Theorists: Understanding Antonio Gramsci

(or why Gramsci is the dude)

James Arvanitakis

This is a (very) brief introduction to the work of Antonio Gramsci: who I think is an important and influential thinkers even 70-years after his key work. His insights have much to offer us in understanding the world and how to change it: especially if you are involved in education.

There is a great deal written about Gramsci – and it is not possible to do his work justice here, but here I provide an overview of some of his key concepts. Gramsci is considered a theorist from the Marxist tradition – though much of it saw him diverge from this school of thought as he moved to highlight areas Marxists ignored.

Gramsci was an Italian theorist who was set to jail for his revolutionary actions, and it in prison he wrote his famous work: The Prison Notebooks (in the 1930s). It was, as the title suggests, written in prison – and it is in prison he died.

The importance of Gramsci’s work is that he prompts us to question everything around us including what we consider to be ‘commonsense’ in our culture.

Culture and hegemony

Gramsci recognised that the diverse forms of national and international culture were never neutral or sperate from politics: culture, which often seems natural, is bound with power, control and leadership – and is also historical. Gramsci saw and important link between culture and politics – but this is not a simple or straightforward one.


(When I am referring to culture, I am talking about the routines, rituals and beliefs that dominate everyday life: see my previous blog for an in-depth discussion.)


Culture is often reproduced in a way that assists in maintaining the status quo by reflecting and reproducing the established power structures in a way that seems ‘normal’ and ‘natural’. That is, these structures seem to make commonsense and have always been that way. In this way, power structures are constantly reproduced and we consent to this even if they negatively affect us. This was a concept that Gramsci described as hegemony.


Gramsci explain then, that power was maintained, not just by the threat of violence and coercion, but also through ideology. This culture establishes commonsense values that reflect what suits those already in power – that is, the capitalists. These values are also picked up and accepted by the working class who support structures that negatively impact them rather than revolt.


Therefore, Gramsci saw control as much more sophisticated based on both force (coercion) and consent (hegemony). This was achieved through a complex series of cultural, political and ideological practices that cement society into a relative – though never complete – unity.


Gramsci also argued that the dominant cultural values of the ruling class were tied to Christianity: meaning that much of his attacks on the hegemonic culture are also aimed at religious norms and values that dominated Europe.


Hegemony was used by Gramsci to explain why capitalism was entrenched in western societies even if a majority of people were suffering.


Importantly, Gramsci’s theory of hegemony is linked to the capitalist state. The state is not to be understood in the narrow sense of the government but moves into the ‘private’ (non-state) sphere, including the economy.

Culture and power


Gramsci argues that we need to free ourselves of seeing culture as something that is made up of encyclopaedic knowledge, receptacles of empirical data and a mass on uncorrelated facts. Culture is not something that is external but internal to us: that is, it is about one’s ‘self’. In other words – and as I noted above – culture is historical, not natural.


That is, we can understand changes in political culture – and the power that we reflect through everyday practices (or hegemony) through historical reflection.


In the 1930s, Gramsci began looking at the concrete forms of cultural organisations – such as schools, churches, newspapers and so on – that keep ideological world in movement and examined how they function in practice. That is, how these institutions ensure power continues to support current structures. In other words, Gramsci felt that these institutions did not challenge power structures but, rather, supported them.


Changes to established power structures have only been proceeded by criticism and a spread of ideas to people who are at first resistant because they are dealing with their immediate circumstances. These people, because of their focus on their immediate circumstances do not get political (or have no solidarity).


We can think how today, many of us are too busy with uni, paying rent or mortgages to support protesters even if we agree with them!


One problem that Gramsci saw, which stopped change happening, was large gap between intellectual groups and the popular masses. One reason for this was that there is no single (or homogenous) conception of the type of change that we want: something that we still see today. The result is that the intellectual groups are scattered while real change can only happen through collective movements.



Confronting power – making change


The answer then, is for working class and other opposition groups to develop their own culture that would replace what is currently seen as natural or normal. For example, taxation benefits us through government services, but we have come to believe that it is a negative thing. This new cultural position should attract both the intellectuals and the oppressed.


For Gramsci, this raised the need for cultural-social unity through which brings together dispersed wills with heterogenous aims into a single objective. This would lead to a new social order that it would be produced and re-produced, bringing together institutions, social relations and ideas. This also highlights the importance of language that allows a single cultural chant.


Gramsci believed intellectuals have an important role in society. ‘Modern intellectuals’, Gramsci believed, did not just theorise, but were also organisers who built society and help produce hegemony by means of institutions such as education and the media.


