Western Philosophy 20th-century philosophy
Antonio Gramsci
Name It has been suggested that Contemporary philosophy be merged into this article or section. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...	Antonio Gramsci
Birth	January 23, 1891 (Ales, Sardinia) is the 23rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1891 (MDCCCXCI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Ales is a small town in the province of Oristano on the island of Sardinia in the Mediterranean_Sea. ... For the place in the United States, see Sardinia, Ohio. ...
Death	April 27, 1937 (Rome, Italy) is the 117th day of the year (118th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Rome (disambiguation). ...
School/tradition	Marxism Marxism is both the theory and the political practice (that is, the praxis) derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...
Main interests	Politics, Ideology, Culture For other uses, see Politics (disambiguation). ... Political Ideologies Part of the Politics series Politics Portal This box:      An ideology is an organized collection of ideas. ... For other uses, see Culture (disambiguation). ...
Notable ideas	Hegemony, Organic Intellectual, War of Position Hegemony (pronounced or ) (Greek: ) is the dominance of one group over other groups, with or without the threat of force, to the extent that, for instance, the dominant party can dictate the terms of trade to its advantage; more broadly, cultural perspectives become skewed to favor the dominant group. ...
Influences	Karl Marx, Georges Sorel, Benedetto Croce, Antonio Labriola, Niccolò Machiavelli Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) was a 19th century philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. ... Georges Eugène Sorel (2 November 1847-29 August 1922) was a French philosopher and theorist of revolutionary syndicalism. ... Benedetto Croce (February 25, 1866 - November 20, 1952) was an Italian critic, idealist philosopher, and politician. ... Antonio Labriola Antonio Labriola (1843-1904) was an Italian Marxist theoretician. ... Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (May 3, 1469 – June 21, 1527) was an Italian political philosopher, musician, poet, and romantic comedic playwright. ...
Influenced	Louis Althusser, Ernesto Laclau, Paulo Freire, Edward Said, Noam Chomsky, Judith Butler, Cornel West Louis Pierre Althusser (Pronunciation: altuˡseʁ) (October 16, 1918 – October 22, 1990) was a Marxist philosopher. ... Ernesto Laclau is a political theorist often described as post-marxist. ... Paulo Freire (Recife, Brazil September 19, 1921 - São Paulo, Brazil May 2, 1997) was a Brazilian educator and is a highly influential theorist of education. ... Edward Wadie Saïd, Arabic: , , (1 November 1935 – 25 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American literary theorist and Palestinian activist. ... Avram Noam Chomsky (Hebrew: אברם נועם חומסקי) (born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher, political activist, author, and lecturer. ... Image:J Butler. ... Cornell West redirects here. ...

Antonio Gramsci (IPA: ['ɡramʃi]) (January 22, 1891 – April 27, 1937) was an Italian writer, politician and political theorist. A founding member and onetime leader of the Communist Party of Italy, he was imprisoned by Mussolini's Fascist regime. His writings are heavily concerned with the analysis of culture and political leadership and he is notable as a highly original thinker within the Marxist tradition. He is renowned for his concept of cultural hegemony as a means of maintaining the state in a capitalist society. is the 22nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1891 (MDCCCXCI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... is the 117th day of the year (118th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... A writer is anyone who creates a written work, although the word more usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, or those who have written in many different forms. ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box:      A politician is an individual who is a formally recognized and active member of a government, or a person who influences the way a society is governed through an understanding of political power and group dynamics. ... A political theorist is someone who engages in political theory. ... The Fourth Estate The Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI) or Italian Communist Party emerged as Partito Comunista dItalia or Communist Party of Italy from a secession by the Leninist comunisti puri tendency from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) during that bodys congress on 21 January 1921 at Livorno. ... Benito Mussolini created a fascist state through the use of propaganda, total control of the media and disassembly of the working democratic government. ... Fascism (in Italian, fascismo), capitalized, was the authoritarian political movement which ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. ... For other uses, see Culture (disambiguation). ... Leader redirects here. ... Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... For other uses, see Concept (disambiguation). ... Cultural hegemony is a concept coined by Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci. ... For other uses, see State (disambiguation). ... In economics, a capitalist is someone who owns capital, presumably within the economic system of capitalism. ...

Life

Early life

Gramsci was born in Ales, Italy, on the island of Sardinia. He was the fourth of seven sons of Francesco Gramsci, a low-level official. His father's family was Arbëreshë and the family name was probably related to Gramsh, an Albanian town. Francesco's financial difficulties and troubles with the police forced the family to move about through several villages in Sardinia until they finally settled in Ghilarza. Ales is a small town in the province of Oristano on the island of Sardinia in the Mediterranean_Sea. ... For the place in the United States, see Sardinia, Ohio. ... This article is about a community living in Italy. ... This redirect page has been listed on Redirects for deletion. ... Country Italy Region Sardinia Province Province of Oristano (OR) Mayor Elevation m Area 53. ...

In 1898 Francesco was convicted of embezzlement and imprisoned, reducing his family to destitution and forcing the young Antonio to abandon his schooling and work at various casual jobs until his father's release in 1904. The boy suffered from health problems: a malformation of the spine owing to a childhood accident left him hunch-backed and underdeveloped, while he was also plagued by various internal disorders throughout his life. Year 1898 (MDCCCXCVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... 1904 (MCMIV) was a leap year starting on a Friday (see link for calendar). ...

Gramsci completed secondary school in Cagliari, where he lodged with his elder brother Gennaro, a former soldier whose time on the mainland had made him a militant socialist. However, Gramsci's sympathies at the time did not lie with socialism, but rather with the grievances of impoverished Sardinian peasants and miners, who saw their neglect as a result of the privileges enjoyed by the rapidly industrialising North and who tended to turn to Sardinian nationalism as a response. Carales redirects here. ... Socialism is a social and economic system (or the political philosophy advocating such a system) in which the economic means of production are owned and controlled collectively by the people. ... Northern Italy comprises of two areas belonging to NUTS level 1: North-West (Nord-Ovest): Aosta Valley, Piedmont, Lombardy, Liguria North-East (Nord-Est): Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Veneto, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Emilia-Romagna Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol and Aosta Valley are regions with a... Eugène Delacroixs Liberty Leading the People, symbolising French nationalism during the July Revolution 1830. ...

Turin

A brilliant student, in 1911 Gramsci won a scholarship that allowed him to study at the University of Turin, sitting the exam at the same time as future cohort Palmiro Togliatti. At Turin, he read literature and took a keen interest in linguistics. Gramsci found the city at the time going through a process of industrialization, with the Fiat and Lancia factories recruiting workers from poorer regions. Trade unions became established, and the first industrial social conflicts started to emerge. Gramsci had a close involvement with these developments, frequenting socialist circles as well as associating with Sardinian emigrants, which gave him continuity with his native culture. His worldview shaped by both his earlier experiences in Sardinia and his environment on the mainland, Gramsci joined the Italian Socialist Party in late 1913. Year 1911 (MCMXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... The University of Turin (Italian Università degli Studi di Torino, UNITO) is a university in the city of Turin in the Piedmont region of north-western Italy. ... Palmiro Togliatti (March 26, 1893 - August 21, 1964) was an Italian communist leader. ... For other uses, see Turin (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Literature (disambiguation). ... For the journal, see Linguistics (journal). ... Fiat S.p. ... Lancia (pronounced Lan-cha) is an Italian automobile manufacturer founded in 1906 by Vincenzo Lancia and which became part of the Fiat Group in 1969. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Year 1913 (MCMXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ...

