From hegemony to the commune: The political philosophy of popular power

Abstract

This article traces some of the most representative milestones in the history of the concept of hegemony and its relationship to the Commune. Originally emerging from the paradigm of class struggle, the modern conception of hegemony has given way to, among other things, a general theory of power that goes beyond the concept of sovereignty linked to the Western juridical-political tradition, and in which Gramsci’s legacy constitutes a turning point. Political philosophy can and must contribute here its particular point of view with respect to the relations of force and power in general. For the logic of the struggle for hegemony reveals naught but this: the space for scientific-political reflection and study becomes more complex and broad; expanding from the order of foundation to the order of phenomena, contingency and conflict.

From this perspective, we must ask whether communal democracy can go beyond the State as a political form or survive the State; if hegemony can take a legitimately “popular” form; and if hegemony remains the fundamental crux of revolutionary discourse and practice. Hegemony has been framed this way throughout the history of workers’ movements and in the tradition of struggle and resistance by the dispossessed, yet even on the left it has often taken authoritarian forms. Its future must be one of class emancipation, for which direct democracy and the self-government of the masses are the essential requirement for any hegemony that deems itself popular. Hegemony therefore constitutes a challenge —both theoretical and practical— for the emergence and construction of the Commune.