Clemino Manuscript

HIGHLIGHTING MARXISM
USING JEAN BAURILLARD’S

PHILOSOPHY OF SIGN
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A Thesis
Submitted to
Faculty of Arts and Letters
University of Santo Tomas
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In Partial Fulfillment
Of the requirements for the degree,
Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy
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By
ELIJAH GABRIEL F. CLEMINO

UNIVERSITY OF SANTO TOMAS FACULTY OF ARTS AND LETTERS PAGE
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ABSTRACT
This research aims to emphasize the Marxist concepts in Jean Baudrillard’s

philosophy pertaining to the appropriation of semiology to the Marxist critique on
political economy regarding commodity. This will be possible within the context
of Baudrillard’s early writings, where he attempted to merge Marxism with
semiology, and in his later writings which addresses his critique on Marxist political
economy. Baudrillard weaved the system of signs into the social phenomenon of
the economy. In the contemporary capitalist society, Use-value and Exchange-
value are insufficient. On Baudrillard’s theory, there is another kind of commodity
which brings the consumers to attain products equivalent to social entitlement
inside the object. This is what he called as the Sign-value. In this way, Baudrillard
borrowed the Marxist critique of political economy in a manner that is from the
system of exchanging material objects to the system of communication between
man and objects.
Keywords: Sign-value, Commodity, Marxism, Symbolic Exchange

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Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................................................... 3
Background of the Study ..................................................................................... 3
Research Design ................................................................................................ 10
Review of Related Literature ............................................................................. 12
I. Merging Semiology and Political Economy ......................................... 12
II. Baudrillard and his account on Marxist Political Economy .................. 21
Chapter 2: Baudrillard’s Approach in Marxism .................................................... 25
I. Baudrillard’s Critique on Capitalism ........................................................ 25
II. Baudrillard’s Contemporary Alienation .................................................... 31
III. The Sign-Value ......................................................................................... 34
Chapter 3: Baudrillardian critique on Marxism .................................................... 46
I. Baudrillard on Production ......................................................................... 47
II. Declaration of break with Marxism .......................................................... 57
Chapter 4: Marxism and Semiology...................................................................... 62
I. Contra Baudrillard ..................................................................................... 62
II. Marxism and the Philosophy of Sign ........................................................ 65
III. The importance of Marxism in Contemporary Capitalism ....................... 71
Chapter 5: Conclusion ........................................................................................... 75
Bibliography .......................................................................................................... 82
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Chapter 1: Introduction
Background of the Study
In economics, every culture, civilization, and society have necessities and
conditions to live. Going back to the ancient civilization, barter was the system of
attaining the needs. Economic exchange was not yet developed. Throughout the
development of society, barter was also the system on the means of exchanging
goods.1 Humans had the tendency to exchange things which are essential and
accordance with the needs through trading. In the barter system, one has the
abundance which the other lacks and the medium for exchange was the things they
had made or found. While some do not have the capacity to produce other
necessities, others might be able to produce it. Civilization was growing and
developing, and humans started to cultivate things to improve the factor of
exchanging of goods.
Since this system accommodates two parties and each one wants what the
other has, both must agree on the terms and conditions between the two to be able
to proceed with transaction.2 However, as far as the society grows, the demands for
the goods are rampant and the process in the barter system had become problematic.
There is a problem and a tendency that others may not have the desire to exchange
things because of the uplifting complexity of trade demands that exceeded on the
1
See Glyn Davies, A History of Money: From Ancient times to the Present Day, (Cardiff:
Univ. of wales press, 2002), 9
2
See Charles Lewis, A Coincidence of Wants: The Novel and Neoclassical Economics,
(New York: Routledge, 2013), ix
4
scope of barter.3 Hence, there is a need of third good that will benefit both parties
in trading without any conditions and excess on the demands of the barter exchange,
hence, the use of money. As time goes by, money was preferred over barter for it
does not spoil the preferences of every individuals and it is an economic universal
good in the process of exchange. It has the power to mediate goods which can be
also trade for other goods. Because of the emergence of money, labor made a huge
role in economy. They are the ones who develop the economic system by producing
the needs for exchange. Money become produced socially and labor mediates the
social relations.4
This transition of exchange, from barter to money, occurs within the
conditions of living as a human being as economy would grow from time to time.
This points out that man is the agent of economic growth and it is through man that
this development flourished through the production and exchange of things. In the
economy of the society, that is filled with the manner of exchange, goods may be
considered as the essential thing. From the early until contemporary society, both
attain its needs in exchange from barter exchange to money exchange. Hence, this
process may seem to be a cycle of consumption and production of every individual
in the contemporary society—the life filled with the forces of economy. Upon
looking on the economic perspective of the contemporary society, choosing a
3
See Davies, “A history of Money”, 10
4
See Geoffrey Ingham, “Money is a social relation” Review of Social Economy, 54 no.
4 (1996), https://www.jstor.org/stable/29769872, p. 510
5
product is very essential for the consumers. This freedom of choosing a product,
however, may be put into a problematic context for these products might be a
proponent of manipulation. In other words, commodities could manipulate
consumers. There is a phenomenon in which society may not be aware of. The
consumers are now rampant, and the emergence of commodities tend to overflow
because there is an overwhelming production of commodities. As economy evolves
into money exchange, economics enters to the outsets of culture. It begins a
collaboration between culture and economics, wherein social relations are being
accessed by economic factors. In contemporary society, economical needs are
being produced rapidly. The production of goods is being commodified in mass
production. Because of this, the dynamics of commodity and consumers centralized
on the process of production. At this point is where political economy handles the
commodification of society. Hence, one may say that commodities may no longer
be in the field of attaining necessities but by the works of social relations. This
problem was uplifted by Jean Baudrillard as he lived in a society with the
emergence of commodities in a contemporary society. According to him,
“consumption of goods does not answer to an individual economy of needs but is a
social function of prestige and hierarchical distribution.”5
The influence of the theory of political economy by Marx reveals the
process of commodity towards socialization. For him, commodities should be
5
Jean Baudrillard, For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign, (St. Louis, MO:
Telos Press, 1981), 30
6
defined as Use-value and Exchange-value. The former reveals the usefulness of
commodity while the latter brings its social engagements. Use-value and Exchange-
value serves as the cycle of political economy. However, Baudrillard sees this
process as outdated and in need of recontextualization. In contemporary capitalism,
Baudrillard believes on the manifestation of signs in society. As such, political
economy affects the condition of signification of society. Use-value and Exchange-
value does not complete the process of political economy, but by Sign-value and
Symbolic Exchange.
Hence, the research will focus on the appropriation of Marxism in the
contemporary political economy using Baudrillard’s semiological theory called as
Sign. In this theory, the research will track down the adaptation of the theory in the
Marxist lens, which made the Baudrillard as a post-Marxist. This will be effective
on covering the early writings of Baudrillard which contains the critique of the
political economy following Marx’s ideas. Meanwhile, the later writings are those
moments of criticizing Marxism. Nonetheless, the purpose of this research is only
to articulate Marxism in postmodernism, particularly towards the semiological
inquiry. The research will expose the articulation of Baudrillard’s philosophy of
Sign. Hence the research will look upon in a problem: “How did Baudrillard
appropriate Sign in a Marxist political economy?”
His theory of Sign coincides the structure of the economy in contemporary
society. This will be initially effective in using Marx’s idea of political economy.
7
Behind the socioeconomic critique, Marx initially mandated the function and
process of commodities in his book Capital. The book explains the formation of
commodities within the economy and society. There is a plurality of commodities
in which its motive is to satisfy human needs, and everything that are useful may
be gathered in various ways and properties.6 The function of the thing will thus
determine upon the criteria of what he called as Use-value. This term has been
stated as “the physical body of the commodity itself.”7 It means to say that
commodities has its diversions of physical characteristics and obviously contains
important necessities in human life. Use-value determines the physique of human
needs and it can only be realized and useful through consumption.8 This will be
effective by inevitably pursuing within the social relations by the system of
exchanging of necessities. This process is what Marx called as Exchange-value.
This term means to form the purpose of the commodity in society and that will
determine a fair equivalence for the sake of its “quantitative relation, the
proportion, in which use-values of one kind exchange for use-values of another
kind.”9 Hence, it is clear that Exchange-value is a system towards the economical
play in the relationship between the Use-value.10 This research may not be possible
6
See Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, (London, UK: Penguin,
1992), 123
7
Ibid., 126
8
Ibid.,
9
Ibid.,
10
Commodity has its relation towards the needs and wants of an individual. If an
individual would tend to benefit in such commodity, it will expose within the social relations and
that commodity will be open for exchange. While commodities are being defined by use-value as
its qualitative entity, Marx also adhere that commodities have also its quantitative relations.
8
through the understanding the theory of political economy by Marx so that it would
be understandable on the thought of Baudrillard as well. Thus, this will proceed on
looking upon the sub-problems in this research:
1. What is Sign-Value?
2. How did Baudrillard Criticizes Marxism?
3. What makes Baudrillard a Marxist?
To know the appropriations of Baudrillard’s philosophy of sign in Marxist political
economy, it is necessary to point out his definition and the origin of Sign-value.
Also, it is necessary to bring the perspective of commodities and the conditions of
the consumer to articulate his theory. These sub-problems may support the main
problem in this research.
At this point, one will understand the political economy of Marx, and it is
evident in this idea that commodity communicates as its functionality is within the
sphere of human economical needs and wants.11 It does not only reside on the nature
of man and political economy but on the structures of society. Hence, economy
revolves around the forces of commodities which is the central critique of
Baudrillard’s early writings. By formulating the economic theory of Marx,
consumerism was the main thesis of the writings of Baudrillard. Marx’s analysis
has been based on production, but Baudrillard argued that in contemporary society,
11
Fulfilling the function of commodity as the medium of social relations from the barter
to money exchange.
9
there emerged a position of consumption. It is not passive but active because of the
“multiplication of objects.”12 The rapid emergence of objects is through the
expansion of commodities evolved from generations since the Use-value and
Exchange-value expand through time. As such, commodities will be more
demanding than before.13 In this manner, Baudrillard would argue that the Marxist
critique of political economy regarding Use-value and Exchange-value may not
suffice. There is, in fact, a kind of logical and structural exchange behind the
consumption of commodities through symbols. Baudrillard theorized this
socioeconomic phenomenon as a Symbolic Exchange. This is a system of exchange
that as one consumes, that manner of consumption is not just for its sake of
consuming it, but one consumes the meaning or representation of the thing. In other
words, it is a logic of ambivalence.14 There is a form of communication wherein
the plurality of objects speaks through the social structure of an individual in a
semiotic system.15 It does not reside, however, only on this. For Baudrillard, the
process of Symbolic Exchange constitutes prestige. Consumers tend to attain
commodities may no longer strictly look on its primitive usage or the Use-value but
12
Jean Baudrillard, The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures, (London UK: Sage,
1998), 25
13
Since economics is growing through generations because of the overwhelming
demands of capitalism.
14
See Baudrillard, Political Economy, 66
15
See Madan Sarup, An Introductory Guide to Post-structuralism and Postmodernism,
(Athens Ga, Univ. of Georgia Press, 1993), 162
10
by its symbolization or meaning behind commodity. This is what Baudrillard called
to as the Sign-value.16
This theory of political economy will further provide many inclinations in
this research. It is important to look upon these theories to articulate that Marxism
is evident in researching Baudrillard’s theory for it can lead towards the
appropriation of Marxism on the contemporary political economy. Therefore,
understanding the theory of economy of Baudrillard is possible by reading Marx’s
theory of value. This research will expose Baudrillard’s application of the Marxist
terms to post-structuralism in transition on his theory on postmodernism,
particularly consumerism.
Research Design
On the first chapter, the research will provide an introduction regarding the
proposed topic, together with its background and structure.
In the second chapter, the research will trace the philosophical tradition of
Baudrillard in semiology from early writings to give a foundation to his
appropriation of Marxism with semiotics. This will give the point of Baudrillard’s
articulation on Marxist political economy by focusing his first three writings: The
System of Objects, The Consumer Society and For a Critique of Political Economy
of the Sign. This chapter is to expose Baudrillard’s critique on capitalism. This will
16
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take points to his critique on advertising which reflects his notion on contemporary
alienation. Towards his critique brings the exposition of Sign-value. This will
provide in reaching Baudrillard’s structuralist approach in consumerism.
On the third chapter, the research will point directly on Baudrillard’s
critique on Marxism using his later writings. In this chapter will adhere on
Baudrillard’s work on Mirror of Production and Symbolic Exchange and Death.
This will track Baudrillard’s critique on Marx’s theory in relation where he
reconstructed Marx’s theory of production. It will expose, furthermore, the reason
behind the context of Baudrillard’s critique on Marx that makes his declaration of
the break with Marxism.
The fourth chapter will emphasize the articulation of Marxism by
Baudrillard by showing further the relationship between Marxism and semiology.
By doing so is to understand first the critique of other scholars on Baudrillard’s
philosophy. This will help to indicate the flaws of Baudrillard’s critique on Marx.
Nonetheless, the research will point out that Baudrillard may be considered as
Marxist despite of its criticisms. This is necessary because his theory serves as the
completion of Marxist political economy which makes the huge contribution on the
critique towards postmodernism. It will further elaborate precisely on the
philosophy of Sign in correlation with Marxism to expose the possibility of
acknowledging Marxist political economy despite of his critique. The research will
give the importance of Baudrillard’s philosophy in contemporary capitalism.

