contesting the hegemony of market ideology gramsci's 'good sense' and polanyi's 'double...

Contesting the Hegemony of Market Ideology: Gramsci's 'Good Sense' and Polanyi's 'DoubleMovement'Author(s): Vicki BirchfieldSource: Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Spring, 1999), pp. 27-54Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4177298 .Accessed: 13/02/2015 14:19

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Review of International Political Economy 6:1 Spring 1999: 27-54

Contesting the hegemony of market ideology: Gramsci's 'good sense' and

Polanyi's 'double movement' Vicki Birchfield

Department of Political Science University of Georgia

ABSTRACT This article argues that the most fundamental challenge of globalization (both as a concept and as a sociopolitical process) lies in our need to reassess its bearing on the meaning and potential of democratic praxis. My purpose then is first to offer a critique of neoliberal globalization from the vantage point of democratic theory, exposing how this form of market ideology is inherently antithetical to democratic principles. The second part of the article shows how two central themes in the thought of Antonio Gramsci and Karl Polanyi may be usefully combined to produce a forceful counter-hegemonic model to contest the depoliticization, atomization and commodification endemic to neoliberal globalization. Whereas Polanyi demonstrated the repercussions of such domination in the economic lives of people, Gramsci was concerned to show the political domination that necessarily precipitated it. I argue that Polanyi's critique of the self- regulating market and his discernment of society's 'double movement', when bridged to Gramsci's theory of ideological hegemony and his notion of 'good sense', supply vital components of a critical theorization of globalization as well as practical strategies of resistance to the anti-politics of market ideology. Ultimately, I submit that this critical integration of Polanyi and Gramsci into the globalization debates produces a much needed analytic strategy which maintains a primacy on political agency, critically specifies the national-international distinction, and makes a methodological virtue of radical democratic theory.

KEYWORDS Globalization; democratic theory; hegemony; market ideology; 'good sense'; 'double movement'.

? 1999 Routledge 0969-2290 lR


REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

INTRODUCTION: DEMOCRACY AND GLOBAL CAPITALISM

The goals of this article are twofold. First, I wish to problematize globalization from the vantage point of democratic theory and, in so doing, expose what I see as its most paralysing consequence - the hegemony of market ideology. Second, I propose a framework comprised of two key theoretical constructs in the work of Antonio Gramsci and Karl Polanyi that I believe offers a powerful contestation of market ideology (or neoliberal globalization) and forms the foundation of a much needed critical and holistic theorization of international political economy. Of course, the marriage of these thinkers is by no means a blissful one, nor are the ideological divisions between the two entirely unproblematic. However, the advantage of opening up a critical dialogue between the two far exceeds the disadvantage of pairing two otherwise very intel- lectually distinct thinkers. And, unlike other scholars, such as Robert Cox and Stephen Gill,' who have recently drawn attention to the points of contact between Gramsci and Polanyi, I illustrate that it is precisely the different emphases of each author that make combining their insights so fruitful.

Any discussion of globalization would be incomplete without an exploration into the evolving nature of the relationship between democracy and capitalism. In fact, I submit that the most fundamental challenge of globalization (both as a concept and as a sociopolitical process) lies in our need to reassess its bearing on the meaning and potential of democratic praxis. Yet, as David Held has pointed out, neither democratic theory nor the various approaches in international relations theory offer a satisfactory framework for rethinking democracy in the global context. The author contends - and I concur - that 'there cannot be an account of the modern democratic state any longer without an examination of the global system and there cannot be an examination of the global system without an account of the democratic state' (1995b: 27). This observation is reminiscent of that made by Peter Gourevitch almost two decades ago in his seminal article 'The second image reversed', wherein he states that the interrelationship between international relations and domestic politics is so important that 'they should be analyzed simultaneously as wholes' (1978: 911). Thus, the renewed interest in integrating comparative politics and international relations - stemming largely from the globalization debates - is just that: renewed, not novel.2

Held's inclusion of the term 'democratic', however, is distinctive and points to what I believe could serve as an empirical and normative connector between these two fields of inquiry, which might, in turn, generate fresh perspectives and new theoretical and explanatory

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BIRCHFIELD: CONTESTING THE HEGEMONY OF MARKET IDEOLOGY

strategies for understanding and explaining the processes and consequences of increasing globalization. Assessing the relations between capitalism and democracy in the light of globalization is rendered all the more pertinent by the recognition that existing within a single world economy are diverse models of capitalist political economies, underlying which are competing visions of democracy.3 Cognizance of this diversity serves to challenge the myths and exaggerations as well as the threats and possibilities of globalization. Therefore, no approach to understanding the global economy can afford to ignore the valuable contributions that comparative political economists have made in demonstrating that capitalism is not a monolithic structure but rather one taking on different qualities in diverse domestic settings reflecting important historical and cultural particularities. Likewise, students of comparative politics must be ever more attuned to the exigencies of the world economy. I hope to demonstrate why and how inserting democratic theory at the intersection of comparative and international political economy provides a framework apposite to the task of studying the latest phase of the globalizing political economy.

The following section is devoted to the why aspect, as it offers a critique of the dominance of neoliberal globalization and its representation as coterminous with democratization. The motivation for formulating such a position, as I intimated above, stems from the need to problematize the hegemony of the neoliberal discourse of globalization and to expose how this form of market ideology is inherently antithetical to democratic principles. The second half of the article shows how two central themes in the thought of Antonio Gramsci and Karl Polanyi may be usefully combined to produce a forceful counter- hegemonic model to contest the depoliticization, atomization and commodification of human life endemic to neoliberal globalization. In the Conclusion, I suggest that a critical integration of Polanyi and Gramsci into the globalization debates in this manner produces a much needed analytic strategy which maintains a primacy on political agency, critically specifies the national-international distinction, and makes a methodological virtue of radical democratic theory.4 Searching out the affinities of two great thinkers goes beyond mere intellectual curiosity here: I hope to demonstrate that Polanyi's critique of the self-regulating market and his discernment of society's 'double movement', when linked to Gramsci's theory of ideological hegemony and his notion of 'good sense', supply vital components of a critical theorization of globalization as well as practical strategies of resistance to the anti-politics of market ideology. But, first, we must begin by examining more carefully what it is that needs to be resisted.5 Below I examine neoliberal economic globalization from the perspective of democratic theory. It is important to point out that what I wish to critique is not the market economy per se, but

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rather market ideology and its tendency to paralyse or delegitimate political thinking as a gateway to democratic action.

To reiterate, if we have learned anything from comparative political economy, it is that the market economy is not a uniform structure; rather, its heterogeneity can be understood as historically conditioned variations in state-society relations. Moreover, this is why developed capitalist democracies exhibit different sizes and forms of welfare states and contending models of state-market relations.6 The neoliberal model and its attendant free market ideology belie this complex reality. As Stephen Gill points out, the political project behind the rhetoric constitutes an attempt to 'make transnational liberalism, and if possible liberal democratic capitalism, the sole model for future development' (1995: 412). Thus, it is important first to expose the implications of this model in order to construct a more compelling contestation of it.

