Page 87 - Cultural Studies and Political Economy

76 Chapter Two

the problem, rather, arose from the low esteem accorded these large audiences
by message providers. When audiences are seen merely as a mass or a mob,
there results a marked tendency on the part of message senders “to make a
profit out of ignorance or inexperience.” Williams added: “The existence, in
our own [society] of powerful media of persuasion and suggestion make [the
temptation to exploit audiences] virtually irresistible.” 99

Base and Superstructure (Economic Determinism)

Also germane to Williams’ integrated understanding of culture and political
economy are his pronouncements on base and superstructure. In an essay en-
titled “Literature and Sociology,” he stated unambiguously: “I have always
opposed the [Marxist] formula of base and superstructure,” explaining,

It was above all . . . the received formula of base and superstructure which made
Marxist accounts of literature and thought often weak in practice. [According to
that account] the economic base determines the social relations which determine
consciousness which determines actual ideas and works. 100

For Williams, the word determines is fraught with difficulty. On the one
hand, it can denote an external cause controlling all subsequent change or ac-
tivity (the hard definition); on the other, it can mean setting limits or exerting
pressure or influence, 101 in which case, one might add, it recalls Innis’ notion
of bias. “Vulgar Marxism,” according to Williams, routinely, but mistakenly,
uses the term determines in the hard sense when referring to the economic
base and legal/cultural superstructure. 102 In Marxism and Literature, Williams
stated that economism, or hard economic determinism, “as a philosophical
and political doctrine . . . is worthless.” 103
Williams gave several reasons for rejecting the notion that the economic
base determines, in the hard sense, literature, art, and culture (the superstruc-
ture). Here I note two. First, reminiscent of Innis, Williams maintained that to
presume hard determinism is tantamount to denying human agency or what
he termed “active consciousness.” The study of culture, he insisted, must in-
corporate “all the active processes of learning, imagination, creation, per-
formance.” 104 Despite that affirmation, however, Williams also proposed that
meanings ascribed to cultural artifacts normally depend on the interpreter’s
social class, and indeed he defined possible consciousness as the “objective
limit that can be reached by a class before it turns into another class, or is re-
placed.” 105 Analogously, he defined community as people sharing “a specific
general way of seeing other people and nature.” 106 These arguments, in a
sense, are opposite sides of the same coin and in combination urge the ana-
lyst to allow for the possibility of different interpretations (i.e., human