Podcast Summary:

New Books Network — Massimo Modonesi, "The Antagonistic Principle: Marxism and Political Action" (Haymarket, 2019)
Host: Stephen Dozeman
Guests: Massimo Modonesi (author), Maria Vigneau
Date: October 20, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode delves into Massimo Modonesi’s book The Antagonistic Principle: Marxism and Political Action. Modonesi, joined by research collaborator Maria Vigneau, discusses Marxist theory’s perspectives on political subjectivation, focusing on the triad of concepts: subalternity, antagonism, and autonomy. The conversation explores how these ideas are used to analyze collective action, social movements, and the shifting landscape of leftist politics—especially in South and Latin America. Gramsci’s theories and their contemporary relevance are central, with critical focus on dynamics like passive revolution and the ebb and flow of emancipatory movements.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Background and Theoretical Foundations

[03:49]

• Focus of Research: Modonesi studies social movements and the Marxist theory of collective action.
• Book Context: The new book builds on his earlier work, expanding the theoretical framework with updated empirical and methodological components.
  • “In that previous book, I retraced the theoretical efforts built around three concepts developed within Marxist reflection on the subject and political action, which characterize processes of political subjectivation—as you said, subalternity, antagonism and autonomy.” (Modonesi, [04:17])

2. The Retreat of Marxism in Academic and Popular Discourses

[07:44]

• Recent movements (e.g., Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street) are often analyzed for their use of social media rather than their class dynamics.
• Marxism has retreated as a framework for analyzing collective action, replaced by post- or anti-Marxist approaches that favor form over content.
  • “This reduction of the analytical capacity... is also related to the relative retreat of Marxism or Marxist analysis from the study of collective action and social sociopolitical movements.” (Vigneau, [08:17])
  • Centrality of class and class struggle is being lost, which the book seeks to restore.

3. Class, Subjectivity, and Struggle

[10:07]

• Recent Marxist analysis favors structure (exploitation, capital-labor relation) over the subjective (class struggle, agency).
  • “It is in struggle, in the subjective expressions of those structural tensions, that actors are configured as political subjects.” (Vigneau, [10:26])
  • Modonesi warns against understanding class as a “mere social nomenclature,” emphasizing its dynamic, antagonistic core ([11:52]).

4. Gramsci, Subalternity, and Hegemony

[13:33]

• Gramsci is often misread—as either fetishizing subalternity or focusing solely on hegemonic subjects.
• Modonesi insists that Gramsci’s key question is how subaltern classes become hegemonic, stressing autonomy, organization, and intellectual leadership.
  • “...the predominant interpretation of Gramsci thought are dislocated...between the emphasis on the exaltation of the subaltern...and...on the subject capable of exercising the gemn...In both readings I see an essentialism and a tendency towards simplification that lies precisely in not asking the Gramscian question...[of] how the subaltern can become...hegemonic.” (Modonesi, [14:10])

5. The Triad: Subalternity, Antagonism, Autonomy

[16:56]

• These concepts describe, respectively, subordination, insubordination, and self-determination within political subjectification.
• Modonesi and Vigneau argue for understanding them as dimensions that intermingle, rather than as separate stages or identities.
  • “Subalternity as the condition and experience of subordination and exploitation, antagonism as the experience of insubordination and autonomy as...self-determination. And in these processes...they are all usually combined unevenly...” (Modonesi, [17:16]; Vigneau adds, [19:08])

6. Resistance, Rebellion, and Their Interplay

[21:45]

• Resistance represents defensive struggle, while rebellion signals active insubordination—but both overlap in reality and theory.
  • “The distinction between the two and their respective placement in the field of subalternity and antagonism is useful as it refines and clarifies concepts… resistance and rebellion also intervene in corresponding from most struggles.” (Modonesi, [22:07])

7. The Centrality of Antagonism

[23:30]

• Antagonism has both structural (capital vs. labor) and subjective (conscious, organized struggle) levels.
• Modonesi’s focus is to deepen the subjective analysis, making antagonism the core driver of political subjectivation.
  • “I maintain then that the antagonistic principle is a starting point and at the same time the arrival of all Marxist…on the confirmation of political subjectivities…” (Modonesi, [23:46])
  • Vigneau highlights antagonism as the “bridge” between subalternity and autonomy ([25:44]).

