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Spectacle and Commodity: Guy Debord and Marx

Richard Sobel

Review of Radical Political Economics2026https://doi.org/10.1177/04866134261416981article
AJG 1ABDC B
Weight
0.50

What the paper says

Guy Debord (1931–1994) based his social critique on the concept of spectacle. To do so, he drew on Marx’s work, particularly his analysis of commodities. This article analyzes the nature and scope of Debord’s use of Marx, comparing it in particular to the neo-Marxist interpretation of Marx in value criticism, and specifically to Anselm Jappe’s approach. Is Debord’s concept of the spectacle entirely reducible to Marx’s concept of commodities? Or are Marx’s commodities merely a specific, historically situated case of a more general matrix, the spectacle in Debord’s sense? JEL Classification : B14, B40, B52

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/04866134261416981

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@article{richard2026,
  title        = {{Spectacle and Commodity: Guy Debord and Marx}},
  author       = {Richard Sobel},
  journal      = {Review of Radical Political Economics},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/04866134261416981},
}

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Spectacle and Commodity: Guy Debord and Marx

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

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