HEGEMONY AND COUNTER-HEGEMONY IN GRAMSCI

Author(s): Hyug Baeg Im

Source: Asian Perspective, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Spring-Summer 1991), pp. 123-156
Published by: Lynne Rienner Publishers
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 ASIAN PERSPECTIVE, Vol. 15, No. 1, Spring-Summer 1991, pp. 123-156

HEGEMONY AND COUNTER-HEGEMONY

IN GRAMSCI

Hyug Baeg Im

Introduction

According to orthodox Marxist interpretation, socialist

revolution is an inevitable consequence of the development of
contradiction inherent in the capitalist mode of production.
Accordingly, the proletariat as the universal class of post-capi-
talist era will necessarily win revolutionary struggles with the
bourgeoisie.
The historical experience of the West, however, shows us
that capitalism has survived even in the period of severe eco-
nomic crises and the possibility of proletarian revolution is
neither "permanent" nor universal.
After a series of defeats in the Factory Council Movement
and other revolutionary movements, Gramsci's main problem-
atic in Mussolini's prison was to explain the resilience of capi-
talism and, at the same time, to find the theoretical basis for
the counter-strategy of the proletariat.
The main theoretical concept he elaborated in prison was
the notion of "hegemony."1 He found that, in the West the
dominant class, the bourgeoisie, had ruled with the consent of
the subordinate masses, that is, what he called "the hegemony

1. Before Gramsci, Lenin also used the concept of hegemony. But Lenin's
idea was restricted to the political telos as defined in terms of the political
leadership of the proletariat in its alliance with the peasantry. For further dis-
cussion, see Anderson (1976-77: 15-18), and Buci-Glucksmann (1980a).

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124 Hyug Baeg Im

of the bourgeoisie."
Analyzing bourgeois hegemony, however, could not be
the ultimate problematic of Gramsci. The ultimate problematic
was a search for the most appropriate revolutionary strategy
of the Left under the condition that subordinate classes give
their consent to bourgeois rule.
Focusing on Gramsci's theory of hegemony, this paper
attempts to examine the following questions:
1) How does the bourgeoisie establish and maintain its
hegemony in capitalist society and what is the nature and con-
tent of the hegemony?
2) Under what conditions does the bourgeoisie still con-
tinue to rule despite the crisis of hegemony?
3) Given the existence of bourgeois hegemony, what will
be the most proper strategy of revolution for the proletariat?
Can proletarian counter-hegemony be established only after
the objective conditions are changed?
The first question is being posed on the grounds that
grasping the true meaning of bourgeois hegemony is essential
to understand the Gramscian strategy of socialist revolution.
The misreading of the Gramscian notion of bourgeois hegemony
might result in the misunderstanding of whole problematic of
Gramsci. Yet, until recently, the clear understanding of the
notion of bourgeois hegemony has not been satisfactorily
resolved.
Some literature on Gramsci have interpreted the notion of
hegemony as ideological "false consciousness" or the Weberian
notion of "legitimation." According to these interpretations,
the dominant class obtains consent from the subordinate classes
through "a process of massive indoctrination" or "ideological
predominance over the subordinate classes" or "endless pro-
duction of false consciousness" or "ideological mystification"2
(Miliband, 1969: 180-183). These interpretations come out of
the attempts to assimilate Gramsci's thought into a Lukacsian
or a neo-Hegelian problematic. But even if we admit that
2. Similar interpretations are found in Carl Boggs: "Hegemony in this
sense might be defined as an 'organizing principle' or 'world view' (or combi-
nation of such world views) that is diffused by agencies of ideological control
and socialization in every area of daily life" (Boggs, 1976: 39). See also Femia
(1975); Bates (1975); ard Anderson (1976-77).

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 Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony in Gramsci 125

Gramsci gave much emphasis to the role of superstructures

such as ideology, culture, or consciousness, interpreting his
notion of hegemony merely in terms of superstructure would
likely misdirect complex theoretical problems he posed.
Recently, other literature argues that "hegemony has
material basis," or economic compromise is the necessary con-
dition for the creation of a hegemonic system (Przeworski,
1980; Texier, 1979; Sassoon, 1987). According to these inter-
pretations, Gramsci was a Marxist in the sense that he assumed
that economic structure is indeed "primary" and "conditioning."
Hegemony as "intellectual and moral leadership" is understood
as an economic compromise in the fundamental relations of
production, actualized, and made explicit at political and ideo-
logical level. These interpretations contribute a great deal to
overcoming the inadequacies in the superstructural reading of
Gramsci. Nevertheless we still need a sufficient analysis of how
such an economic leadership leads to political and ideological
leadership. Exercising economic leadership provides the ability
to organize politics and ideology in a certain direction, but it is
never an automatic process. Although the predominance of the
capitalist mode of production restricts the form and nature of
political and ideological relations, political and ideological
relations are not unilaterally determined by the mere rule of
the capital. They represent terrains of struggle which are formed
through the effects of class struggles. This paper will focus on
how Gramsci saw political and ideological relations organized
by the hegemonic bourgeoisie, and how this bourgeois project
can be compatible with the further development of capitalism.
The second question deals with the way the bourgeoisie
can maintain its domination even in the period of crises. One
of Gramsci's theoretical contributions and originalities is that
he found the possibility of the persistence of bourgeois rule in
the crisis of capitalism. The question focuses on how the bour-
geoisie maintain their political domination by means of eco-
nomic, political and ideological reorganization in and through
the crises, and on what the role of the state is in this process.
The final question deals with the counter-hegemonic
strategy. Although it goes without saying that the whole pro-
blematic in Prison Notebooks is centered on the search for the
appropriate way of establishing socialist hegemony, Gramsci

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126 Hyug Baeg Im

did not write explicitly about counter-hegemony because of

prison censorship.3 Besides, his contradictory statements con-
cerning counter-hegemony makes it more difficult to accurately
understand the concept. As we have seen in the interpretations
of bourgeois hegemony, different literature on Gramsci inter-
prets counter-hegemony differently. Most of those who inter-
pret the concept of hegemony by predominantly superstruc-
tural or cultural terms insist that counter-hegemony can and
must be established within the capitalist social formation by
means of cultural or ideological ascendancy of the anti-capi-
talist forces.4 Those who argue that hegemony is based on the
economic order point out the difficulties in establishing prole-
tarian counter-hegemony within the womb of the capitalist
social formation5: Without transforming the capitalist mode of
production or without becoming the 'nucleus" in the capitalist
economy, the possibility of the construction of counter-hege-
mony might be very restricted.
Gramsci, nevertheless, spoke of the necessity of the
establishment of proletarian hegemony before the socialist
revolution. Was Gramsci contradictory? If he was not con-
tradictory, what were his thoughts concerning the appropriate
strategy by which the working class can offer a sustained
challenge to bourgeois hegemony prior to the accession to
power? All those problems will be discussed in the last part of
this paper.

3. Gramsci's Prison Notebooks were written under difficult conditions,

such as his worsening health, prison censorship, and intellectual isolation in
prison. Added to this, fragmentary nature of Prison Notebooks rendered
many difficulties in reading Gramsci. See Sassoon (1978); Hoare (1971).
4. The working class can be hegemonic culturally berore becoming the
ruling class politically within a capitalist social formation" (Anderson, 1976-
77: 45). See also Boggs (1976).
5. "Le seul pouvoir que l'on puisse obtenir avec la lutte de classe pur les
reformes necessite l'elargissement de l'hegemonie politique de la classe ouvrière,
premisse indispensable a la conquete de l'Etat et a l'instauration du socialisme.
La classe ouvrière, element diregeant du processus révolutionnaire, ne cree pas
somme toute son bloc historique avec des moyens purement idéologiques et
elle n'a pas non plus l'illusion de croire qu'elle peut réellement changer sa con-
dition a l'interieur de la société bourgeoisie" (Bonomi, 1975: 998). For a similar
interpretation, see Paggi (1980); Sassoon (1980: chap. 5).

