In simple terms, cultural hegemony refers to the way in which the powerful shape a society’s norms, values, and other institutions, and how that particular shaping becomes accepted as default, natural, perpetual, and inevitable. That is, people tend to regard the way we currently run things in society as the only way to run things in society. Instead of regarding our background systems as just one set of institutions among thousands of possibilities, people appear to think of them as default constants.This is a powerful insight on how a ruling class shapes all subordinate institutions of a society, and through their power this class restricts how people think about these arrangements.
He uses a particular development, the "pyramid", from the reality TV show Dance Moms to illustrate his insights:
Unfortunately, the author appears also to be constrained by "cultural hegemony": he identifies the underlying reality as the "system of income distribution". This is another way of identifying capitalism without using the word which is almost taboo in American society--perhaps another indication of cultural hegemony?