It is here that Gramsci felt there was potential for change. Because he believed that each social class produces from its own ranks intellectuals 'organically'. The 'organic' intellectuals do not simply describe just social life, but rather articulate, through the language of culture, the feelings and experiences that the masses find it hard to.


Gramsci called on those intellectuals that came from the working classes to promote a kind of education that would challenge the status quo.



Ideology, popular beliefs and commonsense

Gramsci, when looking at the concept of commonsense, wanted to criticise how previous thinkers – including Marxists – neglected the area of consciousness

For Gramsci, ideas are real (or material) forces. This is, because consciousness is not just born but structured in certain ways to reflect the general organisation of society. This was not meant to be a ‘conspiracy’. Rather, to highlight how the way that ideas and philosophy come about are complex: are something that ultimately reflects power structures.

Gramsci argued that there are three ways that elites link together:

• Language,
  
• Commonsense, and
  
• Folklore (that is, a form of popular religion, opinions, ways of seeing things and superstition)
  
  

Commonsense was key for Gramsci as it is pervasive but unsystematic: that is, while it is the basis of popular experience, it does not represent a unified conception of the world as philosophy does. Here philosophy is an intellectual order, which neither religion nor common sense can be. There are various philosophies or conceptions of the world – and one makes a choice between them – the question is how is this made? The philosophy that we come to accept and live by is also a political action.

The social basis of these ideas is that we come to belong to a group that gives us social elements of thinking and acting. This gives us something to conform to. In this way, our personalities are composite.

Sources

Bottomore, T. (1992) The Dictionary of Marxist Thought, Blackwell Publishers,

Gramsci, A. (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks, International Publishers

Jay, M. (1986) Marxism and Totality: The Adventures of a Concept from Lukacs to Habermas, University of California Press

Boggs, C. (1984) The Two Revolutions: Gramsci and the Dilemmas of Western Marxism, South End Press

Call for Objects: The Embodiment of Borders

Call for Objects: the Embodiment of Borders
In conversation with Sandro Mezzadra

The concept of ‘borders’ is one that is fundamental to our lived experience. From private property, to the question of refugees and migrants, as well as the clear separation between the social and the environmental, borders are continuously invoked by conservatives (for the sake of nationhood) and progressives (in the public/private split) to show a clear line of separation between an inside and an outside. Borders are part of our everyday lives even as many become blurred.

Today, we must consider how we embody borders and how they come to define the landscape of our political, social and cultural world’s.

Italian social theorist, Sandro Mezzadra, reflects on such questions within the European context in his many writings. In a recent interview – partly reproduced below – he reflects on the issue of borders and argues that their blurring “should lead us to think of a situation which is marked by a different relationship between war (even in a philosophical sense) and politics”.

This is a Call for Objects – which asks you to read the reproduced text below and reflect on both how we embody borders and how they come to shape our world – and then produce on Object to respond to Sandro’s writings.

This Object may be a piece of writing (academic, non-academic, fictional, poetry), art (photos, drawings, paintings, design), music, spoken word or any other form of expression.

You are then invited to attend a session and hear Sandro in conversation with UWS academic Brett Nielson. Following this short discussion, you will then have the opportunity present your Object. Accepted works will then be reproduced in a special edition e-zine.

For details, email James Arvanitakis at j.arvanitakis@uws.edu.au or 0438-454-127.

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Extract of Sandro’s writing from “Borders, Citizenship, War, Class: a discussion With Étienne Balibar and Sandro Mezzadra”, from New Formations.

In discussing multiculturalism, borders and a crisis of tolerance, Sandro notes (p.7):

In this sense, the discussion of multiculturalism in Europe has always been… a discussion about the identity and the borders of Europe. What does it mean, in this situation, to make the point that the crisis of multiculturalism… is at the same time a crisis of tolerance? It means to underscore that this crisis cannot be reduced to the relation between a homogeneous Europe and its cultural and geographical ‘others’. The re-emergence of the long history of the European colonial project, which was in a way the hidden face of the concept of tolerance, tends to disrupt the ‘civility’ of social relations within Europe, that is, it can destroy what has always been presented as the fundamental achievement of ‘tolerance’.

