Hegemony Now: How Big Tech and Wall Street Won the World

by Alex Williams, Jeremy Gilbert

How did we come to live in a world dominated by big tech and finance?
Today power is in the hands of Wall Street and Silicon Valley. How do we understand this transformation in power? And what can we do about it?

We cannot change anything until we have a better understanding of how power works, who holds it, and why that matters. 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.

Hegemony Now explores how these forces came to control our world. The authors show how they have shaped the direction of politics and government as well as the neoliberal economy to benefit their own interests. However, this dominance is under threat. Following the 2008 financial crisis, a new order emerged in which the digital platform is the central new technology of both production and power. This offers new opportunities for counter hegemonic strategies to win back power. Hegemony Now outlines a dynamic socialist strategy for the twenty-first century.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Sociology

372 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 30, 2022

About the author

Alex Williams is a lecturer in the sociology department at City, University of London. He is the author of Hegemony Now (Verso 2017, with Jeremy Gilbert) and Inventing the Future (Verso 2015, with Nick Srnicek)

Reviews

[Dante · Rating 2 out of 5]

(2.5) I'm not sure what the point of this book is. Alliances with progressive sectors of capitalist industry to overcome the ecological crisis? Hegemony no!

[Subliminal · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I heard Jeremy Gilbert talking about this book on the Politics Theory Other podcast it sounded really exciting. The book partly delivers on this promise, but i had problems to keep the focus due to the many thematic detours. It is a book that wants to much: Updating recent post-marxist and post-structuralist theory, recounting the history of the UK-left, the Labour party and some US campaigns, analysing real-existing neoliberalism and delivering an organisational strategy for the left. 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.
To recap: its complicated, you have to know your enemy well and every situation ought to be analysed carefully. 226 pages derivation, 25 pages result.

[Peter Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

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. The first section builds a picture of the current state of things in the early twenty first century, and in particular how large finance and technology concerns built a world that suited their interests. The second section then theorises this using concepts including hegemony along with the theories of Deleuze and Guattari (which I'm aware of but not in any way familiar with) to build an understanding of how this power is constructed and has continued to be supported by political parties that win elections despite seemingly not being hugely popular in general. The final section then sets out a proposal for strategies that the left should pursue based largely on the principle of understanding what is pragmatically possible and creating the coalitions that will allow realistic goals to be achieved in practice.

The second section is probably the most interesting, but also the one that wanders around a little. The most interesting part comes with the concept of platforms as the fundamental neoliberal structure of modern society and economy, meaning that any progressive successor will have to "contend the succession to neoliberalism within its own hollowed out body, a hegemonic battle among its gleaming bones and rotting organs." (p.205).

This sets the stage for the final section, whose emphasis on practical coalition building could easily be perceived as reformism, something the authors a plainly keen to disavow. I understand where they are coming from, but I do wonder whether in practice the end result would be limited reforms that are eventually dissipated by a Thermidorian revanche of capitalist interest, rather than creating a gathering wave of progressive change that Gilbert and Williams imagine.

That said, this is an interesting analysis of both theory and strategy that makes good use of theory to build a realistic understanding of what the strategies and priorities of the modern left should be.

This is the final book I read in my reading on the theme of hegemony set out here https://marxadventure.wordpress.com/2...

[Gareth · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant book. Probably the thing I'd most want to share with people in the UK to draw them towards grasping how we might look to go beyond the state we are in. So many avenues of thought that could provoke discussions which could lead to positive change. It feels like the book I will most buy to share with other people, in the same way that I have shared the back catalogue of the podcast Culture, Power, Politics as a way to introduce British people to a re-understanding of how the history of the UK has led to where we are now. This book is another excellent avenue to approach that quandary.

[Ali · Rating 2 out of 5]

i didnt get it 😭😭😭
someone explain what these bros were yappin about😭

[George Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A summative and unique assessment of where capitalism is today, and how the left reconstructs a political and social movement to challenge the power of Wall Street and Big Tech. 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 the future, I want to see more scholarship from Gilbert, Williams and a wider contemporary Left dealing seriously and properly with these questions and countering hegemony and building counter hegemony, as difficult as that is.

[Sander Dumas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I thoroughly enjoyed the authors analysis on the concept of hegemony and how neoliberal forces have managed to become hegemonic, I remain very sceptic of their proposal to form a coalition with progressive sectors of capital in order to overcome climate change. Do the authors not see that these sectors have no interest at all in a more egalitarian and democratic society? Also, in many cases corporations that offer renewable energy are the same corporations that profit from fossil fuels (think for example of Shell and Vattenfall). The Left should not seek any cooperation with these sectors whatsoever.

[Kanako Okiron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hegemony - the process by which discrete groups or networks come to guide the development of society as a whole, in the service sector of a set of interests
“Hegemony now!” sounds like what Frank Costanza would say in Seinfeld if he’d gone to Wall St and proposed a holiday called Hegemony instead of Festivus. Would have made a cool episode.

[Kate Page · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting read.

[Jooseppi Räikkönen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm always up for a good roast of Laclau-Mouffe. This has nothing else going on beside that though. Super disappointing.