... we have hegemony precisely because no one power has the ability to impose its will. When a power can impose its will, then within the area within which it can impose its will, that is no mere hegemon in a system of competing states, but rather the metropole of an Empire.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.