Skip to main content
Hegemony and building an alternative
The Morning Star’s mission is to try to challenge the dominant ideological culture. GAWAIN LITTLE takes a look at the Marxist concept of hegemony — and how it can inform our approach

WE live in a class-divided society.

No serious analysis of Britain’s politics can fail to consider the fact the there is a deep and obvious division between the producers in our society, those who work for a living and produce the value on which our economy and society is based, and those who live off the value created by others, using their wealth, crystallised value created by workers, and setting it into motion as capital, whether by directly employing labour in production or investing in financial markets based on the material root of this production, to provide a seemingly limitless source of profit for its “owner.”

This basic fact of exploitation, first fully elaborated by Marx in developing the labour theory of value, is undeniable and forms the very basis of our society. 

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Police arrest a man during an incident at Hammersmith Broadw
Features / 1 April 2025
1 April 2025
General secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions GAWAIN LITTLE calls for support and participation in the national partnership organised to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1926 general strike
Features / 1 January 2025
1 January 2025
GAWAIN LITTLE argues that the prolonged economic crisis we have been experiencing presents opportunities for a working-class fightback
BRUTE FORCE: An Israeli war plane at Tel Nof air base prepar
Features / 24 December 2024
24 December 2024
After the Gaza genocide and unleashing chaos in Syria, the US and Israel prepare to target Tehran next, leaving the Iranian people caught between foreign intervention and continued theocratic oppression, writes GAWAIN LITTLE
TUC 2024 / 9 September 2024
9 September 2024
GAWAIN LITTLE urges the labour movement to seize a historic opportunity under the new government, warning that failure to push for real change now could spell disaster for workers and fuel the far-right threat
Similar stories
Malcolm X, the militant leader and former member of the Nati
Features / 25 February 2025
25 February 2025
Sixty years after his murder, it is up to all of us to defy ruling-class attempts to sanitise or distort his revolutionary legacy by upholding his deep understanding of capitalism’s ties to racism and empire, writes ISAAC SANEY
Vladimir Lenin, revolutionary leader of the first government
Features / 17 September 2024
17 September 2024
The left’s retreat from class, embrace of ‘hyphenated capitalisms’ and tepid reformism in tropical settings needs to be finally dumped in favour of a bold socialist programme and Leninist party organisation, writes ZOLTAN ZIGEDY
Features / 28 August 2024
28 August 2024
Capitalist exploitation and the civilisational crisis are global in nature. The left needs to transcend its frequently localised outlook if its to address the concerns of the exploited sectors worldwide, warns LUIS GARATE
DRAMATIC MOMENT: Protesters throw the statue of merchant and
Features / 11 June 2024
11 June 2024
ROGER McKENZIE discusses the different Marxist traditions of thought about race and racism in the first in a four-part serialisation of his new book, African Uhuru