Journal of Classical Sociology Copyright © 2002 SAGE Publications London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi Vol 2(2): 157–178 [1468–795X(200207)2:2;157–178;027856]
Gramsci on Politics and State BENEDETTO FONTANA Baruch College/CUNY
ABSTRACT This article argues that Gramsci’s notion of the state is historically and
conceptually rooted within a political and theoretical discourse that first emerged with the ideas and practice of the classical politics of the Greeks and Romans, a political and philosophical tradition that was later transformed and reformulated with the advent of a Christianized politics as embodied in the thought of Augustine. The article further argues that Gramsci’s conception rests on the idea that man is pre-eminently political in a double sense: as the ground for community and society, defined by the search for the ‘good life’; and as struggle and conflict, where such a search is defined by competition over a multiplicity of goods. KEYWORDS civil society, domination, hegemony, polis, società regolata
I In the last 20 years, but especially since the end of the Cold War, the life and work of Antonio Gramsci have been the focus of intensive debate and analysis. His centrality is revealed by a mere glance at the current literature, scholarly and academic, as well as popular and political.1 Gramscian ideas (such as hegemony and dictatorship, civil society and political society, moral and intellectual leadership, culture and consent, education and reform) pervade contemporary cultural, ideological and political discourses. In the era of ‘globalization’, economic ‘interdependence’, the spread of the ‘free market’ and its attendant values and presuppositions, it has become the general consensus that the role of the state, or of the government, is waning and that the role of ‘private’ – that is, non-governmental – actors is becoming increasingly important. Homo politicus has become homo oeconomicus. Concomitantly, all political questions have now become questions of technique. The proliferation of the global market seems to mark the end of ideology, where