Capitalism, however, has come to a serious crossroads. The erosion of the current financial system and the shift in governmental oversight has ushered in a new way of thinking about economics. The financial collapse that started on Wall Street has rippled across global markets. And the supposedly rock-solid brand of capitalist ideology that the world embraced is looking more and more fragile. How did we, as cultural scholars, not see the onset of this financial collapse? At the core of such a question resides a much deeper concern. Is scholarship on representational form the best route toward the formulation of a politics by which the global financial regime can be constructively revised for the sake of greater liberty for all? Enter USC Annenberg Professor Chris Smith.

Last week, nine members of the BrandSpace project sat down to discuss the impact of the current economic crisis and how we might view "brand culture" through the lens of capitalism. Professor Smith presented his research on the subject. Smith sees capitalism as the governing way in which life is organized around the world. Capitalism drives the global economy. It steers the free market. And it dominates the public discourse. American capitalism has proven to be a monumental influence in the age of globalization.

But capitalism does not exist in a vacuum, and the impact of our current economic ideology reaches far beyond the realm of finance. According to the BrandSpace group, capitalism plays a much more fundamental role in our daily lives. Capitalism not only structures our financial system, it also structures the individual. In America, the act of consumption becomes an expression for everyday politics. Commodities don’t just ossify people; they give people a way to critique the system. But at a time when wealth continues to polarize, how do we analyze that consumption through the same lens? How do everyday people become aware that we live in a capitalist society?

For the BrandSpace project, finding the answers to such questions is no simple task. And in order to critically approach these larger governing systems, scholars must employ what Smith calls "a multi-vectored approach." Historian Steve Ross, another BrandSpace contributor, proposed the following breakdown. There are five major forces at work here: the financers, the regulators, the practitioners, the communicators and the clients. Taken in context, these social institutions have coalesced to promote a certain understanding of what it means to live in a capitalist society. The result is a nation that believes in a simple equation: capitalism equals finance. The rise of the financial regime forged and dispersed this particular brand of capitalism and brought us to the point we are at today. For Smith, this is a haunting fact. We live in a culture of finance, yet Cultural Studies was caught flat-footed when the financial markets imploded.

As a result, Smith turns his focus to cultural critics who addressed how people internalize capitalist ideology. For theorists like George Simmel and W.E.B DuBois, money acts as the driving force behind a person’s identity in a capitalist system. Money defines the individual. In this sense, the emergence of a brand culture comes naturally, as brands themselves aim not only to structure the consumption habits of a populace, but they also strive to shape citizen behavior. In the glory days of capitalism, we were told to take control of our financial situation through consumption. Citizens were told to spend, and cheap and easy credit was abundant. People could spend liberally. Homes were treated as if they were ATM machines. And retailers told consumers that, "Everyday is bargain day."

That loop has ended. As Chris Smith reminds us, capitalism is about to go through a serious overhaul. Credit has been destabilized. The banks are in dire straights. And what was once thought to be a stable economic system has proven to be a tenuous and risky model.

At the same time, our personal relationship with capitalism has never been that of blind adherence. Active consumption was sold to us on many levels. Citizens were told when, what, where, and how to spend, without thinking about investment and savings. What we are witnessing today is the proliferation of a multilayered brand culture. As a result, there are many avenues scholars can take when approaching such a fragmented cultural landscape. For Smith the question then becomes: How do you engage with a generation that is not interested in derivatives? Is the answer in popular culture?

Smith interrogates these issues through a specific cultural brand – hip hop. This culturally pervasive and multilayered brand culture may offer a new interpretive lens for understanding the failure of American capitalism. In other words, by looking at the contemporary state of hip hop, what (if anything) can we learn about the future of the capital markets, and how can we investigate the cultural impact?

Hip hop has emerged in recent decades as a dominant cultural force. Hip hop is a style. It is a way of life. It is a rebellion against power structures while exploiting that very same system for financial gain. But hip hop also offers certain questions about what it means to perform culture, and this is the space where cultural studies begins to take over. Money, once again, acts as a crucial representational signifier in hip hop. Currency provides a certain social capital that defines the status of any given artist. In this sense, hip hop’s cultural emergence alongside the global dissemination of capitalist ideology provides a fascinating case study.

Hip hop came into its own during the 1980’s. According to Smith, during this time hip hop found its target – Ronald Reagan. Since then, hip hop has had a schizophrenic relationship with capitalism. The culture embraces the American Dream, while rejecting it at the same time. In the 90's, for example, Jay-Z was seen popping his head out of Porsches, proudly proclaiming "Money Ain't a Thang." But currently, he is rapping about the strife that comes with financial success, announcing on a track with Nas that he "feels like a black Republican." This push/pull relationship between wealth and street cred has become a contentious and at times confusing cultural touchstone.

In hip hop, money itself acts as a language. Hip hop has always and continues to create monetary phrases that are recognized in popular culture: paper, cheddah, cake, benjamins … hip hop conjures up images of healthy bankrolls and dollar stacks. On a deeper level, however, the significant representational role money plays in hip hop illustrates the dominant capitalist mentality that money equals success. And while these cultural moguls search for a happy medium between gansta and entrepreneur, capitalism as a governing system is currently shifting its attitude towards spending. Will the next generation of rappers have enough money to "make it rain?" Or instead will fans have to settle for a drizzle? In the end, I think the prophetic words of the late Notorious B.I.G. say it all: "Mo' Money, Mo Problems."