Of course I do not want to deny the fact that many theorists of multiculturalism were, and still are, engaged in an attempt to overcome the contradictions and pitfalls of modern universalism. But when I say that we are confronted today with a crisis of tolerance, I am suggesting that the colonial border between Europe and its outside, which was presupposed by the concept of tolerance… The ‘whiteness’ of the European citizen… has not been put into question by multiculturalism: it has only been rhetorically ‘weakened’, in order to make its coexistence with ‘non-white’ citizens possible, while this coexistence has been always imagined and constructed… as a hierarchical coexistence.

Of course what is currently discussed as a crisis of ‘multiculturalism’ in Europe – that is, we must be very clear on this point, as a crisis in the coexistence of ‘white’ and ‘non white’ citizens within the European polity – opens up the space in which the danger of the radicalisation of the hierarchical character of that coexistence emerges. But in order to counteract this danger we must displace the very framing of the crisis: to talk about the current situation as a situation which is marked by a latent crisis of tolerance… means to stress the fact that the problems we are confronted with are not to be understood as problems of relations between a compact ‘we’ and the ‘others’. They are rather problems which address the very definition of a European ‘we’: to recognise this means in my opinion to accept the challenge which is posed by the concept of a postcolonial condition when applied to Europe.

In discussing the blurring of borders between war and non-war – and hence the ubiquity of war, militarisation of politics and society – Sandro notes (p.12-13)

The discussion we are developing on the transformation of borders has to do with the logic of war entering into political spaces which had been in a way protected from it by borders. Borders were in modern history a mechanism for neutralising war, that was their first function. Or rather, they were, in the sense suggested by Carl Schmitt, a mechanism which made possible at the same time the ‘expulsion’ of war from the political space of the state, and the ‘regulation’ of war between states… In 1907, Lord Curzon stated that ‘frontiers are indeed the razor’s edge on which hang suspended the modern issues of war and peace’.

So what we are saying today about the transformation of borders should lead us to think of a situation which is marked by a different relationship between war (even in a philosophical sense) and politics. To put it briefly once again: war is playing an increasing role in shaping social relations within unified political spaces, while the ‘traditional’ war itself tends to develop independently of the regulations that have been set up by modern international laws…

…My point is… the border between war and peace, which was one of the main distinctions upon which some of the most important political concepts of modern times were based, has become blurred, and this is really a radical challenge. I think this is a point that we should deepen in our discussion on the transformations which are reshaping the very institution of the border.

…When I say that the border between war and peace has been blurred, I am referring to a situation in which the border between interior and exterior is itself being blurred. Once again: this does not mean that this border does not exist anymore – quite the opposite is the case – and the everyday experience of migrants in Europe shows this in an often dramatic way. But that border is not anymore an absolute border, be it in a geopolitical or in a conceptual sense. To talk about the ubiquity of war is another way of talking about the ubiquity of the border…

… (Anthropologist) Pablo Vila in his work on the US-Mexican border, it opens up the possibility of border crossing as the substance of citizenship, but also border reinforcing. you have shown in essays that have been very important for my own work how the border is the ‘non-democratic’ element of democracy. The ubiquity of the border is the ubiquity of this ‘non- democratic’ element, which can take the shape of war-like technologies of governance within the European space itself.

The blurring of borders for the migrants as they are simultaneously inside and outside (p.18):

… the border between the ‘social’ and the ‘institutional’ which appears to have been blurred. If we take a look at the whole debate that has taken place around the concept of ‘governance’ in the last decade, it seems to me that it is focused on just this process. But I think we could and should radicalise the problem: if the border between the interior and the exterior is being blurred, this means that it does not make sense anymore, from a conceptual point of view, to think of politics and democracy in the terms suggested by the category of ‘integration’. From this point of view, I think that the condition of migrants in Europe is particularly meaningful for us. To borrow the concepts used by the postcolonial feminist Nirmal Puwar in a recent book, migrants are at the same time insiders and outsiders. … We are talking about ‘subject positions’ which can be defined at the same time as insider and outsider, on the one hand because of specific policies which are making rights themselves precarious, on the other hand because certain kinds of ‘belonging’ which were among the presuppositions of what you call the ‘national social state’ have been – and continue to be – criticised and deconstructed by several social movements which put into crisis the ‘national social state’ long before the start of ‘neoliberal’ policies. These movements shape, on the level of social behaviours and desires, the actual composition of ‘living labour’, and this is the reason why I tend to be very critical of the theoretical and political positions which frame the criticism of ‘neoliberalism’ in terms suggesting a return to the welfare state as the only possible ‘critical’ solution.

