消費的符號意涵：資訊經濟的特徵之一

由星巴克與麥當勞的咖啡之戰談起,
以下是一篇極佳的背景閱讀:

The Objective Value system (法國大哲Baudrillard’s viewpoint)

Adapted from wikipedia

• Baudrillard argued that while Marxist economics and the classical economics of Adam Smith had sought to understand the consumer society in opposing ways, both accepted the nature of use value. （使用價值）
• They both therefore misunderstood need in the same way: always as a genuine, socially constituted drive for a given consumer's satisfaction.
• Against this Baudrillard argued that an individual necessarily, in purchasing and consuming goods, places him or herself within a system of signs; objects therefore always 'say something' about their users.
• He thus developed a theory of society governed by a system of sumptuous, sacrificial consumption, in which needs become 'ideologically generated'. Baudrillard described this system in terms of four processes of obtaining value:

1. A functional value of an object, its instrumental purpose. (A pen writes; a fridge cools etc.) This is what Marx referred to as the 'use-value' of the commodity.
2. An exchange value of an object, its economic value. (A pen is worth three pencils; a fridge is worth three months' salary.)
3. A symbolic value of an object, its arbitrarily assigned and agreed value in relation to another subject. (A pen represents a graduation present or a speaker's gift; a diamond ring symbolizes a public declaration of love between two individuals.)
4. A sign value of an object, its value in a system of objects. (A pen is part of a desk set, or a particular pen confers social status; a diamond ring has sign value in relation to other diamond rings, or the absence of a ring. The human subject is interpolated, perhaps eroded, in the 'seductive' play of objects.)

• Baudrillard later went on to eventually reject Marxism outright , but the opposition of the semiotic functional logic and the logic of the symbolic realm continued.
• Semiotics, is the study of signs and symbols, both individually and grouped in sign systems. It includes the study of how meaning is constructed and understood.