Update, August 2008

The majority of my time since the last update has been spent writing an essay considering the relationship between class and capitalism in terms of the interaction between Marxist and psychoanalytic theory. I plan, taking into account several re-writes, that the content of this essay will make up the majority of the first major section of the thesis, originally planned to be ‘What is Capitalism?’. The move to class signalled a change in perspective; rather than attempting to represent or map capitalism, class is instead that which prevents capitalism from being, and the subsequent relations which result from this impossibility. Such a perspective is much more compatible with the epistemological assumptions of psychoanalytic research.

The essay was divided into three sections[i];
- A theoretical history of class after Marx
- Contemporary psychoanalytic perspectives on class
- A theory of the operation of class within contemporary capitalism

The first section proved straightforward, little more than a history lesson, although the narrative was specifically constructed to produce the context for the argumentation to follow. This research did allow me to understand the context for the issues I was considering, but will prove more useful for the introductory stages of the thesis.

The second section was the most troublesome. Here I was inspired by the conference I attended in LA, which was my first exposure to work which specifically focused on psychoanalysis and the economy. Much of this work is limited in its understanding of psychoanalysis and has not been much exposed to psychoanalytic critique, but I believe that it has allowed me to bring my work forward, particularly around class struggle.

In terms of psychoanalysis and class, I have constructed this debate as divided between two positions; Zizek and Yahya Madra/Ceren Ozselcuk[ii] from the Association for Economic and Social Analysis (AESA) group[iii]. The division rests upon an understanding of Lacan's maxim 'There is no sexual relationship'. Both consider that this maxim can be equally applied to class – ‘There is no class relationship’ – but differ in their interpretation of the statement.
For Madra and Ozselcuk, class exists – it is a process which involves the process of producing, distributing and appropriating surplus[iv] - but class relationships are impossible because there is no meta-language which would allow for a neutral approach to the class process. Nonetheless, class relationships do occur, based upon an ideological illusion which mitigates and includes the failure which haunts class, they just always fail. That is, capitalist class relationships are based upon a masculine logic whereby the formation of class relationships is reliant upon an exception[v]. This exception, like Freud’s primordial father from Totem and Taboo, operates at the top of the chain, not at the bottom, and is included within the symbolic matrix of ideology.

Madra and Ozselcuk include both capitalism and communism in this category – an ideological fantasy, based upon an exception element that is notionally outside of the class process yet controls its conditions of possibility. Within capitalism, this exception is the Board of Directors – the only entity within the capitalist enterprise, who does not contribute to, and battles for, control of surplus and the class process[vi]. Only the directors enjoy other people’s surplus without giving anything in return.

I have two problems with this argument. Firstly, within the logic of this argument, I believe that the location of the exception is misplaced. Rather than the Board of Directors (who supply strategic direction) I would argue that it is the shareholders who provide nothing but the conditions of possibility for the capitalist enterprise. My second objection is to the use of an ‘upper’ exception. If you can excuse the limitations of a spatial model, my previous understanding of non-identity had come either in the form of a ‘horizontal’ constitute outside or a ‘lower’ concrete universal. The former referring to the limitations which form the basis of a discourse, say Islam to Christianity, the latter to the exclusion which forms the discourse, third world poverty to first world wealth. Instead, I define the status of the Board of Directors/shareholders as that of a nodal point, or perhaps empty signifier. Whilst they provide a point of difference within the discourse (or rather the very instantiation of difference) this exception is very well accepted from within the discourse; the exception is not excluded from the horizon itself.

In my reading of sexuation, however, I have found that this is in the predominant understanding of exception within a masculine logic. My previous understanding of exception – that of the part with no part – is better understand as an exclusion from the field of understanding. For this reason, and for reasons I shall further elaborate once I move on to Zizek’s work, I decided that I needed to step away from my class essay and gather a greater understanding of sexuation, upon which the difference between Zizek and Madra/Ozselcuk rests. In particular I need to further develop my understanding of sexuation in relation to universality, which is at the forefront of my theoretical understanding. Of special interest is the relationship between sexuation and the concrete universal, the predominant usage of which appears to vary greatly from my present understanding.

At this stage of my research, it appears that differing understandings of sexual difference, in relation to class, is the central division, both theoretical and political, between Madra/ Ozselcuk and Zizek. This division is encapsulated in their differing readings of the maxim ‘there is no sexual/class relationship’. As I noted, for Madra/Ozselcuk, within capitalism class exists relationships do exist, but they always fail. This failure occurs within what they believe to be the hegemony of masculine logic in capitalist class relationships. Against this, Madra and Ozselcuk argue that we need a feminine logic of class, one which breaks with any fantasmatic blockage of the impossibility of class and institutes this impossibility as its founding moment. Under such a feminine logic no one entity would have exclusive rights to surplus, thus breaking with current and conventional understandings of both capitalism and communism. Thus class relationships would still be impossible, but under the feminine construction of this impossibility non-exploitative class relationships are possible. The (non) relationship would be non-exploitative because no entity has exclusive rights to surplus, in contrast to the constitutive exception of masculine class relationships[vii].

