List of Acronyms
Chapter 3: Hegemony
3.4 Gramsci
Harvey (1990) argues that by the time Gramsci was writing, Marxism had developed along two different lines: those that argued that Marx’s analysis of capitalism and the role of the working class was essentially correct (Luxemburg, early Lenin, Stalin), or that his analysis had been correct at the time, but needed revision because of changed social and economic circumstances (Lenin, Bukharin); and those that felt that his original analysis was flawed and needed rethinking, especially because of changing circumstances.
Harvey located Gramsci within the second position. Whilst it is certainly true that Gramsci differed from Marx in certain key respects, and I discuss these in detail below, it is also true that Gramsci was entirely in agreement with the fundamental principles of Marx’s theory.
Thus, like Marx, Gramsci argued that the way people organise their production for
subsistence, and the instruments they use in doing this, constitute the real basis of society. On this, a social superstructure emerges; but the process is dialectical. The division of labour, and social inequality created thereby under capitalism, led to the emergence of different classes and, inevitably, a struggle between them. Ultimately, a proletarian revolution would be needed to create a classless society in which everyone would be equal. Again like Marx, Gramcsi emphasised the role of praxis in this.
Indeed, a great deal of his Prison Notebooks consist of reasoned arguments against certain forms of Marxism what emerged by the time he was writing; and in particular what he called
‘vulgar materialism’ of current Marxist orthodoxy (as discussed above). Throughout his work, Gramsci kept referring back to the “philosophy of praxis” of Marx, and arguing for a return to what Marx actually said:
The claim, presented as an essential postulate of historical materialism, that every fluctuation of politics and ideology can be presented and expounded as an immediate expression of the structure, must be contested in theory as primitive infantilism, and combatted in practice with the authentic testimony of Marx. (Gramsci, 1971, p.407)
The philosophy of praxis has been a “moment” of modern culture. To a certain extent it has determined or enriched certain cultural currents. Study of this fact, which is very important and full of significance, has been neglected or quite simply ignored by the so-called orthodoxy. (Gramsci, 1971, p.388)
Ultimately, for Gramsci, “the will and initiative of men themselves cannot be left out of the account” (Gramsci, 1971, p.244). This insistence on human will and initiative profoundly affected Gramsci’s thinking on the state, civil society and ideology, ultimately in ways that differed from Marx, and led to Gramsci’s conceptualisation of hegemony.
3.4.1 Gramsci’s conception of the State and civil society
Gramsci’s thought marked an important shift in the theory of the state. Whilst agreeing the state was both a negative moment (an instrument of the bourgeoisie), and transitory, Gramsci suggested that the relationship between the state and the economic base was an altogether more complex one. Gramsci thus differed from Marx and Engels’ analysis in terms of the structure of the state, and in particular, its relation to civil society, and allowed for a
relatively independent role for the state. Some commentators have suggested that “Gramsci did not succeed in finding a single, wholly satisfactory conception of ‘civil society’ or the State” (Hoare & Smith, 1971, p.207). I am not entirely convinced of this; I think it is
writing; thus he frequently contrasted different states; so at different points in his notebooks he is discussing entirely different actual states. Gramsci argued that he had access to different information from Marx; since Marx’s time, different states had emerged, and he could thus draw on different data (Gramsci, 1971). Mostly, I think, he was attempting to show the dialectical relationship between base and superstructure, and between state and civil society.
For Gramsci, a key role of the state remained that of securing the interests of the ruling class;
but it was also important in uniting the ruling class, and thus cementing relations between State and civil society:
The historical unity of the ruling classes is realised in the State, and their history is essentially the history of States and of groups of States. But it would be wrong to think that this unity is simply juridical and political (though such forms of unity do have their importance too, and not in a purely formal sense); the fundamental historical unity, concretely results from the organic relations between State or political society and “civil society”.