NEOLIBERAL GLOBALIZATION AS MARKET IDEOLOGY: A CRITIQUE

By now there is a rather unwieldy literature offering a wide variety of conceptualizations, empirical analyses and theoretical interpretations of the processes of globalization. Despite this diversity, it is possible to distil a more or less encompassing definition of what is meant by globalization. According to Louise Amoore et al., most scholars agree 'that globalization encompasses a broad range of material and non- material aspects of production, distribution, management, finance, information and communications technologies, and capital accumulation' (1997: 181). This inclusive and rather non-committal perspective serves to convey the far-reaching nature of globalization; most of the scholarly work could be categorized according to: (1) which processes receive the central focus; (2) whether or not authors depict globalization as something qualitatively new and/or inexorable; and (3) whether it is conceived as a relatively uncertain, positive or negative phase in human development and world order.

Such varied positions highlight the epistemological ramifications and normative challenges of the larger globalization debate that are of central concern in this article. The approach I take derives from my view of globalization as a dialectical process.7 This entails rejecting the notion that globalization is an external phenomenon that one may observe objectively, recognizing ourselves as implicated in and inseparable from 'the world out there', and focusing on the contradictions extant in any given historical moment - not merely for critique, but in order to dispel the myth of inexorable forces and thereby theorize and actualize progressive change. I agree with Robert Cox (1996: 66) that this mode of thinking is employed 'as much to arouse consciousness and the will to act as to

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diagnose the condition of the world'. A practical definition of globalization will clarify the relevance of this perspective in grounding the following critique. To this end, Held's conceptualization is useful:

globalization can be taken to denote the stretching and deepening of social relations and institutions across space and time such that, on the one hand, day-to-day activities are increasingly influenced by events happening on the other side of the globe, and on the other, the practices and decisions of local groups or communities can have significant global reverberations.

(1995b: 20) Such an interpretation makes the implications for democratic politics

quite clear as new forms of power are being created and exercised in ways that undermine traditional notions of legitimate authority and accountability as being tied to the territorially bound state. A tension emerges, however, from the asymmetrical possession and exercise of this new power by what some scholars have termed the 'transnational capital class' (Gill, 1990; Pijl, 1997) or, in other words, the relatively few who benefit most from the deregulation of world financial and labour markets and increasing trade liberalization. Dani Rodrick put it quite cogently: 'globalization is exposing a deep fault line between groups who have the skills and mobility to flourish in global markets and those who either don't have these advantages or perceive the expansion of unregulated markets as inimical to social stability and deeply held norms' (1997: 2).

Despite such enormous power imbalances, the triumphalist ethos of market ideology seems to prevail. As Gill put it, 'the present world order involves a more "liberalized" and commodified set of historical structures, driven by the restructuring of capital and a political shift to the right. This process involves the spatial expansion and social deepening of economic liberal definitions of social purpose and possessively individualist patterns of action and politics' (1995: 399). While I agree with the author that this emerging 'market civilization' is contradictory or even 'oxymoronic', I do not think the ideological dimension has been adequately exposed or problematized in the recent literature. Consequently, I believe its contestation can be most propitiously waged on its own terms - that is, by subjecting market ideology to the core concepts of democratic theory.

When market logic is applied to more and more areas of human life, as is the case with neoliberal globalization, what essentially results is an increasing sublimation of politics and detachment from social reality. The dominant assumption that human nature and behaviour can be characterized as economizing, maximizing utility to secure self-interest, gains acceptance as an inviolable truth. One result of this is a loss of

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an appreciation of other values that are completely devoid of economic rationale, such as respect, tolerance and social growth - or a deepening of community as opposed to merely its spatial expansion. And now, as we seem to be moving into an era where the market becomes a chief rallying cry (and the key metaphor for world dis/order) and is asserted as the best guarantor of freedom, it is incumbent upon democratic theorists and citizens to take stock of its repercussions for the democratic experiment. Those who insist that there is no democracy without a free market need to be reminded that the two forms of human organization are not entirely interchangeable and do not necessarily coexist peace- fully. As Earl Shorris argues:

Political democracy is a relation among human beings who control themselves. Market democracy is a competition in which people try to control each other ... this one is a misnomer, for the control of one human being by another, no matter how subtle the means, is no democracy.

(Shorris, 1994: 137) When the market mechanism - a method of organization or social

coordination designed to render more efficient the exchange of goods and services - is associated with a fundamental democratic value - liberty8 - one necessarily presupposes a narrow and materialistic conception of both freedom and the aims of democracy itself. Hannah Arendt captured this effect as she observed, 'the development of commercial society ... with the triumphal victory of exchange value over use value, first introduced the principle of interchangeability, then the relativiza- tion, and finally the devaluation of all values' (quoted in ibid.: 253). This effectively subordinates actors to rules.

For the market mechanism to function, certain rules must be estab- lished. Private property must be guaranteed and incentives to compete for scarce resources are encouraged and described as natural. Communal values and cooperation are not nurtured, because that would undermine the role of scarcity, which is the idea underpinning the whole system. This is one way it weakens the prospects for democracy. By giving primacy to rules and, more importantly, venerating and reifying property to such an extent that it acquires the status of personhood, it excludes other potential ordering principles of society and diminishes the importance of social values, which are vital to democratic partici- pation and decision making. It should be noted that the hegemony of the market is achieved by its representation as an uncontroversial metaphor for a society at liberty to do with property what it pleases without interference from the state. In the context of globalization, this becomes increasingly convenient for capital as the state may abdicate its former responsibilities of regulation and provision of social

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welfare by claiming global competition and market forces dictate such action.

It is a rather commonplace idea that our system is based upon Isaiah Berlin's (1968) 'negative freedom'. It is hegemonic from the point of view that the basic rules of the game, i.e. privilege and protection of private property and capital above all else, are not seriously contested. Moreover, the market paradigm of human life is entrenched philo- sophically by placing the individual (but primarily the individual as utility-maximizing economic agent) at the centre and positing the market as the best and truest terrain of freedom. Yet, if we subject this logic to democratic principles, a major lacuna emerges. First, asserting the market as the ultimate realm of freedom ignores the possibility that freedom is exercised in ways other than producing and consuming.9 Furthermore, if we recognize with Rousseau that 'rules make actors and actors make rules', we realize that by privileging economics over politics, rules have come to dominate and the market process dictates to society instead of the other way round. Market logic gives legitimacy to such a process because freedom is primarily conceptualized in the private sphere.