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 Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony in Gramsci 127

Bourgeois Hegemony

According to Gramsci, the supremacy of a class or a

social group manifests itself in two ways: domination and
hegemony (Gramsci, 1971: 57). The former is the rule by force
and the latter is the rule by consent. For Gramsci, the main-
tenance of power by the dominant bourgeoisie in capitalist
societies normally takes the form of the organization of consent
rather than the naked use of force.
Hegemony, i.e., organizing the consent of subordinate
masses, is based on the ability of a social group to represent
the universal interests of whole society. Representing universal
interests cannot be achieved by ideological inculcation or
marche de dupes, but by the realization of the interests of the
subordinate masses "concretely" (ibid.: 182). No ideology can
perform the function of coordinating concrete interests between
dominant class and subordinate groups unless it is validated by
materialization. Although "false consciousness" or "mass delu-
sion" can be used to obtain consent, it cannot perpetuate
consent for a long period of time without material content
(Przeworski, 1980: 24).
Intellectual and moral leadership cannot be achieved by
purely ideological means. The dominant social economic
formation provides the objective conditions through which
ideological leadership develops. Gramsci was not a Hegelian or
a Crocean idealist. Although he emphasized the role of ideas
and consciousness in the formation of social political relations,
he did not reduce the concept of hegemony to merely super-
structural terms.
He persistently stressed that hegemony as organizing
consent has a material basis:

Though hegemony is ethical-political, it must also be economic,

must necessarily be based on the decisive function exercised by
the leading group in the decisive nucleus of economic activity
(Gramsci, 1971: 161).

Thus only a fundamental class in the world of economy can

become a hegemonic force. A social group can rule without
being the leading force in the economy as was shown in the
case of the Italian bourgeoisie in the period of Risorgimento.

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128 Hyug Baeg Im

But Gramsci did not regard this as a hegemony in true sense.

The political and ideological leadership which the Italian
bourgeoisie exercised over the subordinate masses was an
incomplete or "bastard" hegemony because of insufficient
material basis6 (ibid.: 90).
How does the material base provide the necessary condi-
tion for exercising hegemony? For Gramsci, organizing consent
starts from economic compromise between a dominant class
and subordinate classes. A dominant class can achieve hege-
mony by making concrete coordination of interests with
subordinate classes. In order to make concrete coordination of
interests, the dominant class must not sacrifice the actual
interests of the subordinate classes but rather to some extent
realize those of the subordinate classes by sacrificing some of
its own material interests. Therefore, without becoming the
most dominant force in the world of production, the dominant
class cannot maintain the material base of the economic com-
promise. The development of material forces of production
provide the objective base for the establishment of hegemony
of a dominant class. In order to reproduce hegemony continu-
ously the dominant class should make every effort to reproduce
the existing mode of production.
Nonetheless, the compromise or the concession of the
dominant class to the subordinate classes should be made
within certain limits: The dominant class can make concessions
of the economic corporate interests to the subordinate classes
within certain limit that "such a compromise cannot touch
the essential" economic order (ibid.: 161). If the compromise
"touched the essential," the dominant class could not reproduce
the existing mode of production in the world of production
and in the end could not maintain the dominant position in the
world of production and would lose its material base of
hegemony. Thus a hegemonic class must be able to create and
to maintain an equilibrium between its own fundamental
interests and those of subordinate classes to the extent that the
dominant mode of production cannot be touched and at the
same time that the subordinate classes do not withdraw their

6. For the discussion of Italian bourgeois revolution, see Gramsci (1971:

120); Davis (1979).

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 Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony in Gramsci 129

consent to the rule of the hegemonic class.

Bourgeoisie hegemony is inconceivable without a capitalist
economy. The predominant role and position in the capitalist
economy provide the objective basis for the bourgeoisie
hegemony.
In the capitalist economy, the bourgeoisie as the funda-
mental class, decides how to allocate the product as to wages
and profits under certain constrainst: the excessive profits
relative to wages can and must harm the bourgeois rule in the
capitalist society because the excesses of profits result in reduced
wage level and workers would no longer give voluntary
consent to the bourgeois rule. Yet profits can and must not fall
below a certain level which is sufficient to reproduce the
capitalist economic system. A certain amount of profits is
required for the reproduction of the capitalist economy because
only the existence of profits can provide a necessary invest-
ment fund to reproduce capitalist production. Thus in order to
exercise hegemony, the bourgeoisie must realize to some extent
the material interests of the proletariat without touching "the
essential" of its basic class interests. In this sense, the exercise
of bourgeois hegemony is "conditioned and limited by the
capitalist accumulation process" (Jessop, 1980: 64): Profits
must not fall below the level which is essential for capitalist
accumulation; yet they must not be so large to make capitalists'
interests to be realized at the expense of workers and to make
workers withdraw their consent to bourgeois rule (Przeworski,
1980: 30). Rather, some profits must be transformed into the
improvements of material conditions of workers. The bourgeois
hegemonic system is based on a kind of "unstable equilibria"
in which neither the basic class interests of the bourgeoisie nor
economic corporate interests of the proletariat should be
violated.
However, the leading role and position in the economy
does not automatically provide hegemony of a class. It is a
necessary but not a sufficient condition for the establishment
of hegemony.
Although the bourgeoisie is a dominant force in the capi-
talist economy, the class could not create hegemony over the
subordinate classes if each individual bourgeoisie wants to
pursue only corporative interests and does not want to share

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130 Hyug BaeS Im

the costs for the reproduction of hegemony. According to

Gramsci, in order to be a hegemonic class, the class must
"transcend the corporate limits of purely economic class"
(Gramsci, 1971: 181) and become a 'universal" class which is
able to extend its own class interests to those of subordinate
masses. In order to become a universal class, the economically
fundamental class must exercise political leadership and intel-
lectual and moral leadership in the sphere of superstructures.
In other words, the hegemonic position in the economy must
be functionally related to the hegemonic position in the
spheres of superstructure. Thus Gramsci made it clear that a
truly hegemonic phase occurs at the moment of the decisive
passage from the structure to the spheres of the complex super-
structure (ibid.: 181).
This means that in a hegemonic system the political and
ideological superstructure must function in such a way as to
maintain and consolidate the kind of economic compromise at
the base. But Gramsci did not view superstructure as an epi-
phenomena or a mechanistic reflection of the base. For him,
the political and the ideological spheres, instead, are the site of
class struggle, and they are being formed through the effects of
the struggle. Thus for the continuous reproduction of a hege-
monic system, the political and ideological superstructure must
also be organized in such a way as to be compatible with
economic compromise at the base, since they do not automati-
cally reflect the economic structure. In other words, all the
superstructures such as politics, culture, religion, family
system, school system, law, public opinion have to be or-
ganized in such a way as to form favorable conditions for class
compromise. The construction of a hegemonic system can be
said to be completed when a fundamental class accomplished
the unity of economic, political and ideological hegemony.
Gramsci's concept of "historical bloc" is understood in this
sense. For Gramsci, historical bloc means "the complex, con-
tradictory, and discordant ensemble of the superstructure and
the structure" (ibid. 366). The concept of "historical bloc" pro-
vides us a crucial clue to the problem of correct reading of
Gramsci's notion of hegemony. The concept of historical bloc
makes neither a pure superstructural reading nor an excessive
materialistic reading of Gramsci stand on a sound base. The