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The fifth chapter will give a conclusion on the research. At the end of this
research, one may realize that Baudrillard’s critique on Marxism serves as the
fulfillment of Marxism because of its successful attempt of appropriating political
economy in the context of structuralism pertaining to semiology. Baudrillard’s
writings will make the readers understand the new context of Marxism, suggesting
a new perspective of Marxist political economy as Baudrillard did on his
philosophy of Sign.
Review of Related Literature
This part will discuss the philosophical tradition of Jean Baudrillard on
semiology and its foundation of his critique towards the Marxist political economy.
Also, this part will adhere scholars and their position on Jean Baudrillard’s critique
of Marxism.
I. Merging Semiology and Political Economy
As one would perceive society, it is not just from the interaction between
other people nor the pervading commonalities of life, but it also adheres into
economic standpoint wherein the value of a person may vary. As such, the
relationship between the producers and consumers can be seen in different point of
view, especially towards the contemporary capitalism wherein products are being
promulgated by symbols. There was a critic on semiology where Baudrillard took
his idea on his early writings. Roland Barthes’ Mythologies was written with the
13
foundation of the semiologist Ferdinand de Saussure concerning the condition of
‘signifier’ and ‘signified’ in society.17 Barthes applied semiology in the context of
consumerism, as Kellner would state that “Barthes saw these mythologies as
naturalizing contemporary bourgeois society.”18 and would result that “the
‘mythologies’ of advertising, fashion, pop culture and mass media attempted to
transform ‘petite-bourgeois’ culture into a universal culture.”19 Furthermore,
Barthes’ semiology also constitutes in a dialectic input of the Saussurian linguistic
duality towards ‘langue’ and ‘parole’ that gives the tension behind language and
the signifying system which articulates cultural identity and thus may put into a
claim that semiology is in parallel with psychoanalysis.20
From Barthes’ work, Fashion System, stems the idea of the formation of
signs and it is evident to Baudrillard’s work in The System of Objects.21 There is a
reality in capitalist society that upholds the nature of man in this world in
accordance with fashion. Sheringham would reflect on Barthes’ critique in stating
that “Fashion creates powerful meanings out of tiny differences articulated in the
most humdrum of media: pockets, buttons, waistlines; front/back, long/short; silk,
17
See Douglas Kellner, Jean Baudrillard: From Marxism to Postmodernism and beyond,
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), 3
18
Ibid.,
19
Ibid.,
20
See Roland Champagne, "The Dialectics of Style: Insights from the Semiology of
Roland Barthes.", Style 13, no.3 (1979), http://www.jstor.org/stable/42945251.279, p.279
21
See Richard Lane, Jean Baudrillard, (Routledge, 2000), 139
14
taffeta, cotton; pink, blue, cerise.”22 He believes that Barthes’ critique on fashion
is a reality that deals with the two kind process, in which Signs are produced and
consumed independent to the actual purchase, that is the act wearing clothes or
objects.23 He also indicate that by following Barthes’ thought, fashion is known as
a signifying system instead of a kind of business, industry, or society that is
promulgated through language.24 Sheringham follows Baudrillard’s concept in The
System of Objects within the context of Barthes’ fashion. Knowing that
Baudrillard’s work contains the intervention of signification, Sheringham also sees
Baudrillard’s approach as being autonomous with the logic of Signs and its
reference.25Unlike Barthes’ transparency of the system of fashion, Sheringham note
that Baudrillard connects the logic of fashion in the contemporary society.26
Sheringham’s evaluation of Barthes and Baudrillard gave the distinctions of
harboring the sign in connection with commodity and socialization. He pointed out
Baudrillard’s writing as socioeconomical with the guidance of Barthes’ fashion. In
following Sheringham’s interpretation, Baudrillard used Barthes’ theory of fashion
upholding the power to run its emergence for the abundance of wants and needs,
from producing and consuming products that are being mediated not only to the
22
Michael Sheringham, "Fashion, Theory, and the Everyday: Barthes, Baudrillard,
Lipovetsy, Maffesoli.", Dalhousie French Studies 53 (2000), http://www.jstor.org/stable/40838243,
p.146
23
See Ibid., 148
24
See Ibid.,
25
See Ibid., 150
26
See Ibid., 151
15
commodity itself but towards the sociological spectrum especially on media
through advertising. Media has its role to entice consumers in a commodity. This
is, for Baudrillard, the manner of commodity in economic standpoint in which
“Objects are manipulated now, not simply “consumed”; that is to say, the object
is never satisfying, just manipulated alongside every other object, in a never ending
process analogous to sign or semiotic systems.”27
By tracing Barthes’s critique, Baudrillard also sees fashion as a kind of
language. However, Barthes and Baudrillard might take it in different mode. Unlike
Sheringham, who sees their differences of the Sign because of their respective
scope, Harman sees their differences of the Sign concerning its methodology.
Through language, she deconstructed the Sign of Barthes and Baudrillard. Harman
believes that Barthes’s notion of Sign is also promulgated by language while
Baudrillard’s Sign sticks with the traditional Saussurean context.28To clarify,
Harman state that Baudrillard’s Sign does not limit to the notion of communication,
but also on “communication and meaning based on exchange of symbols.”29 it is
through advertising that objects revolve in communication. Harman proposes that
Baudrillard sees mass society as a state of communication of symbol in the
respective material in which the nature of semiotics has become a symbolic
27
Lane, Jean Baudrillard, 140
28
See Lesley Harman. "Sign, Symbol, and Metalanguage: Against the Integration of
Semiotics and Symbolic Interactionism." Symbolic Interaction 9, no. 1 (1986),
doi:10.1525/si.1986.9.1.147, p.149
29
Ibid., 157
16
interactionism.30 She indicated that this metalanguage has been the medium of what
forms culture, that society has something in common within the commodity
because of its power to communicate. As such, people have this commonality in
communicating with cars, jeans, hairstyles, accessories, and so on. 31 For Harman,
Baudrillard sees language not just a mode of communication but more on
interaction. This is when, she added, Baudrillard pointed out the notion of the
manipulation of Signs – commutation of Signs has been altered into the interaction
of symbols.32By following Harman’s interpretation, it seems that Baudrillard’s
Sign has been reintroduced strictly in criticizing this philosophy. However,
Baudrillard did not only focused on Saussurean point of view but he also manage
to be inclined with Marx’s theory on political economy. Nevertheless, it is
agreeable for Harman to point out that Baudrillard emphasizes the hegemonic
control of meaning, because it supplements Baudrillard’s influence of Marxism. In
following Barthes’ semiology, Baudrillard adds a critique that media, fashion, and
other commodities which undergo signification is also within the systems of
meaning produced not just the Sign per se but by codes.33
Roland Barthes’ philosophy of Myth correlates Baudrillard’s philosophy of
Sign. According to Denzin, Barthes conceptualizes Myth as a kind of discourse that
30
See Ibid., 155
31
See Ibid., 156
32
See Ibid.,
33
See Douglas Kellner, "Jean Baudrillard after Modernity: Provocations On a
Provocateur and Challenger.", Vol. 3, no.1, (2006),
https://www2.ubishops.ca/baudrillardstudies/vol3_1/kellner.htm#_edn4, 3
17
deals from everyday life that is reflected in newspaper, photographs, films and even
in advertisements.34Through semiological systems, Myths tells a story while hiding
meanings that reflects the everyday phenomenon constituting language and their
own codes and structures of meaning.35Furthermore, Denzin characterizes Barthes’
myth in three points: First, there is the something, somewhere or someplace that
depicted in the myth, which may be a document, photograph, or an advertisement.
Second, there are the meanings signified by a Sign. Third, these meanings constitute
another semiological Sign system.36As such, Denzin propose that Baudrillard’s
logic of signification reflects Barthes’ myth because Baudrillard would
conceptualize an object as a commodity which undergoes on instrumentalization
(Use-value) and representation of meanings that will elevate the use of commodity
(Exchange-value), and as this cycle revolves, it manifests an ideology on that
commodity that will remain valued as a sign (Sign-value).37Denzin elaborated the
relationship of Baudrillard’s Sign with Barthes’ myth in a precise manner.
However, he suggests that Baudrillard’s semiotics must rethought because it is no
longer operative in contemporary age since “Neither a myth nor an illusion, the
individual struggles with the language systems that are presented by the larger
culture.”38 In order words, an individual is independent with the objects and Myth
34
See Norman Denzin. "On Semiotics and Symbolic Interactionism." Symbolic
Interaction 10, no.1 (1987), doi:10.1525/si.1987.10.1.1., p.8
35
See Ibid.,
36
See Ibid.,
37
See Ibid., 9
38
Ibid., 15
18
since the wider scope of this is the manifestation of language in culture. By
following the argument of Denzin, it follows that it is not the Sign nor Myth that
characterizes the structure of society, it is language itself. If this is the case, then it
seems that he disregards Baudrillard’s position of the political economy by merely
focusing on the conditions of an individual while in fact the structure of language
and objects itself depicts the larger picture, which means it cannot be understood
by relating it to certain individuals, but it must emerge to the socioeconomical
tendencies. Hence, Baudrillard saw that as a man lives in a society, there is a system
of signification within the commodities or necessities that man should obtain for
his own economic sustenance. From this, one may assume that Marxism may not
be a critique towards production, but intervenes a social condition concerning
consumption. Baudrillard attempted to combine semiology using Barthes’
semiological inquiry with the general concepts of Marxism in order to proceed not
only on the problem of production but with all the conditions of culture and society
concerning the forces of economy.39
There is another account on which Baudrillard adopted Marxism. The
critique of everyday life by Henri Lefebvre highlighted the expansion of Marxist
theory more importantly towards the system of consumption in contemporary
capitalist societies.40 The book attempted to rethink the Marxist concept of
39
See Jacob Rendtorff, French Philosophy and Social Theory: A Perspective for Ethics
and Philosophy of Management, (Roskilde University: Springer, 2016), 274
40
See Kellner, Postmodernism, 4
19
alienation and to argue that alienation may not be exclusive for the working class
but in every human being conditioned by culture and society. In following this
concept, Lefebvre tend to reveal the concept of alienation in everyday life. First,
one may consider his notion of everyday life: Everyday life is sustenance, clothing,
furnishing, homes, neighbourhoods, environment…41 It is then that everyday life
emerges within the absence of labor in every individual and thus may revolve into
the distinction between needs and desires, and frivolity and seriousness.42 As such,
the position of objects and Signs are evident in the process of one’s active
participation on everyday life, which are in favor with the economic needs and
desires for its own sustenance and satisfaction of living. Lefebvre attempted to
employ a semiological properties towards the analysis in Marxism by proceeding
to the experiences of everyday life.43 He shows that through the text, there is a
communication activity which is being articulated by codes and thus occurs the
flourishing of Signs and signification and thus proposed that it is thus the nucleus
of the ‘sub-systems’.44 By following Barthes’ myth critique and fashion, Lefebvre
would state that “fashion is a sub-system”.45 Lefebvre also believes that myths may
differ from symbolism since mythical and ideological is difficult to distinguish and
41
Henri Lefebvre and Sacha Rabinovitch, Everyday Life in the Modern World, (London:
Continuum International Pub. Group, 2000), 21
42
See Stuart Elden, Understanding Henri Lefebvre: Theory and the Possible, (London:
Continuum, 2011), 111
43
See Mark Poster, "Semiology and Critical Theory: From Marx to Baudrillard."
Boundary 28, no. 1 (1979), doi:10.2307/303152, p.280
44
See Lefebvre and Rabinovitch, Everyday Life, 99
45
Ibid.,
20
thus it provides a multiple functions which causes repression by concealing things
that has been transformed into everyday life.46 In following Lefebvre’s thought, one
may say that commodities are being replaced by a Myth which causes the pressure
between needs and desires. This is evident that Lefebvre’s theory is the foundation
of Baudrillard’s theory of consumption.47 Baudrillard’s work The Consumer
Society reflects the notion of Lefebvre in everyday life which stated that “in
everyday practice, the blessings of consumption are not experienced as resulting
from work or from a production process; they are experienced as a miracle.”48
This miracle is within the projections of media and commodities are being magical
in effect of signification process and thus consumers are being pleased within the
efficaciousness of the consumer object.49 By the work of the sub-system, The idea
of repression that Lefebvre stated in everyday life, indeed reflects Baudrillard’s
usage of Sign in the consumer society. It is ambivalent and denies change because
of Myths and magical thought.50Baudrillard believes that “it is, then, our fantasies
which come to be signified in the image and consumed in it.”51
These two thinkers made Baudrillard in focusing Marxist critique of
capitalism within the field of consumerism, fashion and media.52 The early works
46
See Stuart Elden et al., Henri Lefebvre: Key Writings (Athlone Contemporary
European Thinkers), (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2003), 103
47
See Lane, Jean Baudrillard, 69
48
Baudrillard, Consumer Society, 31
49
See Lane, Jean Baudrillard, 71
50
See Baudrillard, Consumer Society, 33
51
Ibid.,
52
21
of Baudrillard mainly covers the critique towards consumerism under the
foundation of structuralism which exposes the structure of human reality with
object and sign systems inclining Marxist criticism of production and social
relation.53 Both in his work The System of Objects and Consumer Society
synthesizes the thought of Barthes and Lefebvre. This implies objects as a code,
that is commodities were no longer significant towards the material objects by labor
but as a Sign, that is independent on the mode of production.54Hence, it is evident
that both Barthes and Lefebvre influenced Baudrillard’s account on the structures
of semiology behind the Marxist political economy.
II. Baudrillard and his account on Marxist Political Economy
Many thinkers criticize the standpoint of economic forces promulgating
consumption and production. Most of them cling within the thought of Marx
according to Koch and Elmore, “despite Marx’s prediction of capitalism’s coming
collapse. Capitalism continues to expand.”55 In this way, they see that Baudrillard’s
philosophy of Sign “adds to the Marxian concepts of use value and exchange value,
suggesting that, in today’s consumer-oriented society, commodities take on a
symbolic value that constitutes their “status” and, therefore,
power.”56Baudrillard’s approach in Marxism reflects Lefebvre and Barthes
53
See Rendtorff, French Philosophy, 274
54
See Poster, "Semiology and Critical Theory.” 281
55
Andrew Koch and Rick Elmore, "Simulation and Symbolic Exchange: Jean
Baudrillard’s Augmentation of Marx’s Theory of Value." Politics & Policy, no. 34 (2006),
doi:10.1111/j.1747-1346.2006.00028.x , 556
56
Ibid.,
22
influence as they would consider his philosophy as “the shift from use/exchange
value to sign value, from referential value to structural value.”57Baudrillard’s Sign-
value renewed the classic approach of political economy. Marx’s theory of value
depicted the system of commodities, and Baudrillard attempted to reconstruct such
theory. Koch and Elmore elaborate the method of Baudrillard’s Marxism.
However, despite of its appropriation, it is apparent as for Koch and Elmore would
state that “Baudrillard’s writings has been an issue of debate among both his
supporters and critics.”58
In this regard, one can look on Zander’s criteria of being considered as a
Marxist:
A Marxist is a person who (1) accepts some or all of Marx’s own analysis
and terminology and uses some of his concepts and his approach in order to
understand and change the world, and (2) has some form of normative view
on how society should or should not be shaped, inspired in some sense by
Marx’s works; this can span from autonomous Marxism to market socialism
to situationism or Stalinism—the spectrum is very wide.59
Therefore, Baudrillard is eligible to be considered as Marxist. Zander believes that
Baudrillard obviously utilized some Marxist terminologies.60 His notion of Sign-
value is nevertheless the way he deconstructs Marxism. On one hand, Marx
believes that in commodity, production is a primary ground. Baudrillard, on the
57
Ibid., 566
58
Ibid., 557
59
Pär-Ola Zander, "Baudrillard’s Theory of Value: A Baby in the Marxist Bath Water?"
Rethinking Marxism 26, no. 3 (2014): , doi:10.1080/08935696.2014.917844, 383
60
See Ibid., 384
23
other hand, believes that commodity is no longer based on production but in the
consumption itself.61
The writings of Baudrillard mainly depicts the predicaments of commodity
and its functions within society and culture; and it is evident that the notion in which
commodity is concerned was being traced back to Marx’s idea. Mendoza sees
Baudrillard’s philosophy of Sign that which “revolves around the problem of the
commodity and its role in society and culture.”62 Upon his works, he points out the
analyzation of commodity in a radical form, that is material has its own meaning, a
way of communication which is the Sign, and attempted to adopt Marx’s idea
considering the system of production and consumption.63
In his early writings, Kellner points out that Baudrillard believes that
consumption is also a kind of labor that an individual participates within the
consumer society.64 Baudrillard attempted to take a closer look on political
economy by which Marx’s idea provided. Consumption, for Marx, is based on
needs which he called as Use-value that Baudrillard sees otherwise in claiming that
commodity is imprinted with Sign-value.65Valente also believes that “Baudrillard
takes this structural homology of the sign and the commodity one step further, to
61
See Ibid.,
62
Daryl Mendoza, "Commodity, Sign, and Spectacle: Retracing Baudrillard’s
Hyperreality," Kritike: An Online Journal of Philosophy 4, no. 2 (2010): , doi:10.25138/4.2.a.5.,
46
63
See Ibid., 47
64
See Kellner, “Baudrillard after modernity”, 6
65
See Ibid., 49
24
the point at which their double-nature, as use-value and exchange value, signified
and signifier”.66 In Baudrillard’s point, deconstructing Marxism would argue that
contemporary capitalism, which focuses on mass production and development of
technologies, produces prestigious goods, a Sign-value.67 Thus, the entire society
revolves around consumption displaying commodities which an individual may
achieve prestige, a system wherein gaining prestigious things may gain higher
standing.68 Therefore, following Marxist critique of pollical economy, Baudrillard
would claim that the realm of contemporary capitalism is to homogenize, control
and dominate social life.69
66
See Joseph Valente, "Hall of Mirrors: Baudrillard on Marx," Diacritics 15, no. 2
(1985): , doi:10.2307/464982, 56
67
See Kellner, “Baudrillard after modernity”, 3
68
See Ibid., 4
69
See Ibid., 5
25
Chapter 2: Baudrillard’s Approach in Marxism
I. Baudrillard’s Critique on Capitalism
Baudrillard began his critique of capitalism in following the trends of Marxism
during the society after World War II, leading him to part ways from Marxist
politics and economics, when the culture70 has been the center role in the emergence
of reproduction within the capitalist society.71 As society within this time has been
directed towards culture, they become the subject towards the economical play of
production and consumption which now within the façade of socialization. This
kind of socialization is what Baudrillard anticipated in relating culture to everyday
life.72 In his work The System of Objects and The Consumer Society are the
manifestation of his criticism towards the cultural phenomenon of man’s social life
within media, fashion, technology and sexuality. In Baudrillard’s study, it reveals
that man’s social life has become a form of commodification and consumption, and
the formation of commodities tend to dwell in the social logic of a capitalist
society.73
Baudrillard’s early works attempt to investigate the nature of objects and its
way to consumption. In the first book, The System of Objects, he analyzes the
process of socialization within the function of objects and how it became
70
Mass culture, which also brings also to advertising, technology of communication, and
such.
71
72
See Ibid., 8
73
See Ibid.,
26
conditioned through the system of signification. As people living in a capitalist
society wherein products are being flourished rapidly, Baudrillard stated that
“everyday objects proliferate, needs multiply, production speeds up the life-span
of such objects – yet we lack the vocabulary to name them all.” 74 This addresses
the condition of objects for Baudrillard. The structure of an objects is to find its
meaning, description or purpose for he points out that there is a criterion of
classification with each object: the size, gesture, form, duration and so on.75
Objects, as being structured by Baudrillard gives an idea on what possesses a
commodity and how it is being arranged and consumed, which points out that it is
the system of meaning of commodities over interpretations and purpose.76
Ultimately, Baudrillard eloquently stated that objects are in the criteria of
functionality, purpose, and sociability.77 Due to this, it is evident that Baudrillard
systematized the relationship between man and commodity. The process of objects
through the means of categorization78 will not be only intervened by analytic
process, but it can and will manifest the condition of human behavior in relation to
an object because of its structural plane.79 In this way, Baudrillard wants to show
that the social order finds its basis on consumption because commodities has the
74
Baudrillard, System of Objects, 3
75
See Ibid., 3
76
See William Pawlett, Jean Baudrillard against Banality (Milton Park, Abingdon,
Oxon: Routledge, 2007), 9
77
See Baudrillard, System of Objects, 4
78
See Ibid., 4 “when they are applied to ensemble, such as the set of objects, that is
undergoing continual mutation and expansion.” Ibid.,
79
See Ibid., 5
27
capacity to constitute a system of classification that makes the distinction of groups,
giving a form of a structuralized society through language.80The relationship
between man and objects is the main focus of the first book and one should also
consider the order of the system of object though function. That is why, in
questioning about merging of Marxism with structuralism, what would be the
reference of indicating structuralism towards the ideology of consumption in the
contemporary society? As indicated by Baudrillard, such process can be done by
having a presumption that this entire system dwells within the concept of
functionality.81 If doing so, one can view that all objects must have its own purpose
fulfilled by the consumer.82 Without it, objects may not be appreciated which
cannot be reflected on the needs and wants. If objects are functional, then it fulfills
the relationship towards human needs and will expand through social needs. As it
expands to a process of socialization, the object, as being functional, will coordinate
within a scheme. At this point, Baudrillard indicated that this scheme is within the
“universal system of signs”.83 This is when Baudrillard indicated the intervention
of Signs behind the object. Since then he wants to argue that there is inevitable play
of Signs that constitutes the order of society that brings an illusion for the
80
See Mark Poster, Jean Baudrillard selected writings (Stanford University Press, 1988),
2
81
See Baudrillard, System of Objects, 63. By Functionality, Baudrillard clarifies that
“colours, forms, materials, design, space – all are functional.” Ibid.,
82
This is also in parallel with Use-value
83
Ibid.,
28
consumers that they are free.84As economical needs must embark on the human
needs, goods are not being used or consumed its primary needs. Since goods are
being decoded as objects, they are now in accordance within the means of
categorization in revealing its functionality. As such, goods are being consumed
because of its new features that is far from primary needs which according to
Baudrillard “The materiality of objects no longer directly confronts the materiality
of needs.”85 This means that the order of nature of things may be present, but it has
been filtered through the presence of Signs and now Baudrillard eloquently stated
that such system has been “suppressed by the insertion between them of the new,
abstract system of manipulable signs.”86 Because of the manipulation of Signs,
objects are now being filtered towards the relationship between human needs. Once
an object dwells into Signs, they will be treated as commodities.87 As such, the
value of commodity is being determined by the code that brings the relation
between sign and consumption.88The true nature of things had disappeared, and
signs has been dominated the socioeconomical play of capitalist society.
Baudrillard was aware on this social phenomenon:
What emerges from the real of signs is a nature continuously dominated, an

