Against Baudrillard
---- Deconstruction of a Post-modern Academic Mythos

Zhangyibing

Abstract  This book is domestically the first polemic work, which responds, in a direct and frontal way and from the standpoint of Marxism, to the objection of early Baudrillard to historical materialism and his deconstruction of Marxian theory of labor value. Making advantage of the brand-new method of context constitution, the author makes a critical and detailed reading of Youth Baudrillard’s three most important academic books: For a Critique of Political Economy of Signs, The Mirror of Production and Symbolic Exchange and Death. And he makes a deep analysis of the academic and thinking basis of the Youth Baudrillard, which is namely the logic of symbolic exchange based on grassroots’ romanticism of Moss-Bataille; Furthermore, he makes a clear distinction of the utmost secret transformative process of critical logic in the development of Baudrillard’s thinking: from the dissolution of the ideographic material to the symbolic value of coding structure, then to the quasi-real existence without a model, and in the end the symbolic miscoding of death becomes the hopeless waiting of Baudrillard’s tentative salvation of the world. This is a death trilogy, which occurs in Baudrillard’s academic scenery and in which the real existence is murdered. The thought of late Baudrillard is something like a virus and paranoia. This kind of logical violence of theory terrorism has become an absurd modern academic cartoon in the excessive rational interpretation.

Contents

Preface

Introduction  Was J. Baudrillard Once a Marxist?
1. The Symbolic Exchange by M.Mauss and Grassroots’ Romanticism
2. Georges Bataille’s Useless Philosophy of “Grassroots”
3. The Latent Logical Support of The System of Objects and The Consumer Society
4£®The Subversive Perspective from Monkey’s Body to Human Body: A Critical Textual Reading of The Mirror of Production by Jean Baudrillard
Astract: The investigation of Youth Baudrillard is a field, which has long been neglected. And especially there exist serious misunderstandings, among which there is a judgment that Baudrillard’s thoughts before The Mirror of Production is “Neo-Marxism”, in the basic qualitative analysis of the thoughts of Youth Baudrillard. The writer of this paper thinks that there is no so-called “Marxist stage” at all in Baudrillard’s thoughts. He is never a Marxist. The philosophical ideas exhibited in his early texts are precisely post-Marxian trends in terms of his theoretical starting point. And the basic academic logic, which is taking shape, is already the grassroots’ romanticism of Moss-Bataille.

Part I  Enigma of Symbol: Idol of Butterfly-formation of Material Existence
       ------ A Critical Textual Reading of Baudrillard’s For a Critique of Political Economy of Signs

Chapter 1  The Coding of Ideographic Symbol in the Different Operational Method of Matter
1. The Benefit of Matter and the Social Value of Symbol
2. The Coding of Society: The Different Operational Method of Matter
3. Social Separation and Consumptive Illusion
Chapter 2  The Demand Illusion behind Pseudo-consumption
1. The Object Consumed is Not an Object
2. Evolution from Symbolic Exchange to Symbolic Value
3. A False Consumption as an Exchange System of Otherness
Abstract: Jean Baudrillard points out that the thing existing in the consumptive relations of contemporary market economy is only a substitute for the death of the authentic demand of human beings. The demand in the commodity exchange is in fact an illusion made by ideology. In this illusion the consumptive subject does not exist, neither does the consumptive demand exist, neither does the consumptive object exist. All is only an illusion produced in the heterogeneous system of symbolic signs.

Chapter3  From Commodity Fetishism to Signifier Fetishism
1. What is Marxian Fetishistic Critique?
2. The “Original Sin” by Marxian Fetishistic Critique and Its Salvation
3. The Theoretical Deviation from Commodity Fetishism to Signifier Fetishism
Chapter 4  The “Revolution” of For a Critique of Political Economy of Signs
1. The Production of Otherness in the Signature of Modern Artworks
2. Auction of Artworks: Academic Delivery Room of Political Economy of Signs
3. Who Can Criticize the Ideology of Contemporary Capitalism?
Abstract: Jean Baudrillard points out in his book For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign that the idea of explaining political economy through exchange value and use value must be destructed because the new production of heterogeneous sign becomes exchange value of sign, which is different from economic value. This idea of the political economy of the sign overturns the overall theoretical basis of traditional political economy in a radical way and therefore it becomes a new revolution of political economy.

Chapter 5  The Complicated Logical Structure of New Economics
1. The Authentic Symbolic Exchange in Logic of Quadruple Value
2. The Fascinating Transformative Formula of Multi-logic
Abstract: In his book For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign Baudrillard marks out four different logics explicitly, that is, the functional logic of use value, the economic logic of “exchange value”, the heterogeneous logic of sign value and the logic of symbolic exchange. As far as these four value logics are concerned, use value is based on utility, “exchange value” originates from equivalency, sign value results from heterogeneity and the essence of symbolic exchange, which does not belong to value logic, is a limitless metaphor without existence.

