Poverty Discourses

Discourses on Poverty

As I noted in my last entry, I have not untaken a full analysis/theoretical review of poverty discourse this week; most of my time has been spent on theory. However, I have been doing some reading, which I have summarised, without much in the way of organisation, below;

Much of my reading time was spent on Jeffery Sachs’ The End of Poverty (Sachs, 2005). For me the most interesting thing about Sachs’ work was that he rejects the traditional free-market capitalist position from the Bretton Woods Institutions. Indeed he positions their efforts as a cause of poverty, and thus a social antagonism (Sachs, 2005; 74, 79, 189,249, 300-314). While Sachs come close to suggesting that extreme global poverty is the result of these programmes he does not very poverty as constitutive of them. This is a position taken on by others, such as Singh and Tabatabai (1993).

Thus Sachs seeks to rearticulate capitalism in a manner that will radically reduce poverty. In doing this Sachs posits the symptom, poverty, as simply a failure that can be dealt with through a rearticulation rather than a necessary failure of the system. Similarly, Buarque (1993) argues that capitalism’s failure to deal with inequality is because of an ethical deficit. Thus a rearticulation with a stronger notion of ethics and progress would lead to a better form of economics and capitalism.

However, Sachs is not able to take it to the end and see extreme poverty as constitutive, either of ‘pure’ capital or his own brand. He creates this position in two significant moves.
Sachs identifies, correctly and importantly in my position, 1/6 of the global population as extreme poor. These people are unable to get on the development ladder. There are others who are poor, but on the ladder, doing sweatshop work etc. Sachs does identify the situation of these workers as constitutive of capitalist development, but not as a symptom, in contrast to the universal. Rather it is a necessary point of development. This is an important point to follow through. Thus there is no exploitation here of the Third World by western capital. Rather they are doing them a favour, developmentally etc

In Sachs’ opinion, the 1/6 of the world that is left out can get on the ladder, but we need a re-orientation of capitalism. Thus his position is much like the ecological modernism/sustainability approach. It has not been successful yet because the dislocatory effect has been easily pacified simply through the production of ideas like the United Nations Millenium Development Goal’s . Therefore poverty does not repeat on us in the same manner that climate change does. Likewise there is no money in it for the business. The only manner in which the ‘unreason of reason’ can come through or become a concern is in political instability. However, this is unlikely to produce any kind of radical change. Notably there is no empty signifier for the universal, although the play of objet a around the symptom (the symptom becomes objet a) is significant.

Anyway, these 1/6 are left out for reasons that while not displaced onto the victims, are not global or universal in any sense. Rather they are produced as situational antagonisms. The requirement for capitalism to have this excess is never questioned, despite Sach’s identifying that global inequality began from the industrial revolution, particularly iwht the spread of capitalism. Situational factors may have affected the initial growth rates, but this initial head start, and the system itself, is what keeping the hierarchy steady.

As noted, Sachs believes that this category of poor have not been brought into the system because classical capitalism does not give them a helping hand, which is required given their circumstances. At no point is it considered that classical capitalism may have required the extreme poor to stay as this excess. Thus for Sachs, by dealing with these antagonisms in a differentiated and collective approach, the extreme poor can get on the development ladder. What effect they would have on the rest of the world is not discussed. For example, in Sach’s development approach, the next step from extreme poverty is to get into manufacturing for the western world, particularly garment manufacturing (p.195). He contends that Africa’s failure to get into this market is a symptom of the poverty trap that they face. What he does not consider is the ethics of such exploitation, nor the global consequences, both on existing argiculture and manufacturing industries on such a move. Indeed, Sachs seems to ethically hide behind the devlopmental model in order to justify exploitation and poverty, something completely contrary to his apparent imaginary.

However, I do not seek to deny that the causes of poverty that Sachs identifies. I’m sure they are all valid reasons for why Africa is at the bottom of the developmental pile. Just like objet a, the symptom as a discourse has a logic of its own. What Sachs does not identify is the form of capital as a cause; why does there have to be a bottom of the pile to such a degree, why is poverty required in its varying degrees? Sachs appears satisfied with sweatshop economies, never considering the constitutive excess that is in operation here to be ethically problematic (p.65).

Much of Sachs’ argument is based around poverty as a failure rather than as a symptom. This occurs largely because Sachs creates a false dichotomy of capital against socialism which cuts down options. Because Sachs can see no other option to capital, and because capital seems so effective in creating wealth in so many countries, he is unable to see the limits of capital as a system.

His movement, much like the end of poverty etc is a real super-ego guilt movement that easily gives way to ideology; it is our generations challenge etc, the wrist bands as a constant reminder. Is there not another option to directly attention to poverty? Is that another possible task for this thesis?

An alternative manner of domesticating the symptom is taken on by the Bretton Woods organisations, the IMF and the World Bank. These organisations have taken on the task of ‘trying to listen to the poor’ (Narayan, Chambers, Shah, & Petesch, 2000; Narayan, Patel, Schafft, Rademacher, & Koch-Schulte, 2000; Narayan & Petesch, 2002; Robb, 2002). Thus rather than see those in poverty as an ‘object’ they seek to get to know the poor and their problems from the inside. However, this turns out to be contrary to the real issue, as it takes away the universal perspective. Rather than seeing poverty as constitutive of the global capitalism economic system, as I am advocating, poverty becomes a problem individually related to the society in which it is in operation. This is not to suggest that those in poverty are being blamed for their predicament, although this does occur in other Bretton Woods publications e.g. corrupt governments. Rather individualised reasons are found, such as bad geography and various others elements of the ‘poverty trap’. Such an analysis is also found in Sachs work.

It appears that no intermediate position can be found between the experience of poverty and its international co-ordinates. One can describe the international conditions that create statistical poverty and the experience of poverty itself, but the gap between them stays; one can only perceive the gap through the shift between positions. This is what Zizek describes as the Parallax Gap. Thus although the context for poverty can be discussed, it cannot be described in relation to global economics, something that seems awry in texts which constantly refer to globalisation; but only from the perspective of capital. The poor are victims, but not global victims.

The parallax gap to which I refer can also be called the ‘parallax real’. This is not the real as a hard kernel, but rather the real which distorts symbolic space such that the truth cannot be perceived. Instead the symptom is taken on in fantasy and particularised as a failure rather than a symptom. It is only when this parallax real is evoked that the symptom can become a concrete universal.

It seems a little strange to me that solutions, such as those suggested in the millennium development goals of the UN and Sachs, are always of a global nature, thus strengthening the universal imaginary, but the symptom, poverty, is never related to this universal in such discourses.

A lot of attention that is paid to the symptom is through aid and trade, essentially ideology and super-ego. Generally this is no where even close to system changing (debt relief and emergency aid) or may actually further engender the symptom, such is the case with many Bretton Woods style solutions.

Yet still Tariffs on imports important to the third world remain highly tariffed. As well as subsidies. Now we are getting into the territory of the concrete universal. The United Nations Millenium development report claims that these restrictions against imports from the Third World need to be removed (UnitedNations, 2005) . But what would the effect be on developed countries? Yet despite these ‘facts’ poverty doesn’t seem to be linked.

The general cause of poverty is seen to be unique to the area, although it is generally not thought of as a fault of the people. An example of this is seen in (Narayan, Chambers et al., 2000). Here the authors identify ten different elements of the web that make up the poverty trap from the perspectives of those in poverty;

Precarious Livelihoods with Few Assets
Isolated, Risky and Unserviced Places of the Poor
Hungry, Exhausted and Sick Bodies
Unequal Gender Relations
Isolating Social Relations
Insecurity and Lack of Peace of Mind
Abusive Behaviour of Those More Powerful
Disempowering and Excluding Institutions
Weak and Disconnected Organisation of the Poor
Poor in Capabilities

Similarly, Sachs identifies eight elements of the poverty trap;
Poverty itself as a cause of stagnation e.g. Lack of savings
Physical geography
Fiscal traps e.g. Debt
Governance Failures
Cultural Barriers
Geopolitics
Lack of innovation
Demographic traps




It is assumed that if some nations can do it, others can as well, as thus we must see what is occurring in the poorest nations and not the others. Because market economies have generated more wealth than socialist states, then capitalism is the only possible game.