The subaltern classes, by definition, are not unified and cannot unite until they are able to become a “State”: their history, therefore, is intertwined with that of civil society, and thereby with the history of States and groups of States. (Gramsci, 1971, p.52)
Unlike Marx, who as we have seen placed civil society within the economic base, Gramsci placed civil society not in the base, but in the superstructure. Gramsci divided Marx’s superstructure into the state, which he also called political society, and civil society:
What we can do, for the moment, is to fix two major superstructural “levels”: the one that can be called “civil society”, that is the ensemble of organisms commonly called
“private”, and that of “political society” or “the State”. These two levels correspond on the one hand to the function of “hegemony” which the dominant group exercises throughout society and on the other hand to that of “direct domination” or command exercised through the State and “juridical” government. (Gramsci, 1971, p.12)
Political society included those institutions which he saw as overtly coercive, viz.
government, police, armed forces, and the legal system. Civil society, on the other hand, consisted of those institutions which are essentially non-coercive, viz. Churches, schools, trade unions, political parties, cultural associations, clubs, the family, and so on (Burke, 2005) - institutions commonly thought of as private or non-political (Mastroianni, 2002). So civil society, for him, was not the market, but public opinion and culture: “for Gramsci civil society includes not ‘the whole of material relationships’ [a la Marx], but the whole of
ideological-cultural relations; not ‘the whole of commercial and industrial life’, but the whole of spiritual and intellectual life” (Bobbio, 1979, pp.30-31).
This does not mean that civil society had nothing to do with economic relations; of course it did - and part of the State’s role related precisely to this:
Between the economic structure and the State with its legislation and its coercion stands civil society....The State is the instrument for conforming civil society to the economic structure, but it is necessary for the State to ‘be willing’ to do this; i.e. for the representatives of the change that has taken place in the economic structure to be in control of the State. (Gramsci, 1971, p.208)
So the relationship is dialectical. However, the relationship between political and civil society is also dialectical - sometimes, they act together. Thus Gramsci speaks of the State being both political and civil society: “by ‘State’ should be understood not only the apparatus of government, but also the ‘private’ apparatus of ‘hegemony’ or ‘civil society’” (Gramsci, 1971, p.261); but sometimes the State and civil society appear separately: “the State presents itself in the language of specific epochs: i.e. as civil society and as political society” (Ibid., p.268), in other words, with separate functions, but ultimately the same purpose - to cement ruling class control. Thus in a capitalist mode of production, the bourgeoisie needed to control the State in order to mobilise (and unite) civil society to serve a capitalist mode of production. This included uniting the (competing) members of the bourgeoisie; but also, persuading other classes to join this enterprise. So one of the State’s
most important functions is to raise the great mass of the population to a particular cultural and moral level, a level (or type) which corresponds to the needs of the productive forces for development, and hence to the interests of the ruling classes.
(Gramsci, 1971, p.258)
In this, Gramsci argued, the bourgeois class had been different from any other historical classes:
The previous ruling classes were essentially conservative in the sense that they did not tend to construct an organic passage from the other classes into their own; i.e. to enlarge their class sphere “technically” and ideologically: their conception was that of a closed caste. The bourgeois class poses itself as an organism in continuous
movement, capable of absorbing the entire society, assimilating it to its own cultural and economic level. The entire function of the State has been transformed; the State has become an “educator”, etc. (Gramsci, 1971, p.260)
Thus Gramsci sees a somewhat different role for the State, including as ‘educator’. What did Gramsci mean by this?
[The State’s] aim is always that of creating new and higher types of civilisation: of adapting the “civilisation” and the morality of the broadest popular masses to the necessities of the continuous development of the economic apparatus of production;
hence of evolving even physically new types of humanity. But how will each single individual succeed in incorporating himself into the collective man (sic), and how will educative pressure be applied to single individuals so as to obtain their consent and their collaboration, turning necessity and coercion into freedom?. (Gramsci, 1971, p.242)
It is at this point that we need to consider Gramsci’s ideas about ideology.