Despite showing talent for his studies, Gramsci's financial problems and poor health, as well as his growing political commitment, forced him to abandon his education in early 1915. By this time, he had acquired an extensive knowledge of history and philosophy. At university, he had come into contact with the thought of Antonio Labriola, Rodolfo Mondolfo, Giovanni Gentile and, most importantly, Benedetto Croce, possibly the most widely respected Italian intellectual of his day. Such thinkers espoused a brand of Hegelian Marxism to which Labriola had given the name "philosophy of praxis". Though Gramsci would later use this phrase to escape the prison censors, his relationship toward this current of thought was ambiguous throughout his career. Year 1915 (MCMXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday[1] of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... This article is about the study of the past in human terms. ... For other uses, see Philosophy (disambiguation). ... Antonio Labriola Antonio Labriola (1843-1904) was an Italian Marxist theoretician. ... Giovanni Gentile (IPA:) (May 30, 1875 - April 15, 1944) was an Italian neo-Hegelian Idealist philosopher, a peer of Benedetto Croce. ... Benedetto Croce (February 25, 1866 - November 20, 1952) was an Italian critic, idealist philosopher, and politician. ... Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 - November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher born in Stuttgart, Württemberg, in present-day southwest Germany. ... Marxism is both the theory and the political practice (that is, the praxis) derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ... Look up praxis in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

From 1914 onward Gramsci's writings for socialist newspapers such as Il Grido del Popolo earned him a reputation as a notable journalist, and in 1916 he became co-editor of the Piedmont edition of Avanti!, the Socialist Party official organ. An articulate and prolific writer of political theory, Gramsci proved a formidable commentator, writing on all aspects of Turin's social and political life. Year 1914 (MCMXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... For other uses, see Journalist (disambiguation). ... Year 1916 (MCMXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Friday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... For other uses, see Piedmont (disambiguation). ... Avanti! (Forward!) was an Italian daily newspaper, the official voice of the Italian Socialist Party, published since December 25, 1896. ...

Gramsci was, at this time, also involved in the education and organisation of Turin workers: he spoke in public for the first time in 1916 and gave talks on topics such as Romain Rolland, the French Revolution, the Paris Commune and the emancipation of women. In the wake of the arrest of Socialist Party leaders that followed the revolutionary riots of August 1917, Gramsci became one of Turin's leading socialists when he was both elected to the party's Provisional Committee and made editor of Il Grido del Popolo. Year 1916 (MCMXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Friday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Romain Rolland. ... The period of the French Revolution in the history of France covers the years between 1789 and 1799, in which democrats and republicans overthrew the absolute monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church perforce underwent radical restructuring. ... Le Père Duchesne looking at the statue of Napoleon I on top of the Vendome column: Eh ben ! bougre de canaille, on va donc te foutre en bas comme ta crapule de neveu !… (Well now! buggering rascal, we will knock you the fuck off just like your crook of... Feminists redirects here. ... 1917 (MCMXVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar (see: 1917 Julian calendar). ...

In April 1919 with Togliatti, Angelo Tasca and Umberto Terracini Gramsci set up the weekly newspaper L'Ordine Nuovo. In October of the same year, despite being divided into various hostile factions, the Socialist Party moved by a large majority to join the Third International. The L'Ordine Nuovo group was seen by Lenin as closest in orientation to the Bolsheviks, and it received his backing against the anti-parliamentary programme of the extreme left Amadeo Bordiga. Year 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ... The term Third International has two well-established meanings: For the unabridged dictionary, see Websters Third New International Dictionary. ... Vladimir Ilyich Lenin ( Russian: Влади́мир Ильи́ч Ле́нин  listen?), original surname Ulyanov (Улья́нов) ( April 22 (April 10 ( O.S.)), 1870 – January 21, 1924), was a... Bolshevik Party Meeting. ... A parliamentarian is a specialist in parliamentary procedure. ... Amadeo Bordiga. ...

Amongst the various tactical debates that took place within the party, Gramsci's group was mainly distinguished by its advocacy of workers' councils, which had come into existence in Turin spontaneously during the large strikes of 1919 and 1920. For Gramsci these councils were the proper means of enabling workers to take control of the task of organising production. Although he believed his position at this time to be in keeping with Lenin's policy of "All power to the Soviets", his stance was attacked by Bordiga for betraying a syndicalist tendency influenced by the thought of Georges Sorel and Daniel DeLeon. By the time of the defeat of the Turin workers in spring 1920, Gramsci was almost alone in his defence of the councils. A workers council is a council, or deliberative body, composed of working class or proletarian members. ... Year 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ... Year 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display 1920) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Syndicalism is a political and economic ideology which advocates giving control of both industry and government to labor union federations. ... Georges Eugène Sorel (2 November 1847-29 August 1922) was a French philosopher and theorist of revolutionary syndicalism. ... Daniel De Leon (December 14, 1852 – May 11, 1914) was born in Curaçao. ... Year 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display 1920) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

In the PCI

The failure of the workers' councils to develop into a national movement led Gramsci to believe that a Communist Party in the Leninist sense was needed. The group around L'Ordine Nuovo declaimed incessantly against the PSI's centrist leadership and ultimately allied with Bordiga's far larger "abstentionist" faction. On January 21, 1921, in the town of Livorno, the Communist Party of Italy (Partito Comunista d'Italia - PCI) was founded. Gramsci supported against Bordiga the Arditi del Popolo, a militant anti-fascist group which struggled against the Blackshirts. Vladimir Lenin in 1920 Leninism is a political and economic theory which builds upon Marxism; it is a branch of Marxism (and it has been the dominant branch of Marxism in the world since the 1920s). ... In politics, centrism usually refers to the political ideal of promoting moderate policies which land in the middle ground between different political extremes. ... is the 21st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1921 (MCMXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar). ... Livorno (archaic English: ) is a port city on the Tyrrhenian Sea on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. ... The Fourth Estate The Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI) or Italian Communist Party emerged as Partito Comunista dItalia or Communist Party of Italy from a secession by the Leninist comunisti puri tendency from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) during that bodys congress on 21 January 1921 at Livorno. ... Amadeo Bordiga. ... Logo of the Arditi del Popolo. ... For the University of Nebraska–Lincoln football teams defense, see Blackshirts (football). ...

Gramsci would be a leader of the party from its inception but was subordinate to Bordiga, whose emphasis on discipline, centralism and purity of principles dominated the party's programme until the latter lost the leadership in 1924.

In 1922 Gramsci travelled to Russia as a representative of the new party. Here, he met his wife, Julia Schucht, a young violinist with whom Gramsci had two sons. [1] A violinist is an instrumentalist who plays the violin. ...

Antonio Gramsci commemorative plaque, Mokhovaya Street 16, Moscow

The Russian mission coincided with the advent of Fascism in Italy, and Gramsci returned with instructions to foster, against the wishes of the PCI leadership, a united front of leftist parties against fascism. Such a front would ideally have had the PCI at its centre, through which Moscow would have controlled all the leftist forces, but others disputed this potential supremacy: socialists did have a certain tradition in Italy too, while the communist party seemed relatively young and too radical. Many believed that an eventual coalition led by communists would have functioned too remotely from political debate, and thus would have run the risk of isolation. Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 660 × 600 pixel Image in higher resolution (888 × 807 pixel, file size: 463 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) { File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Antonio Gramsci Metadata... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 660 × 600 pixel Image in higher resolution (888 × 807 pixel, file size: 463 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) { File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Antonio Gramsci Metadata... Mokhovaya Street Mokhovaya Street, (Russian: Моховая улица) is a street in central Moscow, Russia. ... For other uses, see Moscow (disambiguation). ... Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers individual and other societal interests subordinate to the interests of the state. ... For other uses, see Moscow (disambiguation). ...

