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From Sign to Code: Baudrillard’s Revolution of Value

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Introduction The theoretical encounter between Jean Baudrillard, Ferdinand de Saussure, and Karl Marx unfolds as more than a simple synthesis of semiotics and political economy. It is, rather, a transformation of their shared conceptual terrain. In Symbolic Exchange and Death , Baudrillard revisits Saussure’s account of linguistic value and places it in strict parallel with Marx’s analysis of the commodity, only to argue that the coherence structuring both systems has disintegrated. What emerges is not an extension of classical theory, but a mutation: value detaches from reference and begins to circulate without anchor. This article reconstructs that argument by situating Baudrillard’s reading of Saussure within the development of his earlier works. By tracing the internal relations between key terms—use-value, exchange-value, sign, and symbolic exchange—it becomes possible to grasp Baudrillard’s theory as a system whose elements derive their meaning from one another. The result is...
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From Use-Value to “Deeper Reality”: The Collapse of Reference in Baudrillard

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A Profound Reality. AI image Introduction Commentary on Jean Baudrillard often treats his theory of simulacra and his critique of political economy as distinct phases. A closer reading, however, reveals a structural continuity between these domains. This article argues that what Baudrillard calls “deeper reality” in the first order of simulacra can be understood as the semiotic analogue of use-value in classical political economy. Both operate as grounding principles that secure the legitimacy of a system—economic or representational—while concealing their own historical production. Tracing the erosion of these grounds makes visible a shared trajectory: the displacement of referential anchoring by autonomous relational structures. Use-Value and the Problem of Grounding In Capital Volume I , Karl Marx distinguishes between use-value and exchange-value . The former refers to the utility of an object, its capacity to satisfy a need; the latter expresses its equivalence within a net...
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Reciprocity and Recognition: Mauss and Hegel in Structural Dialogue

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Gift and Counter-gift. AI image “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35) Introduction: From Exchange to Recognition Theories of exchange and accounts of recognition have largely developed along separate trajectories. In anthropology, Marcel Mauss is read as providing a foundational analysis of gift practices, centered on obligations that organize circulation beyond market logic. In philosophy, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is taken to elaborate a theory of subject formation grounded in recognition. Each tradition has produced its own conceptual vocabulary and interpretive framework, leaving their proximity insufficiently explored. This separation obscures a shared concern. Both approaches address the conditions under which relations between individuals become either reciprocal or asymmetrical. What appears in Mauss as a cycle of giving and returning, and in Hegel as a movement of recognition between self-conscious beings, can be read as distinct formulations ...
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From Use-Value to Sign-Value: Mapping Baudrillard’s Conceptual System

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Introduction Jean Baudrillard’s early work occupies a decisive threshold between Marxist political economy and structural linguistics. Rather than abandoning these traditions, he appropriates their central categories and rearticulates them within a new conceptual configuration. The result is not a simple synthesis but a displacement: economic value and linguistic value are drawn into a shared system in which their underlying logic—exchange, difference, and equivalence—is generalized. This article proposes to read Baudrillard’s theoretical vocabulary as a structured system, a kind of micro-langue , in which each term derives its meaning from its relation to others. By tracing the origins of key concepts in Marx and Saussure, and examining their transformation in Baudrillard’s early writings, we can clarify how his theory of value shifts from a critique of political economy toward a theory of sign circulation. The Marxist Lexicon of Value Baudrillard’s early framework is explicit...
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