While the 15M movement gets a small mention, the book is written as if Occupy, and in the UK, the student movement of 2011, never happened. A ‘complex set of interrelated power mechanisms’ has operated to selectively empower some social groups and partially subjugate others (77). You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.

Gilbert and Williams offer practical and hopeful strategies for changing the ‘directions of travel’ of the contemporary conjuncture—especially in the US and UK. As Gilbert and Williams argue, however, Gramsci’s ideas can be understood as more nuanced than being about pure domination and lend themselves well to a detailed analysis of power relations, especially at times of instability and crisis. In the process of clarifying and updating the often misunderstood (and occasionally maligned) concept of hegemony, Gilbert and Williams also provide us with a valuable analysis of the "long 1990s": an account of its constitution, a diagnosis of its crisis and a map for its overcoming.Their contention is that politics is precisely about the contestation and negotiation of interests, something that has been implicitly denied and occluded by much contemporary public discourse. While at first glance, this may seem an unusual choice, given the appearance of the split subject (although they do not name it as such), it is perhaps not so unexpected.

Alex Williams is a political theorist and lecturer in digital media and society currently based at the University of East Anglia.To recap: its complicated, you have to know your enemy well and every situation ought to be analysed carefully. Indeed, one of the goals if a 21st-century socialism is to prevail, must be to wrest control of the major platforms from monopoly corporate control.

Deleuze’s concept of multiplicity allows the authors to conceptualise interests not as fixed and stable but as virtual, that may or may not actualize and become concrete. 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. Gilbert and Williams offer a detailed and methodical analysis which helps think through complexity, but also miss some key points which could add to their analysis.In engaging and accessible prose, Gilbert and Williams provide an astute political analysis of our current conjuncture.

Hegemony Now, addresses the unquestionable predominance of the big tech and financial sectors in relation to this state of crisis and the loss of moral authority of neoliberalism. 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. ACT Contact / FAQ About Events / Videos Merch / Subs Sign in/up Hegemony Now : How Big Tech and Wall Street Won the World (And How We Win it Back) Williams, Alex, Gilbert, Jeremy More by this author.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. Every year we publish a selection of books and pamphlets that address the key issues facing activists and trade unionists. We cannot change anything until we have a better understanding of how power works, who holds it, and why that matters. 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.