richard-day-gramsci-is-dead

6 Gramsci is Deadaddressed in its particularity. Yet the actuality of globalizing capitaland the intensification of the societies of control mean that all thesestruggles occur in an increasingly common context, even if they donot explicitly identify this context, or elements of it, as what theyare struggling against. Thus, while I do not wish to totalize or reducethe diversity of contemporary struggles, I will refer to the neoliberalproject as providing a shared background or context within whichthey occur. The neoliberal project includes the ongoing globalizationof capital, as well as the intensification of the societies of control;it also relies upon and perpetuates shifts in the organization of thesystem of states, through regional agreements such as the NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the construction ofsuperstates such as the European Union. This is to say that I takeas given that we cannot understand state domination outside ofcapitalist exploitation, and that we cannot understand either of thesephenomena without reference to the societies of control.It should also be noted that state domination and capitalistexploitation would be impossible if it were not for the fact thatneoliberal societies are divided according to multiple lines ofinequality based on race, gender, sexuality, ability, age, region (bothglobally and within nation-states) and the domination of nature.Populations must be sorted into apparently ‘natural’ hierarchies if thedifferential distribution of social goods that capitalism creates is tobe reconciled with the values espoused by a liberal politics. Becausethese hierarchies must be strengthened as liberalism transformsitself into neoliberalism and inequalities increase, we have seen areturn of social conservatism and a backlash against the progressivechange brought about during the heyday of the Keynesian welfarestate. When I refer to the neoliberal project, then, I am hoping todescribe a complex web of practices and institutions that have theeffect of perpetuating and multiplying various forms of interlockingoppression (hooks 1984; Collins 1991). These allow ‘populations’ tobe divided and managed, and our daily lives to be more intenselyimmersed in capitalist accumulation and rational-bureaucraticcontrol (Foucault 1991).Thinking about the neoliberal project leads directly to aconsideration of the problem of hegemony. Although I will havemuch to say about the changing meanings of this term over time,for the moment it can be taken as describing a process throughwhich various factions struggle over meaning, identity and politicalpower. To use the words of Antonio Gramsci, a key thinker in this