In this short and limited review I have only really focused on one category of discourse in relation to the symptom, those discourses which particularise the symptom. This category is by far the most common grouping because it establishes the location of the symptom within the universal, and promises to fix it, either through ideology or super-ego demand. As I have previously noted, there are four other types of discourses around the symptom;
- Discourses which disavowal the symptom
- Discourses which are external to the symptom
- Discourses which reveal the symptom
- Discourses of the symptom

I have briefing touched on the last category in this review. These discourses were produced by the World Bank and the IMF, and as such cannot be thought of as pure discourses of the symptom. This is because they are produced in the terms of the abstract universal imaginary and as such suffer from the parallax gap. It is only discourses of the symptom which take on the universal imaginary and thus position themselves as the concrete universal that are interesting to me.

Perhaps the most difficult category to review is the discourses which disavowal the symptom. It is a demanding task to distinguish between a true disavowal and simple ignorance or ignoring of the symptom. For example, little or any New Zealand political economic discourse focuses on global poverty. However, is this because the symptom has been disavowed, or because global poverty is simply not the topic of discussion?

Further to this, discourses of this kind, such as ‘pure’ free-market anarcho- capitalism (e.g Friedman, 1978) may not actually directly disavowal the symptom. Indeed they may actually accept it as constitutive. However, different discursive devices are used so that this symptom is not actually real, rather it is just a moment of the discourse.

This type of discourse fits into the same category as disavowal discourses because they do not seek to particularise the symptom, but rather not see the symptom as a symptom or even a failure, but rather part of the universal imaginary itself. Freidman, admittedly writing in 1978, fails to note any aspect of global effect of capitalism, noting that in advanced capitalist societies inequality has decreased with economic growth.

‘ Few people believe that capitalism leads inexorably to the impoverishment of the masses; the evidence against this thesis is too overwhelming’ (Friedman, 1978:26).

This leaves discourses which reveal the symptom and discourses which are external to the symptom. I have not completed enough analysis on either of these modalities. The latter is especially difficult to analyse as it takes in everything that is not direct discourse on poverty. Perhaps a more subtle definition would discourses on the symptom that are external to the universal imaginary. Islam or Green radicalism fits into this category, and I plan to expand this further at a latter date. They are important because they give evidence to the existence of alternative modes of thinking, although not much hopes for radical change.

More hopeful in producing change are discourses which reveal the symptom. It is difficult to find discourses which directly view poverty as a constitutive element of capitalism. Classical Marxism did, but this now rarely focuses on the global economy. Many see poverty as caused by capitalism, but not necessarily a constitutive cause, as we might see in Zizek’s work. It appear remarkably difficult to articulate such a position from within the universal, yet not impossible, one simply has to look it the problem slightly awry, or take a Zizekian short-circuited approach.

Friedman, D. (1978). The Machinery of Freedom. Illinois: Open Court.
Narayan, D., Chambers, R., Shah, M. K., & Petesch, P. (2000). Voices of The Poor; Crying Out for Change. New York: Oxford University Press.
Narayan, D., Patel, R., Schafft, K., Rademacher, A., & Koch-Schulte, S. (2000). Voices of the Poor; Can Anyone Hear Us? New York: Oxford University Press.
Narayan, D., & Petesch, P. (Eds.). (2002). Voices of the Poor; From Many Lands. New York: Oxford University Press.
Robb, C. M. (2002). Can the Poor Influence Policy? Participatory Poverty Assessments in the Developing World (2nd ed.). Washington: The International Bank for Reconstruction Development/ The World Bank.
Sachs, J. (2005). The End of Poverty; Economic Possibilities fo Our Time. New York: Penguin Press.
Singh, A., & Tabatabai, H. (Eds.). (1993). Economic Crisis and Third World Argiculture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
UnitedNations. (2005). The Millenium Development Goals Report. New Yokr: United Nationa.

The Parallax View

The Parallax View is Zizek’s latest work. This entry outlines some of the ideas I have picked up, from the introduction and first chapter at least. All page number references come from this work.

I closely identify with Zizek’s approach to discourse analysis, and philosophy in general. Zizek label’s this style a ‘short-circuit’. In a short circuit, one seeks to make a critical reading so as to reveal the hidden underside of a discourse (ix).


‘The reader should not simply have learned something new; the point is rather to make them aware of another-disturbing- side of something they knew all the time’

Zizek believes, and I concur, that Lacanian psychoanalysis is the privileged instrument of the short-circuit approach, although it is necessary to note that a short-circuit relies heavily on dialectics and thus Hegel. As Zizek contends dialectical materialism is the struggle of opposite in the form of tension within the universal (7).

Materialism comes into dialectics through the relationship between the objective and subjective. For Zizek, the subject is that which submits itself; to subject oneself to the social. Therefore the object is the obstacle to which the individual subjects themselves. Zizek’s materialist turn lies not in the full inclusion of the subject in ‘objective’ reality, but rather the twist by which the subject is included in the constitution of the object (17). Thus we can never fully see objective reality, because it is always stained by our subjective positioning. It is also this materialist stain that is the cause of the parallax gap.

This stain/blind spot is the constitutive element of the psychoanalytic approach; it is that which leads to desire, drive, objet a and the empty signifier amongst other things. An empty signifier occurs at the limit of the discourse where it is confronted by others. Because it attempts to suture a discourse it takes on the demands of many others and becomes an empty signifier. The empty signifier, like Objet-a, becomes a subliminated object; the sublime object of ideology, because it takes the position of something more than itself.

Objet a is the flip-side of the empty signifier, in that at the same time it both represents the limits of signification and attempts to bridge this gap. Given this, my analysis needs to also focus on finding empty signifiers (rather than just symptoms) and for this Laclau’s work is most useful. The empty signifier is intimately related to the symptom; the empty signifier attempts to cover up the gap represented by the symptom. The empty signifier also represents this gap, but in a constructive manner. Laclau does note the role of objet a in ideology, but restricts it within his term ‘hegemony’, which limits the degree to which Laclau develops the role of jouissance and fantasy in ideology (40). There is a large debate around Laclau use of these Lacanian categories, one I hope to develop further in the near future (Glynos & Stavrakakis, 2003; Laclau, 2003; Stavrakakis, 1997, 1999).

In something of a side-bar, Zizek notes that the empty signifier does not attempt to fill the gap in the universal, but rather he suggests that the empty signifier is a fill in for the failure of the particular to fulfil with itself.

The parallax gap is that which forever eludes the grasp of a symbolic perspective, even if it is another symbolic perspective. It is this very inability which causes ‘a multiplicity of symbolic perspectives’. It is the modes of these different perspectives which I seek to develop further in this thesis in order to show the way ahead for any discourse seeking to promote change.

The parallax gap, which gives the book its title, is the gap between two closely linked perspectives, between which no common ground is possible (4). It is this contradiction, the inability of a dominant discourse to subvert and domesticate its underside that is the key to the dialectic process. This is not to suggest that the two are simply opposite with no translation possible. One discourse can easily be converted into the others’ terms, such as environmentalism and capitalism, which produce the empty signifier Sustainable Development.

In his ‘Short-circuit’ approach, Zizek suggests that he practices concrete universality by confronting a universal with its ‘unbearable example’ (13). This really is the heart of my thesis; searching for the internal fault points of the discourse (symptoms) that could be revealed as constitutive of the universal and thus a potential concrete universal.

Zizek locates the paradox of the parallax gap at the point where difference occurs. This difference is not that between two positively existing objects, like in formalism logic, or between an excluded discourse and a dominant discourse, but rather a ‘minimal difference’ which divides one and the same object from itself- this difference immediately produces an impossible object; objet a or the empty signifier (18).

Zizek also develops a different modality of the real, the parallax real. This real is not the hard kernel that also returns to its place and remains the same in every possible symbolisation. Rather the real is the ‘disavowed X’ to which we have no direct access and that distorts our vision of reality. Therefore the real is also not the ‘objective reality’ against which we can play appearances, but rather the gap, the obstacle that distorts symbolisation in the first place.

The parallax real is thus the irreconcilable gap between two points within a universal identity. This gap is not perceivable from a position within the discursive perspectives, but only from a shift between the positions (26). A good example of this is the gap between the ‘Left’ political economy perspectives on environmentalism and poverty. The latter calls for more growth and the former for less. Although they are within the same banner, under the empty signifier ‘Left’, they are clearly opposed. This minimal difference, which is attempted to be sutured by the ‘Left’ e.g. The Left needs a new universal under which to fight its problems within a unity, reveals the true real which is distorting the symbolic; global capital.