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 Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony in Gramsci 131

concept of a "historical bloc" stresses the necessity of

economic, political and ideological unity in a hegemonic
system: Although a dominant economic position and function
is the necessary condition for hegemony, organization of politics
and ideology is also needed for the establishment of a hege-
monic system, because they function "to cement and to unify"
the hegemonic relations at the economic level, and thus to
raise the domination of a social group to the level of "universal
plane."
Then what is the most appropriate political and ideological
system which the hegemonic bourgeoisie has to organize? It is
bourgeois democracy that serves to actualize and to consolidate
the basic capitalist productive relations at the political level.
Bourgeois democracy individualizes the subordinate masses
into "citizens" or people (Poulantzas, 1973). The individualiza-
tion of the subordinate classes as "citizens" or "people" has the
effects of disorganizing the subordinate classes. Every individual
member of a class no longer act qua class but acts qua people
or citizen. Anyone can participate in bourgeois democratic
institutions such as parliaments, political parties, trade unions
and other institutions of political representation, and anyone
can be represented not as a member of a class but as an
individual citizen or voter (Jessop, 1980: 59). In a democracy,
the outcomes of participation are not determined uniquely by
places occupied by participants within the system of produc-
tion, i.e., class positions, and no group is ever certain that its
interests will be realized ex ante or ex post. The indeterminancy
is the distinguishing characteristic of the competition in the
bourgeois democracy. This indeterminacy of bourgeois
democracy provides all the constituents with the opportunity
to realize some of their material interests through competition
in the political arena (Przeworski, 1980: 30). As individual
citizens, rather than immediate producers, wage earners can
express claims to improvements of material conditions through
the democratic institutions. Thus bourgeois democracy pro-
vides the arena of conflicts over the realization of material
interests within the confines of capitalism. Bourgeois hegemony
is possible only when the bourgeoisie reduce the politics (that
is, bourgeois democracy) to the place of struggle for economic-
corporative interests. In bourgeois democracy, the subordinate

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classes are tolerated and even encouraged to participate in the
democratic institutions in return for their consent to bourgeois
rule (that is, rule of the capital). The bourgeois democracy
makes the bourgeois class represent the universal interests of
the society (that is, the maintenance of the capitalist system)
and makes every other member of the subordinate classes
pursue particularistic economic-corporative interests.7
In order to be a hegemonic class of a nation, the bour-
geoisie not only have to create "a new type of politics" but
also construct "a new type of civilization" which ensures
bourgeois hegemony at cultural and ideological level. Gramsci
made it clear that hegemony requires "not only a unison of
economic and political aims, but also intellectual and moral
unity" (Gramsci, 1971: 181). Hegemony based on the class
compromise at the economic level must extend to the ideologi-
cal terrain through which "men gain consciousness of conflicts
in the world of economy." If we accept the proposition that
organizing hegemony can be achieved through the realization
of material interests of the subordinate classes to some extent,
it must be applied to organizing ideological hegemony. Thus,
"corporate consciousness" cannot become a hegemonic ideology.
Hegemonic ideology of the bourgeoisie must be a certain kind
of consciousness which concerns the realization of ideological
interests of the subordinate classes. On the other hand, the
hegemonic bourgeoisie must foster forms of consciousness on
the part of the subordinate masses which accept the position of
subordination, that is, what Gramsci called "corporate con-
sciousness" (Hall, et. al., 1977: 49). In short, ideological
hegemony has to raise the consciousness of the bourgeoisie to
the level of "identifying the interests and the requirements
common to all the national forces" (Gramsci, 1971: 78). The
search for particularistic interests of individual bourgeoisie
cannot become a hegemonic ideology. Thus, for the establish-
ment of ideological hegemony, the dominant bourgeoisie must
form ideological unity through transcending the corporate
consciousness of individual bourgeoisie, and this unified
ideology must be a kind of ideology which is capable of

7. This is why Lenin believed that the bourgeoisie democracy is "the best
possible political shell" for capitalism (Lenin, 1963: 296).

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 Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony in Gramsci 133

representing the general interests of the whole "people-nation."

For Gramsci, it is clear that the bourgeoisie can never
become hegemonic by means of "false consciousness" which is
imposed by the bourgeoisie to deceive workers or to distort
the realities of domination.8 Mass adhesion to the bourgeois
hegemonic system depends on the validation of the bourgeois
hegemonic ideology in their daily lives (Hall, et. al., 1977: 53).
For Gramsci, the function of ideology is to "organize human
masses, and create the terrain on which men move, acquire
consciousness of their position, struggle etc." in the world of the
economy (Gramsci, 1971: 377). It is on the terrain of ideology
that the subordinate masses live their consent to bourgeois
political power and authority in their daily lives. So ideology
cannot function as an ensemble of spiritual realities alone, but
always has to be materialized in practice (Mouffe, 1980: 186).
The material forces provide the means for validating ideology:

Precisely material forces are the content and ideologies are the
form, though this distinction between form and content has
purely didactic value, since the material forces would be con-
ceivable historically without form and the ideologies would be
individual fancies without material force (Gramsci, 1971: 377).

Until now, I have discussed the Gramscian problematic

that the construction of the bourgeois hegemonic system
requires the organization of politics and ideology which is
compatible with the development of the economic structure of
hegemonic system. Then, who is the organizer of those eco-
nomic, political and ideological system? Who organizes the
individual bourgeoisie and proletariat collectively into a class
compromise? The Gramscian problematic of the state comes
out of this juncture. The state is a well defined institution "on
the juridical plane," which organizes the whole society in such
a way as suitable for the formation of class compromise (that
is, "unstable equilibria between the interests of the basic group

8. Gramsci asserted that "men become consciousness of fundamental

conflicts on the level of ideology is not psychological or moralistic in character
but structural and epistemological." For him, the ideological hegemony cannot
be accomplished through neither "continuous marche de dupes" nor "swindles"
(Gramsci, 1971: 164).

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134 Hyug Baeg Im

and those of the subordinate groups 0 not only on the economic

level but also on the political and ideological level:
It is true that the State is seen as the organ of one particular
group, destines to create favorable conditions for the latter's
maximum expansion. But the development and expansion of the
particular groups are conceived of, and presented, as being the
motor force of a universal expansion, of a development of all
national' energies. In other words, the dominant group is coordi-
nated concretely with the general interests of the subordinate
groups, and the life of the State is conceived of as a continuous
process of formation and superceding of unstable equilibria
(on the juridical plane) between the interests of the fundamental
groups and those of the subordinate groups - equilibria in which
the interests of the dominant group prevail, but only up to a
certain point, i.e., stopping short of narrowly corporate eco-
nomic interest (ibid. 182).

