Synopsis
The interest of anthropologists in the writings of Antonio Gramsci has largely
revolved around the appropriation of some of his concepts, an appropriation
which has often been more apparent than real (Kurtz, 1996). This is not simply
a question of anthropologists trying to preserve old habits of thought whilst
changing their terminology. It is peculiarly difficult to understand Gramsci
without paying any regard to the fact that he wrote as a political strategist
who dedicated his life to the working class's conquest of state power.
In grappling with that practical issue, Gramsci offered us a rich perspective
on the relations and processes which enabled ruling classes to rule and both
strengthened and impeded working class intellectual and moral leadership of
a subaltern class alliance capable of capturing state power. Recapturing the
richness of Gramscian analysis means, I think, going back to the texts and seeing
how far they can continue to guide us today.
One of the most astonishing texts which Gramsci produced after his incarceration
by the Fascist regime is his essay "Americanism and Fordism." In these
notes, Gramsci pondered the significance of what he presciently identified as
a new model for capitalist production and industrial society developing in the
United States, from the vantage point of a European socialist. The essay begins
with a discussion of European reactions to the growing global industrial power
of the United States, and draws a contrast between an Old World burdened by
the social legacy of a long pre-capitalist history and a North America characterized
by what Gramsci terms a "rational demographic composition", the absence
of "purely parasitic classes” “with no essential function in the world
of production" (1971: 281).
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Paper on Putting the State Back In Without Leaving the
Dialectics Out