Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Introduction
The three concepts discussed herein constitute perhaps the most important
components of Gramsci’s “philosophy of praxis.” For one thing, the three concepts
represent the earliest elaborations on the foundations of class power, addressing the
latter from the point of view of superstructural as well as infrastructural
considerations. Moreover, by defining the nature of class power in capitalist society
through an elaboration of the dialectical relationship between the base and the
superstructure, and, specifically, by outlining the essentials of sound revolutionary
strategy which address the complex nature of class power and hegemony, these
concepts meet the first criteria of “praxis,” namely, the proper (i.e. dialectical)
understanding of class rule and class power from which sound revolutionary practice
can evolve. That is, practice that can successfully challenge and shake the foundations
of capitalist class rule and capitalist society. Needless to say, the understanding of these
concepts is the most important step in the study of Gramsci’s Marxism.
The unity of the three concepts, itself striking, should direct the reader to a fact
Gramsci frequently emphasized, that ideology and the superstructure of civil society
must be dealt with as objectively as economic considerations. Gramsci’s linking of the
reality of class rule and class power with the equally real amalgam of practices and
ideal principles of behavior, conformity, and law, is well synthesized in the specific
connection between his concepts of ideology and hegemony, in particular, the concepts
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of “organic ideology” and the “organic intellectual.” It should not be overlooked that
conferring upon the superstructures and indeed ideology a great degree of efficacy and
even materiality within the social totality of class society is in the tradition of Marx’s
notion of ideology. This recognized, it cannot be ignored that Gramsci was
instrumental in rectifying the notion of ideology, as was held then by the “marxist”
theoreticians of the Second International and the Bolshevik Party of the Stalin period.
If Lenin stressed the importance of political leadership of the working class in the
class struggle, Gramsci went a bit further by also emphasizing moral and intellectual
leadership and the importance of non-economic relations between classes. Also in the
dialectical tradition, Gramsci was most perceptive in grasping the peculiar differences
that existed between 1917 Russia and the more developed Western capitalist countries.
Accordingly, he did not downplay the importance of ideological struggle in the totality
of the class struggle, including economic and political struggle. Undoubtedly, Gramsci
must have the credit for bringing the notion of ideology within the realm of truly
genuine, revolutionary Marxism.
Finally, it must be borne in mind that Gramsci’s conception of the dictatorship of the
proletariat must be elaborated out of what he outlined through the concepts of
ideology, hegemony, power, and organic intellectuals. Indeed, for Gramsci power
rested on what was given, and what was given, i.e. the network of civil society, could
not be overlooked and circumscribed in the course of the class struggle. Hence, power
for a class rested not only on the economic level and on the simple capture and
smashing of the dominant state apparatus, but was highly dependent on the legitimacy
the class gained from subordinate classes in civil society through effective ideological
struggle therein.
Gramsci’s concept of ideology was distinctive and far more developed than that of his
predecessors and contemporaries essentially because it overcame both
epiphenomenalism and class reductionism. Ideological epiphenomenalism consisted
basically of the claim that the ideological superstructure was determined mechanically
by the economic infrastructure, and that ideology, being simply illusory, played no role
whatsoever in the economic life of society or in revolutionary change for that matter.
Revolutionary change, it was asserted, resulted from the dynamics and tensions of
economic contradictions grounded in the mode of production. More specifically, the
contradictions of the relations of production and forces of production, coupled with the
economic contradictions of antagonistic classes in the realm of production was said to
determine every qualitative transformation of the institutional fabric and the
ideological formation of the social system in crisis. This notion of social revolution
brought about an ultimate implication for capitalist society, namely, the so-called
“cataclysmic” interpretation of capitalist crisis: capitalist society would inevitably
collapse as a result of its own economic laws and contradictions of increased
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proletarianization and pauperization. This crisis would only be resolved through the
decisive capture and smashing of the state apparatus by the proletariat, the
revolutionary class then to hold legitimate power. This successful appropriation of state
power was construed to preclude any form of class alliance based on a defined
hierarchy of ideological, economic, and political interests led by the genuine
fundamental interests of the proletariat. Hence, the interpretation of state power was
one of pure coercion and force as to other classes without considerations for their
consent.
