Antonio Gramsci amp Hegemony Antonio Gramsci 18911937 Leader of the Italian Communist Party from 1922 Witnessed failure of Turin workers strike in 1920 Imprisoned by Mussolini who said We have to prevent that this mind continue thinking 1926 ID: 496812
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Slide1
Popular Interests
Antonio Gramsci & HegemonySlide2
Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937)
Leader of the Italian Communist Party from 1922
Witnessed failure of Turin workers’ strike in 1920
Imprisoned by Mussolini who said ‘We have to prevent that this mind continue thinking’ (1926)
While in prison compiles his
Prison Notebooks
which were smuggled out by his sister in law Tatiana and published in Russia
O
f fundamental importance to Cultural Studies because he identified popular culture as important in the circulation of ideas and proposed the concept of radical and critical pedagogy.
Developed concept of the ‘organic intellectual’ who would enable working class to articulate their own oppression.Slide3
Revision:
According to Karl Marx:
The essence of being human is in
how we
procure food, clothes and shelter.
Under a capitalist system, some people own the
means of production
(the way in which goods are produced for sale on the market). These are the
bourgeoisie
.
Other people (the
proletariat
) are exploited by the bourgeoisie who gain by their labourSlide4
The Bourgeoisie (middle class)
Own
the
means of production
(factories, machinery, banks, administrative offices, raw materials
etc
)
Profit
from exploiting the proletariat (they are never paid the full value of the goods they are producing)
Determine the
relations of production
(
eg
., the conditions under which people are eligible to be employed)Slide5
The
Proleteriat
Sell their labour to the highest bidder
Labour to produce what is required to
sustain their lives but cannot immediately make use of it. They
must go to a shop and buy it and pay the extra that represents
profit
. This, in very basic terms is
alienated labour
.
They are alienated from the product of their labour, from their comrades (with whom they are in competition) and from
themselves.Slide6
So…….
The
thesis
is private property
The
antithesis
is alienated labour
The
synthesis
is
communism
Communism is the new social order that will result when the proletariat realise their exploitation and rise up to seize the means of production (revolution).Slide7
Ideology
(sets of ideas that govern thought and behaviour) ensures that the relations of production which form the economic
base of society are presented as
natural
(
eg
., competition, hierarchy)
The social
superstructure
(institutions like the church, government, the family, education and the media) secures and maintains these ideas
Why do the proletariat agree to their own exploitation?Slide8
Marx believed that:
The proletariat labour under a
false sense of reality.
Humans are rational animals and, as such, are able to reason that capitalism is unjust
History is progressing towards a point where capitalism will no longer be able to survive.
Once the relations of production in the economic base are changed, the ideas that circulate in the superstructure will change to support the new arrangements of society.Slide9
Questions:
Why do a minority of the world's population continue to hold the majority of the wealth?
Why do people elect governments that make sure that they continue to be exploited?
Why has there not yet been a successful workers' revolution?Slide10
Gramsci’s answers:
Dominant groups secure consent to their leadership through what he called
hegemony
Social forces
are mobilised by the class in power through
compromise
Ruling class retains power by making compromises on the basis of
national popular
interests, utilising a strategy of
passive revolutionSlide11
Welcomed ‘Americanisation’ of the workforce – introduction of Frederick W Taylor’s system of factory organisation – the moving production line (later called Fordism)
‘The only thing that is completely mechanised is the physical gesture; the memory of the trade, reduced to simple gestures repeated at an intense rhythm, ‘nestles’ in the muscular and nervous centres and leaves the brain free and unencumbered for other occupations’
‘Not only does the worker think, but the fact that he gets no immediate satisfaction from his work and realises that they are trying to reduce him to a trained gorilla, can lead him into a train of thought that is far from conformist’ (Gramsci, pp309 & 310)Slide12
Gramsci says:
‘COMMON
SENSE creates the folklore of the future, a relatively rigidified phase of popular knowledge in a given time and place.’ Slide13
Common sense???
LOOK BOTH WAYS BEFORE YOU CROSS THE ROADSlide14
HARD WORK WILL BE REWARDEDSlide15
WE MUST GO TO WAR AGAINST EVIL