Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The capitalist mode of production has gone through some significant changes in the twentieth century (according to Henri Lefebvre, a mutation). A number of French social theorists inspired by Marx have attempted to grasp this process with new concepts and theories, especially in relation to new cultural forms and processes (e.g., media technologies) that are no longer treated as epiphenomenal superstructures that are reducible to the economic substructure of capitalism as orthodox Marxists have traditionally conceptualized this relation. Cultural phenomena have become critical forces in the moments of distribution, exchange, and consumption of commodities in late capitalism. The heroic age of the revolutionary bourgeoisie ended around 1910 with the decline of all of the referentials of classic capitalism: clock time, the vanishing point in art, the work ethic and productive values, history, proletarian revolution, etc. Class strategy has shifted from the organization of production to the bureaucratic organization of consumption and everyday life. The age of simulation begins with the liquidation of referentials, according to Jean Baudrillard. Signs and signifiers have become detached from their referents, from reality, and now only refer to each other. For example, according to Mark Gottdiener, Las Vegas casinos have a variety of themes and constitute a structure of differences ... log in or subscribe to read full text