By Greg Wilpert

The thought of the Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci is fundamental, according to Chavez, for making sense of what is happening in Venezuela today. “I want to refer to the thought of Gramsci, to use his ideas, using the light of his thought, every day we understand better what is happening here today in Venezuela.”

Thus Chavez launched into one his longest and most detailed talks on the thought of Gramsci, explaining Gamsci’s concept of “historical blocs,” in which a particular class manages to acquire hegemony that is expressed in structures and super-structures. The super-structure, explained Chavez, consists of two levels, of the institutions of the state and of the civil society. The civil society, according to Chavez’s explanation of Gramsci, consists of economic and private institutions, through which the dominant class spreads its ideology.

The conflict in Venezuela can thus be understood as one between the institutions of the state, which used to be controlled by this civil society, but no longer is, and the old civil society. To this old civil society, according to Gramsci, belong the Catholic Church hierarchy, the mass media, and the education system as the principal institutions. The dominant classes use these institutions to disseminate their ideologies, explained Chavez.

This ideology of the dominant classes is disseminated in a variety of levels of abstraction, with philosophy being the most abstract. Below this FULL ANALYSIS

Posted by stan in Analysis