Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 12:20:38 -0800
From: djones-AT-uclink.berkeley.edu (rakesh bhandari)
Subject: M-TH: Baudrillard



>In a nutshell, Baudrillard argues in _For a Critique of the Political economy
>of the Sign_ that the very category of use vs  exchange value means that Marx
>is attempting to rest his theory on a nice foundation of the *real* and
>claims that "...use-value is an abstraction of system of needs cloaked in the
>false evidence of a concrete destination and purpose..." Baudrillard is thus
>able to contend that the relation of need to use is the same as that of
>abstract social labour to exchange-value. Value, in both forms, is erected
>upon an abstraction and furthermore, both "...must be regulated by an
>identical abstract logic of equivalence, an identical code."  (Baudrillard
>1981:131)
>Note the use of the word code.

It would be sad if Russ' attempt to stimulate a discussion of semiotics,
Baudillard and Derrida would fail. I spent some time yesterday looking
through Douglas Kellner's and Mike Gane's books on Baudrillard. Gane's
summary of Baudrillard's analysis of shopping malls was enough to convince
me of the importance of the debate. Now from a different angle, some of
these problems are taken up in a student of Marcuse, William Leiss The
Limits of Satisfaction.

Hoping that someone takes up these ideas further,
Rakesh




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