In the Midst of a Second American Revolution By Nancy Salvato

Antonio Gramsci and Ayn Rand; each notable for their distinct yet conflicting views on the role of the individual in society, were both heavily influenced by the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Each denounced physical coercion employed by police and armed forces, or as Rand would say, by “communist thugs”. Both wrote about the revolution’s influence on their belief systems. That is where their similarity ends.

Gramsci agreed with Karl Marx that capitalism was bad for the “average Joe” because,

“Although workers produce things for the market, market forces control things; workers do not. People are required to work for capitalists who have full control over the means of production and maintain power in the workplace. Work, he said, becomes degrading, monotonous, and suitable for machines rather than free, creative people. In the end people themselves become objects—robotlike mechanisms that have lost touch with human nature, that make decisions based on cold profit-and-loss considerations, with little concern for human worth and need. Marx concluded that capitalism blocks our capacity to create our own humane society.” ¹

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