Cultural studies vs. political economy: Is anybody else bored with this debate?

Abstract

fhere is something disingenuous in the title of Nicholas Garnham's critique of cultural studies. The famihal alterna-tives—reconciliation or divorce—imply that cultural studies and political economy were, at one time, "married" and, having recetitly separated, must now decide what to do.- But cultural studies and polifical economy were never so intimate; after all, intimacy is itself a powerful social determinant. They were more like cousins who tolerated each other. And Garnham's essay reads like it is "addressed to the failings of a way-ward child who is seeti to be in need of stern parental (patriarchal) discipline."' Garnham is correct that cultural studies writers commonly and almost ritualisti-cally distinguish themselves from their "reductionist " cousins. But he fails to acknowledge that every few years, some political economist—usually one in-volved with Media, Culture, and Society in Britain—writes the latest version of their attack on cultural studies, although the articles have not changed much since the mid-1970s. And they raise the same two criticisms: ^ First, because cultural studies ignores the institutions of cul-tural production, it celebrates popular culture and gives up any oppositional role; second, because cultural studies ig-nores economics, it is incapable of under-standing the real structures of power, domination, and oppression in the con-temporary world, I want not only to contest these criti-