This issue raises the deeper problem of the relationship between capitalism (which requires supposedly 'free markets') and democracy. An overview of the argument made by Bowles and Gintis (1986) regarding this relationship is helpful here in eliciting the incompatibility of market ideology with the aims and principles of democracy. For these authors, the relationship between democracy and capitalism is an uneasy one, as the economic system has as an imperative the privileging of a certain set of rights over others. Bowles and Gintis forcefully articulate the idea that the liberal democratic model - and what they refer to as 'capitalist governance' - necessitate that property rights prevail over personal rights. They proceed to critique both liberal and Marxist political theory and propose a theoretical and practical agenda for expanding the scope of both liberty and individual choice, but in a framework consonant with the notion of popular sovereignty. This comes close to what I referred to earlier as 'making a methodological virtue of democratic theory'. In other words, the principles of democracy must be brought to bear on the questions posed by political economists; in fact, I would go as far as to say that political economy and democratic theory should be seen as inseparable forms of intellectual inquiry.10

What is useful in their argument for the development of this critique of market ideology is the recognition that both liberal and Marxist theories have too unitary a conception of power, which ignores the fundamentally political nature of economic life and under-theorizes the role of the state.11 In other words, in a manner strikingly similar to Karl Polanyi (1944), they argue that although the economy is a site of

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social conflict, the underlying sources of tension are inherently political. Again, in reference to the three elements of a critical theorization of IPE, this is an example of what is meant by putting the primacy on the political. The masking or denial of the deliberately political manoeuvres vital to the maintenance of a market economy is what constitutes the essence of market ideology. Whether or not 'market logic' is hegemonic depends on how widespread the view is that the market functions according to inexorable laws (which incidentally effectively subordinates politics to less consequential areas of social relations). Given the dominant discourse of neoliberal globalization, I would argue that the market ethos is ascending into hegemonic status.

It is worth remembering that it is the capitalist wage relation that necessitates the conceptual separation of economics and politics, respec- tively, into private and public spheres of activity, which in turn becomes the defining feature of the liberal state.12 The main thrust of the argument presented by Bowles and Gintis is that the democratic experiment involves the enlargement of popular sovereignty and liberty, but the process has been inhibited as capitalism and the liberal creed have produced a collision course between two fundamental rights: property rights and personal rights. The clash of these rights facilitated what the authors refer to as an 'institutional modus vivendi' of the two forces, which entailed a series of accommodations (from Lockean to Keynesian) attempting to resolve the contradictory logic of capitalism while 'simultaneously promoting the process of economic growth and containing the explosive potential of coexistence of economic privilege and representative political institutions' (Bowles and Gintis, 1986: 34).

The above quote contains a very significant insight into the ambiguities involved when relating the market to freedom and democracy, particularly as it must be sustained in light of increasing globalization. The economic privilege the authors refer to is the status liberal theory grants to the capitalist economy as a private realm of property. Bowles and Gintis argue that this is an untenable position, as a sphere cannot be considered private if it involves the 'socially consequential exercise of power' (ibid.: 66-7).13 I would add that the whole notion of privilege hinges on this vital segmentation of public and private. For instance, the private status granted to corporations, despite their enormous social power, effectively removes from political discourse a whole host of issues that from the democratic perspective should be subjected to public debate - not the least of which is the wage labour system and the asymmetries between the power of labour and the power of capital. In countries where free market ideology is not so pervasive, values such as social justice and worker democracy are a more frequent part of discourse (e.g. Germany, France, the Nordic countries). Yet, as capital is becoming more mobile and globalized, there is an even greater threat

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to the idea and practice of social democracy - which at its root has a conception of justice which derides this false separation of economics and politics - and this is precisely why democratic theorizing must encompass non-territorial notions of popular sovereignty and solidarity as well as contest the false separation of economics and politics.

In some ways praxis is ahead of theory, as we see more and more transnational social forces agitating at the global level.14 Unless we challenge current private/public distinctions and revive the Habermasian notion of the public sphere, capital and markets will continue to dominate discourse and thus severely delimit social power.15 Bowles and Gintis contribute to this project by reminding us that 'the capitalist economy cannot be judged to be private simply by virtue of the prominent role played by markets' and by prescribing institutional mechanisms that promote what Hannah Arendt called 'new public spaces for freedom' (Bowles and Gintis, 1986: 2045).16 This is especially challenging, however, in the context of the global political economy.

Global capitalism renders the dualities of public/private and politics/ economics all the more problematic, as national governments may now justify disengagements of social welfare commitments in the paradoxical terms of preserving national sovereignty in an increasingly interdepen- dent world. For example, note the following argument by Wolfgang Streeck regarding the European Union:

National political systems embedded in a competitive international market and exposed to supranationally ungoverned external effects of competing systems are tempted to protect their formal sovereignty by devolving responsibility for the economy to the 'market' - using what has remained of their public powers of intervention to limit, as it were constitutionally, the claims politics can make on the economy, and citizens on the polity. ... If citizens can be persuaded that economic outcomes are, and better be, the result of 'market forces', and that national governments are, therefore, no longer to be held responsible for the economy, national domestic sovereignty and political legitimacy can be maintained even in conditions of tight economic interdependence: with the nation-state having offloaded its responsibility for its economy to the 'world market', its own insufficiency and obsolescence in relation to the latter ceases to be visible.

(Streeck, 1996: 307-8) If indeed 'persuading citizens' is effected, then the hegemony of

market ideology will be achieved. The significant point is that this is indeed a crucial ideological struggle. And, from the dialectical perspective, it must be emphasized that this period of shifting social relations is historically produced and politically contestable. Thus, for those concerned

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with contesting the anti-democratic impulses of an atomized, anti- political global market society, we must propose counter-hegemonic strategies of rectifying a public sphere, where power can be made more visible and therefore subjected to accountability. To be successful, these strategies must be omnipresent and take multiple forms in the political, cultural and intellectual realms. In other words, as Barry Gills urges, 'we must make concrete strategies and concepts of "resistance" central to our analyses of globalization' (1997: 11).

As this critique of market ideology has tried to illustrate, resistance to the market as the key metaphor and organizing principle of our global society requires both a rejection of the market model of society that is grounded in democratic theory and a recognition that the hegemonic battle of neoliberal globalization is - at this stage - primarily on the terrain of ideology. These two points draw our attention to two key thinkers whose work (especially when combined) represents a powerful model for understanding and explaining the tensions in and possibilities for the global political economy. Thus, what follows is a selective presentation of some of the central ideas in the writings of Karl Polanyi and Antonio Gramsci that I believe shed light on contemporary problems facing the world community and which also elucidate the critical elements needed for constructing a theory that bridges comparative and international political economy - that is, offers a truly holistic approach.

TOWARDS A RADICAL DEMOCRATIC THEORY FOR THE GLOBAL EPOCH: APPLYING POLANYI

AND GRAMSCI One of the strongest non-Marxist critiques of market society was that offered by Karl Polanyi writing in the wake of the Second World War.17 Challenging Adam Smith and the assumptions of eighteenth-century political economy, Polanyi argued that the establishment of laissez-faire economics required state intervention and that market society did not emerge naturally as a result of man's propensity to 'truck, barter and exchange', nor was market expansion impersonal or inevitable. He notes: 'the road to the free market was opened and kept open by an enormous increase in continuous, centrally organized and controlled interven- tionism. To make Adam Smith's "simple and natural liberty" compatible with the needs of a human society was a most complicated affair' (Polanyi, 1957: 140).

The fundamental legacy of Polanyi's work and its relevance to this article is the author's introduction of the idea that the 'self-regulating market' was largely a myth as it required deliberate political action to pave the way for such an approach to economic organization. Though he wrote from the perspective of an economic historian, his account of

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the emergence of market society entailed astute, if subtle, political analysis as opposed to understanding it as a strictly economic phenomenon. Applying Polanyi's perspective to the present situation of global capitalism and the neoliberal project, we gain insights into how the process of global marketization unfolds and in what ways it suppresses other important societal values that seem central to the life of a democratic society - both domestic and international.

