Notes on Gramsci and hegemony

Antonio Gramsci (1891 - 1937)

- a leading Italian Marxist. A major theorist who spent his last eleven years in Mussolini’s prisons. During this time, he completed 32 notebooks containing almost 3,000 pages. These notebooks were smuggled out from his prison and published in Italian after the war but did not find an English-language publisher until the 1970s. The central and guiding theme of the Notebooks was the development of a new Marxist theory applicable to the conditions of advanced capitalism. This theory is often refered to as 'ideological hegemony'.

- he accepted the analysis of capitalism put forward by Marx in the 19th century and accepted that the struggle between the ruling class and the subordinate (working class) was the driving force that moved society forward. What he found unacceptable was the traditional Marxist view of how the ruling class ruled. It was here that Gramsci made a major contribution to modern thought in his concept of the role played by ideology.

- Often the term 'ideology' is seen as referring simply to a system of ideas and beliefs. However, it is closely tied to the concept of power and the definition given by Anthony Giddens is probably the easiest to understand. Giddens defines ideology as 'shared ideas or beliefs which serve to justify the interests of dominant groups'.

- The traditional Marxist theory of power was a very one-sided approach, based on the role of force and coercion as the basis of ruling class domination. It was reinforced by Lenin whose influence was at its height after the success of the Russian Revolution in 1917. Gramsci felt that what was missing was an understanding of the subtle but pervasive forms of ideological control and manipulation that served to perpetuate all repressive structures.

- He identified two quite distinct forms of political control: domination (which referred to direct physical coercion by police and armed forces) and hegemony (which referred to both ideological control and more crucially, consent). He assumed that no regime, regardless of how authoritarian it might be, could sustain itself primarily through organised state power and armed force. In the long run, it had to have popular support and legitimacy in order to maintain stability.

- By hegemony, Gramsci meant the permeation throughout society of an entire system of values, attitudes, beliefs and morality that has the effect of supporting the status quo in power relations. Hegemony in this sense might be defined as an 'organising principle' that is diffused by the process of socialisation into every area of daily life. To the extent that this prevailing consciousness is internalised by the population it becomes part of what is generally called 'common sense' so that the philosophy, culture and morality of the ruling elite comes to appear as the natural order of things.

It is by far the single most successful challenging governing principle in today's social life.

How is the utopian society LeGuin's describing 'hegemonic' in its framework?