Page 163 - Culture Society and Economy

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NINE Conclusion

The Noisy Sphere and the Hidden Abode

The consumption of labour power is completed, as is the case of every
other commodity, outside the limits of the market or of the sphere of circu-
lation. Accompanied by Mr. Moneybags and by the possessor of labour-
power, we therefore take leave for a time of this noisy sphere, where
everything takes place on the surface and in view of all men, and follow
them both into the hidden abode of production, on whose threshold there
stares us in the face ‘No admittance except on business.’ Here we shall
see, not only how capital produces, but how capital is produced. We shall
at last force the secret of profit making. 1

This work has argued for the restoration of the understanding of the
complex connection between ‘this noisy sphere’ – the sphere of the market
and spontaneous public culture and ‘the hidden abode’ – the sphere of
production. I argue that this double impact of originating and obscuring,
or Marx’s conception of the cunning of the capitalist production process,
provides a profound and original explanation of the possibilities and limits
of popular forms of consciousness and life. It is the only convincing
explanation of the means by which ideologies of false consciousness arise
and are sustained and, most important of all, how such limitations can
be overcome and social relations transformed to establish equality. Or at
least, that is my argument.
Contrary to what has been assumed in both cultural and sociological
theory, the severing of this materialist determination was not essential to
the recovery of human agency, intellectual autonomy and freedom. On
the contrary, the anchoring of the realm of consciousness and everyday
social relations in the relationship of different realms of material reality
to each other establishes a particularly powerful role for human agency and