Zusammenfassung der Ressource
The Geography of power
- The USA has the world's most powerful military machine on Earth and it is geographically widespread
- If we examine the only true superpower still in existence, the USA, we can identify several ways in which it maintains its global hegemony
- This gives the USA huge military reach
- The US armed forces consist of (2008 data)
- 520,000 personnel in the navy and marines
- 540,000 army personnel
- 330,000 personnel in the air force
- The US Navy has 12 aircraft carriers
and 70 submarines, allowing it to
operate anywhere in the world
- No other
power has this
capability at
the moment
- The USA is economically dominant and its companies are geographically widespread
- The Forbes Global 2000 list identifies the 2,000 largest TNCs in
the world. In 2008, US-based companies accounted for 776 of
the top 2,000, followed by Japan with 331 and the UK with 132
- The USA plays a major role in world trade, much of which is conducted in US dollars
- The dollar is the world's reserve currency. This
means that governments around the world hold
reserves of dollars in their central banks
- There are more US banknotes
abroad than there are in the USA
- Much of the world arguably has an interest in maintaining a stable USA, and friendly relations with the country, only because of the importance of the dollar
- Cultural Hegemony
- The most obvious way of maintaining power is
through direct force, usually in the form of police,
army and security forces
- Power is not generally maintained in this way unless a society's leaders feel under threat of being overthrown by their people
- The Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci described a particular
type of power which he referred to as hegemony or cultural hegemony
- Gramsci, imprisoned in Mussolini's fascist Italy, was impressed by the
way Mussolini maintained power without the need to resort to direct force
- Gramsci
believed
power was
maintained
largely by
consent
- The values of those in power were accepted by people and this kept them in power
- Education, religion, and the media subtly reinforced the values of the powerful and maintained their hegemony
- The ideology of the powerful simply becomes accepted as the 'way things are' and is rarely challenged
- US cultural hegemony is largely unchallenged, at least for the moment
- The dominance of US consumer culture can be identified through 'brand value'
- The annual business week interbrand survey identifies the most valuable global brands. In 2008, 53 of the top 100 brands by value were from the USA