In late 1922 and early 1923, Mussolini's government embarked on a campaign of repression against the opposition parties, arresting most of the PCI leadership, including Bordiga. At the end of 1923, Gramsci travelled from Moscow to Vienna, where he tried to revive a party torn by factional strife. Year 1922 (MCMXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1923 (MCMXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Benito Mussolini created a fascist state through the use of propaganda, total control of the media and disassembly of the working democratic government. ... Year 1923 (MCMXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Vienna (disambiguation). ...

In 1924 Gramsci, now recognised as head of the PCI, gained election as a deputy for the Veneto. He started organising the launch of the official newspaper of the party, called L'Unità (Unity), living in Rome while his family stayed in Moscow. At its Lyons Congress in January 1926, Gramsci's theses calling for a united front to restore democracy to Italy were adopted by the party. For the rap album, see 1924 (album). ... Veneto or Venetia, is one of the 20 regions of Italy. ... LUnità is an Italian newspaper, published by Democrats of the Left. ... For other uses, see Rome (disambiguation). ... Year 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

In 1926 Stalin's manoeuvres inside the Bolshevik party moved Gramsci to write a letter to the Comintern, in which he deplored opposition led by Trotsky, but also underlined some presumed faults of the leader. Togliatti, in Moscow as a representative of the party, received the letter, opened it, read it, and decided not to deliver it. This caused a difficult conflict between Gramsci and Togliatti which they never completely resolved. Year 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Iosif (usually anglicized as Joseph) Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин), original name Ioseb Jughashvili (Georgian: იოსებ ჯუღაშვი&#4314... For other uses, see Bolshevik (disambiguation). ... The Comintern (Russian: Коммунистический Интернационал, Kommunisticheskiy Internatsional – Communist International, also known as the Third International) was an international Communist organization founded in March 1919, in the midst of the war communism period (1918-1921), by Vladimir Lenin and the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik), which intended to fight by all available means, including... 1915 passport photo of Trotsky Leon Davidovich Trotsky (Russian: Лев Давидович Троцкий; also transliterated Trotskii, Trotski, Trotzky) (October 26 (O.S.) = November 7 (N.S.), 1879 - August 21, 1940), born Lev Davidovich Bronstein (&#1051...

Imprisonment

Grave of Gramsci in Rome.

On November 9, 1926 the Fascist government enacted a new wave of emergency laws, taking as a pretext an alleged attempt on Mussolini's life that had occurred several days earlier. The fascist police arrested Gramsci, despite his parliamentary immunity, and brought him to Regina Coeli, the famous Roman prison. At his trial, Gramsci's prosecutor famously stated, "For twenty years we must stop this brain from functioning".^[1] He received an immediate sentence of 5 years in confinement (on the remote island of Ustica); the following year he received a sentence of 20 years of prison (in Turi, near Bari). His condition caused him to suffer from constantly declining health, and he received an individual cell and little assistance. In 1932, a project for exchanging political prisoners (including Gramsci) between Italy and the Soviet Union failed. In 1934 his health deteriorated severely and he gained conditional freedom, after having already visited some hospitals in Civitavecchia, Formia and Rome. He died in Rome at the age of 46, shortly after being released from prison; he is buried in the Protestant Cemetery there. Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 452 × 599 pixel Image in higher resolution (1232 × 1632 pixel, file size: 752 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Gramscis grave in Rome. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 452 × 599 pixel Image in higher resolution (1232 × 1632 pixel, file size: 752 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Gramscis grave in Rome. ... is the 313th day of the year (314th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Parliamentary immunity is a system in which members of the parliament are granted partial immunity from prosecution. ... Confinement may refer to either solitary confinement: a strict form of imprisonment confinement, pregnancy: the concluding state of pregnancy; from the onset of labor to the birth of a child the confinement problem in computer security Category: ... Country Italy Region Sicily Province Palermo (PA) Mayor Aldo Messina (since May 27, 2005) Elevation 49 m Area 8 km² Population  - Total (as of 2001) 1,330  - Density 166/km² Time zone CET, UTC+1 Coordinates Gentilic Usticesi or Usticani Dialing code 091 Postal code 90010 Location of Ustica in... For other uses, see Bari (disambiguation). ... Year 1932 (MCMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1932 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... A political prisoner is someone held in prison or otherwise detained, perhaps under house arrest, because their ideas or image are deemed by a government to either challenge or threaten the authority of the state. ... Year 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display full 1934 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Civitavecchia is a town and comune of the province of Rome in the central Italian region of Lazio, a sea port on the Tyrrhenian sea, 50 miles WNW of Rome, 42°06N 11°47E. According to the 2003 census, its population was 50,100. ... Formia is a small town/city on the Mediterranean Coast of Italy. ... Shelleys Tomb in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, an 1873 painting by Walter Crane. ...

