The Prison Notebooks are a series of essays written by the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci who was imprisoned by the Italian Fascist regime in 1926.
The notebooks were written between 1929 and 1935, when Gramsci was released from prison to a medical center on grounds of ill-health, and his friend, Piero Sraffa, had supplied the writing implements and notebooks. Gramsci died in April 1937.
Gramsci’s theory has the following ingredients:
1. Cultural hegemony as a means of maintaining and legitimising the capitalist state
2. The need for popular workers’ education to encourage the development of intellectuals from the working class
3. An analysis of the modern capitalist state that distinguishes between political society, which dominates directly and coercively, and civil society, where leadership is constituted through consent
4. Absolute historicism
5. A critique of economic determinism that opposes fatalistic interpretations of Marxism
A critique of philosophical materialism.
Cultural hegemony
For the purpose of the argument I seek to make, I would focus on the ingredient of Cultural hegemony:
This is a concept previously used by Marxists such as Vladimir Ilyich Lenin to indicate the political leadership of the working-class in a democratic revolution, but developed by Gramsci into an acute analysis to explain why the ‘inevitable’ socialist revolution predicted by orthodox Marxism had not occurred by the early 20th century. Capitalism, it seemed, was even more entrenched than ever.
Capitalism, Gramsci suggested, maintained control not just through violence and political and economic coercion, but also ideologically, through a hegemonic culture in which the values of the bourgeoisie became the ‘common sense’ values of all.
As a result, a consensus culture developed in which people in the working-class identified their own good with the good of the bourgeoisie, and helped to maintain the status quo rather than revolting.
The working class needed to develop a culture of its own, which would overthrow the notion that bourgeois values represented ‘natural’ or ‘normal’ values for society, and would attract the oppressed and intellectual classes to the cause of the proletariat.
Breaking it down
Breaking all these theoretical jargons of Antonio Gramsci’s exposition is this: the Marxist ideology failed because the ruling class, in the open, preached egalitarianism to the people with the promise of bringing them paradise on earth.
But behind the scenes, these leaders focused on their selfish interests and promises to the masses remained a mirage. So, with time, the people became conscious of deception being perpetrated by their leaders, rebelled and ultimately resulted in the demise of Marxist ideology.
Capitalism
On the contrary, the Capitalist ideology survived and thrived because the ruling class adopted a potent, more powerful and highly effective tool of coerced enticements to the working-class, particularly the vociferous individuals within the society.
Bringing this back home, is precisely the strategy John Dramani Mahama has adopted by appointment of the likes of Ransford Gyampo, Kobby Mensah, Nana Yaa Jantuah, Martin Kpebu and so on.
With this, the voices of descent, which are often useless cacophony of completely no productive value, are fittingly neutralized, and environment of ‘chop make I chop’ reigns supreme.
Manifestation
And as it has already started manifesting, these once vociferous noisemakers against the estwhile NPP administration, have suddenly become leading praise singers of their benefactor John Mahama-ndc administration.
The conditions of service and juicy entitlements associated with office of CEOs of our State Institutions which these pseudo-nutrals persistently shouted about for the 8-year duration of the NPP Administration, are still in place, and they will equally be enjoying it.
And for the next 4years, Ransford Gyampo, Kobby Mensah, Nana Yaa Jantuah et all, will be enjoying free Landcrusers, fuel, clothing, accommodation, utilities, garden boys, cooks, watchmen, protocol drinks/entertainment, foreign travels and so on.
In summary, our very popular Ghanaian axiom actually admonishes us “NOT TO TALK WHEN OUR MOUTH IS FILLED WITH EXCESSIVELY SUMPTUOUS AND HIGHLY APPETIZING DISHES”.
BY Justice A. Newton-Offei
International Relations Analyst
