At this point, however, economic determinism seems to be a problem for the Gramscian concept of hegemony, and the ways the proletariat can become hegemonic. He was acknowledging that human beings had a high degree of agency in history: human will and intellect played a role as fundamental as the economy.Įven though Gramsci was harshly critical of what he called the “vulgar historical materialism” and economism of Marxism, as a Marxist he assumed the fundamental importance of the economy. With it, the Italian intellectual sought to undermine the economic determinism of historical materialism. The location of cultural, ideological, and intellectual variables as fundamental for the proletariat in its struggle to become a leading class is Gramsci’s main contribution to Marxist theory. The task for the proletariat was to overcome the leadership of the bourgeoisie and become hegemonic itself.Īlthough for some scholars the Gramscian concept of hegemony supposes the leading role of the dominant class in the economy, Gramsci believed that the leading role of the dominant class must include ideology and consciousness, that is, the superstructure. The bourgeoisie was hegemonic because it protected some interests of the subaltern classes in order to get their support. Gramsci first noted that in Europe, the dominant class, the bourgeoisie, ruled with the consent of subordinate masses. It is based on the equilibrium between consent and coercion. This leadership, however, is not only exercised in the superstructure –or in the terms of Benedetto Croce– is not only ethico-political, because it also needs to be economic, and be based on the function that the leading group exercises in the nucleus of economic activity. The idea came as part of his critique of the deterministic economist interpretation of history of “mechanical historical materialism.” Hegemony, to Gramsci, is the “cultural, moral and ideological” leadership of a group over allied and subaltern groups. Gramsci developed the notion of hegemony in the Prison Writings. Designed by Swiss artist, Thomas Hirschhorn, built by residents (2013) Gramsci Monument, Forest Houses, Bronx, New York.

Antonio gramsci quotes