March 22nd - The power of hegemony

**If you'd like to follow my ramblings which I'm hoping will lead me to a simple answer to the question 'What has gone wrong in our world and what can we do to change direction?' it would be best to start at March 3rd below.
 Once I started thinking about 'hegemony' I looked it up on Wikipedia (as you do!) and found a really interesting description of how, throughout history,  hegemony has helped dominant powers to retain their power without military force.  OK, from the Romans through to the British Empire until the modern day physical force has been used to establish power, but once any 'regime' (can't think of a better word but hope you know what I mean) has dominance then they control ideas which people generally accept as the natural order of things.

I recently came across two interesting examples which show the differences between perceptions of those living in a communist country and those in the West  - 

In her book about life under communism in Eastern Europe Anne Applebaum said:

A Russian woman who visited East Germany in 1986 on a Soviet school trip described to me recently how their East German official hosts explained the Berlin wall as a necessary defence against the hordes of West Germans who wished to storm into East Germany to escape West German economic misery and join in East Germany's success.

AND -  
During the presidential election in the US, at a Republican convention supporters could be heard shouting: “No state provision of health care –we don’t want to turn into a communist state. Keep the state out of our lives.” This was about health care, a pretty basic need which we all have, but the message had got through that any state provision was tantamount to a communist takeover!
How does this work in our 21st Century world?  I guess the message which underlies the 'developed' world can be summed up as the 'American dream' - that the good life depends on material wealth that can be had by anyone who works hard enough and is enterprising enough.  We need to be individually responsible and not rely on the state for handouts. The private takes precedence over the public. 
Getting to grips with just what 'hegemony' is about seems to be pretty important if we are going to find a path to a better future.  
It feels as if I’m stepping into pretty academic territory here, but it’s a step which helps me to understand just why so many people work so very, very, hard to provide for themselves and their families.  Not only, understandably, to provide for the basic needs of food, clothes, shelter and perhaps the occasional holiday but  because they have taken on the idea that a certain life-style is desirable and life-enhancing. Working long hours to afford a new kitchen is the norm for so many. The 'American dream' feeds on our need to feel socially acceptable, part of the group,  and it taps into Humankind's fascination for novelty - we are attracted to something new.  The downside is not only that it depends on material consumption which is destroying the environment but that material wealth as a route to well being has shown to be an illusion as is very well documented in Oliver James's fascinating book 'Affluenza'[1].
 I feel that I'm running ahead of myself now, so I’ll get back to thinking about 'capitalism' because that is the train which is travelling the world promising to take the 'American dream' to anyone who wants to climb on board.