The Discourse and the Capitalist. Lacan, Marx, and the Question of the Surplus

Authors

  • Pietro Bianchi

Abstract

In the seminar XVI, D'un Autre à l'autre, in 1968/1969, Jacques Lacan claimed that there is an homology between the function of object a in the unconscious and the Marxian notion of surplus-value. Both concepts in fact revolve around similar axes: their reluctance to be localized in a certain place of the structure and their connection with the notion of surplus. In Chapter 7 of Das Kapital, Marx seems to imagine a purely mythical pre-capitalist
society where production is only devoted the pure satisfaction of basic survival needs and where labour is still controlled by the worker according to a certain purpose: with the irruption of the surplus in the capitalist mode of production the very qualitative dimension of the production and reproduction of commodities and human beings is commanded and organized by the pure drive of abstract accumulation. In order to rearticulate the incessant capitalist drive for abstract wealth, the symptom relies on the unsurpassable contradiction between labour-power and living-labour: essential in order

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Author Biography

Pietro Bianchi

Pietro Bianchi is currently a PhD candidate in Film Studies at the University of Udine (Italy) and a researcher at the Theory Department of the Jan Van Eyck Academy in Maastricht; he is working on a dissertation thesis about Jacques Lacan’s theory of vision. He is currently a member of Palea – Permanent Seminar on Psychoanalysis and Social Sciences (based in Milan) and OT – Research on contemporary imaginary (based at the University of Milan – Bicocca, coordinated by Fulvio Carmagnola). He also writes as a film critic for different Italian cinema magazines and journals (Cineforum, Cinergie, Carte di Cinema).

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Published

2011-04-06

How to Cite

Bianchi, P. (2011). The Discourse and the Capitalist. Lacan, Marx, and the Question of the Surplus. Filozofski Vestnik, 31(2). Retrieved from https://ojs.zrc-sazu.si/filozofski-vestnik/article/view/3225

Issue

Vol. 31 No. 2 (2010): Les pouvoirs des désirs indicibles / The Powers of the Unsayable Desires

Section

Corps et pensée / Body and Thought

License

Authors guarantee that the work is their own original creation and does not infringe any statutory or common-law copyright or any proprietary right of any third party. In case of claims by third parties, authors commit their self to defend the interests of the publisher, and shall cover any potential costs.

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