For Gramsci, the capitalist state can never be viewed merely

as an instrument of a dominant class (that is, the instrument
of promoting particularistic interests of the bourgeois class),
but as the instrument of producing class compromise neces-
sary for bourgeois hegemony (Sassoon, 1978: 31). In this
sense, one of Gramsci's theoretical breakthroughs lies in the
fact that he never confined himself to an instrumentalist no-
tion of the state but widened the horizon of the function of
the capitalist state. The recent upsurge of studies on the theories
of capitalist state in neo-Marxist groups can largely be attributed
to Gramsci.
The main function of the capitalist state is the reproduction
of capitalist social relations at the economic, political, and
ideological level. The capitalist state performs functions that
'raise the great masses of the population to a particular cultural
and moral level, a level which corresponds to the productive
force for development" (Gramsci, 1971: 258). The capitalist
state organizes a political and ideological system in such a way
as to form favorable condition for the class compromise
between hegemonic bourgeoisie and subordinate classes. For
Gramsci, the capitalist state is viewed as "the organizer of
consent" in the bourgeois hegemonic system. Thus every
institution which participates in organizing consent can be

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 Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony in Gramsci 135

included in Gramscian category of the state. Therefore, Gram-

scian concept of the state is a very extended one. It is never
confined to merely the apparatus of the organized physical
force, but includes all the civil institutions which function for
the reproduction of the bourgeois hegemonic system, that is,
"state = political society + civil society" (ibid.: 263). For Gram-
sci, the massive structures of civil institutions, the church, the
schools, newspapers, etc. are all included in the boundary of
the state because these institutions function to conform the
culture and morality of the popular masses to the needs of the
capitalist economy.9
Educative and formative role of the state. Its aim is always that
of creating new and higher type of civilization, of adapting the
'civilization" and the morality of the broadest popular masses
to the necessities of the continuous development of the economic
apparatus of production; hence of evolving even physically new
types of humanity (ibid.: 242).

Thus the state phase is the highest phase of struggle for hege-
mony because the state is the site for the generalization of
class domination.
However, bourgeois hegemony cannot always be main-
tained by active and voluntary consent of the subordinate
masses. When the masses "do not 'consent' either actively or
passively," the apparatus of state coercive power "legally"
enforces discipline on those groups (ibid.: 12). Bourgeois
hegemony is always "protected by the armor of coercion"
(ibid.: 263). Thus the elements of coercion are always inherent
in a hegemony. Although under normal circumstances, the
elements of coercion are latent in the hegemony, they are
mainfested when consent is not sufficient to reproduce
capitalist relations. Gramsci makes it clear that "hegemony
and dictatorship is indistinguishable, force and consent are
simply equivalent" (ibid. : 271).

9. Developing Gramsci's thesis, Louis Althusser conceptualized "ideologi-

cal state apparatuses" (Althusser, 1977a).

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136 Hyiig Baeg Im

The Crisis of Bourgeois Hegemony and

The Passive Revolution

As discussed in the preceding part of this paper, Gramscian

concept of hegemony can and must be understood by "bloc"
concept. Hegemonic system is a "historical bloc" in which
economic, political and ideological subsystem is unified into
"the complex, contradictory, and discordant ensemble." The
crisis of hegemony occurs at the time of rupture in the
ensemble. But Gramsci never identified the crisis of hegemony
with the breakdown of the system. In this sense, Gramsci
rejected an economistic and catastrophic interpretation of crisis:
An economic crisis leads to the collapse of capitalism and
creates the necessary conditions for the transition to socialism.
Instead, Gramsci emphasized the possibility of the survival of
capitalism in the face of economic and political crises. Bourgeois
hegemony faces a crisis situation when the bourgeoisie cannot
ensure the development of the society's productive forces in
capitalist economy. For example, if a war or great economic
crises weakens the material base of bourgeois hegemony and
thus deprives the bourgeoisie of the leading role in the world
of production, the bourgeoisie cannot make the grounds for a
class compromise through which the masses give spontaneous
consent to the bourgeoisie rule.
However, though the crisis of bourgeois hegemony arises
out of an economic crisis, every economic crisis does not
develop into a hegemonic crisis. In other words, the masses do
not withdraw their consent to bourgeois rule immediately at
every economic crisis. An economic crisis develops into a
hegemonic crisis only if it affects the superstructural plane.
Bourgeois hegemony meets with crisis only when the bourgeoi-
sie's economic incapacity leads into political incapacity:
This means that even the most serious economic crises do not
have immediate repercussions in the political sphere. Politics
always lags behind economic, far behind. The state apparatus is
far more resistant than is often possible to believe; and it
succeeds, at moments of crisis, in organizing greater forces loyal
to the regime than the depth of the crisis might lead one to
suppose (Gramsci, 1978: 408-409).

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 Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony in Gramsci 137

Thus, for Gramsci, a hegemonic crisis is a 'crisis of authority"

which occurs on two conditions: First, the bourgeois class fails
in its major political undertaking to obtain the consent of the
broad masses when it is no longer leading the economy; second,
the masses become detached from the traditional ideologies
and pass from a state of political passivity to a certain activity
(Gramsci, 1971: 210 and 275-76).
In consequence, the crisis presents itself first in the form
of a crisis of political representation:
At a certain point in their historical lives, social classes become
detached from their traditional parties. In other words, the
traditional parties in that particular organizational form, with
the particular men who constitute, represent, and lead them, are
no longer recognized by their class (or fraction of a class) as its
expression (ibid.: 210).

When the crisis of representation is not reduced to merely

parliamentary representation, but impacts on all bodies of
superstructures, the crisis is developed into a general crisis of
the state. The bourgeois ideological bloc crumbles away and
bourgeois democracy is no longer accepted by the masses as
the organizing principle of society. The ruling bourgeoisie can
continue to rule only by shifting the mode of hegemony.
Coercive elements inherent in a hegemonic system are laid
bare, that is, "spontaneity" is replaced by "constraint" (ibid. :
61).
However, the crisis does not necessarily lead to the break-
down of system and a revolutionary transition of power. In
order to explain this phenomenon Gramsci liked to quote a
phrase from Marxs Preface to A Contribution to a Critique of
Political Economy :
1. No social formation disappears as long as the productive
forces which have developed within it still find room for
further forward movement;
2. A society does not set itself tasks for whose solution the
necessary conditions have not already been incubated, etc.
(ibid.: 106 and 177).

Even during hegemonic crisis, the bourgeoisie "still can

find room for further forward movement" if "there is room"
for the development of the capitalist economy and the material

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138 Hyug Baeg trn

conditions for new socialist economy have not yet matured in

the womb of capitalist society.
Gramsci described the crisis situation as "the old is dying
and the new cannot be born" (ibid.: 276). The situation creates
a catastrophic balance of forces "in which the forces in conflict
balance each other in a catastrophic manner, that is to say,
they balance each other in such a way that a continuation of
the conflict can only terminate in their reciprocal destruction"
(ibid.: 220). A catastrophic equilibrium takes place when the
bourgeoisie can no longer lead, while, at the same time, the
alternative leading forces are not mature enough to replace the
bourgeois hegemony. In the situation of catastrophic equilibrium,
the bourgeoisie can still continue to rule without hegemony
through the transformation of superstructures and the reconsti-
tution of the economy.
Gramsci called the process of political and economic
reconstitution by the bourgeoisie in and through crises
"passive revolution."10 Passive revolution has two aspects:
positive and negative. The negative aspects of a passive
revolution consist of efforts of the bourgeoisie to keep the
subordinate classes constantly at a corporate level by preserv-
ing their relative weakness and neutralizing "popular initiatives."
But such a defensive effort is not enough for the bourgeoisie to
maintain its rule at the time of crises. The bourgeoisie, in a
positive move, must revolutionize itself economically and
politically.
During passive revolution the state plays a decisive role.
In Gramsci's description, when the ability of the bourgeoisie to
organize consent of the masses is weakened, the state replaces
much of the role and function of dominant class in leading the
struggle for the survival of capitalism. When the crisis brings
the "legality" of bourgeois hegemony into danger, the coercive
organs of the state come into action "publicly." The state
reorganizes not only "vast state bureaucracies" but also total
"organs of political order, i.e., political parties, trade union,
and other civil organization" to safeguard the political and
10. Originally Neapolitan conservative thinker Vincenzo Cuoco formu-
lated the term "passive revolution" which was meant revolution without mass
participation nor popular initiatives (Gramsci, 1971: 59 fn.). For further analysis
of "passive revolution/' see Sassoon (1982); Buci-Glucksmann (1980b).

