Value Without Reference? Saussure and the Limits of Baudrillard’s Structural Revolution

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:

1. Baudrillard overstates the presence of a referential dimension in Ferdinand de Saussure.
2. He transforms Saussure’s economic analogy into a structural equivalence, ignoring its methodological limits.
3. 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 the linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure.

Yet this framing raises a fundamental question. Was reference ever structurally operative in Saussure’s theory of value? Or does Baudrillard’s argument depend on reconstructing Saussure in a way that reintroduces precisely what the Course in General Linguistics had already set aside? What follows argues that Saussure’s theory is already internal, relational, and non-referential—and that Baudrillard’s “structural revolution” rests on a transformation of that initial framework.

The Dual Condition of Value in Saussure

Saussure introduces value through a well-known comparison with economics, but the analogy serves a precise analytical purpose. Value, he writes, always involves two conditions:

“(1) something dissimilar which can be exchanged… and (2) similar things which can be compared…” (Saussure, 1916/2013, p. 117).

In language, this yields two axes. First, a relation between signifier and signified: a word can be substituted for an idea. Second, a relation among signs: a word acquires value only through its contrast with others. These two dimensions correspond, respectively, to exchange and comparison.

Saussure is explicit that these should not be conflated. Meaning—the relation between signifier and signified—is only one aspect:

“A word can be substituted for something dissimilar: an idea. At the same time, it can be compared to something of like nature: another word. Its value is therefore not determined merely by that concept or meaning for which it is a token. It must also be assessed against comparable values, by contrast with other words” (Saussure, 1916/2013, p. 117).

The decisive point follows:

“The content of a word is determined in the final analysis not by what it contains but by what exists outside it. As an element in a system, the word has not only a meaning but also – above all – a value. And that is something quite different” (Saussure, 1916/2013, p. 117).

Here the priority shifts. Value is not an addition to meaning but its condition. A linguistic unit is defined not by an internal content but by its position within a system. The system, in other words, precedes its elements. Signifier and signified do not exist independently and then combine; they emerge together as effects of relational differences.

No Natural Connection, No Pre-Given Object

The economic analogy might suggest that linguistic value shares a grounding in reality. Saussure explicitly rejects this:

“Insofar as a value, in one of its aspects, is founded upon natural connexions between things (as, for example, in economics the value of a piece of land depends on the income derivable from it), it is possible up to a point to trace this value through time, bearing in mind that it depends at any one time upon the relevant system of contemporary values. However, its connexion with things inevitably supplies it with a natural basis, and hence any assessment of it is never entirely arbitrary. There are limits upon the range of variability. But, as we have already seen, in linguistics these natural connexions have no place” (Saussure, 1916/2013, p. 118).

In economic exchange, value can be partially traced to material conditions—a piece of land, like in Saussure’s example, derives its worth from the income it yields. Such connections impose limits on variability. Language, by contrast, lacks any such anchoring. There is no intrinsic relation between signifier and signified, no external standard against which value can be measured.

This absence extends further. Linguistics does not begin with objects already constituted. Thought and sound, taken independently, are “shapeless masses.” Only through their articulation within a system do units emerge. What appears as a sign is not a pre-existing entity but the result of a relational process.

Language is therefore not a domain populated by “choses”, but a structure that produces signs. To speak of a signified as a stable referent would be to reintroduce a form of grounding that Saussure’s framework explicitly excludes.

Analogy and Its Limits

Saussure’s comparison with economics is often taken at face value, but he marks its limits with care. While both systems involve exchange and comparison, they diverge in a crucial respect. Economic value retains a residual connection to the referent; linguistic value does not.

This distinction is not incidental. It defines the specificity of the linguistic domain. The analogy is pedagogical, not ontological. It clarifies the structure of value while simultaneously showing that language operates without the grounding found in other systems.

In Baudrillard’s account, however, this asymmetry disappears. The analogy becomes a structural equivalence. Linguistic value and economic value are treated as instances of a general law. The signifier/signified relation is aligned with use-value, and the network of differences with exchange-value.

What is lost in this move is the very point Saussure insists upon: that linguistic value is entirely internal. By extending the analogy beyond its methodological limits, Baudrillard transforms a comparison into an identity, and with it, obscures the distinct status of language.

Baudrillard’s Reconstruction of Saussure

Baudrillard presents the classical configuration of value as a coherence between two dimensions: a structural system of relations and a referential orientation toward the real. This dual structure, he argues, has been dislocated. “Referential value is annihilated,” leaving only “a total relativity, general commutation, combination and simulation.” Signs are now “exchanged against each other rather than against the real:”

“A revolution has put an end to this ‘classical’ economics of value, a revolution of value itself, which carries value beyond its commodity form into its radical form. This revolution consists in the dislocation of the two aspects of the law of value, which were thought to be coherent and eternally bound as if by a natural law. Referential value is annihilated, giving the structural play of value the upper hand. The structural dimension becomes autonomous by excluding the referential dimension, and is instituted upon the death of reference… from now on, signs are exchanged against each other rather than against the real” (Baudrillard,1993. pp 28-29)

This account depends on attributing to the earlier system a referential dimension robust enough to collapse. Yet in Saussure, the signified does not function as an external anchor. It is not a pre-existing content to which the signifier refers. Rather, it is constituted within the same system of differences that defines linguistic value.

To treat the signified as analogous to a “real good” is therefore to mischaracterize its status. Saussure’s framework does not oppose a system of relations to an external reality; it describes a system in which both terms of the sign are co-constituted. The referential pole that Baudrillard declares lost is already displaced in Saussure.

This does not invalidate Baudrillard’s analysis of contemporary systems, but it does clarify its conditions. The “structural revolution of value” presupposes a prior configuration that is less stable, and less referential, than his account suggests.

Conclusion

Baudrillard’s description of a system dominated by circulation and indeterminacy captures an important transformation. Yet his reading of Saussure rests on a simplified model of linguistic value. By treating the economic analogy as structural equivalence and the signified as a residual reference, he reconstructs a coherence that the Course in General Linguistics had already dismantled.

Saussure’s contribution lies in demonstrating that value is internal, differential, and independent of any natural connection to things. Language does not undergo the loss of reference; it operates without it from the outset.

Baudrillard’s intervention can thus be read not as a correction, but as a reconfiguration—one that clouds Saussure’s insights and blunts the force of his argument.

References

Baudrillard, J. (1976). L’échange symbolique et la mort. Paris: Gallimard.

Baudrillard, J. (1993). Symbolic Exchange and Death (I. H. Grant, Trans.). London: Sage.

Saussure, F. de. (1916/2013). Course in General Linguistics (R. Harris, Trans.). London: Bloomsbury.