Power survives only as simulation, reduced to a commodity-like social demand.

Evidence

As is the fact that power is in essence no longer present except to conceal that there is no more power. A simulation that can last indefinitely, because, as distinct from “true” power - which is, or was, a structure, a strategy, a relation of force, a stake - it is nothing but the object of a social demand, and thus as the object of the law of supply and demand, it is no longer subject to violence and death. Completely purged of a political dimension, it, like any other commodity, is dependent on mass production and consumption. Its spark has disappeared, only the fiction of a political universe remains. — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 96

Categorization

• XREF: The claim that power persists only to conceal its own absence connects to Debord’s spectacle and to Deleuze’s control-society thesis; also relevant to the reader’s interest in hyperreality. — connects to: Labor power only becomes a value through the possibility of exchange. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 258; Mystified power thrives when citizens are far from its sources

Broader Connections

• Mystified power thrives when citizens are far from its sources #corroborates (0.82)
• Labor power only becomes a value through the possibility of exchange. #complicates (0.75) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 258