Class consciousness develops through three ascending stages to hegemony

Evidence

There is the “economic corporate” stage, where professional or occupational groups recognize their basic common interests but are conscious of no wider class solidarities. Then there is the “class corporate” moment, where class solidarity of interests develops, but only in the economic field. Finally, there is the moment of “hegemony,” which transcends the corporate limits of purely economic solidarity, encompasses the interests of other subordinate groups, and begins to “propagate itself throughout society,” bringing about intellectual and moral as well as economic and political unity, and “posing also the questions around which the struggle rages … thus creating the hegemony of a fundamental social group over a series of subordinate groups.” — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 104

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: The three-stage progression (economic-corporate, class-corporate, hegemony) is a core scaffold concept.
• XREF: This developmental ladder of consciousness parallels how subaltern religious communities ‘become’ political subjects in later readings.

Related

• A class becomes hegemonic when its elite transcends narrow corporate interests (similarity 0.84)
• Gramsci’s hegemony is a produced unity, never automatic or given (similarity 0.84)
• Hegemony is achieved by more than mere class dominance (similarity 0.82)
• Hegemonic rule universalizes one class’s interests as society-wide goals (similarity 0.82)
• Class unity is never given but always a contingent process of alliance-building (similarity 0.80)
• Hegemony explains class rule as cultural and political sway, not just economic interest (similarity 0.79)
• Hegemonic power universalizes ruling class interest into a national will. (similarity 0.78)