Antonio Gramsci
Ruling classes stay in power not mainly by force but by winning consent through culture, so any revolution must first win the battle of ideas.
Placement
Cultural hegemony: domination rests on consent as well, not only on coercion.
Key ideas
- Hegemony
- Organic intellectuals
Influence
Influenced by 4
Niccolò Machiavelli
influenced by ✓
Gramsci read The Prince as a ‘living book’ that personifies a collective will and called the political party the ‘modern Prince’ (Notebook 13, 1932–34). A. Gramsci, Quaderni del carcere, Notebook 13 (1932–34), “Noterelle sulla politica del Machiavelli”, ed. V. Gerratana (1975)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Niccolò Machiavelli › 1469–1527
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
influenced by ✓
Norberto Bobbio argued (1967) that Gramsci’s concept of civil society, placed in the superstructure, derives from Hegel rather than Marx; the reading is debated. N. Bobbio, “Gramsci e la concezione della società civile” (1967), in Gramsci e la cultura contemporanea (1969); J. Texier, “Gramsci, théoricien des superstructures” (1968)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel › 1770–1831
Karl Marx
influenced by ✓
Gramsci read Marx’s 1859 Preface, by which people become conscious of social conflicts in ideological forms, as a basis for his theory of hegemony (prison notebooks, 1929–35). A. Gramsci, Quaderni del carcere (1929–35), ed. V. Gerratana (1975); K. Marx, Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, Vorwort (1859)
Karl Marx › 1818–1883
Antonio Labriola
influenced by ✓
Gramsci took up Labriola’s term ‘philosophy of praxis’ and his view that Marxism is a self-sufficient philosophy, independent of materialism and idealism (prison notebooks, 1929–35). A. Gramsci, Quaderni del carcere, Notebook 11 (1932–33), ed. V. Gerratana (1975); A. Labriola, Discorrendo di socialismo e filosofia (1898)
Antonio Labriola › 1843–1904
Influenced 10
Norberto Bobbio
influenced
Bobbio argued that Gramsci, unlike Marx, placed civil society in the superstructure, making hegemony a matter of consent (‘Gramsci e la concezione della società civile’, 1967). N. Bobbio, “Gramsci e la concezione della società civile” (1967), in Gramsci e la cultura contemporanea (1969); A. Gramsci, Quaderni del carcere (1929–35)
Evidence: AI draft
Norberto Bobbio › 1909–2004
Louis Althusser
influenced ✓
In ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses’ (1970) Althusser credited Gramsci with seeing that the state includes institutions of civil society, though Reading Capital (1965) rejected his historicism. L. Althusser, “Idéologie et appareils idéologiques d’État”, La Pensée (1970); Lire le Capital (1965), “Le marxisme n’est pas un historicisme”
Louis Althusser › 1918–1990
Raymond Williams
influenced
In Marxism and Literature (1977) Williams took up Gramsci’s distinction between rule and hegemony, describing hegemony as a lived system of meanings and values. R. Williams, Marxism and Literature (1977), “Hegemony”; A. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (tr. 1971)
Evidence: AI draft
Raymond Williams › 1921–1988
Stuart Hall
influenced
Hall used Gramsci’s hegemony to read Thatcherism, an ‘authoritarian populism’, as a struggle for consent, and stressed his relevance to race and ethnicity (1986, 1988). S. Hall, “Gramsci’s Relevance for the Study of Race and Ethnicity”, Journal of Communication Inquiry 10 (1986); The Hard Road to Renewal (1988); SEP “Antonio Gramsci”
Evidence: AI draft
Stuart Hall › 1932–2014
Edward Said
influenced
Said explained Orientalism’s durability with Gramsci’s hegemony and took from the Prison Notebooks the task of an ‘inventory’ of history’s traces in oneself (Orientalism, 1978). E. W. Said, Orientalism (1978), introduction; A. Gramsci, Quaderni del carcere (1929–35); SEP “Antonio Gramsci”
Evidence: AI draft
Edward Said › 1935–2003
Nicos Poulantzas
influenced ✓
Poulantzas took up Gramsci’s hegemony to describe how one fraction leads the ‘power bloc’ of dominant classes and secures consent (Political Power and Social Classes, 1968). N. Poulantzas, Pouvoir politique et classes sociales (1968); B. Jessop, Nicos Poulantzas (1985)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Nicos Poulantzas › 1936–1979
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Zygmunt Bauman
influenced
