Every day 13,000 children under the age of five slowly perish from hunger or related biological deficits caused by extreme poverty (UNICEF, 2008). These children are largely part of the 880 million people at the bottom of the global ‘development ladder’ minimally existing on less than US$1.25 per day (World Bank, 2007). In 2008 the World Bank (2008) reported that global economic output reached an unprecedented US$143 Trillion, despite the beginnings of a global recession. The global population continues to expand at exponential rates, which – combined with continued economic growth – has placed unsustainable pressure upon planetary resources and supporting eco-systems. Already the affects of environmental degradation are falling disproportionally upon the poor. As a response to this suffering the United Nations developed a series of ‘Millennium Development Goals’ (MDGs), the foremost of which specifically aimed to half the number of people living in extreme poverty. Other movements prompting similar goals, such the celebrity-backed ‘Make Poverty History’, ‘One’ and ‘Red’ campaigns have received significant international publicity. Yet, by the end of 2008 little, if any, progress has been made towards reducing poverty, although the MDGs and associated campaigns have made more significant gains in reducing the dislocating impact of poverty and climate change upon the collective Western psyche.
As a response to this traumatic global problematic, the impact of the MDGs upon the emotional well-being of the developed world has perhaps been underappreciated by the hungry of the world. Instead, their attention has largely been focused on the rapid increases of food prices on the global market, which have wiped out any progress that had been made towards reducing their suffering. The rise in food prices has been part of a larger trend towards the increase-demand for resource commodities, caused by the continued growth of western wealth and the unprecedented development of Brazil, India and in particular China. Whilst this development has moved millions out of poverty, it has subsequently increased the price of food – which has had an undue effect on the world’s hungry – and placed more strain on the planet’s already stretched climatic conditions and resource limits. In response to the apparent change in the world’s climate, and the demand on the most valued commodity, Oil, the Western world has sought to develop alternative energy sources. This move – turning basic food crops such as corn into alternative fuels – has resulted in a reduction in the supply of food and has become an equal partner in the increase in the price of food and the suffering of the hungry.
The interaction between bio-fuels and world food prices reflects a deeper, if silent, crisis occurring on this planet. Unrestrained material growth, along with historically exponential population growth, has placed unsustainable pressure on global resources and eco-systems. Yet, if excessive consumption is contaminating the planet, equally horrific is the suffering of a sizable population of the world who are plagued by chronic under-consumption. The contradiction is clear. The planet cannot tolerant the necessary economic growth required to bring the masses out of poverty, but an enlightened humanity cannot accept such poverty. Capitalism, the economic system which his produced this unprecedented economic growth and prosperity (for some) cannot provide solutions to this contradiction. Rather capitalism itself is split between a requirement for continual growth and the maintenance of a system of inequality which produces the hungry, excluded, workers of the world. Under capitalism, there appears little hope neither for the hungry of the modern world, nor for planet Earth itself. Moreover, despite the current financial crisis, there exists no feasible alternative to capitalist political economy. Understood in this manner the situation cannot appear anything other than tragic.
This thesis, at its heart, is about responding to this problematic in terms of the plight of the world’s hungry.
This thesis first seeks to define the problem in terms of the structuration of capitalist political economy which causes, maintains and reproduces the dynamic contradiction between poverty and environmental unsustainability. It shall be argued that these problems are not contingent aberrations, but rather structural necessities for the continued reproduction of the capitalist mode of economy. Despite the contradictions within capitalism, there currently appears to be little prospect of the collapse of capitalism and, more importantly, no feasible alternative to the capitalist mode of political economy. Furthermore, capitalism has become so pervasive – both in terms of economy and ideology – that the space for thinking political economy outside of the epistemological limits of capitalism is rapidly shrinking.
In reply, this thesis passionately calls for a return to theory, a return to thinking outside of the limits of power, not simply to restrain that power, but to actively re-engage with societal problems – in this case, the failure of capitalist political economy. The hungry exist not because a lack of resources or a lack of compassion, but rather because the interactions between the limitations of our understanding of capitalism and the ideological structuring of the capitalist empire.
Symptomatic here is the work of Jeffery Sachs. Sachs, the director of the ‘Earth Institute’ at Colombia University in New York, is perhaps the most prominent contemporary public scholar on poverty, a position established by his seminal work The End of Poverty (2005). Sach’s most recent work Common Wealth (2008) considers the interactions between poverty and environmental limitations. In doing so, Sach’s constructs much the same problematic as this thesis; the world is facing both an environmental catastrophe and massive poverty, problems to be compounded by continued economic and population growth. Sachs, however, asserts that these problems can be solved with political will and minor alterations of capitalism.
