Consumption and Its Linguistic Structure: Baudrillard, Lacan, and the Semiotics of Desire
The Mall. AI image Introduction — From Production to Signification Classical political economy, most notably in the work of Karl Marx, privileges production as the primary site of social meaning. Labor, class relations, and the extraction of value constitute its analytical core. In The Consumer Society , however, Jean Baudrillard proposes a decisive shift: the organizing logic of late modern societies is no longer production, but consumption. This shift is not merely empirical; it is conceptual. Consumption cannot be reduced to the satisfaction of needs or the circulation of goods. Rather, it operates as a system of signification. This article develops that insight further by advancing a stronger claim: consumption is not merely analogous to language—it is structured as such. Drawing on structural linguistics and psychoanalysis, particularly the work of Jacques Lacan, I argue that consumption functions as a symbolic system through which identity is articulated, social differences a...