Self-government requires a rentier class with traditional public-affairs experience and mass prestige

Evidence

Self-government is an institution or a political and administrative usage which presupposes quite specific conditions: the existence of a social stratum which lives off rent, which by tradition is experienced in public affairs, and enjoys a certain prestige among the popular masses for its rectitude and impartiality (and also for certain psychological qualities, such as its ability to exercise authority with dignified firmness, but without haughtiness or arrogant detachment). It is thus understandable that self-government has only been possible in England, where the class of landowners, in addition to its condition of economic independence, had never been in savage conflict with the population (as happened in France) and had not had great corporate military traditions (as in Germany), with the separateness and the authoritarian attitude which derive from these. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2204

Self-government is an institution or a political and administrative usage which presupposes quite specific conditions: the existence of a social stratum which lives off rent, which by tradition is experienced in public affairs, and enjoys a certain prestige among the popular masses for its rectitude and impartiality (and also for certain psychological qualities, such as its ability to exercise authority with dignified firmness, but without haughtiness or arrogant detachment). … Change of meaning of self-government in non-Anglo Saxon countries: struggle against the centralism of the high government bureaucracy, but institutions entrusted to a bureaucracy controlled directly from below. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2204

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines self-government by its social preconditions rather than its administrative form.
• XREF: Connects to Gramsci’s broader theory of hegemony and the role of a traditional intellectual/rentier stratum in maintaining consent; relevant to later readings on how ruling classes secure legitimacy without coercion.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2204