Scheda Articolo

Commodity-Form as Oppositional Structure. The Versus of a Social Relation

in Versus n. 127, Fake News, Misinformation/Disinformation, Post-Truth, pp.323-344

Abstract (italiano)

Exposing the Dialectics of Value-Form, Marx describes the oppositional-and-differential structure constituting the logic of the capitalist mode of production. The "Commodity-Form" represents the simplest "economic concretum" in which this logic is posited. The Semantic Universe of the commodity is inherently dualistic. It is not possible to consider the commodity as a singularity; just as it is not possible to consider the "Sign" as a singularity. In both cases, the value relation is generated by a relation of opposition: opposition between different linguistic signs; opposition between different commodities. Ferruccio Rossi-Landi (1921-1985) thematised a "homological relation" between signs and commodities. Nevertheless, he does not develop a semiotic analysis of the oppositions, contradictions and implications which subtend the "Commodity-Form". In this paper, I aim to overcome this theoretical lack, proposing a dialogue between the semiotics of Rossi-Landi and Greimas.