8. Gramsci’s Passive Revolution

[26:59]

• Passive revolution describes top-down transformation—change without popular initiative, designed to preserve hegemony.
  • “Passive revolution, Gramsci argued, often occur to remedy a crisis of hegemony… while promoting certain changes ultimately aimed to the conservation of substantial power relations.” (Modonesi, [27:20])
• It’s used by ruling classes to absorb pressures from below without real emancipation.

9. Passive Revolution vs. Dictatorship Without Hegemony

[31:04]

• In Latin America, the concept of “dictatorship without hegemony” was more commonly used, but it lacks the nuance of passive revolution, which better captures the reconfiguration of consensus even by progressive governments.
  • “The formula of dictatorship without hegemony is used only in...the case of Italian unification... While the passive revolution is a recurring resource in world history...” (Modonesi, [31:26])

10. South and Latin American Social Movements: Cycles and Responses

[32:55]

• Late 20th/early 21st-century anti-neoliberal movements were diverse, mixing “old forms” of struggle with new agendas for autonomy and self-determination.
  • “The anti-neoliberal mobilization...had a popular component, politicized the resistance agenda... They emerged from the defensive phase, resorted to new formats of struggle and organization, but they did not disdain the old one.” (Modonesi, [33:17])
• Progressive governments co-opted movements, leading to demobilization, though organizational bases still remain.
  • “These governments installed processes controlled from above, that did not modify the systems of domination or the power relations.” (Vigneau, [38:10])

11. Current Dynamics and Future Outlook

[39:50]

• Both the right and post-progressivism are limited in vision, but grassroots organizing and resistance reserves persist.
  • “I would say that the capacity for self-organization and mobilization from below that has accumulated in resistance against both neoliberal and progressive governments is also revitalized…” (Modonesi, [40:18])

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the core agenda of the book:
  • “The main goal of this book emerges, which is to recover and re-articulate that agenda. And in that sense, the element that distinguishes Marxism from this other post Marxist or anti Marxist theories of social movements is the concept of social class and class struggle occupying a central place.” (Maria Vigneau, [08:17])
• On Gramsci and subalternity:
  • “He’s a theorist not of subalternity, but of the escape from subalternity, of the historical construction of an autonomous social and political subject capable of contending against hegemony.” (Stephen Dozeman paraphrasing the book, [13:33])
• On subjectivation:
  • “In struggle, that they enter in conflict that they organize… it is in struggle that political subjectivities are formed.” (Maria Vigneau, [10:26])
• On the endurance of popular struggle:
  • “There remains in Latin America a notable resistance reserve of the organized sector of subaltern classes.” (Massimo Modonesi, [37:04])
• On passive revolution:
  • “These are the key to this operation aimed to re establish domination on the firm ground of hegemony, i.e. obtaining the active or passive consensus necessary to stabilize the social order.” (Massimo Modonesi, [27:20])

Key Segment Timestamps

• [03:49] — Author’s research and book context
• [07:44] — Marxism’s retreat & analysis of contemporary movements
• [13:33] — Gramsci’s theory and subalternity
• [16:56] — Introduction of the triad: subalternity, antagonism, autonomy
• [21:45] — Resistance vs. rebellion
• [23:30] — Dual nature of antagonism
• [26:59] — Gramsci’s “passive revolution”
• [31:04] — Latin American appropriation: “dictatorship without hegemony”
• [32:55] — Anti-neoliberal movements in Latin America
• [36:46] — Co-optation and demobilization of emancipatory movements
• [39:50] — Current cycles: rightward turn and enduring resistance
• [42:03] — Future work: Gramsci’s prison notebooks

Tone & Style

Throughout, the tone is analytical but accessible—reflecting academic rigor without jargon overload. Modonesi’s voice anchors the theoretical depth, while Vigneau’s comments clarify and supplement, tying abstract frameworks to empirical developments. The conversation is collegial, with Dozeman guiding the dialogue and posing sharp, clarifying questions.

This episode is essential for anyone interested in Marxist theory, political subjectivity, and the ongoing dynamics of resistance and power in Latin America and beyond. It bridges rigorous philosophical reflection with urgent contemporary relevance.