George Eaton, New Statesman: Why Antonio Gramsci is the Marxist thinker for our times
The late Italian philosopher's concept of hegemony was startlingly prescient.
At the trial of Antonio Gramsci in 1928, the prosecutor declared: “We must stop this brain from working for 20 years.” Gramsci, the former leader of the Italian Communist Party and a gifted Marxist theoretician and journalist, was sentenced to two decades’ imprisonment by Benito Mussolini’s fascist government.
Yet confinement marked the flowering, rather than the decay, of Gramsci’s thought. He embarked on an epic intellectual pursuit with the aim of an enduring legacy. His Prison Notebooks, as they became known, comprised 33 volumes and 3,000 pages of history, philosophy, economics and revolutionary strategy. Though permitted to write, Gramsci was denied access to Marxist works and was forced to use code to evade the prison censors. In 1937, having long been refused adequate health care (his teeth fell out and he was unable to digest solid foods), Gramsci died, aged 46.
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WNU Editor: I am sure for some Italian Communists he is the new "messiah" .... and for neo-Marxists elsewhere someone new/old to wrap their arms around. As for everyone else who knows what it is like to live in a Communist system and in a free market society (like yours truly) .... we just have to shake our heads wondering why people still believe in this stuff.