Reading Gramsci in an Era of Globalising Capitalism (Mark Ruppert)

It is possible to read Gramsci – and through him, the tradition of historical materialism – in such a way that we are enabled to realise a potentially transformative politics of solidarity in a world where capitalist relations are extending and deepening, but which is nonetheless plural. A Gramscian-inflected historical materialism enables an understanding of globalising capitalism, its relations of power and structures of governance, as the product of struggles – at once material and ideological – among concretely situated social agents. When viewed in terms of a dialectical reading of Gramsci, these struggles may be seen as reassertions of situated knowledges and process-based understandings of social reality, antithetical to the abstract individualism residing in capitalism’s core, and embodying possibilities for critical engagement, dialogue, and transformative politics in an era of globalising capitalism.