UNITED STATES' HEGEMONY

United States' Hegemony

United States' Hegemony

Introduction

According to Antonio Gramsci, “the supremacy of a social group manifests itself in two ways”. He further elaborated on these two ways of establishing dominance by categorically describing these as “domination” and as “intellectual and moral leadership” (Arrighi et al. p. 26). Gramsci advocated the view that hegemony refers to power beyond domination and that its rule does not only serve its own interests but also those of subsidiary states. Hegemony, therefore, becomes soft power which has to do more with persuasion than hard power which translate into the act of forcing a subsidiary state into submission.

He elaborated further by suggesting that cultural and intellectual activities are not limited to operating within the spheres of functions of economic changes. Instead, they encompass aspects of social struggle, domination and resistance. He went on to state that contesting ideas are an all-too-crucial part of the general pattern of contest. By this logic, it becomes clear that hegemony is the idea or the collection of ideas that surpasses and dominates all other ideas (Cuff et al. p. 161).

Gramsci's works have been extremely influential in shaping the meaning of hegemony. If we judge from Gramsci's standards, then the U.S. emerges as a hegemonic leader in absolute certainty. Capitalism is the leading idea that guides the world's markets today, which proves the extent to which the hegemonic leaders' ideas are hegemonic in nature too. Subsidiary states who believe that they will benefit more than proportionately from capitalism willingly follow the hegemonic leader for financial and political gains.

The purpose of this essay to illustrate that the U.S. is indeed still a hegemony, however there has been a shift in hegemonic leadership from “soft power” to “hard power” in recent years.

Discussion

The Concept of Hegemony

Hegemony implies the domination of an entity over others. It can be applied to different situations with the same meaning: a bloc of nations' hegemony may have greater potential because of its economic, military or political, and that exerts hegemony over other states, which may or may not be forced. "Global hegemony" refers to world domination by one nation or group of nations. From a social aspect, it is understood as "cultural hegemony" - as evident in the works of Antonio Gramsci - domination and maintenance of power exercised by a person or group to the persuasion of one or more other subject, minority, or both, imposing their own values, beliefs and ideologies that shape and sustain the political and social system in order to achieve and perpetuate a state of uniformity in thought and action, as well as a restriction of the subject and focus of the productions and cultural publications.

Currently, hegemony is achieved through control of cultural agents among those which stand out for their social impact such as mass media . One example is what is explained through the theory of cultural imperialism, and of particular interest is the imperialism of the American film ...