Having started his career as a sociologist, Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929) is today one of the world's most famous thinkers exploring the phenomenon of the so-called “postmodernity” - the latest state of Western civilization, which is characterized by the proliferation of artificial, inauthentic formations and mechanisms, simulacra of real social existence. Among Baudrillard’s other books are “The System of Things” (1968), “On Seduction” (1979, “Fatal Strategies” (1983), “The Transparency of Evil” (1990) - the book “Symbolic Exchange and Death" ( 1976) stands out as an attempt not only to provide a critical description of the neo-capitalist consumer society, but also to offer it a cultural alternative, which the author associates with the mechanisms of “symbolic exchange” dating back to archaic traditions: the exchange of gifts, sacrifice, ritual, play, poetry.