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Why We Consent to Inequality
You’re in a criminal justice program—bringing criminals to justice. But how do justice systems actually work? And why do we accept state authority to use violence when we can’t?
More fundamentally: We have a tiny number of billionaires who own vast portions of society, buying votes and influence. Yet you probably don’t think you’ll become one, and you haven’t revolted. Why not?
This exploration of Gramsci hegemony explained examines formal and informal mechanisms of social control, Max Weber’s definition of the state as monopoly on legitimate violence, and Antonio Gramsci’s theory of why we consent to systems that may not benefit us. Understanding hegemony helps us see how power operates not through force alone, but through our agreement that “that’s just the way things are.” This class is part of Introduction to Anthropology and anchors hegemony and state power for the site’s Power Analysis materials.
This page is a deeper dive from an earlier iteration of the course. The current class folds the chapter 8.4 material on governing complex societies—laws, norms, and informal justice—into Social Complexity in Anthropology, while this page carries the extended treatment of hegemony, the state, and consent.
Key Concepts
- Complex societies maintain order through both formal laws and informal social norms—and norms only bind when people care about them (240)
- Max Weber’s 1919 lecture “Politics as a Vocation” defines the state as the entity that claims a monopoly on legitimate violence within a territory (242)
- Hegemony means power through consent rather than force alone—the shared agreement that “that’s just the way things are” (242)
- Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) developed the concept of hegemony in the Prison Notebooks, written 1929–1935 while imprisoned by Mussolini’s fascist regime
- Gramsci’s driving question: if society is so unequal, why aren’t people revolting? Hegemony was his answer—consent makes coercion mostly unnecessary
- Informal justice through shunning and shaming can be effective where community consensus is strong, but can also become vigilante violence without due process (243)
- The American Dream operates as hegemonic ideology: belief in upward mobility persists even where it is statistically unlikely, and elites live increasingly invisible lives in fortified enclaves (245)
- If societies have been organized differently—cities without kings, order without constant violence—then hierarchy is not inevitable, and consent given can be withdrawn
Governing Complex Societies (240)
Living in large, complex societies requires mechanisms for maintaining social and political order. These mechanisms fall into two broad categories:
Formal rules (laws): Written regulations where breaking them results in defined consequences. This is what we typically think of as the legal system—formal justice.
Informal social norms: Unwritten expectations about behavior enforced through social pressure—gossip, disapproval, exclusion. These are the ideas we share about how people should behave, what you’re “just supposed to do.”
Different societies rely more heavily on one or the other. Some depend primarily on norms and shared expectations; others emphasize formal written laws.
American political life over the last decade has revealed this distinction dramatically. We assumed politicians would follow certain norms—unwritten agreements about behavior that didn’t need codification because “everyone knows” you wouldn’t violate them. But norms only work when people care about them. When someone breaks a norm and there’s no law backing it up, we discover it was “just” a norm all along. Arbitrary tariffs? Not against the law. Just breaking a norm.
Both formal rules and informal norms can enforce power over others, but they can also be ways of achieving justice and social order.
Systems of Justice (243)
These governing mechanisms extend to how societies administer justice.
Formal justice systems operate through laws, courts, and coercive power. Like classrooms with grades that supposedly correspond to effort, courtrooms make propositional statements backed by state authority to enforce judgments.
Informal justice works through community norms and sanctions rather than written laws:
- Shunning: Exclusion from the group. This might sound mild, but if you depend on the group for resources and social connection, shunning becomes a powerful disciplinary tool.
- Shaming: Public apology, social humiliation, loss of reputation—informal ways society regulates behavior without jail.
Informal justice systems can be remarkably effective when community consensus is strong. In some Native American societies, if someone killed a person from another group, the entire community had to compensate the victim’s family. There were very few killings because the whole group ensured it never happened—they didn’t want to bear that collective cost.
But informal justice has a darker side. Community-administered justice can mean vigilante violence, including lynching people accused of theft without due process. Poor people banding together for mutual support sounds appealing until you discover they might execute someone without trial.
Many societies blend state law with customary practices. Religious communities worldwide employ their own legal structures alongside state laws for marriage and membership. When formal and informal systems conflict, tensions emerge.
The State and Legitimate Violence (242)
When we say “state” in anthropology or social sciences, we don’t mean New York State or California. We’re talking about the overarching government over a territory—any form of government which is over a territory.
What distinguishes state government? Your textbook draws on Max Weber’s 1919 lecture “Politics as a Vocation.” The idea is that a state is the entity or the body that has a monopoly on legitimate violence within a territory.
In Weber’s words: “a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force [coercive authority] within a given territory.”
What does this mean practically? You’re not supposed to commit violence. If you do, that’s against the law. But the state can use violence, and that’s perceived as legitimate.
Here’s the principle: If someone attacks you, you can defend yourself while being actively threatened. But you’re not authorized to escalate—to grab a weapon or pursue revenge after the immediate danger passes. Instead, you’re supposed to call the police. When police arrive and must use violence to stop ongoing violence, that use of force is considered legitimate because they wear badges representing state authority.