This conception of ideology and revolution was often combined with a reductionist
interpretation of ideology which argued that ideologies necessarily had a class
character, so that there was an ideology of the capitalist class and an ideology of the
working class, both ideologies antagonistic, defined, and mutually exclusive in their
totality. The ultimate implication of this conception was, of course, that classes at the
economic level–at the level of production–were “duplicated” at the ideological level
through ideological discourses exclusively of their own. The combination of these
notions led to formulations in which ideology was conceived to have a class nature and
was considered to play no significant role in social and revolutionary dynamics
(Kautsky). On other occasions, ideologies were given a certain degree of efficacy vis-a-
vis revolutionary change in society while still being conceived of as having a class
determination (Korsch and Luckacs). Of course, it was Gramsci who rectified the
notion of ideology by overcoming both epiphenomenalism and class reductionism, and
by redefining the term “ideology” in terms of practices, politico-ideological discourses,
and elements.
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The most distinctive aspect of Gramsci’s concept of ideology is, of course, his notion
of “organic ideology.” Clearly, ideology was defined in terms of a system of class rule,
i.e. hegemony, in which there was an organic arrangement of all ideological elements
into a unified system. This complex arrangement constituted an “organic ideology,” the
expression of the communal life of the given social bloc wherein a class held state
power and hence social hegemony. In a given hegemonic system, therefore, a
hegemonic class held state power through its economic supremacy and through its
ability to have, among other things, successfully articulated or expressed in a coherent,
unified fashion the most essential elements in the ideological discourses of the
subordinate classes in civil society.
In this respect, we could say that an organic ideology is diffused throughout civil
society (social institutions and structures such as the family, churches, the media,
schools, the legal system, and other organizations such as the trade unions, chambers
of commerce, and economic associations) by virtue of the integration of diverse class
interests and practices into a unified system of socioeconomic relations. Similarly, it
would seem that “ideological discourses” have more of a class character than
“ideological elements” would. Accordingly, particular classes could claim particular
ideological elements as theirs only when these elements are articulated in their “class”
discourses.
It remains to be said that the organic intellectuals, responsible for the formulation
and spreading of organic ideologies, are social agents having a form of allegiance to a
hegemonic class (in a “balanced” hegemonic system) or to a class aspiring for
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hegemony (in a hegemonic system in crisis) and ultimate state power. While further
discussion in another section will elucidate more on this, we could now understand
that it is precisely because of their articulation through the “hegemonic principle” that
ideological elements embodied in an organic ideology acquire a hegemonic class
character.
The Turin communists posed concretely the question of the ’hegemony of the
proletariat’: i.e. of the social basis of the proletarian dictatorship and the workers’
State. The proletariat can become the leading (dirigent) and the dominant class to
the extent that it succeeds in creating a system of alliances which allows it to
mobilize the majority of the working population against capitalism and the
bourgeois State. In Italy, in the real class relations which exists there, this means
to the extent that it succeeds in gaining the consent of the broad peasant masses.
[1]
Hence, in the more developed elaboration “Hegemony” entails two things. First of
all, it presupposes that the “hegemonic class” takes into consideration the interests of
the classes and groups over which it exercises its “hegemony.” Added to this, some
equilibrium between the hegemonic class and the subaltern classes is entailed whereby
the hegemonic class will be forced to make some sacrifices tangent to its corporate
interests. Secondly, “hegemony” entails economic leadership besides ethico-political
leadership. In other words, it entails that the hegemonic class be a “fundamental
class”–that is, a class situated at one of the two fundamental poles in the relations of
production: owner or non-owner of the means of production. It would seem, therefore,
that hegemony entails for a class its execution of a leadership role on the economic,
political, moral, and intellectual levels vis-a-vis other classes in the system, coupled
with the sacrificing of some of its corporate interests as a fundamental class precisely to
facilitate its vanguard role. Noticeable in this notion is the abstract notion of balance:
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sacrifice for consensus or strict corporativism for a coercive imperative. Indeed, this
notion underlies Gramsci’s definition of the concept of hegemony, and the notion itself
is embodied in Gramsci’s elaborate concept of power.