abstract, worked-upon nature, rescued from time and anxiety, which the sign
is constantly converting into culture. This nature has been systematized: it is
84
See Poster, Selected writings, 2
85
86
Ibid.,
87
See Pawlett, Jean Baudrillard against Banality, 10
88
See Gary Genosko, Baudrillard and signs: Signification Ablaze (New York, London:
Routledge, 1994), xiii
29
not so such nature as naturalness. Such naturalness is thus the corollary of all
functionality – and the connotation of the modern system of ‘atmosphere’.89
From this, Baudrillard explains how objects enter culture through the
intervention of Signs. In what ways that Baudrillard integrated the system of Signs
in cultural sense? Capitalism was focused in developing the system of mass
production within the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, due to the issue of
mass consumption and consumer demand.90 Both The System of Objects and The
Consumer Society continue Baudrillard’s critique of consumerism in merging the
system of signs and culture through advertising. Knowing that his former work is
inclining the structures of object within the realm of signification, the consumer
society is also within the spectrum of object’s structure and nature of commodities,
but now reflects on the manifestation of mass media.91
In The Consumer Society, Baudrillard began his argument on consumerism
with this statement:
There is all around us today a kind of fantastic conspicuousness of

consumption and abundance, constituted by the manipulation of objects,
service and material goods, and this represents something of a fundamental
mutation in the ecology of human species. Strictly speaking, the humans of
the age of affluence are surrounded not so much by other human beings, as
they were in all previous ages, but by objects.92
89
90
91
This includes sex and leisure
92
30
This statement is where Baudrillard addresses the negative manifestation of objects
in which he attacked the nature of human being, that they living in the capitalist
society in manipulative life of consumption.93 Society is now characterized by the
production of social relations that are converted into objects for consumption.94As
such, there will be a new world of consumption. Social interaction has been
occluded and it now begins an era of interaction with objects.95
This is also where the culture has been bastardized with the use of mass
media through advertising.96Through this, advertising attempts to enhance objects
to be an ideal form which will lean towards the system of objects. 97 It brings itself
a moment of self-endorsement, that correlates the everyday life to be one with the
system of objects.98 At this point is how Baudrillard articulated the Marxist strand
concerning the society of consumers, that consumption brings homogenization and
93
In this context, the manipulative life is the system of signs.
94
See Mike Gane, Baudrillard’s bestiary: Baudrillard and Culture (London, New York:
Routledge, 1991), 59
95
96
Baudrillard has a notion that advertising is part of the system of objects:
“Advertising in its entirety constitutes a useless and unnecessary universe. It is pure connotation. It
contributes nothing to production or to the direct practical application of things, yet it plays an
integral part in the system of objects, not merely because it relates to consumption but also because
it itself becomes an object to be consumed.” Baudrillard, System of Objects, 164
97
See Baudrillard, System of Objects, 165 Baudrillard also conceptualize the role of
advertising in using his idea on GARAP:
“Picture for a moment our modern cities stripped of all signs, their walls blank as an empty
consciousness, and imagine that all of a sudden the single word GARAP appears everywhere,
written on every wall…In a way people end up ‘believing’ in GARAP. They consider it the mark of
advertising’s omnipotence, and judge that if only GARAP would assume the specificity of a product,
then that product would meet with an immediate and sweeping success.”
Ibid., 181
98
See Baudrillard, System of Objects, 182 He also proposed that “Advertising is the mass
society itself, using systematic, arbitrary of signs to arouse emotions and mobilize consciousness…”
Ibid.,
31
organization towards everyday life.99 Commodities is being processed in
paradoxical alterations towards the relationship on consumers and products through
the exploitation of the Sign which makes the consumer attached to the
object.100Advertising merges with the system of objects wherein Signs are visible.
As Baudrillard points out that “consumption is governed by a form of magical
thinking."101 And he added that “daily life is governed by a mentality based on
miraculous thinking, a primitive mentality, in so far as that has been defined as
being based on a belief in the omnipotence of thoughts.”102
II. Baudrillard’s Contemporary Alienation
Baudrillard’s critique on advertising reflects his notion on contemporary
alienation. To understand this is to have an orientation of Marx’s concept of
alienation. In his view of alienation, he provides the condition of humanity through
production called as labor. To understand this is to know that Marx called man as
species-being.103In this way, man engages through praxis.104 Because of praxis,
man engages to have a pragmatic life which makes his actions free. However,
99
100
See Gane Baudrillard’s bestiary, 61
101
102
Ibid., 30 what Baudrillard means is that “though what we have in this case is a belief
in the omnipotence of signs.” Ibid.,
103
Man being creative which according to Marx “Man is a species-being, not only
because he practically and theoretically makes the species -- both his own and those of other
things -- his object, but also -- and this is simply another way of saying the same thing -- because
he looks upon himself as the present, living species, because he looks upon himself as a universal
and therefore free being.” Cf. Martin Milligan, "The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts by
Karl Marx" (Progress Publishers 2000)
104
As man theorizes, he must engage into an activity because it fulfills his human nature
as species being.
32
looking upon the age of industrialization, the nature of man as species-being has
been exploited by the private property.105 The way in which man alienates himself
is by having a distance away from his essence which is, for Marx, a species-being.
Through the exploitation of private property, this kind of essence has been clouded
by the desperation of work. As such, they put into a sentence of forced labor.106
By focusing on Baudrillard’s account on everyday life and advertising,
consumption in this regard is the new mode of alienation. Since consumerism has
been systematized through signification and then flourishes within the dynamics of
advertising, everything has been marketized.107The omnipotence of objects tends
to intervene the potentialities of man’s life to live. However, because of these
objects through market, the interaction of exchanging goods can be manipulative
because many companies are having slogans to interact with consumers through
advertising.108 This affects the personality of human being. It alienates man’s
105
It is by the externalization of labor to the worker. In this view, Marx stated that
“(a worker) does not belong to his essential being; that he, therefore, does not confirm himself in
his work, but denies himself, feels miserable and not happy, does not develop free mental and
physical energy, but mortifies his flesh and ruins his mind. Hence, the worker feels himself only
when he is not working; when he is working, he does not feel himself. He is at home when he is not
working, and not at home when he is working. His labor is, therefore, not voluntary but forced, it
is forced labor.” Cf. Martin Milligan, "The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts by Karl
Marx" (Progress Publishers 2000)
106
Furthermore, as man becomes alienated through labor, he does not acquire satisfaction
for the need “but a mere means to satisfy needs outside itself.” Cf. Martin Milligan, "The
Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts by Karl Marx" (Progress Publishers 2000)
107
Being in a market, consumers may enter to the cycle of consumption wherein “not
simply to surround oneself with objects and services as one pleases; it is to change one’s being
and directedness.” Baudrillard, Consumer Society, 170
108
According to Pawlett, “communications companies tell us that ‘it’s good to talk’, that
we should ‘get closer’” Cf. Pawlett, Jean Baudrillard, 164
33
autonomy to live free from economic forces. Through the consumption of signs,
Baudrillard brings this statement:
It is to move from an individual principle based on autonomy, character, the