I find the idea of a parallax real as the gap between two diametrically opposed perspectives within an identity particularly productive. It certainly helps me better understand the role of the empty signifier and also the symptom. The symptom has the role of evoking the real by playing on the tension this gap provides and the discourses it generates. For example, this parallax real exists between western capitalism and absolute poverty. The two cannot be reconciled, although attempts are constantly been made. These attempts are not based upon a ‘full’ understanding of poverty in capitalism, but rather a filtered, particularised and domesticated view e.g. The charitable view of poverty. Thus the existance of poverty is itself a symptom of western capitalism, whose universal decree is directly opposed to the idea of poverty. Therefore the symptom is the evidence of the distortion in perspective, it evokes the tension of the gap between the discourses.

Therefore the symptom is evidence of the distorted effect of the real, but also a discourse in itself. The parallax real is the gap between the abstract universal and its symptom, within the terms of the abstract universal ; it is the gap between which no communication can occur because the terms have no commonalty, even though they come from the same species.

What is important for me in the Parallax real is that the symptom has a discourse, and this discourse is real; it cannot be symbolised from the perspective of the universal. Zizek takes this a step further and says yes, the symptom does exist as a discourse and can only be understood by a shift in perspective. However, the real does not lie in either of the discourses, but rather the gap between them which creates a tension that the universal discourse constantly tries to eradicate. This gap anamorphically distorts the universal, it produces a curvature in symbolic space which produces a multitude of attempts to symbolise what is ultimately the same underlying real.

This minimal difference between the two genus of discourses within the same species of discourse produces the core attribute of concrete universality; the noncoincindence of a thing with itself; A = non-A (30). Concrete universality, the truth of the universal, exists as a constant tension upon the relationship between the abstract universal, which names the site of the deadlock through the empty signifier and the particular, which seeks to fill it. There truth, as concrete universality, is only available from a distorted perspective, that of the symptom (31-5). This is of vital importance for my work, as it suggests that we cannot know the truth from the perspective of the abstract universal. We cannot go too far however and say that the truth can only be known from the symptom. The truth can be seen from analysis within the abstract universal, this analysis just has to be a short-circuited forensic analysis; analysis from awry. Therefore any attempt to understand the symptom purely within the terms of the abstract universal will only produce a domesticating particularisation of the symptom. Only discourses from the symptom or those who reveal the symptom and open up the space around it through identification with it, have access to concrete universality.

Zizek also notes that truth always lies in the side of universality, not fantasy. In this we have to be careful not to identify underlying fantasmatic support with hidden truths/symptoms (41).

‘It is not enough to convince the patient of the unconscious truth of his symptom; the unconscious itself must be induced to accept this truth’ (351)

Glynos, J., & Stavrakakis, Y. (2003). Encounters of the Real Kind: Sussing Out the Limits of Laclau's Embrace of Lacan. Journal for Lacanian Studies, 1(1), 110-128.
Laclau, E. (2003). Discourse and Jouissance: A reply to Glynos and Stavrakakis. Journal for Lacanian Studies, 1(2), 278-285.
Stavrakakis, Y. (1997). Ambigious Ideology and the Lacanian Twist. Journal of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research, 8-9, 117-130.
Stavrakakis, Y. (1999). Lacan & the Political. London: Routledge.

Dialectics

A lot of my work is implicitly dialectic, following on from Zizek use of Hegelian thought. However, I have not really directly mastered the basic of dialectics. As such I have read The Logic of Marxism, a text that examines the Marxist use of dialectics. This book, and have produced some brief notes;


The major difference between formal logic, which was the base form of logic from the Greeks to Hegel, and Dialectic logic lies around the laws of identity and contradiction.

In Formalism;
- A=A
- A is not non-A

The Law of Contradiction ( A is not non-A) is the basic difference between dialectics and formalism. In formal logic contradiction is purely external; A v B. The dialectic responses to identity is that A is both A and non-A. By taking A as solely A, we miss the flip side of A (non-A) (p.37).

This difference is illustrated between the original work of Laclau, where the limits of discourse are external and Zizek, where limits are strictly internal. This is a notion that Laclau latter followed. Internal v External limits is a debate that is produced in Judith Bulter, Laclau and Zizek’s collaboration Contingency, Hegemony and Universality and New Reflections on the Revolutions of our Time. Discourse theory commentator Jacob Torfing also comments productively on the issue of contradiction. Contradiction has direct relevance to the difference between excluded discourses and discourses of the symptom. As such it is an issue that I will have to engage with in my methodology section.


Hegel maintained that what is real is rational. The basic idea here is that when something becomes unreal (irrational), what is excluded by it takes over (p.87). To re-write this in a psychoanalytic manner, when the symptom, which is strictly internal to the universal identity becomes unbearable, it breaks up the universal.

It is this kind of theorising that lead Marx to believe that because capitalism had become so irrational, the working class had historical reason and right on its side (p.88). What Marx did not consider, however, was that capitalism was able to revolutionise, and has been successfully doing so since, its own symptoms. This is not to suggest that the symptom has become the universal, that it has flipped into its opposite. The effect is more subtle than that. Some symptoms, like the core of Marx’s working class have simply been exported and disavowed. Others, like environmental crisis are being particularised. Adorno, as Zizek notes in the Parallax View (p.51), describes capitalism as a system that lives on credit that with never be paid off, in the sense that it is constantly able to revolutionise its own negative conditions

Like Hegel, Marx also faced the problems of the utopian proposal of limits to the dialectic, although this is something that Homer places in doubt. Hegel contented that the dialectic had reached its ultimate synthesis in the society in which he lived. Likewise, Marx foresaw the development of a utopian socialism, beyond the dialectic.

In a dialectical fashion, I believe that dialectics has moved on from Hegelian Marxism, most productively by Zizek and others working within Post-Lacanian theory. Zizek has developed dialectics the furtherest in his newest major work The Parallax View. I will develop this in my next entry.

Core Questions

My previous thesis statement included within it a substantial debate around the possibilities of solidifying change. It was here that I found Laclau to have a strength above Zizek in Laclau's conception of Radical democracy. This is time, however, I have come further to Zizek's perspective, not so much in that their is no need for ideology or politics, but rather that this is not important for the task which I am trying to achieve.

This got me thinking; What are the core questions around which this thesis operates? How am I going to justify the positions I have taken ? and Do I need this element of politics in what is essentially a debate around the political?

The justification of my core anti-capitalist orientation is perhaps the most difficult element for me. The thesis is both implicitly and explicitly anti-capitalist. But from the position that I am speaking it is difficult to justify such a normative position, at least with any guarantee. The position that I have taken myself on this is that there is simply no universal support for what I am doing, I have no fall back. Instead I have to assume responsibility for my position, knowing very well that there is no universal fallback.

At the same time, however, I am very reluctant to take a purely relativistic position; I think this is dishonest; it is clear that my argument orientates very strongly against capital. I am not, however, wanting to get into a drawn out argument over the normative ethics of capital. Such a debate could be the subject of an entire thesis and would necessary not come to a 'final' position.

Instead, I think the only option is to be upfront about my position, and as Grant has suggested, invite the reader to take a similar position;

' Invite the reader to consider if capitalism was to be broken up, how could this occur? Thus I do not seek to solve a 'real' problem, but look at the problem 'awry', from what Zizek's terms a 'short circuit approach and see if the problem can be redefined'

The critique of capitalism informs the key questions of the thesis. In trying to break from the grip of global capital, this thesis seeks to debate possibilities for change and mechanisms for stability through a psychoanalytic lens. In doing so a methodology will be created predominately from the work of Zizek, following from Lacan, Hegel, Marx and Ernesto Laclau. This methodology will be examined by means of two particular areas of discourse; environmentalism and poverty.

This is a double change from what I was 1st hoping to achieve. Initally I had the duel aims of reviewing Laclau and Zizek's work to see which worked better and also to come up with a political solution of sorts. Now I have dropped the need for a positive political solution and instead am looking for ways to redefine problems through the application of psychoanalytic theory to the realm of the political ( following Stavrakakis' distinction between politics and the political).

I am also not looking so much to review Laclau and Zizek's work, but develop it through my own individual context. Thus I use Zizek's basic theoretical apparatus plus a few of my own developments and Laclau's more subtle approach to discourse analysis. As well as these two main contributors, I look to utilise insights from Stavrakakis, Daly, Fink and Torfing as well as background insights from Lacan, Hegel and Marx, whose work to different degrees implicitly informs this thesis via Zizek.

To change course somewhat, I have spent the last week or so involved more with theoretical issues, particularly from Zizek's 'Parallax View', which has intrigued me. As such I have not spent as much time as on poverty discourse as I imagined. Therefore, rather than fully completing the poverty chapter, I think it may be wiser to simply seek to find examples of poverty discourses and lay them out.

