The Mirror of Production

Introduction

Baudrillard published the book in Paris in 1973, after The System of Objects and The Consumer Society. He argues that Marxism, by making labour, production and use value its basic concepts, mirrors the political economy it criticises instead of breaking with it; even the idea of a liberation of productive forces stays within capitalist categories. Against this he draws on Marcel Mauss and Georges Bataille and sets the logic of symbolic exchange – gift, sacrifice, expenditure – which he finds in non-capitalist societies. The book marks Baudrillard’s break with Marxism and leads to his later theory of simulation. Its English translation appeared in 1975.

Connections

Criticizes

• Capital1867 · Karl Marx

Taken up in

• Simulacra and Simulation1981 · Jean Baudrillard

More works by Jean Baudrillard

• 1981Simulacra and Simulation