inherent value of the self to a principle of perpetual recycling by indexation
to a code in which the value of the individual becomes rational, diffracted,
changeable: it is the code of ‘personalization’, which no individual himself
possesses, but which traverses each individual in his signified relation to the
others.109
It seems that the manipulation of signs takes its success upon entering the
condition of needs. But it is not only through the needs but also on wants which
makes the indication of man’s autonomy. However, because of the manifestation
of codes, man’s autonomy has been put into socioeconomical play by the
conditioning of advertisements. As such, man becomes rational but in a false way,
because it filters his freedom by persuading commodities as something magical and
hence become an object of personalization. This is a kind of alienation that
Baudrillard wants to point out. Because of the consumption of Signs, he stated that
“the person as a determining instance disappears and is replaced by
personalization.”110 Man excludes his own self but now he is within the spectrum
of exploitation of objects which makes him a being that is being determined through
the outset of personalization. Man, being a consumer, becomes a product of
economic forces. Baudrillard attempts to relate this by stating that “he is, in fact,
caught in the toils of a kind of sociometric graph and is perpetually redefined by
109
110
Ibid.,
34
his position in these bizarre spider’s webs.”111 Hence, man cannot fulfill his
becoming, but rather he becomes alienated as Baudrillard would state that “he is,
in short, a sociometric being.”112 Man as a consumer, for Baudrillard is therefore a
kind of social alienation.
III. The Sign-Value
Baudrillard further investigates the consumer society on his third major work,
For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign. In this work, Baudrillard
attempts to systematize further the manipulation of signs, and how it flourishes on
consumption by focusing on the value of objects. This is only possible by
contextualizing Marx’s theory of commodity fetishism. Before discussing
Baudrillard’s theory of value, one should understand first the theory of Marx’s
value since it is embedded to Baudrillard’s critique and to help Marxian readers
understand the formality of Baudrillard’s work. Marx thought about the origin of
commodity and its dynamics by pointing out its usage and exchange which
according to Marx, “The commodity is, first of all, an external object, a thing which
through its qualities satisfies human needs of whatever kind.”113 What Marx would
want to state that a commodity has its functions for human needs, and it is only
understandable by having a fact that one of the essential in economics is the
111
Ibid.,
112
Ibid.,
113
Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, (London, UK: Penguin, 1992),
123
35
manifestation of needs and wants.114 Both of them compliments the idea of
survivability. As far as Marx is concerned, the origin of commodity is to fulfil the
needs of an individual. Commodity is necessary for an individual to live in the
sustenance of life. Furthermore, Marx pointed out the ways on how commodity
took its origin or its physique which according to him, “Every useful thing is a
whole composed of many properties; it can, therefore, be useful in various
ways.”115 A commodity’s usefulness is being conditioned towards the physical
properties, and this is what Marx called as Use-value.116 Use-value adheres on the
qualities of commodities. For Marx, it is “a special branch of knowledge, namely
the commercial knowledge of commodities.”117 In Use-value, commodities are
being valued through its function. A commodity may not be functional without
being branded its use. Interestingly, the physical properties of commodity are
versatile for there are some various ways on a single commodity to be categorized
by Use-value.118 It defines the limits and methods of a commodity as Marx stated:
“Use-values are only realized in use or in consumption.”119 If this is the case,
commodity then has its relation towards the needs and wants of an individual. If an
individual benefited on commodities, it also promulgates within the social relations.
114
They are distinct, but they compliment. Need is something that is being obtained for
sustenance. Wants, on the other hand, is the desire of obtaining things for satisfaction.
115
Ibid.,
116
See Ibid., 126
117
Ibid.,
118
That is why use-value reveals why an individual should have commodities.
119
Ibid.,
36
These commodities must be in exchange. While commodities are being defined by
Use-value as its qualitative entity, Marx also adheres that commodities have also
its quantitative relations. For Marx, this is what he called as exchange-value.120
Exchange-value is when commodities are being exposed in social terms and all of
it has its equivalence. They are given values. These values may vary from one to
another. Hence, they are open for exchange. For Marx, “the valid exchange-values
of a particular commodity express something equal, and secondly, exchange-value
cannot be anything other than the mode of expression, the ‘form of appearance’, of
a content distinguishable from it.”121 Commodities then should undergo equations
for it to be consumed. Every commodity has its Exchange-value and it is impossible
for entities to be exempted on this process in the economy. Hence, Use-value and
Exchange-value works hand in hand and Exchange-value is a system towards the
economical play in the relationship between the Use-value.
By giving a fact that Use-value and Exchange-value is an economic cycle
between the producers and the consumers, one may seem that commodities are
becoming estranged. Commodities should be in accordance with social relations,
but they are no longer as it is. Commodities are now being measured by economic
value that is being far from its essence. It is stated by Marx that “a commodity
appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out
that is a very strange thing, abounding metaphysical subtleties and theological
120
Ibid.,
121
Ibid., 127
37
niceties.”122 Apparently, commodities are being produced as something magical.
Marx called this as Commodity Fetishism.123 As a result, Marx stated that “it was
solely the analysis of the prices of commodities which led to the determination of
the magnitude of value, and solely the common expression of all commodities in
money which led to the establishment of their character as values.” 124 And so, the
wonders in which commodities should undergo in the process of Exchange-value
has been modified through the exchange of money. As such, commodities are being
valued artificially which is in fact “become visible and dazzling to our eyes.”125
Marx would say that products are being processed as magical. Baudrillard,
agrees on Marx’s theory of value but he knows that it may not be the completion
of such theory. Because of mass production, the Use-value and Exchange-value
expands through time. In this manner, Baudrillard would suggest that Marx’s
critique of political economy regarding Use-value and Exchange-value should
reconstruct. Baudrillard believes that Use-value is ambiguous.126 As Marx has a
notion that Use-value is the concrete form of commodity, Baudrillard would
suggest that “Use value is an abstraction. It is an abstraction of the system of needs
cloaked in the false evidence of a concrete destination and purpose, an intrinsic
122
Ibid., 163
123
It reveals that commodities are being valued in the thing itself rather than the value of
its use promulgated by labor. In effect, labor has lost its value and it is being filtered by capitalism.
124
Ibid.,
125
Ibid., 187
126
38
finality of goods and product.”127 In effect, Use-value and Exchange-value are
beyond the distinction of commodities as Baudrillard stated that “there to be a
system at all, use-value and exchange-value must be regulated by an identical
abstract logic of equivalence, an identical code…as system, that use value can be
‘fetishized’, and certainly not as a practical operation. It is always the systematic
abstraction that is fetishized.”128Baudrillard believes that consumer society is
within the system of signification or Symbolic Exchange. Marx’s theory of value
must be more comprehensive by putting an idea that commodities can be
commodified symbolically.129Thus, there is a new kind of commodity fetishism
which according to Baudrillard “today the concept of fetishism is exploited in a
summary and empirical fashion: object fetishism, automobile fetishism, sex
fetishism, vacation fetishism, etc.”130
In his critique on For a Critique of Political Economy of the Sign, bares the
claim that commodity fetishism incorporates Use-value and Exchange-value.131
This implies that commodity fetishism expands because of today’s consumerism
because of the conspicuousness of consumption. This new kind fetishization is what
127
Ibid., 131
128
Ibid., Which Baudrillard also added: “The same goes for exchange value. And it is the
two fetishizations, reunited – that of use value and that of exchange value – that constitute
commodity fetishism.” Ibid.,
129
See Victor Viser, "Commodification as a system of signs in the contemporary
historical bloc. " Dialectical Anthropology 19, no. 1 (1994) http://www.jstor.org/stable/29790553,
p.116
130
Baudrillard, Political Economy, 88
131
See Francis Mulhern, “Critical considerations on the fetishism of commodities” ELH,
74, no. 2 (2007) https://www.jstor.org/stable/30029565, p.480
39
Baudrillard called as Sign-value. To understand this, Baudrillard conceptualize the
logic of signification by indicating that there is a relationship between the logic of
consumption and logic of signs. These are being addressed by Baudrillard in four
logics:
1. A Functional logic of use-value

2. An economic logic of exchange-value
3. A logic of symbolic exchange
4. A logic of sign value132
On the first logic is about the practical operations, the logic of utility or the
instrument; The second logic is about the equivalence, logic of the market or the
commodity; The third logic is about the ambivalence, logic of the gift, or the
symbol; and fourth logic is about the difference, a logic of status, or the sign.133
Baudrillard believes that this four logic constitutes the fetishization of an object in
contemporary capitalist society. To understand this further, Baudrillard gave an
instance in understanding the logic:
The wedding ring: This is a unique object, a symbol of the relationship

of the couple. One would neither think of changing it nor wearing
several. The symbolic object is made to last and to witness in its duration
the permanence of the relationship…The ordinary ring is quite different:
it does not symbolize a relationship. It is a non-singular object, a personal
gratification, a sign in the eyes of the others…it is an object of
consumption.134
132
133
See Ibid.,
134
Ibid.,
40
In this instance, Baudrillard would indicate the difference between symbol and
Sign. It may seem that a wedding ring and an ordinary ring have the same Use-
value, that both consume the accessory itself. However, their difference occurs
because of the manifestation of symbol and Sign. Towards the Symbolic Exchange,
wedding ring symbolizes that an individual is married.135 Baudrillard is indeed true
about the omnipotence of objects. Because of the symbolization of commodities, it
has the power to dictate human life which he stated, “fashion plays as negligible a
role at the strictly symbolic level as at the level of pure instrumentality.”136Sign, on
the other hand, determines prestige through fashion. Through the Sign-value, an
ordinary ring could be extravagant for the others. The wearer of the ring could be
an endorser of the commodity which constitutes the omnipotence of Signs towards
other consumers. This ordinary ring, according to Baudrillard, “takes part in the
play of my accessories and the constellation of fashion. It is an object of
consumption.”137 To understand further, the Symbolic Exchange is a kind of
commodity that goes beyond Use-value because it dictates the status of objects not
just on its function but towards its purpose. Sign-value, in addition, proceeds with
the formation of fashion logic. Objects, as being promulgated by Sign-value,
according to Baudrillard, “is not an object of consumption unless it is released from
135
By deepening the example, wedding ring resembles the status of the person that he or
she is with someone else’s spouse. This may cause a historical moment of life and because of that
commodity, which is the ring, resembles one’s life update.
136
Ibid.,
137
Ibid.,
41
its psychic determinations as symbol; from its functional determinations as
instrument; from its commercial determinations as a product; and is thus liberated
as a sign to be recaptured by the formal logic of fashion.”138 It merely subscribes
on Marx’s commodity fetishism since it always dwells on the magical niceties of a
commodity, but Baudrillard merge commodity fetishism on contemporary mass
consumption. His notion of conspicuous consumption, being discussed as part of
social alienation, depicts not just the social per se but also on gain, prestige, or
identity of an individual. Thus, if an individual is prestigious139the higher becomes
alienated in the system of Sign-value.
This is how Baudrillard’s early works articulate semiology with the Marxist
critique of capitalism by appropriating Saussure’s theory of language and to
conceptualize it as a system of signs behind the system of commodities.140
Baudrillard would suggest that the system of needs141are being structured towards
the system of the Sign which only values the rules, codes and especially the social
logic.142 This appropriation of the commodity to semiology focuses on Marx’s
political economy which Baudrillard would suggest as the political economy of the
sign. He established the political economy in two levels: Between Exchange-value
138
Ibid., 67
139
Having a best car, house, phones, or other forms which constitutes the identity of an
individual towards the economic forces.
140
141
The socioeconomic structure or system of commodities
142
See Ibid.,
42
and Use-value and between the system of signifier and signified.143 Ultimately, the
political economy of the Sign implies transcendence. This point of transcendence,
according to Baudrillard, “‘beyond’ of the signification process through which sign
exchange value organizes itself; and thus also a ‘beyond’ of semiology which, in
its quite ‘objective innocence,’ simply details the functioning of sign exchange
value.”144This implies that commodities as being promulgated by Sign-value
transcends through the manifestation of signifier and signified. For Baudrillard,
there is a phantasm in which truth could be determined towards the exposition of
signifier which is the code that produces the signified. The universality of signs
happens to be a process within the system of abstraction that determines the value
of commodity. This is when commodities are being part of social alienation. Which
in point a motive of exploiting the authentic value of commodity with the
omnipotence of economical forces which makes an individual an agent of
manipulation of Signs. Furthermore, as an object being fetishized, commodities are
being worshipped through desires because of its motive to give pleasurable life. A
kind of leisure that an individual undergoes within the structures of capitalist
society. As such, the fulfillment of desires has been imposed in Exchange-value.
For Baudrillard, desires have been the point reference towards the consumers.
143
As pointed out by Poster, “Baudrillard discovered a homology between the sign and
the commodity: the signifier is to exchange value what the signified is to use value.” Cf. Mark
Poster, “Technology and Culture in Habermas and Baudrillard” Contemporary Literature 22 no.
4, Marxism and the Crisis of the World, (1981), https://www.jstor.org/stable/1207878, p.470
144
Ibid., 159
43
Baudrillard wrote that because of the transparency of economics,145man would no
longer be rational in what he wants because of these hypotheses: Objects merely
imply a resolve to the frustrations of what he wants; Use-value may not exist
without Exchange-value otherwise Use-value will become unintelligible; and what
is not mediated through the exchange of signs will have no value. 146 Thus, Sign
maintains its authority over Use-value and Exchange-value because it is then
through Sign-value that will ever be realized the Exchange-value.147If this is the
case, then the manifestation of Sign is inevitable among the commodities. The value
in which the commodity proceeds is by Sign-value. Commodities then may not be
in the perspective of its Use-value, but by its abstractions of Exchange-value which
are being covered by the manipulation of Sign. As such, Baudrillard believes that
the value of commodities play on what called as phantasmic organization which
speaks about desire that is being fulfilled, resolved, achieved and performed, that
through the symbolic dimension, everything is universal.148 The condition of this is
that “it even fails to understand what it wants and simply take what is offered…
Outside this logic, man has ‘need’ of nothing. What we need is what is bought and
sold, evaluated and chosen.”149 This is now the condition of consumer society for
Baudrillard. The economic forces on the mass production imposes a desire that is
145
As Baudrillard would indicate as “want something for your money” Ibid., 205
146
See Ibid., 205
147
See Ibid., 206
148
See Ibid.,
149
Ibid., 207
44
artificial to the desire of man.150As such, this sense of enjoyment of attaining a
commodity leaves man no other choice but to enjoy it and it has been fulfilled
through Signs.
The context of For a Critique of Political Economy of the Sign give a unique
approach of developing the theory of semiology in supplementing the theory of
Marxism. By confronting Saussure’s theory, the signifier and signified, Baudrillard
also deconstructed this theory. He believes that Saussure’s theory arises a problem,
that the elements of the Sign has been separated which makes the signified as an
alibi.151 This is also same in political economy: the separation of commodity into
Exchange-value which makes the Use-value as the alibi for the Exchange-
value.152Hence, Marx’s political economy became a canvas for Baudrillard’s
formalism of the Sign. In contemporary capitalism, Baudrillard believes that
consumerism has been governed by the conspicuous consumption, that the needs
and wants became the playground of Sign-value. Through Baudrillard’s philosophy
of Sign, it reveals that meanings are being produced by Symbolic Exchange behind
the domination of the code that makes the referential for consumption in
contemporary capitalism.153 It means that such kind of abstraction may lead to the
150
In other words, desires are not natural, it is only a way of compromising what is
existing and what is not.
151
See Poster, selected writings, 3
152
See Ibid.,
153
See Roy Porter, “Baudrillard: history, hysteria and consumption.” In Forget
Baudrillard?, edited by Chris Rojek and Bryan Turner, 2. London and New York: Routledge,
1993. Porter makes an example in this claim: “a sexy woman is used to sell a car; a car sells
cigarettes; cigarettes sell machismo; machismo is used to sell jeans; and so the symbolic magic
circle is sealed.” Ibid.,
45
difference of a commodity to another. As Use-value and Exchange-value leads to
the primitive structure of commodity, Baudrillard exposes the appropriation of this
structure in a context of contemporary capitalism.

