3) Gramsci was an innovative and wide ranging thinker whose interpretations of Marxism helped rescue it from determinism and economic reductionism. Critically examine the above statement. Directives:
" You must start by giving an introduction of Gramsci.
" You should then explain what is economic determinism in Marx.
" In the body, you must mention why Gramsci attempts to revise it.
" Then, you must give the features of Gramsci s model, consisting of multiple structures, etc.
" In the conclusion, you should critically examine. Here, the statement is correct. You can then give reasons in support of that argument.
Ans. 3)
The place of Gramsci in Marxism lies only second to that of Karl Marx himself. He was an Italian philosopher who made an impact by making various modifications to Marxism.
It is said that Gramsci has rescued Marxism from economic determinism, a belief that only economic forces determine, shape and define all political, social, cultural and every other aspect of a civilization. He stressed that most Marxists, preoccupied as they were with economic laws of development, had lost sight of the political dimension in human affairs. The influence of Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce for his emphasis on cultural factors and their role in shaping history, is evident on the shaping of Gramsci s political thought.
Gramsci was troubled because he felt that Marxist predictions about the inevitability of the destruction of Capitalism and of Communist revolution had not seen the light of the day. He was inspecting whether there is any flaw in Marx s understanding of history. Gramsci realized that Marx, in his base superstructure model, had underestimated the role played by the elements of superstructure. He took them for granted, as a mere reflection of the basic structure. Gramsci revised this model into one comprising of multiple structures where superstructures are also structures in themselves, which earned him the title of theoretician of superstructure . While Marxist program of revolution was directed only against economic structure, Gramsci suggests fight at two levels: first, war of position at the intermediate level that is civil society, with the aim to scrape away the whole system of bourgeois attitudes and narratives and to create a proletarian counterhegemony; to be followed by war of manoeuvre against the state. Thus, with the coming of Gramsci, Marxism was eradicated of this notion of economic determinism, which was further reaffirmed by structural Marxist scholar ALTHUSSER who gave three structures of society having two-way causality, instead of economic level determining everything.
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