Chapter 6  Metaphysical Critique of Use Value
1. Critique of Use Value Deserted in Marxian Critical Logic
2. Metaphysics of Use Value
3. Why is Fetishism of Use Value More Mysterious?
Abstract: Dissatisfied with Marxian only critique of the inversion of “Use Value” of commodity, Baudrillard points out that use value is also the product of capitalist system of exchange and even a more important and latent theoretical constituent of capitalist ideology---- fetishism of economy. It is his idea that the fetishism of use value is something more fundamental and, rooted deeply in a process of “naturalization”, it is the authentic secret of political economy and the essence of homocentrism and all of the ideology of humanism.

Chapter 7  Critique of Political Economy of Signs and Ideology
1. Ideology, Which is Present as Mysterious Form
2. Critique of Symbolic Metaphysics, Which Refers to Material Form
3. Restore Symbolicity: Transcendence of Value and Sign

Part II  Monkey Body’s Overturned Perspective of Human Body: A Critical Text Reading of Baudrillard’s The Mirror of Production

Chapter 8   Marx: The Theoretical Arrogation of Historical Materialism
 1. The Mirror of Production: What is J. Baudrillard against?
2. Rejecting the Gestalt of Historical Materialism
3. The Pathogenic Cause of Methodology: The Super-historicization of History
Abstract: The Mirror of Production by Youth Baudrillard is an important book, which makes an open criticism of Marxian historical materialism. The theoretical basis of this book lies in a historical review of the new achievements acquired by field study, which was carried out about the existential state of primitive tribes in the western anthropological research in fifties last century. Youth Baudrillard makes an overall rejection of such concepts of historical materialism as material production, labor and history. This paper makes a direct response to the overall doubts of Marx in Youth Baudrillard’s book The Mirror of Production and gives a frontal counterattack to Baudrillard’s false statements

Chapter 9   Noumenon of Production: I Produce, Therefore I am
1. Deviously Criticizing Value of Use and “Value of Exchange”
2. The Theoretical Stick Constituted by Primitive Relationship of Symbolic Exchange
3. Down with Utilitarian Ontology of Production
4. Re-questioning of Marxian Critique of Capitalist Mode of Production
Abstract: The book The Mirror of Production by Youth Baudrillard has regarded and demonstrated Marxian historical materialism as ontology of production, whose kernel is utilitarian use value. He thinks that this utilitarian system is historically produced and determined by capitalist exchange logic. Therefore, Baudrillard tries to establish a new historical idea of grassroots’ romanticism with the help of the logic of symbolic exchange. This paper makes a detailed analysis of Baudrillard’s misunderstandings of Marxian historical materialism, esp. of the distortions, which are carried out by The Mirror of Production, of Marxian important concepts such as material production, productive mode and etc. and at the same time gives a critical interpretation of them.

Chapter 10   Critique of Labor Ideology
1. The Metaphysical Evil of Labor: Concrete and Abstract, Quality and Quantity
2. The Productive Labor Is Sinful
3. The Good of Labor and the Beauty of Non-labor
Abstract: In The Mirror of Production Youth Baudrillard makes a direct criticism that Marxian concept “labor” is a historical category within the frame of capitalist ideology. Starting from Marxian idea of economics about the twofold character of labor, he directly criticizes Marxian definition of the human existence by the “use value” of labor force and furthermore he denies the role of labor-production in historical society. This paper makes a direct analysis of the errors and causations of Baudrillard’s ideas above, that is, the misinterpretations in economic contexts and illegal logic arrogation, and meanwhile it responds to Baudrillard’s doubts and questionings with the help of a scientific understanding of Marxian classic literature.

Chapter 11   Marx and the Dominance of Nature
1. The Enslavement Concept of Nature in the Thoughts of Enlightenment
2. Marxian “Half Revolution” in the Theory of Nature
3. The Capital Law and the Capital Natural Necessity
Abstract: In his book The Mirror of Production Youth Baudrillard makes a condemnation that Marxian idea of nature is still a concept of enslavement relationship within the Enlightenment theory because the logical basis of Marxian historical materialism is the material production, which is equal to a conquest of nature. He thinks that both the capital law in historical materialism and the natural necessities are the products of this kind of dominant thinking. This article directly responds to the criticism above from Baudrillard according to a scientific understanding of Marxian classical literature and points out that the fundamental reason of his misunderstanding lies in his aberration from anti-anthropocentrism in biological ethics to an ontological discourse. He then goes the wrong way of radically denying human reformation and application of nature.

