New phase of development and knowledge capitalism: Gramsci's historical revenge

This article argues that the tremendous timeliness of Gramscian thought resides in the appreciation that, at the current time, just as in the 1930s, the transition to a new phase of the development of capitalism, for which the term knowledge capitalism is proposed, is verifiable, for which the technological-productive fundamentals have thus far been developed without its projection having yet taken place in the superstructure. From this flows a double historical revenge of Gramscian thought, since, on the one hand, it provides a valuable theoretical instrument for understanding and taking advantage of historical change, and, on the other, it offers major political strategic principles that at the current time, based on forms of production and autonomous social organization of the subaltern groups and classes within knowledge capitalism, have the historical-social space to contribute to the construction of an alternative hegemony characteristic of these classes and groups. To delve into this question, the article has been divided in three sections. The first section presents Gramscian theoretical tools for understanding historical change; the second synthetically explains the distinctive features of the new phase of development and characterizes the moment of its current unfolding in light of the previously mentioned theoretical instruments, and the third section discusses postcapitalist forms of production and social organization that could lead to the formation of alternative hegemonic social blocs in the framework of the emergence of the new phase of development that is becoming a historical epoch.

Available online: International Gramsci Journal No.2 2010 (Accessed December 15, 2016)