Two specific places in Polanyi's writing where he grasped the antithetical nature of markets and popular sovereignty are his excursus on the rise of the 'self-regulating market' and his account of society's 'double movement'. In the former, Polanyi distinguishes the move towards free markets or self-regulating markets from previous economic systems and emphasizes that never before had markets been more than accessories of economic life, where 'as a rule, the economic system was absorbed in the social system', but in contrast the market economy is one in which markets alone direct the production and distribution of goods' (ibid.: 68). The following excerpt underlines the assumptions of this system and identifies what Polanyi saw as a harbinger of its negative consequences for social and moral life.

An economy of this kind derives from the expectation that human beings behave in such a way as to achieve maximum money gains. It assumes markets in which supply of goods (including services) available at a definite price will equal the demand at that price. ... Under these assumptions order in production and distribution of goods is ensured by prices alone. ... Nothing must be allowed to inhibit the formation of markets, nor must incomes be permitted to be formed otherwise than through sales. ... Neither price, nor supply, nor demand must be fixed or regulated; only such policies and measures are in order which help ensure the self-regulation of the market by creating conditions which make the market the only organizing power in the economic sphere.

(ibid.: 68-9) What Polanyi was driving at here and throughout his book were the

mythic proportions of the assumption of human nature and behaviour underlying the market economy and its centrality to the 'disembedding' of the economy from social relations and institutions where values other than profit had previously prevailed. The author structures his argument around an analysis and critique of the commodification of land, labour and money, which he decries as an artificial process producing 'fictitious commodities', the consequences of which subordinate the substance of society to the mechanism of the market.

The implications of this system for democracy are woven throughout his analysis but are most emphatically relayed in his discussion of the

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double movement, which he empirically substantiates with his account of the Chartist movement. A focal point of his account is the constitutional separation of economics and politics and the observation that this was essentially designed to 'separate people from power over their own economic life' (ibid.: 225). The Chartist petition that the disinherited be allowed to access the state unleashed the potential of political power - although their demands were rejected by the House of Lords in the name of 'the institution of property on which all civilization rested' (ibid.). The key theoretical insight Polanyi imparted in his story of the Chartists is summed up in the following passage.

The Chartists had fought for the right to stop the mill of the market which ground the lives of the people. But the people were granted rights only when the awful adjustment had been made. Inside and outside England from Macaulay to Mises, from Spencer to Sumner, there was not a militant liberal who did not express his conviction that popular democracy was a danger to capitalism.

(ibid.: 226) Thus, consistent with my critique of market ideology, Polanyi illus-

trated that it is the tendency of market economics to insist that all other rights and values be subordinated to the sacral realm of property, and that it is only through humanity's struggle to protect itself against the vagaries of the market that civilization is rescued and the reality of society rehabilitated. One scholar in a recent analysis of Polanyi's work summed up the moral and social ramifications of the transition to laissez-faire economics as a shift from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft that 'entailed a loss of a certain vital human quality [replaced with an] atomized society in which the interdependency of individuals was not mediated through political, social, or religious institutions but via the market and contract' (Booth, 1994: 656-7).18

Neoliberal globalization might be seen as another grand-scale attempt at laissez-faire economics that more than anything else demonstrates the power of market ideology: why else would its disastrous consequences be risked again? This question is precisely why Polanyi's exposition of 'the self-regulating market' as a dangerous myth is so critically instruc- tive at this moment in history. But Polanyi did more than offer this critical interpretation of the fallacies and travesties associated with laissez-faire economics. He also implicitly planted the seed of a radical democratic theory that I think is aptly summed up in his idea of the 'double movement'.

Polanyi's concept of the 'double movement' refers to society's 'inevitable self-protection against the commodification of life' (Mendell and Salee, 1991: xiii). Polanyi writes: 'For a century the dynamics of modern society was governed by a double movement: the market

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expanded continuously but this movement was met by a counter- movement checking the expansion in definite directions' (Polanyi, 1957: 130). He argued that there were basically two organizing principles in society at work simultaneously. On the one hand, there was economic liberalism 'aiming at the establishment of a self-regulating market, relying on the support of the trading classes and using largely laissez- faire and free trade as its methods', and on the other there was 'social protection aiming at the conservation of man and nature as well as productive organization, relying on the support of those most immedi- ately affected by the deleterious action of the market - primarily, but not exclusively, the working and the landed classes' (ibid.: 132).

The discernment of the double movement intimates how Polanyi's ideas could be employed to invigorate political economy with democratic theory. This is useful not for theoretical purposes alone, but also because, as Polanyi has shown, it is the natural, spontaneous response of individuals and collective society to preserve not only their own autonomy but their very existence by trying to shape their destiny through a more democratically controlled, socially embedded economy. Such a view also resonates with the thesis of Bowles and Gintis that the rights necessary to make capitalism work and those required to fulfil democratic ideals are often in direct conflict. Thus, the most dire consequence of the hegemony of market ideology would be that the need to make market forces conform to principles of democracy is supplanted by a norm that delegitimates political demands that are construed as infringing on the functioning of the market.

Stephen Gill has invoked Polanyi's 'double movement' as a metaphor for the 'sociopolitical forces which wish to assert more democratic control over political life' (Gill, 1995b: 67). While in spirit I agree with this characterization, what I have shown is that Polanyi's account of the Chartist movement should be read as something more tangible than a metaphor; it is in fact an explicitly political response to the other part of the double movement - that of economic liberalism and the myriad voices in service to capital. And, in contrast to the way Gill has put it, perhaps the emphasis should be on elucidating ways of asserting democratic control over economic life. Or the dubious distinction between economic and political life could simply be dismissed. In this context Polanyi's model (undergirded by a broad and rather ambiguous definition of society, hence his underdeveloped sense of agency) is usefully complemented by Gramsci's work.

As one scholar astutely observed: 'Gramsci's contribution to the notion of civil society was to recognize, for the political dimension, what Polanyi recognized for the economic: that civil society itself could not survive without its own forms of regulation' (Smith, 1994: 14). This is precisely why adjoining Gramsci's theory of ideological hegemony

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(which also contains what I interpret as a theory of agency) to Polanyi's critique of 'market utopia' is so valuable.

