Philosophy of Praxis, Ideology-Critique, and the Relevance of a 'Luxemburg-Gramsci Line'

In: Historical materialism: research in critical marxist theory, Band 22, Heft 2, S. 99-116

Abstract

After highlighting the philological and theoretical fortes of Peter Thomas's The Gramscian Moment, the intervention questions his assumption of Gramsci's allegedly 'neutral' concept of ideology. This interpretation is one-sided in that it leaves out the ideology-critique adopted via Labriola and practised throughout Gramsci's work. Gramsci's perspective of rendering people's common sense more coherent opens up a more democratic perspective than Kautsky's and Lenin's notion that socialist class-consciousness is to be brought 'from without'. The intervention argues that the reconstruction of a 'Luxemburg-Gramsci line' is of importance for today's debates and struggles.