A Study On Baudrillard’s Critique Of Consumer Society Ideology

Baudrillard defines modern capitalist society as a "consumer society",focusing on the change from the commodity as an "object" to sign.After the Second World War,France witnessed an "affluent society" and a booming economy,but while consumption drove economic growth,it created a consumer society and brought about a series of social problems,which aroused Baudrillard’s concern.In terms of theory,Marx’s critique of the alienation of labour was an important precursor to Baudrillard’s study of consumer society,while Roland Barthes’ semiotic analysis,Lefebvre’s critique of everyday life and Guy Debord’s theory of the society of spectacle constitute the direct intellectual resources of his theory,and the studies of Moss and Bataille have also deeply influenced Baudrillard.Baudrillard offers a comprehensive and detailed critique of the ideology of consumer society in three main ways:Firstly,Baudrillard directly confronts the system of objects and develops a critique of the ideology of objects.The establishment of the system of functional objects allows people to be completely objectified and commodified,losing their own subjectivity.Non-functional objects such as antiques are also incorporated into the system of signs like functional objects,and advertising,as a tool to promote consumption,itself becomes the object to be consumed,making people fall deeply into the ideological trap of the consumer society.Secondly,Baudrillard develops a critique of the ideology of consumption.In a consumer society,the myth of abundance and the myth of concern are omnipresent,and the illusion of freedom makes individuals wear the shackles of consumption.In the constant flow between series and exemplars,the real differences between people are obscured,and people fall into the pursuit of false individuality.The bourgeois upper class indirectly influences the consumption standards of all classes,while the middle class is firmly bound by consumerism in a false expectation,people are differentiated and divided in consumption,and the sign of consumption completes the occupation of the body and art,making transcendence on both physical and spiritual levels impossible.Consumption as an ideology of unconscious discipline achieves the integration of society as a whole.Finally,Baudrillard argues for the need to move away from Marx’s critique of political economy towards a critique of political economy of signs and to engage in a comprehensive ideological critique.In the consumer society,needs become an illusion,human needs are rationalized and structured in the system of the consumer society,and human beings themselves fall into the cult of signs,and the consumer society is completely manipulated by the system of signs,so Baudrillard proposes to restore symbolic exchange in order to break the sign order.Baudrillard’s critique of the ideology of consumer society adheres to Marx’s position of capitalist critique,extends the scope of ideological critique to signs,and develops a semiotic path of analysis of consumer society.However,Baudrillard’s critical study of the ideology of consumer society also has theoretical limitations.The destruction of ideology must rely on revolutionary practice,destroying the material basis of ideology,rather than replacing one idea with another.Baudrillard,on the other hand,completely replaces reality with signs and seriously misinterprets Marx’s theory of material production,the theory of ideology,the concept of use value and the category of need,falling into the dilemma of subjective idealism.Baudrillard overstates the dominant role of consumption,limiting his theory to the scope of cultural criticism and losing the possibility of transforming theory into practice.Criticism of the social ideology of consumption does not mean the negation of the act of consumption itself.On the spiritual and cultural level,we need to clarify the connotation of consumer culture,be wary of consumerist thinking,and position consumption rationally;on the political and economic level,China’s domestic demand is insufficient and consumption is inadequate,and the most fundamental thing to promote consumption is to advance common prosperity.In this process,it is necessary to clarify the relationship between needs,desires and demands,to eliminate the illusion of freedom and equality created by the sign of consumption,to transcend the logic of capital and the ideology of the consumer society,to effectively promote consumption as a basic means to realize the free and comprehensive development of human beings,and to realize the liberation of human beings while achieving economic development.