Κράτος και ηγεμονία στην πολιτική σκέψη του Antonio Gramsci

Antonio Gramsci was one of the most important Marxist thinkers in the 20th century. His writings are heavily concerned with the analysis of state, culture, political leadership, Ideological Hegemony, Intellectuals and political parties. He spent his last eleven years in Mussolini s prisons, where he wrote 32 “Notebooks”. The central and guiding theme of these Notebooks was the development of a new Marxist theory, applicable to the conditions of advanced capitalism. Gramsci saw the role of the intellectual as a crucial one in the context of creating a counter hegemony. By hegemony, Gramsci meant the permeation throughout society of an entire system of values, attitudes, beliefs and morality that has the effect of supporting the status quo in power relations. Hegemony in this sense might be defined as an organizing principle that is diffused by the process of socialization into every area of daily life.