MARXISM AND
HEGEMONY
MAIN POINTS!!!
Karl Marx Gramsci
01 Who is Karl Marx and his 02 Who is Gramsci and what is
his role in Marxism and
ideologies?
hegemony?
Marxism Hegemony
03 What is Marxism and its 04 What is Hegemony and its
qualities? qualities?
Karl Heindrich
Marx
• Born in Trier, Germany in 1818
• German Philosopher
• Criticized the injustice inherent in the European
class/capitalist system of economics operating in the
19th Century.
• Believed that capitalism allowed the bourgeoise to
benefit at the expense of the workers.
• The Communist Manifesto.
• Das Kapital – analyzes the capitalist form of wealth
production and its consequences for culture.
Marxism
Socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist
interpretation of historical development, better
known as historical materialism, to understand
class relations and social conflict and a dialectal
perspective to view social transformation. It
originates from the works of Karl Marx.
Marxism has three main
Characteristics.
No Government, No No private ownership No religion.
central controlling of anything.
body allocating
resources.
Marxism…
Marxism appeals to an innate sense of fairness
in people. Nobody has more than anyone else.
Everyone works for the good of everyone else.
The Problem was that Marx could not describe a
mechanism by which we get his utopian society
beyond the masses violently overthrowing their
oppressors nor did he really understand human
nature.
Marxism + Government =
Socialism
Theory of social organization which advocates that
the means of production, distribution, and
exchange should be owned or regulated by the
community as a whole.
Communism
The distribution of goods and services takes place
according to the individual needs.
Socialism states the distribution of goods and
services take place according to the individual
efforts.
PROBLEMS…
Power
People will crave for power.
If the Government is going to take from
So they will do all things to
Joe and give it to the people, then why
stay in power.
work?
People only do as much as they
have to in order to survive.
Lazyness
ECONOMIC
POWER
A society is shaped by its forces of
production.
Society has two main classes
Proletariat and Bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie controls the means of
production and wealth. Proletariat
operate the means of production.
CAPITALISM
Economic political system in which a
country’s trade and industry are controlled by
private owners for profit.
Capitalism is flawed because it
makes people want things, they
shop due to commodification.
When one has money, one shows it
by buying things.
Commodification- wanting things not for their
innate usefulness, but for their social value.
• Was born January 22, 1891 at Italy.
• He wrote on philosophy, political
theory, sociology, history, and
linguistics.
• He was a founding member and one-
time leader of the Itallian Communist
Party.
• Known for his theory of Cultural
Hegemony.
Antonio Francesco Gramsci
H E G E M O N Y
HEGEMONY
Definition:
The process by which a small ruling party
convinces everyone their best interests are
everyone’s interest
Any politically dominant class is also
idealogically dominant.
It keeps its position because the dominated
classes accept its moral and intellectual
leadership.
Hegemony…
Social Hegemony
The use of force to maintain
order in the society.
Cultural Hegemony
producing ways of thinking and
seeing, especially by subtly
eliminating alternative views to
reinforce the status quo.
Bourgeois hegemony has civil society
as a major vehicle
• It corresponds to the “myth of natural superiority”
• For that reason, it is difficult to identify what are non-hegemonic
modes of reasoning, especially since hegemony permeates all of
the levels of society, from the basic items of labor power and
capital, through the connections of commodity fetishism, into the
fractions of classes and politics.
1 NATURAL
Hegemony
ensures that ideas
of the ruling class 2 INEVITABLE
come to seem
UNQUESTIONAB
3
LE
Examples of HEGEMONY
Patriotism
Keeps poor people fighting wars
against poor people from other
countries while the rich on both sides
rake in the profits of war time
economy.
Religion
It helps to keep the faithful poor satisfied like tranquilizer. While
many Christians religious groups work to feed, clothe, house,
and even educate the world’s poor, the beliefs disseminated with
the food and clothing include the conviction that the poor, if they
remain nonviolent, will find their reward afterlife.
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