In Antonio Gramsci’s “The Formation of Intellectuals”, he explores the different forms of free-thinking intellectuals and how they come to perform a regulatory function in society to prevent the overarching capitalist system from stripping members of the community of their will and ability to think for themselves. However, he also highlights the need for a new form of intellectual for which “technical education…must form the basis…” (1005).

He highlights the existence of two varieties of intellectuals: the organic, a group of individuals which binds together without any express consent to steer society in the right direction politically and economically, and the traditional, whose members’ intellect has been passed down to them, if you will, from preceding generations and “[hold] a monopoly of a number of important services” (1002). After numerous readings, I have come to see that Gramsci condemns the latter variety for their passivity in their societal functions: they are not consciously aware of what they are doing and how they are going to work towards the public good. They look out for the little guy primarily because it is what their predecessors did, unaware of the extent to which their active engagement in the regulation of societal affairs could improve conditions for the faceless worker.

Gramsci calls for an “elite” (1002) to step forward and steer society in the right direction, in terms of both politics and economics. This pushed me to imagine a superhero training facility where a group of viable candidates would be technologically enhanced to take on the struggles and issues that a community faces, but instead of those issues being monsters and rogue scientists and what not, they would refer to the day to day struggles of the middle class workers whose needs are cast aside by the rapid industrialization of society.

Intellectuals supposedly consider themselves “autonomous and independent” (1003) from civil society due to their “uninterrupted historical continuity” and “special qualifications” (1003). This reigned in the superhero metaphor for me once more: These specialized individuals have the remarkable capability to separate themselves from their immediate societal surroundings and keep from blending into a certain period of time of political era. They can think and be freely without being “put down by the man”, almost. This leads to their ability to conjure up the idea of a “social utopia” (1003), where a state of perfect democracy and equality is in play. Gramsci pinpoints these intellectuals as rarities in this ability to separate themselves from the day-to-day goings on and to focus on the big picture instead.

But the stereotypically branded intellectual – the artist, the theorist, the philosopher – is not the only intellectual, though. Gramsci agrees when he states, “All men are intellectuals … but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals” (1004). I cannot be sure, but I feel that he inadvertently blames the capitalist system here for forcing members of society into menial occupations just to be able to continue living a type of lifestyle they have grown accustomed to; many of these people could be out, doing what the big shot intellectuals, but monetary circumstances prevent them from doing so and thus, they are put into these compartments where their input in society is practically negligible.
The one thing that I remain totally confused about is what Gramsci says near the very end of this excerpt: “The democratic-bureaucratic system has given rise to a great mass of functions which are not all justified by the social necessities of production, though they are justified by the political necessities of the dominant fundamental group.” (1007) Does this link back to what was said earlier about the compartmentalization of workers into insignificant quadrants to keep them occupied while a handful of specialized intellectuals handles the “big boy” stuff? Since what these people are doing is “not justified by the social necessities”, what happens to the people carrying out those functions?

If we were to summarize the extract from Gramsci’s “The Prison Notebooks”, would we label it a condemnation of the capitalist system for its degradation of the governed or a calling for the need of a being to fight the system or at least keep it from usurping complete power? Or both?

There is a justified hesitance that comes with proclaiming anyone as a prophet or a genius. Perhaps it ‘s the remnants of the fear of sacriledge or the more overwhelming fear of falsely exalting someone before being truly sure of whether or not they deserve that exaltation. Whatever factors it was that stopped Karl Marx from instantly being a genius in his own era however have no doubt been destigamized to the point where we can (mostly) all agree that Marx was several steps ahead of his time.

Marx’s acheivements are too monumental to look over which is something we can safely say at this current time. Marx’s primary strong point was his ability to see everything in terms of its economic value and through that logic see everything as it pertained to the haves and the have nots. In today’s Occupy Wall Street society the concept might not seem monumental but it’s important to note that Marx was one of the few people since Adam Smith to have his philosophies on an economic system adopted in multiple countries, not taking into account the varying levels of success that those implementations were met with.

What most impressed me about the reading was Marx’s predictions in regards to come of the negative aspects of captialsim. There was something magical in reading his writing about the separation of the worker and the product. Reading his writing I can remember clearly visualizing the work of chinese factory workers with no care whatsoever for what they make and contrasting that with the “independent business owner” selling his or her wares on Etsy and the difference in quality and attention to detail that exists between the two products that we end up with at the end of the work process.

