary to erode the prevailing hegemony by
a socially conscious, intellectual and moral subversion of market
ideology's false depiction of human life under consumer- and marketoriented capitalism. Thus, if one is concerned that the hegemony of
market society forebodes deleterious social consequences in its privileging of capital over people, a rereading of Gramsci and Polanyi is a
good startingpoint for pointing out how the marketperipheralizeslarge
sections of humanity and produces systematicinequalitiesthat handicap
and undermine democracyitself. Such a reading would serve to demystify the underlying power asymmetries of market triumphalismand to
reawaken the public and political spirit of civil society in both its global
and its local dimensions.
NOTES
1 See, for example, both authors' contributionsto B. Hettne's edited volume
entitled International
PoliticalEconomy:Understanding
GlobalDisorder(1995).
Here we find two leading Gramscian IPE scholars discussing Polanyi's
48

5
6
concept of the 'double movement', and though both acknowledge that

Gramsciand Polanyi share certainintellectualaffinities,neitheris concerned
with drawing out how each thinkeroffers an importantconceptualcomplement to the other. This is the primary objective of the second part of this
article.
For a sampling of the recent and burgeoning literature on what Gabriel
Almond (1989)referredto as the 'international-nationalconnection',see the
collectedvolumes of Bergerand Dore, NationalDiversityandGlobalCapitalism
(1996);Boyer and Drache, StatesAgainstMarkets(1996);and Keohane and
and DomesticPolitics(1996).For review articlesof
Milner,Internationalization
a number of others see John Kurt Jacobsen's 'Are all politics domestic?
Perspectives on the integration of comparative politics and international
relations theories', ComparativePolitics 29 (1) (1996): 93-113; Wil Hout's
'Globalizationand the quest for govemance', MershonInternationalStudies
Review41 (1997):99-106; W. Rand Smith's 'Internationaleconomy and state
Politics (April 1993):351-71; and James Caporaso's
strategies', Comparative
'Across the great divide: integratingcomparativeand internationalpolitics',
International
StudiesQuarterly)41 (1997):563-92.
This idea is captured quite nicely in Michel Albert's Capitalismecontre
capitalisme(1991). It is worth noting the similarity of Albert's argument of
'capitalismas threat' in spite of its victory over communism to that of the
later published articleby George Soros, 'The capitalistthreat' (1997).
I believe these three elements constitute a necessary and effective response
to the challenges and potentialitiesof the currentphase of structuraltransformation highlighted throughout the collected volume edited by Gill and
Mittelman (1997) entitled Innovationand Transformation
in International
Studies.Indeed, it seems to me that theoreticalinnovation in International
Studies must begin by recognizingthe imperativeof these factorsfor looking
towards a 'more democraticand just world order'.
For a collection of similarly concerned academic writings on this topic, see
the special issue of New PoliticalEconomy2(1) (1997) entitled Globalisation
and the Politicsof Resistance.
David Harvey's conceptualizationof this problem is useful here. In The
Conditionof Postmodernity
he argues:
The tension between the fixity (and hence stability) that state regulation imposes, and the fluid motion of capitalflow, remainsa crucial
problem for the social and political organizationof capitalism.This
difficulty is modified by the way in which the state stands itself to
be disciplined by internal forces (upon which it relies for power)
and external conditions - competition in the world economy,
exchange rates, and capital movements, migration,or, on occasion,
direct political interventions on the part of superior powers. The
relationbetween capitalistdevelopment and the state has to be seen,
therefore,as mutually determiningrather than unidirectional.
(1989:109)
The various homogenization or 'convergence'theses within the globalization debates seem to suggest that it is only what Harvey refers to here as
the 'externalconditions' that are eroding state power. It is ironic that these
arguments emanate from a tradition that was formerly critical of Marxist
approachesfor economic determinism.
7 For a broader discussion of the dialectics of globalization see Anthony
Giddens's The Consequencesof Modernity(1990), especially p. 64. Also,
49


I direct interested readers to the special section, 'On dialectic and IR theory',
of Millennium:Journalof International
Studies2(2) (1997).
8 See for example the writings of Friedrich A. von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1944); Milton Friedman, Capitalism and
Freedom (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1962); and Milton and Rose
Friedman, Free to Choose; a Personal Statement (Harmondsworth, Penguin,
1980).
9 Fredric Jameson suggests 'the affirmation of "the primacy of production"
offers the most effective and powerful way of defamiliarizing and demystifying ideologies of the market itself and consumption-oriented models of
capitalism. As a vision of capitalism, then, the affirmation of the primacy
of the market is sheer ideology' (1991: 211; see also ch. 8).
10 Space here does not permit more than a presentation of the kernel of this
idea; the perspective is more fully elaborated in a chapter of my dissertation entitled 'Political economy as applied democratic theory' (University of
Georgia).
11 The authors argue that while liberalism reduces social action to mere means
towards an end, Marxism denies the relevance of instrumentality and
thereby the role of individual choice (Bowles and Gintis, 1986: 19). This is
essentially why they argue that neither tradition is an adequate approach
to democratic theory. The primary objective of the former is liberty, and of
the latter equality or classlessness. What Bowles and Gintis seek to construct
is both a post-liberal and post-Marxist agenda which acknowledges that
individual action and social structure are mutually determining. I believe
what these authors are aiming for is something that the whole of Gramsci's
thinking actually achieved. Augelli and Murphy seem to grasp this in their
appropriation of Gramsci for their 1988 work entitled America's Quest for
Supremacyand the Third World;see their introduction and especially pp. 4-6
where they claim that 'Gramsci's ideas help bridge the gap between Marxist
and liberal social science'.
12 Mark Rupert reconstructs this crucial element in Marx's thinking (and what
I believe is the core of a Marxian political theory) in order to present a 'radicalized social ontology' as the basis for critical IPE (1995: 16-31).
13 Bowles and Gintis define a socially consequential action as one that 'both
substantively affects the lives of others and the character of which reflects
the will and interests of the actor' (1986: 67).
14 For example, in recent years UN conferences have been confronted with a
competing, alternative NGO forum held simultaneously and from which
have emanated statements challenging governments and publics to move
beyond the rhetoric and empty diplomacy and implement concrete measures
for tackling problems ranging from sustainable development to family
planning. Also 'The Other Economic Summit', a counterpart to the G7's
annual meetings composed of radical economists and representatives of
developing nations, presents a challenge to the elitism and undemocratic
nature of these high-level meetings in which major economic policies are
discussed.
15 By Habermasian I am referring to his argument in The Structural
Transformation
of the Public Sphere:an Inquiryinto a Categoryof Bourgeois
Society, trans. Thomas Berger (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989), originally published in 1962.
16 It should be noted that the authors are concerned with structures other than
the capitalist economy. They deal quite extensively with other sites of power
50