Gramsci’s concept of power is based simply on the two moments of power relations–
Dominio (or coercion) and Direzione (or consensus). These two moments are essential
elements, indeed the constitutive elements of a state of balance, a state of equilibrium
between social forces identified as the leaders and the led. This state of balance consists
of a coalition of classes constituting an organic totality within which the use of force is
risky unless there emerges an organic crisis which threatens the hegemonic position
and the ruling position of the leading class in the hegemonic system. Clearly, political
or state rule by a hegemonic class so defined would be rule in which consensus
predominates over coercion. According to Gramsci, consensus rests at the level of civil
society and hence must be won there. On the other hand, coercion rests at the level of
the state, more specifically at the level of “political society.” Accordingly, hegemonic
rule, characterized by the predominance of consensus over coercion, represents in
broad terms a balance, an equilibrium between “political society” and “civil society.”
Needless to say, for Gramsci the state embodies “the hegemony of one social group over
the whole of society exercised through so-called private organizations, such as the
church, trade unions, schools, etc.,”[2] in balance with the ensemble of public
(coercive) organizations such as the state, the bureaucracy, the military, the police, and
the courts. Thus, state power rests in a hegemonic equilibrium with alternated
moments of force and consensus but without the necessity of predominance by
coercion over consensus.
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“collective will.” Indeed, it is this new world view, which unifies classes into a new
hegemonic bloc, which constitutes the new organic ideology of the new hegemonic class
and system. Yet it is not a world-view imposed, as a class ideology (in the reductionist
sense,) by the new hegemonic class upon the subaltern group. Moreover, in the
transformation of the ideological terrain there is no complete replacement of the
previously dominant world view. Rather, the “new” world view is “created” or
“moulded” by the aspiring hegemonic class and its consensual subalterns out of the
existing ideological elements held by the latter in their discourses.
For Gramsci, the working class must, before actually exercising state power, attain
leadership–that is, “establish its claim to be a ruling class in the political, cultural, and
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’ethical’ fields.”[4] But for it to establish its claim to be a ruling class, the proletariat
must first have become class conscious in the context of struggle for political power.
Here Gramsci distinguishes between two phases in the process: first there is the
corporate-economic phase in which the class identifies itself in terms of the corporate-
economic interests of its integrated elements and as an economic group. Then there is
the “purely political” phase in which the class realizes that its own economic interests,
in their present and future development, go beyond the corporative circle of a mere
economic group, and can and must become the interests of other oppressed groups.
This is the purely political phase “which marks the passage from structure to the sphere
of complex superstructures.”[5] At this point, when it becomes conscious of itself and
its existence as a social class, the proletariat can then proceed to forge or develop a
comprehensive world-view and advance a political programme allowing for its
manifestation as a constituted political party playing a truly progressive and historical
role and seeking to absorb other leading sections of the other oppressed groups and
classes. At this point, in other words, the proletariat begins to engage in the struggle for
social hegemony.
War of Position
First of all, Gramsci is talking about ’war of position’ for the attainment of hegemony.
This war is thus carried on at the level of civil society. Indeed, once the proletariat
becomes class conscious and overcomes its corporativism it can and must begin to
exercise a role of political, moral, and intellectual leadership vis-a-vis other social
classes to gradually acquire their spontaneous loyalty. Yet this role of leadership must
be devoted to the struggle against the existing hegemonic system, and the struggle itself
waged on all three basic levels of society: (1) the economic, (2) the political, and (3) the
cultural. Incidentally, the economic struggle of the proletariat even precedes
historically the “purely political” phase. Nevertheless, at the inception of the political
phase the economic struggle assumes a new or distinctive form.
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advanced stage of the class struggle (at the political phase of the hegemonic challenge)
the economic struggle must be waged in conjunction with an intense political struggle
itself involving more than just “a simple confrontation between antagonistic classes” to
include a “complex relation of forces” existing at three levels: (1) the relation of social
forces linked to the structure and dependent on the degree of development of the
material forces of production; (2) the relation of political forces, that is to say the
degree of consciousness and organization within different social groups; (3) the
relation of military forces which is always, according to Gramsci, the decisive moment.
[7]
It is safe to argue that the evolution of the working class out of the simple economic
struggle for corporate goals and into the field of complex political struggle proceeds
further into the decisive ’war of position’ waged mainly at the cultural front as an
ideological struggle. While engaged in the ideological struggle the proletariat “attempts
to forge unity between economic, political and intellectual objectives, ’playing all the
questions around which the struggle rages on a ’universal’, not a corporate level,
thereby creating [its] hegemony [as] a fundamental social group over a series of
subordinate ones.”[8] This ideological struggle involves a process of “disarticulation-
rearticulation” of given ideological elements. It is really the struggle between two
“hegemonic principles” for the appropriation of those elements, an appropriation
constituting the unification of various ideological elements into an all encompassing
ideology–organic ideology.
