Culture and Marxism. The Construction of a New Order in Gramsci and Mariátegui

Abstract

In this article, we will explore the decisive link between culture, freedom, and the new order from two converging perspectives that contributed to shaking up a historical materialism that had given up too soon on fighting the spiritual battle. Faced with the temptation to reduce Marxism to a mere economic science, both thinkers chose to restore its fundamental dimension of philosophy of praxis and assumed that the material transformation of the world would not take place without a parallel moral and intellectual reform of the subjects. Thus, for both Gramsci and Mariátegui, culture occupied a preponderant place as the scene of a decisive struggle for the forging of a new order of freedom that would replace the worn-out liberal ideology.