For Work / Against Work
Debates on the centrality of work

The Mirror of Production

by Baudrillard, Jean (1975)

Abstract

Are the concepts of labor and of production adaptable to a developing industrial society? What is the meaning of "pre-industrial organization"? In attempting to answer these questions, Jean Baudrillard examines the lessons of Marxism which has created a productivist model and a fetishism of labor. He argues that we must break the mirror of production which "reflects all of Western metaphysics," and free the Marxist logic from the restrictive context of political economy whence it was born. A book certain to provide serious and much needed debate. -- publisher description.

Key Passage

The presupposition of use value- the hypothesis of a concrete value beyond the abstraction of exchange value, a human purpose of the commodity in the moment of its direct relation of utility for a subject-is only the effect of the system of exchange value, a concept produced and developed by it.  (p.22)

Keywords

Industrial Society, Industrialisation, Marx, Marxism, Fetishism, Mirror Of Production, Metaphysics, Logic, Political Economy, Unviersality, Capitalism, Production

Themes

Baudrillard Citations

Links to Reference

Translator

Poster, M.

Citation

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