46
Chapter 3: Baudrillardian critique on Marxism
As Baudrillard continues to elevate semiology in Marxist political economy,
his critique dwells on reconstructing Marxism. Along with The System of Objects
and Consumer Society, Baudrillard exposes the problem not just on commodity
itself but to the relationship between culture and commodity as well.154 Today’s
consumption consists primarily in the valorization of the Sign over its use as
defined by Marx. It is then that Baudrillard sees capitalism as something that
establishes social domination through the system of Signs on individuals within
consumer society.155 Understanding the affinity of Baudrillard to Marx enables us
to better understand the philosophy of Baudrillard. By exposing the relationship
between man and objects, Baudrillard sees commodity in a more radical sense by
defining objects as a mode of communication, that is production should be
positioned as opposite to consumption.156
However, Baudrillard’s later works criticize Marxism. Since the early books
dwell in Marx’s terms, his later books reveal the situation of political economy in
contemporary capitalism using his philosophy on Sign as an argument. In his later
works, signification has become universal for Baudrillard, by criticizing Marx’s
political economy. In this sense, Baudrillard sees Marx’s theory on capitalism as
154
See Mendoza, Commodity, Sign, and Spectacle, 46
155
156
See Mendoza, Commodity, Sign, and Spectacle, 47
47
outdated because it fails to view the condition of postmodernity.157 In this chapter,
the research aims to highlight Baudrillard’s criticism of Marx in order to understand
Baudrillard’s exclusion from Marxism. This will discuss Baudrillard’s critique on
political economy with production. Baudrillard’s later works contain his attack on
Marx’s political economy, arguing that it must be reconstructed. Through
production, Baudrillard fills what is lacking on Marx. Hence, his later books Mirror
of Production and Symbolic Exchange and Death will further support the view of
his critique on Marxism with semiology. Furthermore, this chapter will lead to a
point in his declaration of the break with Marxism. This will view Baudrillard’s
Sign in a wider sense, declining the classic approach of the political economy of
Marx, for analyzing his critique in Marxism marks the split from Marxist law of
value into a structural law of value.
I. Baudrillard on Production
Baudrillard’s analysis of production attempts to redefine the system of political
economy in advanced capitalism. To trace the theory about production, one should
first understand the theory in connection with Marx’s political economy. According
to Marx, political economy should emphasize the dependence on exchanges
happening in production—the social division of labor.158 According to Marx,
commodity reflects the productivity of man through labor: “the commodity reflects
157
See Tony Smith, “The Critique of Marxism in Baudrillard's Later Writings,”
Rethinking Marxism, 3:3-4, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08935699008657941, p.275-6
158
See Bruce McFarlane and Melanie Beresford, Manual of political economy, (Quezon
City, Karrel Inc, 1985), 30
48
the social characteristics of men's own labour as objective characteristics of the
products of labour themselves, as the socio-natural properties of these things.”159
For him, the essence of the political economy runs with the characteristic of
production. It is the starting point of capitalism in shaping the emergence of the
commodity by respective Use-values for the development of society.160 Political
economy implements social division through the market, state, or even household
that is being defined by the mode of production, which makes the underlying
importance of labor and its product in forming the aspects of social relations.161
Being in such an aspect, the process of production will not be effective without the
components of commodities: Use-value, labor power, and Exchange-value.162
Labor power constitutes the capacity of a worker to work according to its certain
ability.163 As commodities are being systematized by these components, labor
power plays a huge role because it creates value.164 Generally, it is labor that defines
the primary aspect of human activity that basic human needs are being satisfied and
developed.165 Through labor, man engages in the sustenance of the needs, becoming
himself an agent of a political economy governed by capitalism. It is given that
159
Marx, Capital, 164-5
160
See Ben Fine and Alfredo Saad-Filho, Marx’s capital, (London, Pluto press, 2004), 15
161
See Ibid.,
162
See McFarlane and Beresford, Manual of political economy, 29
163
Cf. Fine and Saad-Filho, Marx’s capital, 22
164
See Ibid., 31
165
49
even throughout history, man lived by their labor; no society will survive if people
would stop working.166
For Baudrillard, productivity is a concept that underlies the different discourses
in the field of Marxism but the concept still dwells in the benefit of capitalism. In
fact, Baudrillard would state in the preface that “the mode of production does not
touch the principle of production. All the concepts it articulates describe only the
dialectical and historical genealogy of the contents of production, leaving
production as a form intact.”167 This statement becomes the problem of Marxism
for Baudrillard and he wants to reconstruct the notion of productivity. It is agreeable
that upon looking in the principle of production does not only limit itself in the
economic system but also in the structure of society.168 But for Baudrillard’s
approach, the structure is embedded in a code.169 Baudrillard further analyzes that
man focuses not on his being but on what he produces within the political economy:
It is no longer a question of ‘being’ oneself but of ‘producing’ oneself, from

conscious activity to the primitive ‘productions’ of desire. Everywhere man has
learned to reflect on himself, to assume himself, to posit himself according to
166
See Fine and Saad-Filho, Marx’s Capital, 18
167
Jean Baudrillard, Mirror of Production, (St. Louis, Telos Pres, 1975), 17
168
See Xia Ying, “The Principle of Production and a Critique of Metaphysics”, Frontiers
of Philosophy in China, 9 no. 2 (2014), https://www.jstor.org/stable/43281916, p.182
169
For Pawlett, “Baudrillard’s notion of the code suggests that we, as consumers, live
within a far more complete form of social control than anything conceived under the rubric of
ideological analysis. The code is a system of ‘manipulation’, ‘neutralisation’ and assimilation
which ‘aims towards absolute social control’.” William Pawlett, “Code”, In Baudrillard
dictionary, Edited by Richard Smith, 211, Edinburgh: Edinburgh university press, 2010. As per
production, Baudrillard stated that “production would be nothing but a code imposing this type of
decipherment, where there is properly neither finality, cipher, nor value.” Baudrillard, Mirror of
Production,19
50
this scheme of production which is assigned to him as the ultimate dimension