This chasm that begins to grow between the two is central to understanding Marx’s utopian ideals. As that chasm grows, so does the desire for revolution something that Marx believed to be essential. Max’s strong belief in the overthrowing of the bourgeoise in order to attain the freedom that should be afforded to the people is evident is developed stages throughout this work.

Marx’s Utopia has been given it’s fair share of criticism however, it’s been called impossible as well as not promoting upward movement in a society due to lack of incentives. One thing’s for sure however, the ability to conceptualize the world so differently from his predecessors has made Marx not only one of the most interesting economist but also one of the most interesting philosophers whose works will continue to stand the tests of time.

-Yasin Muhammad

The German philosopher turned political advocate in the “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844” Karl Marx, makes a very good, yet a little puzzled argument on “Political Economy” as he chooses to label it. In this article, Marx chooses to give us an image for us to visualize the working conditions and rigid structure the many without choice capitalist workers endured back in the midst of the 19th century. Marx says the political economy or capitalism influences human nature so drastically that the “worker sinks to the level of a commodity (A basic good used in commerce that is interchangeable with other commodities of the same type. According to www.investopedia.com) and becomes indeed the most wretched of commodities”. The labor usually creates commodities, the laborers create labor, and therefore it becomes a chain of commodities in need of each other, because if one commodity dies, the other one diminishes. The relationship between the product and the laborer is a queer one, because the object that’s produced by labor through the laborer maintains a level of estrangement, the more the laborer produces the more he alienates himself from the object, making the product and private property more powerful over himself, this makes the laborer poorer and less attached to the world he owns. It is as if Marx is telling us “the more valuable the product becomes, the more estranged he becomes and the greater the quantity he produces, the more he alienates himself from the object and reality, and the more alienation he does, the more powerful the product and private property becomes over the worker” (quote by me) to back up my quote Marx says “the worker loses reality to the point of starving to death. So much does objectification appear as loss of the object that the worker is robbed of the objects most necessary not only for his life but his work”.(765, 1st edition). I can’t write this blog without making a comparison that certainly seems almost the same as to what Marx describes in the “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844”. When reading this article my mind escapes to the era when Germany saw itself as the regional hegemon and wanted to conquer all of Europe. Hitler here can be seen as the capitalist and his armies were his laborers, and the product was creation of fear and dominance. The soldiers had to no choice but to labor someone else’s seed to produce a war. The war that had no meaningful concept or ideology, at least that’s what I like to think. The soldier was forced to fight, otherwise he will die as well, therefore the he saw himself alienated and estranged from the object. The laborer here saw the capitalist as an alien and hostile object to him, because it only used force to make him work just for the capitalist to become powerful and spread the concept of the Arian race as the dominant race to rule the rest. The seeking product or commodity here is a queer one, because “the worker becomes all the poorer [the more submissive he becomes] the more wealth [power] he produces, the more his production [the more fighting he does] increase in power and range [the more conquering of land the capitalist does]” (765, 1st edition). Germany inflicted serious injuries to the European continent when it tried to sweep the region with its dominance. When Marx wrote this article, I believe Europe, mainly England, was one of the most powerful states that used its people to increase its power at the cost of people’s labor, many who were not paid a dime, and starved to death working their asses off. Marx appealed to their suffering and wanted to communicate to the rest of the world in the coming centuries how imperialism and capitalism is inflicting serious damage to the people that should be protected by their government and instead they were used to death, just for their empire to increase.

Antonio Gramsci’s excerpt from Prison Notebooks identifies the differences between two types of intellectuals. He classifies organic intellectuals as people who are born in different communities, but come together to promote the best interest of “the people”, typically within their own social structure. According to Gramsci, this type of intellectual is an individual that is proactive in becoming involved within their community by becoming active in the duties of practical life. These intellectuals have minimal interest in becoming removed from the masses. Gramsci states that there “is a need (for organic intellectuals) to create the conditions most favorable to the expansion of their own class” (1002). Therefore, entrepreneurs, organizers, farmers, industrial technicians, specialists in political economy all fall under the category for an organic intellectual.

