Italian intellectual and political activist, founder of the Communist Party (Ales, Sardinia, 1891 - Rome, 1937). Thanks to the support of his brother and his intellectual capacity he overcame the difficulties produced by his physical deformity (he was hunchbacked) and by the poverty of his family (since his father was imprisoned, accused of embezzlement). He studied at the University of Turin, where he was influenced intellectually by Benedetto Croce and the socialists.
In 1913 he joined the Italian Socialist Party, immediately becoming a leader of its left wing. After working on various party periodicals, he founded, together with Palmiro Togliatti and Umberto Elia Terracini, the magazine Ordine nuovo (1919). Faced with the dilemma posed to socialists around the world by the course taken by the Russian Revolution, Antonio Gramsci chose to adhere to the communist line and, at the Livorno Congress (1921), split with the group that founded the Italian Communist Party.
Gramsci belonged from the beginning to the Central Committee of the new party, which he also represented in Moscow within the Third International (1922); he endowed the formation with an official press organ (L'Unità, 1924) and represented it as a deputy (1924). He was a member of the Executive of the Communist International, whose Bolshevik orthodoxy he defended in Italy by expelling from the party the ultra-left group of Amadeo Bordiga, which he accused of following Trotsky's line (1926).
He soon had to go underground, since since 1922 Italy was under the power of Mussolini, who would exercise from 1925 an iron fascist dictatorship. Gramsci was arrested in 1926 and spent the rest of his life in prison, subjected to humiliation and ill-treatment, which added to his tuberculosis to make prison life extremely difficult, until he died of cerebral congestion.
In these conditions, however, Gramsci was able to produce a great written work (the voluminous Prison Notebooks), containing an original revision of Marx's thought, in a historicist sense and tending to modernize the legacy of Marxism to adapt it to the conditions of Italy and twentieth-century Europe. Already at the Lyon Congress (1926) he had advocated the broadening of the social bases of communism by opening it to all classes of workers, including intellectuals. His theoretical contributions would powerfully influence the adaptation of Western communism that took place in the sixties and seventies, the so-called Eurocommunism. 🤮
Gramsci’s concept of hegemony. Gramsci saw the ruling class maintaining its power over society in two ways –
Coercion – it uses the army, police, prison and courts to force other classes to accept its rule
Consent (hegemony) – it uses ideas and values to persuade the subordinate classes that its rule is legitimate
Hegemony and Revolution
In advanced Capitalist societies, the ruling class rely heavily on consent to maintain their rule. Gramsci agrees with Marx that they are able to maintain consent because they control institutions such as religion, the media and the education system. However, according to Gramsci, the hegemony of the ruling class is never complete, for two reasons:
The ruling class are a minority – and as such they need to make ideological compromises with the middle classes in order to maintain power The proletariat have dual consciousness. Their ideas are influenced not only by bourgeois ideology but also by the material conditions of their life – in short, they are aware of their exploitation and are capable or seeing through the dominant ideology.
Antonio Gramsci Marxists.org :gramsci-heh:
Antonio Gramsci and the Italian Revolution :anti-italian-action:
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Here is an interesting question,
As a socialist, how would you get people to do important but undesirable work?
Trades and drivers come to mind almost instantly as roles with shortages, and while medical and scientific jobs have a huge shortage as well, the barrier there can easily be explained by education being a luxury.
Because I’m not liking current CHUD ideas of prison labor, forcing people with disabilities to do them, or automating away desirable jobs.
False. There is no undesirable work. I like digging holes. If I could have a healthy and secure life doing that for people I would. I would happily do plumbing for people I care about. I would fight the poop water to make sure someone else didn't have to. Janitorial work can be done by the people that use that space. When you go to a boxing gym you clean up after yourself because you want to have a clean space to train. If you can physically but are unwilling to clean a space you don't get to use it simple as. I have done care taking. I will absolutely clean up after an infirmed person because they need it. I changed a dozen adult diapers at work today and it was fulfilling because I was helping people that needed kt. The hard part after capitlaism is finding enough work for people to do. No more accountants, salespeople, Insurance people, middlemen, any of that. We would struggle to find things for them to do so they don't become isolated and depressed.
Idk if I would characterize the work as "undesirable". I know people who love being plumbers. One of my friends dreamed of being a trucker, in fact multiple people who love being able to travel and make a living that way. I know people who like doing janitorial because you don't have to deal with the public, you can listen to music and lock in and do something kinda physical. Imo if there is a shortage of truck drivers/trade workers it's because of the importance of STEM being forced in education for years with people probably scared that they wouldn't make a living doing anything else combined with the fact that schools never really talk about trades as viable occupations anymore, as well as long hours/exploitation by management.
Also, in my anecdotal experience, not only does the cost of education limit people from going to medical school but there are shortages in a lot of places due to independent medical clinics being bought up by national companies who exploit doctors and nurses, driving them away. Nurses who try to unionize get laid off as a union busting tactic. I don't think any work is undesirable, it's the conditions under which people are forced to do the work that is.
my dad was a lorry driver (trucker), and I used to go to work with him as a kid on holidays 'cause single dad. I fucking loved that shit, I would do that if it payed well with good hours and trucks weren't 10000x inferior to trains at freight
My mom dated a trucker for a while. He sucked but I did a local route with them one day and we got blueberry pie at midnight at one of his truck stops, it ruled
I don't think so
People will find things to do that they find rewarding that are not day-jobs
We can spread the work around. People could do a job part-time instead of spending 5/7 of their days on that particular job.
Eventually. I don't think the people as they exist now would largely be up to the task. It would take a generation maybe
I always liked Chomsky's answer to this, which was something like "if the work is really that undesirable to everyone, then maybe we could distribute among the population to ease the overall discomfort from it"
That is assuming it's not a job that requires years of specialized education or training to be competent at it
This and i also think people underestimate how many people are willing to do "undesirable" work if it paid enough to live and they weren't dealing with constant bullshit from management in an effort to "raise productivity"
Heck, I was willing to do hazmat when I was young and spry. The pay is solid.
Depends on the level of development of the productive forces and how much of the economy has been fully socialized, to be honest. Each new major difference in material conditions will look different. However, some good options include rotational work, lowering working times for equal pay (be it money in early stages or labor vouchers or whatnot at later stages), and focusing on automation as a priority dangerous and undesirable work.
I clean my kitchen and my bathroom because nobody else is gonna do it. if people weren't as alienated and driven to exhaustion, they'd have more pride in their community and give a shit about keeping on top of keeping it clean. is that a foolproof solution that immediately kicks in day 1 of socialism? no. but I think it would be something that would emerge