A Macat Analysis of The Prison Notebooks

An important Marxist work, Prison Notebooks (1948) argues that we must understand societies both in terms of their economic relationships and their cultural beliefs. Gramsci argued that Russia underwent a socialist revolution in 1917 while other European countries did not, because those who hold power in a society can maintain and use that power because of their grip on cultural values and economic relationships. Combining force and manipulation, they can convince most people that the existing social arrangement is logical and in their best interests. For a society to truly transform, workers must rebel against both unfair economic system and the ideas and institutions that sustain it.