It is difficult to reconcile Madra and Ozselcuk’s understanding of non-exploitative class processes with Zizek’s conception of class, even though both start from the same moment in Lacan’s work. There is a certain structural similarity between Madra/Ozselcuk and Zizek, with the former citing Zizek as sharing the usage of the maxim ‘there is no class relationship’ and in considering class as a modality of the real[viii]. At times Zizek’s work on class does resemble Madra and Ozselcuk. He does contend that class struggle is the Real, an impossibility that cannot be instituted within capitalist ideology. Zizek’s main point is that class is the exclusion which founds the capitalist horizon, a determining cause by its very absence that inspires an infinite plurality of discursive responses, which could be read in defence of Madra and Ozselcuk’s understanding of class impossibility Although the latter do not consider this point specifically, it is commensurable within their research.

Where they differ is on sexuation. Although at times Zizek’s implicit[ix] class critiques appear to consider capitalist class relations to conform to a masculine logic, Zizek main contention is that class is already a feminine concept. The impossibility of the class relationship relates to the impossibility of any meta-language within which to discuss class because class is its own exception. If class is the exclusion which founds the symbolic order (under capitalism) than it acts as the exception for all other discourses – class is the exception that allows for our conception of race, democracy and shoe fetishes. It is this exception (making the discourse masculine) which allows for the formation of the concepts of race, democracy and indeed shoe fetishism. But class is also its own exception. For this reason, Zizek argues that class is a feminine non-all – it does not receive the same exceptional guarantee of other discourses. In this sense class ‘does not exist’.

I have always considered that statements such that ‘x doesn’t exist’ are typical Lacanian exaggerations. It is not that something doesn’t exist, it is only that it is lacking. For example ‘the Other doesn’t exist’. If we consider the other to be the symbolic order, then clearly it does exist, but not in complete form. It is like stating the one’s stamp collection does not exist because it does not contain ever possible stamp. From this perspective ‘does not exist’ can be read as ‘is incomplete’. Recently, however, I have begun to reconsider my opinion based on a different kind of reading. This reading is based on Lacan’s notion of ex-istance. As I understand it, ex-stance means that it is not so much that the object doesn’t exist in the sense that it is not there, but that the image of the concept it all its fullness does not exist. That class does not exist is not the same thing as ‘there is no such thing as ghosts’. Rather it states that the universal concept of class does not exist, no matter what particular attempts are made to fill it. In the masculine sense, object relationships are lacking because attempts are made to instantiate a particular to fill the universal

This is Zizek’s understanding of ‘there is no class relationship’. Because class is non-all, it is an impossible object that is beyond definition. One cannot research class in the same way as race or democracy. Instead, researchers can only consider the affects of class, in much the same way as they might consider the affects of the real or black holes.

An understanding of the presence of absence, or effect without (visible) cause is at the core of psychoanalysis. I am confused, however, with the implicitly distinction Zizek makes between class and the real. Class struggle, Zizek regularly reminds us, is a modality of the real. The real, however, is able to be symbolically defined. The analyst is able to understand the effects of the real and represent these effects into a formal concept of the real. The concept of the real does not extinguish the real, but it does give important insight into its affects.

Madra and Ozselcuk use a similar formal definition of class processes as an impossibility, but an impossibility that can be represented formally in its affects. Considering this gap between definitions of the real and Zizek’s reluctance to define class, which we have to assume is deliberate, we have to wonder what the difference is between the real and class as a modality of the real. If class is feminine, is the real also feminine, or is the real between the point, or rather the point itself, in terms of sexuation?

Perhaps I should expand upon my current knowledge of sexuation. As I understand it, the masculine and feminine are two different attempt at universalising the concept, both of which fails. Put another way, the masculine and feminine are two different attempts to symbolise the real. Where the masculine attempts to construct itself as all – everything is within the set, except the one that is not – the feminine is always non-all – there is nothing which cannot be included within the set. The point of failure for the masculine is the exception, for the feminine it is the inability of the set to finalise itself.

