Gramsci's Formation of the Intellectuals

Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) was an Italian communist revolutionary and Marxist theorist. Mussolini's Fascist regime arrested Gramsci because his movement sought to overthrow the existing social order and replace it with a socialist system.  His most influential work the Prison Notebooks was written during his imprisonment. It questions the problem: How does a dominant class maintain its rule, not just through force, but through consent? His work analyses the subtle, pervasive structures of power that shape our reality. While earlier Marxists focused heavily on economic forces, Gramsci shifted focus toward the "superstructure"—the world of ideas, culture, and institutions.

 In his Prison Notebooks, Antonio Gramsci explores the multifaceted role of intellectuals in maintaining and challenging social power. The central concept in Gramsci's work is hegemony, a form of rule in which the ruled consent to the power of the ruling class. Hegemony is the process by which a ruling class's worldview becomes the “common sense” of an era. It's a cultural and ideological leadership that makes the existing social order seem natural and inevitable. Power is most stable when it is not recognized as power, but simply as “the way things are.” “Hegemony at its most effective keeps us from thinking subversive thoughts or dreaming of rebellion... We can no longer think outside of the framework of hegemonic cultural values.” Intellectuals are the agents who exercise the functions of social hegemony and political government on behalf of the dominant group.

I. The Origin and Types of Intellectuals

• The Organic Intellectual: Every essential social group that emerges into the economic world creates "organically" a stratum of intellectuals to provide it with homogeneity and awareness of its function. For example, a capitalist entrepreneur creates the industrial technician, the economist, and the organizers of a new legal and social system.
• Capacity for Organization: A dominant class must either possess the capacity to organize society—from services to the state organism—or at least have the ability to select specialized "deputies" (employees) to manage these external relationships for them.
• Feudalism and the Peasantry: Feudal lords possessed technical-military capacity, and their crisis began when they lost that monopoly. Interestingly, the peasantry, despite its essential role in production, fails to elaborate its own "organic" intellectuals or assimilate traditional ones.
• The Existence of Traditional Intellectuals: Every new social group finds pre-existing categories of intellectuals who seem to represent an uninterrupted historical continuity despite radical social changes.
• The Role of Ecclesiastics: The most typical traditional intellectuals are the ecclesiastics (priests), who once held a monopoly over religious ideology, education, and justice. They were organically bound to the landed aristocracy and shared their state privileges.

II. The Evolution and "Independence" of Intellectuals

• The Rise of Secular Administrators: The monopoly of the Church was eventually challenged by the rise of central monarchical power, leading to the formation of the "noblesse de robe"—a stratum of administrators, scientists, and non-ecclesiastical philosophers.
• The Illusion of Autonomy: Because traditional intellectuals have historical continuity, they develop an "esprit de corps" and see themselves as independent of the ruling class. Gramsci describes this self-assessment as an "ideological and political" social utopia.
• Secular vs. Religious Ties: While the Church hierarchy feels more linked to Christ than to industrial leaders, secular intellectuals like Benedetto Croce feel linked to historical thinkers (Plato/Aristotle) but cannot hide their practical links to modern industrial leaders like Agnelli.
• Defining the Intellectual: Gramsci argues that we should define intellectuals by their place within the "ensemble of the system of relations" in society, rather than by the intrinsic nature of their work. Even manual labour requires a minimum of creative intellectual activity; there is no such thing as a "non-intellectual" human.

III. Social Function and the "New" Intellectual

• Intellectual Function: While "all men are intellectuals," not all have the social function of intellectuals. This distinction refers to whether a professional’s activity is weighted toward "intellectual elaboration" or "muscular-nervous effort".
• Homo Faber and Homo Sapiens: Every person is a "philosopher" or artist outside their job because they participate in a specific conception of the world and a line of moral conduct.
• Creating New Intellectuals: The challenge is creating a new stratum by balancing intellectual activity with practical activity. The "new" intellectual must be based on technical education linked to industrial labour.
• The Intellectual as Persuader: The modern intellectual cannot just be an orator (eloquence); they must be an active participant in life as a "constructor, organiser, and 'permanent persuader'".
• Directive and Political Roles: By moving from "technique-as-work" to "technique-as-science," an individual moves toward a humanistic conception of history and becomes "directive" and political.

IV. Schools, the State, and Hegemony

• Assimilation of Intellectuals: Dominant groups struggle to "assimilate" and conquer traditional intellectuals while simultaneously producing their own organic ones. The complexity of a state's educational system reflects the importance of these intellectual functions.
• The School as Instrument: Schools are the instruments for elaborating these intellectuals. A country's "civilization" can be measured by the density and specialization of its school system, just as industrialization is measured by machine-making capacity.
• The Risk of Overproduction: Creating a wide base for high culture can lead to crises of unemployment for the middle intellectual strata, a common issue in modern societies.
• Regional Differences: Intellectual strata are formed by traditional historical processes. For example, in Italy, the rural South produces state functionaries, while the industrial North produces technicians.
• Civil and Political Society: Intellectuals are "deputies" of the ruling class in two superstructural levels: Civil Society (managing consent and hegemony) and Political Society (managing the state and coercive power).
• The Expansion of Bureaucracy: In the modern world, the democratic-bureaucratic system has created an unprecedented expansion of intellectual roles that are justified by political necessity rather than the needs of production.

Hegemony is most effective when it becomes "common sense," making the existing order feel natural. The proletariat must produce its own intellectuals to offer a genuine socialist alternative. A class is "corporatist" when it only looks at its own narrow interests; it becomes "hegemonic" when it leads a "historic bloc" representing the broader public interest. Gramsci identifies the revolutionary communist party as the "modern prince"—a collective body with the courage and intelligence to lead the transformation from capitalism to socialism. Unlike Tsarist Russia, where the state was everything, Western democracies have a sturdy "civil society" (churches, schools, unions) that acts as a trench-system, requiring a "war of position" to undermine.