Thought

Part of a series on Marxism
Theoretical works
The Communist Manifesto Das Kapital Marxism is both the theory and the political practice (that is, the praxis) derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ... Image File history File links Karl_Marx. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Das Kapital (Capital, in the English translation) is an extensive treatise on political economy written by Karl Marx in German. ...
Sociology and anthropology
Alienation · Bourgeoisie Class consciousness Commodity fetishism Communism Cultural hegemony Exploitation · Human nature Ideology · Proletariat Reification · Socialism Relations of production Marxs theory of alienation (Entfremdung in German), as expressed in the writings of young Karl Marx, refers to the separation of things that naturally belong together, or to antagonism between things that are properly in harmony. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Class consciousness is a category of Marxist theory, referring to the self-awareness of a social class, its capacity to act in its own rational interests, or measuring the extent to which an individual is conscious of the historical tasks their class (or class allegiance) sets for them. ... In Marxist theory, commodity fetishism is a state of social relations, said to arise in complex capitalist market systems, in which social relationships center around the values placed on commodities. ... This article is about the form of society and political movement. ... Cultural hegemony is a concept coined by Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci. ... The rate of exploitation is a concept in Marxian political economy. ... Marxs theory of human nature occupies an important place in his critique of capitalism, his conception of communism, and his materialist conception of history. Marx, however, does not refer to human nature as such, but to Gattungswesen, which is generally translated as species-being or species-essence. What Marx... Political Ideologies Part of the Politics series Politics Portal This box:      An ideology is an organized collection of ideas. ... The proletariat (from Latin proles, offspring) is a term used to identify a lower social class; a member of such a class is proletarian. ... Reification (German: Verdinglichung, literally: thing-ification) is the consideration of an abstraction or an object as if it had human (pathetic fallacy) or living (reification fallacy) existence and abilities; at the same time it implies the thingification of social relations. ... Socialism is a broad array of ideologies and political movements with the goal of a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community for the purposes of increasing social and economic equality and cooperation. ... Relations of production (German: Produktionsverhaltnisse) is a concept frequently used by Karl Marx in his theory of historical materialism and in Das Kapital. ...
Economics
Marxian economics Labour power · Law of value Means of production Mode of production Productive forces Surplus labour · Surplus value Transformation problem Wage labour Note: Marxian is not restricted to Marxian economics, as it includes those inspired by Marxs works who do not identify with Marxism as a political ideology. ... According to Karl Marx, there is a clear distinction between labor and labor-power in economics. ... The law of value is a concept in Karl Marxs critique of political economy. ... Means of production (abbreviated MoP; German: Produktionsmittel), are the combination of the means of labor and the subject of labor used by workers to make products. ... In the writings of Karl Marx and the Marxist theory of historical materialism, a mode of production (in German: Produktionsweise, meaning the way of producing) is a specific combination of: productive forces: these include human labor-power, tools, equipment, buildings and technologies, materials, and improved land social and technical relations... For the specific theoretical justifications behind the Great Leap Forward and the Five Year Plans, see Theory of Productive Forces. ... Surplus labour is a concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. ... Surplus value, according to Marxism, is unpaid labour that is extracted from the worker by the capitalist, and serves as the basis for capitalist accumulation. ... In Karl Marxs economics the transformation problem is the problem of finding a general rule to transform the values of commodities (based on labour according to his labour theory of value) into the competitive prices of the marketplace. ... Wage labour is the socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer in which the worker sells their labour under a contract (employment), and the employer buys it, often in a labour market. ...
History
Anarchism and Marxism Capitalist mode of production Class struggle Dictatorship of the proletariat Primitive accumulation of capital Proletarian revolution Proletarian internationalism World Revolution While anarchism and Marxism are two different political philosophies, there is some similarity between the methodology and ideology of groups of anarchists and Marxists, and the history of the two have often been intertwined. ... The capitalist mode of production is a concept in Karl Marx’s critique of political economy. ... The South African Police Crush Another Demonstration by the Shack dwellers Movement Abahlali baseMjondolo, 28 September, 2007 Class struggle is the active expression of class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. ... The dictatorship of the proletariat is a term employed by Karl Marx in his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program that refers to a transition period between capitalist and communist society in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. The term refers to a... Primitive accumulation of capital is a concept introduced by Karl Marx in part 8 of the first volume of Das Kapital (in German: ursprüngliche Akkumulation, literally original accumulation or primeval accumulation). Its purpose is to help explain how the capitalist mode of production can come into being. ... A communist revolution is a social revolution inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism, normally with socialism (public ownership over the means of production) as an intermediate stage. ... International Socialism redirects here. ... World revolution is a Marxist concept of a violent overthrow of capitalism that would take place in all countries, although not necessarily simultaneously. ...
Philosophy
Marxist philosophy Historical materialism Dialectical materialism Analytical Marxism Marxist autonomism Marxist feminism Marxist humanism Structural Marxism Western Marxism Libertarian Marxism Young Marx Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are terms which cover work in philosophy which is strongly influenced by Karl Marxs materialist approach to theory or which is written by Marxists. ... Historical materialism is the methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history which was first articulated by Karl Marx (1818-1883), although Marx himself never used the term (he referred it as philosophical materialism, a term he used to distinguish it from what he called popular materialism). Historical... According to many followers of the theories of Karl Marx (or Marxists), dialectical materialism is the philosophical basis of Marxism. ... Analytical Marxism refers to a style of thinking about Marxism that was prominent amongst English-speaking philosophers and social scientists during the 1980s. ... For other meanings of autonomism, see autonomism (disambiguation) page Raised fist, stenciled protest symbol of Autonome at the Ernst-Kirchweger-Haus in Vienna, Austria Autonomism refers to a set of left-wing political and social movements and theories close to the socialist movement. ... Marxist feminism is a sub-type of feminist theory which focuses on the dismantling of capitalism as a way to liberate women. ... The term Marxist humanism has as its foundation Marxs conception of the alienation of the labourer as he advances it in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844--an alienation that is born of a capitalist system in which the worker no longer functions as (what Marx terms) a... Structural Marxism was an approach to Marxist philosophy based on structuralism, primarily associated with the work of the French philosopher Louis Althusser and his students. ... Western Marxism is a term used to describe a wide variety of Marxist theoreticians based in Western and Central Europe (and more recently North America), in contrast with philosophy in the Soviet Union. ... Libertarian Marxism is a school of Marxism that takes a less authoritarian view of Marxist theory than conventional currents such as Stalinism, Trotskyism, and other forms of Marxism-Leninism, as well as a generally less reformist view than do Social Democrats. ... ‘Young Marx’ is one half of the concept in Marxology that Karl Marx’s intellectual development can be broken into two board categories, the other being ‘Mature Marx’. There is disagreement though as to when Marx thought began to mature, Lenin claimed Marxs first mature work as “The Poverty...
Prominent figures
Karl Marx · Friedrich Engels Karl Kautsky · Georgi Plekhanov Rosa Luxemburg · A. Pannekoek Vladimir Lenin · Leon Trotsky Georg Lukács · Guy Debord Antonio Gramsci · Karl Korsch Che Guevara · Frankfurt School J-P Sartre · Louis Althusser Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) was a 19th century philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. ... Engels redirects here. ... Karl Kautsky (October 16, 1854 - October 17, 1938) was a leading theoretician of social democracy. ... G. V. Plekhanov Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov (Георгий Валентинович Плеханов) (December 11, 1856 – May 30, 1918; Old Style: November 29, 1856 – May 17, 1918) was a Russian revolutionary and a Marxist theoretician. ... Rosa Luxemburg Rosa Luxemburg (March 5, 1870 or 1871 – January 15, 1919, in Polish Róża Luksemburg) was a Jewish Polish-born Marxist political theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary. ... Anton Pannekoek Antonie (Anton) Pannekoek (January 2, 1873, Vaassen – April 28, 1960, Wageningen) was a Dutch astronomer and Marxist theorist. ... Lenin redirects here. ... Leon Trotsky (Russian:  , Lev Davidovich Trotsky, also transliterated Leo, Lyev, Trotskii, Trotski, Trotskij, Trockij and Trotzky) (November 7 [O.S. October 26] 1879 – August 21, 1940), born Lev Davidovich Bronstein (), was a Ukrainian-born Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist. ... Georg Lukács (April 13, 1885 – June 4, 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary critic in the tradition of Western Marxism. ... Guy Ernest Debord (December 28, 1931, in Paris – November 30, 1994, in Champot) was a writer, film maker, hypergraphist and founding member of the groups Lettrist International and Situationist International (SI). ... Karl Korsch (August 15, 1886 - October 21, 1961) was a German Marxist theorist. ... Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (June 14,[1] 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as Che Guevara, El Che or just Che was an Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary, medical doctor , political figure, and leader of Cuban and internationalist guerrillas. ... Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg The Frankfurt School is a school of neo-Marxist social theory (which is more akin to anarchism than communism), social research, and philosophy. ... Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (June 21, 1905 – April 15, 1980), normally known simply as Jean-Paul Sartre (pronounced: ), was a French existentialist philosopher and pioneer, dramatist and screenwriter, novelist and critic. ... Louis Pierre Althusser (Pronunciation: altuË¡seʁ) (October 16, 1918 – October 22, 1990) was a Marxist philosopher. ...
Criticisms
Criticisms of Marxism This article is on criticisms of Marxism, a branch of socialism. ...
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Gramsci is seen by many as one of the most important Marxist thinkers of the twentieth century, in particular as a key thinker in the development of Western Marxism. He wrote more than 30 notebooks and 3000 pages of history and analysis during his imprisonment. These writings, known as the Prison Notebooks, contain Gramsci's tracing of Italian history and nationalism, as well as some ideas in Marxist theory, critical theory and educational theory associated with his name, such as: Western Marxism is a term used to describe a wide variety of Marxist theoreticians based in Western and Central Europe (and more recently North America), in contrast with philosophy in the Soviet Union. ... United in 1861, Italy has significantly contributed to the cultural and social development of the entire Mediterranean area, deeply influencing European culture as well. ... Eugène Delacroixs Liberty Leading the People, symbolising French nationalism during the July Revolution 1830. ... Marxist theory is an academic specialization in Western academias. ... In the humanities and social sciences, critical theory has two quite different meanings with different origins and histories, one originating in social theory and the other in literary criticism. ...

