Hegemony Now: How Big Tech and Wall Street Won the World (And How We Win it Back)

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The authors’ discussion of interests in relation to horizons of possibility is one of the areas in which the book is particularly effective. Gilbert and Williams start their book with the classic quote from political theorist Antonio Gramsci which sums up the last few years scarily well. They expand the concept of interests away from the narrow definition associated with deterministic forms of Marxism, to look at how the interests of Silicon Valley and financial capital have been served, but also how workers might have been persuaded to vote for outcomes which are against their own interests, such as Brexit. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Growing job insecurity and anxiety mean individuals are compelled to find private strategies to survive and have less time and capacity for political organisation.

Forthcoming publications include articles on political organisation, mutual aid and technology, and neoliberalism in the current conjuncture. They suggest a viral campaign or mass global boycott, although they don’t see this happening any time soon. We are facing an increasingly complex world, and the tools Gilbert and Williams’ develop from Gramsci enable us to think about this complexity without the reductions or simplifications that can be so appealing. Gilbert and Williams] have done a brilliant job stripping away much of the complexity that makes post and neo-Marxist language so difficult to engage with for ordinary mortals . A really useful work using the concept of hegemony as theorised by Gramsci and others to analyse the current state of society and politics in (primarily) the UK and US and set out a future strategy for the left, broadly conceived.Given that Gramsci’s perspective relies on coalition building and the understanding that counter power is built and contested on multiple levels, these omissions are unexpected. Gilbert and Williams argue that while many have seen this consent as having to be active (and critiqued Gramsci for this), they do not. Through upgrading the concept of hegemony—understanding the importance of passive consent; the complexity of political interests; and the structural force of technology—Jeremy Gilbert and Alex Williams offer us an updated theory of power for the twenty-first century.

To recap: its complicated, you have to know your enemy well and every situation ought to be analysed carefully. I particularly enjoyed the integration of 'New Left' poststructuralist thinkers to understand the complexity of class and coalition building today, with Deleuze and Gattari's concept of 'multiplicity' being instructive for me. In part two, the authors analyse how this state of hegemony of ‘actually existing neoliberalism’ has been enabled and reproduced itself.

This is a book that crosses the divide between political economy and cultural studies, but it is a must-read for anyone trying to make sense of the apparent chaos of contemporary life and the possibilities for a better future. In particular, they can help deconstruct shifts in the status quo and think through periods where existing power structures are unstable or falling apart. Instead, it is still left mostly to the national political party to be the main protagonist of change. While many of these topics are of dear interest to me, teh book failed- as so many do - in developing clear-cut advices or strategies.

Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's daily session limit.People ‘no longer believe what they used to’ and those able to exercise hegemony can’t do it as effectively anymore without resorting to force.