SOURCE: “Gramsci, Gentile and the Theory of the Ethical State in Italy, 1918-1920,” in Italian Quarterly, Vol. XXXI, Nos. 119-120, Winter-Spring, 1990, pp. 43-56.

In the following essay, Schechter discusses the political philosophies of Gentile and Gramsci, finding that “the desire to unite the state and the civil society” links the two.

Modern political philosophy has sought to deal with the relation between freedom and authority by invoking a range of concepts to explain how individuals might pursue their extremely diverse interests without at the same time undermining the presuppositions that make living together in society possible. The foundation which allows individuals to pursue heterogeneous aims, yet without permitting this pursuit to degenerate into a war of all against all, is commonly referred to as government or law. In Marxist thought the agency for regulating social conflict is defined as “the state”, which in modern societies, in contrast to...