Metaphors of Desire: Neoliberalism and Libidinal Economy

Economic theory, since the time of Smith and Hume, has been operating with a model of homo oeconomicus as an autonomous, rational, self-interested calculator of cost-for-benefit. This presumed rationality of 'economic man' supposedly guarantees, in turn, the fundamental rationality of the 'self-regulating', 'efficient' market. Classical political economy, neoclassical economics and neoliberalism have all operated with this model. But the recent 'global financial crisis' was yet another reminder-if one were needed-that the psychology of markets and financial dealers can seem far from rational. Even Alan Greenspan had to admit of the 2008-9 financial crash: 'Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders' equity (myself especially) are in a state of shocked disbelief '. Or, as the economist Ian McDonald has put it: 'Homo oeconomicus, that cool calculator of self-interest, couldn't possibly have been so incautious in protecting her or his wealth'. From its inception, psychoanalysis has viewed the psychology of money as profoundly irrational-as a realm of illusion, neurosis, phantasy and psychopathology, both individual and collective. Freud, Ferenczi, Jones and Abraham were just the earliest psychoanalytic theorists to decode monetary transactions and relationships into their presumed unconscious motives. And yet, psychoanalysis itself has been notoriously reluctant to speak frankly of its own economics as a profession and business-of how 'filthy lucre' is the indispensable stuff of its own transactions. This essay stages a confrontation between two discourses, psychoanalysis and economics, which for much of their history have been mutually indifferent and mutually opaque. By confronting the implied subjects of these discourses with each other's models of reason or sanity in money matters, rather than of irrationality or psychopathology, it questions the equation of economic rationality with individuated self-interest while seeking to deconstruct the century-old dichotomy between homo oeconomicus and homo psychologicus.

Umbr(a), A Journal of the Unconscious, 2012, p. 129-142, 2012

The title of the present essay is an allusion to Lyotard's " Emma: Between philosophy and psychoanalysis " (1989). The main subject of my discussion, within the context of philosophy and psychoanalysis is philosophy of money, and more particular cultural phenomenology of money. The common place and issue that bridges the coast between philosophy and psychoanalysis, from one side, and cultural phenomenology, from the other, is the embodiment and the so called 'mind body problem'. Within my research interest and field the embodiment apply to money. This essay takes up the question of money in the spirit of the Marx-Freud tradition, as the first part of the essay-Marx's The Fetish Character of Money and Foucault's 'Money is simulacrum'-is concerned with Marx and the second part is devoted to Sigmund Freud's attitude about money. The connection between Marx and Freud, provided here, is through Norman O. Brown's Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History, (1985). Brown's concern is the notion of embodiment. He is one of the most interesting philosophers and commentators of Marx and Freud, who returned 'the sacred' to the analysis of 'money' and demeaned both equally. For Brown, 'money' and 'the sacred' were both sublimated products of a revulsion from the body. And such sublimation, whether aimed at god or mammon, is " the denial of life and the body…. The more the life of the body passes into things, the less life there is in the body, and at the same time the increasing accumulation of things represents an ever fuller articulation of the lost life of the body. " (Norman O. Brown, 1985: 297). In the third part of my essay I follow the postmodern perspective, discussing in short some of Jean-Franзois Lyotard's works. As Claire Nouvet, asserts in her The Inarticulate Affect: Lyotard and Psychoanalytic Testimony (2003), " Philosophy rarely, if ever, engages psychoanalysis. It is then all the more noteworthy when a philosopher takes the risk of such an engagement. Jean-Francois Lyotard took this chance repeately and in different modes. " (Nouvet,

Refereed paper presented to the Australian …, 2006

The acknowledged isomorphism between monetary and linguistic exchange has been a longstanding characteristic of philosophical analysis. This paper evaluates three contrasting perspectives on the Psychoanalysis of Money. It compares the feminist perspective of Susan Feiner, who is assigned to the Object Relations School of psychoanalysis, with that of Norman O. Brown, an advocate of what might be called a Nietzschean perspective on Freudian theory, and that of the more semiotically informed viewpoint of Lacanian analysis, the latter ably represented by Moustafa Safouan and Jeanne Schroeder. Despite the decades that separate Brown's work from that of the Lacanians, it is argued that these latter two approaches have far more in common with one another than they do with the approach of the Object Relations School. In highlighting these affinities and differences, the paper endorses the more nuanced perspective of the Lacanian theorists.

Journal of Cultural Economy, 2017

Polish Sociological Review, 2018

Georg Simmel's The Philosophy of Money ([1900], 2004) contains one of the most pertinent and subtle diagnoses of modernity-a critique of economic reason moved by desire. This article shows that Simmel's dialectic of desire has a significant affinity with Freud's economic point of view in terms of the psychic apparatus being ruled by the pleasure principle. Considering these two libidinal economies I will focus on how the figure of homo oeconomicus transforms into homo libidinous and why money has become the symbol and form of modern life. The assumption is that money is not solely the fundamental principle of social reality-what we call hyper-modernity or late capitalism-but the reality principle as such.

Polish Sociological Review, 2020

Georg Simmel’s The Philosophy of Money ([1900], 2004) contains one of the most pertinent and subtle diagnoses of modernity—a critique of economic reason moved by desire. This article shows that Simmel’s dialectic of desire has a significant affinity with Freud’s economic point of view in terms of the psychic apparatus being ruled by the pleasure principle. Considering these two libidinal economies I will focus on how the figure of homo oeconomicus transforms into homo libidinous and why money has become the symbol and form of modern life. The assumption is that money is not solely the fundamental principle of social reality—what we call hyper-modernity or late capitalism—but the reality principle as such.

The article aims to discuss some psychic consequences of the emergence of neoliberalism. I seek to understand the major changes presupposed by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder III upon the rise of a neoliberal subjectivity. If we want to have a real idea of the disciplinary process immanent to neoliberalism, we need to understand how it changed our way of describing categories of psychic suffering and disease.

Journal of Social Issues

Neoliberalism has been the dominant influence on economic policy in most of the world for nearly four decades. There has been a great deal of analysis of neoliberalism’s economic effects, but its psychological effects have received comparatively less attention. This article attempts to fill this gap, providing an assessment of neoliberalism according to psychological criteria. First, it describes the development and evolution of neoliberal theory, noting how it has changed over time. The psychological suppositions inherent in neoliberal theory are foregrounded, and judged by their correspondence to psychological research. Then, relevant psychological literature is reviewed and discussed to discover the possible psychological effects of neoliberal economic policies. The conclusion refers to the genesis of neoliberalism as a source of inspiration for crafting an alternative economic ideology better suited to human psychology.