Gramsci and Occupying.
Last week, I went to one of my favorite bookstores, and one of the last of its kind. I was looking for a specific book, but instead, my eyes landed on a copy of Gramsci’s The Modern Prince.
I picked it up and when the white haired woman behind the counter saw it, she took my hand and said:
“We need Gramsci’s right now. A lot of people could use his words.”
And so, in regard to Occupying, and most specifically the occurrences yesterday in Oakland, here are some:
“The city developed around the central pattern which it still retains, organized naturally around the industry which ‘governs’ the whole urban growth of the city and regulates its outlets…
As in a factory, where workers assume a pattern governed by the production of a given object which unites and organizes metalworkers and woodworkers, constructional workers, electricians, etc., so in a city, the proletariat adopts patterns determined by the prevalent industry which dominates the whole urban life. So, on a national scale, a people adopts a pattern laid down by its exports, by the real contribution the nation makes to the economic life of the world.”
“When, in 1919 we decided…to form this group…not one of us (perhaps just one!) thought in terms of changing the world, of renewing the hearts and minds of masses of human beings, or dreamed of a new era in history. “
Let’s think of it now–the new era has begun.