p.21… Well, on the one hand, the recent literature on migration (I’m thinking, for instance, of the so-called ‘new economics of migration’ but also of the works which employ the concept of ‘transnationalism’), has pointed out that a set of ‘social institutions’ – family and ‘ethnic’ networks for instance – play a key role at every stage of the migratory process. But, on the other hand, we cannot be uncritical towards these ‘institutions’: they can function as means of resistance, and the whole history of the struggles of migration show that, but they can also function effectively as sites of reproduction of old and new mechanisms of domination and exploitation. The relation between a new reflection on the issue of institutions and the autonomy of migration can be developed only within a broader conceptual and political framework, focused on the construction of a new political space which tries to develop in a positive way the challenge posed by the process of the blurring of borders…

Cultural Studies 2: Studying everyday life

Introduction

To begin with, I want to remind you that cultural studies aims, amongst other things, to understand the hidden and secret rules behind our society: that is, our culture. Thought there are many definitions of 'culture', in essence t involves looking at the rules and values that we all follow, most often without even knowing that they are there.

A key definition that I like to use is presented by influential sociologist Anthony Giddens:

'Culture consists of the values the members of a given group hold, the norms they follow, and the material goods they create' (1989, 31).

There are three key points that we should highlight here:

Values: that is, what is important in our society? What do we consider important? What hierarchies exist in things like work or leisure? For example, from the pay scales we can see that we 'value' bankers more than nurses or teachers – despite all the rhetoric of the exact opposite. What does that tell us about the structure of our value system?

The second section to this definition is norms: that is, what are the rules that we follow – what do we consider 'normal'? There are many norms in our society – many of which are changing. Again, despite all the rhetoric of 'family values', it is now normal for people to work on weekends. Only a decade or so ago, most shops were closed Sundays. Again, what does that tell us about who we are?

The third dimension of this definition is the idea of what goods we produce. This may sound somewhat weird at first but let's think it through. Pre-modern societies used to focus on the production of necessities: enough food to eat; enough clothes to wear; shelter and some extras to trade. This told you much about the way that people lived: a lack of technology meant that they could not store food for too long. But today, we produce food but we specialise – selling most and trading. But the biggest focus on our society is the production of luxury good – new phones, a new Ipod, a new Nintendo and so on. We do not really hear what the apple farmers are up to but we are always aware about the new products that Apple is producing. So, the production of certain material goods tells us a great deal about who we are – that is, our culture.

It is within this that we are looking at everyday life: how the rules and values shape our lives, the way we see the world, how power operates and the rituals that we follow. For, as I will discuss in future blogs, it is regular rituals that we do not think about that tell us something about our society. So when we look at a society like Australia, we can ask binds us: language, beliefs, institutions, stories and myths, but also common practices – that is, rituals.


How will we be studying everyday life?

As I have already mentioned in my previous blog, there is no 'one-way' to undertake the study of everyday life so we employ multiple methods. This is known as an 'interdisciplinary approach' and we draw on from the schools of Anthropology, Sociology and Cultural Studies: though it is cultural studies that is our focus here. The main research methodology employed, however, is taken from anthropology and known as 'ethnographic research'. This is a form of research focusing on the sociology of meaning through close field observation of social phenomena.

According to Marvin Harris and Orna Johnson (2000-, ethnography literally means "a portrait of a people." It is a written description of a particular culture and its customs, beliefs, and behaviour.

Typically, the researcher – also known as the ethnographer – focuses on a community, selecting informants who are known to have an overview of the activities of the community. Such informants are asked to identify other informants representative of the community (this is a process described as 'chain sampling' because of the interlinked nature of the informants).

As part of the ethnographic analysis, and usually after the observation has been undertaken, informants are interviewed (often a multiple times). This process is intended to reveal common cultural understandings related to the phenomena under study.

Such a research process involves two important assumptions that we need to accept. Note that there are others, for the purpose of this overview, the following should are key:

The first is that ethnography assumes the main focus of research is affected by community cultural understandings: This means that if we are studying a group of people, and we watch them greet each other then we can assume that the greeting is the same for all people within that group – not just the process but the meaning also.

Ethnography also assumes that we, as researchers, are capable of understanding the cultural meanings of the population we are studying. This may be easy in some situations, but what if you are studying a group with a different language; use technical jargon; or even undertake certain rituals that you do not recognise?


Ethnography: a case study

In my previous blog I noted four key dimensions to ethnographic research that we need to understand (again there are others but for the purposes of this overview, let's focus on these). I want to apply these four dimensions to some of my own experiences. I worked for a while in a part of PNG called Bougainville as a consultant to the Central Bank. This was a country that was just emerging from conflict and I was interested, as part of another project, to understand how people were attempting to rebuild their lives from the conflict.

