Date: Wed, 17 Aug 1994 10:24:24 -0500 (EST)
From: eugeneh <eugeneh-AT-HUMANITIES1.COHUMS.OHIO-STATE.EDU>
Subject: Lacan, Wes & Dave



Here are brief answers to Dave's question, and a reply to Wes: 

Jean-Joseph Goux was a member of the early "Tel Quel" group in 
Paris (which included Foucault and Derrida): avant-gardist post-
structuralists.  Goux's main book (most of it translated as 
_Symbolic Economies_ I think; originally _Economie et 
symbolique_) argues that the construction of the logos, of 
monotheistic religion, of subjects and objects (in the 
psychoanalytic sense), of the state, and of money all follow the 
same logic of historical development, and that this logic is most 
clearly spelled out in Marx's analysis of the commodity form of 
money as it develops into capital.  (See esp. the chapter on 
"Numismatics".)  The Lacanian symbolic order is thus seen as 
"homologous" (Goux's key term, for better or worse) with 
monotheistic religion, absolute monarchy, and the reign of 
capital -- all of which are historical developments, not part of 
the eternal human condition. 

Deleuze and Guattari (in _The Anti-Oedipus) historicize Lacan in 
a far more detailed and nuanced way: psychoanalysis comes about 
as a result of market forces' *subversion* of the symbolic order, 
which psychoanalysis (until Lacan, perhaps) unfortunately 
attempts to shore up, against the grain of history i.e. of 
continued capitalist expansion.  Under capitalism, then, the 
symbolic order increasingly *fails*, splinters, leaks -- due to 
the replacement of codes by the "cash nexus" of the market as the 
basis of social organization (the "social bond").  ("Everything 
that was solid melts into air.....") 

Wes' comment that "the subject of history, capable of 
experiencing the laws of historical materialism, is a by-product 
of language" strikes me as harboring an ambiguity: only a 
*subject* can *formulate* the laws of historical materialism, but 
the laws of *capitalism* are *experienced* by *individuals* -- by 
flesh-and-blood people.  This may not be a distinction early 
Lacan would be happy with, but it is one D&G insist on (in their 
own way).  They are very much concerned with distinguishing the 
processes bodies live through (notably the impact of the market: 
labor, advertising, etc.) from the representations society 
provides for (mis-)"understanding" those processes and our 
experience of them.  Increasingly under capitalism, quantitative 
market processes (for better and worse) out-strip our ability to 
represent them *in subjective terms* -- whence their claim that 
psychoanalysis is nostalgic and reactionary (and their proposal for 
"schizoanalysis" to replace it).  Indeed, they argue that, anymore, 
"subjects" are mere personifications of economic functions, formed
*not* in relation to symbolic order but by the market (and "marketing").  
(Lacan's later de-centered or empty Symbolic order may be designating 
something similar or at least compatible.)

Back to Wes' comments: not historical materialism, I would think, 
but rather *capitalism* not might but *has* "brought about a 
massive shift in subjectivity" but we experience this shift as 
*subjects* only in representation (inevitably distorted), whereas 
the real formative processes are market-driven rather than 
"symbolic" (in Lacan's linguistic sense).

Does this intersect with your readings in Zizek at all, Dave?




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