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 Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony in Gramsci 139

economic domination of the ruling class (Gramsci, 1971: 221).

However, mere exercising of coercive power is not enough to
cope with the crisis. The state reorganizes the capitalist eco-
nomy in such a way as to raise productivity through the
reorganization of work and of productive forces from above.
According to Gramsci, Americanism and Fordism, and Fascist
corporatism are typical examples of passive revolution to
reorganize the economy.
"Americanism and Fordism" is the passive revolution by
the capitalists and the state in the stage of monopoly capitalism
trying to overcome "the law of the tendency of rate of profit
to fall" through the rationalization of industry and labor. In
coping with crisis of post-World War I and of 1929, American
capitalism reorganized itself from "the old economic individu-
alism to the planned economy" (ibid.: 279). Americanism (for
example, New Deal) is a passive revolution or a passive
restructuring of capitalism by the state. Thus, the expansion of
the state function is needed for the state's penetration of the
economy and civil institutions. The state itself becomes the
biggest plutocratic organism and a holding company for the
great mass of savings of the small capitalists (ibid.: 315).
Moreover, the state assumed an "economic policing" function:
The state semi-liquidated the free trade unions and replaced
them by a system of mutually isolated factory-based worker's
organizations (ibid.: 292).
The Fascist passive revolution is a "corporatist" kind of
capitalist reorganization of the productive forces through
state's initiatives and "planning":
[Fascism is] a passive revolution involved in the fact that - through
the legislative intervention of the State, and by means of the
corporative organization - relatively far-reaching modifications
are being introduced into country's economic structure in
order to accentuate the "plan of production" element; in other
words, that socialization and co-operation in the sphere of
production are being increased, without however touching (or
at least not going beyond the regulation and control of)
individual and group appropriation of profit (ibid.: 119-120).

Faced with the structural crisis of the capitalist mode of

production in the post-war period, especially 1929 crisis, the
Fascist state reorganized the whole national economy along the

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140 Hyug Baeg Im

lines of "corporatism." The Fascist state created "corporation"

as "an autonomous industrial productive bloc" consisting of
both capital and labor in order to resolve the crisis through
class collaboration in the field of the organization of the
economy. Another aspect of corporatism is that it is an
attempt to introduce the principle of a "plan of production" in
capitalist economy which purported to overcome anarchy in
production by organizing capitalism and thus to increase both
the level of working class savings and that of capitalists profits
(ibid.: 291).
Gramsci's discussion of passive revolution is not limited to
the reorganization of politics and economy but also includes
cultural or ideological reorganization. For Gramsci, the
reorganization of capitalism needs an intensified system of
ideological and moral constrainst which serves as an ideological
cement for the productive function (Buci-Glucksmann, 1980b:
83). The new industrialism needs the strengthening of the
"family," the regulation and stability of sexual relations (for
example, monogamy), puritanism and prohibition, masculinism,
and so on. These "ideologies of producers" must be more func-
tional in terms of productive developments at the base. These
ideological offensives to workers serves as a function to "main-
tain in stability a skilled labor force suited to the system of
production and work" (Gramsci, 1971: 303). These ideologies
are necessary condition for creating a new type of worker
whose way of life is suitable to the reorganized capitalism.
For Gramsci, the passive revolution at the superstructural
level is closely unified with the passive revolution at the base.
As a consequence of passive revolution, a new kind of histori-
cal bloc is formed, and this has an effect on the reintegration
of the subordinate masses into the hegemonic institutions of
the bourgeoisie.

Counter-Hegemony

The superstructural literatures on Gramsci emphasize

cultural or ideological struggle for hegemony even before the
conquest of state power.11 However, if we accept the Gramscian
11. "Waiting for civil society to adapt to the new structure by means of

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 Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony in Gramsci 141

proposition that to be a hegemonic force, a class must enjoy

dominant position and function in the world of economy, the
real proletarian hegemony is not possible prior to socialist
revolution. The proletarian ideology or culture cannot acquire
the status of universality unless it is validated by materialization
and supported by political power. In many places of the
Prison Notebooks, Gramsci made explicit the difficulties of the
establishment of proletarian hegemony before the seizure of
state power:

From the moment in which a subaltern group becomes really

autonomous and hegemonic, thus bringing into being a new
form of State, we experience the concrete birth of a need to
construct a new intellectual and moral order, that is, a new type
of society and hence the need to develop more universal con-
cepts and more refined and decisive ideological weapons (ibid.:
388).
It is the conception of a subaltern social group, deprived of his-
torical initiative, in continuous but disorganic expansion, unable
to go beyond a certain qualitative level, which still remains below
the level of the possession of the State and of the real exercise
of hegemony over the whole of society which alone permits a
certain organic equilibrium in the development of the intellectual
group (author emphasis) (ibid.: 396).
Only after the creation of the new State does the cultural prob-
lem impose itself in all its complexity and tend towards a co-
herent solution. In any case the attitude to be taken up before
the formation of the new State can only be critico-polemical,
never dogmatic (author emphasis) (ibid.: 398).
In strict sense, the hegemony of dominated classes is itself
a contradictory concept (Hall, et al., 1977: 68). Gramsci,
however, did never fall into the kind of fatalism or economistic
determinism which rules out the whole possibility of socialist
revolution within the womb of capitalist social formation.
Even though capitalist mode of production and state power do
not permit the real proletarian hegemony within the womb of
capitalist society, it does not rule out the possibility of struggle
for hegemony.
propaganda and persuasion, and for the old homo oeconomicus to disappear
without burying in with all the honors he deserves, is a new form of empty and
inconsistent economic moralism, a new form of economic rhetoric." Gramsci,
Il Materialismo Storico , p. 267, cited from Texier (1979: 69).

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142 Hyug Baeg Im

A social group can, and indeed must, already exercise 'leadership"

before winning governmental power (this indeed is one of the
principal conditions for the winning of such power) (Gramsci,
1971: 57).

For Gramsci, moment of hegemony is always contested by

alternative hegemony. Hegemony is created through incessant
class struggles and thus always has to be won, secured and
constantly defended (Hall, et al, 1977). What Gramsci had in
mind was a kind of political and ideological construction of
counter-hegemony against bourgeois hegemony (that is,
counter hegemonic alliance with other social groups struggling
for the future interests of socialist society). Gramsci's problem-
atic of the formation of new historical bloc and of a new
collective will of the subaltern classes stresses the importance
of organizing counter-hegemony within the womb of capitalist
society:
Society does not pose itself problems for whose solution the
material preconditions do not already exist. This proposition
immediately raises the problem of the formation of a collective
will. In order to analyze critically what the precisely how
permanent collective will are formed, and how such wills set
themselves concrete short-term and long-term ends - i.e., a line
of collective action (Gramsci, 1971: 194).