• Observing and understanding: that is, you do not ask interviews but observe (at least initially). When I researched squats in Amsterdam and tried to figure out how they worked, I just went and lived there for a while. I did a similar thing in PNG. The point was I did not ask people how they got along or what rules they followed, I just observed and attempted to understand what was happening.
  
  What I did was I went and lived in the community to observe what was going in. I volunteered to undertake and assist the men in their work. This often involved manual labour even though I was an outsider, after a while they begin to just accept me being there.
  
  While I worked, had dinner, drank coffee and so on, I observed what was going on. I did not ask any questions like, how do you guys do that, but just attempted to understand from my observing.
  
  See, what had happened was that there was a civil war and many neighbours had turned against each other. The questions I was interested was on how people were rebuilding trust with their neighbours. What I found was that it was happening in small steps: people asked to borrow a hammer or gave a hand at some chores. So what I observed was that trust builds slowly, and the more it builds, the more it feeds itself – kind of like a magic pudding.
  
• Focus on meaning: that is, when we do something we need to look beyond the event and understand the meaning behind it. So, buying a Coke is not just buying a Coke, the process has a bunch of meaning attached (like accepting that you are part of capitalist system, money is a means of exchange and that property rights allow you to own a can of Coke only after paying for it).
  
  Think about being at the pub and buying a shout – you are not just being nice, but there is a reason why you do it: to confirm that you are part of the group; that you are all going to stick around and share the evening; there is meaning behind what you are doing. When studying everyday life, we would not just observe 5 guys standing around drink beer but attempt to understand what it means.

• Ok, this extends the above point then: lending someone a hammer does not seem to mean much but if only a few months ago these same people were at war, then the lending of tools takes on additional meanings. So I looked for the subtle meanings in the practices of the everyday – learnt how there was a separation between groups still but also came to understand how people reached out.
  
  This means that a greeting, the sharing of a tool and a bunch of other things seem have much greater meanings than what we give them credit for.
  
  There are many things that have meaning that we do not think about. As we will see in future blogs, there are a great deal of meanings attached to specific rituals such as birthday parties and also the gifts that we give.

• Insiders' viewpoint: this extends the first point – that we do not rely on someone else's observation but do it ourselves. When it comes to observing our own society, this is part of the making the familiar unfamiliar: that is, seeing ourselves as 'anthropologically strange'. So we look at things and attempt to understand them from an insider's perspective.
  
  In Bougainville, I went and lived within these communities to understand what was going on. Sure, I did not understand everything, but I began to gain insights that would not have been possible if I was just passing through.
  
  But while doing this, it is important to avoid being ethno-centric: this means, we need to accept that there is more than one way of seeing the world and that our own biases will always impact upon what you see – no matter how hard you try to avoid that.

Finally, the truth is that I will only ever be able to gain a specific view – which as biased and coloured by the things that I understand. I came to accept these limitations in the work.

Cultural Studies 1 - Introduction: studying cultural studies through everyday life

This blog is about introducing the discipline of cultural studies through the study of everyday life.

So, what do I by ‘studying everyday life’? I mean, is not the everyday boring and mundane? Nothing happens on an average day and should we not be studying the extraordinary events that occur such as elections, wars, terrorist attacks and so on – things that are unique, happen rarely and we stop and notice?

The answer is yes, we should be studying these events – because they are both important and shape our world. The war in Iraq, for example, will be studied in years to come as a moment in history when the world changed: it may be seen as the beginning of the end of US power, or maybe the beginning of peace and stability in the region… who knows what history holds? We can only speculate.

But the study of the everyday is different: it allows us to turn into anthropologists and look at our own civilisations like zoologists look at elephants. In this way, we learn to look at the way we live by taken-for-granted understandings about the ‘rules’ of everyday life. This gives insights in the power relations in our society, what we consider important, the way we structure our society and a whole lot more.

So, studying the everyday life is both self-evident and puzzling as it is everywhere but invisible. We need to unpack the very things that we take for granted. It involves, not the one-off events, but the everyday patterns and events. To do this, it is necessary to begin the process of ‘unlearning’. That is, the things that we consider normal and natural we need to learn to stop doing them and looking at them like we are looking at them for the first time: unpack the familiar – which is known as ‘deconstruction’.

