Gramsci in Light of Marx: on Ideology and Hegemony

This paper intends to analyse the political centrality of the concept of hegemony in Antonio Gramsci's work applied not only to the description of the mechanisms that underpin the current dominance of neoliberal ideology, but also to the drive of the political left to build a new hegemonic project that counteracts its effects. In order to do this, the Gramscian understanding of ideology is measured against the meaning that this tenn acquires in Karl Marx's legacy in order to show the discrepancies between the two. On this basis, the close alliance that Gramsci established between ideology and hegemony will lead to the conclusion that, from a Marxian perspective it is problematic to link the concept of hegemony to the strategies used by the political left to reach office and changes the ways capitalism functions in order to correct the social injustices it generates.