The Mirror of Production

The Mirror of Production

Cover of the first edition
Author	Jean Baudrillard
Original title	Le Miroir de la production
Country	France
Language	French
Subject	Marxism
Publication date	1973
Media type	Print

The Mirror of Production (

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 labor. In Baudrillard’s words: “[Marxism] convinces men that they are alienated by the sale of their

Baudrillard proposes to liberate workers from their "labor value" and think in terms other than production.

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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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

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

References

External links

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

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