3 Allman argues (1988) that Gramsci was the first Marxist in the twentieth century to expand the concept of ideology to include not just ideas and thought, but material relations, practices and the very fabric of society (although this reading has been 3.4.2 Gramsci’s conception of ideology and consciousness
As we have seen, Gramsci argued that “the will and the initiative of men themselves cannot be left out of the account” (Gramsci, 1971, p.244), and wanted a return to the “philosophy of praxis” of Marx. Gramsci argued that “the philosophy of praxis represents a distinct advance and historically is precisely in opposition to Ideology” (p.376). “Ideology”, in terms of philosophy of praxis, is a superstructure. However, Gramsci argued, ideology could not only be seen as bad - and he constructed an argument to show how spurious this argument is. In this, Gramsci was concerned precisely by orthodox Marxism’s ‘vulgar materialism’, by the notion that ideas had no place in political change (although he was also concerned to avoid any undialectical separation between ideas and economics). Rather, he insisted, ideologies could play both a positive or negative role:
To the extent that ideologies are historically necessary they have a validity which is
“psychological”; they “organise” human masses, and create the terrain on which men move, acquire consciousness of their position, struggle, etc. (Gramsci, 1971, p.377)
So Gramsci broadened and deepened Marxist notions of ideology3. In Gramsci’s conception, ideology is not only a system of beliefs reflecting specific class interests as Marx had
claimed (Lather, 1986; Mouffe, 1979); rather, it is ‘spontaneous philosophy’, which is contained in language; in ‘common sense’ (conventional wisdom) and in ‘good sense’
(empirical knowledge); and in popular religion, including the entire system of beliefs, superstitions, opinions, ways of seeing things, etc. (Lears, 1985).
For Gramsci ideology is intimately connected to consciousness; and thus, because ‘man’ is
“always mass-man or collective man” (Gramsci, 1971, p. 324), is a collective, not individual, enterprise. In this, he draws on Marx’s assumptions about what it means to be human, and what it could mean to be human - that we do not exist prior or outside of our relationships
with others and our historical, material circumstances, but are rather a process of our actions, of our active relations with other people and with nature (Allman, 1999). Gramsci, like Marx, thus saw different types or levels of consciousness. Gramsci distinguished between common sense, ideology, and the philosophy of praxis. Essentially, Gramsci argued that we are all philosophers, because we all have some kind of conception of the world. However, this common sense view of the world is fragmented because of the contradictions and limitations of our lived relations (i.e. our historic and materialist context). Ideologies of the bad kind can offer partial explanations, with sufficient coherence to cement the hegemony of the particular ruling group. A philosophy of praxis, in contrast, provides true coherence, since it is
scientific (Allman, 1999). Gramsci did, however, warn that “even the philosophy of praxis tends to become an ideology in the worst sense of the word, that is to say a dogmatic system of eternal and absolute truths” (Gramsci, 1971, pp.406-407).
Thus for Gramsci ideological struggle is concerned with consciousness-transformation, rather than consciousness-raising. This consciousness-transformation (i.e. to a socialist
consciousness) must arise from actual working lives, and is thus not the intellectual realm of the elite (Burke, 2005): “...the starting-point of critical elaboration is the consciousness of what one really is...” (Gramsci, 1971, p.324).
3.4.3 Gramsci’s conception of hegemony
This brings us to Gramsci’s notion of hegemony. As we have seen, Gramsci argued that a key role of the capitalist State was to unite both the bourgeois class and the subordinate classes to serve the needs of the productive forces for development, and hence the interests of the ruling class (the bourgeoisie). Part of the way the State did this was by persuading the subordinate classes that, whilst it is an organisation of one group, it is good for everyone. This was:
The “spontaneous’ consent given by the great masses of the population to the general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group; this consent is
“historically” caused by the prestige (and consequent confidence) which the dominant group enjoys because of its position and function in the world of production.
(Gramsci, 1971, p.12)
Gramsci referred to this process of manufacturing consent as hegemony. However, if this process failed, the State would resort to force: “The apparatus of State power ...‘legally’
enforces discipline on those groups who do not ‘consent’ either actively or passively” (Ibid.).
Gramsci argued that Western regimes maintained power through a combination of force and hegemony, although hegemony was often used to make the use of force appear appropriate,
‘common sense’:
The ‘normal’ exercise of hegemony on the now classical terrain of the parliamentary régime is characterised by the combination of force and consent, which balance each other reciprocally, without force dominating excessively over consent. Indeed, the attempt is always made to ensure that force will appear to be based on the consent of the majority, expressed by the so-called organs of public opinion - newspapers and associations - which, therefore, in certain situations, are artificially multiplied.
(Gramsci, 1971, p.80)
Gramsci drew his ideas about hegemony from Lenin (he argued that hegemony was Lenin’s greatest theoretical contribution (McLellan, 1980a)), but greatly expanded it during the course of his work. Lenin had seen hegemony as political leadership of the working class.
