Pierre Bourdieu’s The Production of Belief argues that cultural value is not created by the artist alone, but by an entire field of agents who collectively produce belief in the work. Against the romantic idea of the autonomous creator, Bourdieu shows that art, literature and theatre operate through an economy that denies being economic. Dealers, publishers, critics, galleries, prizes, audiences and institutions all participate in converting objects into legitimate cultural goods, while disguising this process as pure aesthetic recognition. The key concept is symbolic capital: prestige, authority and consecration function like a hidden currency that can later generate economic profit, precisely because it appears disinterested. A publisher or art dealer does not merely sell a work; they “discover”, name, endorse and consecrate it, investing their own reputation in the creator and thereby helping to manufacture cultural value. This is why Bourdieu asks, “Who creates the creator?” The answer is not one individual but the field itself, a network of struggles over legitimacy. Cultural production depends on collective misrecognition: everyone must act as though value comes naturally from genius, even though that value is socially produced. Bourdieu also shows that the opposition between “commercial” and “pure” art is itself part of the game. Avant-garde producers reject economic profit in the short term, but this refusal can become a strategy for accumulating long-term prestige. The field therefore runs on belief: belief in artistic disinterest, belief in consecrating institutions, and belief in the difference between genuine culture and mere commerce. Ultimately, Bourdieu reveals culture as a social economy of prestige, where aesthetic value is produced through hidden labour, competition and institutional recognition rather than individual genius alone.