Objects, Consumption, And Symbols

This dissertation is trying to primarily make a reply to the destruction and provocative critique of Marxist Philosophy—Political Economy of early Baudrillard on the platform of early Baudrillard texts on which Marxist philosophy debates and is also trying to comb thoroughly the political economy ingredients in early Baudrillard texts and to reassess the principles of Marxist Philosophy—Political Economy.The introduction of the dissertation describes the current course of domestic and abroad studies of Baudrillard, the study methodology and overall contents of the dissertation, besides the outline of Baudrillard's life and academic life. This dissertation consists of four chapters of which the main contents and points can be summarized as follows:The First chapter, which is entitled as why Baudrlllard: the pre-history of Baudrillard theory mainly introduces that 1968 May revolution and the resignation of the logic of western Marxist theory greatly impacted Marxist theory studies. The rise of Post-Marxist Thoughts was relevant to the new political and economic changes of contemporary capitalist and to the downturn of socialist practices. Baudrillard began his "breakthrough of Marxist theory" by reflecting the revolutionary texts and revolutionary strategy under the conditions of these new changes. Meantime Baudrillard absorbed in late 21st century French philosophy thoughts which were Henry Lefebvre's critique of daily life, Roland Barthes's semiological theory, Louis Althusser's ideological critique, the situationist thoughts and Guy Debord's the spectacle of the society.The second chapter is entitled as writing after Marx: from The System of Objecsts to The Consumer Society. The System of Objecsts is the first attempted to fuse a new theoretical weapon of expatiation and critique of the new changes of contemporary capital society. His conclusion is that the late capitalism had already completed the transition from a productive society to a consumer society, and consuming dominated the logic of society. On one hand, for the consumer society, he began to criticize the consumer society according to the logic of production of Marxist Philosophy-Political Economy, on the other hand, by introducing the semiological analysis, he prompted the social status differential process operated by the code. This is the validation guarantee of the consumer society. In the direction of Marxist logic of production, Baudrillard set out to criticize the modern fetishism form: the fetishism of signs. While in the other logical direction Baudrillard thought that the critique of the consumer society must move on from the critique of political economy to the critique of political economy of the sign, that is to say that a profound critique of the consumer society should reveal the economic significance of the sign in the consumer society.The third chapter is entitled as out of the critical logic of Marxism: signs production and symbolic exchange. Baudrillard was trying to combine the semiological analysis and the Marxist critique of capitalist society in for a critique of political economy of the sign. He argued that Marxism did not present the analysis of the sign value of commodities. Consuming activities has already become a labor, a active code operation. Through 12 transition modes and 5 equations, Baudrillard deducted a critique of political economy of the sign. Thus Baudrillard rejected historical materialism and argued that Marx took Use Value unreflectively as a natural transparent concept, which means Marxist critique of political economy maintained the logic of the capitalist political economy. Therefore in Symbolic Exchange and Death Baudrillard tried to find a more radical solution to get rid of the tradition of Marxist critique of political economy. This solution is determined by Baudrillard as Symbolic Exchange in which there a rupture between various capital exchange forms and by which the possibility of escape from capitalist forms comes into being. However he simply called for a revolution in cultural and subconscious fields, and never defined concrete revolutionary strategy and practices. Thus so called Symbolic Exchange turned out to be a rootless utopian fantasy.The fourth chapter is entitled as the reassessment of the philosophic significance of Marxist critique of political economy. For a identification of the philosophic significance of Baudrillard's critique of political economy and of the new horizon and new theoretical resources, we have to reassess the significance of Marxist critique of philosophy-political economy, that is to say, the principles of Marxist critique of critique of political economy. The absence of understanding of the principles of Marxist critique of political economy leads to a distinguishing misunderstanding of Marxist critique of political economy.So we should conclude that the principal dimensions of Marxist critique of political economy and its far-reaching impact make Marxist critique of political economy un-transcendental ever at all while late capitalist society still based itself upon capital principles and modernity logic. The Marxians after Marx who either inherited the legacy of Marx, or developed Marxism or even subverted Marxism can never avoided the critique framework formed by Marxist critique of political economy.