This assertion is naturally contrary to the argumentation in this thesis. More interesting however, is Sachs symptomatic lack of consideration of the problematic outside of the limitations of capitalist ideology. Two points stand out here, both in the preface to Common Wealth. Firstly, Sachs asserts that our social philosophies always lag behind the scientific representation of the world, a category in which Sachs places his work. He then lists the broad categories of scholars working at the Earth Institute – none of which include social scientists, let alone theorists or ‘social philosophies’.
Sach’s blindness is part of a larger trend, the scientific hegemony of global problem solving. Science itself has a role to play in both the reduction of poverty and in managing environment change, but it does not consider the structuration of its own understanding. This has led to a situation where the status of global politics is considered as either moral or scientific, never human. Both social theory and politics are foreclosed from the debate – with the result that not only do we not look outside of current understanding for solutions, but human behaviour is implicitly considered to be fundamentally malleable. However, as Terry Eagleton has asserted, mountains has proved much easier to move that the structures of social life.
In response, I turn to Lacanian psychoanalysis as a form of radical theory capable of both revealing the structure and limitations of our current modality of shared social life, but also the possibilities for restructuring those limitations. Lacan’s work has inspired multiple interpretations and much controversy. In this thesis the central theoretical orientation is provided by Slavoj Zizek’s reading of Lacan.
Zizek’s work provides an exciting, insightful and powerful methodology for the critique of capitalism. Yet, neither Zizek nor the (fractured) community of post-Lacanian theorists have been able to generate a hegemonic political frontier that imagines a new form of shared social life. More importantly, Lacanian theory has been constitutively unable to consider the possibilities for the material reproduction of that shared social life, although Zizek’s reading of Marxism and class struggle shall be heavily relied upon. Moreover, in this thesis I contend that such a production of both shared social life and its material reproduction exceed psychoanalytic theory. Thus, although this thesis is informed by Lacanian psychoanalysis, ultimately to engage with political economy the Lacanian horizon must be extended by a consideration of the excessive materiality of the (impossibilities) of the economic.
Considering the Hungry
Feeding the hungry is at the same time an incredibly simple but increasing complex task. Our world has both the knowledge of the existence of hunger, and more importantly the resources, to be able respond to the problem. Feeding the hungry, is not, however, a matter of political will, as Jeffery Sachs (2008: 4) suggests. Such an argument only mediates against the dislocating affect of poverty. The more disturbing conclusion, perhaps unpalpably so, is that within our capitalist mode of economy, we simply have no solution to suffering of the hungry. More than that, in the face of our complicity, the capitalist system actively maintains this situation. Simply put, in order for capitalism to function, a certain percentage of the world’s population must remain hungry and die for a cause in which, officially they have no place. They are the constitutive exception of capitalism – necessary, yet disavowed or foreclosed from the developed eye.
The argumentation here, as I shall develop in this thesis, is complex and differentiated. It is not my purpose to prescriptively represent and map the operation of either capitalism or extreme poverty. There is no doubt that poverty is impacted by a multitude of causes. Nor should we doubt that the particular (trans-capitalist) aid measures which address some of those causes – say, reducing the spread of AIDS, or immunising against Malaria – would reduce the effects of poverty and the suffering of those in poverty. Limiting our approach to these gradual measures which act only to maintain the system risks a situation where individuals who are otherwise capitalist tyrants, like Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, become the word’s greatest humanitarians (Zizek, 2008: 430). None of these measures are able to link hunger and suffering with the global economy and as such is not able to interact with its fundamental cause – capitalist political economy.
Nonetheless, one should not jump to the vulgar conclusion that exclusion, suffering and hunger are active created by capitalist subjectivity, that some mysterious conspiring agents are secretly maintaining this situation in the name of Capital[ii]. Rather, the situation is much more complex and subsequently more horrific. Extreme poverty is not the consequence of a contingent aberration in the system, soon to be eliminated by economic progress or the enlightenment of the masses. Nor are some sinister agents of power responsible, such that a mere act of political will can rectify the situation. Instead, I contend that this extreme and absolute poverty is the systematic result of our mediocre day-to-day economic interactions and pleasures. That is, for the capitalist system to remain functional, providing the wealth available in the western world, extreme poverty, hunger and death occur on a horrific scale as the necessary consequence of capitalist subjectivity.
Consequently any discourse which seeks to intervene in the suffering of the hungry cannot do so within the epistemological limits of capitalism. Instead, we must develop a new space for our globally shared social life, or rather the material reproduction of that life. This new economic space must avoid both the exceptionality and the exclusion of both the masses and the even more marginalised hungry. In our current circumstances, however, such an alternative form of economy is not on the horizon. Capitalism has become so pervasive that both conservatives and many radicals have come to support Francis Fukuyama’s ‘End of History’ thesis. While conservatives celebrate the victory of liberal-democratic (capitalism), for radicals such a resignation is tinged with more than a hint of tragedy. Meanwhile, although any alternative to capitalism is likely to be in the socialist, or at least Marxist, tradition, the existence of actually existing socialism provides little in the way of inspiration, but much in the way of melancholy and nostalgia.