Gramsci inverted this, arguing for a conception of hegemony which also had to do with the ways in which the working class ‘consented’ to their own domination. Thus Gramsci used hegemony in two different senses - in a largely negative sense of hegemony buttressing the power of the bourgeoisie; and in a more positive sense (a la Lenin) to refer to ‘moral and intellectual reform’ (which Bobbio interprets as meaning cultural leadership, as opposed to political leadership (Bobbio, 1979)), a strategy of the working class. In this, his ideas about the dual nature of ideology (as potentially both positive and negative) are clear, as is his desire to combat ‘vulgar materialism’ (which he also called ‘economism’: “It is therefore necessary to combat economism....also and especially in the theory and practice of politics.
In this field, the struggle can and must be carried on by development of the concept of hegemony” (Gramsci, 1971, p.165).
Capitalist hegemony is
a whole body of practices and expectations, over the whole of living: our senses and assignments of energy, our shaping perceptions of ourselves and our world. It is a lived system of meaning and values - constitutive and constituting - which as they are experienced as practices appear as reciprocally confirming. (Williams, 1977, p.110)
We learn hegemony, so “[e]very relationship of ‘hegemony’ is necessarily an educational relationship” (Gramsci, 1971, p.350); hegemony is precisely the process referred to above in which “educative pressure [is] applied to single individuals so as to obtain their consent and their collaboration, turning necessity and coercion into ‘freedom’” (Gramsci, 1971, p.242).
This is where Gramsci’s notion of political and civil society becomes crucial - because it is civil society which must largely play this hegemonic role on behalf of the bourgeois state.
The most important instruments for securing the commitment of the masses to needs of the productive forces, and hence the interests of the ruling classes, are the education and legal system, but “a multitude of other so-called private initiatives and activities tend to the same end - initiatives and activities which for the apparatus of the political and cultural hegemony of the ruling classes” (Gramsci, 1971, p.258):
The State does have and request consent, but it also “educates” this consent, by means of the political and syndical associations; these, however, are private organisms, left to the private initiative of the ruling class”. (Gramsci, 1971, p.259)
Thus the dialectical relationship between political and civil society is clear; both are there to act in the interests of the ruling class:
In the West, [where] there was a proper relation between State and civil
society...when the State trembled a sturdy structure of civil society was at once revealed. The State was only an outer ditch, behind which there stood a powerful system of fortresses and earthworks. (Gramsci, 1971, p.238)
Gramsci argued that, as long as capitalist hegemony persists, the proletariat would be largely unaware of the contradictory nature of capitalist society and the possibility of changing it.
This is because of the ability of the capitalist class to represent its own interests as those of
society as whole (McLellan, 1980a), or make corporate sacrifices to take into account the interests and tendencies of the groups over which it wants to exercise hegemony (Mouffe, 1979). Thus the working class ‘consent’ to its own oppression. However, this is a highly complex and contradictory mental state (what Gramsci called ‘contradictory consciousness’) because the working class’ own material reality meant that it has its own conception of the world, whilst at the same time, adopting the conception proposed by bourgeois hegemony.
Thus consent is never complete (Lears, 1985).
So hegemony is complex and contradictory, and never crass. “As Gramsci understood, the hegemonic culture depends not on the brainwashing of “the masses” but on the tendency of public discourse to make some forms of experience readily available to consciousness while ignoring or suppressing others” (Lears, 1985, p.577).
Williams (1977) warns that hegemony is too easily seen as static, as a system or structure, and it is never that: “A lived hegemony is always a process” (p.112). And although
hegemony by definition is always dominant, it is never either total or exclusive. Indeed, this is something that Gramsci emphasized - that hegemony has to be constantly remade; partly because it is constantly challenged. Ruling class hegemony “does not just passively exist as a form of dominance. It has continually to be renewed, recreated, defended, and modified. It is also continually resisted, limited, altered, challenged by pressures not at all its own”
(Williams, 1977, p.112).
So hegemony is constantly open to negotiation and renegotiation, constantly being renewed and contested; it is incomplete; and there are moment wherein the whole process undergoes a crisis. So there are always sites and pockets (often within dominant institutions) where hegemonic arrangements are constantly being renegotiated and contested (Mayo, 1999).
It is thus clear from Gramsci’s work on hegemony that he presupposes conscious human agency, and, critical of both ‘economism’ and ‘ideologism’, accorded far more ‘will’ in political activity than many classical Marxists had prior to this (McLellan, 1980a, p.184).
Agency for change lay primarily with the workers, not the peasantry, but not exclusively, and