ABSTRACT
This chapter builds upon the groundwork of the previous one by positing a cultural system as being attached to each system of provision (sop). It does so by examining how cultural and material analyses can be integrated or, more exactly, integral, specifically rejecting the idea of a circuit of culture in favour of a cultural system. The second section reviews a number of approaches to the culture of consumption, examining how some have broached the task by bringing culture back into the economy and others vice versa. This allows the idea of a circuit of culture to be identified as a sort of parody of the circuit of capital. It is shown to form the basis for a useful but limited approach to the relationship between culture and economy, for which the relations and structures attached to capitalism are incorporated as well as the sites to and from which culture purportedly moves. The third section revisits some of the material from the previous chapter in light of the now enriched understanding of culture, reexamining the material basis of structures, tendencies and periodisation in the context of consumption. Finally, in the fourth section, the sop approach is clarified by responding to a range of criticisms that it has attracted and by providing illustrations of the approach from the literature. These complement the case studies previously presented in Fine and Leopold (1993), Fine et al. (1996) and Fine (1998c).
