The Mirror of Production

1973 book by Jean Baudrillard

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The Mirror of Production

Cover of the first edition

Author| Jean Baudrillard
Original title| Le Miroir de la production
Language| French
Subject| Marxism

Publication date

| 1973
Publication place| France
Media type| Print
Part of a series on

Critique of political economy

Concepts

* Capitalist mode of production
* Commodity
* Concrete and abstract labor
* Critique of work
* Dismal Science
* Exploitation
* Illth
* Socially necessary labour time
* Socialization
* Wage labour
* Value criticism
* Value-form
* Sign

Works

* August Strindberg's Little Catechism for the Underclass

A Contribution to the
Critique of Political Economy

* Critique of Economic Reason
* Das Kapital
* Discourse on Inequality
* For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign
* Grundrisse
* Hard Times (novel)
* Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy
* Sarvodaya
* The Accursed Share
* The Mirror of Production
* Unto This Last
* We Have Never Been Modern

18th–19th-century people

* August Strindberg
* Paul Lafargue
* Friedrich Engels
* Karl Marx
* Thomas Carlyle
* John Ruskin
* Carl Jonas Love Almqvist

20th–21st-century people

* Étienne Balibar
* Georges Bataille
* Jean Baudrillard
* Guy Debord
* David Graeber
* Mark Fisher
* André Gorz
* Bruno Latour
* Robert Kurz
* Claus Peter Ortlieb
* Moishe Postone
* Mahatma Gandhi
* Katrine Marçal
* E. K. Hunt

Related topics

* Assume a can opener
* Classical economics
* Economic anthropology
* Economics
* Feminist economics
* Orthodox economics
* Mercantilism
* Mathiness
* Socioeconomics
* Status quo bias
* Stylized fact
* Systemic bias
* Post-autistic economics
* Time-use research
* Market fundamentalism

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* t
* e

The Mirror of Production (French: Le Miroir de la production) is a 1973 book by French sociologist and philosopher Jean Baudrillard. It is a systematic critique of Marxism. Baudrillard's thesis is that Karl Marx's theory of historical materialism is too rooted in assumptions and values of political economy which Marx attempted to critique to provide a sufficient framework for radical action. According to Baudrillard, the fault of Marxism is in prioritizing the very concepts that undergird capital, for example, necessity, value, and labor. He furthermore argues that the Marxist view fails to take into account the role of signs and symbols in the production process, as well as the increasing importance of consumer culture. The book is a semiotic critique of the political economy of the sign.

Baudrillard states that Marx's critique of political economy was based on forms of production and labour. Marx did not transcend political economy but merely saw its reverse or its "mirror" side. Marxism merely strengthens political economy's basic propositions, in particular, the idea that self-creation is performed through productive, non-alienated labour. In Baudrillard's words: "[Marxism] convinces men that they are alienated by the sale of their labor power, thus censoring the much more radical hypothesis that they might be alienated as labor power."[1] Baudrillard proposes to liberate workers from their "labour value" and think in terms other than production.

Baudrillard argues that the mirror of production ultimately leads to the end of production itself. He contends that the constant reproduction of the means of production leads to a situation where production becomes redundant and that this redundancy is reflected in the increasing importance of consumption and the virtualization of the economy.

## See also

[edit]

* Critique of political economy
* Moishe Postone
* Robert Kurz
* Mirror stage

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Baudrillard, Jean (1975). The mirror of production. St. Louis: Telos Press. p. 3\. ISBN 0-914386-06-9. OCLC 2192359.

## External links

[edit]

* Jean Baudrillard, The Mirror of Production, trans. Mark Poster (New York: Telos Press, 1975)

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Jean Baudrillard

Books|

* The System of Objects (1968)
* The Mirror of Production (1973)
* In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities (1978)
* Simulacra and Simulation (1981)
* The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (1991)
* The Singular Objects of Architecture (2002)

Concepts|

* Hyperreality
* Sign value

* v
* t
* e

Critique of political economy

18th–19th-century|

* Friedrich Engels
* Karl Marx
* Thomas Carlyle
* John Ruskin
* Paul Lafargue
* Erik Johan Stagnelius

20th–21st-century|

* Jean Baudrillard
* Guy Debord
* Mahatma Gandhi
* André Gorz
* Moishe Postone
* Étienne Balibar
* Neue Marx-Lektüre
* Helmut Reichelt
* Hans-Georg Backhaus
* Robert Kurz
* Michael Heinrich
* Mark Fisher
* Roman Rosdolsky
* Claus Peter Ortlieb
* Georges Bataille
* Katrine Marçal

Concepts|

* Abstract labour and concrete labour
* Capitalist mode of production
* Commodity
* Chrematistics
* Dismal Science
* Illth
* Law of value
* Socially necessary labour time
* Valorisation
* Value-form

Written works|

* Unto This Last
* Sarvodaya
* The Right to Be Lazy
* Das Kapital
* Grundrisse
* Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
* The Mirror of Production
* A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
* Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy
* An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx's Capital
* Critique of Economic Reason
* Discourse on Inequality
* The Accursed Share
* Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner?

Related|

* Assume a can opener
* Classical economics
* Chrematistics
* Criticism of capitalism
* Critique of work
* Economic anthropology
* Economics
* Mainstream economics
* Occam's razor

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