So, in cultural studies we are less interested in how we structure our society, but more in the logic of things: for example, do we drive rather than take public transport because of convenience, or is there something specific in our culture – the way we see the world – that prioritises cars over public transport? And why does this persist even when we know it is damaging the environment?


Some background

The study of everyday life emerged as academics became interested in the life of ordinary people. Early historians were interested mainly in the lives of the elites – nobility, royalty and generals – but by looking at everyday life, it was possible to gain insights into how our own society is arranged, liveable, understanding why we accept certain things, do not revolt, why we are happy or miserable.

The field emerged as society changed particularly through mass urbanisation and more and more people came to live in cities: the questions that were raised included how do we all get along? What rules do we all accept and follow? How do we learn those rules?

Now, one of the challenges of studying this area is that sometimes things change subtly and we do not even recognise it. Other times there is rapid change. As change happens, we can no longer take everyday interactions for granted: what may seem normal at one point is no longer the case. Likewise, what was once accepted as normal, now seems strange.

One example is multiculturalism. For at least two generations it has been an acceptable and it would have appeared permanent part of Australian life. Previously, however, we had the White Australia Policy. The change from white Australia to multiculturalism was both subtle and dramatic. We had a department of multicultural affairs and a dedicated minister. Now this has changed dramatically and the current government has removed references about the term from its departments and renamed the department to Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

So we study everyday life to understand both the subtle dimensions and major changes of our lives.


Why study everyday Life?

So the question is, why do we study everyday life? Is it not the major events that define us and is everyday life not mundane, obvious, and ‘natural’? I have kind of answered this question already, but I think the following quote sums it up well:

‘It is one of the most fundamental paradoxes of our social life that when we are at our most natural, our most everyday, we are also at our most cultural; that when we are in roles that look the most obvious and given, we are actually in roles that are constructed, learned and far from inevitable’ (Willis, 1979: 184 – my emphasis).

That is, everyday life often masks social power, social order and process of socialisation. And it is often with the ordinary and mundane that we can get amazing insights into our culture. As one famous theorist, LeFebvre, noted, we must ‘look for the extraordinary in the ordinary’: in other words, behind what we consider ordinary there is a great deal happening that we should analyse and challenge.

So we have relations of power that come to feel normal – but they are not – we construct them. All dimensions of life are socially acquired even things such as sitting on a bus or food hall. The rules of dealing with the stranger is to act indifferently towards them.

Irving Goffman, a major theorist, presented the concept of civil indifference and dealing with the unfamiliar. That is, when you see something or someone unfamiliar, you act indifferently. For Goffman, this was one reason that we all got along. So acting politely indifferently is one rule of life.


Aspects of Everyday Life

When we are looking at everyday life, we need to recognise that the events of our lives are historically specific and situated. That is, if we were studying the lives of your parents 20 years ago, or say any children that we might produce in 20 years time, it would be different. The rules we follow within our daily lives are specifically situated. As I said, some changes have been subtle and others dramatic.

Compare how we would organise someone’s birthday party a few years ago. You would write invitations and send them out. Today, we organise parties through MySpace and Facebook where once people relied on phones and even physical invitations! What does it tell us about the way we communicate? What does it tell us about our culture?

Ok… so let us look at the cultural meaning behind some things that we do without even thinking about it – cultural meanings that we actually accept. Let me give you an example, when you go to a shop and buy a can of Coke, the process of pulling money out and paying the dude at a convenience store is pretty simple. But think about all the associated meanings:

• In the process of paying for something you are accepting the fact that cash is a mechanism of exchange.
• You are saying that we live in a capitalist society and there are property rights – the store owns the Coke until you pay for it and then it is yours.
• You are saying that like it or not, this is normal and you buy into that system.
• You buy a Coke… this is not a random decision but because you feel like a Coke. You know about this because of advertising – a walking down the street drinking a Coke has meaning behind it (say compared to walking down the street and drinking a beer or Bicardi Breezer or milk)

No one really explained to us these rules, but they are there. Most of us will never just walk into a shop and take things without paying for it or refuse to pay for it for revolutionary reasons – just as most of us will never think about the cultural meaning associated with buying a Coke.

Saying that, if in such a simple there exist so many rules and it carries so much meanings, what happens if you took them away? How would we shop?

It is such interactions that are embedded in everything we do and never really think about it.