Though Polanyi laboured to reveal the deliberately political nature of economic organization, his main concern was to present the economy as a necessarily embedded social structure, not to articulate a political theory or fully specify the role of agency. Mitchell Bernard refers to these ambiguities generally as 'the problem of agency in Polanyi's history' - one aspect of which is a 'technological determinism' (1997: 81-2). If there is a technological determinism (and Bernard suggests this is how Polanyi explains 'fictitious commodities' (ibid.: 80-1)), I would suggest this is a consequence of Polanyi's supposed rejection of Marxian historical materialism. Since Marx elaborated the original argument about 'the fetishism of commodities' in the opening pages of Capital, Polanyi, perhaps rather than acknowledging his intellectual debt to Marx, distinguishes his view by treating commodification as a function of technological change rather than (and independent of) the mode of production. This again raises an important issue as to whether it is possible to reconcile the non-Marxism of Polanyi with the Marxism of Gramsci. One response is that both thinkers were concerned with and critical of economic determinism and both were radically committed to the democratic construction of a socialist society. Perhaps if Polanyi could have read Gramsci's 'Problems of Marxism' (1971) he would have been able to acknowledge his own debt to Marx's ideas rather than disavowing it because of their horrendous distortion in Stalinist Russia. Moreover, as I hope to show below, merging the insights of these two thinkers is far more productive than reading either author singly or dwelling on the divisions they have in their respective relationships to Marxism.

Gramsci's conceptualization of the relation between structure and agency, articulated through his theory of hegemony, provides a deeper understanding of the formation and nature of counter-movements (as well as their failure to materialize). Thus, I propose that linking Polanyi's account of 'market utopia' to Gramsci's more sophisticated conceptualization of power and state-society relations will supply a more encompassing conceptual framework for a holistic, critical theory of globalization.

The goal of the following appropriation of Gramsci's political theory, then, is to show how his conceptual schemas of ideological hegemony and civil society are interrelated and why the two constructs serve as both theoretical and practical tools for contesting market ideology and its latest incarnation - neoliberal globalization. My interpretation of Gramsci's radical democratic theory is rooted in the appreciation of his conviction that 'tutta la vita e politica', which already establishes a strong affinity with Polanyi. This theme woven throughout his writings

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strengthens the claim of this article that economic organization is politically motivated and therefore legitimately contestable in a democratic society.

I argue that Gramsci's vision of civil society is unique in that, unlike both liberalism and orthodox Marxism, he described civil society as inherently public, which explains in part his theory of hegemonic politics. This public conception of civil society will be clarified below in an effort to illuminate the manner in which ideological hegemony is both constituted and contested.

In a very compelling and encompassing reassessment of the legacy of Antonio Gramsci, Dante Germino portrays the thinker above all else (linguist, philosopher, activist, theatre critic, provincial Sardinian, founder of the Italian Communist Party) as an 'architect of a new politics'. The passage below sums up Germino's very insightful summary of Gramsci's life work.

One could say Gramsci accomplished a Copernican revolution in politics by giving the world of political and social relationships a new sun. What had previously been described as 'marginal' territory - the everyday lives of the impoverished and the illiterate majority of humankind - becomes for Gramsci the center around which the political world evolves. The whole human world of lan- guage, art, literature, philosophy, and - yes - architecture is enlisted by Gramsci in the task of overcoming the oppressive state appara- tus, together with its supporting societal caste, whose raison d'etre has been to perpetuate the distinction between the powerful and prestigious few at the expense of the powerless and despised many.

(Germino, 1990: 263) Gramsci saw society as comprised of a small but dominant centre and

a large body of 'emarginati' - marginalized people at society's periphery who are never allowed to penetrate the traditional power structure. That vision laid the foundation for his 'politics of inclusion' (his formulation of the 'philosophy of praxis' or Marxist political theory) which had as its primary goal the erosion of the boundaries dividing the centre and the periphery. In the Prison Notebooks he observes:

The cornerstone of politics and of any collective action whatsoever is that there are governors and governed, leaders and led. All the art and science of politics is based on this primordial, irreducible fact, obtaining in general conditions ... the new politics concerns itself with how to attenuate this fact and make it disappear.

(quoted in Germino, 1990: 243)19 These excerpts serve as a springboard from which to examine

Gramsci's concepts of hegemony and civil society. As mentioned above, 41



Gramsci depicts civil society as constituted in the public sphere, in contrast to liberalism's assignment of civil society to the private realm. Civil society is the site of both domination and consent, concepts which Gramsci sometimes uses interchangeably depending on whether he refers to old politics or his hope for a new politics where active consent reigns rather than ideological domination exercised through folklore, religious myth, ignorance, contradictory consciousness, etc. For Gramsci, society is held together by hegemony rooted in civil society.20 The complex interplay between these two constructs is what distinguishes his theorization from reductionist Marxism.

Gramsci dismissed the rigid separation of base and superstructure and began to describe domination as something congealed in the superstructure - the cultural, intellectual and moral realm - as opposed to the economic base. He effectively introduced human agency and a theory of consciousness here while also retaining the penetrating Marxian critique of the historicity of social relations embodied in the mode of production.

Provoking part of Gramsci's query was the lack of proletarian revolution in the west. As he began to rethink and challenge economistic and reductionist conceptualizations of the state, he realized consent was the only path towards revolution.21 He went beyond Marx's understanding of civil society and false consciousness with his realization that there was a meshing of base and superstructure in which a whole social stratum operated to maintain the system. Two important sections of his prison writings detail his analysis of this phenomenon. First, his chapter on intellectuals describes the relationship between intellectual groups in society and the forces of production as one in which intellectuals appear to serve as deputies of the dominant group 'exercising the subaltern functions of social hegemony and political government' (Gramsci, 1971: 12-13).

The second point of reference is his section on the state and civil society, from which I extract a paragraph containing one of his most famous sentences:

We are still on the terrain of the identification of the State and government - an identification which is precisely a representation of the economic-corporate form, in other words of the confusion between civil society and political society. For it should be remarked that the general notion of State includes elements which need to be referred back to the notion of civil society (in the sense that one might say State = political society + civil society, in other words, hegemony protected by the armour of coercion.

(ibid.: 262-3) This lends support for my claim that he placed civil society in the

public realm. For Gramsci hegemony functioned in the public sphere 42



not only through indirect political support but through depictions of life in art, in literature and even in private relations of domination in the patriarchal family structure. Walter Adamson describes this Gramscian conception of civil society as follows: 'By civil society ... I mean the public space between large-scale bureaucratic structures of state and economy on the one hand, and the private sphere of family, friendships, personality and intimacy on the other' (1987: 320).

Kai Nielson remarks that for Gramsci, in contrast to Hegel and Marx, 'the conflicts of civil society are centrally political' (1995: 46). Gramsci's reflections on Machiavelli reinforce this assertion and provide some clues for overcoming the problem of hegemony without active consent.

In 'The modem prince' Gramsci revealed a deep appreciation of Machiavelli's insights into the nature of politics and power and attempted a systematic analysis of The Prince to draw a parallel to the role of the modem mass party. What impressed Gramsci about The Prince was the fact that it was what he dubbed a 'live work, in which political ideology and political science are fused in the dramatic form of a myth' (1971: 125).22 Although his analysis engaged many aspects of Machiavelli's thought, he drew out most powerfully the capacity of theoretical abstraction and symbolism in representing the notion of 'collective will' and tapping into popular consciousness.

In a sense, Gramsci critically read Machiavelli's Prince as a kind of 'political manifesto'. In a subsequent entry in his Notebooks he continued to grapple with how the modem prince or the Communist Party could transform society without deception or force. A key strategy and perhaps the clearest example of what Gramsci's politics of inclusion would resemble is contained in the following statement:

[the modem prince or the revolutionary party] is head of a new type of state which is not exclusive. Rather, it exercises the hegemonic function in civil society. ... It is not possible to create a constitutional law of the traditional type on the basis of this reality, which is in continuous movement; it is only possible to create a system of principles asserting that the state's goal is its own end, its own disappearance, in other words, the reabsorption of political society into civil society.

