IN CONTEXT
Marxism
Cultural hegemony
1867 Karl Marx completes the first volume of Capital, in which he analyzes the capitalist system and the ways in which the masses are exploited by the rich.
1929 José Ortega y Gasset laments the demise of the intellectual as the working class grows in power.
1980 Michel Foucault describes the ways in which power is distributed across society in institutions such as schools and the family.
1991 The Lega Nord (Northern League) is founded on a platform of greater autonomy for the industrialized north of Italy.
Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci, while exposing the imbalances between the industrialized north and rural south of Italy, identified that the struggle to tackle the dominance of the ruling classes was a cultural battle as much as a revolutionary one.
"A human mass does not ‘distinguish’ itself, does not become independent…without organizing itself: and there is no organization without intellectuals."
Antonio Gramsci
Gramsci developed the notion of “cultural hegemony,” referring to the ideological and cultural control of the working classes that goes beyond coercion to the development of systems of thought—reinforcing the position of the powerful through consent.
The role of intellectuals
For Gramsci, no government, regardless of how powerful it is, can sustain its control by force alone. Legitimacy and popular consent are also required. By viewing the functions of the state as a means of educating and indoctrinating society into subservience, Gramsci radically altered Marxist thought. He saw that in order to tackle the grip of cultural hegemony on society, education was vital. Gramsci had a particular view of the role of intellectuals in this context. He felt that intellectuals could exist at all levels of society, rather than solely as a traditional elite, and that the development of this capacity among the working class was necessary to the success of any attempt to counter the hegemony of the ruling classes.
See also: Karl Marx • Vladimir Lenin • Rosa Luxemburg • Michel Foucault