Popular mobilization requires concrete concessions, not abstract appeals

Evidence

Given the principle that “Italy goes it alone”, it was necessary either to accept immediately a confederation with the other Italian States, or to propose territorial unity on such a radically popular basis that the masses would have been induced to rise up against the other governments, and would have constituted volunteer armies who would have hastened to the support of the Piedmontese. … In real life, one cannot ask for enthusiasm, spirit of sacrifice, etc. without giving anything in return, even from the subjects of one’s own country; all the less can one ask these things of citizens from outside that country, on the basis of a generic and abstract programme and a blind faith in a far-distant government. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 501

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Gramsci’s broader concept of hegemony — consent must be won with material concessions, not just ideology. This anticipates later Islamophobia readings on how dominant groups secure compliance. — connects to: Ordoliberal constitutions require active communal support, not mere state imposition — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 363; Sustained political mobilization cannot rest on rational argument alone — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of…, 2204