Value: The Object of Consumption and the Exchange of Sign(ifier)s

Abstract

This article investigates the concept of value in the “object of consumption” through the theoretical perspective of Jean Baudrillard, whose work reconfigures the role of objects in contemporary capitalist economies. Through a primary textual analysis of Baudrillard’s works, this study reveals that 1) the notion of value is more complex than Marxist political economy suggests, particularly in relation to “sign exchange value,” which emerges through hierarchical differentiation and is sustained as a normative logic underpinning contemporary regimes of consumption; and 2) the translation and reception of the concepts of value in Thai academic discourse—particularly in the social sciences and humanities—exhibits a lack of precision, distorting the political stakes of Baudrillard’s argument. This terminological and theoretical imprecision obscures the distinction between the economic and cultural spheres, necessitating systematic differentiation—even at the level of linguistic precision—to enable a more rigorous analysis of their interplay. By foregrounding the shifting and unstable nature of value in objects of consumption, this study invites a resurgence of “ambivalence,” a concept Baudrillard employs as both a subversive critique of capitalist power and a framework for rethinking the entanglement of production, objects, and subjectivity in late capitalism.