In this analysis, I will seek to identify the examples used, metaphors, empty signifiers, nodal points, limits, antagonisms, symptoms and the underlying fantasy involved. Thus rather than write a full, theoretically informed chapter, I would like to find as much of the raw material as possible and leave it at that. I want to do this for two reasons. Firstly, I do not think that I have enough time to do a full chapter justice in the next week. Secondly, I feel I have made some theoretical advances, some of which I outlined in the last entry, some of which come from the Parallax view, which I will write about soon.

Therefore I think it is better that after my poverty discourse review, I re-develop my methodology, which as I have noted in this entry, has altered since I last developed it. In particular I would like redefine the relationship between Laclau and Zizek, which involves editing out a lot of the debate around radical democracy ( if not the issues around the necessity of ideology) and developing Laclau's role in completing Zizek in this analysis. This role particularly involves empty signifiers, social antagonism and dislocation. All three of which I will have to redefine, the later from a previous blog entry, the former will be informed from my thoughts on the 'Parallax View' .

More importantly perhaps, I need to recentre the methodology section around the symptom, as per the position I have recently developed. Zizek's notion of the 'Parallax Real', which corresponds to my view, as well as other dialectical insights will also be included.

After I have re-reviewed the methodology section, I hope to re-examine and further develop the poverty chapter, as well as environmentalism. This will hopefully lead the way to a development, in a concluding chapter of sorts, or some kind of recommendation, along the classic Leftist/Leninist line of 'What is to be done?'. This will touch on the possibilities of a form of politics exposed to psychoanalytic thought, or alternatively an anti-capitalist ideology. More important perhaps is the combination of environmental and poverty discourses and the resulting paradoxical position, that once again is best described as a 'parallax'.

Poverty

What am I looking to achieve in this chapter?

Much like the environmentalism chapter, I seek to run the theoretical perspectives of Laclau and Zizek through an example area of discourse; poverty, or more accurately, global poverty.

The chapter will again review various discourses showing the manner in they are constituted, signify their meanings and deal with their symptoms. In this chapter, probably more than the previous one, I come at it with a stronger starting theoretical position. This position enters more into Marxist discourse (something that I have ignored so far).

Simplified, this theory attempts to show how victims of absolute poverty are the constitutive excess of capital, the hidden truth (symptom) of capital. In order for the capitalist system to sustain itself, costs must remain as low as possible. One of the major costs is labour. In order to keep labour costs as low as possible, the working class have been globalised, such that it is predominately based in the Third World. Because of the excess of supply in these countries, workers accept very low wage packets. This creates a large degree of poverty. However, what creates the most absolute poverty, the constitutive excess I have referred to, is the ‘reserve army of labour’ who are not employed. The presence of these workers willing to take the positions of those in employment keeps the wages down, and the society poor, but more than this it means that this constitutive excess are left in the most destitute of positions.

Yet capitalism, as the system of wealth generation relies on them for its maintenance. Thus we see that absolute poverty is the symptom of capitalism in the truest sense; it is the hidden truth. Without these workers dying of poverty, the whole system would collapse. Yet this is just the opposite of the capitalist universal of ‘wealth for all’ and the invisible hand. It illustrates quite beautifully the theoretical operation I am dealing with.

I believe that this economic theory is openly Marxist-Leninist. I do not, however, have a strong grasp of this theory, so I will have to investigate it further, both as a theory and as a discourse ( and in this I will also have to trace its developments; classical, scientific, neo, post).

Therefore I believe that absolute poverty is the symptom of capitalism. As such, discourses revolve around this fundamental lack. In my last entry I noted the basic categories of discourses in their relation to the symptom;

- Discourses which disavowal the symptom

- Discourses which particularise the symptom

- Excluded discourses

- Discourses revealing the symptom

- Discourses of the symptom

As I have noted previously, I believe that it is discourses of the symptom, where the symptom actively seeks a position of concrete universality, where the greatest possibility of change lies. The position of the active symptom begins to suggest a certain differentiation around the real. The real here is not the hard kernel that can never be symbolised, but rather something (following Fink(1995:28) that cannot be symbolised from a certain point of view. Thus the discourse of the symptom- in the case of poverty victims- becomes real from the perspective of the capitalist universal. Thus its intrusion provokes much anxiety. Identification with this anxiety- concrete universality- produces a traversal of the fantasy and change.

But complete change? Of this I am not sure. Ultimately a radical act has to occur. Otherwise it is far too easy, like in the environmental case, for small alterations to be made that domesticate the symptom.

However, it must be asked whether such a discourse possible ‘in its own terms’, and how this would take form. Additionally, what is its relationship to discourses which identify the symptom? Can these discourses ‘open a space’ for a discourse of the symptom? Or, alternatively, do they simply prepare the symptom to be domesticated or simply get dismissed as irrational?

There are also issues of the manner in which the symptom becomes active. It is not simply of imposing itself upon the system- this can have all manner of reactions that I will explore. I believe that it is more important for them to identify themselves as the symptom. Not outside the universal and excluded from it as a competing discourse, such as Islam. Rather the symptom is internal; to break up the discourse it is not alternative meanings from the outside that are required, but rather the hidden truth emerging internally as a truth- concrete universality; we are the symptom.

I also believe that I should investigate, perhaps in a chapter further to environmentalism and poverty, the contradiction between environmentalism and poverty around growth. Generally poverty discourse calls for more growth, environmentalism the opposite. This is where we get into the territory of wealth as a symptom rather than poverty. Perhaps what is important here is to resist the false choice of more capitalism growth or poverty and redefine the problem outside of these terms.

Fink, B. (1995). The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Environmental edit/ structural changes

Increasingly I have come to the conclusion that it is Zizek’s work that is informing my thesis, rather than Laclau’s. So much so that a debate between the two in the thesis, as planned previously, is probably unnecessary. Rather I believe that the two complement each other. If I was to go further and try suggest a new positive form of politics, this is where I believe that Laclau has the advantage. This is not, however, my aim. Instead I believe that the differences and similarities between the two can be best used, as Glyn Daly suggests(Daly, 1999), in a complementary manner. Zizek certainly provides the big picture for me; symptoms, the concrete universal, enjoyment and fantasy. However, Zizek lacks a certain subtly that Laclau provides when discussing the plurality of discourses which operate around a fundamental lack. It is in this role that I believe Laclau’s work will be most useful.

This is not to suggest that I will take on the work of Laclau and Zizek in a purely uncritical fashion. Indeed, the best criticisms of the work of each comes from the other, but rather the division between Laclau and Zizek will no longer form the key debate within the thesis. At this stage I envisage that the core debate will be the possibility of radical economic change through a psychoanalytic analysis. Thus the thesis will review but the possibilities of anti-capitalist change, as well as the productiveness of the psychoanalytic critique, as represented by Zizek and Laclau. Therefore the strengths and weaknesses of Zizek and Laclau will certainly be debated, and definitely in terms of each other, but not as theoretical alternatives. I feel that such an analysis would simply be two one-sided in favour of Zizek. It is no longer feasible for me to talk about whether I am searching for symptoms (Zizek) or dislocations (Laclau). I am doing both, but in the terms of the former.

That said, I do still think that my last chapter lacked a Laclauian analysis, which would be very useful. More than anything I think that this is because I haven’t quite worked out what position I will take on Laclau. I think that perhaps after this chapter I will have to briefly return to his work and add a Laclauian analysis to the two chapters I will have written, before returning to my discussions/conclusions.

That’s the plan anyway, now it is time to just wait for it to fall apart while I try to fulfil it!

On a more serious note, I feel that it is now a good time to note some of the additions that I feel I need to make to the previous chapter, most of which came out of the discussions at our last supervision meeting, others which have cropped up in the past week or so when I have been studying poverty. These will obviously grow as I go further into the thesis, in particular in relation to the conclusions I come up with in this chapter and in my theoretical methodology.

