Williams and Gramsci

In order to understand and write about Gramci, I had to research him a bit. I came across some information that was very useful for this assignment. Mainly an article about hegemony, it shed light to Gramsci's meaning of the word. "Gramsci defines hegemony as a form of control exercised by a dominant class, in the Marxist sense of a group controlling the means of production..."(http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/hegemony.html). In my own terms and using my own knowledge from reading the assignments and other materials I can develop this meaning. In my understanding, Gramsci understands hemegony to be the reason why capitalism has not fallen when Marx said it would fall. In Gramsci's own definition of the word the reason for this is blamed on the bourgeoisie.

I want to say much for Williams however, he seems to bore me. That passage from "Marxism and literature" seemed to be of little help at first. Once I painstakingly read through it, I grasped an idea. The third page of Williams's excerpt contains a quote. This quote states,"The ruling ideas are nothing more than the idea of expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas.(GI,2)" When I read this I realized that these material relationships are actually the relationships between the bourgeoisie and peasants.

My thoughts up to this point of reading the assigned articles still left me with the feeling of something missing. By missing I mean, the concept of hegemony being the reason why capitalism did not fail by 1846 or so. This feeling of emptiness was fulfilled when I read Jamaica Kincaid's "girl". I'm assuming that this was a very useful tool for myself, in order to create an understanding of my problem. It present a real life example of hegemony in my opinion. After I read "girl" I did not automatically read the Marxist understanding of the story, so that I can develop my own. By taking knowledge from all three readings thus far, I understand that it is simple to create a reason why capitalism did not fall according to Marxist's. When the bourgeoisie was created Marx would say that it was created out of thin air. I would say that Marx believed that because the bourgeoisie threw a wrench in Marx's mathematical equation of when capitalism would end. Marx could not see the future through a crystal ball and therefore could not see this external cause leading to the failure of his life's work. Apparently other Marxists would adopt hegemony as the reason why capitalism did not fail. They would believe that dominant ideas from bourgeoisie and their relationships with peasants would act as logs in a fire that was fueling capitalism into what it is today.