tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post7635140385019163049..comments2024-03-27T09:14:27.496+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: Gramsci and EconomismPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-400899635817044922010-09-07T11:44:54.994+01:002010-09-07T11:44:54.994+01:00Thanks for that Phil, very useful.Thanks for that Phil, very useful.Eddie Trumanhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/eddietruman/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-43644342730618987872010-09-06T11:31:43.235+01:002010-09-06T11:31:43.235+01:00I'm glad an auld comrade like you Eddie is app...I'm glad an auld comrade like you Eddie is appreciative! I will put together a proper reading guide when the whole series is completed.<br /><br />But in the mean time when approaching the work I'd recommend reading the <i>Selections</i> preface by Quentin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, which does an excellent job setting out the historical and theoretical contexts. Also if you can get hold of it Roger Simon's 1982 intro to Gramsci is very clear, whether one agrees with his eurocommunism or not.<br /><br />Reading <i>The Notebooks</i> themselves, readers must remember this was never designed by Gramsci to be a regular text. The notes are fragmentary, provisional, occasionally repetitive and at times difficult. None of this makes for an easy read, though the editors have done a good job in giving them some coherence.<br /><br />I'd definitely begin with his notes on the intellectuals and education first and then move straight to the Modern Prince and the notes on hegemony and civil society. There are clear linkages between them. I would read his notes on Italian history last as an example of Gramsci's application of hegemony for understanding the class struggles in the early modern period. As for the rest of the book, on Fordism and Americanism, and philosophy, I haven't read them myself yet!Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-70457237041328644942010-09-06T11:20:12.668+01:002010-09-06T11:20:12.668+01:00That's fair enough, Boffy: it's a claim ma...That's fair enough, Boffy: it's a claim made on my own experience of the far left. The cpgb have always put great store in the struggle against economism but that's been firmly on the terrain of Leninist party building (although they have a much more open conception of what that means than the rest of the far left). Also their conclusions have tended to veer off in ultra left directions IMO.Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-15827329941748915492010-09-04T21:35:56.311+01:002010-09-04T21:35:56.311+01:00I have to say Phil this was enormously educational...I have to say Phil this was enormously educational for me, I will need to come back to it many times again before I can really fully understand everything in it.<br />I'll need to read the first in the series next tho!<br />Is there any chance you could provide a reading guide of sorts to help with the articles?<br />A product of the strict Lenin / Trotsky school of mid 1980's Militant I never read any Gramsci.Eddie Trumanhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/eddietruman/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-65731841714260014162010-09-04T16:41:18.087+01:002010-09-04T16:41:18.087+01:00Phil,
I haven't read the full article yet, wh...Phil,<br /><br />I haven't read the full article yet, which looks very interesting following on from Part 1. However, I came across this, which I had to respond to.<br /><br /><i>"This is germane to our discussion of economism (which I understand, following Lenin, as the everyday bourgeois politics of the working class) because, as far as I'm aware the critique of economism has always gone hand in hand with promoting the Leninist party as its solution."</i><br /><br />I don't think this is right. Although, the actual term "Economism" is associated with Lenin, and with "What is To Be Done?", and other writings at that time, where he argues that the Russian Marxists had to movbe beyond the industrial struggle to take up political issues, Lenin himself is basing himself on Marx and Engels.<br /><br />His argument is essentially that I have been making for some time, which is that workers cannot advance purely within the confines of that industrial struggle, because in itself that struggle only ties them more closely to bourgeois ideology, it reinforces the notion that they can advance their position within Capitalism, and thereby reconciles them to it. Breaking out requires a political struggle. That is Lenin's basis for arguing, for example in "Two Tactics of Social Democracy", for the Marxists to engage in a struggle for bouregois democratic freedoms rather than leave that ground to the bourgeoisie. It is also his basis for arguing the need for a Revolutionary Party.<br /><br />But, Marx and Engels made the argument that workers should not confine themselves to that "Economism" too, for example in marx's letter to Kugelman, his polemics against Weston and so on. Yet, Marx did not argue for the establishment of the kind of Party that Leninists insist upon. On the contrary, I think marx and engels concept of party was closer to that of Gramsci.Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.com