• Cultural hegemony as a means of maintaining the capitalist state.
• The need for popular workers' education to encourage development of intellectuals from the working class.
• The distinction between political society (the police, the army, legal system, etc.) which dominates directly and coercively, and civil society (the family, the education system, trade unions, etc.) where leadership is constituted through ideology or by means of consent.
• 'Absolute historicism'.
• The critique of economic determinism.
• The critique of philosophical materialism.

Cultural hegemony is a concept coined by Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci. ... For other uses, see Capitalism (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see State (disambiguation). ... The term working class is used to denote a social class. ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box:      Civil society is composed of the totality of voluntary civic and social organizations and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society as opposed to the force-backed structures of a state (regardless of that states political system) and commercial institutions. ... For historicism as a method of interpreting biblical apocalypse, see Historicism (Christian eschatology). ... When Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels created the ideology of Communism, many Marxists believe they inductively surmised what they saw as a law of history, an inexorable law, that ran throughout the course of history. ... In philosophy, materialism is that form of physicalism which holds that the only thing that can truly be said to exist is matter; that fundamentally, all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions; that matter is the only substance. ...

Hegemony

Hegemony was a concept previously used by Marxists such as Lenin to indicate the political leadership of the working-class in a democratic revolution, but developed by Gramsci into an acute analysis to explain why the 'inevitable' socialist revolution predicted by orthodox Marxism had not occurred by the early 20th century. Capitalism, it seemed, was even more entrenched than ever. Capitalism, Gramsci suggested, maintained control not just through violence and political and economic coercion, but also ideologically, through a hegemonic culture in which the values of the bourgeoisie became the 'common sense' values of all. Thus a consensus culture developed in which people in the working-class identified their own good with the good of the bourgeoisie, and helped to maintain the status quo rather than revolting. Hegemony (pronounced or ) (Greek: ) is the dominance of one group over other groups, with or without the threat of force, to the extent that, for instance, the dominant party can dictate the terms of trade to its advantage; more broadly, cultural perspectives become skewed to favor the dominant group. ... Vladimir Ilyich Lenin ( Russian: Влади́мир Ильи́ч Ле́нин  listen?), original surname Ulyanov (Улья́нов) ( April 22 (April 10 ( O.S.)), 1870 – January 21, 1924), was a... Statue of a coal miner in Charleston, WV, USA. Working class is a term used in academic sociology and in ordinary conversation. ... Socialism is a social and economic system (or the political philosophy advocating such a system) in which the economic means of production are owned and controlled collectively by the people. ... Marxism is both the theory and the political practice (that is, the praxis) derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ... For other uses, see Capitalism (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Coercion (disambiguation). ... Political Ideologies Part of the Politics series Politics Portal This box:      An ideology is an organized collection of ideas. ... Cultural hegemony is a concept coined by Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... For other uses, see Common sense (disambiguation). ... Statue of a coal miner in Charleston, WV, USA. Working class is a term used in academic sociology and in ordinary conversation. ...

The working class needed to develop a culture of its own, which would overthrow the notion that bourgeois values represented 'natural' or 'normal' values for society, and would attract the oppressed and intellectual classes to the cause of the proletariat. Lenin held that culture was 'ancillary' to political objectives but for Gramsci it was fundamental to the attainment of power that cultural hegemony be achieved first. In Gramsci’s view, any class that wishes to dominate in modern conditions has to move beyond its own narrow ‘economic-corporate’ interests, to exert intellectual and moral leadership, and to make alliances and compromises with a variety of forces. Gramsci calls this union of social forces a ‘historic bloc’, taking a term from Georges Sorel. This bloc forms the basis of consent to a certain social order, which produces and re-produces the hegemony of the dominant class through a nexus of institutions, social relations and ideas. Georges Eugène Sorel (2 November 1847-29 August 1922) was a French philosopher and theorist of revolutionary syndicalism. ... An institution is a group, tenet, maxim, or organization created by a group of humans. ... Although Harvard University has featured a Department of Social Relations (in which Talcott Parsons played a prominent role), and although the term social relations is frequently used in social sciences, there is no commonly agreed meaning for this concept (see also the entry social). ... For a thought or concept, see idea. ...

Gramsci stated that, in the West, bourgeois cultural values were tied to Christianity, and therefore much of his polemic against hegemonic culture is aimed at religious norms and values. He was impressed by the power Roman Catholicism had over men's minds and the care the Church had taken to prevent an excessive gap developing between the religion of the learned and that of the less educated. Gramsci believed that it was Marxism's task to marry the purely intellectual critique of religion found in Renaissance humanism to the elements of the Reformation that had appealed to the masses. For Gramsci, Marxism could supersede religion only if it met people's spiritual needs, and to do so people would have to recognise it as an expression of their own experience. Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations · Other religions Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Luther Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Archbishop of Canterbury · Catholic Pope Coptic Pope · Ecumenical Patriarch Christianity Portal This box:      Christianity is... The Roman Catholic Church, most often spoken of simply as the Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with over one billion members. ... Renaissance humanism (often designated simply as humanism) was a European intellectual movement beginning in Florence in the last decades of the 14th century. ... The Protestant Reformation was a movement which began in the 16th century as a series of attempts to reform the Roman Catholic Church, but ended in division and the establishment of new institutions, most importantly Lutheranism, Reformed churches, and Anabaptists. ...

Intellectuals and Education

Gramsci gave much thought to the question of the role of intellectuals in society. Famously, he stated that all men are intellectuals, in that all have intellectual and rational faculties, but not all men have the social function of intellectuals. He claimed that modern intellectuals were not simply talkers, but directors and organisers who helped build society and produce hegemony by means of ideological apparatuses such as education and the media. Furthermore, he distinguished between a 'traditional' intelligentsia which sees itself (wrongly) as a class apart from society, and the thinking groups which every class produces from its own ranks 'organically'. Such 'organic' intellectuals do not simply describe social life in accordance with scientific rules, but rather articulate, through the language of culture, the feelings and experiences which the masses could not express for themselves. The need to create a working-class culture relates to Gramsci's call for a kind of education that could develop working-class intellectuals, who would not simply introduce Marxist ideology from without the proletariat, but rather renovate and make critical of the status quo the already existing intellectual activity of the masses. His ideas about an education system for this purpose correspond with the notion of critical pedagogy and popular education as theorized and practised in later decades by Paulo Freire in Brazil and have much in common with the thought of Frantz Fanon. For this reason, partisans of adult and popular education consider Gramsci an important voice to this day. An intellectual is a person who uses his or her intellect to study, reflect, and speculate on a variety of different ideas. ... The notion of an intellectual elite as a distinguished social stratum can be traced far back in history. ... Articulation is the process where cultural forms and practices are appropriated for use by particular classes. ... Critical pedagogy is a teaching approach which attempts to help students question and challenge domination, and the beliefs and practices that dominate. ... It has been suggested that Folk high school be merged into this article or section. ... Paulo Freire (Recife, Brazil September 19, 1921 - São Paulo, Brazil May 2, 1997) was a Brazilian educator and is a highly influential theorist of education. ... Frantz Fanon (July 20, 1925 – December 6, 1961) was a French author from Martinique, essayist, psychoanalyst, and revolutionary. ...