Therefore, counter-hegemony is not a real hegemony in strict

sense, but economic, political and ideological preparations for
hegemony before overthrowing capitalism or before winning
state power.
Then, what is the content of counter-hegemonic project
before winning socialist state? The political and ideological
struggle for hegemony within the womb of capitalist society
includes struggle for dismantling the present bourgeois
historical bloc (that is, ensemble between the capitalist economy
and political and ideological superstructures in the bourgeois
hegemonic system) and at the same time for constructing a
new alternative historical bloc (that is, the political and ideo-
logical construction which enables the transformation of
capitalist relations of production).
Yet, there are two main constraints in the construction of
porletarian counter-hegemony.

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 Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony in Gramsci 143

First, modern capitalist society (that is, both state organi-

zations and complex civil associations) on which bourgeois
hegemony is based, is such a sturdy and complex structure as
to ensure the survival of bourgeois hegemony even in the
political and economic crises, and thus makes proletarian
political and ideological intervention extremely difficult:
In the case of the most advanced states, where "Civil Society"
has become a very complex structure and one which is resistant
to the catastrophic "incursions" of the immediate economic
element (crises, depressions, etc.). The superstructures of civil
society are like the trench-systems of modern warfare. . . The
same thing happens in politics, during great economic crises. A
crisis cannot give the attacking forces the ability to organize
with lightning speed in time and in space; still less can it endow
with fighting spirit (ibid.: 235).

Second, in the advanced capitalist society, a number of

categories of poeple are not exclusively determined by the
capitalist relations of production. Thus workers occupies less
and less proportion of the subordinate masses. The changing
class structure have threatened the privileged position of
working class in the anti-capitalist struggles. The potentiality
of overthrowing capitalism by working class alone becomes
less and less certain.
From these constraints, the strategy of constructing
working class hegemony must be that of "war of position," not
that of "war of movement." When workers face with the
existence of the sturdy "trench system" in the bourgeois
hegemony, and at the same time, do not have enough potential
to lead a counter-hegemonic struggle alone, they are constrained
in their choice of strategy for counter-hegemony. A frontal
attack on the bourgeois hegemonic system (this is, "war of
movement") might not be a feasible strategy under these con-
straints. Thus, a "war of position" is the most appropriate
strategy for winning proletarian hegemony prior to the seizure
of power. The strategy of a war of position can be understood
by the dialectic of destruction and construction (that is, "no
destruction without construction" in Gramsci's word) (ibid.:
168): The destruction of mass political and economic base of
the bourgeois hegemony can and must be achieved by the con-
struction of its own mass political and economic base through

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144 Hyug Baeg Im

the alliance with anticapitalist national popular forces. In other

words, the disarticulation of bourgeois historical bloc has to be
made through the articulation of proletarian historical bloc;
and the detachment of traditional intellectuals from the bour-
geois ruling bloc by the development of organic intellectuals.
According to Gramsci, the theory of "frontal attack" or
war of movement comes out of "iron economic determinism"
whose proposition is that an economic crisis of capitalism
leads directly to political and ideological victory of working
class through the revolutionary spontaneity of working class:
Whenever the crisis comes, the working class is always prepared
to make holes in the "trenches" of bourgeois hegemony and
thus to conquer the fortress of capitalist state. However, the
historical experience of working class movement shows us that
working class has not always been prepared to make a hole in
the "trenches" at the moment of crisis of bourgeois hegemony.
Thus, Gramsci stressed the need to prepare hegemony prior to
the moment of crisis. The strategy of war of position emphasizes
more "construction" of counter-hegemony than "destruction"
of bourgeois hegemony.
Historically, the strategy of war of movement was suc-
cessful in Russian Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks could
conquer state power because the previous ruling class did not
enjoy an extended "civil hegemony." Conquering Russian state
was possible by a lightning strike against the bastions of state
power. However, in the West where the ruling class not only
possesses state power but also organizes civil hegemony, the
frontal attack on the state power cannot be an appropriate
strategy for proletarian revolution:
In Russia the State was everything, civil society was primordial
and gelatinous; in the West, there was a proper relation between
between State and civil society, and when the state trembled a
sturdy structure of civil society was at once revealed. The state
was only an outer ditch, behind which there stood a powerful
system of fortresses and earthworks (ibid.: 238).

In the advanced capitalist society where the ruling class

possesses "the organizational reserves" in crisis period, the
possibility of revolution is not always "permanent" in every
conjunctural crisis. Therefore, for the establishment of counter-

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 Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony in Gramsci 145

hegemony, a more complex strategy of a 'war of position" is

required. The working class must build up anti-bourgeois
trenches and fortifications in order to disarticulate the present
bourgeois power bloc and at the same time to construct
political and ideological leadership of the working class among
the anti-capitalist masses. Thus, the proletarian war of position
as a political and ideological struggle for counter-hegemony
within the womb of capitalist society demands "enormous
sacrifices" and "exceptional qualities of patience and inventive-
ness," that is, "unprecedented concentration of hegemony" (ibid.:
238-239).
First of all, the working class must disarticulate the present
bourgeois historical bloc and construct its own alternative
historical bloc so as to unite various anticapitalist social forces
around a new alternative hegemonic project at the economic,
political and ideological level.
In order to construct an alternative historical bloc, work-
ing class has to articulate the political and ideological condi-
tions which will form a close ensemble with the future socialist
mode of production. Then, working class can draw people in
the various "contradictory locations" (Wright, 1978: 91-96)
around the alternative historical project. Thus the counter-
hegemonic project of working class must be based on the
proposition that the future proletarian hegemony could solve
all the contradictions in capitalist society which had been
created by other than pure class contradiction. If the project
does not include programs to resolve such contradictions, the
project could not attract the subordinate masses other than
workers.
For the project, therefore, working class should "transcend
the corporative limits of the purely economic class," and
transform itself into a "national class" representing general
interests of the whole subordinate masses.
As Adam Przeworski stresses, "political class struggle is a
struggle about class before it is a struggle among classes"
(Przeworski, 1977: 372). The working class as a class-in-hege-
monic struggle must have definitive answers to some funda-
mental questions: Who belongs to working class?; whose
interests does it represent?; how does it organize its economic,
political, and ideological relations with other classes or social

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146 Hyug Baeg Im

groups?
The first question concerns the boundary of working
class. The boundary of working class cannot be determined
uniquely by the structure of the system of production but by
"the continual effects of the totality of economic, ideological
and political struggles" (Przeworski, 1977: 371-373). In order
to be a hegemonic class, working class has to pose itself on a
universal plane, that is economic, political and ideological unity
of a nation as a whole. A pure economic-corporative class
could not represent such a unity of a nation. Thus, working
class should not confine its class boundary defined strictly by
objective position within the capitalist relations of production
(that is, class position) but expand the boundary to include the
majority of "people-nation." Hegemonic struggle is, indeed, a
struggle to obtain the status of "universal class" between
competing fundamental classes.
The second question concerns the problem of content of
counter-hegemonic project. As discussed above, in order to
rally the majority of subordinate masses to the proletarian
counter-hegemonic project, the project must include the reali-
zation of the interests of the allied strata of the working class,
that is, the realization of "national-popular interests." Thus,
the project of counter-hegemony must include not only the
solution to class contradictions directly related to the relations
of production but also the solution to other contradictions
between ruling power bloc and "people-nation" in which the
economic relations do not occupy a crucial position. The
variety of contradictions within "people /power bloc contradic-
tion"12 such as sexism, racism, ecological movement, student
movement, and so on are the kinds of contradictions which
cannot be reduced to merely the contradictions at the level of
social relations of production. In order to organize masses of
"people-nation" into a counter-hegemonic bloc, the solutions
to such a variety of contradictions, too, must be articulated
within the project of counter-hegemony. The articulation of
"national-popular collective" interests poses the possibility of
multiple projects, and the counter-hegemonic project can and

12. For the discussion of "people/power bloc contradiction," see Laclau

(1977).

