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From Gold to Algorithm: The Revolution of Value

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Hypercapitalism. AI image Introduction: Wealth without Reference In contemporary society, wealth appears increasingly elusive. Fortunes fluctuate within hours, markets react to rumors, and digital assets can surge in value without any discernible material basis. These phenomena suggest a profound transformation in the very logic of value. How can we understand a system in which astronomical sums circulate without clear correspondence to goods, labor, or production? This question cannot be addressed solely in economic terms. It requires a perspective that integrates economy and language, exchange and signification. At this intersection, juxtaposing the classical model of value with its contemporary radicalization reveals a deep conceptual shift: the transition from a value anchored in the real to a value that increasingly operates without any necessary referent. The Classical Model: Value Between Reference and Difference In both linguistics and classical political economy, value...
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The State as Absolute Giver: Symbolic Debt and Reciprocity in the Soviet System

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The  Universal Provider. AI image To C. Félix Thesis When the State becomes the universal provider, it monopolizes the position of the giver, thereby rendering the counter-gift impossible and blocking symbolic reciprocity . The result is a structural form of domination grounded not in extraction, but in the impossibility of return, and a corresponding erosion of social relations. Introduction: The Problem of the Unreturnable Gift Accounts of the Soviet Union—and, more broadly, of state socialist systems—typically foreground its economic structure: the abolition of private property, the centralization of the means of production, and the redistribution of goods through the State. Such analyses, however, remain largely confined to the framework of political economy. They risk overlooking a more fundamental dynamic—one that operates not at the level of production, but at the level of exchange. If the focus shifts from ownership to reciprocity, a different problem emerges. Wh...
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Saussure and Baudrillard on Value: Why Saussure Is Already Post-Referential

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The Revolution of Value. AI image Abstract This article revisits Jean Baudrillard’s account of the “structural revolution of value” in Symbolic Exchange and Death through a close reading of Ferdinand de Saussure’s theory of linguistic value. Baudrillard presents contemporary culture as marked by the collapse of referential value and the autonomous circulation of signs. While this thesis appears to radicalize Saussure’s distinction between signification and value, Saussure’s own framework already defines value as differential, internal, and independent of reference. By foregrounding the primacy of relational value in Course in General Linguistics , this article argues that Baudrillard’s “death of reference” presupposes a referential grounding that Saussure had already displaced. The comparison clarifies both the limits of Baudrillard’s rupture narrative and the enduring radicality of Saussure’s conception of value. Introduction The concept of value occupies a central place in bot...
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Value Without Reference? Saussure and the Limits of Baudrillard’s Structural Revolution

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The Death of Reference. AI image Objective To critically examine the section “The End of Production. The Structural Revolution of Value” in Baudrillard’s Symbolic Exchange and Death , showing that: Baudrillard overstates the presence of a referential dimension in Ferdinand de Saussure. He transforms Saussure’s economic analogy into a structural equivalence, ignoring its methodological limits. Saussure’s theory already articulates a system of value that is internal, relational, and non-referential. Introduction In Symbolic Exchange and Death , Jean Baudrillard describes a decisive shift: value, once tied to production and meaning, has become autonomous. What characterizes the present, he argues, is the collapse of reference—“referential value is annihilated”—and the rise of a system in which signs circulate only in relation to one another. This diagnosis is framed as a break with a prior configuration, one that he associates with both political economy and t...
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Value, Difference, and Exchange: Writing Between the Lines of Saussure’s Economic Analogy

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A paradoxical principle. AI image   Introduction: Why Saussure Turns to Economics Among the many examples deployed by Ferdinand de Saussure, few are as frequently cited—and as frequently misunderstood—as his comparison between linguistic value and economic value. The image seems simple: a coin can be exchanged for bread and compared to other coins; likewise, a word relates both to an idea and to other words. Yet this analogy is anything but superficial. It condenses, in a remarkably compact form, Saussure’s entire theory of linguistic value. The difficulty lies precisely in this compression: what was likely unfolded slowly in the classroom appears in the Course in General Linguistics as a dense and rapid conceptual leap. This article aims to slow that movement down. By reconstructing the implicit logic of the analogy, we can clarify a central distinction in Saussure’s thought: that between signification (the relation between signifier and signified) and value (the relation...
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Writing Between the Lines: Reconstructing Saussure’s Concept of Linguistic Value

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A somewhat mysterious process. AI image Introduction: The Problem of the Text In the preface to the Course in General Linguistics , Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye openly acknowledge the difficulty of their task: “Will critics be able to distinguish between Saussure and our interpretation of Saussure? We hope that any blame may be laid at our door, rather than reflect upon the reputation of someone whose memory we cherish.” This remark is not merely editorial caution, it signals a structural feature of the text itself. What we read as Saussure is already mediated, condensed, and reconstructed. This is especially evident in Part II, Chapter IV, §1 (“The language as thought organised in sound”), where a series of foundational concepts—difference, opposition, sign, value—are introduced in rapid succession, often without explicit transitions. The result is a text that is conceptually dense but logically elliptical. The aim of this article is to reconstruct the implicit logic o...
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