Impossible Exchange Translated by Chris Turner

Everything starts out from impossible exchange. The uncertainty of the world lies in the fact that it has no equivalent anywhere; it cannot be exchanged for anything. The uncertainty of thought lies in the fact that it cannot be exchanged either for truth or for reality.

Jean Baudrillardâ??s now familiar investigations into reality and hyper-reality shift here into a more metaphysical frame. Working his way through the various spheres and systems of everyday lifeâ??the political, the juridical, the economical, the aesthetic, the biological, among othersâ??he finds that they are all characterised by the same non-equivalence, and hence the same eccentricity. Literally, they have no meaning outside themselves and cannot be exchanged for anything. Politics is laden with signs and meanings, but seen from the outside it has no meaning. Schemes for genetic experimentation and investigation are becoming infinitely ramified, and the more ramified they become the more the crucial question is left unanswered: who rules over life, who rules over death?

"The most notorious intellectual celebrity to emerge from Paris since
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Baudrillardâ??s conclusion is that the true formula of contemporary nihilism lies here: the nihilism of value itself. This is our fate, and from this stem both the happiest and the most baleful consequences. This book might be said to be the exploration, first, of the â??fatefulâ?? consequences, and subsequentlyâ??by a poetic transference of situationâ??of the fortunate, happy consequences of impossible exchange.

Jean Baudrillard was born in Rheims in 1929 and now lives in Paris. From 1966 to 1987 he taught sociology at the University of Nanterre. He is the author of, among other works, America, Cool Memories I, The Transparency of Evil, The System of Objects and The Perfect Crime, all from Verso.