Recall how, in Chapter Two, we observed that hegemonyseeking actors have to engage in what Gramsci called ‘mass creation’. They have to resist merely declaring their own ‘fanatical philosophical and religious convictions’, and instead formulate their ideas in a manner that suits their embeddedness in the broader body politic (Gramsci, 1971, p 341). The ‘real critical test’ (Gramsci, 1971, p 341) of any politics is the extent to which they can build a genuine following for their ideas among the public, in mass society. Gramsci distinguished between ‘arbitrary constructions’, which do not find a foundation in real, living circumstances, and those ‘which respond to the demands of a complex organic period of history’ (Gramsci, 1971, p 341). As this suggests, history is not a set of pure contingencies. It is not simply formed through the voluntaristic actions of individuals, either elites or insurgents, but is rather shaped by human social relations. This process includes the decisions and choices of individuals; the social structures like work, production and consumption that shape our material wellbeing; and the complex mix of social relations that form through the interactions of individual societies at the international level (on this see Lawson, 2006; Cooper, 2013). Historical change occurs through the combination of each of these elements. The changing social relations of capitalist economics are shaped by the uneven and combined interactions of societies and vice versa; while hegemony-seekers have to take stock of these conditions, make choices that reflect these circumstances and forces, but also seek to move beyond them. They ask how they can insert particular inputs that generate new outputs and change the overall trajectory of history.

Authoritarian protectionism offers a particularly regressive set of inputs that respond ‘to the demands of a complex organic period of history’ (Gramsci, 1971, p 341). To draw an analogy with the economic market, its success reflects a combination of supply and demand.