Cultural Hegemony in The United States

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‘This is in your best interest’ is a saying people always hear, but is it always true? Is it truly worth it to work under stressful conditions for minimum wage? Will staying at home to take care of the kids and cook dinner really benefit you? It is difficult to completely back the claim that these tasks people subject themselves to are really to support themselves. Rather, it is the few in charge, with power, that are the beneficiaries and reap the rewards. These privileged few get what they desire not through force, but through Antonio Gramsci’s idea of hegemony. Hegemony is the “process in which a dominant group gains – for its own interests – the approval of a subordinate class through the use of intellectual, moral, and cultural encouragement” (Mascia-Lees 151). This method does not ensure power to a certain group. Instead, it allows for power shifts between groups. If the current dominant group is not convincing the suppressed, the suppressed shall rise and rebel, giving way to a new dominant group. This paper will explore how this concept came to be, examples of who is affected, where this phenomenon occurs, and current research being carried out today.
Before Gramsci came up with hegemony, he was a Marxist. Marx and Engels “focused on the inequalities brought by the development of capitalism” (Mascia-Less 133), analyzed social relations within societies that had different modes of production, and delved into the superstructure of societies based on its infrastructure. Marx and Engels believed that it was the superstructure that “produces human consciousness, determining the very way people think about the world and themselves” (Mascia-Less 134). They also believed that controlling the means of production was w...

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...hat functions in our society today and will continue for future generations. Believe me, it’s for your own good.

Works Cited
Artz, Lee, and Bren O. Murphy. Cultural Hegemony in the United States. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2000. Print.
Holub, Renate. Antonio Gramsci: Beyond Marxism and Postmodernism. London: Routledge, 1992. Print.
Joseph, Jonathan. Hegemony a Realist Analysis. London: Routledge, 2002. Print.
Kupchan, Charles A. "The Decline of the West: Why America Must Prepare for the End of Dominance." The Atlantic. N.p., 20 Mar. 2012. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.
Lears, T.J J. "The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities." The American Historical Review 90.3 (1985): 567-93. JSTOR. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.
Mascia-Lees, Frances E. Gender & Difference in a Globalizing World: Twenty-first Century Anthropology. Long Grove, IL: Waveland, 2010. Print.

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