(quoted in Germino, 1990: 225) Although there is a common thread here with the classical Marxian

notion of the 'withering away of the state' it must be understood as distinct from it. In contrast, Gramsci railed against the notion of perma- nence or an end point to politics, and instead envisioned politics as an open-ended, continuously transformative process through which thought and action become unified. Mark Rupert adds that Gramsci's political objective is to:

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transcend the division of capitalist society into rulers and ruled, dominant classes and subaltern groups, state and society. While such a struggle - eventuating in a 'regulated society', that is, socialism - will necessarily entail the transformation of the capitalist economy, it is neither determined by 'causes' originating in that economy, nor are its implications limited to economic changes. Gramsci's radical politics envisions a comprehensive transformation of social reality through the effective creation of a counter-culture, an alternative world-view and new form of political organization in whose participatory and consensual practices that world-view is concretely realized.

(Rupert, 1995: 28) To understand how Gramsci thought this process could actually come

to fruition, we need to examine more carefully his complex formulation of hegemony and, in particular, how ideological hegemony was positively construed.23 The positive construction of ideological hegemony derived from Gramsci's appreciation of the fact that this type of hegemony was an integral part of politics that is necessary for the functioning and stability of any regime. The critical question was what the hegemony was actually based on - active or passive consent. He believed, for example, that the bourgeois revolution was hegemonically unsuccessful in Italy, thus paving the way for the Fascists, who, in return, were not (positively) hegemonic because they relied on force and imprisoned opponents of the regime (see Gramsci, 1971: 263).

Positive hegemony relies on widespread popular consent deriving from a philosophical world-view, for Gramsci preferably that of the philosophy of praxis, a non-economistic Marxism where 'good sense' reigns over 'common sense', and thus where force, or what he called the 'armour of coercion', of the state was unnecessary. Hence, it is essential to recall how Gramsci understood ideology as underlying or guiding individual and collective action. He clearly breaks with hard struc- turalism in 'The study of philosophy', where, I believe, he articulates a strong individualist-based conception of the role of ideas and their collective expression as 'common sense', which is usually a fragmentary and uncritical conception of the world.24

Showing his true radicalism and belief in the ability of common people to be self-determining, Gramsci seems to show here that emancipation must begin in the ideational realm. He notes that it must be shown that all 'men are philosophers', but what is necessary is to make this conscious, critical activity.25 He asks whether it is not

better to work out consciously and critically one's own conception of the world and thus, in connection with the labours of one's own brain, choose one's sphere of activity, take an active part in the

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creation of the history of the world, be one's own guide, refusing to accept passively and supinely from outside the moulding of one's personality.

(Gramsci, 1971: 323-4) Ideological hegemony comes into play when there is uncontested common sense, despite the internal contradictions of any such single conception of the world which serves the dominant few to the detri- ment of the marginalized many.

Yet, as I claim above, Gramsci realized that hegemony was a necessary fact of collective political life; thus, he also conceptualized a positive or ethical hegemony.26 His idea of 'good sense' is central here and is intimately related to his belief in radical democracy. First, Gramsci notes that 'philosophy is criticism and the superseding of religion and "common sense". In this sense it coincides with "good" as opposed to "common sense"' (ibid.: 326). Later in this same selection Gramsci defines 'good sense' as 'a conception of the world with an ethic that conforms to its structure' (ibid.: 346). I believe this is a key location of Gramsci's dialectical understanding of the relation between base and superstructure. Furthermore, I think it essentially boils down to Gramsci's reformulation of Marx's idea that the point of philosophy should no longer be to interpret the world but to change it, and that this philosophy or 'good sense' had to be widespread in the everyday lives of individuals in all facets of life if any genuine change were to transpire.

The problem of change then hinges on how entrenched ideology or popular common sense is in terms of its consistency with the structural requisites of society. Market ideology is the necessary corollary to neoliberal economic globalization, without which the structural require- ments of increased capital mobility, wage depression, flexible modes of production and accumulation, etc. could not be justified and permitted. So 'free markets' has to be the talk of the town in every corner of the globe. Thus, a contestation of neoliberalism must begin by a dereifica- tion of the market which would demonstrate the fundamentally social and, therefore, public nature of economic relations. This reinforces the contradiction of the liberal depiction of civil society as private and, through a Gramscian interpretation, it reveals that its depoliticization is ideologically necessary to maintain the current structural status quo. Hence, it is vital that the notion of hegemony be seen as constituted in civil society if Gramsci's political theory is to be properly understood and related to his vision of radical democracy.

The problem arises presently, however, in terms of moving from Gramsci's conception of civil society as specific to a national context to one that may need to be expressed and theorized internationally.27 This

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problem directs our attention to the hitherto unaddressed 'international-national distinction' which I have suggested is an essential element of a more useful analytical and theoretical model for understanding globalization. Below I will briefly identify how this distinction was addressed by Gramsci and Polanyi - reinforcing the idea that collapsing the distinction of comparative and international political economy is integral to a critical theorization of globalization.

Both Gramsci and Polanyi had an organic conception of society and were concemed with how an international economy and international relations impinged on the 'organic rationality' (Polanyi) or sparked an 'organic crisis' (Gramsci) within domestic society. Polanyi devotes his opening chapter of The Great Transformation to an analysis of the international system and draws a complex picture of the workings of the four key institutions of nineteenth-century civilization: the balance of power; the international gold standard; the self-regulating market; and the liberal state. But, of these institutions, Polanyi shows how the myth of the self-regulating market was most disastrous. As shown above, Polanyi thought the spread of the market system had been arrested through its encounter with a 'protective counter-movement tending toward its restriction ... such an assumption, indeed, underlies our own thesis of the double movement' (1957: 144). Although the author focuses exclusively on English society when he describes this double movement, as one commentator observes, Polanyi perhaps foreshadowed a necessary double movement that transcended national boundaries.

This nationalisation of politics and markets produces a further paradoxical development. The new state becomes embedded in a structure of international economic competition and retreats from internal regulation, surrendering the principle of ordering social relations and distributing resources to the market.

(Glasman, 1994: 61) In a similar vein, Gramsci, as IPE theorists using his work well know,

stated that international relations follow rather than precede fundamental social relations. But a more interesting and often neglected extension of this idea is Gramsci's insight contained in the following passage:

according to the philosophy of praxis (as it manifests itself politically) ... the international situtation should be considered in its national aspect. In reality, the internal relations of any nation are the result of a combination which is 'original' and (in a certain sense) unique: these relations must be understood and conceived in their originality and uniqueness if one wishes to dominate them and direct them. To be sure, this line of development is toward

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internationalism, but the point of departure is 'national' - and it is from this point of departure that one must begin. Yet the perspective is international and cannot be otherwise.