Bauman called Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks a major influence; Keith Tester traces to them his view of reality as praxis that can be otherwise (Culture as Praxis, 1973). Z. Bauman, Culture as Praxis (1973); K. Tester, “Paths in Zygmunt Bauman’s Social Thought”, Thesis Eleven 70 (2002); SEP “Antonio Gramsci”
Evidence: AI draft
Zygmunt Bauman › 1925–2017
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
influenced
Spivak took Gramsci’s term ‘subaltern’, via Subaltern Studies, and asked whether those excluded from hegemonic representation can be heard (‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, 1988). G. C. Spivak, “Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography” (1985), in In Other Worlds (1987); “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (1988); SEP “Antonio Gramsci”
Evidence: AI draft
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak › b. 1942
Raewyn Connell
influenced
Connell adapted Gramsci’s hegemony to gender: hegemonic masculinity is the culturally exalted form that legitimates men’s dominance over women and subordinates other masculinities (Gender and Power, 1987). R. W. Connell, Gender and Power (1987); Masculinities (1995); R. W. Connell and J. W. Messerschmidt, “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept”, Gender & Society 19 (2005); SEP “Antonio Gramsci”
Evidence: AI draft
Raewyn Connell › b. 1944
Dipesh Chakrabarty
influenced
As a member of the Subaltern Studies collective, named after Gramsci’s ‘subaltern classes’, Chakrabarty studied the limits of class solidarity among Bengal’s jute workers (Rethinking Working-Class History, 1989). D. Chakrabarty, Rethinking Working-Class History: Bengal 1890–1940 (1989); R. Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies I (1982), preface; A. Gramsci, Quaderni del carcere (1929–35)
Evidence: AI draft
Dipesh Chakrabarty › b. 1948
Criticism
Criticizes 3
Gaetano Mosca
criticised
Gramsci reinterpreted Mosca’s ‘political class’ as ‘the intellectual category of the dominant social group’, tying elite rule back to class and hegemony (Prison Notebooks). A. Gramsci, Quaderni del carcere (1929–35), ed. V. Gerratana (1975), esp. Q. 13; A. Bianchi, “Classe política e crise da democracia na crítica de Antonio Gramsci”, Tempo Social 31/2 (2019)
Evidence: AI draft
Gaetano Mosca › 1858–1941
Benedetto Croce influenced by
influenced by ✓
For Gramsci the philosophy of praxis had to do to Croce what Marx had done to Hegel, recasting Croce’s ethico-political history as a theory of hegemony (Notebook 10). A. Gramsci, Quaderni del carcere, Notebook 10 (1932–35), ed. V. Gerratana (1975); letter to T. Schucht (1932)
criticised
Gramsci called for an ‘Anti-Croce’: Croce’s ethico-political history is speculative and leaves out force and struggle, his Storia d’Europa (1932) starting only after 1815 (Notebook 10). A. Gramsci, Quaderni del carcere, Q. 10, part I (1932–35), ed. V. Gerratana (1975)
Evidence: AI draft
Benedetto Croce › 1866–1952
Giovanni Gentile
criticised
Gramsci criticised Gentile’s actual idealism as a speculative philosophy of the state and his 1923 school reform as deepening class divisions in education (Prison Notebooks, Q. 11–12). A. Gramsci, Quaderni del carcere, Q. 11 and Q. 12 (1932–33), ed. V. Gerratana (1975)
Evidence: AI draft
Giovanni Gentile › 1875–1944
Works
- 1935Prison Notebooks
Hegemony, civil society and the “Modern Prince” – written in prison in 1929–35, published 1948–51.
Position
Gramsci asked why the revolution succeeded in Russia but failed in the West. His answer: in developed societies power rests not only on coercion but on hegemony – the cultural and moral leadership through which ruling groups win the consent of the governed. This hegemony is produced in civil society: in schools, churches, media and common sense. Changing society therefore requires a long “war of position” for ideas, carried by organic intellectuals rooted in the classes they represent. Gramsci thus gave culture a central place in Marxist theory and influenced cultural studies, postcolonial theory and political strategy across the spectrum.
Life & context
Gramsci grew up poor in Sardinia, studied in Turin and became involved in the factory council movement there. He co-founded the Italian Communist Party in 1921 and became its leader. Arrested by the Fascist regime in 1926, he spent the rest of his life in prison, where despite severe illness he filled some thirty notebooks. He died in 1937 shortly after his release.
Further main works
- Articles in L’Ordine Nuovo (1919–1920)
- Letters from Prison (1926–1937)
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