Chapter 12   Marx and Ethnocentrism
1. Capital History and Capital Dialectics
2. The Analytical Category and the Ideological Category
3. Can Human Body Function as A Key to Dissection of A Monkey’s Body?
4. Historical Materialism and West Centrism
Abstract: In The Mirror of Production Youth Baudrillard criticizes that Marxian historical materialism is the logic of west-centrism because Marx has made an unhistorical enlargement from the capitalist mode of production, which exists in Europe in a certain historical condition, to the whole history and all the other cultures. He even objects to Marxian idea that “the dissection of a human body is the key to that of a monkey body”. This paper makes a deep analysis of Baudrillard’s questioning above and points out that he mistakenly identifies the labor and the material production, which exist in human society, with the capitalist mode of production and economics and that then enchants Marxian idea of history as a simple historical formula and that this will result into the ridiculous statement of identifying historical materialism with west-centrism and ethnocentrism.

Chapter 13   The Enigma between the Dissection of A Monkey’s Body and the Structure of An Ape’s Body
1. A New Interpretation of Dialectics of Master and Slave
2. The Heterogeneity between the Labor of Handicraftsmen and Utilitarian Labor
3. Logical Distinction between Dissection of A Human Body, that of A Monkey’s Body and that of An Ape’s Body
Abstract: In The Mirror of Production Youth Baudrillard makes a criticism that Marx has extended the Weltanschauung of capitalist logic of production to the archaic society and the feudalist society. But he tries to re-explain the whole history himself with the symbol-exchange relationship. This paper makes a pertinent analysis of Baudrillard’s relative condemnation of Marxian idea of history and re-narrates the basic position and principle of historical materialism in a scientific way.

Chapter 14   Historical Materialism and Euclidean Geometry in History
1. The Legality of Modern Discourse Saying about the History of Ancient Society
2. Is Historical Materialism a Universal Science?
3. The Passing Away of Economic Origin Produced by Historical Materialism
4. The Initiative and New Revolution of “Critique of Symbolic Political Economy”
Abstract: In his book The Mirror of Production Youth Baudrillard has criticized that Marx has transformed historical materialism into a universal philosophy. He points out that the capitalist actual economic structure, which functions as the authentic theoretical basis of historical materialism, has changed radically and asserts therefore that historical materialism is already outdated. This paper makes a frontal response to various criticisms and challenges from Baudrillard and defends the methodology of Marxian historical science through a scientific clarification of the essential and contemporary characteristics of historical materialism.

Part III   From Symbol to Quasi Real of Death: A Critical Text Reading of  Symbolic Exchange and Death..
Introduction Death against Death: Baudrillard as a Theoretical Terrorist
Abstract: Simulacrum and simulation are the categories, with which Jean Baudrillard describes the newest existential gestalt of the contemporary capitalism. Simulacrum refers to the three historical forms in the development of capitalism respectively: imitation of signs and nature, the series production without a prototype and the simulation of the genesis from model to existence. The simulative world is a super-real kingdom produced by capital logic, in which the dominance of codes creates unprecedented latent violence.

Chapter 15 Substitution of Structural Value for Qualitative Value
1. What is the Structural Revolution of Value?
2. How Production Comes to an End?
3. Labor Emptied by Signs and Codes
Abstract: Jean Baudrillard puts forward that the value law in the traditional political economy has deviated from the original orbit farther and farther in the operation of the contemporary capitalism and transcended the model of the traditional commodity economy. Value does not point to the concrete utility of the real existence any longer, but turns to its own uncertain structures of codes. The structural value arising from nothing replaces the quality-referential value of labor and production by Smith-Marx. Therefore both the production and the labor in the traditional sense come to end.

Chapter 16 Non-productive Labor and Suffocation of Social Resistance
Abstract: Jean Baudrillard puts forward that the existential basis of the contemporary capitalist society has transformed from the field of productive labor to that of unproductive labor, especially to the field, in which the service industry prevails in the work model. This shakes the realistic foundation of the traditional revolutionary theory in an unprecedented way because the class strength from industry workers as a revolutionary subject, which is based on “the illusion of production”, has already disappeared. It is his idea that the new social changes of capitalism will make the social resistance and revolution in the traditional form impossible.

1. Production is Transformed into Non-production
Baudrillard considered “death labor to living labor’s hegemony” as science and technology of which the essence is knowledge, rather than the industrial capital in Marx’s original meaning. In his opinion, science and technology is guilty per se.
I think Baudrillard misunderstood Marx, mainly because in his mind, labor or living labor which could produce value equaled to manual labor forever, and production equaled to the material production which was under capitalism condition forever.
He totally could not understand the oppressing of death labor to the living labor that was said by Marx. It doesn’t mean a substantial machine system (include knowledge system) oppressing to the worker’s directly. The “death labor” here is just a converse metonymy. It means that the surplus value made by laborer has turned into a conversely distorted host who oppresses and exploits laborer. In any aspects, I think the productive dialectics has not collapsed in today’s capitalist society; it just has adopted another new form.