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 Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony in Gramsci 147

must be a unified version of these multiple projects.13 It implies

that the counter-hegemonic project based on a simple model of
class confrontation (that is, a war of movement) cannot be the
appropriate project for the articulation of national popular
collective will.
The last question concerns the problem of the leadership
of counter-hegemonic struggle. Articulating various elements
of the "national-popular" interests may create multiple central-
izes in the counter-hegemonic struggle. Working class might
be prepared to lose leadership in the struggle (that is, counter-
hegemony without the leadership of the working class). So
called 'counter-hegemony beyond working class" raises the
question of whether or not it is possible to resolve various
antagonistic relations between ruling class and people-nation
without the abolition of class antagonism.
To the above question, Gramsci's answer is clear:
The content of the political hegemony of the new social group
which has founded the new type of State must be predominantly
of an economic order: what is involved is the reorganization
of the structure and the real relations between men on the one
hand and the world of the economy or of production on the
other" (Gramsci, 1971: 263).

This means that even though there are a number of alter-

native projects for counter-hegemony, the success of a counter-
hegemonic project is not possible without the transformation of
economic structure. Thus, the leadership in the counter-hege-
monic struggle belongs to working class because working class
only is the fundamental class in the future world of socialist
economy.
Gramsci thought that developing a counter-hegemonic
project around other issues without touching the issue of trans-
forming economic structure cannot provide the real solution to
replace the bourgeois hegemony. In "Americanism and Fordism"
and other sections of Prison Notebooks , Gramsci made it clear
that in capitalist society, the particular organizations of family,
sex, leisure, education, etc. are organized in such a way as to
function compatibly with the needs of productive developments
13. This is what Laclau and Mouffe understand counter-hegemony
(Laclau and Mouffe, 1985).

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148 Hyug Baeg Im

at the base. As discussed in the second part of this paper, the

educative role of the capitalist state is understood in this sense,
that is, to create "the new type of man" who are acting volun-
tarily consistent with the productive relations. This means that
various contradictions are functionally related to the contradic-
tion in the relations of production and thus the resolution of
other contradictions without the resolution of class contradic-
tion cannot be sufficient to realize the whole problematic of
counter-hegemonic project . Gramscian counter-hegemonic
project is, therefore, basically the working class project of
constructing socialist society. In other words, the alliance of
"national-popular" must be organized under the leadership of
the working class (that is, counter-hegemonic bloc led by the
working class).
Yet, the leadership of working class in the construction of
socialism should not be understood as a class reductionist
concept. Working class can achieve the leadership in the counter-
hegemonic bloc only when working class as the fundamental
social force in the transition to socialism becomes the bearers of
universal interests of the whole counter-hegemonic bloc.
Therefore, the vision of socialism must be a broadened vision of
socialism in which all kinds contradictions in capitalist society
can find ultimate solutions. Current discussions of the left about
the future socialist project, such as socialism without repression
of women, destruction of enviornment, repressive school
system, racial discrimination, etc. provide one example of such
a broadened vision of socialism (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985: 178).
Various social groups composing a counter-hegemonic bloc
can find the commonality of interests in such a broadened vision
of socialism. Then the counter-hegemonic project is not reduced
to the construction of simple coalition among different social
groups, each of whom has its own autonomous interests, but a
unified project integrating the various social groups into a
cohesive, unified social subject, that is, the formation of "na-
tional-popular collective."
However, the formation of national-popular collective is
not an autonomous process. Under the bourgeois hegemonic
system, the hegemonic bourgeoisie keeps the consciousness of
the subordinate masses at the level of corporate consciousness
(that is, "common sense"). Thus not until the subordinate

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 Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony in Gramsci 149

masses transcend the level of corporate common sense and have

"the conception of the world of the leading group" (Gramsci,
1971: 421) can they become the subject of hegemonic strug-
gle. According to Gramsci, 'national-popular collective will"
is not created by the spontaneous movement of the masses,
but must be organized. Then who takes the role of organizing
'national-popular collective" as the subject in counter-hegemonic
struggle? According to Gramsci, organic intellectuals "who are
conscious of being linked organically to a national-popular
mass" perform such role of organizing counter-hegemony. In
the proletarian counter-hegemonic struggle, the working class
party elaborates its own category of intellectuals who are
assigned to the function of "organizer and mediators" of "in-
tellectual and moral reform" for the formation of a "national-
popular collective will."
Because the "common sense" of the masses is "not critical
and coherent but disjointed and episodic," the internal frag-
mentations and contradictions in common sense cannot be an
"autonomous consciousness" (that is, a hegemonic conscious-
ness) which is able to supersede the given state of the world.
Thus, Gramsci stressed the necessity of transforming frag-
mented and contradictory common sense into a coherent,
unified conception of the world (ibid.: 324). In other words, the
elements of spontaneity of the masses must be "educated,
directed, purged of extraneous contaminations" (ibid.: 198).
In order to be the educator of the masses who elaborates
"the national-popular collective will" consistent with proletarian
counter-hegemonic project, the working class party must be
transformed from a narrowly defined proletarian party to a
national party which represents not only the corporate interests
of pure working class determined by capitalist productive rela-
tions but also the interests of various elements of "people-na-
tion" oppressed by other antagonistic relations within capitalist
society. Only after transforming itself into a "national party,"
the socialist party is able to gather the majority of population
around a collective project toward a new counter-hegemony.

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150 Hyug Baeg Im

Conclusion

In this paper, I have examined the Gramscian notion of

hegemony and counter-hegemony.
The first question was centered on the nature and content
of bourgeois hegemony. The debate in reading Gramsci has
been unfolded around the issue whether hegemony as organiz-
ing consent of the subordinate masses is based on economic
compromise at the base or ideological supremacy. Now it
becomes clear that hegemony is fundamentally based on the
leading role of a dominant class in the world of economy.
Enjoying dominant position in the economy provides the ob-
jective basis for the exercise of hegemony.
However, Gramsci was never a dogmatic determinist. For
him, superstructure is not mechanical reflection of the economic
structure. Dominant position and function in the economy is
necessary but not sufficient condition for hegemony. In order to
exercise hegemony, political and ideological superstructure
must also be organized in such a way as to draw political, social
and cultural life into a larger conformity with the basic needs of
economic base. What Gramsci noted that "truly hegemonic
phase occurs on the decisive passage from the structure to the
sphere of complex superstructures" can be understood in this
sense. Thus, to emphasize only one aspect of hegemony (that is,
cultural or material) is in no way useful to proper understanding
of the concept of hegemony. Rather, the concept of hegemony
must be understood as an ensemble of economic, political and
ideological leadership of a fundamental class. Gramsci explained
the unity of three levels of hegemony - structural, political,
and ideological - with the concept of "historical bloc."
However, the bourgeois hegemonic system is not always
maintained by consent of the masses. It is protected by the
armor of coercion. The intervention of organized physical force
is a crucial means of the maintenance of the bourgeois hegemonic
system in the period of crisis. Nevertheless, the intervention of
physical force is not enough to cope with the crisis. Gramsci
found that the ruling bourgeoisie revolutionize itself economi-
cally, politically, and ideologically in and through crises and
explained this phenomenon with the concept of "passive revolu-
tion." Under the crisis situation, the role of the state becomes