This differs from societies where individuals or families could legitimately seek revenge. In state societies, the government claims monopoly on legitimate violence. The longer anthropological arc—from Hobbes through stateless societies to Weber, coercive versus persuasive power—is treated at Anthropology of Political Organization.
The perception of legitimacy is key: If police came in right now, handcuffed someone, and walked them out, what would you think? That they did something wrong. That’s what we assume when police act—there must be a reason. We perceive the action as legitimate before knowing the facts.
But Weber was writing from Germany, where European societies maintained much tighter control over weapons. In American society with widespread gun ownership, everybody thinks they have legitimate right to do something violent. Everybody thinks they can do something violent, especially if someone comes into their house. This creates ongoing debates about where legitimate force lies.
Contemporary Tensions About Police Violence
We’ve discovered that the police tend to exercise violence more than we would like them to. Right? Or maybe some people like them to do as much violence as they want, but that’s been one of the reasons that people have been protesting various things over the last 30 years or so—because it looks like there are people that are getting violently arrested and shot that don’t seem to have really done anything, or don’t seem to have merited that treatment.
Last year, there were student protests in which people were getting handcuffed and arrested, and professors would be like “Hey, what are you doing?” Then they’d get arrested. And so you do wonder: where is there a heavy police presence and where is that perceived as legitimate?
The January 6th Capitol storming shocked many because the state is supposed to be the ones that are keeping order in the society. You’re not supposed to have people taking that into their own hands and running over the police—it’s crazy. So these things are actually in debate in many societies. They seem to be especially in debate in our own society, because who is going to have a monopoly on violence that is perceived as legitimate? Where does state power, or how is state power perceived as legitimate or not?
Gramsci Hegemony Explained: Power Through Consent (242)
This brings us to a crucial question: Why is state power perceived as legitimate? Why do we accept that someone wearing a badge can use violence when we can’t?
The answer: hegemony.
If you look up hegemony in a dictionary, many people use it simply as a synonym for power. But in anthropology and sociology, hegemony has a more specific meaning: power through consent. We agree that certain people should hold power and others shouldn’t.
You can dominate people through force—colonial occupation, military conquest, violent subjugation. That’s coercive power. But if you must use explicit violence, you probably lack this subtler, more effective form of power.
Hegemony is when we agree “that’s just the way things are.” It’s power that comes from our collective belief that police officers deserve respect, that state authority flows from legitimate sources—the Constitution, democratic elections, founding narratives about George Washington and American history.
Hegemony is achieved when people in society share certain norms, legitimating discourses (“if you got arrested, you must have done something wrong”), and historical narratives about where power comes from (242). We learn ideas about capitalism and how the world works, then we agree on them even when we won’t necessarily benefit from these power arrangements.
In societies with hegemony, people at the bottom of social hierarchies aren’t necessarily rebelling against those at the top. They might feel that’s the natural order of things, the way things should be, or that they can reach the top through hard work. Hegemony is how elites govern by establishing “that’s the way things should be, that’s the way things always have been”—appeals to tradition.
Antonio Gramsci: The Prison Notebooks
The concept of hegemony comes from Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), who lived only 46 years in poor health. He was imprisoned by the fascist regime in 1926 and remained in prison until his death in 1937—writing the Prison Notebooks between 1929 and 1935.
Gramsci was arrested during Mussolini’s rise to power in fascist Italy. As an organizer for Socialists and Communists trying to create a revolution, he was imprisoned by the fascist regime. Some scholars believe he invented complicated terms like “hegemony” to evade censors who couldn’t understand his meanings.
But his imprisonment raised the central question that drove his theory: If society is so unequal, with those on top exploiting those on the bottom, why aren’t people revolting? Why was he in jail instead of people overthrowing the government?
Hegemony was his answer to why we accept systems that can be profoundly unequal. It explained why people with power face no forthcoming revolution—because power operates through consent, not just coercion.
Hegemony in Action: The American Dream
Italy under Mussolini had hegemony where elites maintained power through popular consent. But what’s another society where everyone buys into the system even when they’re not benefiting from it?
Consider this: How many people think they’re going to be billionaires? In American society, we have more billionaires than ever—they’re buying votes, buying influence, running things. Yet most of us know we won’t become billionaires. The criminal justice major isn’t the billionaire track. So why haven’t we revolted?
That’s hegemony.
Even people at the bottom think they might make it—”it might be around the corner.” The American Dream functions this way. Cryptocurrency, get-rich-quick schemes: “If I just get into enough crypto, I’m going to make it.” Does it work? For a few people. That’s the lure: “They made it, maybe I can too.”
The elites in the United States represent one of the world’s best examples of hegemony because we all believe we’re going to make it. Most of us won’t, but here we are. “Just get good grades, might be a billionaire.”
Billionaires don’t want to give away their money. They build spaceships and go to space, float around on yachts. They spend considerable time avoiding taxation, moving to different countries to escape tax systems and protect their wealth.
Inequality and Modern Urban Life (245)
A photograph from SĂŁo Paulo, Brazil illustrates these dynamics starkly. Brazil remains one of the world’s most unequal societies. The image shows a shantytown next to an apartment complex, separated by a wall—the people who have and the people who don’t, with no movement between them.
