the Prison Notebooks, contain Gramsci's tracing of Italian history and nationalism, as well as some ideas in Marxist theory, critical theory and educational theory associated with his name, such as: Cultural hegemony as a means of maintaining and legitimising the capitalist state The need for popular workers' education to encourage development of intellectuals from the working-class An analysis of the modern capitalist state that distinguishes between political society, which dominates directly and coercively, and civil society, where leadership is constituted through consent Absolute historicism A critique of economic determinism that opposes fatalistic interpretations of Marxism A critique of philosophical materialism

Cultural hegemony is therefore used to maintain consent to the capitalist order, rather than the use of force to maintain order.