Critique of Gramsci's The Formation of the Intellectuals

Gramsci ,the Marxist reformer, takes Marxism to another different direction from the path of traditional ideologists. He calls for the domination of the culture’s ideology “hegemony” rather than the domination of the ruling party. Hegemony is the collective “spontaneous consent given by the great masses of population to general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group.” (1143) And “The intellectuals are the dominant group’s deputies exercising the subaltern functions of social hegemony and political government” (Ibid). My point of critique is that consent has to coexist, in Gramsci’s article, with the coercive force of the state against “those groups who don’t consent either actively or passively” (ibid). To him, dominance requires both coercion and consent; coercion “when consent fails”. On one hand, this might look as a democratic shift from the traditional Marxist ideology that emphasizes the rule of the party as the one and only dominant power. But on the other hand, and despite my respect to his reformative attitudes, I find that he is still “dominated” by the question of power; the power of the institution over people. This time Gramsci handles the power question in a cleverer Machiavellian way than the way of his traditional comrades. To explain what I mean, I’ll quote Machiavelli himself in this concern:

“You must know there are two ways of contesting, the one by the law, the other by force; the first method is proper to men, the second to beasts; but because the first is frequently not sufficient, it is necessary to have recourse to the second…… it is necessary for a prince to know how to make use of both natures, and that one without the other is not durable. A prince, therefore, being compelled knowingly to adopt the beast, ought to choose the fox and the lion; because the lion cannot defend himself against snares and the fox cannot defend himself against wolves.” (The Prince chapter XVIII)

Machiavelli, here, instructs his prince how to maintain his power over people and explains to him the same strategy previously explained by Gramsci of consent and force. Gaining consent, according to Gramsci, is the function of Intellectuals (who are supposed to play the part of the fox) through their articulations, and the Party has to play the role of the lion.

My second point of critique is that I can’t figure out what is the relation of this article to literature and critical theory.