Culture as Class Symbolization or Mass Reification? A Critique of Bourdieu's Distinction

Abstract

Pierre Bourdieu's theory of culture as a system of symbols furthering a misrecognition of class is critically compared to the Frankfurt school's theory of culture as reifying cimmodities furthering an unrecognition of class. Because of their approaches to history, both theories recognize only part of the complex reality of modern capitalist culture. Bourdieu's ahistorical structuralism fails to grasp the historical changes produced in culture by capitalism, while critical theory's essentialism fails to specify the concrete factors mediating the historical effects of capitalism on culture. As a corrective to both, a neo-Marxist theory is developed that grasps the totality of capitalist culture by grounding the effects of class on culture in concrete, historical class struggle.