Baudrillard, the French sociologist, philosopher and pataphysician who claimed to be actually arguing against postmodernism (though many consider him a postmodernist) started his critical analysis as a Marxist. What Ken Rufo explains is that Baudrillard began to find fault with Marx's idea of commodity. Marx in his theory neglects to recognize the significance of sign-value. Sign-value, Rufo explains is, "namely that often what an object represents or signifies is more important than how much it costs or how high quality is its construction".
While Rufo uses the example of Tommy Hilfiger to explain what he means by this, another very useful example is automobiles. A Bentley for example does the same job as a Hyundai but it is seen as of lesser value because it does not have the name Bentley written on it. It is not about what the two vehicles are comprised of or what their function is, its value is in the brand name. Baudrillard adds that it’s needed to focus not on the production aspect, but on the modes of consumption (i.e. people are buying a brand; they don’t care how or where it was made).
Rufo then discusses Baudrillard’s next shift with his book For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign. Though Baudrillard was once saying that sign-value was to be added to a commodity, now he is saying the sign-value is what allowed for any analysis of said commodity. Rufo goes on to say that “we cannot assume that the commodity, as analyzed by Marx is really a discovery.” Instead, Marx creates the commodity as he sees it working, since as by analyzing the commodity and how it supports capitalism, he creates a set of “theoretical principles that make of the commodity-object a set of theoretical commodities.” In other words, theories and concepts within Marxism are like making purchases with money.
Rufo continues to discuss that Marx's commodity is structured like Saussure's sign. However, instead of signifier and signified, commodity has use-value and exchange-value. For Marx exchange-value is key in discussing, for example, money. Money attains its value through its exchange with other commodities. Marx, of course explains that money, like other objects, is a commodity. Rufo sums this up to say that money is an example of a pure exchange value.
After this, Rufo explains that Baudrillard is starting to get a little frustrated. Baudrillard comes to explain that Marx had it backwards. Baudrillard believes that when Marx 'naturalized' labor he believed that people would simply want to produce things for its use-value. As Rufo says, “each of these is actually sign-values, that is, theoretical sign-values.” Baudrillard argues that Marxist theories actually mirror production, and are in turn a “rhetorical balancing act” that supports capitalism rather than being in opposition to it. What troubles Baudrillard is that capitalism does not care who is producing, rather what is being produced. Capitalism is all about consumption. (Give me more!) Capitalism is all about what is coming next, which maintains the flow of production. No matter who controls the modes of production, they will still be necessary.
Baudrillard doesn't stop after Marx. Rufo explains that Baudrillard finds fault with Lacan and Foucault as well. The stem from which he contest each theory is that each of these man have claimed to discover something and from this discovery they are creating truths and meaning. In reality however, they are simply inventing these pretenses.
"Ok, cue the exciting music." Picture it: it's the 80's, you're inside Baudrillard's head, he's about to write this book that mad heads are going to read. It's called Simulacra and Simulation. The book stresses two major points. The first is focused on the third model stage as a simulacral stage and not a simulation stage like the first stage which is a reflection of basic reality, and the second which hides the absence of reality. Therefore the third stage is where these simulations produce their own reality. In class, and in Ken Rufo's examples, we've discussed Las Vegas and Disneyworld as examples of simulacra. As another example, take a look at a Barbie doll. The measurements of the doll are an impossibility for a real woman, yet the doll is supposed to be based on a human being. Thus, the doll is creating it's own reality.
But, what about Baudrillard's fourth stage? Up until this point, we have been exploring what Rufo had to say about Baudrillard's history. From here, we want to expand on a new topic. This is where the discussion of the fourth stage comes into place. The fourth stage is where simulations no longer need models, because it holds all meaning and no meaning at the same time. And with that, our conclusion leaves you with a question.
Baudrillard points out how, for example, Marx, Lacan and Foucault have through various ways produced their own truths, and placing them within the first three stages of the simulacra, yet he never associates himself within these contradictions. Thus, these theorists give truth and meaning to the system they are in, by inventing truth. Whereas, Baudrillard says that there is no truth; that we all exist within the hyperreal and are representations of representations. Therefore, if Baudrillard is placing himself within an argument that seems to not spring from within the system, but as from “outside the sign”, is he in fact placing himself within the fourth stage of the simulacra?
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