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Baudrillard, Marxism, and the Ecological Limits of Modernity

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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...
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The Re-production of Bourgeois Aesthetics: Baudrillard and the Limits of Radical Theory

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Thesis This article argues that Jean Baudrillard offers a critique that extends beyond capitalism and classical Marxism to include the broader intellectual traditions that attempted to surpass them. According to Baudrillard, much of twentieth-century radical thought remains enclosed within a productivist imaginary shared with political economy itself. The “mirror of production” does not only structure economic and theoretical discourse; it also extends into desire, aesthetics, and symbolic life. As a result, the radical left may reject bourgeois morality while remaining unconsciously attached to bourgeois forms of prestige, style, and seduction. From Political Economy to Productivist Thought In The Mirror of Production , Baudrillard develops a critique that targets not only capitalism but also the conceptual foundations of Marxism. His argument is that modern theory repeatedly defines the human being through categories of labor, creativity, and productive capacity. Even emancipat...
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Baudrillard and the Crisis of Marxism: Beyond the Metaphysics of Production

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Distant Revolutions , Agitprop Art . AI image Thesis This article argues that Jean Baudrillard’s significance lies not in revising Marxism, but in revealing the extent to which Marxism remains bound to the same conceptual framework as capitalist political economy. In The Mirror of Production, Baudrillard contends that Marxism reproduces the modern Western privileging of labor, production, and utility even as it attempts to oppose capitalism. Rather than offering a corrective to historical materialism, his critique exposes the internal dependence of Marxism upon the very categories it seeks to transcend. The Crisis of Western Marxism By the middle of the twentieth century, confidence in classical Marxism had begun to erode among European intellectuals. Advanced capitalist societies had not collapsed under the weight of their contradictions, nor had the industrial proletariat emerged as the revolutionary force Marx anticipated. Instead, postwar Western societies experienced ris...
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