Some important definitions

Ok, I want to look at some definitions for terms that you will come across in this subject:

• Ideology: a more or less coherent set of beliefs and values that serves to mask or legitimate relations of domination and subordination: think of capitalism and the class system
• Agency: is the ability of the individual to act autonomously. To have ‘agency’ is to be able to act with choice.
• Structures: are the social institutions and social practices that constrain our choices, and that shape our attitudes and beliefs. Structures can influence agency
• Culture: there are many definitions of culture – and is impossible to really define simply or even explain it. I have a bunch listed in the notes but I will explain a couple of these here. But when we talk of culture we are not talking of ‘high culture’ such as the theatre, but talking about the culture of our society. It is the way we see the world, understanding and make sense of what is going on around us and what are the rules of our lives.

Anyway, here are two definitions I like and I think summarise the concept well:

‘Culture consists of the values the members of a given group hold, the norms they follow, and the material goods they create’ (Giddens, 1989, Sociology, 31).

‘Culture is the ensemble of social processes by which meanings are produced, circulated and exchanged.’ (Thwaites, Davis & Mules, 1994:1).

Culture is something that affects us all and shapes our lives – and it is constantly changing. And importantly, no one culture shapes us: there is our Australian culture, whatever that is, but also the culture of ethnicity, sexuality etc. so we are influenced by multiple cultures and thus have multiple identities.

Political musings: Politics and weight - who have you spotted at the gym?

There is an entire branch of sociology concerned with the study of ‘symbols’ called ‘symbolic interactionism’. In fact, similar fields have emerged in various disciplines and are amongst the more interesting areas to teach sociology students at university.

The theory behind symbolic interactionism is that things are never as they appear and we must look behind certain symbols to understand their true meaning.

An example is someone who lives in the city of Sydney yet purchases one of those large, fuck-off, four-wheel drives. This may seem to be just another car, but depending on where you sit it symbolises something deeper.

For the new owner, amongst others, it is a symbolises success and control: the ability take the car off-road whenever they see fit, taking on the great Australian outback. To others – including me – it simply symbolises someone as a total wanker: having no regard for congestion, pollution, global warming or pedestrian safety.

It is from this perspective we need to understand John Howard’s less than graceful slip the other week. I do not like John Howard – never have – but that is not the point. I gain no enjoyment from seeing some ‘silly old bugger’ (thank you Bob Hawke) fall over. I know of no-one who would enjoy such a spectacle.

No, the Prime Minister’s fall represented something more: a man who has stayed too long and is starting to look a little feeble. This is not a rant against older pollies – I mean some of my best friends are older Australians – it is what the fall symbolises.

In politics, symbols are everything – and this brings me to the issue of weight loss. The theory being that the public would not vote for a fatty – dismissing a politician who does not look like they are willing to take care of themselves. (Phillip Ruddock is probably the exception the proves the rule – but that is a cliché I never really understood.)

In NSW, Barry O’Farrell’s political ambitions were linked to his weight. I suspect that Peter Debnam’s ongoing desire to be photographed in his budgie-smugglers had less to do with an attempt to sell an outdoor, masculine image – I mean who is that gullible – and more to do with taunting Barry. A kind of, ‘check me out Barry, no way you can have my job.’

Peter Debnam was never that smart – and never looked that good in the budgie-smugglers – so when Barry hit the treadmill, we all knew what was coming.

We can draw similar comparisons between John Howard’s morning walk in his tasteful and elegant tracksuit as a taunt to Kim (I save my best speeches when I am about to step down) Beasley. Kim was a sitting duck in terms of symbolic interactionism.

This is not a uniquely Australian phenomenon and is just as important in the USA. A friend tells me there are (unconfirmed) rumours that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have staffers who study the most recent photographs of Al Gore for any hints of weight loss. No word yet on Big Al’s political motivations, but like the Oracle of Delphi, we turn to his ample mid-section as a sign of what we should expect.

It is with interest then, that I read that Newt Gingrich has been ordering oatmeal with no milk or sugar around Washington. Yes, big bad Newt may be the dark horse for the Republican nomination. This is the man who was one of the architects of the Iran-Contra affair and a man who, in 1996, closed the USA government down for 27 days because of a personal stand-off with Bill (please pass my cigar) Clinton. There is also Newt’s hypocrisy: that is, his high moral position while having affairs. I mean, go for it Newt, all power to you, but do not preach family values while you are doing it.

Will the American public may be willing to forget and forgive if Newt tones up a little? The lead Republican candidate, Rudolph Gulliani, is in the box seat, both with weight and fund raising, at the moment. From my intelligence – and I am using this term loosely – he is not phased by Newt’s positioning at the moment.

But is anyone taking Newt seriously?

