{"id":5922,"date":"2010-10-24T12:19:55","date_gmt":"2010-10-24T16:19:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=5922"},"modified":"2021-06-29T11:10:29","modified_gmt":"2021-06-29T15:10:29","slug":"surplus-labour-surplus-value","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2010\/10\/24\/surplus-labour-surplus-value\/","title":{"rendered":"surplus labour surplus value surplus jouissance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ceren \u00d6zsel\u04abuk and Yahya M. Madra. “Economy, Surplus, Politics: Some Questions on Slavoj \u017di\u017eek\u2019s Political Economy Critique of Capitalism<\/a>.” 78-107<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our attempt to develop a psychoanalytically informed class difference, however, we encounter another resistance, namely, a particular psychoanalytical approach to Marxian discourse, in which the scope of some key Marxian concepts is limited to the form they take within the specific discourse of capitalism. We find the virtual absence of surplus labor<\/strong> in the psychoanalytical literature symptomatic in this respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather, surplus labor<\/strong> appears in only one conceivable form, the capitalist form of surplus value. Such a reduction of Marxian concepts to their particular form within the discourse of capitalism eliminates the possibility of conceiving different relations to surplus labor (and hence to class) as integral to conceptualizing economic difference from capitalism.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Lacan\u2019s seminars XVI and XVII, delivered in the aftermath of May 1968, include many favorable references to Marx\u2019s discourse and the significance of the concept of surplus value. It is in seminar XVI that Lacan, in order to underscore the intimate relationship between surplus jouissance and surplus value, emphasizes the term \u201chomology,\u201d thereby evoking the idea of a fundamental similarity in the structure and function of these two concepts, a sameness that needs to be strictly distinguished from a cursory resemblance
between two discrete entities 87<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our interpretation of the encounter between Marx and Lacan begins from conceiving the homology as one between two nodal points (surplus labor and surplus jouissance<\/strong>) that set a new \u201cdiscourse\u201d in motion that revolves around them. \u017di\u017eek, on the other hand, understands the homology as one between surplus jouissance<\/strong> as the object cause of desire<\/strong> and the surplus value<\/strong> as the \u201ccause\u201d which sets in motion the circuit of capital. His analysis differs from ours primarily in its oversight of the Marxian distinction between surplus labor and the particular form it takes under capitalism, surplus value<\/strong>. This, in turn, as we shall demonstrate, leads to a representation of capitalism as the only game in town. We believe that with the absence of the epistemological dimension of the homology that insists on retaining the independent existence and the distinct objects of each theoretical discourse, the attempts at articulating psychoanalysis with Marxism fail to do justice to either discourse. 87<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What then, for \u017di\u017eek, is the precise nature of the homology between the two concepts and what was it that Marx failed to recognize? What additional insight does the psychoanalytical concept of surplus jouissance bring into the Marxian concept of surplus value?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For \u017di\u017eek, surplus jouissance<\/strong> is essentially \u201ca residue, a remnant, a leftover of every signifying operation\u201d (1989, 180) that gets \u201cembodied\u201d in the Lacanian objet petit a<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lacanian objet petit a<\/strong> \u201cis just an objectification of a void, of a discontinuity opened in reality by the emergence of the signifier\u201d (95).<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Zupan\u010di\u010d adds that surplus jouissance is a pure waste, an excess<\/strong>, a senseless and entropy-inducing refuse of signification<\/strong> that results from \u201cthe inadequacy of the signifier to itself, its inability to function \u2018purely,\u2019 without producing a useless surplus\u201d (2006, 159).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, surplus jouissance is not a simple, ordinary waste or excess<\/strong> that could be disposed of without consequence. Quite the contrary, in its status as the limit of signification, surplus jouissance (or objet petit a)<\/strong><\/span> is where the cause, the kernel of enjoyment is. The objet petit a<\/strong><\/span> is the \u201c\u2018surplus\u2019 in the object which stays the same in all possible worlds\u201d (\u017di\u017eek 1989, 95): because it lacks consistency, because it is \u201cjust an objectification of [the] void\u201d of signification, it simultaneously frustrates and incites our desire to pin its meaning down to a concrete attribute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, the subtraction of this excess, this surplus, this \u201csomething in it more than itself\u201d will not deliver a balanced desire:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Surplus jouissance<\/span><\/strong>] is not a surplus which simply attaches itself to some \u2018normal\u2019, fundamental enjoyment, because enjoyment as such emerges only in this surplus, because it is constitutively an \u2018excess.\u2019 If we subtract the surplus we lose enjoyment itself, just as capitalism, which can survive only by incessantly revolutionizing its own material conditions, ceases to exist if it \u2018stays the same\u2019, if it achieves an internal balance. This, then, is the homology between surplus value \u2014 the \u2018cause\u2019 which sets in motion the capitalist process of production \u2014 and surplus-enjoyment, the object-cause of desire. (\u017di\u017eek SOO 1989, 52-53)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u017di\u017eek … argue[s] that because capitalism is marked by a constitutive imbalance, it is impossible to reform it or eliminate its foundational discord between the forces and relations of production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as one cannot obtain domesticated, balanced desire without surplus jouissance, one cannot maintain a regulated capitalism without an incessant push towards capital accumulation that continually revolutionizes its conditions of production and reproduction. 89<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ceren \u00d6zsel\u04abuk and Yahya M. Madra. “Economy, Surplus, Politics: Some Questions on Slavoj \u017di\u017eek\u2019s Political Economy Critique of Capitalism.” 78-107 In our attempt to develop a psychoanalytically informed class difference, however, we encounter another resistance, namely, a particular psychoanalytical approach to Marxian discourse, in which the scope of some key Marxian concepts is limited to … Continue reading “surplus labour surplus value 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":[45,21,24,15,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-badiou","category-jouissance","category-lacan","category-subjectivity","category-zizek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5922","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=5922"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15079,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5922\/revisions\/15079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}