State and Civil Society

Gramsci’s theory of hegemony is tied to his conception of the capitalist state, which he claims rules through force plus consent. The state is not to be understood in the narrow sense of the government; instead, Gramsci divides it between 'political society', which is the arena of political institutions and legal constitutional control, and 'civil society', which is commonly seen as the 'private' or 'non-state' sphere, including the economy. The former is the realm of force and the latter of consent. He stresses, however, that the division is purely conceptual and that the two, in reality, often overlap. For other uses, see State (disambiguation). ... An institution is a group, tenet, maxim, or organization created by a group of humans. ... This article is about law in society. ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box:      Civil society is composed of the totality of voluntary civic and social organizations and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society as opposed to the force-backed structures of a state (regardless of that states political system) and commercial institutions. ...

Gramsci claims that under modern capitalism, the bourgeoisie can maintain its economic control by allowing certain demands made by trade unions and mass political parties within civil society to be met by the political sphere. Thus, the bourgeoisie engages in 'passive revolution' by going beyond its immediate economic interests and allowing the forms of its hegemony to change. Gramsci posits that movements such as reformism and fascism, as well as the 'scientific management' and assembly line methods of Frederick Taylor and Henry Ford respectively, are examples of this. This article does not cite any references or sources. ... A union (labor union in American English; trade union, sometimes trades union, in British English; either labour union or trade union in Canadian English) is a legal entity consisting of employees or workers having a common interest, such as all the assembly workers for one employer, or all the workers... A political party is a political organization subscribing to a certain ideology or formed around very special issues. ... Socialist Reformism is the belief that gradual democratic changes in a society can ultimately change a societys fundamental economic relations and political structures. ... Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers individual and other societal interests subordinate to the interests of the state. ... Scientific management, also called Taylorism or the Classical Perspective, is a method in management theory that determines changes to improve labour productivity. ... Modern car assembly line. ... Frederick Winslow Taylor Frederick Winslow Taylor (March 20, 1856 to March 21, 1915) was an American mechanical engineer who sought to improve industrial efficiency. ... Henry Ford (1919) Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was the founder of the Ford Motor Company and father of modern assembly lines used in mass production. ...

Drawing from Machiavelli, he argues that 'The Modern Prince' - the revolutionary party - is the force that will allow the working-class to develop organic intellectuals and an alternative hegemony within civil society. For Gramsci, the complex nature of modern civil society means that the only tactic capable of undermining bourgeois hegemony and leading to socialism is a 'war of position' (analogous to trench warfare); this war of position would then give way to a 'war of movement' (or frontal attack). Gramsci saw 'war of movement' as being exemplified by the storming of the Winter Palace during the Russian Revolution. Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (May 3, 1469 – June 21, 1527) was an Italian political philosopher, musician, poet, and romantic comedic playwright. ... Socialism is a broad array of ideologies and political movements with the goal of a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community for the purposes of increasing social and economic equality and cooperation. ... Trench warfare is a form of war in which both opposing armies have static lines of defense. ... Located between the Palace Embankment and the Palace Square, the Winter Palace (Russian: Зимний Дворец) in Saint Petersburg, Russia was built between 1754 and 1762 as the winter residence of the Russian tsars. ... For other uses, see October Revolution (disambiguation). ...

Despite his claim that the lines between the two may be blurred, Gramsci rejects the state-worship that results from identifying political society with civil society, as was done by the Jacobins and Fascists. He believes the proletariat's historical task is to create a 'regulated society' and defines the 'withering away of the state' as the full development of civil society's ability to regulate itself. In the context of the French Revolution, a Jacobin originally meant a member of the Jacobin Club (1789-1794), but even at that time, the term Jacobins had been popularly applied to all promulgators of extreme revolutionary opinions: for example, Jacobin democracy is synonymous with totalitarian democracy. ... Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler Fascism (in Italian, fascismo), capitalized, refers to the right-wing authoritarian political movement which ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. ... World communism has a meaning close in meaning to ‘international communism’, which has usually been equated to the Comintern (Communist International). ...

Historicism

Gramsci, like the early Marx, was an emphatic proponent of historicism. In Gramsci's view, all meaning derives from the relation between human practical activity (or 'praxis') and the "objective" historical and social processes of which it is a part. Ideas cannot be understood outside their social and historical context, apart from their function and origin. The concepts by which we organise our knowledge of the world do not derive primarily from our relation to things, but rather from the social relations between the users of those concepts. Resultantly, there is no such thing as an unchanging "human nature", but only an idea of such which varies historically. Furthermore, philosophy and science do not "reflect" a reality independent of man, but rather are only "true" in that they express the real developmental trend of a given historical situation. The majority of Marxists held the common sense view that truth was truth no matter when and where it is known, and that scientific knowledge (which included Marxism) accumulates historically as the advance of truth in this everyday sense, and therefore did not belong to the illusory realm of the superstructure. For Gramsci, however, Marxism was "true" in the socially pragmatic sense, in that by articulating the class consciousness of the proletariat, it expressed the "truth" of its times better than any other theory. This anti-scientistic and anti-positivist stance was indebted to the influence of Benedetto Croce. However, it should be underlined that Gramsci's was an "absolute historicism" that broke with the Hegelian and idealist tenor of Croce's thinking and its tendency to secure a metaphysical synthesis in historical "destiny". Though Gramsci repudiates the charge, his historical account of truth has been criticised as a form of relativism. Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) was a 19th century philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. ... For historicism as a method of interpreting biblical apocalypse, see Historicism (Christian eschatology). ... Look up praxis in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other uses, see Human nature (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Philosophy (disambiguation). ... A magnet levitating above a high-temperature superconductor demonstrates the Meissner effect. ... // Sociological concept In social sciences, superstructure is the set of socio-psychological feedback loops that maintain a coherent and meaningful structure in a given society, or part thereof. ... Class consciousness is a category of Marxist theory, referring to the self-awareness of a social class, its capacity to act in its own rational interests, or measuring the extent to which an individual is conscious of the historical tasks their class (or class allegiance) sets for them. ... The proletariat (from Latin proles, offspring) is a term used to identify a lower social class; a member of such a class is proletarian. ... Scientism is a term mainly used as a pejorative[1][2][3] to accuse someone of holding that science has primacy over all other interpretations of life such as religious, mythical, spiritual, or humanistic explanations. ... Positivism is a philosophy that states that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge, and that such knowledge can only come from positive affirmation of theories through strict scientific method. ... For the physics theory with a similar name, see Theory of Relativity. ...

Critique of "Economism"

In a famous pre-prison article entitled "The Revolution against Das Kapital" [2], Gramsci claimed that the October Revolution in Russia had invalidated the idea that socialist revolution had to await the full development of capitalist forces of production. This reflected his view that Marxism was not a deterministic philosophy. The principle of the causal "primacy" of the forces of production, he held, was a misconception of Marxism. Both economic changes and cultural changes are expressions of a "basic historical process", and it is difficult to say which sphere has primacy over the other. The fatalistic belief, widespread within the workers’ movement in its earliest years, that it would inevitably triumph due to "historical laws", was, in Gramsci's view, a product of the historical circumstances of an oppressed class restricted mainly to defensive action, and was to be abandoned as a hindrance once the working-class became able to take the initiative. Because Marxism is a "philosophy of praxis", it cannot rely on unseen "historical laws" as the agents of social change. History is defined by human praxis and therefore includes human will. Nonetheless, will-power cannot achieve anything it likes in any given situation: when the consciousness of the working-class reaches the stage of development necessary for action, historical circumstances will be encountered which cannot be arbitrarily altered. It is not, however, predetermined by historical inevitability as to which of several possible developments will take place as a result. When Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels created the ideology of Communism, many Marxists believe they inductively surmised what they saw as a law of history, an inexorable law, that ran throughout the course of history. ... Das Kapital (Capital, in the English translation) is an extensive treatise on political economy written by Karl Marx in German. ... For other uses, see October Revolution (disambiguation). ... For the specific theoretical justifications behind the Great Leap Forward and the Five Year Plans, see Theory of Productive Forces. ... Determinism is the philosophical proposition that every event, including human cognition and behavior, decision and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. ... Productive forces or forces of production [in German, Produktivkrafte] is a central concept in Marxism and historical materialism. ... It has been suggested that Theological fatalism be merged into this article or section. ... The labour movement or labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and political governments, in particular through the implementation of specific laws governing labor relations. ...

