Frank, I wonder if Antonio Gramsci would have recognised the concept of "memetics"? but I think he would have uses the word "hegemony". Gramsci defined the concept thus

"The term hegemony describes the process whereby ideas, structures, and actions come to be seen by the majority of people as wholly natural, preordained, and working for their own good, when in fact they are constructed and transmitted by powerful minority interests to protect the status quo that serves those interest."

Fergus