Baudrillard’s symbolic exchange describes value’s pre-institutional dissolution into smoke

Evidence

This moment can, of course, also be described from a different perspective, one in which emphasis is laid on the provisionality of the moments and on the ceaseless dissolution of value that follows them: the very “law” of value, not yet institutionalized and solidified in a medium, at all points is then totally consumed and vanishes into smoke with each transaction. Such a description corresponds to what Baudrillard calls symbolic exchange (the Utopian moment of his own view of history, whose name has been significantly modified from Mauss; Malinowski’s kula system has sometimes been taken to be a formalized projection of this moment, although it could just as easily be considered its reification and transformation into something else; while the relationship of Baudrillard’s reading to Bataille’s anthropological celebration of excess, destruction, and the potlatch should also be apparent). — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 519

Categorization

• DEFINE: Locates Baudrillard’s ‘symbolic exchange’ concept against Marx’s pre-monetary law of value that vanishes with each transaction.
• XREF: Links to anthropological sources: Mauss’s gift, Malinowski’s kula, and Bataille’s potlatch/excess — connects to sacrifice and gift-economy literature. — connects to: Baudrillard’s equation of value with the sign launched a lasting semiotic chain reaction — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 848; Situation-level symbolic transactions can influence society’s broader reproduction; Capitalism’s defining move is abstracting exchange value from ordinary life processes — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 146 (+2 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Baudrillard’s equation of value with the sign launched a lasting semiotic chain reaction — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 848; Situation-level symbolic transactions can influence society’s broader reproduction; Capitalism’s defining move is abstracting exchange value from ordinary life processes — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 146 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Capitalism’s defining move is abstracting exchange value from ordinary life processes #complicates (0.74) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 146