of value and meaning.170
This explains how Baudrillard viewed the political economy through production. It
is then that production reflects the character of man within capitalism. Man learned
to adapt in accordance with the scheme of production that mediates the reflection
of man and his relation to the world as an image in which, in this case, the
production has become the mirror of the world.171
Furthermore, Baudrillard criticizes the relationship between Use-value and
labor power. First, he stated that “use-value is only the horizon of exchange-
value”172 suggesting that the critique “attains its full scope in its extension to that
other commodity, labor power.”173 Through power labor, the commodities are
being defined as Use-value and Exchange-value.174 Concerning labor, commodities
are presented through the two characteristics of labor: concrete and abstract labor.
Concrete labor produces the effort of doing Use-value while abstract labor is the
activity of labor in general.175 It is necessary to point out these two characters
because they became the outcome of the social division of labor, which also brings
to the character of labor power.176 As the nature of labor power through its two-fold
170
Ibid.,
171
Ying, The Principle of Production, 183
172
Baudrillard, Mirror of Production, 23
173
Ibid.,
174
That is why Baudrillard gave importance in articulating labor power in order to reveal
what is behind the nature of production in Marxism.
175
Cf. Alfredo Saad-Filho, “Concrete and Abstract Labour in Marx's Theory of Value”,
Review of Political Economy, 9 no. 4, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09538259700000042, p.159, 462.
176
See McFarlane and Beresford, Manual of political economy, 43
51
character defines how commodities are represented, Baudrillard believes that such
development has been depicted in this way: “In the development of the value form
of the commodity, in the last instance of its money form and hence of money, the
value of commodity has been represented in the use value of the other.”177
Commodity reveals the presence of money, enabling a process of interaction
between other Use-values. The presence of Use-value, for Baudrillard, has been the
initiator of political economy. As such, Baudrillard understands that Marx retained
“the concrete positivity of use-value, a kind of concrete antecedent within the
structure of the political economy.”178 However, Baudrillard argues that Marx did
not radicalize the view of Use-value by believing that it portrays the play of
Exchange-value because for Baudrillard, “the definition of products as useful and
as responding to needs is the most accomplished, most internalized expression of
abstract economic exchange.”179This view of production reveals that the political
economy already expressed its process.180 However, Baudrillard believes that the
play of Exchange-value logically terminates Use-value, that is, Use-value as
signified, is embedded within the code as Baudrillard believes that it is “the final
177
178
Ibid.,
179
Ibid., 25 abstract economic exchange implies on the function of the signs in society as
Baudrillard states that “economic exchange value…lose their own status and become satellites of
sign value.” Cf. Baudrillard, Political Economy, 120
180
Baudrillard viewed that the definition of labor of power is being fulfilled as well: “The
definition of labor power as the source of ‘concrete’ social wealth is the complete expression of
the abstract manipulation of labor power: the truth of capital culminates in this ‘evidence’ of man
as producer of value.” Ibid.,
52
precipitate of the law of value.”181 The notion of the code in the product is the main
criticism of Baudrillard. Both Use-value and Exchange-value make the code
effective from the political economy.182 It is by then that the political economy has
become metaphysical: through production and consumption, there exists the code:
“In a work, man is not only quantitatively exploited as a productive force by the
system of capitalist political economy, but is also metaphysically overdetermined
as a producer the code of political economy.”183
In this sense, Baudrillard would want to present the nature of value in the
relationship of the Sign. It is not limiting to point out that there is an abstract entity
that enables commodity in forming only its usefulness. The commodity has become
a part of social life. It is already evident since his early writings that signification
dominates the process of the political economy through consumption. In the Mirror
of Production, Baudrillard argues that “Marx’s concept of labor (like that of
production, productive force, etc.) must be submitted to a radical critique as an
ideological concept...this is not the time to generalize it as a revolutionary
concept.”184 In this statement, Baudrillard disagrees on putting the theory of labor
as the cause of exploitation because Symbolic Exchange is the cause of the
domination of value. At this point, the concept of Symbolic Exchange proved a
181
Ibid.,
182
See Robert Hefner, “Baudrillard's Noble Anthropology: The Image of Symbolic
Exchange in Political Economy“, SubStance,, 6/7 no. 17 (1977)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3684572, p.105
183
184
Ibid., 43
53
strategic point of providing a more radical critique in political economy.185 In fact,
labor originates from Exchange-value: “even before the stage of exchange value
and the equivalence through time of abstract social labor, labor and production
constitute an abstraction, a reduction, and an extraordinary rationalization in
relation to the richness of symbolic exchange.”186 Baudrillard suggests that the
classic struggle between Use-value and Exchange-value should supplement the
presence of Symbolic Exchange because of the power of signification that speaks
within the context of political economy. As such, Baudrillard stated that “the real
rupture is not between ‘abstract’ labor and ‘concrete labor’, but between symbolic
exchange and work (production, economics).”187
The importance of exposing the theory of value and production is to allow
the process of what makes the code relative in production. Baudrillard seems to
elevate the issue of production without neglecting the notion of active participation
of consumption. In this sense, it is production that makes consumption active. In
other words, production, with the intervention of signs, enters consumption:
“Today consumption…defines precisely the stage where the commodity is
immediately produces as a sign, as sign value, and where signs (culture) are
produced as commodities.”188 This implies that the process of capitalism emerges
185
See Mike Gane, “Symbolic Exchange”, In Baudrillard dictionary, Edited by Richard
Smith, 211, Edinburgh: Edinburgh university press, 2010
186
187
Ibid.,
188
54
on the manifestation of consuming the Signs which are produced by labor that is
being dominated by a code. Code is now a functional principle of consumption that
governs the system of representation and meaning, which becomes the political
economy of the Sign.189
In his book Symbolic Exchange and Death, Baudrillard expounded on
production and Symbolic Exchange . Here, Baudrillard argues that “we are at the
end of production.”190 The critique of political economy had passed. For
Baudrillard, the problem of capitalism is domination, not exploitation.
Contemporary capitalism dominates society because “we have passed from the
commodity law of value to the structural law of value.”191 If this is the case, then
the law of value in commodity has reached the end. It is in Symbolic Exchange and
Death where Baudrillard attempted to defeat the purpose of Marxism as he
criticized in Mirror of Production. Now, Baudrillard believes that production is no
longer applies in a Marxist setting because it now leads to a structural view. This
reveals the change of capitalism, where everything is embedded in the code: “the
structural law of value is the purest, most illegible form of social domination.”192
It is the end of production because through the domination of the code. labor is no
longer active in production: “Today this is no longer the case since labor is no
189
See Pawlett, Jean Baudrillard, 36
190
Jean Baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange and Death, (London, Thousand Oaks, New
Delhi, Sage Publications, 1993), 9
191
Ibid., 10
192
Ibid.,
55
longer productive but has become reproductive of the assignation to labor which
is the general habit of a society which no longer knows whether or not it wishes to
reproduce.”193 Through the code, production is no longer a mode of exploitation
because the code reveals itself as a set of categories which are generated by the
objects that makes the economy as the administrator of society.194 Because of labor,
the manifestation of the code affects production. Through the code, an “immense
ritual of signs of labor extend over society in general.”195 The system may no
longer be production but by reproduction. Through the Sign-value, labor has
become ritualized—it no longer matters if they produce anything because they
reproduce a set of Signs.196As such, the economy has become a set of Signs, which
do not give the system of Use-value and Exchange-value, but rather by the
functionality of signifier and signified through Sign-value and Symbolic Exchange.
This will be effective with the dominance of the code. For Baudrillard, it is the code
that binds the social and economic sphere:
You are asked only to become socialized, not to produce or to excel yourself.
You are asked only to consider value, according to the structural definition
which here takes on its full social significance, as one term in relation to
others, to function as a sign in the general scenario of production, just as
labour and production now function only as signs, as terms commutable with
non-labour, consumption, communication, etc.197
193
Ibid., 11
194
See Andrew Robinson, “An A to Z of Theory Jean Baudrillard: The Code,” Accessed
March 19, 2019. https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/in-theory-baudrillard-5/
195
Baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange, 11
196
Andrew Robinson, “An A to Z of Theory Jean Baudrillard: From production to
reproduction,” Accessed March 19, 2019. https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/in-theory-baudrillard-6/
197
56
The thought of production in Marxism may no longer be effective in capitalist
society. For Baudrillard, production is under the power of consumerism which leads
to the authority of the code, which makes the sign effective in the cycle of Sign-
value and Symbolic Exchange. It is by Signs that connects all points of such
dominance in society. All of which becomes simply a Sign.
Baudrillard’s first three writings, System of Objects, Consumer Society and
Critique of Political Economy of the Sign, may not be enough in attempting to
understand his account of political economy since this question is left unanswered:
does semiology really correlates the critique of political economy?198 Such question
is entertained or dealt with in Mirror of Production. In this writing, Baudrillard
becomes aggressive in criticizing Marx. He argues that Marx’s theory was
conservative because it is too rooted in the liberation of production that is merely
inadequate to a radical critique.199Marxism relied on viewing man as a laborer
creating Use-value, but the social system that created the Exchange-value was also
founded Use-value.200 As such, Baudrillard sees the possibilities of Use-value
which is not limited into a particular group but intervenes in a radical social scheme:
“Social wealth or language, meaning or value, sign or phantasm – everything is
‘produced’ according to a ‘labor’”201 This phenomenon benefits capitalism and
198
See Poster, “Semiology and Critical Theory,” 282
199
See Ibid., 282
200
See Ibid.,
201
57
Baudrillard would want this law of value to be abolished.202 While Marxism has a
critical notion between Use-value and Exchange-value in exposing the inequality
of social relations, Baudrillard sees this as lacking because it does not determine
the social relations intervening the signs.203 In order to do this, Baudrillard did not
limit himself in correlating Marxism with semiology; instead he went beyond such
critique: “all the fundamental concepts of Marxist analysis must be questioned,
starting from its own requirement of a radical critique and transcendence of
political economy.”204 In the Mirror of Production, Baudrillard makes the critique
of the political economy of the Sign not as a supplement of criticizing political
economy but as a successor for critical social theory.205 It reveals that Marx’s
concepts of labor, dialectic, mode of production, and capital are shown as the mirror
images of capitalist society.206
II. Declaration of break with Marxism
There is no direct declaration of Baudrillard’s break with Marxism.
Nevertheless, many scholars agree that the break of Baudrillard in Marxism began
in Mirror of Production because of its more contextual critique on Marxism than
his early writings. Smith believes that “He first presented his case against Marxism
in his early work, The Mirror of Production.”207This is also the same with Kellner
202
See Ibid.,
203
204
MP 21
205
206
See Ibid.,
207
Smith, Critique of Marxism, 275
58
as he states that the later works marks the “rejection of Marxism and thus constitute
a break with Marxian theory.”208Genosko notes that the Mirror of Production is
when “Baudrillard took leave of Marxism.”209Baudrillard’s first three works could
elevate consumption in supplementing the analysis of Marx's production which also
leads to a point that culture and signs are also an important aspect of Marxist
political economy.210 However, it may be misleading because, in early writings,
Baudrillard already showed his dissatisfaction of Marxism.211 The method in which
Baudrillard criticizes Marxism is complex. At the early writings, Baudrillard
focused on the relationship of consumption between Use-value and Exchange-
value, which by then related to Sign-value, but For a Critique of the Political
Economy of the Sign marks Baudrillard’s anticipation of the break and it is in the
Mirror of Production that he criticizes deeply the methods of Marxism concerning
the theory of production by going beyond its content.212 For Baudrillard, Marxism
is just a mirror of bourgeois society by centralizing production that makes the
naturalization capitalism.213 In other words, Marxism lacks a radical critique of
contemporary capitalism. In this sense, Baudrillard argues that the Marxist political
economy fails to investigate the connection between labor, production, and market
208
Kellner, Postmodernism, 33
209
Genosko, Baudrillard and Signs, xiv
210
See Douglas Kellner, “Jean Baudrillard”, Accessed March 19, 2019.
https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/essays/baudrillard.pdf, p.6
211
See Pawlett, Jean Baudrillard, 28 Pawlett believes that “Baudrillard never was a
Marxist as such, yet he was deeply influenced by Marxism and retained a great admiration for
Marx’s theorization of capitalism.” Ibid.,
212
See Zander, Baudrillard’s Theory of value, 390
213
See Kellner, Jean Baudrillard, 6
59
and the system of representation—Sign, language and meaning.214 The semiotic
approach of Baudrillard also made a huge change in viewing the political economy.
He managed to attack Marxism through the subscription of semiology using
Symbolic Exchange which serves as a guideline to how a political economy should
be viewed.215 As such, the break is also a shift of viewing a new perspective of
political economy.216 This reveals that as Baudrillard uses Sign, Symbolic
Exchange aims to be more radical in viewing the political economy. By having this
statement, what makes the Symbolic Exchange differs from the Marxist political
economy?
Baudrillard’s critique of Marxism leads to theorizing the political economy in
the book Symbolic Exchange and Death. In this book, Baudrillard further elaborates
his notion of production and labor, focusing on the conditions of contemporary
capitalism.217 It contains the deepening of his critique in political economy and
marks as his considerable fundamental theory.218
The term Symbolic Exchange is derived from Marcel Mauss’s gift exchange.
For Mauss, gift exchange is characterized in three obligations: obligation to give,
receive, and reciprocate, which means social, moral, emotional, and communal
214
215
Baudrillard always mentioning the symbolic exchange since the early works.
216
See Zander, Baudrillard's Theory of Value, 390
217
See Rex Butler, Jean Baudrillard: the defence of real, (London, Sage, 1999), 4
218
See Gane, Baudrillard’s bestiary, 76
60
relations are in creation and sustenance of reciprocal gifts and services.219 For
Baudrillard, this philosophy can be applied in the idea of commodity. It deals with
two parties that could refer to the continuous reciprocity which makes the exchange
in social relations manifest the existence of symbols.220 This is the point where
Baudrillard formulated the Symbolic Exchange. The term was also derived from
Georges Bataille’s “general economy,” a notion that there is more to human life—
expenditure, waste, sacrifice, and destruction—than the economy (production and
utility.)221 Bataille, like Baudrillard, believes that humans, by nature, achieve
pleasure from the fundamentals of human life, that is, humans are free to expend
an excess of energy contra to capitalism where it is unnatural and against human
nature.222 Generally, Symbolic Exchange affirms that as Commodities are being
exchanged, it reveals a symbol.223 At this point, Use-value, labor, and Exchange-
value are not enough to affirm the process of commodities. Baudrillard attempted
to reveal the more radical side of the political economy in the articulation of
Symbolic Exchange.
Hence, one may say that Baudrillard’s break with Marxism is within the concept
of Symbolic Exchange. Since it is stated that Marx’s radicalism in political
219
See Jon Baldwin, “Potlatch Politics – Baudrillard’s Gift”, International Journal of
Baudrillard Studies, 9 no. 3 (2012), https://www2.ubishops.ca/baudrillardstudies/vol-9_3/v9-3-
baldwinart.html
220
See Ibid.,
221
See Kellner, Jean Baudrillard, 7
222
See Ibid.,
223
This is evident on For the Critique of Political Economy of the Sign, that commodities
change the status of man. It is through symbols that enables commodity in such form.
61
economy is insufficient, it no longer considers Use-value as contrasted to
Exchange-value. Rather, it is Symbolic Exchange that should be contrasted with
the commodity.224 This separation from Marxism is necessary for Baudrillard
because, for him, the nature of capitalism is no longer within the context of the
mode of production, but within the code which is dominated by the law of value.225
Ultimately, everything is dominated by the code and only through death can one
escape it.226 Such a nihilistic view marks Baudrillard’s rejection of Marx’s political
economy.
224
See Baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange, x
225
See Ibid., 11
226
62
Chapter 4: Marxism and Semiology
The factors that has been elevated in the former chapters expose the
articulation of Baudrillard’s Sign to Marx’s political economy. In viewing
commodities, his critique on Marxist political economy leans towards the idea of
Sign. As one would study Baudrillard, one may observe his style of writing. The
writing that makes him either a Marxist or not, because of his critique on Marxism.
This chapter proposes that although Baudrillard’s criticism initiates his break in
Marxism, he may still be considered a Marxist due to his appropriation of the reality
of the sign with the theory of Marx since he uses Use-value and Exchange-value as
a part of understanding his theory.
I. Contra Baudrillard
According to other scholars of Baudrillard, namely Douglas Kellner, Chris
Rojek, and Tony Smith, Marx’s theory of political economy is not appropriate for
Baudrillard’s philosophy of sign. Marx’s analysis reveals the classic approach of
the sociological setting of capitalism. It means to say that his theory on
commodities may not only be focused on the process of the commodity itself, but
it also reveals the sociological aspects of the commodity. Use-value and Exchange-
value do not limit the fact of the transparency of the process of the commodity.
Kellner indicates that Baudrillard believes in socially constructed needs 227 while
Baudrillard sees needs as structural: “field of consumption is a structured social field,