A traditional intellectual is classified by individuals who stand only for the dominant class to uphold the hegemony of dominant ideologies. Traditional intellectuals hold their power beginning with the aristocracy, which is bound equal to the ecclesiastics (The Pope and other Churchmen) and eventually these two categories created subcategories that began to hold their own distinctive powers within the dominant group. The subcategories of traditional intellectuals would be labeled as  “administrators, scholars, scientists, lawyers, theorists, judges and non-ecclesiastical philosophers” (1003). These intellectuals “put themselves forward as an autonomous and independent of the dominant social group” (1003). Regardless of their attempts to separate themselves, they still serve one another for their own class benefits.

Gramsci states that members of traditional intellectuals feel a sense of “espirit de corps” or feelings of loyalty, enthusiasm, devotion and strong regard for the honor of their own group. They also feel autonomous and independent, which Gramsci alludes     “this self-assessment is not without consequences in the ideological and political field” (1003). This state of thought is influenced to traditional intellectuals by a feeling of entitlement that breeds from a proceeding and uninterrupted historical continuity and economic structure. The collective identity this group shares is based solely off their power over the lesser class. Research has shown “relatively abundant resources and elevated rank afford upper class individuals increased control over their lives, reduced exposure to external influences, and more personal choice- all of which promote greater independence and self focus. Whereas, lower-class individuals, who have reduced resources, subordinate rank and reduced personal control are more interdependent and other-focused” (Piff).

This research reminded me of a Netflix documentary I viewed recently called Park Avenue. The documentary reflects on the vast differences between the wealthy individuals who live on Park Avenue in the Upper East Side contrasted with the horrific poverty that affects those who live on Park Avenue in Bronx. The filmmakers created an experiment using the economic game of Monopoly- which emulates capitalism. Two players were involved, one player was given double the bank and was able to roll two dice to move around the board and the other play was only given one. As the game progressed, the advantaged player began showing signs of entitlement and arrogance as they conquered property over the board and the disadvantaged player began showing dejectedness and an overall sense of lowered esteem. I feel that Gramsci’s examples of organic and traditional intellectuals emulate many of these characteristics. It would be almost unavoidable for the organic intellectuals to be independent of their social class because they value taking care of one another and depend on social constructs to help build mutual aid. In contrast, the traditional intellectuals are able to ignore many of the happenings  beyond their social class because they are self-sufficient in their own wealth and don’t necessarily need to rely on an outside community.

At the beginning of this course, the readings were related to which talked about literature. Continuing in the semester, the readings we have read and discuss are involving other subjects like philosophy, photography, economics, etc. If I wanted to be confused by philosophy, I would have just taken another philosophy course than the one I took last semester. After reading Karl Marx’s “From Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,” it makes me question if I still want to study a career in economics. I can see how Marx relates this with literary theory because both subjects are complicated, literary theory more than economics. When I say economics is also complicated, I refer to what Marx has wrote, “His explained from external circumstances. As to how fat these external and apparently fortuitous circumstances are but the expression of necessary Course of development, political economy teaches us nothing.” (652) Do you not think that when you are learning something, it is supposed to teach us that particular thing? Marx continues to grab our attention talking about topics of economics and then says, “Precisely because political economy does not grasp the connection within the movement, it was possible to counter pose…” (652) Marx further continues with economy talk with workers and alienation. What I think when Marx says “alienation” in his text is that since the worker is a small thing in the economic system, he/she puts thought into the labor instead of themselves. Karl Marx explains this when he talks about putting more into God instead of themselves, as well as nature. Going back to my title for this blog, he also adds God, life and nature. Do these topics all relate to literary theory? That is my question in general, do other topics apply to this confusing subject known as literary theory? Overall, Karl Marx is going against the norm of political economy stating that the “workers” are more of what they produced, than for the, to think that hey have the possibility of gaining what they made instead of giving it up for the capitalist economy. He says do not worry because in the end, it will not matter since death will take us later on in life. Maybe the next time I am on my economics lecture, I will think about Karl Marx and our discussion from comparative literature to understand the basics of both English and economics. 