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 Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony in Gramsci 151

more critical than under normal times of hegemony. The state

not only bares its coercive functions with the monopoly of the
organized physical force (army, police, courts, etc.), but also
intervenes into the reorganization of hegemonic system econom-
ically, politically, and culturally by means of both persuasion
and punishment.14
According to Gramsci, the bourgeois hegemonic system is a
massive fortress that extraordinarily restricts the development
of proletarian hegemony within the womb of capitalist social
formation. If we take for granted the Gramscian proposition
that, to exercise hegemony, any social group or class must
represent the most hegemonic force in a society, the hegemony
of a subordinate class might be itself a contradictory term.
Suppose that the possession of the state power provides the
ultimate ground for the coherent solution to the problem of
organizing superstructures consistent with hegemony at the
base, the real proletarian hegemony is hardly possible prior to
the conquest of state power. Nevertheless, Gramsci stressed the
need to establish an alternative hegemony by the subaltern
social groups even before winning state power.
Is Gramsci contradictory in the sense that even though he
speaks of the difficulties of the establishment of counter-hege-
mony, he still stresses the need to establish a hegemony prior to
the conquest of state power?
I do not think Gramsci is contradictory. Gramsci well ac-
knowledged difficulties of the establishment of the proletarian
hegemony. But he never abandoned the counter-hegemonic
struggle before the moment of state power. The counter-hege-
monic struggle is understood in the sense that it is not the hege-
mony of the proletariat in true sense but a kind of preparation
for hegemony. Gramsci did not accept an economic determinist
position that historically, crisis of capitalism comes with the
regularity of natural laws and provides an objective basis
favorable to proletarian revolution. Within the problematic of
economism, the intervention of the subjective element is "not
only useless but even harmful." But when the crisis does not
evolve into a revolutionary situation, economism falls into a
kind of fatalism or abstentionism. Arguing against economism,
14. "The State, in this field, too, is an instrument of 'rationalization,' of
acceleration and of taylorisation" (Gramsci, 1971: 247).

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152 Hyug Baeg Im

Gramsci emphasized an active and conscious preparation for the

moment of crisis. Gramscian strategy of the counter-hegemony
prior to the moment of state power stresses the political and
ideological construction rather than the destruction of fortress
of the bourgeois hegemonic system. Gramsci elaborated the
strategy with the concept of "war of position." Then what is the
nature and content of counter-hegemonic construction? What
Gramsci had in mind was the construction of a broad alliance of
anti-capitalist forces. The working class can construct a counter-
hegemonic coalition with the broad strata of "people-nation"
only when it can articulate hegemonic principles which provide
the coherent solution to realize universal interests of "people-
nation." The pursuit of corporative interests of working class
cannot be the interests of allied social groups within counter-
hegemonic bloc. In capitalist society, class contradiction is the
central contradiction arising at the level of relations of produc-
tion. However, there also exists plurality of contradictions
which have not been created exclusively by the capitalist rela-
tions of production. Therefore, a number of social group have
antagonistic relations with the ruling bourgeoisie due to other
contradictions than a basic economic contradiction. Thus, the
proletarian counter-hegemonic project must include the solution
to such a variety of contradictions as well as class contradiction.
Gramsci spoke of the formation of "national-popular collective
will" as an attempt to solve this problematic.
Now, let me discuss the limitations in Gramsci's theory of
hegemony.
Gramsci thought that the dominant economic class can
organize superstructural institutions (that is, not only the state
but also civil institutions such as the family system, the shcool
system, the sexual relation, the religion, etc.) in such a way as
to function compatibly with economic relations. This conception
led him to argue that the content of new counter-hegemony is
predominantly an economic order, and thus, the working class
as the fundamental class in future socialist mode of production
must take leadership in counter-hegemonic struggle.
The centrality of economic issue may be incompatible with
his problematic of the formation of "national-popular" alliance.
Various elements within "national-popular" have antagonistic
relations with capitalist class due to non-economic contradic-

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 Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony in Gramsci 153

tions. They will gather around a counter-hegemonic project

only when the project contains the real solution to their
contradictions. Now the problem is whether or not the resolu-
tion of economic contradiction (that is, change of mode of
production) can provide the real solution to other contradic-
tions. If not, the centrality of the 'economic" might be
incompatible with the formation of counter-hegemonic alliance
with various elements of 'national-popular/' What Gramsci had
in mind to this question seems to me that, because in a hegemonic
system different aspects of social relations are organized in such
a way as to function compatibly with economic relations, the
resolution of the contradiction in economic relations through
the change of mode of production would provide the resolution
of the contradictions in other area of social relations. I do
not think Gramsci gave us an adequate answer. As Althusser
examined, although the principal contradiction in capitalist
society is an economic one, there also arises a "fusion" or
"accumulation" of contradictions which are not merely "pure
phenomena of the principal contradiction (Althusser, 1977b:
100). The resolution of the principal contradiction (that is,
socialization of means of production, or the abolition of exploi-
tation) could not be a sufficient condition for the resolution of
other contradictions. Conversely, it is not true that the resolu-
tion of other contradictions necessarily involves the resolution
of principal contradiction (that is, transformation of mode of
production).
If there does not exist perfect functionality between social
relations of production and other aspects of social relations, the
pure proletarian counter-hegemonic project cannot be the in-
terests of everyone who is being oppressed in capitalist society.
In order to organize the participation of various social subjects
within national-popular (that is, women, blacks, students,
ethnic groups, ecologists, and so on) into a counter-hegemonic
project, plurality of revolutionary project must be articulated
within a counter-hegemonic project. Nonetheless, the plurality
of project must not be understood as simple parallelism of vari-
ous projects within a counter-hegemonic project. Because every
contradiction is not absolutely independent of each other, but
relatively autonomous and mutually determinant, the resolu-
tion of contradiction one by one separately without the résolu-

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154 Hyug Baeg Im

tion of other contradictions is actually impossible. Thus plural-

ity of project must be integrated into a cohesive, unified project
in which multiplicity of social groups enter into common prac-
tices along the lines of commonality of interests.
Because of the diversity of the bloc, there exists complexi-
ty or even contradiction of interests among the components of
the bloc. Thus the creation of a unified project must be based
on compromise among different social groups. The compromise
must be made in the direction that various projects of particular
groups are integrated into a single unified project in which par-
ticularistic interests of each group is sacrificed for the universal
interests of the whole counter-hegemonic bloc.
Then what is the universal interests of the whole counter-
hegemonic bloc within capitalist society? The universal interests
are not given prior to articulation. The universal interests of a
counter-hegemonic bloc are formed as an outcome of economic,
political, and ideological struggles in the sense that the content
and nature are defined in the process of struggle to disarticulate
the present bourgeois hegemonic principle and at the same time
to articulate its own hegemonic principle in such a way as to
rally all the popular forces to counter-hegemonic project. The
articulation of plurality of project within a counter-hegemonic
project demands the reconsideration of the necessary privileged
position of working class in the counter-hegemonic bloc and the
establishment of democratic relationship within the bloc. Working
class is not the sole articulator of the counter-hegemonic bloc.
Other social subjects constituting counter-hegemonic bloc can
also be the articulator of the project. Thus the Gramscian formula
- "working class and its allies" or "counter-hegemonic bloc led by
the working class" - must be broadened into "broad democratic
counter-hegemonic bloc." I mean "broad democratic counter-
hegemonic bloc" in the sense that each social group constituting
the bloc has democratic relationship with other groups and is
not subordinate to a "universal caretaker" (Bridges, 1978: 132).
In this way, the Gramscian concept of hegemony can be
developed in much a wider way and has more profound theore-
tical implications.

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 Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony in Gramsci 155

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