{"id":5807,"date":"2010-10-09T19:15:28","date_gmt":"2010-10-09T23:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=5807"},"modified":"2010-10-16T14:05:53","modified_gmt":"2010-10-16T18:05:53","slug":"entropic-jouissance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2010\/10\/09\/entropic-jouissance\/","title":{"rendered":"Surplus-value is grounded in surplus-jouissance."},"content":{"rendered":"

Vighi, Fabio. On \u017di\u017eek\u2019s Dialectics. <\/em>New York: Continuum, 2010.<\/p>\n

The psychoanalytic contribution to revolutionary politics can be gauged in the claim that radical change becomes possible only at that epistemological conjuncture where the symbolic knowledge supporting the subject fails. <\/em>(54)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As surplus-jouissance<\/em> is converted into surplus-value<\/strong>, the object-cause of desire (objet a)<\/em><\/strong>, by definition unnameable, sheds its disturbing weight and is demoted to the level of commodity. Paradoxically, then, what was hidden in the master’s discourse is now further repressed as it undergoes a radical transformation affecting its substance.\u00a0 The constant reintegraton and valorization of excess (knowledge) produces more valorized excess (knowledge), in a seemingly endless spiral. From this we infer that the libidinal aim of consumer society is to prevent anxiety by, as it were, dressing up jouissance<\/em> in sexy garments and making it available everywhere, to the extent, however, that its endogenous reproduction generates nothing but more anxiety<\/em>.\u00a0 In today’s consumer society, enjoyment and anxiety coincide.\u00a0 Although we know full well that commodities only bring ephemeral and angst-ridden pleasures, our answer to this predicament is to consume more, if only to avoid falling behind in the treadmill contest with our fellow consumers (55).<\/p>\n

Surplus-value is grounded in surplus-jouissance: <\/em><\/strong>the elimination of surplus-value effectively determines the disappearance of the productive drive itself.<\/strong> … <\/em>\u017di\u017eek mentions the gap between Madeleine (object of desire) and her curl of blonde hair (objet a, the cause of desire<\/strong>) to argue that Marx’s object of desire (unconstrained productivity) also depends on the presence of surplus-value.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just as, for Scottie, Judy would not “become” Madeleine without her blond curl, so there is no production without the “inherent obstacle” named surplus-value. Why? Because \u2014 and this is the key point \u2014 surplus-value like the blond curl, stands for, or overlaps with, the foundational surplus (qua lack) that qualifies jouissance<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The problem with Marx’s hypothesis of the elimination of surplus-value, therefore, is that it obfuscates the ontological presupposition of surplus-value itself, namely surplus-jouissance<\/em>, upon which everything (the construction of any social order) hinges.<\/strong> (57)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The logical outcome of this critique is that any alternative social system which does not contemplate the dialectics of desire and objet a<\/em> \u2014 the structuring of desire into a socially viable whole through its link to an excessive\/elusive element embodying the surplus of jouissance<\/em> \u2014 is also doomed (58).<\/p>\n

As history has indeed shown us, the elimination of surplus-value, and consequently profit, does not automatically usher in the elimination of misery, since it fails to consider how surplus-value has its roots in surplus-jouissance<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 A combined reading of Lacan’s critique of surplus-value and Sohn-Rethel’s analysis of intellectual and manual labour suggests that<\/p>\n

unless we find a way to re-politicize both the sphere of material production and its foundation in entropic jouissance<\/em><\/strong>, it is unlikely that we shall succeed in promoting a sustainable alternative to capitalism.\u00a0 Today, politicizing the Real<\/strong> coterminous with any knowledge-at-work amounts to politicizing the key symptom of our immersion in the symbolic order<\/strong>. 58<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vighi, Fabio. On \u017di\u017eek\u2019s Dialectics. New York: Continuum, 2010. The psychoanalytic contribution to revolutionary politics can be gauged in the claim that radical change becomes possible only at that epistemological conjuncture where the symbolic knowledge supporting the subject fails. (54) As surplus-jouissance is converted into surplus-value, the object-cause of desire (objet a), by definition unnameable, … Continue reading “Surplus-value is grounded in surplus-jouissance.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,24,72,15,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jouissance","category-lacan","category-objet-a","category-subjectivity","category-zizek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5807"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5842,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5807\/revisions\/5842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}