Hello everyone, we are concluding the section A of Paper 1, I will make the compilation available in the platform
Today it’s the third and last part of Western Political thought–Marx, Gramsci, Hannah Arendt. Across Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, and Hannah Arendt, you have 2 ten-mark, 6 fifteen-mark, and 3 twenty-mark questions in the last 12 years.
- Karl Marx
| THEME | CORE IDEAS & KEYWORDS | PRINCIPAL TEXTS / STAGES | SCHOLARS & INTERLOCUTORS | SHORT ANALYTIC NOTES |
| 1. Marx in Context | Industrial Revolution, Enlightenment science, emancipation, critique of dogma | – | Hegel, Feuerbach, Young Hegelians, French Revolution | Turns Hegel’s “Idea-first” dialectic into historical materialism |
| 2. Works | Young Marx → alienation; Mature Marx → capitalism critique | EPM 1844, German Ideology, Manifesto (1848), Grundrisse, Das Kapital I-III | Engels (co-author) | Development from humanism → scientific socialism |
| 3. Religion | “Opium of the masses”, false consciousness, symptom not cause, liberation from alienation | – | Feuerbach, Hegel | Positive: solace / moral protest; Negative: mystifies exploitation |
| 4. Political-Economy | Labour-theory of value, private property vs. human essence, greed & competition | – | David Ricardo, John Locke | Political economy naturalises bourgeois interests |
| 5. Alienation | From product, process, species-being, fellow-men | EPM 1844 | – | Rooted in commodified labour & private property |
| 6. Historical Materialism | Forces × relations of production, dialectic, scientific history | German Ideology | Engels (systematises) | First act of history = production, not thought |
| 7. Mode of Production | Primitive Communism → Slavery → Feudalism → Capitalism → Socialism → Communism | – | – | Change when forces outgrow relations |
| 8. Base / Super-structure | Base = economic structure; Super-structure = state, law, ideas | – | – | Critics tag Marx “economic determinist”; Marx: consciousness = material reflection |
| 9. Class | Bourgeoisie vs Proletariat, “class-in-itself → class-for-itself” | Manifesto | Proudhon (criticised), Gramsci, Lukács (later) | History = class struggle; proletariat abolishes all classes |
| 10. Surplus Value | s = (c+v+s) – (c+v); unpaid labour; reserve army of labour | Das Kapital | Lenin: “corner-stone” | Drives profit; intensified by machinery, immigration, layoffs |
| 11. Ideology | Masks domination; moral justification of status quo | – | Althusser, Gramsci (hegemony) | Includes religion, nationalism, law, media |
| 12. Commodity Fetishism | Social relations appear as relations between things | Das Kapital ch. 1 | Lukács (reification) | Value seems inherent to commodity, obscuring labour |
| 13. Analysis of Capitalism | Private ownership, wage-labour commodity, hierarchical division, crises, monopoly | – | Rosa Luxemburg, Henryk Grossman, David Harvey (crisis theories) | “Capitalists dig their own graves”; impoverishment reduces demand |
| 14. Crisis Drivers | Over-production, under-consumption, profit-squeeze, market limits | – | – | Leads to revolutionary conditions |
| 15. Revolution | Objective (proletariat) + Subjective (class consciousness) | Manifesto, 18th Brumaire | Lenin (vanguard), Mao, Castro | Dictatorship of proletariat as transition; abolishes private property |
| 16. Communist Vision | Common ownership, “from each… to each…”, end of alienation, withering away of state & money, union of town/country | – | – | Highest realm of freedom; human self-realisation |
| 17. Modern Echoes | Rising inequality, Piketty’s Capital 21c, ecological Marxism, world-systems | – | Thomas Piketty, Samir Amin, Immanuel Wallerstein, John Bellamy Foster | Neo-Marxist, dependency & eco-Marxist renewals |
| 18. Critiques | Economic determinism, prediction failures, authoritarian outcomes | – | Max Weber, Karl Popper, Isaiah Berlin, Bertrand Russell | Yet Marx’s lens on exploitation & crisis still frames inequality debates |
One-glance Timeline
| Year | Milestone |
| 1818 | Birth in Trier |
| 1844 | Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts |
| 1848 | Communist Manifesto |
| 1867 | Das Kapital Vol. I |
| 1883 | Death; Vol. II-III edited by Engels |
Essential Formulae
| Concept | Expression |
| Surplus Value | SV = Value (output) – Wages (v) |
| Rate of Exploitation | s / v |
| Organic Composition of Capital | c / v (trend ↑) |
- Gramsci
| THEME | CORE IDEAS & KEYWORDS | TEXTS / EVENTS / EXAMPLES | SCHOLARS & CROSS-REFERENCES | SHORT ANALYTIC TAKE |