His critique of economism also extended to that practiced by the syndicalists of the Italian trade unions. He believed that many trade unionists had settled for a reformist, gradualist approach in that they had refused to struggle on the political front in addition to the economic front. While Gramsci envisioned the trade unions as one organ of a counter-hegemonic force in capitalist society, the trade union leaders simply saw these organizations as a means to improve conditions within the existing structure. Gramsci referred to the views of these trade unionists as "vulgar economism," which he equated to covert reformism and even liberalism.

Critique of Materialism

By virtue of his belief that human history and collective praxis determine whether any philosophical question is meaningful or not, Gramsci’s views run contrary to the metaphysical materialism and 'copy' theory of perception advanced by Engels and Lenin, though he does not explicitly state this. For Gramsci, Marxism does not deal with a reality which exists in and for itself, independent of humanity. The concept of an objective universe outside of human history and human praxis was, in his view, analogous to belief in God; there could be no objectivity, but only a universal intersubjectivity to be established in a future communist society. Natural history was thus only meaningful in relation to human history. On his view philosophical materialism, like primitive common sense, resulted from a lack of critical thought, and could not, as Lenin [3] claimed, be said to oppose religious superstition. Despite this, Gramsci resigned himself to the existence of this arguably cruder form of Marxism: the proletariat’s status as a dependent class meant that Marxism, as its philosophy, could often only be expressed in the form of popular superstition and common sense. Nonetheless, it was necessary to effectively challenge the ideologies of the educated classes, and to do so Marxists must present their philosophy in a more sophisticated guise, and attempt to genuinely understand their opponents’ views. History is often used as a generic term for information about the past, such as in geologic history of the Earth. When used as the name of a field of study, history refers to the study and interpretation of the record of human societies. ... Plato (Left) and Aristotle (right), by Raphael (Stanza della Segnatura, Rome) Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the ultimate nature of reality, being, and the world. ... In philosophy, materialism is that form of physicalism which holds that the only thing that can truly be said to exist is matter; that fundamentally, all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions; that matter is the only substance. ... In psychology and the cognitive sciences, perception is the process of acquiring, interpreting, selecting, and organizing sensory information. ... Engels redirects here. ... For other uses of objectivity, see objectivity (disambiguation). ... This article discusses the term God in the context of monotheism and henotheism. ... Intersubjectivity refers to the the common-sense, shared meanings constructed by people in their interactions with each other and used as an everyday resource to interpret the meaning of elements of social and cultural life. ... Table of natural history, 1728 Cyclopaedia Natural history is an umbrella term for what are now often viewed as several distinct scientific disciplines of integrative organismal biology. ... For other uses, see Superstition (disambiguation). ...

Influence

Although Gramsci's thought emanates from the organized left, he has also become an important figure in current academic discussions within cultural studies and critical theory. Political theorists from the center and the right have also found insight in his concepts; his idea of hegemony, for example, has become widely cited. His influence is particularly strong in contemporary political science, on the subject of the prevalence of neoliberal thinking among political elites, in the form of Neo-gramscianism. His work also heavily influenced intellectual discourse on popular culture and scholarly popular culture studies in whom many have found the potential for political or ideological resistance to dominant government and business interests. This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... In the humanities and social sciences, critical theory has two quite different meanings with different origins and histories, one originating in social theory and the other in literary criticism. ... Hegemony (pronounced or ) (Greek: ) is the dominance of one group over other groups, with or without the threat of force, to the extent that, for instance, the dominant party can dictate the terms of trade to its advantage; more broadly, cultural perspectives become skewed to favor the dominant group. ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box:      Political Science is the field concerning the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behaviour. ... For the school of international relations, see Neoliberalism in international relations. ... Neo-Gramscianism is a relatively new approach to the study of International Relations (IR) and the Global Political Economy (GPE) that explores the interface of ideas, institution and material capabilities as they shape the specific contours of the state formation. ... Popular culture, sometimes abbreviated to pop culture, consists of widespread cultural elements in any given society. ... Popular culture studies is the academic discipline studying popular culture. ...

His critics charge him with fostering a notion of power struggle through ideas. They find the Gramscian approach to philosophical analysis, reflected in current academic controversies, to be in conflict with open-ended, liberal inquiry grounded in apolitical readings of the classics of Western culture. To credit or blame Gramsci for the travails of current academic politics is an odd turn of history, since Gramsci himself was never an academic, and was in fact deeply intellectually engaged with Italian culture, history, and current liberal thought.

As a socialist, Gramsci's legacy has been disputed. Togliatti, who led the Party (renamed as PCI) after World War II and whose gradualist approach was a forerunner to Eurocommunism, claimed that the PCI's practices during this period were congruent with Gramscian thought. Others, however, have argued that Gramsci was a Left Communist, who would have been expelled from his Party if prison had not prevented him from regular contact with Moscow during the leadership of Stalin. The Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI) or Italian Communist Party emerged as Partito Comunista dItalia or Communist Party of Italy from a secession by the Leninist comunisti puri tendency from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) during that bodys congress on 21 January 1921 at Livorno. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Eurocommunism was a new trend in the 1970s and 1980s within various Western European communist parties to develop a theory and practice of social transformation that was more relevant in a Western European democracy and less aligned to the partyline of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. ... Left Communism is a term describing a whole range of communist viewpoints which oppose the political ideas of the Bolsheviks from a position which is asserted to be more authentically Marxist and proletarian than the views held by the Communist International after its first two Congresses. ... For other uses, see Moscow (disambiguation). ... Iosif (usually anglicized as Joseph) Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин), original name Ioseb Jughashvili (Georgian: იოსებ ჯუღაშვი&#4314...

Influences on Gramsci's thought

• Niccolò Machiavelli — 16th century Italian writer who greatly influenced Gramsci's theory of the state.
• Karl Marx — philosopher, historian, economist and founder of Marxism.
• Antonio Labriola — Italy's first notable Marxist theorist, believed Marxism's main feature was the nexus it established between history and philosophy.
• Georges Sorel — French syndicalist writer who rejected the inevitability of historical progress.
• Vilfredo Pareto — Italian economist and sociologist, known for his theory on mass and elite interaction.
• Henri Bergson — French irrationalist philosopher and theorist of voluntarism.
• Benedetto Croce — Italian liberal, anti-Marxist and idealist philosopher whose thought Gramsci subjected to careful and thorough critique...

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (May 3, 1469 – June 21, 1527) was an Italian political philosopher, musician, poet, and romantic comedic playwright. ... Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) was a 19th century philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. ... Antonio Labriola Antonio Labriola (1843-1904) was an Italian Marxist theoretician. ... Georges Eugène Sorel (2 November 1847-29 August 1922) was a French philosopher and theorist of revolutionary syndicalism. ... Vilfredo Pareto Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto [vilfre:do pare:to] (July 15, 1848, Paris – August 19, 1923, Geneva) was a French-Italian sociologist, economist and philosopher. ... Henri-Louis Bergson (October 18, 1859–January 4, 1941) was a major French philosopher, influential in the first half of the 20th century. ... Voluntarism (lat. ... Benedetto Croce (February 25, 1866 - November 20, 1952) was an Italian critic, idealist philosopher, and politician. ...