We see this in Kant’s ‘mathematical antinomy’ here Kant offers two equally valid perspectives on the universe; the universe is finite and the universe is infinite. The former, which attempts to close off the universe (in doing so producing an exception) is the masculine, whereas ‘the universe is infinite’ is the feminine non-all. The psychoanalytic point is that the symbolic is naturally non-all – it cannot be closed as a set (the focus on the incompleteness of the symbolic order has led to suggestions that Lacan is a post-structuralist) but the masculine subject through either ideological fantasy or the fundamental fantasy, depending on one’s perspective, prefers the illusion of completeness.

What these perspectives are then, is different responses to the Real. The Real of sexual difference however does not operate within the logics, but rather between them. Similar to Zizek’s work on the ‘Parallax Real’ the masculine and feminine logics are simply incommensurable; there is no possibility of translating between them. That is, any construction of sexual difference can only be caught up in sexual difference itself; there is no meta-language for mediating between them. Thus, Zizek’s sexual difference is not of the variety ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’, which implies that men and women have different symbolic universes. Zizek point is more radical than this; sexual difference means that not only are the masculine and feminine different configurations of the symbolic order, there is no point of translation between the two. There is no meta-language; sexual difference is that meta-language.

According to Zizek, the Real of sexual difference corresponds to the Real of class struggle. There is no way to mediate class struggle; class struggle is its own mediation. Just as one can consider the structure of responses to sexual difference – witness Zizek’s work on the masculine and feminine – one can consider actually existing class structures. Class struggle itself, however, cannot be considered as an object of research because it is its own exception – any attempt to define class struggle will come up against class struggle itself. In this sense class struggle and sexual difference are modalities of the Real, a kind of zero-level concept.

Of course, as with Zizek’s conceptions of the Real, the Real is not simply an a priori concept in the traditional sense of a positive determining factor. Rather it is the lack to which discourses respond. That is to say, class struggle is not ahistorical, but rather a historically contingent response to the Real. What Zizek is not clear on is whether class struggle exists only within a capitalist universe, or, as with Madra and Ozselcuk, class struggle is a fundamental impossibility in operation in all forms of economy. He is able to state that the central wager of Marxist theory is that class is the underlying antagonism of capitalism, but is not able to consider the conditions of possibility for class itself, unlike Marx who discussed in detail the possibilities of class relationships between feudalism, capitalism and communism.

To summarise the split between Madra/Ozselcuk and Zizek;
- Both consider there to be ‘no class relationship’ and class to be a modality of the real
- Madra and Ozselcuk define class as a formal process of the production, distribution and appropriation of surplus
- Madra and Ozselcuk consider class relationships to be impossible because of the impossibility of neutral position in relation to the class process
- However, they argue that class relationships do exist. Under capitalism these relations are formed under a masculine logic that produces an exception
- They argue for a non-fantasmatic approach to class under a feminine logic where no one entity has exclusive rights to surplus. They label this approach communism
- By contrast, Zizek contends that class is already a feminine concept
- Class is feminine because it is the underlying antagonism of all other discourses. As such it is the exception which constitutes these concepts, including itself
- Because class is non-all, it cannot be the positive object of research, although Zizek does make ‘class’ analyses in which he suggests that capitalism follows a masculine logic. At the same time, for Zizek any ideological critique is at the same time a class critique.

Spontaneously, I support Madra and Ozselcuk over Zizek, perhaps because they appear to produce a more viable political solution. But I have come to wonder whether this rests on my, and their, misreading of sexuation. I have really struggled to bring together Zizek and Madra/Ozselcuk on class and I think it is because they understand sexuation differing. This is why I have put on hold my essay and stopped to reflect on sexuation. Thoughts?




[i] In the thesis itself I plan to extend this essay to consider the positive relations (jouissance, ideological fantasy) that stem from the instantiation of class impossibility within capitalism. These relations revolve around the ideological triad liberal-democratic-multiculturalism and the underlying enjoyment of commodity fetishism, as well as the ‘circuit of capital’.
[ii] Madra and Ozselcuk primarily write together
[iii] This group publish primarily out of the Rethinking Marxism journal
[iv] As we shall see, the very act of defining class, let alone debating particular definitions of class, is perhaps the central political/theoretical division separating Zizek from Madra and Ozselcuk
[v] The distinction between an exception, which is accepted within the symbolic terms of the discourse and an exclusion, is vital to this understanding.
[vi] This perspective does not hold any distinction between necessary and surplus or direct/indirect labour
[vii] What I am primarily interested in is what happens to the exclusion which founds the masculine order (the reserve supply of workers) under a feminine logic
[viii] As far as I know Madra and Ozselcuk have not yet appeared on Zizek’s radar
[ix] Implicit in the sense that class is not specifically mentioned as in ‘In capitalism, class relations operate as...’ but dealing with subject matter traditionally linked with class; the proletariat, global slums etc