As part of my acknowledgement of my Zizekian orientation, I have been thinking more openly about discourses in relation to symptoms. This is based around the thought that discourses within a discursive realm revolve around their relationship to theReal, the ever-changing limits within the discursive. As I will extend on in my next blog entry on the basic structure of the poverty chapter, I think that discourses can be classified in the following fashion;
- Discourses which disavowal the symptom
o The symptom is ignored; climate change is not occurring. In the environmental chapter this would be Promethean discourse
- Discourses which recognise the symptom, but particularise it
o These discourses are by far the most common, and as such contextually they create a variety of sub-categories; Ecological modernism recognises the symptom in a different manner from Economic Rationalism. Here the insights of Laclau are useful in the manner in which meanings are constituted and altered.
- Excluded discourses
o Islam in capitalism is an example of this. Technicality it is not a symptom, because it is not within the capitalist universal; its status is that of exclusion, again an area into which Laclau brings insight. These excluded discourses are not the Real, they are firmed constructed and fully acknowledged in the universal symbolic, but they are constitutively excluded for the stability of the discourse. As such they provide an alternative source of meanings, but as long as they are not attached to any symptomatic excess of the universal, they will simply remain excluded.
- Discourses revealing the symptom
o These discourses, of which my work is an example, reveal symptoms, but still come from an outsider’s position. They have potential to break open a space for the symptom and create change, but it is not optimal strategy for change. They have a greater potential to be excluded as irrational or to simply domesticate and particularise the symptom by describing them within the universal terms.

I did not develop this category of discourse very strongly in the last chapter, or even distinguish it from excluded discourses; there is an important difference between ecocentric green radicals and anthropocentric economic green radicals like eco-Marxists. I will have to return to this distinction at a later date, because I think that it is a vital one.

- Discourses from the symptom
o This is where I believe that the greatest potential for change lies. Discourses of this category are literally discourses of the Real that have been symbolised in their own terms, and as such come in the same category as effects of the real. This symbolic aspect was lacking in environmentalism. The effect of the real exists in the actions of nature. This was not a point I took on with much subtly, and will expand on further below.
o Essentially, these discourses are of the Real, from the viewpoint of the universal. This is poverty in its own terms. In the western capitalist potential, we see this poverty, but it is discursively constructed in order to domesticate its real elements; we cannot truly face it. These discourses however, come from those elements that have been excluded. I believe that it is when these discourses become active in themselves, not in the terms of the Other, that really start to put pressure on the universal, in much the same way that climate change effects environmental discourse.
o Of course, as we saw with environmental discourse, as more pressure is put on, there is a protective and domesticating response from the universal. Therefore it is not good enough to simply operate within the symptom. This will prompt a variety of different actions. For example, a strong antagonistic position is more likely to produce anxiety and war than radical change. Instead the symptom should occupy the position of the concrete universal, as in an example that I have given previously ‘We are America’

That is the basic theoretical changes I believe I should make, as I have shown, to a degree, in the examples I have given there is not much change required in the environmental chapter, just a slight re-orientation around a couple of topics. I will also extend on these discursive categories in the next entry, my first on poverty.

The biggest change in content I believe I should make in the environmentalist chapter revolves around Peak Oil. Oil is constitutive of the capitalist system and is a good example of both ecological collapse, although in a less fatalistic manner, and concrete universality; the hidden truth of capitalism (its limits) becomes constitutive. There is a lot of discourse around Peak oil from a variety of positions and I believe that it will be very useful to use it as a running example throughout the chapter, leading to an ultimate conclusion of the possibilities of concrete universality. However, I do not think I should develop this further now, but rather wait until I fully revisit the chapter.

Other smaller areas to be expanded on come from Zizek’s article Eastern European Liberalism and its Discontents. Here Zizek makes some interesting notes on how positions outside capitalism are taken as irrational (p.27), such as Green Radicalism, and the need for a new universal outside of capitalism, such as ecology (p.29).

Daly, G. (1999). Politics and the Impossible: Beyond Psychoanalysis and Deconstruction. Theory, Culture and Society, 16(4), 75-98.

Environmental chapter

Green ideology has provided a stern challenge to ethos of economic growth and thus of industrialism itself. Despite this challenge, however, industrialism and in particular capitalism, has retained its hegemonic position. Indeed it may be argued that capitalism is as strong as it has ever been. Having said this, ecological critique remains one of the strongest dislocatory factors against capitalism, Dryzek describing it as the ‘most significant ideological development of the late 20th century’ (Dryzek, 2005:225) This chapter seeks to achieve two tasks. Firstly, investigate the possibilities for radical economic change stemming from Green ideology. Secondly, this investigation will serve as a vehicle for the analysis of the work of Ernesto Laclau and Slavoj Zizek. The analysis aims find the most useful parts of the work of each theorist, both for understanding political change and stability and evoking radical change. Of particular interest in Laclau’s work is the ‘war of position’ for hegemony and empty signifiers in the symbolic realm, change occurring through dislocation and ‘chains of equivalence and difference’. In contrast Zizek’s work focuses on the role of enjoyment in social stability, but also the symptoms which give evidence of the internal breakdown of the discourse, an identification with these symptoms, the process of concrete universality, thought to produce radical change.

Therefore this chapter reviews several different Green discourses which form part of the Green ideology, considering the key elements of their structure, the manner in which they construct meanings and their symptoms. Examples of these discourses are taken from New Zealand politics, which while not exhaustive of Green ideology, gives an adequate guide. It is theorised that each discourse is dealing with a primary dislocation, that of the Green critique of industrialism and also the universal hegemonic power of the capitalist economy. Capital provides a fundamental limit to each of the discourses, a Real limit that produces a deadlock around which a plurality of discourses is created, as well the displacement of the effect of the real to various social antagonisms. Thus, although there are possibilities of radical economic change through the constant dislocation of industrialism and capital through the natural, these dislocations and the symptoms they produce are too well domesticated by discourses that cannot move beyond the limit imposed by capital. Therefore only a radical, natural dislocation provides a possibility of change. This work relies predominately on the theory of Laclau and Zizek, however, the analysis of Green discourses by Yannis Stavrakakis, John Dryzek and Toby Smith are also heavily drawn on.

The first prominent dislocations in our notions of environment began in the later 20th century. A concern with the environment began to develop into a discourse of its own in the 1960’s, along with a host of other changes in social politics at the time, including anti-racism, feminism and the peace movement. Indeed, Dryzek suggests that a concept of the ‘environment’ did not exist until the 1960’s (Dryzek, 2005:5). Environmentalism, however, did not really become a strong force until the 1970’s, when a radical environmental movement developed, part of which was a damming critique of capitalism (Hansen, 1991:444). Around this time Green political parties were also established, such as the Values Party in New Zealand, which first formed in 1972 (Dryzek, 2005:203).

In New Zealand the environmental movement only captured the attention of the masses when it began to threaten the national identity, or ‘Thing’ in a Lacanian sense. The first risings in the 1970’s were based around protests against the Manapouri dam and then nuclear issues in the pacific. It was institutionalised by the state by the anti-nuclear ban of 1985 following various other moves in the 1970’s, particularly by Kirk’s 3rd Labour government. This follows Zizek’s concept of ‘theft of enjoyment’ in antagonisms involving fundamental fantasies (Osborne, 1996:38). New Zealanders gain a lot of jouissance from their national identity or Thing, that unknowable ‘X’ which can be compared to the objet a (Evans, 1996:205), the environmental movement gained a lot of traction from this nationalistic jouissance because people believed that it was being threatened, either by development, as in the Manapouri dam, or foreigners in the French nuclear tests. Environmentalism, whether accurate or not, has become a part of New Zealand identity. For example, National has formed the ‘Blue Greens’ and United Future calls themselves the ‘common sense Greens’(UnitedFuture, 2005). The ‘ACT’ party too is getting in on the ‘Green’ message. These spread of environmental politics is mirrored in western nations around the world, with the notable exception of the United States.

The rapid progression of environment discourse has been a response to dislocations of the universal conception of the environment. These dislocations were unable to be pacified within the discursive/fantasmatic resources available and thus produced a plurality of discourses which sought to pacify and understand them. The pacification of a dislocation is not an arbitrary process, rather, as Stavrakakis states;

‘ the direction of the response (to dislocation) depends on the course of action which seems to be more capable of neutralising the terrorising presence of the impossible real’ (Stavrakakis, 2000:109).

A dislocation did occur in industrialism, however, because it was unable to fully integrate the impact of the Green critique. Thus new, environmentally orientated discourses developed;

‘Increasing numbers of people look for a solution to problems such as unemployment and economic deterioration in Green ideology…If today people are increasing looking to Green ideology in order to solve these problems this means that previously hegemonic identifications have been dislocated’(Stavrakakis, 2000:111)


This did not, however, mean a full breakdown of the industrial ethos. Rather industrialism has formed the background against which Green ideology has been played out, although this discourse differs as to whether it is reformist or radical (Dryzek, 2005:13-14). As an illustration, sustainable development discourse seeks to reform capitalism along more ecological lines, whereas Green Radicalism calls for the downfall of the capitalist economic system. Thus, whatever Green position is taken, it relates back to industrialism.