2. Labor is debased to Service and Emancipation of Free Time
Baudrillard claimed that the change of modern social reality had shaked the nonproductive edifice. In his opinion, service labor had become the marginal nonproductive labor in Marx.
Apparently, this service is a amplificatory conception. For Baudrillard, any labor was degraded to service today---labor as pure presence/possession¡¢consuming of time, was a geld of time. More importantly, he considered that in this “time presenting” service ,the surplus value had gone because of the disappearance of production. The meaning of Wage had changed. In a word, Marx’s logic tools of criticizing capitalistic became invalidation.
First of all, particularly he talked about the relation between complex labor and free time now which Marx had mentioned. In fact, Baudrillard didn’t understand Marx’s free time which wasn’t belong to the non-labor time that was uncontrolled by capital (like spare time), but an existent free situation in completely liberation of human after the broken of capitalism. Secondly, Baudrillard also objected to regard education¡¢training and school as complex labor. Here, Baudrillard still talked about economics outside the plutonium.

3. Disappearance of Laborer and Labor Location
Baudrillard said, today’s workers were not differentiated from labor workers. In today’s capitalist society, people no longer worked, they “manifested production”: this is the end of production and labor culture. Today, there are no more laborers, the worker is just one “productive element”. In Baudrillard’s opinion, at the same time, factories and certain work hours also have disappeared. Because “the entire society displays a factory face”.
Baudrillard couldn’t see the real elastical change and essence of capital logic. He thought it was wrong to oppose the capital under a certain form, cause if the capital was absent nowhere it was absent everywhere. Revolt had lost a certain aim. This is Baudrillard’s pessimism on politics. Indeed, Baudrillard was criticizing capitalism all the time, but he could not insist on Marxist position and the historical materialism method. He lost the weapon which was really able to fight against capitalism after he negated Marx.

4. Hollowing of Money and Resistance in Phantasm
Baudrillard had another important find that money is hollow as the social realization form of value and tending towards capital. Production broke away from demand, which made the increase of production hollow, wages breaking away from the reasonable value of labor force, and money breaking away from the real production.
 He just said the end of production above, but here he mentioned the real production. It’s likely to be a non-strictness of logic. He thought that if we consider the old money as the merchandise which got the sign status firstly but got off use. Then money had one more step that it even got off exchange value now.
In Baudrillard’s view, proletariats had degenerated. When lived in the productive illusion, they always felt that they had got the pay for their use. So they were the men who had been blind and most impossible to rebel. Labor union and party also had died, and they could do nothing but die. Strike died as well, and it was not a power to affect politics anymore but objective itself.
Then, all the revolted power was dead. When facing horrible modern capitalism, what could people do? Baudrillard referred to the Red May Storm in 1968 in France, which had surpassed the productive illusion. However whether this would be the final way that could save people nowadays, we don’t know In Baudrillard’s view, the traditional western Marxism aesthetics saving theory almost became a stunt war in the science fiction. So naturally, the director of Matrix could get inspiration from his book.

Chapter 17 Simulation and Resistance against the Symbolic Dominance of Contemporary Capital

1. The Libidinous Presence of Capital Logic in Simulation
2. Simulation in the Second Layer
3. Symbolic Exchange: The Sole Exit for Resistance of Contemporary Capital Logic
Abstract: Simulation is a very important category used by Jean Baudrillard to depict the ideological illusion of contemporary capitalism. From the viewpoints of the traditional political economy, simulation is a reconstruction of the dead real value. It is a public conspiracy of codes and a coding game in symbolic layer played by capitalist logic, which aims at the confirmation of the legitimacy of self existence. It signifies that imaginative residue supports the ideology of the symbolic existence.

Chapter 18 Simulacrum, Simulation and the Implosive World of Bourgeois
1. Counterfeit: Hierarchical Arrogation of Signs and Quasi-Imago of Nature
2. Production without Prototype and Reproduction of Serial Making
3. Quasi-Real: Model Genesis and Code Making of Otherness
4. Violence of Code Dominance and Pallid Fatal Contemplation
Abstract: Simulacrum and simulation are the categories, with which Jean Baudrillard describes the newest existential gestalt of the contemporary capitalism. Simulacrum refers to the three historical forms in the development of capitalism respectively: imitation of signs and nature, the series production without a prototype and the simulation of the genesis from model to existence. The simulative world is a super-real kingdom produced by capital logic, in which the dominance of codes creates unprecedented latent violence.
Bibliography
Postscript