• Many passages in the Prison Notebooks have an implicitly Moschian character, where Gramsci’s ideas resemble Mosca’s, even though Mosca is not explicitly mentioned.

• These passages primarily focus on elitism, democracy, liberty, the relation between Gramsci’s hegemony and Mosca’s political formula, the relation between state and civil society, the balancing function in a government, and parliamentarism.

• The elitist cluster is significant because Mosca considers the elitist principle the most fundamental in political science.

• Gramsci shares Mosca’s view about the elitist principle‘s importance in political theory.

• This chapter will examine Gramsci’s elitism and compare it to Mosca’s elitism.

From Domination to Leadership

• One of the most revealing notes in the Prison Notebooks is the fourth note in Notebook 15 (Q 15,4), titled “Machiavelli: Elements of Politics” (Q 1752).

• The note is part of a series on Machiavelli, who is a convenient label for Gramsci’s reflections on political topics.

• The subtitle of the note is reminiscent of Mosca’s Elements of Political Science, with a fundamental elitist principle being stated similarly to the beginning of Mosca’s work.

• The note emphasizes the existence of the governed and the governors, the leaders and the led, as the foundation of all political art and science.

• Gramsci focuses on the distinction between leaders and led, rather than stressing minority rule.

• In Mosca’s Elements, there is a focus on the inequality of power and minority rule, though minority rule is just one aspect of the broader distinction between the governors and the governed.

• Mosca’s formulation emphasizes two classes: governors (a smaller group) who hold power, and governed (a larger group) who are ruled in various manners.

• Gramsci and Mosca agree on the empirical truth of the elitist distinction, acknowledging the differences in power between groups and individuals.

• A key difference is that Gramsci suggests the elitist distinction may not be unchangeable, and the ideal is to strive for the elimination of this distinction and the equalization of power.

• Gramsci is more elitist than Mosca in suggesting that the elitist distinction is deeper, more scientifically important, and more general in scope than Mosca recognized.

• Gramsci generalizes Mosca’s principle, arguing that the elitist distinction applies not only when one social class dominates another, but also within a homogeneous class, where one part inevitably leads another.

• While Mosca acknowledges the distinction within the political class, Gramsci is more explicit, clear, and immediate in recognizing the intraclass nature of the distinction.

• Gramsci also notes that the division between governed and governors can exist within the same social group, as a result of the division of labor, which he views as a technical fact.

• Gramsci generalizes the elitist principle in several complementary ways, one of the most important being the distinction between domination and leadership.

• He views this distinction as so important that he gives it the status of a methodological criterion for examining political and historical developments.

• The supremacy of a social group manifests in two ways: as domination over opposed groups (often using force) and as intellectual and moral leadership over allied groups.

• A social group must first be leading before acquiring governmental power; even after acquiring power, it remains dominant but must continue to be leading.

• Gramsci’s example involves the Moderate Party leading the Action Party both before and after Italian unification, at which point the moderates became dominant.

• This distinction is presented as a general principle, not limited to specific political contexts.

• Domination involves the use of force and coercion, while leadership involves softer means like moral principles and intellectual arguments.

• Even among allied groups, there may not be complete mutuality, and one group will inevitably lead the other.

• Gramsci’s distinction between governors and governed is now seen as extending from domination to leadership.

• Leadership applies not only in governmental systems but has a much wider scope, including social and political movements.

• Gramsci draws an analogy between the state spirit and party spirit, claiming that the party spirit is the fundamental element of the state spirit.

• Party spirit does not refer to partisanship or sectarianism but to a judicious social awareness that avoids egoism and sectarianism.

• Gramsci stresses that discipline and sociality must coexist with spontaneity, originality, and personality.

• He explicitly connects the elitist distinction to both the state and party by noting that the prestige of a state or government sheds its authority onto the class it represents.

• This prestige connection is not unique to one type of state but is applicable within the function of elites or vanguards, extending to parties as well.

• Gramsci is formulating a general principle about the propagation of prestige from representing institutions to represented classes, applicable to both state and party in the contexts of rulers and ruled and leaders and led.