Instead, given the lack of alternatives, this thesis turns to theory to consider both our current understanding of political economy and the conditions of possibility for the material reproduction of shared social life. In particular, this thesis is informed by post-Lacanian psychoanalysis and the work of Slavoj Žižek. Žižek’s work on universality (the understanding and discursive reproduction of social life) suggests that any universal, or utopian, position is ultimately impossible. Instead, universality is characterised by the dialectical operation of lack and excess, such that any universal identification is constituted upon the existence of an exception. In terms of political economy, Žižek labels this impossibility class struggle.
Post-Lacanian psychoanalytic discourse offers several ethico-political alternatives. These range from the ‘democratic enjoyment’ of Yannis Stavrakakis’ (following Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe) conception of radical democracy, Laclau’s subsequent move to populism, Alenka Zupancic’s work on the concrete universal in relation to love and comedy, as well as Ceren Ozselcuk and Yahya Madra’s focus on feminine structure and class struggle. Additionally, Žižek – certainly the most prominent post-Lacanian figure – has articulated a number of political positions, from an initial support of radical democracy to calls to traverse the fantasy, move to the Lacanian Act or practice the concrete universal. The latest instantiation of his work calls for the development of a ‘subtractive politics’.
Conversely, these alternatives have generally been focused on the political, rather than the politically economic. Nonetheless, a limited range of psychoanalytic critiques of the economy have been developed. A wide-ranging discursive frontier, characterised by the work of Stavrakakis, Todd McGowan and Jason Glynos, has emerged which considers relations of enjoyment and consumption, but pays little attention to production or class relations. Alternatively, Žižek, following Fredric Jameson, has sought to develop a new dialogue between Marxism and psychoanalysis. However, whilst this ‘psycho-Marxism’ has produced a telling critique of capitalism – one that shall be heavily relied on in this thesis – it has not been able to consider an alternative to capitalism. Indeed Žižek considers that no outside exists within or beyond capitalism under which space for the development of an alternative exists.
Žižek shares this perspective with Jameson, who understands history as capitalism’s gradual realisation that it does not exist. No doubt Jameson would consider the current financial crisis as an example of that realisation and the coming apocalypse. In this sense Jameson is a revolutionary in the same manner as Jesus Christ. Both perceived the requirement for revolutionary transformation, but neither saw the need for revolutionary action. Instead the revolution would take care of itself (Eagleton, 2007: xx-xxi). So far, despite movements in the right direction, both have been proven spectacularly wrong.
Our fundamental impotence in waiting for the downfall of capitalism is a position disputed by Madra and Ozselcuk. Working with the Association for Economic and Social Analysis (AESA) out of the
In this thesis I shall argue that Madra and Ozselcuk have made the correct move in attempting to consider the conditions of possibility for political economy outside of capitalism. Whilst Žižek’s analysis of capitalism provides powerful insight, his work offers little hope for the hungry. Instead, this thesis seeks to follow the AESA discourse of new relations of class impossibility. This discourse, however, is rather underdeveloped in regard to Lacanian theory. In that regard, the goal of this thesis is to consider the progressive possibilities for instantiating the impossibility of class relationships in terms of ethic constructions of universality and exception and the material reproduction of shared social life in the name of world’s suffering hungry.
Here I take reference from Terry Eagleton, whose ‘cheerful’ work stands in stark contrast to the tragic resignation of Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Žižek. Eagleton’s work is largely orientated by the Marxist tradition, but displays much sympathy for psychoanalytic thought. More useful for this thesis, however, is Eagleton’s consideration of the body as an ethical object at the heart of the human condition. Such a consideration allows for an enlarged understanding of the consequences of political economy beyond the standard anti-capitalism critique. Additionally, Eagleton has increasingly focused on the comedic side of love (this he shares with Alenka Zupancic) which suggests the prospect of a progressive consideration of exclusion (in this case the hungry) and the possibility of hope.
[i] Although, in the Western world more attention has been focused on the strain on Western budgets than the plight of the hungry
[ii] As I shall expand upon later, the ‘agents’ of capitalism are actively involved in the generation and maintenance of poverty at some levels. Of most interest are the historical forces of colonisation, which has created massive inequalities and labour-vulenerabilities exploited by capital, as well as the soft-colonisation of the IMF and World Bank. These ‘Bretton Woods’ have expanded capitalist relations throughout the global economy, expanding inequalities in the name of wealth creation. Additionally, Naomi Klein (2007) has identified a new dynamic by which western companies are actively creating or promoting disasters such as the Iraqi war.
