Antonio Gramsci

Hegemony, the struggle for power, and class divisions were key to the work of Gramsci. He challenged notions of purely economic-based classes, stating that "...class is too inert if it leads us to believe that workers, by virtue of their social position, always belong to the same class and possess the same attitudes and interests" (Booth et al, 2005). Instead, he pointed towards 'blocs', which he believed were created in shared historical moments.

Rather than viewing Hegemony as a potentially brutal form of coercion, Gramsci believed that the only way to take control, or to get other classes to consent to another's dominance was to hybridize the classes - to adapt certain aspects of the non-dominant classes with that of the one striving for power.

He also pointed towards the significance of intellectuals in classes or blocs, and divided them into two groups: traditional and organic. In the traditional stream we find those who run social institutions - schools, churches, media, etc. Organics, by contrast, are intellectuals that work against the established class in power (Booth et al, 2005). He felt that these intellectuals were the key change-makers for consent, bringing about ideological control for the dominant class, or ideological rebellion for the non-dominant classes (Booth et al, 2005). Therefore, it was not enough for the dominant class to control the institutions, but also needed strong intellectuals to run them, and to keep the coercion and consent steady. These intellectuals would also determine the nature of the ideology being projected by the dominant class.

Thus, Gramsci lead into the process of countering hegemony, or starting it anew with a different bloc or class. He argued that although one class may rise dominant after the shift that the majority of all non-dominant classes needed to be involved and agree with the change (Burke, 1999). This was quite contrary to the ideas of the time (and even now today) that a politcal party or group should try to bring about change on its own, and simply convince everyone else along the way.