17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
which escape accountability such as the patriarchal family. See specifically

ch. 4.
His most important work detailing the rise of market society and its consequences for the social fabric of humankind is The Great Transformation:the
Political and Economic Origin of Our Times (Boston: Beacon, 1957; originally
published in 1944).
Another current recapitulation of Polanyi's ideas is Lie (1993: 275-305)
This passage is from the original Quaderni del Carcere, ed. Valentino
Gerratana, 4 vols (Turin, 1975), p. 1752 and translated by Germino.
Germino notes that civil society and hegemony are indices of the constellation of social forces and quotes from Gramsci: 'Civil society is the political
and cultural hegemony of a social group over the entire society' (Quaderni
del Carcere,p. 703, Germino, 1971: 256).
As Christine Buci-Glucksmann points out in 'Hegemony and consent: a
political strategy' (in Anne Showstack Sassoon's Approachesto Gramsci(1982))
it is critical to note that for Gramsci consent can be either passive and indirect
or active and direct. In representative bourgeois democracies it is generally
the former; the latter requires a real and active interchange between the
rulers and ruled. The author characterizes the implications of this complex
definition as firmly establishing Gramsci as an anti-totalitarian thinker,
'designating a point of no return for political reflection: no democratic transition without an "anti-passive revolution", the expansion of active consent'
(p. 126).
For a more detailed discussion of the way myth fits into Gramsci's overall
political theory and its sometimes less than fully self-conscious use in critical
IR theory, see Augelli and Murphy's 'Consciousness, myth and collective
action: Gramsci, Sorel and the ethical state' in Gill and Mittelman (1997:
25-38).
Gramsci's complex schema of hegemony has produced a vast array of interpretations and misrepresentations in the scholarly literature. Those who do
not recognize Gramsci's positive usage of the concept are usually guilty of
a limited reading or a manipulative appropriation of the concept to suit
their own agendas (i.e. Perry Anderson (1977); Althusser (1969)). For a
critique of this representation as well as a good overview of Gramsci's
different constructions of the concept of hegemony, see Bocock (1986).
An example of this uncritical or fragmentary form of popular common sense
is the reactionary protectionism or anti-globalism of the American right wing
(e.g. as espoused by Pat Buchanan). Mark Rupert characterizes this vision
as one that 'entails a challenge to corporate power, but it implicitly constructs
this challenge from within the bounds of capitalism's structural separation
of politics and economics' (see his chapter entitled 'Globalisation and
contested common sense in the United States' in Gill and Mittelman, 1997:
151). I see my interpretation of Gramsci's theorization of common sense as
the terrain of ideological struggle as consistent with Rupert's exposition.
Although Rupert does not specifically address what Gramsci's vision of
'good sense' entailed, as I do below, I believe his depiction of a leftprogressive position that explicitly politicizes the global economy is
exemplary.
This issue of course raises a host of questions as to how this shift is to come
about and whether it smacks of elitism. Ever the holistic thinker, though,
Gramsci provided answers in his elaboration of the role of the party, the
organic intellectual and the historic bloc. One of the great challenges in
51

applying Gramscistems from this amazing interconnectednessof his ideas,

despite the fragmentaryand incomplete presentationof them in his prison
writings. It is beyond the scope of this article to comment more extensively
on this matter, so I will instead refer the reader to a very illuminating
passage in Gramsci's section on 'Problems of Marxism' where I think he
exonerates himself of any potential charges of elitism or 'top-down' totalitarian implications. See particularly his 'Passage from knowing to
understandingand to feeling and vice versa from feeling to understanding
and to knowing' where he calls for an 'organic cohesion' between intellectuals and 'people-nation','in which feeling-passionbecomes understanding
and thence knowledge (not mechanically but in a way that is alive)'
(pp. 418-19).
26 For a more in-depth discussion of Gramsci'sdifferent usages of ideology,
see the PrisonNotebooks(1971:375 -7) and Augelli and Murphy'sexposition
(1988:13-34).
27 See Kenny and Germain (1997) for a discussion of the interpretative
problemsassociatedwith this issue as well as referencesto the largerdebates
about the various applicationsof Gramsci'snotion of civil society.
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54


Contesting The Hegemony of Market Ideology Gramsci's 'Good Sense' and Polanyi's 'Double Movement - V.birchfield

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