| Bio & Setting | Sardinia → Turin → Moscow; founder PCI; arrested 1926; Prison Notebooks (1929-35) | 1913 universal-suffrage vote; 1921 PCI; Mussolini’s “…prevent this mind from functioning” | Rosa Luxemburg (mass-strike model) | Sought to explain why Marx’s predicted revolution stalled in West |
| Gramsci’s Main Concern | Failure of proletarian revolution; role of culture; “Hegelian-Marxism”, historic bloc | – | Marx, Hegel, Lenin (state & revolution) | Shifts Marxism from economic determinism → cultural strategy |
| On Marx | Accepts exploiters / exploited; rejects crude base-determinism; adds ideology, consent | – | Althusser (parallel anti-economism) | Bourgeoisie rules by hegemony + coercion, not production alone |
| Domination vs Hegemony | Power = coercion (state) + consent (civil society); hegemony = leadership through “common sense” | Gandhian “White Man’s Burden” analogy | Roger Simon on coercion+persuasion | Until hegemony cracked, no revolution possible → build counter-hegemony |
| Intellectuals | Traditional (priests, professors) claim neutrality; Organic emerge with each class; craft ideology | Church backing feudalism → shifts to bourgeoisie | – | Both strata reproduce ruling-class worldview; workers need organic cadre for counter-hegemony |
| War of Maneuver / War of Position | Maneuver = frontal assault (works in “transparent” states e.g. Czarist Russia); Position = trench-war in “opaque” West (ideological grind) | Mass-strike, general strike vs. slow cultural work | Rosa Luxemburg source on mass-strike | In liberal democracies civil-society fortress demands War of Position first |
| State & Civil Society | “Integral State” = Political Society (coercive armour) + Civil Society (private hegemony) | Schools, Church, Media, Parties | – | Civil society = trench system shielding state; socialists must burrow inside |
| Historic Bloc | Alliance + compromise among classes under bourgeois leadership; grants consent | Fordism in USA = industrial capitalism + unions + culture | – | Revolution needs new bloc led by proletariat, uniting oppressed strata |
| Counter-Hegemony Strategy | Build working-class ideology, occupy civil-society nodes, win common sense | Trade-union culture, workers’ press, popular education | – | Extended passive revolution until tipping-point for maneuver |
| Comparison: Marx vs Gramsci | Marx: economic base, coercion, mono-causal, civil society derivative | Gramsci: integral state, culture+economy, autonomy of superstructure, hegemony, war-of-position | See grid below | Adds ideological layer to materialist dialectic; plural causal chain | |
| Evaluation / Legacy | Framework for cultural studies, post-colonialism, subaltern studies, Neo-Marxism | Stuart Hall, Edward Said, Ranajit Guha | Critics: vagueness of hegemony; optimism re civil-society capture | Explains stability of capitalism without abandoning revolutionary horizon |
Comparison Grid (Marx ▶︎ Gramsci)
| Axis | Karl Marx | Antonio Gramsci |
| Core Power | Economic base controls superstructure | Integral state: base + superstructure inter-determine |
| Key Concept | Surplus value; class struggle | Cultural Hegemony; historic bloc |
| Strategy | Direct seizure of state (Paris Commune model) | War of Position → cultural trenches → War of Maneuver |
| Intellectuals | Ideologists of ruling class (no autonomy) | Traditional / Organic; pivotal for consent |
| Civil Society | Part of superstructure, little autonomy | Semi-autonomous “trench-system” legitimizing rule |
| Revolution Trigger | Economic contradictions, pauperization | Ideological crisis, disarticulation of hegemony |
| Determinism | Labelled “economic determinist” by critics | Multi-causal: economy + culture + politics |
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975)
| Arendt’s Core Formulations | Principal Texts & Episodes | Linked Notions / Scholars / Notes | |
| Biographical Frame | German-Jewish émigré; student of Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers; fled Nazism (1933), interned at Gurs, arrived U.S. 1941; taught at Chicago, New School. | Rahel Varnhagen (1933, revised 1958) as intellectual autobiography. | Early Zionist activism; insisted on being a “political theorist”, not a philosopher. |
| Method‐Signature | “Thinking without banisters”: phenomenological description, historical genealogy, emphasis on experience not system. Rejects both scientistic social theory & metaphysical idealism. | Prefaces, Between Past and Future (1961) | S. Benhabib: reflective judgement; Dana Villa: ‘agonistic humanism’. |
