The Mirror of Production

by Jean Baudrillard, Mark Poster (Translator)

Are the concepts of labor and of production adaptable to a developing industrial society? What is the meaning of "pre-industrial organization"? In attempting to answer these questions, Jean Baudrillard examines the lessons of Marxism, which has created a productivist model and a fetishism of labor. He argues that we must break the mirror of production, which "reflects all of Western metaphysics," and free the Marxist logic from the restrictive context of political economy whence it was born.

Genres: Philosophy, Theory, Sociology, Politics, Economics, Nonfiction, France

167 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 1975

About the author

Jean Baudrillard was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet, with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as well as his formulation of concepts such as hyperreality. Baudrillard wrote about diverse subjects, including consumerism, critique of economy, social history, aesthetics, Western foreign policy, and popular culture. Among his most well-known works are Seduction (1978), Simulacra and Simulation (1981), America (1986), and The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (1991). His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and specifically post-structuralism. Nevertheless, Baudrillard had also opposed post-structuralism, and had distanced himself from postmodernism.