The reform/radical divide is similar to the division between environmentalism and ecologism. These terms are often used interchangeably within Green discourse, however, a distinction does lie between them. This distinction relates back to the reformist/radical divide. Environmentalism is thought to relate more to reformist, particular Green discourses, whereas ecologism takes a stronger, often ecocentric stand (Heywood, 1998:264; Smith, 1998:66). Therefore, in this chapter when referring the total field of thought relating to the environment, the term ‘Green’ will be used, whereas ‘environmentalism’ and ‘ecologism’ will be reserved for their respective particular discourses and ‘environment’ used to refer to the total natural entity outside of language.

Yannis Stavrakakis, in his work of Green ideology (1997; 2000), describes two separate dislocations that have occurred for Green thought to establish itself as an ideology. The first occurred in our conceptions of the environment. Previous to the establishment of Green ideology, the environment, if it was conceptualised at all, was thought of in a predominantly robust manner, particularly following the enlightenment. The conception of the environment as somewhat fragile was a major shock and dislocation, which bought with it a similar dislocation in industrial discourse, which could not longer be thought to simply carry on with its unlimited growth.

The first such discourse to take on this dislocation can be labelled Survivalism (Dryzek, 2005). Survivalism, first constituted through the Club of Rome report, is based on the belief that industrial production and economic growth is pushing the earth towards, or perhaps past its carry capacity; the maximum supportable resource use in an ecosystem before its collapse (ibid:27). Survivalism is the discourse which first established Green ideology as a political force, although it never fully instituted itself as a positive movement, rather as a threat the current universal. This was a role that it played particularly successfully, based on a core belief in the limits of the capacity of the planet. As such it became the symptom of industrialism and looked likely to threaten the universal status of industrialism, in both its capitalist and communist forms. Survivalism rejected any expansion of technologies in expanding limits, suggesting that these simply slowed the process and not by much when exponential growth is occurring, such as in human population. The ‘29th day’ metaphor is a common survivalist metaphor. This metaphor makes a comparison between Lily’s in a pond and the carrying capacity of the Earth, asking which day the pond would be half full on if the number of Lilies doubles each day and is full on the 30th. The answer of course is the 29th day, on which it would appear that there is plenty of room for expansion. This kind of imagery proved an enormous threat to the hegemonic system of production.

The Survivalist threat was subverted, however, through its particularisation by industrial ideology, first by ‘Promethean’ discourse and than through a plurality of discourses such as ‘Ecological Modernism’ and ‘Sustainable Development’(Dryzek, 2005). These discourses domesticated the threat of Survivalism by playing on its symptoms, particularly its lack of alternative economic strategy and public participation, and because industrial ideology is simply too strong. Indeed, the value of economic growth is one of the few shared understandings which hold together liberal capitalist societies. However, Survivalist discourse has still set the terms of the Green debate(ibid:62).

The first response to Survivalism was from what is termed ‘Promethean’ discourse (ibid). The basic premise of Promethean discourse is that Man has ultimate control of the environment and it thus able to push the limit of global carrying capacity indefinitely. This is based on free-market economic arguments that suggest that price is the ultimate measure of scarcity; as resources become scarcer, price will increase producing conservation efforts and a search for substitutes. In order to develop and have access to this technology, societies need to be wealthy. Therefore the key to the environmental health is economic wealth. Promethean discourse is illustrated in the following excerpt from a speech by ACT leader Rodney Hide;

‘resources aren't defined physically but by science and technology combined with our ability to organise and to make use of them. That’s why the human race continues to flourish and prosper 30 years after the environmental doomsday books so terrifyingly predicted our imminent demise. We didn't run out of resources for a very simple reason: we can expand our knowledge and thereby expand our resource base. We now have more resources than ever before. We will have even more tomorrow
I did travel to countries that had run out of everything. These were the eastern bloc countries. Their problem wasn't the physical limits of their resource base but their failed economic system. That's the other problem with the doomsday books. They said a lot about ecology, systems and feedback loops, but ignored, first, the economic system within which natural resources are defined and used and, second, the feedback loop that prices provide. The failure was fatal to the models' predictive power. If something gets scarce, its price goes up, spurring conservation, the search for more supplies and discovery of alternatives’ (Hide, 2005).
Therefore the Promethean response to the Survivalist threat was successfully able to domesticate the symptom it revealed in industrialism and maintain its universal status. Promethean discourse therefore exposed the symptom of Survivalism itself. This symptom was the limit that was imposed by industrialism. At the point survivalist discourse was unable to constitute itself any further. Thus it continues in its limited state, unable to go past industrial economics, although the threat of global resource limits is still often invoked in Green ideology, ‘All human activity takes place within the limits of a finite planet’ (GreenParty, 2005b). Survivalism was also unable to prescribe further modes of action, which left people threaten and anxious. Thus any discourse which either denied the threat, such as Promethean, or offered a solution like sustainability was taken up instead, even if elements of Survivalism remained in Green ideology.
The threat of environment collapse, however, did not simply dissipate. It constantly impacts on the social order. Now, however, although was are still threatened by environmental dislocation, which as Zizek shows is one of the modalities in which we regularly meet the real (Zizek, 1999:4) this threat is increasingly particularised and dealt with within a plurality of other discourses around this fundamental blockage; the paradoxical relationship between economic growth and environmental limits. But this threat continues to impact and thus the Promethean discourse ultimately failed because although it fits in well with the hegemony of economic growth it failed to adequately domesticate its symptom, the continued failure of the environment.
The failure of Promethean discourse bought with it the development of other discourses within the Green ideology. These discourses fit two categories, according to Dryzek (2005), reformist problem-solving and the more radical sustainability discourse, although the latter is not radical by the standard set in this thesis. Both these types of discourse are common in New Zealand and it is the former that we shall turn first.
Problem solving discourses, such as Democratic Pragmatism, Administrative and Economic Rationalism take the status quo as given and do not debate the issue of environmental limits which was at the centre of the Survivalist/Promethean division. Instead, problem-solving discourses reject any call to ‘ideology’ and rather focus on pure ‘scientific’ evidence. New Zealand environmental politics rotates around these three types of problem-solving discourses. The Green Party may enter further into the more radical sustainability discourses, but increasingly is looking to democratic participation and economic instruments.
Although there is much political debate over the differences and benefits between the three problem-solving discourses, they are very similar. Administrative rationalism takes a more centralised approach, whereas Democratic Pragmatism seeks more public participation and voluntary agreements. Economic Rationalism takes less of a pragmatic approach, based on economic theory and has many similarities with Promethean discourse. These discourses are particularly good at managing environmental problem, but fall short of being able to produce any kind of structural change. This change is sought in Ecological Modernism and Sustainable Development discourses, to which we will soon turn.
By taking the capitalist status quo as a given, problem solving discourses are able to supplement the universal appeal of capital whilst somewhat dealing with the symptom of environmental change, either through domestication through particularism e.g. No real change or sacrifice is required, just good management, or through social antagonism; ‘we are not captured by the extremist fringe of the environmental movement or it’s ideology (NZFirst, 2005a). Indeed, some parties, such as New Zealand First, take a purely economic line; one of New Zealand First’s 15 fundamental principles is;

‘Wise Governments view the preservation and enhancement of the environment as sound economics. All environmental policies will be proactive with a view to creating employment and sustainable wealth whilst improving one of our few competitive advantages’ (NZFirst, 2005b).

Likewise, David Benson-Pope, the Government Minister for the Environment states;

‘ While there are challenges ahead to maintain economic growth without damaging the environment or quality of life, I’m determined to face up to these challenges- there is no alternative’ (Benson-Pope, 2006a).

Economic Rationalism is very similar to the Promethean discourse; it includes much the same actors and assumptions, but makes more of an effort to account for environmental threat. Instead of simply letting the market take care of the environment, Economic Rationalist discourse seeks to establish markets where they did not exist previously, for water or pollution. Carbon trading and the Kyoto agreement are examples of this. At its most radical Economic Rationalism enters into a certain restructuring of the capitalism economy, similar to the discourse of Ecological Modernism. The former discourse is most readily associated with the political and economic Right, but increasingly even social democratic political parties and discourses are seeking to ‘harness the power of the market’. Even the Green party utilises these kind of movements, seeking to ‘Naturalise’ capitalism (GreenParty, 2005a, 2005d, 2005e).