| Totalitarianism | – New form of domination: fusion of ideology + terror. – Atomises masses through loneliness; deploys “objective enemies”. – Destroyed traditional class interest; replaces law with movement. | The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) | Borrowed “radical evil” from Kant; dialogue with Raymond Aron, C. J. Friedrich, Zbigniew Brzezinski. |
| “Banality of Evil” | Adolf Eichmann embodied evil born of thoughtlessness not demonic will; ordinary functionary obeying routine. | Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963) (“report on the banality of evil”). | Fierce debate: Gershom Scholem, Hans Jonas, B. Hannah. |
| Human Condition | – Tripartite vita activa: labor (biological metabolism & necessity), work (world-objectivity, durability), action (speech-deed / plurality / freedom). – Natality (“capacity to begin”) grounds politics; plurality = condition of action. – Space of appearance = public realm where power is actualised. | The Human Condition (1958) | Critiqued by Sheldon Wolin for nostalgia; extended by Peg Birmingham on natality. |
| Public vs Private | Private = household, necessity; Social = modern blurring; Public = realm of freedom, opinion, remembrance. | HC §§22-28 | Resonates with Aristotle’s oikos/polis. |
| Power & Violence | Power = in concert action, non-instrumental; Violence = instrumental, parasitic, appears when power falters. | Essay “On Violence” (1970) (in Crises of the Republic) | Dialogue with Weber, Fanón, C. Wright Mills. |
| Authority | Roman model: founded, augmented by tradition; crisis of authority after modern revolutions. | “What Is Authority?” in Between Past and Future | Links to Weber legitimation types. |
| Freedom | To begin anew in plurality; not will-based but public act; experienced in council system (soviets, workers’ councils). | On Revolution (1963) | Prefers American town-hall origins > French Jacobin model; H. Kurzke notes republican lineage. |
| Revolution | Measures success by institution of freedom not social question; lauds “lost treasure” of councils. | OR | Responds to Marx (social) & Tocqueville (virtue). |
| Judgement | Faculty that reconciles thinking & acting; enlarged mentality (Kant’s §40); judging without predetermined rules. | Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy (posth. 1982); projected vol. 3 of The Life of the Mind | Developed by Ronald Beiner, Linda Zerilli. |
| The Life of the Mind | 3 faculties: Thinking (withdrawal), Willing (temporal intent), Judging (worldly). Only first two completed (1978). | LOM vol. I-II | Engages Augustine, Heidegger, Sartre. |
| Civil Disobedience & Lying | Warned of “images, clichés” and administrative lies in modern polity. | “Lying in Politics” (Pentagon Papers essay, 1971) | Anticipates post-truth critiques (cf. Habermas, Arendtian scholars). |
| Concept of the “Pariah” | Positive marginal identity; conscious pariah (e.g., Kafka) can illuminate injustice. | The Jew as Pariah essays | Adopted by Julia Kristeva (Hannah Arendt, 2001). |
| Critique of Marx | Accepts Marx’s uncovering of social question but faults reduction of politics to labour & historical necessity; praises council moments overlooked by Marx’s party focus. | OR,HC | George Kateb: Arendt as “post-Marxist republican”. |
| Influence / Reception | Feminist theory (Iris M. Young, Bonnie Honig), deliberative democracy (Jürgen Habermas), post-foundational politics (Chantal Mouffe), memory studies (Aleida Assmann). | Secondary works: Margaret Canovan, Dana Villa, Seyla Benhabib, Roger Berkowitz. | |
| Major Critiques | • Elitism & nostalgia for Greek polis (Wolin, Pitkin). • Insufficient attention to race/class (critiqued by Cedric Robinson, Angela Davis). • “Banality” charge seen as moral relativism. | Yet her analysis of totalitarian mechanisms & public freedom remains widely cited in contemporary authoritarian and post-truth studies. |
Concise Comparison: Marx ⬌ Arendt
| Marx | Arendt | |
| Historical Motor | Class struggle, material forces | Action & natality create history; contingency |
| Labor | Productive essence; alienated | Mere life-maintenance, below political dignity |
| Freedom | Achieved after abolishing exploitation | Exercised here-and-now in public plurality |
| Power | Control of productive apparatus | Appears when people act together; not property |
| Revolution | Inevitably proletarian, socio-economic | Possible, fragile; judged by creation of public freedom |
Evaluation & Contemporary Relevance
- Arendt pluralised Marx by showing how ideas, narratives and public spaces co-constitute domination (“totalitarianism as a fabric of terror and ideology”), anticipating Gramsci’s hegemony debates.
