Gramsci's Political Thought: An Introduction [Paperback]

Roger Simon (Author), Stuart Hall (Foreword)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0853157383 | ISBN-13: 978-0853157380 | Publication Date: April 1, 1991 | Edition: Revised

A lucid, easily comprehensible account of Gramsci's ideas and their relevance to modern society, this guide details the notions of hegemony, civil society, ideology and national popular.

Product Details

• Paperback: 143 pages
• Publisher: Lawrence And Wishart Ltd; Revised edition (April 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0853157383
• ISBN-13: 978-0853157380
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,030,193 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Book about a Great Under-read Political Thinker, June 27, 2002

By 

Bill Corporandy (Yuba City, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gramsci's Political Thought: An Introduction (Paperback)

Gramsci was a very courageous and brilliant thinker who helped found the Italian Communist Party. He died of deliberate medical neglect in one of Mussolini's prisons in 1937. Roger Simon, at the time this book was published in 1982, was a member of the British Communist Party. Drawing inspiration and insight from Gramsci's writings, he is very critical of the oppressive Soviet model of Communism and its destructive influence on Western Communist parties. Nevertheless, his book reflects the 1970s optimism for the future and Leftist faith in Marxist ideology. He gives a good but brief intro to Gramsci's key concepts--the text of the book is only 130 pages. He also applies the Gramsci model to Great Britain and at times seems overly optimistic from the perspective of 2002 when Italy and other Western European powers have swept the Right -wing into power. Perhaps Gramsci's most famous and important contribution to leftist theory is his concept of ideological hegemony. The more an economic class has ideological hegemony, the more it operates with the implied consent of the other classes under its domination. The less it has ideological hegemony or when its cultural and sociological influences are in a relatively undeveloped state, the more it must govern by coercion--the Soviet Union, in taking over from autocratic Russia, in may ways reduplicated and even multiplied this coercion because it never achieved the optimal amount of ideological hegemony and the consequent building of myriad class and other alliances prior to take over of the state. Gramsci's strategy relies less on violence and more on trying to build a humane, progressive society prior to any actual revolutionary seizure of the state. A class that is hegemonic in this way sees beyond its own immediate interests and takes into account the interests of other groups as well. Gramsci and Simon offer a much richer and nuanced account than what I am able to give here in such limited space.
At one point, attempting to clarify Gramsci's distinctions between civil society ( more reliant on consent) and the state (more reliant on coercion), he says that schools lie within the realm of civil society though they do the bidding and our often governed by the state. From the perspective of 2002, there seems to be more of a coercive nature to education now, less trust in civil society to do its job relatively unsupervised. Simon sees schools as an interpenetration of the civil into the state but now there is a reciprocal interpenetration of the state into the civil with the increased emphasis on federal and state mandated testing that often takes up weeks. Some teachers complain that they are forced to teach to the tests and have less time for imparting real learning and inspiring critical thinking skills. Simon is also critical of the British Labor Party. I would be interested to see what he thinks of it today. It seems to have followed the Clinton model for the Democrats--talk left and compromise with or capitulate to the right everywhere--both Blair in Britain and Clinton in the U.S. have deliberately moved their parties to the right. The left is in disarray, mired in sterile arguments of political correctness and knee jerk reactions to world events. It has broken down into innefectual factions, etc. More than ever, the left would do well to review the writings of Gramsci. Simon makes several good points and does a serviceable job of summarizing Gramsci but the book could stand an update.