227
where not only goods, but needs themselves, like the various cultural characteristics, pass from a
key group, a leading elite, to the other social categories as these `rise' relatively on the social
ladder.” Cf. Baudrillard, Consumer Society, 63
63
Marx argues that needs are socially mediated.228 However, Kellner says that
Baudrillard’s approach of Marxism may be considered as faulty because of
Baudrillard’s one-sided reading of Marx which makes him fail to indicate his own
account towards commodities, needs and consumption: “Baudrillard is unable to
articulate standpoints from which one can criticize capitalist society or present
oppositional consumer practices or politics, since in his view all consumption
serves simply to integrate individuals into the system of needs and objects.”229 In
Baudrillard’s later writings, his pessimistic view of capitalism leads to the
domination of Signs in society. This reveals that the domination Signs have been
promulgated by contemporary capitalism where mass media and technology reign.
With the notion that Symbolic Exchange cannot be escaped from, one can claim
this in a positive sense. Kellner believes that people can live in society through the
domination of production behind cultural and social life and thus making Kellner
skeptical of Baudrillard’s social order of Sign without using Marxist political
economy. It means that for Kellner, Baudrillard does not perceive Marx’s approach
in production completely, and the break with Marxism was unnecessary. If this is
the case, then Baudrillard’s theory is unfulfilled. Since he borrowed Marxist
political economy to criticize the culture of mass production using semiology, his
attempt was not to appropriate Marxism but rather to destroy it. Baudrillard’s break
228
See Kellner, Postmodernism, 35., The difference between Marx and Baudrillard is that
on one hand, needs “constitute a social and historical process…”. On the other hand, needs are
just “an ‘alibi’ for capitalist domination.” Ibid., 36
229
See Ibid., 37
64
from Marxism is also a broken promise in highlighting Marxism in his first three
writings. It brings the unsatisfaction to the readers to dwell on Marxist political
economy as a gesture of developing Marxism in mass culture.
For Rojek, Baudrillard wants to convey to readers that man is trapped in a
pathological society, accepting the fate that everything is an illusion and there is no
cure for a solution.230 As such, Rojek believes that “Baudrillard is regularly
criticized for the sourness of his analysis. He is accused of yearning for the end of
everything and leading us to the very gates of nihilism.”231 This is evident in
reading Symbolic Exchange and Death. Upon seeking the Signs, Baudrillard did
not subject it into the transparency of signification but in manipulation.232 As such,
Symbolic Exchange serves as a victor of Marxist political economy since he
believes that in grasping the nature of capitalism, it must be thought by treating the
mode of production as a code dominating the law of value. 233 This is how
Baudrillard destroys his subscription to Marxism. The irony that makes his break
was a point of subscribing a theory, appropriating the Sign, then later convinces the
reader to consider Marxism as outdated.
Smith also criticizes the theory of needs of Baudrillard. He proposed that
Baudrillard “is wrong when he extrapolates from this to the conclusion that needs
230
See Chris Rojek, “Baudrillard and Politics” In Forget Baudrillard?, edited by Chris
Rojek and Bryan Turner, 110. London and New York: Routledge, 1993.
231
Ibid., 110-111
232
Ever since the early writings, Baudrillard sees the purpose of the signs as
manipulation. Which means it is something that is negative rather than positive.
233
See Baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange, xi
65
are solely a matter of codes, systems of signifiers that refer to no referent.”234
Because of Symbolic Exchange, Baudrillard’s approach to Marxist political
economy has been bombarded strictly with the absolute notion of Sign. By tracking
the transition from early writings, Baudrillard would want to persuade readers not
just by suggesting that Marxism must be more radical, but to disregard Marxism at
all because the theory is no longer visible in contemporary society. 235 This makes
a confusion of understanding of whether Baudrillard is a Marxist.
II. Marxism and the Philosophy of Sign
Despite of Baudrillard’s critique in Marxism, this research argues that he can
still be considered as a Marxist. It is necessary to view that he is Marxist for he
tracked Marxist concepts which makes the flow of his philosophy of Sign more
understandable. The method of his approach in Marxism is radical as it is, even to
the point of neglecting entirely Marx’s theory. It is inevitable, however, to view
Baudrillard’s philosophy without understanding Marx’s point of view in political
economy. One can read Baudrillard’s writings as supplement to Marxism because
he did not attempt to invite readers to go against Marxism, he was just suggesting
that the readers look upon the more radical point of view than the Marxist political
economy.236 It means to say that his approach to criticizing Marx is not to reveal
234
Smith, Critique of Marxism, 280
235
See Ibid., 278
236
By doing so is to understand what Poster says in the introduction on Mirror of
Production pertaining to Baudrillard and Marx: “The problem is not that Marx is an economic
determinist, that he does not value highly enough the ‘finer’ aspects of human culture…the
problem is that he did not penetrate the central logic of political economy, which is, for
66
that political economy is useless because otherwise, Baudrillard’s philosophy of
Sign loses its relation not just with society but with the production and commodity
as well: “In order to achieve a radical critique of political economy, it is not enough
to unmask what is hidden behind the concept of consumption: the anthropology of
needs and of use value.”237 Hence, there will be no Sign-value and Symbolic
Exchange without understanding the Use-value and Exchange-value: “If the
political economy of the sign (semiology) is susceptible to a critique in the same
way as classical political economy, it is because their form is the same, not their
content: sign form and commodity form.”238 As such, one cannot deny Marxism in
Baudrillard’s philosophy despite its critique. The purpose of Sign-value is to
reinterpret the nature of the commodity. In the early writings, it reveals how
Baudrillard uses Marxism to support his idea of Sign. In The System of Objects, he
relates consumption in everyday life by using Marxism as a framework of the
structure of society. Such relation will only be effective by utilizing the concepts of
Marxism. The Marxist ontology of society is evident since Baudrillard believes that
social order is unequal and homogenizing by having a notion that everything has
Baudrillard, its logic of signification…There has been a second decisive change in political
economy that Marx did not recognize and this involved a ‘process of social abstraction’ that
refers not to the commodity but to the sign.” Baudrillard, Mirror of Production, 6
237
Baudrillard, Mirror of Production, 21 Then Baudrillard wants to imply that one should
understand the political economy in order to convey the function of commodities in society. To do
this is to know that “All the fundamental concepts of Marxist analysis must be questioned, starting
from its own requirement of…transcendence of political economy.” Ibid.,
238
Baudrillard, Political Economy, 126 Baudrillard formulated the political economy into
political economy of the sign: “sign value is to symbolic exchange what exchange value
(economic) is to use value.” Ibid.,
67
been structuralized by the system of Signs.239 Following the Consumer Society,
Baudrillard’s approach in Marxism is evident towards his notion of conspicuous
consumption. The first two writings address the position of consumption in
everyday life, that the new social life is now alienated by the logic, that objects turn
into signs embedded by the code.240 Marx’s theory of value serves as the foundation
of Baudrillard’s structural value. It suggests that Use-value and Exchange-value
should not limit the system of commodities. The reality of a mass culture that takes
upon the conspicuous consumption, Use-value and Exchange-value, cannot suffice
the meaning behind commodities. That is why For a Critique of Political Economy
of the Sign is where Baudrillard addresses Marxism formally by explaining his
notion of Sign-value. This writing was the middle point of his break with Marxism,
but he is still within the context of Marx’s theory which makes his approach in
structuralism possible.241 The logic of consumption defeats the concrete purpose of
commodities because for Baudrillard, objects no longer represent its true meaning
and it is no longer visible in economic exchange because there is a new system of
exchange that only entertains symbols. All of his writings starting from System of
Objects up until Symbolic Exchange and Death revolve in Baudrillard’s philosophy
of Sign and it is evident, especially in the later writings, that Baudrillard did not
239
See Zander, Baudrillard’s theory of value, 384
240
See Genosko, Baudrillard and Signs, xiii
241
See Chapter 3, Subheading II which indicates an exposition of Baudrillard’s break
with Marxism with a suggestion that such break does not mean a total rejection of Marxism.
68
abandon his subscription with Marxism totally.242 In fact, the significance of
Marxism and himself should not be denied.243 He has a common understanding
with Marx’s on the notion that political economy is rooted within the abstract of
value because Baudrillard believes that there is a rationalization of objects that do
not only live by the code but depicts the order of economy organized around
production.244 In fact, Baudrillard did not isolate Marx’s law of value, this theory
marks the point of the intervention of Signs: “the ‘political economy of the sign’
was also consequent upon an extension of the commodity law of value and its
confirmation at the level of signs.”245 It means that Baudrillard and Marx share the
same statement on how capitalism works in society, particularly on the work of
commodities.246 Both agree that there is a problem in capitalism even if they have
different approaches. Sign makes the political economy visible to view the
situations of contemporary capitalism since it correlates the manifestation of the
media. Even if the critique of mass culture did not originate from Baudrillard, what
makes him different from others is his structural approach to the law of value. It
242
See Zander, Baudrillard’s theory of value, 386. Zander wants to point out that even if
Baudrillard rejects Marxism, “it is itself still compatible with Marxist thought.” Ibid.,
243
See Koch and Elmore, Baudrillard’s Augmentation, 574 Koch and Elmore believes
that “Baudrillard continues the maxim, represented in Marx, that the economic order is going to
be major, if not ‘the’ major, influence in determining the direction of social institutions and
activities.” Ibid.,
244
See Steven Best and Douglas Kellner, Postmodern theory: Critical Interrogations,
(Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, and London, Macmillian, 1991), 115
245
246
According to Poster, this is evident on early writings of Baudrillard: “Consumerism
had come to dominate the various aspects of everyday life. At this stage of his thinking Baudrillard
was happy to place the regional analysis of consumption within the broader Marxist critique of
capitalism.” Poster, Technology and culture, 467
69
does not give an opposition to Marx’s theory, but Baudrillard’s philosophy
represents the completion of Marx’s theory.247 It enables the readers to be informed
about the statement of Marx’s critique and at the same time, to know its
appropriation in contemporary society that Baudrillard did on his writings since
the critique on Marxist political economy is clear through Baudrillard’s philosophy
of Sign that Marxist political economy is open for the new ideas or critiques. It
shares the same issue of society, that is, the relation of commodities towards man.
In this case, Baudrillard brings the idea of making Marxism a tool for investigating
the relation of commodities with the advancement of society: “Marx offers only a
critical theory of exchange value. The critical theory of use value, signifier, and
signified remains to be developed.”248 Though it is not clear that Baudrillard wants
to convince readers to renounce Marx’s theory, he is just suggesting a shift by
implying the removal of process of exchange in commodities because society now
lives in signification. Poster see Baudrillard’s philosophy as “a shift from one form
to another, from the commodity to the sign…”249 The domination of Sign makes
the shift from industrialization to technological advancement. Culture becomes a
cluster of Signs. Everything has been dictated by the code. What Baudrillard wants
247
See Arthur Kroker, “Baudrillard’s Marx”, Theory culture and society, 2 no. 3, (1985),
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276485002003007, p.77 Kroker believes on Baudrillard that “his
theorization the sign – complete with its ‘structural law of value’…- does not stand in fateful
opposition to Marx’s Capital, but, rather, represents its perfect completion.” Ibid.,
248
249
Poster, Semiology and Critical theory, 283. Hence, sign is visible not only within the
political economy but on man’s everyday life. Mendoza states an example on this: “To choose
between fast-food over five-star dining, between Chinese or French cuisine is a choice for
signification rather than a choice for survival.” Cf. Mendoza, Commodity, sign, and spectacle, 51
70
to convey is that the theory in Marxism did not foresee the advancement of
capitalism. It does not mean that Marxism is useless, or that it should be ignored.
Baudrillard successfully adapted Marxism in contemporary capitalism despite his
criticisms. It is important to know Baudrillard’s Marxist side because in reading
him without the knowledge about the political economy of Marx may lead to never
fully understand what he wants to express, especially on his later writings. It is
necessary to view his Marxist side because Baudrillard changed the context of
Marxist political economy based on his critique and assertions of the Sign. It
suggests that one needs to have another perspective on Marxism. One can really
appreciate his writing when one has knowledge about the condition of capitalism
even in Marx’s paradigm.
One should also take note on his pessimistic approach in political economy. In
Symbolic Exchange and Death, Baudrillard’s philosophy of Sign has been fulfilled.
Still, Baudrillard criticizes Marxism. But it is in this writing where he makes his
philosophy of Sign firm. It seems that he isolates Marxism and Sign because of the
end of production and capitalism that makes a shift from Marxism to his critique
on postmodernism. However, such shift still haunts the theory of Marx. The
fulfilment of promoting Marxism in Baudrillard’s early writings is the
reconciliation on later writings as Smith states, “Instead of promoting Baudrillard
as a Marxist from a reading of his ‘early writings’ or as a postmodernist through
a reading of his ‘later writings’, I read Baudrillard as a post-Marxist where the

71
two-camps are not opposed but reconciled”.250As such, Baudrillard seems to
elevate the thought of Marxism in transition with postmodernism, that readers
should understand the necessity of viewing Baudrillard’s critique because it brings
“to future explorations into the space between Marxism, postmodernism, and
poststructuralism.”251Hence, to view the Marxist concepts in Baudrillard makes the
reader to articulate the relationship between semiology and Marxism.
III. The importance of Marxism in Contemporary Capitalism
One can appreciate the reading of Baudrillard in articulating the importance of
Marxism on contemporary capitalism, whether his claim that Marxism is outdated.
In fact, the condition of contemporary capitalism is nostalgic to Marxist political
economy. It was explained by Baudrillard on early writings which exposes the
structural law of value. Baudrillard’s break with Marxism on the later writings gives
readers an insight into what is the condition of contemporary capitalism excluding
Marxism. However, despite his leave from political economy on later writings, it is
difficult to criticize capitalism without the knowledge of Marx’s theory as Mendoza
explains a mediation of Baudrillard’s philosophy of Sign and Marx’s theory:
The use-value operates on the assumption of need. Precisely because an

object is needed then it is accrued with a use-value. But according to
Baudrillard, needs and everything that possesses a use-value only occurs
within a system of exchange since the use-value cannot be realized without
Richard Smith, “Exploring post-Marxist theory: a reading of Jean Baudrillard”,

250
Department of Geography, Leicester University, LE1 7RH, Uploaded 2015,

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254298709_Exploring_post-
Marxist_theory_a_reading_of_Jean_Baudrillard, p.5
251
Ibid., 20
72
its exchange-value…the commodity therefore not merely possesses an

