Antonio Gramsci. Estado, Hegemonía y Cesarismo

Abstract

The modernity we find in Gramsci’s thought is reflected in his numerous works, among them the Scritti politici, prior to the Quaderni dal carcere - a work in which, through a fragmentary expository form, an organic thought is set out - and his Lettere dal carcere, in which we find the most intimate Gramsci. In order to understand Gramsci’s concept of “Caesarism”, tthis chapter focuses on the analysis of Gramsci’s thought through a selection of fragments of works in which he alludes to the concept of “State” and “Hegemony”. Upon these premises I offera brief historiographical analysis of the use of the term Caesarism in 19th century European essays, noting that in the Italian sphere the use of the term, in political debate, tends to appear frequently as a result of Gramsci’s work. He contributed greatly to the shaping of European social-political thought in the first decades of the 20th century. My starting points are both the idea of “hegemony” -closely related to civil society and to the capacity of culture as a mechanism of radical social transformation- and the idea of “state”, which must be, above all, the “ethical state”, since every class that exercises power needs to assume interests that are not exactly its own.