Raymond Williams discusses the definition of hegemony and its extended definition under Marxism. Antonio Gramsci furthers that definition to be: rule under political, social and cultural aspects, in contrast to the traditional definition of simply political rule or domination. Williams later states that hegemony goes even beyond culture, identifying the “whole social process,” in reference to man’s ability to define their entire life, and going beyond ideology, the system of meanings and values.
Hegemony goes beyond culture and ideology through the the prevalent inequality within society. Within a class society comes the dominant and the subordinate. Naturally, the subordinate are limited through inequality and are, in a sense, forced upon the ideologies handed to them by their dominant figures. Likewise, the subordinate’s culture is limited in a hegemony.
Before moving on, I’d like to agree that the social and cultural aspects of a domination are relevant and important. Having solely political rule would put one in absence of the subordinate’s beliefs, ideals, traditions, and more. Realizing the personal aspects of one’s subordinate is important to maintaining a healthy relationship, which, I believe, is extremely necessary. The lack of understanding between the dominant and subordinate can lead to a crumble in their society.
Williams describes the forms of domination and subordination to be one of two advantages of hegemony. The norm of society dictates that there should be a ruling class, that there ought be the dominate and the dominated. A society where everyone is equal would be a communist society, would it not? (forgive me if I’m wrong). The second advantage is the cultural activity of hegemony, which goes beyond super-structural expressions. Traditions and practices brings forth personal relationships, where people mutually use their resources on leisure, entertainment, art, etc. In this aspect, those of any class, in a sense, can be equal. Despite the social stratification that hegemony implies, its cultural aspect serves as a somewhat unifying attribute.
Williams also tackles the issues of hegemony. A “lived” hegemony is a process rather than a system, “it has continually to be renewed, recreated, defended, and modified. It is also continually resisted, limited, altered, challenged by pressures not at all its own.” That being said, a hegemony seems rather fickle, and it may not necessarily be a reliable system. It is understandable, however, because politics, social and cultural views are constantly changing as time progresses. I don’t believe that to be a weakness, however, as society simply needs to (and always has been) adapt to the changes.

I wasn’t able to make it in time, unfortunately, but the artist Thomas Hirschhorn installed a temporary monument to the work on Antonio Gramsci in the Bronx this summer: here’s an article from the NYT and a couple of reviews giving a sense of the aims of the artist and the basic structure of the monument.

Karl Marx believed that within a capitalist society “the whole of society must fall apart into the two classes – the property-owners and the property-less workers” (652). It is with these property-less workers which Marx aligns himself and in “Economic and Political Manuscripts” describes how through any attempts the workers may use to better their situations, they will inevitably end up in far worse states than they started. The property-less workers have one main goal, to create as much ‘property’ as they possibly can in order to gain more wealth, however as Marx duly notes, from this property in and of itself the worker gains nothing. In fact “the worker become all the poorer the more wealth he produces” (653). This irreversible gap between what the worker produces and what he gains from his production is what Marx defines as ‘alienation’ of the worker to his product. As his life’s work, “the worker puts his life in to the object but now his life no longer belongs to him but to the object” (653). He gains nothing from the work he spends tireless hours creating for others to enjoy and which he is unable to participate in after creating. To the worker, in Marx’s eyes, “the product of his labour is an alien object” (653) and not something one can ever attain genuine happiness from because it will always be completely separate from his being.

As Marx illustrates how ‘labor’ occupations -which I take to mean in the twenty first century as manual/factory labor, office or service jobs – alienate the individual from his true self, I start to wonder what would be classified as an occupation which does not ‘alienate’ the individual from his true ‘self’? Ultimately unalienating occupations to my perspective are ones in which monetary compensation are not of primary concern, where instead man is able to use all of his human faculties to create something that is of value not only to others but also to himself as a growing individual. When one’s main concern is to make as much money as possible, it is fairly conceivable that he or she will stoop to derogatory levels of action as a human being he would have never thought he would reach up until that point. When money becomes the solution to all of one’s problems, it is possible that one stops being a human being entirely and simply lives as an ‘alien’. He lives to consume the objects which mean nothing and are ultimately just the combined efforts of other individuals who he will never know or care about. In alienating oneself from the products he produces in order to make money, he alienates himself from not only himself but also from humanity entirely. He is no longer human, and that is just how the “property-owners” in charge want the “property-less workers” to see themselves, for then they are easier to control. That capitalism and the necessity of making money are the root sources of the necessity of alienated labor within western society is probably Marx’s main point in the essay, revealing yet another defining fault in our capitalist society. Although I am not and will never be a Marxist, I do see the validity in the problems alienation of labor insure for society, however to solve said problems seem to me almost impossible without complete societal upheaval.