(This explanation of hegemony derives from various online definitions, Victor Villanueva’s work on “Intellectuals and Hegemony” and my own understanding of hegemony)
The analysis of hegemony (or “rule”) was formulated by Antonio Gramsci to explain why Marxist predicted communist revolutions had not occurred where they were most expected, in industrialized Europe. Marx and his followers believed the rise of industrial capitalism would create a huge working class and cyclical economic recessions. These recessions, which are historically true, and other contradictions, such as the value of free enterprise, free labor, and meritocracy, would lead the overwhelming masses of the workers to develop organizations for self-defense, including labor unions and political parties that served the needs of the workers instead of the needs of the ruling elites. Further recessions and contradictions would then spark the working class to overthrow capitalism in a revolution, restructure the economic, political, and social institutions on rational socialist models, and begin the transition towards an eventual communist society. This was evident during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and yet no revolution occurred. Why not?
Gramsci argued the failure of the workers to make anti-capitalist revolution was due to the successful capture of the workers’ ideology, self-understanding, and organizations by a ruling elites’ involvement in oppressive hegemonic culture. In other words, the perspective of the ruling class had been absorbed by the masses of workers. Ideological domination took place with the consent of the overwhelming masses. In “advanced” industrial societies hegemonic cultural innovations such as compulsory schooling, especially when employing a banking concept of education, mass media, especially when driven by corporate sponsorship, and popular culture, especially when delivering the message of instant gratification and hyper-individualism where the individual is more...