exchange-value but a Sign value.252
Thus, Marxism serves as the primary reference of criticizing capitalism and it is
Baudrillard that used Marxism to criticize contemporary capitalism in articulating
the system of Signs. This proves that the legacy of Marxism is alive on Baudrillard
and one should not read Baudrillard in viewing his rejection on Marxism. Instead,
one should recontextualize Marxism using Baudrillard’s philosophy which
according to Ashley, “the fate of Marxism is integrally tied to the fate of the
commodity form as the determining structure within modernist modes of
semiology.”253 It could also be read in elevating Marxism to analyze the latest
conditions of capitalism as Murray and Schuler states that “Just as Marx unmasked
the presuppositions of a classical political economy and denaturalized the
commodity form, Baudrillard locates the basic presuppositions of structural
linguistics and semiotics within a peculiar social construction, thereby
denaturalizing the sign form.”254Baudrillard extended Marx’s theory of value in
order to give rise to the new thought of Marxism in contemporary capitalism as
Kellner would see the philosophy of Baudrillard “as a fundamental challenge to
our orthodoxies and the conventional wisdom in Marxism, psychoanalysis,
252
Mendoza, Commodity, sign, and spectacle, 50
253
David Ashley, “Marx and the Excess of the Signifier: Domination as Production and
as Simulation”, Sociological Perspectives, 33 no. 1, (1990), https://www.jstor.org/stable/1388981,
p.139
254
Patrick Murray and Jeanne Schuler, “Post-marxism in french context”, History of
European Ideas, 9 no. 3, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0191-6599(88)90174-X, p. 325
73
semiology, political economy, anthropology, sociology, and other disciplines.”255
In this case, one should read Baudrillard’s writings to have a background about the
situation of commodities in contemporary capitalism. For Baudrillard, capitalism
have now reduced into a logic where “the structure of the sign is at the very heart
of the commodity form.”256 This will not be possible by indicating the structure of
society, where wants and needs are being categorized depending on the intensity of
its Sign which is being produced by the code. Nevertheless, Marxism still has its
place here. It does not neglect the notion of how commodities are being processed
because Baudrillard’s take on Sign-value leads to point on how a Marxist should
view the political economy. The end of production that Baudrillard wants to convey
perceives the defects of Marx’s theory of production. However, it seems that he
does not end production entirely, but instead he redefines production using his
philosophy of Sign. He merged the law of value into a new socioeconomic
phenomenon: “The entire apparatus of the commodity law of value is absorbed and
recycled in the larger apparatus of the structural law of value.”257 As such, the
system of commodities takes the new mode of political economy and one can view
the development of capitalism in using Baudrillard’s critique. The growth of
contemporary capitalism is different from the context of Marx. This is evident in
the criticism of Baudrillard. Nevertheless, his attempt to redefine Marx’s political
255
Douglas Kellner, “Baudrillard, Semiurgy and Death”, Theory, Culture and Society, 4
(1987), 125
256
257
74
economy is successful by having an analysis of capitalism using the philosophy of
Sign. Baudrillard completed the Marxist nature of commodities as Kroker and Cook
state that “Baudrillard is the last and best of all the Marxists because he has broken
the code of the commodity-form in postmodern culture.”258This insists the point that
Baudrillard’s approach in Marxism should be acknowledged.
Hence, Baudrillard is a Marxist who analyzes the Marxist political economy
using semiology. Such title may still be intact despite critique on Marxism because
his later writings are the advent of understating the governance of symbols in
political economy. It does not consider literally that Marx’s political economy is
dead, Baudrillard wants to turn over his philosophy of Sign as a completion for
Marx’s theory as for Rojek and Cook, “what makes Baudrillard genuinely original
in his theorization is that the sign – complete with its structural law of value, and
its ‘simulated models’ – does not stand in fateful opposition to Marx’s Capital, but
rather represents its perfect completion.”259Therefore, it is necessary to view that
Marxism is Baudrillard’s stepping stone to elevate the reality of Signs in social
relations, the law of value, and mode of production. At this point, one can view
Baudrillard’s philosophy as a beneficial in criticizing consumerism in
contemporary capitalism using the signification of commodities.
258
Arthur Kroker and David Cook, The Postmodern Scene: Excremental Culture and
Hyper-Aesthetics, (New World Perspectives, Montréal, 1987), 180
259
Ibid.,
75
Chapter 5: Conclusion
Upon reaching the content of Marxist political economy, the research
emphasizes the conditions of needs in articulating the semiotic basis of
commodities. It upholds a point of giving an analysis that commodities can be
considered a material that reveals the intervention of Signs that flourished on the
condition of consumerism in contemporary society. In this way, one can understand
the method of what Baudrillard wants to convey. As he pointed out his inquisition
on Signs, the research seeks to point out his account on Marxist political economy
to elaborate further on what should be done with Marxism. The context of Marxist
political economy focused on the theory of value through Use-value and Exchange-
value of commodities. At this point, Baudrillard reconstructs Marx’s theory of
value making it as the political economy of the Sign. Since the early writings up to
his critique on later writings, Baudrillard’s defence on his philosophy of Sign is
firm. The framework of his articulation connotes his critique until it brings down
on his notion on the domination of the Signs. That domination pertains to the death
of political economy which gives rise to the reality of Symbolic Exchange. In this
statement, Baudrillard elevated his critique into the universality of manipulation of
Signs. The method in which Baudrillard seeks to expose the Sign is being structured
as the point of merging of Marxism to semiotics. The chapters in this research
provided Baudrillard’s usage of Marxism and its appropriation of semiology

76
through his philosophy of Sign. This indicates the articulation of the Sign. But
importantly, the research articulates his philosophy being a Marxist.
The first chapters made understood the origin of exchange that traces back
to the early civilization. This gives a point on the condition of exchange wherein
barter serves as the system of needs and a means for exchange. In this kind of
exchange reveals the equality of exchange through trading the goods what is
lacking and what is abundant. This will realize that until today, exchange is the
factor of attaining needs. Since early civilization has a system of barter exchange,
contemporary society now lives in money exchange that gives the foundation of
capitalism. Marx sees the formation of commodity on society which gives a thought
on Use-value and Exchange-value. It is in this exchange that political economy
revolves and now arises the problem of exchange in capitalism. In this way, this
chapter indicates that there is a manipulation of commodities towards the cultural
turn of economics. As Marx gives the usefulness of commodity and its social
function, Baudrillard brings the structure and signification of commodities. This
chapter gives the center point on where Baudrillard initializes his philosophy of
Sign supplementing Marx’s concept on the theory of value. The factors that
Baudrillard used Marxist political economy has become his critique on his later
writings. This critique gives a point on his attempt in recontextualize Marxism by
giving the flaws in which Marx’s theory reveals the outdated notions in
contemporary capitalism. At this point, the research revolves in this notion where
77
scholars debated whether Baudrillard is really a Marxist. This will give answer
further on articulating his account on Marxism by proceeding on the chapters in
this research.
The second chapter analyzes Baudrillard’s usage of Marxism. This point
made clear on what leads Baudrillard in criticizing contemporary capitalism. As
society consists of the emergence on production, Baudrillard sees it as a social
phenomenon within man’s everyday life. It is by man’s social life that reveals what
is primarily the critique was all about. It is by consumption that exposes man’s
capacity to engage in life. This chapter discussed what makes Baudrillard
formulated his account in commodities as a social logic inside capitalism. The
nature of objects has been defined as being conditioned within the structural
society. This has been the work of signification. In this chapter, one can see how
Baudrillard addresses the works of commodities by defining them as objects. This
gives an initial point of Baudrillard’s attempt to reconstruct Marxist political
economy. The System of Objects and The Consumer Society bring his critical
approach in consumerism. This follows Marx’s claim of alienation. Baudrillard’s
contemporary alienation focused on his critique on everyday life in relation to
consumption. This gives a point on giving the critique of capitalism more explicit
in consumerism, treating signification as a process of exploiting the commodities
through advertising. This makes an opening act towards his philosophy of the Sign
in discussing Sign-value which is the center of this chapter. This is when it exposes
78
Baudrillard’s account on commodity fetishism. Giving its way on understanding
his critique of Marxism, his philosophy on Sign-value is the start of
recontextualizing Marx’s theory of value. This is when the Marxist political
economy has been branded as the political economy of the Sign. The structure of
commodities has been grounded on Saussure’s theory of signifier and signified.
This is when one can understand Baudrillard’s take on the commodity’s abstraction
of value. It gives an understanding of his appropriation of semiotics and Marxism.
However, it is just a start of his articulation. His critique is being further discussed
on his later writings hence on the next chapter.
The third chapter is the exposition of Baudrillard’s critique of Marxism. The
later works are Baudrillard’s attempt to criticize Marx’s political economy. This
reveals the distinction of Baudrillard’s tone from early works. Since the early works
address the formality of commodity through Use-value and Exchange-value, the
later works represent Sign as universal. This means to point that Sign extended its
purpose in political economy. His first attempt in criticizing Marx reveals in Mirror
of Production. At this point, Baudrillard points out the defects of Marx’s theory
pertaining to production. For Baudrillard, production still dwells in favoring
capitalism because it does not limit on the theory of economy, but it is also evident
on the social structure which is embedded by the code. This also reflects on how
commodities are being presented. As capitalism was being embedded by a code,
Use-value and Exchange-value should be reconsidered. Hence, Marx’s political

79
economy must be understood as more radical as Baudrillard suggested. In this way,
one can articulate what makes Marx’s theory updated in relation to the current
status of capitalism and society which has been the case on his writing in Symbolic
Exchange and Death. This makes the turning point of Baudrillard’s critique on
Marxism that gives a notion that revolution from exploitaion is not possible because
of the domination of the code. It is the end of political economy because everything
has been in exchange of symbols. Since everything is under the code, they are being
defined depending on what that sign symbolizes, and that makes now the condition
of everyday life. Here, Baudrillard’s attempt of reaching Marxism end that is why
such controversy on how Baudrillard broke with Marxism. However, there is no an
exact point where Baudrillard attempted to break with Marxism. The chapter
mentioned scholars who investigated the end point of Baudrillard’s break.
Nonetheless, this research analyzes that it is on the concept of Symbolic Exchange
where he declared the break and this separation leads him to the nature of capitalism
as the nature of code rather than the nature of the mode of production.
As the critique being discussed in the third chapter, the fourth chapter is the
articulation of Baudrillard’s critique of Marxism and its application with
semiology. This chapter serves as the main point of this research. The research
adheres that Baudrillard’s critique and his break with Marxism do not make him be
misunderstood as less of a Marxist, but he should be considered as a Marxist
because of his contribution on the appropriation of Marxist political economy on

80
his philosophy of Sign. In contrast with Baudrillard’s Marxism, scholars reveal the
faulty approach of Baudrillard’s take on the theory of Marx, leaving a mark that
Baudrillard’s theory is unfulfilled. However, this research adheres that
Baudrillard’s theory completes the framework of Marxist political economy. The
philosophy of Sign recontextualized the nature of commodity since the early
writings. Hence, it is evident that Baudrillard wants to convey that his later writings
did the shift from commodity exchange to Symbolic Exchange. The domination of
the code does not reject Marx’s theory, but giving Marxism as a source for
articulating the function of the commodity to the structure of signs, hence
Baudrillard promoted Marxism from early to later writings.
The question arises whether Baudrillard is a Marxist take a claim in this
research. This has been a question among the scholars of Baudrillard. But in this
research, it argues that Baudrillard’s account in Marxism take to a point that he
should be regarded as a Marxist. The importance of mentioning Baudrillard’s
Marxism is to understand the augmentation of the philosophy of Sign in Marxist
political economy. In this, one can view Baudrillard’s contribution to Marxism.
Therefore, this research serves as a contribution to the idea of Marxist political
economy using Baudrillard’s philosophy of Sign. Baudrillard reconstructed the
context of Marxism based on his critique. Hence, this research exposes a new
perspective of looking Marxist political economy as Baudrillard did. To read
Baudrillard further, this research suggests covering his transition from Marxism to
81
postmodernism since this research only focuses on his account in Marxism. This
serves as a guideline on how to understand Baudrillard’s claim in Marxism by
subscribing Marx’s theory and Baudrillard’s critique as well as to clarify
Baudrillard’s path to postmodernism. This research serves as a starting point of
Baudrillard’s philosophy before jumping on his postmodern critique on
hyperreality and simulations. Hence, this research is for the Baudrillard readers who
want to view Baudrillard’s Marxism, and that it is necessary to highlight Marxism
in order to have a clear understanding on reading his philosophy towards his
transition from sign to hyperreality. This research is for the Marxist readers as well,
to understand Baudrillard’s suggestions of reconsidering Marxism towards his
critique to open an analysis on the outset of political economy which has been
suggested by Baudrillard.
82
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HIGHLIGHTING MARXISM

USING JEAN BAURILLARD’S

ELIJAH GABRIEL F. CLEMINO

This research aims to emphasize the Marxist concepts in Jean Baudrillard’s

Keywords: Sign-value, Commodity, Marxism, Symbolic Exchange

Background of the Study

In economics, every culture, civilization, and society have necessities and

developing, and humans started to cultivate things to improve the factor of

This transition of exchange, from barter to money, occurs within the

process may seem to be a cycle of consumption and production of every individual

looking on the economic perspective of the contemporary society, choosing a

proponent of manipulation. In other words, commodities could manipulate

because there is an overwhelming production of commodities. As economy evolves

into money exchange, economics enters to the outsets of culture. It begins a

accessed by economic factors. In contemporary society, economical needs are

being produced rapidly. The production of goods is being commodified in mass

production. Because of this, the dynamics of commodity and consumers centralized

problem was uplifted by Jean Baudrillard as he lived in a society with the

emergence of commodities in a contemporary society. According to him,

“consumption of goods does not answer to an individual economy of needs but is a

social function of prestige and hierarchical distribution.”5

The influence of the theory of political economy by Marx reveals the

process of commodity towards socialization. For him, commodities should be

defined as Use-value and Exchange-value. The former reveals the usefulness of

process as outdated and in need of recontextualization. In contemporary capitalism,

Baudrillard believes on the manifestation of signs in society. As such, political

economy affects the condition of signification of society. Use-value and Exchange-

Hence, the research will focus on the appropriation of Marxism in the

contemporary political economy using Baudrillard’s semiological theory called as

moments of criticizing Marxism. Nonetheless, the purpose of this research is only

to articulate Marxism in postmodernism, particularly towards the semiological

inquiry. The research will expose the articulation of Baudrillard’s philosophy of

appropriate Sign in a Marxist political economy?”

His theory of Sign coincides the structure of the economy in contemporary

commodities within the economy and society. There is a plurality of commodities

commodities has its diversions of physical characteristics and obviously contains

important necessities in human life. Use-value determines the physique of human

effective by inevitably pursuing within the social relations by the system of

exchanging of necessities. This process is what Marx called as Exchange-value.

proportion, in which use-values of one kind exchange for use-values of another

kind.”9 Hence, it is clear that Exchange-value is a system towards the economical

be understandable on the thought of Baudrillard as well. Thus, this will proceed on

looking upon the sub-problems in this research:

2. How did Baudrillard Criticizes Marxism?

3. What makes Baudrillard a Marxist?

To know the appropriations of Baudrillard’s philosophy of sign in Marxist political

Also, it is necessary to bring the perspective of commodities and the conditions of

problem in this research.

revolves around the forces of commodities which is the central critique of

Baudrillard’s early writings. By formulating the economic theory of Marx,

“multiplication of objects.”12 The rapid emergence of objects is through the

expansion of commodities evolved from generations since the Use-value and

Exchange-value expand through time. As such, commodities will be more

critique of political economy regarding Use-value and Exchange-value may not

consumption of commodities through symbols. Baudrillard theorized this

socioeconomic phenomenon as a Symbolic Exchange. This is a system of exchange

words, it is a logic of ambivalence.14 There is a form of communication wherein

the plurality of objects speaks through the social structure of an individual in a

process of Symbolic Exchange constitutes prestige. Consumers tend to attain

by its symbolization or meaning behind commodity. This is what Baudrillard called

This theory of political economy will further provide many inclinations in

is evident in researching Baudrillard’s theory for it can lead towards the

appropriation of Marxism on the contemporary political economy. Therefore,