Tutorial 5

Hegemony means control/influence. Political/military control or influence. Refers to a state

controlling another state. Dominant state wants to control another state because can get
natural resources/labour/tax money etc. Can use the land e.g. use slaves from Africa to plant
cotton. British empire planted rubber on our land, open tin mines. When a state controls
another state, they can tap into resources, collect tax, tax money sent back to London. They
want to be more richer. Might also want to control trade routes/ports. For example, suez
canal. Its waterway built as a short cut between Europe and asia. Panama canal. He connects
the atlantic with the pacific. Melaka was an important port because it oversees the straits of
Melaka, not so big winds. Very calm sea.

Cultural hegemony. It is control over the culture, our lives. E.g. Christianity, it was not the
religion of the natives but brought to them. English language is also an example. We use and
adopt it in our life. This has characteristics of perpetuation. It is self-perpetuating. Can be a
good thing because it gives us more similarities e.g. in terms of clothing. Does not
necessarily mean the west is always the hegemon. Food is an example where the word
becomes more diversified e.g. eating Chinese food is common everywhere now, pizza is very
common too. The dominance of China might also change the way we view language e.g.
some countries are encouraging the usage of Chinese. China has a lot of influence in Africa
e.g. economic hegemony. China gives African countries loans, bring construction projects to
them, set up cultural exchanges, teaches them Chinese. Europeans did not help Africans, but
China does so to gain opportunities i.e. African will do business more with China, can easily
get land in Africa.

Antonio Gramsci

Gramsci sees capitalism as a form of cultural hegemony i.e. people are stuck in capitalist
system and believe they have no choice but to continue. Capitalism in pre world war 2 is
very different from the capitalism today. Marxist capitalism is one group who own property
and resources, one group is the workers. Industrialists pay little bit to workers who are in the
cycle of working until death. No prospect of working class going up the social ladder, when
children of working class can work, they are sent off to work until they grow old. To the
Marxist, this can be unlearned. The way is through revolution. If the Marxist aim is to end
capitalism, they have to see how to end the hegemony. Narrative of Marxist capitalism has
no social mobility. Today’s capitalism has a lot of social mobility i.e. regardless of
background you can get rich due to cheaper education. Rich still getting richer faster than
working class, but this is still better.

Capitalism comes from capital i.e. money and resources. Capitalism is using money to make
money. Working class uses labour to make money. In a capitalist society, there is a class of
society who can use capital to make more money/use other people’s labour to generate
more income for yourself.

Communism in its most basic form is equality. Instead of labourers do work for the
capitalists, we want to do work for ourselves. We should benefit from our own labour.
Marxist is that if capitalism is cultural hegemony, we can break it through a revolution. China
today has realised that for it to be prosperous, communism is not the solution, it is
capitalism because it involves knowledge to take risks etc through entrepreneurship. Its still
single party system i.e. communist system, but the economy is not a communist economy
anymore as it has no model for entrepreneurship or risk taking or innovation and
competition or improvement. For capitalists, because always competing, need to keep
improve.

Relationship between power and knowledge

Education gives us knowledge, and this is where the knowledge is power arguments comes
in. Michel Foucault.

The amount of information we get in one day is more than what people in the past get in a
whole year. The Internet has democratised knowledge, therefore decentralising the power
associated with knowledge. E.g. doctors, we can check the internet so doctors cannot cheat
us. No need go to library now, can just check the internet. In the past if go to foreign
country, need tour guide, now can go alone and plan everything, check maps before going.

Growth of knowledge is also not linear. Internet has changed the way we use knowledge.
When more and more knowledge can be easily accessed, no longer need to process
knowledge in our head, can use machines to process it, so we can use knowledge faster.
More than 90% of stock trading in US is done by programs, can monitor the prices and world
news, interpret and know when to buy and when to sell. Capitalism in a cybernetic era, it is
using knowledge to operate the capitalist system rather than using labour.