(Gramsci, 1971: 240) Mark Rupert rearticulates this dialectical view of the international-

national connection as 'second order alienation', which he defines as the 'mutual estrangement of political communities which are themselves constructed within relations of alienation' (Rupert, 1995: 33). This reinforces Gourevitch's point that the distinction between comparative and international political inquiry is a rather dubious one. Both Polanyi and Gramsci, despite their narrow concerns for specific national situa- tions, avoid this error by embracing a holistic view of the expansionary logic of capitalism in order to clarify the root source of domination. Whereas Polanyi demonstrated the repercussions of such domination in the economic lives of people, Gramsci was concerned to show the political domination that necessarily precipitated it, and neither author ignored the extent to which international-national connections could be manoeuvred by powerful private forces to undermine popular sovereignty. I believe such a combination of insights from these two thinkers serves as a solid foundation for formulating a radical democratic theory for the global epoch.

CONCLUSION The primary aim of this article has been to demonstrate that ideological hegemony, as currently manifested through neoliberalism's champion- ing of market society, has damaging consequences for democratic praxis, whether at the local, national, regional or global level. The greatest risk is that the market metaphor (for conceptualizing world order and for organizing social life) sublimates politics. It debilitates political discourse by maintaining the outmoded distinctions of public/ private, politics/economics and national/international. Yet, politics is the vehicle of public deliberation whereby genuine social compromises may be reached and those forces beyond the direct control of ordinary citizens may at least be contested and made accountable. If market ideology prevails, the very ideals of democracy are put into jeopardy as the mythic ideal of the free market trumps the real potential of politics. The joint legacy of Polanyi and Gramsci is their common inter- rogation of this phenomenon - albeit from different vantage points and distinctive intellectual backgrounds.

As I contended at the outset of this article, a critical integration of Gramsci and Polanyi into the globalization debates yields an analytic strategy which maintains a primacy on political agency, specifies the

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national-international distinction and makes a methodological virtue of radical democratic theory. I hope the synthesis I have presented here serves to persuade readers that, despite the differences between these two thinkers, their major ideas certainly embody these three elements which should also serve to inform a more holistic approach to understanding international political economy. Further, together these authors supply the vital components of a counter-hegemonic model which contests neoliberal globalization.

To summarize, what is essential is a thoroughgoing critique of the market model of society which reveals it for what it is - a commodification of all aspects of social life in which the rights of property prevail over fundamental personal rights - and a theory of ideology and change which enables individuals to theorize resistance to this model and actualize progressive change. Polanyi challenged the assumptions of market ideology and the market model of society by showing that its segmentation of public and private life, its simplistic, ahistorical portrayal of human nature, and its illusion of economics as private activity only mask underlying privilege and domination. Gramsci showed that the necessarily complex but identifiable process of hegemony is what seals the endurance of the ideological power exercised by certain social groups over others; thus, a pivotal point of transformation lies in the realm of popular belief. When read jointly in this manner, Polanyi and Gramsci pack a powerful punch in terms of determining what is real and what is myth in the globalization ballyhoo.

Gramsci's 'good sense' might be seen as the guiding thought behind the action of the progressive side of the 'double movement'. Obviously both elements are necessary to erode the prevailing hegemony by a socially conscious, intellectual and moral subversion of market ideology's false depiction of human life under consumer- and market- oriented capitalism. Thus, if one is concerned that the hegemony of market society forebodes deleterious social consequences in its privileging of capital over people, a rereading of Gramsci and Polanyi is a good starting point for pointing out how the market peripheralizes large sections of humanity and produces systematic inequalities that handicap and undermine democracy itself. Such a reading would serve to demys- tify the underlying power asymmetries of market triumphalism and to reawaken the public and political spirit of civil society in both its global and its local dimensions.

NOTES 1 See, for example, both authors' contributions to B. Hettne's edited volume

entitled International Political Economy: Understanding Global Disorder (1995). Here we find two leading Gramscian IPE scholars discussing Polanyi's

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concept of the 'double movement', and though both acknowledge that Gramsci and Polanyi share certain intellectual affinities, neither is concerned with drawing out how each thinker offers an important conceptual comple- ment to the other. This is the primary objective of the second part of this article.

2 For a sampling of the recent and burgeoning literature on what Gabriel Almond (1989) referred to as the 'international-national connection', see the collected volumes of Berger and Dore, National Diversity and Global Capitalism (1996); Boyer and Drache, States Against Markets (1996); and Keohane and Milner, Internationalization and Domestic Politics (1996). For review articles of a number of others see John Kurt Jacobsen's 'Are all politics domestic? Perspectives on the integration of comparative politics and international relations theories', Comparative Politics 29 (1) (1996): 93-113; Wil Hout's 'Globalization and the quest for govemance', Mershon International Studies Review 41 (1997): 99-106; W. Rand Smith's 'International economy and state strategies', Comparative Politics (April 1993): 351-71; and James Caporaso's 'Across the great divide: integrating comparative and international politics', International Studies Quarterly) 41 (1997): 563-92.

3 This idea is captured quite nicely in Michel Albert's Capitalisme contre capitalisme (1991). It is worth noting the similarity of Albert's argument of 'capitalism as threat' in spite of its victory over communism to that of the later published article by George Soros, 'The capitalist threat' (1997).

4 I believe these three elements constitute a necessary and effective response to the challenges and potentialities of the current phase of structural transformation highlighted throughout the collected volume edited by Gill and Mittelman (1997) entitled Innovation and Transformation in International Studies. Indeed, it seems to me that theoretical innovation in International Studies must begin by recognizing the imperative of these factors for looking towards a 'more democratic and just world order'.

5 For a collection of similarly concerned academic writings on this topic, see the special issue of New Political Economy 2(1) (1997) entitled Globalisation and the Politics of Resistance.

6 David Harvey's conceptualization of this problem is useful here. In The Condition of Postmodernity he argues:

The tension between the fixity (and hence stability) that state regulation imposes, and the fluid motion of capital flow, remains a crucial problem for the social and political organization of capitalism. This difficulty is modified by the way in which the state stands itself to be disciplined by internal forces (upon which it relies for power) and external conditions - competition in the world economy, exchange rates, and capital movements, migration, or, on occasion, direct political interventions on the part of superior powers. The relation between capitalist development and the state has to be seen, therefore, as mutually determining rather than unidirectional.

(1989: 109) The various homogenization or 'convergence' theses within the globalization debates seem to suggest that it is only what Harvey refers to here as the 'external conditions' that are eroding state power. It is ironic that these arguments emanate from a tradition that was formerly critical of Marxist approaches for economic determinism.

7 For a broader discussion of the dialectics of globalization see Anthony Giddens's The Consequences of Modernity (1990), especially p. 64. Also,

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I direct interested readers to the special section, 'On dialectic and IR theory', of Millennium: Journal of International Studies 2(2) (1997).

8 See for example the writings of Friedrich A. von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1944); Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1962); and Milton and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose; a Personal Statement (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1980).

9 Fredric Jameson suggests 'the affirmation of "the primacy of production" offers the most effective and powerful way of defamiliarizing and demys- tifying ideologies of the market itself and consumption-oriented models of capitalism. As a vision of capitalism, then, the affirmation of the primacy of the market is sheer ideology' (1991: 211; see also ch. 8).

