Class unity is never given but always a contingent process of alliance-building

Evidence

Gramsci’s approach, which differentiates the conditional process, the different “moments,” and the contingent character of the passage from “class in itself” to “class for itself,” or from the “economic-corporate” to the “hegemonic” moments of social development, does radically and decisively problematize such simple notions of unity. Even the “hegemonic” moment is no longer conceptualized as a moment of simple unity, but as a process of unification (never totally achieved), founded on strategic alliances between different sectors, not on their pre-given identity. Its character is given by the founding assumption that there is no automatic identity or correspondence between economic, political, and ideological practices. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 138

Categorization

• XREF: Directly builds the scaffold for later Islamophobia readings on racialized class fractures; connects to Gramsci’s hegemony concepts carried through Hall’s canon.
• DEFINE: Defines the ‘class for itself’ vs ‘class in itself’ and ‘economic-corporate’ to ‘hegemonic’ distinctions as processual, not fixed states.