Communities excluded from formal justice systems develop their own self-governance. Brazilian police are notoriously violent toward poor neighborhoods, so residents would never call police. Instead, they create self-regulating systems to maintain safety outside the formal justice system, which is often prejudiced against them. People develop their own forms of justice to prevent theft and maintain order.
This sounds appealing—communities caring for themselves. Until you remember informal justice can also mean lynching people accused of crimes. Community-administered justice without due process has serious problems.
But elites also use self-governance to protect their wealth and keep others away from their possessions. They live in fortified enclaves (245)—extreme versions of gated communities with armed security, strongly regulated gates, and complete separation from everyone else.
Have you ever met a billionaire face-to-face? It’s hard to reach billionaires—we don’t even know where they are. In earlier times, you at least knew where rich people lived. You could see the Victorian mansions, trick-or-treat there, shake their hands.
Today’s truly rich buy islands, float on yachts, go to space. Billionaires have become invisible, removed from public view entirely. We don’t see the people who run things anymore. They exist in fortified enclaves beyond our reach.
Why Question These Assumptions?
Throughout this course, we’ve been questioning deep assumptions about human society. Why does this matter?
Because if we recognize that hegemonic thought has been governing our lives, we realize: if it hasn’t been this way, it doesn’t need to be this way. It can be different.
Archaeology and anthropology don’t always provide satisfying unified theories, but they offer one crucial insight: If things have been different before, and if human societies aren’t necessarily as unequal as they are now, and if societies have been able to self-govern without constant violence, then our own society doesn’t have to be this way.
IT DOESN’T NEED TO BE THIS WAY. It can be different.
If these aren’t inevitable features of human nature or society, hierarchy isn’t required. If societies haven’t always been organized this way, we can imagine alternatives. If some cities functioned without kings, centralized authority isn’t necessary. If hegemony maintains power through consent, we can withdraw consent.
A Time of Monsters
Antonio Gramsci, writing from his fascist prison cell, described a crisis in which the old order was dying while a new one could not yet be born. His passage from the Prison Notebooks is popularly rendered as:
“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.”
That famous version is a loose translation—Gramsci’s actual words speak of an interregnum filled with “morbid symptoms” rather than monsters (see the FAQ below). But the image holds. He wrote this a hundred years ago. The old world has been dying for a long time, and the new world is still struggling to be born. The monsters are still here—perhaps particularly visible in societies where people admire fascist dictators and want to imprison their opponents.
Gramsci didn’t live to see the new world being born. Maybe we will.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is hegemony in simple terms?
Hegemony is power through consent rather than force. Instead of ruling by violence alone, those in power maintain their position because most people agree—often without thinking about it—that “that’s just the way things are.” Antonio Gramsci developed the concept in the Prison Notebooks to explain why deeply unequal societies don’t produce constant revolt.
What is the difference between hegemony and coercive power?
Coercive power works through force: colonial occupation, military conquest, violent subjugation. Hegemony works through agreement: shared norms, legitimating discourses (“if you got arrested, you must have done something wrong”), and historical narratives about where power rightfully comes from. If a regime must constantly use explicit violence, it probably lacks hegemony—the subtler and more durable form of power.
What did Max Weber mean by the state’s monopoly on legitimate violence?
In his 1919 lecture “Politics as a Vocation,” Weber defined the state as “a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” Individuals are not authorized to use violence beyond immediate self-defense; the state can, and that use is perceived as legitimate. Debates about police violence are, at bottom, debates about where that legitimacy lies.
Did Gramsci really say “now is the time of monsters”?
Not in those words. The famous line is a popularized, loose rendering. In the standard English translation of the Prison Notebooks (Hoare and Nowell-Smith), the passage reads: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” The “monsters” version compresses the morbid-symptoms image into a single vivid line—memorable, but a paraphrase rather than a quotation.
Why did Gramsci develop the concept of hegemony?
Gramsci was imprisoned by Mussolini’s fascist regime in 1926 and wrote the Prison Notebooks between 1929 and 1935, dying in 1937 at age 46. His imprisonment posed the question that drove the theory: if society is so unequal, with those on top exploiting those on the bottom, why aren’t people revolting? Hegemony was his answer—power maintained through consent makes coercion mostly unnecessary.
Continue Your Journey: Challenging Assumptions About Inevitable Hierarchy
Understanding how power operates through consent raises questions about historical processes of transformation. How did global systems of inequality emerge? What alternative possibilities existed? Were cities always organized hierarchically? Did agriculture inevitably lead to kings and classes?
These questions drive David Graeber and David Wengrow’s monumental work The Dawn of Everything, which systematically dismantles the hegemonic narratives about human history that justify contemporary inequality. If you’re wondering “why aren’t we revolting?” and want to understand how the stories we tell about the past shape what we think is possible in the future, that’s your next step.
For the current course treatment of how complex societies keep order—bands, tribes, and chiefdoms, stratification, and the laws, norms, and informal justice of chapter 8—see Social Complexity in Anthropology.
Explore further: The Dawn of Everything: Rethinking the Obvious About Human History