Circulations interrupted Marx between Baudelaire and Borges

Abstract

I propose in the following pages to give an account of the possible connections that exist between language and economics, to untie the frameworks that operate in the encounter between both disciplines. So that it is possible for us to clarify why it is that there would be such a significant relationship between the mode of operation of the economy and the role that language plays in it, especially from the problem of exchange as a meeting point between the two. Starting with an exhaustive analysis of Marx's theory of value, we will unravel the encounter, the similarities, and differences that it is possible to establish between language and economics, trying to answer the following questions: Does the theory of value, the way Marx conceived it, work in a similar way to linguistic exchange? Did Marx think about the language-economy relationship in his Critique of Political Economy? What role do abstraction and translation play in all this? As a second moment, we will address the problem of circulation and exchange as fundamental moments of the encounter between language and economy, based on two narratives that have the figure of the currency as the central axis. On the one hand, the case of Baudelaire's counterfeit currency and, on the other, Borges's Zahir. In both writings it is possible to problematize the language-economy relationship where circulation as a process of exchange is in question, which can be interrupted.  Do Borges and Baudelaire present us with a possibility of thinking about an interruption of the processes of circulation of capital as Marx conceived them?