10 Space here does not permit more than a presentation of the kernel of this idea; the perspective is more fully elaborated in a chapter of my disserta- tion entitled 'Political economy as applied democratic theory' (University of Georgia).

11 The authors argue that while liberalism reduces social action to mere means towards an end, Marxism denies the relevance of instrumentality and thereby the role of individual choice (Bowles and Gintis, 1986: 19). This is essentially why they argue that neither tradition is an adequate approach to democratic theory. The primary objective of the former is liberty, and of the latter equality or classlessness. What Bowles and Gintis seek to construct is both a post-liberal and post-Marxist agenda which acknowledges that individual action and social structure are mutually determining. I believe what these authors are aiming for is something that the whole of Gramsci's thinking actually achieved. Augelli and Murphy seem to grasp this in their appropriation of Gramsci for their 1988 work entitled America's Quest for Supremacy and the Third World; see their introduction and especially pp. 4-6 where they claim that 'Gramsci's ideas help bridge the gap between Marxist and liberal social science'.

12 Mark Rupert reconstructs this crucial element in Marx's thinking (and what I believe is the core of a Marxian political theory) in order to present a 'radi- calized social ontology' as the basis for critical IPE (1995: 16-31).

13 Bowles and Gintis define a socially consequential action as one that 'both substantively affects the lives of others and the character of which reflects the will and interests of the actor' (1986: 67).

14 For example, in recent years UN conferences have been confronted with a competing, alternative NGO forum held simultaneously and from which have emanated statements challenging governments and publics to move beyond the rhetoric and empty diplomacy and implement concrete measures for tackling problems ranging from sustainable development to family planning. Also 'The Other Economic Summit', a counterpart to the G7's annual meetings composed of radical economists and representatives of developing nations, presents a challenge to the elitism and undemocratic nature of these high-level meetings in which major economic policies are discussed.

15 By Habermasian I am referring to his argument in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: an Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Berger (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989), originally published in 1962.

16 It should be noted that the authors are concerned with structures other than the capitalist economy. They deal quite extensively with other sites of power

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which escape accountability such as the patriarchal family. See specifically ch. 4.

17 His most important work detailing the rise of market society and its consequences for the social fabric of humankind is The Great Transformation: the Political and Economic Origin of Our Times (Boston: Beacon, 1957; originally published in 1944).

18 Another current recapitulation of Polanyi's ideas is Lie (1993: 275-305) 19 This passage is from the original Quaderni del Carcere, ed. Valentino

Gerratana, 4 vols (Turin, 1975), p. 1752 and translated by Germino. 20 Germino notes that civil society and hegemony are indices of the constel-

lation of social forces and quotes from Gramsci: 'Civil society is the political and cultural hegemony of a social group over the entire society' (Quaderni del Carcere, p. 703, Germino, 1971: 256).

21 As Christine Buci-Glucksmann points out in 'Hegemony and consent: a political strategy' (in Anne Showstack Sassoon's Approaches to Gramsci (1982)) it is critical to note that for Gramsci consent can be either passive and indirect or active and direct. In representative bourgeois democracies it is generally the former; the latter requires a real and active interchange between the rulers and ruled. The author characterizes the implications of this complex definition as firmly establishing Gramsci as an anti-totalitarian thinker, 'designating a point of no return for political reflection: no democratic transition without an "anti-passive revolution", the expansion of active consent' (p. 126).

22 For a more detailed discussion of the way myth fits into Gramsci's overall political theory and its sometimes less than fully self-conscious use in critical IR theory, see Augelli and Murphy's 'Consciousness, myth and collective action: Gramsci, Sorel and the ethical state' in Gill and Mittelman (1997: 25-38).

23 Gramsci's complex schema of hegemony has produced a vast array of interpretations and misrepresentations in the scholarly literature. Those who do not recognize Gramsci's positive usage of the concept are usually guilty of a limited reading or a manipulative appropriation of the concept to suit their own agendas (i.e. Perry Anderson (1977); Althusser (1969)). For a critique of this representation as well as a good overview of Gramsci's different constructions of the concept of hegemony, see Bocock (1986).

24 An example of this uncritical or fragmentary form of popular common sense is the reactionary protectionism or anti-globalism of the American right wing (e.g. as espoused by Pat Buchanan). Mark Rupert characterizes this vision as one that 'entails a challenge to corporate power, but it implicitly constructs this challenge from within the bounds of capitalism's structural separation of politics and economics' (see his chapter entitled 'Globalisation and contested common sense in the United States' in Gill and Mittelman, 1997: 151). I see my interpretation of Gramsci's theorization of common sense as the terrain of ideological struggle as consistent with Rupert's exposition. Although Rupert does not specifically address what Gramsci's vision of 'good sense' entailed, as I do below, I believe his depiction of a left- progressive position that explicitly politicizes the global economy is exemplary.

25 This issue of course raises a host of questions as to how this shift is to come about and whether it smacks of elitism. Ever the holistic thinker, though, Gramsci provided answers in his elaboration of the role of the party, the organic intellectual and the historic bloc. One of the great challenges in

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applying Gramsci stems from this amazing interconnectedness of his ideas, despite the fragmentary and incomplete presentation of them in his prison writings. It is beyond the scope of this article to comment more extensively on this matter, so I will instead refer the reader to a very illuminating passage in Gramsci's section on 'Problems of Marxism' where I think he exonerates himself of any potential charges of elitism or 'top-down' totalitarian implications. See particularly his 'Passage from knowing to understanding and to feeling and vice versa from feeling to understanding and to knowing' where he calls for an 'organic cohesion' between intellectuals and 'people-nation', 'in which feeling-passion becomes understanding and thence knowledge (not mechanically but in a way that is alive)' (pp. 418-19).

26 For a more in-depth discussion of Gramsci's different usages of ideology, see the Prison Notebooks (1971: 375 -7) and Augelli and Murphy's exposition (1988: 13-34).

27 See Kenny and Germain (1997) for a discussion of the interpretative problems associated with this issue as well as references to the larger debates about the various applications of Gramsci's notion of civil society.

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Issue Table of ContentsReview of International Political Economy, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Spring, 1999), pp. 1-120Front MatterCapitalist Forms and the Essence of Capitalism [pp. 1-26]Contesting the Hegemony of Market Ideology: Gramsci's 'Good Sense' and Polanyi's 'Double Movement' [pp. 27-54]Out-of-Body Experiences: Migrating Firms and Altered States [pp. 55-78]Nbuleuse and the 'Internationalization of the State' in the UK? The Case of HM Treasury and the Bank of England [pp. 79-100]Review EssaysReview: International Relations and Historical Sociology: Taking Stock of Convergence [pp. 101-109]Review: Theorizing Regional Trade Groups in the Americas [pp. 110-119]

Back Matter [pp. 120-120]

contesting the hegemony of market ideology gramsci's 'good sense' and polanyi's 'double...

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hegemony of market ideology

political domination

jstor terms

form of market ideology

political agency

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gramscis good sense

terms conditions of