Later thinkers influenced by Gramsci

• Zackie Achmat
• Ato Sekyi-Otu
• Louis Althusser
• Perry Anderson
• Michael Apple
• Giovanni Arrighi
• Zygmunt Bauman
• Judith Butler
• Noam Chomsky
• Alain de Benoist
• Michel Foucault
• Paulo Freire
• Stuart Hall
• Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri
• David Harvey
• Eric Hobsbawm
• Ernesto Laclau & Chantal Mouffe
• Luigi Nono
• Pier Paolo Pasolini
• Edward Said
• E.P. Thompson
• Cornel West
• Raymond Williams
• Eric Wolf
• Howard Zinn
• Gordon Brown^[2]

Zackie Achmat (born Abdurazzack Achmat in 1962) is a South African activist of Malay Muslim descent, most widely known as founder and chairman of Treatment Action Campaign. ... Ato Sekyi-Otu is a Ghanaian post-colonial intellectual. ... Louis Pierre Althusser (Pronunciation: altuˡseʁ) (October 16, 1918 – October 22, 1990) was a Marxist philosopher. ... Perry Anderson (born 1938) is a Marxist intellectual and historian. ... Michael W. Apple is a leading critical educational theorist. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Bauman in Warsaw, 2005 Zygmunt Bauman (born 19 November 1925 in Poznań) is a Polish-born sociologist who, since 1971, has resided in England after being driven there by an anti-Semitic purge organized by the communist party of Poland. ... Image:J Butler. ... Avram Noam Chomsky (Hebrew: אברם נועם חומסקי) (born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher, political activist, author, and lecturer. ... Alain de Benoist (born 11 December 1943) is a French academic, founder of the Nouvelle Droite (English: ) and head of the French think tank GRECE. Benoist is little known outside his native France but his writings have been highly influential on anti-globalist thought, primarily on the political right, with... Michel Foucault (IPA pronunciation: ) (October 15, 1926 – June 25, 1984) was a French philosopher, historian and sociologist. ... Paulo Freire (Recife, Brazil September 19, 1921 - São Paulo, Brazil May 2, 1997) was a Brazilian educator and is a highly influential theorist of education. ... Stuart Hall (born 1932 in Kingston, Jamaica) is a cultural theorist from the United Kingdom. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Antonio Toni Negri (born August 1, 1933) is an Italian Marxist political philosopher. ... David Harvey, 1990s David Harvey (b. ... Eric John Earnest Hobsbawm CH (born June 8, 1917 in Alexandria, Egypt) is a British Marxist historian and author. ... Ernesto Laclau is a political theorist often described as post-marxist. ... Chantal Mouffe (born 1943) is a Belgian political theorist. ... Grave of Nono in the San Michele Cemetery, Venice. ... Pier Paolo Pasolini (March 5, 1922 – November 2, 1975) was an Italian poet, intellectual, film director, and writer. ... Edward Wadie Saïd, Arabic: , , (1 November 1935 – 25 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American literary theorist and Palestinian activist. ... Edward Palmer Thompson (1924-1993) was a historian probably best known for his work The Making of the English Working Class, which included his reassessment of the Luddite movement. ... Cornell West redirects here. ... Raymond Henry Williams (31 August 1921 - 26 January 1988) was a Welsh academic, novelist and critic. ... Eric Wolf (1923-1999) was an anthropologist best known for his studies of Latin America and his advocacy of Marxist perspectives within anthropology. ... Howard Zinn (born August 24, 1922) is an American historian, political scientist, social critic, activist and playwright, best known as author of the bestseller[5] , A Peoples History of the United States. ... For others with the same or similar names, see Gordon Brown (disambiguation). ...

See also

• Reformism
• Superstructure
• Articulation (sociology)
• Risorgimento
• Praxis School
• Liberation theology
• Abahlali baseMjondolo
• Treatment Action Campaign

Socialist Reformism is the belief that gradual democratic changes in a society can ultimately change a societys fundamental economic relations and political structures. ... // Sociological concept In social sciences, superstructure is the set of socio-psychological feedback loops that maintain a coherent and meaningful structure in a given society, or part thereof. ... Articulation is the process where cultural forms and practices are appropriated for use by particular classes. ... Italian unification, also known as Risorgimento (resurrection), was a historical process by which the Kingdom of Sardinia (ruled by the Savoy dynasty with Turin as its capital) gradually conquered the Italian peninsula, including the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the Duchy of Modena, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchy... Praxis school was a Marxist humanist philosophical movement that originated in Zagreb and Belgrade in the SFRY, during the 1960s. ... Liberation theology is a school of theology within the Catholic Church that focuses on Jesus Christ as not only the Redeemer but also the Liberator of the oppressed. ... There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ... The Treatment Action Campaign is a South African grassroots pressure group which was founded by Zackie Achmat, an HIV-positive activist who refused anti-retroviral treatment (ARVs) until they were universally available. ...

Endnotes

1. ^ Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, Lawrence and Wishart, 1971, ISBN 0-85315-280-2, p.lxxxix.
2. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/Scotland/Story/0,,392958,00.html

Sources

• Bottomore, Tom (1992). The Dictionary of Marxist Thought. Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0631180826. 
• Gramsci, Antonio (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebooks. International Publishers. ISBN 071780397X. 
• Jay, Martin (1986). Marxism and Totality: The Adventures of a Concept from Lukacs to Habermas. University of California Press. ISBN 0520057422. 
• Joll, James (1977). Antonio Gramsci. Viking Press. ISBN 0670129429. 
• Kolakowski, Leszek (1981). Main Currents of Marxism, Vol. III: The Breakdown. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0192851098. 
• Boggs, Carl (1984). The Two Revolutions: Gramsci and the Dilemmas of Western Marxism. South End Press. ISBN 0896082261. 

Thomas Burton Bottomore (1920-1992) was a British Marxist sociologist. ... Martin Jay (born 1944) is the Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. ... James Bysse Joll (1918-1994) was an historian and university lecturer whose works included The Origins of the First World War and Europe Since 1870. ... Photograph of Leszek Kolakowski. ...

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Antonio Gramsci

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Antonio Gramsci

• Gramsci's writings at MIA
• Gramsci resources, including bibliography
• The International Gramsci Society
• Fondazione Instituto Gramsci
• Special issue of International Socialism journal with a collection on Gramsci's legacy
• Roberto Robaina: Gramsci and revolution: a necessary clarification
• Gramsci's contribution to the field of adult and popular education
• The life and work of Antonio Gramsci
• An overview of Gramsci's life and work, with suggestions for further reading
• Rare: a picture at the age of 15
• Gramsci's wife and sons
• The Praxis Prism – The Epistemology of Antonio Gramsci
• audio and video resources on Gramsci
• Gramsci Links Archive
• Gramsci e o Brasil

Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Wikiquote is one of a family of wiki-based projects run by the Wikimedia Foundation, running on MediaWiki software. ... Image File history File links Commons-logo. ... Amadeo Bordiga. ... List of Secretaries: Category: ... Palmiro Togliatti (March 26, 1893 - August 21, 1964) was an Italian communist leader. ... List of Secretaries: Category: ... Amadeo Bordiga. ... Palmiro Togliatti (March 26, 1893 - August 21, 1964) was an Italian communist leader. ... Luigi Longo (1900 - 1980) was an Italian Communist political figure. ... Enrico Berlinguer. ... Alessandro Natta (Imperia, 7 January 1918 - 23 May 2001), Italian politician. ... Achille Occhetto (born 1936) is an Italian political figure. ...