richard-day-gramsci-is-dead

Introduction 7lineage, a social group which seeks hegemony strives to ‘dominateantagonistic groups, which it tends to “liquidate,” or to subjugateperhaps even by armed force’, at the same time as it attempts to‘lead’ kindred and allied groups (Gramsci 1971: 57). Hegemony is asimultaneously coercive and consensual struggle for dominance, seenin nineteenth- and twentieth-century marxisms as limited to thecontext of a particular nation-state, but increasingly being analysedat a global level. It is crucial to note that hegemony is a process, notan accomplishment, that the actions of a dominant group are alwaysopen to contestation. Yet, in most societies based on the nation-state,most of the time, a relatively steady equilibrium can be observed, astate best defined as one of non-crisis, punctuated by crises that leadto the achievement of a new relative equilibrium.For example, liberal capitalism in the overdeveloped countries of themid-twentieth century operated under a hegemonic model of relationswith the working class which was known as the Keynesian welfarestate. Unions were allowed to exist and to fight for improvementsin the lot of workers, in return for which corporations received aguarantee that strikes would occur only under ritualistic and tightlycontrolled circumstances. The state acted as an intermediary betweenthese two hostile camps, taking money from the corporations in theform of taxes, and providing public services to both corporationsand the workers. This relatively stable system stayed in place untilthe 1970s, when it began to be displaced by the neoliberal model,through which capitalism sought increased profits by freeing itselffrom the fetters of state regulation and working-class resistance.Privatization, deregulation, ‘right to work’ legislation (union-busting)and fanatical worship of ‘the free market’ became de rigueur. Outsidethe walls protecting G8 privilege, governments of countries of theglobal South were pushed into ‘structural adjustment programmes’that had the same general thrust as in the North, but with greaterintensity and much more disastrous results. Along with new nationaland international institutions came a new common sense: those whoare oppressed deserve their oppression; everyone (except the rich)must work more for less; the bigger a corporation is the better; theless the state intervenes in the economy (except to bail out failedcorporations and provide them with free infrastructure and the rightto pollute at will) the better. And so on.The shift from the Keynesian model to the neoliberal modelinvolved a realignment of some major historical forces. Neoliberalentrepreneurs, intellectuals and journalists have been working to