The use of economic instruments in New Zealand Politics is confirmed by David Benson Pope, the Environment Minister states that the Government will focus on ‘effective and pragmatic approaches to managing waste in New Zealand…There are mixed opinions about the effectiveness or appropriateness of economic instruments. Where they can be shown to be effective when dealing with environmental issues the Government considers them’ (Benson-Pope, 2006b)

In reply, the opposition National party spokesperson on the environment, John Carter rejects the ‘effective and pragmatic’ claim, suggesting that Labour’s approach is ‘Sledgehammer legislation’ ‘a compliance cost nightmare’ and ‘prescriptive nanny state regulation’(Carter, 2006).

This small portion of a wider debate reveals the ideological positions of the respective main parties in New Zealand politics. Whereas Labour favours a brand of pragmatism, public participation and economic rationalist methods, the National party leans heavily towards the later. In doing so, it presents Labour’s alternative as a social antagonism, implicitly invoking the ‘disinvestment’ argument and thus once again revealing the limits of problem solving reformist discourses; capital.

Economic rationalist approaches to Green ideology are an interesting area to review the hegemonic flow of meanings and their limits. As well as this, the free-market discourse produces some strong symptoms which are only dealt with to a certain degree. These symptoms have lead to the production of social antagonisms through ideology, but also the alternative and more radical sustainability discourse. One must ask, however, whether there is a greater potential in the symptoms of the Economic Rationalist discourse (or problem solving discourses in general) that can be identified with in order to produce a dislocation of the kind that would produce radical economic restructuring, such as the breakdown of industrialism and global capital.


The Economic Rationalist discourse is a powerful one because it is able to particularise the environmental threat by maintaining the stance that a radical change is not possible; they do not deny the issue, but suggest an easy solution, obtainable without sacrifice. These solutions, however, hit a limit at capital. This limit is revealed in its symptoms, such as the rejection of Green taxes in New Zealand, such as the now infamous ‘Fart Tax’, as well as the ‘Carbon Tax’. These moves were rejected through the threat of ‘disinvestment’ from capital. The disinvestment threat is not direct, but it is real. Governments in liberal-capitalist democracies stand or fall on their abilities to increase and maintain economic growth. Any discursive move and policy that may directly threaten the interests of capital is immediately written off as a threat to economic growth and rejected. Efforts to move environmental protection along market lines were rejected because of their costs to capital. When this rejection is compared to the readiness to accept and take on similar free-market/user-pays measures in Health and Education, the symptom of economically based environmental management is revealed. It has a limit, and that limit is the interests of capital.

This symptom has been recognised and an alternative, more radical discourse has been developed, known under the general term of ‘Sustainability’, including the discourses of Ecological Modernism and Sustainable Development. These discourses do not seek to bring down capitalism, but rather to strengthen its position. They implicitly and explicitly accept that capitalism is the ‘only game in town’ and therefore ecological movements have no option but to seek to make it profitable for capital to be ‘Green’. This involves some restructuring of capital, but mostly in the name of capital, not the environment.

However, although these discourses seek to ecologise capitalism, all they end up achieving is a pacification of the ecological symptom and a market advantage, playing to the super-ego demand of the consumer, which is what we see in the Green consumerist movement. These include ‘Green’ shopping that plays at super-ego demand, such as re-usable shopping bags (Hickman, 2006). An interesting alternative to the super-ego approach is provided by the Conservation Fund and their Carbon Zero Calculator. Here the consumer is able to approximate their carbon footprint and then ‘Go Zero’ by making a donation towards the planting of native trees to balance out your production of carbon. I could remove my guilt, pollute all I want and ‘Go Zero’ for US$35.50! (TheConservationFund, 2006).

Green consumerism is one of the strongest Green discourses because its erases our doubts about the feasibility of consumption (over-consumption being suggested as a symptom of capital), suggesting that we can continue consuming at the same rate, as long as we do it in a more efficient and ecologically sensitive manner (Smith, 1998:88). Green consumerism also hooks into the very seductive ideological pleasures of the act of consumption itself. Although Green consumerism cannot be dismissed outright- undoubtedly it is better for the environment to buy recycled toilet paper than regular- the obscene underside of this action is that it domesticates the environmental symptom. It reduces the environmental problem to an individual one, rather than a constitutive structural fault and suggests that through small actions the problem can be solved. Ultimately then, Green Consumerism cannot be viewed in a positive manner.

Green Consumerism fits within the boundaries of the discourses of Sustainable Development and Ecological Modernism. These discourses are very similar, although Dryzek suggests that Ecological Modernism has a sharper ‘edge’ to it than Sustainable Development and tends to be more technical (Dryzek, 2005), however, for the benefit of the purposes of this chapter they can be treated as one and the same under the banner of ‘Sustainability’. The key metaphor of discourses of sustainability is ‘reassurance’. Sustainability discourse takes a stronger ecological/environmental stand, but ultimately sticks with the free-market and argues that we can have environmental protection, and economic growth at the same time, if the economy is re-structure to meet the demands of the environment. In taking on all these demands, the term ‘Sustainable Development’ becomes an empty signifier in the Laclauian sense; it is filled with meaning by whichever discourse appropriates it, normally the most powerful. Thus while Green parties and movements may insist on the value of being ‘Sustainable’, the term is being appropriate by capital to mean sustainable growth, which may or may nor have an environmental edge. This is the value of ‘Sustainable Development’; it can be taken on by many discourses without compromise, most notably capital. This is a grand example of a hegemonic occupation of a term and its political implications; it removes a strong Green influence from power and allows the continued degradation of the environment.

Politically then, there is some value in battling for the resignification of the term ‘sustainable’, including previously excluded meanings through a logic of difference and by attempting to show the manner in which meaning has been contingently constructed. However, given the status of the economy and the limits that I have shown in this chapter, it is an unlikely solution. As an illustration, although the New Zealand Green parties seeks to resignify ‘Sustainable’ and project alternative meanings as mere empty talk, it is unable to act on these sentiments. They are politically limited because they know it is electoral suicide to take on a position that may evoke ‘disinvestment’ threats. Other political parties in New Zealand also know this, accusing the Green Party of being ‘Watermelons’; green on the outside, red in the middle (Baldock, 2005; Hide, 2005). It is as if capital provides a fundamental blockage in the discourse; as Zizek states, capital is the real, it has hegemonised hegemony (Zizek, 2000a:223; 2000b:319).

Thus, although the Green Party (in their Charter) state what appears to be an anti-capitalist manifesto;

‘Unlimited material growth is impossible. Therefore the key to social responsibility is the just distribution of social and natural resources, both locally and globally’ (GreenParty, 2005c).

They are politically forced to re-interpret ‘Sustainable’ in a capitalistic manner, in the naïve hope that they can manipulate its meaning beyond its corporate sense. In the initial issue of the Green’s business publication ‘The Real Bottom Line’, co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons suggests that Sustainable business is about ‘Future-proofing the New Zealand Economy’(Fitzsimons, 2006b). Similarly, in an article entitled ‘More Power to Consumers’ Fitzsimons advocates for more information for consumers to make better choices about their choice of energy supplier (Fitzsimons, 2006a). Indeed, Green Consumerism is a large element of the Green Party political strategy

There are, however, alternative possibilities, such as;
- Green radicalism;
- Identification with the symptoms of ‘Sustainability’ and ‘Problem Solving’ Green discourses;
- Ecological collapse.

Green radicalism is by far the most common of these possibilities. Of all the Green discourses that I have analysed in this chapter, it is only Green Radicalism that is not totally anthropocentric. There are anthropocentric elements in Green Radicalism, but a large element of this discourse focuses on the largely excluded ecocentric component of Green ideology. There is some value in Green Radicalism, as it largely refuses the terms of the debate that other Green discourses involve themselves in. However, it is neither able to propose a viable alternative discourse to capital and industrialism, or maintain itself as a symptom of modernism enlightenment thinking; the ecological critique is too easily subverted into other discourses that are prepared to play the capitalist game, such as Ecological Modernism. The greatest impact of Green Radicalism is in the Survivalist discourse (the original Green Radicalism) and the hegemonic appeal of Green Consciousness; Green ideology impacts on many areas of politics, even if this impact is largely empty or simply reformist.

Green Radicalism is also a flawed discourse, although in a different manner from other Green discourses. Radicalism is very essentialist and totalitarian. Radical Green discourse seeks to find a fundamental and essential unity between its elements, based on a ‘natural’ bio-centric harmony between man and nature. Like any essentialist discourse, when this link, which I have previously shown to be impossible (and the fundamental illusion of the social), the dislocation is dangerously displaced onto a social antagonism. This occurs particularly in the paradoxical ecocentric element of Green Radicalism. As we have seen, there is no link between language and the Real, therefore any direct link with nature is impossible. Thus the paradox with ecocentricism is that it can only be expressed anthropocentrically through language.

