Return to Saussure

A Profound Reality. AI image Introduction Commentary on Jean Baudrillard often treats his theory of simulacra and his critique of political economy as distinct phases. A closer reading, however, reveals a structural continuity between these domains. This article argues that what Baudrillard calls “deeper reality” in the first order of simulacra can be understood as the semiotic analogue of use-value in classical political economy. Both operate as grounding principles that secure the legitimacy of a system—economic or representational—while concealing their own historical production. Tracing the erosion of these grounds makes visible a shared trajectory: the displacement of referential anchoring by autonomous relational structures. Use-Value and the Problem of Grounding In Capital Volume I , Karl Marx distinguishes between use-value and exchange-value . The former refers to the utility of an object, its capacity to satisfy a need; the latter expresses its equivalence within a net...