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Methodically speaking, the proletariat can become a hegemonic class by either of two
methods: by “transformism,” or by “expansive hegemony.” “Transformism”–the
Moderate Party of the Resorgimento relied on this method–can occur through the
“gradual but continuous absorption, achieved by methods which [vary] in their
effectiveness, of the active elements produced by allied groups–and even those which
came from the antagonistic groups.”[11] This is a “bastard” type of hegemony involving
“passive consensus.” On the other hand, “expansive hegemony” involves “direct
consensus” and hence constitutes the “genuine adoption” of hegemonic status through
the war of position.
For Gramsci, intellectuals are a broader group of social agents than the term would
seem to include in its definition. Gramsci’s category of “intellectuals” includes not only
scholars and artists or, in his own terms, the “organizers of culture,” but also
functionaries who exercise “technical” or “directive” capacities in society. Among these
functionaries we find administrators and bureaucrats, industrial managers, politicians,
and the already mentioned “organizers of culture.” Moreover, Gramsci classifies these
intellectuals in two dimensions: the horizontal and the vertical dimensions. On the
vertical dimension we find the “specialists,” those who organize industry in particular
for the capitalists (including the industrial managers and foremen). On that dimension
we find also the “directors”–the organizers of society in general. On the horizontal
dimension, Gramsci classifies intellectuals either as traditional intellectuals or as
organic intellectuals. Traditional intellectuals are those intellectuals linked to tradition
and to past intellectuals; those who are not so directly linked to the economic structure
of their particular society and, in fact, conceive of themselves as having no basis in any
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social class and adhering to no particular class discourse or political discourse. Organic
intellectuals, on the other hand, are more directly related to the economic structure of
their society simply because of the fact that “every social group that originates in the
fulfillment of an essential task of economic production” creates its own
organicintellectual.[12] Thus, the organic intellectual “gives his class homogeneity and
awareness of its own function, in the economic field and on the social and political
levels.”[13] In addition, their interests are “more nearly identical with those of the
dominant classes [they identify with] . . . than the traditional intellectuals.”[14] But
what was the basis of Gramsci’s classification of intellectuals on “vertical” and
“horizontal” dimensions?
The basis of this classification is Gramsci’s distinction between two distinct but
interconnected areas in the social superstructure: “political society” and “civil society.”
We could assume that the “specialists” (vertical dimension) would be situated most
likely within “civil society,” and more specifically at the links between civil society and
the economic infrastructure or level of production. The agents who constitute this
group operate mainly at the level of industry. On the other hand, also on the vertical
dimension, the “directors” would seem to be situated most likely within “civil society”
but outside the realm of industrial specialization. This, of course, is rather tentative and
at the most an exercise in abstraction since the categories of civil society and political
society, and the category of infrastructure, are abstractions from an “organic totality”
that operates dialectically and incorporates all levels in that operation.
According to Gramsci the intellectuals are the “deputies” of the dominant group–the
functionaries, exercising the subaltern but important functions of political government
and social hegemony. In particular, the organic intellectuals are most important since
they are the ones who actually elaborate and spread organic ideology. The political
importance of these intellectuals rests also in the fact that, normally, the organic
intellectuals of a historically and realistically progressive class will be able to establish
their “domination” over the intellectuals of other classes, and hence will be able to
create a “system of solidarity” maintained so long as the progressive class remains
“progressive.”
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Finally, organic intellectuals are very instrumental in a class’ struggle for hegemony.
“One of the most important characteristics of any group that is developing towards
dominance is its struggle to assimilate and conquer ’ideologically’ the traditional
intellectuals, but their assimilation and conquest is made quicker and more efficacious
the more the group in question succeeds in simultaneously elaborating its own organic
intellectuals.”[16] Again, remember that the traditional intellectuals can be supportive
agents in the quest for “spontaneous” consent to the social order. Thus, it would also
seem that the struggle for assimilating the traditional intellectuals is yet another
important requisite for a class’ overall struggle for hegemony. Specifically, this struggle
for assimilation of the traditional intellectuals would be part of the ’war of position’
discussed in the previous section.