- Her distinction power ≠ violence informs current non-violent protest theory (Gene Sharp, Erica Chenoweth).
- “Banality of evil” reframed perpetrator studies (e.g., Christopher Browning).
- Critics fault her eurocentrism and limited socio-economic lens, yet the Human Condition inspires democratic innovation (participatory councils, citizens’ assemblies).
“For the freedom of all is rooted in the act of ‘beginning’ of each.” — HC,
Scholars Index
Louis Althusser | Samir Amin | Hannah Arendt | Aristotle | Raymond Aron | Aleida Assmann | Augustine | Ronald Beiner | Seyla Benhabib | Roger Berkowitz | Isaiah Berlin | Peg Birmingham | Zbigniew Brzezinski | Christopher Browning | Margaret Canovan | Fidel Castro | Erica Chenoweth | Angela Davis | Friedrich Engels | Frantz Fanon | Ludwig Feuerbach | Henry Ford | John Bellamy Foster | C. J. Friedrich | Mahatma Gandhi | Antonio Gramsci | Henryk Grossman | Ranajit Guha | Stuart Hall | B. Hannah | David Harvey | Georg W. F. Hegel | Martin Heidegger | Bonnie Honig | Karl Jaspers | Hans Jonas | George Kateb | Immanuel Kant | Julia Kristeva | H. Kurzke | Vladimir Lenin | John Locke | Georg Lukács | Rosa Luxemburg | Mao Zedong | Karl Marx | C. Wright Mills | Chantal Mouffe | Thomas Piketty | Karl Popper | Pierre-Joseph Proudhon | David Ricardo | Cedric Robinson | Bertrand Russell | Edward Said | Jean-Paul Sartre | Gershom Scholem | Gene Sharp | Roger Simon | Dana Villa | Rahel Varnhagen | Immanuel Wallerstein | Max Weber | Sheldon Wolin | Iris M. Young | Young Hegelians | Linda Zerilli
Practice Questions (Write before 4 p.m.)
Question 1. ‘Power is never the property of an individual; it belongs to a group and remains in existence only so long as the group keeps it together’. (Hannah Arendt). Discuss. [2014/10m]
Question 2. Marx’s concept of ‘alienation’ is an essential part of the reality in capitalism. Explain. [2021/15m]
Question 3. According to Gramsci, ‘hegemony is primarily based on the organisation of consent.’ Comment. [2019/20m]
📌 Model answers drop this evening on the Telegram channel: https://t.me/psirbyamitpratap – keep notifications on.
See you tomorrow on Day 15. Keep practicing!
—Amit Pratap Singh & Team
A quick note on submissions of copies and mentorship
- 2025 Mains writers: Cohort 1 of O-AWFG started on 12 June and ATS on 15 June. The above practice set will serve as your revision tool, just do not miss booking your mentorship sessions for personalised feedback especially for starting tests. Come with your evaluated test copies.
- 2026 Mains writers – keep uploading through your usual dashboard. Act on the feedback and improve consistently.
- Alternate between mini-tests (O-AWFG) and full mocks (ATS) has been designed to tackle speed, content depth, and structured revision—line-by-line evaluation pinpoints your weaknesses and errors. Follow your PSIR O-AWFG & ATS schedule and use the model answers to enrich your content, as rankers recommended based on their own success.
