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ust as bricks and mortar, they are creators of surplus value just as a car is. Youth will go to the concerts, buy the T-shirts, and purchase the records because they have heard of this band from brothers, sisters, and parents who were there in the 1970s. In the proces s they will make four old men even more wealthy and not a few promoters, producers, and record company executives laugh all the way to the bank. It seems then as though Marx was correct, at least on the basis of this example, that every aspect of the social world is based on the relations of man (sic) to the economic base of society ie. to production of material. Further to this, I would argue that Gramsci was correct when he contended that, "The realisation of a hegemonic apparatus, in so far as it creates a new ideological terrain, determines a reform of consciousness..." (Gramsci 1988:192). The relations of production means that the Sex Pistols are to be re-formed in the name of capital accumulation. The hegemony of production and the mass media means that they will be accepted and fetishised and they will make money. 6. In conclusion. The theme that has underpinned this paper is that of modernity versus postmodernity ie. are we, as Baudrillard argues, living in a postmodern era or, as materialists suggest, are we still living through modernity? Now, Baudrillard cites the eclectic nature of the world and culture, the dominance of the mass media, the supremacy of discourse, and the debatable nature of the object as evidence for his argument. Reality no longer exists per se, reality is a construction of discourse, simulation as Baudrillard calls it. This simulation allows the individual to re-visit, in the case of nostalgia, their birth, to escape from a shapeless structureless world into a structured ordered world which is, to them, real. However useful such an argument may be it does not complete the whole picture. Baudrillard, through his denial of any external reality ignores the role of material forces; the material is, after all, just a collection of simulacra. It is in the realm of the material that I have shown the object to be positioned, though this is not to say that Baudrillard's theory is of no use. I would argue that Baudrillard is correct in that discourse does create our reality to a great extent. However Baudrillard denies any origins of discourse and this is, I believe, the point at which one must look to material explanations. The eclecticism of society and culture can best be explained by looking at discourse and simulation as a form of hegemony which works in favour of the political economy. The marshalling force behind such hegemony is the mass media. It is here that objects such as the car, the band, the fashion, the terrorist, and the actor are created. The mass media are an arm of production working within the capitalist political economy towards the goal of creating commodity fetishism, the phenomenon which creates new markets for ailing capitalism which in turn creates the eclectic culture that we see today. The thirst for the bygone is no more than one aspect of the hegemonic control which creates more capital and perpetuates the material existence of humanity; it is a result of capitalists competing for a bigger slice of surplus value. Postmodernity may exist but it is not a new epoch, it is merely a metamorphosis of modernity. Modernity, and therefore capitalism is constantly seeking out new forms in order to accumulate more capital an