A major historical problem posed by Gramsci and of great practical relevance to the
proletariat in advanced capitalist countries is the fact that “although every social group
develops its own organic intellectuals, the industrial proletariat has relied mostly on
’assimilated’ traditional intellectuals for leadership.”[17] Of course, Gramsci prescribed
a solution to this problem, a solution that, in fact, became one of the principal aims of
the “Ordine Nuovo” in Italy. Gramsci wrote in the Prison Notebooks that the solution
was to provide workers, directly in the shops, technical and industrial education as well
as education in the humanities so that “from technical work [the select worker] arrives
at technical science and historical humanistic views, without which he would remain ’a
specialist’ and would not become a ’director’ ” (that is, a specialist and a politician).
Clearly, only then could the working class develop a higher consciousness of itself and
other social classes.
Conclusion
Gramsci’s contribution to Marxist theory is two-fold. On the one hand, with concepts
such as “organic ideology,” “civil society” and “political society,” “organic intellectuals,”
“hegemony,” etc., as well as his unique distinction between political society and civil
society, Gramsci brought new theoretical foundations into truly dialectical Marxist
revolutionary theory. Most important, out of these foundations emerged new concepts
that have given Marxism more consistency and relevance vis-a-vis contemporary
Capitalist reality. It is safe to argue, for example, that Althusser’s notion of “ideological
state apparatuses” evolves out of Gramsci’s general concept of civil society and
ideological structures therein serving as the social pillars of state power. Without much
doubt, the Althusserian formulation of the theory of reproduction of ideological state
apparatuses and the concept of ideological interpellation owes much to Gramsci’s
concept of ideology and hegemony and the notion of the state implicit in these
concepts. And let us not forget Gramsci’s notion of ’war of position’ from which
Althusser’s elaboration of the concept of ideological struggle evolves. While a
discussion of Althusser’s contribution to Marxist theory remains outside the scope of
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this article, it would not be irrelevant to say that Althusser has been for Gramsci more
or less what Lenin was for Marx and Engels–each in continuity with his predecessors.
On the other hand, Gramsci has also contributed to Marxist theory through the
major implications which his most important concepts (those discussed here as well as
his concept of the party) entail regarding the true nature of capitalist crisis and
proletarian revolutionary strategy. Novel among these implications is, of course,
Gramsci’s emphasis on the need for the proletariat to gain the loyalty and support of
other social classes in an advanced Capitalist context and, in order to do so, the need to
overcome class dogmatism and interest-based corporatism. No longer has the
cataclysmic notion of Capitalist crisis a place in truly revolutionary Marxist theory, as
Gramsci’s concepts have brought a more realistic picture of the class struggle to our
eyes. Indeed, Gramsci deserves much recognition in rectifying Marxist theory after its
temporary degeneration at the hands of the mechanistic Marxists of the Stalin period
and the revisionist “Marxists” of the Second International. In the dialectical materialist
tradition of Marx and Engels, Gramsci’s “philosophy of praxis” (despite any
historicism) has re-delivered to the working class a more powerful theoretical weapon
with which it is well equipped against the capitalist class in the class struggle. There
remains only the conscious making of history in the hands of the proletariat.
Editor’s Note: Valeriano Ramos, Jr. received his B.A. at Yale in 1981 and will start law
school in September. He is presently working on a book, “Left Wing Unionism and the
Trade Union Movement in the US, 1880-1955.”
Notes
[1] Chantal Mouffe, Gramsci and Marxist Theory (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), p.
186.
[2] John M. Cammett, Antonio Gramsci and the Origins of Italian Communism (California:
Stanford University Press, 1967), p. 204.
[4] Ibidem.
[5] Ibidem.
[8] Ibidem.
[10] John M. Cammett, Antonio Gramsci and the Origins of Italian Communism, p. 202.
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[12] John M. Cammett, Antonio Gramsci and the Origins of Italian Communism, p. 202.
[13] Ibidem.
[14] Ibidem.
[16] Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (New York: International
Publishers, 1971), p. 10.
[17] John M. Cammett, Antonio Gramsci and the Origins of Italian Communism, p. 203.
Bibliography
Althusser, Louis. Lenin and Philosophy. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971.
Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. New York: International
Publishers, 1971.
Laclau, Ernesto. Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory. London: New Left
Books/Verso Editions, 1977.
Luckacs, Georg. History and Class Consciousness. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1971.
Mouffe, Chantal, ed. Gramsci & Marxist Theory. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1979.
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