I spoke to some Americans the other day and they seemed to laugh off any suggestions regarding Newt’s nomination: noting that he was past his best, had no fresh ideas, lacked personality, has his independence compromised by his close relationship to Fox News, is basically known for being a complete knob.

But what of his weight loss I inquired: would a skinny-Newt be any different to a cuddly-Newt? Can politicians re-invent themselves by a bit of weight-loss, some hair colouring, bright teeth and a smile?

Their response threw me: ‘Well, anyone can become President of the USA.’

They then asked me, ‘Can anyone be Prime Minister of Australia?’

I reflected on this, thinking of all the Prime Minister’s I knew, settling on the image of John Howard falling over, and responded with a confident, ‘Yes, I suppose anyone can be Prime Minister.’

In generations to come, sociologists will probably look at what Prime Minister John Howard symbolised and draw their own conclusions.

You decide, I am off to the gym with Brendan, Pete and Malcolm.

Practical Economics: Privatisation - do not always believe your textbook

The theory of privatisation is simple: the market will always deliver better, more efficient and cheaper services to consumers than governments can. As an economist, this mantra was repeated to me both while studying at university and working in the finance sector.

Given the NSW government’s discussion to privatise the delivery of electricity, it is time to move beyond the textbook and consider reality. Unfortunately for advocates of privatisation, this reality is significantly different as we can see from international examples, including New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Do not get me wrong, I am neither against privatisation per se nor believe that it is always a bad idea. Rather, my position is one that argues that each industry must be looked at on its own merits and informed, long-term decisions need to be made rather than blindly following an ideology that does not always work.

In other words, there is a need to consider which industries have a natural propensity for privatisation, and which should be considered as belonging to our community and, therefore, being outside the market. To do this, we can begin by splitting government assets into three groups.

The first group is what can be called commodities. These commodities can be defined as those assets that fit neatly into a market logic: that is, they can be delivered for profit and the goals of the private sector align with those of broader society. Here, the private shareholders can demand profits while competition ensures that service delivery remains a priority.

The gaming industry is one example. The privatisation of TAB Corp. can be considered a success as the market is large enough to encourage competition and service delivery can be achieved through many channels. Certain dimensions of insurance industry – such as car insurance – can also be considered to be ripe for privatisation as there are enough competitors that ensure the price remains competitive. Privatisation of GIO, for example, while it has its critics, also removed the burden of risk from the government and has allowed the private sector to carry it.

The second category is those government assets that can be considered outside the market. These are those assets whose service delivery allows our community to operate: these include water, health care, education and yes, energy.

In such industries, the market logic and the needs of society come into conflict. To explain this, I will return to my first year economics textbook and the basic rules of supply and demand. What makes a commodity valuable is its scarcity. This is why diamonds are more valuable than water – though most of us can comfortably live without diamonds. The market then, gains from scarcity as it drives up prices and profits. In contrast, our society is better off if we experience abundance.

Further, the service delivery of these goods and services, if provided with only the profit motive in mind, leads to exclusion. While global warming means that we need to reconsider the use of electricity, we still need to ensure that all sections of society can access such assets. In other words, as a member of a community, I am happy to pay a little extra for electricity knowing that the farmers and others living in remote parts of our state also have access to energy.

The market does not reflect this logic and as a result, it is difficult to imagine the private sector being interested in delivering services to remote communities without substantial price rises: just ask the executives at Telstra and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

So, how are we to understand such assets? We should think of them as ‘commons.’ While the word commons has a history in Middle Ages’ England and its use has all but disappeared from the English language, it has relevance today. The term commons is being applied to all those assets, both provided by nature (such as air, water and the oceans) as well as government services that we all use but no-one owns. That is, assets common to us all.

In fact, such commons have been passed on to us from previous generations and in truth, we are only holding them in trust for future ones. The concept of the commons allows us to draw a line in the sand and say that some dimensions of our society are much too valuable to trust to the whims of the market.

The third category is those assets that fit somewhere between the market and the commons. We can think of Telstra in this way: if the federal government had its way over again, it would probably privatise service delivery and keep the infrastructure in public hands. This way the competition between service providers could ensure new technologies and cheaper prices, while remote parts of the nation are assured access.

The answer then, is not to sell off assets but to invest in the infrastructure to ensure that we achieve that twin goals of efficiency and sustainability. In situations like energy delivery, massive amounts of investment are needed to achieve these goals, and in reality, only the government is in the position to undertake this. Anything less leaves many in our society vulnerable, and betrays the legacy left to us as well as the duty we owe to future generations.