Rehmann, Jan
Occupy Wall Street and the Question of Hegemony
A Gramscian Analysis
Several books and articles have already been published on the emergence, dynamics and defeat (at the least temporary) of the Occupy movements in the U.S. To date, Gramsci's theory of hegemony has not played a major role in the evaluation of this political trajectory. In regard to Occupy Wall Street (OWS) this is certainly no coincidence. It is indeed easy to list several reasons why a Gramscian approach to OWS is problematic. Isn't it obvious that OWS's claim to be a "leader-less movement" clashes with Gramsci's description of leadership in terms of educating "organic intellectual?" Gramsci's prospective of uniting the industrial proletariat and forging class alliance with the peasants and other subaltern classes through a political party, which meant at the time Communist Party of Italy, part of the Third International, would be rejected by many of those involved in OWS as reflecting an outdated centralist model of representation. For David Graebe the left is neatly divided into "verticalists" and "horizontalists" so that OWS becomes a case in point to demonstrate the virtues of anarchism as against the failures of the Marxist left.
| Language | eng |
| Names |
[author] Rehmann, Jan |
| Subjects |
Egemonia
Intellettuali Organici
Hegemony
Organic Intellectuals |
