Page 59 - Culture Society and the Media

CULTURE, SOCIETY AND THE MEDIA 49
conditions of capitalist production are also ‘engaged in suspending themselves
and hence in positing the historic presuppositions for a new state of society’ (Marx,
1874, p. 461). Nevertheless, it is the contention of such theorists as Louis
Althusser and Nicos Poulantzas that it is with reference to the reproduction
processes of capitalism that the precise social role of ideology is to be
understood. Thus, Poulantzas has noted that the purely economic processes of
capitalist production merely reproduce the places within the system of
production that are to be occupied by the agents of production (workers,
overseers, managers). There therefore remains, he argues, the task of ‘the
reproduction and distribution of the agents themselves to these places’
(Poulantzas, 1975, p. 28). It is not enough, that is, that the worker should be
reproduced as someone capable of work and socially dependent on capital; he or
she must also be produced as the subject of an ideological consciousness which
legitimates the dominance of capital and the subordinate place which he or she
occupies within its processes. Put simply, if capitalism is to survive as an
ongoing system, then concrete social individuals must be reconciled both to the
class structure and to the class positions within it which they occupy. They must
be induced to ‘live’ their exploitation and oppression in such a way that they do
not experience or represent to themselves their position as one in which they are
exploited and oppressed.
In a lengthier presentation of the same issue, Althusser contends that it is at
the level of ideology that the reproduction of the entire system of the relations of
production characterizing the capitalist mode of production is secured (see
Althusser, 1971, and also chapter 1, pp. 23–5, of this collection). In maintaining
this, ideology is understood not as an intellectual abstraction but as a concrete
social process embodied in the material signifying—practices of a collectivity of
‘ideological apparatuses’—the family, school, churches and the media. There are
many difficulties associated with this conception (see Bennett, 1979, chapter 7,
for a brief résumé of these). Whilst this is not the place to consider these in
detail, it is important to note that Althusser’s position comes dangerously close
to functionalism in the respect that, by viewing all ideological forms as
contributing to the reproduction of existing social relationships, it tends to
represent capitalism as a totally coherent social system (‘one-dimensional’ even)
lacking internal conflict at either the economic, political or ideological levels. In
this respect, Althusser’s work joins a long list of ‘Marxisms’ which have
managed to banish the spectre of class conflict from their work. This further
means that the autonomy granted to ideology is purely nominal inasmuch as its
action is conceived as being entirely subservient to the needs and requirements
of the economy.
Finally, it should also be noted that Althusser’s use of the term ‘ideological
state apparatuses’ in relation to such institutions as the media, the family and
religious organizations has been severely criticized on the grounds that it extends
the concept of the state to such a degree that the ability to distinguish between
state and non-state institutions is called into question.