Bio: (1891-1937) Italian philosopher. Antonio Gramsci studied literature and philosophy at the University of Turin but did not complete his studies. He never had a formal academic position, but after leaving school he engaged in journalism and political activism. Gramsci was a contributor to several socialist newspapers (Il Grido del Popolo, Avanti !, La città futura), and in 1919 he co-founded the magazine L’Ordine Nuovo (New Order). At the end of the First World War, Gramsci became a member of the workers' committees that organized mass strikes and occupied factories in Turin and its surroundings. He became one of the main founders of the Communist Party in 1921, and later became the leader of this party. Gramsci became a member of the Italian parliament in 1924, but four years later Mussolini's fascist regime banned the Communist Party, and he was sentenced to prison. Gramsci never got out of prison and died in the prison hospital, after a long illness. During his stay in prison, he wrote a lot on various topics, and after his death, these notes were smuggled out of Italy and first published under the name Prison Notebooks in 1947.

The epistemological foundations of Gramsci's sociology are based on the scientific method and positivism. He wanted to apply the methods of the social sciences to the study of history and politics, to establish the laws of social evolution. On the other hand, he was very skeptical about the "law of large numbers" and the use of official statistics. Gramsci did not present a coherent sociological theory in his writings, but his sharp criticism of Italian bourgeois sociologists is obvious, as well as his balanced critical attitude towards Marx and other Marxists, and above all Nikolai Bukharin. He rebukes Bukharin for vulgarizing historical materialism by presenting it as sociology. Gramsci believes that historical materialism represents the "historicization of philosophy", that is, a true philosophy of practice. Unlike Marx, who focused almost exclusively on structure (base), Gramsci attached much greater independent importance to the social superstructure. In addition, he was a great opponent of the deterministic interpretation of Marx's Capital. Gramsci rejects the existence of historical inevitability and observes social changes as a result of complex historical processes.

The emphasis on the importance of social development is best seen in Gramsci's conception of "cultural hegemony". The ruling class in capitalist societies does not rule only through force and repression but imposes its own ideological system, which defends the interests of the ruling class, and other subordinate classes. This imposed value system is what Gramsci calls "cultural hegemony." Hegemony is a synthesis of political, intellectual, and moral leadership within the ruling class. This leadership justifies its interests by creating an image of the world that presents those interests and the economic and political relations that sustain those interests as positive for the entire population. When other classes (which Gramsci calls "subaltern") accept such a picture of the world as normal and common sense, or even better, as the only possible one, then those classes become integrated into that ruling cultural hegemony.

The capitalist class integrates subaltern classes in two ways. On the one hand, it gives them small concessions - workers' rights, allows the work of trade unions, creates a social security system, and the like. On the other hand, the state and civil society create institutions and organizations - educational institutions, the press, churches, and civil associations - that promote this cultural hegemony. In addition, the state creates institutions - police, army, prisons, psychiatric institutions - that carry out repressive measures against those who do not accept hegemony. The capitalist class also has its independent ways of achieving obedience, through the realization of control and punishment in the workplace itself, but also through employment itself, because most workers without capitalist employment cannot even survive.

Gramsci believed that the survival of such hegemony is not necessary. The capitalist society produces intellectuals who serve the interests of the capitalist class by spreading and justifying hegemony. Gramsci calls such intellectuals "traditional intellectuals." Traditional intellectuals are hierarchically structured in relation to their own function within hegemony. At the top are creative intellectuals who produce a view of the world, in the middle are the organizers, and at the bottom are the administrators. However, the working class and the communist parties need to gather a new type of intellectual, who will spread, among the exploited classes, a different image, that of the truth of the revolution. He calls such intellectuals "organic intellectuals" and they should fight for the needs and demands of the exploited masses. Organic intellectuals do not have to be only those who are highly educated, but they can be all those who have some organizational function within production, culture, politics, or administration. As hegemony is created and operates equally at the macro and micro levels, through actors (intelligentsia) who create new values, organic intellectuals have room to crack the dominant hegemony and provide space for critical awareness of the possibility of changing the dominant system. Withdrawal of creative intelligentsia from hegemony will cause an organic crisis of authority and social disintegration.

Subaltern classes, to realize their interests, must consciously and purposefully create their own intellectuals, activists, and theorists, to successfully fight against the hegemony of the capitalist class. The proletariat must bring into civil society its own values ​​and culture, which will work not only for the interests of the working class but for the interests of universal socialism. In that way, they will force the whole society, and finally, the traditional intellectuals, to actively accept the validity and historical necessity of the new hegemony and achieve the ultimate goal - the creation of socialist hegemony. Gramsci was very careful in his views on creating the dictatorship of the proletariat because he believed that other classes also had their own interests that should be taken into account, especially the peasantry. He saw how the peasants in the poor south of Italy were suffering, and he believed that the socialist strategy should not require the peasants to become workers but help them understand their position and fight for emancipation together with the workers.

Main works

Lettere dal carcere (1947);

Il materialismo storico e la filosofia di Benedetto Croce  (1948);

Gli intellettuali e l'organizzazione della cultura (1948);

Il Risorgimento (1949);

Note sul Machiavelli sulla politica e sullo stato moderno (1949);

Letteratura e vita nazionale (1950);

Passato e presente (1951).

Works translated into English:

Prison Notebooks (Volumes 1, 2 & 3) (2011, in Italian 1947);

The Concept of ‘Hegemony’ (2014);

The Southern Question (2015);

Selection From The Prison Notebooks (2021).