It is possible, as Smith (1998:163) suggests, that Green Radicalism could make more of an impact if it focused more on the role of culture, fighting for the meanings of terms and the hegemonic re-occupation of terms that originated from the Green movement, such as Sustainability, rather than leaving it to capital and those who are prepared to compromise with capital. I believe that this would be a more viable strategy, although it is unlikely to succeed based on current Green Radical discourse. At best it can hope to maintain the dislocatory influence of the environment in the hope of pushing discourse to further deal with the threat of ecological collapse.

I believe a more feasible option would be identification with the symptom of both the problem solving and sustainability discourse discussed earlier. The symptoms of these discourses are very similar, relating back to the limit of the discourse, the Real. The Real in this sense is not capital, but rather the limits imposed by capital. It is these limits around which Green discourses revolve, unable to pass beyond the realm of capital. At the limit imposed by capital, symptoms appear. These symptoms are the evidence of the failure of the discourse; the effect of the Real upon the Symbolic. An example of these symptoms are the limits of the market approach; not everything can be privatised- what about water, or air, or genes? Surely there cannot be owners for these items. Or the slowness with which the free-market has taken the environment compared to health or education. Or the general failure of markets to take into account environment degradation. These symptoms show how capital, economic growth and the environment cannot functionally interact. But this are not revealed as such. Rather they are domesticated in their effects through ideological fantasy, which presents the symptom either as a social antagonism (the fault of an external cause e.g. the free-market does work, if only governments would not get involved) or a particular failure to be dealt with. Indeed these failures are necessary for the stability of the discourse; if the Economic Rationalist approach was working at its optimum efficiency and the environment was still failing, then the discourse would break up. Therefore the capitalist Green discourses require a certain degree of failure and antagonism to occur; without the symptom they would be nothing.

It is the symptom, however, that also has the potential to break-up a discourse, if it is revealed as a concrete universal; constitutive of the discourse. In a position of concrete universality it is recognised that the discourse requires the symptom for its existence; capitalism requires increasing resource use for its continued growth. Ultimately, as the population gets larger and, through capitalism, richer (but not in proportion, as we shall see in the following chapter, capitalism also requires an excluded poor) more and more pressure is placed on the environment. Discourse of sustainability or reform can particularise this symptom, but ultimately it is only an identification with it that gives hope of change. This identification cannot be false; I know very well that capitalism rapes the environment, but I still believe we can modify it to fit. Rather it has to be Real- in the strict Lacanian sense- it has to be a horrific collective realisation that prompts much anxiety and change to the point that the impossible becomes not an alternative to capital, but capital itself.

What is the possibility of this occurring? This brings me to the third alternative, alongside Green Radicalism and identification with the symptom; ecological collapse. At the moment it is too easy for capitalism to subvert the dislocation that comes with environment failure. As I have shown, it is easy and seductive to suggest that with a little bit of effort all our environmental issues can be solved. Therefore I suggest that it is only with a stronger environment breakdown that people will really start to feel the capitalist environmental symptom. As well have seen, as environment failure continues, discourses have become stronger in dealing with the dislocation. This does produce some change; Ecological Modernist measures are more effective than Economic Rationalism, but it also has the effect of fooling us into the idea of progress. It is only when the dislocatory affect becomes too strong, when the symptom is simply unable to be domesticated by capital that change will occur; whether this is too late for humanity is yet to be seen.



Environmentalism, I believe provides a good example of the strengths and limitations of both Laclau and Zizek’s approaches. Whilst the Laclauian method, both theoretical and political is productive for explaining the manner in which environmental discourse has been constituted as an ideology, it cannot adequately explain why it stalls at the fundamental blockage of capitalism. Given this theoretical failure, nor can we state that radical democracy is capable of overturning this deadlock. The fantasy and enjoyment inherent in global capital are simply too strong to be overturned through the flow of meanings; these are simply subverted.

The Zizekian alternative of identification with the symptom in producing change, as well as the role of ideology, enjoyment and the Real in stabilising a discourse. Zizek also goes further suggesting two alternatives, the first I have already laid out; ecological collapse of some degree. Zizek contends that liberal-capitalism cannot go on forever; ecological collapse is one of the possible explosions that can destroy it; all we can do is be prepared when this explosion does occur (Osborne, 1996:44). This is not a particularly pro-active of positive position. The second Zizekian alternative is to resist the terms of the debate, to resist the need to act, because such an action will be simply within the co-ordinates of global capital; it is better to simply question the very ideological background against which all action can occur; capitalism (Zizek, 2006:238). This alternative would be not to enter into Green ideology, knowing that is inevitably played out against the background of capital, but rather to question the very lack of alternative, why, in Zizek words ‘It is easier to imagine the end of the world then the fall of capitalism’(Taylor, 2005).



References

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Redefining terms

During the process of developing my theoretical method for this thesis, I have used the terms ‘antagonism/social antagonism’ and ‘dislocation’ somewhat interchangeably. This is, however, an error that needs to be corrected. Therefore I seek to clarify the use of the terms before I go any further.

A conflation of these terms is not an uncommon error. In Hegemony and Socialist Strategy Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe assumed an identity between antagonism and dislocation, considering antagonism to be responsible for the impossibility of society (Torfing, 1999:128). This, however, assumes that the impossibility of society is external, rather than internal to society. As Zizek points out, what is negated in social antagonism is already negated by a force prior to it- the Real (Zizek, 1990).

It is the Real that is responsible for the impossibility of society, and this impossibility is inscribed in the term ‘dislocation’. Stavrakakis contends that dislocation an ‘unrepresentable’ moment is much closer to the Real than antagonism, which is more the attempts to negate the initial negation caused by the Real (Stavrakakis, 1997: 126). Thus dislocation reveals the lack around which the social is based, whereas antagonism involves the competing efforts to suture this lack. This is a distinction between internal and external responses to the Real; dislocation is an internal response as it is between symbolisation and the Real, whereas antagonism, as an external response to the effect of the Real lies in the limit between different competing antagonisms.

Therefore, because of the effect of the real, every identity is dislocated. This dislocation produces both the symptom, the internal effect of dislocation and social antagonism. Thus social antagonism is a displacement of the effect of the Real. Social antagonism occur because of any attempt at universalism requires both the negation of alternative meanings and of the initial lack, for which alternative meanings compete to cover up. As an illustration, in market environmentalism, the failure of the market in the production of global climate change is a symptom, but this symptom, as effect of the basic dislocation of the discourse (it cannot be fully universal) is inscribed in a social antagonism, normally against ‘control economies’ which are making the problem worse. The main aim of social antagonism is to domesticate and externalise the threat of dislocation and the symptom; this is the effect of ideology.

There are, however, different kinds of responses to dislocation in through social antagonism. Jacob Torfing categorises these as;
Torfing (1999:120) suggests that this produces several different kinds of responses;
- Open confrontation between discourses;
- Displacement; social antagonism;
- Super-ego demand;
- Internalisation; concrete universality.

These responses all, with the exception of concrete universality (which produces radical change), are attempts to subvert the effect of the Real and maintain the stability of the discourse. This stability is, however, an illusion; through the negation of the negation we are under the illusion that the annilhation of the antagonistic force will allow our full constitution. Rather, as Zizek states, the moment of the dissipation of antagonism is when we feel dislocation at its strongest- and start looking for new enemies.

I should also note that dislocation can occur in an already established discourse; an identity can be dislocated (initially) and later suffer a dislocation when ‘A dislocation of a discourse results from the emergence of events which cannot be domesticated, symbolised or integrated within the discourse in question’ (Torfing, 1999:301). Therefore while dislocation produces antagonism, antagonism can also produce dislocation, as can the symptom. Dislocations also occur to certain depths and thus requires/produces different responses; a discourse can be deeply dislocated, which we either produce radical change or a major antagonistic enemy, or subtly dislocated, in which the same would occur on a much smaller scale.


Stavrakakis, Y. (1997). Ambiguous Ideology and the Lacanian Twist. Journal of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research, 8-9, 117-130.
Torfing, J. (1999). New Theories of Discourse; Laclau, Mouffe and Zizek. Oxford: Blackwell.
Zizek, S. (1990). Beyond Discourse-Analysis. In E. Laclau (Ed.), New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time. London: Verso.