Hegemony to Great power to you

As per Wikipedia, Hegemony is an indirect form of imperial dominance in which the hegemon (leader state) rules sub-ordinate states by implied means of power rather than direct military force.  In Ancient Greece (8^th c. BC – AD 6^th c.), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of a city-state over other city-states.  In the 19^th century, hegemony denoted the predominance of one country upon others; from which derives hegemonism, the Great Power politics meant to establish hegemony.

And what is Great power?  Still as per Wikipedia a Great power is a nation or state that has the ability to exert its influence on a global scale.  Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength and diplomatic and cultural influence which may cause small powers to consider the opinions of great powers before taking actions of their own.

Now imagine that every individual is a state that has the ability to rule oneself, take one own decision and auto-determine oneself.  I know its hard to do but try for a moment.

Now the individual is in one’s cubicle minding one’s own business.  And here comes the Great power: the boss.  Now why is the boss the Great power?  Because as per wiki’s definition of a Great power, it has military powers (the boss can make you escorted out of the premises); it has economic power (the boss has a definite impact or one’s salary, pay increase/decrease, bonus, or termination of one’s mean of income); it has diplomatic power (the boss can ask the individual in his office and diplomatically ask one to change one’s behaviour or else); and it has cultural powers (the boss can make understand that it is in one’s best interest to wear a tie because that’s the way it goes here.  He doesn’t really know why it is so but it is so and one must comply with the culture).

So the boss has hegemonistic powers over his employees.  Because he “influence” the employees’ behaviour, conduct and productivity.  And the employees (the small powers) will consider the opinion of the great power (aka the boss) before taking action.

Living in such world is not a problem.  But not knowing that you are living in such a world or worst, denying its existence makes you a slave.  Because you will always behave according to the whim of the current Great  power (aka the current boss).  When you are aware of the game that is played you have two choices.  Either you play the game to acquire power.  To that I will refer you to Nietzsche’s Will to power.  Or you can immune your self-state from the Great powers.  On this later one, I shall expose it in a up coming post.