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Thesis This article argues that Jean Baudrillard does not merely criticize Marxist economics but exposes the metaphysical privilege granted to labor and production within Marx’s system. While Karl Marx appears to overturn classical political economy, he preserves its foundational structure by elevating labor into the hidden ground of truth, consciousness, and historical emancipation. Baudrillard’s intervention begins at the point where this “mirror of production” destabilizes, and where signification gradually displaces production as the organizing principle of advanced capitalism. Introduction: Breaking the Mirror of Production Marx’s critique of capitalism is often read as a decisive rupture with classical political economy. Against the framework developed by economists such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo, Marx shifts attention toward labor, production, and exploitation as the real conditions underlying exchange (Marx & Engels, 1970). Jean Baudrillard, however, contests ...

Retro Museum Display with Vintage Objects. AI image Thesis This article argues that contemporary consumer society has transformed not only the economy of objects but also humanity’s temporal and symbolic relation to them. Drawing on the work of Jean Baudrillard, the essay suggests that the ecological and existential tensions of modernity are tied not merely to overproduction, but to the disappearance of durable relations between people, objects, and memory. Things that once mediated continuity, inheritance, and ritual meaning now circulate as disposable commodities within an accelerated system of production and consumption. Introduction — Objects That Outlived Their Owners There was a time when ordinary possessions accompanied an entire human life. A couple married and purchased a refrigerator, a sewing machine, a bicycle, perhaps a radio. Those items remained in the household for decades. Children inherited them. Grandchildren sometimes used them as well. Over the years, such th...

Steinbruch mit Bauarbeitern und Maschinen. AI image Introduction — The Ecological Crisis Beyond Capitalism The ecological crisis is frequently described as the consequence of excessive capitalism: overproduction, relentless consumption, and the unchecked expansion of markets. Within this framework, the proposed remedies often appear straightforward—regulate industry, redistribute resources, reform economic institutions, or replace private ownership with collective control. Yet such responses may remain confined within the very conceptual horizon they seek to challenge. In The Mirror of Production , Jean Baudrillard advances a more unsettling diagnosis. The central issue, he argues, is not merely who controls production, but the privileged status production itself has acquired within modern thought. Both capitalism and Marxism, despite their political antagonism, continue to define humanity through labor, technological transformation, and the expansion of productive capacity. This...