Update, 24th June

Having been away for a number of weeks, I have had time to reconsider my thesis and where it is headed. I don’t think that much has changed, although I may be more aware of the limitations of the project and where it fits into a wider range of literature.

My core question, slightly tweaked, is as follows; “How can a post-Lacanian conception of Marxism be utilised to produce a critique of capitalism and move beyond this form of political economy?”

I still intend to investigate this question through two fundamental enquires, which will form the major sections of the thesis;

1. A post-Lacanian theory of capitalism
2. Political economy beyond capitalism

At the conference I attended I was delighted to discover a research community working specifically on the latter question, with a particular interest in psychoanalysis and Marxism. This group, operating broadly as the ‘Association for Economic and Social Analysis’ (AESA) in association with the ‘Rethinking Marxism’ journal, are attempting to rehabilitate both Marxism and communism through psychoanalysis, taking into account the latter’s emphasis on the real, fantasy and enjoyment.

The core line of enquiry for this group of scholars has been rethinking class as a process rather than a transcendental entity. Here class becomes a fundamental impossibility - the impossibility of a fair and equal distribution and appropriation of surplus. This impossibility does not refer purely to capitalism and surplus-value, but rather to the broader category of political economy.

The fundamental condition of possibility for any modality of economy is the production of surplus labour (labour is always surplus; necessary labour cannot be distinguished as production is always a collective process) and the impossibility of a fair distribution and appropriation of this surplus. In this sense, there is no class relationship – a lack which imbues all formations of political economy. This lack produces an excessive response, in the sense that there will always be class relationships which respond to the inherent impossibility of class. Thus, class is not only an impossibility, but the range of ideological responses to this impossibility. These responses seek to pacify the affect of the real in much the same manner as I examined in my Master’s thesis.

Essentially, I am seeking to produce a post-Lacanian theory of the Marxist critique of capitalism and political economy, starting from the point that prevents these objects from being; class. I will then, by extending on the ideological analysis I outlined in my Master’s thesis, seek to understand the manner in which this impossibility plays itself out to form what we know as capitalism. Here I will label class as the concrete universal and seek to examine the various responses to the concrete universal, predominately enjoyment through commodity fetishism/consumerism but also ‘limiting apparatus’ such as democracy (the primary mode of civilisation for capitalist political economy), trade unions and charities.

I believe that my eventual position will be that some form of base-super structure relationship occurs (concurrent with psychoanalytic theory), with liberal-democratic-consumerism being the main form of ideological investment, which disavows the fundamental circuit of capitalism and places a distance between the real of class struggle and the capitalist subject.

The question of anti-capitalist politics than becomes one of how to produce a form of political economy in relation to the impossibility of class. Latest work in the ‘rethinking Marxism’ community relates to a non-fantasmatic conception of economic community where no subject enjoys exclusive rights to surplus. According to this group, in particular Yahya Madra and Ceren Oszelcuk, such a conception of political economy corresponds to the Lacanian notion of the feminine non-All.

Indeed, there appears to be a burgeoning range of literature on ‘community economics’ that takes a similar position to Madra and Oszelcuk. The field of community economics does not rely exclusively on psychoanalysis or Marxism, but is often informed by these disciplines, as well as various elements of postmodern theory.

I think that at this stage much of this work is fairly clunky, but it is reassuring to know that such a field exists. In time I will have to get to know this literature and position myself within the debates. At this stage, however, I need to focus on developing my theory of capitalism.

The most difficult question for me, I believe, is the status of capitalism. That is, what is the status of class in relation to the social? Is this the fundamental impossibility to which all relations return (or, more subtly, the fundamental exclusion which founds the horizon for the political)? Certainly one can cite any number of societal impossibilities, starting with society itself as an impossible object. It is equally valid to state the freedom is impossible, or justice, or democracy. In fact, all objects are impossible objects. This is the fundamental ontological conviction of political psychoanalysis.

Why then should class be privileged? Additionally, is there any underlying logic to capitalism, such that it is not contingent? I believe these two questions are linked, and provide the most pressing issues for me to consider.

For now though, I believe that I must begin by laying out my conception of class, moving through the genealogy of the concept, through contemporary debates before outlining and justifying my theoretical position